Eminent Domain - getting ahead of myself (Political Expansion thoughts)

Last night I met with Mike Watne, a big fan of EmDo who did a lot of playtesting of Escalation for me. At this point he's pretty much an unofficial member of the EmDo team. It was great to meet him and his wife Holli (sponsors of the Hostile planet Odonata, which you'll see when you get Escalation). Among other things, we discussed some ides for the upcoming and final EmDo expansion... the Political expansion. I don't have a name for it yet, but it would be amusing to choose a subtitle whose first letter is symmetric so it fits the scheme of ED:E and ED:X... maybe ED:B, ED:C, ED:D, ED:H, ED:I ED:K, or ED:O? This is really not a big deal, it's just something that comes to mind when I think about what to call the expansion...

The thrust of the final EmDo expansion is intended to be Politics. To an extent, this has been planned from the very beginning. I intend to have a new role stack (Politics role), filled with cards very similar to the Politics cards that already exist in the game. The only difference might be that they also have a Role box which says 

"Select Agenda. Leader: +[Politics symbol]"

Agendas are intended to be global effects that players will have some control over how, when, or whether they come into play. I was planning on doing some kind of voting mechanism based on following (you follow with symbols to cast your vote, or you dissent and effectively abstain from the vote). That still may be interesting, but I think there might be a smoother way to do it. In the conversation with Mike, this is what came up, and it's sounding pretty solid to me:

The Politics role could work just like the Survey role does in EmDice- pay 2/3/4/5 Politics symbols (leader bonus = +1 symbol) to put an Upcoming Agenda into play from the display, OR pay 2/3/4/5 Politics symbols to discard an Active Agenda from play. Agendas would come into play in the 5 slot, bumping older Agendas down to the next lowest slot, making the older Agendas easier to dispose of.

When following a Politics role, the leader would get to use your symbols, making it easier to afford higher valued Agendas - allowing players to work together to get an expensive Agenda either into play or out of play. In return for your support, you would get 1 Clout token for supporting the leader (whether they need/want your support or not). A Clout token has a Politics icon on one side, and a random icon on the other, and can be spent to boost or follow as either of those icons.

New tech cards can mess with Agendas, making them cheaper or more expensive to get into/out of play, translate icons to Politics (L1?) and Politics to other icons (L2?), and could let you draw Clout tokens - stuff like that.

I could add planets of each type with Politics icons on them (Political Planets?) (inc. Exotic, and an Asteroid). Maybe a bustling planet that lets you discard a Clout token to search for one of your choice, or just get one of your choice as an action, or discard 1 for 2 of your choice, or something. Maybe planets with Politics "translators" as well.

That sounds to me like a decent structure for the expansion. I think it would integrate very well with the game as it is, so players won't have to figure out how to play again, but the global effects could really shake things up and force players to play differently. Now I just have to design Agendas that shake things up and force players to play differently :)

City Hall avatars!

The Kickstarter for City Hall will only be running through Friday, and we've got a ways to go before we fund.

Here's a heartfelt video from the designer Michael Keller, thanking you for your support thus far.

In an effort to help spread the word, I've got these handy dandy City Hall avatars - if you could spare the effort and change your FaceBook/Twitter/BGG/etc avatar to one of these just through Friday, that would help us out a lot!

City Hall is a great euro-style game, and I'm certain that fans of TMG eurogames will really enjoy it. I hope we are able to reach our funding goal so we can bring this game to our fans - and more selfishly, so I can play it myself!

Thanks for your support!

Beyond EmDo

I played Eminent Domain again yesterday - teaching some new players. I continue to be very pleased with how that game turned out! I'm excited for the upcoming Escalation expansion, I'm happy with the following Exotica expansion thus far, and I look forward to working on the future (and final) "Agendas" expansion.

I mentioned before that I put some thought into an Eminent Domain Dice Game, and that came together quickly. I'm happy with EmDice, and I think it's likely to be published soon.

I'm very proud of the 'deck learning' mechanism, and while it's done wonders in Eminent Domain, I don't know if I'm done with it. I've had some thoughts on other ways to utilize this mechanism. Here are 2 examples of possible games I might try to make based on EmDo's deck learning mechanism...

Railroad Tycoon style train game
I played Railroad Tycoon today - first time in a long time. I really, really like that game. I've considered a game based on Railroad Tycoon, using a deck learning mechanism to drive it.

There would be a board with cities and hexes, like Railroad Tycoon. Using your deck of cards you would build track to connect cities, deliver cubes, upgrade your engine, complete specific routes, etc. Main strategies would involve expanding your network and making deliveries, and like EmDo, I envision that early game players will need to add cities to their network, then at some point players will have to decide if they'll concentrate on continuing to expand their network, or if they'll transition to making more deliveries for example.

Historical Civ game
EmDo is basically a civ game set in outer space. I had originally intended to set it in a more common, historical, terrestrial civ game setting. I can imagine doing a civ game in such a setting with deck learning in it, and a game board, perhaps similar to Eight Minute Empire. Or perhaps like Princes of the Dragon Throne, with colored regions and cities (or locations) of each color within each region.

I imagine 2 rows of "tech cards" - each row a display from a shuffled deck (like Ascension's center row). One row with a money cost, the other row with an Influence cost. Perhaps one of these rows has cards which go into play (like EmDo planets) while the other has cards which go into your deck. Or perhaps cards of each of those types are shuffled all together. Maybe both rows even come from the same deck.

Actions/Roles would be things like:
Recruit: Move units from "provinces" (general supply) to "court" (personal supply)
Place: Place units on the board
Move: Move units around the board
Get "tech" card type A (based on Money)
Get "tech" card type B (based on Influence)
Trade(?): Get money somehow
???: Get Influence somehow

City Hall - now by TMG - back on Kickstarter!

Last November I posted about a game called City Hall, by Michael Keller. I had a chance to play it at BGG.con while it was on Kickstarter and I really enjoyed it.

Unfortunately, Keller's Kickstarter project fell short of the funding goal. But we here at TMG thought it was a strong game, and deserving of publication, so we offered to publish it!


Here's a brief overview of City Hall:

Stakes are high in the Big Apple. 

In your bid to become Mayor you will send your staffers to the seven City Hall offices and auction off their benefits to build parks and buildings to secure the votes of the populace.
You can accept your rivals influence, or pay your own to keep the benefit to yourself. Leverage your money and influence to win the voters' approval and become the next Mayor of New York!

City Hall pits 2-4 players against each other in a bid to build a thriving city and gain the approval of the voters in order to win the Mayoral election.
There are seven Offices in City Hall. Each has a distinct function. Some of these offices help build up the city, while others only benefit the player who controls them.
On your turn you will choose any Office that hasn't already been chosen, and put it up for auction. Your opponents will bid influence, trying to wrest away control of that Office. You can accept the highest bid, or pay that much of your own influence to the bank and maintain control of the Office and use its power for yourself.

The Offices in City Hall are...
Tax Assessor: Collect money according to the population you have brought to the city
Campaign Manager: Pay money to increase your Approval Rating
Surveyor: Purchase a plot of land
Lobbyist: Convert money to Influence and vice versa
Zoning Board: Build property on a plot of land you own
Deputy Mayor: Advance in turn order
Health Commissioner: Bring new population to the city

The game ends when one player's Approval Rating is high enough, or when enough properties have been built, and at that time there's an election for Mayor! You'll multiply your Approval Rating by your Population to determine how many votes you get - the player with the most votes becomes the Mayor of New York and wins the game!

