Subject: Re: MN: Re: (unknown)

From: riffraff@n...
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2000 01:06:26 -0500

>Well, that certainly simplifies game time. I still don't think it's
>worth the effort, but with hour increment the effort is so little I
>won't argue over it (for now).

How long should Movement take? Say, 5 minutes per Token spent, plus 10 per
Line Change? (Not counting the 1 free change either pre- or post-Move.)

>Don't people have a stash of Tokens because they can't play them
>quickly enough. If not, does it matter as long as everyone is the
>same. Or those who don't have lots of Tokens will probably have spent
>them earlier to get in a better position. Or maybe because Tokens
>hardly ever leave the game (they just go on Token Stacks) the game
>saturates.

Well, with the Time limit back, we don't have to have the 2-Action limit we
were thinking of before. If we have a Time-increasing Action (say, 1 Green
per extra hour), that would pretty much allow you as many Actions as you
could pay for.

More thoughts:

Since Gambits have to involve at least 2 Stacks (and most would probably be
at least 3), then that makes them really expensive, even before you count
the movement and turns necessary to create the Stacks. Therefore Gambits
would end up being A) really powerful, and B) rarely used. I think they
add an interesting element to the game, and would like to see them used
more commonly, instead of ending up like Manoeuvers, which were neat but
almost never played.

So, how about having 2 ways to place a Token on a Station: first, the
regular post-Move Action <Dropping [Token] at [Station]>, which allows you
to place one of your Tokens at a Station you started or ended your Move on
or passed through, and also a neutral Action <Creating [Token] at
[Station]>, which allows you to create a _new_ Token at a Station you
either started or ended your Move at (but _not_ one you passed through),
depending on whether you play it as pre- or post-Move. This way, you don't
have to spend your own Tokens on the Gambit if you don't want to, making
the only 'cost' the time and effort it takes to get to the appropriate
Stations. This way, we can have less powerful, more common Gambits - and
if one needs to cost more, we can add a Token surcharge to activate the
Gambit after you've placed the last Token. (It would be possible to place
multiple tokens in a turn by both Dropping and Creating, but you'd be
paying extra because you'd be using some of your own Tokens.)

The greater amount of Tokens on the board shouldn't unbalance the relative
rarity of the Tokens much because it's so costly to pick them up (a Green
token is rarer than any except Silver or Gold), and the extra amount of
Tokens on the board allows us to play with higher Stacks (color patterns,
Toppling, etc.), and also Shunting them around to alter or prevent Gambits.
(And there could always be Actions or Gambits that would destroy Tokens.
For example, "If there are exactly 5 Black Tokens on a Line, you can play
the Gambit <Finger of Death> to destroy all Tokens on that Line."

Keeping track of the multiple Tokens also wouldn't be much of a problem -
in the RL game, there's an obvious visual cue, and in the e-mail version
there's a list of Stacks in the GSD - it would be harder to visualize them
on the map, but that wouldn't usually be necessary because with Gambits
like "4 Holy Stations with Blue Tokens at the top of the Stacks", the list
is sufficient to see how close you are to success. Having the Line
abbreviations included in the Stack list would make it even easier.

Another problem (IMO) I've noticed is that there's no longer much reason
(except for distance) to carefully plan what route you're taking in your
Move... since there's no LV, you don't have to calculate your route in a
way to exactly match your LV, and we don't currently have any Token bonuses
for route, only for the Station landed at. Should we have some kind of
Route Token Bonus or something?

--Riff

"This calls for a subtle blend of psychology and extreme violence."
--Vyvyan, "The Young Ones"

---

From: "Snow" <snowl@s...>
Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2000 07:34:05 +0100

> Line Change? (Not counting the 1 free change either pre- or
post-Move.)

I give an inch and you take a mile! I said game-time not Turn-time.
I still quite happy to argue over Turn time.

Snow's stupid idea of the day: No pre-move Actions. Fixed limit of 3
Actions per Turn, or -Gr per extra Action. What are pre-move Actions
for? How do they help the Game?

> [Station]>, which allows you to create a _new_ Token at a Station

I'm not sure I understand the logic of this. What's the point of
having different Tokens with different rarity if they can just be
magiced out of thin air at will. I understand that there is a problem
of not enough Tokens on the board, but this seems to undermine the
whole Token system. Unless I misunderstand you?

How having some Gambits that allow Tokens to "breed". Put a Green on 2
BR Stations and you get 3Gr.

> Route Token Bonus or something?

I think that if we can make the Gambit thing work there will be plenty
of route planning skills required. Not necessarily inside the Turn,
but over several Turns. Can you suggest a suitabe system for route
Token bonuses inside Turns?

-- Snow
"Penises can go up as well as down."