by n107
Solan wrote:
I'm glad you guys had fun, and thanks for the session report! Congratulations on the win and kudos to you for seeing that the game is about the Victory points, not about military might!
The only rules mistake which leapt out at me is that each player only places one Artifact; if you have fewer than eight players, you won't have all of the Artifact tokens on the board.
I agree with you completely about the Custodians of Mecatol Rex and I always use them in our games.
As for suggestions, I find the Shattered Empire Strategy cards to be vastly superior to the basic Strategy cards in a variety of ways (the use of Production on the first turn really compensates for the poor starting fleets of some of the races, Warfare II is much less overpowered than Warfare I, Technology II allows for far greater technological development than Technology I, etc.), and your report only drove home that point yet again, this time by illustrating the immense power of the original Diplomacy card.
I personally am very fond of Leaders, Territorial Distant Suns, Mech Units, Final Frontiers, Political Intrigue, Tactical Retreats and Flagships, but these options do admittedly add complexity to the game. If you would like to keep things simple for now, perhaps you could just introduce Tactical Retreats and Flagships? A word of warning on the latter, though: some Flagships are worth building, some are not, and a couple are absolutely indispensable; it all depends on the race.
The only rules mistake which leapt out at me is that each player only places one Artifact; if you have fewer than eight players, you won't have all of the Artifact tokens on the board.
I agree with you completely about the Custodians of Mecatol Rex and I always use them in our games.
As for suggestions, I find the Shattered Empire Strategy cards to be vastly superior to the basic Strategy cards in a variety of ways (the use of Production on the first turn really compensates for the poor starting fleets of some of the races, Warfare II is much less overpowered than Warfare I, Technology II allows for far greater technological development than Technology I, etc.), and your report only drove home that point yet again, this time by illustrating the immense power of the original Diplomacy card.
I personally am very fond of Leaders, Territorial Distant Suns, Mech Units, Final Frontiers, Political Intrigue, Tactical Retreats and Flagships, but these options do admittedly add complexity to the game. If you would like to keep things simple for now, perhaps you could just introduce Tactical Retreats and Flagships? A word of warning on the latter, though: some Flagships are worth building, some are not, and a couple are absolutely indispensable; it all depends on the race.
Thanks so much for the comment. And thanks for pointing out the Artifact mishap. We just went player by player assigning until all 8 were out. Oops.
So far we haven't had a single battle, so retreats aren't thought about yet but I'll keep the Tactical Retreats in mind for the future. We are, however, thinking of adding Flagships in the next game. Mechs may be soon to follow.
Leaders, adding a bit more the reference, may not be added for another few games yet. The same with Political Intrigue.
I don't know when or if I'll do Distant Suns in any form. I like the idea but I don't know if my group would go for something that slows games like that. Final Frontiers I may eventually do simply because it gives purpose to empty space.
And I do want to add the SE Strategy Cards soon but it depends on my group. They really dug the Imperial II card changing up the game but perhaps Friend 1 will be pushing for the new set once he hears that Diplomacy II is not as overpowered as Diplomacy I.
Thanks again for your help.