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Alright I want to get this running so this is going to be quick and dirty (just like how Suranna’s mom likes it) actually it won’t be quick, but it’ll still be dirty (Also how Suranna’s mom likes it)

You guys each have a faction and you’re trying to build up your wasteland rep so that you become one of the important hubs in this new shithole world. You accomplish this either by raising your prestige or raising your town’s health (which presumably reflects on how large and active it is) 

And you generally achieve this by going around doing shit and getting into adventures with your expedition party. Of course there’s also actively building up your town or if you want being a dick and directly attacking other players (I’m sure that’s really what some of you really want to do anyway)

Now seeing as everyone has different time schedules and such, I’m streamlining some of the turn phases in case some of you overachievers are actually reading the instructions to this long ass complex game (Okay, I know only TCat doing this)

Each turn you’re each basically getting 4 weeks (in game time you lazy fucks) to figure out what you want to spend your time doing. Like for example it might take you 2 weeks to get to a special destination. So you got 2 other weeks to use up, so maybe you spend that other time selling unused shit at your base or building a sewer system so your town doesn’t smell like Ace’s house.

Don’t worry I’ll tell you how long something will take and what you can or can’t do. If you’re still not sure of something just ask.

Now then that brings me to information hidden and otherwise. I decided that it probably would be more immersive to actually keep you lot mostly in the dark about each other’s capabilities and such especially since it’s a wasteland out there. At least initially.

However info tends to spread because humans talk a lot, so basic shit like “Enter’s faction just built a new menstrual hut.” Or “Mizal’s expedition just got raped by mutants in the Rocky Mountain region” so expect to still see “Turn summaries” (or monthly summaries) to be posted for all to see. 

Of course you’re free to spout whatever you want yourself in the forums and not keep anything secret that’s fine too. Also there’s going to be an extra element of what’s secret and what isn’t based on a combo of who your faction is, their distance from everyone and what they’re exactly doing. (Yep some of you are going to have more of an advantage than others in this department)

And of course if you lot actually get into a direct conflict with one another then everything involving that conflict is exposed. (Hope you did some recon first!)

Also keep in mind the factions that aren’t being controlled by someone ARE still in play. They just aren’t active and are mostly neutral (you can theoretically rest and trade with them and such) but don’t think you can just go attack them with no consequence as they will fight back. 

Time will also be marching on for this game. If you end up disappearing because you had to downgrade your manparts or something similar, the game is moving on without you. As far as how much real time that will be allowed to wait, well that might vary a bit. Obviously a day or two is fine. Even if you manage to explain your situation directly, I can at least make arrangements for your faction without you. 

You go something like a real week with no communication and you just lose a month of game time for your faction, hope you made yourself at least passable for Cel. 

If there’s any game questions you can of course post them here or PM me. I’ll probably be adding more stuff to this anyway, but as I said, I want to just start slowly getting this up and running. (Not starting until after the contest results anyway)

I really like it that the game won't be too transparent with info about what the neighbors are doing, and that you'll take things like distance into account. Adds a nice little hit of realism.

Looking forward to it, especially showing off my menstrual hut. It's painted red!

MORE RULES (Because I'm lawful evil)

Now there of course will be some automated (AKA me) stuff that you won’t need to worry about with your turn such as calculating how much coin you’re making and town health (growth) you gain per turn based on resources you’ve gained and such. I’ll just let you know what your stats are and the condition of your town.

There’s also the potential for “world events” if something like that pops up that I’ll update.

Since you’re probably looking at cards with a shitload of symbols on them, you probably want to know what they all might mean so here they are:

Skull - Combat skill
Campfire - Survival skill
Handshake - Diplomacy skill
Wrench - Mechanical skill
Microscope - Technical skill
Snake Staff - Medical skill

Blood drop - Health
Brain Guy - Psych Health (Or bonus)
Backpack Guy - Carrying capacity (Or weight if its an item)
Vest - Armor
Shoe - Movement
Lighting - Nazi (Lol no, it just means you auto get the first strike in PVP unless they got it too)
Chain - This is a “link” meaning something gets a bonus if you add it. For example a character might be a soldier, so they get an extra bonus to combat skill if you give them a gun.

You’ll probably also see a little yellow circle in the corner of most equipment cards, that’s the sales value.

There’s some others, but those are the most important ones.

