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A few tips…
1. Be patient. Planning a move, especially for new players (and those without a swivel chair) can take some time. Don’t use the timer included. (unless your play group is cut-throat) It’s a little hard core. It take the fun out of the game.
2. Because of #1 above, playing multiple flags with more than 3 players can take a while. (a 6 player/3 flag game I played once took over 4 hours) So play with less flags if you have more players. The game can get frustrating if it goes on too long.
3. Using the Option Cards the way the rules instruct (ending on a double wrench space) make them few and far between. Hey, it’s a robot factory! Starting the game with an Option card and handing them out more often makes the game even more fun. Try it!
Ar-M had a good point (below) and it’s how I approach the game, esp with large number of players. Players have a tendency to want to “break free of the pack” with big Move 3s & 2s right away. But everyone else is doing the same!
Big move cards = long pushes = trouble (for THEM)!
So, start with slower moves, let the others jump ahead, nail them with a few laser blasts, and watch them push each other off course & into hazards. Then weave thru the wrreckage at a comfortable speed.
Danger! If the runaway leaders do enough damage to each other right away, bots could appear behind you quickly, so be prepared to veer off the Main Route and get out of their line of fire!
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Also agree with Rob H’s suggestion to not limit lives. Keep everyone in the game = more mayhem!
To help even out the game for players, I put a mine on the first flag. This slows down a player who gets out ahead of the other players, forcing them to shut down for a round to repair. (Remember you can’t declare a power down unless you already have some damage) The mine then is put on flag two, etc. If there are more than one robot in contention, the other will take proximity damage as well.
Another option is to put a force field around the flags, so robots must stop to destroy it with their forward laser. We use a six sided die to represent the force field, turning it as damage is taken.
We have also dealt a hand of option cards face down for each flag. When a player tags up, the player to his left chooses an option for him. The idea is that the lead player gets the worst option, the last player getting the remaining best one.
When playing with a large group it is common for everyone to take the most direct route. This leads to a jam and chaos as everyone pushes each other or damages each other. Avoid that and take a longer route to the flag. Less people will follow letting you move exactly as you expect.
Look for creative ways to use your turn cards. You may get unlucky and not draw a right turn that you need for a crucial move. Three left turns or a turn-around and a left will give the same result, just in a different register phase. There are some situations where that extra phase to turn can be used to your advantage such as stalling to avoid a traffic jam or menacing board element.
One of the mistakes that new players can make – which takes a few games to get used to – is how you approach each turn – and how the position of your opponents can affect your programming.
The common mistake is to program your robot with only your own goal (your path) in mind. In other words, if all you do is program your robot to get from point A to point B and it’s the shortest possible path to the flag, then other players will be able to guess where you will be going and anticipate it.
Each turn look at the position of your opponents’ robots. Think about how THEY will be programming their robot and how it affects your easiest path to your goal. And look at their position in relation to you.
Then decide whether you have to be offensive (choosing moves that will affect, even attack your opponents’ robots) or defensive (seeing other robots clearly ready to cut you off, or get in your way) and program to get out of the way, or best case , turn the tables on them.
Depending on the number of players, seldom do you have a free and clear path to get closer to your goal. So keying off what you think your opponent’s moves will be will give you a better chance of success especially when they get to close for comfort.
I have seen this alluded to elsewhere, but I don’t think it can be stressed enough.
I love a long drawn-out game. I used to subject my siblings to all night Star Trek CCG marathons with dozens of mission cards just for the fun of it. However, not everyone wants the game to last forever.
I strongly suggest starting out new RoboRally players with two boards maximum. I actually start them with one. You can still put four flags on one board should you choose to do so and there will be plenty of mayhem on the board since everyone will be in the same space, but the game will take significantly less time. I find this get my friends the RoboRally bug, and I can then expand the number of boards and have longer games because they are already hooked.
Going along with other people’s suggestions of using fewer flags, limit the number of boards you use. I’ve seen someone state before to think of how many boards you would like to play, and substract 2.
More flags certainly make for a longer game, but in my experience, too many boards is even worse. For starters, I’d limit yourself to two. There’s more room than you think, and you’ll be happy you didn’t go for 4+, even if the setup doesn’t look as cool at the beginning.
My friends and I play RoboRally nearly every time we get together and to freshen the game up we added “Chaos Bot”. Chaos Bot is an unmanned bot that starts out on a random spot on the board and completes 5 random programming cards a turn. If it is facing a player at the end of a phase it automatically shoots the opponent. If an opponent destroys Chaos Bot they get an Option Card. You can even give Chaos Bot an Option Card to increase the difficulty!
here you can find 13 official variants ready to be printed
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=ah/article/ah20050909b
I especially like the pacman and the cube.
What are your favorite variants?
You should ignore the initiative order for players who are only making a turn. It it no way effects every other players movement and will speed up game play. After completing turns, resolve movement as per normal rules and then go to the environment/shooting.
One of the best strategies I found for this game was to try and get 3 or 4 add ons as soon as possible and then try to win the race. Trust me the others are out to kill you so it is the old saying a good offense is the best defense
When looking at the board and trying to figure out how to get from A to B, the closest route seldom is the one to chose. The conveyour belts, even the slow ones, have GREAT impact on the speed and accesibility of the boards. Running upstream takes great effort, using the belts downstream speed you up a lot (remember, if you stay on the belt it’s five extra steps in a turn).
Also, walls that force you to turn all the time hinders you as well. Taking a slightly longer route where you don’t have to turn all the time often goes faster.
When introducing this game to new people I’ve found many non-programmers to have serious problems determining when the robot will turn by the force of a conveyour belt or not.
The trick is to look at the next tile in the conveyour belt. If there’s a turn there your robot will turn the same way the arrow, otherwise it will remain in the same direction.
And remember, robots that use a program card to walk to a turning belt tile will NOT turn (but if the next tile is a turn they will of course turn during factory move).
In short, robots are only turned by the conveyour belt during factory move, and only if the next tile is turned.
When playing with larger groups (especially 8 people) break into two teams. Everyone still needs to touch each flag in order (not just the team), but it lessens the number of robots a player is “gunning” for. It tends to open the game up a bit more (and make for more anguished cries when you blow up your teammate).
People who start falling behind can still be beneficial to a team and win with their team by playing different tactics. You can play saftey, or stock up on weapons to keep the other team’s leader down.
Team play is now the only way I play with larger groups.
Getting bored with the standard go get that flag game action?
Try this: One board (Usally a pretty tough one with pits and lasers), One life, and One Option Card. Battle it out useing normal registar turns until only one robot remains standing!
Let the fight begin!
To add more chaos and mayhem to the game we will play with a rule that 1) Each player starts with a uppgrade and 2) everytime a player would heal he/she also recieves a uppgrade. This adds the frequency of uppgrades dramatically and makes fore some insane robots rolling around.
When playing with my young daughter, the main change that works for us is that adults set their program as normal, but she chooses a card for each register phase as it comes up. This seems to result in a reasonably satisfying game for everyone.
I’m not sure what we’ll do when she is ready to plan ahead. Maybe the next stage is to have her playing cards one phase in advance, then increasing this as she grows in confidence until she is programming the whole turn with everyone else.
No flags, one board. Game can be turn-based (Hitting someone with a laser is 1 point, killing blows are 5 points, pushing-deaths are 10 points), or lives based (5 lives, last man standing wins).
This changes the game from a race into a very competitive fighting game. Everyone should be similar in terms of skill for this to be any fun.
When playing with kids, only use 3 cards instead of 5. The game is slower, but they can see far enough ahead to play by themselves.