sigmazero13 said:

that isn't the biggest problem i think, though it could be... but anyway, these special orders could relly strengthen the them of each faction and make each of them more distinct. the biggest problem with this idea is probably to make each of the faction specifik order balanced.

MeisterH said:

I agree. The order number thing is easily clarified by one line, as long as they remember to mention it. =P

Making the orders balanced will be the toughie. As I was saying before, Order #9 could be really cool at the cost of needing to be played last, order #0 could be fast and not so powerful, but if you make ALL the races have a #9, it wouldn't be as thematic. Wow, each race has a nuke of a different colour.

You'd want a diversity of order numbers and appropriately balanced abilities for each in order to give each race it's own distinct "feel." And balancing those order cards against one another and against the regular set would probably be a big headache. Maybe more so than would be cost effective, hard to say, but it would be a cool idea if it could be done.

how bout a thread where people throw out ideas for a race specific action (with supremacy bonus and initiative number)

then we can argue about whether they are balanced.

Ideas I have:

Humans: Cunning Traders

Primary: Choose an opponent. Increase one of your resources by two. Your opponent chooses one resource to increase by one.

alternatively: Decrease one resource by 1 to increased a different resource by 2.

Secondary: Choose a different opponent if possible. Gain either 2 tactics or 2 influence. Your opponent then gains of 1 of whatever you chose.

A nice bonus with a tradeoff of helping other players a little... Gives humans a little flexibily and limited ability to help out "allies". number 4.5

Elves:

Nature's Bounty: Primary: increased your food resource by one

secondary: Increase your wood by one.

Helps out the elves when they dont have a good source of food. Give it a number 4.5 to be played right after Harvest.

Elves in tune with nature... they shouldnt have a hard time findings food and wood.

Demons:

Reavers: Primary: Sacrifice a unit to reduce one resource from each enemy by one, you must choose the same resource to reduce for each enemy.

Supremacy: Choose one enemy. That player loses one additional resource. Must be a different resource than choosen for the primary ability.

These guys should be mean but reckless, willing to sacrifice units. Number 4.5 as well. Should happen after harvest to be useful.

Undead:

Cannibalize.

Primary: Destroy a city to increase your food by 2, your wood by 2 and your ore by 1.

Supremacy: place two reanimates in the hex where the city was.

Munch Munch.. I dont think I need to explain how this is thematic. Great reward, but you have to make a great sacrifice. Number 4.5 as well.

I think the #1 thing we need before new races, heroes, and especially gimics that may or may not cause balancing issues are more tactics cards that work around your heroes. Lost City is a perfect example of a great tactic card that utilizes heroes for more than just doing quests on the side. The most common complaint I hear from people that dislike Runewars and people that love it alike is the fact that heroes in Runewars almost feel like an after thought. Sure they are useful but their role tends to feel like a seperate game from your main forces. But if we had more cards that used the spaces they occupied it would open up a far more vast usage of heroes in the core aspect of the game. Just throwing ideas out there but cards could do things like allow you to transport a certain number of units to an empty space with a hero on it, get a str or other bonus for a space with a hero on it, maybe even have some way to set traps for said spaces, etc.

While having a few more wouldn't hurt, I don't want the heroes to become the crux of the game; I don't really see them as an "afterthought" as much as an important add-on.

I personally think the heroes do just enough to be useful and important in the game, without making them the focus. Make them too central to things, and you're just going to have a Runebound Lite with some army stuff going on behind the scenes.

sigmazero13 said:

I don't think that would ever be a concern as the heroes don't participate in the battles so at the most they would be support with certain tactics cards. I realize some people love the heroes but I see more comments from people on the boards and that I introduce to the game that instead seem to ask why they are there at all. Honestly I will never deny that heroes play an important role in winning a game but at the same time it just seems too seperate from the rest of the game. More tactic cards that utilize the heroes would only strengthen their position in the core game.

More than anything else, I would like to see team rules that split all of the players into two teams. Even though Runewars is great, it does suffer from what all other free-for-all games suffer from, and that's Turtle Terror. It's the decision to turtle up defensively, not attacking anyone, instead of engaging in conflict for fear of being vulnerable from others, or fear of being perceived as being ahead and getting teamed up on by all other players.

Like all other games, attacking in a FFA game is fun but is almost always a poor strategy. So,.......

