[D'rek]

This thread is for the serious post-game stuff. If you've got any critical/in-depth impressions of the new PoK content you want to share, here's the place for it. If you've got a proposal or topic you think we should all consider together/you want feedback on, highlight it as a "TOPIC #" like I've done with a few below:

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TOPIC #1: Exploration - is it worth it?

What did you think of the new exploration mechanic?

From a forum-game-mechanics standpoint, the unfortunate consequence of the new exploration mechanic is that there's a LOT more back-and-forth between players posting turns, waiting for the mod to reveal a card, then waiting for the player to return and decide how to resolve the card and continue their turn. Even with us "cheating" by revealing the explorations of all planets this can still event combine with other cards/effects to create turns that are like player->mod->player->mod->player or worse.

On the other hand, this is not that different from sabotages, action card draws, SO draws, etc. It's just much more frequent, especially in the first couple rounds of the game.

So, what do you think of exploration? Did you find it fun and interesting enough of a mechanic to be worth the extra bureaucracy and time needed to make a complete turn? Or should we consider playing without it/altering it?

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TOPIC #2: Strategy Card Secondaries, Transactions, and "the start of your turn"

In an actual game, strategy card secondaries are done on the other player's turn immediately after they play the strategy card, so the timing of your next turn is:

Start of your turn
..Resolve any "start of turn" effects
..First point at which you can execute a Transaction and other "during your turn" effects

Start of your action

etc


Because of our deferred secondaries houserule and we decided in the past to allow transactions before/between secondaries, it's very unclear when "the start of your turn" is now. And PoK has introduced some cards/abilities that do resolve "at the start of your turn".

If you have an ability that resolves at the start of your turn, plus you want to do some secondaries, and also negotiate a transaction, now you can do this in a very strange order compared to a real game. And does the "start of your turn" ability resolve before the secondaries now? We never really made that clear.

Personally, I would like to reverse our previous decision on allowing transactions before/between secondaries and have everything go back to the same order of the rulebook, e.g.:

1. Do secondaries (in the same order their primary was played), and this does not count as part of "your turn" yet

2. Your turn starts
2a. Resolve any "start of turn" effects

Now you can do transactions, actions, etc.

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TOPIC #3: Map display changes

Any readability problems with how the maps were done this game? Any changes you think would improve thing?

I found the larger fleets/ground armies of this game took up too much space at times, especially with the new 3-planet hexes. I propose we reduce the size of all units on the map to 70% of their current size.

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TOPIC #4: Promissory Notes in Status Blocks

As you saw in this game, I enforced actually listing all cards in players' "play areas" in the bottom of the status block, because PoK has a ton more of those. This included promissory notes that get put into the play area.

However, we have also still been listing those promissory notes that are in your play area in the << Promissory Notes: 4 Argent , 2 Ul >> part of the status block, too.

Should that part of the status block be only the PNs that are in your "hand" ?

[Blend]

Super into getting into deep conversations about these, but I'm just going to do a drive-by:

Topic # 1 - I think Exploration adds a fun dimension to the game and if we took it out, it would prevent interesting relic plays. I think that we ended up with races with more exploration than all games will necessarily have, and that certainly made for some slightly longer turns because of what you described, but I rather enjoyed the extra dimension.

Topic # 2 - I agree with your suggestion, and maybe I'm misremembering, but I feel like I supported that in the first place. I don't think the part of your turn where you're playing deferred secondaries should count as your turn, and thus no trading or action cards should be allowed to take place during that part of the game (unless there's an action card that affects a secondary that I'm not thinking about).

Topic # 3 - We can try. We could also try using the Infantry/Fighter tokens the way you would in a normal game, where you stack 1 infantry on top of X amount of tokens. We'd have to figure out how to display them so that the amount of tokens are easily visible, but it may be a good way to reduce the clutter on the map.

Topic # 4 - Agree with your suggestion here as well. If it's in your play area, it shouldn't be in your hand. Never really thought of it that way, and there is absolutely a distinction in this game with some of the factions' new abilities.

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Topic # 5 - Aren't Agent/Commander/Heroes such a cool new mechanic? I'm really excited to see more factions in play!

