To his credit the designer put a lot of work into tweaking the balance for this game. I played this one a LOT in development and while it came a long way from inception to release, I just don't think it ever quite got there.
One of my favorite maps to play one on one at. Luck is needed on the original map setup for sure, and if bad luck is the only luck you have then you will not have a chance!
I prefer the Random Scenario over the other Scenarios due to less neutral bashing. Random Scenario seems balanced and well setup with getting fighting between players on early! Nice work on that Scenario!
Everyone should play this at least once just because of the awesome fill work done on the graphics, completed prior to Dual layers, this board is very cool looking!
As it's currently configured, this board is basically broken. Due to the bottom player having an extra 2 units at start and needing to kill 3 less units to get the bottom continent, the bottom player not only will start off with a +5 bonus after the first turn roughly 66% of the time, it's almost mathematically impossible for the top player to secure a continent on their first turn without otherworldly luck. Given the unit counts of the players, that basically amounts to a +10 bonus for the bottom player at the start of turn 2 (+5 bonus, +5 units that the bottom player either starts with or doesn't have to kill to get a bonus), which is almost insurmountable. I've only lost as the bottom player once, and it took a mixture of me running up against asm (one of WarGear's finest) and some fantastic rolling on his side to make that happen.
With some tweaks, I think this board could be salvaged, either by reducing the starting number of units for the bottom player or by increasing the starting number of units for the top player. Until then, I'd just steer clear of it - it pretty much amounts to flipping a coin, declaring that "Heads" wins, then spending some time proving it.
i love this. i like that things are put up to fate, and that the players before they meet have no real control. the other reviews are correct. thats what i like about this one.
This is a good attempt at a balanced two player duel map, but a players luck against the neutrals on the first couple of turns seems to be more of a deciding factor than anything else. Since game-play relies mostly on luck, it is not a map I play often, but I am not against joining an open table.