Web site update and other thoughts

I've decided to change the website a bit.  Previously I had a site hosted on a sever that I was paying for that was running php.  The original thought was that I could build a dynamic website that automatically updated when ever I made changes to games on The Game Crafter.  And it sort 1/2 worked, but ultimately I decide it wasn't worth the effort...  By the way, the hosting is about to expire which kind of forced the issue.  So now the site is running completely off of blogger.  I lose the dynamic updates when I change games on Game Crafter, but that's a two sided coin it turns out.  It wasn't easy to format text so that it works correct on both sites.

Changing subject...
I've decided to make some changes to Of Feast & Famine.  I'm simplifying the mechanic for driving the wars and plagues.  I think is was an innovative mechanic, but not appropriate for this game... maybe I can use it in some other game.  The main problem was that it took too long for things to get interesting.

Plagues will get much simpler.  Each plague card causes a plague.  I thought about driving the intensity of the plague off the population; higher population means more plague.  This makes thematic sense, but I don't know yet if it makes the game better so I'll have to try it both ways.

For the wars, I'm still going to have a tracker, but instead of cubes bubbling up like they did in the past they simply move up (or down) in a more straight forward manor.  Each card bumps the cube up if you refuse the tribute or down if you pay it.  As the cube moves up the attacks get stronger.  Defending an attack is also simpler now:  each worker (and minister) cancels one die.  I'm also considering bringing the black rings back.  Another thing that I keep flip flopping on is weather the tributes should be reoccurring or not.

One partially related concern I have is that there's too much in the game.  I feel like there not enough time in the game to educate workers.  A thought just occurred to me.  What if I got rid of the rings and made the colors of the workers relevant.  A green worker is better at agriculture, while a blue worker is better at medicine.  Interesting simplification, but it has a large impact of the game.  Education goes out the window and what are the red workers?  There isn't a red ring.  The red minister is all about religion, so maybe there's a thematic area, but what does that translate to in the game?  Or maybe I exchange colors....  lots to think about.