After a thorough rules rewrite (not rules changes, just clean-ups), TMG has now put City Hall back on Kickstarter - effective TODAY! We're trying another short run "Quickstarter" with this title, so the project only lasts 9 days. Since the game was already done, we do not have any stretch goals planned, we just want to see the game published. But we'll need your help if we're going to be able to afford it.

As a backer of City Hall, you'll get a significant discount compared to MSRP (20%, comparable to some online prices), including shipping inside the U.S. Unfortunately Canadian and overseas shipping costs more, but we do have the usual bundle prices which make it more cost effective outside the U.S.

We're not big fans of exclusive game content, however for our backers we will have a special limited edition  box, and we'll add some wooden star bits to use in lieu of the normal cardboard ones.

Perhaps the main incentive to get in on the Kickstarter this time is because TMG won't be publishing the game without sufficient support! Unlike some of our other projects, we're not planning on just doing this game anyway. So by pledging your support you will...
* Help ensure the game is produced,
* Get a copy at a reasonable price,
* Be among the first to receive the game once the production run arrives.

I hope you'll take a look at City Hall, and consider backing the kickstarter project to get yourself a copy!

Recent Gaming

What have you been playing lately?

Here's what's been hitting my table:

Tzolk'in: the Mayan Calendar
After playing Tzolk'in at BGG.con last November, I was excited to play it again. My friend knew I would likely pick up the game once it became available, and at the time people were really getting into painting the gears. He offered to paint my gears for me as a birthday gift when I got a copy. Unfortunately it took quite some time before he got a chance to paint them - but I finally did get to play my copy! I've played a handful of times now, and I have been enjoying it.

A couple of my friends think that buildings just aren't lucrative enough to be a winning strategy - they think the game is all about the God tracks. While it's true that the God tracks are good and should be ignored at a player's own risk, I have won my share of games concentrating on buildings. Last weekend I played a game where all I did was build! I maxed out the resource and architecture tech tracks and built a total of 11 buildings plus 2 monuments. One of the monuments gave me 2 points per building/monument for a total of 26 points! I ended up with 95 points, 25 ahead of 2nd place. That game I even begged for food 3 or 4 times, scoring NEGATIVE 3 points off of God tracks at midgame, and only about 7 God track points at the game end.

So it seems that buildings can be a viable strategy after all!

Bora Bora
I have played a couple games of Bora Bora recently. People have described games like Bora Bora as "victory point salad" - often using the term as a criticism, citing that a player can "just do whatever, get points for it, and see if they win." But anyone who's trying to win cannot simply "do whatever." The whole point is to find synergistic actions that maximize your points. The fact that everything is worth points simply acts as a way to evaluate actions and gauge how well you're doing. I for one enjoy games like that.

I've enjoyed Bora Bora so far, but I don't get to play it too often because my normal play groups don't have access to a copy.

Terra Mystica
Terra Mystica has been very popular lately as well, though I've only played it once - and I'm not sure if I liked it as much as I thought I would. Compared to Bora Bora, in Terra Mystica you have a bunch of options and none of them are worth points directly, so it's actually harder to tell how much progress you're making!

That's exaggerated a little, but it's kinda how I felt after my first game. I wouldn't mind playing again, but I haven't sought it out, maybe because it seemed to take a really long time.

The Manhattan Project (with Second Stage expansion)
I pledged for the Second Stage expansion to The Manhattan Project a while ago on Kickstarter, and the other day it arrived. Since then I've only gotten it to the table once, and we used all the different parts (each one is optional). ere's what we thought of them:

Role Selection: There are 7 "personalities" to choose from, and every time you vacate (use your turn to get your guys back) you must choose one. While you have a personality in front of you, you gain the benefit of that personality. These benefits are "immune to espionage," "Each turn collect a Fighter and a Bomber and take a free Air Strike action," "Once each turn you may use a Laborer as a Scientist, or a Scientist as 2 Scientists," and stuff like that. This aspect was pretty awesome, we all liked it a lot.

Hydrogen Bombs:  There's a new type of bomb, called a Hydrogen bomb. You can get one instead of a normal bomb, and to play it you'll need 8 or 9 workers and a handful of Lithium Deuteride - a new resource that comes from LD Mines (new buildings in the deck). The effect of the H-bomb is to double the score of one of your already made Plutonium bombs (not Uranium).

In our game, LD Mines didn't come up until very late, so nobody even thought about using an H-bomb. I guess I can see why the H-bombs aren't just shuffled into the bomb deck, but is that really necessary? I'm not sure. I don't mind playing with the H-bombs, but I wonder if anyone will ever really build one. I suppose it's efficient enouhg, as long as an LD Mine shows up.

Rockets and Rocket Factories: Also instead of a bomb, a player can choose to take a Rocket Factory. This is a building that creates a new kind of "plane" - a rocket. Like Bombers, Rockets can be used to load bombs and to damage buildings. In fact, rockets can damage buildings even if the target player has Fighters! I guess that kinda makes them strictly better than bombers...

One player in our game decided to go straight for those and he did so with a vengeance! He got 3 Rocket factories (no bombs!) and just damaged the crap out of all of us. He started with me, for no really good reason - that probably cost me the game. Then he moved on to Russel, even though Mandy was winning. Finally, Russel convinced him to aim his rockets at Mandy, which slowed her down enough that Russel eventually won (the turn before Mandy and I each could have). It made for a fairly interesting, if unrealistic game. The attacker wasn't really even trying to win. None of us were particularly fond of the added Air Strike abilities in the expansion.

Nations Expansion 2: There are new Nations to play. For some reason they have different backs than the first Nations expansion (what?). Most of the Nations powers don't seem all that great, some are OK, and a couple seem really, really good. This is how we feel about the first Nations expansion as well.

Firenze
We've slowed down on this one now, but a little while ago we were playing Firenze pretty heavily. By the same designer as Hansa Teutonic (which I like, even if I haven't played it in a long time), Firenze is a pretty solid game about building towers. While it would fit in my self-defined category of "Mediocre Euro," it would be among the top of that genre. I feel like I used to be pretty good at that game, but my performance lately has been miserable.

Captains of Industry
I have been playing Captains of Industry pretty heavily lately - pretty much every chance I get. I've been finalizing a few aspects of the game for publication, as artwork is being done and the game will be hitting Kickstarter within the next few months.

I believe I've finally got a Progress configuration which I like. Adding a 10th card (6 City, 4 Recycle) seems to have made the probability of 4-round age acceptably low. I'm still finalizing the Advances, but I think they're almost done as well now.

TMG submissions
I have tried a few TMG submissions lately. Of those, we will be publishing at least one! There will be more info on that when the time comes.

What is Game Content worth?

I came across this excellent post on Jamey Stegmaier's blog from 2 months ago (at the end of the Dungeon roll kickstarter project), and in the comments I saw something that bothered me a little bit. Here's an excerpt from commenter "Kim":

"I also thought the stretch goals of single new cards were in fact VERY measly (they probably each represent say 10 hours of design and testing, a piece of art, and the additional print cost)." 

Of course, however Kim feels about the stretch goals for that project is fine and valid. What I am uncomfortable with is the idea in the parenthetical. Suppose Kim is exactly right - that a Dungeon Roll Hero represents 10 hours of the artist's time for an illustration, 10 hours of a designer's time to invent, test, and balance the new character, and additional printing cost. I'm curious what people think that should cost.

