I'm very glad I didn't self-destruct on your home planet early game.
I had really talked myself into eliminating "player-to-my-right" and it was hard to calm down and think rationally again.
I'm very glad I didn't self-destruct on your home planet early game.
I had really talked myself into eliminating "player-to-my-right" and it was hard to calm down and think rationally again.
At the same time, I wish I had stuck to my guns and refused to exchange Ceasefires. C'est la vie.
I'm very glad I didn't self-destruct on your home planet early game.
I had really talked myself into eliminating "player-to-my-right" and it was hard to calm down and think rationally again.
At the same time, I wish I had stuck to my guns and refused to exchange Ceasefires. C'est la vie.
Admittedly that was after I decided kamikazing on 0.0.1 wasa bad move and took that move back.
Otherwise I was resigned to duelling it out with you, but not so bloody-mindedly as to zerg ships for no reason.
MrBlarney: Why are players not allowed to PM each other/discuss the game outside of the play thread? I assume there's some past history from previous games here or at another forum, but I'm curious as to what issues outside discussion causes. Being able to pull someone into another room, or just far enough from the table that other players can't listen in, is an integral part of the TI experience imo. There's definitely something lost when no private discussion is possible.
There's no real deeper reason for that rule except that it's tradition at this point. As far as I know, most tabletop games played on the forums, if not all, also forbid inter-player PMs. As host, I also don't want to have to deal with player conversations for a five month period. Like, if two players share a PM, do I have to also announce that those players are having a conversation? It'd be pretty obvious if, in real life, one player pulls another aside for private conversation. In terms of real-life games, I can't really remember being a part of private, away-from-table conversations. But then again, I can't say I've played many real life games of TI and it's been a very, very long time since my last one. So I guess it goes a little bit beyond 'tradition', now that I've written things out. Even though the long length of TI makes it a bit of a different experience from other board games, where 'long' games might still only be half of a TI game's length, there's some logistical and simplifying reasons to maintain a standard no-PM rule like with other, 'shorter' games.
MrBlarney: Why are players not allowed to PM each other/discuss the game outside of the play thread? I assume there's some past history from previous games here or at another forum, but I'm curious as to what issues outside discussion causes. Being able to pull someone into another room, or just far enough from the table that other players can't listen in, is an integral part of the TI experience imo. There's definitely something lost when no private discussion is possible.
There's no real deeper reason for that rule except that it's tradition at this point. As far as I know, most tabletop games played on the forums, if not all, also forbid inter-player PMs. As host, I also don't want to have to deal with player conversations for a five month period. Like, if two players share a PM, do I have to also announce that those players are having a conversation? It'd be pretty obvious if, in real life, one player pulls another aside for private conversation. In terms of real-life games, I can't really remember being a part of private, away-from-table conversations. But then again, I can't say I've played many real life games of TI and it's been a very, very long time since my last one. So I guess it goes a little bit beyond 'tradition', now that I've written things out. Even though the long length of TI makes it a bit of a different experience from other board games, where 'long' games might still only be half of a TI game's length, there's some logistical and simplifying reasons to maintain a standard no-PM rule like with other, 'shorter' games.
Initially I chalked it up to a combination of logistics, and possibly my usual group just being more inclined to engage in private talks than most and so it not being that important to people. When I went to PAX South and played in the TI4 tournament there though, it was just like my home games with people grabbing one or two other players and walking 20 feet away to talk and negotiate for a bit. It adds an extra dimension to things that I did find myself missing at times. I can absolutely understand not wanting to have to deal with it from the perspective of running the game, but it feels like you could just put the onus on players to post in the thread indicating they are having a discussion with player X via PMs? You're trusting them not to discuss with each other as it is, so trusting them to be honest about having private discussions doesn't seem like a stretch.
Anyway, that was the most obvious difference to me between playing on the forums and playing in person. That and the innate communication issues with having players from very different areas of the world and on very different schedules making table talk difficult at times - but that's just the nature of a pbf game.
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Mojo_JojoWe are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered Userregular
Good game. Well done people.
Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
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Mojo_JojoWe are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered Userregular
One change to the actions cards I'm not crazy about: changing In the Silence of Space so that it doesn't matter if the destination system has any enemy ships in it. That makes it way too powerful in my opinion. Getting that and a flank speed card is such a massive game changer.
