Capture the Flag
A group of us gathered at Dragon’s Lair today at 1:00pm to have a daylight board game session (a very rare occurrence). We decided to take on Doom: The Board Game, but there was to many of us to attempt the campaign mode, so we decided to play a game of Capture the Flag and split into two teams.
The Red team:
Michael (who played two characters) and Rob formed this deadly team.
The Blue team:
Simon, Jeff and I formed this team.
The game started off slow because everyone was just trading kills and neither team was able to gain any significant amount of ground. With one of his characters Michael was able to capture the blue flag, but a rocket slammed into him knocking him back, and a grenade brought him down. The blue flag was than safely returned to it's home.
The game had no change in status until Simon and Jeff were able to make it into the Red base and started battling with the Red team. The Red team quickly moved all of their forces to try to suppress this invasion force and managed to kill both of them, but not without taking a casualty.
While this was going on I was sprinting to the opposite side of the Red base to try and sneak in while they were busy dealing with Simon and Jeff. I managed to make it into the Red base, and I made a mad dash to grab the flag right out from under Michael’s nose and ran right outside of the Red base barely holding onto life. Simon than sacrificed himself by blocking the teleporter so those left inside the Red base could not come out after me.
At this point Jeff had respawned and he was racing down a long hallway to try and help me make it back to the base. The Red team was one move away from killing me and retrieving their flag and it was Jeff’s turn. Jeff was forced to team kill me and than got the flag around a corner and out of the Red team’s range. From this point he was home free and sprinted back to the base with his prize in hand.I had a good time playing the Capture the Flag portion of Doom, but it was far to hard to score with these rules. The only reason the Blue team won was because of a series of bad roles made by the Red team.
posted by Jonathan W. @ 7:30 PM
10 comments
10 Comments:
"series of bad rolls" is an understatement.
1. Michael tried punching Jeff (or Simon?) 6 times before he finally got a hit.
2. I tried 2 consecutive shotgun blasts almost at point blank at Simon as he ran away with the flag, and I missed.
Not used to being one that bashes games due to bad die rolls (quite the opposite, I enjoy dicefests), I enjoyed it, although it was really tough (too tough) getting to score a single point.
I also need a break from all this gaming. I'm going to miss it next week when I go back to a bad schedule (similar to January's).
BTW Simon... I'm trying to finish Doom 3... Please call 911 if I don't write back tomorrow. I probably had a heart attack playing it.
Rob can blame bad luck (which started when he was paired with me) but I can't. You guys didn't make any mistakes, kept the pressure on us which certainly , and when I made tactical mistakes were right there to take advantage. I basically missed the boat on the tactical advantage of the rocket launcher (basically forgetting about the knockback rule 80% the time, and not using it to full advantage the rest of the time). I'm so blind I didn't even realize how poorly I played until thinking back on all the missed opportunities while on the way home. Sorry about that Rob.
The Rocket Launcher just seems like such an awesome tool in competent hands. Next time we play an objective game I hope I've learned from my mistakes.
Great fun though guys and looking forward to the next time we get together whenever it is.
umm...something got cut off there. that ..certainly should read certainly led to my mistakes
Well don't be so hard on yourself... I wasn't in the mood to argue too much with your ideas. I was just playing for gaming's sake. I enjoy this no matter what.
BTW, I don't think that would have made that much of a difference (knowing about the knock-back stuff). You also had some bad die rolls with the rocket launcher, so knowing about it wouldn't have made that much a difference.
Regardless, I think in general it's kinda hard to keep track of all the little nuances with all the games we play. What a great hobby though.
I tend to agree with Rob here. I thought you both played well, Michael, and that the game was decided mainly by some unlucky rolls and rules wiggling. I felt there was equal skill on both teams and that the game itself was the limiting factor in how well we were able to replicate what CtF should have been like.
With that said, I think Doom CtF has some serious mechanics issues in comparison to Deathmatch and the base game. I guess it looks like I'll have to go back to the toolbox and work out some modifications; something that has become half the fun with this game.
I think next time I chalk Doom up for play though, I'm going to have to post a sign-up first so we can know ahead of time who is playing the base game (max of 4) and who is left over for other things. Our propensity to be nice to each other is starting to outweigh pragmatism...Yeah, we're that awesome.
Would team deathmatch be a possibility? I thought having teams added a significant amount of depth to the game (same as in actual fps games) but I definitely agree that there is a problem with capture the flag as is.
I'm not sure how to fix it, but there are alternatives that I'm sure we could work out and balance like team king of the hill, team slayer and team oddball. The nice thing about those types of games is I'm sure scoring would be easier so we would be very unlikely to end up with a 0-0 tie going into the last half of the deck.
I'd certainly be willing to brainstorm and playtest anything, including the actual campaign if the timing works out.
Rob: I'm fighting my way through Doom 3 as well. It's a hard game to play with the lights off...
I obviously wasn't there to play, but from reading the report, perhaps increasing the delay in respawning after you're killed would make scoring more of a possibility. Or, perhaps a dropped flag stays where it is for a longer period of time...
Anyway, sounds like you guys had a blast!
Dropped flags stay until they're either recaptured or tagged by a friendly in which case they are automatically returned and delaying respawns will only serve to increase downtime...So it's going to be a tough bugger to solve. Maybe no auto returns on friendlies? Or spawn locations outside the base? I'm trying to think back to online fps' and I recall those helping stalemates.
Anyway, good luck to both of you on Doom 3. I used to play it in the dark at night with headphones on. I think after a few weeks I couldn't take the fact that the game was constantly mocking me in my pansy-ness (since I would just exit out of it if I got too freaked out), so I resolved myself to beat it...That was a long, hard week and much pants were crapped.
-And trust me, it gets much, much worse before it gets better...It's like the exorcist of gaming. So many nightmares.
I have a surround sound system in my PC, and I could hear the echoing sighs rolling down a corridor towards me in waves with full effect... followed by demonic symbols on the walls... and I'm not even halfway through the game. It's worse than a scary movie.
Yesterday I actually cursed out loud (F&^%$!!) when one of those charging mecha-dog-demon thingies came charging towards me from nowhere.
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