Roy K. Bartoo - 09:41am Nov 28, 2001 PST (#229 of 231) Hokay, we finished up our game of Rus' on Monday night. Comments below are not entirely mine, but my distillation of the post-mortem comments. 1. Game took quite a bit longer than I'd expected. Based on a previously playing of the first 8 turns, I was expecting it to be a 6-8 hour game. We spent approximately 10 hours, in three sessions, playing it through to completion (not including rules-explanation time). The last two turns went very quickly, or it would have been even longer. 2. Final scores were: Magenta 107, Red (me!) 109, Blue 118, Green 208. That last is NOT a typo. 3. Southern Russia spent much of the game empty and vacant, which seemed somewhat odd. The various Hordes would pour through, picking up their "any time" points and then moving on to the west to end their turn. To some extent this was player choice, as people were more interested in scoring points now rather than maximizing population growth for next turn. Then again, since most of the Hordes have Steppe Warrior they didn't worry much about population growth, most of their losses (from fighting each other) were replaced by the Steppe Warrior bonus. We debated whether the 'empty South' was a historical reality or a problem. Mostly the conclusion was that none of us knew enough about the period to say for certain, but one telling comment concerned the Mongols. After they moved through, they were nowhere in southern Russia, having moved west and north to terrorize the other peoples (since they get no territorial VPs on turn 13 and have no interest in population growth for turn 14 when they will no longer exist). Then the Khanates, who nominally represent the fragmentation of the Golden Horde, spring up in the south where there were no Mongols. Strange. 4. The game was enjoyed by all, and reasonably close, up until about turn 14. Then, it became Green playing solitaire and maximizing his points. The rest of us had essentially nothing we could do but sit and try desperately to hold onto what we had. Red was reduced the the fringes of the Baltic, with the Scandinavians and the Teutonics. Magenta had the remnants of the Lithuanians (his Khanate was reduced to 1 fugitive counter before it ever got to play). Blue had the Poles in the west, and Novgorod who knew they were overmatched against Muscovy and tried to play defense, with little success. Against this, in the north Green had Muscovy, with campaigns and leaders on three consecutive turns; running interference for Muscovy were the (very healthy) Polotsvy, who could get no further points and were thus happy to lay down their lives to weaken the enemies of Muscovy (mainly Novgorod). In the south, the Green had the Crimean Khanate and the Ottomans as a tag-team, sweeping away all opposition. Green scored an eye-popping 90 points with Muscovy, far and away the most profitble empire (next was Kiev with 41). We all felt that Green's complete domination of the end game was not fun - even Green, for whom it became an exercise in points maximization. We couldn't, however, agree on what should be done about it. One comment was that Green should not have the Crimeans/Ottomans AND Muscovy - suggestion was to transfer the Goths and the magenta Khanate to Green, and the Ottomans/Crimeans to magenta. Another possibility was to end the game after turn 14, instead of 16, to which I objected that then you don't get to see the rise of Muscovy which is central to modern Russia. My suggestion was to drastically reduce the points available to Muscovy from territories. Make Moscow at Muscovy 5, Muscovy 5, Tver and Novgorod 2 each, and everything else 1. Muscovy still gets 2 vp for each dead Novgorod, but only on Muscovy's turn (give Novgorod some incentive for an active defense). Of course, it is hard to judge from just one playing whether it was simply the way we played the game - I warned people repeatedly that Green was the winner of all the games I'd read about, and that they score a bushel of points in the last turns. But we were never able to gang up on Green in the first 13 turns, as everybody was too busy trying to score points for themselves. Even had we succeeded in beating up on Green, that would have made the first 13 turns an unenjoyable exercise in frustration and impotence for Green, which is hardly an improvement in the game. My radical suggestion was simply to bid victory points for control of each empire, as a way to balance the game and give everyine a chance to be involved at all times. But that requires that the players have prior experience with Rus' so they know approximately what eac empire can do and is worth. In sum, we enjoyed the first 3/4 of the game, and I wish again that there was a scenario that let you play just the first 8 turns, so you could play the game in an evening. Nobody enjoyed the last couple of turns, though, and with that waiting as the endgame, I doubt that Rus' will get played again. Roy Randy Moorehead - 12:20pm Nov 28, 2001 PST (#230 of 231) Currently playing: Lion of Ethiopia, Verdun Roy, Thanks for the comments, even the negative ones ;-) Yes, the game is long. Three evenings is normal for our group. The scores seem really low - we usually see scores between 145 and 171 for each color. For example, in our last game Red scored 161. Perhaps your group is not aggressive enough (?). Southern Russia is the "highway" and can empty out if played that way. Then again, there are a lot of points that might have been given up there. We tend to fight for every area and maximize every potential point. The Mongols should expect to move north and west, as that is where their points will be (terror and loot!). So why stick around the steppe? We could give them points, and tie the Khanates to this, but then