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[notquitethere]

And including GWG's phantom turn, that makes everyone. With no more colonists, it's now The End of The Game, right? Only took, what, fifteen weeks?

[Mephansteras]

Yeah, I'll wrap up the game sometime later today.

[Mephansteras]

First thing first - GWG's phantom turn:

Colonization: +1 Unskilled
Build: Market, Staff with Unskilled
Production: Farms X3 (3 Food), Harvester -> Goods Factory (-2 Food, +1 Basic Goods), CC (-1 Food, +2W)
Trade: Sell Basic Goods (+4W)

Net: +1 Unskilled, +1 Market, +6W

[Mephansteras]

Settlements

Kashyyk - Final VP 23
VPs: 14
Temporary Housing: 7 Unskilled
Reserved Colonist:
Wealth: 23
Resources:
Warehouse: 0/5
Contracts: 1 Machine, 1 Rare Goods
Size: 10/15
Colonial Center - Expert
Farm - 1 Unskilled
Farm - 1 Unskilled
Farm - 1 Unskilled
Farm Complex - 2 Unskilled
Laboratory - 1 Expert
Rare Harvester - 1 Skilled
Advanced Goods Factory - 1 Skilled
Market - 1 Unskilled


GreatWyrmGold - Final VP 
VPs: 0
Temporary Housing: 3 Unskilled, 1 Criminal
Reserved Colonist:
Wealth: 8
Resources:
Warehouse: 0/5
Contracts: 2 Basic Goods, 3 Machines
Size: 10/15
Colonial Center - 1 Skilled
Farm - 1 Unskilled
Farm - 1 Unskilled
Farm - 1 Unskilled
Prison - 4 Criminals
Harvester - 1 Unskilled
Goods Factory - 1 Unskilled
Goods Factory - 1 Expert
Market - 1 Unskilled


Toaster - Final VP 11
VPs: 11
Temporary Housing: 2 Criminals, 1 Experts, 5 Unskilled
Reserved Colonist:
Wealth: 11
Resources:
Warehouse: 0/5
Contracts: Officer
Size: 9/15
Colonial Center - 1 Expert
Farm - 1 Unskilled
Farm - 1 Unskilled
Farm Complex - 2 Unskilled
Harvester - Unskilled
Goods Factory - Skilled
Laboratory - Expert
Laboratory - Expert


xelada - Final VP 32
VPs: 14
Temporary Housing: 2 Skilled
Reserved Colonist:
Wealth: 6
Resources: 1 Machines, 1 Basic Goods
Warehouse: 2/5
Contracts: 1 Officer, 1 Machine
Size: 11/15
Colonial Center - 1 Skilled
Farm - 1 Unskilled
Farm - 1 Unskilled
Farm - 1 Unskilled
Barracks - 1 Unskilled
Barracks - 1 Unskilled
Harvester - 1 Unskilled
Goods Factory - 1 Unskilled
Machine Factory - 1 Skilled
Boot Camp -
Military HQ -

notquitethere - Final VP 47
VPs: 45
Temporary Housing: 2 Skilled, 3 Unskilled
Reserved Colonist:
Wealth: 5
Resources:
Warehouse: 0/5
Contracts: Basic Goods
Size: 8/15
Colonial Center - 1 Expert
Farm - 1 Unskilled
Farm - 1 Unskilled
Barracks -
Barracks -
Officer School - 1 Skilled
Officer School - 1 Skilled
Boot Camp -


Breakdown:

	Kashyyk	GreatWyrmGold	Toaster	xelada	notquitethere
VP Chips	14	0	11	14	45
Unemployment	-7	-5	-10	-2	-5
Wealth & Resources	2	0	1	1	0
Buildings	14	15	11	19	7

Clearly Military needs a big nerf, which I have in the current rules. Other then that, though, do you guys have any comments on the rules?

For my side, I've already put a few changes in based on this and some other play tests I've run.

