Alamaze: Characters or Military?

[Maximus Dominus]

Just curious, but what kind of game do you feel that Alamaze is?

Mostly a character game? Mostly a military game? Or are the court and the military aspects pretty much evenly divided?

Thus far, it has been my own experience that the character aspect is quicker and easier to utilize in-game. From creating patrols to just trying to raise troop have proven to take far longer for me to be able to just quickly transition into, compared to utilizing nobles, agents, and wizards. In the grand scheme of things, the particular outcome of the five kingdoms that I am currently playing in these learning games of mine really doesn't matter, and has no lasting significance. I don't really care about Valhalla, or my placement in it. But for newcomers who can't get a military group to move, or who see people talk about patrols but can't quite figure out the correct sequence for creating one of their own, or who try to raise troops but can't, unless you have a particular kind of leader, I can see (and in some instances, I have felt) why they might grow quickly frustrated with the military end of things.

What's YOUR feeling on it, though?

[Jon Deaux]

A winning strategy can be built around either.  While most people will say you need to utilize all your assists, I always say, while that may be somewhat true, its a good strategy to focus on your strength.  So for instance for the giants, dragons, sacred order, its mostly a military game.  Focusing hard on wizards generally also gives you a military game, although with some flexibility for sure.  Demon prince, more figure oriented.

However, there is also the game overall to consider.  In the beginning, most kingdoms utilize their characters far more than anything else, as it is the best way to grab your region.  Late in the game, military is needed.

[Pine Needle]

Maximus-

It really depends on the kingdom you choose, because any of three areas can be emphasized to make your kingdom strong, and the choice of kingdom governs the area of strength, be it diplomacy, military or magic.

Generally, emissary diplomacy is the way most kingdoms take their home region, and I'd say its importance wanes as the game progresses. Military gets stronger early to mid-game, and magic reigns supreme at the end.

There are lots of caveats and hybrid type abilities. For example, the Giants and Red Dragons have a strong military advantage even from the beginning of the game. The Red Dragons' unparalelled movement ads to that kingdom's early strength, but the Giants also have strong emissaries. The Underworld's agents allow it to almost match the strength of wizard kingdoms late, but that kingdom has been degraded recently so maybe not as much as before.

Then you have to add economy (sub sub- divided into food and gold(and now mithril(and gunpowder))). The Gnomes, Halflings and Druids have some advantages there that the Giants and Red Dragons definitely lack.

It's a wargame, at the end of the day, but the pieces of war you move around the board involve armies, agents, wizards, emissaries, gold, food etc. and the fun is deciding what works for you, or even what doesn't work and just is fun to try. You can even try a kingdom strong in one area, and attempt to win in an area of weakness.

I remember the very first game I won, also my very first game (ahem), the Halfling kingdom (shout out to the Painted Man) ran it like a military kingdom. He landed on Stormgate on Turn 5 or something with 20 brigades. He did not win, see above, but I'm sure he had fun.

Senior Total Dick did this with the Sacred Order- winning a game with a kingdom most everyone else thought was fatally flawed (since buffed a little bit).

Those kingdoms had all been played many times by many players, so everyone knew the Sacred Order sucked. With today's new kingdoms, many of them have not been playtested enough to know if they're balanced. My experience is that the Forgotten Order is relatively weak but someone might figure them out.

P.S. I didn't really win my first game. I played this on paper in the mail when I was in high school. $7 a turn? It was my first game back in 30 years.

[Maximus Dominus]

My primary concern lies with trying to prevent newcomers to Alamaze from:

1. Getting lost before they play the game for several turns in a row.

. . . and . . .

2. Becoming frustrated with trying to Figure out how to issue any of the orders that they try to use.


My impression is that the issuing of orders pertaining to military stuff is noticeably more difficult than the issuing of orders to characters (most characters, anyway).

Whether a player becomes good at playing Alamaze with any given kingdom, or even with just one kingdom, isn't really a concern that I have. I'm far more concerned with them playing the game for a half-dozen turns or so, without abandoning ship. Because if you can't achieve that with any degree of consistency, then you can never get to the point of players improving their Alamaze skills to play competitively.

[Pine Needle]

Yes, the tutorial game is essential. Then the duel game with someone who has a gentle hand. Mine was with Rellgar. Not so gentle... ha! But he was very helpful and instructive.

So when I relearned the game, it was the middle of Covid. I learned Alamaze while my cousin built a hydroponic weed farm in his basement and everyone else baked sourdough bread. It takes some time.

Which is one reason I don't really like the new expansion. Sure, it might make the game more interesting for established, bored, players, but new players are like wha? The number of new companion brigades is ridiculous and many of them can be combined (Mephits and Sprites anyone? What is the difference there?) Gunpowder for one kingdom? Mithril? Just needlessly complex.

But one thing I do like that should be immensely helpful for new players are all the aids and rulebooks being updated. Now you don't need to scroll 100 posts to find the special ability of Ents. So there's some progress.

[Wookie Panz]

Getting back to the original banner, "Characters or Military,"  it depends...  Look at who signed up and where they are going to be located.  Do you really want to take a landlocked magic kingdom next to a player that already has the Red Dragons or the Giants?  Chances are you wont be around on turn 10. 

