I'm taking a survey:

#1) Which civ do you think is best/worst? 

#2) How much do you get to use the last two techs in any tech tree?

#3) Anything that seems over-powered or useless?  Or other comments?

I'm thinking of making some minor tweaks, but love some feedback first.  Feel free to post this thread into civ games if you want.  I'm generally thinking about the non-barbarian scenario, but let me know if you have thoughts about barbarians also.

Here are my answers:

 #1) Which civ do you think is best/worst? 

 I think they are all pretty close, but I think blue is the hardest to win with.

#2) How much do you get to use the last two techs in any tech tree?

It feels like the 5th blue and 5th green I get to every once in a while, but rarely the other ones.

1) Ditto but I think the reason Blue has the worst odds is that they only have three countries around the capitol.  So when they get the third rung of the tech three for armies, they only get three armies, while Asia, N. America and Africa all get 5 or more.  this subtle difference accumulated throughout the game, adds up.  Now I love being a partner with Blue in a team game because you get satellite quickly. 

2) agreed with Green and Blue get used, but!  The 5th  Red tech helps end games that have been going on FOREVER, and should remain.

1) I haven't got a feeling any CIV do markedly better or worse. Green is perhaps my favourite one but not by much. Have to say, though, I have only played around 50 games on the board, others will have more raw material to draw from.

2) I've used the last green a few times, rarely the last blue and I cannot recall having used the last red more than once. Still, I'd like to keep all of them.

3) I like it as is. Not averse to changes but can't think of anything I'd regard as an improvement to an already great board.

1. my favourite civ is blue, my least favourite yellow. 

2. I have often used the last two techs in the top and middle trees and less often on the bottom tech (I almost never use the penultimate tech on the bottom tree, though have had it used against me occasionally).

3. if you were to make changes, I think it would be interesting to see early tech made easier to get and to increase the appetite for each civ to use different tech strategies.

4. if you are able, get some feedback from Andernut. He is the best player on the board and seems to win a lot of games very early (just a few turns...I have no idea how). He obviously takes huge risks and possibly favours one paeticular tech in a given situation.

5. Finally, this is by far and away my favourite board on wargear...my comments above notwirlthatanding, I suspect you have got the balance right...it is likely to be very hard to make a clear improvement...well done and that k you!

UK is fairly strong if not unlucky with tech early on. USA seems the weakest to me as well as its nation is more exposed than the others (China's nation is also geographically exposed but has the green tech boost to compensate). Fine margins I'm talking about here.

My experience outside of 2v2 is very limited though. On that format what I can say from the top of my head is that getting South Africa/China combo is an advantage.

You can maybe think of making a new scenario with radical changes but not sure what, given the limited set of design tools we currently have.

3. if you were to make changes, I think it would be interesting to see early tech made easier to get and to increase the appetite for each civ to use different tech strategies.

This is actually kind of the change I was considering.  I try to make small changes, so I was thinking of reducing the starting neutrals of all green techs by one.  Or maybe just the first two.  

What I'm hoping is that it will dump more units into a players capital, so players will be harder to take out, and then games will go longer, and it will be more likely to get to the more advanced techs.

I also was thinking of making some kind of change to the bonus that is applied when you get two capitals.  It used to be that taking a 2nd capital was a huge gamble, because you could end up weakened and easier to eliminate.  I made some changes to address that, and I think I went too far in the other direction. 

One change I made was that if you have two capitals - each capital gives you +2 in each flask.  So two capitals is 4 tech points in 2 flasks (i.e. 8 total tech points), and that's without accounting for any of the other ways to get units.

I'm thinking of getting rid of that extra +2 you get in other civ flasks, but as I mentioned, I don't like to make big changes, so instead of getting rid of it, I'd probably just reduce to +1, so if you owned two capitals, they alone would be worth +3 in each flask.  A small change.

Taking two capitals a big gamble? More than 90% of the time in my games, whoever takes a 2nd capital first wins. 

My answers.. all generalisations but this is what I’ve found in the 4-player default game:

1. Favourite civ is green as it’s the most protected early on - although plenty of entry points, i find that blue will typically not be in attack mode eastwards early on, players don’t usually risk expending units trying to take Australasia early, and the Alaska lab takes a while to take.

