Yeh, my map was only of what I saw mid-game onwards and some updates from inferences. Just thought players might be interested to see.
I quite like the format - I quite enjoyed pootling along and building up the positions, and on the final turn getting my Curse squad off which was fun. Nick did you get your squad working by the end?
So it would be interesting to get a set of rules for this game. As a player it was okay having the nations not being played and them getting picked on early. How did others find that?
I’d like a one nation victory (and 2nd/3rd) and a 2 nation victory (2nd/3rd). I’m not such a fan of the ratio Istari scoring system - it’s clear to me that picking a lowly VP scoring nation is the way forward there to a winning position, if you can survive the early game.
My point being that too many “placings” kill the value of placing. I see from the standings that there were 3 solo nations…so is recognition for coming in 3rd an “acheivment” perse? Kind of like 4 out of 5 dentists…
SG did not take any Harad pc’s… The success of the Corsiars was largely
based on ineffecient Harad recruitment on the South Bank, on critical turns
only 700 Harad Hi were being recruited. 5000 Corsiars troops were about to
land on your desert town with another 3000 close behind. As a Harad fan it
was hard to see basic Harad mistakes being made but you’re more used to
4th age…
My point being that too many “placings” kill the value of placing. I see from the standings that there were 3 solo nations…so is recognition for coming in 3rd an “acheivment” perse? Kind of like 4 out of 5 dentists…
I take the point - it does dilute the “win” aspect. However, I’ve seen it in other games (Legends is one) where you have a group win and an individual win, and that’s also implicit in the VP system that we have in place. So if you go in with the aim to be the winner for the solo then those are the players that you are directly competing with not the duos. A sensible policy there would seem to be ally with a duo and use their strength to bolster yours I suspect.
So I think it is workable - it’s two games in one then.
One of the problems is the mix of two nations vs a solo nation… As in my case Duns only score high when game last longer than 15 turns… As a nuetral in a regular game he gets that… As a nuetral in this game where your at war at the start it was impossible to compare thier victory points vs mine… Note i scored the lowiest…
Next two nations Gunboat style can pool resources to score at the top on the wealth score… … Note the Winner was a nation resource challenged with a huge producer and artifact laiden one to boost his score to one of the highiest ever by that ratio… An awesome choice for gunboat but would have had nearly No chance as a Solo nation to do the same ratio… This is simply not an even balance to show player ability comparing victory conditions vs effective play in this game…
Just food for thought… I have no real answers here other than never chose a nuetral nation vs aligned nation in this type format.
Yes, The curse squad was working one turn before the end. Had two of them working by turn 11 (Elrond & Erestor) but Cirdan took until near the end to get the spell and catch the company up.
Agreed that there should be differentiation between one and two nation victories. Istarii is still relevant though as recongnition that some nations are more disadvantaged at the start. I was fortunate I could prop up the Eothraim economy with Noldo gold…