Roman Emperors

Sorry about my lack of updates, but I was out of town for a couple of weeks. Regarding the voting mechanism, I've been exposing the new voting variant (Opus Xb) with a number of people (locals) new to the game.

- An AT-oriented gamers group who love broken games (Cosmic Encounter or Epic Duel broken-like)
- A non-gamers group that never even played Settlers of Catan
- My lead playtester in duel matches
- Myself in single player mode

The new voting variant includes Senatorial Claim cards that Senator players use at the begining of the turn to state their mind about what the Emperor should do during his reign. Senatorial Claim phase (cards) replace the Event phase (and cards) and it's negative take-that effect. If the Emperor addresses these claims, he gets an assured approval vote for his military endaevors, and the Senator gains victory points (legacy points). Else, the Senator can vote freely, and will usually (not always) reject any military campaign proposed.

So far, the voting mechanism has initially shown these positive effects:

- Emperor's military campaigns are more likely to get support, thus
- More resources are likely to become available each turn (through new conquests)
- Wonders are easier to build (thus increasing their weight in the overall scoring, and avoiding the "repeated failure" crash)
- Politics has dramatically increased it's weight in overall scoring (this and Wonders weight reinforce the Civ part of the game)
- Negative-feeling dynamics of playing events (against the Emperor), and bribing Senators for votes (both ways) have being removed from the game
- Maintenance downtime has been reduced, since no Votes Deck must be assembled and dealt every turn (vote cards count has been cut down to just 2 per player)

Potentially negative effects I have to pay attention to:

- Emperor's decisions becoming too simple (increasing the game's luck dependance)
- Reduced importance of negotiating more complex political dealings (not by Claim cards) since they don't yield victory points

Overall, during PT, I have attained a scoring balance I'm satisfied about, meaning:
- About 10% will usually come from developing provinces
- About 20% will usually come from political dealings
- About 30% will usually come from building wonders
- About 40% will usually come from military conquests

Anyways, I must choose a path to follow here: try to rework the later voting variant or go with this original one. There cannot be two new updated versions of the game to blind-test. So I'll keep playtesting (non-blind) the new voting mechanic (thanks again Hulken for the inspiration) to see if it finally works as I think it should (so far it has). Playtesting is always the final ruler, but it takes a lot of time. Still, I'll put a new version up as soon as I am confident enought I've made the right decision.

I'll keep you posted. Thanks for your interest in REmp.

I've been away from the forum these days, so I'm sorry to all concerned for my lack of updates. With Opus IX, voting as it works now (gameplay wise), even if it doesn't crash the game, I see it as a major design flaw. It needs a rebuild and that rebuild needs to be properly tested. That's why I'll take a step back in the development of the game to the non-blind playtest stage again.

I'm assembling three gamers groups of local playtesters to try opus X with them. New voting will follow hulken's variant (thanks!). Well, more like my interpretation of it. This scales back complexity, number of components, and (so far) playing time.

It also gives something for Senators to think about while the Emperor does his initial planning, so it reduces downtime in half. This evolved during PT into a "silent" planning phase (with Senatorial Claim cards played faced down and revealed simultaneously), and an open negotiation phase when the voting takes place. In the free-vote version (this is how it actually behaves during PT), the Emperor does the thinking first (and Senators watch) and then Senators do the thinking (and Emperor watches).

I'm also developing a "layered" rulebook divided in two parts. First part covers the basic game and components, and then each individual page adds a single new advanced rule and the correspondant component. This distinction may be even used to spit the game in basic family + gamers expansion releases.

These are major changes that require proper attention before being exposed. I don't want to burn the game's reputation among blind playtesters. I was trying to make more elaborate statement about this, but life got on the way. Now I have to travel for a couple of weeks...

I'll keep thinking!

Roman Emperors – Playtesting
What we’ve learned playtesting version 07 (opus VII)

Playtesting version 07 has provided mainly some polishing improvements to the game. As the design gets closer to its final version, changes will naturally tend to be less significant but important nonetheless to get the best playing experience out of it.

