Ruinous Ruins in PBW

[spoon]

Originally posted by Joachim:
I am only a newcomer to PBW but in two games it seems that ruins are having a particularly unbalancing effect.

For a more balanced PBW game, there are a few things you should probably do:

1) Disable ruins.
2) Disable Events.
3) Disable Surrender.

I also recommend:
4) Disallow the trading/gifting/etc of colony tech and breathers (though this requires an unenforcible House Rule, so its mileage varies with how much you can trust the other players)

5) Have someone make you a map to ensure even placement of starting positions

And if there are new players in the game, I would also:
6) Disable Intel.

[Fyron]

And if there are new players in the game, I would also:
6) Disable Intel.

I'd disable intel even with only veterans in the game, as the intel system is really bad.

[trooper]

Is Intel so hard to manage, that you prefer to make it available only to veterans ?

My opinion is that it's very hard to succeed an intel action against an empire as strong as you. (nether succeded one in PBW myself) So intel seems to be quite useless...

[spoon]

Originally posted by trooper:
Is Intel so hard to manage, that you prefer to make it available only to veterans ?

It's not hard to manage, just overpowered against people who don't realize how important it is. Newer players have enough to worry about, in my opinion...

[Fyron]

Intel is not hard to manage, just really poorly implemented. Way too all or nothing.