Please add rules so for two sides, one good, one evil, possibly one neutral. It shouldn't take too many rules to make this work. A 2v2 (elves + humans vs Uthuk + Undead) would be great.

I still think if you add too many hero-related things, heroes will be more important than armies. Already, heroes are very vital. Sure, a lot of new players don't see it, but that doesn't mean they need to be changed, it just means that learning their importance takes time and experience. Changing heroes to cater to the new players isn't necessarily a good thing.

As for turtling, I've not yet seen a turtle-player win a game of Runewars when faced against aggressive players. Combat favors the attacker, and it's hard to turtle up effectively.

sigmazero13 said:

I never said the heroes are not vital but that importance is forced. Yes they get dragon runes by doing quests but it still does not interact with the army battles. As I said before this makes it seem like you are playing two seperate games towards one ending. Adding more tactic cards that allow heroes some interaction in the army battles even if nothing to do with the combat aspect can not make them more important than armies as they would still be support. Also if the abilities require the hero to be on the space to use it players will have to decide between using the hero to help expand or doing quests for runes. This along with the simple fact that heroes only get to activate once every four seasons means that they will never take a more domineering role than the armies and more tactic cards using them can only help add a more varied set of strategies for players to utilize. Less of a two game feel, more strategies, more interaction, I really don't see how you can go wrong.

sigmazero13 said:

I agree completely. Turtling it hard to do at the best of times in RW, and success depends largely on terrain, which you won't always have. 8 armies per hex isn't all that much, and the attacker will always be able to bring more forces to bear against you, even if you do turtle up.

I'm not opposed to the idea of letting heroes do more in battle, although I agree it's not really necessary. I have yet to see a proposed house rule that makes the proposition alluring enough to bother.

Kirenx said:

Sorry, I didn't mean it to come across that way. I guess while it wouldn't be bad to have a few more Tactics cards, I also don't want there to be so much interaction that Heroes go from being a vital option to being a "you must have heroes to win". Right now, I think the balance is pretty good. There are just enough Tactics Cards, rewards, and hero abilities themselves that allow Heroes to interact with the board, without putting the focus on them. If the same hero-oriented tactics card ratio can be maintained with the new tactics cards, that would be good. If 10 more cards that were all hero-centric were added, with no non-hero cards, I think it would start to shift the Heroes too much.

The more I've played the game, the less I feel like the Heroes are a separate game; rather, I've found them to be a subtle, if indirect, integral part of the main game; the way they interact may sometimes "feel" like a separate game, but in terms of overall strategy, hero management is just one of the facets of resource management that is required for victory.

IE, to sum up, I'm not opposed to adding more Hero-centric stuff, as long as it's not overdone to the point where Heroes become the focus of the game. That's one reason I'm not really sure I want to see Heroes directly involved with combat; it could make the game more about the heroes than the units.

sigmazero13 said:

I should be more clear as well. I do not in any way want heroes to be a part of unit combat. I do however think that there is not much of a ratio of hero related tactic cards to non-related ones and I think there could easy afford to be more. I'm thinking subtle cards like a summon lightning like card that if you have a hero on the space you only take 2 damage instead of 4 or a reinforcements card that activate when a battle starts on a space occupied by one of your heroes so you could send in 1-2 extra units for a surprise defense. As I stated before since positioning your heroes to use cards like these would in many cases prevent them from doing their quests it would not be game breaking but instead simpley add a new layer of strategy hidden from your opponent. Even some non battle related cards that simpley have a requirment of you hero being somewhere could add some interesting game decisions. Say a card that allows you to gain one resouce of a type on a space your hero is on as long as that space is enemy controlled. Things like that would open up more possibilities for what you might do with your heroes and how they relate to your army building other than just trying to grab as many dragon runes as possible for the end game (which would still be there and no less important).

more neutral units

but regarding the special orders maybe something like this.

Uthuk Y'llan:

Raid (or something like that) # 0 or 1

May start one battle, in which you have minus 3 in strength.

Supremacy:

you don't need to place an activation token in the activated area.

