a solo play variant

Hey all. I just got back from Geekway to the West in St. Louis and got to play this game 3 times over the weekend (I tried every race except the elves).

I had fun but I'd like to see an expansion address a major shortcoming in the gameplay. I did NOT like how Runes were randomly generated. Each player starts with 2 Runes and a secret objective that can gain them a 3rd. After that, players have to wait for Runes to be placed due to Season cards, Heroes cashing in rewards, or Heroes discovering Dragon Thrones.

I'd like to see a variant where all Runes are initially placed on the board. Some able to be acquired by warfare. Others only able to be acquired by Heroes. This would force players into more direct conflict and would reward tactical decisions instead of players just stumbling onto them.

Twilight Imperium had the same problem (randomly generated victory goals) but provided a variant in the rule book to address this issue. Hopefully the Runewars expansion does the same.

While I'm sure that would appeal to some, to me it would make the game a lot more bland.  It would really take away from the point of gaining Influence in many cases, would make questing less useful, and would overall just make the game a slug-fest rather than the resource/diplomacy management than it is now.

I think it's a game that once you learn how the runes come into play, becomes more tense as you strive to control territory to put your runes in, and then work on defending that territory.  In so doing, if you want to gain runes for yourself, you have to try and keep a good amount of influence handy, keep your heroes active, and overall work to do many things at once.  By putting all the runes on the board to start with, all of a sudden you go from "multiple ways to win" to "one way to win", and I think that would be a bad thing for this game.

I agree. There shouldn't be one way to win. I just think the ways to win should all be known before the game begins. The ways to acquire the runes should vary - questing, warfare, spending diplomacy, maybe even winning over certain neutral units - but those should be on the board to begin with. It'd give the game focus and even drive players into direct conflict.

And like I said, they already did that Twilight Imperium. Seems to make sense to do it with a similar game.

Spamgristle said:

I guess I don't see what you mean by "on the board to begin with".  Either the runes are on the board to claim, or they aren't.  I'm not sure how you could have dynamically-changing runes and have them already there.

Spamgristle said:

I'm not sure how the comparison works.  TI3 is about claiming points (which you generally can't lose) via specific objectives.  Runewars is about claiming areas on the map containing specific tokens.  The method used in TI3 wouldn't really fit, as Runewars is not an "objective" or "victory point" based system.

I believe he is talking about the introduction of artifacts in TI3.  You could simulate this fairly easily by just putting some face up dragon thrones on the board to start with.

i would like more races and up to 5-6 players. new season cards and all that stuff. but what i also want is that they add something for the existing races. not new troops, but maybe a special ordercard, one for each race.

MeisterH said:

I like that idea.  #9, some cool racial power or "racial strategy" if that makes any sense.  Of course, being #9 it would nuke the use of supremacy on any orders following, so if it were designed to be cooler if used early, it would also carry a price.

Maybe give one or two races a racial order that was not as cool, but was also #0.  For that matter, I don't really see why you couldn't give such an order a number from 1-8, as long as we clearly establish a tie-breaker in case the player uses it and the "real" order of the same value in the same year.

(Or maybe such a tie breaker already exists... do I remember the rules correctly to say that the newly played order must be strictly higer than all previous orders to get the supremacy?)

Steve-O said:

It is a little vague, because the rules state on page 12 "if it is the current player's highest numbered card used this year".  While I think I would lean on the side of "if you play a second #3, it's not the "highest numbered card" the second time, I can see the argument of "highest" being "greater than or equal to", also.

I think if they did that method of adding another order, they would probably include something in the rules to say whether it means "higher than all other cards" or "higher or equal to all other cards".

sigmazero13 said:

that isn't the biggest problem i think, though it could be... but anyway, these special orders could relly strengthen the them of each faction and make each of them more distinct. the biggest problem with this idea is probably to make each of the faction specifik order balanced.

MeisterH said:

I agree.  The order number thing is easily clarified by one line, as long as they remember to mention it. =P

Making the orders balanced will be the toughie.  As I was saying before, Order #9 could be really cool at the cost of needing to be played last, order #0 could be fast and not so powerful, but if you make ALL the races have a #9, it wouldn't be as thematic.  Wow, each race has a nuke of a different colour.

You'd want a diversity of order numbers and appropriately balanced abilities for each in order to give each race it's own distinct "feel."  And balancing those order cards against one another and against the regular set would probably be a big headache.  Maybe more so than would be cost effective, hard to say, but it would be a cool idea if it could be done.

how bout a thread where people throw out ideas for a race specific action (with supremacy bonus and initiative number)

then we can argue about whether they are balanced.

Ideas I have:

Humans: Cunning Traders

Primary: Choose an opponent. Increase one of your resources by two. Your opponent chooses one resource to increase by one.

alternatively: Decrease one resource by 1 to increased a different resource by 2.

Secondary: Choose a different opponent if possible. Gain either 2 tactics or 2 influence. Your opponent then gains of  1 of whatever you chose.

A nice bonus with a tradeoff of helping other players a little... Gives humans a little flexibily and limited ability to help out "allies". number 4.5

Elves:

Nature's Bounty: Primary: increased your food resource by one

secondary: Increase your wood by one.

Helps out the elves when they dont have a good source of food. Give it a number 4.5 to be played right after Harvest.

Elves in tune with nature... they shouldnt have a hard time findings food and wood.

Demons:

Reavers: Primary: Sacrifice a unit to reduce one resource from each enemy by one, you must choose the same resource to reduce for each enemy.

Supremacy: Choose one enemy. That player loses one additional resource. Must be a different resource than choosen for the primary ability.

These guys should be mean but reckless, willing to sacrifice units. Number 4.5 as well. Should happen after harvest to be useful.

Undead:

Cannibalize.

Primary: Destroy a city to increase your food by 2, your wood by 2 and your ore by 1.

Supremacy: place two reanimates in the hex where the city was.

Munch Munch.. I dont think I need to explain how this is thematic. Great reward, but you have to make a great sacrifice. Number 4.5 as well.

I think the #1 thing we need before new races, heroes, and especially gimics that may or may not cause balancing issues are more tactics cards that work around your heroes.  Lost City is a perfect example of a great tactic card that utilizes heroes for more than just doing quests on the side.  The most common complaint I hear from people that dislike Runewars and people that love it alike is the fact that heroes in Runewars almost feel like an after thought.  Sure they are useful but their role tends to feel like a seperate game from your main forces.  But if we had more cards that used the spaces they occupied it would open up a far more vast usage of heroes in the core aspect of the game.  Just throwing ideas out there but cards could do things like allow you to transport a certain number of units to an empty space with a hero on it, get a str or other bonus for a space with a hero on it, maybe even have some way to set traps for said spaces, etc.

While having a few more wouldn't hurt, I don't want the heroes to become the crux of the game; I don't really see them as an "afterthought" as much as an important add-on.

I personally think the heroes do just enough to be useful and important in the game, without making them the focus.  Make them too central to things, and you're just going to have a Runebound Lite with some army stuff going on behind the scenes.

sigmazero13 said:

I don't think that would ever be a concern as the heroes don't participate in the battles so at the most they would be support with certain tactics cards.  I realize some people love the heroes but I see more comments from people on the boards and that I introduce to the game that instead seem to ask why they are there at all.  Honestly I will never deny that heroes play an important role in winning a game but at the same time it just seems too seperate from the rest of the game.  More tactic cards that utilize the heroes would only strengthen their position in the core game.