Played a couple three player games yesterday. Overall impression was generally positive, better than the current game for one, and there is definitely desire to play this variant more.

The changes to Ring claiming as well as the Enlightenment victory condition make the game simultaneously more strategic, but oddly faster. Both games were done in under and hour.

A few things to note:

• First player seems to be a very large disadvantage to the point where passing the first conflict opportunity seems like the best option a majority of the time. This can obviously change a bit by constructing more multiplayer focused decks, but generally opening up to have other players easily grab rings off of the first player seems like something that maybe can be designed around.
• Ring fate is a bit complicated.
• Enlightenment win condition is great and creates for interesting choices about various attacks as well as defending certain provinces
• Treaties don't seem fully fleshed out. I like the inclusion, but the fact that Honor is simply lost and not traded makes them generally not worth it.
• Honor victory seems even more impossible. Dishonor less so, but definitely not as simple as with two players.

These were just some quick impression after a few plays. There is definitely room for more exploration, especially when it comes to deck construction and lines of play, but those were the thoughts that jumped out initially.

Thanks for posting this! ?

Three cheers FFG. I love the new format. Here are a couple first impressions cards that came up in my groups testing.

Contingency Plan: In a four player game the card should be on the banned list. We did find a way around it letting it be played by increasing a 2 to a 4 or decreasing a 4 to a 2.

Togashi Tadakatsu: He is no more broken in multiplayer then he is in 1v1 May need to clarify that he can't force a ring to be chosen that's not in the unclaimed pool but seems pretty obvious already.

1 hour ago, Eisenmerc said:

Three cheers FFG. I love the new format. Here are a couple first impressions cards that came up in my groups testing.

Contingency Plan: In a four player game the card should be on the banned list. We did find a way around it letting it be played by increasing a 2 to a 4 or decreasing a 4 to a 2.

Togashi Tadakatsu: He is no more broken in multiplayer then he is in 1v1 May need to clarify that he can't force a ring to be chosen that's not in the unclaimed pool but seems pretty obvious already.

I agree that Contingency Plan needs a clarification for 4+ players (it probably works just fine with 3). Togashi Tadakatsu is banned in multiplayer, no need for clarification (and it's already been ruled that the ring must be selected from those available to the attacker in any case).

Note how quickly a card such as Tadakatsu has the focus placed on it and in this case banned in multiplayer... I don’t see too many Dynasty characters following suit, which tells me he is a definitive outlier in the area of broken design.

10 hours ago, LordBlunt said:

Note how quickly a card such as Tadakatsu has the focus placed on it and in this case banned in multiplayer... I don’t see too many Dynasty characters following suit, which tells me he is a definitive outlier in the area of broken design.

I wouldn't say broken as in 1 on 1 he provides an equal penalty to both players (yes you can mitigate it a little since you know going into the game that he is a strategy you will be using) but in multiplayer presents a new wrinkle that can be extra problematic as he can potentially shut out a win condition for a player by preventing them from ever have in the opportunity to claim one of the rings needed for a win condition.

On ‎5‎/‎27‎/‎2018 at 10:55 PM, Eisenmerc said:

Contingency Plan  : In a four player game the card should be on the banned list. We did find a way around it letting it be played by increasing a 2 to a 4 or decreasing a 4 to a 2.

Togashi Tadakatsu  : He is no more broken in multiplayer then he is in 1v1 May need to clarify that he can't force a ring to be chosen that's not in the unclaimed pool but seems pretty obvious already.

I'm missing something here. How is Contingency Plan being used to jump your value by 2? It only targets your bid and only changes the value by 1, so are people using 2 copies?

Also, Togashi Tadakatsu is banned in this format.

1 hour ago, Duciris said:

I'm missing something here. How is Contingency Plan being used to jump your value by 2? It only targets your bid and only changes the value by 1, so are people using 2 copies?

Also, Togashi Tadakatsu is banned in this format.

If you are playing 4 or more players bids are locked at 2 or 4 so I assume he is using the intent is you can use it to switch to the choice you didn't make.

Not to go off on a tangent and derail this thread, why the heck are players limited to bidding 2 or 4 (honorable, dishonorable) again? I know I missed something..,, ?

3 minutes ago, LordBlunt said:

Not to go off on a tangent and derail this thread, why the heck are players limited to bidding 2 or 4 (honorable, dishonorable) again? I know I missed something..,, ?

Its for games with 4+ players only and eases the headache of one player always bidding 1 to screw over other players. At least that I would assume is the intent.

I see. And I missed that they'd house-ruled it to include 4 dropping to a 2 and 2 raising to a 4 to give it additional usefulness. Which leads me to further ask: what aspect of Contingency Plan makes it ban worthy?

In a 4 player game, if you bid 2 and one or more of your opponents bid 4. The most honor swing you could gain would be 3, by using it to drop you to 1. Or, if you use two copies: 4. That's pretty normal in a two-player game, and in a two-player game you can bid 5 while your opponent bids 1 and uses Contingency Plan. Please enlighten (ha, see what I did there?) me.

2 hours ago, Schmoozies said:

Its for games with 4+ players only and eases the headache of one player always bidding 1 to screw over other players. At least that I would assume is the intent.

That’s EXACTLY what I thought; which is still silly imo. Ah well. ?‍♀️

I think that the point of treaty-breaking honor loss instead of honor change, is made so if the games reaches a point where multiplayer becomes competitive, players can't collude to make one of them the winner by honor boosting.