Kirenx said:

I think that would be FAR too powerful, even if it only transports a couple units. No tactics card should be so nasty that the only way to prevent it is to heavily shore up all your areas, and this card would be just that, unfortunately.

Kirenx said:

With the limited number of units available, and the limited number of recruits, players just can't afford to have every single area heavily (or even moderatly) defended unless you are playing a turtle-game. I think this is the very reason why Flying units cannot pass over areas with enemies; thematically, yes, they could, but it just makes it too hard to defend anything.

Kirenx said:

That would be pretty neat, as long as it only lets you either move non-activated units (and in limited quantities) or recruit at a stronghold.

The thing is, I like Tactics cards to be potent - but I don't like them being so powerful and chaotic that they drive the game.

Well I still think the transport units card could work if you needed to have a hero in that space. You would have to sacrifice questing with that hero to move him where you want him (also you are only moving two squares a year). The opposing player would probably see it coming in most cases and instead of bolstering defense everywhere would just increase the areas immediately near that hero by 1 unit (since really 2 units would have this card a 50/50 chance of working) or just kill the hero.

For the defense card, for sure there would be a limit of units it could call. I agree that you don't want to go overboard powerful with tactics cards but balancing is a trickey thing and you would really have to play test anything to truely see how it works.

Kirenx said:

not necessarily much of a sacrifice, if you have a quest on that side of the board anyway (or in the space itself). Plus, I don't like the idea of a Tactics card being MORE powerful than a rewards card (which it would be; the rewards card can move more units, yes, but it's MUCH easier to defend against).

Basically, if that card were in play, players would nearly always be trying to put 2 or 3 units in EVERY square, including their home realms, to prevent such an attack - and the game would turn into a defensive turtle battle. And since there's a reward card that does almost the same thing, it seems a bit redundant, too.

Kirenx said:

How would they be able to see it coming? Heroes go questing in enemy areas all the time; if that's where the quest areas are, that's where they have to go, even with the threat of Coercion. And shifting areas every time the hero moves would be a pain; you'd have to use a supremacy-less strategize just to protect against it. And having 2 units in every area you control is a LOT of units. Since most races only have about 40 units, controlling even a measly 7 areas (including your 3 home realm areas) would be 14 or more units - that's quite a chunk!

It just seems like this card is trying to be an uber-trump sneaky backstab, and it doesn't "feel right" to me. Maybe it's just a personal preference, but I really don't like that particular one.

Without havinge read all the posts I would like to give my opinion on the expansion

More of everything except resources, this without altering the 4 starting player. Meaning do not change the game to much and all new additions should be usefull with the current rules. New landtiles and neutral troops.

I would like to see a seafaring nation. This new nation would be provided with a new set och watertiles and lakes including neutral seamonsters.

Additional rules including trade, this could include constructions of markets or ports to make your realm more productive. Perhaps even possibility to interact with other players making tradeagreement and diplomatic alliances.

Introducing Neutral allignment to have ther advatage of using both good and evil. A new set of neutral heroes should be added. A neutral player remain neutral as long as he has balance between good and evil.

Kirenx said:

I don't think your card idea here would be overpowered per se, but it would certainly encourage turtling tactics, which is something the existing rules try very hard to discourage. As such I'm not sure how well a card like this would mesh with the rest of the game.

Instead, perhaps, a card that lets a hero teleport anywhere on the map (potentially within a given range of his current location.) Wouldn't really affect how the opponent distributes his armies, but it could make for some interesting quick recon moves, or ****** and run questing.

Steve-O said:

I'm actually working on an unofficial set of heroes to encompass all the rest of the Descent (and Runebound) heroes. One of them (Runemaster Thorn, I think), I gave the ability to take 1 damage to teleport to any rune token on the board. I've only tried him once, but it was a nice ability, but due to the 1 damage it was still one you had to consider carefully.

Steve-O said:

Well the issue is that the game already has a LOT of turtling. Usually in 3+ player games you expand a bit then wall up hexes that block your territories in. All spaces inside tend to have a single unit controlling them since no one really attacks often in 3+ player games. My card idea simpley give players a chance to sneak an attack in these more vulnerable areas. After playing some games this weekend though I'm starting to think tactics cards need a complete overall as there are far too many useless or extremely situational cards to ever make it worth while to choose tactics over influenece.

