[Tapper]

I love the 9 player epic slugfests a lot, and would like to keep playing forum TI just like that. But we do have a few recurring tendencies that make the experience here and there somewhat testing:

1. Some Strategies are clearly stronger than others. Especially Diplo and Warfare are by midgame dropping to the last few selections consistently and Construction joins them in the last 2-3 rounds.

2. Politics is a favorite early in each Strategy phase and players that are far away from the Speaker token are usually looking at multiple rounds of suboptimal selections.

3. The 9th player has zero choice when it comes to Strategies, something 4-6 man tabletop avoids.


So, which of the above really needs tackling, why and how?
Imho, "fixing" diplo and warfare leads to a better mix and will make sitting the end of the queue an altogether less frustrating experience.

Spoiler

Jumping the gun a bit, but suggestions tend to spark debate, so here goes.

Solutions for Diplo?

A. Modify Diplo, variant 1.
Remove "system you control" from the targeting requirements and add substitute "other than Mecatol Rex" with "other than Mecatol Rex and home systems controlled by other players."

Diplo is now both a defensive option as well as a nasty roadblock or a way to stake a claim/ keep an opponent from reinforcing a system before you attack it. Logistics still counters it, btw.

B. Modify Diplo to function as a counterbalance to Politics
Add a new line to Diplo:
Take the Diplomat token.

And add a rulebook line:
The Diplomat chooses whether Strategy selection proceeds clockwise or counter-clockwise from the Speaker.

The usefulness/uselessness of Diplo's Primary doesn't change, but being left with Diplo this turn means you'll likely get a much better Strategy the turn after (just like taking Speaker is partially an investment for the future). This change hopefully also puts the whole Speaker token wheeling-dealing to bed, as that would now take 2 selections to reliably control the flow each turn.
It is also somewhat thematic.

Of course, combining A and B is possible, but that might make it too strong.

Solutions for Warfare?
Ultimately, Warfare is okay up until the point where the map is divided and you don't want to attack anyone near you: then all those +1s are largely wasted as a bonus, except perhaps as a deterrent.

To give the card some extra value, I'd suggest adding: "if the system this ship is in has not been activated by you at the end of the Action Phase, place ships with a total value of 4 TG in your home world system."

That's basically a free version of its original Secondary.

I tried to think of unintended shenanigans where the ship moves without activation, but I can't think of much beyond its own current secondary, which the player can't take.

Choice for player #9?
This involves adding a 10th Strategy. I think TI 3rd edition featured different Strategies from TI 4, and some variants of each Strategy (Bureaucracy & Imperial both being numbered 8) and we could borrow from there - I think that's where D'rek also found inspiration for Logistics?

I've been tinkering to come up with something unique that's not broken. It's hard.

[D'rek]

I'm not convinced Diplo or Warfare necessarily need to be "beefed up". Yes, Diplo's refreshing two planets part of its primary is worse than its secondary, but the other part of its primary is extremely good. Pre-emptively locking down an entire system is amazing and almost impossible for anyone else to counter. Didn't happen in this particular game, but a lot of games can potentially end with a player who is in the lead taking Diplo, using it on their homeworld, immediately passing, and no one being able to stop them from scoring their final objective to win. +1 to all ships in a battle AND +1 movement is incredibly good from Warfare, too.

But then again, these powers are based around fighting/preventing fighting, and we seem to have very little of that in our games. No one seems to ever be taking the outright conqueror approach, even when playing Sardakk, Letnev, or Muaat. Instead, we are seeing a lot of "swap ceasefire to one side, swap SFTT to the other side" and play completely passively all game. Maybe that is because of how we are building our galaxy? Maybe that's because of it being 9 players? I'm not sure.

But I think with the way things are, even if you buffed up Diplo and Warfare a bit people still won't want them because they aren't useful if no one ever wants to fight.

Warfare primary should probably be changed so you don't assign the high alert token to a ship, you just put it in the hex. Not because it's stronger/weaker, just because it's less fiddly.

[Imperial Historian]

I don't think we need to change diplomacy or warfare to much, they are extremely powerful in the right circumstances. As d'rek says this is more the case in a combat heavy game though.

I think combat is disincentivised by the fact that we've not have anyone really succeed in a military strategy, as no matter how powerful one player is there are so many other players it's easy to be knocked back down, or hit in the rear. I think that would probably be the case in a 6 player game too however.

I do like the idea of an additional card to add choice, and controlling the direction of play would be a great idea for that card, that alone seems weak however, and I don't know what the secondary would be. There doesn't seem to be an obvious action we are missing. Maybe something that lets you do a weaker version of two other powers, like draw an action card and a TG, or refresh one planet and take a TG?

