Risk - Godstorm

[Iron_Chef]

I didn't understand the free temple suggestion, by the way... You DO start with a free temple and the war god, and since you get faith on the first turn,
you can buy a different god as well so you start with two.

Where does it say you start with that? I didn't see it in the book, which is kind of confusingly put together for so few pages.

 

[Simplicity]

Where does it say you start with that? I didn't see it in the book, which is kind of confusingly put together for so few pages.

Page 6 in the rulebook. Setup section, Part 3, (Place Armies, Gods, and Temples):

... Continue placement until every player's armies are on the board. Reshuffle the territory deck.

Then, continuing with the next player in order, place both your god of war and a temple in a territory that you control. (They may be placed in different territories.)

A few people have said that they don't like the rulebook very much. I mostly haven't had a problem with it, though it would be better with an FAQ in it.

 

[dave_o]

Has anyone ever though about using Risk as a way to run/resolve global battles in D&D, etc.? The thought just occured to me, and it seemed to be a really cool idea.

Just a musing...

 

[Simplicity]

Has anyone ever though about using Risk as a way to run/resolve global battles in D&D, etc.? The thought just occured to me, and it seemed to be a really cool idea.

Just a musing...

Possible, but how often do you have "global" battles in a game?
You could restrict it to a region, and shrink the "continents" down to "provinces" or something, I suppose.

You'd also have to create a new board for your area that looks like
the area being fought over... Otherwise, it's hard to tell what anything
means. That map had better map fairly closely to the old risk board
(the boundary connections should be similar) otherwise you'd have to
rebalance the continent point costs, which can be hard.

The biggest problem though would be the fact that it's just not D&D anymore. If you sit down to play a Risk game, then you're not really
playing D&D any more. Kind of loses the point of playing D&D in the first place. Maybe if there were neutral characters who could be won over with
diplomacy or quests back in the D&D world...

 

[Iron_Chef]

Page 6 in the rulebook. Setup section, Part 3, (Place Armies, Gods, and Temples):



A few people have said that they don't like the rulebook very much. I mostly haven't had a problem with it, though it would be better with an FAQ in it.

Thanks; found it. I missed it because I was in a hurry and all the set-up rules were not on the same page (bad book design, IMO).

 

[Iron_Chef]

Played Godstorm thrice now and really must say that winning the game is too heavily reliant upon who bids highest to go first each round (minus round 1 and 5, which is the final round of play, when it often pays to go last). This reliance on who goes first makes faith token (money) management crucial and therefore, no fun. If you're forced to hoard more faith than everyone else, you can't buy much cool stuff (gods, temples or cards). The player who buys cool stuff (the point of having money in a game, right?) enjoys short-term benefits on his turn, and then is ground into the dust by the "miser" who hoarded his faith tokens to bid for going first. The cards and gods are more disruptive to any type of established Risk strategy, creating instant and often unfun and completely unfair chaos unlike in Risk 2210 AD, which is much more balanced. Having the Sky God (4d6) and control of both underworld altars (2d6), plus a relic like Mjolnir (+3 to Godswar rolls) makes a godswar unwinnable by any opponent. The War God (win all ties) and the Magic Goddess (reroll all 1's) in the same army can make even a token strike force invincible to much larger armies without gods in them. 3 spearmen took out 7 defenders thanks to the presence of these gods in the attacker's force, something that would probably not happen in 2210 AD (except due to command cards, commanders or lucky rolling, but not nearly as often).

The two player version of Godstorm pretty much sucks, because it is even more dependent on who goes first. Without extra players to go after (not counting the neutral armies which don't get fought unless absolutely necessary), the two players slug it out and whoever goes first the most wins, because he has no other active players to worry about.

The underworld mapboard is crap. The art is terrible (equal to the worst free pdf map D&D download from Wizards.com), the board is way too small to be functional considering how many armies will be moving around and fighting in there. The path of flame barriers is confusing (can I enter here or must I go around?).

Everything else about the game is top notch, but I'm beginning to HATE this game (as opposed to 2210 AD, which I love --- although the whole bid for going first thing is a big problem --- almost as bad as Godstorm).

 

[Simplicity]

The bid for who goes first annoys me as well. I'm beginning to think
that for a two player game, it might be better to just fix the turn order
and keep that through the whole game. Going first on turn 2 is so
important it's not funny...

 

[Iron_Chef]

5 Simple Changes to make Godstorm faster, fairer and more fun:

1. Bidding for turn order is only allowed at the start of the game. Reason: This prevents anyone from ever taking two turns in a row and restores some fairness to the game.

2. Underworld is discarded along with the following cards: Death's Door Closes (Death), Scales of Osiris (Magic), and Tablets of Destiny (Magic). Ignore anything that has anything to do with the Underworld. Dead armies are returned to the master tray. Reason: Underworld battles slow down the game.

3. Plague Zones: Plague zones become impassable barriers just like in Risk 2210 AD. No movement is allowed through them, no units are allowed to be placed on them. Reason: The plague zones are an unwelcome and unnecessary change from 2210's devastation zones, IMO.

4. Death God: His new special power while on earth is to automatically "resurrect" 1d6 of your armies from the master tray. These armies must be placed on your temple(s). They may be distributed among your temples in many manner you wish. His labor is now that an army attacking with him in it must kill 5 enemy armies each turn to get a free Death miracle card. Place these kills near you off the board until you have collected five, then draw your free card and return the enemy armies to the master tray to prevent confusion. Reason: The Death God isn't cool enough in the regular rules.

5. Sky God: His new special power is he allows you two fortification moves each turn while on earth, so long as one of the fortification moves involves him (and units with him, if you wish). His old special power is retained (4d6 in godswar). Reason: He is the head of the pantheon and should have more useful powers as godswars don't happen that much. Giving him two powers singles him out as the greatest of the gods, and is in keeping with his role as creator/protector of your people.

Note that these variant rules are currently in Beta and have not been playtested. Please post constructive criticism and beta test results. If you have better ideas on how to "fix" Godstorm (even in other areas), please post.

Another possible variant involving plague zones and the death god would be that the Death God (and any units with him excluding other gods) is immune to the effects of the plague. Thus, he can stay in a plague zone and your armies posted with him do not suffer plague effects while in his presence. All other gods (excluding enemy death gods of course) are still subject to plague zone effects. If using this variant, the Death God's labor would be to control a plague zone at the end of your turn (your death god must be on it).

 

[Iron_Chef]

Okay, another revised idea for Death God is he gets to auto-kill (no defense roll) one army every round he included in a combat. Too powerful? Maybe change his labor to he must personally auto-kill 5 armies each turn to get the bonus card, which means he muyst be in either 5 1 round battles or 1 or more multi-round battles.

My next Sky God ideas are 1) either he is good in a godswar (4d6) or does the double fort move as above (same for everybody), or 2) he does both, but he costs 5 faith to summon.

 

[HellHound]

I'm a RISK 2210 fanatic (came in second last year at the GenCon finals - got the cool plexiglass map of the planet).

I didn't know this was out yet, but what I've heard of it makes it sound cool, but not necessarily as precisely balanced as 2210.

I'll be picking it up shortly.