Intergalactic War Game

Maybe we should ask ourself which if the X is problematic for board games.

eXplore: Cause issues if there is a random generation for the galaxy. Could give certain advantages to a player instead of another player.

eXpand: Seems to create a lag before the game actually start in the action. This is why most game's "actions" occurs in the last 2 turns when the game is over.

For example a game of eclipse should start on turn 7, because this is where the interesing stuff happens. At most the progresss could be accelerated by making those step in the setup phase and avoiding all the management of playing those phase.

eXtermination: This is generally the primary source of conflict, so it is hard to cut this. The biggest issue is player elimination which is not allowed in board games (or not recommented). Else other kinds of conflict needs to be introduced.

eXploit: This is basically resource management. It could be cut if you want to abstract the management of resources. But if you do so, you'll have to compensate with something else.

When making the game I'd pick one aspect of 4x and make I'd pick one of the elements of 4x and make it epic, then fill in the other elements around it. Those elements can then be made to support your focus.

Starting small and build out the rest as support.

Jon,

larienna has provided a great primer on what does and what may not work in a 4X game...quite honestly, one can subsume eXplore into eXpand or vice versa with limited issues.

larienna,

Thanks for the write-up...yes, eXplore and eXpand certainly invite their own brands of balance issues and play-time issues. That's one of the things we're facing now, as we're trying to remove those elements that prove non-essential, while maintaining the four 'Xs' in the game. Additionally, we have Industrial, Political, and Research Assets which come into play and have synergistic effects with each other.

jrc,

Making it epic is one of those ideas that truly sounds great...the hard part is ensuring that epic doesn't mean arduous for the players.

Cheers,
Joe

Somehow, I have a lot of trouble getting the 4th X working. I am talking about the eXploration.

The board and piece are visible. And the cards are secrets. There is no eXploration at all?

I have tried to get a fog of war going, by turning the pieces up side down. But players just didn't seem to like it.

Perhaps it is because in some fields I have 30 pieces and other fields only 2. Which tells the players any way what is going on over there.

Is there another way of having eXploration in any form for the game style that I just have described?

There is only 1 thing that I can think of and that is that resources at midpoints can be random. To low, not worth the risk for the players, high and you might want to fight for them.

X3M,

Larienna provided some things to think about. For the game, I'm developing the designer has a deck of Exploration cards which may reveal new worlds (sector), that the player may lay the tile adjacent to one of his currently owned sectors.