In my experience, many (maybe most) people don't tend to value game content creation. I have seen posts and comments up and down the internet complaining about the price of a game which is "essentially just a handful of cards and a board" or whatever. They say they could print it out at home for cheaper than buying it in a store. Everybody sees the value of the physical bits, but nobody wants to pay for the actual game content.

Art on the other hand is something people don't mind paying for. An illustration takes work, and it's relatively easy to see how much work went into it - people see an amazing illustration and they think "yeah, that's awesome, that must have cost a lot." Then some of those same people wonder why kickstarter projects can't just throw in more game content as a stretch goal, as if it's a trivial thing to do.

"Boy Seth, you're making an awfully big deal out of this point, why do you care about this so much?"

I create game content, and I don't think it's trivial.

If you frequent game design forums, you'll see time and time again how games take hundreds and hundreds of hours to design and develop, not to mention the total man-hours spent playtesting (which grows exponentially when new groups of blind testers are involved). In those posts you're likely to find the context to be about the level of royalties a designer gets, and how little money that translates to on a per-hour basis for the blood, sweat, and tears they have poured into their pet project over the years. Most designers do not design games because it's lucrative. With very few exceptions,you can't really make a living out of it - and if you do then you're probably self publishing, and therefore not designing as much as you might like.

In the grand scheme of things, I'm not sure what if anything can be done about this. Until consumers value game content enough to pay for it, the game industry and it's tiny margins will continue to be about selling games at just over production cost to eek out a profit.

In the meantime however, at least I can maybe impress upon a few people here and there that when it comes to stretch goals and kickstarter, throwing in additional game content is not trivial!

Belfort: The Expansion Expansion

As you may already know, TMG is finally coming out with the first full expansion to Belfort. The expansion features Assistants and Expansions, and is called Belfort: The Expansion Expansion.

The Expansion Expansion is on Kickstarter right now, and in the first 2 days it has garnered the support of 600 backers, to the tune of $18,570! I never cease to be amazed by the support of the TMG fan base. The minimum funding goal is set at $20,000 but to include all the realistic stretch goals will take $50,000 or $70,000. I am not sure if we'll make that or not, but if the project goes crazy and reaches $100,000, then there will be some surprise "bling" added for everybody! It hasn't been announced what this "bling" might be, and I'm not sure it will be even if we make that goal... but rest assured it'll be something cool. I'll be surprised if we reach $100,000 with this project anyway.

One nice thing about running a Kickstarter project for an expansion, as Michael points out in this blog post on BGG, is that it renews interest in the base game. I've seen more traffic on the Belfort forums in the last couple of days, and over 100 copies of the base game have been ordered through the expansion kickstarter (via "combo packs" - both the base game and the expansion for $65 - a decent discount!).

In the spirit of revisiting the base game, I dug up this old Under the Hood blog post about Belfort. I wrote this about a year ago, but now that people are revisiting the game, or discovering it for the first time, it seems prudent to revisit that post as well.

Belfort is a strong title, which has proven to be popular amongst the TMG fan base. It's a eurogame of the type I enjoy, and I put a lot of work into it along with designers Jay and Sen. I think it's safe to say we're all very proud of the final version of the game, and we all had a great time putting together an expansion for such a great game as well.

For those interested, Jay and Sen wrote up a designer diary for the expansion on their blog. Check it out, and if it sounds interesting to you, then visit the Kickstarter page and see if Belfort: The Expansion Expansion is something you'd like to support.

Expand Belfort!

P.S. Some notable features about this kickstarter project:

* 17 day duration: Another "quickstarter" - we won't be begging for your spare change for 6 weeks!
* No gameplay-related stretch goals - we designed a full expansion, and that's what you'll get, no matter the funding level.
* Belfort Comic!?! - there exists an online comic by artist Rob Lundy about Belfort. If we reach $35,000 in funding, each copy of the expansion will come with a physical copy of that comic!

Great Escalation overview on BGG

A fan of Eminent Domain, Kenneth VenOsdel, has posted a fabulous overview of the Escalation expansion over on BGG.

Thanks for posting that, Kenny!

Anyone on the fence or wondering about what to expect in Escalation, take a minute to read that and then I'll see you in the Kickstarter comments :)

Eminent Domain: Escalation Kickstarter going great!

I just wanted to mention how well the Kickstarter project for Eminent Domain: Escalation is going, and how excited that makes me.

Some people have wondered why the project is only up for 12 days - why such a short time? Why not extend it so more money can be made? Michael has started a podcast about his experience with publishing called Business of Play, and in today's episode he gives some of his reasoning. This is the 5th episode in his 20 episode trial run, check out all 5 episodes if you haven't already and give him some feedback. So far its been really good.

I've been pushing for shorter Kickstarter projects ever since day 1. Well, day 2 - after experiencing the project for Eminent Domain, and especially when many more game projects hit the scene. Slogging through week after week of the same project for months in a row is really not good for anybody. Kickstarter projects take a lot of energy and effort to run, you have to stay on op of it all day, every day. For the consumers it can be annoying to see the same tweets or updates about the same project, two or three times a day for what seems like an eternity. And if you look at the stats, most projects have a high traffic spike in the first couple of days, a high traffic spike in the last couple of days, and a giant lull in the middle. From the beginning I thought "wouldn't it be nice if we could just cut out the lull, and just use the beginning and end?" My theory is that while some of the backers from that middle lull would be lost, most of them would just get shoved to the late project spike, so the funding of the project probably wouldn't even be affected very much.

Well, the nature of crowdfunding being what it is, that strategy won't work for everyone. You might NEED that middle lull to make your funding goal. Depending on the project, if the majority of your day-to-day funding is coming from people browsing Kickstarter rather than from people you directed to your project via your own marketing efforts, then cutting out the lull could indeed reduce a lot of funding. But I believe for most projects (board game projects, the type I'm interested in), that category isn't going to be dominant. As all the experts say, you cannot count on Kickstarter.com to fund your project for you!

All that said, I think TMG is well poised for a short run Kickstarter (Quickstarter!) project. TMG has a sizable audience, and a large mailing list of people interested in Tasty News from TMG. The last TMG Kickstarter project (Dungeon Roll) funded with in the first day, and went on to garner $250,000 in funds before the time was up. Sure, shortening the duration of that project might have meant lower funding numbers, but as long as certain funding goals are reached, then it doesn't really matter. The game will be sold at retail anyway. Any TMG Kickstarter project will probably fund in the first couple of days, because of this audience, and because of TMG's diligence in choosing games that this audience will enjoy. This is especially true of an expansion to a game such as Eminent Domain, which has a fan base already. But it's probably true of a new, unknown title as well. This is the strength of a good brand.

So if the game will surely fund in the first couple of days, why bother stringing it out for a long period of time? There are many other benefits of a short run project. In addition to the time and effort it takes to maintain a project, a shorter project means you can move on to the next one much more quickly. Also, for day 1 backers, that's 6 weeks less they have to wait for the game to arrive!

