Results of Playtest 1
Dec. 18th, 2008 01:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eclectic_boyAt tonight's gaming Herbert, Will, Eric, Erin and I playtested TransSEPTA, using the 2nd draft map from my last post. People's general impressions ranged from pretty good to excellent, and there were some great suggestions made -- most of which are mutually exclusive. So I need to think about what direction I want to take the game in, or perhaps rank the order in which I want to try taking it in different directions.
Overall, it felt like a slightly tougher version of the standard game. The interstates are the a big factor in that, because - unlike mountains in TA - they have no passes; it's impossible to cross them without spending a full turn. Their placement also means there's no large un-obstacled area across which to cover major distance cheaply, which The Plains are in TA. It makes exact placement of one's starting point more important, because if you're not careful you'll come to an obstacle with one move left in your turn, and have to burn it. There was less tendency in TS than in TA to have a single cross-board trunk that everyone uses; TS was more branched, and people often didn't join together until later in the game. The upshot is, we had a turn in which one player lost 9 points, another 5, and two others 4. That almost never happens in TA... but it just made this feel more challenging. We played three rounds before the game ended. This led to Erin's suggestion that the game could stay as-is if we just increased the number of points you start with to 16 or so, to reduce the odds that two poor hands in a row could doom you.
Another suggestion was to lessen the number of obstacles -- either the Pennypack (which would give it a Plains-equivalent) or some sections of interstate. Another was to make those places where an obstacle is covered over by a city's annulus be regular terrain (representing off-ramps/bridges). I'm not keen on that last suggestion because it channels everybody into crossing the obstacle at exactly the point where one player may want. I'd rather set any bridges/overpasses away from cities.
Thanks to all who made comments and/or playtested (and congrats to Herbert for winning)!
Overall, it felt like a slightly tougher version of the standard game. The interstates are the a big factor in that, because - unlike mountains in TA - they have no passes; it's impossible to cross them without spending a full turn. Their placement also means there's no large un-obstacled area across which to cover major distance cheaply, which The Plains are in TA. It makes exact placement of one's starting point more important, because if you're not careful you'll come to an obstacle with one move left in your turn, and have to burn it. There was less tendency in TS than in TA to have a single cross-board trunk that everyone uses; TS was more branched, and people often didn't join together until later in the game. The upshot is, we had a turn in which one player lost 9 points, another 5, and two others 4. That almost never happens in TA... but it just made this feel more challenging. We played three rounds before the game ended. This led to Erin's suggestion that the game could stay as-is if we just increased the number of points you start with to 16 or so, to reduce the odds that two poor hands in a row could doom you.
Another suggestion was to lessen the number of obstacles -- either the Pennypack (which would give it a Plains-equivalent) or some sections of interstate. Another was to make those places where an obstacle is covered over by a city's annulus be regular terrain (representing off-ramps/bridges). I'm not keen on that last suggestion because it channels everybody into crossing the obstacle at exactly the point where one player may want. I'd rather set any bridges/overpasses away from cities.
Thanks to all who made comments and/or playtested (and congrats to Herbert for winning)!
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no subject
Date: 2008-12-18 06:04 pm (UTC)Here's a more radical suggestion: What if the interstates haven't been built yet — they get built during the game in parallel with the rail system. They could be built according to a fixed schedule, or built along a fixed network but with the players choosing which bit gets built yet, or with total freedom. With a lot of players, you could even have a "road team" and a "rail team", perhaps with subtly different rules...
So, this is divergent enough that it's probably a whole 'nother game concept, and not a fix for TransSylvania, but how about this: 4 or 6 players, divided into a "road team" and a "rail team" (roads and rails are distinguished by color, borrow the roads from a Settlers set). Roads and rails count as obstacles for each other — if you've built a road up to a rail line, to continue it on the other side costs 2 moves, and vice versa. I can think of a number of optional complications, but that's the general idea.
Hey, this way you can get people arguing about where 476 should go!
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Date: 2008-12-18 07:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-18 08:10 pm (UTC)I had been thinking about additional mechanics to make the interaction between the two groups more rich, but I think what that ruleset really needs is the right board layout to accentuate the Hex-like mechanic. Maybe a board with seven zones, where road players draw a city from zones A, C, E and center, and rail players from zones B, D, F and center (the center zone would have to have more cities)?
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Date: 2008-12-18 09:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-18 09:58 pm (UTC)I think I'd rather have rivers be permanent, and the interstates built one section at a time by players, with each player getting to add a section on the predetermined track (anywhere along it, not growth-from-a-starting-point, since that'd be harsher on certain cities). I'd have to work out the frequency of placement, since one section every turn seems a bit too fast... maybe place-place-skip in a 4 or 5 player game, place-place-place-skip with 3 or 6?
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Date: 2008-12-18 10:52 pm (UTC)Maybe just have the roadbuilder fill in her network, with the same scoring as the other players? Makes each round take a fixed amount of time, turnwise, while further encouraging co-operative building. The tricky part would be making the highway network the right size as to not break the game.