Gunboat Game Devotees

General
#61

I dont have the list exactly, but I believe this is how it broke down;

Witch King, Dragon Lord and Rhudaur
FireKing, Ice King, Cloud Lord
Dog Lord, Dark Lt’s, LR
BS, Harad and Qa

Free were

Arthi, Cardi Duns
NG,SG, Corsairs
Sinda, Woodmen, Noldo
Dwarves, Northmen, Eothraim

I am not entirely sure on these the last few FP, they may not be correct, but essentially everything was broken down geographically. I think thats a pretty good way to go, but of course it leads to a few problems in that once your area is secure, there isnt much for you to do.

Also, in the case of the NW DS, I can see them bankrupting out easily if you consider the amount of armies that the WK had to maintain, the constant ravaging of Rhud and of course the Dragon Lord is in a world of pain all his own.

#62

If we ever did a 3ntn GB game again it would have different triplets of nations. As Fletch says once an area is sown up it’s all over and boring. I think it’s a much better game when you have different areas and strengths of nations in which to play - and that’s what the original person who designed the game, Chris Courtiour, wanted. Also if a player drops then the entire area becomes a walkover for the opposition and despite attempting to make sure that players

Suggestions welcome as to the format you’d like with this proviso in mind.

eg
FP
3,7,23
1,4,22
2,8,10
5,6,9

DS
12,13,18
11,14,17
15,16,19
20,21,24

I am pretty likely to try and set up a 2 or 3 ntn 1650 GB game within a couple of weeks - but not a 2950 game - there’s basically no one prepared to sign up to the 2950 that won’t do 1650 and I have other players interested in 1650. If you are interested in a 3 ntn game then get in touch asap. Some discussion on viable nation combinations would be useful as well.

If someone were to write up an article for Bree about GB that would certainly help get players into the game - and you get a free turn out of it!

Clint

#63

They looks good combo’s Clint.

My initial reaction would be the 2,8,10 combo as it might make these 3 pairings perhaps too strong economically with the NM 40emi abililty and the starting Noldo emi’s. Later in the game those emi’s would possibly win the game.

Perhaps 3, 10, 23 and 2,7,8 would share out the emi power of the freep nations whilst still retaining some sort of geographical isolation between the pairings ?

#64

Clint’s message is truly wonderful news for Gunboat fans!

Personally, I’d prefer the 3-nation GB game, simply because I am lusting to control three nations in one game.

As for 1650 vs. 2950, I would prefer a 2950 GB game; but if the demand is weak for 2950 GB, as Clint indicates, then I’ll gladly sign-up for 1650 GB.

Celebion, I know you had hoped that a 2950 GB game would start to fill; but would you consider a 1650 GB game? If the game turns out to be a 3-nation GB game, I think it will be an absolute blast!

I have some thoughts on the nation triplets in a 3-nation GB game; but I’ll save those for later. I’ll simply say now that I agree entirely with Clint: the nation triplets should be as dispersed as possible – both in terms of location and in terms of national character (ie., mage vs. military, agent vs. economic, etc.).

#65

Nim,

I would play 2950 triple GB but not 1650.

I like chess, not checkers :wink:

Hope you all get enough though.

#66

As for the 3 nation 1650 gunboat game, it’s still going on and I’m loving it.

Scott

#67

Overall the Free People 3 nation combinations look very good, keeping good regional separation and a mixture of strengths and weaknesses. Looking at each combination in more detail:

Clint’s FP Combination 1:
3 - Eothraim, 7 - S Gondor, 23 - Dunland
Very nice combination, character potential with military mix, no proposed changes.

Clint’s FP Combination 2:
1 - Woodmen, 4 - Arthedain, 22 - Harad
This combination has very weak characters and Harad & Woodmen are likely to take a beating at game start. One stronger nation should probably be added.

Clint’s FP Combination 3
2 - Northmen, 8 - Dwarves, 10 - Noldo
As has been by Starkhorn, Dwarves and Noldo are in very strong game start positions and Northmen has potential, a powerful set of characters, with strong safe nations.

Clint’s FP Combination 4
5 - Cardolan, 6 - N Gondor, 9 - Sinda
A combination I would like to play, good characters and up front military action.

