by sigmazero13
Studioworks wrote:
1. The army limit. How can one player hope to defend a hex, especially without stronghold, if the attacker can freely attack with 16 units? Even if the stronghold is present, it is really difficult and you need a lot of luck to resist the attacker invasion.
Attacking with 16 units is generally a poor idea. After the battle, the attacker would have to retreat all but 8 of the surviving units, and they must follow the normal rules for retreat: They must retreat to a friendly area if possible, and they must all retreat to the SAME area. This usually means that if you are attacking with 16, you are probably going to lose some units even if you win.
Even if you don't, the retreating units all become routed, and you've committed a LOT of units to a single battle, which may make you vulnerable to counterattacks.
However, even with the attacker advantage, one strategy is to employ "road bump" armies between your key areas and the enemy; one or two units on the front line forces the enemy to attack them first, and even with Mobilize, this means they can't attack again that turn (giving you a chance to strike back.)
2. Where is the dices?? The fate cards is cool, but throwing a dice would give it more sense and fun, in our opinion...
Matter of taste on this one, I guess. The cards allow for options that you just couldn't do as easily with dice.
3. Bad map, lost game. So, i had vary few food hexes around me. Just four, while my enemy on the right was always at 8. How could a possibly hope to equally fight with him. Of course, i couldn't. That's why he nearly eliminated me from the game. The food limit counts only on winter, but still it's too tough to build a big army and do some damage around counting that you will need to scatter them in autumn and could not use them in winter.
I think it just takes more experience to learn how to build the map to not favor any given player, and also how to be aggressive at the right times to prevent an opponent from getting a monopoly on certain resources.
4. Some OP units. The Waiquar had this super OP necromancer that with a little luck raises two reanimates!! A friend raised 4 in one battle. With this kind of game mechanics, this four units almost every time would mean a victory. The Uthuk have this flash ripper ability to gain 3 health. Really too much. You need too much damage to kill it.
The necromancer is strong, but Waiqar overall has pretty weak units; their advantage is in having LOTS of weak units.
Again, experience with this one is the key - knowing which units to use when to counter the opponent's is important. Against Waiqar, for example, trying to get units that can specifically target their Necromancers can be big, and when attacking them, know that they may bring more troops, and plan your attack accordingly.
The Flesh Ripper ability is kind of cool, but they go first, and only get an Orb 20% of the time. And when they do get an orb, it means that at least one of them aren't doing damage. One thing to keep in mind about this game - utter annihilation in battle is not always the goal - just driving them out is the first-most importance. (And then trying to follow up on another season to attack their routed units can be a great way to finish the job).
5. Why the heroes? In our opinion, the heroes part is one game in another. The game itself is pretty big and complicated with a lots of content. Why then bringing in the heroes to complicate it more? Ok, they are cool, can do some good stuff, but we think they are really unnecessary in this big-sized game.
With more plays, the importance of heroes becomes more visible. It is subtle, but ignoring the heroes can be costly.
The Revised Edition (which it sounds like you have already) and the Expansion both help increase the connection between heroes and the rest as well.
6. 6 runes, last one year. C'mon, who could possibly win the game in this game variant, especially when no one can really "badassly" fortify because of the 16 or more units rule?? We think that would be better that the game lasts max 5 years and needs 4 or 5 runes to win the game.
It's definitely possible. You don't have to declare as soon as you have 6. Instead, wait until you have six AND have the strength to outlast your opponent. It's hard, but it's definitely doable. If you really don't like it you could just play with the original rules of "as soon as you have 6, you win immediately). That can be fun, too, but it can sometimes lead to just a sudden abrupt ending to the game.
7. Objectives. This part of the game (and of course it's not the only one) was really good, but i would prefer that was more of it. This objective/mission part of the games was always cool for me.
What do you mean?
8. It seems that the game is so vast, have so much content just to have it, not for any other good reason. This could be a more simple and more fun game. Just like the Dice tower guys said for Twilight imperium and we could say it for Runewars: this is a great game that we will play maybe twice a year. And spending a lots of money for this game and playing it so few times, it seems like a bad investment. So we already have the idea to sell it.
It could be a more simple game... but I think it would lose a lot of the fun, at least for me. Once you've played it a few times, the pieces fit together nicely. It's one of the few games that even after several dozen plays, it hasn't gotten old for me. There is a lot to digest, but I think it all fits together well. If it were dumbed down, it could still be enjoyable, but I don't think it would be one of my favorite games if they went too far with it.
I hope some of this helps :)