Generally speaking the higher the number the better for skill checks and such. I’d go into more detail, but it’s crunchy number stuff which you don’t really need to worry about and I would only bother if Cricket was playing since she likes crunchy numbers.

So you got 4 weeks for each turn, here’s a list of some of the things you can do.

These you can do without wasting a week (You’ll probably do these before anything else)

Building up the town
This can be either an actual structure like a machinist shop, bio-dome, etc and/or upgrading the defense. Only one structure and defense per turn though.

Selling (And buying, but mostly selling)
This is simply selling off equipment sitting in your town you don’t want for coin. You can also tear down existing structures and defense if you really need the money (You won’t get as much as you paid obviously)

Now if you’ve set up some sort of agreement in advance with another player, you can sell to them for whatever (Perhaps even a trade of some sort)

Finally there’s also mercenaries which pop up from time to time. You can hire these NPCs to go attack or claim something (They don’t randomly explore hexes like an expedition party can) They only stick around under your command for one task then they leave, unless you’re hiring them again immediately.

Playing an Action Card
All of you start with some and will probably get more as the game goes on. Some of these you’d play in certain situations or anytime. I’ll let you know what you got.

Reorganizing
As long as your expedition party is in your town, you’re free to swap out items and people as you see fit. You can do this in the field as well, but in this case you’d be limited to just what the party is carrying.

These take 1 WEEK

Moving the expedition party or mercenaries
This is simple enough. Doesn’t matter how far they move, it’s always one week.

Encounter/Attacking
This can either be specific hex (city/mountain/plains) another party/mercenaries or different town.

In the case of the hex, you’ll be getting a card and having to deal with whatever you encountered. In the case of another party/mercenaries, you’re probably trying to attack them which will be a PVP situation and all that entails.

In the case of another town, it’s going to depend. If it’s neutral and you’re just there to try to heal up, your wish is typically granted if you pay 5 coins (Unless you’ve been attacking them or something similar then they won’t let you in)

If it’s another player, they can freely let you in or demand some sort of payment before letting you in to heal (You can’t attack in this case) They can of course deny you entry completely.

Of course if your intention was attacking said town, then that’s going to take a little longer than 1 week. (More on that later)

So as you can see, the usual “move-encounter” set up is going to always take at least two weeks total.

Healing
You can usually sit and heal up anywhere (Though doing it in an irradiated blasted city, probably isn’t a great idea) but if you’re actually in a town you can potentially heal more than just the basic 1D6 and you can heal more serious injuries such as radiation and infected.

These take two WEEKS

Secure/Destroy a Resource
Wouldn’t be a post apocalyptic setting if you didn’t run around trying to secure power plants and gas stations.

Some hex have resources so after dealing with whatever the encounter is, you can secure the resource for your own. This naturally increases your prestige and ongoing town health and coins. Losing them decreases it.

This of course only applies to neutral/unclaimed resources. If the resource belongs to someone, you’re going to have a fight. How big that fight is depends on if the other player bothered to leave some sort of defense there.

Of course if you’re one of those that just likes to watch the world burn, you can destroy a resource making it unusable for all. Doing such a dastardly deed and making the world even more crapsack is generally considered a bad thing so YOU also lose prestige for doing it, however you do gain a number of salvage coins as your people strip the place for as much as they can first.

Town Raid
If you weren’t planning on healing at a town, then you’re probably trying to raid it.

If it’s a neutral town, then you’ve just made an enemy for life. (Or at least for the rest of the game) Winning the combat results in gaining coin and some spoils.

The same is true for winning against a player’s town, though in this case you get the option of either taking their stuff (As a normal raid) or destroying one of their structures.

Losing in either of these situations means that you probably got everyone killed and you gain nothing. Better luck next time.

You don’t lose or gain any prestige for successfully raiding towns (You just look like an asshole, but they probably won't say that to your face) however you definitely LOSE prestige for not being able to successfully defend it properly. (Along with town health)

These take 3 WEEKS

Missions
So it isn’t all just wandering around, there are actual missions (Or quests for you fantasy loving types) around the map that you can head to. Engaging in one of these takes longer than the normal encounter since it’s assumed you’re spending a lot of time wandering even more on your fetch quest. (Seriously your party can wind up in a completely different location than where they started)

Successfully completing these usually result in lots of good rewards. Failing of course results in the opposite.

