[Icehouse] [3House] BH using Xeno colors

[Ryan McGuire and Kerry Breitenbach]

I think I quickly mentioned this to Andy at Origins, but I'm not sure if it 
got recorded anywhere.

Way back in February, as part of a bigger Treehosue message, I wrote:
> Besides, the Binary Homeworlds rules specifically mention absolute colors. 
> Not only do you have to get three of the same set, but you need three 
> _Rainbow_ sets to play that "correctly".

Well let me revisit that.

I just noticed that the price for a 3House booklet plus three Treehouse sets 
is priced at $27, a bargain if you ask me.  However, the Treehouse page at 
http://www.looneylabs.com/whybuy/treehouse.html makes it look like the Xeno 
set is a reasonable choice to go with the 3House booklet.  Boy, would would 
_I_ be disappointed if I bought that $27 package deal and found that I 
didn't have the correct colors to play 33% of the games.  (Ok, 25% if you 
count Treehouse as a fourth.)  Sure, ANY assignment of Xeno colors to powers 
in Binary Homeworlds would "work", but when two such people get together to 
play, chances are one of them will have to adapt.

To head this problem off at the pass, I'll put MY scheme for assigning Xeno 
colors to Homeworlds powers on the table.  Rather than trying to asign Xeno 
colors to Rainbow colors, I figure it makes more sense to make the Xeno 
power assignments without regard to the Rainbow set:
  Move       Clear    As in "This ship is going to CLEAR out of this 
system."
  Trade      Orange   Because it looks like gold.
  Construct  White    Like the white building materials of Portland, England 
and/or the Inuit.
  Attack     Purple   Like the bruises you'll have when I'm done attacking.

The other obvious option is to assign Xeno colors to similar Rainbow colors. 
Maybe...
  Red     Orange
  Blue    Purple
  Green   Cyan
  Yellow  Clear or White

Or is it...
  Red     Purple
  Blue    Cyan
  Green   Clear or White
  Yellow  Orange

IMO, the fact that TWO color assignment schemes make an equal amount of 
sense means that NEITHER one is very good.  You'd be further ahead 
abandoning that idea and going with power->Xeno color assignments that make 
sense for some other reason.

(In any of these schemes it might seem a little weird to use the opaque 
color, but that's no big deal when you consider the game.  Besides, by 
making either Clear or Cyan the unused color, color abbreviations can be 
kept to one letter.)

Oh wait... Color abbreviations...  If you're recording a game, may I suggest 
you use the first letters of each piece's power rather than color.  That 
way, Xeno people and Rainbow people can read the same game record without 
having to translate.  A record might look something like this:

   Andy:1:Homeworld (LCST, la)
   Russell:2:Homeworld (MMST, lc) Name (MMST, "Peace")
   Andy:3:Construct (LCST, sa)

   {Stash Inventory}
   A:2L,3M,2S
   C:1L,3M,3S
   M:3L,2M,3S
   T:3L,3M,1S

Andy started with a Large Construct/Small Trade homeworld with a large 
attack ship, while Russell had a Medium Move/Small Trade homeworld 
(henceforth named "Peace") with a large construct ship.  Then Andy used the 
Large Construct piece of his world to spawn a small attack ship there.

Someone who invests $27 MSRP in enough Xeno sets to play Binary Homeworlds, 
will have no trouble understanding this record of a game between two BH 
traditionalists.


This might look as fixing a problem that doesn't exist, but I'm just trying 
to prevent the problem before it pops up.  This

-- Ryan

P.S. To anyone who remembers that I needed a rules refresher to play in the 
Origins BH touney:  I've played two games since then, so I'm an expert now. 
:)