Josh and I played a non-standard scenario in Space Empires, with our regular systems set up in opposite corners and about 75 "deep space" systems in between, with "merchant ship pipeline" and "aliens" rules in play. I forgot that exploration cruisers can reveal and remove "Danger" markers, so I wasted some time in skating around them instead of giong through, and I also mistakenly counted on them to act as a bit of a defense for my own systems. Further, by the luck of the draw, Josh ended up with a few more accessible deep space planets on his side, and consequently more production; I got more warp points but they weren't really helpful. Despite this, I did pretty well.
Phase 1 was "explore and colonize"--for the first few turns I devoted my production to building colony ships, plus Exploration and Terraforming tech. I ended up with 11 planets plus Home.
Phase 2, once I'd mostly run out of available planets, was building Shipyards, Pipelines and Tech Developments. I ended up with 11 maxed Shipyards.
Phase 3 was building warships. I left that a little late and re-discovered that a pack of ten cruisers can still hurt 2-3 battleships; the pair of BBs just don't have enough shots per turn to whittle down the cruisers fast enough.
Around Turn 15, I realized that I was in trouble; so I launched a spoiling attack to try to occupy his attention, destroy a planet or two and even get past his ships and raid his interior. I didn't achieve as much as I'd hoped, but I did keep him busy on his side of the map rather than mine. I'm pretty sure I would have lost eventually, but I'd done enough damage that it would have been a fight, and he certainly wouldn't have been able to finish me off by Turn 20--which is an improvement over my previous attempts. An overall defeat, but a moral victory.
Wednesday, January 7, 2015
Thursday, December 25, 2014
Prussians at Jena
I gave Josh the Prussians expansion for Command & Colors: Napoleonic, and we played the Jena scenario for our first game. And he crushed me, 8 to 0. I moved a unit into a town on the French left and never really had the opportunity or the cards to protect it, and Josh slowly whittled it away. In the center, I wanted to prepare an assault on the town with an artillery bombardment, but didn't really do enough; I should have either spent more turns bombarding, or have thrown another regiment into the assault instead of using that order to fire the guns again. And on the right....sigh. I attacked his artillery battery with light horse, and of course he had, as always, a First Strike ready. My unit survived that and actually did a good attack on the guns, but not enough to kill it. And then his heavy horse and lancers polished off the survivors of the light horse, sauntered across the map to annihilate my horse artillery, and continued the attack to destroy my other unit of lights. I got three of his units down to one block each, but never managed to finish any of them off.
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
Space Empires
Josh and I had a straightforward two-player game of GMT's Space Empires, using the Merchant Pipeline optional rule. The game went twelve turns, and while Josh hadn't crushed my empire by that point, it was obvious that he was going to win: he had cut my supply lines, had almost double my production, and more than double my shipyard capacity.
Lessons learned and topics for further thought:
Lessons learned and topics for further thought:
- In going back over the economic sheets afterward, I found that he poured more of his early game production into colonies and terraforming, while I put more into tech (ship size) and supply pipeline.
- He thinks that colonies are a better early buy than pipeline factors; I think it depends on your planet layout, since you may be able to colonize your outer planets sooner by pushing colony ships along the pipelines, and it may help your miner shift faster as well.
- Josh said that I needed to establish a forward arsenal, with a set of shipyards and a base. I had been thinking that MSP meant I could keep my shipyards back at home and quickly transfer squadrons forward; however, a dinky little scout can cut your MSP and that can mess up your transfer plans.
- I need to work out whether the extra attacks from having more battlecruisers is better than the extra quality of battleships. Josh thinks it's Scounts, Cruisers, Battleships, and Dreadnoughts; he doesn't think Destroyers and Battlecruisers are efficient. (This is assuming the Basic Game).
One nice point is that I remembered the rules pretty well despite it having been several months since last I played--I had to look up Nebula effects but that's something you can do when you need it. The only thing that I needed to remember and didn't was the build capacity limits for shipyards It's really, really nice to have a game that doesn't require studying the rules again every time you break it out.
Looking forward to the next game.
