After my brother and I submitted Pirate's Life, we went our separate ways for board game design. As he is more an artist when it comes to design and I am a sculptor, I would like to make sure I'm not getting too far ahead of myself in creating a new game BY myself. And so..
ENVOY TO THE STARS!
Not too long into the future, the countries of Earth go into space and claim planets for their own. With the onset of (expensive) FTL technology, this so far hasn't caused any problems. As captain of the Hearthship (mothership) of Alexei II, your crew's mission is to find raw materials in a nearby empty solar system. As Alexei II is a new planet, its Hearthship is up to little more than exploration at the moment.
As the Alexei II Hearthship enters the solar system H-Bos it encounters the Hearthship of Meda, another recently terraformed planet. Who fired the first shot is unknown, but the lack of FTL technology on either vessel means no backup's arriving and no retreat is forthcoming. You are the envoys of your planets, and your message to the enemy is clear.
"Status report!"
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Envoy to the Stars! is a multiplayer board game. Up to 8 players play against each other in teams of their own choosing. 2v6, 1v3, 4v4, etc. Both teams start on a mothership with the vacuum of space between each other. Each player starts with a number of tokens determined by the matchup.
1 Player - 5 Tokens
2 Players - 3 Tokens
3 Players - 2 Tokens
4 Players - 2 Tokens
5, 6 Players - 1 Token
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Turns act on an Action Point Allowance System. Players have a total of 6 Action Points (AP) they can spend per turn. Actions players can perform include:
1.) Moving (roll 1d6) (anywhere)
2.) Harnessing (Gather resources) (designated areas)
3.) Build Tech (there's a tech tree) (build anywhere on the ship)
4.) Build Non-Tech (missiles, supplies, etc) (anywhere on the ship)
5.) Launching (players can fire 1d6 missiles, provided they have them built)
(Players also use Launching to move already launched rockets. Each rocket / weapon moves according to the individual weapon's stats)
6.) Repair (anywhere)
7.) Use Engines (to dodge) (designated areas)
8.) Shields (designated areas)
The catch is that the first time a player chooses one of the 8 actions, they spend 1 AP, but they spend one additional AP each time that turn they use the same action with the same token. Thus, a player that Harnesses once (1 AP), Harnesses again (1+1 = 2 AP), and Harnesses a third time (2+1 = 3 AP) using the same piece has used all their actions for their turn (1+2+3=6)
Since the game has the possibility of and encourages uneven teams, how much players on each team size Harness and the number of tokens they have to play with differ.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Envoy to the Stars! has a tech tree, broken into the 3 basic categories of Offense, Defense, and Science. Parts of each tree are necessary for further advancement, and players use the resources they Harness to create more of the Tech Tree. The more of the tree made, the more players have to work with.
With escalating offensive arrays and defensive batteries players will try to destroy their opponents tokens.. there is no way to make a token once it has died, and the opposing mothership is destroyed when all other players on the enemy mothership are destroyed.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
So, what do you think thus far? What problems can I expect, and would anybody be interested in seeing more of this idea?
There are three victory conditions. It's worth noting that A will tend to be a subset of B.
A.) DESTROY ALL OF YOUR OPPONENT'S TOKENS.
If your opponent's team has no tokens, they have no pieces to move, no way of Harnessing resources, no way to build, and no way to launch attacks. This can be accomplished through raids and weapons.
B.) DESTROY YOUR OPPONENTS' SHIP.
Weapons in this game have four primary stats:
LAUNCH (how far they move and how many can be moved by one AP of Launch)
OBSCURE (how resilient they are to being moved by your opponent, done through Engines and Shields)
PIERCE (damage done to enemy Shields if the weapon hits opponent's Shielding)
PAYLOAD (number of spaces Destroyed and number of surrounding areas Crippled if the weapon hits the opponent's ship)
The ship is divided, as it stands now, into 12 tiles further divided into 4x4 subsections. If five of the subsections are Destroyed, the entire tile is Obliterated. Everything on it is removed from the game, along with the tile itself. If 6 tiles are Obliterated, the opponent's Ship explodes.
C.) WAR IS JOINED
After each player on both teams has taken their turns, a round has passed. At the end of each round, both teams pool whatever money they wish to spend and pit it against one another. The team that spends more money in an auction-style bidding takes control of The Ansible, which starts as a neutral item neither team owns.
If a team controls The Ansible at the beginning of the round, that team receives one (1) War Counter. The first team to receive 10 War Counters wins the game automatically, regardless of the condition of their Ship, as reinforcements will have arrived.