In my opinion, if a short run Kickstarter project can be successful, it's a win-win for everyone involved. We've already seen projects in the board game space come down from 60 days to 30, and now TMG is taking the next logical step and reducing it further. I feel like this is the direction that many Kickstarter project may go, at least the ones who can support it (project owners with a decent sized audience). I don't know if we'll ever get down to the 5-day project that I see in my mind, just due to how people use the internet - but I'm excited to see that the 12 day project appears to be working well so far!

For those of you who are already in for a copy of Escalation - thanks! And thanks as well for helping to spread the word. I'd really like to hit all of our stretch goals and provide everything we can for you.

Rincon Fundraiser a big success!

Last Saturday we hosted a fundraising game day for Rincon. I was a little worried that not many people would show up, and that we wouldn't end up making much (if any) money... but I guess that's just typical me - I'm kind of a pessimist. I'm happy to report that in fact, 70 people came to our event, some from Tucson, some from Phoenix, and some from Sierra Vista. And from what I could tell, everyone had a really good time!

18 of those people played in the poker tournament, expertly run by Jeff Becker. Karl Davis came out on top after a hard fought, back and forth heads up battle with Russel Knox. Karl won a hotel room for the weekend of Rincon, while 2nd and 3rd place (Russel and Brenda Lundt) walked away with free passes to the convention.

We also had several prize drawings, sponsored by games donated by myself, Brian Poe, and Patrick Nickell of crash Games.

That day happened to be National Tabletop Day, and at least a couple of people found out about our event through the Geek and Sundry TabletopDay website. The event was bustling from 10am to 10pm, and everyone seemed to have a great time! We managed to raise significant funds for Rincon, and by any account I think it's fair to say the Game Day was a resounding success! It was so great, we're planning another similar event for June!

Thanks to everyone who came by and supported Rincon and SAGA!

EmDice: Playtester prototype pics, and an update

One of you awesome people who has printed a copy of EmDice sent me some pics...

Thanks for sending those! They included the file they used for the Fighter/Resource/VP tokens as well.

I realized that there was an error in my original prototype files - I had used the Fertile Planet icon in a few places where I should have used the colonize icon (oops!) - I have replaced the EmDice Proto file with the correct icons.

In addition I created player boards with areas for Fighters, Influence, Planets, Active dice, and Used dice. There's a turn order reminder on it as well.

And I made a clarification to the rule about "Re-roll +1 Die" - I would like to try allowing that extra die to come from the Used pile if you like. In other words, if you have dice in the used pile when you Dissent, you get 1 back in addition to re-rolling any dice of 1 chosen type. If you don't have dice in the used pile, then you're allowed to re-roll 1 extra Active die in addition to any dice of 1 type.

Eminent Domain: Escalation LIVE on Kickstarter!

Escalation, the expansion to my deck building card game Eminent Domain just went live on Kickstarter.
(Edit: now with more pictures!)

We're trying something a little bit new this time - a short (12 day) project! We hope that this "Quickstarter" format will do the necessary portion of what we need Kickstarter to do, without forcing everyone to slog through a month or two of tweets, FB statuses, updates, and all the other sorts of marketing that can accompany this type of fundraising endeavor.

Eminent Domain has an audience, and my theory is that the majority of the funding we gain will occur in the first couple of days, and at the last minute. Some projects do benefit from a longer format, especially if they're receiving backers each day from people just surfing Kicstarter.com... but we've got more projects to do, so we're trying this Quickstarter format to see if we can make the entire experience better for the backers, as well as reduce the total time spent pre-production (which means you'll get the games that much sooner!)

If you like Eminent Domain, then I'm sure you'll love Escalation. For those that haven't been following my blog, the expansion adds a bunch of new content including:

* 5 player support
* New tech
* New planets
* Scenarios
* Fleet (rules for the different ship models)

If you've never played EmDo, or if you've played and enjoyed it but don't own a copy, then you should also check out the Kickstarter project - there are reward levels which include the base game and the expansion at a hefty discount!

You can also help by spreading the word... use Twitter, FaceBook, Google+, or any other social media you are into and let people know about the project! If you'd like, here's an avatar image you can use...

If you hate EmDo, then by all means you should skip the Kickstarter project this time... but if that's the case I think it's unlikely you're reading this ;)

I'm excited this expansion is finally coming to light. I hope you like it as much as I do.

Enjoy!

Continued EmDice Thoughts

It occurred to me today that perhaps I've overlooked something for EmDice.

I had noticed that whenever possible, you want to Follow a role, get a little something, and re-roll the dice - but occasionally you might have only 1 Warfare symbol, but 3 Trade symbols, and you might opt to Dissent Warfare in order to re-roll the Trade symbols.

In the card game, you either get to Follow or Dissent. In the dice game you (currently) sort of get to do both. That's kinda lame. So my next game I think I'll try this...

* Whenever you use a die, you set it aside in a "used" pile, where it is out of play until further notice.
* Dissenting rules do not change, you may re-roll active dice of 1 type (+1 die for each "re-roll +1" power).
* During your Cleanup phase (at the end of your own turn), you may set aside as many of your remaining dice as you want, then re-roll all 'used' dice back into your Empire.

This might work a little better, and at the same time it might clean up the confusion that some players have had about which dice you need to re-roll and when.

Edit:
I did try this last night, and... well, the Jury's still out. In some ways it was better, but in some ways I'm not sure I liked it as much.

For those printing and playing EmDice, I would be very interested in your opinions after playing each of those ways. Which do you prefer (as a player), and why?

Thanks!

EmDice Print and Play! and a PSA to Designers, Prototyper, and PnP'ers

For those interested in printing and playing dice games, I am happy to present the prototype files for

Eminent Domain: the Dice Game (EmDice)

Since the tiles and tech board used my old prototype art and not art from the published game, I have also provided sticker files for making dice using consistent icons. Please excuse the difference between the prototype art and the published game art!

Also, please excuse the fact that the Produce role used to be called Harvest.

I'm VERY interested to hear if anybody tries this out and if so, what you think of it in the comments below! In case of emergency you can contact me directly with questions, but you'll have to be resourceful enough to figure out how (it should be very easy).

Public Service Announcement to all Game Designers, Prototypers, and PnP'ers

The entire prototype fits nicely into a small size USPS Flat Rate Box, which you can pick up for free at your local US Post Office. Heck, they'll even deliver packs of 10 or 25 to your home for free. I have found that many prototypes can be made to fit into this size box, which is very handy for transporting them, not to mention shipping them to potential playtesters or publishers.

Obviously games with large boards or many bits may not fit into such a small box, but when possible - do yourself (and others) a favor - size your prototype boards and bits to fit this box!

Thanks!

Gamesmiths - most productive session in ages!

To tell you the truth, I'd been losing faith in our local little game design meetup: Gamesmiths. The last time I went I ended up sitting alone for 1.5 hours. Today however was a much different story!

Bomb Squad Robot by David Short and Dan Keltner
 I am a big fan of Antoine Bauza's Hanabi. At Gen Con last year I played that game for 12 hours straight! I've had a few ideas about using the mechanism of Hanabi to power a bigger game, but I've not really put that much thought into exactly how that would work. Well, David and Dan have come up with a game about programming a bomb squad robot to navigate a building, rescue hostages, and diffuse bombs.

We played a 6 player game of BSR, discussed some possible changes, then tried another game (5p this time) with some of those. The first game was a little shakey, with lots of great comments left and right from the outset. The second game however was really fun!

