From: fierkelab@bchm.biochem.duke.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.board
Subject: Re: Tyranno Ex
Date: 21 Jan 93 15:48:50 GMT
Organization: Biochemistry

In article <johnson.727551560@melon26> johnson@rtsg.mot.com (Brad Johnson)
writes:

>I recently picked up Avalon Hill's version of Tyranno Ex
>on a discount table, and for its extreme simplicity, I
>think it's a fun game to bring out for the "borderline"
>gamers.
>
On a discount table?  What sort of store?  For how much? Were there any extras?
 I really like the game, and wouldn't mind getting it on the cheap.

>1) It seems to me that usually 1 or 2 species are able to
>get their strengt built up to 5 or 6, and then they can
>never really be beaten until they are forced our of the
>special spaces.  Currently, the only way to decrease their
>strength is by beating them in battle.  I thought it might
>work if during the environment phase you make an environment
>change that results in the absence of ALL 3 of the environment
>types for any of your opponents' species, you can reduce those
>species' strengths by one, to a minimum of one.  (Sort of the 
>opposite of playing to increase the strength of your own
>species.)

Wait a moment here, in the games of T.Ex that I've played, if a species lacked
environmental support (i.e. 0 of 3 conditions available at the end of the
environmental plase), it went EXTINCT!  (That's how WE get rid of the strength
5 and 6 critters) Are you proposing your alternate rule to take place during
the environmental phase?  Or were we doing something wrong?

>2) In about a half a dozen games or so, I have seen only about
>3 or 4 battles end in suppression.  Is this just coincidence,
>or is extinction supposed to be more prevalent than suppression?
>Granted, most people pick the battle that they are most sure
>they can win, even if that doesn't necessarily mean that they
>can get a strength increase.  Maybe we should play battles up to
>3 rounds, and the loser goes extinct only if he loses 3 to 0.

In the games we've played, suppression is more common in the endgame, as more
evenly matched critters have incentive to engage, hoping to deny VP to their
opponent.  I think suppression is a "game balance" point.  Of course, Tyranno
Ex isn't much of a "realism" game.  Just read the description of the turtle
ancestor!

>3) In my limited experience so far, it's starting to seem as
>if the whole game really rides on the luck of drawing the
>environment tokens that you want/need.  Even if you pass
>a turn to replace 3 of your tokens, you still draw the new
>ones randomly, and you might not even improve your position.
>I have wondered about allowing people to actually select
>the tokens they want if they turn in 3 for their turn.
>Would this be too powerful?
>

In our games, token use has become an offensive weapon.  You try to work things
so your critters survive, but other people's critters struggle at best, and go
extinct at worst.

Eric Roush				In Tyranno Ex, we routinely pound Homo Sapiens into
fierkelab@				dust as soon as he appears.  I guess we're just a bunch 
bchm.biochem.duke.edu	of misanthropes.
Former owner of the famous "Killer Ape", a strength 5, env 30 Gigantopithicus
				

				Walt Kelley
Newsgroups: rec.games.board