Game Deign Attack #3: This weekend (1/29 - 2/1)

This weekend will mark the third installment of Game Design Attack -- a 3 day design meetup where 6-10 designers sequester themselves in a house and work on design problems and prototypes for a weekend.

Thursday afternoon, 4 designers from California will drive in and stay through Sunday afternoon to meet up with myself and a few local designers. I'm sure everyone will have something to bring to the table.

In previous installments of the event I was able to get in full playtests of Alter Ego, discussion of game ideas such as Scourge of the High Seas, and even design, protoype, and play a full game with Tim Fowers.

This year I've got my to latest projects: Crusaders: Thy Will Be Done and The Pony Express. I have some specific feedback I'm looking for in each of those...

Crusaders: Game end triggers and dynamics, and incentives to go to one hex over another, or to build one building over another in your current hex.

Pony Express: Number of towns/routes, and whether and how those routes can or should change throughout the delivery phase.

I've also got a not-ready partial prototype of a 2 player deck-learning fighting game (code name Draft Fighter) that I am theoretically designing with Brad Talton of Level 99 Games. I hope to get in some discussion of that, although really I just need to sit down and pound out some cards and give it a try.

And who knows, maybe I'll revive Alter Ego again!

Oh, and I've got a "new and improved" version (and prototype) of Odysseus: Winds of Fate that has been just sitting there waiting to be played ever since I updated it in December. Maybe I can get that to the table.

Looking forward to this weekend!

The League Of Gamemakers

I know some people in California who have banded together to form a superhero team... well, it's like a team of superheroes, if you remove the heroics and replace it with thoughts of game design...

The League of Gamemakers is made up of a number of aspiring and professional game designers -- some well known in the industry, and some up-and-coming.  They post regularly in their blog, covering all kinds of topics including design, mechanics, gaming, technical processes, publishing, Kickstarter, features and general musings.

I was recently invited to join their merry band, and have accepted the invitation... already 2 of my posts have gone live on their website:
 
“You’re Playing Wrong!” – Good play experience and the designer’s responsibility
My first article for the League was about the designer's responsibility to make sure a player cannot screw up so badly that they're not just losing, but effectively disallowed to continue playing the game. In the comments it seemed like some people thought I was advocating some kind of strategic hand-holding, or catch-up mechanisms to ensure all players maintained a chance to win the game... but that's not what I meant at all. Bad play should absolutely lead to a loss. However, I maintain that it's the designer's job to make sure players are able to enjoy the game, even if they lose.

Balancing Game Elements

My second post is actually just a re-posting of my Balancing Game Elements post from a year ago. That post has been referenced a few times recently, so I thought I'd re-publish it in that forum.

I've got one more post written, sort of a follow up to that first one, looking at ways to go about ensuring a losing player can still enjoy a game. I'm not sure when that will be published, but it probably won't be too long.

I've got a few other posts in mind, and a few from this blog I'll probably re-up over there. So if you like reading my ramblings, feel free to check out the League and follow me over there.

Never fear, I'll still be posting here about my own game designs (such as Crusaders and Pony Express), and things like my Game Design Attack -- the third installment of which happens to be coming up this weekend!

See you around!

Exotica is underway, and how about this new Start planet?

Over the last few months, artist Eric J. Carter has been cranking on Tech Card illustrations for Eminent Domain: Exotica, and I'm loving the images he's been coming up with. You can see some of them on his facebook page, and I'll share one of my favorites here:

This illustration is for a tech card called Space Station, which is a permanent tech you could get that acts like a copy of any Asteroid in play.

Speaking of Asteroids, I was looking at the number of components that will be in Exotica. Based on the size of the box and punchboard, there will be 8 tiles in the game. 5 of those will be mining tiles, and the rest can be Start planets. I had 2 Exotic start planets, and I had also come up with a couple of promo-style Start planets (a Utopian planet and a Prestige planet). Having 1 slot left for a Start planet, I was going to just use one of those promo style planets. but the other day I had a better idea...

Exotica is all about 2 things: Exotic planets (with civilized aliens), and Asteroids. I had Exotic Start planets... why not try an Asteroid start planet? That could be interesting, but what does it mean exactly?

Well, Asteroids are kinda like low-value prestige planets in that they don't count toward technology pre-req's. So I could make an Asteroid start planet, it could cost 2/2 like all the standard Start planets, and it could have a Crystal resource slot (Crystal is a new resource that can be found on Asteroids and Exotic planets). But a standard Start planet would count toward one of the tech stacks, so an Asteroid Start planet would be at a bit of a disadvantage... the same was true for the prestige Start planets in Escalation. For the Prestige planets I added Role icons -- what could be added to an Asteroid start planet?

The solution presented itself fairly quickly: "Ignore planet requirements on Asteroidal technology."

The whole point of Asteroids, and the thing that makes them different than Prestige planets, is that they count as "Asteroids." There are a couple of cards in each tech stack with the word "Asteroidal" in the title, and they get better the more Asteroids you have in your empire. So it makes sense to me, both thematically and mechanically, that starting with an Asteroid as a Start Planet that you could access those technologies.

I'm getting excited about this one again, as graphic designer Ariel Seoane got to work this week on putting the package together. If you're interested in where the game is out, or want to give the Print & Play files a try, check out this forum on BGG.

Pony Express - full playtest #5

Last night at out local Gamesmiths meetup I managed to get Pony Express to the able for the 5th time, this time with 5 players. As yet I haven't played with that many. Since playtest #4 I added town #6 to the board, and I inflated the route costs (2's became 3's and 1's became 2's) .

One thing I'll say is that with 5 players, the game took a LONG time. I'm fairly certain that's a product of the number of players - not some fatal flaw. However I'd really  like this game to clock in at about an hour, not the 100+ minutes it took us last night.

As for the changes, I think I liked the inflated route costs. They seemed to do the job they were meant to do in that they differentiated the amount of money players were paying to travel. I had hoped that it would also mean that when a count up auction gets up to 8 or 9, there's a realistic chance the Auctioneer will actually get stuck with the parcel for $10. So far when the auction gets that high, it's worth just about anybody's time to claim the delivery. In fact, in last night's game Matthew proclaimed "Nine dollars? I'll FIND a way to do it for $9."

After last night's playtest, I'm pretty sure I need more towns, and more routes. The game worked alright, but with the new board there just aren't that many distinct paths from one post office to the other, and it was suggested that more routes would lead to more possible paths, and therefore better route planning.

On that note, it was also suggested that there ought to be more instances of the routes changing DURING the delivery phase. The Shotgun and Guide sort of do this, but for the most part once the hazards have been drawn, you know your route, and it's just a matter of waiting for your turn to take the next step on it.

I feel like there are 2 ways to address that...
1) View the delivery phase as simply a resolution of the route building done in the Auction phase. In this case the fancy turn order mechanism from Thebes/Glen More/Olympos is probably inappropriate and should be cut. I'm not entirely sure how to resolve the routes, but in this case it should be quick and simple.

2) Keep the turn order mechanism, which I like, and somehow make it matter more - find a way to make the routes change during the delivery phase so players need to reconsider their path choices turn-to-turn.