would they head west into Europe? In playtesting this didn't work, and so it evolved into the current system. Muscovy should never be cut any slack. Novgorod must take every opportunity to attack Muscovy while it is still in its infancy, as should the everyone else even close to them. It should be assumed that Muscovy will control most of the board at the end of the game (as they did historically) so you must maximize your own points at the expense of Muscovy. This sounds obvious, but the best defense against Moscow is to attack, attack, attack. Especially on Turns 13 and 14, when they are most vulnerable. We usually play a series of 4 games, with each player a different color in each game, and re-totalling the points after a 4 game series. Within our group Green has won slightly more than the others at 30%. I would also like to see a shorter version, playable in a single evening. Given the structure of the game, it might not be a 4-player game, though. Roy K. Bartoo - 09:18pm Nov 28, 2001 PST (#231 of 231) I tried to convince the other players that Muscovy should be attacked, but it was a fairly futile cause, since all I had by that time were 5 Teutonic Knights counters (2 of them forts) and 5 Scandinavians, it was obvious to all that I wasn't going to be participating in any meaningful way. Magenta was in even worse straights, except for the Timurids who had to wade through a sea of Crimean Khanate units (thoughtfully blocking the way for their Muscovite brothers), he had three Lithuanians and a single Khanate unit (Kazan Khanate, I think). Which left only blue, who declined to sacrifice his Novgorod empire for the convenience of Red and Magenta! As to the scores, I suspect that our scores were low due to an excess of aggression and a near-total lack of negotiation. There was no "you can have this province if I can have that one, and your next empire goes around me". If a player thought he had the strength to take a victory point province, he went for it. If he had troops of an empire that was about to be eliminated, they almost invariably went on a kamikaze mission to hurt their neighbors. Quarter neither asked nor given. If the game were to be played again, I suspect Red, Blue and Magenta would try to come to some sort of prior arrangement as to what to leave alive to oppose Muscovy, try to build enough strength to strangle it at birth. Red's score, by the way, was somewhat low because I badly mishandled the Bulgars - tried to establish the western Bulgar empire, got caught up in hunting down the last Goths (black nail polish is an offence punishable by extermination) and ended up woefully out of position. Comnpounded that error by missing that our remnants could submit to the Avars. My last Bulgar tried to make his way back east to build Great Bulgar - I promised my fellow players they could burn it after I built it. Instead a bunch of horsemen went out of their way to run over him. Magenta's score was hurt because he tried to go into western Finland, did poorly, and had only one counter to face my Scandinavians in Karelia, so the Finns were extinguished when they could have had several more (modest) scoring opportunities. One thing that I was puzzled about concerns the Teutonic Knights. They are elite, which is nice, but almost all of the territories they are interested in are non-steppe (the Baltic coast from Prussia east), where their elite status helps them not a bit, so all they are is exceedingly expensive infantry? Oh, and a minor question about the Teutonic tinheads. I assume they get a fort only when they control a province (i.e., they don't get a fort if they move into an enemy-occupied province until the enemy has been eliminated or forced to retreat)? While I'm at it, another question that came up. One of the players was bitter because in Britannia there is a rule that you can automatically beat your own troops (i.e. if I move Teutonics into a Scandinavian-controlled province I can simply declare the Scandis the losers). So far as I can tell there is no such rule in Rus', or did I miss it? The way we played it was that one round of combat was fought, with one of the other players rolling for the defenders, and then the controlling player could retreat the survivors. Roy Rick Heli - 10:36am Nov 29, 2001 PST (#232 of 234) Click on nametag for link to games website. One thing that I was puzzled about concerns the Teutonic Knights. They are elite, which is nice, but almost all of the territories they are interested in are non-steppe (the Baltic coast from Prussia east) That sounds perfectly historical. While I'm at it, another question that came up. One of the players was bitter because in Britannia there is a rule that you can automatically beat your own troops (i.e. if I move Teutonics into a Scandinavian-controlled province I can simply declare the Scandis the losers). Actually, there is no such rule in Britannia. There is such a rule in the first Avalon Hill History of the World, but I think it was removed in the new Hasbro one. I've no idea about the earlier British versions of that game. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Randy Moorehead - 10:53am Nov 29, 2001 PST (#233 of 234) Currently playing: Lion of Ethiopia, Verdun Yes, the T-Knights only get the fort after they control an area. They are little better than expensive infantry unless they venture further into Russia itself (supposed to be tempting, but perhaps too subtle). I wrestled with this elite rule, but left it in since they should be expensive to replace. So, they are elite, but it doens't matter in terms of combat mechanics in the woods. And one round of combat must be fought before a side may retreat. Re: Bulgars. They are tricky to play, as are the Magyars and some other groups. Very tricky.