[GB] 5 Player FFA Afterplay

[Eliahad]

Last night marked the first 5 Player FFA since creating the new decks...and the first play with Poseidon's tweaks. It was also a teaching game for a group of gamers that were 3 hardcore, 1 casual, and myself (who I guess is moderate, I don't know.) The hardcore gamers eat Catan for lunch, think Terra Mystica is a good time, and have played Scythe a bunch of times as well, so like that.

The Final Score after a 2.5 hour 12 round game was Hera 2, Aphrodite 2, Hermes 1, Athena 1 and Poseidon 0. That's right. 0. Not for lack of trying, he just couldn't get over the hump to get the ball in the goal. Unfortunately, I don't know if that's because of the new deck, or because he's just not as strong in FFA with multiple targets for terrain creation. Also, all of the points were scored by Round 7, as the game started to bog down from the quantity of terrain and legends on the board. The Sirens, and a couple of movement curse cards kept a few people from moving the direction they wanted...which was kind of the point.

Verdict: They had fun and definitely want to try it again. (So, yay!)

Specifics

Most people want to be able to shove other heroes around with their heroes more. One wanted them to actually fight and have dice battles to see who was the victor. One other player wanted there to be more defensive options.

Mobility. By the end of the game the board was just so full of stuff. It really inhibited mobility. (Incidentally, there's a way that Poseidon can profit from that now, which is well and good, but it didn't show up for him.) Possibly need more ways to clean things up, OR 'remove terrain' cards should become 'cleanse' cards that remove terrain /and/ legends from a hex, so they are more useful. More ways to open up lanes would be beneficial.

Intercept is not specifically useless, but it needs something. It DOES make a good threat, but you have to plan ahead on your positioning to be able to use it.

Defend - I actually think this might need a bump up in cost to 3 HP. I think the defender having to think twice about defending an action would make it worth it.

Rest Curse - It was suggested that it have a secondary removal condition. Like if the Hero is out of HP completely, it's discarded at the end of that turn. I'm not sure how I feel about. It IS powerful, and Poseidon got hosed with it, but he didn't make much of an effort to get rid of it. It does keep you down for 3 turns, and that's a quarter of the game...that might be too much?

No one tried to move through other heroes this game, so the new grab reaction didn't really happen. There was a lot of moving around other people though. Maybe you should be able to dive at someone as the run by?

The Horse - New Poseidon card. My intent was there, but this was something better we came up with: '-1 to hex cost for move and sprint actions. When you take a move action, the Horse moves with you.' That way you have to get knocked off before someone else can claim it.

Need to make it more clear that blessings have to be played on the hero board before you can take them. Some players wanted to play them as they took the action...which could actually be a cool Athena trick...or Hermes for that matter. I'm really excited by this idea right now!

Lots of people took advantage of the 'didn't play a power' so I can discard up to 2 cards before I draw back up. I think it happened 4 or 5 times among the 5 of us. Some people did it twice through the whole game. I don't like this personally. I would rather you have effective options every turn.

The new goal areas are great, Mike. Let's keep those.

Running the ball in: There should be an incentive to carry the ball into your goal. Maybe make it worth 3 points because it leaves you out of position so much. It's a way for someone behind to make a push to take the lead at the end of the game.

The game is better than it was. There are more things you can do, and the game lasts longer before its bogged down. It still has some of the same 'wall' issues that it had before, but they take longer to manifest.

More testing with this iteration is needed, though, because there are a lot of unknowns that need more data so informed decisions can be made.

[Eliahad]

They also didn't like calling them HP because it was too similar to health points. They thought energy or action points would be the way to go.

Their basic thoughts were that there's a good base concept, but it needs to be able to maintain the velocity of the opening rounds later in the game.