When "Multiple attacks" are On and the "T" button is used, it forces ALL armies to advance when abandonment is on. This is a good thing.

There are two additions I would like to request, either one of which would make for better play with Abandon ON ..with the goal of creating "characters" on the board.

1. With the Multiple attacks setting, the options would be On, Off, and "T Button Only."
2. Under Abandonment, replace "Allow abandonment.." with "Abandonment of territories" and create the following options: On, Off, and "Forced Abandonment," where upon winning a battle ALL armies automatically advance.

With either or both of the above settings, a "Character Stack" is created. Because those armies always remain intact, it can never splinter into multiple characters, and designers can create characters with different strengths by assigning them x number of units at Setup. My preference would be for feature #2, though I suspect this one would be more difficult to implement ..of course :(

Of course, bonuses cards and factories would enable players to replenish their characters.

I like where you're going with this

Ooo, that is quite smart! i think that sounds fun :)

Couldn't the players use fortifies to break up or strengthen their "characters"? I guess you could use all 'attack only" borders?

Ozyman wrote:Couldn't the players use fortifies to break up or strengthen their "characters"? I guess you could use all 'attack only" borders?

Attack only borders are not necessary. Just set Number of Fortifies Allowed to "0."  On the other hand you could enable it such that players could use fortifies to "share" weapons.

Agree that this would be a fun feature -- would have been super handy in my Dungeon Quest board and boards like Ravenloft, I feel.

I'm working on a board right now where I'm forcing the issue by making it such that a player is eliminated if they have control of three or more territories on the map. In other words, they can only have two stacks. I'm using off-board territories with an off-board capital to make it happen. If they own three territories at the start of their turn, their capital self destructs. The board is big with 650+ territories and each territory has to be linked to each capital by factory. With six players that's close to 4000 factories right there.

Of course things get more complicated from there. When players are eliminated on the map they are suppose to lose the game. The problem is that the capital is still alive. So I had to create a "switch" that knows when a player has been eliminated on the map (another 4000 factories), which in turn eliminates the player's capital. I'm no Ed Nygma It took me the better part of a day to figure out how to do it. It's not elegant.. It takes two turns for the switch to kick in and take out the capital. So the player has to "take his turn" for two rounds even after they've lost.

There are a number of designer features that would go towards making this much easier. One is the one mentioned in the title of this thread, which would make it such that you wouldn't need any factories - but there are others. For instance, Making it such that when you lose ANY capital you are immediately eliminated. I'd still have to make a ton of capitals, but there would be no delay. Real-time factories is another.

Hmm.. Token territories is another (though only if you could make the off board capital a token territory). Tom has mentioned that Token territories would be very time consuming to implement, but it is clearly one of the most requested features by designers here.

M57 wrote:I'm working on a board right now where I'm forcing the issue by making it such that a player is eliminated if they have control of three or more territories on the map...

It's not elegant.. It takes two turns for the switch to kick in and take out the capital. So the player has to "take his turn" for two rounds even after they've lost.

Yes, this is the same work-around I used on Dungeon Quest. A total pain not only because of the time delay but also because it turns off new players who don't bother to read the rules and kill themselves on the first turn. Also, I'd recommend building in some sort of mechanism to let players pull back their units if they make a mistake and wind up with 3 territories -- would a single fortify-to-anywhere work for your board?

Kjeld wrote:Also, I'd recommend building in some sort of mechanism to let players pull back their units if they make a mistake and wind up with 3 territories -- would a single fortify-to-anywhere work for your board?

It's definitely been on my radar. I'm actually thinking of two fortifies because I'm so concerned about it. The question I've been considering is whether or not to enable 'back to attack.' If not enabled, there's an implied penalty because with a limit on the number of attacks per turn if you mess up and create an extra stack you have to keep both stacks close so you can rejoin at the end of the turn. My inclination is to allow 'back to attack;" otherwise it's insult to injury.

I'm trying to get my head around this suggestion... sounds very powerful but it will need some tinkering with the core game logic so I'll need to refresh my memory on how abandonment is handled currently. I'll let you know!

tom wrote:I'm trying to get my head around this suggestion... sounds very powerful but it will need some tinkering with the core game logic so I'll need to refresh my memory on how abandonment is handled currently. I'll let you know!

Thanks for looking into it, Tom!