The basic idea is that you have cards which program the robot to move, open a door, rescue a hostage, or diffuse a bomb. Each of those categories has 3 levels (1/2/3) - so effectively you have 1-3 of 4 different suits. Like Hanabi, you don't get to see your hand. Your turn consists of playing a card, discarding a card, activating the robot, or giving someone a clue. But in this game, discarding doesn't give you a clue token (clues are not limited by tokens) - instead it regenerates the robot's batteries - which you'll need to do in order to succeed. Playing a card is less intense than Hanabi - when you play a card, you put it into one of the 'register slots' on the board, face down (you don't even get to look at it). When you fill the last register slot, the robot automatically activates - you pick up all the face down cards and arrange them in any order you like, then the robot carries out those instructions. The trick is that the robot must completely carry out each card, and if there's a mistake (like trying to open a door when there's no door to open), it uses up extra battery power. Activating the robot costs 2 battery power + 1 more per card, so to be efficient you want as many cards as possible per activation... but it's not trivial to remember all of the cards that have been played.

If you choose to activate the robot before all of the registers are full then it will cost you your turn, but you get an added benefit - the option to discard one of the cards. This will save you from accidental mistakes or changes in planning which would otherwise cost battery power. If you run out of battery power, then you lose the game!

That description includes some of the comments that came up after the first game. The biggest change between game 1 and game 2 though was the game clock. instead of clicking down a track every single player turn (which was tedious), Dan just started a timer on his phone. Every 10 minutes, the next bomb would explode (if we didn't disarm it first). This worked marvelously, and in production one would assume there would be a soundtrack like the one in Escape.

We discussed the scoring in the game, and I think in the end we found a score system that made sense - 1 point for each hostage still alive on the board, and face value (+1) for each hostage rescued and each bomb diffused. The face values are 1/2/3, and the higher the value, the harder it is to rescue/diffuse.

All in all, it was a fun game, and I would be happy to play it again.

Skyline: Landmarks by David Short
David also had with him an expansion to his dice game Skyline, which TMG published (as a stretch reward for Ground Floor). The expansion adds event cards, another type of die to help build buildings, and special building tiles (Landmarks) which you get by cashing in specific combinations of buildings.

We played a 3 player game of that, and I think the expansion does improve the game.

Eminent Domain: the Dice Game by Seth Jaffee
Finally, I got a chance to play a 3 player game of EmDice. Overall I'm very happy with that playtest. It flowed really well. David asked right away why a player can't re-roll any/all of their dice during cleanup, like in the card game where you can discard anything. I realized that I had no answer, so I decided to play that way this time and see how it went. I wasn't unhappy with the way it was working in the last few playtests, but I think it's safe to say I like this better. Seems like an obvious thing - not sure why that wasn't my first choice for the rule. I think maybe I was trying to make die manpulation powers more valuable.

David and Dan were not thrilled with the relative lack of control over what you roll, but I'm not sure that's really a problem in a dice game. David did make an interesting comment - that a fundamental dynamic of the card game (the deck learning) is completely missing. He would like to see a track for each role, where you'd advance your marker when taking the role, and every few advances on each track would give you an additional symbol for that role. It's not a bad idea at all, but I don't know if I like adding that to to the game. It's extra components and fiddliness, and I'm not sure it's really necessary.

Another suggestion, one I will implement for the next playtest, is to combine the first tech in each track. So the first time you research, you have to have any 1 planet, and pay 3 Research icons of course. From there you can move up any track, so long as you have the appropriate planet in play. The only real difference here is that this way you can only get the Re-roll: +1 die once.

The game length seemed OK. I'm still using 30 tokens in the supply (that's how many blank tiles I happened to have with the planet tiles), and by the time the game end triggered we each had about 4 planets face up, about 2 traded resources, and a few tech upgrades. I'm not sure how many tokens I should have in the supply, but I'm more and more convinced that the mechanism will be fine.

All in all a great night of playtesting!

EmDice: Zeroing in...

I played another game of EmDice last night. Still just 2 player, this time with Mike (not John), and this time with a strict game end timer: When the supply of Resource/Fighter/VP chits runs out, game over.

Game End Timer

I'll clarify, this is the initial end trigger I had expected to use, but I was very hesitant (and still am) to have the game timer affected by both produce and Warfare roles, and with Fighters coming out of the supply and then going back in as well, I thought that might be weird. I am a little worried that Fighter hoarding will cause some kind of problem, and mostly I'm worried about the wildly variable game length that I expect from this trigger...

However, it's very possible that I've gotten all worked up about nothing. The timer seemed to work well enough last night - very well in fact. In the 2p games with John, neither of us were ever able to get to the top of any of the tech tracks, but we finished with 12+ planets in play (too many, I think). In last night's game (2p with Mike), Mike got to the top of a tech track (concerted effort - he specifically took 2 planets with Research symbols on them, and got a 3rd on his way up the Advanced track). We ended the game with about 6 planets each - a much better number I think.

Now, there were some differences in the game setups that could account for some of this... John and I never really used a game end trigger, we just played for a while and then stopped. We went on much longer than we would have if the token supply trigger existed. So we had lots of planets and lots of trading points, but oddly still didn't manage to top out a Research track. Also, in the game vs. Mike I had added some Dice Manipulation to the 1st level of each track, and Mike got that right away. I used too powerful an effect as well - so he was dissenting at the end of his turn each turn (choosing a set of dice to re-roll, AFTER rolling the dice he'd used).

So I think I've decided to embrace that game end trigger that I've been fearing, and see if it proves to be a problem or not. I'll just add enough tokens to the supply to make sure the game lasts long enough. Who knows, maybe it's perfect.

On the down side, there's no guarantee the game will ever end that way. I think it's unlikely to go on forever, because producing and trading is quite lucrative, but if you don't do it, then the trigger could theoretically never happen. I could try adding backup/fail-safe game end triggers, such as "Top of each Tech track is reached" or "Planet supply is exhausted," but there's no real guarantee that either of those things will happen. One nice thing about the card game was that the stacks were the game end trigger, and each player takes a card from the stacks each turn no matter what.

Tech updates:

We tried allowing multiple tech buys if you could afford it, but I don't think I liked that too much. I'll probably go back down to 1 tech buy per turn.

After the last game I have made the following updates to the tech board...

1. Specialization/Genetic Engineering give you +1vp each time you LEAD Trade/Produce roles, not just participate in them. Just seems more correct.
2. Clarification: Adaptability ("Research icons are wild") refers to icons on DICE, not on planets or from Data Network.
3. "At the end of your turn: Dissent" was too strong, and I didn't like how you had to roll your dice first, then think about what to re-roll. Instead I want to use "Re-roll: +1 die" - meaning "When you are re-rolling dice (from using them or dissenting), you may pick up 1 additional die and re-roll it as well." That will also be the effect of the planets with the "+1 Hand Size" icons.

I think that last one will give a fair amount of dice manipulation, and won't be too good if you manage to get it 2 or 3 times. I thought about "Set 1 die to any face" but I don't like the sound of that, especially when you can get it 3 times. Setting 1/2 your dice makes it no longer much of a dice game!