So without too much fuss we could either put either the Dwarves or Noldo from combo 3 into combo 2, I would prefer Dwarves to replace Woodmen or Noldo to replace Arthedain, to keep regional separation. Therefore combinations 2 & 3 could change as follows:

Mod 1, FP Combination 2:
4 - Arthedain, 8 - Dwarves, 22 - Harad
No outstanding nations, but solid performances economically and militarily, perhaps a little weak on characters but an improvement and contributing to a overall good combination.

Mod 1, FP Combination 3:
1 - Woodmen, 2 - Northmen, 10 - Noldo
The weaker Woodmen and Northmen are boosted by the superlative Noldo, a very nice combination for players who may tend to the character game.

OR:

Mod 2, FP Combination 2:
1 - Woodmen, 10 - Noldo, 22 - Harad
Again the Noldo provides an envious character set, making up for the deficiencies of the others

Mod 2, FP Combination 3:
2 - Northmen, 8 - Dwarves, 4 - Arthedain
No great weaknesses or strengths, but has potential to be a strong combination.

The DS combinations are probably more difficult to put together and ask a difficult question which will likely spilt the players depending on whether you think agents are already too powerful. Should the Cloud Lord be paired with the QA who can Double Scout? personally I do not think so.

I also believe that since Rhudaur will be lucky to make it to turn 10, he should be paired with the most fun DS nation, the aforementioned Cloud lord.

Below are Clint’s proposed combinations, I am afraid I don’t have time to write on their merits or proposed modifications today :smiley:

Clint’s DS Combination 1:
12 – Dragon Lord, 13 – Dog Lord, 18 – Fire King

Clint’s DS Combination 2:
11 – Witch King, 14 – Cloud Lord, 17 – Quiet Avenger

Clint’s DS Combination 3:
15 – Blind Sorcerer, 16 – Ice King, 19 – Long Rider

Clint’s DS Combination 4:
20 – Dark Lieut, 21 - Corsairs, 24 – Rhudaur

Paul

#68

Klub,

Personally I think the Woodmen and Noldo should be kept seperate at all costs. The reason is that both nations get stealth bonus and the Woodmen get double scouting bonus making these two agent super-powers.

I think the Noldo and Woodmen agent potential should be shared out more so that Noldo, Woodmen and Sinda are in all serperate combo’s. Perhaps also the duns in a seperate from the above 3 as well thus giving each combo the chance of decent agents but keeping them seperate.

#69

I get your point about the Double Scout of the Woodmen agents, however I do not think stealth makes Noldo agents powerful, but their potential to locate powerful agent artefacts.

I would guess a nation with the Stealth SNA gets about 20-25% of new characters with stealth, the Woodmen 10-12%% of new characters with stealth and 10-12% with a Challenge Bonus.

Would the Noldo-Woodmen pairing have more powerful agents than any of the following DS combinations?

12 – Dragon Lord (stealth+double scouting), 13 – Dog Lord (stealth), 18 – Fire King

11 – Witch King, 14 – Cloud Lord (+20 ass/kid+stealth+40 agents), 17 – Quiet Avenger (double scouting)

15 – Blind Sorcerer, 16 – Ice King (stealth+40 agents), 19 – Long Rider (3 tasty agent artefacts)

Paul

#70

I tracked stealth data under GSI for a time. 23 of 93 named characters came with a stealth bonus for a 24.73% occurrence.

The average stealth rank was 22.74 for all named characters.

Double scout in the best SNA in the game or tied with Hire armies at no cost, IMO. Doubled scout will win the agent war.

In 2950 GB, Noldo and Woodmen are paired together which I feel is bad considering other FP pairings are weak.

#71

Actually I didn’t look at the DS combos as I rarely play DS nations.

However, I certainly think CL and QA together is too strong. CL is strong enough on his own without getting a nation with double scouting bonus.

As you already said, the DS combos are more difficult to effectively share out the agents,stealth and geographically location due to some many being in Mordor and the DS having lots of agent/stealth nations.

#72

Celebion;

Any numbers on the likelyhood to get stealth for each seperate nation ?

  • Jeppe
#73

At one time I had more precise data regarding nation breakdown. However those days have passed. I still have complete sets of pdfs for CL and Dragon Lord games under GSI. Perhaps I will wade through those and add them to the mix.

