Great game! However...

[Uchidan]

My 3 friends and I had a blast playing this game. However, as soon as a 5th person enters the game immediately falls apart. 6? Same thing. The game is only playable if each house has the same amount of people. Which...isn't good and completely hurts the game imo. I am unsure why there only has to be 3 houses? Maybe that's all the game can handle? Maybe it would be impossible for the king to win? Idk, but it would quickly fix the problem above. The game would play beautifully with any combination of players up to 7, and then if you *wanted* to play more than that, then it can be unbalanced or whatever because more than 7 is a lot anyway and can be more of a twitch thing.

But, if it can be played perfectly up to 7, there are enough houses for that to happen, then I think that needs to be implemented somehow. Just my thoughts.

Like I said though, great 4 or 7 player game right now.

[Greenie /Taxibutler]

I disagree a bit, I was playing with around 10-13 people or so, with my team having 4 vs 2 vs 3, and we still lost quite readily. It is mostly a battle of trying to convince people (like the king) to work with you. I will say that one of our team members was on twitch and not in a voice chat so that switched it up a bit, along with a few extra people who joined throughout (I think by the end it was 4v3v3 or 4v3v4). With a small amount of players, 4-7, it is probably not as fun, I agree.

[Xuande]

I can verify that it plays well enough with 4. Its specifically 5 players, and to a lesser extent 6 players, where the issue is at a game-ruining level. In the right kind of group it can work, but in a group that's playing to "win" its a real issue if two factions can only tie the votes/funding of the third.

Notably, for whatever reason when playing in Party Mode, bids must be in increments of 100. Not too big a deal in a larger group, but it makes finessing from a smaller amount of players much harder to do.

[Tributary Games]

Originally posted by Uchidan:

My 3 friends and I had a blast playing this game. However, as soon as a 5th person enters the game immediately falls apart. 6? Same thing. The game is only playable if each house has the same amount of people. Which...isn't good and completely hurts the game imo. I am unsure why there only has to be 3 houses? Maybe that's all the game can handle? Maybe it would be impossible for the king to win? Idk, but it would quickly fix the problem above. The game would play beautifully with any combination of players up to 7, and then if you *wanted* to play more than that, then it can be unbalanced or whatever because more than 7 is a lot anyway and can be more of a twitch thing.

But, if it can be played perfectly up to 7, there are enough houses for that to happen, then I think that needs to be implemented somehow. Just my thoughts.

Like I said though, great 4 or 7 player game right now.

Hi Uchidan!

Thanks for your feedback - We’re sorry to hear that you felt the game didn’t work at this size for you. We’ve had lots of feedback from players who played at the numbers you’re describing and felt it balanced, but we’ll take what you said into consideration.

We’ve also found that when Regions are imbalanced that players know this, and resort to other tactics to get their votes to pass - Alliances, agreements, you vote for me, I’ll vote for you. The game, after all, is not just a strategy game it’s also a social game!

Like I said, we’re aware that some players are having issues at different sizes, so we’re looking at ways to improve it. Bear with us! This is not an easy design solution to solve and we have a large amount on our plate right now.

[Nanako]

I dont agree at all
I've never felt that it was particularly unbalanced due to player numbers. Theres so much unpredictability involved in what events will come up.

And more significantly, the king has a lot of power to favor or target specific factions. A wise ruler will try to bring down whoever is the biggest threat

[Xuande]

Originally posted by Nanako =^.^=:

I dont agree at all
I've never felt that it was particularly unbalanced due to player numbers. Theres so much unpredictability involved in what events will come up.

And more significantly, the king has a lot of power to favor or target specific factions. A wise ruler will try to bring down whoever is the biggest threat

This requires a lot of paint-by-numbers play where the monarch and/or shortstacked faction(s) have to play "optimally" if they want any control over the proceedings. And frankly, that's boring for me and presumably a lot of other players.

This is an issue specific to having exactly 5-6 players, especially 5. Once you're past 7, the two minority factions can overcome a monarch+majority faction block, which is enough to keep things divergent.

My suggestion: Any faction that has exactly one player in it should have their votes and funding count double. It should be simple to implement, covers the 5-6 player gap, and doesn't affect larger games.

[Uchidan]

Originally posted by Xuande:

Originally posted by Nanako =^.^=:

I dont agree at all
I've never felt that it was particularly unbalanced due to player numbers. Theres so much unpredictability involved in what events will come up.

And more significantly, the king has a lot of power to favor or target specific factions. A wise ruler will try to bring down whoever is the biggest threat

This requires a lot of paint-by-numbers play where the monarch and/or shortstacked faction(s) have to play "optimally" if they want any control over the proceedings. And frankly, that's boring for me and presumably a lot of other players.

This is an issue specific to having exactly 5-6 players, especially 5. Once you're past 7, the two minority factions can overcome a monarch+majority faction block, which is enough to keep things divergent.

My suggestion: Any faction that has exactly one player in it should have their votes and funding count double. It should be simple to implement, covers the 5-6 player gap, and doesn't affect larger games.

^ This would be a great simple fix!