Fleet Admirals: Playtest 1 Results

Okay, so we played our first game with the Fleet Admirals expansion last night, a four player game with Daniel, Jeremiah, and Kader. On the whole, I'm happy with how it went. Admirals were a presence but not a game-defining one. I was concerned they would turn into a "win harder" button, but thankfully that was not the case. A total of five were bought, which was a couple fewer than I would have liked, but one player had a really rough game and was not really in position to really utilize them.

So, let's review the admirals that were used and my early thoughts (combined with commentary from the other players) on how they are balanced.

Broadside Admiral (Ackbar) - Solid, no changes needed.

Generic Admiral - Solid, no changes needed.

Bureaucratic Admiral - Possibly a little too strong for its price, but I want more data before making a firm decision. Jeremiah used the admiral to great effect to get a couple actions in one turn, as a tool for dealing with his lack of money as Orion. Indeed, presently at its four resource cost, and considering when you use it each influence disk is likely to cost you 2-3 gold, it effectively works out to be a 4 science/materials -> 5 gold conversion.

That's....really strong. Like, the best trade rate in the game is only 2 -> 1. Having something like this in the game is not innately too strong, but the problem is that most admirals are niche, and Bureaucratic Admiral works for basically anyone anywhere. That's not as interesting from a gameplay perspective. Now, something like this in the admiral market is not without precedent. Improved Hull, for example, is nearly always the right choice when its in the tech market. Having an almost equivalent admiral, good in almost every situation, to further incentivize passing early to go first on the next round might not be a bad thing.

At present though, they probably need a slight price increase and the necessary resources need to be changed. I'm leaning towards 2 gold, 3 resources. This way, it still works as a way to efficiently convert other resources into gold, but at a reduced rate.

I want at least a couple more games before deciding on that though.

Shipyard Admiral - Probably needs a slight buff. The issue is that they're a really hard admiral to maximize the effect of, since it simply isn't gold efficient to use their ability every turn, as you only want to build when you can maximize the benefit. The limit of only on their tile almost makes it harder to pay off this investment. I utilized their ability three times, so in effect I got a single 1 money -> 1 materials conversion out of them. Meh.

Someone could still break them though, so leaving as is for now, but I'm leaning towards reducing the price by 1 materials to make for a shorter payback window.

Tank Admiral - Oye, this one nearly caused a fight at the table. There was an interaction I had not considered in making this admiral which quickly became apparent. What happens when you fight ancients? Or other things with a targeting rubric?

The case from last night. Jeremiah was fighting an Ancient Cruiser. If the Admiral was not present, the Ancient could have killed either one of Jeremiah's cruisers. Tank Admiral was loaded on one, making it impossible to one hit kill. We eventually ruled that it attacked the one it could one hit kill, but this does work to make tank admiral pretty meh against ancients, unless you're rolling in with just a battleship. Instead of trying to clarify this interaction, we came to the agreement it would be better to just give the admiral a different ability altogether. Ironically enough, the ability Jeremiah and I decided upon ended up being exactly what Danielle suggested when I got home, great minds think alike!

Other Notes

I'm going to change Fearless Admiral's ability, no because he's unbalanced, but because I don't want to have an admiral who can only be used with the expansions to Eclipse.

Marking ships with the Admirals continues to throw players, who think they can kill the admiral. Moreover, while this did not come up last night, what happens if you mark a ship, and another player kills it before you can proc the ability (like with broadside admiral)? In my mind, the marking doesn't happen until right before the ship you want to equip it goes, and in the event its killed, you move the ability to another ship in the event it's a multi-use ability - but this needs to be clarified. I want players to perceive the admiral as a ghostly presence in the sector, rather than being loaded on a specific ship, but abilities that call on you to mark a ship confuse this for players. This will be something to keep this in mind, and definitely a clarification I want to emphasize before I farm this expansion out to another group to play test.

Finally, I also need to clarify that you can only buy an admiral before doing a normal action in my rules for the expansion.

All things considered though, I'm happy with how they played last night, and am looking forward to seeing the other admirals trotted out.