A little description of my idea for a board game. I do this for hobby, but perhaps if the idea has become "perfect", I might reconsider sharing more of this game. 1 game might take 2 to 6 hours, and that is what I like.
And since I am new, I don't know if this is the right place to post. Although, it is mostly mechanics of the game. And I have no idea where to start explaining my game. And there really is a lot to explain. So I decided to begin with the basics first.
Although, real time is out of the question. Many other features in this game can be derived from the well known RTS.
I have no pictures, except for those I made in paint for some prototyping. I do have a manual (that has to be looked over after recent changes). But this manual is very long, even for the basics. The missions manual would teach players with shorter examples. And thus they slowly build up the knowledge for the complete game.
In a nutshell.
A player can build up a base, gather resources, train units, attack enemies, make use of terrain for coverage or even choke points, use event cards. Strategic options are using units as a shield for other units, certain event cards to attack from a safe distance, snipe out units, choke off resources, etc.etc. Things you see in RTS.
- The Field
You have a hexagon field/grid. Like the following:
http://www.bgdf.com/sites/default/files/images/Mission%201-1.thumbnail.png
PS. I find placing pictures on this forum, rather odd. Is there a better way to do this? Like placing them where they belong?
A field can be randomly placed. But for 1 or 2 players, I am planning to have missions.
The hexagons have sides of 4 to 6 cm. I am still pending on the sizes.
However, the map is 1 big hexagon as you can see. Some missions can contain 2 or 3 of these big ones.
The manual will contain a map with the total "world".
- 1 small Hexagon
Will be containing several units. But limited depending on how strong they are. 1 Field can hold worth of 3600. Prices of the units might vary between 30 to 3600. And ownership can be of several players. It will also have to contain health/experience/upgrade counters on each of the units. On average, 1 hexagon can contain about 40 pieces and counters.
- The units
The pieces are simple cardboard, no 3D stuff. Think of soldiers, vehicles and tanks from games like Red Alert. The same goes for structures and defences like towers, turrets, set ups and mines.
For now I use the pictures from Red Alert for most of my units.
Rifle Infantry, Grenadier, Rocket Soldier, Artillery, Light Tank, MRLS, etc.
There will also be a statistics card on these units.
This contains for each unit: armour value, health, movement speed, agility (dodging enemy bullets), damage, damage multiplier, accuracy, weapon range.
Almost every statistic will be a strong and weak point at the same time.
Example of fights in general:
Each unit will have strong and weak points. If you are facing combat tanks, you could use rifle infantry and rocket soldiers. The rifle infantry will be taking the cannon fire, while the rocket soldiers provide you with the needed fire power.
However, the enemy might counter this by placing vehicles in front. They have sufficient armour against the rifle infantry. But the armour is also cheaper than the rocket fire power.
- Playing turns
The turns for players and AI are in random each round. This is decided by taking numbers from a bag.
Each player can play 6 actions per round. However, they can only play 1 action at a time and the next player is in turn.
Actions can be discarded.
An action can be used for moving OR attacking.
Once decided to move; all the other players decide if they pay an action (or more) for attacking this moving force. This in turn of the players. This way, players can run out of actions before others. But only for defensive purposes.
Once decided to attack; the target decides if he/she wants to defend. Defending costs an action too.
I will explain the combat in another post. And it will be made clear why mixing up squads will be so important.
After killing units, experience can be placed on the surviving ones. Depending on how much has been defeated. After all the turns, experience can be used for upgrades. And new units, structures can be placed too.
In the very end, each player can draw an Event card.
- Event Cards
After the first turn, the first event card comes into play. These kinda work like the cards in Magic. I have though up of 34 different kind so far:
1 Assault
2 Guerilla
3 Backdoor
...
32 Triple Trouble
33 Haste
34 Haste Permanent
Players can play them at any time, unless the card tells otherwise. And they can be used in combination too.
Here is the Unit Statistics Card that is used for the current game design:
http://www.bgdf.com/sites/default/files/images/Unit%20Statistics%20Card....
