Citizen Dawn Scenarios 1 & 2

Alright, so I feel like I'm definitely missing something here. These just seem impossible for the Citizens. I'm going to just make a bulleted list of how I'm thinking this works, I seem to be making these a lot on these forums for some reason:

• Their goal is to pick up 3 of the crystals and get them over to the points on two opposite sides of the map, or god forbid the second one where it's completely on the other side of the map and the hero one is literally right there.
• If only two opponents exist, you only get two turns each round. You can only make one person move per turn though, so of the 5 units you control, only 12 turns can be taken between all of them, since you get two per round for 6 rounds.
• Each turn you can only move a character 4 spaces at max, barring that two of them can be made with no elevation problems. There might have been a character with move 5? I don't remember though. Either way, this costs both of your actions each turn, but if you don't do it, I see no way to come even close to winning. And to me, those aren't very eventful turns. Baron Blade got the option to teleport, and had defensive options, and a decent reward for killing if he could get a 1-shot kill on someone. It seemed much harder to set up a one-shot kill with the citizens to even try that option.
• There's no penalty for being incaped. From what I read the incap statement just means you move with your crystal, if there's any push overkill. It didn't read like you were taking the crystal from someone, which would sort of make sense to me, but considering how hard it is, I'm glad it's not a thing you could do. The problem I have with this is, what exactly is the hero players trying to do? Those with push abilities make sense because they can push the citizens back and keep them at bay. (Glad no one played Beacon honestly.) Is everyone just attacking in hopes of getting push overkill to push the citizens back? That sounds really uninteresting on their part.

I've done the first mission twice, and we set up the second mission this recent time today, but it looked like the first mission except much worse so we just decided not to play it and skip to the third instead. We didn't have time to finish it but it seemed like a lot more fun. It felt good to actually have a full-sized card in front of me instead of a bunch of mini cards. It also felt good to be able to take a full turn, with a large amount of power options on my single character to choose from for that turn. I'm not a fan of the fact that Citizen Dawn only makes an appearance at the end of her Scenario book, while the other two characters are present throughout theres. It's probably just compounded by my frustration though, I probably wouldn't mind it if I found the first two more enjoyable.

I saw someone talking about using the shard toss a lot? I only was able to use it three times. I had two people standing range 1 from the shard stack, each picking up a crystal and throwing it to one of the characters at the front end of the starting area for the first round. Then each of those characters started moving toward the end zones for the second round. And I had to give both turns to them each round just to make it to the end points. Then I abandoned them at those points and threw a shard to the third character to run to one of the points but he barely got halfway there. (Once the second crystal made it I sent one of the last two citizens left, with crystals, to try to make it as well. To no avail though.) I dont' even think the heroes ever pushed one of my citizens. They incapped one a couple times, but he just got up and kept moving and they never overkilled him, so he never got pushed. Then they dropped a ton of hazard spaces in his way and he also only had like two turns left, because their were only two rounds left, so I couldn't figure a way to get him close enough to the other guy to get a shard throw in, or get to the other side himself.

Is there something I'm missing? I've had no problems having fair fights throughout all of Baron Blade's, and Omnitron's scenarios. 

With 4 Heroes I can score 3 shards in 13 turns, assuming you make every toss roll and heroes do nothing to stop you.

That means you can lose 11 turns to drops and hero action and still potentially win.

With 3 Heroes I can score 3 shards in 11 turns, assuming you make every toss roll and heroes do nothing to stop you.

That means you can lose 7 turns to drops and hero action and still potentially win.

With 2 heroes I can score 3 shards in 10 turns, assuming you make every toss roll and heroes do nothing to stop you.

That means you can lose 2 turns to drops and hero action and still potentially win.

I got these numbers  assuming every toss succeeds and I left heroes off the board, just counting Citizen turns.  Can anyone do better?

How costly is a drop?

In each case a drop will cost you roughly a round.

An Incapacitation will cost you at least an action, which can potentially add a whole round on to your game, if a citizen can't get to the right spot and pass they may end up stuck with the shard until their next turn, which will be the next round.

