South Soldier Reserve & Game 7 Sartar Diplomacy Points

From: buserian_at_juno.com <buserian>
Date: Sun May 20 18:57:20 2007


Hi All,

Something Robert said spiked a memory cell.

On Fri, 18 May 2007 14:37:12 +1000 Robert McArthur <rjmcarthur_at_gmail.com> writes:
> > Also, anyone got any thoughts on best assignment of DP for Sartar or
Lunars
> > in this scenario? Last game I was Sartar and went for Ethilrist - he
and
> > the Dragonnewts never entered play in 14 turns, and I got the Exiles
and
> > CragSpider while the Lunars got the Grazelaners, Androgeus and Beast
Valley.
> > Delecti however was amazingly useful to me as Sartar player in this
> > situation. Anyway enough whittering - I've assigned my points now
anyway!
>
> No best assignment of DP IMHO. This, and the wonderfully eclectic and
> diverse units and methods, make the game replayable for a long time. We

> had a huge variety of DP situations, all of which are fun and work in
> one situation and not another (players, aggressiveness, moon phase,
> specials, etc). I will say that every game I've been in where a person
> has, eventually, the dragonnewts, has won. They are game enders IMHO.
It
> may take another 5 turns, but as long as you station a superhero (if
you
> have one left :-) in the eye, and use the newts as a re-newable
> resource, you *will* win.

When I was working on the Nomad Gods upgrade back in 93-94, I had several discussions with Charlie Krank about the game. He never really liked the non-Diplomacy alliance rules -- I think the thought they were too random, but I can't recall for sure. Anyway, he said that when he played Nomad Gods, rather than using the normal alliance rules they had assigned DP values to all the Praxian independents, and used normal DP diplomacy rules in NG. They had also, IIRC, assigned Diplomacy Point values to all of the minor independents in Dragon Pass, and simply used DP rules for all of them, with no alliances. I cannot recall if they upped how many DPs everyone gets each turn, and I do recall clearly that he had no idea where his list of DP values for the minor independents were.

Anyway, an interesting variant would be to assign DP values to all the minor independents and dump the Emissary rules completely, and see how it plays out. Want the Hydra? Assign DPs, probably lots of them. AND I would say a variable amount depending on the number of heads. That is, you assign DP each turn. Once you reach the minimum for 1 head, you roll to see how many heads there are. If you don't have enough, you keep going. Each time you have enough for the most recent roll for number of heads, you roll the die again. I think it would be fun to assign 10, and get a 3, meaning you need 30. So, you get to 30, but now you roll a 5. A few turns later, you have 50. You roll the die and it comes up a 1. So, you just spent 50 DP for a 1-headed hydra. Just seems perfect for Chaos. :)

Alternately, you need a lesser number of DP for the Hydra. BUT, if you roll the die and don't have enough assigned, it EATS them, and you start over from scratch. Hmm, yes -- I like that best for Chaos anyway. To be safe, you must assign the full 6xDP total for Hydra, or Delecti, or whoever. But, your opponent might decide to risk the die roll sooner, and maybe he gets lucky, maybe Chaos eats the DP.

Just a thought, anyway.

Steve

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