@Grendal:
ok Chris. Start post game analysis. I love this variant. It really spices up things. tweeks needed here and there, but overall it’s great.
Thanks Carl!
Would you and Matt be willing to run one more playtest on this thread? Maybe you could switch sides and start over? Let me know if so.
I’d like you to experience the wild variations from game to game, and also on my end I need to tighten up the ‘instructions’ to players in the ruleset. Eventually, the goal is to eliminate the ‘moderator’ role from this game, but we’re just not there yet. Some of what I thought would be obvious needed to be broken down in much simpler terms: even the basic yet crucial distinction between the game’s ‘turns’ and ‘rounds’ needs to be fully understood by players before they start.
So that’s something I can improve right off the bat.
Let me assure you that you’ve seen not even a quarter of the strangeness I’ve crammed into this variant. Some of it was meant for the board game, which I’ve had to scrap and / or replace to work better with the online interface. So, if I take a little time when a ‘6’ gets rolled, it’s because I’m trying to figure out the fairest and cleanest way to adapt the existing concepts.
I won’t spoil anything, because I’d like to keep some surprises for you both next game.
Let me evaluate the mechanics that have been revealed so far:
Zombie-World: Meh. I give this one a 6/10. Although it has potential, it’s fairly complex and doesn’t add much to the table in terms of raw fun. I need to modify it in some way, or drop it in the next iteration.
Spore-Bomb: We never saw this in action. My intuition tells me it would be an @$$-r@ping if employed properly. But who knows?
Ceasefire: 10/10. Simple, doesn’t unbalance the game or require a lot of book-keeping or memorization. Its power depends on the skill and judgement of the player using it. It’s purely defensive, so it prolongs the game instead of killing a player off, which means that no one would probably see this as unfair. I think it was used to good effect in the game we just completed.
Neutral Politicking: 8/10. It opens up new parts of the map for action, and yields a nice amount of surprise while keeping book-keeping to a bare minimum. Could be unbalancing, but only if the European neutrals are randomly rolled.
Chinese Aid: 5/10. Not a lot of fun, and didn’t affect the game at all. However, the game needs small effects as well as big effects, and when a small nation rolls a bonus for itself, you basically wouldn’t expect much more of it. I guess in other games it could be different. Eh. We’ll probably keep it for now, and see.
Storms: 7/10. This has a nice flavor. I’d originally planned for the storms to move around the board, but then I realized it’d be crazy to keep track of that every turn. It postpones certain attacks, freezes other units in places where they’d rather not be, and has other interesting effects. I wish there was a way to ‘mark’ the affected areas on the board, but I’m unable to edit in markers on this program. I think that once you’re used to this effect as players, you will begin to see clever ways to exploit the changes in the board the storms create.
Sabotage: 10/10. This was very easy to do with this interface, and very flavorful. Frustrating for the affected player, and a joy for his enemy. You really start to wish there was a way to kill those bloody spies on your home soil. I will make this effect PERMANENT in the next game, and also provide some counter-espionage to get that monkey off your back if you’re unlucky enough to roll it.
Strategic Masterstroke: 7/10. I think the basic idea is good, but I need to change it somehow so that it’s not an utter and complete BEATING for the other player. Maybe only give mechanized units the second attack? Maybe only give 3 territories the right to overrun, instead of the entire army? I dunno. Suggestions welcome. But it definitely has to be downgraded.
Finally, let me reflect on one general concern I have.
I worry about complexity creep in this variant. We had 8 Chaos Events pop up [out of a possible 54] over 49 turns. That’s pretty much exactly the number of developments you’d statistically expect in a game of this length. Nevertheless, the USA forgot their nation-specific boost from turn 1 by the time the game ended, and the zombie-generation business (and even eventually the chaos rolls themselves) was something which required frequent reminding and clarifying on all sides. The longer a game like this goes, the greater the possibility there is for players to get confused or burnt out under the strain of the extra rules. Thus, in the second edition of the rules, when I need to decide between concision and intrigue, concision will win in the majority of cases. Hopefully this will keep the game fun and quick-moving, while still preserving the ‘spice’ of playing out World War 2 in the m0therf@cking Twilight Zone.
Your thoughts on these matters, and your ratings of the mechanics above, would be highly valued.
Looking forward to the next installation of this epic battle!
Best,
Chris
Rolling 1d6:
