This forums is for questions, answers, and discussion about First Edition rules, formats, and expansions.
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Director of First Edition
By MidnightLich (Charlie Plaine)
 - Director of First Edition
 -  
Prophet
#503820
Welcome to today's First Edition Friday Question, where you get a chance to answer questions that will help shape the future of First Edition. If you'd like to catch up on previous entries, here's a list of all of my previous Friday Questions:

13 MAR 2020: How would you feel about 1E adding extra "bits"?
6 MAR 2020: What are your favorite "almost good" S/P dilemmas?
28 FEB 2020: What are your favorite decks to play?
21 FEB 2020: Which Decipher expansion most deserves a sequel?
14 FEB 2020: Which "broken link" should be fixed first?
7 FEB 2020: What's your favorite episode of Star Trek?
31 JAN 2020: Which TOS main character needs a new card?
24 JAN 2020: What should qualify a card for the "watch list"?
17 JAN 2020: What card would you unban without changes?
10 JAN 2020: What single card would you ban to improve your game?
3 JAN 2020: What are you looking forward to in The Neutral Zone?
27 DEC 2019: How can we help you recruit new players?
20 DEC 2019: Where do you want the game to be in five years?
13 DEC 2019: Which concepts should 1E "import" from other games?
6 DEC 2019: Which couples should get a dual personnel card?
29 NOV 2019: Which old, unused 1E cards deserve some love?
22 NOV 2019: Which upcoming milestones need celebration?
15 NOV 2019: What's your favorite card image?
11 NOV 2019: What was your first 1E experience?
1 NOV 2019 What is your opinion of the "full page" policy?
25 OCT 2019: What do you want to see in a Halloween set?
18 OCT 2019: What is your favorite expansion?
11 OCT 2019: Which TNG main character needs a new card?
4 OCT 2019: Which Star Trek story needs more cards?
27 SEP 2019: How many points should [SPOILER] be worth?
20 SEP 2019: Which rules always confuse you?
13 SEP 2019: What do you think of [SPOILER]?
6 SEP 2019: Which card needs an alternate image (AI)?
30 AUG 2019: Which characteristic needs love?


Hello, and happy announcement day for The Neutral Zone! This new expansion started spoilers today and will be releasing on Friday, April 3rd. In the mean time, you'll be seeing spoilers every day here on the website and even more on our social media channels. After all, when there's all kinds of scary news in the world, isn't it great to have new First Edition cards? And since The Neutral Zone is, in large part, about that region, I thought a question about regions would be good for today's topic.

What regions - new or existing - would you like to see get focus on in the future?

The Neutral Zone has some cards that reward you for playing in the Neutral Zone, such as the titular card - and you'll see more that aren't specific to the zone. But what other regions should get some love? Maybe a boutique product, or just some new cards? Is there a Trek region that isn't in 1E that you'd love to see added?

Are there mechanics that should be tied to specific regions? Regions in general? Do you need to see a 9-card boutique all about the Bajor System Region? Or maybe you hate the entire Region mechanic, and would like to see some anti-region cards? That's valid too. No matter what, we want to know what regions you'd like to see added to the game.

Play some 1E this weekend, with family, or build some decks. Hop onto Lackey and spend some time figuring out how to play online. But no matter what, stay safe, and stay sane. And check out the website every day for new spoilers!

-crp
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By Iron Prime (Dan Van Kampen)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
Moderator
#503825
Sector 001 could be fun. And I would be OK with building a region from scratch rather than trying to shoe-horn stuff in later...

