OK, I am requesting right off, PLEASE don’t respond to this post if you don’t want to play in another FA game. I know who some of you are, and I respect your position. We all have our preferences and feelings about the various scenarios and that’s ok.
But this post is intended to try to bring together those who would like to play another FA game, to see about getting another game going.
So please respond if you are a YES to playing, even if you are a NO to some variants. And try to answer these questions. Bear in mind that the only variants that I am aware of are:
A) regular game with 25 players, possibly LAS or military-only
B) 2-nation Gunboat game with 24 players including Kingdoms
C) 2-nation Gunboat game with 24 players and no Kingdoms, Arnor/Gondor regular nations
D) 3-nation GB game with DS vs. FP, regular Kingdoms
E) 3-nation GB game with DS vs. FP, no Kingdoms
F) “Ernie” variation: 3-nation GB game, with all three allegiances going at each other, each trio of nations spread out across the board away from each other, and regular Kingdoms.
So here are my questions:
Is there a variant you particularly would like to play?
Which of the above variants would you be up for playing, and/or definitely NOT up for playing?
Well, despite my generally being down about these things right now I’d be up for another FA game. Restrictions? Yeah, probably a few. 3 Nation GB seems too much - too fast, too brutal and too grindy - so no to that one. I’d like some more thought into nation placement - if 2 nations per player put them away from each other to prevent a concentration of resources. I’d prefer more variety in the placement than current games appear to give. Not a massive fan of Kingdoms (though would play if pushed) and would prefer a 3-way allegiance split as the extra dimension adds real spice. And allow limited communications between allegiances! Really like to trial some of the suggested new SNAs too.
I would be interested, though admittedly am not as much of a “gunner” as most 4th age players seem to be. I know little about the advanced theory of the scenario. I did sign up for a “military only” variant awhile ago but after about 10 months waiting had to move on. Apparently it was a hard sell. I would prefer to wait until my current game is over , which might be soon, but maybe not. &) So I’d look for the regular game, with or without military, playing one nation. Perhaps a little lame, but there it is. For what its worth, I do think the "strategy articles’ on FA are somewhat intimidating and might tend to turn players off who were considering giving it a try.
I’d be interested in playing FA. Clint keeps saying to me that there’s no interest in FA but there seems to be a fair bit around here. I’m not so keen on some of the recent 3 nation GB setups (FP vrs DS) we’ve had as its allowed a player to concerntrate resources against one player.
I was thinking about a 3 way Shadows over Mordor variant game with each 3 x 3 x 3 nations or 4 x 4 x 4 or 6 x 6 x 6 depending on how much interest we get. We could work out the map and divide up the alliengences so that they are as apart as possible. That could have any rule variants you want LAS, no CM and A40 or whatever. Just as long as its the same for everyone.
Okay here’s a suggestion (since Clint doesn’t think that he can fill a 25 player FAS game). A three way scenario set in the NE of the map. Each side (FP, N, DS) has two pairs (labelled 1 and 2 on the map). A player plays one of the two pairs for an allegiance. Regular GB rules with the following additional
No Kidnap / Assasinate, Conjure Mounts, A40 SNAs
An allegiance wins if they have more nations left than the other two allegiances combined or normal VC at turn 52. So 3 nations vrs 1 nation vrs 1 nation would be a win for the three nations but 3 vrs 2 vrs 1 would not be a win.
Characters and armies are not permitted to move outside the play area in the same way as in Game 406
I’m thinking we might want to give Rhovanion a bit of a boost as well.
I deleted my old response, and I apologize. This variant does sound like the start of an interesting conversation!
But, I’d like to ask that this thread try to be reserved for finding out which players are interested in playing an FA game, and once we have (hopefully) a good-sized group, we can then work out what variant or sub-variant is one that everyone would be up for playing.
A) regular game with 25 players, possibly LAS or military-only
C) 2-nation Gunboat game with 24 players and no Kingdoms, Arnor/Gondor regular nations
E) 3-nation GB game with DS vs. FP, no Kingdoms
Thanks to Movan, we are up to seven players. Just need to sort out the specific variant. This is being discussed ongoingly on Discord if you care to join. Summary:
No Kingdoms
Each duo of nations must have at least one which is “Men”
What remains is to work out how to come up with regions. I proposed the old way, which is that everyone (who doesn’t want to put “ANY” and get extra gold) puts in for each of their two nations, a list of regions in order of preference. No overlap – you must have a total of 6 different regions between your two nations. Clint sorts out who gets what, based on that.
Gavin has expressed grave concern that a player could wind up in a bad position as a result of that, and has proposed we pre-set the duos, .e.g. Northern Wastes and …? Specifically that they should be, if not adjacent, then at least in position to cooperate in some way. My concern over that is the difficulty in balancing such duos, to ensure no super-powers. We would have to come up with a map so that the more vulnerable regions were more apt to be near other duos from the same allegiance. Gavin wasn’t available to work with me on this but I hope we can chat through it sometime.
Fourth Age, 2-nation Gunboat, normal communication rules (50 words every 5 turns, turns 1 5, 11, …)
No Kingdoms
At least one nation in each duo must be men
20 k/a SNA is not allowed
Forlindon area is off limits, cannot camp or land armies there.
Normal rules apply for starting gold, per the rules on pages 276 and 277: 8,000 extra gold for choosing “Any” region, minus 5,000 for getting your first choice, +3,000 gold if you get your third choice, +7,000 gold if you take a consolation pair of regions because your first three choices were in demand and you are a good sport.
Region pairs will be per the map, below. Red is Free Peoples, Blue is Dark Servants.
When you write to Clint, we don’t have a nation number yet, just reference the FA 2-nation gunboat game (use my name), and specify which allegiance you want to be if you have a preference, and your three highest preferences, in order of region pairs. If you say “Any” for allegiance, you may want to specify two sets of region pairs, one for each allegiances.
To the best of my knowledge, we have seven player who have expressed interest, including myself, Gavin, mveels, Galerus (Frank), Mike Sankey, Keef and a player who texted on Discord. That means we need five more – any takers?
One last thing. FA is truly not for the faint of heart – it is likely the hardest of all the scenarios IMO, in part because you are more alone – other scenarios there is built-in balance and allies who are designed to be able to cooperate with you. Please plan to create nations that are designed to survive,(and thrive), NOT that have SNA’s you feel like playing. And be prepared that you may lose one of your nations – I’m sure a number of players will. There can still be fun in the game left in playing your remaining nation.
I believe that there are about 3-4 positions still available. Just write to MEG and tell them you want to sign up, give your preference for allegiance if any and duos if any.