Of the two options, I prefer the 2nd one, because I really do like that turn mechanism, and I think it works well here. I'd also like the game to be about more than just the count-up auction.

I think for my next playetest I'm going to try going overboard the other way and just see how it feels - I'll mock up a new board with 12 cities in a 3x4 grid, horizontal and vertical routes at 2 cost, diagonal routes at 3 cost, and at most 1 hazard per route instead of 2 (to keep clutter down). I think

But how to make routes change in cost over the course of the delivery phase? Maybe a "Mystery" hazard where as soon as a player crosses it, it gets replaced by a new draw? I wouldn't want too many of those, as I want players to be able to plan.

Maybe more random package deliveries like I have?

Maybe just more shotguns and bears?

Maybe the Maps should act as shortcuts to that town from wherever?

John Lonacker mentioned weather effects, which got me thinking of possible ways to add those in...

For example, towns could have 2 states - good weather / bad weather - and some way to toggle back and forth between them. There could be Rain (raindrop icon) and Snow (snowflake), each adding 1 to the route cost of any route to that town... and there could be items to help with each (Stetson lets you ignore Rain, Poncho lets you ignore Snow). But how to trigger that toggle?

I'm open to ideas... leave a comment if anything strikes you!

Pony Express - full playtest #4

I've posted previously about full playtests #1, #2, and #3 of The Pony Express, and how I'm using it for my "Gil Hov 4p challenge" game. After my last test, outside of the few tweaks I listed (change Guide, changed Compass, replaced one Spur with a New Delivery), the main thing I needed to do was re-design the board.

Yesterday I got together with Dan Keltner to talk design stuff, and one of the things we did was look at the board. Dan fired up Inkscape and helped me whip up a new map, with one Post Office in Missouri and another in California. Here's a schematic of the new board...

 I managed a playtest with the new board today. Here's how it went:

In an effort to make a 2-endpoint board that resembled the previous one, I just sort of picked the original Post Office and town #6 and stretched them out... and I added 1 route because it looked pretty bare.

I realized later that I had inadvertently REMOVED town #6, turning it into a post office... I should have instead ADDED a post office. I was able to play around that, but I think I want to keep at least 10 towns, if not increase to maybe 12. I think 10 towns might be enough.

I guess if the CA Post Office in the map above were replaced with Town #6, and a new CA Post Office were added to the left of that, with a 1-cost route to town #7, a 1-cost route to Town #6, and a 2-cost Route to Town #5, that would probably work. If another route were added from #6 to #2, then the board would be sort of symmetric, but I think it might be better if it's not symmetric.

I'm still thinking of inflating all the base route costs to 2 and 3, instead of 1 and 2, to make the item bonuses mean more... and new I'm actually leaning toward that. It seems like too often currently players are reducing the cost to 0, and having to pay 1 anyway. I think it would be better if the items helped you approach that, but didn't reach it as often.

I'd like to label the routes (near the route costs, I guess) with small letters (a, b, c, ...) so that they can be referenced, and also to imply an order for putting down hazard tiles. If you just go in alphabetical order then there's no question whether you've added one to each route or not (did I miss one? Did I add 2 to this one?)

Ideally, each route would have an obvious graphical space for the (1" square) hazard tiles (like the dashed squares here on either side of the route cost), and each town would have an obvious graphical space for the (1" square) item tiles. Of course, a town could have as many as 4 items (starts with 2, gets 1 more at the end of rounds 1 and 2), and I'm not sure there's space for that many at each town - maybe a large-ish space near each town that "items" are stashed in would be good, without being specific as to how many?

So I have some tweaks to make, and I think a friend might help me create a more attractive version of this board. I'll be sure to report back the next time I play :)

Recent Gaming - Hospital Rush, Staufer Dynasty, and Orleans (now on Kickstarter!)

Last October I got the opportunity to go to Essen again. I saw a lot of the new stuff coming out, heard some buzz on a few popular titles (Aquasphere pretty much sold out at H@ll Games booth!), and even tried a couple of games.

One of the games I tried was Hospital Rush - a worker placement game that I did not enjoy. I felt like it was too easy for a player to undo anything another layer had done.

The other new game I played in Germany was The Staufer Dynasty, by Andreas Steading, who designed Hansa Teutonica which I liked very much. I picked up Staufer Dynasty at BGGcon and was able to play several times over the holiday break.

A couple weeks after Essen I went to Sasquatch in Seattle, and there I got a chance to play several of the new games that debuted in Germany. Of those, one of my favorites was Orleans. Orleans was at Essen, and seemed to have good buzz, but I didn't get a chance to check it out.

Orleans is sort of like a deck building game, but instead of a deck of cards, you draw tokens out of a bag. The tokens represent workers, who you assign to various tasks -- each task requires a specific combination of worker types. Many of those tasks hire you a new worker of one type or another, thereby adding tokens to your bag, in addition to giving you some kind of effect.

I like the deck building mechanism in general, and drawing tokens from a bag is largely the same thing. This game differs a little in that you return all used workers to the bag every turn -- compare that to shuffling your discard every turn in Dominion. In deckbuilders like Dominion, players choose to add a card to their deck because they want that card in their deck, and that's about it. Orleans takes a page out of my own Eminent Domain's playbook, workers are added to your bag as a side effect of taking an action. That's a dynamic I am partial to (obviously).

I enjoyed the game a lot. So much that I was super excited when I heard TMG had signed on as a partner and would be offering a DELUXE VERSION OF ORLEANS ON KICKSTARTER.

The KS price for a standard copy of Orleans is $45, comparable to online retail prices considering the $60 MSRP listed on the KS page.

The price for a deluxe version, with upgraded worker discs (wooden discs with stickers) and coins (metal coins instead of cardboard) is $57.

And as a kicker, for just $2 over the deluxe version price ($59 total), you can get a brand new small box TMG game ($20 MSRP) as well! This extra game, Bottlecap Vikings, is a Rondel game by my friend / TMG developer Andy Van Zandt (Grave Business, Zero Day). Bottlecap Vikings packs a lot of game into a small package (on the order of Harbour) and it has a variable rondel who's action order will be different from game to game. It's a solid game for the $20 price point, but for $2 it's a no-brainer.

Maybe a better way to look at it is this: If you're interested in Orleans enough that you want to get it for sure, then you're in for $45 already. For just $14 more you can get a $20 MSRP TMG small box game, and your Orleans copy will come upgraded to the deluxe version :)

If this interests you, then check it out, and if you want the deluxe version then be sure to pledge for a copy - the upgrade won't be reprinted after the first run.

Oh, did I mention we've hot a couple of stretch goals already? Which means not only will there be metal coins and wooden discs and stickers for the workers, but also now wooden wheels for the Technology tokens, and wooden meeples for the Citizen tokens! I don't think it's a stretch to say we will probably hit the next goal and be able to add 4 custom player pawns to the game as well, in lieu of the generic ones in the base game.

A new stretch goal was just announced, but it's going to be expensive... 90 custom wooden resources to use in place of the cardboard chits!

Crusaders - end game triggers

Ok, after some thought and soliciting opinions on Twitter, here's how I might try an alternate game end trigger for Crusaders:

Instead of emptying the supply of VP (and taking vp for every single action in the game), I might try ending the game if any of the following occurs:
* Any player builds their 16th building
* 10 of any 1 Enemy are defeated, or at least 5 of each enemy are defeated
* Influence pool is depleted (smaller pool, maybe 20vp per player).

