Kai Poon
United Kingdom
Leicester
Leicestershire
-
So there's always that horrible scenario...
Player A: Tries to constantly control the king even if it means that they won't be able to use the benefits of the other cards. Actual assassinations of the king, potential assassination meaning people are wary of missing a turn, and so fourth.
Result: The player next to them constantly gets last pick because of this, and even if someone else gets the king, the difference might not be that much greater.
So I decided screw it. I'm not keeping that system even if it's meant to act as an incentive for the last player to control the king more so than usual.
Thus I changed the rule where even though King user always has first pick, second pick will rotate in a clockwise/anti-clockwise direction. Now, I'm not sure, but I suspect this might have an unfairness element (you can tell me where it is) but for the sake of increasing fun within the group, I think it's worth considering. This way, people aren't always stuck with last pick purely due seating order (which isn't that great...)
This is for 4 players +
-
Gláucio Reis
Brazil
Rio de Janeiro
RJ
-
KeroKai wrote: Thus I changed the rule where even though King user always has first pick, second pick will rotate in a clockwise/anti-clockwise direction. Now, I'm not sure, but I suspect this might have an unfairness element
It sounds fair to me. Personally, the issue doesn't bother me in a game this light and chaotic, but your solution seems perfect.
-
Lars Wagner Hansen
Denmark
Sorø
Any time, any place!
Fingers off, that's my car!
-
I've never found it a problem. Remember that even though the king is assassinated, the crown will still change hands at the end of the turn.
-
Andrew Staines
United Kingdom
Grimsby
-
Even when the current king chooses the king card and is then assasinated? I thought the start player moved to the player who had the king card even if the king was assasinated.
So in the instance described by the OP the player who was the king was always choosing the king card. The natural incentive not to do this which is built into the game is that he should be finding that he is assasinated quite easily and that he looses all his money to the thief if ever he gets any. Also not being able to ever make use of cards like the magician, architect, merchant or thief puts you at a rather large disadvantage.
I think that given enough plays you would hope players would see this and you wouldn't spend the whole game always having last pick. Regardless though as to whether you are with experienced players or newer players, playing with an alternating clockwise/anti clockwise element does I think improve things slightly.
-
Stefano Crespi
Italy
Bologna
Italy
-
l-hansen wrote: I've never found it a problem. Remember that even though the king is assassinated, the crown will still change hands at the end of the turn.
Yes.
Quote: THE KING:
You receive one gold for each noble (yellow) district
in your city. When the King is called, you immediately receive
the crown counter. You will now call for characters, and will
be the first player to choose your character during the next
round. If no King is chosen during the next round, you will
keep the crown counter. If you are murdered, you skip your
turn like any other character. Nevertheless, after the last
player has played his turn, when it becomes known that you
had the King character, you take the crown counter (as the
king's heir) and you choose your character first on the next
round.
Quote: Q: What happens to the crown if the emperor is assassinated?
A: Nothing. Then player who has the crown keeps it.
-
Gláucio Reis
Brazil
Rio de Janeiro
RJ
-
l-hansen wrote: I've never found it a problem. Remember that even though the king is assassinated, the crown will still change hands at the end of the turn.
Yes, but I think the OP's concern is that people don't get the king often enough for fearing to be assassinated.
-
Kai Poon
United Kingdom
Leicester
Leicestershire
-
l-hansen wrote: I've never found it a problem. Remember that even though the king is assassinated, the crown will still change hands at the end of the turn.
Yeah. It was more the problem that the King wasn't be taken (running the risk of being killed by the first player. Or if there was no assassin, he'd take the king to ensure that he held the position. Course it doesn't really make sense resource-wise to play this way all the time, but it was frequent enough to induce a sense that it's not wise to choose the king.
Overall, it lead to whole order problem that sometimes occurs if someone plays like this for a long period of time. The order is locked into place longer than it should be, which leads to frustration for some of the players. The player right next to the king doesn't really need to take the king, since he's in a good position anyway so chances are there will be less of an exchange.
This solution basically destroys the strategy element of forcing the last two players to target the king in order to get better picks. But I found it to be more satisfying and more dynamic than the static play.
-
Richard Forster
United Kingdom
Unspecified
Unspecified
-
Years ago I emailled Bruno with a suggestion that my groups always uses. It rapidly appeared on his website as the "Chinese" variant (his name, not mine).
Simply put; the first player chooses whether to send the cards clockwise or anticlockwise around the table.
-
Will
United States
Fresno
California
-
I saw something similar to this in a group I gamed with. Despite the fact it was just making the 2nd player to pick cards the winner and not giving the kind an advantage, the person persisted in a strategy of almost always choosing the king. It was always easy for everyone else to assasinate or steal from him since we always knew what he was. Basically always choosing king is a automatic losing strategy. Incidentally, we had the queen in the deck too since we had a large number of players, and that was even more of a certainty that the 2nd player to choose would win since they always knew where the king was sitting and picked the king and got 3 gold per turn.
If someone always chooses assasin, then its easy since the crown still changes even if king is killed.
-
|
|
Posted Fri Jan 27, 2012 3:01 am