Relevant improvements are:
• Extended playing setup for single player option
• Rules now include an explanation on resources, resource markers, assets and provinces types
• God’s Blessings player aid included in the rules
• Assets Tokens file included in case common bingo chips are hard to come by

Polishing improvements include:
• Fleet-resources (not Fleet-assets) are now called Lighthouses and are depicted as such in the board. Some Wonders cards were also modified accordingly (sorry about that…)
• Increased benefit in patronizing Venus. Changed from +5 Approval Votes to +10 of them. Venus was the least preferred goddess in the pantheon, as her bonus was perceived by players as lacking certainty.
• Decreased benefit in patronizing Vesta. Changed from +5 Aureus to +4. Vesta was the default preferred goddess in the pantheon, as her bonus could be applied in many ways.
• Clarifying the “Barbarians” event card effect description to properly explain that provinces will be raided by barbarians before the active player can build his wonder. Later version stated it would take effect “before scoring takes place” which enabled the player to build his wonder and leave the next player with less resources.
• Removing of the “No favored cult” sentence in the first 3 wonders (Columpna, Pyramis and Templum), to keep the Wonders deck language independent.
• Added a tiled-board file for easier printing in four A4 or Letter sheets.

Three changes were introduced from playtest results back in version 06. They all achieved an overall satisfactory reception but I think more playtesting is still required for them:
- Bribes from Senators have the same effect as Emperor’s (2 votes for 1 Au) 80% in
- Buildings can only be placed in provinces with Legions 70% in
- Emperor looses ties in combat (the most debated change so far) 60% in

Current files in the Roman Emperor shared folder were updated to playtest version 08 (opus VIII).

RULES POLL: Should the explanation on how the voting works must be included the Politics Phase (when you assemble the vote’s deck) or in the Military Phase (when the voting actually takes place)?

NEW VERSION POLL: Should the Events deck be language independent? (by replacing some cards)

I will appreciate if playtesters could pay attention to the changes made in this version so as to provide any feedback on them. Any other comments are always welcome. My kind regards,

PS: PM me to join the playtesting team!

Roman Emperors – Playtest
Blind Playtest Open

Well, I’ve made some approaches around with Roman Emperors and small publishers have been more accessible and helpful than I thought they would. It is a small niche market where everyone knows everyone after all. I see this in the good sense. I’ve gained some interesting pointers just by being casual with them.

Anyway, as finished as the design may look like, blind playtesting is a fixed pre-entry requirement. Especially when you are a non-native speaker: your rules should be proof-read by native speakers, preferably from both sides of the ocean. Having proof-read many “native’s” rules myself, I’m not quite sure how to feel about this… whatever.

As it stands right now, the game has achieved 17 group sessions (non-blind) and many more solo ones (those are hard to count). As been played once a week, it will be a long time before it gets to my minimum standard of 15 sessions per player setup. That would be 45, since it’s a 2-4 players game. Plus, the game has a fair chance of becoming a 1-4 players setup, so…

I’m not in a hurry here. The long pilgrimage for a publisher is just beginning, but I don’t want to stick with the minimum and reviewers would appreciate more diverse feedback on it. So I’m opening the game for blind playtest from BGDF members.

The game is quite solid at its seventh version, so I don’t foresee major changes required (ironically, other than making Venus more attractive to players). You only need to print 6 pages for cards, 3 pages for the rules, and the board (A3 size preferably or tiled A4s), plus some few bingo chips. Quite a bargain components-wise actually!

I’ll use the files I’ve stored in a dropbox so you can access them whenever or wherever you want (www.dropbox.com). Just PM me with your Email address (so I know who you are here) and I’ll send you the invitation to the shared folder.

I know Civ-War euro’s are not for everyone, but I’m pretty confident I’ll manage to get some insightful feedback from you guys. Thanks a lot.

Keep thinking!

Roman Emperors – Turn Summary
Roman Politics

One thing I gave a hard thought about when designing Roman Emperors was downtime in group playing. If in a game there are six or more players, or the player turn is long, the others will hardly keep focused on the game. Sometimes texting starts or people just stand up and wander off to get themselves a coffee. I try to address this issue by adding actions a player can perform in the other player’s turn. In this case, the politics phase was the chosen mechanic.

Before the Emperor starts his military campaigns, the Senate is called to show support (or not) to the endeavor. All non-active players portray these Senators and cast their votes in every campaign according to their own preferences and the tendencies shown by the political factions they represent.