If my numbers are the best people can get:

Basically if you suffer an incap by a hero or fail a shard pass (you need to make at least one long range pass) you can't win with 2 heroes.

With success rates between 18 and 50% for longer tosses, two hero teams have a good chance they can sit at the tower and watch the citizens fail without any help from them.

Three hero teams have to do some work, mostly incapping the front-most Citizen.  If you incap a citizen right after their turn when they go first in the round it is really hard to recover from, esp. if you needed to shard toss to that citizen.  A few incaps of citizens and the heroes should have the match, and with the squishyness of citizens and the fact that dodging very often at all will cost you the match it is pretty easy for the heroes to win.

Incapping a character that is set up to receive a shard and then pass it on is crushing for the citizens, it means you have to take a turn for that citizen to get back up, a turn which is pretty much wasted since you can move, but you likely don't want them to move if they were already set up to get a shard.

Then you have to throw again and then give that citizen another turn to get back where you were.  If you can cover for that citizen with a different one it helps, but that citizen is useless until they stand up, and the only real value that turn will have is if they can pick up a dropped shard with their first action.

For Four Hero games the heroes have a tougher time, since the Citizens have an extra citizen then what they really need to pull off the win and they have to use that citizen anyway each round, so it works alraight.

The worst thing in a 4 hero match is your opening position, the most efficient course is to have 1 citizen stay at the Revo-Corp building and throw shards (assault and Battery are sadly the best choice for this roll due to their mobility being the worst), when there are less than 4 heroes that first toss being a longer one is okay, because if you fail you still have a citizen there to pick up the shard and carry on, but in 4 hero matches losing a turn by sitting a citizen there is costly, but otherwise any drops from that citizen just kill you.

"For Four Hero games the heroes have a tougher time, since the Citizens have an extra citizen then what they really need to pull off the win and they have to use that citizen anyway each round, so it works alraight."

In a Four Hero Game wouldn't you have 5 citizens and therefore one of your citizens would have to sit out each round since you only get 4 turns? You said they have to use that citizen each round anyway, and that kind of confuses me.

I wasn't aware that the shard was dropped. It just kind of stated it was in the space with them so I figured they still had it. I guess I should plan my shard passes to be further out. Since you have to be on a height three building to pick up a shard, I assume I should make the runner go to a height three building within as far as possible hex-wise to make it that could still be reasonably made. At range six not only does the thrower have to roll a 6, but the defender has to roll a 6 to catch it. That range seemed fairly unreliable to me. If I'm not throwing within 5 or 6 squares, it seems like it'd be pointless to make the runner move first, since he'd be moving 4 or less spaces to get into position, and he can only move 4 paces after being passed the shard. Unless there's a Reach bonus to Shard Toss that I might have missed.

I definitely want to try out these missions again until I can figure out some way to have a chance at victory. I mean, I suppose I wasn't too far from victory. It was 3 players and I managed to get 2 shards in. I just felt like my opponents didn't have much of an influence on my losing and that I wouldn't have made 3 crystals in whether they existed or not. The dropping wouldn't have even hurt me because the only character they incapped didn't come close to making it to the end anyway. I should probably just set up the scenario on my own sometime and practice running it without any heros to see how fast I could make it to the goals and try out different strategies that I likely overlooked these last two games.

Shard toss has +2 reach, so that helps a bit - at six hexes away you only need both characters to roll a 4 or better.

With reach+2 you have a 2/3 chance of making a range 6 throw.  I was forgetting the reach+2 in my earlier calculations.

That drastically improves the Citizens odds, I'll have to retry it scenario 1.

I also apparently misread the citizens in the fight, so yeah, awesome.

I think a big solution to the Scenario might be to recquire shard captures equal to the number of hero players.  That way 3 hero odds stay where thy are, 4 hero odds get harder, and 2 hero odds get easier for the Citizens.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is Citizen choice and placement.

There are a bunch of Citizens that are not exactly easy to incap and who provide some helpful defense and buffs/debuffs.

