I am well into the development of a game called Nih'ki : The Crystal Core War (3rd year of development... woohoo!), and have a design decision to make: whether I should add sand-timers to my game. I would love to hear the thoughts of the community here, but first, I'll give you some context.
Nih'ki is a tactical wargame, in roughly the same category as Battle Lore. Players have a force that consists of 1-2 Heroes, and a number of Troopers and possibly Vehicles as well (I capitalised those names because they are unit types in the game). The game is played in 6 rounds, and each round has the following phases:
1. Orders (all orders for this round are played, see below)
2. Fleeing (fleeing units are moved)
3. Execution (orders are actually played out, with each player doing 1 action at a time)
During that first phase, all players simultaneously place their Command Cards face down in from of them. There are 12 of these cards, which have the following actions associated with them:
4x Move Action
2x Shoot Action
2x Attack Action
2x Deploy Action
2x Discipline Action
In a small size game, the player can play 4 of these per round (i.e., he/she has 4 actions per round); or 5 in a medium game; and 6 in a large game. Either way, they have a limited number of actions, and a number of choices to make.
Now, during the third phase (Execution), players cannot change the cards they played during the first phase, nor can they change their order, so they must choose carefully in the first place. However, these actions are not tied to a specific unit, so once your turn comes up, you can use that action on whichever unit would most benefit from it.
Anyhow, we now arrive at my problem. Much like Chess, my combat mechanic has no luck factor. Zero. And I find that this works beautifully for this game specifically, because combat resolution is almost instantaneous (the defending player can choose to use up some Armour to reduce damage, but that is the only unknown). The game becomes more about how/when/where and with whom to attack, rather than waiting to see how much damage is actually caused.
But those of you who like dice will be quick to point out one very positive result of using them for combat resolution: they reduce analysis paralysis. This system does not (quite the opposite, really). Before I get into my main beef with this use of luck, let me see if we can agree on something. In this sort of situation, the more relevant luck is, the less likely analysis paralysis is to creep in, agreed? However, the more luck there is, the less control there is (because luck can be a more significant deciding factor in the game than your actions). In other words:
- Luck is inversely proportional to AP (analysis paralysis).
- Luck is inversely proportional to control.
This is my beef with dice. If you use a less random system such as rolling 2D6 (which favour a roll of 7), you have less luck, and therefore get more AP anyway. If you want to reduce AP further, you will have to take away more and more control from the player. And that's something I would rather not do.
So what I'm proposing instead, is to add the following mechanic. At any point during phase 1 of each round, a player can choose to flip over the sand timer (which would probably be 1 or 2 minutes). As soon as a player points out that time has run out, no more Command Cards can be played or moved around. If you only played 3 of them, then you only get 3 actions. Harsh? A little. Realistic? Yes, because a general won't always have time to think out his/her actions so thoroughly.
Is this idea any better than adding dice to the combat resolution? I believe so, because it is a limitation, but it is still entirely in the control of the players. A skillful player will quickly learn to devise a quick strategy, put down some cards, and focus on rearranging them rather than keeping all 12 cards in hand. That way, if time runs out you have SOMETHING to do, even if it is not the ideal course of action.
What do you guys think? Do you think that adding a timer is too heavy-handed? Do you have any other suggestions of how I could reduce AP?
Cheers!
That's terrific feedback, folks! Sometimes you just know your own game too well, and your perspective of it is too solidified to consider other approaches.
@Sedjtroll: you are spot on! However, the AP we get during phase 3 is almost always minimal compared to that in phase 1. In theory, you would think that it wouldn't be, but that tends to be the case because each turn tends to play out in one of two ways:
A) You can still do the action with the unit you intended to do it with (but maybe need to pick a new target). Or...
B) You need to pick a new unit to take that action, but there are only so many options since the action is already defined for you.
There are cases were these "minor" adjustments actually take a lot of forethought (especially in the final round, to see how you can maximise your Victory Points), but for the most part, I am pretty happy with it. I do have to say though, you probably have a point in the use of timers possibly adding extra AP to the execution phase. I'll have to keep an eye on that, so thank you for bringing my attention to it.
@Scifiantihero: good point in the different types of AP. The main problem I face with Nih'ki is a bit like what you get in Chess. It is pretty clear that trying to think a few moves ahead can help you do well in the game. So the tendency players have is to try to play out certain actions, and calculate whether the payoff is worth taking that action.
For instance, many times I have taken a certain offensive action (attacking or shooting) near the end of the game, only to find that I had to abandon any attempt to kill that opposing unit because it would take more actions than it was worth at the end of the game. Positioning for objective-grabbing is key in the last round or two, whereas killing a single unit tends to be of marginal value.
Thinking about this sort of scenario can be time consuming, sometimes.
To be fair though, the AP is not usually severe in this game, because players select their actions simultaneously (which reduces some of that wait time). Also, during the action execution phase, players only do one action at a time, so you never have to wait too long between your turns. My main concern is wanting to cut down on the occasional excessive wait because of AP, as well as keeping the game the length of the game down (only a concern if AP is causing the game to drag -- game length is a non-issue for me if the game flows well and players are having fun).
And you are right about wanting at least some flexibility in how you can execute your actions. Because of the limit in number of cards of a given type (e.g., there are only 2 Shoot cards, and only 2 Attack cards), you want to have multiple units that can carry out such actions. I quite like how that ties your force-selection with your tactics.
@Pastor_Mora: that's very insightful. Though I've never actively paid attention to this with Nih'ki, my gut feeling is that you are right, for the most part. There is often more AP in the last two rounds than in other rounds, but it also depends a bit on how closely contested the game is, and on whether there have been major surprises during a turn (such as, "Oh shoot! What the heck am I going to do with that Attack action now?!?").
As for the "fast-flipping" tactic, it will undoubtedly get used here if I include timers in the game. Although I see that in two ways. For one, if it is part of the desperate tactics of someone losing, then I don't mind it at all. If a player is being so soundly defeated, the least they can do is put a little pressure on the front-runner. However, keep in mind that Nih'ki is almost never about killing opposing units, so in most cases the carnage is limited. In particular, the last two rounds tend to feature more maneuvering than killing, an sometimes you enter into combat just to tie up a unit. So it is unlikely that a player would have far fewer units to think about (but point taken).
Secondly, I see it kind of like Scifiantihero: one general might be putting quick pressure on the other, to try to gain an advantage. I actually quite like that. And if the timer is one minute long, that should be plenty of time to get enough cards down, but your reaction might be more disorganized than if your opponent was kind enough to wait for you to plan your defence ;-)
This has been very helpful already! Thanks folks.