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[GreatWyrmGold]

That would work pretty well in my opinion.

That might help, but again it doesn't help much if you can't get to a bunch of mountains. And they don't help growth. Maybe have the terrain bonuses also allow them to count [terrain] as plains (or fractional plains?) for the purpose of growing food?

[a1s]

Speaking of food, I think that Grow/Harvest is overpowered all on it's own. I would suggest it be something like:
Grow/Harvest: gain 1 population, you may only perform this action as many times as you have plains.

Or even:
Grow: turn 1 plain into a field.
Harvest: turn 1 field into a plain, gain 1 population
(grow being a spring action, and harvest being a fall action)

This would also create suspense about vulnerable fields and simulate the usual abundance of military power during the summer (but not fall) in medieval societies.

[notquitethere]

GWG

That would work pretty well in my opinion.

That might help, but again it doesn't help much if you can't get to a bunch of mountains. And they don't help growth. Maybe have the terrain bonuses also allow them to count [terrain] as plains (or fractional plains?) for the purpose of growing food?

Seems a bit too much: the benefit of mountains is that they can't (easily) be conquered by others or changed to anything else. They're spread across the map to allow the creation of defensive choke-points. Perhaps the map should be rejigged to increase this aspect (increase the number of mountains? Decrease the number of plains to force more Improvement use?), or Perhaps there could be a more useful Heresy doing something with mountains.

a1s

Speaking of food, I think that Grow/Harvest is overpowered all on it's own. I would suggest it be something like:
Grow/Harvest: gain 1 population, you may only perform this action as many times as you have plains.

Or even:
Grow: turn 1 plain into a field.
Harvest: turn 1 field into a plain, gain 1 population
(grow being a spring action, and harvest being a fall action)

Funnily enough, I did consider the second option. This would certainly lead to slower pop-growth and a slower rate of expansion overall.

Do you think it would be better with slower expansion and more competing civs? I feel like we probably could easily have gone up to 8 civs without too much overcrowding at the start.

[kaian-a-coel]

Bigger map, modification of turn order. Humans essentially are a turn ahead, they should go last.
I am in favour of revamping Grow as well. Raze needs to be looked at too.
A population cap increased by cities would be nice. As it stands there is little interest in making them late game, and early game you're too busy and need the plains.

[a1s]

How about this: cities produce money, which
a) can be traded between players
b) can be used to become the fist player (before the change of season you PM the GM the amount you spend on becoming first or last. people who spent the same amount go in the same order as last turn.)
c) also maybe you get +1 pop for the cost of 10 money?

an example of how the turn thing works:

last turn people went in the order
Alice
Bob
Charles
Dietrich
Edward.

Alice spends 3 to go last
Bob spends nothing to go first
Charles spends 1 to go first
Dietrich spends 3 to go first
Edward spends 1 to go first.

then the new order will be:

Dietrich (he spent the most)
Charles
Edward (spent the same, but Charles was earlier on the list last time)
Bob (spent less then they did)
Alice (wanted to go last)

[GreatWyrmGold]

Seems a bit too much: the benefit of mountains is that they can't (easily) be conquered by others or changed to anything else.

...which doesn't help the other races. And if I'm not mistaken, just about the only value of owning terrain comes from either grow/harvest or from being able to make it into something better.

Perhaps the map should be rejigged to increase this aspect (increase the number of mountains? Decrease the number of plains to force more Improvement use?), or Perhaps there could be a more useful Heresy doing something with mountains.

[notquitethere]

BTW, it's your turn kaian-a-coel. IronyOwl can go whenever they want as well.

Bigger map, modification of turn order. Humans essentially are a turn ahead, they should go last.
I am in favour of revamping Grow as well. Raze needs to be looked at too.
A population cap increased by cities would be nice. As it stands there is little interest in making them late game, and early game you're too busy and need the plains.

I'll bear those suggestions in mind. The benefit of cities is supposed to be that they prevent your population from being eaten away through conquest, but this could be drawn out a bit more by having a bigger map. This might encourage each civilisation to have a sort of heartland with their cities in, with a frontier that's heavily contested. I'll definitely be rethinking the population advancement, as it's very easy for there to be huge gulfs in the number of actions you can take.

a1s

How about this: cities produce money, which
a) can be traded between players
b) can be used to become the fist player (before the change of season you PM the GM the amount you spend on becoming first or last. people who spent the same amount go in the same order as last turn.)
c) also maybe you get +1 pop for the cost of 10 money?

