Assumptions & Issues: Take 2

First, let me reiterate that I really don't want to include the rules for blocking / passing right now. Let's just create the basic system and then we can add to it later if necessary.

Next, I am not totally sold on paying an AP to pass through a junction. Let me give you an example why:

Say we have two nearly identical game set ups: Both have two caves seperated by a passageway that is three tiles long. In game A the two caves are connected by one continious passageway (I.E. no intersections). In game B, let's say that the two caves are connected by the same passageway, but instead let's say that each of the three tiles is a 'junction' tile.

Ok in game A, the cost to go from the first cave to the second is 2 AP. One to go from the first cave to the passageway, and another to go from the passageway to the second cave. Now in game B, I have to pay FOUR AP! One to go from the first cave to the first passageway/junction tile, one more to advance to the 2nd junction tile, another to advance to the third junction and then a fourth to finally move into the second cave. Logically this makes no sense to me. Both caves are of equal distance apart in the same direction so they should be the same cost to reach.

I propose the following movement rules:

Pay 1 AP to enter a cavern from a passageway.
Pay 1 AP to switch from one passageway to another; I.E. switch directions. This basically means if you make a turn to the right or left at an intersection (I.E. you leave the passageway you are on), you pay 1 AP to then travel down that new passageway.

The reasoning behind this rule is that it is/should be much easier to move forward and continue moving forward, but changing directions means you have to stop, turn and then move down that passageway which might take considerable more time. Yes, it's not 100% realistic, but I think it's better than paying 1 AP per junction. Also I forsee that there might be a lot of 'junctions/intersections' between two caverns, even though they might be a short distance apart. I think it might be frustrating for the players to spend all their AP in this manner just to go a short distance.

Are you refering to pay extra APs to draw more cards and then keep the one you want? If so, I again have to say I am completely against that. Depending upon how you would implement pay X to draw Y cards, you would either end up with too many trash cards at the top of the deck (if we used the method of drawing X, taking 1 and replacing the rest on top) or you would have too many worthless cards at the bottom (if we did draw X, take 1 and return the rest to the bottom of the pile). A way to fix this 'stratification' (as I like to call it) is to either discard all cards not chosen by the player or reshuffle the deck afterwards. Either way I'm not a big fan of it. My personal preference is to always give the players the top card of the deck.

What I was referring to in my first post was a method for making it more difficult for players to find things the more a cave is searched. I.E. you increase the AP cost to search everytime the cave is searched. With this method, it will eventually be too costly (read impossible) to search the cave and the players will be forced to move on.

I agree with this completely...

I think it's going to get ugly with the amount of chits sitting around. I have an idea of how to clean this up but I still haven't fully weighed all the implications. I will post it as soon as I have thought it through more.

All for now.
-Darke

I'm not saying we won't include these rules in the game, what I'm saying is I think we need to define standard movement and other things first, make sure they all 'mesh properly', then we can come back and decide if and how we are going to implement these rules. Obviously we need to decide these things before the game can be played, but I think it's best to get a better feel for the rest of the game before deciding upon these things.

This is one of the ways I envisioned doing this:
We could use search chits.... A chit could have would have a number on it.. The number corresponds to the action point cost to search it.
So when a cave is completed you immediately put a 1 AP search chit... After someone searches you put a 2 AP search hit, then a 4 AP search chit, etc. Now I can already see where this would be tedious...

Possibly another solution is to put a search chit on each cave tile that comprises a completed cavern. Each time you search, you remove a search chit from one of the caverns. The cost to search would be the # of removed chits from the completed cavern. For example, say I complete a 5 tile cavern. I put one chit on each cave tile (5 total). I then choose to search the cavern, so I remove a search chit, note that there are 1 removed chits, pay my 1 AP and draw a card from the search deck. We could also do this exponentially so that the first search costs 1, the second costs 2, the third cost 4, etc. With this method, I don't forsee it being possible to search more than three times unless we have a piece of equipment that aids in searching (torch, flashlight, infrared goggles, etc). Actually I prefer this second solution. It might not be perfect but I think it works.

Adding direction is probably a bad idea. I would suggest that junction points aren't considered a space for a player to land on at all; players are either always on a path, or in a cave. So you don't really pay for a junction, but you do pay for entering a new path.

I think you don't understand what I was saying because it appears we are saying the same thing, but using different wording.

Right here you lost me. I don't see how you get 3 AP.. It should only be two per your reasoning.. Perhaps you aren't visualizing my example the same way I was..

Also this paragraph completely escapes me. Can you explain it further? I think maybe what you are saying is that we shouldn't worry about the solid rock sections of the cave? THe only thing that should be defined on the tiles is cave area and passage area?

Well, I'm still operating under the assumption that defeating an obstacle awards you a/many discovery card(s). Whereas as the search chits would be placed on the 'board' itself (and they probably are a little too big for that), the discovery cards would just be something in your hand.

This is going to have to be addressed urgently since it's clear that two of us at least still have completely different understandings of the terms "Discovery" "Obstacle" and "Search" - which, given how central they are to this game, might be a problem!
A separate thread might be necessary for that.

Basically the way we have been leaning towards is this:

Obstacles / Discoveries reside on a cave tile OR a cave system. In order to 'document' (score) the discovery, you have to overcome any obstacle present. These will either be seperate chits OR combined into one chit.

Searching is done probably only when caves have been completed. The general consensus is you pay the AP cost to search and then draw your card(s), depending upon how we decide it will work.

The 'OR's above are because we have decided which of the two options we are going with.

OK one last thing:

At the end of the game, a player scored for the number of VPs of their colour in front of them, plus any discovery chits (thus a discovery would score 2VPs for the finding player since they score 1 for the chit and 1 for the VP marker - it may be possible to increase this bonus if it proves necessary.) If you want to play the "secrecy" version, a player might also score for each VP of another player that was still in the discovery stack.
Some obstacles would be treated as discoveries but need to be passed as well.
Some obstacles would be single chits placed on the board. When passed, they would be removed and placed in front of the passing player and score as per discovery chits at the end of the game.

This way you only need a bunch of generic VP markers for the players plus two chits for each Discovery/Obstacle, which wouldn't be excessive.

I like this and completely agree with it. My only concern is that it might be better to put your marker on the tile once you've scored it rather than removing it once you scored it. This might POSSIBLY mean less chits laying on the board, but only if the game leans more toward players going out on there own rather than hanging out in the same areas as the other players. Of course, then you would also need some sort of VP track to keep track of players scores everytime (since you wouldn't then have the luxury of keeping score with the markers in front of you like you suggested).

Ok that's all for now... Shew!
-Darke

OK here is the example I described in my earlier post:

The way I'm proposing is that it only takes 2 AP to traverse from the right cave to the left cave (or vice versa). 1 AP to enter the passageway from the cavern, and then another 1 AP to enter the cavern from the passageway

In this example:

It would cost 3 AP to travel from from the left cave to the bottom cave: 1 AP to enter the passageway and then move to the junction, 1 AP to leave the junction and enter the southern passageway, and 1 AP to enter the southern cavern. Are we on the same page with this?

-Darke