So... I'm thinking of turning off fortify to team mates. Any thoughts? Biggest reason is because it is not too hard for 1st player on a team to get to adv. flight, and then dump 40 units to a team mate, who gets an elimination 1st round.
This is borderline unacceptable to me.
Other way to fix it is to make adv. flight more expensive, but no matter how expensive I make it, it won't stop someone from getting great dice luck, and then we go to the above scenario. I still could add 2 neutral to it - won't totally stop this from happening, but should help.
I figure this change will be unpopular because people hate change, and frankly I really like the strategy of figuring out how to best utilize your fortifies in a team game, so I'm not super excited about it either.
If you can think of a better way to stop the above scenario, let me know!
The biggest problem I can think with it is that if a lot of your ally gets placed in your starting continent that it would have the potential to kill your game in a different way because it might be nearly impossible to expand and secure bonus where it is most beneficial to you. It might also make suiciding troops an important strategy (if they can't get out without going through one's ally) to allow one's ally to expand and most people don't play that strategy very instinctively.
Turning off transfer to teammates would not be a good idea. If your territory is covered by your teammate to start you are stuck with either wasting your men taking out your teammate or doing nothing for a round or two until they can get their men out of the way.
How about just a cap on the number of men that can be placed in the jet? Something like 20 maybe? You can still transfer a lot of men it just costs you a couple extra transfers.
Or put neutral men in the jet to attack through and claim. Still will not stop the extremely lucky dice situation to start the game but makes the odds less likely. Maybe even add a dice advantage to the defending jet.
Yeah - I've kind of given up on the idea of turning of transfer to teammates. Seems like it would make the game less fun.
I don't think I like the idea of a cap on the jet either though. To make it effective at stopping this 'zerg rush', you'd have to set the limit pretty low, but then it would really limit the usefulness of the jet in late game when you might need to move around a lot of units.
I don't think putting neutral men in the jet is functionally any different than just increasing the starting neutrals in the jet technology.
I guess what I will do is slightly increase the neutrals in the jet (maybe +2), and I think at the same time I'll reduce the neutrals in the final blue tech, because I don't think I ever see anyone go for it, and making jet even harder to get through will make it harder to get to the final blue tech also.
Next topic - I'm thinking of creating some more specific scenarios for Invention v2, and am curious what everyone would like me to work on first. Some possibilities:
- Team Invention - maybe some specific tweaks to team invention. For example, the above increase in jet neutrals really only needs to be done in team games, so by separating those games out into their own scenario, I can not let single players get to the jet more easily.
- Total Fog Invention - playing on different fog levels really changes the dynamics of the game, because of the way the red techs provide vision and satellite, radar, etc. Might be worth locking down Invention to heavy fog & then having a separate scenario for total fog.
- Barbarians - The original alternative scenario that never got ported over to v2 Invention. Players start without capitals allowing you to have more than 4 players in a game.
Speaking of total fog in Invention. I just now noticed that from Africa, satellite (I think just the first one, not the global) gives you full information about Congo (number of units as well as owner) but you can't see any other flask territories (not even the other one on the Africa continent). Having nukes available also does not show you who owns the flasks (although you can of course attack and then you find out).
I'm not sure what you intended to be seen from owning the various satellite options but at a minimum, the ability to see Congo but nothing else seems wrong one way or the other. Again, this is from Africa's point of view, I don't know what happens when you play one of the other 3.
Regarding the second blue flask - another option to encourage that while not helping with the jet would be to let us skip the jet to attack the flask just like you can skip the regular airplane now if you so choose. Then you could put as many on the Jet as you like and make players choose which one to go for.
Question #planes: is it somehow possible, to transfer lab units via plane to the troups on the map? Or is that only possible the first time, after the attac of the plane?
It is currently only possible to transfer the lab units on the turn you attack the plane (and only as a follow up transfer when you attack). It used to be possible to keep transferring in those units but was changed to prevent that possibility due mostly to some quick elimination scenarios that tactic helped with.
Mongo wrote:Speaking of total fog in Invention. I just now noticed that from Africa, satellite (I think just the first one, not the global) gives you full information about Congo (number of units as well as owner) but you can't see any other flask territories (not even the other one on the Africa continent). Having nukes available also does not show you who owns the flasks (although you can of course attack and then you find out).
I'm not sure what you intended to be seen from owning the various satellite options but at a minimum, the ability to see Congo but nothing else seems wrong one way or the other. Again, this is from Africa's point of view, I don't know what happens when you play one of the other 3.
Regarding the second blue flask - another option to encourage that while not helping with the jet would be to let us skip the jet to attack the flask just like you can skip the regular airplane now if you so choose. Then you could put as many on the Jet as you like and make players choose which one to go for.
Thanks Mongo - I removed the view border between satellite and the congo. I also increased the # of neutrals on the jet by 2 and decreased the # of neutrals on the internet by 2.
>Regarding the second blue flask - another option to encourage that while not helping with the jet would be to let us skip the jet to attack the flask just like you can skip the regular airplane now if you so choose. Then you could put as many on the Jet as you like and make players choose which one to go for.
I think something like this is what I will do if I ever get around to a v3 for Invention. I'd like to swap the order of satellite and jet.
One idea for a tech - Additional fortifies. The 5 tech points tech could be additional fortifies. Three more for example. Is it possible to change the number of fortifies during a game?
Great Red Hype wrote:One idea for a tech - Additional fortifies. The 5 tech points tech could be additional fortifies. Three more for example. Is it possible to change the number of fortifies during a game?
Great idea, but that's not a currently supported mechanic.
That's kind of what the jet/plane do for you - in any case that was the best I could think of to increase mobility, since you can't actually add to the # of fortifies.
Is it possible to eliminate a player, add the 10 unit bonus reserves AND trade in cards presuming you have more than 5 to increase the unit count to more than 50 and go back to placement. I cannot recall if this board allows trade ins of cards mid turn since its unlimited cards. It’s never come up for me but I am new. Thanks to the experts in advance.
If the elimination bonus puts you over the reserve limit, then, yes, you will go back to the placement phase and can turn in cards.
Bug found: Africa Nuclear ICBM cannot attack Zimbabwe.
sorry if this has been reported previously, I haven’t read the whole thread.
Thanks BulbaBulba. I did finally address this bug and should be fixed now.