by petercox
The change:Conquering an enemy (not neutral) territory nets you one influence marker (max 1 per turn).
Explanation.
I have found trouble with my group in terms of turtling and am trying to encourage a stronger reward for invading territory. Now, generally we are quite conservative in our play style, so there is a bit of a group think dynamic going on certainly. Not everyone on the forums seems to feel this issue, but some have mentioned it, so I suspect we're not alone.
I'll also mention that FFG identified this potential issue in the base game, due to making some fixes in Banners of War with the more valuable cities (though we are not a fan of them for various reasons), and the new setup for dragonrunes at the start of the game (though personally I see this as more an early game fix rather than mid to late). Arguably also the 'road to victory' valrient encourages attack towards the final stages of the game, though again, the middle part of the game still encourages the turtle/quest dynamic. In fact, it could be argued that road to victory encourages turtling MORE during the mid game, as you are building up your defenses/potential offenses waiting for that final onslaught when you/someone else reveals they have the runes to win in a year.
So in short I am not suggesting this is a 'fix' to the game, so much as a possibly helpful idea for those experiencing the same issue. It has playtested pretty decently so far. We were thinking of making it 2 influence markers, but worry that will interfere too much with the balance of the 'Take 2 influence vs take 1 tactics card' decision in the summer (ie influence loses value compared to tactics cards) and other influence relate dynamics in the game.
Hope it's useful for anyone experiencing a similar issue.
Cheers