[Tapper]

I agree that Diplo and Warfare are in and by themselves fine if there is a reason to take them (because combat occurs frequently).
The question is if the cards need tinkering because combat does not happen as frequently, or if a map can change that.

Maybe we should give the game 1 map a replay? That game was quite a lot more interactive than game 2 and 3 were.

@IH: a new card that affects direction of play, refreshes a planet and gives a TG sounds a lot like the regular effects of Diplo, +1 TG

All Strategies so far do something that does not target other players directly, add a mechanic or replenish a pool and the effects are at most returned in a weaker version as tech or as an action card.

This 10th strategy, if it took the order of play adds a mechanic to the Strategy phase, so that box is ticked.

What about: Add 3 Influence to a planet you control?

It is a small situational bonus that works with action cards and, if it extends into the status phase, scoring opportunities.

The secondary could then be smth like "pay 1 CT to get TG equal to the Influence of one of your planets that is not MR."

The net benefit compared to the cost of the CT is usually 0-1 TG, but it is a bit of added flexibility, and Influence is I think an underused stat compared to production, as Leadership only cares about multitudes of 3.

[D'rek]

Tapper, on 15 March 2020 - 10:53 AM, said:

Maybe we should give the game 1 map a replay? That game was quite a lot more interactive than game 2 and 3 were.

Yeah, that may be what it all comes down to. The "everyone make a slice" method of map building does seem to lead to more conservative/defensive layouts, and furthermore our current setup has more empty hexes and more homeworlds with only 2 adjacent hexes instead of 3. There's a lot of adjacent players on the game 4 map that have no line of planets between them in the outer 2 rings at all, or who have only 1 line of planets that makes a very obvious border and easy negotiation. Furthermore, the 3 planet hexes that Blend added are all worth 4 resources per round, which is high and perhaps makes it less necessary to acquire more planets on average.

Maybe we ought to try a star-by-star map build method (where everyone takes turns placing hexes, including your homeworld which you can place almost anywhere). It tends to incentivize putting homeworlds closer to the center and closer together, or else getting stuck way out in the boonies and having to conquer your way through back towards the center. And perhaps in tandem with that we should tone down the value of the custom-made hexes in favour of a lot more 1 or 2-resource systems so players are spread thinner and need to conquer a bit if they want a huge bank of planets.


It also might be worth looking at the objective decks. The 3rd Edition objectives had a lot more war-incentivizing objectives, I feel, while 4th edition seems to have mostly just kept the "spend X" or "have Y" ones. Maybe that fits better in a 4 player game and it isn't an issue in real 4th Edition because it can only have 6 players, but since we're doing 9 we need to look back at 3rd Ed.

[Imperial Historian]

D, on 15 March 2020 - 04:41 PM, said:

Tapper, on 15 March 2020 - 10:53 AM, said:

Maybe we should give the game 1 map a replay? That game was quite a lot more interactive than game 2 and 3 were.

Yeah, that may be what it all comes down to. The "everyone make a slice" method of map building does seem to lead to more conservative/defensive layouts, and furthermore our current setup has more empty hexes and more homeworlds with only 2 adjacent hexes instead of 3. There's a lot of adjacent players on the game 4 map that have no line of planets between them in the outer 2 rings at all, or who have only 1 line of planets that makes a very obvious border and easy negotiation. Furthermore, the 3 planet hexes that Blend added are all worth 4 resources per round, which is high and perhaps makes it less necessary to acquire more planets on average.

Maybe we ought to try a star-by-star map build method (where everyone takes turns placing hexes, including your homeworld which you can place almost anywhere). It tends to incentivize putting homeworlds closer to the center and closer together, or else getting stuck way out in the boonies and having to conquer your way through back towards the center. And perhaps in tandem with that we should tone down the value of the custom-made hexes in favour of a lot more 1 or 2-resource systems so players are spread thinner and need to conquer a bit if they want a huge bank of planets.


It also might be worth looking at the objective decks. The 3rd Edition objectives had a lot more war-incentivizing objectives, I feel, while 4th edition seems to have mostly just kept the "spend X" or "have Y" ones. Maybe that fits better in a 4 player game and it isn't an issue in real 4th Edition because it can only have 6 players, but since we're doing 9 we need to look back at 3rd Ed.

I have preferred our preconstructed maps to ones we have constructed ourselves. The richness of the current map setup does mean for a lot of objectives you don't need to fight anyone.

Some war incentivising objectives may add more conflict, it does seem the general meta for TI4 though is war is a tool that sometimes gets you in a position to score points(for example I'm much more likely to deal favourably with someone who has a much stronger fleet than me) , but a prolonged conflict is going to leave you out of the points.

The additional conflict in the 1st game might have partly been due to inexperience, we certainly scored a lot slower in that game.

I don't particularly love combat in TI4 (it's largely static and unrewarding) so I don't think adding more benefits to combat adds much, this is more of a politics and resource management game than anything else.

