In what will probably be my last play of Runewars, we introduced a new player and he asked what the thematic reason for the activation tokens was. I didn't really have one other than the mechanic of limiting the mobility of armies.

So what is a good, thematic reason for activating areas instead of allowing armies to be move and combat freely like most other wargames?

Macronx said:

"In what will probably be my last play of Runewars, we introduced a new player and he asked what the thematic reason for the activation tokens was. I didn't really have one other than the mechanic of limiting the mobility of armies."

"I didn't really have one other than the mechanic of limiting the mobility of armies."

"other than the mechanic of limiting the mobility of armies."

"limiting the mobility of armies."

your last game? Thats a shame. This game is my favorite now, perhaps of all time. And the more I play it the more I like it.

Maybe activation reflects the difficulties of moving large armies and conducting combat, with all the supply lines and fatigue that results. Actions that require activation might take more than one season to organize, complete, and recover from, explaining why units that end in an activation area are exhausted and can no longer move.

mateooo said:

yeah i agree for sure. it takes a lot to energy to fight with sword and shield so it would take a long time to revcover....and yes i have worn chainmail and fought with swords and shields for hours...its fun...and you feel half dead at the end lol

The question to the OP is - why will this likely be the last play of Runewars? Simply because the activation thing didn't sit well with you?

For gameplay reasons, it's necessary to keep armies from just marching across the board in one year. Thematically, it could represent armies needing to camp and rest. Also, it's an abstraction of movement - all 4 seasons stuff could be somewhat "simultaneous" in some ways, with the individual season orders representing the notable action for that specific season.

But if this thematic is making the game unplayable for you, just remove the Activation tokens. My guess is you'll only play one game like that before you realize it completely unbalances things.

sigmazero13 said:

It's not the activation thing. That was just the question the new player asked. The game just doesn't "do it" for me on the whole. I can't really put my finger on what it is, but it's just not there.

Farin said:

I can certainly imagine that fighting for hours while wearing heavy metal armor and swinging large metal weapons would be tiring to say the least, but considering that the game breaks up time by seasons I don't think this logic holds much water. It's not like you have one battle and then you're exhausted for the rest of the summer. =P

For my part, a logical thematic reason for the activation markers is that it takes time to send messengers out into the field with new orders. The armies receive their commands to go to such-and-such a location and fight. It takes them maybe a month or two to get over there (each hex represents a fairly large tract of land), then they fight whatever they find and then they need to report back the results so their lord (ie: you, the player) can decide what the next move is. While they're waiting for new orders, they sit around and occupy whatever territory they ended up in. In the game world, things take much longer to happen than they do for you and your friends around the table.

Of course, the *real* reason for the tokens is game balance, as many people - including the OP - have already said. At the end of the day this isn't an RPG, so you can make up whatever fluff excuses you want, but the tokens exist to mark which armies have already moved this turn.