#532507
I'm puzzling through a few problems in Bridge Crew Format and so I thought I'd live up to my promise that this is a work in progress, and throw out some crazy talk to see what people think.
Disclaimer: none of this affects the current v13 rules of the format. This is brainstorming.
But first, some observations:
1) It's possible to do a big first play/draw turn and then just execute orders for the rest of the game
- there actually is a lot of kill prevention available when you have space for lots of verbs (freed up by guaranteeing your perfect crew and having far fewer personnel to guarantee draws), so less need to replenish
- the first play/draw turn can be quite slow if you're drawing or playing lots, and TATV/Miracle Working can make for a lot of decision time
2) Having an entire different "type of turn" just for that one first turn seems weird
- a waste of cognitive overhead, especially for people unfamiliar with the full game
- even more confusing when (as in the latest version) you also get to draw a card in your Execute Orders turn
3) Big crews with star power are actually really good.
- I thought it would be all Investigate Destruction and Investigate Alien Probe, but turns out that using big missions and starting with your choice of personnel and ship worth 30+ counters is very strong
- possibly too good, towards the opposite end of the spectrum from "crew's dead, your turn". Two attempts and win also seems bad.
4) Defensive cards like Uninvited and Sightly Awkward are good
- When the perfect setup with big attributes or micro teaming or stop prevention is possible, you need to go beyond your normal defensive capabilities
- if you don't draw them and your opponent sails through, that's a bad time
5) Timing is still a little slower than I'd like.
- I'm playing with this deck: https://www.trekcc.org/decklists/index. ... d87e5ce695
- it maybe wouldn't be so bad, but I still have 1 attempt solves. 1-sided and slow is not a good time. Neither is winning because you go first.
I'm thinking about two options (maybe both) as possible solutions, and they're pretty extreme on the scale of changes I've made in recent versions:
NO PLAY/DRAW
1) Let any card with a cost be seeded, as long as it fits in under your bridge crew cost.
- yikes, combos could be nasty. More bans ahead, probably
- but it would guarantee your Unexpected Difficulties
2) Make the game only execute orders, with a draw step where you draw a static number of cards every turn ... from a draw deck made up only of interrupts
- no weird different type of turn for the sake of one turn per game
This option makes a lot of card text in the game (anything that affects cost) meaningless, so it carries a big drawback for one of the big design goals, which was, "minimal cards that don't work the way they read".
1 MISSION GAME
It would fix game length. Slipstream tries this (or makes it possible), and it's a struggle because of cards that reference complete/incomplete missions (e.g. NecEx, Wolf 359) and because of cards that let you blow through a single mission (e.g. grandpa McCoy). Also planet and space dilemmas become even harder to justify.
Maybe that could be fixed by doing a Bo3 format? If games go short enough that you could play Bo3 in tournaments then Spikes out there would not overwhelmingly go for the cards I mentioned above, meaning less newbies being roflstomped. If you win at your first mission, you have to bring a different mission. And cards that reference missions completed could refer to your missions from previous games in the round.
YOUR THOUGHTS HERE
please jump in with ideas you have.
Disclaimer: none of this affects the current v13 rules of the format. This is brainstorming.
But first, some observations:
1) It's possible to do a big first play/draw turn and then just execute orders for the rest of the game
- there actually is a lot of kill prevention available when you have space for lots of verbs (freed up by guaranteeing your perfect crew and having far fewer personnel to guarantee draws), so less need to replenish
- the first play/draw turn can be quite slow if you're drawing or playing lots, and TATV/Miracle Working can make for a lot of decision time
2) Having an entire different "type of turn" just for that one first turn seems weird
- a waste of cognitive overhead, especially for people unfamiliar with the full game
- even more confusing when (as in the latest version) you also get to draw a card in your Execute Orders turn
3) Big crews with star power are actually really good.
- I thought it would be all Investigate Destruction and Investigate Alien Probe, but turns out that using big missions and starting with your choice of personnel and ship worth 30+ counters is very strong
- possibly too good, towards the opposite end of the spectrum from "crew's dead, your turn". Two attempts and win also seems bad.
4) Defensive cards like Uninvited and Sightly Awkward are good
- When the perfect setup with big attributes or micro teaming or stop prevention is possible, you need to go beyond your normal defensive capabilities
- if you don't draw them and your opponent sails through, that's a bad time
5) Timing is still a little slower than I'd like.
- I'm playing with this deck: https://www.trekcc.org/decklists/index. ... d87e5ce695
- it maybe wouldn't be so bad, but I still have 1 attempt solves. 1-sided and slow is not a good time. Neither is winning because you go first.
I'm thinking about two options (maybe both) as possible solutions, and they're pretty extreme on the scale of changes I've made in recent versions:
NO PLAY/DRAW
1) Let any card with a cost be seeded, as long as it fits in under your bridge crew cost.
- yikes, combos could be nasty. More bans ahead, probably
- but it would guarantee your Unexpected Difficulties
2) Make the game only execute orders, with a draw step where you draw a static number of cards every turn ... from a draw deck made up only of interrupts
- no weird different type of turn for the sake of one turn per game
This option makes a lot of card text in the game (anything that affects cost) meaningless, so it carries a big drawback for one of the big design goals, which was, "minimal cards that don't work the way they read".
1 MISSION GAME
It would fix game length. Slipstream tries this (or makes it possible), and it's a struggle because of cards that reference complete/incomplete missions (e.g. NecEx, Wolf 359) and because of cards that let you blow through a single mission (e.g. grandpa McCoy). Also planet and space dilemmas become even harder to justify.
Maybe that could be fixed by doing a Bo3 format? If games go short enough that you could play Bo3 in tournaments then Spikes out there would not overwhelmingly go for the cards I mentioned above, meaning less newbies being roflstomped. If you win at your first mission, you have to bring a different mission. And cards that reference missions completed could refer to your missions from previous games in the round.
YOUR THOUGHTS HERE
please jump in with ideas you have.
Bridge Crew Format = faster trek! https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZeP ... 7Q_Fm7Eu_k