I’ll probably describe these missions in vague detail to everyone based on the descriptions on the cards (You can think of these as radio transmissions or rumors you’ve heard) and you won’t get the full story until you actually get there. (And this is still more info than you’d normally otherwise get since in the real board game they’re random and you don’t know shit until you get there)

New missions pop up as others are completed (Successfully or not)

Okay, that’s probably covering most of the basic shit that you need to know so I don’t have to repeat myself 7 different times.

If situations occur that need to be mentioned to everyone, I’ll certainly post them as needed.

Might as well mention the win conditions too.

So I'll leave it up to you if you want to play the short or long game.

Short game - Get your town health up to 50 or your prestige up to 10

Long game - Get your town health up to 80 or your prestige up to 20

If you lot want to start out with the short game and then decide you want to keeping playing to 80/20 after someone gets to 50/10 that's fine. Even the normal rules allow for that.

Long game, we are civilizing this wasteland with no half measures here.

Seconded

EVEN MORE RULES!

So some have asked about what the tech upgrades actually do so here's the list and I'll also add the prices for things as well.

Garrison - 1 auto success to Combat skill checks

Water and Supplies - 1 auto success to Survival skill checks

Learning Center - 1 auto success to Diplomacy skill checks

Machinist Shop - 1 auto success to Mechanical skill checks

Energy Production - 1 auto success to Technical skill checks

Medical Center - 1 auto success to Medical skill checks

Communication Center - Adds 1 movement bonus to the expedition party

Law and Order - You get a free action card per turn

Marketplace - You get a free spoils card in your town per turn

Biodome - Acts as a resource (Instead of y'know actually having to go out and claim one)

Barring special abilities, all of these cost 30 coins to initially build them upon which you also get 1 prestige and 5 town health. Upgrading to tier 2 costs 60 coins and doubles their abilities. (You get no further prestige or town health though)

Town defense is exactly what you think and it starts at 5 coins for the first one and each additional one is an additional 5 coins.

Now normally in the real game you can only have 7 tech maximum and 5 defense maximum, but yeah fuck it. You can build as much shit as you can afford. Chances are someone's going to blow it all up anyway!

Maximum amount of action cards you can have is 7 (Unless you got some sort of ability that allows for more)

Normally you're supposed to get 1 every turn, but these things are generally powerful enough that they seem like something you shouldn't just be getting so easily. So unless you've got something that gives them to you somehow (Ability, tech, etc) you're not just getting those. Nothing's free in the Fallen Land.

Might as well mention the Resources too. Again, the more you claim, the more coin and town health you get per turn. Maximum is supposed to be 5, but if you can somehow claim more than that, I'll figure out the next logical bonus that you can reap.

1 Resource - 1 coin and 1 health per turn

2 Resource - 4/2

3 Resource - 9/3

4 Resource - 16/4

5 Resource - 25/5

And so on (It's always a multiple of the same number for coins)

Oh since someone was so...enterprising about this question: You CAN pay mercs to stand around and just guard shit if you want, but you still need to pay them from turn to turn. However since it's an easy job to just stand around, they'll take half the amount initially (Of course things can always change)

I wonder who could ever be so enterprising...
Also thirding the long game.

Fourthing long game btw, I'm having too much fun to stop now 

When I update next time, I'll start including your movement for that turn too so that will clear up any confusion on how far you can actually travel.

Movement is generally 1D6 plus whatever bonus movement you got (Like vehicles, comm towers, etc) So it's going to vary from turn to turn a bit.

Still, even if I tell you rolled something like a 2, that's not necessarily just two hexes you can move that turn.

For example if you stuck to the plains and used up all 4 weeks just to move, you'd move 8 hexes. (Plains equals 1 movement point and its 2 hexes allowed per week)

DON'T LOOK NOW BUT THERE'S EVEN MORE RULES FOR YOU

Okay this is about characters since something needs to be addressed about them.

For those of you who have already been fumbling around the wasteland and getting your characters killed off and you aren't lucky enough to have something that just allows you to get them, you can recruit more.

However, recruiting reliable "heroes" (Or at least capable people for your goals) takes more than just being rich because sometimes it's not about the money, it's about sending a message.

Recruiting characters costs 1 prestige or 4 town health each.

