Happy Holidays All, and Matt thanks for running a great game. 

Interesting board as is, but will be happy to see how some of the suggested changes work out.

2) I know you had no stars, but I'm not a fan of chaos builds on such a small map.  Perhaps doing away with Canada's ability and having 2 homes SC per country (Pevek / Magadan, Anchorage / Barrow, Churchill / Yellowknife, Nuuk / Station Nord, Oslo / Tromos) and allowing a pre-first turn build order (that way players can decide armies vs fleets).

3) Trans Siberian would be very strong as a Russian home center.  I think Russia needs a fleet, if only for self defense.

4) The freezing takes a little getting use to.  Whether the time frame is monthly or on/off, I think a unified map would make planning easier.  The constant freezing allowed me to throw away fleets for armies (and armies for fleets) a couple times in the game, which made up for the two unconnected oceans issue.

5/6/8/9) I'd have to see the new map to give any feedback.  NorSea is super strong and Norway has to grab and keep it early.  Splitting just doesn't seem natural, but that may be the amount of time looking at this version of the map - perhaps if TOR became Britain.  MEN/CAP definitely should be combined, but AWL I think is good separate.  An avenue from NAO around to Europe would be a great dynamic for Norway/Denmark.  I think NAO touching Nain is fine, it makes the space hotly contested by 3 powers and was an interesting dynamic through this game.

7) Great idea.

*) Maybe think about renaming Norway to Greenland.

EOG thoughts...

Lots of fun and can't believe I won giving the opening.  Turn one Russia convinced me to sneak stab Norway out of the gate.  If all had gone according to plan, Denmark would have been set for early/mid-game.  Unfortunately, several things conspired against that plan.  First, Russia was manipulating me masterfully and had no intention of helping me against Norway - by the time I realized, I'd already stabbed Norway (doh!).  Second, not wanting to let the cat out of the bag, I was circumspect with Canada, leading to his distrust.  Third, Norway decided (rightfully so) to cover himself from an over-eager Norway.  So by the end of the first year, I was with one build instead of the 3 imagined and two aggravated neighbors.

Spring 2011 was tight and really looked like I would be purple paste between Canada and Norway, but the American push in to Western Canada pulled the Canadian back and Russia's race across the center forced Canada to defend himself.  This allowed some trickery around the NorSea and a constant warring front between Norway and Denmark.  Around this time, Canada, Norway, and I found that we were all being manipulated by Russia, but were unable to get over our initial distrust and several deals fell through at the last minute (to Canada and Norway's credit they fair warned that they would not be following through).

Spring 2012 found Canada losing ground and a cease-fire was negotiated - which allowed us to respond to issues on other borders.  Freed up and no alliance in sight, I renewed the attack on Norway with the intention of getting around him and hitting Russia.  Unfortunately, by the end of the year, Russia had sufficient forces down south to help Norway repel me.

2013 saw Russia turn on Norway, Norway ally himself with me for a survival, and a Russian leadership change.  Russia was in a strong, but vulnerable position and unfortunately, a few NMRs reduced his power and even with another Russia leadership change Russia never recovered.  From there it was a race to the end.

I'd like to thank everyone for a great game, Matt for running it, and especially Micheal for stepping in to a tenuous position (he still stuck it out even though we were unwilling to negotiate an end to the Canada / Denmark / Russia war).  Look me up in another DC game, be happy to play with/against you again!

Scott
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On Sat, Dec 26, 2009 at 4:29 PM, Matt Kremer <matthew.kremer(at)yale.edu ([email]matthew.kremer(at)yale.edu[/email])> wrote:

So here's the list of potential changes (with comments).  Feel free to comment on any/all of them, but your input would be especially appreciated on those marked with a *.

1. Name changes because I'm an idiot:
  -It's Sea of Okhotsk not Sea of Okhtosk
  -It's MacKenzie, not McKenzie, and I'm also going to make it MacKenzie Bay instead of         MacKenzie Delta for geographical accuracy

2. Builds:
  It was pointed out that Canada's ability to build in Western Canada puts an unfair burden on the USA to occupy Western Canada just to block the build site.  Also, it's almost impossible for Norway, Denmark, and the USA to put fleets in the other ocean, respectively.  Both of these will be solved by implementing chaos builds (and removing the Canadian build site in Western Canada).

*3. Russia
     I don't like Russia having a Pacific fleet to start because I think it makes it hard for Russia and the USA to cooperate, which I want to be a viable strategy.  The same is true with respect to Norway in the Atlantic.  Thus my inclination is to give Russia 3 armies.  However, I cannot decide whether to put the third army in Magadan or the Trans-Siberian Railroad, as I think the latter gives more flexibility.  The question is whether it is too much...

*4. Time and Ice
  I think having certain territories melt and freeze EVERY season disrupts the flow of the game too much.  I see two options.  I could spread the time out more, so there are the equivalent of 4 standard years per Arctic year; each season would be a month, and therefore territories would remain in the same state for a whole "year."  Alternatively I could keep the time scale and change the freeze rules so that changing territories are frozen for winter and spring and water for summer and fall (no differences within transforming territories).

5. Norwegian Sea
  I think the Norwegian Sea as it stands now is too powerful of a space because it borders all 4 of Norway's most natural centers AND 2 of Denmark's.  I think I'm going to split it into North Norwegian Sea and South Norwegian Sea, with the line running between Greenland Sea and Oslo.  Or Tromso?

6. The Middle
  A couple players commented that the middle of the board takes too long to get across.  So I think I'm going to combine Men, CAP, and AWL into one big permanently frozen space called Central Arctic Ocean.

7. Bering Strait
  The five way arrow is going away to be replaced with a normal land bridge.  The net change is the elimination of Sew/EBS and Kam/WBS connections.

*8. The Gulf of Bothnia
  I'm considering adding the Gulf of Bothnia as a space.  I would also add a canal on the Lapland/Europe border, giving Archangel two coasts as well as Lapland.  NAO would also be expanded to border Lapland.

9. More NAO
  I might remove the border between NAO and Nain (Labrador Sea would border the edge of the board).

I think that's it.  Again please comment to your hearts content, and also feel free to suggest other things.  The thing I learned most from this playtest is that the variant definitely needs some work.

Matt

8.