Jan 4, 2010

Municipality - Week 9

Just as I thought that Municipality was rules-complete, a flurry of good ideas came pouring in. Andrew Parks, who designed the game that made me a board gamer, came up with some astonishingly good suggestions during his first look at the game.

Version 3.2
Changes from v3.1:
  • Neighborhood markers to quickly show connected properties added

Rules Explanation - 13 minutes
Initial Setup - 5 minutes
Playing Time - 1 hour 40 minutes

Doug Faust - 130 (10 x 13)
Anni Foasberg - 72 (6 x 12)
Andrew Parks - 57 (3 x 19)
Sarah Parks - 48 (4 x 12)

Anni's notes:
  • The relationships among buildings create a learning curve because there is a lot of information to process up front
Doug's notes:
  • Converted so much PC to cash early because did not want to tax and lose approval rating
Andrew's notes:
  • Should give everyone $5 and PC as the start of each round
  • Give option of taxing at a lower level and not losing approval rating
  • Restrict Campaign Manager to one extra level if you are already the most popular
  • To make it feel like a Euro, make money and PC worth some amount of victory points at the end of the game
Game Log
Length | Player-Role-Controller / . . .
14 min | SP-surv-AP / AP-tax-AP / AF-zone-SP / DF-hhs-SP
08 min | SP-tax-AP / AP-surv-AF / AF-zone-DF / DF-dep-AP
07 min | AP-lob-AP / AF-hhs-AF / DF-cam-DF / SP-sur-AP
07 min | AP-zone-AP / AF-tax-AF / DF-dep-DF / SP-hhs-DF
06 min | DF-cam-SP / SP-surv-SP / AP-tax-AP / AF-zone-AF
06 min | DF-lob-DF / SP-hhs-SP / AP-dep-AP / AF-surv-DF
04 min | AP-tax-AP / AF-zone-AF / DF-cam-DF / SP-dep-SP
05 min | SP-surv-AF / AP-hhs-AP / AF-lob-AP / DF-dep-DF
05 min | DF-cam-SP / SP-zone-AF / AP-tax-AP / AF-surv-DF
07 min | DF-hhs-AF / SP-zone-DF / AP-dep-AP / AF-tax-AF
07 min | AP-cam-AP / AF-lob-AF / DF-surv-AF / SP-hhs-SP
05 min | AP-hhs-DF / AF-dep-AF / DF-zone-AF / SP-surv-SP
04 min | AF-tax-AF / DF-cam-DF / SP-lob-AP / AP-hhs-AP
03 min | AF-cam-AF / DF-hhs-DF / SP-zone-SP
Version 4.0
Changes from v3.2:
  • Each player gets 1 Political Capital at the start of each round
  • HHS Commissioner - no longer costs Political Capital to use
  • Campaign Manager - a player who has more popularity than any other player cannot pay to activate more than once
  • Tax Assessor - a player may collect half taxes and not lose popularity
  • End of Game - $1 = 1 additional vote; 1 PC = 3 additional votes

Initial Setup - 6 minutes
Playing Time - 1 hour 17 minutes

Michael R. Keller - 125 (10 x 10 + $22 + 3 x 1 PC)
Greg Costikyan - 89 (6 x 9 + $2 + 3 x 11 PC)
Nick ? - 54 (3 x 9 + $3 + 3 x 8 PC)
Gil Hova - 44 (3 x 2 + $35 + 3 x 1 PC)

Nick's notes:
  • Too steep of a learning curve
Greg's notes:
  • Add a permit track to remind players of game end at 15 permits
  • Also, add a visual reminder of game end to the Approval Rating track
Gil's notes:
  • Add a game end check to the Zoning Board role card
  • Too steep of a learning curve at the start of the game
Conclusions:
  • One-sided player card
  • Add the game end check to the Zoning Board card, put off a permit track for now
  • Instead of half-tax, just double all monetary values and allow for a double-tax that decreases approval rating
  • Fiddle with the end-game values for money and PC
  • During initial setup, don't throw away available land spaces if one person chooses top of deck instead; two players in a row have to do so in order to refresh available land spaces

2 comments:

  1. Ack! Scary upside down picture!

    I don't think it's necessarily hard to figure the *game* out; what I wanted to say is that the relationships among buildings create a learning curve because there is a lot of information to process up front.

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  2. You don't like unusual perspectives in pictures? :-)

    Sorry about the misunderstanding, during post-mortems I'm generally trying to write down several things at once.

    Thank you for the correction, I'll update it in my notes.

    ReplyDelete