I think thematically, we can safely see the end of provinces and thier destructions.

It made sense for the Clan War era. Not so much after. No one clan actually gained or lost territory with a few story driven exceptions after the Second Day of Thunder.

Not to mention many could operate without a province to call thier own.

I think thematically, we can safely see the end of provinces and thier destructions.

It made sense for the Clan War era. Not so much after. No one clan actually gained or lost territory with a few story driven exceptions after the Second Day of Thunder.

Not to mention many could operate without a province to call thier own.

If provinces still exist in some form during the LCG, I could see a card destroying one under certain conditions (aka the exception). Most likely it would be some action card.

Enlightment

The enlightment Vicotry is a bit complicated cause it worked with the rings in the past. I think I would like this to change. While I really like the rings and their effects building a deck which soley has the purpose to find them and if it don´t does it in time is not that desireable if we compare it to the 2 other winconditions which are less reliant on special cards in you deck to take effect.

Therefore I would like to have a enlightment victory condition where the rings are extra cards which are present on the table from the start of the game and who ever fullfills the condition on every card first will get the enlightment victory. Yes thiw would mean the cards need to be balanced in a way that not each political and military deck also can menange the enlightment victory but it would also reduce the times you draw you last ring 1 turn to late.

I also would give the enlightment people speical actions which can maipulate these conditions and make give them a favorable approach on the condition. Also the rings effects should never be exclusive so even if a player allready got one for him you still can get the ring and the effects the only thing which schould be exclusive is the victory though the last ring who ever gets the last one first wins the game.

In some ways, I really like having to dig for the rings. It really does capture the feeling of searching for enlightenment. At the same, time the path to enlightenment was almost impossible for certain clan so there does need to be some redesign so that can clan could reach it (albeit difficultly with some clans).

One way to ease Enlightenment may be to simply slow the game down slightly.

Political victory as a number doesn't make much sense. Political Standoff was a stopgap solution, not something we should look to as a permanent answer. The notion of acruing token because you cause a number to go up or down is just not a very good game approach.

I stand by what I said earlier: politics should focus on the "Court is a battlefield" mantra. Make politics an alternate form of military, where personality assign to courtly conflicts, play Court actions as one might play battle actions, and destroy provinces or add victory token or destroy holdings or whatever the result of winning a military battle is in the new game.

Then the number tracker can be honor - purely and simply honor - and track how well-viewed a clan is, with effects relevant to that. Possibly a victory condition, or not.

Dishonor would then function as a way of controlling personalities, especially during court battles (and thus a way of winning court battles) but in other circumstances too.

Political victory as a number doesn't make much sense. Political Standoff was a stopgap solution, not something we should look to as a permanent answer. The notion of acruing token because you cause a number to go up or down is just not a very good game approach.

I stand by what I said earlier: politics should focus on the "Court is a battlefield" mantra. Make politics an alternate form of military, where personality assign to courtly conflicts, play Court actions as one might play battle actions, and destroy provinces or add victory token or destroy holdings or whatever the result of winning a military battle is in the new game.

Then the number tracker can be honor - purely and simply honor - and track how well-viewed a clan is, with effects relevant to that. Possibly a victory condition, or not.

Dishonor would then function as a way of controlling personalities, especially during court battles (and thus a way of winning court battles) but in other circumstances too.

I totally agree on this and we have a perfectly underused stat on the right side of the Card simply use the Chi value to fight Court battles and the Force to fight Military ones.

You could also detach dueling from Chi which would lift the possibilities to have higher Chi values and you can remove the Chi Death rule so you can have pure brutes with Chi 0 who do not contribute in Court.

You then could also utilize the 0 Chi value of follower and make political retinue like Scribes or whatever to help out in Court.

It is seriously not that hard once you thing about it.

Political victory as a number doesn't make much sense. Political Standoff was a stopgap solution, not something we should look to as a permanent answer. The notion of acruing token because you cause a number to go up or down is just not a very good game approach.

I stand by what I said earlier: politics should focus on the "Court is a battlefield" mantra. Make politics an alternate form of military, where personality assign to courtly conflicts, play Court actions as one might play battle actions, and destroy provinces or add victory token or destroy holdings or whatever the result of winning a military battle is in the new game.

Then the number tracker can be honor - purely and simply honor - and track how well-viewed a clan is, with effects relevant to that. Possibly a victory condition, or not.

