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"Burgher" (medieval economic/military game) design diary!

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linoleumblownaparte
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Joined: 02/24/2010
Market example

I've been tossing this idea around for a few years at least and now that I have some spare time this spring I'm going to finally finish it. :p This thread will be my design diary. Maybe by early summer I'll be ready for blind playtesting.

The core of the game is competition in seven trade goods: Wool, Timber, Stone, Grain, Cloth, Wine, and Silk.

Players battle for control of Cities in medieval Europe; each City produces one of the trade goods. The play of Merchant Cards, however, decides when each good pays out (in money, which also serves as victory points).

A Merchant Card looks like this:

At the top you can see this is a Cloth Merchant. Below, you can see payouts for two different goods.

Alongside the competition on the map, players take turns adding Merchants to the Market. At one point in the game, the Market might look like this:

When you have three of a kind (for example three Cloth Merchants) that good pays out.

*The player who controls the most Cloth Cities gets the highest Cloth payout available in the Market ($12 in this example).

*The player who controls the second-most Cloth Cities gets the second largest available payout ($10, here).

*The three Cloth Merchants are discarded from the Market. Cloth won't pay out again until three more Cloth Merchants are played.

Here's how the strategy factors in. Imagine it's your turn to play a card to the Market, as shown above, and you have these Merchant Cards in your hand:

If you have the largest stake in Cloth, now is the perfect time to "cash in" before someone else conquers those cities. You can play your Cloth card; Cloth pays out $12 to you and $10 to the player in second place. The Cloth Merchants are discarded from the Market.

Suppose someone else has a large stake in Wine. You may not be able to conquer their cities, but you can crash the price of Wine by playing your Timber card. Timber pays out ($6/$5) and then the Timber Merchants are removed from the Market - including the one that showed a Wine payout of $16! Now Wine will be worth only $12 to the lead player.

Finally, suppose you are starting to invest heavily in Wool. Playing your Stone Merchant is a decent choice. It shows a relatively high price for Wool, and it's likely to stick around for a while because it's only the first Stone Merchant in the Market.

The subtle and constantly evolving links between the cards creates a system of risk and reward that will hopefully be very interesting to play... as the Market values of goods rise and fall, it's all about being in the right place at the right time with the right holdings :D

Till next time, LinoleumB

sedjtroll
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Joined: 07/21/2008
Neat market mechanism!

I don't know the details of the game, but this is a really neat market mechanism. You can see and to an extent affect the length of time certain cards stay in the market, which informs your decisions as to what goods to obtain. I like it!

lclaxvp
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Joined: 08/02/2008
It's always nice to see a new

It's always nice to see a new face with a great idea. Welcome!

I really like the market mechanism. At first, though, I was a bit confused. When I first started reading I couldn't see how cloth payed out 12 dollars; I only saw silk below it which said 18. After a bit of stumbling, however, I realized how the cards worked: at the top of each card is the merchant, correct? And from my presumptions, the merchant is only there to create a three-of-a-kind, while the goods below are what affects the payout -- interesting.

Perhaps, to avoid confusion, the merchant cards should just have a color instead of a name. Theme-wise, I don't think a "wool merchant" would sell stone and grain. But, I'm reading from a outsiders perspective. Perhaps the merchant names are used somewhere else in the game.

sedjtroll
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I know what you mean

lclaxvp wrote:
It's always nice to see a new face with a great idea. Welcome!

I really like the market mechanism. At first, though, I was a bit confused. When I first started reading I couldn't see how cloth payed out 12 dollars; I only saw silk below it which said 18. After a bit of stumbling, however, I realized how the cards worked: at the top of each card is the merchant, correct? And from my presumptions, the merchant is only there to create a three-of-a-kind, while the goods below are what affects the payout -- interesting.

Perhaps, to avoid confusion, the merchant cards should just have a color instead of a name. Theme-wise, I don't think a "wool merchant" would sell stone and grain. But, I'm reading from a outsiders perspective. Perhaps the merchant names are used somewhere else in the game.


That had me a little confused at first too, but I think the intention is NOT that the merchant has the wares listed on his card (which is honestly a little odd, I agree), but rather they sell their good... so a Cloth merchant sells Cloth, and when 3 cloth merchants have come by then you realize the gain from cloth.

Yeah thematically it's weak. Maybe the cloth "merchant" should be something else which represents the manufacturing and valuation of Cloth, and when enough of [that] happens then people sell their cloth.

I think this mechanism could be utilized as well in a game where it's not the 1st place controller who gets paid, but rather the guy who's collected the most of that resource... and/or it could be used as a way to indicate the price of each unit of a resource, like maybe when that third card comes up, you choose the lowest value, or an average, and that's the unit price at which you can sell off your units if you like. So you could tank the value of a resource you don't have by playing a low value card for it to clear out opponents holdings at a low value - or something.

Pastor_Mora
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Confusing Cards

I agree with the above. Cards are misleading at first glance. But as mechanic is really well thought, it could be resolved by a nice design touch so as to preserve the basics.

I'm thinking about pricing in medieval ages and I can imagine that price came from 2 sources: tradition and consensus. The first, meaning that what was paid last season is reasonable to pay this one. This aspect is no good to you because you need price fluctuation. The second, instead, means that if every merchant in the market has the info that a certain good will be scarce this season (by low production, wars, high demand or something) that would lead all mechants to percieve a higher or lower price for a certain good as normal.