[Imperial Historian]

Exploration I loved, it was a little clunky as you had to read posts a few times in case you missed a cool benefit, but ultimately awesome. I can't think of a way to improve it for forum play that wouldn't be clunkier.

Topic 2 to 4 yes I agree

Topic 5 all the new additions were awesome, but keeping track of what everyone could do was hard.

[Khellendros]

Topic 1: To me it felt like exploration is a mechanic which some races gravitate toward far more than others. For example, I did very little exploration and never came close to picking up any relics. However, I still didn't feel like I was at a particular disadvantage because of that. That's not to say that exploration and relics don't seem useful - instead, I think the Saar have other inherent advantages which balanced out the lack of long-term gains from exploration.

I think having exploration was perfectly fine. It made the initial round or two more interesting as well, and it didn't feel like those rounds were noticeably lengthier as a result. I'm all for keeping it in, but I do see that from a modder's point of view it does involve a lot more admin work.


Topic 2: I did not notice any weirdness as a result of allowing transactions at any time, but if people think this is getting too far away from the traditional structure of the game, then I also don't have any objections to not allowing transactions until after secondaries and 'at the start of your turn' effects are resolved.


Topic 3: I did have one specific issue with map usage time and time again, and that was taking into account/noticing the bonuses which some planets gained as a result of exploration and/or other actions (e.g. a 1/0 planet actually being a 1/2 planet as a result of gaining 2 influence from an exploration). Yes, I know they gain those round tokens to denote the bonus, but for some reason I really struggled to recognise them and take them into account. This is probably just a personal problem, and probably with another game I will get used to them and start recognising them more instinctively. But I also wonder if it would be helpful to specifically note on players' turn posts, in the planets section, whether a particular planet has a bonus attached to it? And if, instead of using the tokens on the map, it might be an idea to just change the resource numbers attached to a planet?


Topic 4: Not sure about this. I certainly agree that PNs in your play area should be listed at the bottom of your post. But I always took the Promissory Notes section to denote all the PNs which you 'own', whether they were in your hand or in your play area. The bottom of your post then just gives more info about what exactly is in your play area. If the PN section is just for those 'in your hand', then why have that section at all? After all, could you not just not reveal what's in your hand? "Yes, I have 10 PNs, but I'm not telling you whose they all are"?


Topic 5: All very cool, also many of them very annoying to take into account and deal with! Sometimes it did feel like it was impossible to make any action, because someone always now had something to counter that with. I suppose the more we play with them, the more we'll learn how to both use them and deal with them.

This post has been edited by Khellendros: 15 April 2021 - 12:32 PM

[Blend]

Re: Khell's points on Topic # 3:

Are there any abilities/action cards that remove attachment tokens? If not, then I'm sure we could just adjust the resource/influence numbers directly on the planets instead of adding attachment tokens.

[D'rek]

Blend, on 15 April 2021 - 12:03 AM, said:

Topic # 3 - We can try. We could also try using the Infantry/Fighter tokens the way you would in a normal game, where you stack 1 infantry on top of X amount of tokens. We'd have to figure out how to display them so that the amount of tokens are easily visible, but it may be a good way to reduce the clutter on the map.

I'm not sure the tokens would be any easier to visually distinguish than the player pieces. But something like that could be done where we just use a single infantry piece and write a "x4" next to it. That's more work for the mod, though - I find it easier to resolve movement and battles and whatnot when there's individual pieces to move around.

Imperial Historian, on 15 April 2021 - 07:51 AM, said:

Topic 5 all the new additions were awesome, but keeping track of what everyone could do was hard.

Are there any changes to how it is displayed/presented/upkeeped that you think would make it easier to keep track of?

[D'rek]

Khellendros, on 15 April 2021 - 12:30 PM, said:

Topic 4: Not sure about this. I certainly agree that PNs in your play area should be listed at the bottom of your post. But I always took the Promissory Notes section to denote all the PNs which you 'own', whether they were in your hand or in your play area. The bottom of your post then just gives more info about what exactly is in your play area. If the PN section is just for those 'in your hand', then why have that section at all? After all, could you not just not reveal what's in your hand? "Yes, I have 10 PNs, but I'm not telling you whose they all are"?