Dishonor would then function as a way of controlling personalities, especially during court battles (and thus a way of winning court battles) but in other circumstances too.

I don't see how adding a whole new court battle phase would simplify the game, it makes it much much more convoluted.

In a way, the back and forth of the limited phases provided a domain for the political decks to get their work done. The limited phase is a thematic expression of the courts (Winter) then the battle phase is representation of the war time seasons.

One thing I am surprised not to see mentioned a lot is how long games of l5r take. I would love to see l5r restructured to be a much quicker game than it is now. Some games really do drag on, and I actually think turns take too long. The way I always thought the game would of been more fun is something like this.

player 1 dynasty

player 2 dynasty

player 1 limited

player 2 limited

battle phase (restructured to something like 1 battlle where all attackers and defenders are assigned at both players' provinces - difficult to work it out )

End turn

I don't see how adding a whole new court battle phase would simplify the game, it makes it much much more convoluted.

...

player 1 dynasty

player 2 dynasty

player 1 limited

player 2 limited

battle phase (restructured to something like 1 battlle where all attackers and defenders are assigned at both players' provinces - difficult to work it out )

End turn

I agree I don't think we need another battle phase.

Assuming the game keeps a similar rough structure, I actually really don't like swapping dynasty and battle. It would allow personalities to enter play, load up, and attack right away in your proposed structure, which is terrible. If they entered play bowed to solve the problem, they couldn't defend. It also has the side effect of preventing you from targeting specific face up cards in provinces, which is an element of strategy I like.

Of course, it's just as likely things do change pretty significantly, so it might be moot.

Just give them Recruitment Sickness.

I don't see how adding a whole new court battle phase would simplify the game, it makes it much much more convoluted.

...

player 1 dynasty

player 2 dynasty

player 1 limited

player 2 limited

battle phase (restructured to something like 1 battlle where all attackers and defenders are assigned at both players' provinces - difficult to work it out )

End turn

I agree I don't think we need another battle phase.

Assuming the game keeps a similar rough structure, I actually really don't like swapping dynasty and battle. It would allow personalities to enter play, load up, and attack right away in your proposed structure, which is terrible. If they entered play bowed to solve the problem, they couldn't defend. It also has the side effect of preventing you from targeting specific face up cards in provinces, which is an element of strategy I like.

Of course, it's just as likely things do change pretty significantly, so it might be moot.

Thanks for the hyperbole...."terrible"..

The reasoning behind swapping the phases around is that it keeps the tempo of the game going, while at the same time alleviating the long standing going first issue. It essentially would turn the structure of the game into phase based rather than turn based, which gives each player the same opportunity to build up an army before the first battle, which as you may know from the current meta, in most military v military matchups, you just have to give up the first province if you are going second.

It would also speed the game up considerably which is another big problem L5R had. Another advantage is that it is far far more interactive than the way phases and turns are in the current l5r, which again, was a big problem, especially in games involving control/defensive decks.

The battle phase wouldn't be able to remain as it does now, with assigning personalities to provinces as each player can't have an attack phase each, I am also not assuming that there are provinces. It would be one battle phase that happens a turn and the winner of the battle advances the win condition, however it is implemented.

The going first issue is something that really needs to be addressed as it has been a constant source of trouble for design trying to balance. It takes a huge amount of care and attention from a design team to keep the balance between clans going first and second.

Personally Im in favour of an entirely randomised way of determining who goes first anyways.

Thanks for the hyperbole...."terrible"..

The reasoning behind swapping the phases around is that it keeps the tempo of the game going, while at the same time alleviating the long standing going first issue. It essentially would turn the structure of the game into phase based rather than turn based, which gives each player the same opportunity to build up an army before the first battle, which as you may know from the current meta, in most military v military matchups, you just have to give up the first province if you are going second.

...

The battle phase wouldn't be able to remain as it does now, with assigning personalities to provinces as each player can't have an attack phase each, I am also not assuming that there are provinces. It would be one battle phase that happens a turn and the winner of the battle advances the win condition, however it is implemented.

Apologies, meant to say that allowing a personality to enter play, load up, and attack first turn would be terrible, not that your idea was terrible. Poorly phrased.

For some reason I didn't notice the shared simultaneous battle phase after all buys. Must've just been in a hurry (which also explains my poor phrasing). That solves that problem anyway.

Although I'm not actually convinced that a shared turn would speed up the game.

