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[Ref]

Also, shouldn't the players get a city from their initial meld? Consistent with one of the cards being Echoes when those are in play.

[Jerk of All trades]

Also, shouldn't the players get a city from their initial meld? Consistent with one of the cards being Echoes when those are in play.

I thought that too, but I think it says, when you take a meld action.  The initial meld is not an action.

[teasel]

my opponent just shared paper and i drew a city card by splaying my non-existant green pile... that's probably a bug

[AJD]

my opponent just shared paper and i drew a city card by splaying my non-existant green pile... that's probably a bug

Nope, that's the rule. Draw a city for splaying, even if the splayed pile is already splayed in that direction, or has zero or one cards in it.

...Hafta say I'm not crazy about the rule.

[AJD]

...Hafta say I'm not crazy about the rule.

...The entire "splay to draw a city", rule, I mean.

[timchen]

I think I agree on most changes in the update. The draw condition is improved, and the attacks are simply removed. I think the decision here is good. I haven't had specific things to say about the new draw rule as I haven't played much.

However, one potential problem I see is that I don't see me buying this expansion. Ok, if I can play it online for free I guess its' pretty reasonable and fun, but if I have to pay for it I don't want to pay a full expansion, just for a bunch of extra icons and the ability to dogma a card twice. In this regard the original attack cards sort of helps, but needs some substantial redesign.

But maybe that is just me fundamentally likes too much the "each card is unique" aspect of innovation. It just does not do me enough with only different icons on each city...

[brokoli]

What I dislike the most in Innovation is the way to deal with expansions...
Every expansion has apart stacks, in which you draw card on specific conditions, and every expansion add achievements or cards you gain on a certain condition. I think this is great for a first expansion, but it's too onerous for a second or third...
I like the new mechanics (echoes, bonuses, karma), but I don't want to have 10 stacks for each age with special and complicated draw rules.

I would have preferred either something simpler (like new cards you mix with the echoes stack) or something completely new (why not a secret achievement that each player has at the beginning of the game... ?).

So in cities, I like the new mechanics and I like the fact it boost the race for majorities, but otherwise I'm not really convinced, sorry...

[popsofctown]

It's complexity creep.  I think it might be a major way of marketting and pleasing collector-sampler style board game enthusiasts, which runs counter to the demographic of this forum a bit.

I don't think there's any moral high ground to say complexity creep is an inherently inferior way of expanding compared to the way Dominion or League of Legends or Magic the Gathering expands, which is why I didn't include it in any of my criticism.  I definitely prefer the way those games expand though.

[Darthcaboose]

My thoughts thus far:

1. Removing the attack cards was a good decision, albeit one that sort of hurts the symmetry of all the Innovation expansions (as there'll be 5 fewer cards in this set). Ah well...

2. The simplification of the draw rules for Cities is extremely interesting and fits a nice niche that hasn't yet been exploited (melding new colors, and splaying). My only problem is the 'meld action for a new color' will only happen a few times while the splay one will happen multiple times. With the old draw rules, it seemed like both rules would come up consistently. Not saying this is a bad thing, but this asymmetric draw rule will be interesting to look at in the future (it certainly makes Clothing a little less powerful since you aren't drawing Cities when you run it).

---

I really like the 'meld a new color' rule, and the splay rule. Perhaps we can add on to the 'meld a new color' rule to also include when you Meld a card for an Age that's not already on your top board (e.g. all your cards are Age 1, you take a Meld action to put down an Age 3 card... this means you'll only have one Age 3 card on top, so you get an Age 3 city).

---

3. Endorse is a very interesting change. It shares the same tucking action as before, but the ability to dogma something twice in a row will be very, very interesting to see play out. Not sure if the added complexity of not sharing the second time is necessary, but it keeps explaining Cities to new players a lot simpler.

4. Just as before, having lots of Cities on top does very little to things you can do during your turn. With these changes, you won't be drawing as many cities as before (unless you have a way of splaying things, or have good dogmas that also splay).

5. The change to drawing base cards when you meld a city is cool. It certainly adds a lot more strategy to how you want to deal with the Cities you draw (most likely, with the benefits of drawing X cards = age, you'll want to Meld that city).

