We played another two games tonight. With 1 player (not including Josh and I) who had seen the first 2 games, we introduced 2 new people to the game.

The Board
I spent a lot of time on making sure that we got the board created this time. The board needed to accommodate 6 different turf types (plains, seas, swamps, mountains, forests, deserts).

Win Conditions

• A player will win if his faction controls 5 or 6 (we’re still deciding) turfs that match the home turf as listed on the faction card.
• We introduced faction nemeses as well. If a faction’s nemesis is in play AND they land the killing blow, they win.
• We also introduced “Secret Win Condition” cards so that people without a nemesis in play could have another possible win condition.
• At the end of the game (round 10) the player with the most Dominance Points (DP) will win if the no other condition was met.

Secret Win Condition Cards
Some examples:

• Undefeated: If you’ve won all of your turf wars, you win the game.
• Double Rainbow: Control 2 of each turf type.
• Card Carrier: Hold one of each Combat Card from 1 – 10.

I created a simple 6×6 grid for the board. I didn’t like that board so much and had a brainstorm.

I then did some cray mathematical computations and used a Sudoku solver I had written in Excel in 2005 to create a 9×9 grid that introduces dead spaces, additional turfs and teleporters to enable faster navigation of the board to allow the possibility of attaining the appropriate number of home turfs in about 10 rounds.

Josh and I had many discussions over the last 2 weeks about this board and my description of it and why I was bothering with it, etc. We left it as: we can play test it and if it is too cray and doesn’t add anything but complexity, we can always scrap it.

We played the first game with the 6×6 grid and in the process… no names… someone spilled some wine on the 6×6 board.

We then played the next game with the cray-9×9 grid and teleporters and experienced VERY different game play. Because the teleportation rules were not yet finalized there was a teleporting frenzy and the distribution of faction troops on the board were essentially clusters of troops spiraling out from the 4 teleporters.

Despite that, and the uneven distribution of turf types adjacent to the teleporters, everyone liked using the cray board vs. the simple one.

Again, the feedback was essentially: still fun and it’s improving. Woot!