Brandon Tibbetts
United States
Oak Lawn
Illinois
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Many thanks to Roger, John and Brian for their participation and feedback!
After about 15-20 minutes of rules explanation, the game was underway. I would say it only suffered an average amount of rules clarifications during play considering its weight.
The initial 10 buildings in the market had only 2 universities, one of which was quite powerful (one scientist produces 3 scientists). Both were taken before it was Roger's turn. Roger then did not (as I expected) take a university spot on the board and took cash instead. The main board university spaces were then taken before his second turn, giving him no opportunity to build his workforce in the early game. While we all agreed that his first move was suboptimal, it seems he was unfairly punished and had great difficulty getting back into the game. Even if Roger had chosen the optimal move (main board university), it's a bit unfortunate for his hand to be strongly forced on his first turn.
I anticipated balance issues such as this. It's great that we all stopped to discuss it and everyone had ideas. I will make the following modifications based on this discussion:
1. Remove the main board university $3=scientist/engineer space.
2. Add a main board university $3 "kick out" box, so that a player can spend the same amount of money to kick out the worker in the desired university space. This is an added benefit to the player who first placed his worker there, as he now gets it back. But it also benefits players who would otherwise have no other way to build their workforce in the early game, which seems to be critical.
3. Make the main board laborer space produce 2 laborers instead of 1. This provides an additional stall option, momentarily increasing your worker pool by 1.
To keep the game moving, I suggested an early invasion for Roger, who had collected bombers, as had I. He chose this option, and he and I cooperatively destroyed the 2 early universities currently owned by John and Brian.
A half dozen turns later, it appeared to Brian and John that I pulled into the lead, as I had collected all 4 of my engineers and was using them to activate powerful buildings. So then came another invasion: Brian and John against me. They destroyed my powerful factory and another building, killing off 2 of my engineers.
Regardless of my losses (honestly!) I felt the back-to-back invasions were undesirable. Easy invasions make it too easy, I think, to slow the game down, which isn't enjoyable for anyone. Simple modification: make the invasion space $5 instead of $3, and we'll see how that plays next time.
We played and discussed for several hours - about half of each - so this session did not give me an idea yet of the final expected play time, or if the current play time is right. That will have to come in a later session.
Everyone seemed to agree that the initial turn order cash compensation was too weak and too rigid:
Player 1: -
Player 2: $1
Player 3: $2
Player 4: $3
Player 5: $4
For the next session, this will be replaced with:
Player 1: -
Player 2: $2
Player 3: 1 scientist or engineer
Player 4: $2 + 1 scientist or engineer
Player 5: 2 scientists or engineers (or 1 of each)
Players 3-5 will choose their workers in turn order during a setup round after seeing the initial building market.
We couldn't play the game to the finish, as one of us had to leave. It seemed at that point Brian had taken the lead, being the first player to build and test a bomb, then beginning to work on his supply of fighter planes which was an obvious weakness. Overall I'm thrilled at the enthusiasm and progress that came from the first session. I can't wait for the next one.
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