Joseph Cochran
United States
Costa Mesa
California
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gibolas wrote: So by removing the aspect you think involves too much luck, you are actually adding to the luck factor by throwing off the balance of the sectors. A player with resource rich sectors will usually win the game over someone who drew discovery tiles early on in your scenario. They may even end up with more VPs from discovery tiles because they have strength to conquer more ancients.
You believe the game is too random, but I think your issue is more with balance. I suggest you play the game more before you decide something is imbalanced. Balance is very delicate and the careful thought the designers put in might not be obvious after even 6 plays.
This is something with which I agree, and I probably failed to express this part of my thinking in my earlier post. I think that a lot of the "luck" pieces have been balanced against others. There will always be some imbalance thrown into the game by the dice in combats and by sheer draw from one of the bags, but those have been balanced pretty well by the method of drawing and the pinning rules. I also think that the designers seem to have put a lot of balancing thought into which sectors get the discoveries and what the discoveries are vs. the 2 VP. So I worry that a suggestion to tweak one single part of the engine might have unforseen effects. Particularly in my case I think that switching the tiles to 2VP only will take some of the fun out of the game and (as Nate notes) making the sectors with them less of a short-term gain may change the balance of the sectors.
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Nate Centybear
United States
Essex Junction
Vermont
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Yes, the power requirement on the -3 is a huge deal. None of your ships can take it without an upgraded power source. That's why it's probably the least favorite of mine. I like tiles that help me kill ancients as soon as possible. The -1 is just as effective as the -3 for this and I can't even put the -3 on my ships when I get it early.
The +3 computer is pretty good. The zero power cost makes it useful early on. However, the ancients will still beat you with initiative. It's risky to attack ancients without other upgrades as well. Where it is very good, is in taking the center early. I would like to hear the designers thoughts on why the center has 0 initiative. I still don't think it remotely breaks the game, though, as ships with +2 computers beat it in most situations and you can have more of them. If someone takes the center with +3 computers, I would slap some +2 computers and plasma cannons on my ships and attack the center asap.
I also think people underestimate shard hull. It is outstanding for taking out ancients early on. No power requirement and if you put it in the empty slot of a cruiser you essentially have 2 improved hulls without using a whole upgrade action and research. I would take the 2 VP later in the game, but early on it serves its purpose.
Decay wrote: gibolas wrote: So by removing the aspect you think involves too much luck, you are actually adding to the luck factor by throwing off the balance of the sectors. Here I think we disagree, but that is fine.
Can you explain why you disagree?
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jsciv wrote: [q="gibolas"]Particularly in my case I think that switching the tiles to 2VP only will take some of the fun out of the game and (as Nate notes) making the sectors with them less of a short-term gain may change the balance of the sectors.
I can easily understand that you may think that only using 2 VP removes some fun from the game. It is a matter of taste, but my guess is that most people would agree with you on that. In our case it happens to be the opposite, the game is long and we don't think it is fun to see your neighbor get a much better start just by chance. At least not too often. There is a lot of luck in combat too, especially the first one or two, and some luck in getting the tile draws you want, and that is luck enough for me.
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gibolas wrote: Can you explain why you disagree?
Because you can't rely on getting the discovery tile you want for your resource situation anyway.Also, the 2 VP side is most often better anyway so I think the change to game balance is small and I think the removed variability lowers the luck factor.
I understand your point and I agree with it in principle. I just happen to think that the change in game balance is quite small (to the point where I am not even sure that the change in balance would be negative), but the reduced variability is a much larger factor.
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Antti Autio
Finland
Helsinki
Gina, Escher gang leader (Necromunda). Don't mess with her or she'll kick your ass.. actually, she's gonna do it anyway!
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As has been pointed out the two things this change affects are game balance (mitigating the luck factor of Exploring high production vs. no production sectors) and the (subjective) fun/excitement factor of Exploring in general. Whether these changes have much impact on either point is debatable and I doubt they do.
One thing that it definitely will do, though, is that in many cases it removes the need to collect Discoveries as soon as possible. If they only provide points that count toward the end-game scoring, you can in many cases just leave them there and collect them at your leisure later. Makes Exploration a whole lot more boring, IMO.
Ultimately I guess it's purely a matter of preference and won't be game-breaking. Personally I often take the 2 VP anyway (especially if I get useless Ancient Ship Parts, like the -3 Shield), but I definitely prefer the system as it is. I find the Exploration aspect of the game much more enjoyable that way.
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Which discovery tiles do you think are the strongest? Especially at the beginning.
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Antti Autio
Finland
Helsinki
Gina, Escher gang leader (Necromunda). Don't mess with her or she'll kick your ass.. actually, she's gonna do it anyway!
