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What is more important:
- Fixing point costs? OR
- Fixing rules?
I would love to hear some feedback on this. Would you rather have things costed appropriately (ie the Banshee’s Cry more expensive than 3 points and Le Solitaire less expensive than 17 points) or rules issues fixed? (such as confusion on sea creature vs. sea monster, link options, other rules discrepancies/etc)
Do people think the standard treasure rules (8 coins worth 15 gold) are GOOD for the game? Why or why not?
What is your biggest issue with the rules? How would you go about fixing it?
Hmmmmm. Bit of a tough one for me. Some point costs are absolutely silly, especially among the Cursed, Americans, and Vikings. That said, I do enjoy the “power pieces” that are low cost like Banshee’s Cry. 😀
I do believe that fixing, or clarifying rulings would be slightly more important, especially where Creatures are concerned.
Do people think the standard treasure rules (8 coins worth 15 gold) are GOOD for the game? Why or why not?
Not particularly. It feeds into the “Half of starting gold wins” condition, which I don’t like. It makes the game feel less like a game and more like an expanded math equation, especially when people start running gold calculations to see if they’ve won or if they’re close to winning. I like unpredictability, which is why I use random coins when I play regular games. Furthermore, players don’t input the gold, the “house” does. We agree upon a number of coins per island, and if and how many random UT’s we use.
What is your biggest issue with the rules? How would you go about fixing it?
The win condition. I’ve literally never used it, and it makes the game go too quickly as well as putting an emphasis on quick capacious gold ships. I’m not sure how to fix it without “unbalancing” the game. The situation I outlined above works for me and my brothers, but I suspect just wouldn’t fly for most other people that play. Seems people like order and knowing as opposed to chaos and unknowing.
I do believe that fixing, or clarifying rulings would be slightly more important, especially where Creatures are concerned.
What fixes or clarifications would you make there?
Furthermore, players don’t input the gold, the “house” does. We agree upon a number of coins per island, and if and how many random UT’s we use.
During T1 and T2, did you enjoy having some control over your half of the gold contribution?
I’ve literally never used it, and it makes the game go too quickly as well as putting an emphasis on quick capacious gold ships.
We used it in the VASSAL tournaments, but I definitely get your points. I don’t think I’ve played enough games with totally randomized gold to get a good feel for how the strategy differs. I did enjoy a lot of the strategic elements of the VASSAL tournaments, partly because I like the math side of it and how chesslike it became at times.
What fixes or clarifications would you make there?
Taking a look at the complete game rules section, it seems like WK brought a lot of the language from the Sea Monster keyword into the Sea Creature category. I think distinguishing it from Sea Monster might go a ways to clearing it up.
During T1 and T2, did you enjoy having some control over your half of the gold contribution?
Eh….. I don’t really remember how I felt when setting the fleets up, I remember the actual game-play more.
I find it more enjoyable to be random with the treasure selection. As I said, players don’t contribute the gold, the “house” does. We basically agree to a number of random coins on every island along with how many (if any) random UT’s. Typically we have about 10 coins per island.
We used it in the VASSAL tournaments, but I definitely get your points.
The VASSAL tournaments were all 1v1, and highly competitive, which I almost never play. If it’s not a campaign game, it’s a 3-way 60-80 point game between me and my brothers. Since I play those more often than 1v1 a lot of the 1v1 rules I’m not totally familiar with or use too often.
Do people think the standard treasure rules (8 coins worth 15 gold) are GOOD for the game? Why or why not?
I think it’s fine to provide a benchmark for players that need a predetermined and consistent structure for their games. It’s also useful for tournament settings, especially if there are extra rules where a running total is kept from game to game.
The specific values are largely irrelevant, and could be set at pretty much anything. 8/15 is probably just what worked best in testing, and provided the most flexibility without allowing too much craziness with min/maxing. It’s obviously not suitable for larger game sizes, so providing a sliding scale and/or several different sets of similar guidelines would probably be better.
Outside of a few very early games, and the various theoreticals in MT’s old fleets section, I never used any of those set values. It was always much more fun to make it semi-random by just grabbing several UT cards (also at random), punching out everything from them, and spreading them evenly around the islands. If there were any odd amounts left over during distribution, they either got set aside (not used) or more often than not they got placed on the island(s) farthest from all player home islands.
The winner was whoever had the most gold at the end. It didn’t matter how much was technically available at the start.
I rarely use the win condition but I don’t think it is bad.
I think fixing point costs (or offering alternative costs) would be a big benefit. It would help bring more balance between factions like xerecs mentioned. Plus some of the more unique abilities (switchblade, sea monsters, pocession ability, fear,and many more) would become more viable.
There are clunky issues with the rules but I think the benefits of a point cost rebalance elevate the game as a whole more.
A couple of rules that always felt funny to me were;
1. Galleys can’t eliminate masts when ramming.
2. Ghostly ships could be shot at while ghostly.These both seem to miss the mark thematically and we have house rules reversing them.
2. Ghostly ships could be shot at while ghostly.
These both seem to miss the mark thematically and we have house rules reversing them.
While it may seem questionable thematically, it was done that way as a balancing thing. There were only two cancellers in the entire game (Nemesio and LeNoir) when Ghost Ship was introduced, so they had to provide some other way for the average fleet to counter those ships. Without one of those two specific crew in your fleet, Ghostly ships would be effectively invincible.
Submerged took Ghostly that extra step further, but could kinda get away with it because cancellers were a bit more common at that point, and much more widely used. However, even to this day that ability to avoid all damage can be problematic if your fleet doesn’t have specific provisions included to deal with it.
There were the only two cancellers in the entire game (Nemesio and LeNoir) when Ghost Ship was introduced, so they had to provide some other way for the average fleet to counter those ships.
Ah that makes sense. Hypothetically, if Ghost Ship would have been first introduced in a later set, say OE, do you think it’s mechanics would have looked different based on the play environment at that time?
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