I wouldn't mind seeing a bit of a core mechanic overhaul with a future expansion too. Right now there are basically three ways to get dragon runes, heroes questing, bidding, and conquest via armies. It would be nice to see these evened out a bit in terms of gain. As it stands one complaint I get from players is that conquest is not a viable method of gaining runes. All players seem to want to get 3 heroes as soon as possible and any player that manages to get 3 heroes earlier through other means usually has the game wrapped up. Since everyone stuffs 3 runes in their homelands and the rest right outside I'm wondering if there isn't a way to change the placement somehow to prevent such turtling and encourage more conquest and less hero rushing.

I love the game and can deal with some of it's faults but I do admit it's getting hard to convice people to play it as it currently is.

Kirenx said:

The main way I usually get Tactics cards is via Strategize or Cities. I'll only grab them from Fall if I have a lot more influence than my opponents already. I don't think that means Tactics cards are bad, it's just that Influence is more universally useful, and I don't think that's a bad thing. The OPTION is still there, even if one choice is usually better.

When it comes to cities, though, I'll almost always take Tactics over Influence, depending on the city.

sigmazero13 said:

I agree to a point with what you are saying. However, I would gladly take even weakier tactic cards that are more universal than the many situational ones that currently exsist. I had one game were I had 10 different tactic cards and they were all useless. I'd just like to see more viability especially for the Uthuk who only get 1 influence and 4 tactics and for both evil races who can not build influence generating developments.

Kirenx said:

10 useless tactics cards? I'd like to know what they wer, as I can't think of a single game where I've had more than a couple "useless" ones. In fact, the only time I can think of that I've ever had what I'd call a useless card is when I pulled Hidden Pass in a game where all the mountains were on the edge of the map.

I think the key with the tactics card is to FIND the uses for them; ie, rather than waiting for the situation to fall into your lap, alter the game situation to MAKE them useful. I've found as I've done that, even the most seemingly situational cards become quite useful and often very powerful.

Which 10 cards were they? That's implying that 1/5 of the Tactics deck is so situational to make them virtually useless, and I just don't agree that's the case at all.

I'm all for more Tactics cards - just not ones that can be as powerful and chaotic as the teleport one; it encourages turtling, not conflict, as players will essentially be forced into defending ALL their lands rather than just their fronts.

I managed to find the cards pretty easily since I hadn't shuffled them since that game. They were Tactical Retreat, Blackmail, Summon Lightning, Rally Cry, Scorched Earth, Battle Cry (all of which were useless as there was 0 reason to attack as is often true in 3+ player games), Raze A City, Hidden Pass, Ambush and Spread Dissent (got this one 3rd or 4th year no neutrals that had any point in getting rid of this way). I agree that in some cases you can find uses for them, this is what I meant about them being extremely situational.

This simple fact is that the teleport idea would in fact hurt turtling tactics in that if players are forced to split their forces there will be more of a chance people may attack their outlying areas.

battle cry and rally cry are amazing,

tactical retreat and blaskmail are both good especially together, or mix black mail w / chain lightning. Why:

you have 1 unit, they have 6 and they attack you: you play blakmail and force them to lose 2 cards and influence, they persist and you blow your 1 unit up taking 4 hp with you. And if that was a surprise attack on your fortress: burn it down.

hidden pass is helpful for the above mentioned surprise attack, every one knows its possible but never defends against it, I can even see them coming yet id rather defend against it with cards then waste precious units.

I've never used raze a city or ambush and spread dissent was useless in that situation. but other then taht those are all amazing cards.

I play 3 player games all the time and yet conflict is very common, everyone is eternally duking it out with everyone. Although we play by slightly differant rules (8 dragon runes to win, defeated units only rout if they were routed, you can retreat to any number of viable spaces rather then picking one and losing all your units)

Kirenx said:

I'm sorry, but I personally disagree with that statement. Perhaps your games have a lot of turtling because the players involved refuse to come out and play, but in my experience this game is one of the least problematic for turtle techniques. Of course it can be done if you build up forces and refuse to advance until you have your back forty filled up, but that's less about the rules and more about the player. Furthermore, the way the rules are set up, turtling techniques will generally only prove successful if no one takes you to task for it. An attacker wishing to confront a player like that should have little difficulty overwhelming a hex and then bringing up reinforcements to prepare for next turn's push. Since the defender is limited to 8 units per hex and the attcker is allowed to overstack, it isn't hard to outnumber him if he isn't moving.

