This forums is for questions, answers, and discussion about First Edition rules, formats, and expansions.
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By SudenKapala (Suden Käpälä)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#574362
BCSWowbagger wrote: Thu Mar 31, 2022 1:50 am
WeAreBack wrote: Wed Mar 30, 2022 9:58 pmYou could have a Tactic that provides additional attack and/or defense bonuses (or inflicts an additional damage marker) if the ship targeted during the attack does not have a particular skill onboard, or if one force has less of a skill than the other force.
WHOA

This is a huge potential design space, barely touched, and could really shake up tactics. Right now, any rational player stocks tactics that he can more or less guarantee will always work at full power, and then builds his deck to make certain that's true. But if tactics care about the features of the TARGET (and not the features of ATTACKER), you can't build around that. You'd have to place bets on which tactics are needed based on your local meta, stock a few different possibilities, and hope to draw the right one at the right moment.

(This ties back to a longstanding suspicion I have: I don't think the game allows you to draw enough tactics at the start of battle. When there may be only one or two ship battles in an entire game, getting to draw just two cards per battle is not enough to reward diversity.)
I like these ideas.

Blatantly inspired by them: Tactics whose functionality -- or success -- depends on the location: [1E-P] , [1E-S] , nebula, region, "star" or "moon" in title, ...?
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By WeAreBack
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
#574369
Using the attributes of the location is great, so long as it doesn't limit the use of the card entirely, the way Riker Maneuver does.

Using the location makes a lot of sense as well -- maybe the card provides a huge defense bonus at an asteroid field if you have 3 Navigation, because your opponent is having to chase you. However, if there were a lot of tactics like this that would not be especially useful under numerous circumstances, it would be even more important to take seriously Jame's critique that:
BCSWowbagger wrote: Thu Mar 31, 2022 1:50 am (This ties back to a longstanding suspicion I have: I don't think the game allows you to draw enough tactics at the start of battle. When there may be only one or two ship battles in an entire game, getting to draw just two cards per battle is not enough to reward diversity.)
I could see having multiple Battle Bridge Doors as we do with Q's Tents. Perhaps one that seeds for free and gives you three cards, and the other that costs a seed slot and gives you another number, such as equal to the number of [SD] on a leader involved in the battle, or a minimum of two.
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By Takket
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#574412
Was thinking about this and my vision was rewarding you for winning multiple battles, although it is admittedly flawed because in a battle deck your plan is to spend 1, maybe 2 turns blasting the bejeesus out of of your opponent, and then you better get to solving missions or the game will time out.

Experienced Commander:
Incident

Seeds or plays on table. If your force including a ship with it's matching commander just won a battle, you may place your current tactic here. For each tactic card here, your current tactic's ATTACK and DEFENSE totals are doubled. (or +2, something like that...)

So each time your win a battle your tactics get more and more powerful. And your opponent has incentive to fight back to stop that. Problem is actually having enough battles to make it worthwhile.
 
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
#574572
WeAreBack wrote: Tue Mar 29, 2022 4:03 pm A free seeding version of BBD with some kind of restrictions is a must.


This is a strong statement that lacks justification. Why must a free seed version be restricted?
Right now, it's basically a situation where people feel compelled to stock it regardless of whether it's an important part of their deck's strategy or not.
Every counter card is stocked because a player feels compelled to stock it regardless of whether it's an important part of their deck's strategy or not. That's almost the definition of counter card.

I'm not disagreeing with the notion that Battle Bridge Door should be seeded for free, since it's both generally auto-included and thematically meant to be an enhancement to an otherwise lackluster, premiere mechanic, but I haven't seen an argument made for why a different version, that's more restricted, should be free, rather than the original.
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By Smiley (Cristoffer Wiker)
 - Gamma Quadrant
 -  
Continuing Committee Member - Retired
#574660
I think @AllenGould put it best when he discussed what a "free seed" actually means. Right now we do not have anything that does that. We have rules that lets you seed up to 6 sites, if you or your opponent have a nor that is. And Each player needs to bring 6 mission (or the amount worth of it). and that's it. If anything was ever to be "free" , that would change how things got seeded. This game needs everything to have a cost, especially in the seed phase. Anything else would have to be excluded from that.