I wasn't a fan of that one either but not for it being too powerful - it replicates a technology and is therefore weirdly redundant. It feels like a rough edge not caught after a power rework. I think I have lots of TI4 comments that I'm saving up for post game #1 and then a big dump in the boardgame thread
Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
Ha!
If you'd taken a token, I would've activated my home system, and dumped another 6 infantry on it, with my War Suns.
And then Passed (after a wasted Imperial).
I would've then hoped to buy a Tech when that came around to win in Status phase.
But I would've been last in the order then.
So Phyphor or Jakobagger would have won I think.
Nah I got trolled by all of the retreat cards, likely wouldn't have been able to win
Can't do anything versus a perfect scoring setup though
Ha!
If you'd taken a token, I would've activated my home system, and dumped another 6 infantry on it, with my War Suns.
And then Passed (after a wasted Imperial).
I would've then hoped to buy a Tech when that came around to win in Status phase.
But I would've been last in the order then.
So Phyphor or Jakobagger would have won I think.
I had no way of winning this turn, I'm pretty sure. Was at 7 and couldn't complete my secret objective.
Speaking of secret objectives, I started the game with the one that requires you to build 3 space docks. I was real frustrated by how they kept getting blown up.
I thought they looked great at first glance, but now I'm in the camp that N'orr are a weaksauce race. They're near the bottom in BGG winrate so far.
The designers really seemed to have overvalued that +1 combat roll, much like they've overvalued the -1 Jol-Nar penalty. The +1 just doesn't do much now that the game has moved away from destroyer swarms and towards dreads. The biggest boost is to infantry but with more dreads, easier warsuns, and plasma scoring, bombardment is deadlier and mitigates infantry to infantry combat.
That no starting tech REALLY hurts, especially with all the tech objectives. In fact I'd go so far as to say that the only real chance the N'orr have at being competitive is the unlikely event that none of the tech objectives get drawn. You're an entire 1 1/2 to 2 rounds behind everyone else for tech.
My thing is: WHY do they get penalized? Their bonus isn't that great. They're one out of the only three races in the game to get some sort of penalty. The Jol-nar penalty is easy to understand since their bonuses are so amazing. The Winnu...yeah the Winnu suck. But all the other races get no penalty, and a lot of them get a better bonus than the N'orr +1. You can' tell me that the +1 is better than the Arborec production infantry, or the Naalu 0 value initiative. Hell I would say that even the Sol extra CC every turn is better than the +1. I have no idea why they thought the N'orr were up there with the Jol-Nar for deserving a penalty. The bonuses aren't even close.
The lack of starting tech is a fairly significant starting deficit. Best that can be seen is that part of the design was to give every race a different starting tech setup. On average, there'll be 3 VP worth of tech-centric Public objectives in the mix. There are four tech-centric Public objectives, two each in Stage I and II. With ten objectives in each Stage deck, the chances of {zero, one, two, three, four} tech-centric objectives being selected among the ten for each game are about {5%, 25%, 40%, 25%, 5%}.
Incidentally, I also put together a table of simplified invasion-style combat probabilities following the earlier discussion of the N'orr's Unrelenting ability, but never posted them. I'll link to it here. Table 1 suggests that a combat advantage brings a larger benefit in a matchup of equal unit counts when there are more units in the fray. The hit advantage is also larger when the combat values of units are smaller. So in early and late game, the N'orr's combat advantage has a different kind of boosting effect. Unfortunately, Table 2 suggests that the combat advantage is largest when the number of units on both sides is equal. When the attacker comes in with fewer units, the defender's unit advantage is not well-compensated by the additional hit probability. And when the attacker comes in with more units than the defender, they're already favored to win. On the other hand, the combat advantage does provide one benefit in a favored unit count: fewer units are lost by the attacker on average, due to the combat being resolved more swiftly. In a large combat, both sides should expect to lose a fair amount of material. So snowballing the combat faster to secure more of your units is great to reduce your vulnerabilities after battle.
Ground combat seems lopsided to start with now. There's just more bombardment and it seems more action cards and agendas that kill off infantry. That +1 means nothing in the face of war suns. Most ground battles were decided before the invasion even started.
