This is a cool looking board and fun for 1 on 1, if you start at the top. Has anyone won from the bottom position? It seems troop bonuses are way out of proportion.  Maybe I just suck but it seems to me if you start at the top and use the not-so-secret "secret" tunnel you most likely will win.

it's starting to look a bit biased. during development we thought we had it all evened out and the only thing preventing a win were bad rolls. but it's starting to look like i may need to pull this off and make some changes. maybe a few more starting units for player 2 (this would neutralize the fact that you can't sweep thru the bottom rooms like you can the top), a few more for the bottom bonus (again same reasoning). i think i've already decided to reduce the Altar Supply Closet to a +1 to keep the top from rushing that (which i don't think anyone in the dev games did).

Something needs to be done.

At the very, very least the bottom player should always go first.

yeah, i'm seeing that. been discussing options. think the first attempted fix will be giving the second player an extra 4-5 units to start with and the supply closet will only be a +1

well, ive played quite a few games on this board, started from both ends, and think the board is set up great. theres 2 ways to get at one another, and you take a gamble no matter what. the only thing that unevens the play is just getting horribly rolled against all of those neutral teritories your first turn. personally, i kind of prefer the bottom position.

for perspective, i'm 3 and 1 from the bottom, 2 and 1 from the top.

After many more games I'm softening my position as well. Both starting spots are vulnerable to getting killed vs neutrals in the first couple of turns. I still think the top spot has an advantage when going first, but the bottom spot isn't the deathtrap I initially thought it was.

well damn you...after i just released an updated version.

well try it out see if it was too much (gave player #2 5 more starting units - too much i think - and lowered the supply closet bonus to 1, which should have been done in the first place it just got missed)

the supply closet thing may be good enough on its own

oh and i upped the defensive dice to be 6v9

This may have swung things too far in the other direction. So far I'm 2 for 2 taking the first bottom continent in 1 turn, without particularly good dice in either case. With only 10 units the top player has no chance to take the Altar continent and going for the closet at +1 isn't worth it. The extra starting units was too much IMO.

I'm 0 for 1 on taking the bottom continent on the first turn. So there.

I'm 0 for 0 in every conceivable configuration. It's perfectly balanced.

that's an interesting look asm - i didn't look at that on the older games...

bottom is 4-2 (weird how i got bottom in ALL 6 games i started!)
top is 2-4

It's been a month from the last post but I'll answer anyway.

Without considering bad rolls, I think the bottom player has the advantage. I've been playing 10 games recently on this map, and aside the games played in this tournament (lost all of them, no matter the position. Just got bad rolls one after another), first player always won, except once maybe.

It seems like the only strategy for top player is "wait until you got good rolls", while bottom player get a good bonus lot earlier that the top one.

the board is actually turning out to be pretty even, given one or the other doesn't have bad rolls. And the randomness of which seat placement starting first is becoming irrelevant. In games that both have had good rolls, both top and bottom are both winning, and usually the player with a better strategy (i.e. more experience) is winning, which is the way it should be.

Granted the bottom player has an "apparent" slight advantage due to the fact he can control two bonuses thru one choke point. However, this is countered by having to capture many dead ends. I would like to point out, that the top definitely has the ability to capture matching bonuses.

I'm seeing that the only thing really unfair on this board is how hard the damn neutrals are fighting back! The board is playing fairly even right now and I'll be leaving it as it is until many more games are played.

damn double post

weathertop wrote: the board is actually turning out to be pretty even, given one or the other doesn't have bad rolls. And the randomness of which seat placement starting first is becoming irrelevant. In games that both have had good rolls, both top and bottom are both winning, and usually the player with a better strategy (i.e. more experience) is winning, which is the way it should be.

Granted the bottom player has an "apparent" slight advantage due to the fact he can control two bonuses thru one choke point. However, this is countered by having to capture many dead ends. I would like to point out, that the top definitely has the ability to capture matching bonuses.

I'm seeing that the only thing really unfair on this board is how hard the damn neutrals are fighting back! The board is playing fairly even right now and I'll be leaving it as it is until many more games are played.

Ok!  I'll take your words for two reasons:

1) you're the developer and I guess you've tested it and you're still checking it, so you know what's going on (btw, the map is cool, despite the fact that I called all my games on this board "I hate this map" )

2) you're making me a compliment since, except for the games of the tournament I mentioned before, I won 7 games out of 8, hence I am using the right strategy for this map

Just for the record, I won:

• 5 games playing as the bottom in seat 1
• 1 game playing as the top in seat 1
• 1 as the bottom player in seat 2,

and lost

• 1 game as top player on seat 1.

Salut!

I agree with Tesctassa, the bottom has a definite edge.

Yeah. I don't think there's really a question at this point.

Bottom can control his continent in 1 move (yes, requires good rolling, but top has zero chance of that). And can control 2 continents (+10!!) in 2 moves. Top has essentially no possibility of controlling his first continent in 1 turn, and has to get very lucky just to get it in TWO turns, and if he doesn't he can be getting out-earned 13 to 3.

If bottom goes first, top has basically no chance of keeping up.