We’re testing out the following changes to make it simpler to get a feel for your nation design and where you want to take it. Most are on theme, some are for game balance, but basically it’s a lot easier to get NPCs from the game start and chase them down.
Did I say we’re one duo away from a KS GB game as well?
Eg Line of Eldacar
Koashun: Find the location at game start with this character 20 points
Koashun: Find the SNA associated with this character at game start 30 points
Koashun: Find the artefact associated with this character 30 points.
Loyalists
Line of Eldacar
Koashun
Radagast
Saruman
Feamire
Rebels of Ered Lithui
Gandalf (already)
Gwaihir
Landroval
Meneldor
Rhovanion
Michel Bandy
Gwaihir
Landroval
Meneldor
Treebeard
Skinbark
Leaflock
Horselords
Saruman
Treebeard
Skinbark
Leaflock
Kingdom of Arnor
Dameric Took
Goldberry
Tom Bombadil
Gandalf
Losspindel
This will cost you 20 points? What do you mean by 20 points? Are you referring to setup points? And does this mean 20 setup points or 2000 setup points?
Okay so I’m on my hobby horse having set-up 3 test games with the new NPC costings. So I’m going to now tweak some of the fun stuff that has never been used, eg Terrain changes, weather, costs of some choices, modifications to those choices etc.
So if you have any changes you’d like to see get back to me. Similarly if there are any things you’d like to see stay the same as it works nicely that feedback is valuable as well.
Is anything being done to get every nation at least one emissary capable of recruiting an NPC without spending a ton of points to build that one character up. Some nations start with the ability for multiple characters to be viable emissaries where others have to spend thousands of points to get one emissary to 50. I think there are some nations that currently have no hope of starting with a 50 emissary. From what I have seen you really want a 50 emissary minimum to try to recruit them but even then you might only have a 50% chance. So spending a bunch of points on knowing where the NPCs are at game start seems useless for some nations if you have a minimal chance at best to recruit them. But if they all had an artifact and you could gain knowledge of a starting artifact on an NPC, that could be useful, because within a few turns, you could hopefully use that information for you or one of your allies to locate them.
While you are at it, can you look at the costs it takes to make your starting champions look like a champion. I don’t recall the nation, but in at least one of them your champion starts with some low scores and it takes thousands of points to get them somewhat close to what the character looks like in 1650. But some character name you have never heard of starts at something like 30 and for 100 points they can get 10 additional points and for 500 points they can get another 20 points. So for about 600 points I can have Joe Blow be a 50 Mage, but my Nazgul is going to cost me something like 3000 points to get there. Just using Nazgul as a reference, it might have been a loyalist champion.
I will hopefully have some time this weekend to look things over more and I will send you an e-mail on my thoughts, along with the exact nation I am referring to above.
Ems - you can upgrade/downgrade relations to improve your chance. The first one should be relatively easy to get, later NPCs are harder. It’s minimal points to locate some characters, that part of the game design here… I’ll see how it goes and look at options for this in future post these 3 test games.
Which nations are you thinking need help with Ems?
Same for the champion. Which nation? Uvatha for the Hithlum is not fantastic but others are good. At present Eldacar seems to be a weak nation, for the Loy and Hithlum under the kosh for the Usu but that’s partially by design that not all nations are equal, but got potential.
I’ll see how it goes and look at options for this in future post these 3 test games.