Kirenx said:

The way I see it, once this card in introduced into the mix, your players will start leaving 3-4 units in each area (or if they're a bit smarter, leave one central hex with 8 units to counter attack any teleports nearby) and probably start using their heroes exclusively to search for runes while their armies sit around defending their small cut of land. If you think turtling is a problem now, wait until you see what happens next. Like I said, the card isn't overpowered, but it will encourage turtling.

Kirenx said:

Having read a bit further in the thread, it sounds like a lot of the "useless" tactic cards you mentioned are just offensive cards your players are too scared to play because they're busy hiding in their home territory instead of moving out to attack. There are some situational cards (like Blackmail) but a lot of the ones you call out as situational it's pretty easy to create a situation to use it in if you try to. Again, this isn't the game's fault, it's just how you guys are playing.

I'm not saying you shouldn't have fun with the game in your own way, but it sounds like the game you guys want to play is exactly the kind of game FFG was trying to avoid when they wrote these rules. As such, it might take quite a few house rules to make the game enjoyable, assuming none of you are willing to try a more offensive approach. Also, if you add a bunch of custom made tactic cards like this one without actually altering the core rules, you may find that a player who suddenly decides to go on the offensive will clean up shop ridiculously easy.

Based on my own experience with similar gaming groups who like to turtle, the primary motivation for not attacking is that they don't want to offend the other players. Sensitivity is all well and good, but you shouldn't be playing a WARgame if you don't want to FIGHT. My best advice would be to start attacking them more often. Hit one, then another. You may end up ousting yourself for a game or two, but you'll get the blood stirring and future games should be less "useless." ; )

Steve-O, I see where you are coming from and I will state once again I personally enjoy the game. The problem is my group are fairly hardcore gamers and when they play a game they play to win. Unfortunately as the rules are in Runewars the most effective way to win is to amass 3 heroes as fast as possible and quest for runes, the second way is to grab as much influence as you can and try to bid for any runes that come up, the third is conquest which is just so far behind the other 2 players that are simply going for the win will not do it. You called Runewars a war game but in truth it isn't. It has a war element but given nothing other than the goal of the game there is no reason to attack. Heck I'd love it if I could convince my group to play as yours apparently do and just play for fun attacking and all. That is not however the case they are the type that takes a game, strips it to the core and finds the most effecient way to win.

The reason people tend to turtle is that there is no purpose in expanding past a certain point. Especially with more players, the more hexes you control the more you need to spread your forces to defend. In the end with 3 runes in your homeland you actually only need 3 hexes outside to win and you will usually have more than this before you even get close to an opponent. It is true that if you amass your forces for no other purpose you could possibly push through and actually reach an important hex however doing this would cause a player to first ignore threats from others after opening up his own areas and second devote order cards and turns to attempting this. The shear amount of effort compared to heroes and influence just does not make it competitivly feasible.

Steve-O said:

Well the problem with this is that we are playing by the game rules with the goal to win. So if trying to win makes certain things like many of the tactic cards virtually unplayable I find it hard to see how this is the players fault and not the games. Once again though if you have a more casual group that plays more to fight and doesn't worry about the most effective winning strategy than it probably will not be noticable. And prehaps this is the main problem with my group, they expected a competitive game and Runewars is not able to play properly if played as one.

Steve-O said:

I do have a bit of a problem with this statement though as the game we are playing is Runewars, by the rules provided, no varients, no house rules, nothing but the game. If you just look at how the game is set-up, with armies and unit building, etc., it seems more accurate to say that the game my group wants to play is the one that was intended but also one that the core mechanics prevent.

Steve-O said:

I just want to add the actual issue is that people DO want to fight, but they also want to win and fighting seems counter-intuitive to that. I'm fairly ok with how Runewars is now, most of the game issues I have brought up are more complaints that my gaming group have that, while they may not bother me as much I do understand them as valid. I am hoping for an expansion that fixes a few problems and maybe adds a better goal mechanic before my group loses any interest in playing it at all.

Here's an idea, A slight remake of the undead that are less powerful but don't have to eat food, there cap is always 8.

I haven't read ALL the posts, but my humble opinion after quite a few very nice games is that Runewras AS IT IS seems very balanced as long as you invest some time in knowing your faction well, and leads to very tensed games.

