Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Asteroid tech refined

The other day I posted some thoughts on Mining Technology and Asteroids in EmDo: Exotica (trying that name out for a while, let me know what you think). Last night I got a chance to play with this new version of the expansion, and I definitely think it's a step in the right direction. The only thing I have changed for the next playtest after playing with it is this...

I'm testing a run of Level 1 tech cards that grow in value with the number of Asteroids you have in play. They were going to apply to Moons before, so they're called "Lunar Colonies" and "Lunar Production," etc - I'll have to rename them... but they basically give you the effect of "Improved [X]" for each Asteroid you have in play. So with no asteroids, you wouldn't bother. With 1 Asteroid, you could choose this or an Improved tech, depending on other factors. With 2 or more Asteroids in play, this becomes a much stronger card than the Improved [X] counterpart.

I think these cards scale up in power way too quickly, especially in a 2 player game, where I suspect it's much easier to get several Asteroids in play. But I definitely want them to be...
* Worse than L1 tech with 0 Asteroids
* On par with L1 tech with 1 Asteroid
* Incrementally better than L1 tech with each Asteroid past the first.

So... I thought of a way to implement that. I changed these to the following format:

Lunar Production
Action: Produce 1 resource. Repeat for each face up Asteroid in your Empire.

Ta-da! Now the card is not completely useless with no Asteroids in play, but it's close - on par with a standard Role card. With each Asteroid you flip, the card gets incrementally better.

Here's the rest of them. Some have slightly weird formats to make them work right...

Lunar Trade
Action: Trade 1 resource for 1 Influence from the supply. Repeat for each face up Asteroid in your Empire.

Lunar Research
Action: Draw 1 card then remove 1 card in hand from the game. Repeat for each face up Asteroid in your Empire. (Or was it "Draw 1 card, then remove 1 card in hand from the game for each face up Asteroid in your Empire"?)

Lunar Colonize
Action: Each face up Asteroid in your Empire gains [Colonize icon] until end of turn. Settle 1 planet.

Lunar Survey
Action: Draw 2 cards. Draw 1 additional card for each face up Asteroid in your Empire.

Lunar Warfare
Action: Collect 1 Fighter OR Attack 1 planet. Repeat for each face up Asteroid in your Empire.
(This one might need to be altered to disallow multiple attacks... not sure about that. Could be something like "Attack 1 planet OR collect 1 fighter, plus 1 fighter for each face up Asteroid in your Empire")

Small tweaks aside, I think I'll be happy with this format. I have put these cards back into their respective tech stacks as well, as opposed to the Diverse stack (where I tried them) because I don't like the thought of 1 player gaining access to all of them at once.

I also made 2 similar cards for the Exotic stack:
Lunar ???
Action: Each face up Asteroid in your Empire gains [Exotic icon] until end of turn.

Lunar Base
Action: Each face up Asteroid in your Empire gains [Fighter icon] until end of turn.

That last one has some problems - for one thing,  it absolutely needs "+1 Action" or "Attack 1 planet" on it! Also, the rules for Fighter icons probably won't be in the Exotica rulebook, so I might have to use more text...
"Put 1 Fighter on each face up Asteroid in your Empire. You may spend these Fighters as normal. At the end of your turn, return any Fighters on Asteroids in your Empire to the supply."

Looking forward to playing again!

4 comments:

Seth Jaffee said...

Lunar Warfare
Action: Collect 1 Fighter OR Attack 1 planet. Repeat for each face up Asteroid in your Empire.
(This one might need to be altered to disallow multiple attacks... not sure about that. Could be something like "Attack 1 planet OR collect 1 fighter, plus 1 fighter for each face up Asteroid in your Empire")


I played with this card tonight, and absolutely thought it was too powerful as-is. Lunar Colonies effectively goes "tuck, tuck, tuck, flip," so to match that maybe Lunar Warfare should read "Collect 1 Fighter for each face up Asteroid in your Empire, then Attack 1 Planet." So without any Asteroids it's an "attack 1 Planet" Action (sub-par even compared to standard Warfare), with 1 Asteroid in play you get 1 Fighter and then Attack - this is not something you can do even with Improved Warfare - but I always kinda thought maybe Improved Warfare SHOULD have read "Choose two: Attack a Planet, Collect 1 Fighter." With 2 or more Asteroids in play, you get a pretty decent card!

Lunar ???
Action: Each face up Asteroid in your Empire gains [Exotic icon] until end of turn.


Thinking about this one some more, I think it's about right. If you are in the Exotic deck then you either have Exo symbols or Translators. This card is good if you have Translators. The other card (below) should be good if you have Exo symbols...

Lunar Base
Action: Each face up Asteroid in your Empire gains [Fighter icon] until end of turn.


I gave this one some more thought, and I think it doesn't make any sense at all. If you're int eh Exotic stack, then you probably have Exo icons (on planets or on tech), and you need something to do with them - some way to translate them. The card described above is good for when you have translators and need Exo symbols. This one should be good if you're in the other situation.

I think I've come up with a good solution - and one that features Recon/deck manipulation. I'm not sure how to word this, it's kinda verbose, but I might like to try the following power for this card:

Action: Reveal the top card of your deck, plus 1 more card for each face up Asteroid in your Empire. Choose a Role symbol on one of the revealed cards. You may translate [Exo icons] in your Empire to that Role symbol until end of turn.

I might like to add "For each card revealed, either discard it or return it to the top of your deck in any order." Or perhaps "You may discard the revealed cards or return them to the top of your deck in any order." ... so that even if you can't really use this card to translate Exo icons, at least you can use it to filter your card draw.

Another variation could be this:
Action: Reveal the top card of your deck, plus 1 more card for each face up Asteroid in your Empire. You may remove 1 of those cards from the game. If you do, you may translate [Exo icons] in your Empire to a Role symbol on the removed card until end of turn. Return the rest of the revealed cards to the top of your deck in any order.

This would help thin your deck a little bit, and help translate to an icon that's probably useful to you, but it runs the risk of being useless, if you reveal only cards you don't want to remove (like L2 tech). I'm not sure I like the idea of a player taking an action and having it essentially fail on them.

I should maybe mention that in the 3 player game I played tonight, I had 4 Asteroids in play, and John had 2-3. Jeremy (who had not played with the expansion before, did not go that route. The scores were pretty close, me with 48, Jeremy with 42, and John with 40 (John had a pretty poor game though).

Seth Jaffee said...

Zeroing in on a version of that card that I like...

Action: Reveal 1 card plus 1 more for each face up Asteroid in your Empire. Take 1 of those cards into hand, discard the rest (or "put the rest back in any order" - not sure which I'd prefer as a player). Until end of turn you may translate [Exo icon] to Role symbols on that card."

Maeddes said...

Nice to read this blog. I am so excited about the expansion; my wife and I enjoying EmDo a lot. Keep up the good work!

Best regards from Germany
Maeddes

Seth Jaffee said...

@Maeddes: Thanks! I'm glad someone is reading it :)