WHY would I want to change the game end trigger? Well, there are at least two reasons:

1. It's anti-climactic to be playing and having fun and then someone says "oh look, I took the last vp. I guess the game's over now." Sure, you can see the VP pile dwindling, but in my experience many players don't notice, or don't get a feeling of pressure that the game will end from that.

2. It's fiddly to have to take some VP tokens every single turn, and it could be easy to forget. All of the Troop and Building tile have their VPs printed on them, so it's easy to add those up at the end. The only thing I need vp tokens for is the Influence action, and Crusades. Crusades could have discrete scoring chits on the strength track (with 3/4/5... vp printed on them), obviating the need to take the right number of VP from the supply - that's almost as much work, but it's a little more elegant in that you don't have to worry about how many your taking. That leaves just VP from Influence.

The you would just add up all your VP from buildings (printed on board) Crusades, Influence tokens, and any bonuses at the end of the game.

So... is that better?

Killing your darlings... Crusaders end game scoring, revisited (also potential expansion content)

A couple of days ago I posted an idea I had to simplify the end game scoring for Crusaders: Thy Will Be Done.

Basically, I had this convoluted end game scoring phase, that was based on a relatively simple concept, but was very time consuming, confusing,and cumbersome. It was the Wave of Destruction scoring, which I liked thematically (and even mechanically) - but in the interest of player understanding and ease of play I wanted to simplify it or replace it with something else.

First i tried simplifying, removing a range and thereby reducing the amount of work, but only by a tiny bit. Then I tried replacing it with something else - a majority bonus for Land Value of each type of building. That did simplify it, a bit. It was tough because I didn't re-print my prototype map, so players couldn't simply add up their own Land Value, but I was able to try it a few times with me adding things up...

I GUESS it was simpler overall, but it wasn't great. It was still fiddly and cumbersome, and it was no longer as strong thematically. I just wanted something to hang my hat on when a player has to decide which building they want to build, and where they want to build it. In the end though, maybe that's not really as big a concern as it used to be. Since the game's (and this mechanic's) inception, I have added the end game bonuses for the level IV buildings - maybe that will suffice as end game bonus for buildings.

With the game as it currently stands, I think maybe the buildings do a good enough job of supporting different strategies, so maybe it doesn't matter which ones are built where, specifically - players will have buildings they want to build for their benefit, or to build toward that level IV end game bonus.

So maybe the correct decision is to eliminate the endgame scoring for buildings altogether - just lop off the Wave of Destruction wholesale. THAT would certainly simplify it! I tried it in a game tonight, and compared it to both the original Wave of destruction scoring, as well as the newer Land Value scoring, and it turns out the finish order was exactly the same in all 3 cases. Both the Wave and Land Value cases ended up with a much larger spread between 1st and 3rd, while not counting any bonuses resulted in a much closer game (14 points vs about 60).

I think I like just leaving off the end game scoring. As a result I may have to revisit a few other things...

* The majority bonus for Slavs and Prussians are potentially too high at 9 (4 for 2nd in a 4p game). but maybe not.
* Should there be a majority bonus for Saracens now that Buildings don't confer endgame bonus? I don't think it's really necessary - the end game bonus for the other 2 is to differentiate them from each other.
* Maybe I should add a few points, or points for specific buildings, built at the edges of the board, to maintain a desire to fight your way out there. Either that or maybe there should be fewer spaces on the board, so you MUST fight in order to clear spaces to build
* Without the end game bonus calculation, maybe I should try harder to figure out a different game end trigger, then instead of awarding Influence as each building is built and each Crusade is fought, I can just add all that up at the end. Most 3p games had been going about 27 rounds, with a few more like 23. Maybe a turn timer that just lasts 25 rounds is in order (like each round is a Month and the turn track is a calendar). I'd prefer if the game end were a little bit variable and relied on player action, but maybe a strict 25 rounds would work.

In other news, I was thinking about what could possibly be in an expansion for this game (down the road, if appropriate). The obvious answer was more Factions, though I've just about run out of things to try for that.

I also thought of a few new Building type that players could have...
* Monastery I: No effect
* Monastery II: +1 Action Cube (add an action cube to your Rondel (in the active Build bin))
* Monastery III: +1 Action Cube (add an action cube to your Rondel (in the active Build bin))
* Monastery IV: +1vp for each Action Bin with 2+ cubes at game end.
This would require 4 building tiles and 2 cubes for each player.

* Keep I: Upgrade one Action bin
* Keep II: Upgrade one Action bin
* Keep III: Upgrade one Action bin
* Keep IV: +1vp for each upgraded Action Bin at game end
This would require 4 building tiles for each player.

* Marketplace I: Remove any level I building from your player board
* Marketplace I: Remove any level I - II building from your player board
* Marketplace I: Remove any level I - III building from your player board
* Marketplace I: Remove any level I - IV building from your player board
This would require 4 building tiles for each player. It would function as sort of like a wild. The Marketplace tiles would be worth 0vp, but you would get the points and the ability of the tile you remove. I think you could remove a building tile even if you haven't built the lower level buildings of that type... for example, say you build your first 2 Marketplaces and remove a Bank and a Farm, and you've built no Castles. When building your third Maketplace, you could remove your level 3 Castle, gaining +1 Knight and +1 Crusade.

I thought it might be interesting if you could only build these buildings on top of existing Churches/Castles/Banks belonging to an opponent (it would be too easy if you could build a Keep on top of your own Castle). That way, when building a Church, Castle, or Bank you open up a spot for an opponent to build a Monastery, Keep, or Marketplace.

I could use 1 more idea for a building to go on top of opponents' Farms (or whatever). So far all I've got is maybe this one:
* Name? I: You may leave unused cubes in their original Action bin
* Name? II:  You may distribute counterclockwise
* Name? III: When distributing, you may skip an Action bin 1x/tun
* Name? IV: When distributing, you may drop 2 cubes into the same Action bin 1x/tun  
This would require 4 building tiles for each player. I'm not sure if this is so good, but it's the only effect I could think of offhand. Perhaps level IV should have some scoring thing instead (2 points per Knight? 2 points + 1 per Knight?)

I also started to think about whether the game could support a 5th player... I think the board might need to be bigger, but maybe I ought to try it just to see.

Crusaders - better end game scoring?

One of the niggling things that I would like to clean up in Crusaders is the end game scoring. Currently it does what I want it to do, and I think it's interesting and good, but it's definitely cumbersome and I'm sure people will get confused by it.

So far, every alternative suggested by players or thought of by myself to make it simpler has also had the effect of removing some of the interesting bits about the system that I liked... until now?

Yesterday I thought of an alternative that might maintain some of the interesting bits I like about the scoring, but make counting up points a whole lot easier to do and understand:

For each building type (and knights), award a majority bonus like I do for the Slav and Prussian enemy tokens. For symmetry, I might as well start with 9vp for 1st majority, 4vp for 2nd (4vp if tied for 1st - no 2nd in that case, 2vp if tied for 2nd).