But even then, +1 isn't anywhere close to being powerful enough to warrant the tech penalty N'orr gets hit with. Arborec and Naalu: MUCH better racial bonuses, no penalty (a minor penalty that Arborec gets only one crappy tech but that's still 1 more than N'orr).
I still have no idea what they were thinking with Winnu.
I think N'orr really needs to get Carrier II. And early.
To a large extent, I think the base ships are worth roughly the same in a TG/power sense.
Fighters are cheapest, but hit the least; Dreadnoughts the most, and hit the most.
In order to fully utilise that +1, the best bet is to simply buy many units for the same TG cost.
So a Carrier packing 6 fighters is going to deal more damage with that +1 than a single Dreadnought, ignoring the cost of the Carrier.
I don't know how the Carrier cost is justified to be honest.
Then perhaps you accompany it with the suicidal Dreadnought to scare people away, and to take a shot from things that shoot through Fighter shields.
Yeah I don't get their design focus. Their +1 bonus favors fielding lots of weaker ships, but their racial tech is a dreadnought upgrade? Their other racial tech might just be the most pointless in the game. It's a very "meh" ability that requires 2 red techs, a branch that they would never want to go down since it's completely separate from their dread upgrade, they benefit the least from war suns, and they already get +1 bombardment for dreads so plasma scoring isn't that great.
Don't understand at all why they thought N'orr and Winnu were up there with Jol-Nar for races that needed huge penalties.
Oh, and they're not near the bottom for ranking. They are the bottom.
So what would everyone like to see tweaked, deleted, or added to the expansion?
I think I'd like to see the objectives switched up a little. Less outright tech objectives, less of those impossible "hold X speciality planet types" ones. How often is someone going to have 6 cultural planets?
Yeah I don't get their design focus. Their +1 bonus favors fielding lots of weaker ships, but their racial tech is a dreadnought upgrade? Their other racial tech might just be the most pointless in the game. It's a very "meh" ability that requires 2 red techs, a branch that they would never want to go down since it's completely separate from their dread upgrade, they benefit the least from war suns, and they already get +1 bombardment for dreads so plasma scoring isn't that great.
Don't understand at all why they thought N'orr and Winnu were up there with Jol-Nar for races that needed huge penalties.
Oh, and they're not near the bottom for ranking. They are the bottom.
So, winnu perform really, really well in smaller games and tend to have clusters near the top (when they can keep MR presumably) and the bottom (when they can't) in larger games. Which makes sense given a larger game makes controlling MR for long periods of time much tougher and making securing your borders that much harder
I think TI4 makes going small ship swarm easier. The AC that destroyed fighter swarms in 3 have been removed. IMO the Norr should probably be played almost as if they were the naalu - fighter swarm augmented with upgraded dreads if the opponent has war suns. The lack of starting tech is still very painful though
A Norr (or naalu) carrier + 6 fighters deals an expected 2.1 hits/round (naalu 2.0) - second only to a war sun - costs 6 R and soaks 7 hits, vs a 4 R dread that does 0.6 The only problem is build capacity of course, but even without a good high resource system your homeworld can get to 8 capacity
KetarCome on upstairswe're having a partyRegistered Userregular
Haven't played enough games to have strong feelings about the inevitable expansion yet. I did see somebody pull off one of the X planets of Y specialty in my game at PAX South, so it ain't impossible. It did require amassing more tactics tokens than I have ever seen for one player though, and stalling like crazy to grab planets after others had passed.
As far as the base game, I really dislike the pre-set map we used. I think my new preference for a game where some might get too much of an advantage from map formation due to greater experience is to go ahead and create the map as you normally would, require players to agree on balance of starting positions and adjust based on majority opinion, and then randomize the starting positions. It takes a little bit longer, but felt very fair for new players.
Yeah, again, sorry @Ketar.
I think your map position would have been fairer had you been able to pick from all the available race info.
Also if you hadn't botched Construction Turn 2.
The default map setup especially makes those "own X planet types" objective almost impossible.
Starting positions are most definitely not balanced in the default. It's somewhat mitigated by the snaking race/location draft system.
