Nazroth said:

Depends on where the portals are.  There are only 4 of them, and they are just as likely to be bunched together as to really be put in strategically useful areas.  And it also takes time to find them; there are many games where several of the Exploration Tokens are never explored, and if some of those are Portals, that's just going to make it harder.  And it also assumes that all 4 portals are placed on the map at all.

Plus, Portals are a liability for the attacker; it takes 1 influence to make the attack, but if you end up having to retreat, it takes another influence to move back.

Also, using Portals would assume that the players don't destroy them; I'd be likely to destroy a local portal if I was worried about other players moving through it to attack me.

They can HELP, but they won't SOLVE the problem, especially if you don't use the Exploration Tokens OPTIONAL rule.

sigmazero13 said:

What makes you think that the rules for the map setup would remain the same in a 5 or 6 players game? Just saying... :)

P.S.: I'm happy with Runewars as it is, but I don't think that an expansion that allows more players would break the game. Look at Twilight Imperium, from which Runewars borrowed a lot of ideas, with it's 8 players capacity. Sadly, more players means less active gaming time for all players.

I'm not only player - i also sell boardgames in Bard Centrum Gier Kraków, Poland - and must say that runewars is a marble of sort. Twilight Imperium  - great game with looots of possibilities, but gaming with 5-7 friends is a little bit one way gaming. Withous even temporary allies you can't win. Runewars is evidently based on Twilight Imperium, but it seems that it's creators went to hell and get back only not to make same mistakes twice. So we have a game that is fully interactive, with hightly reduced 'awaiting oponent' moments, strategic, economic and with adventure motives - it is a titan.

They made it perfect (well almost) and didn't made same mistakes. Now we all haveour order cards - it makes 'choosing orders' much quicker, than in TI. We do not need piles of junk to keep track on our resources, and do not use dices either. It was very difficult to play a 8 player game of TI with only basic dice set.

Runewars took everything that was ever good and popular in all those BIG FFG GAMES, and untill now it had only two drawbacks (for me).

1) shaking faction sheets (all about those arrows, just glued some flat legs under the sheet and it stoped annoing me).

2) NO EXPANSION!

Damned - it is so good that it finally is here (almost here).

All this crap to say: Dont believe that making Runewars 'up to six' 'll make any difference. Maybe they will just barrow more of TI rules - like jump holes, don't know - underground passages? pre-destined on specific area elements, or maybe some other cool ideas. Up to now Runewars is a hybrid of Heroes of Might and Magic and Twilight Imperium. There's a plenty of ideas to explore.

Deep in my heart i know that whatever they choose to put inside this, and another expansion - it is my duty (as a RWS Lover) and it will be much funn to buy it.

Maerimydra said:

Yes, and I think TI3 is significantly WORSE and LESS FUN to play with 7 and 8 players than it is with 6.  It supports 8, yes, but does not support it well.  Honestly, after having played a few 7/8 player games, I will never do so again; the downtime is too much, the interaction drastically drops, etc.

I see where you are going, but that analogy doesn't work for me, but in fact for my part reinforces MY point - Runewars would NOT be a better game just for supporting 5 and 6 players, but would in fact lose some of it's luster.

sigmazero13 said:

What you describe here is true for any board game out there (more players  = more downtime), and I would never expect nor want Runewars to supports 8 players, even in a distant future following the release of other expansions, because that's just a crazy number. As a tabletop RPG gamer, I know only too well how a larger group of player doesn't mean a larger amount of fun: it's more the other way around after exceeding a certain threshold. However, what is the hard limit that a specific game should not exceed? There's no definitive answer for that. For example, in a tabletop RPG, my sweet spot is 4 to 5 players + 1 game master while one of my fellow gamers prefer a group of 3 to 4 players + 1 game master, so it looks like it's not only a matter of game mechanics and downtime, but also a matter of taste. Players' experience also have a huge impact on downtime in any game. 4 experienced players could end a game of Runewars before 2 noobs could. Everytime I introduce someone to Runewars, I prefer to play a 2 players game with him, because it's much faster and it allows the new player to learn the game more quickly. Once he has a good understanding of the mechanics and strategies of the game, he's ready for a 3 or 4 players game, my favorite kind of games in Runewars.

Since Runewars is more streamlined, fast and intuitive than TI3, and TI3 can be enjoyable with 6 players (apparently), I can't see why Runewars wouldn't be enjoyable (not better, just enjoyable) with 5 players. Sure, a 4 players game could still be more fun than a 5 players game, but if a 5 players option can prevent you from forsaking one of  your "extra" friends just because the core game only accommodates 4 players, it may be worth it. As for me, I already have a hard time finding enough people to play 4 players games, so the fact that Banners of War doesn't come with new factions doesn't bother me at all. However, I can understand why some people were waiting for a 5-6 players expansion. As I said, I think that this game is perfect as it is, but the release of optional rules via expansions to better suit the taste of some gamers wouldn't hurt either, as long as those rules are carefully crafted and well balanced.

That's all folks!

I see what you are saying, but I still don't think the analogy with TI3 is apt for arguing for 6-players in Runewars.

In TI3, all the players are equidistant from a central planet.  The map is exactly the same size for 4, 5 and 6 players.  Because of this, interaction actually INCREASES when you move towards 6, because the starting locations get slightly closer together.  Plus, they political/trade dynamics in the game do work better with 6 than with 4.  That is why with TI3, 6 is a good sweet spot.  When you expand to 7, though, you increase the size of the map, taking all players further from the central planet and decreasing interaction.  The political/trade dynamics are still there, but I personally feel at this point it starts becoming more chaotic as well.  That is what makes 7/8 Player TI3 less fun for me.