To compare that to the current system, consider a player who builds all 4 of their Churches, each one at a different range. With the old rule, that player will get 6 bonus points just from their own Churches, and likely a few more for other players' Churches as well. Under the new rule, a player building all 4 Churches will likely win this new bonus for Churches, scoring 9 points. 9 points doesn't seem too different from the 6+some points they'd be getting now.

For this to work correctly though, I think the hexes need to be labeled differently. I'm going to assign the term Land Value for this - the Land Value (number printed in the hex) should probably range from 2 to 4 rather than from 1 to 5, otherwise building 1 Church at the ends of the board (range 5) would overpower several churches built elsewhere. I'd prefer if 1 church on the edge of the board were more on par with 2 Churches built near Paris.

So my plan is to change the "ranges" as follows:
Paris and Ranges 1 and 2 = Land Value 2
Ranges 3 and 4 = Land Value 3
Range 5 = Land Value 4

I might consider keeping Paris and the 4 starting locations as Land Value 1, but I'm not sure if that would create too much disincentive to build there. With the discount I think the obvious first turn is probably still to build something.

Another thought would be to do 3/4/5 rather than 2/3/4 - to devalue the single late game building a little more. Leave a comment below if you have a feeling one way or another about any of these values.

4P: Gil Hova's response to National Game Design Month (NaGaDeMon)

I suspect many people have heard of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) - a sort of challenge to get writers writing, with the goal of getting 5000 words written in the month of November. It's a pretty cool idea, and though I'm not a writer, I know a couple of people who seem to have benefitted from that challenge.

Since I'm a member of another creative community, it did not surprise me to see people making a similar challenge for game design with NaGaDeMon (National Game Design Month), which incidentally has a very apt abbreviation, as a Naga Demon is a snake-beast from fantasy role playing games :)

The stated purpose of NaGaDeMon is:

Create a game in November. It can be a boardgame, cardgame, RPG, Choose Your Own Adventure, video game, wargame or anything else you like!  

Play your game in November. By yourself, with a friend, in the attic, on the 'net, out on the street - it doesn't matter where, or with who, just play!

There are people who are interested in games and might like design, and NaGaDeMon is a pretty neat challenge to encourage those people to get their feet wet. I happen to do this all the time, so it's not very pressing for me to dedicate any particular month to it.

My friend Gil Hova had an issue with the whole idea though. In this post on his blog, Gil describes how the idea of focusing on components and rules and only playing a game once is not the correct focus. He says that ideas are a dime a dozen, and the real work of game design is in the iteration from playtest to playtest, honing a game from that initial draft to a final, full fledged game.

I agree with him 100%, and I recommend all amateur game designers check out his post about 4P, where Gil issues a different challenge - playtest the same game 4 times in the month of January, incorporating feedback between each playtest.

As I mentioned, I do this sort of thing all the time, but every designer could probably use more playtesting! As it happens, I have a brand new design that I have started working on. So when Gil started posting about his 2nd annual 4P challenge again, I figured I might as well participate.

I got started about a week early for the official 4P challenge, but so far I've had 3 full playtests of The Pony Express, making changes each time. So far I think the progress has been good. At this point the next major change I need to make is to redesign the board, which I think will fix several issues I see in the game.

I guess that gives me 4 more weeks to design a new board and test again!

Pony Express - full playtests #2 & #3

Pony Express - full playtest #2
After full playtest #1 (12/28), Dan, Steve, Dawn, and I played a full 4 player game on 12/29. I'd incorporated some of the stuff we talked about after the previous day's game...

* Labeled 10 items and the 8 "terrain" type hazard tiles (4 river crossings and 4 winding trails) with a roman numeral 1 n the back, indicating that they are to be used first. At the beginning of the game I put one "I" item in each town, then 1 random item in each town as well, thus insuring that no town would have 2 Saloons, and that no Saloons would come out later, and ensuring items like Compass and Peacemaker are on the board in round 1.

* I took the maps out of the auction deck and said that at the beginning of the first Delivery phase of the game, after seeing the hazards, each player gets to choose one of the 5 maps. Players get to keep this map, and it does not count as an item (if discarded for a winding trail, it's out of the game). Unclaimed maps are discarded.

* Only 1 copy of any given item.

* Tumbleweeds return to the bag. I kinda liked Steve's suggestion that the Tumbleweeds remove a hazard from play, but at the same time, that doesn't necessarily work with how I've got the hazards set up. So instead, I kept the Tumbleweeds as null-hazards, but decided to return them to the bag and institute a limit of 2 hazards per route. If nothing else, this works logistically because there are 14 routes on the prototype board, and 3 hazards per route would be a lot of tiles on the board!

* Tiebreaks are by turn order when multiple players speak up simultaneously.

The game went alright, with the biggest irritation being that the hazards seemed to cost a bit much, and some of the items were out of whack. For example, the Compass is just ridiculous - FAR more valuable than other items. And the new delivery (+$5) was most often not worth taking... there's a chance it'll be a free $5, but more likely the random draw will cost you money. Spurs were just useless altogether.

After that game, I made a few more adjustments:
* Reduced river crossings, winding trails, to +$1 and bandits to +$2
* Increased new parcel reward to $8
* Added a cost of +$5 to the compass, so that (a) it costs you to pick it up, and (b) you give up a lot of time the turn you pick it up - you won't get a turn for a while, and you are likely not going to be the first player back to the post office.
* Changed spurs to "-$1 if 0-1 hazards" so that they're pretty good at first, but become less and less useful each round as more hazards come out.
* Swapped around which items start on the board a little bit, as well as which hazards come out in round 1. I made it the 8 terrain hazards, 2 rattlesnakes, and 4 tumbleweeds, guaranteeing no bears or bandits would appear in round 1, giving players a chance to get items to help.
* Reduced the Parcel deck to 2 cards per town (20 cards total) - enough for 5 players, and  they can simply be reshuffled each round. Fewer components, and fewer instances of multiple cards from the same town coming up.
* Dealt out 2N+1 cards for the auction rather than just 2N, so that the last player has a choice on their 2nd turn (the un-auctioned parcel is discarded). <- better.="" br="" i="" like="" much="" this="">

Pony Express - full playtest #3
Yesterday at Tucson Games and Gadgets, Mark, Chris, Andy, and I played another full 4p game of Pony Express, implementing the tweaks listed above

This went fairly well, though it may have highlighted some fragility in the game. The scores reflected that, at 60ish - 40ish - 30ish - 20ish.

Mark had a GREAT first round, making about $15, while Andy, Chris, and I made about $7 each. However, Andy and I had a lot of items going into round 2, Mark had some, and Chris had almost nothing.

In round 2 I made a killing, delivering 6 or 7 of the parcels (and getting decent money for each). Mark had a very rough 2nd round because he got sniped at the auction twice (maybe he should have been a little less greedy?

I don't recall the last round too well, except that Chris had it rough. Chris basically didn't get anything in the way of items in the first round (and in fact he discarded his Map card to save $1 from a LOST! tile), so come round 2 he didn't have much in the way of discounts, while everyone else did. Then he basically complained that he had to pay too much for his routes Also, he seemed to not quite grasp the crux of the auction mechanism, saying something about how when it got to his choice, there weren't any parcels he wanted to deliver (so far nobody has EVER been stuck with the parcel they chose to auction off, so it's highly unlikely you'll be delivering the parcel you choose as auctioneer). He had a pretty lousy game, and clearly a lousy time.