I left out 1 important feature of my game.
That is, any unit, really any unit can take the first hit.
Of course the melee weaponry cannot fire back if they are the second line or further away. Same goes for the 1 ranged units. They need to be in front or in the second line, to be able to fire.
Second important feature of my game.
The fire power of a tank is just as much against an infantry, then it is to another tank. Meaning, you need 3 shots on the infantry and 3 shots on the tank. However, the infantry unit is usual 6 times as cheap. Therefore you can have 6 infantry units or 1 tank. You need 6 times more shots for defeating the infantry.
I like the idea, the map, simple cardboard units, etc. I'm a bit scared by summing values of 40 units to see if the sum is less than some big number. Are you sure about that part?
It is 40 pieces. But not 40 units. But you might be right that it is to much for the players.
3 units: 1 unit could have 2 damage counters. Another has 1 experience. Yet the third one already has bought 3 upgrades out of this experience. That is 8 pieces. And a pile of 40 would be stable. Bigger piles usually mean lesser players, so 1 player could have 2 or 3 piles in 1 hexagon. To clearly see the cardboard. I have coloured the sides according to the type of pieces. Damage is red. Experience is green and upgrades are the other 4 colours (4 different upgrades). The unit themselves are just grey.
Players have a colour piece on top of the piles of units.
An extreme example:
The biggest pile of units would be only "wooden fences" 120 in total. For this I thought of having groups of units. Only those who have 18 or more. Can be placed in groups of 6 or 10. Especially the defence walls. However, if you want to place a big tank between these walls, there is a lot of changing needed on the board. Might as well keep the 120 as a joke. Since no one would attempt to destroy a pile of wood in the game. However, if you place them right. A choke point might get closed. And a normal tank is size 600. You need to destroy 20 wooden fences to be able to get through.
I have considered "fewer" units. Squads of "600" and other units of 600. I also thought of 900 or even 1200. Where you could have even groups of tanks. But the major point in my game is that cheap or durable units, protect the expensive glass type of units. But this proved to take away certain strategies. Like sniping out units for example. My friend suggested to have death counters. But that would make thinks more complicated. After all, only a few units really have damage counters on them after a fight. And massive upgrades is more fun to have on single units.
Did you try it a few times? Did anyone else try it?
I think I have played over 100 small (test)games by now.
Did over 1000 calculations, no simulations to be precise.
And 3 big games with a friend (same guy each time). We both had our own designed army. First time he won (there where no event cards yet). Second time I won (still without event cards). Third time was a draw (with event cards, with experience).
I had 1 epic fight with myself. It took my weekend entirely. There was a winner.
I learned the most from the 3 games with my friend. I also suspected a huge flaw in my game. But I could not put my finger on it yet. It was after the epic fight, when I decided to put "any" unit design in a classification of units.
Meat or Support or Meat&Support or Hit'nRun on base or Hit'nRun on units. It was obviously that 4 out of 16 designs where completely useless to a player. Meaning, they would never use them. It was then (2 months ago) that I had my third stop on the project. I needed to change the math on balancing.
no limit
We have plenty of games like that. And no limits reduces balance in a battle.
Please take note. Units are limited on a hexagon. But also in total on the map. A player can not have more then 6 Combat Tanks, nor can he have more then 6 in 1 hexagon. If he has 3 and 18 Rifle Infantry, he can also place an army like that somewhere else.
This forces players to make a choice where to place their units.
Also it sounds wrong to limit units by cost, as opposed to say total size.
I failed to mention. In future games, there could be units that have reduced size compared to their statistics. Or the opposite could happen. Since actions are expensive when you have over 6 hexagons filled. A hexagon with more units then the usual 3600 is way stronger in the long run.
In the first game, the costs equal the statistics and equal the unit sizes.
It is only to make the game easier to understand for players.
I understand if the Sniper feels "to big" in size. Namely 600 like most tanks. While a rocket soldier (obviously needs more space) is only 300.