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Decay wrote: Which discovery tiles do you think are the strongest? Especially at the beginning.
It's really impossible to say much about the relative value of discoveries without seeing the entire game situation when they pop up. They are extremely situational.
The right Resource boost at the right time can be great, but more often than not you'll get the "wrong" kind of resource at a time when you won't really need it. The free tech might be just what you needed depending on what's available. The free Cruiser might pop up exactly where and when you need it (like solidifying your defence after conquering the GC with heavy losses and low Materials production).
In general, Ship Parts can be very beneficial in the first couple of turns, since they can give you an edge over the Ancients and other players, but later on they are often largely obsoleted by Technology you're usually better off by taking the 2 VPs.
The ship parts themselves are also very situational and their value depends on tech availability and the stage of the game. In my opinion, the Axion Computer and Ion Turret are probably the best of them overall if picked early and the Flux Shield and Hypergrid Source the least useful unless picked later and in a situation where the right kind of Tech constraints apply, but none of them is useless and in the right circumstances any of them might be a good pick over the VPs.
What it all boils down to is, that the correct answer to "what are the best Discoveries?" is "It depends..." - They all have their uses and you'll just have to figure out whether they're likely to net you more than 2 VP over the course of the game or is it better to take those 2 guaranteed points right away.
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How do you use the ion turret?
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Peter O
United States
San Francisco
California
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Decay wrote: How do you use the ion turret?
I often pop it onto my interceptors, add a computer, and then have good odds (I'm a gambler on this account) with 2 or 3 interceptors taking on Ancients. If I'm lucky enough to afford the positron computer that ship design can last the entire game. (Not overpowered, merely useful in combo with the bigger stuff) Throw it on a bigger ship and it gives you a critical extra gun when trying to min/max those loadouts. An ion turret plus AM and a computer is an excelent set-up.
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Nate Centybear
United States
Essex Junction
Vermont
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Quote: Which discovery tiles do you think are the strongest? Especially at the beginning.
I think the +6 materials and the free cruiser are the best. They will allow you to expand the quickest and give you an edge over other players early in the game when most people are poor on materials. The ship parts are not terribly useful without ships to put them on and the money is not great when you're trying to gain back sectors with only discovery tiles by deficit spending.
Decay wrote: How do you use the ion turret?
I generally put it on my cruisers if I get it early on. It's low energy cost will allow me to add a +2 computer and have a decent all around ship early in the game. Great for killing ancients as it has higher initiative.
I don't usually put them on interceptors as they are bad for attacking ancients. Unless you have improved hull, the ancients weapons will one-shot your interceptors. If you do add hull, it will be difficult to score hits.
Quote:
Because you can't rely on getting the discovery tile you want for your resource situation anyway.
In what situation can't you use more science, production, or money? You can always build more stuff, or research more technology. Money is generally always useful, but if you can't use it you can always trade it, especially if you're human. I find in most cases I can make use of whatever I get unless it's the power source or the shield.
Go ahead and try your variant. Just keep an eye on players who draw lots of resource poor sectors with discovery tiles and see how they do with just the 2 VP in the end.
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Ian Pittock
United Kingdom
Cambridge
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I don’t know your group of course, but it sounds like you are all playing a little "passively" and in some respects have to think of this game as being a bit like Cosmic encounter. Sometimes one player has an awesome advantage, but then it falls on the other players to unite and as a team to destroy him utterly and without mercy. The unified and unrelenting force of the entire table should bring any players empire whirling to destruction.
Basically put, sometimes a group of players must agree to "take one for the team" in order to bring a stronger player back into parity. Of course this relies on the players honouring their part of the bargain. You need a to have a group that is comfortable with this level of table talk and players who understand that, should they get to powerful, they will bring the unified wrath of the other players upon them. This type of "group think" persists across all the games we play and it’s a surprisingly strong mechanism for keeping players from pushing too far ahead (out of fear of the consequences).
I think the "group think" of your players obviously does not work this way and they probably pursue their personal goals to selfishly. If you’re going to loose by being passive towards a player then you have to get people in similar situations to work actively with you against that player. You can also work collectively to lessen each other’s predicted short term losses and for this reason it’s important to table talk all this out and forge an agreement which pulls you "all" back into line.
Never forget that Rome fell and cavemen beat astronauts in a fist fight.
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Wim van Gruisen
Netherlands
Maastricht
Unspecified
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ParticleMan wrote: Whymme wrote: In our last game I discovered ion missiles quite early. Didn't install them on any ship yet, though. I just didn't get enough materials to build a proper fleet (and what I got I used for building monoliths).