At any rate, turn structure is one of many things I hope FFG considers when they figure out what they're actually doing with the game.

No sacred cows.

Thanks for the hyperbole...."terrible"..

The reasoning behind swapping the phases around is that it keeps the tempo of the game going, while at the same time alleviating the long standing going first issue. It essentially would turn the structure of the game into phase based rather than turn based, which gives each player the same opportunity to build up an army before the first battle, which as you may know from the current meta, in most military v military matchups, you just have to give up the first province if you are going second.

...

The battle phase wouldn't be able to remain as it does now, with assigning personalities to provinces as each player can't have an attack phase each, I am also not assuming that there are provinces. It would be one battle phase that happens a turn and the winner of the battle advances the win condition, however it is implemented.

Apologies, meant to say that allowing a personality to enter play, load up, and attack first turn would be terrible, not that your idea was terrible. Poorly phrased.

For some reason I didn't notice the shared simultaneous battle phase after all buys. Must've just been in a hurry (which also explains my poor phrasing). That solves that problem anyway.

Although I'm not actually convinced that a shared turn would speed up the game.

At any rate, turn structure is one of many things I hope FFG considers when they figure out what they're actually doing with the game.

No sacred cows.

Completely agree about the no sacred cows

I am actually really really excited to see what ffg do.

Fun fact, during early Ivory design, there was no small amount of discussion about removing the Province-based military system entirely. For various reasons, it was never implemented, but the idea of 'no sacred cows' has been around for a while, even when we were working on it.

Fun fact, during early Ivory design, there was no small amount of discussion about removing the Province-based military system entirely. For various reasons, it was never implemented, but the idea of 'no sacred cows' has been around for a while, even when we were working on it.

In fairness to ye, I think the cavalry change and the change to honor requirements were both ambitious and very successful.

The cavalry maneuvers segment was a cow that most certainly needed to be taken down a peg or two!

Fun fact, during early Ivory design, there was no small amount of discussion about removing the Province-based military system entirely. For various reasons, it was never implemented, but the idea of 'no sacred cows' has been around for a while, even when we were working on it.

In fairness to ye, I think the cavalry change and the change to honor requirements were both ambitious and very successful.

The cavalry maneuvers segment was a cow that most certainly needed to be taken down a peg or two!

Removing the province destruction is reasonable, but I am more in favor of giving some kind of reasonable compensation when a province is destroyed... such as a free personality/holding recruited out of your discard pile (or the top X cards of your deck)? That way blitzing your opponent would have very real, and very dangerous tradeoffs... as opposed to the historical danger of blitz simply burning itself out.

As for the changes in Ivory... eh, they were changes, but I do not believe any of them really helped the game due to the balance issues they introduced and rules confusion (among players and AEG's own rules/design team). I think addressing honor vs dishonor, or military snowballing would have been a better use of time than simply tweaking cavalry, naval, and adding gold pooling (which was actually quite bad for resource generation balance).

Thaddok

Personally, I would like to see a centralized victory mechanic, with multiple paths to achieving it.

For Example:

If you start your turn at 20 Honor or more, and have the most honor in the game, you win. Period.

Provide the base game with Sensei like the Right Hand of the Emperor, the Left Hand, the Voice, and the Underhand, providing you unique methods of achieving Honor. Playing Right Hand? When you take a province, gain 5 Honor. Left Hand? Bow a courtier and gain Honor from their Personal Honor or discard a card and gain its focus value. Voice? Play an Elemental Ring and gain 2 honor for each Ring you have in play (2, 4, 6, 8, 10 equals winning the game on the fourth Ring, clinching it on the 5th). Underhand? When you cause another player to lose honor, gain Honor equal to the loss.

You lose the game at 0 Provinces or when your Fate Deck runs out. This gives Right Hand decks the ability to take provinces and win by Honor or by Military. This also opens up design space for causing discard effects from the deck, or alternate means of achieving Honor. Include powerful Shadowlands personalities that make you lose Honor, giving you an edge but at the cost of slowing you down.

Add a Dark Heart of the Empire when you add the Shadowlands to give them their own potential path to victory.

The strongest advantage of this? It allows the game to be played as both a Duel (one on one) and Skirmish (multiplayer), which is going to be key to L5R's success. L5R used to be an amazing multiplayer game. L5R LCG will need to be designed with multiplayer in mind, if they want to be successful.

L5R LCG will need to be designed with multiplayer in mind, if they want to be successful.

