EmDo Expansion - Planets

As I posted last time, I have been looking at the current incarnation of the cards for the EmDo expansion. Today I took a closer look at the new planets to see how I felt about them. for reference, here's the details for the new planets:

New Planets
Hostile Planets: Cost- 1 Destroyer, effect- 1 Fighter icon.
I really like these. Thus far I've been saying you can only use them once per turn - that's sort of how the other icons work (but admittedly only because you never had the opportunity to count them more than once in a turn). But I'm beginning to think that's too fiddly. It would certainly make them more powerful, but would it be TOO powerful to use them more than once in a turn (for example if you attack 2 different planets in a turn, via War Path, or one in your Action phase and another in your Role phase)? Also, I believe I only have 3 of these (one of each type). Should I make another 3 (so 6 total)? Or is 3 enough?

Civilized Planets: Each of the Civilized planets has the Peace treaty effect on it. I like these. I believe I have 6 of them (2 of each type). I might like to decrease the cost of at least half of them - I think I've increased the average planet costs a little too much. So maybe 3 of them are worth fewer points and only cost 3, while the other three are worth more points and cost 5?

"Action" Planets: There are 6 planets which each have one of the basic actions on it:

• Draw 2 cards
• Attack 1 Planet
• Settle 1 planet
• Produce 1 Resource
• Trade 1 Resource for 1 Influence
• Remove up to 2 cards in hand from the game

I like these, and have been able to make good use of them, especially in combination with Double Time. But I wonder if their effect shouldn't be amplified a little bit - why not make them the Improved versions..? At least some of them, like the Survey and the Produce action seem so weak on their own. However, every time I have this thought, I decide in the end to keep them as-is.

In looking at the planets again today I think I've decided the following:
Hostile Planets: I'm debating the merits of using the fighter once per turn vs once per Action/Role. I'm not sure which is easier to explain and I'm also not sure whether more than once per turn would be too good or not.

Civilized Planets: I changed the Colonize cost of three of the planets to 3, leaving the others at 5 to Colonize.
Action Planets: I have reduced the Colonize cost of those planets to 4 instead of 5. I didn't mean to increase the average planet cost as much as I did, and 4 is probably closer in value to a Destroyer anyway. I think I have decided to keep the effects as they currently are.

EmDo Expansion - Detailed update

I need to finalize the EmDo expansion pretty soon and get the thing into production, so to that end I thought I'd list all the new tech cards and other aspects out and comment on them here... hopefully this will help identify what needs to be done before this expansion can go to print!

Title
I've been calling this expansion "Warmonger," but have recently been leaning away from that so as not to raise inaccurate expectations. Currently considering "Escalation," which seems to fit the feel of the expansion a little better (even if the word is not as cool).

End Game Dynamic
I mentioned in a previous post that I was considering a new game end dynamic - when the game end is triggered, you finish out the round and then play 1 full round (rather than just finishing the round and being done right there). I have been liking this more and more, so I'm leaning toward making that the rule for the expansion (and an approved variant for the base game).

Fleet Tile
I do like the fleet tile, but I'm not positive this is exactly how it'll work. It's close though:

Fleet
Action: Discard 3 Fighters to collect a Destroyer.
Action: Discard 2 Destroyers to put your Dreadnaught into play.
While your Dreadnaught is in play, your Warfare costs are -1.
Research Role: Pay 5 Research or 5 Fighters to flip Fleet to Improved Fleet

Improved Fleet
Action: Discard Fighters, collect 1 Destroyer for every 2 Fighters discarded.
Action: Discard 2 Destroyers to put your Dreadnaught into play.

While your Dreadnaught is in play, your Warfare costs are -2.
During an Attack, you may discard a Dreadnaught to satisfy the Warfare Cost of any planet.

5 players
I have been planning to expand the game to accommodate a 5th player. The following changes will be required to support that:

• Add 4 cards to each stack. These cards will be marked as "For 5p only"
• Include a 5th Politics card
• Add the 8 blue Influence tokens to the supply
• When the game end trigger occurs, finish the current round and then play 1 final round

I do not believe any further changes need to be made. I added the new end game dynamic discussed above - probably even more important with more players.

New Tech Cards
I am fairly happy with most of the new tech cards, but I've still got some decisions to make. For example, I like the idea of L1 tech cards costing 3 fighters, L2 costing 5 fighters, and L3 costing 7 fighters - it mirrors the Research cost and is therefore easily internalized and remembered. However, I also like the idea of L2 techs costing a Destroyer and L3 techs costing a Dreadnaught. Currently the Advanced/Fertile/Metallic tech cards follow the first format - 3/5/7 fighters (or 3/5/7 Research), and the Diverse tech cards (requiring A+F+M) follow the latter format - 3Fighters/Destroyer/Dreadnaught (or 3/5/7 Research, of course).

• Should all new L2 costs be the same (either 5F or 1D)? Or is it acceptable to have some cost 5F while others cost 1D? I think the consistency is good to have.
• Which should it be? 3F/5F/7F, or 3F/1D/1Dn?
• If Tech cards cost 1 Destroyer or 1 Dreadnaught, does that make it too easy to, say, obtain Annex 1 turn, then immediately use Annex to pay for Well Oiled Machine? I currently have them at 3vp (not 5), but does that make up for it?

L1 Double Time (2 in each stack): Action: Play 2 additional Actions during this Action phase.
I'm very happy with the effect of this card, and the number of copies in the game. I'm not sure about the Exotic icon - should I include that for integration with the Exotic expansion? Or should I just leave that off altogether? I think I am happy with these cards having a Resource on them as well.
L1 Peace Treaty (P) (1 in each stack): Collect 1 Influence when Dissenting a Warfare role.
I am happy with this card. I have decided that the power of Warfare Tech is more appropriate at Level 2, and that the power of Peace Treaty by itself is appropriate for Level 1. I fully expect to hear complaints from both sides - those who complain the card is too weak, since their opponents simply stopped taking Warfare roles and then it wasn't worth any points, and those who complain the card is too strong, because their opponent scored a lot of points off of it. In either case, that's a fairly high level of interaction that some say is missing from the game, and I'll note that the purpose of the Peace Treaty is not to be a big point scorer - it's to slow down a Warmongering opponent! In that respect, if your Peace Treaty scores no points because you're opponent stopped calling Warfare, then it did its job!

Advanced
L1 Improved Research: Action: Draw 1 card, then remove up to 3 cards in hand from the game.
Originally I had made these purchasable only with Fighters. More recently I standardized the costs for all of the new tech cards, because it's a PITA when each card has some individual cost - I much prefer the ease of play when the costs are easily internalized and remembered. I am fairly happy with these incarnations, and I like having L1 cards with Fighters on them.
L1 Improved Trade: Action: Collect 1 Influence from the supply.
See Improved Research, above.
L1 Freedom of Trade (P): [2 Trade icons] You may follow Trade roles as if they were Produce, and you can Follow Produce roles as if they were Trade.
Since adding 2 trade symbols to this card, I have been happy with it. It's difficult to make good use out of it in the early game, but that's OK with me. I think it has potential to be good later, but that means you either have to take it early and then pursue making it good, or you have to consider taking it later in the game, when you might be able to get a L2 tech instead. With only 1 Trade symbol I don't think it would be attractive enough, so I think I like it as-is. Does it really need TWO trade icons? Is 1 good enough?
L2 Scientific Discovery: Action: Take any tech card costing 3 or less into your hand. Play another action.
This is significantly different than the original version, but it accomplishes what I wanted to accomplish - it lets players get more L1 techs into their decks. I like the "Play another Action" part because I don't think it would be too desirable to just get some Improved tech into your hand to maybe use next turn - instead the card acts as if it IS the new card you just got (by giving you the chance to play it). This card lets you get tech you don't have access to due to your planets, maybe most importantly Double Times. I am fond of this card, and I think I will keep this version of it.
L2 Soldiers of Fortune: Action: Trade a destroyer for 3vp.
I have yet to see this one work very well, but I recently took steps to make Destroyers more important in the game, so I think this card will be reasonable. 3vp is nothing to scoff at.
L2 Scientific Method (P): [Research icon] You may buy 1 additional tech card during a Research role. Costs and prerequisites must be paid for each tech card separately.
Being able to purchase 2 tech cards at a time isn't amazing by itself, but as an ancillary benefit on a card that gives you a Research icon it's not so bad. Especially when you consider that you can purchase 1 card with Research symbols and another with Fighters... I'm pretty happy with this card as-is.
L2 Defense Contract (P): Once per turn: Trade 1 Resource or Fighter for 1 Influence.
A play tester insisted that this card was too powerful. I am not sure I've ever seen it in play in its current incarnation. It definitely seems like a decent enough card, and I think I'm happy with it, but I suppose I should force myself to get it into play more often and see how it feels.

Fertile
L1 Improved Colonization: Action: Settle 1 planet. Then Settle another planet or +1 Colony.
See Improved Research, above.
L1 Improved Production: Action: Produce 2 Resources.
See Improved Research, above.