This reminds me of a dynamic I had in an early version of Terra Prime, when "bad play" of exploring yellow space without being prepared - despite all the warnings the game gives against doing that - is something a player decided to do. Of course they got blown up, and had to limp home to repair. That was a miserable experience, and as much as I wanted to just say "well, don't do that!" I realized I had to actually make that kind of thing a little less bad, so a player who DOES do that (however ill advised) doesn't have as miserable a game experience.

Similarly, I wonder if there's anything I can do here to help keep players from having a really bad experience, even if they play poorly. I'd like them to still have fun.

Some of this may rectify itself when I implement the new board layout I've been wanting to try ever since Dan mentioned 2 bases, one in Missouri and one in Sacramento. Not only is that more thematically accurate, but it would force all players to travel across the board, therefore making more parcels more interesting to more players. That'll be the next big change I make, but I'm not exactly sure on the layout I want, and whether I want to add more towns, or if 10 is enough. I've been liking 10 towns so far.

Until then, I've made the following tweaks...
* Guides back up to 1. I don't like things costing zero.
* Changed a Spur out for another new parcel delivery. I think that's a fun one, though with the new board it may be bad if the new destination is BEHIND you. Steve wanted that to be "draw 3, pick one," but if it's too easy to ensure you get something en route, then it's just free money (like the Tip). Also, I worry that the new version of Spurs ("-1 if 0-1 hazard") is now one of the stronger items.
* Changed the Compass to "-2 on LOST!" Even with a $5 cost I feel the Compass was just too good, and I don't like having a cost on just 1 item. I decided to change it up. I like the sound of the new version.

I thought about upping the base route cost of each route by 1, so they're all 2 or 3 instead of 1 or 2. This would be so the items have more of an effect (especially maps). However, I'm afraid the costs will get too high for the auction, and I would prefer to keep the auction at a nice $10 total (though truth be told, that could change without too much of a problem). I'll have to recalculate that when making a new map layout anyway.

Pony Express - full playtest #1

John, Steve, and I played a full 3p game of The Pony Express, and I'm happy to say that the game did work!

A few items that I want to change and other thoughts I had while playing:

* All routes need to cost a minimum of 1... irrespective of discounts. I think that's fine, I can just say that you can discount the route to a minimum of 1. No big deal there. Of course, the Guide could theoretically still reduce a route to 0, but that also means you necessarily get 2 turns in a row... I could just as easily have the Guide reduce the cost to 1 instead of 0, and that would be fine.

* I should clarify "dropping" items vs "discarding" them. When something is "discarded" it is removed from the board, and effectively the game. When a player has too many items, they need to "drop" one, which means put it into their current town.

* I currently have 5 Maps in the Auction deck. Each of these maps gives you -1 to each of 2 cities. I like them, but as soon as someone got 1 it occurred to me that I had to determine whether it counts against their item limit. I said it did. That seemed fine. Ok, so suppose you drop 1 to make space for something else... does the map card go into the town to be picked up later? Or is that weird because it's physically a card?

I could make 5 tiles that match those maps, and when you claim that map card then you grab that particular tile, but that's 2 components to do the job of 1.

I could say that THOSE maps are different, and when you drop them, they are discarded, but then they act differently than other maps. is that OK? You already get them in a different way than other maps.

And finally, I could say that the map cards do not count against your item limit... again, acting different than other maps. is that OK? you get them differently, and they LOOK different, so maybe that's acceptable.

One other thing that happened - a player was at item capacity, and claimed a map card in the auction phase.So what happens? I had him drop an item in the Post office space, and allowed the next player to pick it up on the way out, which is all kinds of weird and unintuitive.

Not sure which way I'll go on that one yet.

* I am strongly considering adding a rule that you can only have 1 copy of any given item. Steve had 2 Compasses, so he got -2 to each route. Thematically it doesn't make much sense that a 2nd compass would help you any... or a 2nd map to the same town for that matter. Perhaps the map could be excused, but I think overall I should limit players to 1 item of each title.

* Currently, Tumbleweeds are simply non-hazards. Steve had a suggestion that instead, when drawing a Tumbleweed for a route, it could mean you discard the Hazards on that route. Where there used to be something, now there's nothing but a tumbleweed.

If I try that, then I'd reduce the number of tumbleweeds WAY down (currently they're the most common tile). Instead of 9 of them, I might want 2. Though thematically, it's weird that a winding trail or a river crossing disappears. Then again, it's a little weird that a river crossing appears out of nowhere anyway.

* John suggested that I stage the hazards and items, or at the very least, identify some of them to come out in setup to make sure they are at last in play. For example, I could make sure at least 1 Peacemaker is in play in the first round, so that a player could go for it in order to deal with Bandits.

In that case I suppose I could make all the winding trails and river crossings show up at the beginning (you just didn't know about them at first), which might be more thematic.

* I have been worrying about how to do tiebreaks if multiple players claim at the same time in the auction. I think the way to go is to say that turn order is the tiebreak, but that only applies if you actually speak up at the same time. If you're player 1 and I'm player 2, and I speak up before you do, then you can't say "oh, wait, I'll take it for that amount" - but if we both speak up at the same time, then your turn order means you win the tie.

Overall I think it was pretty good. I will make some of these tweaks before trying it again, but I think it's definitely got potential. I still think I'll look into Dan's idea to make a board with 2 Post Offices, one in Missouri and the other in Sacramento or something like that.

Pony Express - rules post

After fiddling with the physical prototype components and showing the game off to my friend Dan Keltner (co-designer of Isle of Trains and Bomb Squad), I decided that (a) I absolutely needed a larger board... probably more towns, but definitely bigger dimensions, and (b) my silly turn order idea wasn't likely to work out exactly right. So I made some changes to the plan, and printed a much larger board to try. Here are the rules I wrote down for the first version of The Pony Express that I'll actually play:

The Pony Express

A game of adventure in the old frontier for 2-5 Riders
by Seth Jaffee … v1.1 12/27/14

Components

• 5 Rider figures (1 per player)
• 5 Travel markers (1 per player)
• 1 Game board with Travel and Turn Order tracks
• 60 Money tokens (15@5vp, 45@1vp)
• 45 Auction cards
• ...40 Parcels (4 per Town)
• ...5 Map cards (-1 to each of 2 towns)
• 36 Hazard tiles
• ...9 Tumbleweeds (+0)
• ...9 Rattlesnakes (+1 unless you have Torch)
• ...5 Bears (+2, killed by Shotgun)
• ...5 Bandits (+3 unless you have Peacemaker, killed by Shotgun)
• ...4 Lost! (+2 or discard a map)
• ...4 River Crossing (+2)

• 44 Item tiles
• ...10 Maps (-2 to a particular town)
• ...4 Guides (discard to pay for a route)
• ...4 Tips (Collect $3)
• ...4 Parcels (Draw a Parcel card and collect $5)
• ...4 Shotgun (Discard to kill Bear or Bandits)
• ...3 Torch (Ignore Rattlesnakes)
• ...3 Spurs (-1 if no Hazard)
• ...3 Saddlebag (Hold +2 Items)
• ...3 Saloon (Must take, discard immediately)
• ...2 Peacemaker (Ignore Bandits)
• ...2 Compass (-1 per route)
• ...2 Canteen (-2 on 2-cost routes)
  

Setup

• Each player receives the following in their player color:
• ...1 Rider figure (place at Post Office)
• ...1 Travel marker (place near Travel track)
• Place the board in the center of the play area.
• Shuffle the Auction cards.
• Shuffle the Item tiles face down beside the board and place 2 of them in each Town.
• Shuffle the Hazard tiles face down beside the board.
• In random order, each player places their Rider onto the Turn Order track.
• Place the Money tokens in a supply pile.
• You are ready to begin!