Food for thought

Yeah, Hammer/Anvil and Truth make a big difference in scenario 2.

I left out Hack/Slash so they might improve odds of evading hero interference, but they won't help the turns to win vs. turns available ratio.

Okay, so adjusting Shard Captures required to the number of heroes changes the fastest non-resisted win times to:

15 turns for 4 heroes, leaving 9 turns of delay before a loss.  (-2 turns of leeway)

11 turns for 3 heroes, leaving 7 turns of delay before a loss.  (no change)

7 turns for 2 heroes, leaving 5 turns of delay before a loss.  (+3 turns of leeway)

That puts them all right near 60% of total turns needed for fastest possible win.  63% 2 heroes, 61% 3 heroes, 58% 4 heroes.

The original numbers are 83% 2 heroes, 61% 3 heroes, 54% 4 heroes.

That means it should still be harder in 2 hero games, but not like it is now, where with 4 heroes the heroes need to play and roll well to win, but with 2 heroes you don't have to do much at all.

EIDT:

Okay, trying the 2 hero one with my change made it impossible for heroes to win.  Incaps didn't matter, because it didn't cost them enough time to set them back.  So yeah, maybe it isn't so broken.  I'll try a few more games and see.

Thanks for the input guys! I appreciate it. I'll definitely think more differently about the shard tosses and try out those scenarios again sometime.

I'm reversing my position from earlier, as I played heroes rather stupidly in that game. (it was solo, that's my only excuse)

I've been playing that scenario with 2 heroes over and over again and the Citizens never threaten to get three shards captured, it isn't even close.

They get 2 shards more often than not, but I've had more 1 shard capture games than games where a Citizen got close to getting that third one in.

Inteligent use of heroes just crushes the citizens.  If you have Beacon, Wraith or AZ it doesn't even need to be very inteligent.

At shard captures equal to hero players it's a very fun match for heroes, and painful for citizens as you try to figure out how to get around and past the heroes in time.  

Honestly, 1 has been more or less unwinnable for the citizens in my experience. They need more turns. Like 9.

What number of heroes have you played with?

At 2 heroes and 2 shards needed I'm running close to 50%, and every match is close enough that the losing side still had a chance to win.

EDIT:

Ran a 4 hero game with the F4 having the citizens needing to score 4 shards, and the heroes won.  It was pretty close, and the tide really turned on an epic "Citizens only roll 3 or less for defense" streak that caused 4 citizen incaps in one round.  Including Assault and Battery dropping from full health to an Omnicannon.

I liked 4 shards better than 3, simply because it seems at 3 shards it is too easy to cover for incaps.  Woth 4 shards the citizens have to work harder because you don't have more turns than shards that need advanced.

I would also like to see the free sprint for an incap become a free action instead, a slight buff, but would open up a lot of options, and make being aggressive a bigger part of Citizen strategy.  (since you could get an extra Shard Toss with an incapped Hero)

Consider:

You want to get shards out of the pile and moving toward extraction as fast as possible.  You start a Citizen on the elevation 3 pick-up spot, on their turn they pick up and sprint so that spot is clear.  Then another citizen sprints up and picks up a shard.  At this point if you incap a hero you can clear that spot or move the other shard carrier forward.  If it was changed to an action instead of a sprint that citizen could shard toss, and on their next turn shard toss again or pick up and sprint.

Tried Citizen Dawn scenario 2 today, and it was not cool.

With the Heroes winning scenario 1 they started with 1 shard, needing 2 more to force a deadlock.

You can pick up 2 shards in round 1, the Citizens can't stop you.  You then need the 2nd round to score them and the Citizens cannot win, all they can do is try to score all three of the remaining shards in he time allowed so you can force a tie.  It isn't easy.

Plus the ability to tie is kind of sucky, and there are no rules for how to handle that if you do.

The situations that would have to occur for the citizens to win this scenario are pretty extreme.  Let alone the longer distance than Scenario 1 that you need to cover to win.

I tried the following changes once, and the match was a lot better, but more testing would be needed to see if it is a good solution.