L1 Utility (P): You may spend Resources as if they were symbols to Boost or Follow any role.
I had added a Produce icon to this, but then decided that was way too powerful for a L1 tech. This card is good enough without the icon, and has actually seen some good use in my test games. I'm happy with it.
L2 Specialized Production: Action: +1 Influence for each resource of a particular type.
Seems like a no-brainer. Parallel with Specialization. I'm happy with this one.
L2 Spoils of War: Action: Discard any number of Fighters. Produce 2 Resources for each Fighter discarded this way.
This one I'm not so sure about. I upgraded it to be "get 2 resources per Fighter you discard" - and the fact that you can produce a handful of resources as an action (which could be followed by a Trade role) seems like it should be decent. Yet I have not really seen this card used well. I would think it could combo well with Freedom of Trade and Utility. Does this card seem more like a Metallic tech? My thought was that it would be Fertile because it's effect produces Resources, and that's kind of a Fertile thing to do.
L2 Biosphere (P): [Produce icon] [Any Resource Slot] [Any Resource Slot]
I changed the resource slots on this to "Any Resource," which makes it combo well with either Specialized Production/Specialization OR Genetic Engineering/Diverse Markets. That made it a little bit stronger. That and a Production icon and I think I'm happy with this one.
L2 Colony Ship (P): Once per turn and during Colonize actions and roles: You may tuck cards under Colony Ship as if it were a planet. During a Colonize role you may rearrange all Colonies in your Empire.
This card never seemed to get used, until I added "Once per turn..." - allowing you to slowly 'streamline' Colonize cards out of your deck, and then in a Colonize role, use them to flip a planet. Now I think this card is really cool and I'm happy with it. Not sure about the wording though. My intent was that players could tuck colonies under it just as if it were a planet, including during a Colonize Action or Role. Should that be the case? Or should you ONLY get to tuck colonies once per turn, then get them all off at once with a colonize role? In either case, what's the best wording for this, and how will it fit on the card?

Metallic
L1 Improved Warfare: Action: Collect 2 Fighters or Attack 1 Planet.
See Improved Research, above.

L1 Improved Survey: Action: Draw 3 cards.
See Improved Research, above.

L1 Thorough Scanning (P): You may draw 2 fewer cards during a Survey role. If you do, you may keep 1 additional Planet.
I've been happy with this all along, and still am.
L2 Deep Space Probes: Action: Search the Planet deck and discard pile for any 1 planet. Shuffle the planet deck and discard and place the chosen planet on top. Play another action.
This one is a little tricky to use well, which is why I added the "play another action" clause. It would work nicely with Survey Team or Mobilization, but that's not the point... is it useful on it's own? I think it's useful enough. It's one of those cards where you have to really know what you're doing to use it well, and will therefore probably not see a lot of use, but I think it's OK to have some cards like that.
L2 Dreadnaught Technology: Action: Collect your Dreadnaught.
I think I like this one as-is. I'm considering improving it by not making you trade in a Destroyer. Frankly, if you have Improved Fleet, then you can already change Dreadnaught Tech and another Destroyer into a Dreadnaught - but this card is still a discount if you haven't flipped your Fleet tile. I don't know if that's good enough, and most of the time this is purchased I think it's just for the Destroyer icon. Yeah, maybe I'll just make it "Get a Dreadnaught" - you can only have 1 at a time anyway. A lot of the time that will translate to "Action: get 2VP, once." which is probably fair.

Edit: I have decided to change this to "Collect your Dreadnaught."

L2 Warfare Technology (P): You may spend Fighters as if they were research symbols during Research roles.
I have seen this in play, when it was combined with Peace Treaty. It can be really good. The effect is definitely L2 in power, so I've made it a L2 tech. I think I'm happy with that.
L2 Wealth of Knowledge (P): You may use standard Survey cards to Boost (not Follow) any role.
I continue to like this one a lot as-is.

Diverse
L2 Synthesize: Action: Search your deck and discard pile for any card and put it into your hand. Shuffle your deck and discard pile to create a new deck. Play another action.
I continue to like this a lot as-is. Currently it has "Any Resource" in the corner - should I add a Fighter as well? I suspect people will use it for the action more than anything else anyway.
L2 Destroyer Technology: Action: Collect 2 Destroyers.
After upping this to 2 Destroyers rather than just 1, I really like it.
L2 Midnight Oil: Action: Choose a Role. Opponents may Follow or Dissent as normal.
This is a new one, and hasn't been in play too much yet, but it seems cool. I currently have 2 Exotic icons on the card, but that's probably not too good. Maybe I should put a resource and a Fighter instead?
L2 Oversight Committee (P): Hand Size +2
I like this card. I moved it tot he Diverse stack to make room for Warfare Tech, which struck me as a Metallic tech (while Oversight Committee strikes me as a Diverse tech).
L2 Military Campaign (P): You may attack FACE UP planets in opponents' Empires. Spend 1 Dreadnaught and Fighters equal to the Influence value of the Planet. Opponent may discard a Dreadnaught to cancel this attack. If they don't, they collect 2 Influence ("Reparations") from the supply.
This has proven to be a fairly interesting dynamic in some of our 2p games. I haven't really seen it in 3 or 4 player games, but the Reparations seems to make it good and fair. I recently added that a player can discard a Dreadnaught to cancel the attack, and I'm not sure if I like that or not. I may remove it.
L3 Annex: Action: Attack a FACE DOWN planet in an opponent's Empire and put it face up in yours. They collect 2 Influence ("Reparations") from the supply.
I think this is good and fair as well. I like it. And I like that it's a Dreadnaught that you can hold in your hand.
L3 Well Oiled Machine (P):You may take an additional Role during your Role phase.
I like this one. That the opponents can follow or dissent keeps it from being broken at all.
L3 Wingman (P): [Destroyer icon]
I like the idea of a Destroyer you can spend every turn, but I haven't really seen this in play yet. Is it good enough for a L3 tech?

New Planets
Hostile Planets: Cost- 1 Destroyer, effect- 1 Fighter icon. I really like these. Thus far I've been saying you can only use them once per turn - that's sort of how the other icons work (but admittedly only because you never had the opportunity to count them more than once in a turn). But I'm beginning to think that's too fiddly. It would certainly make them more powerful, but would it be TOO powerful to use them more than once in a turn (for example if you attack 2 different planets in a turn, via War Path, or one in your Action phase and another in your Role phase)? Also, I believe I only have 3 of these (one of each type). Should I make another 3 (so 6 total)? Or is 3 enough?

Civilized Planets: Each of the Civilized planets has the Peace treaty effect on it. I like these. I believe I have 6 of them (2 of each type). I might like to decrease the cost of at least half of them - I think I've increased the average planet costs a little too much. So maybe 3 of them are worth fewer points and only cost 3, while the other three are worth more points and cost 5?

"Action" Planets: There are 6 planets which each have one of the basic actions on it:

• Draw 2 cards
• Attack 1 Planet
• Settle 1 planet
• Produce 1 Resource
• Trade 1 Resource for 1 Influence
• Remove up to 2 cards in hand from the game

I like these, and have been able to make good use of them, especially in combination with Double Time. But I wonder if their effect shouldn't be amplified a little bit - why not make them the Improved versions..? At least some of them, like the Survey and the Produce action seem so weak on their own. However, every time I have this thought, I decide in the end to keep them as-is.

EmDo End game Variant

I'm considering a slightly different end game dynamic for the expansion, which could be used as a variant for the standard game as well:

When the game end triggers, finish out the round as normal, then play 1 full round.

This way all players will know for a fact whether it's their last turn or not. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

4/29/12 Update: The more I play this variant, the more I dislike it for 2 players. I think it's a good idea for 3-4 players though. I do not know if it'll end up in the rulebook or not.

Warfare Tech too strong for Level 1 Tech

When I first made the Warfare Tech cards I worried that they'd be too strong for level 1 cards. At the same time I thought Peace Treaty was too weak, and that combining those 2 didn't really make Warfare Tech any stronger - instead I thought it would be more interesting because more different players would be interested in those cards.

Playtester feedback has been pretty universal that Warfare Tech is too strong. On one hand, this confirms a suspicion I had in the beginning. On the other hand, having played many times as-is, I have not seen the player with Warfare Tech winning regularly, or even more than their fair share. So I was hesitant to weaken the card, thinking perhaps that Warfare Tech was one of those things that looks stronger than it really is.

At this point I've become more of the opinion that the effect of Warfare Tech is on the order of a Level 2 power, not Level 1. Furthermore, while I was worried that players would not want to "waste" a Research role on "just" a Peace Treaty (because it would be "useless" if the opponent simply stops calling Warfare), it occurred to me that forcing your opponent to stop or slow down their Warfare calls (or making them give you a VP if they don't) is far from a waste! So I'm looking at removing the Warfare Tech portion and leaving just Peace treaty on the level 1 permanent techs. Perhaps I'll add a level 2 tech that has the Warfare Tech power (probably in the Metallic stack).

But wait - doesn't that destroy a big. fundamental goal of the expansion? Didn't I want players to be able to get Tech cards without having to fill their decks with Research cards? Well, that's true, but I think the better way accomplish that is to make sure that all (or at least most) of the new tech cards are purchasable with Fighters (or Destroyers) - which is what I've done. I've gone through all of the new Tech cards and made sure that all of them (except Double Time, currently, but I might change that) can be purchased with Fighters instead of Research symbols.

I also wanted Destroyers to be a bigger deal, so I actually made more of the tech cards cost a Destroyer instead of some Fighters. And finally, I made all of the level 3 techs (Annex, and the new permanent techs Well Oiled Machine/Wingman*) cost a Dreadnaught instead of 7 Research symbols. I am completely open to name suggestions for these by the way.