I'll re-post the current rules below:

Eminent Domain: the Dice Game
V1.3

Components
28 Role Symbol Dice (6/player + 1/player for Oversight Committee)
36 Planet tiles (12 of each Advanced, Fertile, Metallic)
+/- 36 Fighter / Resource / VPs tokens
Draw bag
Tech board
16 Tech markers (4 in each player color)

Setup
* Set the tech board in the center of the table and put all the Tech markers on or near it.
* Place 1 die per player on or near the Oversight Committee tech space.
* Shuffle all planet tiles in the draw bag. Draw 5 planet tiles and place them FACE UP above the Survey slots on the Tech board.
* Each player takes 6 dice and rolls them into their Empire.
* Each player takes 1 Start planet at random and places it FACE DOWN in their Empire. Return unused Start planets to the box.
* Determine a Start player via any method you choose.
Game Turn
Players take turns choosing roles in order to Survey new planets, Settle or Attack them, Produce and Trade resources, and do Research. On a player's turn, that player does the following:

1. Choose a Role. 
There are 6 roles to choose from (Survey, Warfare, Colonize, Produce, Trade, Research). The player can freely choose any role.

2. Boost the Role.
The player may use any number of dice in their Empire with symbols matching the role symbol to Boost the chosen role. Roles may also be boosted with role icons on planets or techs controlled by the player. The player also gets a Leader Bonus of +1 Role Symbol (+2 Role Symbols for Survey).

3. Resolve the Role.
The effect of the role is carried out. See below for the effects of each role. Each opponent in turn order may choose to Follow or Dissent. All dice used are re-rolled.
* Follow: An opponent choosing to Follow a role may use any number of dice in their own Empire with icons matching the chosen role (as well as icons on planets or techs controlled by that player), to carry out the effect of the role for themselves. All dice used are re-rolled.
* Dissent: An opponent choosing to Dissent a role may re-roll any number of dice in their Empire that all share the same symbol. This need not be the symbol of the chosen role!

Remember, whenever a die is used, it is then re-rolled!

Game End
Play continues until the supply of Fighter/Resource/VP tokens is exhausted. When the game is over, Influence is counted and a winner is determined. Count 1 Influence for each face up planet (+1 Influence bonus as indicated on some planets), 1 Influence for each resource traded during the game, 2 Influence for each Level 2 Technology, and 5vp for each Level 3 Technology (the tech board currently reads the total influence you get, so you don't add the levels below your marker). The player with the most Influence is the winner!

Roles
Remember, when resolving the chosen role, the active player may count 1 additional role symbol (2 for Survey) as a Leader bonus.
Survey  
Above the Tech board there is a display of face up planet tiles that cost 2/3/4/5/6 Survey symbols to take, with the rest of the planet tiles in a draw bag (or a face down draw stack). Choose any of those planets you can afford, then slide the rest of the planets down and draw a planet from the bag (or stack) to fill the missing slot. The planets are refreshed after each planet is taken.

Warfare
Collect 1 Fighter for each Warfare icon OR Attack a planet instead.
When you Attack a planet, discard a number of Fighters equal to the Warfare cost and Flip the planet.
NOTE: Unlike the card game, in this game, you CAN Attack a planet when following!

Colonize
Settle 1 planet. You must spend as many Colonize icons as the Colonize cost of the planet.
NOTE: Unlike the card game, in this game, you CAN Settle a planet when following!

Produce
Produce 1 resource for each Produce icon. When producing a resource, place a Resource token on a planet in your Empire. Each planet can hold 1 resource token. Produced resource tokens with no planet to place them on are returned to the supply. (Actually, they're never taken FROM the supply, so no sneaky triggering the game end when you cannot hold the resource!)

Trade
Trade 1 resource for each Trade icon. When trading a resource, take a Resource token from a planet in your Empire and place it into a Score Pile. Each of these tokens will be worth 1 Influence at the end of the game.

Research
Pay the appropriate cost and satisfy the planet prerequisite to advance your Technology marker on one of the Technology tracks on the Tech Reference Board. There are 4 tracks on the Tech board: Advanced, Fertile, Metallic, and Diverse. The first 2 spaces in each track cost 3 Research icons, and require 1 planet of the appropriate type. The 3rd and 4th spaces cost 5 Research icons, require 2 planets of the appropriate type, and are worth 2 Influence. The 5th space costs 7 Research icons, requires 3 planets of the appropriate type, and is worth 5 Influence. The Diverse stack is a little bit different, it requires 1 planet of each type.

Each Technology confers a bonus of some kind. Potential bonuses can be:
* Re-roll: +1 Die (When you're about to re-roll dice, you may pick up 1 additional die and reroll it as well).
* +1 Die (Take a 7th die from the Oversight Committee tech space).
* +1 Role Symbol.
* Colonize die faces = Produce die faces.
* +1 Influence when you lead Trade.
* +1 Influence when you lead Produce.
* -1 to all Warfare costs.
* Research icons on dice can be used to Boost or Follow any role.
* When dissenting, dissent again.
* After your role, attack a planet.
* Trade Fighters like resources.
* You may choose a 2nd Role each turn.

EmDice Prototype Progress

One of my faithful readers was nice enough to create and send me a jpg that could be printed out on full sheet labels to create stickers to make EmDo dice. Thanks for that! Pretty soon I'll be creating a print and play package for EmDice which includes that sheet as well as my tech board and planet tiles.

In the meantime, I stickered up 2 players worth of dice last night. It was a little more work than it should have been, because - well - nothing ever works like it's supposed to, and I always seem to have to do things the hard way :/ But anyway, I now have pretty dice - which are strictly speaking not necessary - I could have continued to use numbers - but eventually I'll want this to help get people to play with me.

I also updated my Tech board. Turns out I was wrong in my last post about some of the techs - I had already did things like replace Dissension with "Colonize die faces = Produce die faces" (a much stronger ability, befitting level 3) for example. At any rate, I made some of the modifications I had talked about, and of course was unable to make a PDF out of it. Apparently I do not have a PDF printer thingy, I'll have to go online and download one, if my old-ass computer can handle that :/

Sorry to rant. The point of this post is that I have updated some stuff, and if it tests well (and I can figure out how), I'll provide print and play files for people to try the game out!

... I still need a game end trigger though. I will probably start with some Resource limit (though higher than the 24 in the card game, as it's easier to produce and trade in this version). Too bad, because I was looking forward to using th same tokens for both Fighters and resources.

EmDice - the adventure continues...

The other day, after posting about Eminent Domain: the Dice Game, I put together a draft of the tech board, added costs to the planet tiles*, and gave the game another spin with my roommate. Of course, there's still no end game trigger, but I got to see how well the tech board idea (and the new Survey system) would work. And frankly, they worked pretty well.

* A loooong time ago I had considered making Eminent Domain more of a board game, where you would have an array of face down tiles with the planets on the fronts. You would move your ship among them and use Survey roles to see what's underneath. Or something. Of course, that's not the way I decided to go with EmDo (thank goodness), but the up-side is that I had made tiles with planets on them. They have the prototype planet image as well as an icon for a role symbol (or a +1 vp or +1 hand size). Since i started thinking of a dice game version of EmDo, I felt like tiles might be more appropriate than cards for the planets, and when I went to make a prototype of EmDice to try, I was happy to still have these tiles lying around. Serendipitous!

