City of the Wolves // Need some help on several issues // All FR cards and rules v3.2 online now ! !

Exciting news from France and abroad !
Several groups will be playtesting the game in the next days !
I know it means a lot of tweaking/fixing/balancing work for me to come, but I'm very happy (and grateful too !)

Here is an image I have been toying with...
Hope you'll like it..
http://www.bgdf.com/sites/default/files/images/couv-mini.preview.jpg

I finally had my game demo-ed and playtested extensively last night in a game designers' night in Toulouse.
It was great and I got great feedbacks !
I need to tweak a couple of details before finally upload the english v3 rulebook and cards. ( i can also make some artscow deck... )

The things I need to adjust/balance are :
- starting Resources/Fighters for each side
- some Allies are not THAT interresting until the very end of the game or so... I might simply remove them.
- One role in the Werewolf side (the Traitor)

But it was great, I'm very happy !

Hello again !
A couple of playtests later I have a couple of issues I need to fix.
Maybe will I get some help or suggestions here.
So here is the list of the things I'd like to "balance".

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1. Bad luck : Very bad hand of card...
You have 5 cards in hand at the beginning of your turn. If you feel like it (or really need it...) you can discard 2 cards from your hand to draw 1 new card.. only once.
Some people think (and they're right) that you can have a complete useless hand.
In each player's deck, you have Role cards and Domain cards. Role cards allow you to perform actions (attack, produce, recruit, etc...) and Domain cards are kinds of "boost cards" that can add some bonus to these actions.

The human deck, for instance, is composed of :
- 12 Role cards (6 different Roles)
- 6 Domain cards (5 different Domains)

I didn't go the "Mulligan way" because it could result in slowing the pace down a lot and making the game too easy.

In Magic: The Gathering, a player may declare a mulligan after drawing his initial hand at the beginning of each game. If such a declaration is made, the player puts his cards back into his deck, shuffles, and draws a new hand with one fewer card. The player may repeat this until he is satisfied, or the number of cards in his hand reaches zero.

2. Replacing all text on cards by icons
Maybe like Earth Reborn's "The I.P.S. (Iconographic Phrasing System) which allows almost any effect to occur with icons, totally language independent."

Some effects/abilities seem a little difficult to express without making sentences.
What do you think ?

3. Determining the Dominant player randomly
The first player is determined by rolling a dice :
1-2 Werewolf
3-4 Human
5-6 previous Dominant player cannot play first this turn

Is it too random for you and could be replaced by "taking turns as the first player" ?

4. Using a static starting Location card instead for each player instead of a random one.
The value of the cities goes from 1 to 5... We can imagine players starting with extreme values... that could be difficult to overcome.
I'm thinking of giving each player a fixed starting location, not linked to any other cards (no common regions, etc... )
Like the Wolf lair and the cathedral, for instance, with a fixed value of 2.
Those locations could not be attacked during the first turn.

5. Disputed Cities revelation pace
Location cards are placed face-down as a 3x3 grid on the table.
You flip 3 locations cards at the beginning of the game.
Then, players can put new locations into play only once the three central locations on the "grid" have been attacked.
I'd like my players to have more control on this pace.

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As you can see I have many little issues to solve.
Your help would be very precious to me !!!