Notes from Fifty-sixth Playtest

Click to Enlarge

Rules Tried (and mostly failed)
This was a bit of a disaster, as you can probably see from the photo of the board at the end of the game here. But it's good to shake things up, try some different rules, even if they fail.

Village: 1-1-2-2-3
Trying to lower the score for 2 and 3 player games, this was too far. The only way to buy anything was to die. And with the third and fourth slots the same, items were either scored at the top, or the middle.

Glass Gems as Claim Markers
These were supposed to be shiny and pretty, but in reality they were just hard to see (again, look at the photo).

Wounded Animals Flee 1 Space (diagonal OK)
This didn't come up that I remember, we'll try it again. A little funky only having diagonal movement in one place in the rules, but easier to describe than the whole "move 2 spaces if possible, otherwise 1, only pass through empty spaces" mess.

2 Player Board Setup with 3 Players
Tried the tighter board setup, with mountains surrounding the village in a corner, that had been intended for 2 players. Now that we don't have to leave room for everyone to compete for Largest Territory, a nastier setup like this might work.

Goals
The only goal of note this time was Over the Harvest Moon, which is a really cool idea pulled from hearts/spades to have a player try to get only Gather points. Aside from being way off with the village track (impossible to achieve) it really messed with the game. I played it, so I ran around just trying to gather things, ignoring Rabbits, Deer, etc. It raced the end of the game, making it unsatisfying.

To Try Next

1. Same board setup - this might be right for 3 players, but this test was so off it's hard to tell.
2. Village: 1-2-2-3-4 - I tried this out in a solo "2 player" game, it worked well. 
3. Try the "Harvest Moon" approach as a legitimate tactic, gathering tons of information about the board.
4. Wounded animals flee 1 space (diagonal OK)

Notes from Fifty-fifth Playtest

Click to Enlarge

Rules Tried
Receive 3 points instead of 4 when you re-spawn.
No largest territory bonus at the end, it became one of many secret goals.
Fleeing animals can move through any space without a character in it, but must still end on an empty space (didn't come up).

Observations
One play is not enough testing, and we had 3 instead of 4 players this time, but it would appear that removing the area majority element of the game really raises the level of play. A theory as to why is that having one less thing to worry about freed players up to focus on the more subtle aspects of interaction in this game. To really play this game well you have to pay close attention to the demand track in the village and to the other players. By not worrying as much about which specific spaces we were fighting over, it freed up working memory to concentrate on other things.

Secret Goals
Instead of going over each goal that was attempted in this game, I'm going to try to organize the goals themselves, so we can see how they are distributed. Points in bold.

High Risk Hunting: Bear Wrestler (spear + bare handed 8pts.), Most Deadly 4pts., Brave (1 of each deadly 7pts.), Crack Shot (squirrel/rabbit hunting 6/4pts.), Bare handed squirrel or rabbit 6pts).

These are good in moderation. They certainly lead players down unexpected paths, but can often become a dangerous unbeatable obsession.


Claimed Spaces: Explorer (furthest from village 5pts.), Un-claimed Neighboring Space 1pt. ea., Pathfinder (longest line 4pts.), Largest Territory 3pts., Homebody (most touching village 4pts.), Loner (no spaces next to village 3pts.).

The trouble with area bonuses is that they can "reward winning". But as variable secret goals it's less of a brute force win, so it works much better.

Exploration Discs Collected: Most Types 3pts., Craven (most small animals 5pts.), Omnivore (same # plants and animals 4pts.), Productive (most tiles, including unsold 7pts.), Unsold Items 3pts * (# - 1), Hoarder 2pts. pairs, 5pts. triplets, Fewest Types 5pts.


I like that these can encourage weird collecting behavior, but collecting specific things can be very difficult to do deliberately.

Equipment: Armed to the teeth (3 weapons 2pts.), Full set of Equipment (6 items 3pts.)