Do keep in mind that prestige and town health are both of the important stats you need to raise up in order to win, so lowering them in order to recruit shouldn't be taken lightly.

It's also becoming apparent that others may very well deplete the wasteland of capable folks by virtually doing nothing at all, so something needs to be done about that as well just to keep the illusion of balance in this game.

I'm putting a hard cap limit on having 10 characters maximum in your faction.

Yes, I can hear some complaining about that already, but it's definitely more than enough. With 10 people you got enough for an expedition party AND a full defense crew for your town.

(Equipment doesn't matter, you can horde as much shit as you want)

Now someone did ask if they had enough people, could you send out another expedition party. I'm going to say let's stick to one expedition party. There's still mercs you can stumble upon and hire if you want extra help running around to claim resources and such for you.

Also while you can run around with less than 5 in your party, it's not really a good idea. The wasteland is dangerous enough with a full party, with less folks it's even more lethal. You might be able to get away with 4 if you've got a vehicle of some sort since those typically add another dice roll to encounters, but less than that really is asking for trouble.

Oh and just one quick thing about a character stat that hasn't come up much, but probably should be addressed: Psychological health.

Characters have a psychological health number next to their regular health and occasionally this will be tested. Failing to roll under it of course results in 1 psych damage. Unlike patching up bullet holes or chugging Rad Away, damage on the fragile human mind can't easily be repaired and you typically need an ability or special card to cure such damage. Group therapy just isn't a major concern in these troubling times.

A character reaching 3 psych damage (or more) essentially loses his damn mind and goes running off gibbering like a goon taking all their equipment with them, so be wary of those about to crack.

If a character is killed or goes insane, are they out of the game for good or do they end up back in the deck?

Well so far it's permadeath mode. There's still quite a few characters left though I've been thinking on what happens when/if you guys run out the deck since you do need people in your expedition party to do much.

At that point you guys will just be getting generic people with no special abilities or bonuses.

To make this easy I'll reshuffle the deck so there's at least cards as a point of numerical reference you can attached equipment to. I suppose you can think of them all as "Suspiciously similar long lost siblings". I will probably remove any "Master" characters entirely though.

I will of course mention in the events section that this has occured "No more heroes" event or something. (I'll make a note of who is who)

For the people that go insane, they're still alive so you can get them again (Yes I'll keep track) along with their usual abilities. It can be assumed they calmed down and got better to at least function again, but their minds are still broken so it'll only take one failed psych test for them to go running off again.

Works for me. I'm personalizing mine quite a bit in my gay RP head canon, don't want anyone else getting them after their tragic end.

Can't wait to see "John Smith's fifth brother has joined the party. Their poor mother has lost so many sons."

Does Betty ignore town defenses? Is the 10 town health automatic?

Yeah I considered that today after rereading it this morning.

In case of player towns, she takes away the defense first THEN you lose 10 health if you don't have any defense the following turns.

On the first encounter where she attacks the defense.  Does the defense still penalize her physical health, like a pvp encounter, or can she just remove it?

I'm not even sure if this is a physical enemy using dice the way the robots are, all her encounters seem timed and do a specific thing.

That is an interesting point and needs to be taken into consideration.  But since she is a rape clown, I am hoping that she can be defeated in a physical sense. So I'm wondering that if she comes near my town, the defense can do enough damage that I can kill her off with a ranged weapon, before major psyche damage can occur.

Enter's guy Luther could probably put one between her eyes at 1500 meters.

To be honest I'm not sure I'd even trust him to take the shot in that situation. He may not be a clown but he does enjoy the murderrape part a bit too much

There's only one way to find out, let's hope the circus visits you know who next.

Although Suranna is definitely the one who deserves it. Surprised she didn't make a deal with them too.

Suranna = Betty

or perhaps they are just dating

The only way to get rid of Betty is to actually deal with her card's skill checks. There's also some other shit going on with her that makes conventional warfare a bit difficult.

She's actually not that tough in the scheme of things, though you guys just left her alone for too long to become an inconvenient minor threat.

One of you asked for my thoughts on how this all went, so I’ll post it here since we never played strictly by the rules anyway.

Well it seemed like everyone had fun, so I’ll chalk this whole thing up as successful experiment, though next time definitely will have to make some changes. The rules of the original were undoubtedly play tested and balanced for a reason. Might need to adhere a little more to them despite my natural inclination to fuck around with them for my own reasons.

