Mercredi 4 juin 2008
I originally tried to post this yesterday, but instead of typing it up in a separate program like Notepad, I foolishly wrote it directly into the Overblog form, and
the system decided to temporarily crash and eat my post when I tried to put it up.
On Monday afternoon, less than 24 hours after the initial playtest, I once again was able to get Metro Pittsburgh onto the table, this time with a different group, consisting of 2 of my primary playtesters from Montreal who had played extensively with the original timed urbanization rules from that map. I once again forgot my camera...I promise pictures of playtest #3!
In terms of rules, I merely tweaked the map. I took a few cubes away from the starting board set, and I revised the auction roles, removing Repopulation and splitting the Engineer into the normal build 4 track role and the new free bridge role. In terms of the way these changes worked, I was pleased. The cubes were a bit tighter, which I wanted, and the free bridge role, while still the consensus #2 pick because of its money saving powers, was weakened slightly. In the first playtest, it was often possible to take that role with one intention, and then to use the other half of it if the track building phase threw an unexpected curve ball at you. Splitting the role maintains its usefulness, but weakens it slightly, which is a good thing. I want to insure that Locomotive maintains its powerhouse function in this map so that winning the auction has a real value.
In this particular playing of the map the urbanizations mostly ended up in the western downtown area, and fairly heavily in the south. This was a different texture from the first playtest, where a heavy amount of urbanization was centred in the east. The western area became very congested as a result, and the map ended up with a tighter final score because of my more experienced foes. I ended up losing by 1 piece of track to Alex, who was playing his customary slum lord role, taking out only 8 shares over the course of the game while I had issued 13. The blue city was of particular interest this game yet again, as it showed up very late, on round 8, when most of the non-blue cubes had been cleared off the map.
Thus far, I'm extremely happy with the way the map is playing. Of the various ideas I have in my head and in the initial development phase, this is the one that feels like it is not going to have to be changed extensively over the course of its development. The map will likely receive changes here and there, and some of the rules can be revised, but out of the gates this one is playing quite smoothly. I attribute this to the fact that I have already played with a variation of these rules, albeit on a smaller scale, and as a result, knew largely what I was getting into when I first started work on this design. This contrasts to stuff like the CCCP map, or the new team-based map concept I have in my head, which are tackling more virgin (to me) territory.
On Monday afternoon, less than 24 hours after the initial playtest, I once again was able to get Metro Pittsburgh onto the table, this time with a different group, consisting of 2 of my primary playtesters from Montreal who had played extensively with the original timed urbanization rules from that map. I once again forgot my camera...I promise pictures of playtest #3!
In terms of rules, I merely tweaked the map. I took a few cubes away from the starting board set, and I revised the auction roles, removing Repopulation and splitting the Engineer into the normal build 4 track role and the new free bridge role. In terms of the way these changes worked, I was pleased. The cubes were a bit tighter, which I wanted, and the free bridge role, while still the consensus #2 pick because of its money saving powers, was weakened slightly. In the first playtest, it was often possible to take that role with one intention, and then to use the other half of it if the track building phase threw an unexpected curve ball at you. Splitting the role maintains its usefulness, but weakens it slightly, which is a good thing. I want to insure that Locomotive maintains its powerhouse function in this map so that winning the auction has a real value.
In this particular playing of the map the urbanizations mostly ended up in the western downtown area, and fairly heavily in the south. This was a different texture from the first playtest, where a heavy amount of urbanization was centred in the east. The western area became very congested as a result, and the map ended up with a tighter final score because of my more experienced foes. I ended up losing by 1 piece of track to Alex, who was playing his customary slum lord role, taking out only 8 shares over the course of the game while I had issued 13. The blue city was of particular interest this game yet again, as it showed up very late, on round 8, when most of the non-blue cubes had been cleared off the map.
Thus far, I'm extremely happy with the way the map is playing. Of the various ideas I have in my head and in the initial development phase, this is the one that feels like it is not going to have to be changed extensively over the course of its development. The map will likely receive changes here and there, and some of the rules can be revised, but out of the gates this one is playing quite smoothly. I attribute this to the fact that I have already played with a variation of these rules, albeit on a smaller scale, and as a result, knew largely what I was getting into when I first started work on this design. This contrasts to stuff like the CCCP map, or the new team-based map concept I have in my head, which are tackling more virgin (to me) territory.