Max I think you aim this at new players and they won't know this but the setup, matching kingdoms with region and taking into consideration who else has chosen before has a major role in how well you will do.  Unless you have a mentor it's hard to know those things. 
 I heard of a player who was about to start a game with the cold blooded Cimmerians in the Untamed Lands recently where they would have lost all advantage.  This is stuff the new guy is likely to miss.

[Maximus Dominus]

Yes, the tutorial game is essential.

I don't agree that the Tutorial is essential. It's certainly not why I have been playing the game, in recent weeks and months.

I recently tried the Tutorial game, again. Specifically, it was Game 5707. My understanding is that 90%+ of people drop the Tutorial after turn 1.

That said, I think that tutorials, generally speaking, can be beneficial. However, I am not persuaded that the current Tutorial is beneficial. It should probably be repurposed into something else.

Then the duel game with someone who has a gentle hand. Mine was with Rellgar. Not so gentle... ha! But he was very helpful and instructive.

I tried my hand at the Duel game, again, very recently. Wookie Panz invited me to a Duel game. I picked Random Cities, and I think that didn't jive well with the map.

That aside, this is the Alamaze visual that greets newcomers to the Duel game:

   

I just don't see newcomers getting really excited about that map.  Campaign Cartographer 3 (CC3) maps tend to be less visually impressive in small map format, from what I have seen of them over the years. This particular one has a very dated look to it.

Looking at the text on it, it also appears to have been increased in size from a low resolution copy. The place name labels are all straight horizontal text bits - utterly lacking in the imagination department. And looking at the text in the lower left, where it says Scale in Miles, its legibility is impaired.

It's not a crisp, sharp looking map. And it isn't big enough for the eyes to get drawn into it. Visually, it's fair small and simple. Not much in the way of gradual visual transitions from one terrain type to another. It looks hurried, and it looks very much like a map that was created for a game, rather than a map that was created for a place (aka the fantasy realm of Alamaze).

And those holdover Roman legion units from Fall of Rome do not suit the flavor or the setting of a fantasy wargame. One generic set of military units for all fantasy kingdoms. No lizards for lizards, nor dwarves for dwarves, nor demons for demon princes, etc.. The map that players "play upon" is arguably the single greatest visual opportunity for a game such as Alamaze, and here, this Centauria map just doesn't cut the visual mustard. If people were to go looking for their favorite fantasy map, I seriously doubt that anyone would come back with this one.

All that said, I do think that the Duel game in its current form can be repurposed into something else. Does anyone ever get tired of waiting for 12-player games of Alamaze to fill? Smaller games of Alamaze are needed, also (smaller number of players, not a smaller map). At times, a change of pace might be nice. But a smaller map makes the game feel more cramped (to me it does, anyway). The small size of this map doesn't leave much in the way to expand. In a battle between opposing kingdoms, small maps tend to be harder to generate an epic feel from. Is there even room to run away to fight another day?

To me, and this is just my opinion of one, small maps might be better suited for particular scenarios - such as the siege of Venarium. Or perhaps campaigns made of of different scenarios, sort of like one encounters in single player versions of the Warcraft and Starcraft games.

If Alamaze aspires to be a truly epic game, then do the current maps and population center icons provide the foundational base, visually, for it to achieve that? The game play of Alamaze, itself, sparks within me more of a grand feel than what my eyes are seeing as they look at the screen and dart about the map. The text in the Tutorial is horrible. It evinces boring, ho hum, virtually anything but grand or epic. How epic is it going to feel, if most people don't even bother to finish the Tutorial, of those that even try the game, at all?

And if they don't finish that Tutorial, are they going to then try the full monty that the game provides?

And if the Tutorial doesn't get the job done (it's job), then that means that you either replace it with other tutorial(s) (maybe more than one, maybe just a better one), or you go beyond even the Mentor approach - and over-invest in persuading and cajoling and tempting a select sub-set of potentially interested gamers. What you're selling is an experience, more so than just a game. That approach is a manpower-intensive approach, a rather time-consuming approach, but is has to be (or should be, I think) more than just mentors teaching the basics of the game. That, I think, might be one better path forward from where things are, right now.

So when I relearned the game, it was the middle of Covid. I learned Alamaze while my cousin built a hydroponic weed farm in his basement and everyone else baked sourdough bread. It takes some time.

I would imagine that relearning the game had a foundation of some sort to build upon, and that much (or some) of it came back to you fairly quickly, compared to what a newcomer with absolutely no prior experience with the game would encounter and bring to the table.

Glad that you survived the whole Covid debacle! How is that hydroponic wed farm coming along? I have never made sourdough bread before, but I have a chicken pot pie in the oven, right now, that I made - my second one, ever.

Which is one reason I don't really like the new expansion. Sure, it might make the game more interesting for established, bored, players, but new players are like wha? The number of new companion brigades is ridiculous and many of them can be combined (Mephits and Sprites anyone? What is the difference there?) Gunpowder for one kingdom? Mithril? Just needlessly complex.

Perhaps, but I really don't think that newcomers are making it that far into the game, before they depart, so I don't think the new expansion is what is at the root of the under-population of the Alamaze player base.

But one thing I do like that should be immensely helpful for new players are all the aids and rulebooks being updated. Now you don't need to scroll 100 posts to find the special ability of Ents. So there's some progress.

And where is it, if I may ask? I haven't been pondering Ents.