But I think my first choice is that it would be nice to flesh out Bajor and Cardassia regions since they started it all. Especially if we could find a way to link them? May be use the solar sailor for some non-bonus points?
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First Edition Rules Master
By BCSWowbagger (James Heaney)
 - First Edition Rules Master
 -  
Community Contributor
#503827
Put me down for anti-regions. Like separate quadrants, regions encourage turtling, isolation, and solitaire. The ability to control the entire spaceline within a region makes it worse. It's a 1E mechanic that I'm glad exists, because

(1) it represents the reality of the Star Trek universe, which is what 1E ought to do, and

(2) it does a really good job representing the four regions in the game that really need it for story reasons: the Neutral Zone, the Badlands, the DMZ, and the Bajor Region. Indeed, the Bajor Region is almost the central character of any Bajoran deck, even moreso than any individual "face" card. And the idea of playing Maquis outside the "Maquis regions" just feels wrong -- as it should!

But it's a mechanic I don't really want to see extended any further any time soon, because (outside of Bajoran/Maquis turtling, which is a key part of their respective flavors), I don't think it promotes good gameplay.
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Director of First Edition
By MidnightLich (Charlie Plaine)
 - Director of First Edition
 -  
Prophet
#503828
BCSWowbagger wrote:Put me down for anti-regions. Like separate quadrants, regions encourage turtling, isolation, and solitaire. The ability to control the entire spaceline within a region makes it worse. It's a 1E mechanic that I'm glad exists, because

(1) it represents the reality of the Star Trek universe, which is what 1E ought to do, and

(2) it does a really good job representing the two regions in the game that really need it for story reasons: the Neutral Zone and the Bajor Region. Indeed, the Bajor Region is almost the central character of any Bajoran deck, even moreso than any individual "face" card.

But it's a mechanic I don't really want to see extended any further any time soon, because I don't think it promotes good gameplay.
So let's assume that regions are here to stay and their expansion is inevitable. What tools would you like to see in the game to help address your concerns?

-crp
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Director of Operations
By JeBuS (Brian S)
 - Director of Operations
 -  
1E Deep Space 9 Regional Champion 2023
#503829
MidnightLich wrote:
BCSWowbagger wrote:Put me down for anti-regions. Like separate quadrants, regions encourage turtling, isolation, and solitaire. The ability to control the entire spaceline within a region makes it worse. It's a 1E mechanic that I'm glad exists, because

(1) it represents the reality of the Star Trek universe, which is what 1E ought to do, and

(2) it does a really good job representing the two regions in the game that really need it for story reasons: the Neutral Zone and the Bajor Region. Indeed, the Bajor Region is almost the central character of any Bajoran deck, even moreso than any individual "face" card.

But it's a mechanic I don't really want to see extended any further any time soon, because I don't think it promotes good gameplay.
So let's assume that regions are here to stay and their expansion is inevitable. What tools would you like to see in the game to help address your concerns?

-crp
My first thought was to allow ❖ to seed within regions and become part of the region, but that will just lead to more mission stealing, which will prevent anyone from actually trying to use it.
Last edited by JeBuS on Fri Mar 20, 2020 12:22 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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First Edition Rules Master
By BCSWowbagger (James Heaney)
 - First Edition Rules Master
 -  
Community Contributor
#503832
Edited my post because I forgot the Maquis, like a dingus.

To your question, Charlie: I don't really know.

I've long thought it might be a good idea for Rules to look into revising the region rules so that you don't get to insert a regional mission anywhere in the region. (Instead, you'd have to insert the regional mission at either end of the region, like a mini-spaceline instead of your own personal fiefdom.) However, I know such a move would upset a bunch of people, because it would mean messing with The Deep Rules From The Dawn Of Time (aka 1997), and I'm not really sure how much it would improve, so I've kept that idea to myself -- and, especially now that I'm Rules Manager, I'm ironically no longer as free to write forum posts recklessly supporting one rule change or another.

But regions fundamentally promote turtling. There's no way for them not to do that while still being regions. That's their point, and always has been (something else that happened in 1997: Patrol Neutral Zone). That's good for the small subset of affiliations we have where we should promote turtling (Bajorans + Maquis, I think), but bad for the game if it spreads.

