Mage Wars > Domination

Domination as start point for beginners?

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Sailor Vulcan:

--- Quote from: Kitarja on May 04, 2017, 09:26:35 AM ---Thanks again for that long reply :) Got your point now, my main problem with the apprentice mode is, even though it's nice for teaching, each time I played that variant I couldn't really enjoy the game, because it quickly felt unbalanced and that just took the fun away for me. And playing a game that is not fun, well is not fun. But that might just be me, as I generally don't like stripped down versions of complex games.

Guess I will give them the choice, if they want to have an introductory game or want to start with the full game. I'm pretty sure 1 or 2 of them don't mind puzzling over their books and studying everything there is in one go, but I'm not sure if that's true for all.

Let's say we play one or two rounds of Apprentice mode to get a feeling for the game and then play a game of Domination afterwards or the next time we meet. Can we play with the starting books of the mages or should I slightly adjust the books for Domination? I took some notes from iNano's post on Multiplayer Domination, but didn't have time so far to take a deeper look into his domination spell books and I'm not sure those would be good for beginners.

--- End quote ---

That might still be too big a jump. Domination has a more complex ruleset than standard Arena. I recently taught someone how to play academy and I had to help them overcome analysis paralysis even then even while I was going easy on them, and the person I was playing against wasn't stupid. Most people are used to games where they only have a hand of 5-7 cards, not 30 or more. TBH I think the learning curve for Mage Wars Arena is too steep to start out with the full game. Period. I know that apprentice mode doesn't really give you much of a feel for Arena gameplay much like Academy doesn't, but Arena gameplay is too much for one's first Mage Wars game. Even after one has moved on to the full game there are a lot of mechanics and keywords to learn that are best learned gradually rather than all at once. That's why it's often a good idea to play with just core set and one or two expansions when you're playing with beginners.

TBH I wish there was an official version of apprentice mode with customizable spellbooks, alternate ability cards and different spells of its own, something between academy and Arena in terms of size and difficulty to learn. Like, where Academy mages are undergraduate student mages and Arena mages are professional mages, the mages in this format would be graduate student mages.

Unfortunately I don't see them doing this any time soon because it would reinforce the perception of non-Mage Wars players that Academy is just Arena lite. Since new players will basically see these three games in order of increasing complexity and difficulty and size and they'll assume that Academy and alt-apprentice mode are just stepping stones on the ladder to Arena rather than each being their own thing. Maybe once Academy is better established and everyone knows it's not Arena-lite, they'll have more success introducing an alt-apprentice mode game.

Ideally there would be a bunch of different versions of Mage Wars, some which are easier to learn and some which are harder, and new players would start out in one of the easier versions and if they want to try one of the harder versions later then they can. Basically a web rather than a ladder.

Kitarja:
Ok so I took some time this evening thinking about apprentice mode and have started to prepare some decks. I will create my own apprentice mode I think, as the apprentice books that come with the game are by far too imbalanced. Each mage will get a book with 60 spellpoints, has 8 health points less, there won't be any conjurations (or only a few exceptions) as usual and mages can use their abilities. This way there are less cards to choose from, but it's hopefully more balanced and prepares a little better for the full game.

I'm still unsure if I want to run two separate games or a free for all or team game, might depend on if we're 4 or 5 people. If we're 5 I can let the others play 2 games and help them without interrupting my play. If we're 4 I'm thinking about running a free for all game, 2v2 or all 3 against me on a 3x3 map, whatever the others prefer ;) but I think it's easier for me to help and answer questions if I know what happens and there is only one game.

In addition, I hope I'll have the time tomorrow to also create some full arena books, based on the smaller versions, so that we can play a domination game if we want after the introduction. I still think 1 or 2 introduction games will be totally sufficient for everyone. We just played/learned Sid Meier's Civilization last weekend, where every player had 30 technologies or so to choose from and lots of other stuff to keep track of and that went pretty well. The important part is that someone (in this case me) knows the rules and we don't need to look up too much in the rulebook. Let's see how it goes :)

steack:
It s possible to speed the apprentice mode , 

When i has presented the game at some new player;  i has stopped the  first game for apprentice mode after the first combat phase .
i take the time ton explain the turen and the action rules ,
i take the time to explain some family card  and their function.

And i restart immediatly a second game,
- the player know the first deplacement and combat rules,
- the players know thei spell book and he can now make a good stratégy .
- All turn has very miore quikly and it s easy to explain some rules . 

the initiation parties were more interresting with this method .

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