* Did I not mention? I made a couple more tech cards for the Diverse stack:
Well Oiled Machine: You may take an additional Role phase each turn. Opponents may Follow or Dissent as normal.
Cost: 7 Research OR Dreadnaught
Wingman: [Destroyer icon] (A Destroyer you can spend once per turn, like the Fighter cons on the hostile planets)
Cost: 7 Research OR Dreadnaught
Midnight Oil: Action: choose a Role. Players may Follow or Dissent as normal.

Cost: 5 Research OR Destroyer

In other news, I thought Oversight Committee might be too powerful at "+2 Hand Size" - so I tried adjusting it to "+1 Hand Size" and added "Action: Draw 3 Cards" - I like the idea of tech cards with actions on them. however, I kinda liked the simplicity and strength of "+2 Hand Size," so I might switch it back. Or more specifically, I could make the back side of Wealth of Knowledge be "Warfare Technology," and replace Combat Maneuvers with Oversight Committee. It seems like Combat Maneuvers is never used, and I'm not sure whether it's really very useful. Of course, I've taken steps to make Destroyers a bigger deal, so maybe that card will improve a bit..?

At any rate, I'm enjoying the expansion, and i like the direction it's taken. I think it's nearing completion. I'd love to hear some more playtest reports from people, especially if they've been keeping up with the adjustments I've been making.

Speaking of playtesters, I'd like to give a big thanks out to those who have printed out the expansion and provided feedback! All of it is very useful and helpful. Thanks for being part of the process :)

Another round of Warmonger updates

I went through the Warmonger tech cards again and made a few more tweaks...

Philosophically, I thought it might be good to make it so that EACH of the new tech cards could be bought with Fighters (before there were some that had the normal Research cost, no fighters), so I went through and added "/ [Fighter icon]" to all of the new tech cards.

I also wanted Destroyers to be a bigger deal. Thus far they haven't had as much impact as I'd like. So I made a couple of tweaks to that end:
* All of the level 2 Diverse Tech cards cost 5 Research or 1 Destroyer now
* Destroyer Tech card now gives 2 Destroyers instead of 1 (it was not being used, and generally speaking not too useful)
* Annex now costs 7 Research or 1 Dreadnaught (I also wanted to see more Dreadnaughts in costs)

A few more tweaks to strengthen/weaken a few tech cards that seemed too weak/too strong:
* Oversight Committee: "+1 Hand Size, Action: Draw 3 cards" (instead of Hand Size +2). I'm not sure that's necessary, but hand size +2 is pretty darn good. I also wanted to see Actions on permanent tech cards.
* Colony Ship: I love the idea, but it does not seem to be useful enough, or useful often enough... now it reads "Once per turn (and during Colonize roles) you may tuck a Colonize card under Colony Ship as if it were a planet. During a Colonize Role you may redistribute all of the Colonies in your Empire." That wording isn't perfect - the intent is that once per turn you can 'streamline' a colonize card out of your deck by placing it under Colony Ship, and also when tucking colonies during a Colonize role (or action, I guess) you can treat Colony Ship as if it were a planet - then later you can use those to Colonize by shifting them over. I think this additional benefit will help enough to make this card desirable.
* Scientific Discovery: I'm going to try this version next: "Action: Take any Tech card costing 3 or less and put it into your hand. Play an additional action this turn."
* I haven't changed it at all, but I wonder if Combat Maneuvers isn't useful enough - I don't think I've ever seen it in play.
* Military Campaign: Added a clause that the opponent can discard a Dreadnaught to cancel the attack. The intent is that they'd choose to do that after the costs are paid (Fighters and Dreadnaught discarded by the Attacker). If they cancel the attack, they get no Reparations.

Status of Improved Fleet: I'm leaning toward 2vp for flipping the tile, and 2 more VP for having your Dreadnaught in play. Also, the Improved exchange rate I'm trying is:
* Action: 2 Fighters -> 1 Destroyer (as many times as you want)
* Action: 2 Destroyers -> 1 Dreadnaught

Also, I removed the "discard in lieu of fighters" ability from the Fleet side of the Fleet tile, mostly to make room for the Improved Fleet text.

There were a few more tech cards I wanted to add. I'm open to name suggestions on each of these by the way:
Midnight Oil
Diverse Level 2 (5 Research/1 Destroyer)
2 Exotic symbols (I wasn't sure what to put on there)
Action: Choose a Role. Opponents can Follow or Dissent as normal.
2vp

Well Oiled Machine
Diverse Level 3 Permanent (7 Research/1 Dreadnaught)
You may take an additional Role phase each turn. If you do, opponents can Follow or Dissent as normal.
3vp

Wingman
Diverse Level 3 Permanent (7 Research/1 Dreadnaught)
[Destroyer icon] (A Destroyer you can spend once per turn, like the fighters on the Hostile planets)

Positive and Negative Feedback Loops - Positive or Negative for a game?

I saw this post on BGG today, quoting something very interesting from some online game design course (?). I wish I could link to or credit the original author, and read more of that type of stuff, but I do not know where it came from. I hope that the link above will suffice - I wanted to re-post it here, mostly so I can find it again! If you know where this came from, please let me know!

Feedback Loops

One kind of dynamic that is often seen in games and deserves special attention is known as the feedback loop. There are two types, positive feedback loops and negative feedback loops. These terms are borrowed from other fields such as control systems and biology, and they mean the same thing in games that they mean elsewhere.

A positive feedback loop can be thought of as a reinforcing relationship. Something happens that causes the same thing to happen again, which causes it to happen yet again, getting stronger in each iteration – like a snowball that starts out small at the top of the hill and gets larger and faster as it rolls and collects more snow.

As an example, there is a relatively obscure shooting game for the NES called The Guardian Legend. Once you beat the game, you got access to a special extra gameplay mode. In this mode, you got rewarded with power-ups at the end of each level based on your score: the higher your score, the more power-ups you got for the next level. This is a positive feedback loop: if you get a high score, it gives you more power-ups, which make it easier to get an even higher score in the next level, which gives you even more power-ups, and so on.

Note that in this case, the reverse is also true. Suppose you get a low score. Then you get fewer power-ups at the end of that level, which makes it harder for you to do well on the next level, which means you will probably get an even lower score, and so on until you are so far behind that it is nearly impossible for you to proceed at all.

The thing that is often confusing to people is that both of these scenarios are positive feedback loops. This seems counterintuitive; the second example seems very “negative,” as the player is doing poorly and getting fewer rewards. It is “positive” in the sense that the effects get stronger in magnitude on each iteration.

There are three properties of positive feedback loops that game designers should be aware of:

They tend to destabilize the game, as one player gets further and further ahead (or behind).
They cause the game to end faster.
The put emphasis on the early game, since the effects of early-game decisions are magnified over time.
Feedback loops usually have two steps (as in my The Guardian Legend example) but they can have more. For example, some Real-Time Strategy games have a positive feedback loop with four steps: players explore the map, which gives them access to more resources, which let them buy better technology, which let them build better units, which let them explore more effectively (which gives them access to more resources… and the cycle repeats). As such, detecting a positive feedback loop is not always easy.

Here are some other examples of positive feedback loops that you might be familiar with:

Most “4X” games, such as the Civilization and Master of Orion series, are usually built around positive feedback loops. As you grow your civilization, it lets you generate resources faster, which let you grow faster. By the time you begin conflict in earnest with your opponents, one player is usually so far ahead that it is not much of a contest, because the core positive feedback loop driving the game means that someone who got ahead of the curve early on is going to be much farther ahead in the late game.
Board games that feature building up as their primary mechanic, such as Settlers of Catan. In these games, players use resources to improve their resource production, which gets them more resources.
The physical sport Rugby has a minor positive feedback loop: when a team scores points, they start with the ball again, which makes it slightly more likely that they will score again. The advantage is thus given to the team who just gained an advantage. This is in contrast to most sports, which give the ball to the opposing team after a successful score.
Negative feedback loops are, predictably, the opposite of positive feedback loops in just about every way. A negative feedback loop is a balancing relationship. When something happens in the game (such as one player gaining an advantage over the others), a negative feedback loop makes it harder for that same thing to happen again. If one player gets in the lead, a negative feedback loop makes it easier for the opponents to catch up (and harder for a winning player to extend their lead).

As an example, consider a “Kart-style” racing game like Mario Kart. In racing games, play is more interesting if the player is in the middle of a pack of cars rather than if they are way out in front or lagging way behind on their own (after all, there is more interaction if your opponents are close by). As a result, the de facto standard in that genre of play is to add a negative feedback loop: as the player gets ahead of the pack, the opponents start cheating, finding better power-ups and getting impossible bursts of speed to help them catch up. This makes it more difficult for the player to maintain or extend a lead. This particular feedback loop is sometimes referred to as “rubber-banding” because the cars behave as if they are connected by rubber bands, pulling the leaders and losers back to the center of the pack.

Likewise, the reverse is true. If the player falls behind, they will find better power-ups and the opponents will slow down to allow the player to catch up. This makes it more difficult for a player who is behind to fall further behind. Again, both of these are examples of negative feedback loops; “negative” refers to the fact that a dynamic becomes weaker with iteration, and has nothing to do with whether it has a positive or negative effect on the player’s standing in the game.