So, my suggestion is to work in the line of every merchant bringing RUMORS to the market. Following this, the merchant card should comply of:

Top Square:
Name or Merchant
(resource) Merchant
from (Some City)

Low Square (quote):
"I think for this prices:
(resource) for (cost)
(resource) for (cost)
you get a fair deal"

For Example:
GIORGIO BENETTON
CLOTH MERCHANT
FROM MILAN
"I think for this prices:
Wool for 6 gold
Wine for 14 gold
you get a fair deal"

Maybe I got it all wrong. Hope you figure it out. Anyway, you have the core of a game: a great mechanic!

Keep thinking!

linoleumblownaparte
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Joined: 02/24/2010
Card design

Thanks for the comments+encouragement everyone.

I am not a graphic design wiz so the cards could definitely use redesigning.

Would it be less confusing if they were called DEMAND cards? When three Cloth Demand cards are played, Cloth is scored, etc.

The intent of the mechanic is that the players, in addition to competing (area control) on the map, have the ability to influence the VALUE of each trade good as well. A player can increase the scoring value of Cloth by playing cards that show high Cloth payouts. At the same time his foes can try to crash the price of Cloth by completing other 3-of-a-kinds that remove those high cards. This is going on all at the same time for all 7 of the trade goods. It's this market competition that determines when each good is scored and how much it ends up being worth.

scifiantihero
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Joined: 07/08/2009
So . . .

How does fighting over cities work, like, mechanically?

Are there more instances on the cards of the goods that are worth less?

Neat economic system!

:)

noahd
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Joined: 02/26/2010
Really good mechanic.

I agree with Pastor_Mora. You have a great mechanic here. I also really like his suggestion that the merchants bring INFORMATION that influences the prices of the different resources. (I'm not sure that stone should be one of the resources. It just sounds strange to me, a traveling Stone Merchant. I'll have to look into what the major trading commodities were in the Middle Ages.)

I also like the idea that prices are influenced by past prices. What if there were some kind of track at the top of the board that has the past and current prices for all of the resources. when you play a merchant card you would set or adjust the price according to the card. You could still have 2 prices for the resources, a past price and a current price. And the top two players could still score, one of them getting "last year's" price.

Using Pastor_Mora's example the card's could be something like:

Top Square:
Name or Merchant
(resource) Merchant
from (Some City)

Low Square (quote): [present price]
"I hear that:
(resource) is selling for (cost) &
(resource) is selling for (cost)"
OR
"I thought that last year: [past price]
(resource) was selling for (cost) &
(resource) was selling for (cost)"

For Example:
GIORGIO BENETTON
CLOTH MERCHANT
FROM MILAN
"I hear that: [present price]
Wool is selling for 6 gold &
Wine is selling for 14 gold"
OR
"I thought that last year: [past price]
Wool was selling for 6 gold &
Wine was selling for 14 gold"

You can also have cards that change the price of a resource, instead of setting it. These cards would change the prices by a certain amount.

For Example:

GIORGIO BENETTON
CLOTH MERCHANT
FROM MILAN
"I hear that the harvest is very good this year:
This Year's Price for Wheat is worth +3"
OR
"Last year's price wasn't that high:
Last Year's Price for Wool is worth -2"

The cards could effect past and present prices, positively or negatively. They could also change the price of 1 or 2 goods.

I don't know if the market would still work with the two types of cards but its an idea.

Really good ideas. Good Luck with it.

linoleumblownaparte
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Joined: 02/24/2010
Hello everyone! This week

Hello everyone!

This week has yielded a lot of good work on the design... it was more about deciding what I wanted to leave OUT of the design, than what I wanted to put in.

Tomorrow I will post the second design diary. It will explain how combat/competition over Cities works. It incorporates role selection, powerful unique abilities, and card play. This portion of the game was inspired by two of my favorite games, Dune and LOTR:The Confrontation.

In the meantime, I'll answer some questions! This is combined from the threads on BGG and BGDF.

How do players get cards? There is a deck of Merchant Cards. Each player starts the game with a hand of five. At the beginning of each turn you draw one; then at the end of your turn you may choose to add one to the Market. Some of the unique powers let you mess around with this process, but that's the basics.

Is there a hand limit? No, you can hold as many cards as you like. But generally it's in your interest to choose one to play!

What happens when players tie for the number of cities? They both get the second-place prize, and the player(s) who had the second-most cities receive nothing.

Are there large differences in payout values? Naturally! Wool is worth the least, then Timber, Stone, etc with Silk being worth the most - up to five times as much.

Are there more instances on the cards of the goods that are worth less? Yes, there are more Wool cards than Silk cards - meaning Wool will be scored more times during the game. The goods that are worth less also have, on average, less price volatility which makes them safer investments.

Will this be print & play? No, but I will be soliciting blind playtest groups sometime in late April/early May. Let me know if your group is interested!

How does fighting over cities work? Tune in tomorrow! :p Same bat time, same bat channel.

I still hate the name! I'm open to suggestions :)

scifiantihero
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Joined: 07/08/2009
I . . .

. . . like the name!

Sounds very Euro-y.

:)

*edit, because if my little brother were here he would say 'burg her? I barely know 'er.'*

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