Roy K. Bartoo - 10:27am Mar 18, 2000 PST (#333 of 342) 

Finally got a couple of willing guinea pigs last night at CABS and we
tried Simulations Workshop's "Rus'" (Britannia system goes to Russia). A
number of complaints about the physical systems - the magenta counters
are too close in color to the red to be quickly distinguishable (at one
point the Magenta player attacked one of his own units thinking it was
Red). The Population Point markers do not show clearly enough what color
they belong to, and those which are green inside are very hard to read
(green is too dark). Wish SimWork had chosen yellow or White instead of
Magenta. Also hard to tell at a glance which leader comes with which
nationality, but since we just went by the player aid card it wasn't a
problem. I wondered why SimWork chose to refer to the players as A,B,C,D
instead of by color - since I was keeping track of VPs, I kept having to
ask "Green, what player letter are you?". This is easy enough to pencil
in on the VP chart, though (and one player wanted the player colors
indicated on the nationalities sequence as well - again, just pencil in
a letter R,G,B,M). Missed a number of rules for a while (fortunately we
had an experienced Britannia player there) such as that unless it says
"Any time during Turn X", the VPs are only scored at the end of the GAME
turn, not the end of the nationality turn. Our Britannia player also
felt that support should be checked for after each move-combat sequence
of an Invasion/Campaign turn, but the Rus' rules are quite clear that it
is checked only after the second one. And despite what the rules seem to
say, it is probably best to go with the Britannia rule and remove
leaders at the end of the turn. Otherwise they last, and last, longer
than Methuselah. Also, it wasn't immediately clear that when a
nationality's card said "Lower Wopping, Outer Boonies (2)" the '(2)'
applied to everything to the left of it. Some other things we were
probably doing wrong, but that's par for a first playing. 

So, how's the game? In a word, long. Including setup & rules explanation
time (probably no more than 10-15 minutes total), we played for 4 hours,
and got through turn 8 of a 16 turn game. And given that some later
nationalities have lots of pieces, I don't think it was going to
accelerate. Nor would experience accelerate it greatly, I think, since
the rules aren't that complicated. Also, given the number of
nationalities on the board at any one time (usually 8-10), it was very
hard to keep track of what your own guys needed for VPs, and impossible
to keep track of what the other players needed (in order to thwart their
nefarious designs). So it seems to me that in order to play Rus' well,
you'd really need to do it by PBM/PBeM, so you could at leisure study
the opposing nationalities and decide how best to maximize your own VPs
while minimizing theirs. As it was, we were just sort of bouncing from
one nationality to another, and only one rare occasions did one player
try to deflect another's attentions. 

In sum, not a bad game, but quite long, and with so many actors on stage
at once, hard to play well. 

Roy. 

Randy Moorehead - 12:20pm Mar 19, 2000 PST (#334 of 342) 
http://members.tripod.com/SimulationsWorkshop/index.html

Roy, 

Glad you got a chance to play Rus'. I probably did outwit myself with
the color scheme on the Population markers. The color inside the square
matches the leader stripes - for example the Bulgar leaders have their
name across a yellow stripe, and the Bulgar Population marker has yellow
inside the square; Teutonic Knights have a white stipe, white inside
their Population marker, and white inside their Fort marker, etc. At any
one time, though, there are a good number of markers on the Population
track, and telling them all apart is not easy. Attacking your own units
- well, that is a real Pecheneg move. 

Players are A, B, C, D, since with 3 players, naming them by color
didn't seem to work (at least in playtesting). Thinking about it now,
you are right. 

I recommend playing the support during an invasion/campaign as written -
you will be able to get more "historical" results that way. 

Leader removal - never really saw it as a problem. They usually go down
fighting (like Sviatoslav returning from the campaign against the
Khazars: oops!). 

Yes, the game is long. As I have mentioned before (on the SW topic) 8
hours is par, longer if there is dithering. Lots of units, and more
groups than in Britannia. It shouldn't be hard to track what other
players are after - usually the same thing you are (how many times did
Kiev change hands during your game?). You can always ask another player
to take a look at his VP card - nothing secret about them. 

Hope you get to play it again. IMHO, where the game really shines is in
repeated playing, much like Britannia. In Britannia you know the Saxons
are coming; here you know that bigger, meaner, and nastier people are
always coming. 

