Building a position – For those fans of Sid Meier’s Civilization series of games, I love the build-up of a position. From the scientific breakthroughs that make your position just a little bit stronger, to the brand spanking new army or fleet of lineships that are just waiting for an enemy to dare to test you.
Learning history – As an American, albeit a well-travelled one, I often lack a lot of later history in Europe. I can find just reading history relatively dry, but if I’m actually playing a position where the history is relevant, it really becomes very fun to read and learn. We’ve joked about looking at historical palaces and the like and calling them “ours”, but that sense of linkage is also what makes the history really come alive for me.
Trying to be clever – So the rule books are full of players clever ideas that got turned into game rules and developments. Can I come up with a brand new idea that fits historically that will advantage my position? One that might one day end up in the next version of the rule books as a suggestion for other players to pursue?
And, of course, when a plan comes together!
Things I don’t like about the Glory of Kings:
Game pace – Game pace is naturally pretty slow, and recent turn-around time hasn’t helped. But even if it was ‘fast’, it isn’t that fast. You get the turn for 2 weeks, Richard processes for a week. 3 weeks all-in. So in 10 years in the real world, just ~14.5 years pass in game. You’re almost playing in real-time! To me, that’s a strong disincentive to commit to some long-term plans. It also means serious delay-of-gratification on the plans that you do commit to. I see no obvious solution to this problem, but I do think it impacts player decision making in the game (as it should!).
Random Luck of Played Positions – Sometimes your key neighbor is a played position. Sometimes they’re not. The randomness of what positions have players and don’t has a lot of effect on how the geo-politics of a game unfolds.
So here’s a question for the player base, how price sensitive are you? If you could get a discount on a pre-paid year of play, but you don’t get to pick the position(!), would you be interested? I wonder if Richard offered something like that so that he could put players in positions that games would benefit from having even if they’re odd-ball, if the players would bite? I think as a business Agema would want at least a year commitment pre-paid before thinking about offering a discount. Particularly since time is literally money to Richard.
I also think it might be useful to have a rotating list of interesting available positions updated on the forums. I don’t want to get sucked into another game, but I know I might get tempted if Richard posted open positions.
So What are your key joys? What are your pet peeves? If you could change one thing about the game, what would it be?