Many games end with players having fought perhaps 1-2 fights and perhaps just with neutrals.

Even in an epic game it seems like the victory condition bar has been set way too low. The game is over before the fun begins. Getting runes from quests is also too easy. Victory points should never be given based on sheer luck.

Does anyone have some house rule ideas to work around this, to make the game more epic in scope, where building your empire actually matters and where engaging the other player is actually a viable way to secure victory points/runes?

I think the game is actually better than Twilight Emperium, but I also believe the lenght of games should have been similar to the TE short game... 12/16 years instead.

I've never played a game of TI3 (short game) that took 12 turns. I think 8 or maybe 9 is the upper limit! If it takes you 12 turns to finish a "short game", that means player aren't claiming objectives like they should be.

If you think that Shards are making too much difference in the game, reduce the number; or require 2 shards to be turned in to get 1 rune. (Yes, this will leave a floating shard with no match).

Or, play to 8 runes. Or, there have been some to suggest that you can only have 1 "real" rune in your home realm at any time. That would force you to claim more runes outside your home, which will lead to more fighting and probably a longer game.

I just bought 3 sets and made a larger map and set the beginning runes to 1 each instead of 2 mean 1 Dragon rune and 2 blanks instead of 2 Dragon Runes and 1 Blank seems to have worked just fine . OH and PS remove a few of the Treasure cards that read return to a stronhold and obtain a Dragonrune that will make it less a hero game and more bal;anced between heroes and Army units.

we always play the long game in TE3, but with only 4 players RW turns are a lot shorter. The 12/16 years was just what I'd like for our RW games in terms of lenght for normal/epic game. I think with that lenght RW would actually bercome that epic empire building and fantasy wargame it's supposed to be

The "only one rune in your home realm" is a good rule to promote leaving home. Perhaps playing with false runes as well in the epic game will work. Two shards for one rune is also a good rule, without removing the need for heroes.

Ripley... said:

Wow! That's a lot of money, but I suppose it would do the job! Have you considered any custom tiles to weed out the duplicates? Any artwork or house rules to share on that note?

More players would also make the game longer, but adding more than 4 to this game isn't as easy as it seems. For one thing, starting influence on all players must be unique. For another, I rather suspect the map would get crowded fast without some more tiles to build the world up.

We will be playing a 5 to 6 player game on Tuesday so let ya know what we come up with as for tile pieces it does not affect the missions at all just gives you an alternate direction to travel plus i don't use all the tiles only an extra tile per player but im thinking of adding 2 starting tiles and then one tile extra per player to add more space for a 5 to 6 player game. as for having 2 people with the same factions thats fine just need to i dentify the diference between them with any small token piece like penies or whatever. Anyways i'll let you all know how it turned out.

Sure more players would mean a longer game, but then we could just take very long to finish our turns. What we want is a longer game where more happends. More time and reason for war.

Gallows said:

You could stipulate that at least one or two of the dragon runes needed to win must be in an enemy's home territory. So not only must you find 6 or 8 runes, but at least a couple must be left in enemy territory and held there by your forces. That would definitely increase the need for conflict between players and the requirement of holding such territory will make it harder to actually achieve the goal and win the game. Both of those conditions would probably increase the playing time without altering any other rules or adding anything new to the game.

Another optional rule is that you must control all of your own home hexes at the time you claim victory. Sort of like needing to control your home system in TI3 in order to claim VPs. By itself this probably wouldn't do much (in my experience people rarely make a play for enemy territory anyway), but in conjuction with the other house rule above, it could make a difference.

how bout each player gets one extra special, immobile dragon rune that is worth nothing to themselves but worth 2 to the opposing players, this rune is placed in one of their home hexes, is revealed and never moves (use some other marker... like a small diamond or dragon's tooth, if you are cool enough to have one, otherwise a penny or lego will do). You can then increase the number of runes needed to win the game by one or two. This way, there is WAY more incentive to attack other players home hexes. You can still win without taking one, but it provides a nice bonus if you do get it.

