Just row, row, row your boat gently down the stream. Gently! Gently, I tell yo

• 15 September 2007
• Category: 'Ohana Proa

I see four core challenges and one obervation/opportunity:

1) Encourage players to use each other’s routes

2) Make kahnuas change the graph node weights for both the owning player and the other players

3) Make kula a first class economy where drains exceed faucets, but leave enough latency for kula management to be interesting

4) Do the above while keeping the 6 currencies of the game balanced (drains exceed faucets but enough latency between production/destruction for interesting currency management decisions and no profitable currency translation loops)

a) The game will always divide fairly cleanly into two sections: setting up routes and sustainable income levels, and then prestige and VPs in the second half.

New rules.

• Delivering a market over another player’s route has no fee, but the route-owning player gets the resources produced by their routes at the island. (estimated 15% growth in resource production rates but the auction and raised costs (below) should soak this up))

• Players continue to pay route fees for moving kahunas.

• Delivering to a player’s kahuna over that player’s route gives the delivering player a prestige point. I’m hopeful that the new delivery/cost rules will make for much more route sharing.

• Prestige points can be earned as follows: — 1 point for 5 markets (as before) — 1 point for giving a kula item — 1 point for delivering a market to a player’s kahuna over their route — 1 point for giving a kula to a players kahuna — 1 point for creating an all new kula item — 1 point for each max-value token in a given kula item (max 2) (ie a single delivery and gift could earn up to 7 prestige

  The most concerning thing here is that there are really only 3 points of variance for the value of a kula:

  • 5 markets
  • Did you create it?
  • Delivered to kahuna?
  • Delivered to kahuna over their route?

  The prestige for giving is constant and the prestive for max-sized tokens is likely near constant for any given kula item. I’m not sure if that’s really quite enough dynamism to keep the distribution of prestige point awards well spread (and thus prompting tension and arc), but I’m hopeful.

  • Kula items can only be two tokens and kula rot in the same way as fish. Kula token values are now also more limited: 1/4 for fish and 3/6 for shell (no 2 fish or 4 shell). Cost is 3 resources for the small ones, 7 for the big (which come with a prestige point when given) and 5 for an upgrade.

  There are several things combined here, but the key items are: Kula aren’t worth as many VPs, Kula need to be moved, fast, before they rot, there’s a much broaded ranger/variance in the prestige points that may be earned by a single delivery and actions that directly help other players (deliveries and gifts to their kahunas) are rewarded directly.

  I’m pretty much convinced that the two-part division of the game is a given. I’m not sure it is a problem. They best I can do is blur the line. No matter what the game is going to split into:

  1) Get more Proas and get routes out.

  2) Setup for scoring!

  I’m hopeful that the new prestige rules will have prestige coming out earlier in the game, and will make the rush to 7 proas a little more interesting (and not quite as automatic).

• Changed end-game definition to one market being closed. At that point the core problem of the game in terms of market sorting has reached its first approximation. That seems like a fine time to end the game. I’m also looking to scale the game by simply removing islands from the map.

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