Negative feedback loops also have three important properties:

They tend to stabilize the game, causing players to tend towards the center of the pack.
They cause the game to take longer.
They put emphasis on the late game, since early-game decisions are reduced in their impact over time.
Some examples of negative feedback loops:

Most physical sports like Football and Basketball, where after your team scores, the ball is given to the opposing team and they are then given a chance to score. This makes it less likely that a single team will keep scoring over and over.
The board game Starfarers of Catan has a negative feedback loop where every player with less than a certain number of victory points gets a free resource at the start of their turn. Early on, this affects all players and speeds up the early game. Later in the game, as some players get ahead and cross the victory point threshold, the players lagging behind continue to get bonus resources. This makes it easier for the trailing players to catch up.
My grandfather was a decent Chess player, generally better than his children who he taught to play. To make it more of a challenge, he invented a rule: if he won a game, next time they played, his opponent could remove a piece of his from the board at the start of the game (first a pawn, then two pawns, then a knight or bishop, and so on as the child continued to lose). Each time my grandfather won, the next game would be more challenging for him, making it more likely that he would eventually start losing.
Use of Feedback Loops

Are feedback loops good or bad? Should we strive to include them, or are they to be avoided? As with most aspects of game design, it depends on the situation. Sometimes, a designer will deliberately add mechanics that cause a feedback loop. Other times, a feedback loop is discovered during play and the designer must decide what (if anything) to do about it.

Positive feedback loops can be quite useful. They end the game quickly when a player starts to emerge as the winner, without having the end game be a long, drawn-out affair. On the other hand, positive feedback loops can be frustrating for players who are trying to catch up to the leader and start feeling like they no longer have a chance.

Negative feedback loops can also be useful, for example to prevent a dominant early strategy and to keep players feeling like they always have a chance to win. On the other hand, they can also be frustrating, as players who do well early on can feel like they are being punished for succeeding, while also feeling like the players who lag behind are seemingly rewarded for doing poorly.

What makes a particular feedback loop “good” or “bad” from a player perspective? This is debatable, but I think it is largely a matter of player perception of fairness. If it feels like the game is artificially intervening to help a player win when they don’t deserve it, it can be perceived negatively by players. How do you know how players will perceive the game? Playtest, of course.

Eliminating Feedback Loops

Suppose you identify a feedback loop in your game and you want to remove it. How do you do this? There are two ways.

The first is to shut off the feedback loop itself. All feedback loops (positive and negative) have three components:

A “sensor” that monitors the game state;
A “comparator” that decides whether to take action based on the value monitored by the sensor;
An “activator” that modifies the game state when the comparator decides to do so.
For example, in the earlier kart-racing negative feedback loop example, the “sensor” is how far ahead or behind the player is, relative to the rest of the pack; the “comparator” checks to see if the player is farther ahead or behind than a certain threshold value; and the “activator” causes the opposing cars to either speed up or slow down accordingly, if the player is too far ahead or behind. All of these may form a single mechanic (“If the player is more than 300 meters ahead of all opponents, multiply everyone else’s speed by 150%”). In other cases there may be three or more separate mechanics that cause the feedback loop, and changing any one of them will modify the nature of the loop.

By being aware of the mechanics causing a feedback loop, you can disrupt the effects by either removing the sensor, changing or removing the comparator, or modifying or removing the effect of the activator. Going back to our The Guardian Legend example (more points = more power-ups for the next level), you could deactivate the positive feedback loop by either modifying the sensor (measure something other than score… something that does not increase in proportion to how powered-up the player is), or changing the comparator (by changing the scores required so that later power-ups cost more and more, you can guarantee that even the best players will fall behind the curve eventually, leading to a more difficult end game), or changing the activator (maybe the player gets power-ups through a different method entirely, such as getting a specific set of power-ups at the end of each level, or finding them in the middle of levels).

If you do not want to remove the feedback loop from the game but you do want to reduce its effects, an alternative is to add another feedback loop of the opposing type. Again returning to the kart-racing example, if you wanted to keep the “rubber-banding” negative feedback loop, you could add a positive feedback loop to counteract it. For example, if the opposing cars get speed boosts when the player is ahead, perhaps the player can go faster as well, leading to a case where being in the lead makes the entire race go faster (but not giving an advantage or disadvantage to anyone). Or maybe the player in the lead can find better power-ups to compensate for the opponents’ new speed advantage.

 So, what's your opinion? Are feedback loops in general good for a game, or bad? I suppose it depends on the game and the type of feedback loop! I'll be more specific - is a Negative Feedback Loop an acceptable thing to have in a strategy game? Should Positive Feedback Loops be avoided for their potential to create a runaway leader?

Warmonger update - 3/9/12

I have been playing with the most recent tweaks, and I feel like I'm getting an even better understanding of where I want these new cards to go. Here are my latest thoughts on the Warmonger expansion cards that have been in flux:

Fleet Tile

I like the Improved Fleet idea, though it clearly needs some tweaks. I am waffling back and forth on whether it should give VPs just for flipping the tile, and then more VPs if you also have your Dreadnaught at game end - or if all the VPs should come from having your Dreadnaught in play.

A new idea is to add a defensive aspect to the Dreadnaught. This may be more specific to the Military Campaign card, but the idea is that a player could discard their Dreadnaught in order to cancel an attack on their planet. this would of course occur after the attacker has discarded their Dreadnaught.

e.g. "I will play a Warfare card for my action to attack. Since I have Military Campaign, I will attack your Advanced planet with a Research symbol. I discard my Dreadnaught and 3 fighters (because your planet is worth 3vp)... do you discard your Dreadnaught, or do I get your planet?"

Also, I think I'll take the 'discard a Dreadnaught in lieu of Fighters' text off of the standard fleet side to save text space. It's so costly to get your Dreadnaught in the first place (without flipping the tile) that I figure it's unlikely to happen much anyway.

Finally, I think that the Improved side is a little too good - it becomes too easy to get a dreadnaught, I think. Unimproved it costs 6 fighters and 3 actions to get a Dreadnaught in play. Improved it only costs 2 fighters and 2 actions. I feel like that's too much of a discount. What are the options for Improved Fleet then?
Option 1:
3 Fighters -> Destroyer
1 Destroyer -> Dreadnaught
(total: 3 Fighters + 2 actions, discount of 3 Fighters + 1 Action)

Option 2:

2 Fighters -> Destroyer
2 Destroyers -> Dreadnaught

(total: 4 Fighters + 3 actions, discount of 2 Fighters)


Option 3:

2 Fighters -> Destroyer
1 Destroyer + 2 Fighters -> Dreadnaught

(total: 4 Fighters + 2 actions, discount of 2 Fighters + 1 Action)


The intent was to make it easier to get both Destroyers as well as your Dreadnaught by upgrading the tile, which implies that Option 3 is the way to go.


Start Planets

I continue to be very happy with the expensive Start planets, despite some reports of players feeling like they were set back too far (by not being able to do Research as early). In most of those reports, the player with the expensive Start planet even won the game, but still felt disadvantaged in the early game. In my games however it feels exactly right, and the player with the expensive planet is only delayed in Researching by about 1 round if they try hard enough.

I have made 3 more expensive Start planets - the same as the first, but with the costs flipped - in order to try it out. I would like to provide at least enough for each player to have a choice between a cheap and an expensive start planet, and I intend to add a 5th player to the mix, so that implies I should use all 6 expensive Start planets. 6 is not a bad number, as there are 6 starting planets in the base game as well.

I've also tried the Utopian planets with Symbols on them, and they seem pretty much fine so far. I might not include them at all, or I might only include the 3 weaker symbols on them (Trade/Produce/Survey), but they're definitely an improvement on the previous cheap planets with icons!

I played with a cheap Prestige planet (Cost: 2/2, 4vp, no other use), and it was pretty neat as well. You CAN flip it quickly, but it does not help you to do so. To compensate you for that, it's worth an extra couple of points. I like it, but I don't know if I'll include it this time - mostly because I'm not sure how many Start planet tiles I really want to have in the box!

Tech Cards

I'm happy with all the tweaks I made to the tech cards such as Destroyer Technology, Dreadnaught Technology, Utillity, Freedom of Trade, and Biosphere. I've also tweaked a couple of other cards since my last post, which I'll discuss below...


Peace Treaty + Warfare Tech: This continues to be strong, but not broken as far as I can tell. Some players suggest that it is too good (and in fact 1 group has said they think the Peace Treaty by itself is so good as to be an auto-purchase every game) - but I haven't seen the player who gets this winning the game in my own experience... so I'm still hesitant on this one.

I could consider separating the Peace Treaty and the Warfare Tech abilities, putting them back to back. In that case I worry the Peace treaty by itself is too weak, so I could add a symbol - Survey/Trade/Produce for the Metallic/Advanced/Fertile versions. If I did this, I'd need to come up with a new level 1 permanent tech to go opposite Utility, Freedom of Trade, and Thorough Scanning, because I like those three!

Scientific Method: I was concerned that Scientific Method (Permanent tech - buy 1 additional tech card during Research roles) was not strong enough, because it's difficult to have enough symbols to buy 2 things at a time (if you have 6 symbols to buy 2 level 1 techs, you'd still rather have 1 Level 2 because it's worth VPs). So I added a Research icon to the card. It seemed far and useful, and so far it's been used several times to good effect! This might seem a little too good in conjunction with Warfare Tech, but I think that's more of a comment on Warfare Tech than on Scientific Method.

