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3/19/2020
Movie Review: Avengers: Endgame (SPOILERS)
Probably the best thing about Endgame is that it's the (almost) last of the first generation of MCU movies (we still have a Spiderman movie, maybe a Black Widow movie, and I'm sure a whole 'other next-generation of MCU movies are in the works). Is it a good movie? No. Is it a good-MCU movie? It's fine, much in the same way that Harry Potter 8 was fine: it does what it is supposed to.
That it broke box office records is understandable since the last movie was a cliff-hanger. Less understandable is its rave reviews, unless the reviews are based on its "must see" quality. Because, even from a Marvel perspective, the movie just barely makes sense, is disjointed, has too many scenes that are just sketches, has too many underused characters, and has an ending that is somewhat anti-climactic. What it has going for it is some emotional impact (a bit), some humor (not all of it good), some flashbacks to previous MCU movies, some nice visuals, and a sense of an ending.
PLOT: Following the last movie where half of the universe is wiped out, the characters are upset. The survivors track down Thanos who has already destroyed the stones so that his work can't be undone, so all they can do is kill him. Five years later Ant-Man is accidentally rescued from the quantum realm but has experienced only 5 hours, which leads him to think that the Avengers can use the quantum realm to go back in time - and space (???) - to very specific times and places in order to steal the infinity stones from the past, undo what Thanos did, and return them to their timelines. Unfortunately, while in the past, future Nebula's presence and memories alert past Thanos to this plan and he travels into the present to destroy the universe and remake a new one that won't try this plan again.
REACTIONS: Let's put a pin onto the obvious time-travel paradox problems, and even the rest of the insane problems for one minute and take the movie as is. This movie takes a little time to show us Hawkeye's family, Iron Man's daughter, and a few other character-relationship moments, which is a little more than we get in most MCU movies and which was nice. There was at least some attempt to deal with the failure and loss of the last movie, although, other than an argument from Iron Man and a sense of purpose from Captain America, these attempts were laughably badly done. Thor's gut belly and indifference was supposed to be funny, but other than the quick visual punch it really wasn't. On the one hand it was nice to see an overweight superhero. On the other, too many jokes were made about him being out of shape.
Now we have to take the pin out, because this movie's basic plot, premise, and how it deals with what happened is just insane:
That it broke box office records is understandable since the last movie was a cliff-hanger. Less understandable is its rave reviews, unless the reviews are based on its "must see" quality. Because, even from a Marvel perspective, the movie just barely makes sense, is disjointed, has too many scenes that are just sketches, has too many underused characters, and has an ending that is somewhat anti-climactic. What it has going for it is some emotional impact (a bit), some humor (not all of it good), some flashbacks to previous MCU movies, some nice visuals, and a sense of an ending.
PLOT: Following the last movie where half of the universe is wiped out, the characters are upset. The survivors track down Thanos who has already destroyed the stones so that his work can't be undone, so all they can do is kill him. Five years later Ant-Man is accidentally rescued from the quantum realm but has experienced only 5 hours, which leads him to think that the Avengers can use the quantum realm to go back in time - and space (???) - to very specific times and places in order to steal the infinity stones from the past, undo what Thanos did, and return them to their timelines. Unfortunately, while in the past, future Nebula's presence and memories alert past Thanos to this plan and he travels into the present to destroy the universe and remake a new one that won't try this plan again.
REACTIONS: Let's put a pin onto the obvious time-travel paradox problems, and even the rest of the insane problems for one minute and take the movie as is. This movie takes a little time to show us Hawkeye's family, Iron Man's daughter, and a few other character-relationship moments, which is a little more than we get in most MCU movies and which was nice. There was at least some attempt to deal with the failure and loss of the last movie, although, other than an argument from Iron Man and a sense of purpose from Captain America, these attempts were laughably badly done. Thor's gut belly and indifference was supposed to be funny, but other than the quick visual punch it really wasn't. On the one hand it was nice to see an overweight superhero. On the other, too many jokes were made about him being out of shape.
