Game #32: Really Big Robots by fos

silly little space bar...

1)
RBR - GER - RBR would result in RBR - hex - GER - RBR
atk ..............................................................dam..dam

and

2)
RBR - GER - RBR would result in RBR - GER - RBR
atk .....................................................dam..dam

there, that's better

Fos,

Nice looking game. It is really coming along.

A few questions. It wasn't clear from me in the rules how the players started out. I understand a tile was drawn, and then a robot is placed on the tile, but I don't think you mentioned that the other player drawn tiles must be adjacent to the tiles of the other players. From how it seemed to me, you could have little islands of tiles for each player that are not connected.

I understand the whole idea of the special tiles, but how do you remember which player's special tile is whose? It would seem quite difficult to have to keep track of this adding book keeping to the game.

I was not clear on the special tiles length of influence, I presume if the tile is destroyed then its power is as well. Are the special tile powers a one shot deal or the player's continually have the powers.

Right now the game appears to be somewhat limited in player interaction. It would seem to me that players will be concerned without thought of other players and acquiring tiles to make their own little kingdom. I think it would be neat if players could destroy each others tiles. Also maybe having a constraint of the size of expansion will lead players to really fight for key locations on the map. Have you thought about randomly creating a little continent of tiles before, and then letting players trying to take advantage of the terrain.

It also seems to me that players are racing against the impending Evil Robot to get victory points while largely not concerning themselves over other players. I think it will add tension if players can also compete against themselves or at least fight over key areas of the map that is a result of limiting the growth of the map. Maybe in the game (its a city correct) that players can get extra victory points for constructing only a certain color to activate a special tile just for that player.

To me the idea of having competing factions defend the city would be kind of neat.

Hope this helps.

--DarkDream

Ok, the combat is simple and I have a fondness for direct damage. Just get in there and swing away.

The movement of the GER is fine as well as the RBR's, but the attacking seems biased towards the RBR's. Extra armor, extra movement, better chance to hit. Did you look at pumping up the GER? Not much, since the whole point is to destroy it, but to give it optional pluses.

You could let the players that did not place the GER pass on their special ability as a one shot for the robot. They would lose the ability, the special tile gets flipped and the GER gets to whomp on the next RBR.

That would give the robot and the other players better odds against someone that happened to get more than 2 or 3 special combat tiles out.

You could even regenerate the robot 1 point for every special tile destroyed during combat.

Strategy is fine since the movement of the GER is random. The players will have to figure out how to corner the GER, either against an edge tile or another player on the edge. That would provide a bit of cooperation as opposed to just a beatdown of the GER.

That is what I could think of for now, there may be more after I get some sleep.

Another idea is to have special tokens for each player designated by a symbol or a color. They would be placed aside of the board, and when one is choosen, the player substitutes it.

I just got the chance to read the full rules and comment. I wish I had more time to comment in depth, but I figured anything was better than nothing.

On the above quote, I think that you could give each player their own tile bag. In each bag, would be enough resources and special tiles for each player, marked so that you would know which bag to return the tiles to when they are rebuilt. Each player would have one GER tile in their bags and they can play it at anytime and am not restricted to waiting to a evalcuation period. When a GER tile is played, a battle begins and then the building (rebuilding more likely) resumes.

Also to allow a player a little more freedom, allow them to exchange tiles from their tile bag at the end of the turn (in a case when they get a GER tile and do not want to play it yet.) The game could possibly end when all players have played their GER and the last battle is over. Then add up VP's as you had them in the rules before.

Hope this helps and hope you can see my viewpoint. I think this game is very good and very interesting. Good luck on it!

-Steve

This was originally in the design, but I was extremely worried about king making and fiddly rules to fix it. What happens when there is more than one closest path to the nearest Special Tile? A tile only 4 hexes away can yield 3 different paths, each destroying different tiles. Do you ask players to roll between those paths (what if there are more than 6?), or do you say the Giant Evil Robot moves always right first and then up (but whose right?)?

I did really want to have that in the game, but there just seemed to be so many possibly game-breaking consequences by making the GER AI situationally more complex. So any more thoughts of how to make the GER more flexible would be greatly appreciated.

I originally thought about paths but then decided it would probably be much easier to role one hex at a time. (Afterall, GER's don;t tend to do too much forward thinking!). That is, the nearest (undamaged) special probably involves a choice of 2 hexes for the next move ... roll for which one. Then the next hex might have a similar number of choices ... Also, this works well with the fact that the GER only moves one hex per turn.

As for the complexity of different nearest (undamaged) special tiles, you could either include that in the random hex by hex allocation, or provide some sort of hierarchy to break ties (e.g. combat tiles over evacuation tiles over building tiles ... or just stick a little number on the tile and it goes to the lowest number if there is a tie to the closest tile ...)

- Bill

(I'll probably be unable to follow this thread for a few weeks after today as I'll won't have access to this account til I return from leave ... best of luck!)

I'm still a bit concerned about path finding for the GER. I suppose a simple die roll every once and awhile wouldn't be too bad, though.

Here's another random idea. I don't remember how many special tiles their are in the tile bag, but if you put in 20 of them in the bag, you can number each one 1-20, and then put a d20 in the game. When the GER is played, the die is rolled until a number matching a special tile in play is rolled. The GER takes as direct as possible path towards that tile. After that tile is damaged, the die is rolled again in the same way, until the GER is destroyed or all of the special tiles are destroyed. (I don't know what you would do then, maybe it could result in all of the player's losing the game together.)

Edit: Also if a direct path is hard to determine, the player who played the GER could make the final decision.

To make sure the GER doesn't come out too early, you can make a rule that states that a GER tile cannot be played unless each player has one special tile in play (or whatever minimum you want to use)

Now to reply to your specific comments to me (sorry it took so long):

I was thinking that each player would get their own set of each special tile. With the suggestion I made above, it wouldn't matter if you went with seperate tile bags or just one of them. Another thing I thought about is allowing each players to start with a GER tile and their set of special tiles and only being able to play one per turn. I don't know how long of a game this will be or how long you want it to be, so this may not work if you want a longer game. Currently the game is over when the last robot is played and I think that could work for this as well. I really believe that if the players are in control of when the GER comes out, the game would be more strategic, but you may have wanted the random "come out and play" for the GER.

I like the ability to discard Special Tiles into a pool that everyone can draw from because I think it'll create this interesting choice: Do I keep this unwanted tile so my opponent doesn't have any chance of getting it, or do I want to discard this tile and have more hand space for tiles I actually want?

If you seperate the tiles, then the player's would get to choose what they draw during a turn, right? I think if this is the case and you do use this (which I am still not sure if it sounds the best way or not) then I would make it if they draw resource tiles, they should get more, like 2 to 1 over the special tiles/GER tiles. Maybe the same turn actions, except your robot cannot move or draw resource tiles if they get a special tile.

All in all, I hope this will help you. You have the overall picture in your head, which I don't, but I hope I have gotten close to it. Good luck with your game!

-Steve