The mechanic includes a vote’s deck with a base number of approval or rejection votes. More votes (for or against) are added to the deck from events, bribes (both from the Emperor or the Senators) or good deeds of the Emperor (developing provinces). The resulting deck is shuffled and dealt to the Senators. They, in turn, have to administer the votes in their hands (their political faction’s mood) for their own benefit.

Winning a voting means the Emperor gains a bonus to his die rolls in the military campaign (representing a higher morale of his army, additional resources, easier levying, etc). Conversely, loosing a voting means the Emperor will be penalized in his rolls.

These political calculations are of great importance to the successful accomplishment of the Emperor’s goal. Will he spend all his money in Legions and deal with the Senate’s constant rejection? Will he spare something for civil development so as to bias their opinions? Will he just use bribes to buy out those pesky aristocrats? Will he patronize Venus for her political support or Jupiter for his mighty hand?

The voting phase of the game adds player interaction, negotiation, back-stabbing and even cooperative thinking. It is the most complex phase of the game; not rules-wise, but in terms of strategic thinking. There has been much debate over this phase during playtest. I has been polished a lot to fulfill its part.

I personally think is the most fun part of the game (I like RPGs), but deep-thinking gamers (abstract’s lovers) tend to like the preparations more. I think the mix of many different mechanics and little downtime makes the game really easy-going and very appealing for gaming groups that are not so focused in one particular type of gameplay.

Combat is very simple really, so I think I’ll post a sample turn next time, so this all makes more sense. This journal has spawned many questions maybe I would have never come up with by myself. Thank you all.

Keep thinking!

Roman Emperors – Turn Summary
Play an Event

Group playing often means that most players become “spectators” most of the time, having to wait for another player to finish his turn. This game features some out-of-turn actions to reduce the downtime for group playing. The first of those is playing a Parcae (The Fates) event card against the current Emperor, just to make things “a little more challenging” for him.

The addition of events, as usual, adds replayability to the game, for they present different circumstances every time you play. Another point of adding events to a game is to increase randomness, but this is not the approach I took in Roman Emperors. In fact, the events are onset by non-active players, including an extra stage of strategic thinking and even quick negotiation among them.

The later version of the events is meant to replicate (counter) the gods powers, but to a lesser extent. This may drive the Emperor to resort to a certain god in order to counter the event effect. For example, if you are facing a Catiline Conspiracy (extra negative votes in the Senate) you may have to worship Venus yourself (for extra positive votes). Same with the Cilician Pirates sinking your fleets, maybe Neptunus can be of help there. Sometimes, countering the effect of the events is the only way to build a certain wonder (playing Minerva, goddess of wisdom, against the Heretics event), or else you won’t be able to obtain de required resources for it.

I like how this works overall, especially for experienced players, since it’ll be difficult to have a set strategy to use in every game. Fate (not randomness) will be an important factor in the availability of your choices, and you’ll have to deal with it when the time comes.

I’m attaching the events cards in the images library to give an idea of those. Thanks for all the feedback received so far. The sixth playtest version is almost done.

More to come. Keep thinking!

Roman Emperors – Turn Summary
Honoring the Gods

The first action a player takes in his turn is choosing a God to honor during his reign. Each God will grant him some bonus during his turn. So the choice will depend on the strategy conceived by the player.

If you are planning to expand to the farthest points of the known world, well, you should call upon Neptune (lord of the seas) to grant you some free extra Fleets.

If you are really scarce on Legions, you could honor Pluto (lord of the underworld) to spare the lives of your soldiers, so they can keep fighting.

If you are (leading, and so,) facing a troublesome Senate, you could devote your reign to Venus (lady of love) and she’ll grant you some extra support.

Strategy considerations are many. I’m attaching the Pantheon cards image in the Prototype gallery to give you a glimpse of what I’m talking about.

The design used is fairly simple, as gods images are all public domain by now. I also used descriptive icons to remind players of the cards effects. I think only Pluto is not so intuitive. As I didn’t post the rules here yet, I added the text anyway. I’m thinking they could also be inserted in the game board in a sidebar.

More to come. Keep thinking!