Re: Just bought "Revolution!" and it's good fun
 

I must be spoiled; almost every LGS I've been too has been very F indeed. I'm glad you found a good place, and I hope you'll throw more business their way -- in this economy, every bit helps.

Let us know how it turns out!

Re: Just bought "Revolution!" and it's good fun
 

I strongly recommend against removing the Mercenary.
The Merc and Rogue have a very particular role to fill - it enables someone who only has Gold to get back in the game with some Force and Blackmail. It keeps you from being "locked out" if someone manages to get a good chain going.

Imagine a scenario where a player manages to win General, Captain, Innkeeper, Magistrate, Merchant and Rogue. You win nothing and thus have 5 gold. This is under your scenario, so there's no Mercenary.
This means that every turn, they can put blackmail on General and Captain, Force on Innkeeper and Magistrate, blackmail on Merchant, and 5 gold on Rogue. Unless you waste a turn putting all 5 gold on the rogue to tie him, he has you locked down. He's placing 5 influence a turn in most of the high score locations, continually refreshing his stock of force and blackmail, and the only thing you can do is block his 2 blackmail for ONE turn.
The next turn, he splits his 5 gold between Merchant and Rogue... you still need to bid all 5 on the Rogue to get anywhere.
Meanwhile, he gets 5 more influence (and 9 support) and goes into the next round with 2F 2B 5G versus your 2B 3G. You're still screwed.

Merc and Rogue combined break that. He can't cover them both because he can't afford to. Without the Merchant, he has no gold to bid on them. With the Merchant, he only can bid on one, because of the 6 bid limit. And he has to guess which one you're going for... he's screwed either way, because you can just put 1 on both and guarantee getting one. Then you can either beat his rogue-blackmail on the Merchant with your Merc-force, or steal Captain and/or General with your 2 rogue-blackmail because his Merc-force won't help him there.

Removing either the Rogue or the Mercenary would completely upset the balance of the game.
I suggested Captain and Innkeeper because it reduces the number of spaces to fill, and also reduces the amount of force and blackmail in circulation

Re: Just bought "Revolution!" and it's good fun
 

<chuckle> I actually considered exactly the situation you describe before making my post.

You are correct that if that event happened, you'd be screwed. But in a two player game, if one player manages to take any kind of significant lead, it's already going to be nearly impossible to come back, so your best bet is simply to concede the game and start a new one.

To my mind, I'd rather not reduce the number of spaces to fill on the main board but use them all. Nor reduce the amount of force and blackmail in circulation but instead count on the fact that by having more force and blackmail chances, it's nearly impossible for someone to win them all while shutting the other player out. You'd have to be very unlucky (or very out-matched) for the circumstance you describe to happen... and if it did, just concede the game and start again.

The balance of the game is already being upset just by virtue of not having enough people to play the game properly. The only question is how to (hopefully) reduce that imbalance enough to salvage a decent 2-player game from a terrific 3-6 player game.

Having only played 2-player a few times when circumstances forced it on me, I've never tried using this idea, and I'm not planning on deliberately playing 2-player in the future to test it out. So I'd be curious if anyone does try out either variant (mine or Palmer's) and comes back to let us know. ... or preferably plays 2 games, one with each, and compares the two.

Re: Just bought "Revolution!" and it's good fun
 

We actually playtested with a 3rd "ghost" player, and tried it being a die roll. Like someone already said, you can't outsmart a random die roll.

In the end we decided to put 3-4 players on the box. If I had my way though, it would say it is only a 4 player game because while it does function with only 3, 4 is much more fun and complete feeling.