[FFH2PBEM6 Lurker Thread] The Peanut Gallery

[Maksim]

As far as early dungeon pops are concerned: You pays your money, you takes your chances.

Dungeons are high-risk/high reward propositions. Deciding to pop one or not is one of those "interesting decisions" that make for a fun game.

Ah, but popping a dungeon far away from your borders, and close to your competitors is a much different prospect. You stand to gain if the outcome is good, but if monsters emerge, it's your opponent who stands to lose.

So essentially, the correct strategy is to explore any lair that's far away from you. And being on the receiving side of such opportunistic explorations sucks, since there is no way to retaliate.

Make them all garrisoned by something. It takes much longer to pop a dungeon if there's a held Spectre/Bear/etc on it.

This, on the other hand - this makes a lot of sense to me. I'll keep it in mind for any future map-making activities, thanks - though I have to wonder whether anyone will want me to generate a map for them after this one!

[Thoth]

Ah, but popping a dungeon far away from your borders, and close to your competitors is a much different prospect. You stand to gain if the outcome is good, but if monsters emerge, it's your opponent who stands to lose.

So essentially, the correct strategy is to explore any lair that's far away from you. And being on the receiving side of such opportunistic explorations sucks, since there is no way to retaliate.

I agree that popping a dungeon far away is almost always the right play (so long as you don't mind making an enemy in the process), which makes the decision about whether to pop those close dungeons a bit more interesting. Do you pop it now and take your chances with spawns? or do you wait and run the risk of someone else popping it for you or do you simply guard it and lose out on exploration.

[DaveV]

whether to pop those close dungeons ... do you simply guard it and lose out on exploration.

There's no reliable way to guard it: you can pop your borders over it, but the other player can still explore it with open borders or state of war. If you station a unit on top of it, anyone not at war with you can move onto your unit and explore the dungeon. If you're so worried about a lair that you've stationed a guard on top of it, that makes it an especially attractive exploration target for another player.

[icewolf34]

EDIT OOPS

[Sareln]

There's no reliable way to guard it: you can pop your borders over it, but the other player can still explore it with open borders or state of war. If you station a unit on top of it, anyone not at war with you can move onto your unit and explore the dungeon. If you're so worried about a lair that you've stationed a guard on top of it, that makes it an especially attractive exploration target for another player.

Am tempted to add a "Collapse Dungeon/Lair Spell as an option for exploration. Let you close the dungeon up with no rolls on any tables. That way, if you get to a local dungeon first (before another player) you can decide to collapse the dungeon entrance to protect yourself.

[Square Leg]

Am tempted to add a "Collapse Dungeon/Lair Spell as an option for exploration. Let you close the dungeon up with no rolls on any tables. That way, if you get to a local dungeon first (before another player) you can decide to collapse the dungeon entrance to protect yourself.

Would there be a way to explore it later on?

[Gaspar]

I get where you're headed with that, Sareln, but to me, the randomness and danger of the early game is a huge part of what makes FFH what it is. I don't know if much of anything in this game is fair, which is sort of how it all balances out.

[Sareln]

Would it there be a way to explore it later on?

I played around with a couple of mechanic ideas for how it would work, but I think that I want it to be a clear tradeoff:

1. Explore Now for High Risk / High Reward.
   
2. Explore Later, risking that someone else will come along and explore it "for" you.
   
3. Collapse Now, remove all risk while forfeiting all reward - perhaps hurt the unit in the process.
   

I get where you're headed with that, Sareln, but to me, the randomness and danger of the early game is a huge part of what makes FFH what it is. I don't know if much of anything in this game is fair, which is sort of how it all balances out.

Danger is fine, but the scale of the danger that can randomly pop out of a lair can end someone's game before it starts, and I don't like that so much. Really, I'm trying to give players another tool that they can use to protect themselves, without making it the one-right-choice every time. Hence the inability to explore a dungeon after collapsing it. I'm still turning the idea over in my head here...

[Maksim]

I like it, but I'm not sure if it's enough - people don't generally have the resources to scout all directions equally, and a single unexplored tile can have the dungeon that another player has wandered into...

[Shpoko]

Well, now we know where the Mistform went...

Sciz got really lucky here.