Looney Labs Icehouse Mailing list Archive

["Dan Isaac" <disaac1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Wow! Awesome. I can't tell you how great it feels to hear that there are people

out there enjoying Armada. I love the feedback, and the suggestions.

 

This game has always been a bit of a sore thumb to me. I knew that it had some

problems when I released it, but I still haven't taken the time to work them out.

 

Around the time I released it to IGD4, I had just been laid off at work and was

preparing to move about 500 miles away from most everyone that I knew.

I still haven't built up a gaming group down here, but now that I know there are

people still enjoying variants of this game, I would love to fix up the base rules.

 

If anyone wants to help play-test and provide some feedback on my proposed

changes, I would love to hear it.

 

===== Thoughts and change suggestions below =====

 

Most of the changes I plan on making have already been suggested by myself

or others over the years, but I am just trying to find the best ones to make the

basic rules playable, fun, & balanced and leave many of the others as variants

and house rules.

 

The main issue of the game is the imbalance between the sizes of the pieces,

and therefore the imbalance between the players/sides.

 

I submitted Armada to IGDC4 as a stripped down/simplified version of a larger

game that I had been working on, and I didn't have much time to play-test the

conversion of it to a single-stash game. The original game did use a separate

stash for each player, and I think that Armada should go back to that setup.

 

That will solve the imbalance issue between the players, however it does not

address the issue of the imbalance between the sizes of pieces.

 

Since each player would have their own pieces and be able to choose which sizes

they would like to use, the piece imbalance is not greatly important. However,

it sounds like the Large ships are getting the raw end of the deal. Especially with

the point-purchase system.

(As it stands, they are just not worth the same as three smalls.)

 

The issue could probably be partially resolved by taking something away from the

smalls and giving something more to the larges. For example, the max distance

a small can travel could be reduced to 3 units, and a rear cannon could be added to

the Large ships.

 

However, I am also wondering what would happen if instead of purchasing ships

based on their size, each player just chooses a specified number of ships of any

size combination. Basically use the point-system, but with each ship worth one-point,

rather then based on size of the ship. Perhaps 6 or 7 ships each might be a good

starting point.

 

What do you think? How does it play with just those modifications?

Summary:

    Separate stash per player & ship-buy rather then point-buy

        (with or without distance & cannon changes)

 

== Other questions ==

 

With the rules being changed -- specifically the stash-per-player & thus multiplayer

could I keep the name "Armada", or do you feel that it would need to change also?

(If so any suggestions?)

 

Have you tried the game as a capture the flag? Either as a ship or a stationary flag?

 

Have there been any issues with late game stalemates? Players circling or running

from each-other?

 

 

Thanks again,

        Dan Isaac