Now we have to take the pin out, because this movie's basic plot, premise, and how it deals with what happened is just insane:
- If you wipe out half of all "living creatures", what about the animals and vegetation?
- If you wipe our half of all living creatures, far FAR more than half of the remainder are going to die, and pretty soon. Half of all airplane pilots of mid-flight airplanes and half of the air-traffic controllers are gone. That's thousands of crashed flights. Half of all drivers of cars and trucks are gone but their cars are still speeding. That stops EVERY car and truck on the road, killing millions of people and instantly blocking every major and minor thoroughfare. Who's left to un-jam the roads? Half of all surgeons are gone mid-operation and nurses mid-care. Half of all single-parents with dependents that can't get help. Half of the people that care for remote villages.
- How about every religion? How many of them could deal with half of their flock, including their pope or chief or most of their cardinals, dying? No riots? No looting? No new cults or major overthrows? How are the governments still working? How are buildings? How is food and medicine getting delivered, let alone produced and harvested and supplied?
- How about financial markets and the collapse of industry? How about the collapse of all national security? How about rogue nations and terrorism? How about ...
- Let's talk about what it would mean then to reintroduce half of the population again five years after the world has moved on without them. Where are they reintroduced into the world, including the ones that were mid-flight or mid-driving? Up in the air, at their destination, or at home? Who owns what? Who is married to whom? Who is producing food for them and where do they live?
- The point is that this kind of disaster is a mcguffin, something that you can't think about even in the most shallow terms because it doesn't make any sense, but the MCU just throws it in and expects you not to think about it.
And that's not even considering the loony ways that time-travel is dealt with, screwing around with multiple timelines with no concept of how to resolve any of the changes. But that consideration is, at least, par for the course for bad sci-fi movies. Also, how does time travel = infinite space travel?
As far as characters go:
- Iron Man is well acted and has a good show. It was nice to see his callback to the end of the first movie
- Captain America has definitely grown as a character and had a good show.
- Black Widow / Hawkeye: yes, it was a better choice for her to die, since he has a real family, but the movie doesn't make you feel that that was more than a plot consideration. Her death was more tragic than Iron Man's, but she is only given a few words of remorse while he is given a whole ending funeral and condolence scene. Which just goes to show that the MCU still doesn't consider the women to be as important as the men.
- Captain Marvel has barely 15 minutes of screen-time after her big movie. It's entirely unclear how she rescues Iron Man at the beginning. The nice shot of all of the remaining women characters was nice, but it shouldn't be: there are tons of shots of all men characters that we simply take for granted, but the MCU makes us wait for a big, dramatic shot of women characters. I will be more excited when there are so many scenes and shots of women superheroes that we don't notice them anymore. Which just goes to show that the MCU still doesn't consider the women to be as important as the men.
- Thanos' powers are never explained. Why would the God of Thunder and several of his weapons have no effect on him, why is he able to break Captain America's unbreakable shield, and why can't even Captain Marvel put a dent in him? Plot, is the only reason. The MCU dug themselves into a hole when they gave superheroes so much strength and then could not think of a way to create tension without simply ignoring all of that strength. Tension with an overly strong superhero is supposed to come from moral complexity, deception, and self-actualization, not from Something Even Stronger.
- Hulk: They keep finding new ways to present him to keep him fresh, which is nice. But he's still pretty boring as a character.
- Ant-Man: I kind of forgot where he was, once the time travelling started. Oh wait, I think I saw him flying around with the Wasp here and there. Whatever.
- Nebula and Gemora had a lot to do, and they were the stars. Too bad they were pretty boring in their previous movies.
- Pepper: Gwenyth stole the scenes she was in just by being a better actor and presence than anyone else.
- Black Panther, Spider-man, Doctor Strange, etc all showed up just to be there, but served no other purpose.
