Same starting conditions as last week. In addition, Brown Leaf penalties scale differently. Units can be lost due to Brown Leaves Count Brown Leaves at end of turn, then compare to current DOOM track value. If > Current Doom value, then increase. 07FEB10-1 game ends at 8, since we only have 8 leaves. perhaps, one day, brown leaf penalties will go to the removed from game deck. AFTER the second round, decided to go back to 2 brown leaves by the end of the turn means to increase the DOOM track. DOOM track can only go up once per turn. the orange leaf, which loses units, feels too powerful at the beginning. 0-3, lose 1 resource. Quit the game early so we could restart with some new rules. 07FEB10-2 Same rules as above with the following changes: Brown Leaf penalties DOOM Grey Orange 0-3, lose 1 card lose 1 card 4-6, lose 2 cards lose 1 unit 7-9, lose 3 cards lose 2 units ONLY hive-spent resources and Stored resources are removed from the game. Brown Leave accumulate during your turn. At end of turn, count leaves. If you have 2 or more, add ONE leaf to the DOOM track. John wants to trade or steal. John thinks when the DOOM track increases, you should lose X number of cards from the top of the draw deck are removed from the game. (if they are leaves, then players take the penalty. leaf is discarded, not removed. don't need to draw another card to replace the leaf to remove. We were on the wrong page when it came to whether the brown leaves accumulate during the turn. Jay didn't realize that's what John proposed and thought we agreed to. John says that accumulating leaves feels more realistic. The problem is, you'll get 2 leaves together more often. So maybe in next loop, you need more and more leaves the later in the game it is. 0-3, 2 leaves 4-6, 3 leaves 7-9, 4 leaves. if there is an ant on a tile with resources, the ant is always assumed to be holding as many resources as he/she can. This is because, currently, there is no penalty for this and no reason you wouldn't want to do it. that is, it should be automatic, not a choice. If you draw a brown leaf and do not have enough resource cards for the penalty, currently nothing happens. Jay made the observation that since I'm building DRONES more than he is, I'm avoiding most of the losses when the ORANGE brown leaves come up (to lose units). He suggests that maybe you lose X points of units, where the points are based on the unit type. So, you might lose 2 point's worth of units where DRONES = 1 point, WORKERS = 2 points, GATHERERS = 3 points. OR- can't spend DRONES to pay unit losses. OR- you kill X units in the infirmary. If not enough ants in infirmary, you send them to infirmary. you may move ONE ant from the infirmary per turn. Potentially a way to increase the number to remove from infirmary with other buildings that you can build. Either way, DRONE building is a dominant strategy. By the 7th LEAF on the DOOM track, we were getting royally screwed over by the game. the penalties were huge. We couldn't keep our cards and jay was down to only 1 unit. This is the mechanic we want, but not quite this fast and brutal. GATHERER D3-1 roll sucks. Doesn't seem to give much bonus, but the alternative is NO resources, so it's the best we got. I think having a building that boosts the GATHERER D3-1 ability will help offset this and give a feeling of building/growing/improving. Jay says, maybe all penalties are taken out at the end of the turn. After about 3 turns of not being able to do anything, JOhn says, this is getting absurd. Finally ended. JOhn had ONE point of stored resources. we both had 4 HIVE Expansions. Post-Mortem recap and ideas for next loop: #49 - LENS of Visible Progress - "What does it mean to make progress in this game?" -Hive Expansion -Storing Resources -Upgrading to Specialized Units Jay says it's fine for now, how it is. John says, I think it would be nice to add something, but not sure what. #45 - LENS of Imagination -Trying to tie in elements of the game with reality. -The idea of scarcity and brown leaves falling more and more as the game progresses. Jay says it's fine for now. #84 - LENS of Friendship -Not entirely relevent to this game. -However, it may be a good idea to note that it might be nice for the players to NOT hate each other too much. (JOHN) -Perhaps adding some sort of cooperative play could mitigate some of the potential hard feelings. #83 - LENS of Nameless Quality -lead to a discussion of what to do about the leaves. -Potentially only incur the penalty when the DOOM track advances. means making the penalties harsher. -Maybe leaves block you from drawing cards. #46 - Lens of Economy -Should there be other ways to make money? -probably ok for now. we have two ways already -What can my players buy? -Units -Expansion -Stored Resources -Eventually, might be nice to build things to enhanceme or multiply resources. -Find a way to get MORE money with FEWER cards. #33 - Lens of Triangularity -Do we have it? not quite; -we have it in the sense of sometimes, you don't want to risk drawing too many cards because of the higher chance to get brown leaves, but if you don't, then you will have a ton of resources the next turn. -WHere are potential areas to implement it? -we aren't sure. We need to think about it, but this game DEFINITELY needs it. For next loop: -Only penalized when the DOOM track advances. -SO, when the DOOM track advances, whichever BROWN LEAVES are in play this turn all have penalties. That is, BROWN LEAVES only incur penalties when the DOOM track advances. At other times, there is no penalty yet. It's just a non-resource card when you draw. 0-3, 2 leaves 4-6, 3 leaves 7-9, 4 leaves. Orange leaves are ALWAYS lose 1 unit. Grey leaves are ALWAYS lose 1 resource cards. next game, 2 orange, 6 grey. Grey leaf penalties now are removed from the game. MIGHT NEED TO ADD MORE CARDS! will test this. HIVE EXPANSIONS do not remove cards from the game. STORED RESOURCES DO remove from the game. losing 1 unit means, 2 DRONES or 1 WORKER/GATHERER. JOHN commented that he likes Jay's idea from a couple weeks ago that you can win the game outright if you build enough stuff. But, we don't have enough stuff to build yet, so we can't test. But we should keep it in mind.