However I still figure a little streamlining of the turns would have to be in order given how we’re playing this.

For example, this is how a real turn goes.

I. Effects Phase

A. Resolve
World Event Encounters get dealt with first then other card effects, then infected wound increases for those that have them, and discarding any character with more than 3 psych damage.

Generally speaking the only thing that came up with these is the world event encounters, and those were sort of completely changed anyway. (The scientist auction, Bad Betty and Dirty Slots Casino)

II. Town Business Phase

A. Everyone gets 1 action card. Then those that get extra action or spoils cards get them as well. Also everyone gets 1 town event.

B. Resource Production
Receive all your town health and coins from resources

These two I just condensed into “city updates.” I didn’t do the give one action card automatically mainly because a lot of those seem powerful enough that you should at least need to earn them in some fashion.

The main thing I probably messed up on here are the town events, since everyone was supposed to get one each turn and I know I was forgetting the first few times until the last minute. What I ultimately did instead was roll the dice to see who got one with a single person having more of a chance to receive it for that turn.

I think this might have worked out better anyway since it was one less extra thing to keep track of, didn’t burn through the town event deck and kept the randomness that not everyone was going to have to deal with one

C. Financial Phase
1. Auction House
Everyone can barter with each other over the price of any stuff they want to buy or sell with each other.

2. Sell and Purchase
This involves all transactions with “the bank”
Sell includes selling your spoils/action cards, town techs, and defense.
Purchase includes buying town tech or upgrading it and town defense.

3. Hire NPCMs
Pay for one of the mercs available and declare their assignment to everyone.

Again, this was all mostly condensed into you guys telling me what you were selling/buying on your turn. If anyone was trading stuff with one another you just let me know.

III. Exploits Phase
A. NPCM
Move your mercs according to your play order and resolve their assignments.

Now THIS I messed up on. For some reason I thought the mercs had to use the same weeks your party did when they actually just move on their own. Definitely will fix this next time.

IV. Party Exploits Phase
Each person has 4 weeks to spend on the following:

This part is the part where everyone would be going in their turn order (Which changes from round to round) Having you guys move in “real time” had to be done, otherwise you would have been waiting too long.

Movement and Encounters were both 1 week to do, just like how we did in the game. Move 1D6 plus your bonus. And for encounters you picked up the appropriate card or dealt with the special point of interest.

Interestingly I overlooked the fact that once you moved, your next action couldn’t be making another move immediately. (Unless it was a town hex) You HAD to either have an encounter, secure a resource, do a mission or fight another party. I suppose this might have increased the number of encounters overall in the game and perhaps even limiting the PVP somewhat depending on the encounter. Not sure if we should leave it like how we were doing or play as the rules intended.

Attacking another party/mercs was also 1 week. That pretty much went the same way.

Securing a resource was 2 weeks.

Messed up slightly on this one since drawing an encounter for claiming neutral ones was included in the 2 weeks, not one additional week. Taking over someone else’s resource was also 2 weeks unless a party was there to defend.

Healing was 2 weeks and it required a medical skill check to see how much you could heal.

Generally speaking I made this a little easier, since I only made it 1 week and didn’t bother with the medical skill check if you were in a town (Where most were healing anyway). Again though, not sure if this should remain as the rules intended or kept how we were playing.

Mission was 3 weeks just like how it played out.

V. End Turn Phase
A. Town Events Chart/Cards
This part is more of a follow up on what consequences happened if you didn’t resolve the town event or rewards if you did (And some were just things that happened)

I mentioned how I was dealing with them earlier. The cards are actually an expansion pack since the original just has you roll a 1D10 die and you see what happens. (Very simplified)

B. Adjust the Turn Marker Chip
Turn Marker is moved 1 space to the right.
We didn’t need to bother with this. In fact, it’s mainly just to keep track of how many turns certain encounters stick around on the map.

C. The Player On the Left Becomes the New First Player
Again, everyone was moving at the same time. Only time I did try to adhere to a “turn order” was mainly when attacking another party/town was going on. I tried to take into consideration who was quicker on giving orders to their characters and such.

And that’s the way turns work. I haven’t even gotten into other the stuff that was altered. I'll get to some of that in another post though.

