After a few months, I was finally able to get a playtest of my game! There were many changes made since the last time it was playtested, so I will attempt to hit most of those changes as I describe how the playtest went.
This playtest was a 3 player game, so the first thing that had to be done was to take the cards for a 4 player game and randomly remove 6 cards (making sure at least 1 copy of each card was available). Year 1 started with drafting all the cards (instead of draft 1 card and play it), which definitely allowed for better strategic choices since you knew all the building cards you had available at the beginning of the Year. Since the number of rounds per Year decreased from 5 to 4, it was more important to have a good strategy based on the cards drafted.
For the 1st Year, I made the decision to get building cards that allowed me to increase my resource production and allow me to trade those resources (either for Gold or for Food). On the first round, I also decided to build a house to get an additional Worker. Even though this made it difficult early to have enough resources to keep constructing buildings, I really think it paid off later in the game. At the end of the 1st Year, all 3 players had 2 buildings constructed in their "downtown" area, so everyone gained 2 Citizen Points (This was another change - the player with the most would gain 3CP, 2nd most 2CP, and 3rd most 1CP).
For the 2nd Year draft, my plan was to find a Blacksmith to lower my worker cost (1 Time reduction in all building costs), and then try to focus on protecting my town from opponent's Workers. Early in the 2nd Year, I decided to try the new Traveling Coach (allows players to move their Workers to other buildings - at the end of each round, it moves clockwise to the next town). To make up for losing a Worker in my town, I was able to build another house the next turn. The Worker I moved to an opponent's town was a huge help as it probably gained me 8 or 9 CP over the course of the last 6 rounds (either by helping to build buildings or use one of their buildings to trade Gold for CP). At the end of the 2nd Year, I had the most buildings in "downtown", while my opponents tied for 2nd most.
In the 3rd Year draft, I focused on getting buildings that could be upgraded for potentially large bonuses (5+ CP). I was able to draft 3 such buildings. Immediately after playing the first 2 of those buildings, however, I realized that I could not upgrade both, so I focused instead on upgrading the building that provided the best return, and used my remaining workers to get Gold to trade in for CP. When Year 3 ended, I had 7 buildings in "downtown", while my opponents both had 6.
When everything was counted up, I won by a score of 66, 56, 53. I finally won at my own game!
Now on to what needs to be addressed. The glaring problem was that resources were too scarce. It was extremely difficult to maintain enough resources to build anything late in the 2nd Year and during the entire 3rd Year. Based on feedback from the other players (my wife and someone that has played the game twice before), I have increased the amount of resources that players receive when placing Workers in resource collection locations. I also changed the cards that allow trading resources to match the change in resource collection. At this time, I will not make additional changes prior to the next playtest, as I want to see how much this affects the game.
Something else that was brought up after the playtest was that it might be better to have a central town board that all players build instead of separate towns. To help with this concept, I have decided to make the person that suggested this (Josh Walker) a co-designer to aid in determining the extent of changes that would need to be made to get this concept to work. Josh has provided a lot of really good feedback every time he has playtested my game, so I have no doubt that we can make a really good game.
For anyone that is attending Geekway to the West this weekend, I will there all 4 days with my game available for anyone that would like to try it.
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