I see references to them from time to time, but I get the impression that the variations are so well known that no one says exactly what the varient games ARE. So I’m asking. What are the common varients for standard 1650 / 2950 games?
Gunboat - no diplomacy or communication, no knowlege of who teammates are, each person plays two positions
What are the others?
“War of the Ring variant” (seems to be 2950).
“12 versus 12” (apparently, neutrals start aligned. Do the formerly-neutral positions start with “neutral” or improved relations with their allies / foes? The same question would apply to gunboat-- do the formerly-neutral nations start with neutral or disliked relations?
If there are other varients (not referring to Fourth Age), please fill me in.
Gunboat relations are changed for all nations to reflect friend or foe (disliked or tolerant). This is done manually and needs to be checked on turn 0 pdf.
Can’t anyone offer their “take” on the variant games other than Gunboat? I tend to play only Gunboat. What about all you WOTR fans? What’s that variant all about? Why is it a good variant to play?
I entered a LAS game one time. (I don’t remember the Game Number).
LAS stood for ‘Limited Agents & Stealth’.
The only restrictions concerned SNA’s that a nation could not have at game beginning:
New Agent at Skill 40.
New Characters with stealth.
+20 on Kidnapping / assassinations.
There were no other restrictions.
The end result was that the game attracted a large number of players who loaded their game beginning selections with LOTS of high power agents and who purchased stealth for their new characters.
I could not detect a difference in the number of assassinations and kidnappings. It is possible they were even more frequent in the LAS game than they would have been in a regular 4th age game.
The very conscience PBM player who had arranged for the creation of LAS games then took the Limited Agent scenario to a new level / height and proposed a game that would limit the issue of the order ‘assassinate’. I never participated in the even more limited type of game so I cannot comment on it.
This is an interesting forum thread. I’ll be watching it to read other players opinions.
It is possible they were even more frequent in the LAS game than they would have been in a regular 4th age game.
Yes it ends up the game that is most often played in 1000 games. I am even tempted to make it the standard game but for now as there are occasionaly games with the Agent intensve SNAs I’ll stick with it.
WOTR variant - Richard Devereux (and friends?) has designed a variant of the normal 2950 game that has more PCs and bigger armies. It’s had some play - around 4-6 games I think. I only intend to run Grudge teams against each other at present for it though as there’s not enough players in 2950 to encourage too many variants.
(As per usual if I do get enough players I would run it but seeing how hard it is to fill 2950 GB games and normal 2950 games - it took slightly over 3 months to fill the last 2950 game compared with 12 days for 1650 - I am anxious to give everyone the best service we can).
Clint