Game Play

A game of The Pony Express will play out over the course of three “weeks” – each week players will first claim parcels to deliver in an Auction phase, then race to deliver them and return to the Post Office in the Delivery phase. 

Auction phase

1. Deal each player 1 Auction card from the deck. This will be a Parcel you must deliver, or it will be a Map card which will help you ride more efficiently in the Delivery phase.
2. Turn 2 Auction cards face up for each player in the game. In turn order, according to the Turn Order track, players will take turns being the Auctioneer.
3. The Auctioneer chooses one of the face up Auction cards and collects $10.
4. The Auctioneer will then start counting slowly upwards from $3 (“$3… $4… $5… $6…”) until they get to $10, or until another player claims the card.
5. If another player claims the card, give them the card, as well as the money according to the last amount you announced. You keep the rest. Example: Dan chooses a Parcel bound for Town #3 and collects $10. After counting to $6, Seth says “I’ll take it for $6!” Dan gives Seth the Parcel as well as $6 of the $10, he keeps the rest.
6. If nobody claims the card before you get to $10, then you keep the card – you are responsible for delivering it.
7. The next player in turn order becomes the Auctioneer, and another card is selected.

Once all of the cards have been claimed by players, the Auction phase is over – it’s time to ride!

Delivery phase

At the beginning of the delivery phase, 1 Hazard tile is drawn from the supply and placed on each Route. Then players take turns riding from town to town to deliver parcels and collect items.

The 1^st player on the Turn Order track will go first, moving their Rider figure to an adjacent town. Record the cost of that move by placing that player’s Travel marker on the corresponding space of the Travel track. The Travel track will keep track of who’s turn it is, as well as how much money each player will need to pay at the end of the Delivery phase.

Whoever has spent the least money so far will go next. While your rider is still at the Post Office, you have paid no money, so turn order is based on the Turn Order Track. When your Travel marker lands in the same space as another Travel marker, place yours on top of any already in that space. Any time two or more players have paid the same amount of money (i.e. their markers are on the same space of the Travel track), the marker on top (most recently arrived in that space) will play next.

When arriving at a town, if you have a Parcel bound for that town, you may discard it – you have made your delivery. In addition, you may claim 1 Item tile from that town. A rider may only hold 2 items, so if you have 3, then you must drop one in your current location.

Each player is required to deliver all Parcels in their hand before returning to the Post Office. When you return to the Post Office, place your Rider figure in the earliest available space in the Turn Order track. The earlier you return to the Post Office, the better your turn order will be for next round!

End Game
After 3 rounds of Auction and Delivery, the game is over. The player with the most money is the winner.

Pony Express - a little more detail

I have put a little more thought into the recent ideas I had for a game about the Pony Express. Here's how the skeleton is shaping up...

I will need a game board, so because that's generally my weak suite I once again I went to Twitter to crowd source one. John Lonnie came through again with a nice image that will serve well as a basis for a game board. I had asked for something with 10 towns plus the post office, and he sent me this awesome looking map:

I've sketched out some trails between the towns, and I'm starting to think I might need more towns in the game. But that remains to be seen - for now I'm going to stick with 10.

Each trail will have a "cost" associated with it - what you pay to traverse that trail. The game will be about making deliveries for money, and the rider who profits the most will win the game.

Setup:
Set out the game board and draw 2 Item tiles per town. These items will be available to pick up during the game, and they will give you benefits such as discounts on routes.

Auction phase:
Each player will be dealt 1 Parcel card, and then 2 more parcel cards per player will be laid out face up to be auctioned off. The player with the least money (recorded on a Money track around the board) will be the Auctioneer, and will choose 1 Parcel card to auction off. The Auctioneer will also be given $10.

Starting at the minimum bid ($3 or $4), the Auctioneer will count up ("$3... $4... $5... $6...) until another player speaks up and claims the delivery ("I'll take it for $6!") The Auctioneer will give that player the Parcel card, as well as $6 (out of the $10 they received). The Auctioneer gets to keep the rest. If nobody claims the Parcel by the time the Auctioneer gets to $10, then the Auctioneer must keep the Parcel - they are now responsible to deliver it, but they also get to keep the $10 they received. Again, the player with the least money becomes the Auctioneer, and this process is repeated until all Parcel cards have been auctioned off.

Delivery Phase:
After all of the Parcels have been claimed by riders, we move to the delivery phase. Before any deliveries are made, a Hazard tile is drawn and placed on each trail. Hazards are things that make the trails more "dangerous" - and therefore more expensive to take. Some hazards will be negated by certain items.

In this phase of the game, the player with the MOST money will be on turn. On your turn in the delivery phase, you move your rider from one town to the next, paying the cost of the trail in between, as well as any penalties from hazards or bonuses from items. When arriving at a town, you make your delivery (if you have a Parcel for that town), and you may take 1 of the Item tokens at that town. Or maybe you must either do one or the other - I'm not sure about that yet.

I'm thinking a rider should have a maximum number of items they can carry, so if they get too many, they'll have to discard down, or leave an item at a town perhaps. Then there can be an item (saddlebags) that increases the number of items they can hold.

Once all riders have returned to the Post Office, having delivered all of their Parcels, then the next round begins. I'm thinking 3 rounds, 10 towns, therefore I'll need:

* 40 Item tokens, start with 2 /town, add 1 each round per town

* 40 parcel cards, deal 1 each round, auction 2N each round (5 ea per close towns, 3 ea per far town, 4 ea per middle town...or just 4 per town)

* 1 hazard per route added after auction= 3xRoute# total

 

I've composed a list of Hazards and Items as well...

Hazards:

River Crossing (+$X, no counter)

Tumbeweed (no hazard)

Bandits (+$X, negated by Pistol and Shotgun)

Snake (+X (small number), negated by Torch) More of these then larger hazards in the deck

Bear (+$X, negated by Shotgun)

 

Items:

Saddlebags: hold extra items

Compass: -$1 per route

Map to [town X] (1 per town): -$2 to that town

Guide: 1 time use - pay entire route cost of 1 route (including hazard)

(or maybe NOT including hazard)

Pistol: Negate Bandits

Torch: negate Snake, maybe -$1 per "dark" path (label some paths as "dark")

Shotgun: 1 time use, negate Bear or Bandit

Canteen: -$X for all routes over $Y cost

Spurs: -$X if no hazard tile

Buxom Lass: Must take this item. Discard immediately.