[teasel]

rules have been updated so that only actual splaying draw you city card... this should improve balance right?

oh and there are new achievement for when you have icon dominance... i was wondering why there wasn't one for clock but then i realized world was a thing

i'm not sure i like having an achievement for dominating castle's... if you are playing with all the expansions and get masonry it ends with a player getting monument,supremacy and authority all at once... how about changing that you need at least 10 and 10 more than an opponent instead of double? doing double is really easy because unless your opponent has at least 6 of an icon,the double always mean 10 but if it was done as i said,if i had only 4 castle it would force the opponent to get 14 castle... that's already way harder

alternatively what if you made them stealable achievement like the decree?

[Mecherath]

Drawing a city every time you add a new color gives some nice incentive to board destroying cards such as Coal.

I also like that only splays that do something get cities. Would be nice to have a small little engine with one card that splays up and one card that splays right. If you can endorse those with your Cities, they'll keep rolling in. The Arrow icon on cities will usually get you a free city too, which is nice.

Do we know what defines Icon Dominance though? It's 12 clocks for the World achievement. Do you need 12 for each (12 castles seems difficult), or something like: At least 4, and double all other opponents?

I'm also a bit confused by the special city action when the top center is a standard icon. So Age 2 Base from a Age 2 city, 3 Base 3 from an Age 3 city, etc? By age 10 it's looking at the whole pile and if there are any Clock cities, that will end things fast.

Would be neat to draw 1 Base, Echo, and Figure, substituting Base for any expansions you aren't playing with. That way you get some cool cards rather than a bunch of Base, and possibly Teching up your opponents.

Just some random thoughts.

[ksasaki]

I'm glad that splaying already splayed colors has been amended, flute was really really broken.  However, I still think there needs to be another way to pick up city cards, I didn't think the meld the second top card of the same value was a bad idea.  However, I do think the "after two top cards, keep drawing cities" can be abused badly (industrialization, the wheel anyone?).  I think the endorse versus the old bonus action was a good idea.  Flute with reformation does seem to me like it is still pretty crazy, keep splaying yellow left and right indefinitely...

I liked how Figures addressed the "runaway leader" problem, but I"m not convinced the new expansion addresses that.  Rather, it seems to make it even easier to be the runaway leader.

As a quick note about the "runaway leader," someone needs to address almanac.  Endorsed almanac is just crazy, you can end the game in age 3 without so much as a blink of the eye...I feel like each expansion has made the "strong to ridiculous" cards even stronger and more ridiculous.  There need to be more ways of board control (war was a good one, but it's usually not a good idea to fall too far behind in symbols in the new expansion).  I remember one of the original "conquer" cards allowed you to remove all other top cards of the same value.  candycorn also felt watermill was kind of ridiculous, but I feel that at least the other player can catch up with a well-timed archery or construction.  There is no way to assault forecasts; thus the crazy power of almanac, now amplified because of endorsements.

[chomskyrim]

I think they really need to make the special achievements about something other than board size, if they're going to include them at all. Here's what I would suggest:

Cosmopolitianism - claim this achievement if you have 5 visible cities, each with at least one of each icon type.

Centralization - claim this achievement if you have four visible cities with in one color, each sharing an icon type.

Tradition - Claim this achievement if all five bottom cards on your board are cities.

Constitution - claim this achievement immediately if you have five top cards on your board and melding a city would splay your last unsplayed color.

Trade Centre - claim this achievement if you have six visible bonuses on city cards. 

[brokoli]

Personally, I think the new achievements are really great because :
- Simple (easy to remember, unlike the achievements in echoes and decrees in Figures)
- Focus on the icon dominance, which is after all the essence of innovation, and which is IMO a little miss in figures.

[chomskyrim]

Well, my main concern is that they make the already good massive-board-generation cards too good. Industrialization is already good in base, great echoes. So with cities and echoes together, it's one card in age six which can get you Wealth, Heritage, History, Monument, Empire, Supremacy, World, and 4 of 5 new achievements, after only a few actions. Reformation + Fermenting + x is also made better.

