Timing of Colonial Activity

In a recent playtest of Invaded, there was a suggestion that the colonial power should move more often.  The current game has play zipping around among the players, and when they have taken all the actions they want to (or can) do, the non-player colonial power makes a few moves.  The suggestion was essentially to put the colonial power into the normal cycle of player moves, so the players all take a turn, then the colonial power does too, and so on.

This has superficial appeal.  It means that the Colonial power is advancing its interests more steadily, rather than making sudden lurches every now and then.  It also means that the non-player power is moving at a similar speed to the players, which seems fair.

The colonial forces have landed and are ready to advance.

I have had a realisation though.  Reading an interesting post about designing heavier games by the League of Game Makers, there was a section entitled "Be Wary of Non-Trivial Mid Turn Decisions".  Now, Invaded isn't a particularly heavy game, and this section's title may not appear to be relevant here, but bear with me.

Part of the discussion was about how a useful feature in some heavier games is where players are able to analyse the game state and plan their move on other players' turns, so that their own turn doesn't devolve into having to make big decisions at the time; they can just execute the plan, making minor adjustments for the latest developments.  In, say, a worker placement game, you might figure out a list of priorities of what you want to do: I'll get resources from this space, and if that has been blocked I will go here or here...  This can help keep the game flowing and prevent everything from just bogging down and stretching play time for too long.

The relevance here (and it is a little tangential, but this is how my brain works) is that the colonial power is the biggest perturbing factor in the game -- or it should be; it isn't at the moment, and I need to fix that.  If your every move needs to take into account the fact that the colonials might mash your position in between any of your turns, that makes planning so much harder, and would probably disincentivise any even slightly risky manoeuvres.  That the colonials should be a threat is fine, and is pretty much the point of the game, but as the game is turn-based, with players taking small actions in turn, it makes sense that players should have a chance to get their ducks in a row, at least partly, before those nasty invaders start shooting at them.

The driver behind the playtest suggestion to have the colonial power activating between player turns was because so far the colonials have not had a sufficient impact on the flow of play.  On reflection I am pretty convinced that this suggestion is the wrong solution to a definite problem (see my previous post on the subject for some thoughts on better solutions) but I can always keep the idea in my back pocket in case I need to change my mind.