Analysis Paralysis, was a very common thing during the play test last weekend. It creped in much more than usual. Perhaps due to the experience of the 2 helpers. Or perhaps due to the extended freedom that I offered, just as an experiment to see how it would fair.
Probably the last one.
We where with 3 players in total. And I took a good look at how fast my 2 friends decided on things. As usual, the game is a war game (like A&A but complexer and a hexagon field)
Causes, where they took their time:
- Allowing players to choose their units, this was a free choice for each unit, out of 3 to 5 designs per class. There where 9 classes as usual. It took 45 minutes!
- Allowing players to design their hero units from scratch, this too was a free choice. I needed to help them with this. 30 minutes each. Thus 1 hour in total. Perhaps I should have given them a choice here as well.
- Allowing players to build a starting base themselves. Normally we all have the same base on a 7 hexagon grid. And things grow during game play.
The only free of choice decision in previous games was to give the base a certain direction.
Due to the rules, you have to keep in mind, not to clog up the central path or the exit. However, this seems to be troublesome?? for others. I have no trouble to visualize this. I could design some templates for them to choose from.
Any suggestions in how to tackle these?
How to make them faster or easier? Less choices?
Or should I just scrap all the freedom?
Well, this is something that I did before. As mentioned in the first post, scrap it all? I guess, I could ask them to do this choosing at home.
Now, for heroes. I can design them all myself on before hand. Simply making one for each class would do.
But if my experienced players have an idea, I'll add the idea to the list of choices.
This is also similar to your starting base makeup you mention. Allow choices between several (as in, 3 or more) specific loadouts that players can choose from, each relatively balanced but having particular strengths that cater to different play styles.
This is something that I don't have, yet. But easy to do. After all, I know how they build. And I can think of various other ways too.
The main pain here. A path out!
This could differ for each map.
With the basic 7 hexagons. The centre path would be best.
A fully functional starting base luckily only needs 4 hexagons.
If you have a contemporary military game, maybe you have loadouts that focus on quick-hitting assault units, or sniper units, or basic infantry with larger quantity, or demolitions, etc. I'm sure there are several ways to work this out that allow for distinct strengths to be made clear to the players as they make their choices. Heroes can amplify the strategies that players want to work with, depending on their specific skills/abilities you prepare them with.
This isn't hard.
Stats (Armor, Speed, Damage, Range) simply show what roles an unit can fill.
For specific meat and support roles, I could make this obvious with score points.
The same goes for heroes.