Yeah... I'm trying to work something out that changes as little as possible, but achieve the following things:

1. You must expand your territory to win and that expansion will likely but not certainly conflict with other players.

2. The game lasts long enough that forts and improvements come more into play.

3. Getting runes (VPs) randomly should not play as big a role as it does now.

Long Epic Game:

• Before the map is set up a random tile is place as the center of the board and one rune token is placed face up on the centermost area of this tile. In case of doubt the first player place the rune. This rune can never be moved. Then the normal map setup rules are followed.
• The goal of the game is to control 7 areas containing runes. (I am in doubt if 7 or 8 is the best option).
• Players must place one rune and one fake rune on the board. Players take turns placing one rune/fake rune on the board. Runes must be placed on the area designated by the players quest setup cards.
• Fake runes are used in the Long Epic Game and if players run out of runes, no more runes may be placed.
• The game runs for a maximum of 12 years and the player with 7 runes or most runes in winter of the 12th year is the winner.
• It takes two shards to get one rune. Heroes carry shards around they these can be looted from enemy heroes.

Just use the dragon throne exploration marker in the center of the map.

2 shards for one rune is pretty crappy... you have a good chance of getting only one worthless shard that gives you no bonus and does nothing until you get lucky and find another one. The odds of one shard is not very high.. the odds of two is much smaller. Shards shouldnt be a punishment, considering any 3 items also gets you a rune via heroes guild, and getting 3 random items is probably a lot more likely than getting 2 shards.

Just get rid of a few of the shards until they are rare enough to make you happy.

mateooo said:

To trade 3 items you need the title, so only one player at a time can do that. You can get runes by getting shards from quests and now also by killing other heroes. The dragon throne in the center is nice though. What I want is more interaction between players (center of map, heroes fighting over shards).

The games group I play in finds 3-4 hours a perfect game length.

Personally I'd say TI is too long for it's own good. We almost never play that game because we can't finish in an evening.

XAos said:

But it so happends that I am to play with MY gaming group and not yours and we have finished every TI3 game we have started and always play the long game.

Posting here to get feedback and suggestions for rules making the game a bit longer, not to debate what lenght is the best, because that will be different from group to group.

Steve-O said:

After playing last night with 5 players, the board size was moderate and comfortable for that many players. adding a 6th player would suggest early battles between players. We managed to go 2 years without conflict between anyone. 2 of the 5 were new players, so a lot of 30 minute rounds of "what happens if...?" were met/dealt with.

with that being said, we thought perhaps instead of using the Descent Campaign maps, we could alter the Runewars map, and use it as a Campaign map for Descent. Simply by changing the map up, and placing some type of laminent road / path over top.
As for changing or reworking some of the tiles to change the duplicates, one could simply extend the letters and numbers, and rework the resources of the additional pieces. perhaps by using a simple card or tile type system to lay on top of the existing resource portion of the board pieces. Saves on painting or making whole new tile sets.

maybe you should take a look at this, there may be some suggestions you would like to use for your games:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/forum/536285/runewars/variants

Generally, my group finds the various rune/length rules to be fairly interchangeable for our play.

• using false runes
• play to x number of runes

We also don't normally specify an ending turn number: just play until we're done.

I like the idea of putting a Dragon Throne right in the middle because it would really start to turn into a "king of the hill" style of game, with people clamoring over this one area of the board.

I guess my group just tends to play expansionists because I've rarely had a problem with little player interaction or the game ending before it starts.

We started with a normal game and that was really an anti climax. The epic game was a bit better, but after we tried the last version with 7 runes to win, no starting runes, 2 shards for a rune, dragon throne in the middle of the map, fake runes used and 12 years limit, I think we really found the variant that we consider epic, without taking too long to play.

Gallows said:

How long did this play?

I like most of the ideas, except the 2-shard-for-a-rune bit (although I did bring it up).

Do you just reshuffle the seasons after 8 years?

sigmazero13 said:

The last game using those rules lasted 6½ hours, but we did have a few breaks along the way as people were smoking. But even with two shards for a rune, people did actually get runes from shards because heroes would hang on to them and lose them in duels and due to action cards. We did however use a little extra rule that we would let a hero who deserted his shard where he deserted. That created some fun moments where people raced to secure the area. But with two shard it felt less random with how players got runes. When we got to the 6th year we shuffled the season decks.

But it's just an extra option for us. If we have the time we just like a longer game that what the core rules give us. If we're short on time we just play a normal or standard epic game.