MYM AAR and Revision

[Nanook]

Please leave your AARs and thoughts/comments/suggestions in this thread. Thank you to everyone that was a part of this, I think I safely speak for both myself and ferdy when I say we really appreciate it, and welcome your feedback. And now I'll leave the floor to ya'll for the time being, and save my thoughts until I can hear some of yours!

[Antigonos]

I will have more to say later but for now I want to thank nanooktheeskimo and ferdy0 for their stewardship of this test game and congratulate all of the players for their play and for having made it alive to the end point. I will have some observations and suggestions but I quite enjoyed the game even as is.

[jakofipa]

Thank you for Nanook and Ferdy for making this game possible. I feel that it is an interesting variant and has different challenges.

From my POV, I would say that it is biased towards Sweden and Spain, and to a lesser extent Czech. The first 2 are isolated so can expand without fight (providing majors aren't used against them), and for Czech the only neighbour is Yugo, who you can peacefully expand away from each other.

I like the idea of DPs and IPs, but I think it should be altered slightly. It would be nice to have more IPs, perhaps 2 for each SC for first 3, then 1 for the next SCs to 10.
Eg:
1 SC 2 IPs
2 4
3 6
4 7
5 8
6 9
7+ 10


Gives a chance for more Major power shenanigans, whilst still keeping the advantage of larger nations. I think this could also help the imbalances as more major movements can give Spain and Sweden a tougher time early on.

[I Love Italy]

Thanks for running! I don't have any particular thoughts, but something from someone else might spark an idea. I'll keep an eye on the thread.

[ferdy0]

Marked

[gnaah]

Oh well i suppose there is no harm in sharing my own opinion for you to enjoy.

I may have shared my observation with our noble GM and i am led to believe they enjoyed my expert insight. For you see, i too share Jaks view, that a little more IP per turn would improve the game overall. You would be able to enjoy the presence of the major powers for a while longer. It became apparant at the end of the test, that those few years we shared already sufficed to seriously diminish the majors. And after they're gone, there'd be a different issue we'd be able to enjoy. If the peripheral players have played their cards right, they will be significantly larger than the rest.

For me, as Yugoslavia, i was able to enjoy 3 very close neighors at the start and i was lucky that 2 of them shared my view that they should engage in a different direction and a third one was known to be a very busy person which made him the perfect target for a friendly "Dobar dan , ja te ubodem".

But really, i enjoyed this interesting variant, it has lots of potential. Maybe exchange a few minors to balance things out and it'll be the perfect variant to share with your friends.

[ferdy0]

Thanks for running! I don't have any particular thoughts, but something from someone else might spark an idea. I'll keep an eye on the thread.

You think Gre/Egy were balanced? - from a Egy point of view.

[JonS]

Thanks for the time put into this by Ferdy and Nanook

My two pieces of constructive feedback are essentially the same as Jak:

1. Think about how the minors can be better balanced...Sweden and Spain have a huge advantage. (A potential I failed to fulfill mostly through a constant hounding by Jak). On the other end, Yugo/Czech/Greece/Rumania/Egypt all in competition with each other pretty much immediately. Maybe remove a Balkan minor and introduce a new one elsewhere? An Irish power perhaps, or the Netherlands?

2. Also agree more IPs early on would be fun - maybe look at the DP levels in the Greek City State game currently running? But I think starting with 3 IP or something along those lines would be a lot of fun.

Overall - really really enjoyed this.

[I Love Italy]

Thanks for running! I don't have any particular thoughts, but something from someone else might spark an idea. I'll keep an eye on the thread.

You think Gre/Egy were balanced? - from a Egy point of view.

I think it's pretty balanced. To expand a decent amount, Egypt either needs to make a break into Turkey or the USSR. Both of those are easily blockable with IPs. Greece has access to the Balkan centers much more easily, but will need to deal with Czechoslovakia diplomatically to secure them. So, in both cases, it comes down to who can make the alliances necessary to secure them more territory. Essentially a classic Diplomacy situation.

However, it does seem a bit troubling to me that it's essentially impossible for both to coexist. Oh well, you can't have everything.

[Nanook]

Alright, time to share my thoughts. In no particular order....

Something has to be done about the phases, because there are too many of them. Personally I would lean towards either eliminating one of the DP bidding phases (August), and combining the other one (February) with the build phase (as in, builds and bids are submitted at the same time). This would greatly help streamline the game I think, and remove some of the clunkiness from it.

I would be in favor of adding just one IP to the base (i.e, start with two instead of one) and upping the cap to four or five instead of three. The other possibility I've thought of and discussed with ferdy (or possibly he thought of and discussed with me, I forget now), is making every center worth two IP with a cap at six. Either way, I think it needs to be marginally tweaked, not completely overhauled. I liked the start pace, and I think that we saw even from this testrun that it will pick up very, very quickly.

IP and DP need to be made clearer, perhaps with DP being labeled something different.

As far as minors being balanced go, I think it's clear that Spain and Sweden need a better check (though Jak managed to put a nice one on Jon, pun intended ), while the Balkans need one less. I would lean towards taking out Greece, and putting a minor in Holland. That would give Sweden and Spain a direct competitor, as well as giving Spain another country to worry about in Egypt (without the presence of a naval Greece, Egypt will be much stronger in the Med I would anticipate--that was part of the impetus for having Greece start with a fleet and not an army, after all!).

There needs to be a tie breaking mechanism for bidding on major powers. Preferably nothing too complicated. I'm not sure what it should be, but I know there needs to be one and I'm open to suggestions.

I think that a mechanism for major units to retreat and be rebuilt should be added. Perhaps make builds influencable by IP the same as orders are, and have the GM responsible for retreating a majors units when one is available (that's potentially dicey however, I think).

I'm sure I'll have more to say (I usually do ), but that's what I've got for now.