Yes, but the three armies that attack the stronghold seem to have the same colour as the kingdom containing Cobalt Mine and Bismuth, which confused me at first glance, since two of them are separated from that kingdom. Perhaps a yellowish, sandy wasteland, cleared of brush by those in the stronghold so as to see approaching attackers more easily?
Should the winning objective be tweaked to include more than one region?
eg. "Hold Stronghold AND an entire kingdom".
Anybody who has ever played freestyle speed on the St. Paddy's map will appreciate the question. It's easy to take the one objective region and begin the next turn as soon as possible to win in freestyle.
If players focus too much on the goal and not evaluate the entire board - then it does allow others to charge in for the win - but if you see one player getting too close to the goal (or too strong) - the best defense is not by changing the victory condition and adding additional regions; it is to change your tactic and focus assaults on what ever player is closer to achieving the victory - in order to weaken him enough so that he is unable to break the defense of the regions prior to the victory condition.. If you wait until he is at the front door to attack him (cause your too busy killing neutrals or trying to reach a bonus sector) - then it is no ones fault but your own...
ManBungalow wrote:Should the winning objective be tweaked to include more than one region?
eg. "Hold Stronghold AND an entire kingdom".
It all depends on if you want it to get used. Make the winning condition too easy and it comes down to dice, make it to hard and everyone ignores it. For the size of map, you should leave it as the stronghold and let neutrals balance it for you. But this is not your only option, you can go like Austrum and Vertex and say stronghold and any 10 regions. This messes up the log more in fog games as well.
I like it as is - just one spot the strong hold....
But another suggestion that will make the rebels more valuable - for now - I question if i would go out of my way to capture a rebel when my goal is the stronghold...
You could say the winner needs one (or two) rebel camp and the strong hold for one turn to win...
And yet a third option - The 3 Neutral guard spaces in front of the Stronghold can not be attacked unless you control at least one Rebel camp.
So you do not need to maintain control of the camp to win, but you need a camp just to reach the stronghold...
Aleena wrote:And yet a third option - The 3 Neutral guard spaces in front of the Stronghold can not be attacked unless you control at least one Rebel camp.
I'm not able to add another XML feature (such as conditional borders) as per the rules of the competition.
Kogtz and Dako leads to the Threshold While Rjbeals leads to the Hidden Passage
Then Have the Threshold and the Hidden Passage lead into the center circle which is the Stronghold itself..
....
This might be out of left field... But some issues before from others was the concern about the victory condition being basically a race - all based on the Dice - little skill needed...
I'm not sure if I agree - but I have an idea that would fix this problem and change the whole dynamic of the board...
Have all players a PRESET starting Point and have PLAYER #1 start as the Stronghold.
So Player #1 will need to control all four Rebel Camps to win... Where as the rest of the players are all trying to get into the Stronghold to win... \
This way the Stronghold and it's defense is not a brainless neutral just waiting for the first player to capture it...
You can also make the Stronghold, Threshold, and Hidden Passage be a Bonus which player #1 starts with - to help balance out the fact that all the other players are targeting him....
Sort of a Lord of the Ring Feel - Where the Dark Lord is trying to claim all earth, while all the other players (Hobbits, Humans, Elves, Dwarves) have one major goal and that is to reach the Center of all evil where they can destroy the ring..
Now I not saying use a ring, or different races - just trying to get the idea across where Player #1 has a different Victory condition then the rest of the players - and all players are against Player #1 from winning..
Aleena wrote:Kogtz and Dako leads to the Threshold While Rjbeals leads to the Hidden Passage
Then Have the Threshold and the Hidden Passage lead into the center circle which is the Stronghold itself..
....
This might be out of left field... But some issues before from others was the concern about the victory condition being basically a race - all based on the Dice - little skill needed...
I'm not sure if I agree - but I have an idea that would fix this problem and change the whole dynamic of the board...
Have all players a PRESET starting Point and have PLAYER #1 start as the Stronghold.
So Player #1 will need to control all four Rebel Camps to win... Where as the rest of the players are all trying to get into the Stronghold to win... \
This way the Stronghold and it's defense is not a brainless neutral just waiting for the first player to capture it...
You can also make the Stronghold, Threshold, and Hidden Passage be a Bonus which player #1 starts with - to help balance out the fact that all the other players are targeting him....
Sort of a Lord of the Ring Feel - Where the Dark Lord is trying to claim all earth, while all the other players (Hobbits, Humans, Elves, Dwarves) have one major goal and that is to reach the Center of all evil where they can destroy the ring..
Now I not saying use a ring, or different races - just trying to get the idea across where Player #1 has a different Victory condition then the rest of the players - and all players are against Player #1 from winning..
Again, Aleena, I can't add any other gameplay features due to the GCCM rules. I love your idea though, maybe for another map.
Okay, so recent update shows some of the following features:
New legend text Kingdom bonuses are now shown in the legend rather than in floating shields Coloured kingdoms for better identification of borders Each kingdom has a name Decided on rebel territory feature: they bombard the stronghold
Aleena, there is no way to ensure that player 1 gets any particular starting position, as they are distributed randomly to the players before the remaining territories are dropped. And of course, player 1 (red) doesn't always go first, either, but that may not be critcal to your idea. I mention this more for less experienced readers who may be following this map.
