Thanks A-dam for opening this up for discussion. Most of my post will be responses to other posts.
Do please keep the "double crossing" option. I get the idea of making "can't cross" the default, but I think "can" needs to be kept as a variant. Even if that's higher luck, that's not good or bad, but just player preference, and I think it's good to keep that option open for those who like it... and that's not hurting those who don't want to play with it. (And for those not paying attention, it would just default to "can't.")
postmans wrote:Maybe a variant where the points in the center are connected to the lines going in, so when you arrive at a line to a 1 point you might want to move on a bit to get to a better point, but risk waiting on others to enter to the middle.
Interesting idea.
A very extreme balancing idea: you get more dice when you are on outer circles then when you are on inner circles as a balancing act (guess that's a bit to extreme).
Not so fond of this one though. Seems like you're trying to handicap those who managed to make it near the center earlier, which I don't believe is pure luck. It's not like it's just roll & move - I'm only in my first game and can already see there's plenty of room for "using" the dice and mitigating luck.
Cenobi wrote:One variant that I would advocate is "captured pawns return to starting space". Even if player gets unlucky with pawn captures, player will still have opportunities for strategy and can still hope to get back in contention.
Another interesting idea. Of course, it just makes it that much more like Parcheesi, and this is already a bit like "Parcheesi for designer game players."
chrislinn wrote:I would like to see a simpler way to move a double pawn than now.
As it is I have to click the button at the top to choose that alternative.
This is what I wanted to address. I get tired of always having to tell it to move double. What I would love to see is having double as default and then having to tell it when to do single. I think double-clicking is too chancy.
Cenobi wrote:RicardoRix wrote:Could there be an option of 'pass' if you don't want to use 1 or both dice?
More decision choices = more strategy.
That would change the game considerably. I'd say that it would be detrimental, as it would slow the game and encourage people to have pawns lying in wait. It would also decrease the risk management aspect if you can ignore dice.
Agreed. I actually think it makes less strategy.