Planet Tiles

As I just mentioned, there are Planet tiles with planet type (Advanced, Fertile, Metallic) and Cost on the back and type, ability (and a small indicator of the cost) on the front. The costs for these tiles range from 4 to 6, and unlike the card game, most planets specifically cost Warfare or Colonize. The breakdown is something like this:

Adv - T: 3C
Adv - T: 3W
Adv - T: 4C/W
Adv - R: 4C
Adv - R: 4W
Adv - R: 5C/W
Adv - VP: 5C
Adv - VP: 5W
Adv - VP: 6C/W

Fert - P: 3C
Fert - P: 3W
Fert - P: 4C/W
Fert - C: 4C
Fert - C: 4W
Fert - C: 5C/W
Fert - VP: 5C
Fert - VP: 5W
Fert - VP: 6C/W

Met - S: 3C
Met - S: 3W
Met - S: 4C/W
Met - W: 4C
Met - W: 4W
Met - W: 5C/W
Met - VP: 5C
Met - VP: 5W
Met - VP: 6C/W

The idea being that the better effects cost more, and you either must Settle or Attack a planet, or if you get to choose, it costs a little more. I believe each planet will be worth either 1vp or 2vp, with the "VP" planets being worth 1 additional VP.

Tech Board

Across the top of the tech board I put 5 slots with Survey costs (2/3/4/5/6). Above these will be a row of planet tiles - FACE UP so you can see exactly what you'll get (and you can see the cost as well). When taking a Survey role, you can choose the planet in the slot corresponding to the number of Survey symbols you have, or anything cheaper than that. The chosen planet goes FACE DOWN in your Empire, and the planet display is replenished Stone Age style (slide everything to the left and add a new tile from the draw bag to the most expensive slot). Each player of course may Follow and take a planet of their choice that they can afford.

Unlike other roles, I believe I want the Leader to get +2 symbols when choosing Survey instead of the normal +1. This is so that the minimum cost can remain 2 (opponents need to have 2 Survey symbols to Follow and take a planet), while still allowing a player with 0 Survey symbols to call the role and take the 1st planet. I think this maintains the dynamic where the leader basically has a +2 bonus over opponents from the card game. I've always liked that dynamic.

The rest of the tech board contains 4 columns of tech advances - one for each planet type (Advanced, Fertile, Metallic), and one for Diverse (requiring 1 of each planet type). There will be Diverse tech in Escalation and Exotica, by the way. The way this tech board works is that you advance up each track, buying the techs in order. You can have a marker on each track if you like, but you cannot jump straight to a 5-cost Level 2 tech.

My first draft was OK, but needed improvement. It looked like this:
Advanced:
L1 (3-cost / 0vp): [blank]
L1 (3-cost / 0vp): Improved Trade: +Trade symbol
L2 (5-cost / 2vp): Data Network: +Research symbol
L2 (5-cost / 2vp): Specialization: +1vp per Trade role
L3 (7-cost / 5vp): Adaptability: Research symbols are wild.

Fertile:
L1 (3-cost / 0vp): [blank]
L1 (3-cost / 0vp): Improved Production: +Produce symbol
L2 (5-cost / 2vp): Fertile Ground: +Colonize symbol
L2 (5-cost / 2vp): Genetic Engineering: +1vp per Produce role
L3 (7-cost / 5vp): Dissension: When Dissenting, Dissent twice

Metallic:
L1 (3-cost / 0vp): Improved Survey: +Survey Symbol
L1 (3-cost / 0vp): Imperialism: +Warfare symbol
L2 (5-cost / 2vp): Survey Team: When leading Survey, draw a planet out of the bag as well.
L2 (5-cost / 2vp): Scorched Earth Policy: -1 to your Warfare costs
L3 (7-cost / 5vp): Mobilization: After your Role, Attack 1 planet

Diverse:
L1 (3-cost / 0vp): Streamlining: At the end of your turn, you may Dissent
L2 (5-cost / 2vp): I don't remember offhand!
L2 (5-cost / 2vp): Oversight Committee: +1 Die
L3 (7-cost / 5vp): Well Oiled Machine: You may choose a 2nd Role each turn.

I tried to model the techs after those in the card game, and I tried to sort them properly by what part of the game they'd be useful in. It turns out that Researcha nd Colonize are the best symbols, so I made them more expensive, later game techs. By comparison, Survey and Warfare are generally weaker, so I made those both L1 techs. After playing though, it appears that in this version Survey symbols are a bit stronger than in the card game!

I have blank tech spaces on some of the tracks, like the first space on that bottom Favor track in Caylus - it's sort of an investment. You have to research twice before getting to use some cool ability. However, I don't care for that. I would prefer to have the first upgrade in each track be some sort of dice manipulation (I felt that was lacking). So I'll probably get rid of "Survey Team" altogether, pus the Survey and Warfare symbols back a level (maybe even swap them), and repeat that Streamlining one in the first space of each track.

I also realized that things like Dissension are not very strong, so I'll be re-organizing the chart a bit. Currently I'm not sure it's really even possible to get to the high end of the Research tracks before the game ought to be over anyway, so I might have to do something about that.

So I'll be updating that tech board, and I'll need a game end trigger. Those seem to be my bane in every game!

Call for Help

If anybody out there with a little photoshop chops would like to help me out by creating some files for me, then I should be able to get a print and play version of this for people interested in testing it out. It should be pretty easy. For starters I'd like some files people can use as stickers to make dice. It'd just be the role icons in squares of various sizes:
10mm (to fit on a 12mm die)
12mm (to fit on a 14mm die)
14mm (to fit on a 16mm die)

If I can get my old Pagemaker program to make PDFs again, then I could post the tech board once I've updated it. I'm not sure how to do that though - for a while now it's simply refused to export to PDF!

Eminent Domain: the Dice Game?

A little while ago I had a thought about how Eminent Domain might be ported into a dice game (EmDice?) - and tonight John and I gave it a sort of test run. After a few minor revisions, here's the current status of the rules-in-progress for that game.

Eminent Domain: the Dice Game

Components
24 (30?) Role Symbol Dice (6 per player) (perhaps more for "+1 Die" effects)
27 Planet tiles (9 of each Advanced, Fertile, Metallic)
XX Fighter tokens
XX Resource tokens / VPs (these could be the same thing)
Draw bag

Setup
* Each player takes 6 dice and rolls them into their Empire.
* Each player takes 1 Start planet at random. Return unused Start planets to the box.
* Shuffle all planet tiles in the draw bag
* Determine a Start player via any method you choose.

Game Turn
Players take turns choosing roles in order to Survey new planets, Flip them, Produce and Trade resource, and do Research. On a player's turn, that player does the following:

1. Choose a Role. 
There are 6 roles to choose from (Survey, Warfare, Colonize, Produce, Trade, Research). The player can freely choose any role.

2. Boost the Role.
The player may use any number of dice in their Empire to Boost the chosen role. Roles may also be boosted with role icons on planets or techs controlled by the player. The active player

3. Resolve the Role.
The effect of the role is carried out. See below for the effects of each role. Each opponent in turn order may choose to Follow or Dissent. All dice used are re-rolled.
* Follow: An opponent choosing to Follow a role may use any number of dice in their own Empire with icons matching the chosen role (as well as icons on planets or techs controlled by that player), to carry out the effect of the role for themselves. All dice used are re-rolled.
* Dissent: An opponent choosing to Dissent a role may re-roll any number of dice in their Empire that all share the same symbol. This need not be the symbol of the chosen role!

Remember, whenever a die is used, it is then re-rolled!