Package to [town] (1 per town), +$5

Tip: +$3

The game will be over after maybe 3 rounds, and the player with the most money remaining will be the winner!

Crusaders - Keep on Crusadin' (also a Steam Works test)

Yesterday I had a GREAT playtest day!

5 people came over, plus myself and my roommate, and played a total of 5 games of Crusaders and 1 game of Steam Works. I'm happy to report that all of those games went exceptionally well!

Steam Works

Dave, Russell, Sean, and I played a 4p game of Steam Works, and we used the B sides of the character cards. Well, 4 of them anyway. Dave and Russell looked at the others as well and marveled at how each one was probably crazy good. They did mention that it's probably good if they're all "too good" rather than "too bad" because people will enjoy playing them more. Now to see if they're balanced!

The game went well. The scores were pretty close, with Sean (having never played before) scoring the lowest, Russell scoring next lowest, failing to accomplish what he was trying to accomplish, and Dave beating me by 9 points, while in the last round I accidentally handed him about 5 points by making a dumb play. So all in all that was pretty close, and it seemed like the characters we used were pretty fair.

I need to play some more to get more experience with all of the B characters and make sure they're well balanced! Luckily it looks like designer Alex Churchill has done a good job so far with their balance and with testing them.

Crusaders: Thy Will Be Done

Lately my main focus has been on Crusaders. Since October it has progressed very well and very rapidly to the point where I'm starting to think it might be about done!

I've been keeping some records, and the game is pretty consistently lasting about 45 minutes (3p) to an hour or so (4p). There appears to be, pretty consistently, about 27 rounds of play. One game was only 23, either because people were Influencing more heavily, or because Mandy missed marking the round a few times - probably a little bit of both ;) This is good information, and will help me determine some tweaks if I decide the game is too long, though player feedback has been that the game is a good length, both on the clock, and in terms of how much stuff you get done.

I can't say it enough, the games have been going VERY well. I've been trying to watch the power level of the Faction cards so I can tweak them. Here's what I'm currently thinking about each:

The Knights Templar
Once per turn when distributing action cubes, you may drop 2 cubes into the same bin.
This has been touted as "very strong" by several testers, and if you think about it, it does allow you to refill an empty bin in 1/2 the time. I do think this is the strongest ability, but I would like to see it exist.

I tried it with a drawback: you can only double drop if you had unused cubes ("You may use -1 cube for your action. If you do, when distributing action cubes you may drop 2 cubes into the same bin.") But I didn't like that, because it just meant I didn't use it most of the time. It certainly worked as a nerf, but I might prefer a different one...

My next thought is to allow the Knights Templar to use the ability every turn if they want, but make them sacrifice an entire Action cube (or 2!) for the game. I.e. "Begin the game with 11 (10?) Action cubes. When distributing action cubes you may drop 2 cubes into the same bin.)

The Knights Hospitaller
Once per turn when distributing action cubes, you may skip an Action bin.
This has been a universally popular ability. I don't think it's too strong, in fact I think it's about right.

For now I'll leave this one alone.

The Knights Teutonic
You may distribute action cubes clockwise or counter-clockwise. 
This has been used many times by any player that has it, but in the end the players often feel like it's not as strong as the Knights Hospitaller. I'm not so sure, I think it's probably on par.

For now I'll leave this one alone.

The Order of Santiago
When distributing action cubes, you may leave any number of unused cubes in their original bin.
This power sounded strong to me, but I haven't seen it used well. I'm not sure if it's just very subtle, or if it's really not that useful. But I do like the existence of the ability, so I might try buffing this Faction by either giving it another Action cube or a Rondel upgrade.

The Knights of St Lazarus
Begin the game with X Rondel upgrades.

I started with X=1, and that seemed very weak. I tried X=6 (your whole Rondel upgraded), and that seemed very strong. Yesterday I tried X=3, and that seemed OK. I might like to try X=2, though I'm pretty sure either 2 or 3 is correct.

The Knights of the Holy Sepulchre
Begin the game with X additional Action cubes.

I started out with X=1, and I wouldn't say it seemed weak, but I worried players would feel like they didn't really have an ability. I've been using X=2 now, and I think that might be the way to go.

For now I'll leave this one alone.

I might like to try another couple of Factions:
* Begin the game with 1 additional Action cube and 1 Rondel upgrade.
* Begin the game with only 6 Action cubes (1 in each bin). +1 Crusade/+1 Build/+1 Travel/+1 Muster/+1 Influence.
* Santiago power above + Extra Cube (assuming Santiago gets a Rondel upgrade)

The last thing I might want to tweak is the fiddliness of the scoring - especially the wave of Destruction at the end.

One thought is to just get rid of the Wave, but I think it serves a purpose. I don't really know how to make it more clear or better though. I am considering changing the board a bit, making the 5's on the right side of the board into 4's, and the 6's into 5's, thereby making fewer rounds of destruction, maybe simplifying the endgame bonus a little bit, and also reducing it (I think the buildings are worth a little too much).

There have been some player requests to remove the necessity to take Influence tokens every turn, but the ideas to replace it aren't really any less fiddly, so I might stick with what I've got there.

And finally, I'm not super thrilled with the game end. The game is good, and fun, but then it's like "oh, by the way the game is over." I would love a more exciting game end. Though some players have said that the dwindling pile of VP tokens gave them a feeling of pressure to get things done.

In any case, I'm stoked to play this one again! I have sent out PnP files to a couple of friends who may construct a copy over the holiday season. I'm dying to hear what they think of it!

Crusaders - playtest 12/13/14

I sent my prototype of The Knights Templar home with members of The League of Game Makers - a design group out of southern California, and I heard tell that they may have played it today... I eagerly await their feedback!

In the meantime, I had a couple of friends over today and played two 4p games back to back, with all the latest tweaks, including a brand new Enemy track indicating the strength of each enemy... one Enemy grows in strength (though I flattened the curve at the high end), another is a standard 6 strength all game long, and the third starts out very strong and gets weaker as people defeat them.

I'm not 100% convinced that the "discount of 1 for indicated buildings" is the BEST way to do it, but it seemed to work alright. As expected, each players first turn was "Build one of the 2 buildings I get a discount for" - which makes me wonder if I shouldn't just tell people to start by placing one of those buildings into play. But we did start by building 3 different buildings, and the tweaks led to a lot more early building.

In the first game, John and I both went or a heavy Build/Influence strategy, though I seemed to do a better job of it than he did. Dave went all-out Crusading. I ended up winning the game, beating Dave by about 20 points, but I'm pretty sure that with 3 potential Influence spaces (looking at all the upgradable spaces), the Level 3 Church ("+1 Influence per cube") might be a little too powerful: I got AT LEAST 15, maybe more like 20 points off of that building itself. If that were merely "+1 Influence" then it only would have been 4 or 5 points instead, making the scores very similar between the Build/Influence strategy and the Crusade/Build strategy.