Scientific Discovery: Since I upgraded Scientific Method, I also had to upgrade Scientific Discovery. It suffered from another problem as well - Scientific Discovery has a Research icon on it, and it only offers a discount of 1 symbol per tech card purchased (and the ability to purchase 1 additional tech card). Therefore if you're only buying 1 tech card, it's better to not play the action and simply use the card for the symbol. You'd only play the action if you were going to buy two Level 1 techs (for 4 symbols), two level 2 techs (for 8 symbols), or a level 1 and a level 2 (for 6 symbols). That sounded OK to me at the time, but the purpose was supposed to be to allow a player to EITHER get 2 smaller techs OR help them get 1 bigger tech. So I tried upping the discount to 2 symbols per card purchased... this makes it similar to a card with 2 Research symbols (like Data Network) when going for a big (level 2 early, level 3 later) tech, and it makes getting two Level 2 techs fairly easy in the mid-game (you still need to have the right planets).

To tell you the truth, I'm not sure how much I like this bigger discount. It certainly seems to work, but I'm also considering some alternate effects for this card:

Action: Take any 3-cost Tech card into your hand. This includes tech cards you do not have access to normally, as well as Double Time.

OR

Action: Remove a standard Role card from the game [or maybe return it to the Stacks]: Take an Improved tech of that type into your hand. So like remove a Survey card from the game, take any Improved Survey into hand (including one you haven't got the planets for, or one that costs Fighters instead of Research symbols). This one is a little more limited (no Double Time, and you have to have the right card in hand), but it also allows you to trim a lesser card from your deck.

I welcome any thoughts you may have on this, please leave a comment!

Other ideas - maybe for another expansion or maybe for this one:
I kinda like the idea of a tech card that gives you an extra Role phase. I figure there could be 2...
1. Level 2: Action: Choose a Role (other players may Follow or Dissent)
2. Level 3 Permanent: Choose an additional Role during your Role Phase each turn.

I might also like to see more tech that costs a Destroyer, tech that costs a Dreadnaught, and a tech that has a Fighter printed on it (like the Hostile planets).

If I were to make the 'take 2 Roles' tech above and have it cost Dreadnaught/7 Research, what should be on the back side of it? A card with a Destroyer printed on it (like the Fighters on Hostile planets - a Destroyer you could spend once each turn)? Also, what could these techs be called? I think they'd be in the "1 of each planet" pile.

Further Warmonger thoughts

A couple of things that came to mind which I'd like to get down before I forget them...

* There should probably be some VP for having your Dreadnaught mini in play - probably 2 or 3. I'll note that this could have an effect when you 'spend' a Dreadnaught to attack a planet (or for a Military Campaign) - if you never get it back, that 'costs' you some VP. However, if you do get it back later (since you can only have 1 Dreadnaught) then it doesn't cost VP.

Edit: I'm thinking 2vp for Dreadnaught, up that to 4vp on the Upgraded Fleet side - see below

* I could put an 'upgrade' cost listed at the bottom of the Fleet tile, then on the back I could have an upgraded Fleet tile on which it only costs only 2 Fighters to get a Destroyer and only 1 Destroyer to get a Dreadnaught. I like the sound of that. For a player who wants to use their Dreadnaught for things, they can upgrade their fleet instead of getting a Level 2 technology (The cost would be "5 Fighters / 5 Research" like the other level 2 Warfare tech, and you'd do this as a Research role - so it's just a tech card that everyone has access to). There wouldn't be any points on the back, except for those which apply when you have your Dreadnaught in play. Or maybe there could be 2vp simply for flipping your tile (like other L2 techs), and additional VP for getting your Dreadnaught. Either way.

Edit: As above, I'm thinking 0vp for flipping, but 2vp for Dreadnaught and 2 more vp for Flip + Dreadnaught

I think I could still have the Destroyer Tech and Dreadnaught Tech cards in the stacks, I think they're still interesting.

* The more I think about the expensive start planets the more I don't want to decrease their cost. I think instead I'll create 3 more with the opposite cost (6 Colonize/5Warfare) which are otherwise the same, and then say that during setup you get 1 random cheap planet and 1 random expensive planet, choose 1 for the game.

* The more I think about cheap Start planets with symbols the more I don't want them in the game. They defeat the entire purpose of early game surveying. I suppose I could add some cheap planets that are not a Type and therefore do not do research (maybe cheap Utopian planets, or cheap Prestige planets?) Would that be interesting?

* I COULD add something like Utopian Start Planets, which have a symbol but don't (by themselves) help with research, and potentially Prestige starting planets which are worth 3 or 4 vp but are otherwise useless.

Exhibit: Purple tiles - the name's the thing!

One of the few items left to check off before Exhibit is ready for publication is to sort, stage, and name the tiles from the Purple auction stack. I'll list them here in approximate order of strength (weakest to strongest), describe their ability, and suggest a name where I have an idea. I welcome all feedback, especially if you've played the game, about staging the tiles. Of course if you can think of a thematic thing the tile could represent, please say so!

#1 - Government Grant
"1-shot 2 purple weapons" - this helps you win any 1 auction later, as you discard it as if it were 2 weapons of the color of the auction you're resolving.


#2 -Research Assistants
This tile gives you 2 additional dice to roll, thereby giving you more information to bid with.


#3 - Expert? Consultant? Expert Consultant?
"Power Tool" - this tile allows you to set the facing of any 1 die each turn (when tools are used - after rolling but before bidding).

#4 - ??? Backroom Deal?
"Dumpster Dive" - this tile allows you to swap it for any tile in the auction blocks.
This tile is worth 2vp (3vp total) at game end.


#5 - Expanded Storeroom
"Hand size +1" - this tile allows you to store 2 additional artifacts, but it takes up 1 storage slot itself, thereby giving you net hand size +1.

#6 - ???
This tile makes opponents outbid you by at least 2.
Is this functionally different than a purple weapon? Not really - they do the exact same thing! But it FEELS different in play.

#7 - Angel Investor?
"Purple weapon" - this tile acts like a weapon for all colors, including purple. Weapons allow you to overbid by 1 and still win the auction.

#8 - Fancy Display Case
"Wild Artifact" - this tile can go into any set. This is really good, and is frequently worth 4, 5, or 6 points if used to increase a set to 4/5/6 tiles. I think of it fancy display case because it can go with any Exhibit.

#9 - 3vp (4vp total, since tiles in your store room are with 1vp each at game end).
Things that are worth straight VP are Art, so maybe some kind of famous or unique art item?
Since this has no game use, it's always the last tile on the stack (it comes out in round 9 every game).

The List - revisited

It's been a while since I've given any thought to old game design ideas. Last night I had the opportunity to recount some of them to a friend, and it reminded me how awesome some of them are! So I thought I'd revisit The List:

Old Standbys - games which have been around, 1/2 done and untouched, for years:
- 8/7 Central
- Hot & Fresh
- Dynasty
- Odysseus: Winds of Fate
- Kilauea
- Reading Railroad

Old Ideas that Haven't gone Anywhere Yet, But Probably Should - some of these have been getting stale as well:
- Investigative/Tabloid Journalism
- Red Colony
- Clash of the Kingpins
- Time = Money
- Dating Game
- Ticket Please
- Moctezuma's Revenge

I have lots of ideas for several of these games, so many that I think I'm overwhelmed and am not making any progress on any of them! The good news is that I have at least made SOME progress on my games, like Exhibit, Alter Ego, and The Knights Templar.

I think the best of the bunch are:

Dynasty: The Spread of Culture in Ancient China
Build villages and learn advances, assimilating opponents' cultures as you go. Your villages give you access to resources to spend on things like advances. If you cannot afford what you want, you can "trade" with an opponent (they cannot say no) - but if you do then you must take one of their Culture Chits onto your player board. This is both good and bad, as filling up your player board gives you benefits, but each of those Culture Chits represents scoring for your opponents. The first player to fully fill their board becomes the Emperor (and scores a small bonus), but it's the player who's culture is best represented who is the real winner!

Hot & Fresh
Delivering pizza can be frantic work! Plan your route and push your luck with the traffic laws to make deliveries and earn tips. There is a simple set of traffic laws, and the more laws you break, the more likely you will get busted. Driving safe for a while will turn the heat down, but your tips decrease over time so you're encouraged to press your luck at least a little bit. Originally the routes were intended to change as traffic lights turn from green to yellow to red - a newer development involves placing tiles between the main roads to represent shortcuts that you know about but your opponents do not.


Red Colony
Players build colonies on Mars, first by claiming property (building tubes and domes), then constructing various buildings under those domes. Income is customizable and ranges from early game building materials to late game higher level materials, to people. You'll have to spend time and effort to modify income over the course of the game. The goal will be to house as many people as possible in your Colony by the end of the game. A lot of the ideas for this game came directly from The Case For Mars.


Alter Ego
Cooperative deck building game of vigilante heroism. Save the city from Arch Villains - but as you become a stronger hero, you'll need to neglect some aspect of your Alter Ego life. In the early game you start with Family, Job, and Community cards which each give you some benefit. Each turn you must take another card, either another Alter Ego card or a Hero card. You'll need Hero cards to defeat henchmen, but you can only play so many cards per turn... so playing more Hero cards necessarily means playing fewer Alter Ego cards! This game will have a Cooperative mode, and possibly a Competitive mode as well where each player has a personal Nemesis in addition to the Arch Villains.

The Knights Templar
After hearing about Trajan's Rond-cala mechanism I had a guess as to how it would work. I was wrong, but I thought my idea might make an equally good game, so I combined that main mechanism with an older idea I had for a Knights Templar theme. In this game you'll Move your knights, Crusade against Moors and other enemies, Erect buildings, and spread the Influence of the Order of the Temple. But when the Order gets strong enough, King Philip will become nervous and issue arrest orders for the Templars! Race to Portugal (and maybe Scotland) where you'll be safe while a wave of destruction radiates from Paris, destroying buildings as it goes. When a building is destroyed, players with that type of building still standing earn some points, so it could matter which buildings you erect and where you erect them.