Sunday, December 21, 2014
Close Action: Cape de Gata
Mark Campbell hosted a scenario from the upcoming "War of Jenkin's Ear and the Austrian Succession" book, a hypothetical action between Spanish and British at Cape de Gata on 16 December 1741. Twelve British ships in three squadrons, ranging from 50 to 80 guns and B to D quality, face fifteen Spanish ships--which include five really weak 50 gun vessels, but also the 108 gun Real Felipe--in two squadrons. of D and E quality. Two of the larger ships on each side are Poor Maneuvering. Both fleets start at Broad Reach (which is unusual) with the wind to port, with the British to windward and the lead ships of both sides about even with each other. I was the admiral for the British van, Stan Sunderwirth was the overall flag, and Albert Parker commanded our rear; Brian Hernandez was in charge of the Spanish van, subordinate to Jim Fleury.
The British commanders anticipated that the Spanish might immediately turn port and come upwind at us, which was the most threatening possibility; we also thought they might all wear, but that would leave them too far away to interfere with out maneuvering. We discussed turning starboard and running down on them (which would let their rear catch up and possibly envelope our rear), wearing close (which the Poor Maneuvering ships can't do), wearing deep (which takes us too close to the Spanish, if they chose the aggressive option; they could easily charge in through gaping holes in our formation and break our line), and even a fleet tack (seriously--but again, the Poor Maneuverability ships made that too risky). What we decided to do was sail ahead, close up our line, and then cut across the Spanish van and defeat them before the Spanish rear could join in. I wasn't convinced this was the best plan--the Spanish rear would already be broad reaching, and could easily catch up to the fray--but it was simple enough that we didn't have to worry about being caught in disarray if the Spanish did something aggressive, and it gave us the option of responding to whatever the Spanish did.
As it turned out, the Spanish rear maintained course, while the Spanish van wore, and then wore again. This had the effect of refusing the van and closing up their fleet somewhat, with five of their van ships leeward of and protected by the first part of their rear squadron ; however, it also made it easy for my squadron to cut across and get ahead of them. By turn 10, my squadron had gotten ahead of the Spanish leading ships, which were forced to turn downwind to avoid us. On turn 11, I collided with and fouled San Fernando, the lead Spanish ship; this was not what I intended, but it had the advantage that San Fernando was locked in place. The rest of the British fleet was able to pass her, firing as they went; on one turn, she took fire from five ships and my marines.
I finally cut loose at the end of turn 16; San Fernando was dismasted and rather the worse for wear by that point, although she survived to the end of the game. Six ships of the Spanish rear were coming down on us, finally about to join the battle; the Brits had a corresponding clump around San Fernando; and downwind, six Brit and seven Spanish were hotly engaged. Somerset, the British flag, collided and fouled with Paloma in position to rake; then Real Felipe, the Spanish flag, did the same with Panther. By turn 21, Somerset got loose and Paloma struck; Gloucester duelled Poder, Dragon
traded shots with Santa Isabel, Guernsey hammered Fama, and Warwick took a shot at the unwounded Javier.
Which blew up.
Warwick, being adjacent to the explosion, was severely damaged; and when the flaming debris settled, Warwick, Dragon, Santa Isabela, Fama and Guernsey were all on fire, but this worked out to a net advantage for the higher quality Brits. The Spanish marines had been ready for firefighting, but apparently not trained well enough, as none of them succeeding in quenching the flames; Fama struck as a consequence. This brought up to 6pm and the game was declared a British victory.
The British commanders anticipated that the Spanish might immediately turn port and come upwind at us, which was the most threatening possibility; we also thought they might all wear, but that would leave them too far away to interfere with out maneuvering. We discussed turning starboard and running down on them (which would let their rear catch up and possibly envelope our rear), wearing close (which the Poor Maneuvering ships can't do), wearing deep (which takes us too close to the Spanish, if they chose the aggressive option; they could easily charge in through gaping holes in our formation and break our line), and even a fleet tack (seriously--but again, the Poor Maneuverability ships made that too risky). What we decided to do was sail ahead, close up our line, and then cut across the Spanish van and defeat them before the Spanish rear could join in. I wasn't convinced this was the best plan--the Spanish rear would already be broad reaching, and could easily catch up to the fray--but it was simple enough that we didn't have to worry about being caught in disarray if the Spanish did something aggressive, and it gave us the option of responding to whatever the Spanish did.
