Thank you for the intersting discussion and all your worthwhile comments to this thread. I have only a couple more questions and then I’ll let you go:
Do you favor any rules changes for mages? Do any of the suggestions on this thread appeal to you? (Brad you mentioned Tilley’s idea–I assume you would go for it.)
Any ideas you care to share on how to prolong games? (I am interested now in playing a longer game).
1 - My response to rule/mechanical changes is generally an automatic “No”. Too often they’re a case of players upset they can’t do everything they want right now, or pissed off because an expected result didn’t occur, or frustrated that the game is actually tougher than they expected. These are my arguments against increasing the results given with many of the Lore type spells. Also, basing too many results on the level of the mage introduces even more levels of uncertainty, as you simply won’t know if all your new information is good or complete as a result…increasing frustration yet again! It can descend into a never ending spiral of dissatisfaction, IMHO. Increasing the power of combat spells is a potential disaster for 2950 or FA also as mages would yet still be not powerful enough in 1650 combat, but maybe too powerful in the other games.
Tilley’s site is a whole new game proposal, many of his ideas I think are interesting, others not so much. I do like the mage “type” idea certainly and feel it can be easily worked into the existing code and game play without drastic programming costs or play-testing required. Other ideas that I’d support include adding spells. I believe I’ve heard a call for a fortification-busting spell - if an agent can blast a castle, why not a mage that can alter weather, mess with the morale of thousands of people, teleport, make a well known cross-roads trading centre “disappear”, etc, focus enough magical energy to knock a hole through some rocks?
I haven’t felt the motivation or need to put lots of my own thought into changes, though, spending too much time already trying to figure out how to play the game as it is…
2- How to Prolong A Game ?
Play a neutral and move late for game balance reasons. I can’t see an Allegiance player trying to “win, but not right now…”. The long term planning that really counts is being able to throw everything at the enemy in hopes you kill him Right Now, but also find a way to squirrel away the odd extra mid/late game asset that “might” just be necessary if it comes to that. If you spend the game “building” for the late game (as an allegiance player), you’ll be the one losing fast as your enemy will grab the momentum and/or your allies will give up around you.
As you probably know, Tolkien described such a spell: The Witch King blasted the Gates of Minas Tirith. I wish there were such a spell and I wouldn’t mind seeing some new spells added–it would be fun. But if we start adding new spells where would it stop? A couple of new spells wouldn’t drastically change the game but many new spells just might alter things too much or make mages too powerful. Maybe there would need to be some kind of limit on new spells–perhaps only spell effects that are actually described by Tolkien?
Christian, the best way to get into the late game (beyond turn 20) in my experience is to get a grudge team going, and only play against teams that you know are about your skill level and willing to get the game into the late.
That said, it took 3 tries for our team to get beyond the magic 20 turns (Turn 25 now), but its a lot of fun when you get there