I don't fully trust the Winnu ranking on that spreadsheet either. I especially don't trust the Yin one. There's a couple people on BGG who make their entire performance artist posting career one big "Yin are the best" roleplaying joke and I'm willing to bet they fudged some spreadsheet submissions.
Other than that the rankings seem about right. Although I am surprised to see Sol at the top. Some are saying they're better than Jol-Nar???
One change I'd like to see: the voting system. I like the idea of it, but I think it needs to be secret simultaneous voting. With open sequential voting there really wasn't much suspense to it. Everything was just a formality with abstaining half the time because people knew they would be defeated by a single vote down the line. Secret voting would still give an advantage to people with more influence, but there would be more tension and bluffing. You could even keep the transaction system where you make offers, people can accept them, but then the deal only goes through if they end up voting according to the deal once votes are revealed.
I dunno. I feel something needs to spice up the apathy of voting. Definitely NOT the bloated representative system from Shattered Empire though.
Mojo_JojoWe are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered Userregular
edited February 2018
Sol are great for the ability to drop GF on high value planets without the need for production or blocking. If a Sol player takes Metacol Rex it's going to take somebody with Warsuns and Bacterial Weapon to dislodge them and stop them churning out VP effortlessly. They don't even need to bother keeping a fleet in orbit. They sort of highlight how Winnu must have been some kind of playtesting oversight.
Similarly, if a sneaky Sol player grabs your homeworld you're effectively locked out of the game if they want to play that way.
I'm not surprised they are rising to the top
Edit: Also Sardakk Norr don't have a penalty?
Mojo_Jojo on
Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
I don't fully trust the Winnu ranking on that spreadsheet either. I especially don't trust the Yin one. There's a couple people on BGG who make their entire performance artist posting career one big "Yin are the best" roleplaying joke and I'm willing to bet they fudged some spreadsheet submissions.
I've also found that the player count matters greatly for Winnu. Smaller games (3-4 players) get more strategy cards playing, and that just helps Winnu so much.
...
I'm not sure why Winnu would be good in this version
Like I won without taking Mecatol Rex, and it seems like continuously pulling the 8 card while having Mecatol Rex is not a straight path to victory anymore, now that other players can play the primary/secondary for VP of their own three times.
It's certainly cheaper than not having Mecatol Rex, but it's no longer free VP out of nothing that no-one else gets and so no-one else can keep up with.
It's not just that you're an entire one and a half rounds (in a game that's effectively over round 6) behind everyone in tech, it's that you're one and a half rounds getting tech that makes a ton of difference in the opening game: sarween tools, neural motivators, gravity drive, hyper metabolism.
To say nothing that it's virtually impossible to ever score the stage II tech objectives. You're likely to be locked out of 2 VP that everyone else has a shot at.
MrBody on
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Mojo_JojoWe are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered Userregular
It's not just that you're an entire one and a half rounds (in a game that's effectively over round 6) behind everyone in tech, it's that you're one and a half rounds getting tech that makes a ton of difference in the opening game: sarween tools, neural motivators, gravity drive, hyper metabolism.
To say nothing that it's virtually impossible to ever score the stage II tech objectives. You're likely to be locked out of 2 VP that everyone else has a shot at.
Ah okay. Your wording was confusing (you'd listed technology as a benefit of sol, so it's absence is odd to call a penalty)
Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
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BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
It's not just that you're an entire one and a half rounds (in a game that's effectively over round 6) behind everyone in tech, it's that you're one and a half rounds getting tech that makes a ton of difference in the opening game: sarween tools, neural motivators, gravity drive, hyper metabolism.
To say nothing that it's virtually impossible to ever score the stage II tech objectives. You're likely to be locked out of 2 VP that everyone else has a shot at.
Ah okay. Your wording was confusing (you'd listed technology as a benefit of sol, so it's absence is odd to call a penalty)
I'm pretty sure Sol gets 2 technologies to start, hence the benefit.
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
I'd argue that their +1CC alone is better than N'orr's +1 combat roll. At worst they're comparable in overall usefulness.
The only other thing N'orr get is the dreadnought upgrade. The Sol carrier upgrade is comparable.
Homeworlds are pretty much equal.
Starting fleets are pretty much equal.
