itsnotatumor wrote:

Andernut wrote:

Green needs the biggest boost imo, so that's good.  Just a note on the UK.  Their 1st red tech is often next to useless for me due to limited area of impact, it lets you get your capital continent, but other players can wipe out a ton of units with theirs.

Yeah, I would rather have UK skip 1 & 3 than 2 & 4 if that's possible...

Since the first red tech has no neutrals, so you can almost "skip" it, it just costs you the 1 tech point you have to leave behind. 

I agree that for the UK, some green and red are less useful, because the nation is so small.  But Europe as a whole is fairly large, and the small nation is also an advantage  - very easy to take for the additional +2 tech units a turn.

Asia's flask is similar to Europe's flask.  Europe needs Greenland to complete the bonus, but for NA Greenland is an easy expansion too, has the flask, and reduces borders by1 for NA so they're already in direct conflict often.

Until I've tried a test though I can't comment on what is fair or unfair.

Andernut wrote:

Asia's flask is similar to Europe's flask.  Europe needs Greenland to complete the bonus, but for NA Greenland is an easy expansion too, has the flask, and reduces borders by1 for NA so they're already in direct conflict often.

That's something I've thought about for a while.  I guess I like the fact that those two flasks are in such contention - otherwise the only real flasks to fight over are Oceania & South America, which doesn't seem like enough.  And with their defensive bonus they can be important defense points.  

As you said - the question is really are they fair?  I think overall the green civ is at a disadvantage, but I'm not sure how true that is, or how much of it is due to the Saudi Arabia flask.  I'll try to find some games from experienced players and watch the history to get some idea how things are balanced.  If you've been in a game with some worthy opponents, post a link if you want & I'll take a look.

If anyone is interested, here is a game that just completed between me & the top 3 ranked players on invention:

http://www.wargear.net/games/view/207380

I started playing later on so it took me longer to make top 3.  Feel free to invite me for the next test ;)

I guess each nation has a contestable flask on their border, subjective experience says that the one in South Africa and the one in North America aren't as contested.

Also, fyi - I am planning on having the green techs be worth +1/+2 instead of +1/+3.  The more I thought about it, the more the +3 techs seemed like they would be so powerful, that I would have to put a lot of neutrals on them, and then they would be too hard to get and go unused.

Andernut - I will be sure to invite you to some test games as things get going.

One more note - In the game I posted Timmy won by focusing on green techs.  Considering he is ranked #1 and has played over a 100 games on Invention, I may have to rethink just how much of a boost green techs need.

Okay, I made myself number 1 so you would take my suggestion with more weight ;) 

I'd love to play the new one btw.

lol.  New one will probably be reading for play testing in a few weeks & I will be sure to invite you!

Bump!  Hope all is well ;)

FYI - Green tech can be viable.  Not AS viable sometimes imo, but then again not all strategies need be equally viable and should adapt to the way the board is looking. 

It's coming along.  I'm just about to move it from Alpha to Beta status.  One of the changes made was to reduce neutral counts for green tech, so hopefully that will make those more attractive.

Ok, I'm opening it up for beta. 

http://www.wargear.net/boards/view/4302

I think it is pretty close to ready, but maybe some small tweaks still to be made.

Here are the things I am still actively considering changing:

• Starting Neutrals in the various techs
• Change from 5 to 6 fortifies
• Put max unit count on Espionage (maybe 10 or 15?)
• Balancing between the civs (maybe give green some extra units in capital?)

I'd also change other things, but that's what's on my mind right now.

Please let me know if you have any suggested changes or think one civ is not fairly balanced, etc.  

I also rewrote the description to hopefully make things more clear.  Let me know what you think of that.  Especially if you have never played Invention before, I would love to know what parts you find confusing.

I must say that Green seems to win it's share of games that I've been in. It seems that Red wins the least. Here's what I've noticed as far as win %:

1) yellow
2) green
3) blue
4) red

Thingol wrote: I must say that Green seems to win it's share of games that I've been in. It seems that Red wins the least. Here's what I've noticed as far as win %:

1) yellow
2) green
3) blue
4) red

I assume that is for the current Invention?  I always thought:

1) blue
2) yellow/red

4) Green

I wish I could somehow tell this from the charts.  Or if I could download game logs I could parse them and figure it out.  I guess I'll see what I can do by hand.