I think it makes the game more like competitive tucking, as opposed something more chess-like.

[popsofctown]

The update is the opposite of what seemed right to me.  I think splaying should only draw you a card when you splay something that is already splayed in that direction.  That way you are exchanging part of the effect of the card for draw power instead of randomly handing out power to various innovation cards.

[timchen]

I don't like rewarding icon dominance even more. All my city games thus far are already who-build their-boards-more competition.

[ksasaki]

I agree.  Though it is my preferred style, I feel like having multiple paths to victory makes the game more interesting, and doesn't make it a "first to fermenting / paper to reformation" race, or "first to industrialization" race.  This expansion just marginalizes achieving, and rewards power building, or power almanacing.  Seriously, power almanacing is terrifying...

[Ref]

I agree. This game should be about adapting to what you draw, not about hoping you draw the key card first.

I would like the new achievements to have some variety, too. People complains about samey cities, but samey achievements are great?

[ksasaki]

I think having the old conquer cards was a good idea, but maybe simpler conditions to activate them.

[JimKam]

Tested the five new achievement and here is my thoughts after a few games
1. They are broken, as they are permanent
2. The game concludes much earlier then before, as the achievements are permanent
3. Some combination can quickly achieve them (Masonry + Wheel) (This points credits to ksasaki)

I agree with the ideas of the new achievements, but they should be returnable (the player have to keep the condition to receive the achievements, like the white flags)
 

[TrojH]

Anecdote != data, but if you want an example of how powerful power-building can be with the new expansion, try this game on for size:

http://innovation.isotropic.org/gamelog/201309/07/game-20130907-143216-bd255e6f.html

I agree with the group here: these new special achievements need to be changed. Some reasons have already been given, but let me add one more reason to the list. (A less important reason, but still...)

The Echoes expansion includes special achievements involving the new mechanics: echoes, bonuses, and the forecast. With the Figures expansion, you need to collect Figures cards in order to claim the new Decrees. So I think the special achievements in the Cities expansion should require the use of Cities; it doesn't feel right that you can grab them simply by splaying a bunch of cards.

My proposal: instead of having each special achievement say...

Claim this special achievement immediately if you have 10 or more X and at least twice as many as each opponent.

... have each special achievement say this.

Claim this special achievement immediately if you have three top Cities that contain a X.

Then you wouldn't be able to claim those achievements simply by having a powerhouse board; you'd still have to take the time to collect and meld the right Cities.

[blank101]

I liked the Attack cards' flavor, though I agree there were some balance issues.  I don't like the flavor of the new icon domination achieves.  What I think would be fun to try: (1) Attack cards mostly the same as originally implemented (tweaking conditions some), (2) using the attack card claims it as an achievement and removes it to that player's achievement pile (so the achievement one would also need to be adjusted).  Perhaps there could be a mechanic to return them into play akin to the Figures one, though obviously it would have to be more complex than just melding a city color (maybe later meeting the conditions to use that attack, and then sacrificing a city of the appropriate color to reactivate it / remove it from other players achievements to your board).

I also liked that the City action was constrained to happen before other actions (made for nice hand management considerations), though the extra dogma seemed a bit overkill.  Maybe instead allow activating the special icons (+'s, arrows), but on the pile tucked into.  Or perhaps something like doubling the icons on that City for that turn.

Lastly, the draw mechanic still seems meh.  Why not the same sort of constraint as Echoes (just with secondary precedence, or precedence set at the beginning of the game by the order of the stacks)?  Alternately - allow the option to spend the extra city action to draw a city, which would make that usable every turn at least, and would definitely limit some of the complexity creep.

[timchen]

I think one interesting thing that might work is to let the original attack work in reverse: that is, you have to have icon weakness to use it. That way it may become an effective way for the behind player to catch up.

[ksasaki]

http://innovation.isotropic.org/gamelog/201309/08/game-20130908-201433-d5925647.html

I've always strived to achieve using only special achievements, but this game is particularly ridiculous.  Endorsed nylon for 5 achievements in one turn....I think the new achievements need some thought...