by ralpher
The first time I played it, I kept losing for doing aggressive actions. I ended up with zero honey on the board. I thought the game was really punishing to the losers and rewarding the winners (who get more nectar). I thought it was a design flaw. But then something happened. Once you lose all your honey, there is a catch-up mechanism--you don't lose any more honey when you do aggressive actions, so the expected pay off is better. I managed to catch up with aggressive actions. In the end I lost but the winner was decided by amount of honey, everyone had two hives controlled.You may want to give the game another shot.
The one thing that I think might have improved the design would be penalizing players when they choose the same aggressive action as opposed to a certain number playing any aggressive action. You have more of a sense of a Mexican show-down if you are staring down someone you know is planning to do the same action and you don't know whether they will be peaceful or aggressive and whether you should do the same.