With Runewars, though, the board scales directly with the number of players, and since players are always around the edge, that means with each new player, you get a bigger "middle".  However, unlike TI3, the "middle" of a Runewars map usually isn't very tactically important.  The areas close to your home realms tend to be your biggest needs, and thus when you make the map bigger, it starts to decrease this interaction with other players.  Honestly, in the current incarnation of RW, I personally think 3 players is the "sweet spot" - enough interaction with other players, just tight enough resources, and a fun map.  4-players, though, doesn't decrease that TOO much, but it is enough to notice - players "opposite" each other rarely interact directly (usually only via Tactics cards).  With 5+, it just seems to me this would be magnified even more.  Your two immediate neighbors would really be your only threats, and with 6 players, for instance, this would mean that less than HALF your opponents will have direct interaction with you (or you with them) in most games.

Would the game outright "suck" with 5 or 6?  Probably not, but I feel that it's on the downward side of the "fun" curve, and I think the difference between 4 and 5 would be much more drastic than that between 5 and 6.

Again, though, I'm not opposed to new factions (though I don't mind them focusing on adding more to the existing factions first); it's doing so with the main "purpose" of making a 5- or 6-player game that I wouldn't like, because that's a feature I'm not likely to use very often.  I'm glad their focus has been simply adding things that can be used in the current games as-is.

 Lol, didn't think I'd start an argument like this! Yet, I still believe more players would greatly benefit the game:

-In opposition to TI3, There's much less downtime in Runewars because many actions don't conflict eachother (neutral battles, harvest, recruit,...) which can be done simultaneously. The only real downtime is Quest Phase.

-There's plenty of ways to hinder faraway opponent : season card, tactic cards, supporting his neighbours. But more would be necessary...

-The fantastic modular board system keeps a proportion factor (just like Starcraft). TI3 has this issue.

I like Starcraft a lot. It's great because it plays well with 5 or 6 players and Runewars has inherited features from it.

Starcraft does indeed do it well, but honestly the thing that makes Starcraft work that wouldn't work in Runewars without some other addition is the Z-Axis bits.

If Starcraft didn't have Z-Axes, it would likely have much the same problem :)

5-6 players in Runewars would mean one big change - more political interaction, team plays and other things, that you may observe in TI3, where you're unable to win without some support or big amount of luck and underestimation by oponents.

Runewars is great, actually the only reason i would like to see expansion is that i just want more - im not bored with the game, just feel like 'i have to buy something or any magic that sustains me will perish'... It is so cool, that it just have to be continued, and only rational solution - in the future - is to add more players, or atleast alternative armies. I dont mind those new may-be armies to increase number of players, becouse FFG would propably change some basic rules to better suite this kind of multiplayer game.

Maybe there would appear some toadly new winning conditions? Or some new map pieces, special cards - not seen before? There are so many ideas... be sure they won't fu*k this game:)

I don't personally think, that Runewars would benefit from more politics. It's way better IMO to have 2 different games - TI3, in which more diplomacy and allies is needed in order to play well, and Runewars focusing more on "solo"play. After playin' only a few 4 - player games, I was already unhappy with little interaction between some of players.

It's good to implement some interesting ideas and solutins from other games, but it's also very important to maintain sense of diversity between games. Not only with theme (high fantasy vs s-f), and some other solutions (every one has his own set of orders, drawing fate cards, quicker, yet still epic game and so on). It's especially important for me, as my wife doesn't like diplomacy and prefers more straight - forward aproach of gatherig resources and defeating the enemies. Of course, one could argue - not bring the 5th/6th player than, but - why should I pay for an expansion, that i WOULDN'T USE IN HALF?

Eruantalon said:

Well, on the other hand, with Runewars (unlike TI3) new figures would mean a new faction, which would presumably be playable even with only 2 players, just to mix things up.  With TI3, the new colors are exactly the same as the old colors, so if you are never going to use the new colors, it's true that Shattered Empire has a bunch of "unneeded" pieces in that respect.  But any figures for Runewars would likely be useful even if NOT playing with more players.

Again, I have no problem with added factions; I just don't have any problem with the approach they took, either.  Where I'd really have issues is if they made fundamental changes to the core game just to accomodate 5-players (especially if those changes affected the way you played smaller games).

I certainly think the game would benifit from allowing more players.  My biggest complaint is my group is rarely able to play this game.  Our group has 6 people, so 2 have to be missing in order to play...which isn't common.  Regardless of whether they add more players, it certainly needs more races.  The games are simply too similar.  I think their main deterent from doing so is that all the figures of each race are unique, unlike TI in which all races use the same figures (which makes adding races very simple).  I don't really see how adding more players makes it so theirs less interaction...sure you won't likely be getting in conflicts with the person on the opposite side of the table, but you're going to get into conflicts with your neighbors (pretty much just like a 4 player game).  Even those that really don't want to play with 5 or 6 players would certainly benefit from the extra races just to add variety in their 4 player (or less) games.  I was rather shocked when the expansion didn't add any new races.

I can state from my experience with games of 2, 3, and 4 player games, that 2 player games have the MOST interaction, 3 player games are still pretty interactive, and 4 player games tend to be more spread out and less combat.

Maybe others mileage will vary, but the amount of interaction has been lower with more players in the games of Runewars I've been involved with.

sigmazero13 said:

And this is why FFG should design a new way to build the map and/or a new way to win the game if they ever do an expansion that supports 5-6 players.

One thing I would really like is an expansion that comes with a number of pregenerated maps for 2, 3 and 4 players in the instruction booklet. The map setup phase can be quite time consuming when playing with new players, and I would like to be able to skip this phase with the help of balanced pregenerated maps. In that way, I could set the map on my gaming table while waiting for my fellow players to come.

 Premade maps would indeed be cool.  I'm surprised there hasn't been more community content on that front in the meantime :)