Need Help With Horse Team with No Energy Rule

Guys,

Once again I have run into a small impasse and I want to get your feeling on the rule I'm trying to work out.

I am working on a chariot racing game where there are a total of five speed levels a horse team can travel at (the higher the speed level the faster the horse team can move). Each speed level costs so much in energy to travel at that speed level: 6 energy for speed level five, 4 for speed level four, 2 for speed level three, 1 for speed level two and 0 energy for speed level one.

A player moves the chariot the number of squares shown on a die roll for a die for the appropriate speed level. The dies have the following numbers on them for the following speed levels:

level 5: 10-12
level 4: 6-10
level 3: 4-6
level 2: 2-4
level 1: 1

The problem I am running into is the scenario where a player spends his final amount of energy to travel at speed level 5. On his next turn he has zero energy and therefore can not travel at that speed level. As the rules are, a player can only go down *one* speed level per turn. If the player goes down to the level 4 speed level he is still short of 4 energy to travel at that speed (has energy of zero). How should I handle this situation?

One way is to allow the player to roll the die for the speed level with no penalty for not having any energy. I think this is a bad idea, as it penalizes the more prudent players that run out of energy at a lower level and don't get as much free movement as if the player had run out of energy at a higher level. Plus a player who is energy conscious can still lose to a player who runs out of energy even though the player uses the same amount of energy at a lower speed level thus giving him more movement rolls.

The second idea I came up with was to limit the player to the minimum amount moved to that speed level plus any energy left to pay even though it is not enough. For example, I am forced to move to level 4 and I have 1 energy. I must throw in this one energy so my max movement is 7 (minimum of level 4 is 6 + 1 for one energy is seven). I still roll the die, but if it is higher than 7, the movement is 7. The problem with this scenario, is that it still benefits the person who runs out of energy at the higher speed levels. Also the amount moved can be determinisitic if the player has no energy: a horse team at zero energy must move 6 for level 4, move 4 for level 3 and so on.

Another idea is to simply subtract the amount of energy the player is short for a speed level from the die roll for that level. For example, the player is at level 4 needs 4 energy but only has 2. The player is two short, so he rolls the level 4 die gets a 8 and subtracts 2 (2 energy short) to get a six.

The only problem with this is that 2 energy at level three will get you on average 5 movement. In the scenario above where a 8 is rolled on average, the player will move 6 squares. Intuitively this seems wrong (why should a player with no energy on average move more), and an analysis will show still a slight advantage to the player who runs out of energy. It seems to me running out of energy should bring harsher consequences so to make more descisions agonizing and make players plan more in regards to energy handling.

Also these last two ways are a little complicated with the subtraction. Another harsher and little simpler idea is that the player is forced to move a number of speed levels from the current speed level down by the number of energy short. For example, if a player has no energy for level 4 that costs 4 energy, the player moves the pawn down to speed level 0 (4th speed level - 4 energy short = 0) for zero movement (on the next turn the player can move up to level 1 for no cost of energy for 1 movement).

The ultimate simplest thing is that no matter what the speed level of the player and how many short of energy, the remaining energy is discarded and the horse team is forced to speed level 1.

Which of the methods proposed do you guys think is the best?

Thanks for reading this.

--DarkDream