In the second game I nerfed the Level 3 Church (down to "+1 Influence"), but it didn't matter much as nobody really pursued an Influence strategy anyway. In that game I made another adjustment, reducing the costs of the non-bank buildings to 3/4/5/6 rather than 3/5/7/9 (as I discussed in my last post). This way I hoped that a player could get to the high end of the Building tracks without being FORCED to build Banks. I went all out on Farms, mustering Troops, and Palaces, hoping to crusade a lot, but I stumbled a bit in the early game, and didn't really do as much crusading as I would have liked. Dave on the other hand managed to completely dominate the board, Crusading like crazy, building lots of buildings far from Paris. He managed 135 points while the rest of us had 80-90 points.

I'm starting to get some data on the faction abilities and their relative strengths:
* The Knights Templar (drop 2 cubes into 1 bin) seems to be very strong
* The Knights Hospitaller (skip a bin) seems very useful, though not too strong so far
* The Knights Teutonic (distribute either direction) seems good when using a bin with few tokens in it, but less useful when doing large actions - which I htink is probably fine.
* The Knights of St Lazarus (start with 1 upgrade) seems pretty weak, I might make that 2 upgrades or something.
* The Order of Santiago (may leave unused cubes behind) sounds like it could be very strong, but I haven't seen it in action enough to make a determination.
* The Knights of the Holy Sepulchre (start with 13 action tokens) FEELS weak/boring, but it's hard to quantify its power. I had this one in the 1st game, when I won.

The "discount" thing on the starting spaces kinda kills the obvious benefit of The Knights of the Holy Sepulchre, who could otherwise build on turn 1 when noone else could. I might combine that faction with Lazarus, allowing a player to stat with an extra cube AND an upgraded space, or I might let the Holy Sepulchre start with *2* extra cubes, and Lazarus start with *2* (or more?) upgraded spaces. For example, would it be broken to start with ALL of the action bins upgraded?

Things to try/keep trying:
* The Knights of St Lazarus: either "all bins upgraded" (or maybe "swap the order of 2 action bins, and upgrade 1 (2?) action bins, or something like that).
* The Knights of the Holy Sepulchre: Start with 2 extra Action cubes.
* Somehow weaken The Knights Templar maybe? Limit the ability somehow?
* Non-bank buildings cost 3/4/5/6
* Recalculate strength of all buildings (especially with new costs, above)
* Make the higher cost troops better (+2 Crusade, add vp)

Crusaders - great playtest 12/6/14

I had an excellent playtest of Crusaders (formerly The Knights Templar) on Saturday. 4 players (only John had played before, and that was an earlier version) all liked the game, one even said he'd buy it as-is if it were on Kickstarter right now.

One thing I liked seeing in that playtest was the emergence of a few different strategies. I mean, three of the player kind of ran to the right hand side of the board (range 6), but 1 didn't. The winner actually stayed closer to Paris and built a lot of buildings - all the way to level 4 Bank and level 4 Palace.

Nobody did much in the way of Influence as a strategy. Everyone once in a while would Influence for 4 or 5, or they did a small influence action and instead upgraded their rondel. No Churches were built. As a result, the game went on longer than I've seen, and more Crusading happened - each Enemy ended up at about 10 strength by the end of the game. That was kinda interesting, and it required players to invest in Troops, which means they started building Farms in the mid game as well.

Based on that playtest, I came home and made a few small tweaks:

* I upped the range on spaces in Britain and Africa (where you need to cross water to get there)
* I added building icons to starting spaces and Paris, offering a discount on those buildings, so players have a reason to choose one over another.

Both of these tweaks are an attempt to encourage players to build in the early spaces. I expect there's a good dichotomy between building early (near Paris) for benefits/powers and building late (far from Paris) for points. In my mind, players will build the buildings they want to use early, and then late they'll look at what's been built (possibly by other players) and they'll build that for points - or they'll stick to erecting the same building over and over, in order to milk that strategy as much as possible. However, I think players look at how he endgame scoring works, and they think "I need to build farther away from Paris!" If players refuse to build at Range 1, then Range 2 becomes the new Range 1... but I'm not sure if players are realizing that.

So maybe with a discount on certain buildings players will build on turn 1, and that will start to differentiate them (I put 2 icons in each starting space, with each building type represented twice in total). I don't know if that will be the final or best rule, but I do know that I need to do something to make Paris more interesting.

One thought I'd had before was to put 1-2 building icons on each space, and either indicate that that's the ONLY building that can be built there, or say that building gets built at a discount, or award extra VP for building that building in that location... I don't know if I need to be that draconian about it, but the idea is in the back of my mind. I'd prefer if players just built what they wanted to build to support their strategy.

Still to come
I have a few more tweaks still to make. I mentioned that I want Paris to be more interesting somehow, and I haven't figured out how to do that yet. In addition, I want to make the Enemies different from each other. I've got a few ideas about that...

* I could make 1 Enemy as I have them now, where they start weak and worth little, and as they get beat up, they become stronger and more valuable.
* I can make another of the Enemies a more static strength, such as 6, so that in the early game they are prohibitively strong, but in the later game they're not so bad. This would give the board a bit more topography, and it would help make players care where they move, rather than just moving onto any Enemy space.
* The third enemy could behave similar to the first one, but at a different rate? Or it could behave altogether differently, maybe starting strong, and then getting weaker and weaker as they get defeated... is that interesting?
* I have considered giving the Enemy token to the player who defeats it (this would be possible once I institute an Enemy track to keep track of their strength), and then awarding some kind of bonus for either sets of enemy types, or groups of similar enemies, or both.

If I institute some of those tweaks, I think there could really be a "build up your Troops" strategy (build Farms, muster Troops) which races to defeat the Enemy that starts out strong, while other players are beating the weaker Enemies, and then when the weak enemy becomes stronger, they will become a juicy target as well.

I definitely want to see various different strategies come to light - heavy Crusading, light Crusading and heavy Influence, Building, etc. I think the updated powers help in that respect, and I wonder if I don't need to make them even more powerful or interesting.

I do notice that with the building costs as they are, if you hope to build level 3 and 4 buildings of ANY type, you pretty much need to build a couple of Banks first. I'd prefer if that were not the case, so I'm considering reducing the cost of all NON-BANK buildings to 3/4/5/6 (instead of 3/5/7/9). This means that if you ignore Banks, the cost to build 4 Palaces (for example) is the same as the cost to build 4 Banks - in other words you could reasonably expect to build level 3 and 4 non-Bank buildings without having to invest in Banks. My big concern there is that if you DO build some banks, it might be way too easy to build level 4 Buildings of other types. Maybe that's OK?

I'm pretty happy with the reactions to this game so far, it's come a very long way in a very short time (since I finally made a board and tested it). I'm looking forward to feedback from the League of Game Makers.

Speaking of which, I gave them a copy of my prototype after BGGcon, but I've made some significant changes since then... will their feedback be helpful? YES! It will... basically, the main differences between the version they have and my current version are threefold:
* Variable and upgradable rondel
* Updated building powers
* Faction player powers

The version they have is basically what I would make the "standard" setup which players would use in their first game, before they start adding the complication of a randomized rondel.

The Faction powers are cool, but I'm not sure they're balanced, so it's very interesting to me to see feedback without using them.

The updated building powers are probably better, but in general the buildings do the same things they always did, so they support the same sorts of strategies.

I'll be sending them updated files in case they want to make new player boards and rondel pieces and try the updated game, but I'd like them to play the version they have first and see how that goes.