Graham Smallwood
United States
Santa Ana
California
Delve : the Dice Game Buy for iOS!
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I love this game. I love everything about it. I love the fighting and the orders system and the morale and the Velociraptors. In Kingdoms, I love the scenario generator deck with a passion reserved for the poetry of madmen. The day the scenario generator was made, angels rode down rainbows to plant a gentle kiss on the forehead of the designer.
But the tech tree sucks. Maybe sucks is too strong a word. It suce. Okay, that was French for sucks. But only because it sucks so bad.
Existing buildings that suce:
Smelter and Sawmill: As mentioned in another thread, mathematically useless.
Outpost & Training Ground: Advantage is a single command action on the first turn. (Watchtower is great though because you can get the other guy to deploy his cav first.)
Bank: All native Core units are better or cheaper than Merc Core units.
Mess Hall: All native army powers are better than the Merc army power.
And by saving all the money on buildings that aspira you get -
Palace: With average gold income, you can build one on turn 4 through turn 10. That is aboot 2 extra total victories.
New Hotness:
Design goals
- Reward investment with long term bonus
- Balance short term benefit with long term penalty
- Unlock unit types
- Have high level super buildings
- Setup bonuses
- Army construction bonuses
- Don't cancel other guy's choices
- Not rely on player's sense of "fun" to overcome feeling of "awesome": (See also "Core and Elite" rule)
- Not have buildings that are worth VPs, der
Three talent trees: Units, Setup, Construction. Each tier requires one of the previous tier in that tree, but no direct prereqs. Get one point after each fight.
Unit talents:
1 Kingdom - Core units (Yay! You start with this, so you can play.)
2 Underclass - Core mercs
2 Middle class - Standard units
2 Upper class - Elite units
3 Organized crime - Standard mercs
3 Illuminati - Elite ground mercs
4 Infestation - Freaking dragons
4 Professional Military - One free Charge command each fight
Setup talents (R = repeatable, don't offset):
1 Intuition - They place one extra unit first (R)
2 Reaction - Redeploy one of own (R)
2 Information - See opponent's army list before deployment.
3 Anticipation - Deploy anyone > 3.5 up to L forward, > 2.5 S forward
3 Inspiration - Deploy 150 points of Hero* (R)
4 Preparation - Deploy one unit out of LOS anywhere (R)
4 Misdirection - Move one enemy L in any direction, keep facing (R)
* Need hero points equal to unit points to get (+0)+1/+0 +1MR. +25VP if unit killed.
Construction talents (R = repeatable)
1 College - Start with a command card (R)
2 Bank - +50 points, -10 points for next 6 fights** (R)
2 Trade routes - Copy one level 1-3 non-Construction power of opponent
3 Tax department - All Core units 5% cheaper
3 Stock exchange - -100 points, +10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 50, 50, 50 future fights (R)
4 Church - +50/+75/+100 against one player chosen at time of selection (R, but not for same target)
4 Mass communication - +100/+150/+200 for anyone else fighting player chosen at time of selection (R, but not for same target)
** If there aren't enough future fights for all the -10s, they stack up at fight 10. Any point penalty counts as points destroyed for VP purposes.
Edit: Replaced Manipulation with Information, then switched Information with Misdirection
Edit: Switched Stock Exchange and Trade Routes
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Graham Smallwood
United States
Santa Ana
California
Delve : the Dice Game Buy for iOS!
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Good call, anonymous internet person. Remove Manipulation for
4 Information - See opponent's army list before deployment. (Is before picking your own army too powerful? I think it might be.)
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Randy
United States
Long Beach
California
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Quote: Is before picking your own army too powerful? I think it might be.
Yeah, peeking before you've picked your own army list would be pretty nasty. The last game I played, wherein my graceful Elves of Ravenwood were ignobly demolished by a swarm of undead filth, would have gone even worse for me if my opponent was able to custom-react to my list.
I'd say it's a great option as a way to befuddle deployment, but not as a way to re-script your list all together.
A thought regarding "Misdirection" in the Setup Talents: For my money, anything that allows you to re-deploy your opponent's battle line could be fairly heavy-handed in this game. So much of Battleground tactics revolve around the programmed orders of your units--- it could be devastating to allow your opponent the ability to fluster all of that at the outset of battle.
Further thought: This is an awesome tech tree. A lot more flavorful and a lot more meaningful choices. Thanks for putting this together!
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Posted Fri Sep 10, 2010 7:17 pm