As it turned out, the Spanish rear maintained course, while the Spanish van wore, and then wore again. This had the effect of refusing the van and closing up their fleet somewhat, with five of their van ships leeward of and protected by the first part of their rear squadron ; however, it also made it easy for my squadron to cut across and get ahead of them. By turn 10, my squadron had gotten ahead of the Spanish leading ships, which were forced to turn downwind to avoid us. On turn 11, I collided with and fouled San Fernando, the lead Spanish ship; this was not what I intended, but it had the advantage that San Fernando was locked in place. The rest of the British fleet was able to pass her, firing as they went; on one turn, she took fire from five ships and my marines.
I finally cut loose at the end of turn 16; San Fernando was dismasted and rather the worse for wear by that point, although she survived to the end of the game. Six ships of the Spanish rear were coming down on us, finally about to join the battle; the Brits had a corresponding clump around San Fernando; and downwind, six Brit and seven Spanish were hotly engaged. Somerset, the British flag, collided and fouled with Paloma in position to rake; then Real Felipe, the Spanish flag, did the same with Panther. By turn 21, Somerset got loose and Paloma struck; Gloucester duelled Poder, Dragon
traded shots with Santa Isabel, Guernsey hammered Fama, and Warwick took a shot at the unwounded Javier.
Which blew up.
Warwick, being adjacent to the explosion, was severely damaged; and when the flaming debris settled, Warwick, Dragon, Santa Isabela, Fama and Guernsey were all on fire, but this worked out to a net advantage for the higher quality Brits. The Spanish marines had been ready for firefighting, but apparently not trained well enough, as none of them succeeding in quenching the flames; Fama struck as a consequence. This brought up to 6pm and the game was declared a British victory.
Thursday, September 25, 2014
Game Design Panel, SLC Comic Con
The panel members were mostly publishers, and this was partly from the perspective "how to make it something a publisher will want" rather than "how to make it fun" or "a good simulation" or such.
The most difficult lesson is to learn when your pet mechanic doesn't work. If thirty playtesters don't like the mechanic, you need to let it go.
Or possibly the most difficult part is getting the game from "head" to "journal" to "prototype". You have to stay with it though the iterations and redesigns until you get someting that works.
Playtesters are essential, but they are bad at analyzing and expressing the problems with play. If they tell you that there's something wrong with a game, they're always right; but when they tell you how to fix it, they're usually wrong.
Reward, but don't over-reward, getting ahead. For example, getting ahead on one track to victory may close off other tracks; if you're a victorious conquerer, that may mean other nations are less likely to ally with you,
Think about the visuals, If you do cards, people are going to fan them, and there are a couple different ways they might do that. Pay attention to the layout on the card so the information they need is visible when they have the cards in their hand and can't see the whole card.
Use icons instead of text, to make localization easier. (However, if you need a separate QRS to tell what the icons are, you've gone overboard).
Key factors when submitting to a publisher are:
--make sure it fits our line, theme, and box size.
--make sure the component cost matches the play value. We can't sell a fifteen-minute party game that costs sixty bucks. And we'll also have a hard time with a single pack of cards that turns into a 3 hour epic--because the gameplay does not match the customer's expectations.
--does it have meaningful decisions for the players?
--what makes it stand out? This can be a thematic hook or an interesting mechanic.
--make your submission as complete as you can, without spending a lot on the art.
Whittle down the components to reduce the manufacturing cost.
How to get noticed: win (or place) in a design competition, or create a popular print & play game.
The most difficult lesson is to learn when your pet mechanic doesn't work. If thirty playtesters don't like the mechanic, you need to let it go.
Or possibly the most difficult part is getting the game from "head" to "journal" to "prototype". You have to stay with it though the iterations and redesigns until you get someting that works.
Playtesters are essential, but they are bad at analyzing and expressing the problems with play. If they tell you that there's something wrong with a game, they're always right; but when they tell you how to fix it, they're usually wrong.