As a movie qua movie, the movie exists only to complete what happened in the last movie. It contained no real moral dilemmas, no real character tension, no real insights, no real inspiration or sacrifice (Black Widow's sacrifice was antiseptic and Iron Man's was accidental), and nothing really interesting story-wise other than its utter mangling and refusal to deal with the more interesting ramifications of story that was supposedly occurring around them.
Was it entertaining? If you ignore all of the parts than made my brain hurt, then it was entertaining. I wanted to see how it ended, which is about all one could have hoped for and no more. Infinity War was more entertaining and more satisfying (not that it was good, per se, but it was a better MCU movie). This was just okay.
The Game Trade Pivot
When a game hits peak popularity, it's not uncommon for it to be taken away from independent retailers in some form or another. It might be a retailer exclusive, or a publisher's attempt to spread the wealth (and power). If Target came to you after publishing a hot board game and offered you a bazillion dollars for an exclusive to the expansion, what would you say? It might kill your company, but you would have a bazillion dollars.
This morning I had two examples of pivot math, in which I needed to adjust expectations based on publisher removal of market demand. One is for Wizards of the Coast and the other for Ravensburger:
How many should I buy?
How many should I buy?
- Saltmarsh: 30 days of Tomb of Annihilation sales (because those are my terms), with a 10% bump for growth, with this total divided in half because of removal of early release (it will be sold on Amazon the same day by idiot retailers). I suspect Amazon gets half the D&D market.
- Villainous Expansion: Total sales of Villainous base game, divided by three, because it's an expansion, divided in half because of early Target release by months. Everyone who cares will already have it and coming out three quarters after our huge sales push means it will be cold.
A younger me might have decided to drop Villainous entirely and avoid it, especially after we sold 50 or so copies over the holidays as one of our top picks. That's a really small number for some larger stores, but out here in the burbs, we run shallow and wide. As for Saltmarsh, I might begin slimming down my D&D overall and start banging the drum for Pathfinder 2.0, which is coming soon. That's all counter productive though, so I just pivot and move on. I certainly won't push Villainous again or most Ravensburger games, nor will I be looking to invest time in jump starting Adventurer's League, which can't seem to gain a footing. I will cultivate my indifference.
This gets to the problem of the game trade in general, without allies we have cold war enemies. Publishers want retailers to do some lifting for their product, but we have product PTSD. We're not willing to enter into new co-dependent relationship in which we're beaten in response to our love. So most retailers put minimum effort into promoting products and instead focus on well established events and reliable staples. It takes a tremendous amount of effort and tremendous love for these games to do otherwise. The key to success is a series of co-dependent relationships in which we don't get angry, we quietly pivot. But it wears you down, let me tell you.
Grand Theft Auto IV: Complete Edition Free Download
Grand Theft Auto IV: Complete Edition - is an action-adventure video game developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games and the video game was released for Microsoft Windows on 2 December 2008.
Featuring: What does the American Dream mean today? For Niko Bellic, fresh off the boat from Europe, it is the hope he can escape his past. For his cousin, Roman, it is the vision that together they can find fortune in Liberty City, gateway to the land of opportunity. As they slip into debt and are dragged into a criminal underworld by a series of shysters, thieves and sociopaths, they discover that the reality is very different from the dream in a city that worships money and status, and is heaven for those who have them. Download now.
• Impressive realistic NPCs are Intelligent Modern Human representations that laugh, cry, eat, drink use cell phone.
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• Grand Theft Auto IV is a New epic Adventure in the GTA universe following the Experience of Nikolai "Niko" Bellic.
• Game Environment: New York City and parts of New Jersey, Liberty City, has been entirely redesigned for GTA IV.
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Included Content
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2. GAMEPLAY AND SCREENSHOTS
♢ Click or choose only one button below to download this game.
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♢ Use 7-Zip to extract RAR, ZIP and ISO files. Install PowerISO to mount DAA files.
