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Uruk

Mon, 10/25/2010 - 04:30 — ReneWiersma

Uruk is the name of one of the first cities in ancient Mesopotamia. The game is about creating such a city. The player who creates the greatest city wins the game.

The game is driven by auctioning off tiles in a simultaneous, dutch-style (starting high and then going down) auction. The tiles are used to build the city and depict various things, such as farmers, kings, priests, temples, palaces, walls, luxury goods, etc. These tiles may have various functions during the game and /or score points at the end of the game. The currency in the game is wheat, as money had yet to be invented in these ancient times.

Each round a number of "lots", equal to the number of players, is auctioned off simultaneously. Each lot consists of two or three tiles. The price of each lot starts at "9" and can go down to "5", "2" or even "0". Players take turns in clockwise order. During his turn a player may either lower the price of one of the lots, or buy a lot for the current price. If a player buys a lot he pays the price in wheat and takes the tiles. Then he is out of the auction for the remainder of the round. Each player buys one lot during an auction round, the last lot always goes for "0".

The game lasts nine rounds. After the third, sixth and ninth round players receive some extra wheat, depending on the number of farmers they have. At the end of the game, points are scored depending on the tiles players have acquired and the wheat they have left. The player with the most points wins, obviously.

Comments

Thu, 12/09/2010 - 04:51 — ReneWiersma

Nothing happend for a while.

Nothing happend for a while. I post this mostly to remind myself to make the last few things for the final prototype, so I can get it out and playtest it with my friends.

Stuff to do:
* print out the auction lot boards and paste them on card board
* print out the round track, and paste onto card board
* change the "Feast" tiles to "Festival" tiles, print them out and paste onto the card board tiles
* print out new wheat cards
* print out four more cheat sheets

Wed, 11/10/2010 - 22:36 — sedjtroll

Rules comments

I just read the rules and have the following questions/comments:

1. Neat auction mechanism. Somehow it reminds me of Coloretto, where you either take a lot, or draw a tile and then add it to one of the unchosen lots. In this game though all the lots are set, and you choose to take a lot, or drop the price of one of the lots. I suspect it will feel somewhat similar in play as well - does it?

2. Rules nitpick: Under Bandits it says "Players who have a Palace are not affected by it" - I think you mean Watchtower.

3. Speaking of Bandits, can I discard a Face Down tile? I'd recommend the answer be "no" - since that's supposed to be a penalty.

4. Bandits makes you lose 1 tile, War makes you lose some number of tiles but it appears you can protect yourself by getting walls, and Famine makes you lose some number of tiles but you can protect yourself by having Wheat. Bandits sounds kind of weak almost..? Maybe not, it might actually be worse since you can't really protect yourself (except with the 1 building that protects you, as each disaster has). It just sounds a little weird, but maybe that' what makes it different.

How come the person taking it is not affected?

5. When you lose a farmer or citizen, is the redistribution of people algorithmic? I.e. do they all slide 1 space down, or can you move them freely (like put all your farmers as close to the bottom as possible so they'll be protected by walls)?

Uruk sounds like a solid game, like I said I expect it might feel similar to Coloretto in some ways (and Coloretto is popular).

Thu, 11/11/2010 - 04:43 — ReneWiersma

1) I hadn't thought about

1) I hadn't thought about Coloretto at all, but now that you mention it, yes I do think it has a similar feel in the auction mechanic!

2) Yes, I do mean Watchtower.

3) No, obviously, but the rules should mention this explicitly of course.

4) Yes, compared to Famine and War, Bandits are a little weak, but I think that is OK, as not all tiles need to be equal. In fact, it is better if there are noticable differences in the strength of the tiles as this makes the auction more interesting.

The person taking the tile is not affected by it, because otherwise there would be no point in taking it, right? By taking one of these Hazard tiles, you prevent something bad happening to yourself.

5) You can move them freely. I think this is simpler than explaining an algorithm of how to reposition your citizens, as it doesn't matter too much anyway. And yes, you would put your farmers at the bottom behind the walls.

Thu, 11/11/2010 - 13:10 — sedjtroll

Good point

ReneWiersma wrote:
4) Yes, compared to Famine and War, Bandits are a little weak, but I think that is OK, as not all tiles need to be equal. In fact, it is better if there are noticable differences in the strength of the tiles as this makes the auction more interesting.

This is true, there's no need for them to be of similar strength.

Quote:
The person taking the tile is not affected by it, because otherwise there would be no point in taking it, right? By taking one of these Hazard tiles, you prevent something bad happening to yourself.

