Notes from Forty-fifth Playtest

End Game Board

A four player game with some slight adjustments to the numbers, and a very powerful version of scouting.

The Numbers
For the village track values I used 1, 1, 2, 3, 4. These served to encourage selling when things reach the top value, and punish hoarding of animals. With these values the Hunt and Gather tracks were much closer than they have been. Scores were much lower, but if I want to change that it would be easy enough to change it to 2, 2, 3, 4, 5. But it is nice how these low numbers really discourage hoarding animals, because the value of selling a second animal in the same turn is so low. Although, the player who won sold a Wolf (3 hide, 0 meat) followed by a Boar (0 hide, 3 meat), and that worked really well.

I also dropped the Pouch down to 3 points cost, and still allowed players to keep it after selling. But with the numbers so low players (ok, and by players I mean me) have to be really careful about purchasing too much. I started out with an Atlatl, brought in some money to get a spear, and also purchased a Torch and a Pouch. Didn't realize final scored would be in the teens when the game ended unexpectedly fast.

Scouting
One small change to scouting made a big difference. The way we played it this time, you can scout starting from the village, as long as you end the turn there as well. As you can see from the end game board, that meant more information was gathered, but it also allowed players to leave tiles with annoying animals (like Squirrels) on the board. Every tile left on the board is one fewer player turn the game took to finish.

We'll have to try it some more and see if everyone always scouts on the first turn.

To Clarify
There was some confusion (still) over the Atlatl. This was not my usual playtest group, so they have long gaps between when they play, and I always have a hard time gauging how much they've forgotten between plays. I think the latest versions of the cards will help, but I'm also thinking about changing the Atlatl back to saying +1/+1 rather than 3/4, to help clarify that this is a bonus that it applies to a spear throw.

To Design Next
I've been annoyed with the current end game scoring bonus system for a while now. The "largest territory" bonus works great, although it might be worth considering friendly ties or a 2nd place area bonus. But it's the "guessing whether the highest single score will be in Hunt or Gather" rule that's so hard to explain, and so arbitrary. It basically rewards the playtester who has the best sense of what the latest changes will do to the balance of the game.

It's still important to have secret scoring so that you don't know who has won until the end. I was going to use the character cards (planned for the first expansion) to add more variety, but I think it needs to be done before then.

What I'm going to try adding is a small deck of Secret Goals. They might be similar to the current goals, making sure that Gather scores highest, or they might be more complex, like kill one of each of the deadly animals. The point bonus will vary based on the complexity, I'm thinking 3-8 points. Also, I'll make a slight modification to game play - when you turn in a tile for points it gets placed under your secret goal card. That will help clarify whether that information is public (we'd been playing with a messy face-up discard pile), and let players keep track of what they have done.