GTA IV DOWNLOAD LINKS
PASSWORD FOR THE GAME
Unlock with password: pcgamesrealm
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Turn off or temporarily disable your Antivirus or Windows Defender to avoid false positive detections.
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• Operating System: Microsoft Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10
• Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 1.8GHz, AMD Athlon X2 64 2.4GHz or faster
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Supported Language: English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, and Russian language are available.• Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 1.8GHz, AMD Athlon X2 64 2.4GHz or faster
• Memory: at least 1.5GB System RAM
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• Video Card: 256MB Nvidia 7900 / 256MB ATI X1900 or faster for better experience
If you have any questions or encountered broken links, please do not hesitate to comment below. :D
3/16/2020
Trees And Terrain
I actually finished all of these in the last week of June, but scheduled this post to come up later for some reason. Anyway, one of the things I have been pushing out lately is a good bit of terrain. Mostly adding to existing stocks because I don't have enough trees and such.
A tray full of trees!
I use this cheap plastic tray to carry minis and spray them with clear coat. Then I can move them back into the air conditioned spaces in the house to keep the clear coat from getting all cloudy as happens in humid conditions. Like Houston is, eight days a week.
Bamboo stands. Need a lot more of these, not as tall mostly.
Primarily for 15mm jungles, Flames of War Pacific, etc.
Regular old deciduous trees. Just some cheap Chinese
model railroad trees and basing.
Same as above, but palm trees in the desert.
Again, need to do more for jungles too.
Flowering model railroad trees.
These are a bit different to my usual. Wire trunks.
I like them. Mostly I like a bit of variety.
Runestones from Fenris Games. Unlike the earlier ones painted for Frostgrave, these are two in
a temperate/verdant scheme and one in a desert.
A third Team Yankee minefield and emergence tunnels for the giant worms I shared a few days ago.
3/15/2020
Alter Ego Progress
Alter Ego has been around forever, and it's about time I finished it up! In order to light a fire under myself to get it done, I actually hired an artist and graphic designer to start working on it...
So last week I brought Alter Ego out again with my playtest group. Looks like it's been about 2 years since it hit the table! I think the overall structure of the game is solid, but there are still a lot of details I think need work. Here's some stuff that's happened just in the last 2 playtest sessions:
I don't have much in the way of deck thinning in this game. There are a couple of equipment cards that do it, but mostly I had decided that instead of thinning your deck, players could focus on Family, thereby drawing a ton of cards instead. This is equivalent in some way to deck thinning, and it means that if you want a "thinner" deck, then you have to focus on Family. If you focus on other things and neglect Family, then you will suffer from deck bloat.
I think I chose 4 of each card (plus or minus) so that you could reasonably have 3 of them at a time. If you play 1 Family card, you avoid a penalty and draw +2 cards next turn. If you play 2, then you draw +4 cards. But if you commit 3 of your 5 cards to Family in one turn, then you draw + cards AND you get a Teamwork token, which is valuable.
Similarly, if you play 1 Community card, you avoid a penalty and draw 1 extra henchman to choose from. 2 is a little stronger (draw +2 henchmen to choose from). 3 Community cards means you draw + 3 henchmen to choose from AND you get to call the police on one of the henchmen in play.
Job cards are a little different in that you gain $ tokens, which you don't have to discard. Playing 3 at once doesn't do anything too special, but most of the equipment costs about 3 to obtain.
Anyway, because of all that, I wanted to make sure players had enough cards to invoke those more powerful plays if they wanted to. However, I might try reducing the starting decks to 3 of each (10 cards if you include the character). Then if the game lasts 5 rounds, then at least a larger portion of your deck will be changed. Also, with the changes below, it's possible I could add a few rounds to the game, further impacting the amount your deck changes over the course of the game.