Roy K. Bartoo - 12:56pm Mar 19, 2000 PST (#335 of 342) 

Randy, thanks for your further comments on Rus'. We did play the support
rule as written, since (mercifully) the Invasion section of the rules
explicitly set forth the sequence of steps - our Britannia guy resisted
like a mule going up a ladder, but finally conceded that you had, in
fact, meant what you wrote. 

As to playing Rus' again. I agree that repeated play would improve
things - players would know who was showing up where, and what everybody
was after. Trouble is that with an 8-hour game, I'm not sure how much
repeated play it will get. I wish there were two additional scenariones,
one for the first 8 turns, one for the second 8 turns (our Magenta
player was sulking because he never got to enter the Mongols) - maybe
you could suggest point 'handicaps' for each faction for the end of turn
8? That way if playing the first 8 turns, the winner is the faction
which most exceeds its point handicap; and if playing the second 8
turns, add the handicap and the winning faction is the one with the
highest tally. Of course, for the second octet of turns we'd need a
setup, how many of which nationality in each space. 

Kiev didn't change hands at all once I built the city - but the game
only lasted one more turn, IIRC. As to the Leaders, the situation became
alarming when the Bulgars had all three Leaders in play, plus the city
of Great Bulgar. They set up a wall running east-west across the eastern
part of the map, "encouraging" the perpetual Volga invasions to keep
movin' on. 

Pity the poor Scythians - they set up, and are immediately demolished
(although one unit managed to survive the initial round of combat and
withdraw, surviving several more turns). Meanwhile the almost completely
harmless Meryans just sit in the northeast, out of the way of everyone
and doing virtually nothing. 

Roy. 

Randy Moorehead - 02:53pm Mar 19, 2000 PST (#336 of 342) 
http://members.tripod.com/SimulationsWorkshop/index.html

Scenarios: Interesting ... will have to look further at this. 

Kiev will change hands many times - it is a place everybody wants. The
Kievan Rus' will be lucky to hang on in later turns. 

Bulgars: If they do not do their historic "split" things get
interesting. They can be stronger in the Oka region, but have given up
the points for Bulgaria (Wallachia, etc.). They couldn't have all 3
leaders on at once: Kubrat is on Turn 4, and is removed at the beginning
of the Bulgar turn 5. His sons, Bezmer and Asparukh, appear on Turn 5
(and led them in the two directions). Granted the Bulgars can get going
early, but the Pechenegs and Polotsvy can take them down. Infantry
doesn't stand up in the open steppe well. I have seen games where the
Bulgars get wiped out early, and another where they survive to give
Moscow a hard time. 

Scythians - the Belgae of the game. Roll lots of 6's. ;-) The Merya,
Krivitchi, and the Finns can be deceiving. Steady points over the long
haul can offset the flashy points of the Mongols and others. 

Roy K. Bartoo - 07:05pm Mar 19, 2000 PST (#337 of 342) 

Oops, missed that Kubrat was supposed to be removed. 

Roy. 

Roy K. Bartoo - 07:15pm Mar 19, 2000 PST (#338 of 342) 

No wonder I missed that Kubrat is to be removed - it doesn't say to do
so anywhere that I can find - not on the player aid card listing what
comes in when, not on the Bulgar nationality card. Is this an erratum? 

And my Bulgars looked at the slavering hordes of peoples between their
comfortable spot north of the Volga and the 'promised' land of Wallachia
etc., and decided not to be migratory. Half a loaf is better than being
ground into (a) meal. 

Roy. 

Randy Moorehead - 08:15pm Mar 19, 2000 PST (#339 of 342) 
http://members.tripod.com/SimulationsWorkshop/index.html

See the Leader rules, page 8, last paragraph. Leaders that survive a
turn remain on the map until the group begins its next turn. They are
removed prior to placement of new units. So, even the best leaders will
last no more than one turn. The Bulgars are probably better off on the
Oka for long term development, but then anything can happen (and a
leader makes it easier to slice your way into the Balkans). 

Elias Nordling - 04:07am Mar 20, 2000 PST (#340 of 342) 
The first person ever to actually get paid to go to Homercon

Jumping in on an old subject: Mounting counters. 

I always cut the corners on mounted, die-cut counters, and that takes
some time too. Compared to that, the gluing and cutting really doesn't
take that much longer, perhaps an hour per sheet compared to 40 minutes.
What's the big deal? 

Roy K. Bartoo - 03:51pm Mar 21, 2000 PST (#341 of 342) 

Missed the bit about Leader removal entirely. Makes sense, but I/we
missed it. So Attila shouldn't have lasted for 3 turns ... 

Roy.