And the other thing is that the game does not need to be more complicated that it already is. The game will not gain more depth from it, just make turns take longer than they do already.
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Director of Operations
By JeBuS (Brian S)
 - Director of Operations
 -  
1E Deep Space 9 Regional Champion 2023
#574664
Smiley wrote: Tue Apr 05, 2022 2:41 pm I think @AllenGould put it best when he discussed what a "free seed" actually means. Right now we do not have anything that does that. We have rules that lets you seed up to 6 sites, if you or your opponent have a nor that is. And Each player needs to bring 6 mission (or the amount worth of it). and that's it. If anything was ever to be "free" , that would change how things got seeded. This game needs everything to have a cost, especially in the seed phase. Anything else would have to be excluded from that.
I disagree with this, every time this argument is made. We already have language that templates "seeds for free" in the rulebook, and you've pointed right to it: missions and sites. What is more clear than "does not count towards your 30- card seed limit"?
And the other thing is that the game does not need to be more complicated that it already is. The game will not gain more depth from it, just make turns take longer than they do already.
The game does gain depth from tactics, especially in the ones that have special effects. How many of you have experienced the need to pivot when your ships' transporters are taken offline, or your range enhancements are ignored? Those introduce good complexity in the game. Does it mean a turn takes longer? Maybe. But it also means the game isn't running on a script any longer.
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By boromirofborg (Trek Barnes)
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
1E North American Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
2E North American Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
#574669
Smiley wrote: Tue Apr 05, 2022 2:41 pm I think @AllenGould put it best when he discussed what a "free seed" actually means. Right now we do not have anything that does that.
I think the rule basis is easily there with ❖ Space. Until that card was printed, there was nothing that counted as .5 of a seed card either.
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By winterflames (Derek Marlar)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#574670
What if we just gave everyone one doorway "download and seed" from outside the game at the beginning of their Doorway seed phase? If it makes it through play testing, it could help with Tactics, time location based decks, AU decks and Wormholes for spaceline jumping. I know that in at least 2 decks I have made lately, I would have loved to seed Barzan wormhole or temporal conduit AND had one more dilemma. My second son loves battle decks, and I would like to surprise him with my own tactics occasionally, but my decks only find room for Battle Bridge when they are running Damage dilemmas.
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First Edition Rules Master
 - First Edition Rules Master
 -  
Continuing Committee Member - Retired
Community Contributor
#574699
JeBuS wrote: Tue Apr 05, 2022 3:00 pm
Smiley wrote: Tue Apr 05, 2022 2:41 pm I think @AllenGould put it best when he discussed what a "free seed" actually means. Right now we do not have anything that does that. We have rules that lets you seed up to 6 sites, if you or your opponent have a nor that is. And Each player needs to bring 6 mission (or the amount worth of it). and that's it. If anything was ever to be "free" , that would change how things got seeded. This game needs everything to have a cost, especially in the seed phase. Anything else would have to be excluded from that.
I disagree with this, every time this argument is made. We already have language that templates "seeds for free" in the rulebook, and you've pointed right to it: missions and sites. What is more clear than "does not count towards your 30- card seed limit"?
Except, are missions and sites *really* "for free"?

Yes, the rulebook says that, but let's be honest - the rulebook says a lot of dumb things because Decipher had a weird aversion to actually just *changing* the rules. (And untangling all the dumb is a bigger project than anyone has time for - especially if we want to preserve all the silly interactions that hide in those ugly knots.)

In practice, sites and missions are like side decks - a separate part of your total deck. And the "for free/doesn't count" text is an update from the old 30/30 days. (And makes sense for an update article "missions no longer count towards your 30 seed cards", but makes *no* sense if you weren't around in Ye Olden Days.)

My argument for this is two-fold:

1. You can't put missions and sites into the actual 30-card seed deck. (e.g. you can't choose to seed a seventh mission or site and just "pay" the seed slot for it). If you can't legally put those cards *in* the seed deck, then there's no difference between "I seeded this site for free" and "I seeded this site (not for free)". There's only one way to seed a site, so the "for free" modifier doesn't actually modify anything.