Then in the last turn another player invaded my sector. His entire fleet, consisting of a dreadnought, some cruisers and a number of interceptors entered the sector that I defended with my two measly, hardly upgraded, interceptors. The bastard! One good thing was that it was his last action, though.
In my turn I quickly built three starbases. Next turn, I upgraded them with the ion missiles and an extra hull. In combat, I easily destroyed most of his fleet before the fight had even started. He didn't kill a single ship of mine, and in the end had to limp back into safety with his only surviving, badly damaged dreadnought.
Luck of the draw? Hardly. Bad planning on the attacker's part, rather. It was the first game of Eclipse for him (and only my third), and he hadn't expected me to squeeze two extra turns out of my economy, and give up control of a system for that. You do realize that Ion Missiles only fire once and are only a single ship part, right? With 3 starbases that's only 9 maximum possible damage total. Unless you had some crazy computers I don't see how that would have done what you're saying.
Sorry for the late reply - I hadn't noticed it before.
My version of Eclipse has starbases equipped with ion cannons. And as far as I know, they stay in effect when ion missiles are installed. Granted, it is a bit tricky - you have to take care not to build your upgrades over the cannons - but once you've done it correctly, you have a starbase that can shoot missiles and still use its cannons as well.
Edit: My interceptors and starbases had the initiative over the invader's fleet. So first the missiles were launched, and then all the starbases and interceptors fired. That already was enough to destroy several ships. His remaining ships missed and I hit a few ships again. That was when he decided to withdraw.
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Jim Richardson
Pennsylvania
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Whymme wrote: My version of Eclipse has starbases equipped with ion cannons. And as far as I know, they stay in effect when ion missiles are installed. Granted, it is a bit tricky - you have to take care not to build your upgrades over the cannons - but once you've done it correctly, you have a starbase that can shoot missiles and still use its cannons as well.
No need to get condescending, I was just trying to help you avoid a rules mistake. I thought you had cloned the missiles somehow. I guess you just got a little bit lucky (even with the ion cannon.)
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Joseph Cochran
United States
Costa Mesa
California
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Quick note:
Ion Cannon = the basic tech everyone starts with, one yellow die repeatedly in one battle.
Ion Missile = the discovery tile from the Supernova expansion, three yellow dice once per battle.
Plasma Missile = the advanced technology in the base game, two orange dice once per battle.
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Kanachi wrote: I don’t know your group of course, but it sounds like you are all playing a little "passively" and in some respects have to think of this game as being a bit like Cosmic encounter.
Basically put, sometimes a group of players must agree to "take one for the team" in order to bring a stronger player back into parity.
I think the "group think" of your players obviously does not work this way and they probably pursue their personal goals to selfishly. If you’re going to loose by being passive towards a player then you have to get people in similar situations to work actively with you against that player.
The players in my group are both selfish and aggressive, and they do attack the leader together when they feel they stand to gain from that, which happens frequently. They only do this when they see that it improves their own chances of winning, of course.
However, I don't like games where it is very effective to gang up on the leader. In those games it becomes pointless to take the lead, since as soon as you are the clear leader you are crushed. The whole game is then decided by table talk and which game you are playing doesn't matter much. So I am glad this isn't overly effective in eclipse.
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Wim van Gruisen
Netherlands
Maastricht
Unspecified
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ParticleMan wrote: Whymme wrote: My version of Eclipse has starbases equipped with ion cannons. And as far as I know, they stay in effect when ion missiles are installed. Granted, it is a bit tricky - you have to take care not to build your upgrades over the cannons - but once you've done it correctly, you have a starbase that can shoot missiles and still use its cannons as well. No need to get condescending, I was just trying to help you avoid a rules mistake. I thought you had cloned the missiles somehow. I guess you just got a little bit lucky (even with the ion cannon.)
Your post made it clear that you thought I didn't play by the rules, which I found annoying, and condescending from your part. Doubly so because you could have known that the starbases and the interceptors have cannons to begin with, so they could continue the fight after the barrage of missiles.
And yeah, I hadn't expected to win the combat - certainly not without a scratch. I merely wanted to get a few more VP chips. But it surely was fun when I did win.
Anyway, apologies for the tone of my post above.
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Jim Richardson
Pennsylvania
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I was trying to prevent a rules mistake. Lots of people make rules mistakes.
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Wim van Gruisen
Netherlands
Maastricht
Unspecified
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ParticleMan wrote: Lots of people make rules mistakes.
Sure. That's why I explained to you that cannons keep working after the initial missile volley.
You said that you couldn't see how my ships destroyed his fleet - that can only be because you think that ships can't shoot anymore after the missile fire. Or that starbases don't have cannons installed. But they can, and they have. My post was only intended to help you prevent those rules mistakes.
