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Wick

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Posts posted by Wick

  1. Posted

    Some things to consider.

    Accidents aside, do you want players that you can't trust with info that should be public knowledge?  The playing surface can become quite crowded, cards get stacked, pieces get covered, you are sitting far away from the other player etc... Do I have to get up and walk around the table to audit your play area because you cannot be trusted to give an honest accounting?  

    You may put up with minor shenanigans if you are short on players but you should at least explain that this kind of playing is discouraged in your group. To be fair he should also forget the correct number of planets he has when claiming the objective. Bad feelings and lack of trust are not good but if it was an honest accident he should take the hit.

     

    Bob: Hey Jack how many planets you have outside of your home system.

    Jack: uhhh...looks like I have 9.

    Tom: Hold up Jack, let me count them for you. After all you are a known liar.

     

    Is this really how you want to play ?

     

  2. Posted

    Don't forget that they can still build with their space docks as well.

     

    Summary:

    Arborec Space Dock: Just like any other race's build rules except they cannot build GF.

    Arborec GF: Each GF can build any thing but can only build 1 unit per GF. Also the GF cannot have moved that turn.

     

    Clearly you need to get concentrate a lot on building as many GF as you can in order to get your production up to speed.  This competes with the need to expand in the early game. It does have the advantage of eventually turning even a poor resource system into a major production hub. Ideally, you want that hub to be at a Resource rich world with space dock for even more production.

  4. Posted

    What size game are we talking? I commonly play a 3 player game and it can suffer horribly from the A attacks player B and then C takes advantage to attack one or both of the weakened combatants. I find that the battle lines can become static with huge forces but you can break the stagnation through advantages like key military techs, warfare strategy card or even the diplomacy card. Try attacking a hex and taking control of it, when he counter attacks retreat to preserve your forces. You can also strike early just to disrupt him before his borders are set in stone.

     

    As mentioned before you should really have a clear goal in attacking a player rather than mere conquest, which can be incredibly resource intensive and usually does little to actually win the game. Also, it is easy to spread too thin with long supply lines, and the enemy replacing his entire fleet he just lost that round and placing the replacements adjacent to your now battered expeditionary fleet. 

     

    As Clausewitz said, "war is diplomacy by other means"

  5. Posted

    To show my love for this game. This is the table i made for a 8 player game last year. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YY6aS0zTFA

    Awesome work. That must have taken hundreds of hours. 

     

    However, I would have a few concerns:

    The board looks pretty busy which may sacrifice function for form. I can just see knocking over planets as you place your units, especially as you near the center of the board. Also may be more difficult to see units among the clutter.

    My second point is with the table. Doesn't look very sturdy. Don't put your masterpiece on such a rickety platform, on player leaning on the table could bring it crashing down. Also not much area for races to set up.

     

    Other than that, excellent job and looks great. Makes me want to paint my ships at least.

  6. Posted · Edited by Wick

    Don't particularly disagree with your assessments there Wick, but is overall power level the only metric in deciding whether or not you like a race?

     

    That's true per the topics title, but my point was that Jol Nar was not the garbage race that they at first seem. Previous posters claim they disliked them because of the weakness of the race due to its special abilities, I just pointed out that in fact they can be quite powerful due to their special abilities. Additionally, they became more enjoyable to play when I started to capture my first planets in an unexhausted state. 

     

    I am not saying that you have to play the uber race to enjoy playing but most people don't like playing a race that is not competitive or is the loser race. I just point out that that Jol Nar is in fact competitive.

  7. Posted

    At first I thought Jol Nar because of the combat penalty requiring the Tech upgrades to make them equal to a regular race without those tech upgrades. That was until I noticed that they could get Nanotech by turn 1 or 2. It allows you to immediately take systems unexhausted which has a compounded effect 

     During early expansion. By the time your enemies catch up to this head start you are well positioned. 

     

    Worst race in my opinion is the Xxcha or the race with just the +1 to combat (don't have game handy). Especially with Diplomacy I in play to make the Xxcha's ability even worse.

     

    Best race is tough to say, Yassaril in experienced hands can be double tough. We have not played Naalu yet but their initiative and fighter swarms should make them a top contender . Jol Nar played with tech II and an experienced player can do wonders.

