Aethermon can be played with any player count from 1 to 8. As discussed in previous posts, to avoid playtimes bloating at larger player counts turns are conducted simultaneously. However, with 6 or more player counts this system begins to break down and new solutions have been implemented.
From a pragmatic standpoint, at large player counts the game begins to become unwieldy: lots of hands moving around the table etc.
Larger player counts encounter a much more “hard” limitation in component count. Like any tabletop game, Aethermon is limited by physical components. Several of these components are shared by players during their simultaneous turns – if too many players require these components at once the game breaks down.
The simplest example of this are the encounter cards. Each region of the map has 5 encounter cards – 4 unique battle encounters and 1 special encounter card (directing players to draw the top card from the special encounter deck). If 8 players landed in the same region (nearly inevitable in the early game), more cards would be required.
Instead in 6+ player games, Aethermon divides players into two groups: a day group and a night group (the night group starts with an additional item to address the first move advantage discussed in the last post). With at most 4 players in each group, eliminating any possibility that more than 5 players could demand an encounter card from the same area at the same time.
This, of course, could have been addressed by printing more cards and chips. This solution would increase the cost of the game to the consumer and wouldn’t solve the unwieldiness described earlier.
Thanks for tuning in AetherRen.