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nymanjens / Alliances

WWI-themed board game
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2038974445
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Stop the exchange of coins for something more interesting #176

Closed 317070 closed 7 years ago

317070 commented 7 years ago

Right now, we have this mechanic on command tokens which work well: because of information which needs to stay secret, it is hard to communicate about command tokens with allies. This stops piloting to some extent and makes not only the diplomacy, but the communication about it interesting.

On the other hand, when talking about coins, we could basically have a common pool of coins per team, because it is what happens in practice anyway. There is nothing at all preventing this behavior, since the amount of coins everyone has is public information.

Can we make it more interesting?

  1. Make 1 player a banker, keeping the treasure for its team, thus requiring more information to be communicated (which is hard)?
  2. Players can exchange coins, but at a fixed rate for command tokens. So you may receive 3 coins, but only when you give a command token in return. (This kind of solves #156 too, probably) This rate is non-negotiable, and thus prevents the slinging/terrorism-strategy to some extent. Maybe the player needs to burn some coins in the transaction too, to prevent command token trading.
  3. Coins cannot be traded, but command tokens can. Command tokens need to be purchased though and players start with fewer command tokens.

I personally think 2 might make the coin-game a lot more interesting. We probably need to remove the rule in which empty regions can be plundered, to avoid artificial donations of coins, but I think that's worth it.

What do you think? Other suggestions?

Tantali commented 7 years ago

I agree with the common coin pool needing rework. I don't understand your reference to #156.

I'm not feeling the current suggestions though. But can't also currently come up with any other suggestions...

317070 commented 7 years ago

I don't understand your reference to #156.

Ah, exchanging command tokens would basically also solve the problem that who is the last player to move is only down to luck

nymanjens commented 7 years ago

I think I disagree that this is a problem. Option 2 and 3 would make the asymmetric production - consumption of coins across players impossible or unsustainable. I like that possibility and I'm not willing to give it up for the stated goal.

317070 commented 7 years ago

Option 2 and 3 would make the asymmetric production - consumption of coins across players impossible or unsustainable.

Yes, I would avoid it being impossible. But I am in favor of making them unsustainable in the long term. That's the whole idea, after all. Right now, coins are a single pool, because giving coins is free. If you need to exchange them for command tokens, it is free, but only in short term. You cannot 'sling' for very long.

317070 commented 7 years ago

Robin brought up this idea:

You may give 2 coins to a player, when you burn an extra coin.

I like! It is not necessarily more interesting, but it solves the problem that it is now worthless to put individual players on a negative income #181

nymanjens commented 7 years ago

As I said before, I don't see the problem with a shared coin pool. Therefore, I don't want to complicate the rules to fix it.

BTW: This would make playing alliances with an uneven amount of players harder.