Even if re-pointed to compensate for the cost of the items, these can probably go. It's easy to buy stuff, especially if you die.

Memory: Master Scout (name face-down discs 2pts ea.)

I'm too scared to take this myself, but it's a very cool one. Need more like this.

Dying: 3+ goals 1pt. ea.


Haven't tried.

Odd Behavior: End Game not in village 5pts., Over the Harvest Moon (if 0 hunt, 40+ gather, gather is base score).

We haven't tried these, very interested to see how they work. Harvest Moon will need adjustment based on number of players. Maybe it's 50 minus 5 per player or something like that?

To Try Next

1. When you die, pick from one out of 2 secret goals.
2. Continue to refine the secret goals, work out the distribution of challenging high scoring goals and easy but lower scoring ones.
3. Flip side of the village board could have a value track for 2 and 3 player games with lower numbers: 1-1-2-3-4. They're in the same arrangement, but would keep the point scoring down in these games

Notes from Fifty-fourth Playtest

Click to Enlarge

New rule
Characters only get 3 points worth of equipment when they die, not 4. Four points plus a goal may have been too much, with the new lower prices you could really gear up.

Goals
Smallest area: Was 5, changing to 3 points, remove if no largest territory bonus. Encourages poaching, which is a good thing anyway. Although it can be situational, others have to fail before your turn.

Fewest Types of tiles collected: is good. Fun one to try to accomplish while still getting lots of tiles.

2 points for 2 unused arrows: needs clarification and re-pointing or removed. Couldn't actually make points off this one because you had to pay points for the arrows. Neat idea though, maybe have a "fletcher" goal that's properly pointed.

Friendly Neighbor could have alt version where your largest area must touch spaces claimed by each other player. Also, this sort of goal may have scaling problems with 2 or 5 players.

Productive (most collected tiles): might have to go. It does not help people come from behind, it helps the winner win, or might help the 2nd place player take first.

To Try Next
Fleeing animals should be able to move through spaces without characters, even if they are claimed or have other tiles on them. If it can't move 2 then it moves 1.

Largest Territory bonus becomes Secret Goal, which also means removing any anti-area territory bonus related rules.

Notes from Fifty-third Playtest

Click to Enlarge

Rules Tried
When a character dies, you re-spawn with one new goal in addition to the one(s) you already had.

Largest Territory scores 2 points.

Secret Goals
Friendly Neighbor: Definitely altered player behavior leading them to make an unexpected move. I think that's what I like most about these secret goals, you don't know what everyone is up to, but once you're familiar with them you can guess. And then once people start guessing and blocking, players can start bluffing too.

Productive: As I'd hoped this goal encouraged the player to adjust his strategy in order to accomplish the goal and hunt instead of sell on the last turn.

Homebody: This goal also encouraged a shift in strategy, getting a the player to hunt a squirrel he wouldn't have otherwise.

Hoarder: This one is tricky if you pick it up later on, but is usually good for a couple points.

Master Scout: Now this one was impressive. With 3 tiles on the board, two of them were wolves that had been recently revealed, but the third he deduced based on what I didn't pick up, and when I didn't sell. Very impressive, a good challenging goal, and I think it's appropriately pointed.

Explorer: I could easily have accomplished this if I was paying more attention. I'd already started down the route of building a path away from the others (so they couldn't poach the bear I was trying to find). Maybe 5 points is too much to reward what is already a good strategy?

Brave: I accidentally accomplished the second half of this goal for 3 points by killing 2 bear. Since the primary reward is so high, it probably shouldn't have a secondary goal anymore, now that you can get multiple goals.

Bear Wrestler: I need to do the math on this one, it's hard! But I like that it encourages risky behavior. Especially since dying now rewards an extra goal. What I don't like about this goal is that you have to reveal it. It's not fair to set the precedent of requiring players to remember how one particular animal was killed.