Last week I tried a slightly different format, which I think has a lot of good things going for it. Instead of being "out of play," the three Arch Villains could be in play the whole time. When henchmen come into play, they are placed in front of their affiliated villain, in a way protecting them. During the game, you can't attack an Arch Villain if there are henchmen in front of them. Theoretically, this could lead to more interesting decisions about which henchmen to defeat (you want to save certain colored civilians so you don't lose, you might want particular trophies, you might want to defeat what you can afford to defeat, and you might want to "dig" toward one of the Villains in particular). This way you could also have to face decisions mid-game such as "do we defeat this henchman over here, or do we hit that villain while we have the chance, since he has no henchmen in front of him?"
This format seemed to work, though it'll require some tweaks and changes to fully implement. I think it feels more like a real game this way. It might mean cutting the few henchmen that are affiliated with multiple different villains, and I'll have to decide if unaffiliated henchmen are in front of no villain, or all villains.
1. Income phase: collect $ based on what you have in play
2. Support phase: draw cards based on what you have in play (now you have cards in play, a hand of cards, a draw pile, and a discard pile)
3. Patrol phase: draw henchmen based on what you have in play
4. Fight phase: spend icons in play to defeat henchmen. Once in a while you maybe have a card you can play from your hand, but mostly you have a hand at this point to help decide what to do this turn based on what you could maybe do next turn.
5. Recoup phase: discard everything in play, play new cards from hand to use next turn, then discard hand.
The long and short of this was that players were having several problems:
* Confusion between the hand, draw pile, discard pile, and display
* Planning the turn, then having to re-plan the turn once new henchmen were revealed (in the patrol phase, right before fighting)
* Confusion between cards in play that they could use this turn, and cards in hand that they can't use until next turn
There had been suggestions of putting the Support phase right before Recoup, so you draw cards right before using them. I think I even tried this once, but it didn't really solve the problems, and I didn't like it.
I have finally decided to re-organize the turn to actually address those problems. The new sequence is:
1. Support phase: draw cards and play some of them into your display
2. Income phase: collect everything you collect ($, teamwork tokens, penalty tokens)
3. Fight phase: use icons in play to defeat henchmen currently in play
4. Patrol phase: NOW bring new henchmen into play
5. Recoup phase: note how many cards you're supposed to draw, then discard EVERYTHING, hand and display.
So now you still technically have a hand, display, draw pile, and discard pile, but you don't access them at weird times. You draw cards ant the beginning of the turn, use them during the turn, and then discard them at the end of the turn.
Putting Patrol after Fight means you only have to plan each turn once. This is not only less confusing, but it speeds things up quite a bit, and makes a lot of sense. It also approximates other cooperative games in which players get a turn, then the AI they're fighting against gets a turn.
So we tried that a couple of times, and it definitely seemed smoother. I personally sort of missed the ability to know what you would be able to do next turn, but I also didn't have a problem with the old turn sequence. Other players weren't using the info about next turn, and were getting confused, so the obvious right thing to do seems to be reorganizing the turn like this. Also, while you don't know exactly what you'll be able to do next turn, you DO know the general contents of your deck, so you should know what's likely or possible.
On the down side, this new structure introduced a new issue. Now you plan out the turn at the beginning, and then you resolve it. As nothing changes between when you play your cards and you resolve them, there was something a little off about the very end of the game. When you could win, you would know it during the planning stage, and that felt bad somehow. You're sitting there figuring out your turn, making your plans, etc, and one of the other players just says "GG guys, we win this turn." So anti-climactic.
Sure, at SOME point in every game there will be an instant when you've realized you will win. But that should really be you're resolving the action, not when you're planning it. What really ought to happen is that you play the cards, then something happens such that you don't know for sure whether you'll win or not. In the old format, you'd plan your turn, maybe see that you can win this turn, then you had to add new henchmen which might lose you the game before you resolve the fight phase. that wasn't perfect, but it was enough to counter that anti-climactic feeling which appeared as soon as I changed the turn sequence.
So, how to solve this problem, while keeping the improvements of the new turn order? Well, I need something that happens between card play and resolution that could change or foil your plans...