If region expansion is inevitable, I guess I'd encourage Design to treat regions as flavor that is tied specifically to Bajorans + Maquis + Romulans + TNG Borg. Design is always saying that 1E doesn't have enough color-based flavorful mechanics, and that's true enough. Well, here's one of the game's biggest! Don't dilute it by giving it to everyone else.

Alternatively, Design could do what it has done in Sector 001 (accidentally, I think, but successfully): add missions to a region, sure, but, by using attemptability icons and special requirements, make it impractical for any single deck to seed more than two of them. Right now, a Sector 001 player can basically solve Earth + 1 other Sector 001 mission, which means a Sector 001 player can't really turtle up and stay in Sector 001 the whole game. That's healthy. So I have to disagree with Orbin, above: since the Battle of Sector 001 is already an [EE] mission, I think it's actually really important that [EE] never get another Sector 001 mission ever again.
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First Edition Rules Master
By BCSWowbagger (James Heaney)
 - First Edition Rules Master
 -  
Community Contributor
#503834
I will say that, whenever we get around to the Xindi, in ten years or whatever, the Delphic Expanse Region is going to be problematic for all the same reasons, but hopefully we can do something amazing with it, because you can't really do Enterprise Season 3 without making the Delphic Expanse a living character. (I think there were more "The Expanse is Weird" episodes than there were "Xindi Are Bad" episodes, although I'm not willing to go count right now.)
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Director of Operations
By JeBuS (Brian S)
 - Director of Operations
 -  
1E Deep Space 9 Regional Champion 2023
#503840
BCSWowbagger wrote:I've long thought it might be a good idea for Rules to look into revising the region rules so that you don't get to insert a regional mission anywhere in the region. (Instead, you'd have to insert the regional mission at either end of the region, like a mini-spaceline instead of your own personal fiefdom.)
Until recently, this is how I thought Region seeding worked. It made sense that it was a microcosm of the larger spaceline rules.
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 - Gamma Quadrant
 -  
Continuing Committee Member - Retired
#503847
BCSWowbagger wrote:Put me down for anti-regions. Like separate quadrants, regions encourage turtling, isolation, and solitaire.
I will put myself down in the in between camp. I think that some region stuff would or could be good for the game. I actually think that the new neutral zone incident is good for the right reasons. You get a minor benefit or two but you have to commit to 5 nz missions, no hq to turtle at and by making your missions clumped, well your opponent gets the same so they can solve missions faster too.

The bad side of the equation though is the turtleing. But the impetus of that are homeworld and the strategema protection. Your not really turtled in the NZ, you're in a barrel where the opponent can know that's your starting locale and come in to shoot you.

So in my mind the balance is:

- No more regions with homeworld protection.
- dilemmas to hurt you within a region
- no region should have more than 4 different missions (so u must use ❖ to get to 5 or 6. (We'll just have to let current cards slide)
- if you make more region help you need to, at the same time make an equal amount of region hate.
Last edited by Hoss-Drone on Fri Mar 20, 2020 1:20 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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By Mr.Sloan
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#503858
i agree to many of the named.

Maybe also "borg space" [1E-DQ] or "the void" or Kazon territory or vadauur?

It would be cool if flying throught regions means you get a lot more RANGE. Because if one player has a region he is kind of isolated, doing solitär. if every player would get +4 range withhin anyones region interaction has a better chance.

or add some usable transwarp hubs build in missions?
Last edited by Mr.Sloan on Fri Mar 20, 2020 2:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Director of Operations
By JeBuS (Brian S)
 - Director of Operations
 -  
1E Deep Space 9 Regional Champion 2023
#503862
LuthySloan wrote:i agree to many of the named.

Maybe also "borg space" [1E-DQ] or "the void"

It would be cool if flying throught regions means you get a lot more RANGE. Because if one player has a region he is kind of isolated, doing solitär. if every player would get +4 range withhin anyones region interaction has a better chance.
I don't agree. It's already enough of an advantage that you get to choose the spaceline layout that favors you. To also make the span less... well, that's even worse. Now everything about the spaceline is going your way.
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