Rotating nations. I play Woodies 3 turns, Northmen the next, etc, and on it goes across the 12 players. Anyone else think that’s a neat idea?
Brad
One word: Gunboat. 
There is precious little long term planning in this game any more. Either it won’t hurt anything or assure there never will be any long term planning.
Hmmm… Actually, I thought if an allegiance of 12 players shared all 12 nations on a rotating basis, there might actually be MORE long term, Global-View style planning…
Actually, I think it would do the opposite since it would be hard to figure out what the last person’s long term plan was. Unless it was blatantly obvious such as picking up Tinculin or some other curse artifact. If you were to pick up the Noldo position and Elrond was in the middle of Mordor would you know the plan was to plant a camp and hide it? I know I couldn’t figure that out unless it was told to me.
Scavenger
Um, so the 12 guys communicate and talk…that’s the point… Everyone gets to look at the whole war instead of the yappy few.
Hmm. slightly different idea…
How about: T10 and T20 DS and FP objectives are defined pre game start with various scores attached to each objective. Game ends on t20 and winner is team with highest number of objective points
Team A plays FP until T10 and DS T11-20
Team B plays DS until T10 and FP T11 to T20
By way of example v simple objectives might be:
FP: Take Carn Dum (3) Dol Guld (5) Morannon (10) points
DS: Kill King characters (2 each)
(much more thought needed)
Other rule: if either team lets any of their side be eliminated big penalty. No retiring of characters or pc’ing same side on t5-10. No xfer of pop centres (other than MTs / Cities) t5-10.
Objective setting would obviously be MASSIVELY important. But it could be pretty sweet for a team to plan t1-10 as 1 side and then t11-20 as the other. For example as FP you might try to take only 1804 and 2006 to score your VPs, knowing that later in the game you will be playing the DS. And on T10 everyone would disband all their armies and move their characters to daft locations
Cheers
Mike
We did this kind of thing at an FTF. It was 6v6 in that game though. MTs and cities gave a score as did taking pops with forts. U could do all of this without getting ME involved though apart from setting the initial rules. e.g. although FP won the game as it was set the result would be suspended until the scores were totalled up. Say 1000 pts for the team winning in the usual manner and then amending the score depending on pops taken. Say an MT worth 50 with each fort level worth 5. Over the course of a game you’d rack up quite a score thus making the team win largely irrelevant. All it would need would be for the 2 teams in a grudge setting to agree to the FINAL result, and agreeing the scoreing system beforehand.
Alan - did the Fp and DS teams also rotate mid way? That is the kind of spice I was after…
No we didnt. The game didnt last that long as we were about to go home on the sunday afternoon. Although it might be considered unfair to swap round after a time. One team might be dismayed to find they were giving their opponents a hammering. Secondly a team might not feel the need to really put the legwork in if they are getting beaten when its close to the turnaround stage. An emphasis on additional scoring would ensure a lot more aggresion especially if one side is being perceived to be really putting the boot in. e.g. The opening moves of the DS main armies in 1650.
Hi alan… yes the objectives would need to be v carefully set. EG if Harad starts dark, maybe the t10 objective is for the FP to have destroyed 2833 only while not taking any of the surrounding Harad pops. The T20 objective is for SG to have completely wiped NHarad. So, t1-10 SG plays carefully trying only to nuked a couple of selected pops and thus get his points AND inherit a strong Harad on t11.
It could make things pretty topsy turvy…
No, Id reckon set objectives to bo too rigid. IMO the best way would be to keep a rolling score of pops taken with bonus’ for fort levels.
That way everything becomes a target worth taking
K Alan I guess you and I can stop commenting for a bit (at least i will after this one)… i presume that you are basically against the idea of DS and FP swapping positions mid game… rigidity was my intended virtue so that only certain pop centres were natural targets… but you are right that this would be complex to set up and get “fair”…
The “victory conditions” shouldn’t be public. The FP know the FP ones and the DS know the DS ones…OR…vice versa. Actually, if you start FP and end DS, why wouldn’t you nuke your own nations on turn 9/10…?
An interesting way of assuring that this doesn’t happen is to make all finances communal. I don’t know if it is possible, but iot prevent the (un)intentional bankrupting of a nation during hand-off, all nation deficites and surplusses are shared on each team. If playing with neutrals, then their economies are stand-alone, but everyone else must pay very close attention to what their allies are doing.
No nation may “bankrupt-out” by itself, it will sink everyone else. In this way, the only way that bankrupting would work is for everyone on a particular side to do it prior to hand-off. If this does infact happen, then ME can then disqualify the other team from winning for “unsportsmenlike conduct.”
Victory is obtained by the TEAM rather than the SIDE.
My .02.
Wade