1) Military has been nerfed considerably. Values for buying/selling have gone down across the board, soldiers can no longer be bought, and the # of Officers available to buy is always very low.
2) Trade in general has been tweaked to make Contracts much more valuable. Available resources have been reduced considerably across the board.
3) The bonus for Build has been changed. Now, the basic effect of build lets you build a single tile building. The bonus for playing Build is that you can build either two small buildings or a Complex. It is no longer possible to build a Complex without playing build yourself.

[Kashyyk]

So I lost only to those who played Military? Cool.

Maybe something like needing an officer to staff the Barracks and Boot Camp as well?

[notquitethere]

Good game guys!

Part of the thing with military route was able I was able to force junk colonists on others with my constant colonisation, know I could absorb my population into the VP-making machine.

I was kicking myself when War turned up immediately after I'd sold everyone, but Expansion was the second best and it still allowed me to win just fine. If things were a bit tighter, I'd have organised once more and did another round of solider/officer creation and selling before the end.

With my strategy, you'd think that the Military HQ would be the obvious building to get but it didn't really make sense: 1. it used two precious food to activate; 2. it was costly to build and staff; and 3. by Organising I was able to maintain my position in first place in the ordering, which allowed the preferential Colonisation picks necessary for ensuring skilled+ workers for the academy.

Because anyone could get any kind of resource easy enough, other players production strategies didn't really affect one another. Ideally you'd want to encourage more interdependence in economies. Lowering the amount of resources up for grabs from Trade might be a step towards that.

I know there are deliberately multiple routes to a win but what are the obvious routes? Buying high VP buildings, harvesting VP with labs, earning shed loads of money and selling military. The shed loads of money route could do with more love. I'd have thought arbitrage might have been an attractive route (build warehouses, buy and sell as the economy shifts), but the price differences between phases don't make that overly useful and there's no way of encouraging a favourable economic climate.

Maybe something like needing an officer to staff the Barracks and Boot Camp as well?

That would massively up the overall food requirement for a military strategy though.

[Mephansteras]

I've gone massive money before. It usually involves either Rare Raw/Goods, Prisons, or Resort. I'm rather surprised that GWG didn't go for a Farm Complex to feed his prison, since he had pretty massive wealth generation options available to him with it.

Although, even with that Massive Wealth isn't really a strategy so much as a way to segue into another strategy, usually buildings. I don't think I've ever had enough money left over to do more than break even with Unemployment, and that can be a fair chunk of change.

[notquitethere]

I feel though the only element really pushing players to dynamically adopt different strategies in game is what colonists they get saddled with. GWG got a prison because he was inundated with criminals. More of that sort of thing would be good-- maybe by making the amount of goods available and the prices they go for vary a fair bit more between the phases?

Maybe encouraging money hoarding isn't desirable anyway. Mixed strategies involving a nice range of buildings and the fewest wasted phases is ideal. In the mid-game I managed to do something productive in almost every phase, which certainly helped somewhat.

I imagine the game plays a little bit different in a live setting? Here I was easily able to plan my moves many rounds in advance, knowing what phases I'd want to be taking and what phases I'd want to encourage others to take to maximise my efficiency.

[Mephansteras]

Live games are certainly different. Possibly due to the people involved, and certainly due to the fact that the game happens over the course of a few hours instead of a few months.

I see a lot less in the way of phase choice colluding in live games, and a lot more trade between players. I also see warehouses used a lot more.

[notquitethere]

The correct meta-strategy for this (regardless of how you're planning to rake in the VPs) is to maximise your actions per round, and this means getting a sense of what phases your fellows are likely to submit. Rather than submitting build then produce then trade ad infinitum, better to figure out who else is going to do those things and then maximise your actions by doing an lesser phase, like Survey or Organisation.

[Mephansteras]

In case anyone who was in this game is interested, I'm going to be starting up v3 sometime soon.