3 March 2014
I set up another 2-player game to playtest today. A few notable changes:
- All 19 hexes were used.
- Green Bonus Chips were awarded only with the use of the NUMBER 2 special ability cards.
- A +1 or +2 RESUPPLY Bonus was added to the FORE! cards in each player's deck.
Things went smooth again this time around. Some specific observations and responses:
- There were some NUMBER 2 cards that had neither a +1 or a * on them, so at the end of this session I did so. The NUMBER 2+1 cards are now essentially a NUMBER 3 card with a restriction that at least one of the Moles must be a RESUPPLY instead of expansion Mole. I'm okay with that.
- This was the first game in which I used Walls. These seem to be useful in situations where there's a hex that has already been claimed, but a HAWK has reduced the claimant's numbers and they need to protect the hex from intrusion. I also added a +1VP bonus to the owner of a hex for each Wall built in it. This edged Blue over Orange, as the score was separated by 1VP.
- I want to keep the addition of the RESUPPLY bonus on the FORE! cards. They seemed too weak before, especially since there are times when a target opponent either has fewer than 3 cards to choose from or has a weak hand to choose from.
- There was at least one situation where a player had two HAWK cards in their hand and nothing else. I'm not definitely sure how to address this, but I defaulted to discarding that hand and drawing a full hand of 5 cards. I'm currently okay with this as long as it doesn't seem to be a persistent problem. I may allow a player to simply RESUPPLY using the +# listed on the card, but that seems weak when compared to the original intent of the card. Maybe turn both in for a RESUPPLY of 3 and then drawing a hand of 5 cards?
- Now that there are two cards in a player's deck that allow them to build Walls or claim Green Bonuses, those cards have become much more valuable. Walls will grant +1VP at the endgame, while the Green Bonus can be anywhere from 1VP to 3VP. They will see a lot more play, and will actually become worthwhile targets for a FORE! card. I'm pleased with that.
- There was one interesting situation where Blue had been expanding into a hex, but their path was "cut off" by Orange's well-timed HAWK card. The result is that Blue's Moles were "stranded" in the hex, and it took additional turns for Blue to recover and regain a pathway back to that hex. Recurrence of this situation depends heavily on hex layout, current card hands, and player expansion methods, but overall it makes for an interesting situation. Does a player ignore or continue to attack a hex filled with their opponent's stranded Moles? More playtesting will help determine a most effective approach to the situation, I think.
ENDGAME
The final score was Orange 35, Blue 36. The game ended not when all hexes were claimed, but when Blue exhausted their supply of available Moles (by using a +1 RESUPPLY card, of course! Not only that, but it was the last card in their hand...!). See pictures below of pre-game setup, endgame situation, and the current player deck configuration.
Here's what things looked like at the start of the game.
Here's the endgame status. Note that neither team had picked up all their Green Bonuses (Orange has more). Also note the yellow cube on one of the bottom-edge hexes. It was placed by Blue near mid-game.
Here's the current player deck configuration. NUMBER 2 cards have either the asterisk or a +1 RESUPPLY bonus. FORE! cards have either a +1 or +2 RESUPPLY bonus. The NUMBER 3 and NUMBER 4 cards have no special features, but by their own nature they seem versatile either as expansion, resupply, or even attack cards.
NEXT SESSION
- I think that a third player is ready to be added to the game. We'll see how things scale up in future playtests.
- I think I'll stick with the full-size board for even two players now. At this point, It's clear that multiple-player games will be crowded, and/or call for different strategies than 2-player games.
- I also need to come up with a theme-applicable name for the Green Bonus chips. Maybe print golf flags on one side of them? It might indicate that the Moles have further dug out the area, making it more habitable for their mole colony. Not sure yet.
- I want to experiment with a more rapid expansion method, where players can expand into any hex adjacent to a hex where they already have Moles, "leap-frogging" across the board. I imagine there would be a lot more expansion and aggressiveness, and a lot more contested hexes. I also predict that there would be a lot more "stranded" Moles. But right now I'd say the priority is scaling up to additional players.
Any feedback? Please comment here or share via e-mail: editor [at] let [dash] off [dot] com. Thanks for reading!