This part seems purely like an opinion, not a requirement.

L5R LCG will need to be designed with multiplayer in mind, if they want to be successful.

This part seems purely like an opinion, not a requirement.

We are not the people actually designing the L5R LCG. I thought everything on here was an opinion, and nothing more? Still, personally? L5R was a fun multiplayer game. Magic has a successful multiplayer variant. AGoT is a successful multiplayer game. While L5R Siege is an enjoyable form of multiplayer, FFG has an opportunity to bring L5R back to the fold of a fun multplayer experience. I believe it would be a mistake if they did not design a game that functioned both one vs one, and in multiplayer.

Political victory as a number doesn't make much sense. Political Standoff was a stopgap solution, not something we should look to as a permanent answer. The notion of acruing token because you cause a number to go up or down is just not a very good game approach.

I stand by what I said earlier: politics should focus on the "Court is a battlefield" mantra. Make politics an alternate form of military, where personality assign to courtly conflicts, play Court actions as one might play battle actions, and destroy provinces or add victory token or destroy holdings or whatever the result of winning a military battle is in the new game.

Then the number tracker can be honor - purely and simply honor - and track how well-viewed a clan is, with effects relevant to that. Possibly a victory condition, or not.

Dishonor would then function as a way of controlling personalities, especially during court battles (and thus a way of winning court battles) but in other circumstances too.

I don't see how adding a whole new court battle phase would simplify the game, it makes it much much more convoluted.

In a way, the back and forth of the limited phases provided a domain for the political decks to get their work done. The limited phase is a thematic expression of the courts (Winter) then the battle phase is representation of the war time seasons.

One thing I am surprised not to see mentioned a lot is how long games of l5r take. I would love to see l5r restructured to be a much quicker game than it is now. Some games really do drag on, and I actually think turns take too long. The way I always thought the game would of been more fun is something like this.

player 1 dynasty

player 2 dynasty

player 1 limited

player 2 limited

battle phase (restructured to something like 1 battlle where all attackers and defenders are assigned at both players' provinces - difficult to work it out )

End turn

It's supposed to achieve a more interesting, playable, and thematic approach to politics than watching a number go up.

That said, I don't think it would be an extra phase so much as an alternate phase. EG, you declare an attack, and then declare whether it's a military or political attack. Some cards could conceivably let the defender change a political confrontation into a military one and vice-versa.

The notion of Court vs Battle actions was mostly about keeping ranged attacks from being used

(And I think having everything at one battlefield would be a big loss for L5R)

I like the idea of setting a certain amount of honor as the only victory condition, but having multiple ways to get to that condition.

Military decks would still work in this format. When you attack a province and beat the province strength, instead of destroying that province you discard the card in the province and gain a certain amount of honor. That way, we avoid the "resource death spiral" of losing provinces, but retain the tactical decisions of choosing where to attack based on what's showing in the province. If defeating a province in this matter nets you about a quarter of the honor you need to win, then military decks could still shoot to defeat four provinces for the win.

Dishonor would still exist, but as a control mechanic for slower rolling decks. If Scorpion Clan starts out at 1 Honor, for example, they'll need time to gain more honor than does the Lion Clan starting at 7 Honor (all numbers subject to change).

Enlightenment is the difficult one to fit into this structure. Let's assume for the moment they keep their mechanic of providing a one-use ability and a way to "play" them and use the ability multiple times. Perhaps they could gain you honor in an exponential way when you play them. The first one or two would give you a small boost, but by the time you play the fifth one it pole vaults you over the finish line. If each ring gives you one honor for each ring in play when played (including itself), then the first would give one honor, the second 4 (5 total), the third 9 (14 total), the fourth 16 (30 total) and the last 25 (55 total).

Political victory as a number doesn't make much sense. Political Standoff was a stopgap solution, not something we should look to as a permanent answer. The notion of acruing token because you cause a number to go up or down is just not a very good game approach.

I stand by what I said earlier: politics should focus on the "Court is a battlefield" mantra. Make politics an alternate form of military, where personality assign to courtly conflicts, play Court actions as one might play battle actions, and destroy provinces or add victory token or destroy holdings or whatever the result of winning a military battle is in the new game.

Then the number tracker can be honor - purely and simply honor - and track how well-viewed a clan is, with effects relevant to that. Possibly a victory condition, or not.