You do have to disclose which number of which faction's PNs you are holding in your hand, but not specifically which cards they are. It's the equivalent of in a real game other players at the table can see the backs of the PN cards, so they know your hand has, say, 3 red, 2 blue, and 1 green PN in it, but not which PNs specifically.

If we want to keep the PN list in the status block indicating all the PNs that a player "owns" do you think it would work to have it list hand and play area separately?

For example:

Promissory Notes | Hand: 4 Xxcha, 2 Hacan, 1 Sol | Play Area: 1 Hacan, 1 Sol

And would that actually be beneficial over the current system, or doesn't really make a difference?

[Khellendros]

D, on 15 April 2021 - 01:37 PM, said:

Are there any changes to how it is displayed/presented/upkeeped that you think would make it easier to keep track of?

The new Codex thing comes with these cool small card quick guides written in everyday language for what each race is capable of. What about putting those/a link to those images for each race which is in the current game in everyone's PMs at the beginning?

[Khellendros]

D, on 15 April 2021 - 01:43 PM, said:

Khellendros, on 15 April 2021 - 12:30 PM, said:

Topic 4: Not sure about this. I certainly agree that PNs in your play area should be listed at the bottom of your post. But I always took the Promissory Notes section to denote all the PNs which you 'own', whether they were in your hand or in your play area. The bottom of your post then just gives more info about what exactly is in your play area. If the PN section is just for those 'in your hand', then why have that section at all? After all, could you not just not reveal what's in your hand? "Yes, I have 10 PNs, but I'm not telling you whose they all are"?

You do have to disclose which number of which faction's PNs you are holding in your hand, but not specifically which cards they are. It's the equivalent of in a real game other players at the table can see the backs of the PN cards, so they know your hand has, say, 3 red, 2 blue, and 1 green PN in it, but not which PNs specifically.

If we want to keep the PN list in the status block indicating all the PNs that a player "owns" do you think it would work to have it list hand and play area separately?

For example:

Promissory Notes | Hand: 4 Xxcha, 2 Hacan, 1 Sol | Play Area: 1 Hacan, 1 Sol

And would that actually be beneficial over the current system, or doesn't really make a difference?

It's always useful to have more information, but in this case it might also be doubling that info, because the ones in the play area would be listed at the bottom of the post anyway. It might help to direct your view to that information, however ("ok, so there are 2 PNs in the play area, let's scroll down and see what those are"). I don't think it's a big difference, more perhaps a small QoL change.

This post has been edited by Khellendros: 15 April 2021 - 01:48 PM

[Imperial Historian]

D, on 15 April 2021 - 01:37 PM, said:

Imperial Historian, on 15 April 2021 - 07:51 AM, said:

Topic 5 all the new additions were awesome, but keeping track of what everyone could do was hard.

Are there any changes to how it is displayed/presented/upkeeped that you think would make it easier to keep track of?

Possibly an addition to everyone's post with what their racial abilities/mech abilities/flagship abilities/promissory notes are, as well as commander/agent/hero, or something at the start of the thread?

It's nothing that can't be found by looking at the wiki page, but since there are now so many different powers now it wasn't always the easiest thing to keep track of and remember, especially with all the new races.

I'm not sure how this is handled in regular play, maybe other races being slightly mysterious with weird powers you don't quite expect is intentional!

[D'rek]

Khellendros, on 15 April 2021 - 12:30 PM, said:

Topic 3: I did have one specific issue with map usage time and time again, and that was taking into account/noticing the bonuses which some planets gained as a result of exploration and/or other actions (e.g. a 1/0 planet actually being a 1/2 planet as a result of gaining 2 influence from an exploration). Yes, I know they gain those round tokens to denote the bonus, but for some reason I really struggled to recognise them and take them into account. This is probably just a personal problem, and probably with another game I will get used to them and start recognising them more instinctively. But I also wonder if it would be helpful to specifically note on players' turn posts, in the planets section, whether a particular planet has a bonus attached to it? And if, instead of using the tokens on the map, it might be an idea to just change the resource numbers attached to a planet?

Blend, on 15 April 2021 - 01:08 PM, said:

Re: Khell's points on Topic # 3:

Are there any abilities/action cards that remove attachment tokens? If not, then I'm sure we could just adjust the resource/influence numbers directly on the planets instead of adding attachment tokens.