Thus, any expansion should be very carefully made in order NOT TO give reasons for haters of this game on "other" forums (say BGG...) to be right eventually.

I also think that any expansion should be careful NOT TO induce more randomness, for there's enough of that already.

Expansions are always tricky things to design for a game: sometimes they make it go from average to smashing, sometimes they just spoil the fun. And ther's already a huge amount of good fun in Runewars.

That said, I'd tend to agree with new "neutral" factions (say, 2...), at least three new heroes and NEW QUESTS.

New tiles (and if possible new 3d elements to with them) would definitely be an improvement in terms of replayability (not saying that the replayability factor is bad NOW though!)

New cities would also be a must have.

But the most important thing, I think, would be to get new types of neutral units. And that must involve either new setting mechanics or new tiles.

I'd say new tiles coming with new beasties would be a definite asset.

I'd also like to point out that even if I'm not a professionnal in the field of selling games, I think that a game that appeals to people ready to spend so many bucks in a (nice) box COULD do with a meaty expansion, affordable but meaty.

Once some of us really NEED the expansion for such a monster of a game, I doubt those people (me included) will be pleased with a measly add-on...

Kirenx said:

You're definitely correct in that we play for fun rather than stripping everything down to the most efficient method of gaining runes. Personally I don't see how that can be considered fun at all; reducing the game to an equation, computing the best solution and then mindlessly following that path each and every time. I suppose you and I will just have to agree to disagree on this one.

I think Runewars is a great game as is, the only complaint I have is that there's not enough stuff. More races, more tiles, more quests, etc. As long as I get that in an expansion, I'll be happy. =)

hmm yes more stuff indeed,

@brunogaia:

I only know of one game that had an exspansion that broke it, and that's age of mythology. which is a computer game to those who don't know.

The exspansion was moronic, they added super units that were balanced in one on ones but were otherwise game breaking, they made one faction generate resources incredibly slowly making the very fun faction useless, and they made one unit in one of the factions so monsterously overpowered and reduced it's price to the point where there's no point buying anything but it. Good game, terrible exspansion, I'm pretty sure ffg is smarter then that.

reidchapman said:

I've yet to see a single FFG expansion that has made the base game "worse". Sometimes there are new features in the expansion that I don't like, but those have always been "optional" new stuff, rather than "if you want to use the expansion, you should use everything or nothing" stuff.

If any of you have the twilight imperium expansion, I'd point that out as being how an exspansion is done. Everything is done in options, you can eaily choose which parts of the expansion to use, and no two options rely on each other.

what i would like to see in exspansion's

alot like other people have said 2 new races more quests more of everything....:-)

but what i would like to see in a exspansion set conquest... so we would not use heroes... more strongholds and more core forces... and just have a all out battle this would make for a very time consuming game but i think it would be fun...

I think there will definitely be new neutral units in an expansion. The reason why is: At the time, you can hire undefined circle or rectangle units in some towns. But unlike the case of triangle neutral units, there is only one circle neutral unit (sorcerer) and only one rectangle neutral unit (hellhound). If it was thought that only these units should be available to be recruited in towns, the game designers would have printed the specific sorcerer-icon (or hellhound-icon) onto the city token and not the abstract circle or rectangle icon that implies there is a choice between different units of that type.

Aside from new races and the possibility to play the game with at least 6 players, I hope there will be the rules how to implement heroes into battles between armies. There must have been these rules in an earlier playtest edition, but the game designer reports that he has taken them out of the game in order to make the rules easier to understand.

Graf said:

Not necessarily. While I see your point, I think the more likely situation is they left them as generic circles and rectangles just to keep from tying themselves down. It doesn't necessarily indicate they had a specific plan to make more later. That's not to say they won't, but it's not really proof that such was their intent.

Graf said:

In Battlemist, the predecessor to Runewars, the hero/army interaction wasn't really introduced until the expansion. Even then, if I recall, the interaction was fairly limited. I think it was somewhat along the lines of how the Leaders/Characters interact with the armies in War of the Ring.

a city hex with no influence, tactics or quests but 1 hex monster can be gotten.

sigmazero13 said:

But if they include some more tiles, they will need some neutral units to inhabit them – and it would be really boring to pick more of the old ones. So they will need new neutrals, and if they integrate new ones, I think there is a good chance it will be circle and/or rectangle units as stated above.