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It sounds like he thought you had replaced the Ion Cannons with the Ion Missiles, that's all. And it would be a pretty easy mistake to make, forgetting that you only fire the Missiles once.
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My guess on results, if you made discovery tokens only usable as 2-vp:
1) Orion & Eridani who have the best options for killing ancient ships both become weaker.
2) Planta, who have the best option for exploring nearly worthless tiles with a dicovery token. Also become weaker.
3) Draco, who get less discovery tokens than other races become stronger. A hex with 1-ancient becomes worth only 1-vp less than other races get for killing the ancient.
It can cost up to 3 extra actions to kill an ancient
i) Build a ship
ii) move the ship
iii) upgrade it to be strong enough to win.
3 actions to gain a discovery token & a reward token is (usually) a good move.
3 actions to gain a net 2-vp's is a stupidly poor move, particularly at the start of the game when you need to invest actions in inproving your production, not in gaining VP's that are worthless prior to the game end.
Draco are already my 1st choice for race, and their main competetors are{Orion & Planta} so overall you would have to change something else to weaken Draco, Or they will become by far the best race.
A better way to reduce randomness might be to draw 2 discovery tokens & keep the best.
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Wim van Gruisen
Netherlands
Maastricht
Unspecified
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taggedjc wrote: It sounds like he thought you had replaced the Ion Cannons with the Ion Missiles, that's all. And it would be a pretty easy mistake to make, forgetting that you only fire the Missiles once.
Replacing cannons with missiles would have been a stupid thing to do in that case. Not knowing that missiles can fire only once is stupid as well. So not only would I have been doubly stupid (by not knowing such an important rule after a few plays already), but none of the other players at the table would have caught me at it. I just don't like that he implied that I'm stupid. Especially since there is no reason to assume so.
He said that he couldn't imagine how I had done what I said I had done. Those are quite strong words, as in 'I cannot think of any possible configuration in which that would work.' But there are a couple of those. It is not that difficult to imagine a set-up in which new builds don't block the cannons. If he hadn't been so quick to judge, but had taken the time to reread my post, he could have seen that I never said that I built over the cannons.
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After playing the game, I would generally say that getting the 2 VP is almost always the superior option with a few minor exceptions.
People forget that there are only a handful of ways to gain VP. Getting 2 VP from a Discovery tile is actually more efficient than getting VPs from many other sources.
For instance, let's take system control. You will get 1-4 VP for controlling a system. However, don't forget that control of a system has a hidden cost - which is the higher maintenance - whereas the 2VP from Discovery will be with you forever at essentially no cost.
Or how about Monoliths? 3 VPs sound nice, until you realize they can be taken from you, cost 10 materials and least 1 action to build!
By comparison, a Discovery tile just costs 1 Explore Action and 1 extra influence token place on the Hex. Even then, the extra influence token you place often stays there anyway to provide you with more VP and resources for planets.
To make choosing the non-VP Discovery option "profitable", you need to earn at least 2 VP more with the boosts that you receive. And by this measure, a lot of the tiles simply fall woefully short of this.
For instance, the +5 science boost on its own is generally a bad idea. Sure, it may get you Plasma Cannons right now, but if you're not yet ready to build a fleet to take out ancients or a neighbor then you won't really get a return on your investment. You're probably better off cashing 2 VP now, and buying plasma cannons later.
However, what if you get the +5 science, and the technology which grants two extra influence tokens (costing 16!) is available? In that case, boot-strapping your science to beat others in the race to 16 may actually be worth it - as those two tokens will generally let you control 2 more systems without incurring more upkeep. Those two extra systems will net you 2 more VP at the minimum (offsetting the loss of the 2 VP discovery) PLUS additional planets for resource-generation.
In short, unless you can be reasonably certain of getting the 2VP back (and realize that it's VERY tough to get VP after reviewing the VP sources) then always cash in your Discovery tiles for VP tokens. It's actually pretty hard to make the non-VP option "profitable", and it's often dictated by other in-game factors.
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Petri Savola
Finland
Espoo
Unspecified
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My favorite discovery tiles are probably +5 science, +6 materials and the axion computer.
+5 science can help to get plasma missiles, quantum grid or advanced economy/mining 1-2 turns earlier than normally. This can be huge advantage, especially if there's only one copy of the contested technology available.
+6 materials gives enough materials to build an early dreadnought. With a dreadnought you can eliminate any single ancients with high probability. And you can concentrate almost entirely on money and science production.
Axion computer offers another way to beat ancients easily. It will often become obsolete later on in the game, but you can often kill ancients or GCDS early with its help.
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