Okay so on with other stuff.

Directly attacking towns         
I originally added this one in since it just seemed like something you should be able to do however might be doing away with this one completely given the bloodthirsty nature of most CYStians preying upon perceived weakness and their desire to utterly destroy their opponents.

Don’t get me wrong, that’s definitely why I like everyone here, but for game balance, might have to curb it a bit. The game became more like a war-game rather than the sandbox adventure that it was supposed to be going for.

There’s actually tons of other ways to decrease someone’s town health (via action cards, mercs, etc) to the point where it could actually reach zero, though oddly there doesn’t seem to be any repercussions for having zero town health which I still think there should be. I mean I get still chugging along at 0 prestige, but 0 town health pretty much means you’re running a ghost town.

So while it should be difficult to totally eliminate someone, it shouldn’t be completely impossible.

For in-game lore purposes, we can chalk up parties not attacking towns anymore is due to the horrors of what the Taskmaster, Betty AND Enter did last conflict, it was decided that committing genocide on one another is a bad thing. (Even if its fun)

Mercs attacking a town is still allowable since there’s “plausible deniability” of sorts. (Basically YOU KNOW the Dutch hired them, but you can’t PROVE that they did, even though they totally did)

Mercenaries
Speaking of mercs, as I think I mentioned before, these generally disappear after completing a single job you give them. I had it so you could keep hiring them from turn to turn. Same thing for Hitmen/Assassin types. Not quite sure if this keeps things balanced though (Probably not) but still wondering if it’s fine to keep this in. I also had them wander to a random location when they weren't still employed so if you wanted to hire them again, you had to go there. This only came up about once though.

Party Order
Now this was something I sort of just mildly bypassed for the sake of less “fiddly” gameplay and make things a bit faster.

Basically in the real game, you put your party characters in a specific order of 1-5 how you want. (Each number is a different color for each die rolled) Now in the scheme of things it doesn’t matter to much, but there are some times where party order comes into play like an encounter saying “Character 4 is killed if you fail this skill check”

What I was doing was more or less putting the characters in alphabetical order. Again this doesn’t make too much of a difference in the scheme of things, but I suppose if you want that extra say in explaining you want what members in which order, then I suppose that’s fine. Some of you though were switching out characters a lot so I know that could get annoying if you had to do that all the time.

Town Defense/Town Tech
Alright this was the big one that was going to get altered. However seeing as we’re doing away with parties attacking towns, there probably won’t be as big of a need to have defenses as high anymore.

Town Defense also acts as defense for any resources you have and I’m starting to think maybe that is a good idea so things are more streamlined. (You wouldn’t have to worry about paying for every single resource defense)

So since towns aren’t in danger of getting wiped by a party, then we could probably leave it at 1D6 damage per defense (ignoring armor) as far as resources go. This would at least make taking resources from another player have some sort of consequence.

Or like I said it could play out like the rules intend and defense does 1 point of damage per level to every character.

I know Enter said something in the Game Thread, but I think I got lost in all his autism. He can repost the concept he had here and others can chime in about all this here too (About anything related to the game)

As far as Town Defense levels decreasing after an attack, might do away with that too. There are other way of taking down defenses (Mercs again, action cards, etc)

Also apparently it was 10 coins for the FIRST defense, then 5 increase with each one, so that’ll be the case next time regardless.

Not sure if there should be a limit though. I suppose the game limit of 5 would be enough in most cases now again seeing as getting knocked out of the game isn’t as much of an issue anymore.

As far as Town Tech, the only things I changed were no limit on how many you could build and your starting tech could get destroyed. In the normal game they can’t be targeted.

I feel like all your town tech should still be up for targeting. Even if someone got really unlucky and lost their two starting ones at the beginning of the game, that’s only a 10 health decrease starting from 30. Not ideal, but you aren’t out of it.

As far as limits go, in the game it’s 7 town techs (This includes the two starting ones) I don’t think anyone actually went over this though. Enter might have gotten the closest at 6 I think, but yeah I think a 7 limit is reasonable. Arguably everyone is going to probably go for Garrison, Marketplace, Law & Order and Bio-dome. Those three remaining slots can be for whatever skill checks you think are important.

I'll probably keep all the town tech at 30 cost just so its easier to keep track of.