EmDo: Warmonger progress

I've sent out Warmonger to a number of volunteers to playtest, and I'm starting to get some reports back. I'm looking forward to seeing more feedback from them.

I've been playing the expansion quite a bit myself, and tonight I went through the new tech cards to evaluate how I currently feel about them. I have some adjustments I'd like to make to some of them:

* Destroyer Technology: This card gives you a Destroyer as an action, and also itself counts as a Destroyer. That doesn't really make sense... you could save the action and just hold onto the card. I'm going to change that Destroyer icon to 2 Fighter icons instead, I think that would be more interesting.

* Dreadnaught Technology: Similar problem, why spend an action and a Destroyer to get your Dreadnaught mini when you could instead just hold onto the card and discard it as a Dreadnaught - the only thing you lose is the Warfare discount doing it that way. Also, I don't like Level 2 cards having Dreadnaughts on them anyway. I think I'd like to change that one to a Destroyer - so Dreadnaught Technology IS a Destroyer, and it allows you to turn a Destroyer into a Dreadnaught mini.

* Utility and Freedom of Trade: I added a Produce Symbol to Utility and a Trade symbol to Freedom of Trade in order to make them good enough... I do not think that Utility needs it though, it's a pretty powerful as it is with just a little effort. Freedom of Trade however is very possibly useless, so it did need a symbol, and in fact I might try adding a 2nd Trade symbol just to see how that goes. I don't want to have both a Produce AND a Trade icon, because that feels wrong to me (too easy). 2 Trade icons might be interesting though.

* Biosphere: I had added a Produce symbol to Biosphere because just 2 Resource slots does not seem to be on par with other Level 2 techs. It's been a thematic oddity that you'd need a Biosphere in order to store Iron and Silicon, but the point of the card is to allow a Fertile Empire to produce all 4 resource types. John suggested I make those slots hold "Any Resource" instead, which would (a) fix that thematic oddity, and (b) improve the card a bit because it supports Specialization and Specialized Production in addition to Genetic Engineering and Diverse Markets.

* Spoils of War: I seem to have accidentally left the 2vp off of this Level 2 card. That was an oversight, that card should be worth 2vp like the other Level 2 cards.

* New Start planets: I have been trying out some Start planets which cost the same as the ones in the base game, but are worth 0vp (or in some cases, -2vp) but come with one of the 6 Role symbols on them. Originally I had tried putting role symbols on the start planets, but I did not like it because flipping your Start planet first became a no-brainer. I preferred the choice between flipping the Start planet in order to do Research and Surveying up a better planet first. Admittedly, I get the impression that most players simply flip their Start planet first anyway, but that ignores some of the strategic space that I actually very much like. There's a trick I used to use wherein I would follow another player's Colonize role ad tuck my starting Colonize cards under my start planet, pursue Warfare to flip other planets, and only flip the Start planet at the end of the game with a Colonize role for the 2vp! So I'm seriously considering NOT including the cheap Start planets in the expansion, or at the very least, increasing the cost to 3/3 or so.

Edit to add:
I am actually very happy with the expensive planets, but I've heard back from a couple of playtesters that they think they're too expensive. I fear that players prefer to blindly flip their start planet before doing anything else, rather than consider Surveying first. this is true for the expensive planets (Survey for a cheaper one, or commit to flipping then get 2 planets worth of benefits) - and it also applies to the regular stat planets (flip cheaply to start researching, or Survey up a planet that will be more useful to flip first). This is why I didn't put symbols on the start planets in the first place, and why I'm leaning toward cutting the new ones with symbols (or at least increasing their price to 3/3).

Games on BGG - follow up

Last time I mentioned that I'd submitted Dice Works, Alter Ego, and Exhibit to the BGG database. All three have been approved and now have BGG entries, so if you have played, do play, or are interested in information about those games, feel free to use the power of the internet! Now that the entries exist, I still intend to post Print and Play files for each of these games (eventually) for people to play until the games are published.

Dice Works
My last post contained a crappy rules draft for Dice Works, and I'm still interested in help writing a succinct but complete set of rules down before I upload the files. I should probably be able to upload that one soon. I think Dice Works will make a good Print and Play game because all you need are a couple of player boards, a couple of markers per player, and a grip of standard 6-sided dice.

Exhibit
I got a chance to play a few games of Exhibit lately, and I have implemented a couple of tweaks which I think have had a positive effect on the game:

* Leave un-taken tiles for next round: if everyone overbids on an auction (so nobody gets the tile), that tile used to be discarded. Now I have been leaving it in play so that there are *2* tiles for that particular auction. When there is more than 1 tile for an auction, the winner of the auction gets their choice of tile, and then the next highest bid gets the remaining tile and so on. On the down side, when there are auctions with multiple tiles, it cuts down on the tension of the bidding a little bit (if you're happy to get 2nd place then you don't fight). However I think on the whole this is a positive change and I like it.

* Grants: My friend Andrew, who has played Exhibit several times at various conventions over the last few years, suggested that players be allowed Grants, which are effectively 1-shot weapons. The game used to have 1-shot weapons in it's very early incarnations, but they didn't do exactly this, and the game has changed a bit since then. The current plan is that each player starts the game with 1 Grant for each Culture (i.e. 1 per color but no purple). They can be discarded when resolving an auction to add 1 virtual die of that color that only you can see (like the Weapon ability). I suspect the net effect of this will be two-fold...
    - It gives a player some small recourse from being bullied by players with weapons. The ability for a player with weapons to simply outbid you by 1, making it impossible for you to win the auction, occasionally left a bad taste in people's mouths. On one hand, that's kind of what weapons are for, but on the other hand I don't want the game to be disappointing. This may be a good compromise.
    -It softens the blow of overbidding when a crazy distribution of colors is rolled. Like with 20 dice, you bid 3 Yellow, and this time it so happens there's only 1 Purple and only 1 Yellow (for a total of 2). The Grant allows you to win that bid as long as you've only overbid by 1, and only once per color. This could be especially important in the early game where there aren't a lot of dice out there and it's easier to get shafted that way.

I have only played with Grants once so far, and I thought it was OK... I'd like to try it some more. I wonder if 5 Grants is too many, and if it would be better to limit it to 3, they could be generic rather than color specific, and you could be allowed to use only 1 per auction on any auction except purple. Another possibility could be to discard 2 Grants to get +1 Purple as well (graphically, the grants could show 1/2 a Purple die on the back for example).

* Consolation = Extra bid Token: I've been using this rule for a while now, and I am very happy with the result.

* Tweaked Purple tile abilities: I have tweaked a couple of the purple tiles, and I think I like the results. I will need to re-examine them and figure out how I want to stage that stack.

Perhaps I'll get print and play files for this one together as well and post them on BGG. I think the game is very close to done, and hopefully this means it'll be on Kickstarter some time soon, perhaps later this year!

Alter Ego
I'm less far along with Alter Ego, but I'm happy with how it's progressing, and I eagerly await having more time to work on it. I have a pretty strong vision of where I want to go with the game, and I just need to get some time to work on it. When I get that done, I'll probably post it as well - as a card game (with just cards and some tokens) it could make a good Print and Play game as well.

Games on BGG, also Dice Works Rules

Two things to report...

1. I have submitted 3 of my games to the BoardGameGeek database. I did this for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that a game I know of was NOT in the database (even though it's almost done and is under consideration by a publisher), and recently another game with the very same title was announced by another publisher. It's too bad, too, because that game had an awesome title, and it' been around for years in the designer's blog.

So that spurred me to add some games I've been meaning to add, although I'm not too worried about my titles being used - they're not as good as that example was:

Dice Works
Alter Ego (not accepted yet)
Exhibit (not accepted yet)

2. I decided I would make Dice Works available for print and play though the BGG entry, so I was putting together a PDF of the player boards and the rules. It occurred to me that I had not written down (or could not find anyway) the latest version of the rules - the only set I could find was very out of date. I am astonished by how much space this is taking for how few rules it seems like the game has. I think I'm just being thick and that this could be much more succinct. So I'm going to ask you, faithful readers, to take a look and tell me how to rewrite this so it'll fit on 1 page! Is that possible? Here they are:

DICE WORKS

A fast and furious dice game of invention for 2-4 tinkerers.

Components
80 Standard six-sided dice (best if they have squared corners, not rounded)
- 20 each in 4 colors (Red, Green, Blue, Yellow)
4 Player boards
4 Worker markers per player

Each player board shows several Invention Tracks. Each track space is labeled with some combination of die faces. Sometimes only the color of the die will matter (solid colored square), and sometimes both the color and the value will matter. There is one track for each color of die in the game. One side of the player board only has 3 columns - if using that side, only use Red, Green, and Blue dice. If using the side with 4 columns, all dice are used.

Dice Works is played over a series of rounds. Each round players will contribute some number of dice to the pool, the pool of dice will be rolled, players will draft dice out of the pool in real time to place on their player boards, and once all of the dice have been drafted, players will update their Worker markers to show their progress. The game is over when a player’s marker reaches the top space in 1 or 2 of their Invention columns, depending on which side of the player board you are using. That player is the winner! If more than 1 person accomplishes this in the same round, the tie is broken by the level of advancement of the next highest marker.

Round Structure
1. Contribute and Roll Dice
Each player notes the number of dice of each color that they contribute, based on the location of their Workers on their Invention tracks, and takes that number from the supply. All of these dice are rolled together.