Villain Events
Fortunately, there's something I've been meaning to add to the game anyway: effects each villain could have, which make the game harder, and make the villains feel more different from each other. I hadn't designed those, but I had a few ideas for some effects. For example, the Sadist could kill civilians (you don't get them back when you defeat henchmen), and the mastermind could block access to some of the rules (no calling the police, for example).
So I made a small deck of cards for each villain with some effects on them. At the very beginning of the Fight phase, before anything else happens, you'll flip the top event card for each villain. Their effect will occur, which may be immediate, or may be a static effect that stays active until the next turn's fight phase when a new card replaces this one. These effects could very well foil your plans, making them exactly what I need to keep the game interesting. For example, if you plan the turn and decide that you're able to win this turn, and then all of a sudden, the Anarchist makes you draw new henchmen, and they happen to go in front of the villain you were going to defeat, then you'll have to wait until next turn. Or perhaps the villain you were after suddenly requires 1 more Strength icon to hit -- can you still afford it? Or perhaps they take an extra hostage - can you hit them one more time? Maybe next round...
Further, I wanted to make sure it wasn't all about picking 1 villain, and just piling up the other two with henchmen while you beat up the chosen one. Therefore I put 3 effects on each card, each more severe than the last. The effect in play depends on the number of henchmen in front of that villain. The first tier is currently "no effect" for 0-1 henchmen, but it could also be some small, mostly insignificant effect. This way, if you have the villain's henchmen mostly under control, then the event won't hinder you that bad.
The 2nd tier (2 henchmen) is a bigger effect, often local to the villain and his henchmen. Things like "my henchmen cost an additional Smarts to defeat" or "I cannot be attacked". This has the potential to mess with your game, but not in a huge way.
The 3rd tier (3+ henchmen) is an even bigger effect, often global, affecting all villains or henchmen. Things like "ALL henchmen cost an additional Smarts to defeat" or "no villain can be attacked this turn".
I brainstormed enough effects to make 5 cards per villain:
* The Mastermind effects mostly limit your access to rules (can't call the cops, can't use Teamwork, Equipment costs extra to buy/use).
* The Sadist mostly deal with henchmen and hostages (bring new henchmen into play, rescued hostages are removed from the game, remove civilian tokens from the game, take extra civilians hostage).
* The Anarchist has wild or chaotic effects (players take penalty markers, players draw fewer cards, players draw fewer henchman to choose from)
This is just the first draft, but I'm excited to try it out tomorrow. Assuming the structure works, then I think a little testing and development of those abilities will really make this game feel like a proper co-op.
So last week I brought Alter Ego out again with my playtest group. Looks like it's been about 2 years since it hit the table! I think the overall structure of the game is solid, but there are still a lot of details I think need work. Here's some stuff that's happened just in the last 2 playtest sessions:
Deck Size
I have always used a starting deck size of 12 cards -- 4 each of Job, Family, and Support cards. Actually, since I added "character" cards (each with a unique fight icon and a specific starting deck configuration), the decks started with 13 cards. The game takes about 5 rounds to play... I could lengthen it, but I think it would drag a bit. However, this means that you only add 5 cards to your deck, which isn't very many for a deck learning mechanism...I don't have much in the way of deck thinning in this game. There are a couple of equipment cards that do it, but mostly I had decided that instead of thinning your deck, players could focus on Family, thereby drawing a ton of cards instead. This is equivalent in some way to deck thinning, and it means that if you want a "thinner" deck, then you have to focus on Family. If you focus on other things and neglect Family, then you will suffer from deck bloat.
I think I chose 4 of each card (plus or minus) so that you could reasonably have 3 of them at a time. If you play 1 Family card, you avoid a penalty and draw +2 cards next turn. If you play 2, then you draw +4 cards. But if you commit 3 of your 5 cards to Family in one turn, then you draw + cards AND you get a Teamwork token, which is valuable.
