Flash Point C.4 2 Successful Playtests
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- Category: Arbitrium
- Created: Wednesday, 08 August 2018 08:34
- Published: Wednesday, 08 August 2018 08:34
- Written by Super User
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So 3 weeks ago after a fun afternoon of gaming and gaming theory with my friend Ben Dryer, I realized Flash Point needed a major overhaul. So thanx to Ben this post is now happening
In case you don't know Flash Point is a Board game idea I had years ago after 9/11 and the Afgan war started. Its about how Superpowers use money to gain influence and control around the world to grow their economy and real power. A Flash Point represents moments like 2008, where governments have to pay huge sums of money to keep their economies afloat, they can happen at any time. Its taken a long time, but I think I have something here.
In the last week the C.1, C.2,C.4 (wait where did C.3 go.. another story of regressions and paths that should not be retraced), rules were created destroyed and evolved into C.4, I think this might be it.
The initial vision of Flash Point was of players building relationships (trade agreements, military aid, and then alliances) building allies takes time and money in the real world and that was what i always wanted in Flash Point. What I had in the A.x and B.x was the agreements becoming tech and the players bidding against each other, to get an ally right away.
Ben Pointed out a few things things (well more than a few, but this is what stuck:
1) Stream line the board, fewer slots all the tracks on one side
2) Add 50 Billion currency, drop the 1 trillion
3)The players choices should cause the bad and good things to happen in the game. There are 2 opponents in Flash Point; the other players and the world you are playing in. When Players make choices that hurt or help the Global Gauges tracking the world, the effects should cause a Flash Point
4) Start with fewer currency, resources and agents, as they run out add more and the gauges fall, causing the bad stuff
5) reclaim the cooperative win, if some players would rather work together to save the world by keeping the gauges in safe areas, let them. It can lead to an interesting situation where 3 players are saving the world against 2 trying to beat them all.
6) Do the financial stuff first then do the actions to gain allies
So these 6 base, and many other ideas, lead to C.1, which linked the agents and tech too closely I tried 1 turn and shut it down, but it proved the game was better when you added dice. C.2 brought back the idea of using tokens to represent influence, the agent tokens (cause they are cool) and some new economic flows. Another 1 turn flop, But I saw something. I tried to write C.3 using more detailed steps for using tech to show control and stepped away and came up with C.4.
C.4 in short works as I saw the game work in my head 15 years ago. Players Start with a super power, limited currencies and resources, and some tech. the Buy and Sell resources, take income from allies (instead of using their abilities), Acquire new tech by spending currencies and resources, then they buy agents and place them on the board. The agents represent where the Super Power is focused that Year and sets the Severity of how bad the year is, high severity is not a good thing..
After all players are done placing they each resolve a theater (Major or Minor). Agents set a die type, tech and allies add bonuses or abilities that change the rules for a time. They roll and up their influence and if they beat the resistance of the target they get to add a control token, the highest influence gets 2. Anyone with a control token gets to do trade (Income to do more) and first one to beat the resistance (and the other players) gets to take the card as an ally.
After each theater players roll for the chance of an event, if they cannot keep the severity down, multiple events will happen and that can lead to multiple Flash Points (I had 8 or 9 in this last game, the Higehst paid by a player was 1.120 TRILLION dollars ( and I promise it was all addition to figure it out)
SO C.4 Played and East Asia (Japan) was losing at turn 4, went 600 billion in deficits and in the end won with a 7 Trillion dollar economy, South America (Argentina) was second with a 3.3 Trillion, and the Middle East (Saudi Arabia) was only able to get 460 Billion, Japan caused a Coup and I was not Ready for the Last Flash Point and my economy was plundered.
So I really think its there C.4 is going to be play tested again later this weekend or next. I see a Scarce game (the longest scenario) taking no more than 4 hours, Apocalypse no more than 2.5 (and that's most likely an all players lose when the gauges hit black.
So look for emails to test this bad boy, its coming and I feel a kickstarter in me sooner rather than later.
I leave you with a picture of the new board; simple and easy to look at (not the final I have to fix some mistakes and add a location for the event deck)
