Slitherine

I'm not sure with all the changes within the rules that we have the best testing strategy for the rules, as we allow too many variables. By this I mean that because we still use the points system to generate armies, we are therefore testing the validity of the "points costings" of elements and POA's utilising these rules amendments, at the same time as we test the amendments within the context of interaction with themselves and other rules. Surely it would be better to do one thing at a time and get the play balance to work.

My recomendation is to use set lists for each army so we can ignore points, so test the rules with fewer variables. Then work through results and see if the points costing scheme is still valid, or need to be amend it to make it work once we are happy with the rules. It would also ensure that the authors get to see games they need to test areas they see as weak, and also would ensure more targeted testing.

It's a bit of work for the authors they are going to need to set some lists for us to use, with the next release, but this should provide more worthwhile results from testing.

With long experience of writing and play-testing rules, I can say that this suggestion always comes up.

The truth is that there is simply never enough time to do it this way, so one has to live with the problems of the present method.

In any case the process is far advanced with the forthcoming version. We are now quite happy with the overall play balance and are mainly tweaking the points system to better take account of the difference between different quality grades of otherwise similar troops.

When the new version comes out, we will mainly be interested in testers spotting problems with the wording/comprehensibility of the rules, spotting any fossils that may survive from defunct rules etc. etc., or querying any rules that may have been unintentionally changed by the re-write. Also any cheese that may persist or have crept back in. Also the war wagons rules (which are new) need testing.

It has probably been suggested so many time because it this the correct past to take when testing an new product. Taking away any variable within testing is still the best solution to getting the product right.

But the apparent lateness of the hour we continue with down the same path as all the other systems which have come/gone/just gone into print which all make this same fundemental testing error.
We then end up with amendments and version 1.1 within 12-18 months of printing the rules being published- which makes the first published set an advanced beta test which games test and those who buy them, say their fine rules but I wish that this had been ironed out before they were sold to me.

I am aware of the pressure that the publishers will put on you to get these into print by the start of 2008, but it would be far better to get this right first time, rather than follow the pattern of the past errors of WRG.

you can only really playtest with real games - a unit v unit test can be useful but what happens on the rest of the field while the legions fight there way through upgraded wb (for example). Its a bit 'meta' but you need the whole game working to tweak things. This way its working makes sense to me.

version 1.1 1.x etc is the way the game stays alive.

not an important debate as far as I can see

paulcummins wrote:you can only really playtest with real games - a unit v unit test can be useful but what happens on the rest of the field while the legions fight there way through upgraded wb (for example). Its a bit 'meta' but you need the whole game working to tweak things. This way its working makes sense to me.

version 1.1 1.x etc is the way the game stays alive.

not an important debate as far as I can see

The suggestion is a play test with "real" games, just games with pre-prescribed battlegroups and generals, based roughly on what the authors believe are equal forces. You would not have control of your force composition, only over the terrain placement, deployment, and command decisions.
A valid start are the Republican and Carthaginian armies in the main rules on pages 7 & 8, however I am not suggesting to set lists for only these 2 but others too, which are deemed equal to these. therefore you should be able to test Republican vs Swiss, New Kingdom or any other set list. You can even swap armies between others at your club or group to widen experiance of the test if you only have one of the set armies.