Anyway here is an excerpt from the article that gives a little more info:

I will divide my data into two categories the first set taken from three games of the 2950 scenario, two as the Silvan Elves and one as the Dog Lord. In the 2950 games a total of 35 characters were named, 8 of these characters came with a bonus to their stealth rank. The least stealth was 18 the most 34. These numbers indicate that stealth was awarded 22.86% of the time with an average stealth rank of 22.88. Of these 8 named characters with stealth, 1 was an emissary, 4 were straight agents and 3 were commander/agents.

The other set is derived from the Fourth Age scenario with the Stealth SNA built into nation design. In the Fourth Age games a total of 58 characters were named, 15 of these characters came with a bonus to their stealth rank. The least stealth was 15 the most 30. In these games the stealth bonus was awarded 25.86% of the time with an average stealth rank of 22.67. Of these 15 characters named with stealth, 3 were straight agents, 1 was a commander/emissary and 11 were commander/agents

#74

Originally posted by starkhorn
I certainly think CL and QA together is too strong. CL is strong enough on his own without getting a nation with double scouting bonus.

Without communcation and cooperation between allies, I won’t disagree that the Cloud Lord would be a strong and fun nation to play regardless…but exactly what is the point of a Double Scout nation then…? I can see the Dragon Lord using the SNA and developing an agent cadre or being crafty in his challenging on hidden pops…but the QA? Emissary and potential military/naval nation, depending on your whim…with Double Scout but no allies to send your odd useful agent off to go help. It would be quite a while before Adunaphel had any use for this skill.

#75

Well yeah QA on it’s own can’t use scout bonus well for agent actions, I agree but isn’t that part of the reason why Chris Courtier insisted that players must play 2 nations minimum in Gunboat ?

By insisting upon that point it means that one nation is never actually alone without allies because each player must play 2 nations minimum, so the QA has at least 1 ally.

I think QA is normally paired with DogLord and DogLord characters can have stealth so the bonus scouting can potentialy comes in useful then for agent actions.

My originally point was for the 3 nation combos was simply that new CL characters can have a good chance of killing straight away and that giving them a nation with double scouting could make that combo too strong in the character war…similiar on the freep side that Noldo and Woodmen combined could make them too strong.

Personally I would prefer that all of the emi/agent/army/mage etc abilities of each side are shared out evenly in 3 nation combo so that no one combo has a vastly superior advantage in one area.

And yes I fully agree that it’s extremely difficult to find combos to achieve this balance.

#76

Stackhorn wrote:

Personally I would prefer that all of the emi/agent/army/mage etc abilities of each side are shared out evenly in 3 nation combo so that no one combo has a vastly superior advantage in one area.

I agree that it would be important to a triple-nation GB game to split up the various national skills and abilities. That seems to me to be one of the basic ideas behind GB, namely, to introduce freshness into the game by getting away from the transnational super-agent companies, the unstoppable curse squads and, in general, the hyper-coordinated assaults. The ways in which that is accomplished in GB is by disallowing diplomacy and by offering a good mix of nation duos or triples.

Mixing national abilities along with geographic dispersal is a difficult feat to accomplish – especially for the DS side – and, in my opinion, can’t be accomplished perfectly. But the more mixed, the better. It makes the GB gaming experience just that much more exhilarating and intense!

#77

Yay! GB 229 ran again today! Death to my enemies! I hope my allies did well. Hip hip, HOORAY!

  • Ben
    GB 229
#78

I’m going with a 2 nation 1650 game at present - seems the most popular choice. We have 7 players so far so need 5 more.

I won’t be doing a 2950 GB game until the latest one finishes. It’s clear to me that the player base can only support one such game at a time and make the game competitive. (Same as 1 1650 1wk game).

Clint

#79

Still trying to spread the word among my allies. Hopefully we will pick up a few more converts :slight_smile:

Some veteran allies of mine did not really understand the Gunboat concept. I would assume this is due to them not frequenting this board.

I think it would be in the GB fans interest to perhaps promote this variant in News from Bree. However, I am not big fan of strategy articles to the point where all GB games become similar to all other ones.

#80

Celebion, thanks for spreading the word about Gunboat. In my opinion, alot of veteran players would be interested in GB and would really enjoy it. But my experience is similar to your’s – not alot of them are aware of it or understand why they might want to give it a try.

ME Games is actively seeking articles about GB for publication in ‘News from Bree.’ I’m trying to put one together amidst all the other demands on my time.

Ny the way, Celebion, Clint has a dropped position available in the current 2950 GB game. You may want to drop him a message and ask about it. If it’s a solid position, you may want to give it a shot.