Similarly, if you play 1 Community card, you avoid a penalty and draw 1 extra henchman to choose from. 2 is a little stronger (draw +2 henchmen to choose from). 3 Community cards means you draw + 3 henchmen to choose from AND you get to call the police on one of the henchmen in play.
Job cards are a little different in that you gain $ tokens, which you don't have to discard. Playing 3 at once doesn't do anything too special, but most of the equipment costs about 3 to obtain.
Anyway, because of all that, I wanted to make sure players had enough cards to invoke those more powerful plays if they wanted to. However, I might try reducing the starting decks to 3 of each (10 cards if you include the character). Then if the game lasts 5 rounds, then at least a larger portion of your deck will be changed. Also, with the changes below, it's possible I could add a few rounds to the game, further impacting the amount your deck changes over the course of the game.
Villain Format
Since the games inception, the Arch Villains would sit there, out of play, until one (or more) of them were triggered to enter play. Part of the point of the game was to make sure the "right" one came into play, the one you'd have an easier time beating based on the cards you'd taken into your deck throughout the game.Last week I tried a slightly different format, which I think has a lot of good things going for it. Instead of being "out of play," the three Arch Villains could be in play the whole time. When henchmen come into play, they are placed in front of their affiliated villain, in a way protecting them. During the game, you can't attack an Arch Villain if there are henchmen in front of them. Theoretically, this could lead to more interesting decisions about which henchmen to defeat (you want to save certain colored civilians so you don't lose, you might want particular trophies, you might want to defeat what you can afford to defeat, and you might want to "dig" toward one of the Villains in particular). This way you could also have to face decisions mid-game such as "do we defeat this henchman over here, or do we hit that villain while we have the chance, since he has no henchmen in front of him?"
This format seemed to work, though it'll require some tweaks and changes to fully implement. I think it feels more like a real game this way. It might mean cutting the few henchmen that are affiliated with multiple different villains, and I'll have to decide if unaffiliated henchmen are in front of no villain, or all villains.
Turn Structure
It had come up before, more than once, that the turn structure was not intuitive. I have considered changing it, maybe even tried changing it once, but never liked the results. After playing a couple games with my regular testers, I finally conceded that the turn sequence needed to be different. What I had was this...1. Income phase: collect $ based on what you have in play
2. Support phase: draw cards based on what you have in play (now you have cards in play, a hand of cards, a draw pile, and a discard pile)
3. Patrol phase: draw henchmen based on what you have in play
4. Fight phase: spend icons in play to defeat henchmen. Once in a while you maybe have a card you can play from your hand, but mostly you have a hand at this point to help decide what to do this turn based on what you could maybe do next turn.
5. Recoup phase: discard everything in play, play new cards from hand to use next turn, then discard hand.
The long and short of this was that players were having several problems:
* Confusion between the hand, draw pile, discard pile, and display
* Planning the turn, then having to re-plan the turn once new henchmen were revealed (in the patrol phase, right before fighting)
* Confusion between cards in play that they could use this turn, and cards in hand that they can't use until next turn
There had been suggestions of putting the Support phase right before Recoup, so you draw cards right before using them. I think I even tried this once, but it didn't really solve the problems, and I didn't like it.
I have finally decided to re-organize the turn to actually address those problems. The new sequence is:
1. Support phase: draw cards and play some of them into your display
2. Income phase: collect everything you collect ($, teamwork tokens, penalty tokens)
3. Fight phase: use icons in play to defeat henchmen currently in play
4. Patrol phase: NOW bring new henchmen into play
5. Recoup phase: note how many cards you're supposed to draw, then discard EVERYTHING, hand and display.
So now you still technically have a hand, display, draw pile, and discard pile, but you don't access them at weird times. You draw cards ant the beginning of the turn, use them during the turn, and then discard them at the end of the turn.
Putting Patrol after Fight means you only have to plan each turn once. This is not only less confusing, but it speeds things up quite a bit, and makes a lot of sense. It also approximates other cooperative games in which players get a turn, then the AI they're fighting against gets a turn.
