Playtest suggestions

[Mike]

Thanks. Actually, right now the terrain tiles are hex shaped and slightly smaller than the actual board hexes. They fit pretty well.

For playtests... three terrain types and you choose one as favored worked well. Then when you pick, you just grab a tile of that terrain and lay it on your Hero Card. Elijah played Heracles with Poseidon, so he naturally took water. Ultimately we had two of each type, so the balance was good.

I can see adding another.

Later maybe one hero has a 2HP ability that lets them change favored terrain. Maybe a god card says "Choose one type of terrain to place on this card with 3 tokens. This terrain is considered favored terrain for 3 turns." Stuff like that.

Some heroes might have a standard favored terrain. Some might get to choose. Some might have 2 favored terrains as part of their standard abilities.

We have a lot of room here.

[Eliahad]

You said sprint was huge! Could you tell if it was in a positive way or is more testing needed?

[Mike]

Keep testing. Most HP was used for sprinting. Much less was used for attacking. People loved sprint but it took away from other stuff.

[Eliahad]

Okay, things I want to test in the next few plays:

Mike's Refresh Mechanic.
Are there too many levels of Hero action? (Should there just be choices at each level?)
Which Gods and/or Goddess should be "forest-based" and have terrain cards geared that way?
What ways can we cut out tokens/components?

[Mike]

My call off the top of my head:
Poseidon Aphrodite -- Water
Zeus Hera -- Mountains
Athena Hermes -- Forest

Knowing this, allow each hero to choose their own favored terrain.

In the final set, heroes will come with favored terrains and extra abilities and all. There will be some heroes that pair better with certain gods, but your Hero isn't required to have a favored terrain to match your god's abilities. Maybe Hera takes on a water hero (a siren or nereid) to undermine Poseidon's ability to stop her.

[Bluedevyl]

Slight tweak I came up with, not sure if this was mentioned earlier.

Based on the rules we played tonight, if you dont have or don't want to play a particular God card, you can discard one to draw another. I would suggest changing the order to be draw and then discard. That way, you have the most amount of information available to you before you discard, potentially setting up more opportunities for strategic planning down the line.

[FlameBlade]

Other tweak discussed: Each time TPM triggers with board events. Holder of Godball gets 1 point. Reaching shrine = winning outright. Game ends when Turn marker goes around twice.

This may has an effect of having a clear end so the game doesn't goes on for too long, and encourage more struggles for ball control.

[Eliahad]

We played roughly 18 turns each in our game. (72 turns total. A goodly number.) So it took about 5-6 minutes for one go around the board in a 4 player game. Let's say, on average 1.5 minutes per play.

This was a learning game, so 1.5 minutes doesn't seem horrid to me. I continue reasoning out loud. I think that will get faster, but let's stay with that time for now.

40 turns in an hour is 10 times around the order in a 4 player game. 8 times around in a 5 player game and a little less than 7 times around in a 6 player game.

It takes about 3 times around to end a round. So it would be 3 rounds in a 4 player game. And 2 rounds in a 5 player or 6 player game.

These times would get faster as players learn the game, and as the design of cards is solidified to strengthen understanding, but not a ton, I think.

If we set a 'Round' limit with this alternative scoring system, I think it would be a 6 round limit, broken into 3 round "Halves."

[Eliahad]

New addition to setup to make it easier for some Gods to get going in the early game. Seed terrain.

Place terrain tokens of your Hero's favored terrain in the 2 hexes that are adjacent to and are in the same ring as the Pillar of Heaven that is closest to your shrine.

[Mike]

We need seed terrain.

[FlameBlade]

Why Hero's favored terrain for seed terrain? Let people pick.