Honeymoon Equilibrium

Got in some playtesting of Equilibrium tonight with the wife.  Things went really well I think.


The biggest change?  We brought in the "honeymoon" rules.  What that means is:

Originally, at the end of each turn you trashed one card and cycled one card to the bottom of your deck.


Now at the end, you show the top card to your opponent without seeing it yourself.  They say "Trash" or "Cycle".  You do what they say, and then you do the opposite for the next card without revealing it to anyone.



So, what does this do?  It makes you *have* to pay very close attention to what your opponent is doing.  It can be quite the conundrum.  Sometimes it's easy when they're going all one color and you really want to deny them that color.  You just trash any of that color and have them cycle the others hoping to trash the sweet color.  Othertimes it's a lot trickier.  Do you trash off a card that could be a big score card for them if it cycles back, or do you cycling and hope to hit something better?

Anyway, I think it added a lot of interaction.  My wife even said "You mean I have to pay attention to what you're doing now?"  From now on, I'm definitely leaving in this rule.
 

For multiplayer, I'd do:

Show to the opponent on your right.
Guess Score Cards look to the opponent on your left.

That way the guess cards work on the same person you are making the trash/cycle decision for.

I personally still have a lot of fun recording guesses when played, but I could see making guesses just in real time right during scoring.



Other cards:


Attachment - 3 VP if Next Score Card is Fulfilled

This was a lot of fun.  It was efficient so you wanted to play it.  But then it bent all your decisions on what card you played next.  You really didn't want to throw down the big point risky ones next, but yet you did so you could win...


Single Use - Others Trash 3 - Cost 2

Was used.  And was nice.  I think the cost was rough though.  I'm thinking it would get played more as "Others Trash 2" with "Cost 1".  But then wouldn't it be just almost identical to the "Pay +2" card?  I mean, my wife and I found reason to play it as the "Trash 3" version, so maybe I shouldn't mess with it.



Other Ideas:

For public score cards, I'm just having a rough time.  To play a public card, you'd have to have a very real expectation of only you scoring it.  Otherwise why would you bother investing resources in something that didn't give any return.  (If everyone scores it, than you basically paid for crap)

A way around it might be for the public score cards to give more variable points.  Sort of a "Everyone may discard Red Cards from their deck for scoring".  Ohhh, well, maybe not public, but that's a cool private one.

Heh, dang it.

Maybe a public be "He who plays the most of this card scores 3 vp per copy of this card played by all".  Still seems a little odd.

Gah.  I'll keep thinking on the public score cards.  Maybe I'm just missing something.