New Ideas
4 points worth of equipment plus a new goal may be too much reward for dying. The point cost of equipment is down to where you can get 2-3 items for 4 points. We should try just 3.

As we develop goals, now that it is possible to get several of them, and you get to pick one from 2 options at the beginning, the high risk high reward goals shouldn't have secondary goals anymore.

I want to try moving the Largest Territory bonus into the secret goals system as just another goal. I don't like the way it rewards the player who is probably winning already. There's already ease of movement advantage to be had by grouping your claimed spaces, especially in a path. But we'll have to test it, there is a legitimate concern that players will just start poaching all the time, opportunistically grabbing spaces without strategy.

But I also think poaching is a good strategy that people don't use enough. Knowing what it is you're up against greatly improves your odds, and it adds a nice level of conflict to the game.

Notes from Fifty-second Playtest

Click to enlarge

Rules Tried
Largest territory bonus reduced to 2 points to make it only a tie breaker, not game decider. It didn't come up because the game wasn't very close this time.

We also tried sticking with the same player order as last playtest, trying to see if that makes a difference. We'll stick with it for the sake of testing, but I think a bad roll, or risky decision that didn't pay off, make much more difference.

Equipment Updates
Changed the Knife (+3 / 2 damage) cost to 3, and dropped the Sling (+4 / 1 damage) down to cost 2. Everything is feeling pretty balanced, no single weapon strategy dominated.

Secret Goals
Brave: It's funny how often there ends up being a deadly animal that camps out right next to the building and kills one or two player's hunters over and over again. Combine this with a goal that leads players towards stubbornly attacking a deadly Wolf, and it can make for a rough game. Still think this goal has merit. The 7 point reward is great, and encourages playing against the normal strategies (wolves are very often left on the board at the end of the game).

Update: the goal name should be changed to "Brave or Stupid" (based on feedback from the playtester who tried it).


Bushwhacker: Getting 5 points for claiming the most spaces might just be another one of those "rewarding players for winning" goals. But it might be worth trying one more time to see if a player might really change tactics and go for it, poaching easy kills and adopting different equipment approaches (spending extra for pouch, torch, atlatl).

Crack Shot: This goal is good in that it encourages players to go after small animals that are also hard to kill. Squirrels, like wolves, are often left over at the end of the game, this goal helps with that. I do need to clarify, maybe just in Appendix B, what happens if you kill a second squirrel and then die yourself, does it still count? (the goal specifically says you don't have to sell it).

Pathfinder: This one is fun in that it forces a very specific territory shape. In retrospect, I might have picked a single shot kill weapon, with the Bow & Arrow my prey was pushed away from the space I wanted to claim. Got lucky and nobody prevented me from connecting my territory, but was a close call because this goal isn't tie friendly like others.

New Ideas
We came up with what has promise to be a breakthrough idea while brainstorming how to further integrate secret goals into the game play, and how they might be used as a catch-up mechanism. Currently when one of your characters die the character's cousin comes into play with 4 points to spend on equipment. This makes up for the lost equipment, but not the lost opportunity. One suggestion was that you might be able to score some of those points rather than spend them on equipment. A reasonable idea, but has potential for abuse, and would keep the Atlatl from coming into play as often.

Then Dan had the idea that when a character dies the player gets an additional goal. We'd been playing with various ways you might get more goals during the game, but if it's without price then there would have to be a penalty for failing to accomplish the goal, which would require more fair (aka boring) goals. But if you can get a goal to balance a setback, introducing larger potential hidden scores at the end, it might be possible to make a silent comeback and pull off a surprise win!

Notes from Fifty-first Playtest

Experimental Weapon: Knife

New Equipment
In my previous post I showed how there is space in the numbers for another piece of basic equipment. Today we tried out the knife as illustrated here. With its effectiveness against the Deer and Bear, it is under-valued at 2 points. My math only took into account the odds of hitting, it was missing the value of the animals it is good at killing.