2. Draft Dice
Players grab dice in real time (no turns) to complete sets on their player board. The following rules apply:
2a. Only 1 hand can be used to grab dice
2b. Only 1 die can be taken at a time
2c. Once a die is touched, it must be taken and placed on your board before another die can be taken
2d. Dice may only be placed in the lowest possible space in each column (the space ABOVE your Worker) - until that is full. Once a space is full, a player may begin placing dice into the next space up.
2e. Once placed, a die on your board may never be moved.
2f. Legal placements include:
* The die color matches the space it is placed on, and if the space indicates a particular number, that must match as well.
* For spaces where number is not specified but there exists an equal sign (=) between the spaces, the value of the first die placed does not matter, but the value of other dice must match it.
* No die can be placed in a box unless
a. It is the box directly above the player’s Worker in that column, or
b. It is a box directly above a series of boxes which are full oif dice.

3. Resolve Round
After all dice have been drafted and placed, players first check for illegal plays, and then advance their Workers on their player board for each column that qualifies.
3a. Any die that is not placed legally is moved to the Scrapyard of that die’s color.
3b. After checking for legal plays (and moving illegal plays to Scrap), any worker directly below a box that is full of dice moves up - discard those dice to the supply. Repeat this until all Workers have advanced as much as possible.
3c. Next, players may use dice in their scrapyard. The least advanced worker on your player board defines your scrap rate (on the left). You may discard that number of dice from any 1 Scrapyard in order to turn it onto a die of that color with the value you choose and place it in any legal space. You may repeat this as much as you like, and any time you complete a box, advance the worker below it.

Eminent Domain: Warmonger Expansion - Playtesters Needed!

A couple of months ago I posted about Print and Play files for Eminent Domain expansions, and while some people did join the folder, I haven't heard back from very many of them. So I thought I'd try again, in a more organized fashion. So if you're interested in playtesting the upcoming expansion to Eminent Domain, read on...

There will be 1, possibly 2 expansions for Eminent Domain coming out this year: "Warmonger" and "Exotic." That's what I've been calling them anyway, I'm open to suggestions for their titles! I've been given the green light to send out the prototype files to people interested in helping us playtest the prototype.

The expectation if you sign up would be that you do indeed get at least one playtest session in, and that you complete a simple form that will give us feedback about how it went. We couldn’t have any public reviews made about the playtest sessions until we’ve finalized all the rules of course. The file will be simple to print out - just a bunch of cards - and could be compatible with a printed copy of the game if you use sleeves. I'll include a prototype copy of the basic game as well for those who haven't got sleeves, or who would prefer the art match the expansoin prototype art :)

So if you’re interested – send me (seth) an email (AT tastyminstrelgames DOT com) and I'll send you the files in about a week!

Good news about For The Win!

Tasty Minstrel Games' latest Kickstarter project, For The Win, has passed the funding goal of $15,000!

With 2 weeks remaining in the funding period Michael has announced an overfunding goal as well. If funding reaches $25,000, then all supporters pledging $15 or more will receive additional tiles in different colors in order to play the game with up to 4 players.

This project had an interesting reward structure - the first 200 supporters were allowed to pledge as little as $5 (though many pledged more than that), and the next 500 "pay what you want" supporters pledged a minimum of $10. The regular pledge level for 1 copy of the game is $20, and retail price will be $25.

This overfunding goal presents the early adopter with an option that later supporters do not have:

1. Keep my pledge the same, and receive a 2 player game for an extraordinarily low price.

2. Up my pledge to $15+ and receive everything I was going to receive, plus tiles for 3-4 players.

Both of these are good deals, depending on the desire of the supporter. And it makes sense that there be a minimum pledge level for the overfunding reward, because doubling the number of tiles will severely increase the shipping costs. I don't see how $5 could cover that!

Print and play tiles
So if you're a supporter already, then thanks very much! Depending on your pledge level you might have a choice to make (super low price vs 4 player game). If not, consider jumping in - any of the reward levels above $15 will come with one set of the tiles for 3-4p for every copy of the base game!

And if you haven't seen them yet, there are several very positive reviews of FTW popping up around the 'net:
Ryan Metzler's video preview for The Dice Tower
The Little Metal Dog Show
Grim Tree Games: For The Win is Full of Win!
Meet The Meeples
Father Geek

Knights Templar - Rules outline

The Knights Templar
A game of influence and scandal for 2-4 Crusaders

Components

• 64 Building tiles (16 in each of 4 player colors)
  
  • 16 Churches
    
  • 16 Castles
    
  • 16 Farms
    
  • 16 Banks
    
• 4 Player boards
  
• 48 Action cubes (12 in each of 4 player colors)
  
• 16 Knight figures (4 in each of 4 player colors)
  
• 1 Game board
  
• XX Enemy tokens
  
  • XX Slav
    
  • XX Saracen
    
  • XX Prussians
    
• XX Troop tiles
  
• XX Influence tokens
  
• XX Gold coins
  

Setup

• Each player receives the following in their player color:
  
  • Player board
    
  • 4 Knight figures
    
  • 16 Building tiles (place them in the indicated spaces on the player board)
    
    • 4 Churches
      
    • 4 Castles
      
    • 4 Farms
      
    • 4 Banks
      
  • 12 Action cubes (place 2 in each Action bin on the Player board)

Lay out the Game board and distribute the Enemy tokens to the regions indicated by icons. Each player takes their Level 1 Castle building and places it on their indicated starting region along with one of their Knight figures.

Place the Gold coins, Influence tokens and Troop tiles in supply piles. Choose a starting player at random and you are ready to begin!

Game Play
Starting with the Start player, play will progress clockwise throughout the game. A player's turn consists of the following sequence:

1. Choose any one Action bin on your player board.
2. Resolve the action associated with that Action bin.
3. Distribute the Action cubes from the chosen bin.

1. Choose an Action
Select any one of the six Actions on the Rondel that has at least 1 Action cube in its bin.

2. Resolve the Action
There are six Action spaces on the Rondel, though 2 of them are the same. Each of the Actions resolves differently. In each of the following descriptions, "X" refers to the number of Action cubes in the Action bin.

• MOVE: There are 2 different MOVE spaces on the Rondel. The move action allows you to move your Knights on the game board, and it also adds gold to the Communal Coffer as your Knights collect charity.
  
  • Add X Gold coins to the Communal Coffer space on the board.
    
  • Move your Knight figure(s) up to X regions total.
    
• BUILD: The build action allows you to erect buildings worth influence. Buildings confer benefits when resolving the various actions in the game.
  
  • Erect a Building tile of level X or less from your player board onto a region on the board occupied by one of your Knights. You must be able to afford this (see below).
    
  • Each Bank you have built increases the maximum level of building you may erect.
    
  • Remove Gold coins from the Communal Coffers equal to the level of the building.
    
  • Each Bank you have built reduces the number of Gold coins you must spend.
    
  • Only the lowest un-built level of each building may be erected.
    
  • Only 1 building can occupy each region.
    
  • Collect Influence tokens according to the level of the building erected.
    
    • Building Types:
      
      • Bank: Pay less Gold when using the build action.
        
      • Farm: Collect additional Troops when using the muster action.
        
      • Castle: Place an additional Knight token into play at the new Castle.
        
      • Church: Collect additional Influence when using the influence action.
• MUSTER: The muster action allows you to muster troops to take crusading with your knights.
  
  • Collect up to X Troop tokens from the supply. You must be able to afford each (see below).
    
  • Remove 1 Gold coin from the Communal Coffer for each Troop tile collected.
    
  • Collect 1 additional Troop token for each Farm you have erected (you need not pay for these additional Troops).
    
• CRUSADE: The crusade action allows you to fight Enemies, scoring influence and clearing regions to make space for more buildings.
  
  • Choose 1 region containing one of your (any player's?) Knight figures and an Enemy token.
    
  • Determine the Enemy Strength by checking the Enemy Strength track for the appropriate enemy type.
    
  • Each Knight figure (no matter which player's) in the region reduces the Enemy Strength by 1.
    
  • If the Enemy Strength is less than X, then discard Troop tokens equal to the Enemy Strength.
    
  • Collect Influence tokens equal to the Enemy Strength.
    
  • Move the Enemy token to the appropriate Enemy Strength track.
    
• INFLUENCE: The influence action allows you to gain Influence tokens by spreading the word of the Order.
  
  • Collect X Influence tokens from the supply.
    
  • Collect 1 additional Influence token for each Church you have erected.
    

3. Distribute Action cubes
Take all Action cubes from the bin associated with the chosen Action and distribute them, 1 at a time, clockwise around the Rondel. See example diagram

End Game Phase
"God is not pleased. We have enemies of the faith in the kingdom"
When the last Influence token is taken from the supply, finish out the round so that each player has had the same number of turns*. At this point, the Order of the Temple has become so powerful that King Philip, threatened by the Order and deeply in debt to it, issues an arrest order for all Templar Knights and begins to have the Order disbanded.

* Players may still collect influence after the supply runs out. Keep track of this influence using Troop tokens.

After all players have finished their turn in the round in which the Influence supply runs out, the End Game phase begins. Flip the starting Castle buildings (in the Paris region) face down - they are considered destroyed. Whenever a building is destroyed, each player collects 1 Influence for each building of that type they still have in play.

At the end of each round during the End Game Phase, destroy all buildings in regions adjacent to a region that's already been destroyed. Flip the destroyed buildings face down (simultaneously) and collect influence for like buildings each time.