Action Cards

These weren't changed too much as far as hand limit of 7 was concerned. Some their effects were in cases where we were altering rules a bit. The major thing was you could sell them just like spoils cards and I kept selling to the idea of something tangible.

I suppose in some ways the cards could be considered like "selling information", so I'm fine with the idea if people want to having selling action cards in the game I guess.

Characters and Spoils
Alright another big one for changes.

So one thing that needs to be addressed is the STACKS OF DOOM. The main thing that was happening there was assigning bonuses to EVERY item they got a bonus for. We’ll definitely be doing away with that.

So if you get a bonus for melee weapons/ranged weapons, etc, then you get a bonus for ONE of those, unless it specifically says otherwise (And I believe there’s only one guy that has that ability to stack multiple guns)

Keep in mind, “stacks of doom” are still possible to some degree with certain characters. Someone like the serial killer comes to mind who gets a bonus for multiple different items (Hockey mask, chainsaw and something else that escapes me at the moment) so for eager autists out there, there’s still a way to min-max the system. You just wouldn’t get those crazy stacks of shoving 10 straight razors on someone because they get a 5 bonus for melee weapons or something similar.

Also we are going to make the +8 bonus to movement the limit. Only Enter and DB actually got over this, but with DB it was apparent how much that could be just broken. He had the Chopper with the Sound System already giving him +9 then combined with his other minor movement bonuses and it was ridiculous. It was more like a jet than a helicopter at that point.

Also a character’s special ability (And items for that matter) only comes into play when they’re actually IN your party. (That’s actually how the real game is played) So no having your zombie hacker sitting in town racking up bitcoin I’m afraid.

Technically there doesn’t seem to be a limit on how many folks you can have in your town roster. I still think 10 is a good limit though, but I’m not inflexible on it.

I do think “permadeath” of characters is still a good idea and making it so once the deck runs out and is reshuffled, they don’t get any of their special abilities/bonuses anymore. You guys nearly ran through the deck with only about 4 or 5 characters left in it by the game’s end.

You didn’t run through the spoils deck quite as much, but even during that one, I was already taking out the relic spoils that were discarded. Special items like that are a rarity that can’t just be found again if lost.

I think that’s about it, though I’m sure there’s other stuff here and there that might get addressed at some point (I haven’t even mentioned trade routes yet)

And yes, I’m aware already that some of this is making the game we just played sound more unfun with all these nerfs, but let’s just try it for the next game (whenever that is) and if it doesn’t work out, we’ll change it up again.

Also too, nothing is ever completely set in stone since there’s always going to be some oddity where the rules don’t strictly apply (Like completely reworked stuff with the Taskmaster and Betty’s carnival for example) in those cases, I’ll probably tell you something like “You don’t have to adhere to x rule in this situation” or something similar.

Some of my thoughts below:

- Really like this 'rework' of the mercenaries. I think at the start of the game, when I found out they actually took weeks off from your party, I mentally discarded them as useless. This makes them useful again and I'm glad for that. I think keeping them around is a fun option. Especially early on they're too expensive to abuse anyway.

- Also really like the required encounter after each movement phase. Makes the world feel more immersive and lived in while also promoting more encounters to the game. I actually think this change won't make any cap on movement speed necessary as you've already essentially cut it all in half. DB's chopper was absolutely crazy because it made everything plains in addition to the provided speed. Balance wise, the added encounters also force a more generalized party as you can't safely put all your nerds on a roadtrip to a mission in Seattle and expect them to actually survive without a tard wrangler keeping them from running headfirst into Betty's arms.

- Turn order is another one that is really interesting and strategic. Essentially, by handing in orders last you could be able to have your party both be able to defend a siege, and then use your own full 4 weeks to raid another one during the same turn like I did at the first siege of Albany. Meanwhile, by moving first you could try and catch parties off-guard and split up. Not sure if everyone wants this added depth though and could also slow the game down even more if a couple people went really deep into this.

- As much as it pains me, agreed on removing the ability to directly attack towns being a good change for at least next game. Also completely sidelines my rant in the other thread of overhauling Town Defenses to buff them for town sieges. Agreed though, on them not going down a level with each won combat. I also think the limit of 5 is completely necessary if they apply to each resource site. Otherwise the winning strat would be to pump them up to those levels that would wipe out a party (see the other thread) while ignoring the game to run and claim as many sites as possible. There'd be zero counterplay aside from hoping for good cards.