So we tried that a couple of times, and it definitely seemed smoother. I personally sort of missed the ability to know what you would be able to do next turn, but I also didn't have a problem with the old turn sequence. Other players weren't using the info about next turn, and were getting confused, so the obvious right thing to do seems to be reorganizing the turn like this. Also, while you don't know exactly what you'll be able to do next turn, you DO know the general contents of your deck, so you should know what's likely or possible.
On the down side, this new structure introduced a new issue. Now you plan out the turn at the beginning, and then you resolve it. As nothing changes between when you play your cards and you resolve them, there was something a little off about the very end of the game. When you could win, you would know it during the planning stage, and that felt bad somehow. You're sitting there figuring out your turn, making your plans, etc, and one of the other players just says "GG guys, we win this turn." So anti-climactic.
Sure, at SOME point in every game there will be an instant when you've realized you will win. But that should really be you're resolving the action, not when you're planning it. What really ought to happen is that you play the cards, then something happens such that you don't know for sure whether you'll win or not. In the old format, you'd plan your turn, maybe see that you can win this turn, then you had to add new henchmen which might lose you the game before you resolve the fight phase. that wasn't perfect, but it was enough to counter that anti-climactic feeling which appeared as soon as I changed the turn sequence.
So, how to solve this problem, while keeping the improvements of the new turn order? Well, I need something that happens between card play and resolution that could change or foil your plans...
Villain Events
Fortunately, there's something I've been meaning to add to the game anyway: effects each villain could have, which make the game harder, and make the villains feel more different from each other. I hadn't designed those, but I had a few ideas for some effects. For example, the Sadist could kill civilians (you don't get them back when you defeat henchmen), and the mastermind could block access to some of the rules (no calling the police, for example).
So I made a small deck of cards for each villain with some effects on them. At the very beginning of the Fight phase, before anything else happens, you'll flip the top event card for each villain. Their effect will occur, which may be immediate, or may be a static effect that stays active until the next turn's fight phase when a new card replaces this one. These effects could very well foil your plans, making them exactly what I need to keep the game interesting. For example, if you plan the turn and decide that you're able to win this turn, and then all of a sudden, the Anarchist makes you draw new henchmen, and they happen to go in front of the villain you were going to defeat, then you'll have to wait until next turn. Or perhaps the villain you were after suddenly requires 1 more Strength icon to hit -- can you still afford it? Or perhaps they take an extra hostage - can you hit them one more time? Maybe next round...
Further, I wanted to make sure it wasn't all about picking 1 villain, and just piling up the other two with henchmen while you beat up the chosen one. Therefore I put 3 effects on each card, each more severe than the last. The effect in play depends on the number of henchmen in front of that villain. The first tier is currently "no effect" for 0-1 henchmen, but it could also be some small, mostly insignificant effect. This way, if you have the villain's henchmen mostly under control, then the event won't hinder you that bad.
The 2nd tier (2 henchmen) is a bigger effect, often local to the villain and his henchmen. Things like "my henchmen cost an additional Smarts to defeat" or "I cannot be attacked". This has the potential to mess with your game, but not in a huge way.
The 3rd tier (3+ henchmen) is an even bigger effect, often global, affecting all villains or henchmen. Things like "ALL henchmen cost an additional Smarts to defeat" or "no villain can be attacked this turn".
I brainstormed enough effects to make 5 cards per villain:
* The Mastermind effects mostly limit your access to rules (can't call the cops, can't use Teamwork, Equipment costs extra to buy/use).
* The Sadist mostly deal with henchmen and hostages (bring new henchmen into play, rescued hostages are removed from the game, remove civilian tokens from the game, take extra civilians hostage).
* The Anarchist has wild or chaotic effects (players take penalty markers, players draw fewer cards, players draw fewer henchman to choose from)
This is just the first draft, but I'm excited to try it out tomorrow. Assuming the structure works, then I think a little testing and development of those abilities will really make this game feel like a proper co-op.
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