1.  Only 5 shards in the scenario instead of 6, no ties and fewer shards for citizens to protect.

2.  Shards always start being carried by citizens.

3.  The winner of Scenario 1 starts with one shard in their victory pile.

4.  No time limit, three shards in victory pile you win.

How this worked for my game (3 hero players) is three citizens took off for the volcano with shards, the rest defended the 4th shard.  The heroes needed two shards (since they won scenario 1) so they had to go after the citizens going to the volcano.  That isn't the case with the original scenario.

This worked really well for a 3 hero game, but got bogged down with 2 heroes, 4 heroes let me take Truth with the 3 going to the volcano to tank for the citizens.

Played a 3 player match vs Tachyon/Bunker, decided that was probably one of the most punishing combis and forfeited scenarios 1/2 about halfway through when we mathed out that it would be impossible for the citizens to actually win. We definitely felt like the citizens needed either more actions or a free shard pickup/toss per turn.

We ended up playing the 3rd scenario twice in the time we saved, just to see how annoying the lava ended up being in the really unlikely case the citizens won earlier scenarios.

My brother and I are working on some home-made rules for 1 and 2.

For 1, the time limit really hurts the citizens.  So we got rid of that and changed it so throwing, dropping, or moving with a crystal causes it to deteriorate.  Each crystal only lasts for 5 or 6 such actions after it is removed from their starting spot.  This allows citizens time to get organized and heroes can incap citizens to deteriorate crystals faster.  Also, no character can hold more than one crystal.  The idea isn't perfect.  A game could last forever if the villains never take a crystal.  

For scenario 2, keep the same rules but make the goals equadistant from the crystal start.  The one crystal at a time prevents Tachyon win shenanigans.  Allow the villains (the weaker side) one crystal already if they won scenario 1.  

Yup. These scenarios are pretty unbalanced for the citizens. We played last night and there was literally no chance for them to win in a 3 player game. 

The last scenario was a lot of fun largely because skirmish mode is amazing :)

Is it possible to carry more than one shard at a time?

Yeah, but the detrimental effects of carrying shards is cumulative...

Also are the shards held onto on incapacitation or do the have to be picked up again?

I don't understand this at all.  If the heroes are doing nothing to stop you, why does it take more or less turns to score 3 shards depending on the number of heroes?  You have the same number of citizens after all, just less turns when there are less heroes.

Because with more turns you can put more citizens into useful positions for passing the shards.  With fewer turns you have to be more efficient.

Each Citizen can only act once per round.  So with more heroes you get more citizen turns per round, but you are forced to use more of the citizens.  With just 2 citizens you only ever use 3 citizens, the delay with three citizens is because you don't get to break up turns as efficiently as you can with 2 per round, since once a citizen takes a turn you have to wait for the next round.

Higher numbers of citizens work better when the heroes are actually trying, because it gives you a little redundancy to handle incaps and dropped shards.

Are you sure of that? There’s nothing on the Oblivion Shard power card to really support that they’re cumulative. It just says someone carrying a shard, not for each shard.

Nothing answered in FAQ either for it. I think being able to pick up multiple without it being cumulative might ease the difficulty. As it is it already lowers movement in half for any of the citizens in Scenario 1. Having it cumulative would mean they couldn’t move outside of sprint if they had two. And it doesn’t say that picking up a shard is an unlimited action so it would take work to get a single citizen to get 2 shards.

I know that's what Christopher told me during playtesting, so yeah, I'm pretty sure of it.

Someone official might contradict me, though. It's happened before.

Hatate to dig up an , but could someone explain veerrryy slowly what the basic strategy is to successfully get the shards across the board in Scenario 1?

Or provide an example of the first few turns? Or both?

Thanks!

You want to set up as much as possible a line of passes to get the shards to the extraction point with as little shard carrier movement as you can, my start is dare running as far as he can and getting on the buildings in line of sight from the throw point, the elevated hex next to the pile.