Hmm, I think the only effect that removes attachments is Stellar Converter, which also blows up the planet so no big difference there.

There are objectives that require you control a number of planets that have attachments, though, so we'd want to keep an indication of some sort for that. Something like a generic attachment token that is put on planets instead of the +res/+inf tokens and we modify the res/inf values of the planet on the map directly for those tokens could work (while other attachments like tech specialties or the tomb of emphidia still get their unique tokens).

Players should be noting in their status blocks that planets have attachments or not and most were doing that some/most of the time, but admittedly I was not very strict on it. That can be something the mod and players enforce on each other more strictly from now on to ensure they are easy to spot all the attachments in the game thread, too.

[Blend]

Imperial Historian, on 15 April 2021 - 01:48 PM, said:

D, on 15 April 2021 - 01:37 PM, said:

Imperial Historian, on 15 April 2021 - 07:51 AM, said:

Topic 5 all the new additions were awesome, but keeping track of what everyone could do was hard.

Are there any changes to how it is displayed/presented/upkeeped that you think would make it easier to keep track of?

Possibly an addition to everyone's post with what their racial abilities/mech abilities/flagship abilities/promissory notes are, as well as commander/agent/hero, or something at the start of the thread?

It's nothing that can't be found by looking at the wiki page, but since there are now so many different powers now it wasn't always the easiest thing to keep track of and remember, especially with all the new races.

I'm not sure how this is handled in regular play, maybe other races being slightly mysterious with weird powers you don't quite expect is intentional!

Well, in real play everything is on the table in front of you, so you can lean over and peek at the other players' faction sheets and heroes and stuff.

I might try to include the agents/commanders/heroes next to the reinforcement tile on the map in the next game, the way it would be in a regular game. But I'll have to dig up the images. Maybe that will make it a bit easier to see.

[D'rek]

Khellendros, on 15 April 2021 - 01:45 PM, said:

D, on 15 April 2021 - 01:37 PM, said:

Are there any changes to how it is displayed/presented/upkeeped that you think would make it easier to keep track of?

The new Codex thing comes with these cool small card quick guides written in everyday language for what each race is capable of. What about putting those/a link to those images for each race which is in the current game in everyone's PMs at the beginning?

That is certainly doable, but does clicking to go to your PMs, then to the first message, then to the image of the faction you want to look up really less time/clicks than going to the wiki page of that faction or to their player sheet on the first page of the game thread or to the reference thread here?

Imperial Historian, on 15 April 2021 - 01:48 PM, said:

D, on 15 April 2021 - 01:37 PM, said:

Imperial Historian, on 15 April 2021 - 07:51 AM, said:

Topic 5 all the new additions were awesome, but keeping track of what everyone could do was hard.

Are there any changes to how it is displayed/presented/upkeeped that you think would make it easier to keep track of?

Possibly an addition to everyone's post with what their racial abilities/mech abilities/flagship abilities/promissory notes are, as well as commander/agent/hero, or something at the start of the thread?

It's nothing that can't be found by looking at the wiki page, but since there are now so many different powers now it wasn't always the easiest thing to keep track of and remember, especially with all the new races.

I'm not sure how this is handled in regular play, maybe other races being slightly mysterious with weird powers you don't quite expect is intentional!

It does tend to be more mysterious in real games, lots of "Wait, your flagship can do WHAT?!" moments, unless I guess you're playing with really experienced people who remember it (oh god if I ever play an in-person game again that's going to be me now isn't it )

But even if we didn't include any of that info in our game threads we'd still be looking stuff up on the wiki so might as well include it as best we can.

Taking your list though...

Quote

racial abilities -- already listed on the faction sheets in the second post of the game thread
/mech abilities -- already listed on the faction sheets in the second post of the game thread
/flagship abilities -- already listed on the faction sheets in the second post of the game thread
/promissory notes are, -- these are listed in the reference thread, but yeah I guess that's harder to go check than the others here
as well as commander/agent/hero -- these are listed in status blocks

So aren't they already meeting the "or something at the start of the thread" criteria? Does it need a format change?