  8. Posted

     

    Corvette

    Cost 1 move 3 Battle 9

    Bomber

    Cost 2 takes up 2 slots in carrier/warsun move 1 with advice fighter tech . Battle 8 can bombard unless PDS present benefits from fighter techs like cybernetics

    Shield Drones

    Cost .5 battle: N/A. Sustain Damage

     

    Shield drones seem a little overpowered. Would they be for invasion combat only? Mechanized Units by themselves have really changed the invasion mechanics for us with their sustain damage.

     

    I like the bomber idea. It also would be a neat upgrade tech for fighters to allow them to bombard. I often play games without a single dreadnaught or war sun, and would love that option.

     

     

    Perhaps the shield drones are OP, but also notice that they have no attack stat. They would be for space combat. Their Battle would be: "N/A" So they are similar to fighters but absorb more damage and cannot cause damage.  Boosting them to a cost of 1 may be reasonable or cost 2 with only taking 1 slot on a carrier or warsun. 

     

    One big issue with them would be how really OP they would become with the Barony's Euclidean shields and Duranium armor techs. 

  9. Posted

    Politics has always seemed to be a weak area of the game and in my experience the representatives do not help.  Maybe because all of my games are with a total of 3 players and the few I used representatives in we had one player with an assassin and the others did not have bodyguards.  So by turn 6 all of the other player representatives were dead and those races could no longer vote.

     

    Couple this with a political deck with either boring or universally crippling rules.  And you get bleh..There are also agendas that are good a certain stages of the game and are worse choices later. Some people often have buyers remorse as their situation on  the board changes, to where that once helpful agenda now causes them pain.   

     

    I am always on the look out for simple house rules to fix the politics but here are a few good suggestions:

    1. Sort through the deck and get rid of some of the rubbish cards.  I believe there are lists online to help you choose the good cards.

    2. having a hand of political cards is good because you can perhaps get a good card that benefits you and therefore want to play it. So far I just turn them in for trade goods and rarely grab assembly/political SC.

    3.  Consider eliminating the ability to cash them in for trade goods or like someone suggested above, make them a 2 to 1 trade (although that could have the opposite effect, making you spend them more quickly).

    4. So far Representatives just seem to add more unwelcome complexity and add very little.

    5. Having had all of my representatives assassinated a few times, I think you should have the option of voting without a Rep.  Perhaps a blank representative card so an assassin can be wasted targeting your faux representative.

    6. You could make it so Assassins don't kill, just stop your rep from being used on that vote or perhaps even on the next future vote as well.

    7. You can make representatives one use only and after they are all spent, you vote without them. This would make assassins or otherwise powerful representatives become more like that Action card you having been holding on to all game to spring on your opponent at the most opportune time, rather than your default choice for every vote.

    8. One house rule I saw used 3 or 4 political cards lying out where everyone could see ( no personal hand of PCs) when someone played the Political card they would choose the one to be the agenda.  Once it was voted on you would replace it with a new card. This allows players to look over the choices of agendas and decide if one is worth choosing the political Strategy Card.  

  10. Posted

    I have a pool table that we play on in my basement so we keep the game up and that way can play over multiple sessions.  I even have a ping pong table that goes over the pool table, which serves to keep my 2 year old from mucking the board.  I also take a picture of the board set up and all of the sides and e-mail it to the other players.  It makes the 1st round of subsequent sessions fly by fast since the players can look over the picture in between sessions.

     

    I only have 2 other players and we have played enough that we are playing faster and faster.

  12. Posted

    It maybe an artifact of my playing group. The Tech II card and assembly card are prime targets for the other two players as well as trade.  I usually get SC's based upon my strategy. I rarely grab diplomacy II or Assembly (unless I need to get speaker to choose SC's first on the next game round). Like I mentioned the other two players like the rule. The only good that I see from the rule is that it forces players to use SCs that they may not ordinary choose, so it can be good for learning purposes. Get them to try to adapt . In the case of my fellow players I doubt they will adapt very quickly. I have won 100% of the games so far. They are getting a bit better but still have much to learn.

  13. Posted

    We initially thought that you could not select the same strategy card as the previous game round.  When I discovered this error we fixed the rule. Now my group has asked to house rule that back. I am not sure that I care for it but it does prevent players from hording control of certain strategy cards and forces players to choose other cards. By the way we play 3 players games so get 2 strategy cards each. And we are now using the shattered empires strategy cards but had not initially.

     

  15. Posted

    So one of my opponents was elected on round one for Minster of Internal Security ( immediately destroy 4 GFs on Mecatol Rex).  Currently Mecatol Rex is uncontrolled with Custodians protecting it.  I am looking to invade MR soon so I imagine that this card will be used at some point very likely against me.  So how would this work?

