Since the last post, I’ve continued to iterate on the game solo. As I played with it, it was becoming clear that the scoring wasn’t right. I did like the decisive trick rules, as forcing player to consider which cards to dump and which ones to hang on to, and when to deploy their +3 Bonus Tokens. Briefly, if you won a trick by at least 3 ranks, the trick was decisive and was considered for scoring. Otherwise, it would determine the next trick leader but would be irrelevant for scoring. If one player took all the decisive tricks, that battle (hand) would be a rout, and if you won enough routs, you instantly won the game. Otherwise, every decisive trick was basically worth a point over the course of the game.

One of the problems with this structure was that outside of routs, it was non-linear. One trick was as good as another over the course of the eight hands of the game. That, in turn, meant that no trick had that much leverage than any other trick, and so the decision on playing a +3 Bonus wasn’t super interesting. Unless it could create or prevent a Rout, it was probably just going to be worth a point. The solution to that seemed relatively straightforward. If decisive tricks gained value as you got more of them, there would be a non-linear decision in when to deploy your tokens or scouts, and then you’d have to balance points in the current battle vs. future rout manipulation which is a more interesting decision. As of right now, it’s still net tricks, but I might revisit that decision. If each player scored points for the decisive tricks they took, there might be more dynamism in the scoring in the game.

The next thing to revisit is the number of routs in the game. Because you could win a rout by winning only one decisive trick, as long as you stiffed your opponent, a rout was relatively straightforward compared to earlier builds of the game where you had to take every trick. That meant that the majority of games were ending in a rout victory. Adjusting the rout points required for an instant win changed it some, but it kept circling back to routs being a little too easy, especially in the big battles. Thinking about it, I realized that I could make it harder to accomplish the rout. If I think about the theme, being able to have a rout with only one clash out of twelve go your way did feel cheap. The fix here was to make it so you didn’t just have to win all the decisive tricks, but there had to be at least half the battle size. That made routs a threat but not omnipresent. Dropping back to seven rout points felt right - I had three games in a row end with one player at 6/7, which felt pretty good. I think ideally I’d want two-thirds of games to end on points and the rest on routs. I don’t know if it’s there, but the balance feels much closer.

The next thing I thought about was the Bonus Tokens. I liked them, but it occurred to me that they were a little obvious. You knew how many chances your opponent had to adjust the rank, and so you had a simple evaluation. If there were a few different types of tokens, and you didn’t know what your opponent had, maybe that would change things up. I added three new types of tokens - reversing the order of winners, changing the suit of your card, and cycling the deck - and made it so that you draw them randomly and keep them hidden. It kept your resources a bit more varied and more unknown to the other player. I also added a second one to setup to give players a little more exposure to them. That seems to be working well.

Next place to visit was the Scouts. They were nice, but I wanted to add another option with them, exposing part of your opponent’s hand. I thought it would be a fun option to have, but adding a fourth ability to those cards seemed iffy. Thinking about Napoleonic combat, I realized I was kind of conflating scouting with skirmishing, and I could separate those back out. The skirmishers could strengthen your cards, cycle (like they always have), or be played on their own as infantry, as skirmishers typically were. Scouts, meanwhile, were cavalry (and could be played as such), could cycle, and could expose some cards. They were similar, but not quite the same. I also increased how many were in the deck (so they come up more often), made a couple ranks of them, and added two of them to each player’s reserve. They would play a bigger role in the game as a result.

Those changes together provide more options for players, more control in the hand, and some varied incentives to use your resources. They also have more resources to deploy. It was feeling pretty good at this point. The next areas I wanted to visit was to provide some more differentiation in the Battles, to make selecting the battle a little more interesting. I also wanted to think some more about if just being dealt better cards is the biggest key to winning. Is player skill a big enough factor in the game?

Anyway, the latest rules are available here, in convenient (for me) Markdown format. I’ll be updating the print-and-play cards soon as well, once I’m done fiddling with the deck composition. I’ll also update the Screentop implementation at that point as well.