Reward, but don't over-reward, getting ahead. For example, getting ahead on one track to victory may close off other tracks; if you're a victorious conquerer, that may mean other nations are less likely to ally with you,
Think about the visuals, If you do cards, people are going to fan them, and there are a couple different ways they might do that. Pay attention to the layout on the card so the information they need is visible when they have the cards in their hand and can't see the whole card.
Use icons instead of text, to make localization easier. (However, if you need a separate QRS to tell what the icons are, you've gone overboard).
Key factors when submitting to a publisher are:
--make sure it fits our line, theme, and box size.
--make sure the component cost matches the play value. We can't sell a fifteen-minute party game that costs sixty bucks. And we'll also have a hard time with a single pack of cards that turns into a 3 hour epic--because the gameplay does not match the customer's expectations.
--does it have meaningful decisions for the players?
--what makes it stand out? This can be a thematic hook or an interesting mechanic.
--make your submission as complete as you can, without spending a lot on the art.
Whittle down the components to reduce the manufacturing cost.
How to get noticed: win (or place) in a design competition, or create a popular print & play game.
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
Gaming Quote
Someone made a remark to the effect that the half orc barbarian probably smelled bad. The barbarian said "You never smell yourself when you're covered in someone else's blood."
Sunday, August 31, 2014
Boardgame Design
Notes from a panel by Bill Fawcett at LibertyCon 2014
Number one question is to ask, "why will someone want to play the game I am designing?"
One day of market research will save you six months of anguish. Go to a hobby shop and ask the people there what they want to play. And recruit them as playtesters.
Create a game which is accessable. You need to be able to pick up the basics on ten minutes, and get all the minutiate by playing it a few times.
"Simple level planning" so you can plan your next move while someone else is acting.
Learn the value of constant positive reinforcement. Give a goal which is achievable within minutes, and opens another goal. You may want to have several goal tracks operating at once--for instance, in Steampunk Paladins, you might complete a quest which gives you one more step towards Airship Cruiser, then the next quest might be a step toward increasing your Fame, or maxing out your Valor, or creating Professor Gould's Patent Photonic Death Ray.
The game should reward your players often. Rewards are things like the ability to take an extra or special type of move; make an extra attack; find valuable information; taunt another player (but not screw him too badly); or gather items. Contrariwise, penalizing players for success will kill your game.
The ideal game does not knock players out of the game early. They should be able to affect the game, even if they're behind. Example: in Carnage con Queso, even if your squad was demolished or you hadn't collected any cheese, you still had cards that you could use to harass the leader (or whoever else you felt deserved a random mortar barrage). A player who is behind should be able to surge, although a strong player should still be able to win. Anything harassing plays should set back the leader, not knock them out.
Start with an existing game that you like, and fix it.
Number one question is to ask, "why will someone want to play the game I am designing?"
One day of market research will save you six months of anguish. Go to a hobby shop and ask the people there what they want to play. And recruit them as playtesters.
Create a game which is accessable. You need to be able to pick up the basics on ten minutes, and get all the minutiate by playing it a few times.
"Simple level planning" so you can plan your next move while someone else is acting.
Learn the value of constant positive reinforcement. Give a goal which is achievable within minutes, and opens another goal. You may want to have several goal tracks operating at once--for instance, in Steampunk Paladins, you might complete a quest which gives you one more step towards Airship Cruiser, then the next quest might be a step toward increasing your Fame, or maxing out your Valor, or creating Professor Gould's Patent Photonic Death Ray.
The game should reward your players often. Rewards are things like the ability to take an extra or special type of move; make an extra attack; find valuable information; taunt another player (but not screw him too badly); or gather items. Contrariwise, penalizing players for success will kill your game.
The ideal game does not knock players out of the game early. They should be able to affect the game, even if they're behind. Example: in Carnage con Queso, even if your squad was demolished or you hadn't collected any cheese, you still had cards that you could use to harass the leader (or whoever else you felt deserved a random mortar barrage). A player who is behind should be able to surge, although a strong player should still be able to win. Anything harassing plays should set back the leader, not knock them out.
Start with an existing game that you like, and fix it.
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