During the End Game Phase the Community Coffers are emptied, and Gold Coins are no longer added during move actions. [The build action turns into a third move action (?)] The build, muster, and crusade actions no longer have any effect.

Game End
The game ends when one of two things happens:

• All Knights on the board have reached Portugal (or Scotland?)
  
• The wave of destruction reaches Portugal (6 rounds after the End Game Phase begins).
  

When one of these triggers occurs, the game ends. Any player without at least 1 Knight figure safely in Portugal (or Scotland?) (ALL Knight figures?) is disqualified from winning. Of players reaching safety, the player with the most Influence is the winner.

Revisiting the Templar Knights

A few years ago I had the idea that a euro game about the Knights Templar ought to be doable. I haven't put too much thought into the idea since then, but recently it's popped back up on my radar as something I'd like to think about. Here's the fruit of that thought:

* I still like the idea of players dealing with a communal coffer
* I like the idea of players building structures on the board which will give them points and benefits
* I like the idea of player actions boosting the overall influence of The Order of the Temple, and that eventually triggering the End Game Phase (Friday 13, 1307 - when King Phillip IV issued an arrest order for all members of the Order of the Templar)
* I like the idea of an End Game Phase where players must flee and make a last ditch effort to score points, potentially losing flat out if they do not make it to safety in time
* I like the idea that the End Game Phase represents the destruction of buildings players had built, and that buildings closer to the 'epicenter' of destruction are worth more points while buildings further away will last longer (and confer their benefit longer)
* I like the idea of both militaristic and economic viable strategies
* And most recently I like the idea of using a Rondel mechanism to drive the game. Specifically, a "Rond-cala" mechanism (combination of Rondel and Mancala) similar to that in Stefan Feld's recent Trajan

I've mentioned before that upon reading about the Rondcala mechanism in Trajan, my guess was that you would choose an action and it's intensity would be based on the number of bits in that actions bin... then you would Mancala those bits around the Rondel. It turns out I had it backwards - instead you pick a bin and Mancala the bits from it, and you take the action at the end of the line. That's a lot harder to wrap your head around, and I wondered if it wouldn't be worth trying my mistaken guess out as a main mechanism in some game of my own - and now I'm going to give that a try.

I currently don't have a complete game, rather I have various parts of a game and ideas about how I'd like them to go together. The purpose of this blog post is to help chronicle them and facilitate putting the pieces of this design together to see if I can come up with the game I've got described in my head.

I suppose I could start with a title... since the game is about the Knights Templar it seems fitting to name the game Knights Templar, Templar Knights, or Order of the Temple. The subtlety of tricky or clever titles such as Friday the 13th or Order 66 would likely be lost on most players, and would cause more harm than good. I am open to suggestions on this, I'm leaning toward those first three - I like Order of the Temple but I also like the word Templar...

Players will be members of the Order of the Temple, and as such they would have gifted all of their personal wealth to the Order. Therefore players will not have personal holdings. They will act on behalf of the Order, spreading the Order's influence throughout Europe by building infrastructure and fighting in the Crusades. Players WILL however have personal Influence, representing their standing in the Order - the escaping player with the most influence will win the game.

My version of the Rondcala:
Actions in the game will include things like...
* Moving pawns on the board
* Constructing buildings
* Mustering troops
* Crusading (attacking a hostile region on the board)
* Spreading influence (collecting VP)

Each player will have a personal Rondel, and each of these actions will have an action space ("bin") on that Rondel. Each bin will begin with some number of bits in it (probably 2). On your turn you choose any action for which there is at least 1 bit in it's bin, resolve that action according to the number of bits in the bin, and then "mancala" those bits around the Rondel - that is to say take all of the bits and distribute them, one at a time, clockwise around the Rondel. In this way, the relative strength of each action will rise and fall over the course of the game. If you want to do a strong action (one with several bits in it), you must first do the actions preceding that one in order to build up enough bits in your chosen action's bin.

In addition, and I'm not entirely sure this is necessary, I thought it might be interesting to have money in the game. But as above, that money is in a communal coffer and accessible to all players. This means that one player could spend money, and not leave enough money for the next player (which could be good or bad I suppose) - and it also means that there needs to be a way to add money to the coffers. My old thought was that there'd be an action to "collect charity" or something, which would add money to the coffers. My current thought might be a bit better though... Each time a player chooses an action, an amount of Gold is added to the coffers equal to the number of bits in that action's bin. This way, the bigger or more powerful your action is, the more money you make available for your opponents to use. That dynamic sounds interesting to me.

In order to simplify the discussion, I'm going to define a variable X to be "the number of bits in an action's bin" - so the paragraph above translates to "when taking an action, add X Gold to the coffers."

Now that I've got a pretty good idea of how the main mechanism in the game might work, I probably ought to consider the rest of the game...

Actions:
Here are some of the actions I expect to want to use in the game. This is not necessarily an exhaustive list. It seems like +/- 6 actions seems to work well for a Rondel game.

* Move: Move your pawn up to X spaces. Or perhaps split X movement points between all of your pawns on the board. I expect that other actions such as Build and Attack will take place where your pawn is, so moving around the board may become important in order to take your other actions.

* Build: Construct a building of level X or lower. I expect to use a variety of buildings, each conferring a specific benefit, and each coming in different levels (say, 1-4). The higher the level, the stronger the benefit of the building. In order to build a Level 3 building, you would need 3 bits in your Build bin, AND the Level 1 and level 2 buildings of that type must already be on the board. It's possible that the buildings will also cost some amount of Gold, in which case that Gold must be available in the coffer... though with the scheme outlined above you'd be adding Gold to the coffer before building anyway, which should help.

Possible buildings and what they might do include...
* Bank: allowing you access to more money in some way
* Church: helps you score Influence with the Influence action perhaps
* Castle: helps you with attacking perhaps? Or makes troops stronger (more Knights for example)? Or maybe when you build a Castle, you get a new Knight pawn on the board, making your movement options better/more versatile.
* Farm: helps muster or maintain troops (you have to feed them)

* Influence: Collect X influence (plus additional influence from each Church in play?) I like when a game has a 'straight VP' action, usually weaker than other actions, unless you work really hard to make it good. In this case, perhaps by building Churches you can choose this action more often and make out ahead while doing so.

* Muster: Collect X troops (plus additional troops from each Castle in play? Limited by number of Farms in play?) Troops will be needed to attack regions. I expect there could be Knights, a special kind of troop that is stronger somehow.

* Crusade: Attack a region with up to X troops, or maybe with strength X (or X per troop). I expect the board will have some spaces (region) that are empty at the beginning of the game, and others that are defended by enemies. Each region should have some number of building spaces (no 2 like buildings in any region), so in order to continue expanding players may have to clear out Enemies via Crusading. This would earn them influence as well as open up new Building spaces.

Interesting idea: suppose you attack 1 region with this action, and if costs you X troops, meaning for this particular action, you want X to be small, not large. There could be a building that reduces the troop cost to attack (hospital?) In this way, the more often you attack, the less it costs each time - rewarding a warmonger for attacking often.

* Move: Perhaps another Move bin, since movement may be key to positioning your pawns.

Influence track and game end timer:
I envision an Influence track across the top of (or around) the board, which records influence each player brings to the order (which will be their score), as well as the overall influence of the order itself - which I envision to simply be the running total of the player' influence. So whenever a player scores Influence, they adjust both their marker and the Order's marker on the Influence track. When the Order's influence marker reaches a certain point, marked on the board, that will indicate Friday 13, 1307, the time at which King Philip issues the order to arrest all members of the Knights Templar. At this point the Order's marker on the influence track would cease to represent the combined influence of the players, and instead would turn into a countdown timer of sorts. In some way the marker would decrement, and when it reaches certain spaces (marked on the track), buildings in the region(s) indicated by that space would be destroyed. Perhaps as well, Knights in those regions would be captured. Players would need to move their Knights to Portugal, the only European country where the Knights Templar were safe, before they are captured. When all knights are safely in Portugal (or captured), then the game will end. Perhaps there could be more than 1 (I want to say 3) different possible 'epicenters' of this destruction, so you don't know which it'll be, and it could be different from game to game.

Building tech tree:
I've got a couple of different ideas about this... it could be the case that there is 1 big set of buildings, with 1 or 2 tiles of each, and when all the Level 1 Farms (for example) are gone, then it'll be a little harder to get a Farm (need to build Level 2)... then the benefits would probably be related to the total number of the appropriate buildings on the board, meaning everybody has the same tech upgrades (though in theory you'll build the buildings that support your strategy more than someone else's).

Another idea is for each player to have their own supply of building tiles. While this requires more bits, it could be better because (a) players could differentiate their player profiles based on which buildings they build (only 1 building of each type would be allowed per region, and only 1 building per player would be allowed per region as well) - and (b)there could be 2 copies of each, and when built, 1 could go onto the board, and the other could go onto the player's Rondel so it's easy to calculate and not miss the benefit. In this case, for each player it will get harder and harder to specialize in a particular building (each one will be a little harder to build), which is a neat dynamic. On the other hand it would be relatively easy to build several different level 1 and level 2 buildings, giving the player a variety of bonuses, but no action that is super powerful. This scheme sounds best to me at the moment.

That's about all I have for now. I'm working on some thoughts for the game board. I'm sure I'll keep you posted on any progress this game sees. In the meantime I'd be interested in any comments you may have on it!