2. From a purely practical standpoint: if missions and sites are part of the seed deck, why do we separate them in the deck builder and in the deck list? We haven't treated missions and sites as part of the seed deck in literal decades.

To sum up - "sites and missions don't count towards your 30-card seed limit" means exactly the same as "your draw deck, side decks, and that box of cards in the corner don't count towards your 30-card seed limit". They're functionally not *in* the seed deck. :)
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Director of Operations
By JeBuS (Brian S)
 - Director of Operations
 -  
1E Deep Space 9 Regional Champion 2023
#574701
None of what you say is false. But it also doesn't discount the fact that players are already familiar with the rules that say "doesn't count towards your 30-card seed limit". So there's no argument for rules complexity to work against "free seed".

Making something seed for free isn't a rules problem. It isn't a game complexity problem. What it is is a hesitancy to open pandora's box for Design to play there. (I grant you, it is a valid concern.)
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By Smiley (Cristoffer Wiker)
 - Gamma Quadrant
 -  
Continuing Committee Member - Retired
#574717
Current players might know this, some may only know parts of this. New players I know have a hard problem understanding this.
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First Edition Rules Master
 - First Edition Rules Master
 -  
Continuing Committee Member - Retired
Community Contributor
#574719
JeBuS wrote: Wed Apr 06, 2022 11:26 am None of what you say is false. But it also doesn't discount the fact that players are already familiar with the rules that say "doesn't count towards your 30-card seed limit". So there's no argument for rules complexity to work against "free seed".
I would argue they know what is *means*, but what it means is not what it *says*. We're just all used to doing that mental translation in our heads. (Or were around when the rule changed, so we remember it in terms of "they used to be there but don't count anymore".)

Put another way - if this rule was being written today (or rewritten), would we still use that phrasing? Or would we just say "your deck consists of six missions, up to six sites, up to thirty seed cards..."?

While I *do* think that opening the door to "oh, we can just make cards be free seeds" is bad mojo, I think codifying crappy old Decipher wording is far worse. :)
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 - Gamma Quadrant
 -  
Continuing Committee Member - Retired
#574726
IMHO the simplest solution is for design to create a new BBD that can incorporate each of the desired add ons while keeping the original still viable.

[Door] Battle Bridge Door: Captains Battle room

Place one atop Battle Bridge side deck during the seed phase. Battle Bridge is now open and in play (immune to cards which close doorways). You may immediately download and see another doorway. Your Battle Bridge must contain at least 8 different tactics. At start of any ship battle, draw 2 extra tactics and add +2 to either attack or defense (must choose before revealing)
 
By Se7enofMine (ChadC)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
Moderator
#574731
Hoss-Drone wrote: Wed Apr 06, 2022 3:04 pm IMHO the simplest solution is for design to create a new BBD that can incorporate each of the desired add ons while keeping the original still viable.

[Door] Battle Bridge Door: Captains Battle room

Place one atop Battle Bridge side deck during the seed phase. Battle Bridge is now open and in play (immune to cards which close doorways). You may immediately download and see another doorway. Your Battle Bridge must contain at least 8 different tactics. At start of any ship battle, draw 2 extra tactics and add +2 to either attack or defense (must choose before revealing)
Uhhh .. this seems ... awesome.

Make It So!
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By WeAreBack
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
#574743
I know that the Committee set up Project Babylon to work on issues related to sites, and gave us some big changes when Dogs of War was released. Might I suggest that something similar with regard to Tactics might be appropriate?

In my mind, the goals would be:
(1) Increase the variety of tactics that are available, as well as the variety that get played in any deck. (Basically make tactics and damage markers a fun part of the game that interacts with a player's overall strategy, rather than allowing people to have a single "one-size fits all" sets of tactics that work in any deck.)
(2) Lower the barrier to entry for players to play decks using tactics, so as to reduce as much as possible cases where rotation damage and damage marker damage apply in the same game (such as with [Self] cards and uncontrolled cards).

At a minimum, I think this is an idea that we might want to take a poll on.

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