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Author Topic: Dracula America : rules proposal for coop/solo mode  (Read 2749 times)

Offline LeRatierBretonnien

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Dracula America : rules proposal for coop/solo mode
« on: September 15, 2019, 07:33:52 PM »
Hi all !

You will find below an update of my coop/solo rules to Dracula America, now in v0.7. A scenario is included, allowing anyone here to test it and to make comments :). English rules are a quick and dirty translation from Google and myself, so don't be rude please :)

Rules in english : http://www.lahiette.com/leratierbretonnien/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/DA_regles_coop_solo_EN.pdf

Rules in french : http://www.lahiette.com/leratierbretonnien/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/DA_regles_coop_solo.pdf

Battle summary using these rules (french) : http://www.lahiette.com/leratierbretonnien/wargames-figurines/draculas-america/da-test-du-mode-solo-coop/

Please post test results, comments or new ideas here. Thanks !
« Last Edit: March 01, 2020, 07:57:57 PM by LeRatierBretonnien »

Offline Nightpaw

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Re: Dracula America : rules proposal for coop/solo mode
« Reply #1 on: September 16, 2019, 03:23:44 PM »
Sorry but I guess you have posted the link to the French rules twice. Unfortunately I am not able to read French so I cannot test the rules.

Offline LeRatierBretonnien

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Re: Dracula America : rules proposal for coop/solo mode
« Reply #2 on: September 16, 2019, 03:30:42 PM »
Sorry and thanks for the remark ! Fixed now :)!

Offline fred

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Re: Dracula America : rules proposal for coop/solo mode
« Reply #3 on: September 16, 2019, 06:12:27 PM »
Interesting idea. And I think a hard thing to do to make an AI for a skirmish game.

I think that the order of activation is important. As a player you are more likely to activate a model that can do something effective straight away. For example if you have a figure who can shoot an enemy, and a second one who can just move towards an objective. You are far more likely to pick the one that can shoot to activate first. The random choice of figure to activate doesn’t give this.

Also I think if players are picking their activation cards, and the AI is just going randomly this will be odd. I would maybe try both the AI and players activating randomly?
Perhaps use the colours to determine if the AI goes with 1 or 2 activations, otherwise they always activate with 1 on a high card, which is likely to be early in that round.

I’ve played a bit of Dungeon Sage solo recently, and I found it easier just to play both sides, rather than trying to use the AI system that comes with the game. But a DS scenario is probably a bit simpler (fewer figures, fewer options) than a DA scenario.

Offline LeRatierBretonnien

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Re: Dracula America : rules proposal for coop/solo mode
« Reply #4 on: September 16, 2019, 08:59:03 PM »
Interesting idea. And I think a hard thing to do to make an AI for a skirmish game.
:)

I think that the order of activation is important. As a player you are more likely to activate a model that can do something effective straight away. For example if you have a figure who can shoot an enemy, and a second one who can just move towards an objective. You are far more likely to pick the one that can shoot to activate first. The random choice of figure to activate doesn’t give this.
In fact, the idea behind is to avoid having players knowing in advance which model is going to be activated, in order to maintain surprise and fun. Hence, i agree, the random choice of the models looks a bit odd, but in fact, it works quite well. And yes, sometimes, the IA models are doing "dummy" activations. So in order to compensate that, i increased the number of models in the IA pool (see the provided scenario). According to our first tests, it's working pretty well.

Also I think if players are picking their activation cards, and the AI is just going randomly this will be odd. I would maybe try both the AI and players activating randomly?
Perhaps use the colours to determine if the AI goes with 1 or 2 activations, otherwise they always activate with 1 on a high card, which is likely to be early in that round.
Well not really, as black cards play always before red cards. And the high cards are in both colors.


I’ve played a bit of Dungeon Sage solo recently, and I found it easier just to play both sides, rather than trying to use the AI system that comes with the game. But a DS scenario is probably a bit simpler (fewer figures, fewer options) than a DA scenario.
Anyway, consider this as a work in progress, i will probably publish an update next week ! Thanks for you feedback !

Offline fred

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Re: Dracula America : rules proposal for coop/solo mode
« Reply #5 on: September 17, 2019, 11:39:48 AM »
Sorry, forgotten about the red / black with the cards - too long since I have played!

Glad to hear it works. Have you tried both sides activating in a random order - you could assign a card to each model - then just deal these out. You’d perhaps want to do something around single / double activations.

Offline LeRatierBretonnien

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Re: Dracula America : rules proposal for coop/solo mode
« Reply #6 on: March 01, 2020, 07:58:22 PM »
Update with new revision of the rules (0.7) !

Offline mweaver

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Re: Dracula America : rules proposal for coop/solo mode
« Reply #7 on: March 06, 2020, 02:48:47 AM »
I have the books, but have not really had a chance to play as we pretty much only play cooperative games.  So these rules sound very useful to me - thanks!

-Michael

Offline LeRatierBretonnien

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Re: Dracula America : rules proposal for coop/solo mode
« Reply #8 on: March 06, 2020, 09:10:47 PM »
Sorry for my translation, do not hesitate to push ideas and questions here !