Sol gets a strategy token option with Orbital Drop. N'orr gets nothing.
Sol gets a 2nd useful racial tech with spec ops. N'orr has a 2nd racial that will never, ever be purchased.
Sol has 2 very useful starting techs. N'orr gets nothing.
The starting tech is N'orr disadvantage because every other race gets some except them and they're not amazing in any aspect to warrant such a huge shortfall the way Jol-Nar is justified getting the -1 penalty. Arborec has an amazing racial ability and even they start with a tech (the crappiest tech, but it still counts for prerequisites and objectives). Comparing N'orr to a baseline race like Sol and you can see Sol just flat out has a better setup.
Besides Jol-Nar, the only other race than gets a clear penalty is Winnu (by far the weakest starting fleet). Jol-Nar is the only one justified in having one though.
I actually think the Winnu starting fleet is better than Muuat's.
Muaat's single War Sun means defending your territory and being aggressive at the same time is fairly impossible, up until midgame or so.
Having more capital ships seems like it would help with that, even if the War Sun had to be purchased later.
Posts
I had really talked myself into eliminating "player-to-my-right" and it was hard to calm down and think rationally again.
Some sorta sentient internet aggregator
At the same time, I wish I had stuck to my guns and refused to exchange Ceasefires. C'est la vie.
Admittedly that was after I decided kamikazing on 0.0.1 wasa bad move and took that move back.
Otherwise I was resigned to duelling it out with you, but not so bloody-mindedly as to zerg ships for no reason.
Some sorta sentient internet aggregator
Some sorta sentient internet aggregator
Initially I chalked it up to a combination of logistics, and possibly my usual group just being more inclined to engage in private talks than most and so it not being that important to people. When I went to PAX South and played in the TI4 tournament there though, it was just like my home games with people grabbing one or two other players and walking 20 feet away to talk and negotiate for a bit. It adds an extra dimension to things that I did find myself missing at times. I can absolutely understand not wanting to have to deal with it from the perspective of running the game, but it feels like you could just put the onus on players to post in the thread indicating they are having a discussion with player X via PMs? You're trusting them not to discuss with each other as it is, so trusting them to be honest about having private discussions doesn't seem like a stretch.
Anyway, that was the most obvious difference to me between playing on the forums and playing in person. That and the innate communication issues with having players from very different areas of the world and on very different schedules making table talk difficult at times - but that's just the nature of a pbf game.
I wasn't a fan of that one either but not for it being too powerful - it replicates a technology and is therefore weirdly redundant. It feels like a rough edge not caught after a power rework. I think I have lots of TI4 comments that I'm saving up for post game #1 and then a big dump in the boardgame thread
Nah I got trolled by all of the retreat cards, likely wouldn't have been able to win
Can't do anything versus a perfect scoring setup though
And then attempted to hammer MR or at least your attacking fleet.
Some sorta sentient internet aggregator
I'm still a little disappointed that the little Destroyer who could didn't net me 2 VP.
Although his brothers certainly exacted a just price.
Some sorta sentient internet aggregator
I had no way of winning this turn, I'm pretty sure. Was at 7 and couldn't complete my secret objective.
Speaking of secret objectives, I started the game with the one that requires you to build 3 space docks. I was real frustrated by how they kept getting blown up.
The designers really seemed to have overvalued that +1 combat roll, much like they've overvalued the -1 Jol-Nar penalty. The +1 just doesn't do much now that the game has moved away from destroyer swarms and towards dreads. The biggest boost is to infantry but with more dreads, easier warsuns, and plasma scoring, bombardment is deadlier and mitigates infantry to infantry combat.
That no starting tech REALLY hurts, especially with all the tech objectives. In fact I'd go so far as to say that the only real chance the N'orr have at being competitive is the unlikely event that none of the tech objectives get drawn. You're an entire 1 1/2 to 2 rounds behind everyone else for tech.
My thing is: WHY do they get penalized? Their bonus isn't that great. They're one out of the only three races in the game to get some sort of penalty. The Jol-nar penalty is easy to understand since their bonuses are so amazing. The Winnu...yeah the Winnu suck. But all the other races get no penalty, and a lot of them get a better bonus than the N'orr +1. You can' tell me that the +1 is better than the Arborec production infantry, or the Naalu 0 value initiative. Hell I would say that even the Sol extra CC every turn is better than the +1. I have no idea why they thought the N'orr were up there with the Jol-Nar for deserving a penalty. The bonuses aren't even close.
