Our burgeoning civilization started slowly, only laying claim to three regions. Thanks to our heros, we were able to concentrate most of our forces in one region. We were prepared to defend ourselves from any large scale attack. Suddenly, a great web descended on us, immobilizing our troops. We were ready for battle, but could not expand our glorious civilization into further territories! Instead, we could only watch as the Giant Spiders spread their influence throughout the surrounding regions.
Oh, that's sounds like a ... sticky situation! :P
I apologize for that. On to the description!
Giant Spiders - At the end of their turn, active Giant Spiders may place the web token in any adjacent region occupied by an active race. The race tokens in this region are stuck in this region and cannot be used in conquest. They may decline normally, in which case the web token is removed from the board.
I started this one at 6 thinking that since it does not add a conquest or direct defense bonus, the start number would have to be on the high end of the spectrum to make up for this. So far this feels about right, but it's really hard to judge. The web can be incredibly crippling to the player affected by it. The spiders do tend to score less points in the beginning, but they can also affect the other players' ability to score as well.
In my two-player game, this was especially significant. I didn't take notes, but if I remember right, it caused the other player to decline sooner than they may have otherwise.
It was also effective in three-player. What surprised me here is that it did not grant a significant advantage the the unaffected player. I would think that it would continue to be affective in games with more players, but it's difficult to say for sure.
One web token was enough without any limitations on placement (other than the adjacency requirement). I could tweak this by giving the Spiders multiple web tokens, but limiting the number of race tokens one web token could be used on. For example, I could give the Spiders two web tokens, and each web token could control up to 2 race tokens. Therefore, the web tokens could be placed on two regions with up to 2 race tokens on them, or both on one region with up to 4 race tokens on it. I would prefer to keep it simple with only the one token, but if playtesting shows that it needs improvement, this would be a way to do it.
Right now it's a bit of a toss up which I like better between the Spiders and Stealthy, but I think since Spiders introduces a completely different mechanic, I'm placing it above Stealthy.
- Instigating
- Giant Spiders
- Stealthy
- Necromancers
No comments:
Post a Comment