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Nobodys buying units in my wargame, I need a solution

9 replies [Last post]
Sun, 02/13/2005 - 14:53
DSfan
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Joined: 12/31/1969

Hiya all,

I have tried out most of the examples on the Combat without Dice thread, since the game is getting pretty far. Some of them work ok (Card battling) and others don't work at all.

I think I have found out the problem though. During a few 2-player playtests I was looking over the board, and I was like: "Hey this is supposed to be a war game, but there are only a few units on the board! (The 3 starting ones for each person, plus a couple extra harvesters)

So I think the few amount of units, the less battling (duh!) but I can't think of a way to make people buy more "battle" units. Do you guys have any ideas?

I have tried a couple ways, but I think it dulled down the game, as I was forcing people to buy units. I am so worked up on this because it also slowed down the game to about 2 hours, which my goal was 60 min to 90 min.

Very Needy,
-Justin

Edit: Changed the title to go along with my newest post. (and go with jwarrend new post topic; descriptive titles)

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Sun, 02/13/2005 - 15:09
#1
Anonymous
Nobodys buying units in my wargame, I need a solution

How about you can create buildings that create soldiers similar to RTS games on the PC? You could have a cash fund that is spent on this production which the harvesters gather for you.

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Sun, 02/13/2005 - 16:16
#2
DSfan
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Nobodys buying units in my wargame, I need a solution

I'm sorry maybe I just did more babbling that what I wanted to ask, so here it goes.

During the game people really don't buy any units that attack other units (Cyborgs, Robots) and when people don't buy units, the game get's slower as this isnt much combat.

So my question:

What should I do to make people buy more units, but not let this mechinac show? (I.E. In the rules it says, buy robots!)

Now that I read this over again, my question doesn't make sense, ah well.

-Justin

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Sun, 02/13/2005 - 17:05
#3
jwarrend
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Joined: 08/03/2008
Nobodys buying units in my wargame, I need a solution

In my experience, people, when playing games, will take actions that they perceive will help them to win the game. If people aren't buying units, perhaps the games' scoring systems don't sufficiently reward militarism, or perhaps the costs of units are too high for the perceived payout. If you feel this isn't the case, that the players are just playing poorly, you should be able to buy units heavily and wipe the other players off the board so handily that the next time they play, they'll realize the need to buy units.

It's almost certainly one of these possibilities: either those units aren't worth buying, or the players aren't understanding how to play well. It should be easy to figure out which is actually at work, and shouldn't be hard to correct the problem, whichever it happens to be...

-J

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Wed, 02/16/2005 - 14:26
#4
Anonymous
Nobodys buying units in my wargame, I need a solution

With my game I actually had the reverse issue. Players were sitting there buying up units as fast as they could and basically stockpiling until they had huge fleets to send across the gameboard destroying anything in their path. Basically as long as someone didn't fall behind and everyone was stockpiling, the movement turn was ignored and people were waiting for a "mistake" or one of the "bad events" that I randomly had happen. When the @$@#$ hit the fan at that point the movement began and combat itself took forever due to the huge number of ships being bandied about...

My solution to that (as yet untested) was to increase the price of ships to the point where a dozen ships on the board from any one person would be a pretty huge feat. Along with this I added a number of upgrades that could happen on a "per ship" basis which allows a lot more customization of a person's "fleet".

Perhaps you would want to move in the opposite direction that I did. Make things a bit more generic, and lower costs (I can't remember the original thread detailing your game very well) of units so that they are more attractive to the players for purchasing.

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Thu, 02/17/2005 - 10:16
#5
DSfan
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Nobodys buying units in my wargame, I need a solution

jwarrend wrote:
It's almost certainly one of these possibilities: either those units aren't worth buying, or the players aren't understanding how to play well. It should be easy to figure out which is actually at work, and shouldn't be hard to correct the problem, whichever it happens to be...

Thanks J,

It actually was one of those. (sorry for the late post, but I finally got around to another playtest) While we were playing again, nobody was still really buying units.

I think the problem is nothing really rewards militarism (besides winning), so I think people just buy harvesters to go and build up resources, while not even thinking to buy units.

I like to find something to fix this problem; maybe reward militarism or something. Any ideas?

-Justin

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Thu, 02/17/2005 - 10:42
#6
zaiga
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Nobodys buying units in my wargame, I need a solution

It depends on what the goal of the game is. If it's a victory point game, then you could award victory points for occupying several key spots on the map with units, for example. Or you could award several VPs to the player with the most units at the end of the round/phase/turn/game. Perhap you could even award winning a fight with VPs.

Of course, instead of awarding victory points, you could award extra resources when someone occupies a particular area on the map, or when he is the first to reach a particular location. Resources can be anything, from money to action cards, to being allowed to reroll dice when the first roll fails, etc, etc. Go wild, be creative.

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Thu, 02/17/2005 - 11:57
#7
Zzzzz
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Joined: 06/20/2008
Nobodys buying units in my wargame, I need a solution

Well not knowing the goal/theme (actually anything about it) behind the game, maybe you can work in some radical round based concept (attrition) that effects the battle units. So at the end of a round all players "lose" X battle units. Thus causing the need to buy additional units so you will have "enough" units to complete game related combat goals.

Personally I dont like the idea of unit attrition, but it might work, might not, if nothing else I have offered another idea for you to ponder.

Also, how are you resolviung combat? Does the attacker/defender have any type of advantage based on number of units? I ask since it might be possible to increase purchasing of battle units if you have some type of benefit based on number of units the attacker/defender has in battle. Obviously you need to balance an idea like this, you dont want to give to much of an unfair advantage.

One last idea, do you have different types of battle units? If you do, you might be able to figure out some type of reward for having players create specific groups of battle units? For instance, maybe you add in a Recon Squad. This group of battle units include 1 Scout Unit, 1 Sniper Unit and 1 Solider Unit. If I create this as a player, I might gain some advantage, reward, etc.

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Thu, 02/17/2005 - 12:13
#8
akacamper
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Nobodys buying units in my wargame, I need a solution

I like to find something to fix this problem; maybe reward militarism or something. Any ideas?

i don’t know a lot about your board game but you could think about 2 things

1) adding restrictions to the number of units that can be built per turn or per building or city.( i know this sounds like i am going in the opposite directions but in setting a restriction then if someone builds units the other must build units to keep up or they fall behind and will be attacked.)

2) adding the above, i think would require another rule or it will be come somewhat like civ the board game. maintenance per unit. which you make money with your harvesters then you buy and maintain your units. i think this would provide a stable system for resource gathering and unit production....

Damn the games ides that keep popping into my head when i was writing that...Grr...have fun if this helps. BTW i am at work and just stopped in a sec and this is just off the top of my head. refining needed i am sure. I hope it relates to your game or at least someone’s.

camper

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Thu, 02/17/2005 - 17:16
#9
DSfan
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Nobodys buying units in my wargame, I need a solution

akacamper wrote:
i don’t know a lot about your board game

How did I forget the most important thing! I have been meaning to do this but I totally forgot (like I forgot today was Thursday).

There is a link to the game rules, and pictures of tiles and units in this thread:

http://www.bgdf.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=17419#17419

Again sorry folks,
-Justin

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