The lack of coloured tech really hurts with the POs
Some sorta sentient internet aggregator
Incidentally, I also put together a table of simplified invasion-style combat probabilities following the earlier discussion of the N'orr's Unrelenting ability, but never posted them. I'll link to it here. Table 1 suggests that a combat advantage brings a larger benefit in a matchup of equal unit counts when there are more units in the fray. The hit advantage is also larger when the combat values of units are smaller. So in early and late game, the N'orr's combat advantage has a different kind of boosting effect. Unfortunately, Table 2 suggests that the combat advantage is largest when the number of units on both sides is equal. When the attacker comes in with fewer units, the defender's unit advantage is not well-compensated by the additional hit probability. And when the attacker comes in with more units than the defender, they're already favored to win. On the other hand, the combat advantage does provide one benefit in a favored unit count: fewer units are lost by the attacker on average, due to the combat being resolved more swiftly. In a large combat, both sides should expect to lose a fair amount of material. So snowballing the combat faster to secure more of your units is great to reduce your vulnerabilities after battle.
But even then, +1 isn't anywhere close to being powerful enough to warrant the tech penalty N'orr gets hit with. Arborec and Naalu: MUCH better racial bonuses, no penalty (a minor penalty that Arborec gets only one crappy tech but that's still 1 more than N'orr).
I still have no idea what they were thinking with Winnu.
I think N'orr really needs to get Carrier II. And early.
To a large extent, I think the base ships are worth roughly the same in a TG/power sense.
Fighters are cheapest, but hit the least; Dreadnoughts the most, and hit the most.
In order to fully utilise that +1, the best bet is to simply buy many units for the same TG cost.
So a Carrier packing 6 fighters is going to deal more damage with that +1 than a single Dreadnought, ignoring the cost of the Carrier.
I don't know how the Carrier cost is justified to be honest.
Then perhaps you accompany it with the suicidal Dreadnought to scare people away, and to take a shot from things that shoot through Fighter shields.
Some sorta sentient internet aggregator
Don't understand at all why they thought N'orr and Winnu were up there with Jol-Nar for races that needed huge penalties.
Oh, and they're not near the bottom for ranking. They are the bottom.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1c2fGqedk13kS8PR2XF1Olo7kWrjUu5LwZFLSRUKaKdo/edit#gid=0
I think I'd like to see the objectives switched up a little. Less outright tech objectives, less of those impossible "hold X speciality planet types" ones. How often is someone going to have 6 cultural planets?
Some sorta sentient internet aggregator
I decided to do a breakdown of their winnu numbers because I don't think the winnu are a top tier race like that claims
1/3 - 7
2/3 - 5
3/3 - 3
Win% 46.67% vs 33.3%
4/4 - 8
3/4 - 4
2/4 - 3
1/4 - 9
Win% 33.3% vs 25%
5/5 - 1
4/5 - 3
3/5 - 1
2/5 - 2
1/5 - 3
win% 10% vs 20% (10 games isn't much data though)
1/6 - 3
2/6 - 7
3/6 - 3
4/6 - 4
5/6 - 2
6/6 - 5
Win% 12.5% vs 16.67%
So, winnu perform really, really well in smaller games and tend to have clusters near the top (when they can keep MR presumably) and the bottom (when they can't) in larger games. Which makes sense given a larger game makes controlling MR for long periods of time much tougher and making securing your borders that much harder
I think TI4 makes going small ship swarm easier. The AC that destroyed fighter swarms in 3 have been removed. IMO the Norr should probably be played almost as if they were the naalu - fighter swarm augmented with upgraded dreads if the opponent has war suns. The lack of starting tech is still very painful though
A Norr (or naalu) carrier + 6 fighters deals an expected 2.1 hits/round (naalu 2.0) - second only to a war sun - costs 6 R and soaks 7 hits, vs a 4 R dread that does 0.6 The only problem is build capacity of course, but even without a good high resource system your homeworld can get to 8 capacity
As far as the base game, I really dislike the pre-set map we used. I think my new preference for a game where some might get too much of an advantage from map formation due to greater experience is to go ahead and create the map as you normally would, require players to agree on balance of starting positions and adjust based on majority opinion, and then randomize the starting positions. It takes a little bit longer, but felt very fair for new players.
