Sunday, January 11, 2015

Crusaders - end game triggers

Ok, after some thought and soliciting opinions on Twitter, here's how I might try an alternate game end trigger for Crusaders:

Instead of emptying the supply of VP (and taking vp for every single action in the game), I might try ending the game if any of the following occurs:
* Any player builds their 16th building
* 10 of any 1 Enemy are defeated, or at least 5 of each enemy are defeated
* Influence pool is depleted (smaller pool, maybe 20vp per player).

WHY would I want to change the game end trigger? Well, there are at least two reasons:

1. It's anti-climactic to be playing and having fun and then someone says "oh look, I took the last vp. I guess the game's over now." Sure, you can see the VP pile dwindling, but in my experience many players don't notice, or don't get a feeling of pressure that the game will end from that.

2. It's fiddly to have to take some VP tokens every single turn, and it could be easy to forget. All of the Troop and Building tile have their VPs printed on them, so it's easy to add those up at the end. The only thing I need vp tokens for is the Influence action, and Crusades. Crusades could have discrete scoring chits on the strength track (with 3/4/5... vp printed on them), obviating the need to take the right number of VP from the supply - that's almost as much work, but it's a little more elegant in that you don't have to worry about how many your taking. That leaves just VP from Influence.

The you would just add up all your VP from buildings (printed on board) Crusades, Influence tokens, and any bonuses at the end of the game.

So... is that better?

No comments: