Help Me With a 4x Card-Based Game Design

Started by bayonetbrant, January 16, 2015, 08:24:14 PM

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Nefaro

What about a Noble's Hall or Keep for the Leadership one?

It's probably supposed to represent the lowest nobility, the ones mustering troops when called, right?  So a Hall (or one of the other names for them) would be ideal?

bayonetbrant

After some games this past weekend, I have a few ideas that I want to come back around to here.

I'm kicking around some different ideas to tweak the previous stuff above


Size   Bldg Capacity
Village       3
Outpost       3
Settlement    3
Town          4
Colony        4
City          5


Types of effects of cities (waaaay incomplete)

Descriptors      Bonus/Effect      Applies to
Walled             Defense         Village, Outpost, Settlement, Town, Colony, City
Market             Gold            Village, Outpost, Settlement, Town, Colony, City
Harbor             Goods           Village, Outpost, Settlement, Town, Colony, City
Garrison           Free Unit       Village, Outpost, Settlement, Town, City
Crossroads         Die Roll Mods   Village, Outpost
Guild              Orgs            Settlement, Town, City
Court              Leaders         Town, City


So a Walled Settlement has a building capacity of 3, and provides a bonus to defense
A Harbor Colony has a capacity of 4, and provides some form of goods bonus that could apply to trade


Right now there's going to be 4 different decks
-- "Urban deck" of towns, villages, etc  (need a better name than "urban" but maybe swap out the term "settlement" in the list above for something else and call it the "settlement" deck
          25-30 cards of 3-4 colors, where there will be some synergy / interaction between the colors
-- "Building deck" of the 2-headed cards that can be played for buildings or discarded for actions
          60-80 cards, where the bldgs will have a color that can interact with the Villages, Outposts, Settlements, Towns, Colonies, and Cities
-- "Population deck" of people & followers, including military units
          60-80 cards, where they have colors that can also interact
-- "Event deck" of things that can happen, like seasons, festivals, events, wars, pilgrimages, etc. 
          These will be global effects, and will determine the length of the game.  I'm thinking maybe 20-25 event cards, and you pick 15, and shuffle the "end game" card into the bottom 5, so no one knows exactly when the game is going to end, unless someone hits a victory condition before then

The idea behind starting at only 3-4 colors is that later expansions could add other colors.
The key to surviving this site is to not say something which ends up as someone's tag line - Steelgrave

"their citizens (all of them counted as such) glorified their mythology of 'rights'...and lost track of their duties. No nation, so constituted, can endure." Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers

bayonetbrant

#32
{summon wizard}
{resurrect thread}

{WHAZAM!}

OK, I've been brainstorming on this for a bit - amazing how Origins will do that to you - and I've got a few ideas I'm going to scribble out in the next 2-3 days or so.
Not everything that was described up-thread will come to pass, but let's see what I come up with.


Going to reconfigure the decks a bit, though -
  • Kingdom Deck - has the 'container' cards, like the towns and leaders that other cards are attached to.  Will also include some 'big' event/action cards (urban deck from above, plus the leaders/guilds from population deck)
  • Follower Deck - has the population cards, buildings, town modifiers, and some lower-level event cards (combines building/pop decks from above)
  • Event Deck - Global effects and game tracking; not much change from above

Going to work up each of the 'sub systems' and start posting them here while we try to figure out how to make them all work together

The key to surviving this site is to not say something which ends up as someone's tag line - Steelgrave

"their citizens (all of them counted as such) glorified their mythology of 'rights'...and lost track of their duties. No nation, so constituted, can endure." Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers

bayonetbrant

Combat subsystem:


Military leaders will have 3 different things
1.  Army size - how many military cards can they hold?
2.  Tactics - Which type of combat do they initiate when they are the attacker?  (see the rock/paper/scissors - arrows/shields/swords example from above)
3.  Special effect - not everyone has one, but if they do, it tells you what special effect they might have, such as any militia units get +1 to their die roll, or something


Military Units are rated on the following:
1.  Combat Strength - rated on swords/shields/arrows (rank all three, or only 1 and assume the others are null?)
2.  Combat limitations/effects - are there terrain or card color interactions that limit them?  Effects based on discarding?


So you'd play a leader first, around which you'd build your army

When you have a chance to build your army, you then add that unit card to the leader (tuck it in sideways - will mock up later)
(Any special rules about discarding when not in combat?  What about moving between armies?)

When it's time to fight, you commit your leader and all attached units to the fight.
Determine initiative - not sure how yet
Start the arrows/shields/swords cycle based on the commander w/ initiative, applying special effects as needed.
-----  some cards will have "one-shot" use in battle, so "discard this card to give yourself _____ in a battle"
At end of battle round, check for winner - dead units / leaders out of game
If no winner - how long does the round continue?


Killed cards are out of the game.
Deserted units / discard after battle units are back in discard
Units that successfully retreated are kept in play
The key to surviving this site is to not say something which ends up as someone's tag line - Steelgrave

"their citizens (all of them counted as such) glorified their mythology of 'rights'...and lost track of their duties. No nation, so constituted, can endure." Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers

bbmike

Is this because mirth keeps talking about Munchkin?  :P
"My life is spent in one long effort to escape from the commonplace of existence."
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"You know, just once I'd like to meet an alien menace that wasn't immune to bullets."
-Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart

"There's a horror movie called Alien? That's really offensive. No wonder everyone keeps invading you!"
-The Doctor

"Before Man goes to the stars he should learn how to live on Earth."
-Clifford D. Simak

bob48

'We few, we happy few, we band of brothers'

'Clip those corners'

Recombobulate the discombobulators!

BanzaiCat

This almost looks like a damned dirty Eurogame.

I don' see no wheat nowheres, so mebbe it okay...

bbmike

Sounding good to me so far. I volunteer for beta testing when it starts.
"My life is spent in one long effort to escape from the commonplace of existence."
-Sherlock Holmes

"You know, just once I'd like to meet an alien menace that wasn't immune to bullets."
-Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart

"There's a horror movie called Alien? That's really offensive. No wonder everyone keeps invading you!"
-The Doctor

"Before Man goes to the stars he should learn how to live on Earth."
-Clifford D. Simak

bayonetbrant

This started as an idea tied in with the combat system above, so this is going to ramble a bit, but here goes...


I always liked the idea of the militia units being a bit of an 'unknown' in their fighting prowess, and therefore when militia units are committed to a battle, they are (1) more fragile than others - might not be easier to kill, but perhaps easier to chase away, and (2) of variable combat strength

So my original idea was a die roll for each militia unit as it got committed to combat, where, for instance 1-4 would be it's combat strength, and on a 5 or 6 it would run from the field, or maybe a 5 it would attack once and then run, or some similar mechanic.
I like the mechanic, but the details need tweaking


But that got me to thinking, what about mercenaries?
There's an inherent trade-off with mercenaries - better fighters, but a chance you get screwed.
So the advantages? 
A few options: higher combat numbers, perhaps can fight wither either of 2 different 'symbols' from above, maybe fight w/o a leader card
Disadvantages?
I like the idea of a die roll to see if they bail on you.  Roll d6, and on a 1 they bail.
Then I got to thinking about "what if they double-cross you?" and on a 1-2 they bail, but on a 1 they join your opponent
Why don't I like that?
I don't like the idea of them joining the opponent when the opponent takes no action to make it happen.

Enter - The "intrigue" card / ability
I think there can be an espionage-style mechanic as a part of this that if you have an ability to play an 'intrigue' card or ability, then the mercenaries become "on a roll of 1, they desert" and the opponent's intrigue card is "if the mercenaries desert, you can use them for this one battle" or something like that

So there needs to be some form of intrigue mechanism, and that needs to be spread through a couple of different places - card abilities, perhaps a building or two (like a 'spies guild' or something) that give you a larger intrigue ability
Possible effects?
-- steal the mercenaries
-- see opponents' army/hand before/during a battle
-- see opponents' hands outside of a combat round
-- other ideas?


like I said, this is about 30 minutes old, so it's not really well-developed yet...
The key to surviving this site is to not say something which ends up as someone's tag line - Steelgrave

"their citizens (all of them counted as such) glorified their mythology of 'rights'...and lost track of their duties. No nation, so constituted, can endure." Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers

bayonetbrant

#39
OK, so here's the next part of today's brainstorming...  the actions you get to take each turn, and how many


I think each player's got an action card with 3-5 base actions on it, and based on what you build, you get a certain number of action tokens to spend executing your actions each turn.   Some actions you could do more than once, like "build", so you could commit 2 action tokens to build 2 things, but you couldn't pick 2 fights no matter how many action tokens you have b/c there's only one space to put on "battle"

So the base card that everyone gets is
+++++++++++
BUILD   O O
BATTLE  O
TRADE   O
MOVE    O O
+++++++++++


But then, based on how you develop your realm, you gain actions of certain types
Maybe you add an extra "Recruit" action
or you bump up Battle from 1 to 2 or even 3 depending on what leaders you have, what bldg's you build

I'm wondering if we don't need a mechanism for some sort of 'civil development' not unlike the 'cultural policies' in Civ V, or if that's getting too complicated w/ another unnecessary sub-system.

I do like the idea of a limited number of actions and types of actions available early, and having to add options as you expand.  it also gives you more options for abilities to be granted by the Kingdom Deck, and could even incorporate cards that offer you a specific action (or set of actions) just for a particular turn.
The key to surviving this site is to not say something which ends up as someone's tag line - Steelgrave

"their citizens (all of them counted as such) glorified their mythology of 'rights'...and lost track of their duties. No nation, so constituted, can endure." Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers

bayonetbrant

Final bit of wacky-idea-ness for today

Stealing a page from one of Ryan's Red Raven designs - The Ancient World - I'm wondering about the idea of a military unit being 'sacrificed' as a "cadre" unit where you remove it from your army, but the veterans from that unit build out another unit that then bumps up the base strength of that unit b/c it's not just a bunch of green troops anymore, but now a more seasoned unit b/c of veterans.

I like the concept - I liked it last summer in the other game - but I'm not sure how to implement it w/o it getting too clunky.

I'm willing to entertain ideas, though :)
The key to surviving this site is to not say something which ends up as someone's tag line - Steelgrave

"their citizens (all of them counted as such) glorified their mythology of 'rights'...and lost track of their duties. No nation, so constituted, can endure." Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers

BanzaiCat

You've been very busy at work today, I see.

Maybe add an 'experience' card that goes under but just peeks out from under the military unit card. As it gains experience/has successes it can increase its level. Say you want to disband the unit but want to form two new ones...figure some algorithm to split them apart. E.g. if you have a 4-level military unit you disband, you can turn it into two 2-level units, or one 3-level and one 1-level, or something like that. Otherwise when you create military units, they have to start at 0-level, unless you spend resources/time to train them, and then you can only get them up to 1-level at most.

Maybe have it so that a unit does not gain experience unless it fights (and wins) against an enemy unit that's at least equal to or higher than their experience level. The more experienced the enemy unit that they beat, the more experienced the conquering unit becomes?

bayonetbrant

I just wonder if that's not getting to fidgety for something that's not *just* a combat game.  If we get that granular with the military, how do we put a similar level of granularity into the economic model, for instance?

That was something that always bugged me about the Civ games - there's a ton of military options in those games, but not near enough economic or political options that you can balance it all out.
The key to surviving this site is to not say something which ends up as someone's tag line - Steelgrave

"their citizens (all of them counted as such) glorified their mythology of 'rights'...and lost track of their duties. No nation, so constituted, can endure." Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers

BanzaiCat

It is a rabbit hole, to be sure.

Maybe just have two types - regular and veteran. Regulars are much weaker than veterans; have a veteran unit be able to split into two regular units. But you can't merge two regular units into a veteran one.

JasonPratt

Have you looked at the Catan card game, Brant, for how that works the non-military side of the 4x angles? (Map building, city development, econ development.)
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