I'm gathering players for a new NKA game (no kidnap or
assasination orders permitted). Eight players are
already signed up. Once I get at least 10, I'll submit
the list to Clint for posting in the game lists.
If interested, email your name, email address, and
allegiance preference to theduck@newsguy.com. Once I
submit the list to Clint, I'll ask everyone to email
their account number to him directly.
Keith
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--- In mepbmlist@y..., Keith Kendall <gnashrak@y...> wrote:
I'm gathering players for a new NKA game (no kidnap or
assasination orders permitted). Eight players are
already signed up. Once I get at least 10, I'll submit
the list to Clint for posting in the game lists.
If interested, email your name, email address, and
allegiance preference to theduck@n... Once I
submit the list to Clint, I'll ask everyone to email
their account number to him directly.
Keith
I did one NKA game and would not do so again.
If you do want to do this, I'd strongly suggest that
you try some modifications to deal with some of the
serious flaws that we encountered.
In particular:
1. Ban anyone from starting with or building cities or major towns in
the mountains. The movement rules make it far too much of a pain to
take them down without agents to clear them off for emmys or armies.
I'd also extend this to the handful of hexes (e.g. 2430) that are
effectively impossible to reach. Starting with a capital in 4215, for
example, is currently legal in NKA but really violates the spirit of
the game (an effectively invulnerable capital).
This is the single most crucial flaw that has to be addressed.
2. Geographic balance: character movement is fast but army movement
is slow. If you want a lot of army action make sure that the
alliances don't set up on opposite corners of the map. We had all of
the freeps but 1 in the SE and all of the dark servants but 1 in the
NW. The neutrals were scattered all over. They took out the DS and
then faced an incredibly boring middle game of basically shipping big
armies across the map from the far NW to the far SE.
1. Ban anyone from starting with or building cities or major towns in the mountains.
2. Geographic balance
** I would agree with both points made here. Would you want me to implement this as part of the game rules for this particular game? It's fine if you don't - it's your game after all - but my suggestions would be to have allocated areas for FP and DS (we've done this before). PCwise I think this is a flaw in the normal FA game (from a realism point of view it's not appropriate I think). I can certainly understand the appeal as a player for having virtually invulnerable positions/capitals. (For example - in game 144 one of the team has placed his capital on the plains/river and each turn he is under threat - with mountains this totally negates it.)
NKA seems to suffer from the Weakness squads that abound to take out the "invulnerable" positions I am not sure if that is healthy or not. I think instead house ruling some placement of PCs would help enormously rather than have to have players have to play the Weakness variant...
Just my thoughts having played a bit of the game now . Part of the appeal I guess is the safety of positions and being able to build up a nation rather than the smash and grab of games like 1650 so we're happy to support it as GMs.
I did one NKA game and would not do so again.
If you do want to do this, I'd strongly suggest that
you try some modifications to deal with some of the
serious flaws that we encountered.
In particular:
1. Ban anyone from starting with or building cities or major towns in
the mountains.
This is the single most crucial flaw that has to be addressed.
Based on my experience with game 46 (NKA #2 I believe) I think there
are a few other points to be addressed:
1) If it's going to be another two-side game, make sure the neutrals
know this from the beginning. I gather a number of players in game 46
didn't expect to have enemies starting from turn 1.
2) Again if it's a two-side game, consider setting up a predefined
victory condition such as a certain ratio of active nations on each
side. Two neutral nations in the far SE corner of the map dragged
game 46 out for a good six turns past the point at which the game was
decided, until the FP managed to arrange a strategic pop center victory.
Arguably the strategic pop center victory rules already fill this
need, so this might not be necessary. And maybe the FP were just
unlucky not to have a weakness nation ready to whittle away the army
commanders. But it seems like the security of far corners of the map
is a much greater asset when you know your commanders are safe from
agents.
I think I'll probably pass on future NKA scenarios anyway in favor of
standard or limited agent scenarios. I think NKA offers a bit too
much of an advantage to the FP, and too little of one to the DS -
which encourages two-sided games, which are awkward given the FP's
wider range of races and placement options and the raw power of the
twin kingdoms.
1) If it's going to be another two-side game, make sure the neutrals
know this from the beginning. I gather a number of players in game 46
didn't expect to have enemies starting from turn 1.
*** I had contacted them and put the information in the Front Sheet. Players have to read such things I am afraid.
2) Again if it's a two-side game, consider setting up a predefined
victory condition such as a certain ratio of active nations on each
side. Two neutral nations in the far SE corner of the map dragged
game 46 out for a good six turns past the point at which the game was
decided, until the FP managed to arrange a strategic pop center victory.
*** That's upto the players. I have tried to implement this as a generic concept but players don't seem to like it. Just saw a game run to heavy turn numbers where the FPs were just chasing a single DS down. War of Boredom...
I think I'll probably pass on future NKA scenarios anyway in favor of
standard or limited agent scenarios. I think NKA offers a bit too
much of an advantage to the FP, and too little of one to the DS -
which encourages two-sided games, which are awkward given the FP's
wider range of races and placement options and the raw power of the
twin kingdoms.
*** Note we will run these if there are enough players. Players call. At present we have something like 10 players for the next game.