Daqan Lords:

Hold the line # 1 or 2

May move up to 3 (or 4) units from one hex up til two hexes away into an area that has not been activated, if this area is attacke this turn you gain plus 2 in strenght

Supremacy:

May move up to 3 (or 4) units from one hex up til two hexes away into any area, if this area is attacked this turn you gaing plus 2 in strenght

Latari Elves:

Know the land # 5 or 6, maybe 7

Move up to 3 units two hexes away, may move through enemy and neutral territory, may not start a battle, the area is activated

Supremacy:

Gain 1 (or 2) neutral triangel units which moves to the activated area and becomes allied to you

Waiqar the Undying:

dunno

Waiqar the Undying:

"Zombie Hordes (#8)

Place up to two Reanimates in each hex you control that contains at least one Necromancer.

Supremacy:

For the remainder of this year, your hex limit is considered to be 12 instead of 8. This effect ends and extra units must be destroyed just before drawing the following year's Spring card."

This would be an example of a card that's really awesome if played early, but it comes at the cost of nixing all other supremacies after it's played. I'm assuming here that the idea of the original cards winning ties is in effect, so this supremacy can be shot down if the real #8 was already played.

In response to 2v2, I doubt it would be that hard to add in even just house ruling it. Although I would have to play test it to see if it works I would think all you really have to do is make 12 runes required to win and then either alternate players turns or make it so that a team takes their turn at the same time but only get a single order card.

As for special order cards. Although I won't say that they outright could not work, the issue I have is that order cards are not so much a game element of runewars but rather a mechanic. Anytime you change or add to a game mechanic you need to be very cautious or you will end up changing the game as a whole. The way the game currently works each race has 9 choices of what to do each season and a larger number of combinations of orders they can use in varied rows through a year. If you add even one more that could change quite a bit and if each race gets a unique one then an issue of balancing comes in to play which I would think would be hard to deal with trying to make every race have a unique order card that is no better than the other races.

I don't mean to flat put the idea down but these are factors that need to be considered and in retrospect it would be far easier to add new races in than to toy with an established mechanic.

do we want more neutral units??

just askin'

MeisterH said:

As long as they dont put too many into a single initiative round and they don't become any easier to recruit (ie: no new city that allows you to hire 4+) I can't see it would hurt. I just hope if they do add more they don't do what Smallworld did with their expansions and only include one character sheet that you are left to make copies of on your own... If they do add more tiles though I don't see the harm in adding some new ones. In fact they might have to as the game only came with a limit on certain figures and otherwise you could run out. As it stands there are already 2 neutral units in init 1 so I would hope that there are no new ones there and instead a limit of 1 more to init 2+ so battles don't get too jumbled.

I guess the question now would be what do people want to see for new neutrals? As a runebound player I'd like to Ferrox as a new race (there are so many of them it wouldn't be hard!). Possible neutrals though maybe, hydra, dragonspawn hybrids, barbarians, wolfriders? Thinking creatures in runebound alone there seems like no limit.

Kirenx said:

Ferrox would be cool, they are indeed a staple of the Terrinoth universe. I don't think we'd see barbarians, though; that's really what the Uthuk are ( just a twisted, demonic form)

sigmazero13 said:

Well you are probably right about barbarians. I am kind of hoping for Ferrox or at least something along the lines of Ferrox/Uthuk that holds some originality. In other words not overlly basic races like Orcs and Dwarves. Looking through my runebound decks I see serpentkin, imagine those supported with big units like wurms. And of course the base game of RB seemed almost obssessed with plant creatures...

I'm sure Dwarves and Orcs will be playable factions in an expansion, as they have been standard factions in Battlemist and much of the Terrinoth world from the start. Ferrox are more "monsters" than anything, and so they'd be more likely to serve as Neutrals.

Undead were more monsters too with the exception of a single hero so it is possible at the least! I do agree though that Orcs and Dwarves are more likely.

In the Battlemist "world" (and the related Diskwars world), Wiqar and his undead legions were definitely major players. I think the story in the front of the Runewars rulebook indicates that the Runebound/Descent Terrinoth is the same "land", just much later in history. Thus, Wiqar is likely "in hiding" or not being too bold in his conquests, with just skeletons infesting dungeons (and perhaps Wiqar could be, in some ways, tied to the Overlord concept in Descent!).

It's a rich universe, and although it does use some of the standard factions, I think some of the twists they put on them make them interesting.

I have enjoyed what little story I have managed to ganer from the Runebound/Runewars world. That being said everyone is supposed to be after the Dragon Runes so I wouldn't rule any races out of be possible additions in a future expansion.

if they include more neutral units, they will probably be themed after the expansion, so if we ever gets an ice expansion we would probably get

ice wyrms, wendigos and other things like that.