I also find red civ is strong if lots of armies are in Africa to start with as continent can be taken quickly and blue typically doesn’t attack southwards early as too busy with own continent. Blue can deliver quickest wins by taking yellow capital early, but as others have pointed out, it needs to be super early otherwise it leaves you exposed if others have strengthened quickly.

Clearly the biggest determinant of success is the opening layout as it influences how quickly you get continent bonuses and build attacking positions. I think this is the main reason why one or two players get superiority quickly, which is why games don’t last as long as they should. I don’t know how you could randomise this to have a more even split. I’d be loth to suggest any changes as I love the board, and also the tactics do change depending on opening position, but perhaps you could have a fixed starting distribution of units in own country, in own continent, in a neutral continent and in another’s territory. This would probably end up making games too reliant on early luck stats though.

Might also be interesting - if overly complex - to have two or three “minor” capitals like Rio and Sydney that don’t have their own tech points but do have a multiplying effect on the four major sets of tech points or bonuses. This would make getting South America and Australia a higher tactical priority, which I think is important as otherwise they can be ignored until later in the game. It would also help if you have a heavy opening distribution in those continents.

2. I guess we all like the longer games that get to the end techs. I occasionally get to the end of the top line but rarely middle or bottom. Perhaps they could be made more accessible but I suspect this would only favour the stronger players early on.

I find the second tech on middle line fairly redundant given number of fortifies a player has.

3. Interestingly as a regular player this game has got much harder to win in the last six months. I suspect it is because overall number of players and tactics have improved.

One change I would make is in Barbarians. It has become too risky to ever even take a capital, so the game rarely progresses to the point where you have the capitals taken - it’s just another colossal crusade / world war board. Barbarians should be a “race for a capital” (in my view) so perhaps make it easier to take a capital early on?

Litotes wrote:

Taking two capitals a big gamble? More than 90% of the time in my games, whoever takes a 2nd capital first wins. 

Yes - I agree.  I'm saying it *used* to be a big gamble - back when the map was back in development  In a fairly even game you had to stretch to take someone out - then if the other two players kept you from getting any labs, you could often be in real trouble.   This was a long time ago - I believe what I did was make capitals be worth +2, and make them give +2 tech in each other's flasks.  The idea was that even if they took everything from you but the two capitals, you still got +6 units a turn, and +8 tech points a turn.   I think I also kicked up the assimilation % that you get - I think it was 33% and I put it up to 60%.

All of this however, was an over correction and now it does seem like as soon as you can take a 2nd capital the game is almost always over.  I want to roll this back a bit, which is why I'm thinking of making the +2 in other civ tech bonus down to +1.  Maybe I should also turn down the 60% assimilation to 50%.  I don't like to make big changes to live boards, but those both seem like small changes.  Sometimes on a board as interwoven as Invention, a small change can end up having big effects that are not clear at first though.  That's one reason I wanted to make this a public discussion.

Herr Stamper wrote: 

Clearly the biggest determinant of success is the opening layout as it influences how quickly you get continent bonuses and build attacking positions. [...] I don’t know how you could randomise this to have a more even split.[...] perhaps you could have a fixed starting distribution of units in own country, in own continent, in a neutral continent and in another’s territory.

If I understand you correctly, I a limited form of this already.  Take a look at the initial starting positions:

http://www.wargear.net/boards/view/Invention/About#tabs-Default

Each player does have a single territory in their super continent that they always start with.

So, I've thought about this. I didn't want to add too many fixed possessions, because it would reduce the randomness.   To take the smallest super-continent as an example.  Europe has 11 territories that start random, and 5 that are always fixed.  If I assigned Red, Green and Yellow a territory in Europe - that would mean 8 fixed and 8 random.   I guess half random still is not too bad...

For that matter I could assign each of the four civs a territory in SA and Australia.  Or maybe give green & blue territories in SA and Red & Yellow territories in Australia...