Follow up question - if the T button is the only attack button that is enabled, that means for all attacks, all units in the attacking territory will automatically advance to the target territory upon winning a battle.

So, in what way would the behaviour change if 'Allow abandonment of territories' is changed from 'Yes' to 'Forced Abandonment'?

tom wrote:Follow up question - if the T button is the only attack button that is enabled, that means for all attacks, all units in the attacking territory will automatically advance to the target territory upon winning a battle.

So, in what way would the behaviour change if 'Allow abandonment of territories' is changed from 'Yes' to 'Forced Abandonment'?

In games with a limited amount of attacks, it may be (and is in the case with the board I'm working on) desirable to turn OFF 'Multiple Attacks' when the designer wants battles to "take time" (at the cost of movement). Currently, when the T and A buttons are disabled and the opponent stack is defeated, there's no way to force abandonment.

Because there is already a Allow Multiple Attacks ON/OFF rule, all that would need to be created is a "Forced Abandonment" rule. It could be its own rule, but it might make more sense to put it in the "Allow Abandonment of Territories" Dropdown and alter the name of the rule to accommodate its expanded functionality. A "T Only" button is restrictive in comparison.

Right, so a rule that basically operationalizes this: "If you attack A --> B and conquer B, you must move all units from A to B".

Kjeld wrote:Right, so a rule that basically operationalizes this: "If you attack A --> B and conquer B, you must move all units from A to B".

Yes.

it occurs to me that it would be even more flexible if the feature was in the "Territories" section of the designer such that you could enable it on a territory-by-territory basis - or to override the global setting. I can't think of a use for that level of functionality right off the top of my head. ..maybe when you want to create a kind of restricted tech tree where the player has to choose between a number of abilities/options??

I'm just making sure that all possibilities are considered. Even if it's not implemented that way at first, it might be something tom makes allowances for while coding the basic feature. The Territories section of the Designer is not overloaded with options at this point, but if GUI space and perceived complexity are considerations, it may make more sense to leave space for a Token Territories option should it ever come to fruition. That seems to be the consensus high-priority request from the design community here.

Kjeld wrote:Right, so a rule that basically operationalizes this: "If you attack A --> B and conquer B, you must move all units from A to B".

That makes sense, thanks guys!

Another detail - if the new 'Forced Abandon' rule is Enabled, what happens if the number of occupying units is greater than the territory unit maximum?

I'd suggest that the territory unit maximum should take priority in this case, in which case of course an abandon won't happen.

tom wrote:Another detail - if the new 'Forced Abandon' rule is Enabled, what happens if the number of occupying units is greater than the territory unit maximum?

I'd suggest that the territory unit maximum should take priority in this case, in which case of course an abandon won't happen.

Agree, though if it happened it would likely be the result of either intentional or poor design. If the attacking territory has the same (or smaller) territory max, the problem doesn't exist. An intentional example that takes advantage of your suggestion might be when the designer wants to create a way for a player to split a stack.

An intentional example that takes advantage of your suggestion might be when the designer wants to create a way for a player to split a stack.

Oh yes, cool idea!

I can easily imagine that my next series of boards would take full advantage of it, so I've been thinking a bit about the "Forced Abandon" rule.

One of the goals is to avoid the need for thousands of factories that, even when designed efficiently, bog down game play. So for instance, it's not to difficult to think of potential scenarios that would be easier to create if "Forced Abandon" or even Abandon OFF/ON could be selected at the individual territory level, but I'm also thinking that there are probably work-arounds for many of them that wouldn't require too many factories, so I'm ok with that.

If this comes to fruition, I will be very happy to destroy the 7 or 8 thousand factories I created for my current board and never look back 😋. If not, at least I can recycle the xml from the board I'm working on now to create similar games, though I won't be as excited knowing that the combination of a 'surprise' death penalty for splitting stacks combined with a delayed elimination when killed on the map will probably frustrate a lot of players. And even there, there will be restrictions I'll have to deal with. These designs won't be nearly as good as they could be when I want to give players more than a handful of characters because they will be able to intentionally "split off" new characters whenever they are below the limit.

I hope this is not coming off as passive/aggressive. I am ok with the poor ratings that Kjeld suggests these type of boards are likely to receive. I make them to play them myself (just look at my games history) ..but it's always better to create a board that more folks will enjoy!