by gueltron
LordArnulf wrote:
Just a quick question: Why are there 18 neutral territories?!? Isnt that a bit too much? Or better second question: Isnt that too similar to all the other "Solar system" maps?
I like:
Hydro-moon
Adiri (?) territory
Hydrocarbon colonies and most of their connections
Space station idea
I dont like:
by first look its almost impossible to hold the green territory (kinda Asia on Earth map). But I fearthat because of the green continent all players will just sit in their corners...
to obvious East-West orientation... try connecting South and North as well...
I like:
Hydro-moon
Adiri (?) territory
Hydrocarbon colonies and most of their connections
Space station idea
I dont like:
by first look its almost impossible to hold the green territory (kinda Asia on Earth map). But I fearthat because of the green continent all players will just sit in their corners...
to obvious East-West orientation... try connecting South and North as well...
I appreciate the feedback!
Great questions here. If I'm not able to sell you on my answers, please re-address.
To respond to your first question, I'm trying to figure out how to make the adjusted rules immediately clear to someone who glances at the board. There are so many neutrals because if a player owns a Diplomat commander, for every 6 neutral colonies they hold, it counts as a continent bonus of +3.
This means that neutral territories add another layer to the game.
A) A buffer is created and massive troop build-ups on borders are not as inevitable (one of my big gripes with the way Risk currently plays)
B) An incentive is offered for players wanting to use a different strategy.
To address your second question, I feel like this map offers unique strategy options to those wanting to focus on Water, Lunar, or Diplomat strategies. Most of the other solar system maps have little in terms of important territories or key choke points, which facilitates too much table talk for my liking (please don't attack my continent, I worked so hard to get it).
The most powerful player on the other maps is the one that negotiates the best. Throw in a nuclear or land commander at any point and that player is nearly unstoppable unless other players utilize a mirrored strategy to combat it. With this map, theoretically a Diplomat player who opts to take mostly neutral territories and draw cards could be the one in charge. On the flip side, if someone opts to go Water, they have immediate access to most areas of the map, including key North-South connections. Throw in a Lunar commander and they also can be a powerful player, drawing on lunar-moon reinforcements. On the flip side, if a player wants to draw merely lunar cards and has the water commander, those cards work on both lunar & water-lunar territories.
In terms of the East-West, I definitely hear you and agree that it is one of the map's internal flaws. I tried to compensate for this by making the territory bonuses low relative to other maps.
My hope is that the map plays in such a way that one can't simply dominate a massive territory, build up troops, and use the bonus of land or nuclear attack bonus to ravage a territory. The map inherently plays such that one of the mentioned alternate strategies is necessary. One of the flaws that I saw in the IO & Mars maps is that everything is connected, there are no or small buffers, and it's nearly impossible to hold a continent. This places more value on the commanders with 8 sided attack dice and their cards. This map intends to re-balance the game by making all of the underplayed commanders more powerful.
Unfortunately I could not think of a way to do this other than sectioning off continents and creating a water commander necessary board (plus I tried to stick mostly true to the scans of Titan that have come from space explorers :) ). My inclination is that a ton of folks are going to be drawn to the water side of the moon and will thus have the commander anyway, effectively neutralizing the north-south cutoffs.
So, to sum it up the major rule changes that will hopefully adjust player strategies and thought processes:
1) Holding neutral territories with a Diplomat commander gives a player more reinforcement troops
2) Lunar cards can be played ANYWHERE on the moon, including water-lunar territories
3) Water cards can be played either on Titan hydrocarbon colonies or on the water-lunar territories
4) A nuclear strike on water chooses to draw from either water-lunar deck or hydrocarbon colonies. Conversely a nuclear lunar strike will draw from either lunar deck or water-lunar deck.