I figured people who are protected from the disaster would value the lot higher than people who are not... unlike Ra, the Disasters don't necessarily hurt you. If I have a Palace and nobody else does, I can take a lot with a War tile without a 2nd glance...

Maybe that's a good argument FOR your current rule - so the 1 guy with a Palace doesn't get every lot with War for free just because he got the palace.

Fri, 11/12/2010 - 05:21 — ReneWiersma

sedjtroll wrote:Maybe that's

sedjtroll wrote:
Maybe that's a good argument FOR your current rule - so the 1 guy with a Palace doesn't get every lot with War for free just because he got the palace.

Yeah, it can create an interesting dynamic. Suppose you have a 4 player game. There's a lot with a War tile out there. One player has a Palace, so he doesn't care about it. Another player has all his people protected by Walls, so he doesn't careeither. Another player has two people unprotected, and the last player has five people unprotected. Obviously the latter player is most interested in getting the War tile, but he also understands the other players don't need it so much, so for how little can he get it?

Also, it is interesting when there's a Palace in one lot, and another lot with a War tile. You either want the War tile, or the Palace tile, but if you get the Palace tile you want it before someone takes the War tile to protect you people against it. It is decisions like this that make the auction mechanic interesting.

Thu, 11/04/2010 - 06:40 — ReneWiersma

Reformatted the journal

I've just found out that updating the Game Journal doesn't make it appear in the right hand menu of updated forum-, journal and blog posts. So, I've moved the edits to the comments section, and this is the way I'll keep doing it, I suppose.

For the next playtest I'll try a 8-6-4-2-1-0 auction track. It's funny, at first I thought that having less numbers (prices) on the auction track would increase the tension of lowering the price. After all, this is a bit how it works in Amun-Re. There the tension is in choosing the right price in the auction right away, because if you coose too low, another player might overbid you and you cannot get that item, because you are not allowed to rebid on the same item. But in Uruk it is different, because the tension is not so much in finding the right price, it is in getting the auction lot you really want before another player buys it. So having more points to decide whether to lower the price of an auction lot and get it later, or to get it now for a higher price makes it more exciting.

Suppose there is this auction lot which you really want. The other lots are not so attractive to you. So, should you buy it for 8 right away? Probably you can lower the price to 6 and still get it later in the auction. But then the price is 6 and maybe you can get it for 4, etc. At what point do you give in to temptation and get the lot you really want? And is it so bad if someone else gets it for a high price and you settle for a lesser auction lot, for a better price? This is what the game is all about.

Thu, 11/04/2010 - 06:30 — ReneWiersma

Solo playtest 29th October

Another solo playtest. I instantly liked the 7-4-2-1-0 auction track. I'm enthusiastic about the game. I can see where the tough decisions and fun moments in the game will come from.

Some changes I'll make:
* No more negative points for the face down tiles
* One extra tile for each type of luxury good, and make the scoring 1-3-6-10-15, at the expense of one Wall tile and two Feast tiles
* Players may collect more than one type of luxury good
* Scoring for the Leader tiles: -5VP when you have none, +10VP when you have all three. This will make the lots with Leader tiles very wanted
* Change the scoring for the people in a city to: 1/3/6/10/15/21/etc for each completed "row" of people, instead of the 8/4 majority scoring

I'm still a bit undecided about how much wheat the farmers should produce. It seems that if they produce two wheat, they don't make much of a difference. But if they produce three wheat an early farmer makes too much of a difference. Perhaps my view on this is a bit skewed as there was lots of wheat in the first playtest, because there were many farmers and then I lowered it to two wheat and in the second playtest there were few farmers in the beginning. For now I'll keep the farners at two wheat and start the players with 18 wheat. If the function and scoring of the tiles starts to settle down, I'll reevaluate this. Of course, the function of the Famine tile is linked to the amount of wheat in the game. If there's less wheat in the game, the Famine tile might become too powerful, so this will be an ongoing balancing challenge.

Fri, 11/05/2010 - 06:01 — sedjtroll

ReneWiersma wrote: I'm still

ReneWiersma wrote:

I'm still a bit undecided about how much wheat the farmers should produce. It seems that if they produce two wheat, they don't make much of a difference. But if they produce three wheat an early farmer makes too much of a difference. Perhaps my view on this is a bit skewed as there was lots of wheat in the first playtest, because there were many farmers and then I lowered it to two wheat and in the second playtest there were few farmers in the beginning. For now I'll keep the farners at two wheat and start the players with 18 wheat. If the function and scoring of the tiles starts to settle down, I'll reevaluate this. Of course, the function of the Famine tile is linked to the amount of wheat in the game. If there's less wheat in the game, the Famine tile might become too powerful, so this will be an ongoing balancing challenge.

