I can't wait to see your video! I think it will be really important to maintain tight control over phrasing. So far, I've had complaints over rules confusion every single time I've taught the game. With that on my resume, let me show the phrasing I will use the next time I teach the game. On your turn you may take one free action, sacrifice a ship, or decline to take any action. At the end of your turn, you may call for catastrophe. If you take one ship action for free, the activated ship may use it's own ability, or the ability of any other ship you have in the same star system, or the ability of any star in the star system. If you sacrifice a ship, you may use it's innate ability at any of your remaining ships. You may do this once for each pip (or point of size) the sacrificed ship had. At the end of your turn, you may call for a catastrophe in any star system which contains four or more pyramids (ships and stars) of the same color. All ships and stars of that color are returned to the bank. If at least one star remains in the system, all other pyramids (ships or stars) are unaffected. If all the system's stars were destroyed by the catastrophe, any remaining ships in the system will also be "lost/destroyed" and returned to the bank. David L. Willson Trainer, Engineer, Enthusiast MCT, MCSE, Linux+ tel://720.333.LANS Freeing people from the tyranny (or whatevery) of Microsofty-ness, one at a time. ----- "Joseph Peterson" <jeepeterson@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > Two-player is the bestest, but my son crushes me fairly > > easily... :-) Has anyone found any good, scalable > > handicapping mechanisms? > > I've thought about this a lot while recording my Learn to Play > Homeworlds video. Here's what I've come up with. I started putting > them in increasing order, but then realized that I can't tell which of > some of these is more difficult. This isn't scalable yet, but you can > try some of them out and let us know. > > * First Move to weaker player > * Stronger player plays fortress and weaker player goes first > * Stronger player builds first, plays second* > * Dead Star (the stronger player builds his homeworld with a dead > star- use a black or gray pyramid) > * Regeneration - weaker player can take a move to regenerate a lost > start in a homeworld. Less powerful would be that they can convert a > ship into a star in the homeworld, but have to ensure that the > homeworld is not completely closed off (i.e. has a star of each size) > * Stronger player can't start with green in homeworld (this is extra > move in disguise - first turn for stronger player will be to swap to > green ship) > * Extra move for weaker player - give them X chips to use for a one > shot extra turn > * Stronger player can't start game with blue in homeworld > * Weaker player gets n+1 actions for a sac action (max of 3 is > probably a good restriction.) > * Stronger player gets n-1 actions for a sac action. This might be too > brutal, as sac'ing a 1 point would do nothing but put a pyramid back > into the stash. Alternatively could be sac actions for stronger > player gives a single action. This would change the game quite a > bit. > > > > *I'm actually playing this agaisnt TwoShort on SDG, I'll let you know > how it works out. > > > > _______________________________________________ > Icehouse mailing list > Icehouse@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > http://lists.looneylabs.com/mailman/listinfo/icehouse