I do think the main weakness of the 9 player game is the fact that everyone knows they can do all the secondaries every turn, so adding more strayegy choices would improve it.

[Morgoth]

I agree that the issues would be solved with maybe two additional strategy cards. Make them decent and it'll be everything you need. It'd be fun too, to try to imagine some new ones.

[Morgoth]

also, maybe some additional wormhole systems? Making the galaxy a little more tightly connected could be helpful to increase warfare.

[Tattersail_]

Thoughts on potential strategy additions/benefits that people may want.

Something to do with tech planets/skips. The Primary would be to have one of your planets have a tech skip of your choice or planet trait of your choice for that round only. If you had 4 tech planets and you needed a fifth to score the 5 one, or if you needed a green skip to score Hyper Metabolism or something then it'd be achievable that round. Secondary would be to include the skip during the action phase but you'd not score with it. I'm sure you brither minds could compose something with this in mind.

Something antagonist towards other players, to increase disharmony. An example would be choice 3 non home systems other than Mecatol Rex, exhaust those systems and gain TG's equal to the resource value of those systems. The secondary being the same but 1 so more than one person could retaliate.

A voting strategy card, each of your votes in a system that you own is worth x amount. Gain 3 influence when leadership is played. Secondary being something similar but toned down.

[Morgoth]

How about something like

Relocation
Primary
Move 1 space dock or 1 PDS from a planet you control in a system you control to another planet you control in a system you control.

Secondary
Spend one strategic token. Remove 1 of your ships from the board, receive trade goods equal to its production value. No more than 4 trade goods at a time can be received this way.

[Morgoth]

I'm not sure if the 4 tg restriction is necessary, but I worry that it's too powerful a move to be able to turn a flagship into 8 tgs, or a warsun into 12. The primary could also offer an alternative of moving 2 GFs, but again I worry about it becoming too powerful, and further limiting the attractiveness of transit diodes (though they are awesome) .

This post has been edited by Morgoth: 18 March 2020 - 09:39 AM

[Tapper]

The wording of the Primary runs in some trouble with Saar

I think the Primary is slightly underpowered, maybe reword to


"Move one of your space docks and up to three fighters from a system you control to another system you control, OR move a PDS and up to three ground forces from a planet you control to a planet in another system you control."

Secondary is a really subtle one: the TG is nice, but the real benefit is that you can disband a carrier that's far from home, or dreads that already sustained damage.

[Imperial Historian]

I'm not sure, this seems like another strategy with a relatively weak primary ability, though I suppose TG stacking on it would make it more powerful. Would a CT be placed on the system you moved the space dock/PDS?

[Tattersail_]

I doubt it because you don't place one with construction primary but secondary you do. So maybe in secondary but not on primary?

[Morgoth]

Imperial Historian, on 18 March 2020 - 07:40 PM, said:

I'm not sure, this seems like another strategy with a relatively weak primary ability, though I suppose TG stacking on it would make it more powerful. Would a CT be placed on the system you moved the space dock/PDS?

It would not be placed, I kept that out of the text to make it more versatile. Also, it's not meant to be especially powerful, but rather to be practical enough in certain situations you'd prioritize getting it. Moving a space dock you can later produce from is very very useful I think, but only in those situations where it is. Moving a pds can be incredibly useful too. I'd maybe suggest a light version of Tappers idea and say or 1 PDS and up to 3 GFs.

I am quite pleased with the secondary to be honest, I think it balances well between being useful but at the same time costly. TGs are always more valuable than planet resources, but to get them you'd need to sacrifice a token and a ship. Considering the difficulty of gaining TGs for most players, It can be very useful despite the costs.

This post has been edited by Morgoth: 19 March 2020 - 07:26 AM

[Morgoth]

any more thoughts on this topic? We're approaching the end of our game, and for the next one I think we'd benefit from another or two strategy cards.

[Imperial Historian]

I'm definitely in favour of using the new patched techs and diplomacy card.

https://www.fantasyf...fourth-edition/ (under player resources)


I think the boost to diplomacy may be enough to sort out the last pick issue. Whilst warfare will probably end up last pick a lot of the time I don't think it's that harmful.

The only think I'd maybe change would be the attaching the token to one specific ship, it doesn't really fit, I'd just add a flat, anything moving from the location of the high alert token gets the movement bonus, and if the player decides to bring the warfare token with them they get the +1 to rolls.

The Warfare/Unexpected action combo has won me the game twice, so I don't think it can be considered a bad pick, it just requires more setup than most.

[D'rek]

Definitely no reason not to adopt the official changes.

[Morgoth]

fo sho

[ansible]

Am I lucky enough to catch the start of a game? I haven't seen a thread for game 5 signups but it does seem like the games are usually full.