I think the changes in the techs may have made the life techs more accessible/powerful and therefore increased the relative standing of larger civs, which should help resolve my perceived blue/green imbalance issues.  Of course I don't even know exactly what balance issues exist.

I started some games on the new scenarios:

• http://www.wargear.net/games/join/254244
• http://www.wargear.net/games/join/254243
• http://www.wargear.net/games/join/254242

Updates:

1. Changed Green's color to not be exactly the same as the color of Russia.
2. Reduced starting tech points in flask from 18 to 12
3. Reduced starting tech neutrals for Radar from 4 to 2.
4. Reduced starting tech neutrals for ICBM from 20 to 15.
5. Removed Venezuela & East Brazil border.

considering:

1. Change from 5 to 6 fortifies
2. Put max unit count on Espionage (maybe 10 or 15?)
3. Fog to Total

And then these two are essentially balance issues so will always be in consideration:

1. Starting Neutrals in the various techs
2. Balancing between the civs

I just noticed something weird, though it may just be my error, but it appears that red's espionage has no disadvantage when attacking blue's sanitation.

So, this may be a noob question, but how are the Super-Continents defined for Tech bonuses?  For Beijing, for example, is China the 'Continent' and Asia the Super-Continent?  Or does the Super-Continent include Indonesia and Australia?

>For Beijing, for example, is China the 'Continent' and Asia the Super-Continent?

This is correct, although in this case I would say China is the "Nation".  Oceania & South America are independent from the other 4 civilizations, and are their own super-continents (but only for a normal board bonus, they don't earn any tech points other than their respective labs.)

I just added a table to the relevant section on the wiki:

http://www.wargear.net/wiki/doku.php?id=boards:invention:invention&#capitals_home_lands_nations_super_continents

Ok - Invention 2nd Edition is finally live.  Thanks to Tom especially for giving us a wiki.  It really helps with complicated maps like this to be able to have images, tables, formatting, etc.

http://www.wargear.net/wiki/doku.php?id=boards:invention:invention

http://www.wargear.net/boards/view/Invention

I've play tested quite a bit, but please let me know if you notice any bugs or any problems or comments in general.

I have not yet added a "barbarians" scenario for 2nd edition.  That will come eventually.

Sorry if this has been answered already; I don't really know how to navigate these forums very well yet.

If I use Espionage to capture an opponent's tech, do I reap the benefits of that tech? Or am I just disallowing them from doing so?

eg. I capture an opponent's Computers tech; do I get 3 additional tech points each turn? I assume not, because I don't see "UK_Computers +3" or whatever under the 'Factory Bonus' column. Just thought I'd check here to be sure.

williamthewizard wrote:

Sorry if this has been answered already; I don't really know how to navigate these forums very well yet.

If I use Espionage to capture an opponent's tech, do I reap the benefits of that tech? Or am I just disallowing them from doing so?

eg. I capture an opponent's Computers tech; do I get 3 additional tech points each turn? I assume not, because I don't see "UK_Computers +3" or whatever under the 'Factory Bonus' column. Just thought I'd check here to be sure.

You will reap the benefits of any bonuses you have completed.  For instance, each computer only deploys to each civilization's own flask, so, if you eliminate someone and subsequently auto-capture their flask then you could espionage from your original civ's tech tree and take the computer for the civ that you just conquered and that would complete the bonus... But, since computers are not universal, just taking the computer alone completes no bonus for you.  So, if you didn't also capture the corresponding players flask via their elimination then the computer alone would only serve to disrupt your opponents tech points.  If you espionage health tech and hold territories that correspond to that health tech's deployment in your opponents territory on the board then you will benefit from the health tech that you espionaged, and that can be a useful strategy.  You could also push your espionaging armies through to someone's war techs, say for instance their nukes, and then use nukes from an alternative tech tree and reap their benefits from there.  This might be useful, for instance, if you had tech points on your nukes and on your espionage and then ran out of your own nukes trying to pave the way to taking a capital, after using your espionage to wear down their capital you could then transfer the remainder of your espionage tech points to the weakest of your opponents nukes to finish paving the way for your ground troops on the board to make it through to their capital.  I believe that the flask is autocaptured prior to bonuses being calculated in your next turn, so, if you captured someone's capital and espionaged their computers in the same turn I believe that you would reap the benefits of those computers in the new tech tree from your first turn of autocapturing the flask?  The short answer, however, is that you reap the benefits so long as you hold, are are capturing in the same turn, the corresponding territories to complete any bonuses.