Might also be interesting - if overly complex - to have two or three “minor” capitals like Rio and Sydney that don’t have their own tech points but do have a multiplying effect on the four major sets of tech points or bonuses. This would make getting South America and Australia a higher tactical priority, which I think is important as otherwise they can be ignored until later in the game. It would also help if you have a heavy opening distribution in those continents.

Check out one of the "Capitals" scenarios of Simple World if you haven't already:
http://www.wargear.net/boards/view/6198/Board%20Explorer

It shows where I added capitals to SA and Australia.  I like the idea of adding those as minor capitals, but that's too complex of a change for right now.  I do have plans to make a 3rd edition some day - although I might just release it as it's own separate board.  I'll keep that in mind.

I find the second tech on middle line fairly redundant given number of fortifies a player has.

In fairness it only costs 2-3 tech points usually to get it, but yeah it's not terribly useful.  The idea there is that if have the first 3 or 4 green techs, then it can be a convenient way to shuffle units from those factories to the front lines.

One change I would make is in Barbarians. It has become too risky to ever even take a capital, so the game rarely progresses to the point where you have the capitals taken - it’s just another colossal crusade / world war board. Barbarians should be a “race for a capital” (in my view) so perhaps make it easier to take a capital early on?

Barbarians I think could definitely use some work.  I don't play it that much, so I'm less familiar with it, but I feel like every game I'm in, someone has grabbed a capital.  Can you link me to a game or two where no one got a capital, so that I can take a look?

I gave up playing Barbarians because someone always ended up taking a capital without enough units to defend and then someone else would conquer it and eliminate that player giving him a huge advantage over the rest.

Reducing assimilation in Barbarians could be a good idea.

In my experience being the first to take a capital in barbarians is neither a sure win nor a certain loss. Looks balanced enough for me.

And I have never yet seen a barbarians game turn into a World War-type of game where noone takes a capital. One of Inventions great strengths is that there is little risk of the strategic standoff that has made me stop playing multi-player on WW or CC.

They both can happen. Here is one where no one took a capital: http://www.wargear.net/games/view/291539

Here is one where the first person to take a capital got eliminated: http://www.wargear.net/games/player/280345 that was mostly good luck on that one, but I've seen ones where someone takes a capital prematurely and the person eliminating them is in a lot better position than if they had taken the capital by themselves.

Thank you for the links Korrun.

The one where no one took a capital: http://www.wargear.net/games/view/291539

Is a 3v3 game, so I imagine players were much more aggressive than they would have been if there were more teams.  I could also easily see in a 1v1 game no one bothering to take a capital.

>I gave up playing Barbarians because someone always ended up taking a capital without enough units to defend and then someone else would conquer it and eliminate that player giving him a huge advantage over the rest.

This I definitely see - I think partially that's a case of an inexperienced player making a mistake (or making a risky gamble), and a good player taking advantage of it.

But I still think these are good suggestions for barbarians. 

So, I plan to make these changes to 2nd edition barbarians & default:

* Reduce all green tech neutral starting counts by 1.

* Turn down the 60% assimilation to 50%.

I might also:

* On Barbarians - reduce starting capital neutrals by 1

* On Barbarians - reduce assimilation to 40%.

* On Default - assign green & blue territories in SA and Red & Yellow territories in Australia

Probably be another week before I make the changes, so please make a case for these or any other changes if you want.

Sounds good.

I like the proposed changes Ozy

- Not sure about the green tech change. That will increase the chance of getting Nationalism on first turn for China, already considered to be a strong civ. Sure, it increases the chances for the other civs as well but China will be the one getting it more often.

- Reducing the neutral count on the capitals will reward brainless and/or initial setup luck more.

- Agree with reducing assimilation more for Barbarians compared to Default (I'd probably reduce even more, for Barbs that is).

- On the SA and Oceania fixed positions, I think it's worth trying to see what happens.

Not sure about the green tech change. That will increase the chance of getting Nationalism on first turn for China, already considered to be a strong civ. Sure, it increases the chances for the other civs as well but China will be the one getting it more often.

That's a good point.  Maybe just the 1st two green civs then.

 

- Reducing the neutral count on the capitals will reward brainless and/or initial setup luck more.

Another good point...