Game End
Play continues until... [I'm not sure yet!].  When the game is over, Influence is counted 2 Influence for each face up planet (+1 Influence bonus as indicated on some planets), 1 Influence for each resource traded during the game, 2 Influence for each Level 2 Technology, and 5vp for each Level 3 Technology. The player with the most Influence is the winner!

Roles
Remember, when resolving the chosen role, the active player may count 1 additional role symbol.
Survey (I have 2 thoughts on this, not sure which is better)
Option 1: Draw 1 Planet tile from the draw bag for each Survey icon. Keep one of them face down in your Empire, an return the rest to the draw bag.
Option 2: There could be a display of face down planet tiles that cost 2/3/4/5/6 Survey symbols to take, with the rest of the planet tiles in a face down draw stack. Maybe you can even look freely at the planets in the display. Choose any of those planets you can afford, then slide the rest of the planets down and draw a planet from the stack to fill the missing slot. This is more fiddly, but there are some things I like about it - including the minimum cost of 2 Survey, and the incentive to aim for a specific planet rather than just take "whatever's on top of the deck" so to speak. Option 1 also removes that option, as in this version you cannot see the back of the top Planet card.

Warfare
Collect 1 Fighter for each Warfare icon. Leader: Attack a planet instead.
When you Attack a planet, discard a number of Fighters equal to the Warfare cost and Flip the planet.

Colonize
Settle 1 planet. You must have as many Colonize icons as the Colonize cost of the planet.

Produce
Produce 1 resource for each Produce icon. When producing a resource, place a Resource token on a planet in your Empire. Each planet can hold 1 resource token. Produced resource tokens with no planet to place them on are returned to the supply.

Trade
Trade 1 resource for each Trade icon for 1 point each. When trading a resource, take a Resource token from a planet in your Empire and place it into a Score Pile.

Research
Pay the appropriate cost and satisfy the platen prerequisite to advance your Technology marker on one of the Technology tracks on the Tech Reference Board. There are 4 tracks on the Tech board: Advanced, Fertile, metallic, and Diverse. The first 2 spaces in each track cost 3 Research icons, and require 1 planet of the appropriate type. The 3rd (and maybe 4th?) spaces cost 5 Research icons, require 2 planets of the appropriate type, and are worth 2 Influence. The 4th (or 5th?) space costs 7 Research icons, requires 3 planets of the appropriate type, and is worth 5 Influence. The Diverse stack is a little bit different, it requires 1 planet of each type.

Each Technology confers a bonus of some kind. Potential bonuses can be:
* +1 Die
* +1 Role Symbol
* Survey die faces = Warfare die faces (and Research = Trade, and Colonize = Produce)
* +1 Influence per Trade Role
* +1 Influence per Produce Role
* -1 to all Warfare costs
* Research icons can be used to Boost or Follow any role.
* When dissenting, re-roll 2 different role symbols
* When Surveying, keep 1 additional planet

EmDo Expansion progress

I exchanged some internal TMG emails today about box size and components for Escalation... a nice reminder that things are happening with that. Watch your TMG newsletter for info about an upcoming Kickstarter project later this year.

I took a look at the components for Exotica, and it turns out that even though Escalation adds a 5th player (requiring 28 additional Role cards), and 18 Scenarios, Exotica has almost the same number of cards (!)

In related news, I had an idea the other day for a dice game version of Eminent Domain. I supposed it could be re-themed, but for the time being I thought I'd explore EmDo dynamics with a simple dice mechanism. I actually have 2 versions of this idea. Originally it was to remain a "deck building" mechanism, but instead of a deck of cards you would have a supply of dice. Sort of like Quarriors for example. Then I thought it might work just as well and save a lot of components if it weren't so much a deck builder. Here are both ideas in brief:

1. Eminent Domain: the Dice Building Game

For this idea there would have to be a supply of custom dice of several types, each with a different distribution of Role icons:
Early Game Die (Green): Survey/Survey/Survey/Colonize/Warfare//Politics
Mid Game Die (Yellow): Produce/Trade/Research/Research/Colonize+Warfare/Colonize+Warfare
Late Game Die (Red): Produce/Trade/Research/Research/Colonize+Warfare/Colonize+Warfare

Maybe the green dice are your starting deck, and the supply are just the other dice. I'm not really sure.

In any case, players would roll their starting dice and leave them in their play area (Empire). Some dice from the supply would be rolled into the middle of the table as the draft pool.

On your turn you would choose one of the dice in the draft pool, and execute the role on that die. You would boost that role with any matching symbols on your dice. After resolving the role, you would re-roll all of the dice used that turn (as well as any dice showing a Politics icon).

When a player chooses a Role, each opponent has the opportunity to Follow that role using dice in their Empire, and then re-rolling the dice used. Or they can Dissent, and re-roll any 1 die in their Empire.

Over time your dice pool would expand. It might be necessary to draw a hand of dice out of a bag, roll them, and discard the dice used. I'm not sure how well this would work - but it would take a lot of custom dice anyway, so I stopped thinking about it and moved on to the next idea.

2. Eminent Domain: the Dice Game

Possibly a better approach is this. All of the dice in the game simply have 1 Role symbol on each side. Each player has 6 of these dice, and rolls them into their Empire.

Rather than drafting a die to choose a role, on your turn you simply choose any role you like. Boost it with dice from your Empire, as usual. Opponents get a chance to Follow with dice from their Empire, or Dissent and re-roll 1 die. Re-roll all dice used after resolving the role.

That second idea sounds a lot more viable to me. I like the way that dice you don't use stick around, so if you don't Survey for a while, eventually your hand will be full of Survey icons and it'll be worth choosing that roll - maybe just to refresh those dice!

Resolving the roles would work largely the same way as the card game...

Survey: There could be a supply of Planet tiles, with type and Colonize/Warfare costs on the back, VP and benefits on the front. Benefits would be the same types of things as on EmDo planets - Role Icons, +1 Die (hand size), etc. The survey role would allow you to draw a certain number of them from bag and keep 1. OR - each planet could have a Survey cost, there could be several of them face up, and in order to take 1 you have to spend a number of Survey symbols equal to the Survey cost.

Warfare: There could be a supply of Fighters, like in EmDo. The Warfare role could collect Fighters, or Attack a planet, just like EmDo.

Colonize: The Colonize role would have to work a little bit differently. In this case it would probably simply be "Settle 1 Planet" - and in order to do so you would have to have enough Colonize symbols on hand at the time.

Produce/Trade: Perhaps for simplicity each planet should simply produce 1 (generic) resource. Either that, or the planet could indicate how many (0/1/2) resources it can hold. The roles would work much like they do in EmDo.

Research: Rather than a supply of Research cards, there could be a small board with technologies listed. Much like EmDo, the Level 1 techs would cost 3 Research symbols and require 1 planet of the appropriate type. Level 2 techs would cost 5 and require 2 planets. Level 3 techs would require 7 and require 3 planets. Note that 7 Research symbols on 6 dice will require a hand size bonus or Research icons on planets. I suppose players should get +1 icon when they choose the role, so a full hand of 6 Research could be enough for a Level 3 tech.

Game End:
I'm not really sure when the game should end, maybe when the supply of planets is out, or a supply of vps like in EmDo. Or when a player has a certain number of planets in his Empire. Game End triggers have always been a problem for me.

For reference, I'll just make a quick component list here:
24 (30?) Role Symbol Dice (6 per player)
XX Planet tiles
XX Fighter tokens
XX Resource tokens / VPs (these could be the same thing)