To Try: raise the cost of the knife to 3, lower the cost of the sling to 2.

Secret Goals
Starting to test the secret goals in earnest here (not just me mucking around with solo plays). Here's what we tried today:

Gather: like with the old Hunt/Gather prediction card, this is more or less a guess, only as a goal you don't even get to make the guess yourself. Ditching this and Hunter.

Paranoid: the best result of measuring your area using diagonals, even if we changed it so that it counted diagonal plus orthogonal, would be to have a better chance of winning the largest territory bonus. But that's pretty lame compared to actually getting additional points. Couple that with other changes I'm going to make (see End Game Scoring below), and this one is out.

Explorer: this one is fun because it gives you something specific to do throughout the game. Five points may be high, since this is something that isn't too hard to deliberately accomplish and being away from the pack is helpful anyway. Maybe this should go down to 4 points?

Hoarder: This one is fun, but a bit random. The wording was unclear, but turns out it's better to allow multiple pairs of tiles, but I'm going to lower them to 2 points per pair. Still 5 points per set of 3 (there are only 2 of each animal, so it's really hard to do).

End Game Scoring
The 5 point largest territory bonus has been the deciding factor in too many games. This is because if there are two players who are vying for the lead, it becomes more like a 10 or 20 points. They double in value because normally half your points are discarded through only scoring the lower track (more than half if you didn't balance perfectly), but the end game bonus is applied directly to your final score. And double again because they are points that you gain, but your opponent does not.

Conclusion: I'm going to reduce the largest territory bonus to 2 or 3 points, so that it is truly a tie breaker. Or maybe 3 points for the largest, 1 for the second largest, or 2 points each for a tie?

Other Ideas
Kris suggested, and I'd thought of this before, that we might want to be able to collect more secret goals, along with penalties for not completing them. More hidden scoring through non-obvious strategies could improve the game.

The Spear Revisited

Making good progress on the third draft of the rules. Actually on Appendix A: Equipment. Going through the hunting weapons one more time got me thinking, why don't I have any that are 3 (+to hit) / 2 (damage)? I could introduce something new, like an axe or a knife, but what would really be nice is improving the Spear. With its low "to hit" bonus, its greatest appeals now are its low cost and that it's awesome when you've got an Atlatl. If the Spear was 3/2, the Atlatl could become +0/+2 damage instead of +1/+1, but first I've got to run the numbers...

Weapon(s)	Squirrel	Rabbit	Deer	Boar	Wolf	Bear	Avg.
Club	38%	50%	74%	63%	38%	50%	52%
Club First Hunt†	50%	63%	84%	74%	50%	63%	64%
Sling	74%	84%	91%*	91%**	74%**	84%**	83%
Spear (2/3)	50%	63%	84%	74%	50%	39%*	60%
Spear (3/2)	63%	74%	91%	70%*	39%*	55%*	65%
Atlatl	63%	74%	91%	84%	63%	74%	75%
Bow&Arrow	74%	84%	95%	83%*	55%*	71%*	77%
Sling + Spear (2/3)	74%	84%	91%*	74%	50%	52%*	71%
Sling + Spear (3/2)	74%	84%	91%	76%*	46%*	55%*	71%

† First Hunt is the +1 bonus a Club gets against an animal discovered this turn.
* Two hits required.
** Will not kill the animal.

So, statistically the 3/2 spear is marginally better than the 2/3 spear by itself, and combined with a Sling it's less than 1% weaker. But I don't like how much effectiveness it has lost against the Board and Wolf, which were prime Spear targets before. And also the number of animals it requires 2 hits to kill have gone up, which drives up the cost of using a Spear.

Conclusion: The spear, as it is now, occupies an important space in the weapon hierarchy, I will leave it as it is. But there is definitely room within this tight number set for another weapon, one that is +3 to hit, does 2 damage, and because it often takes two hits I'd make it cost 2 and have unlimited uses like a Club or Sling.