Volcanic Migration was removed from the basic gameplay abilities and turn structure in moderately early development of Volcanique. I readded it at some point as an unlockable power in the L3-4 range.

Turns out that I’d forgotten the fundamentals of why I removed this power in the first place - it’s far too powerful in its current state (migrate away from a Volcano for 1 x resource) and essentially just annoying to play against.

This was particularly evident when it was a middle row L3 power, which the last playtest encountered, meaning that everyone can escape every volcano for a very minimal fee. The game stalled and the tiles were all but exhausted. It’s not a meaningful decision, the player will almost always pay the resources to keep their critter.

The playtest also happened to have Magma Siphon as the L1 power - this meant that players with fewer critters on the board could still generate resources (intended), nearly always making back the spent resource to save their critter before their turn even came around again (unintended). Again, completely broken.

Regular evacuation rules from lava were already upped to 2 x resources per critter and that was from the relatively rare occurrence of lava coming in contact with a critter on a 2+ biome.

Determining a solution

If I want to keep this power, it has to go to at least 2 x resources per critter to keep. Even then, most people would pay that to hold onto their tallest or largest 3pt biome (+1 for the critter, + all connections). It’s a no brainer.

Given how powerful the power is (heh), I believe it may need to increase to 3 resources per critter. This makes it a high-stakes manoeuvre. Yes you hold onto your critters, but your next turn will be seriously diminished (almost guarantees no retalitory volcano can be triggered either, rather a more cunning play to get them back).

Landing a landslide

This is an incredibly disruptive, but rarely useful power. Currently the rules I have it stated that whenever anyone sets off a volcano, the player with Landslide unlocked can choose any tile to affect.

It’s a board breaking, bonus stack stealing power that could be played multiple times in one round. This disrupts turn order and any plans someone may have.

I believe this needs to be scaled back, I don’t hate the power and thematically I think it’s sound, I’m just yet to get it to work.

Quite simply nerfing it to a ‘once per round’ is still pretty chaotic in 2 player as that is still every round, rolling the dice to see which land tile is affected is too random, possibly a pick between two coin flip to see which one slides is a ‘fault line’ that could work. That would also mean that it is only 1 of 2 spots (providing that they are downhill). That might be it. Will try out next playtest.

I type to think to think to type.

Colossal critters is kinda…crud?

It’s one of the most wordy, least beneficial powers in the game. Whilst I love the alliteration, it is simply too much of a simple target. Sure you can use it as a bluff piece, but people on their first playthrough of the game wouldn’t likely think or want to do this.

Other happenings

Attended the TGDA (Tabletop Game Designers Australia Association) Devcon