Last turn of round 1 you throw the shard, and use Dare to run it in from there on the first turn of the new round.  You do it last to minimize time the shard spends in the carrier's hands, because shard drops are horrible.

Next you want to leave Dare where he is on the extraction point and try to get him more shards.

Don't worry about a shard holder being incapped on the extraction point, you can stand up and score them anyway.

The best way to figure this out is to play as the citizens with no heroes, and work on getting the shards scored in as few turns as possible.  Once you know the important points for line of sight and making throws it gets easier to deal with opponents messing with you.

Using Hammer and Anvil is a big thing, because those defense+1 tokens are huge for catching shards.

Thanks!

I think we got it. Basically in four-player with three heroes, on the first round on #1 move one of the "paired" Citizens (we'll call him A) six hexes away at 10 o'clock from the 3-dot hex adjacent to the shards. That should put him on a three-dot hex.

Then on #3 move the second paired citizen (B) nearby in preparation of Round 2.

Then on #5 have the Citizen on the 3-dot hex (Summer or Winter - C) next to the shards grab one as their first action, and throw it as their second.

Round 2:

#1: Have A Move/Sprint for the north extraction point.

#3: Move B onto the 3-dot hex A occupied.

#5: C grabs and throws the second shard.

Round 3:

#1: Have A Move/Sprint for the north extraction point.

#3: Have B Move/Sprintfor the north extraction point.

#5: Move Citizen Dare (D) toward the 3-dot "catch" hex. (D has relatively low hit points, but Move 5)

Round 4:

#1: Have A Move/Spring and drop the shard.

#3: Have B Move/Sprintfor the north extraction point.

#5: C grabs throws the third shard to D

And so on.

Is that about the size of it?

I move dare first, when all but Tachyon will struggle to interfere, get as far as you can, done well dare can be on the extraction point turn 1 round 2.  Then follow as you say, but don't be afraid to toss that second shard to dare, then score them when you have a free turn.

That gives you a basic approach, you have to adjust it, but it should get you going.

Yeah, thinking it over, I was just going to post that having Dare go first, since he can reach the extraction point slightly faster and not face unified opposition early on, will make up for his 3-4 less hit points.

So I suppose the next question is... how do the bad guy have a chance in the second Dawn scenario?

We're going with a three-hero example here.

If the bad guys win scenario 1, all five of them get to hold a shard. This actually seems to be a bad thing, because they start their turn with -2 Move and -1 defense.  It saves them an action picking them up a shard each, but presumably most of them don't want to start with shards anyway. You use the "throw the shard" strategy above, right?

But if the bad guys won scenario #1, they have to pick up the shards. There's no option in the scenario to choose otherwise.

Or do you regain the -2 movement when you drop the shard?

Meanwhile the three heroes come over, pick up the two discarded shards and the sixth shard that no one is holding, and run for the Hero extraction zone which is about 4 times closer than the volcano. So the villains spend their actions attacking them instead to stop them, which means they don't have actions to get the shards to the volcano. Odds are that one hero (particularly if you have Tachyon) will get the shard 'home" and the heroes win because they have more shards secured.

So we seem to be missing something here... :(

nope, that scenario doesn't work right.

Try these changes for a better game:

1.  Only use 5 shards.  No matter what all shards start being carried by a citizen.

2.  Get rid of the time limit, make the win condition 3 shards captured by either team.

3.  The winner of scenario 1 gets 1 shard captured to start (this would be 1 of the 5 shards for the scenario)

This lets the citizens try to run 2-3 shards to the victory point, while the heroes have to force the citizens to drop shards and then recover them to win.

Initial tests show it works at least decently, and is much better than the official scenario.

We'll try it.

But... to repeat one question above, does the -2 move from a shard go away as soon as the holder drops the shard? Or is permanent for the entire turn once it kicks in at the beginning of the turn?

The -2 move is applied for each shard the target is currently carrying.  So 1 shard gives you a -2, two shards give a -4, three a -6 and zero shards no penalty.

Picking up or tossing a shard mid turn would change your movement as soon as you gained or dropped a shard.