- I kinda don't like the cap to 7 town technologies. If you're WINNING that much that you're so filthy rich to afford it, you should be able to play sim city in your town.

- In the same vein, I like selling cards back to the Fallen Lands. Gives more options. I like options. I don't like cards but that's just because I got clapped by them too often.

- About the town roster, if their abilities aren't applied I would suggest to raise the cap to 15 (5 party, 10 in your reserve roster). Once again, more options and you'd only get those numbers by lategame anyway. Would add to the sim city feel of a powerful lategame town. Only thing I can see is the full roster being too good at defending against mercs, unless those follow their own rules.

- Another thing. Kinda mentioned it in passing, but the late victory condition of 80 town HP OR 20 prestige for a long game does feel kind of fast, especially if we're about to spend all our turns actually civilizing the wilderness instead of burning and destroying anything in sight. I think this game lasted 12 turns with two people actually reaching the 80 town HP. With the emphasis on encounters, I'd suggest making it 80hp AND 20 prestige. You should be forced into difficult mission for the prestige if you want to win, especially if we aren't able to sack towns anymore.

- RIP the STACK OF DOOM. As much fun as I had with them, they were completely broken.

Alright 5 defense limit on things, no limit on the town tech and selling action cards is fine. I guess 15 people is fine too. The main thing I wondered about with the people limit was mainly Mizal's case, since she had like multiple characters that gave her even more characters. I thought she'd end up running through the deck and take away people before anyone else could get anyone.

There actually was somewhat of a limit on the resource hexes too since it technically only goes up to 5, but I figure if you're actually able to hold that many and people are just letting you, then you just get the logical bonuses (It's always multiplied by the same number, so 6 resources is 36 coins and 6 health per turn).

I was actually sort of surprised that nobody was actively trying to fuck up your resources since you had three undefended and in fairly close proximity to an easy take over.

TCat is the only one who managed to get over the 5 resource mark at 6. Though she had a Tier2 Bio Dome and 4 resources and nobody was paying any attention to her and she kept quiet, so it was unique situation.

Doing encounters after moving is good as well.

Oh I meant to add on to this since I think someone also asked how everyone played.

Enter was definitely playing to win considering he was making spreadsheets from the beginning, min-maxing and asking a ton of questions. Mizal was about the only other one who asked a lot of questions too, though I think she intended to explore more and didn't start ramping up the need to win until it was apparent how threatening Enter was going to be so she had to win or at least stop Enter from winning.

Really I was surprised that nobody was depriving Enter of his undefended resources. Most of them were in close range to the point where he couldn't possibly mobilize his death squad to recapture them all in the same turn.

Milton was playing a bit too peaceful and civil for a game like this, though in his defense he's never played with a bunch of CYStian before so it's not surprising the most aggressive of the lot just pounced on him. Even an "ally" (Malk) took some territory from him. Lol.

I think Malk had an original plan of building up silently and then bulldozing everyone, but again that had to change up a bit due to Enter, so he partnered up with Mizal since that's generally how the old guard works.

DB I think was just trying to get out of the vault. He had a string of bad luck in the beginning and then had some good stuff happen only to have massive set backs. Joining the alliance was probably the best move he could have done. Seemed like originally he was going to fight it out with TCat, but he pissed off Enter and he didn't have much choice but to focus all his attention to him.

Suranna and TCat both seemed to be playing their own game since most of the attention wasn't on them at all. Suranna might have built up more, but she had a lot of set backs with some near total party kills with encounters and missions. At some point I think she just liked the idea of randomly attacking everyone which fit her faction anyway.

TCat was just trying to find more items for her characters for a long time and stay under the radar. I think up until near the end of the game she had the least amount of weapons and such. I think if she'd built up the infrastructure just a turn sooner (And Mizal hadn't gotten lucky with card draws) she probably would have won.

Originally I figured someone would take out Betty and the Taskmaster about a turn after they popped up. When it was apparent Betty was going to be around a little longer, I ended up designing some rules for her to move about causing chaos. Around the same time the Taskmaster showed up, so I figured I'd give him some rules as well. Taskmaster didn't get dealt with like I thought since Enter was considered to be the bigger threat until Mizal 9/11ed his town.