     

    Would my opponent be able to disrupt my invasion by killing my invasion forces or must he wait for me to actually take MR before destroying my GFs.  The PC is played "immediately" when discarded so it is not the timing. The question is when are my GFs officially on  the planet to fit the target restrictions.  I suppose they literally are on planet in order to fight the invasion  but I  can also see that they should be in control of the planet as well. If the later is the case and 2 players were fighting on the planet could a third party play to destroy GFs from both players?

     

     

  16. Posted

    Well, I Don't any off hand but IIRC there are some PCs that may allow you to "place" GFs on the map. If placing units is considered building units or moving units than those GFs cannot build when activated later that round. I think the key is if it is called a move or build,therefore placed units should be able to build.

    Some examples:

    "Defensive Mobilizations" and "Supported Expansion" have the word place.

    "Holder of Mecatol Rex" adds" GFs

    Just looked through a short stack of PCs.

  18. Posted

    Good points. But I was actually thinking the opposite with the Yssaril. I was thinking a Yssaril a small hand of cards was better than a whole grip of cards in his hand (good for others). He won't need to sacrifice his agents since he is bound to have multiple sabotage cards with a large hand of cards making your cards useless while he has a card for any circumstance and spam them out making your sabotage cards more useless.

    Definitely some things to consider and I know that it is a tricky game to mix the strategy cards and maintain balance.

  19. Posted

    Actually I said if you replace production with logistics you should use use initiative instead of leadership. Otherwise you have 2 cards giving you command counters.

    Why do you think it is an issue to only get action or political cards from assembly or the end of the round? In the base set you only got action cards from 1 SC (political)and status phase anyway? If you like action cards considered using politics, since you get way more from that one card that from assembly and bureaucracy combined. Personally I am not sure a Strategy Counter is worth spending on an AC and a potential trade good.

    Most times the political card is a Trade Good

  21. Posted

    One of the things I liked about Imperial I from the original set was that if you wanted that SC you had to wait until initiative 8 to go and the secondary was an awesome effect for your enemies. Basically you really paid for that awesome primary ability. And every round it was a tough decision to take it or not to take it.

     

     One thing I hated about Diplomacy I was that, especially early game, the primary really sucked and the secondary was really nice.  Made that SC gather bonus counters in the early game.  Even late game it was rarely selected.

     

    I feel that bureaucracy is more closer to Diplomacy I than Imperial I in usefulness and it falls all the way at the end of initiate order too. The primary is so so until you get past the empire building stage to focus on objectives and even then you are revealing that objective for everyone else as well to qualify in the Status phase (yes you get an advantage to claim an Objective immediately and in the status phase).  The secondary is meager too with 1 action and 1 political card it is not a real contender for my strategy  counters. Heck I may even save my Counter for the next round even if there was no other viable use for my Strategy counters that round.  If you use the SC too early you will reveal objectives for which you may not qualify but your opponents, who are gobbling up tech advances or building their stack of TGs, may. And they did not even have to waste their choice of SC to reveal the objective. 

     

    Imperial II on the other hand requires more contention for control of Mecatol Rex. Other player may grab the SC to deny the controller of MR the VP or wrestle for control of MR.  It is good to grab on any round of the game even if it is just to have exclusive use of its awesome secondary ability.   If you use the VP primary you are giving your opponents access to the nice secondary.    It is not as powerful as Imperial I's +2 VP ,but that seemed a bit over the top and made it a must have card with the contenders for vistory being the ones who could grab that card the most.

     

    Overlap of abilities?  Yes, Imperial II's secondary overlaps with production but you are not losing out on a lot since the political cards and action cards you lose from bureaucracy you can get from Assembly anyway.  probably another viable build could be to replace production and leadership with Logistics and Initiative although you would have to reconcile the speaker token since assembly and Initiative both allow a player to claim it. And yes, those would need to be house ruled.

     

    Sorry for the rant, bureaucracy just seems so bland to me although I recognized that Imperial II is a round peg in a square hole somewhat. 

  24. Posted

    Can Arborec GFs build after invading a planet or loading onto a ship?

    For example, I have a ship in a two planet system with a cruiser and a GF on one planet. Since we are playing Distant Suns I fly in another GF on another cruiser and load up my GF from my planet in system in order to invade the second planet with 2GFs. After invading can I build from the in system GF?

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