I think your map position would have been fairer had you been able to pick from all the available race info.
Also if you hadn't botched Construction Turn 2.
Some sorta sentient internet aggregator
Some sorta sentient internet aggregator
Starting positions are most definitely not balanced in the default. It's somewhat mitigated by the snaking race/location draft system.
I don't fully trust the Winnu ranking on that spreadsheet either. I especially don't trust the Yin one. There's a couple people on BGG who make their entire performance artist posting career one big "Yin are the best" roleplaying joke and I'm willing to bet they fudged some spreadsheet submissions.
One change I'd like to see: the voting system. I like the idea of it, but I think it needs to be secret simultaneous voting. With open sequential voting there really wasn't much suspense to it. Everything was just a formality with abstaining half the time because people knew they would be defeated by a single vote down the line. Secret voting would still give an advantage to people with more influence, but there would be more tension and bluffing. You could even keep the transaction system where you make offers, people can accept them, but then the deal only goes through if they end up voting according to the deal once votes are revealed.
I dunno. I feel something needs to spice up the apathy of voting. Definitely NOT the bloated representative system from Shattered Empire though.
Some sorta sentient internet aggregator
But that alone is better than N'orr's +1, and Sol gets a better starting fleet plus two great starting techs plus no penalty.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
Similarly, if a sneaky Sol player grabs your homeworld you're effectively locked out of the game if they want to play that way.
I'm not surprised they are rising to the top
Edit: Also Sardakk Norr don't have a penalty?
PSN/Steam: mindflare77
I'm not sure why Winnu would be good in this version
Like I won without taking Mecatol Rex, and it seems like continuously pulling the 8 card while having Mecatol Rex is not a straight path to victory anymore, now that other players can play the primary/secondary for VP of their own three times.
It's certainly cheaper than not having Mecatol Rex, but it's no longer free VP out of nothing that no-one else gets and so no-one else can keep up with.
Some sorta sentient internet aggregator
Zero starting tech is a HUGE penalty.
It's not just that you're an entire one and a half rounds (in a game that's effectively over round 6) behind everyone in tech, it's that you're one and a half rounds getting tech that makes a ton of difference in the opening game: sarween tools, neural motivators, gravity drive, hyper metabolism.
To say nothing that it's virtually impossible to ever score the stage II tech objectives. You're likely to be locked out of 2 VP that everyone else has a shot at.
Ah okay. Your wording was confusing (you'd listed technology as a benefit of sol, so it's absence is odd to call a penalty)
I'm pretty sure Sol gets 2 technologies to start, hence the benefit.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
I'd argue that their +1CC alone is better than N'orr's +1 combat roll. At worst they're comparable in overall usefulness.
The only other thing N'orr get is the dreadnought upgrade. The Sol carrier upgrade is comparable.
Homeworlds are pretty much equal.
Starting fleets are pretty much equal.
Sol gets a strategy token option with Orbital Drop. N'orr gets nothing.
Sol gets a 2nd useful racial tech with spec ops. N'orr has a 2nd racial that will never, ever be purchased.
Sol has 2 very useful starting techs. N'orr gets nothing.
The starting tech is N'orr disadvantage because every other race gets some except them and they're not amazing in any aspect to warrant such a huge shortfall the way Jol-Nar is justified getting the -1 penalty. Arborec has an amazing racial ability and even they start with a tech (the crappiest tech, but it still counts for prerequisites and objectives). Comparing N'orr to a baseline race like Sol and you can see Sol just flat out has a better setup.
Besides Jol-Nar, the only other race than gets a clear penalty is Winnu (by far the weakest starting fleet). Jol-Nar is the only one justified in having one though.
Muaat's single War Sun means defending your territory and being aggressive at the same time is fairly impossible, up until midgame or so.
Having more capital ships seems like it would help with that, even if the War Sun had to be purchased later.
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