The economics of war, raising
prices.
After a few more play-tests a few things have become obvious. The deck was too populated (see post
“Distribution of Power”) and we have an economics problem. This is especially
transparent in a four player game. I
never wanted siege to have a strong economic focus but I did want it to be a
part of strategy and theme. After all, a small poor country is less likely to
have a large powerful army then a huge wealthy one.
I decided to make a few more subtle
changes to the board, I lowered the total amount of resources by about 3% this
was not a huge number but in the 6 player version of Siege of Verdan the
economics work pretty well and I knew a small change to the available resources
in the 4 player version would multiply in a 6 player version. I also didn’t want to add another complicated
mechanic that changed how the 4 player game would work in comparison to the six
player game. I am working on reducing the complexity of the rules, adding
another rule just make understanding the game more complicated, another chance
for something to be forgotten, and another chance to spoil a game experience
for a new player.
The next decision would be a tuff
one. I am raising the initial cost of
the military units by one point. This
will impact the game in two ways; first it will make a slight difference on the
economics of the game (about a 33% change for most military units), but it will
not effect the economics on the other cards (spies, assassins, explorers, and
merchants). So now the start of the game will shift towards the non combat aspect,
which means more politics, and economic building. Secondly, since only a military unit can sac
a capital city, it may help to close the gap between the first player out and
last player out that make longer games unfriendly. What we don’t want to happen is for it to
have a big affect on the amount of time it takes to play the game. Heck, we
just fixed that! Well we are off to play-test, wish us luck!
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