FCE v2: First Game

I had changed a lot from the first version:

• Cards, not cubes. (and hey questccg, it's a mini-deck of 18 cards!)
• Placement of tiles, not drawing on a map.
• Towers for earning points, not large, contiguous regions.

Using tiles has the interesting side-effect of limiting the size of the map, much the way the grid did. It just looks at it from a different angle... Instead of running out of grid space, the players run out of tiles for terrain.

Another interesting aspect of this limiting effect is that a player's hand can be filled with cards that are of limited use as the game progresses. It's a tactic that I need to observe further. Beyond using two Terrain's tiles so there are none left, I also included that a game ends if a player has a hand of cards where no plays are eligible. I don't foresee this actually happening, but for now I'll keep it in there to nip it in the bud should it occur. It would only occur late in the game anyway, and I don't want games to run long.

Speaking of which, this playtest ran 59 minutes. I think once I smooth out rough spots I can reduce this time in terms of casual play. For extremely competitive types, or new players, I suppose an hour is reasonable at this point.

The Deck of Cards
There are 18 cards. Players have a hand of three cards on their turn and they must play one (to Make Terrain), discard one, and pass the third to their opponent to begin their new hand at the start of their turn.

Each card details one or two different Terrain the player can Make, as well as the pattern/shape it must adopt as the player adds those tiles to the map. There are a set of six cards that allow players to earn 1 rank of Domain, or add a Tower to the map. Finally, there is a final card that allows players to add Sky Fire to the map: this is a "blocking" tile that prevents scoring opportunities (and rounds out the 18 cards).

Better to Use Cards
I like using cards. One thing I immediately realized with this implementation is that cards can have multiple uses, and that provides more choices for the player. By limiting some of the cards to a single action, and the player's hand to a maximum of 3 cards, this doesn't seem to be too overwhelming just yet.

Scoring Points
Players earn Domain in the Terrain they Make. The more Domain a player has, the more that Terrain's tiles are worth when scored. Players earn those points when a Tower they place on the map overlaps them.

For example, if in a game I raise my Mountain Domain to 2, and then have a Tower overlapping 3 Mountain tiles, I earn 6 points at the end of the game. If I happen to also have a rank of 1 for Swamp Domain, and my Tower overlaps 2 Swamp tiles and 1 Mountain tile, I earn 4 points.

A Sky Fire tile, or a tile of Terrain where I don't have more Domain than my opponent, earns my Tower 0 points per tile.

Playtest #1
Very rough, and I added text to cards at the outset. I also decided to ignore a rule about re-shuffling after the Sky Fire card ended up in a player's hand, as well as forcing them to play it as soon as it appeared.

I also feel like I need to shake off the synergy aspect of the previous version of the game. But I'm comfortable with how things played out, as this was just a very-first version with new rules, new components, and new mechanics. I'm just relieved that I was able to actually finish the game to some semblance of conclusion.

Ending Playtest #1
Well, "the entry was a little bumpy," like it says on the BGDF front page. But when it all shook out, the scores were 26 to 30. This is a respectable spread: no landslide victory, and a decent amount of points earned for the amount of turns and time spent. At first blush, this all seems proportionate.

For Next Time
I will deliberately attempt to spread Terrain of various types all over the map. This will adjust the utility of Tower placement. It will also let me know more about whether or not I should attempt to re-develop the Synergy aspects of the different Terrains. Personally, I would like to see synergy re-appear, but not in some clumsy, time-consuming way.

Attached is a picture of this game's "Domain Rank" sheet. To sum it up, players push the Domain marker 1 or 2 spaces closer to their edge of the sheet when they Make that Terrain. At game's end, the number shown there earns them that many points when one of their Towers overlaps it.