Occasionally we'll have someone complain "this game ends too soon". Usually, this type of feeling means everyone was enjoying themselves, and the time just flew by. However, in our games of StarCraft, this sentiment is usually followed by the complaint of "You can only win this game via the 'special victory conditions'. The third phase gets here so fast, the only purpose the "Phase III" cards serve is to keep the "Phase II" draw pile from touching the table."

One solution we've tried, to the apparent satisfaction of all, is to extend the game one more turn. That is, we know we're in the last turn of the game when there is a "Phase III" card at the top of the pile at THE BEGINNING of the Planning portion of a turn.

Have any of y'all run in to this problem, or are we the only ones? Anyone else out there have a variant for this?

TK

Sometimes my group played "last man standing" (game lasts until one player remains in the game), but usually one player is an obvious winner after a while. If you want to prologue the game for some time, you could not remove any of the event cards (if you are playing with less than six players).

IMHO special wictory condition adds excitment to the end of the game because the most military strong player doesn't have to win.

I enjoy the uniqueness of the special victory conditions, and in general like the whole idea of multiple paths to victory. Our group was just a bit annoyed that the game was always over as soon as the Phase III cards appeared, and there seemed to be no real chance to reach any of the other two victory goals.

TK

CP-victories are very common in our group, because you can reach them in phase II.

How about this option: Try to play scenarios, which you and your friends created. STARCRAFT the PC game gprovides a lot of background material to create new scenarios. Here is one, which my players and I tryed out last saturday.

Scenario: The Lost Artefact (Part 1)

The Xel'Naga were a high advanced race, who created a lot of state of the art tech. After the Zerg destroyed the Xel'Naga this technological artefacts were scattered throughout the universe. One of this artefacts, the black gate, was found by the Terran factions on Helios. Under the leadership of Jim Raynor and A. Mensk the Terrans set aside their competetive goals to protect the black gate.

Meanwhile the Protoss faction heard of the discovery and launched an attack on Helios to destroy the Xel'Naga ruins and with it the black gate.

The Swarm is now on the move to conquer Helios and retrieve the artefact.

Start Info:

Helios is set into the center of the table. Around Helios are the other remaining planets set. The Terran players band together as a team, as the Protoss and Zerg players do.

The Terrans choose the nearest planet adjacent to Helios for their starting base. The Terran players use the starting units on the faction sheet plus 1 worker extra each.

The Protoss and Zerg players have to draw blind one of the planet tokens, excluding Helios and the starting planets of the Terrans. The Token which is drawn is the starting base of each player. Protoss and Zerg players start with 3 workers each, instead of the starting units which is printed on the faction sheet.

The Helios token is placed on Helios itself and represents the black gate. Shuffle the stage 3 deck and discard 15 cards and 2 "the end draws near". The game ends, if the first "the end draws near" card is drawn.

Victory Conditions:

Terrans: The Terran team have to defend the artefact until the end of the game or if they managed to destroy one faction enirely.

Protoss: The Protoss have to destroy the artefact. Consider the Helios token as a base. The Protoss players win the game if no units and bases of the enemy faction is on Helios. The Protoss must have at least one unit (except workers) on Helios.

Zerg: The Zerg have to transport the artefact to the nearest base via Defiler unit. Defilers only are able to transport the artefact out of Helios. The Helios token is moved with the Defiler to the nearest Zerg base. The game ends, if the Zerg players moved the token to one of their bases.

Each faction goal on the faction sheet is cancelled.

I found that both the average amount of command points per player, as well as how many CPs are local to a player can affect which type of victory condition will most likely decide the victory condition. In CP rich games, special victory conditions may never even come into play. Then again, in CP deficiaent setups, special victory might weel be the deciding factor.

Also if someone has a couple of 2CP planets under their thumb for long enough, it might not matter if the rest of the players have their special victory conditions met if the game is over before they even get checked.

Interesting. I've never seen a game ending with a regular victory personally. Usually when I win with the special I am about one turn away from a regular victory.

I was going to post a similar question. I've played about half a dozen times, always with three players. I find that the game ends after 7 or 8 turns. This has been a disappointment as the big units were just getting onto the board and didn't get much chance to pound each other. Usually the game ends with a special victory.

To create a longer game, we've recently tried treating the number of players as 4 instead of 3 in regards to the event cards (removed less). We also played a game without special victories (however in that scenario, our game board happened to be rich with conquest points). Neither version actually slowed the game down much. We'll have to keep tinkering.

Other options I can think of are:

• Don't allow players to take event cards if they choose not to execute an order.
• Don't allow players to take a second event card if they choose not to execute the Research order.
• Increase the normal victory by more points
• Only earn conquest points if you have a base on the square

Or combinations thereof.

I think that the lenght of the game depends on how well you play your orders. If you don't play your order well you have to draw event cards. For exemple we even had once like two rounds without drawing event cards, that game took us like 3 hours (3players) and last night we had like 3event cards (each) in one round because we either put our orders wrong or screwed each other, that game lastet like 1hour and 30 minutes (4rounds). In the first game i won with normal victory and i had my special victory condition fullfiled also. Last night game won someone else with a normal victory but i had my victory condition fullfiled, the diffrence between us made it an event card that repeal my las attack so the other player didn't loose his conquest point. Both games in ended in stage 3 of the game.

We try once to remove like half of the cards that we should and we were a little disaponinted because one of us aproached to normal vitory and stage 3 wasn't so close.

Anyway if you think it ends too soon for you than you can do the same as us and see how the game occurs.

Hi!

I have the same issue.

My reflexion directs me towards one of those solution :

standing positions comply with the Special victory conditions is granted by 2 CP per turn or by a 5 CP that you loose when not complying anymore.

however, when I asked the question on a french forum, I was answered that I am not experimented enough with the game, that experimented players don't let any chance to a special victory of an opponenent...

I think that's right

I want to use the broodwar ruling for the event deck construction too...

marcovitch said:

So do I, but it does take a few games for everyobdy to know what special victory conditions which opponent has, and when and how they should interfere. Having those first games end apruptly in somebody noticing "oh, I've won", isn't that climactic...