Dishonor would then function as a way of controlling personalities, especially during court battles (and thus a way of winning court battles) but in other circumstances too.

I don't see how adding a whole new court battle phase would simplify the game, it makes it much much more convoluted.

In a way, the back and forth of the limited phases provided a domain for the political decks to get their work done. The limited phase is a thematic expression of the courts (Winter) then the battle phase is representation of the war time seasons.

One thing I am surprised not to see mentioned a lot is how long games of l5r take. I would love to see l5r restructured to be a much quicker game than it is now. Some games really do drag on, and I actually think turns take too long. The way I always thought the game would of been more fun is something like this.

player 1 dynasty

player 2 dynasty

player 1 limited

player 2 limited

battle phase (restructured to something like 1 battlle where all attackers and defenders are assigned at both players' provinces - difficult to work it out )

End turn

It's supposed to achieve a more interesting, playable, and thematic approach to politics than watching a number go up.

That said, I don't think it would be an extra phase so much as an alternate phase. EG, you declare an attack, and then declare whether it's a military or political attack. Some cards could conceivably let the defender change a political confrontation into a military one and vice-versa.

The notion of Court vs Battle actions was mostly about keeping ranged attacks from being used

(And I think having everything at one battlefield would be a big loss for L5R)

Maybe ranged court attacks are simply flinging slander, misdirection, or other such statements? The Scorpions would certainly be a completely different faction then.

Could be. Perhaps effects that would destroy a personality during a court battle merely dishonor them instead.

Still strange to have the Tsuruchi be masters of dishonor, tho.

L5R LCG will need to be designed with multiplayer in mind, if they want to be successful.

This part seems purely like an opinion, not a requirement.

We are not the people actually designing the L5R LCG. I thought everything on here was an opinion, and nothing more? Still, personally? L5R was a fun multiplayer game. Magic has a successful multiplayer variant. AGoT is a successful multiplayer game. While L5R Siege is an enjoyable form of multiplayer, FFG has an opportunity to bring L5R back to the fold of a fun multplayer experience. I believe it would be a mistake if they did not design a game that functioned both one vs one, and in multiplayer.

Eh... it would be nice to see, but it is hardly a requirement. In many ways, Android Netrunner is their most successful LCG and there is no multiplayer format... just very good 1 vs 1 gameplay.

Thaddok

L5R LCG will need to be designed with multiplayer in mind, if they want to be successful.

This part seems purely like an opinion, not a requirement.

We are not the people actually designing the L5R LCG. I thought everything on here was an opinion, and nothing more? Still, personally? L5R was a fun multiplayer game. Magic has a successful multiplayer variant. AGoT is a successful multiplayer game. While L5R Siege is an enjoyable form of multiplayer, FFG has an opportunity to bring L5R back to the fold of a fun multplayer experience. I believe it would be a mistake if they did not design a game that functioned both one vs one, and in multiplayer.

Eh... it would be nice to see, but it is hardly a requirement. In many ways, Android Netrunner is their most successful LCG and there is no multiplayer format... just very good 1 vs 1 gameplay.

Thaddok

I'd rather see a stronger focus of 1v1 in L5R, but some better design to allow for easier multi-player games. AND without that Agot mechanic where you can only attack certain people based on a card.

Multiplayer for odd numbered players has always been tricky especially when using the Assassins Rule.

I'd rather see a stronger focus of 1v1 in L5R, but some better design to allow for easier multi-player games. AND without that Agot mechanic where you can only attack certain people based on a card.

Agree with the first two, for sure. I could take or leave the last, depending on specific execution. Part of the strategy in AGoT is taking a card you know to be safer, or likely to be safe from specific opponents, which is an interesting head game. But you have to know the multiplayer cards *really* well.

I'd rather see a stronger focus of 1v1 in L5R, but some better design to allow for easier multi-player games. AND without that Agot mechanic where you can only attack certain people based on a card.

Agree with the first two, for sure. I could take or leave the last, depending on specific execution. Part of the strategy in AGoT is taking a card you know to be safer, or likely to be safe from specific opponents, which is an interesting head game. But you have to know the multiplayer cards *really* well.

Siege: Clan War did an acceptable job within a story line approach. One way to make it potentially work better is just to fix things like the all-or-nothing military battles (which should be fixed in the LCG) and whatever changes happen to the political system. Maybe there will actually be the change to the game where there isn't a player turn for player A or player B, but a shared turn.