RE Base Pay:
Maybe something where a percentage of the destroyed unit's SP is given back to the player after another game. Kind of like reinforcements are on the way. I do see a potential cause of frustratrion when one of the destroyed units is heavily modified. Maybe allowing the player to repurchase it at a discount later without having to wait for the refit time would help.
I want to see what the economics look like in play before paying for repairs, but I do like the idea of being able to recreate a custom with a reduced refit time. You've done the work once; you
did keep notes, right? ;)
As far as reducing destroyed units, having a "the game ends when one player reaches two victory conditions" rule should reduce that. Mercenaries rarely fight to the death -- there's no money in it!
Another thing I had mentioned was to award players SP equal to the difference of the screnario BV limit and their force's BV. Just wanted to make sure you didn't forget about that suggestion.
I had it written down, but wanted to think on it before bringing it up. But since you mention it, 1:1 is certainly too high -- think about the effect of "I bring 200 BV, and immediately retreat" on gameplay. Lots of SP, totally pointless, "why did you even drive to the store" battle. But 10% might be a good balance -- you get a few extra points if you're having trouble getting the BV correct, but it's not economic to try and lowball your force.
For Base Pay I'd make that 25-50% of the planned award.
So yesterday's 400+400 would have actually been...... 200Base+300+300 or 400Base+200+200?
Yeah, 200 base + 300/victory condition sounds about right.
I like the map placement changes that we discussed & the new 3 position system.
I did think of 1 alternative option.
Perhaps 1 option should be that the first placer can choose which map they place in the 3 sections v/s just their own map choice?
Then dice off for initiative like normal for round 1? Or give the looser the round 1 initiative?
How's this for balance:
Player 1 chooses a map from the two.
Player 2 places the remaining map anywhere except horizontal-far (i.e., setting the opponent's entire home edge).
Player 1 places the map they originally chose in either fitting orientation.
Player 1 wins round 1 initiative.
That's even more even than my previous (post-game) thought. I think player 2 is still the "winner," but it further prevents the "I bring a very wet map to split the board/make my artillery unreachable/etc." Speaking of that, I added a few "wet" maps to the banned list in the rules.
I think if I leave off all salvage and just use a "hold the field" victory condition that will be fine.
I noticed that Surrender gives the bonus only if the victor doesn't have all of the current objectives so if you win objectives & they surrender then there is still no bonus SP.
That was to keep the "runaway" payoffs out. But since the (unstated) intent was for games to end in the end-phase of any round in which a player had both victory conditions, getting both would pay better than getting one plus enemy surrender. So if game-end is better spelled out, I can lose that verbiage.
I'll start considering 4-map games once I get a bit more of a baseline for how things are going. Or if a majority asks for it.