I haven't read the rules yet, just perused the playtest session reports.

Is there a reason the amount of wheat has to be linear? Everything else in the game is triangular, maybe the Wheat should be like 1/3/6/10 for 1/2/3/4 farmers... or some other non-linear thing... maybe 2/4/7/10 wheat for 1/2/3/4 farmers. Or some diminishing returns: 3/5/7/8/9 wheat for 1/2/3/4/5 farmers. Or start with less Wheat and go 4/7/9/10 for 1/2/3/4 farmers (I don't know how many farmers you are likely to have in a game, or how much food you want them to produce)

Sat, 11/06/2010 - 06:47 — ReneWiersma

Everybody starts the game

Everybody starts the game with one farmer and on average a player will obtain another 2.4 farmers during the game. So after the third round a player will typically have 1 or 2 farmers, and 2 or 3 farmers by the sixth round. I could have the payout of the farmers be something else than linear, I haven't thought about it, but I like the simplicity of it. For now, I'll just keep it as it is and when I start playtesting this is probably one of the first things to tweak.

Thu, 11/04/2010 - 06:30 — ReneWiersma

Solo playtest 28th October

Did a more extensive solo playtest. I'm happy with how quickly and streamlines the game goes. It flows pretty well. I'm slightly worried about the auction mechanic. If there are two players left, they may silently agree to check the two remaining auction lots down to zero, if one auction lot is clearly useful for one player and the other lot clearly more useful to the other player, which might feel a little unfair to the other players. I'm not sure if this really is a bug, or more of a feature of the auction mechanic, because the other players could have opted to stay longer in the auction themselves. In any case I think it would be a good idea to make the auction a little more finely grained, so I decided to go with a 7-4-2-1-0 auction track, instead of a 9-5-2-0 track. This should give players a little more wiggle room.

A few other remarks:
* There might be a few too many wall tiles, but I'm not going to change it yet
* The Bandits tile isn't fun. It doesn't feel right to steal someone else's tile that he might have payed a lot for to obtain, so I will change it to a player simply choosing one tile to discard
* The Famine tile doesn't work as is. I'm going to change it to simply paying one wheat per citizen or lose that citizen. This is a powerful effect, especially in the late game, but players can plan around it by making sure they have enough wheat left or get a Granary
* It might be fun to have more Luxury tiles, but then the scoring should be lowered a little. Not going to change this one yet, but something to keep in mind.
* Farmers back to producing two wheat again

I haven't tested the scoring yet. I'm sure that'll need some tweaking too.

Thu, 11/04/2010 - 06:31 — ReneWiersma

Solo playtest 26th October

Finally created a proto and did a first, quick solo playtest. A few things became obvious:
* "Feast" should be "Festival" and there shouldn't be a restriction on how much you can obtain. Instead have a Temple double their value as a bonus.
* The leader tiles should have another color (blue), the current red is too close to the purple of the buildings and makes it difficult to distinguish them at a glance
* There are too much leader tiles. I want more "angst" about obtaining a leader tile, so I'm thinking about lowering the number of leader tiles to six (two per type). Also, a bigger reward for acquiring all three leader types should go up, as this will become a lot harder
* More points for acquiring luxury goods (ie 1/3/6/10 instead of 0/2/5/9)
* Slightly more points for the buildings (1/2/3/4 instead of 1/1/2/3) and a slightly bigger bonus for acquiring them all
* Remove the clan tiles. They don't add much, except confusion
* No negative points for having the least people in a city. Instead reward a second place and make the bonuses bigger
* The hazards can be simplified and have a bigger effect
* Start with less wheat (18 instead of 20) and have farmers produce three wheat instead of two

All in all I'm very happy with how things look right now. I think this could be something.

Mon, 10/25/2010 - 08:02 — TDang

interesting auction

This is an interesting variation on a dutch auction. It should play differently than a standard dutch auction because of the players taking turns and players deciding to lower the price, rather than it being lowered automatically by the clock.

Looks neat! If I'm able, I'll try to play-test with my gaming group.

Mon, 10/25/2010 - 08:14 — ReneWiersma

Thanks, TDang. Note that this

Thanks, TDang. Note that this is a first rough version of the game. I haven't even playtested it myself yet, so there are probably many holes in the rules, the scoring is probably unbalanced, the number of tiles for each type is off, etc. Just so you know before you go off and playtest it with your gaming group :)

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