An interesting notion, but it would require a lot more from the players. I'm very much in favour of being in a position of waiting on players: the game is more engaging if it moves briskly. The money idea would require players to think tactically on another level, which is nice, but simply giving the poorest performing players the most advantage would probably work better for game balancing given the different skill levels of players.

GWG

Seems a bit too much: the benefit of mountains is that they can't (easily) be conquered by others or changed to anything else.

...which doesn't help the other races. And if I'm not mistaken, just about the only value of owning terrain comes from either grow/harvest or from being able to make it into something better.

Well, sort of. The player with the most terrain at the end of the game wins, so being able to take mountains and hold them is useful in the long run (and in the early game, holding a mountain might prevent you from being wiped out).


What do people think of the Heresies as they stand? Builder was far and away the most popular. I'm thinking I priced the Shaker ability too high.

[a1s]

What do people think of the Heresies as they stand? Builder was far and away the most popular. I'm thinking I priced the Shaker ability too high.

I have to agree with that. Aquatic is actually not useful to most species (which is why it wasn't chosen, despite probably being a decent choice for Doges and Mermen) and chaotic is possibly too unpredictable (although the chance to expand into the ocean- away from all the mean humans- could be interesting)
Also, I don't see why shakers lose population on their own tiles- they must be doing the shaking on a schedule, so the inhabitants have lots of time to evacuate.

[notquitethere]

I have to agree with that. Aquatic is actually not useful to most species (which is why it wasn't chosen, despite probably being a decent choice for Doges and Mermen) and chaotic is possibly too unpredictable (although the chance to expand into the ocean- away from all the mean humans- could be interesting)
Also, I don't see why shakers lose population on their own tiles- they must be doing the shaking on a schedule, so the inhabitants have lots of time to evacuate.

The thing about Aquatic is, you might want to block off the advance of your enemies by putting a river in the way, or you might want to expand a river so you can irrigate your own desert. But... maybe the map or how the ability is currently worded doesn't really encourage this enough.

I'm going to get rid of Chaotic for Heretics of Hexland 2: one of the benefits of the turn order is that everyone can see what the person before them did and they don't need me to process every single person's turn. Chaotic is the only thing that requires me to make a roll which could have bogged things down if GWG had lived longer.

Yeah, Shakers probably shouldn't lose population on their own land. I think if the map was a lot more mountainous, they'd be more useful.

[GreatWyrmGold]

I'm going to get rid of Chaotic for Heretics of Hexland 2: one of the benefits of the turn order is that everyone can see what the person before them did and they don't need me to process every single person's turn. Chaotic is the only thing that requires me to make a roll which could have bogged things down if GWG had lived longer.

On the other hand, I also went last, so there isn't anyone it could have affected.

In general...heresies seem too specific-use. I don't know what happens later, but for now most didn't seem much use.

[notquitethere]

On the other hand, I also went last, so there isn't anyone it could have affected.

Yeah, that's true. What would have been an issue is if you wanted to randomise a tile and then conquer it. I'd have had to break your turn up into two parts.

In general...heresies seem too specific-use. I don't know what happens later, but for now most didn't seem much use.

Ideally, they should give an additional and specific tactical advantage. The thing is, most of the time you're better off using your actions on the regular actions. Is that an issue?

[kaian-a-coel]

I think it is, since the turn order ends up outweighting the advantages for most of them. Heresies should stay very specific but be more powerful.

Anyway,
Expand 4 8 35 48 62, grow.

[notquitethere]

kaian-a-coel

I think it is, since the turn order ends up outweighting the advantages for most of them. Heresies should stay very specific but be more powerful.

Yeah I think I'm with you on this. Maybe push them to being expensive but more game changing effects. Do you have any unique action suggestions? I thought about a bridge-building one (for crossing but not inhabiting ocean tiles) but I'm still working out how it could be sensibly implemented.

[a1s]

I just noticed (realized, I guess is a better word) that ocean tiles don't have numbers, does that mean chaotic heresies couldn't have affected them?

[notquitethere]

That's right. You could turn tiles into ocean tiles and effectively remove them from the game. But I'm considering changing that for the next game. To effect an ocean square you'd say something like, Shore Up the tile northeast of 20. Or, Shore 20-NE for short. Or maybe not: permanently removing tiles from the game seems like an interesting tactical choice.