Skip to Content
 

Pillars: of Civilization 2.0

8 replies [Last post]
Sat, 05/14/2016 - 02:58
Tbone
Tbone's picture
Offline
Joined: 02/18/2013
Logo Big.png

It has been awhile since I've been on here. Mainly because of school. Summer, though, brings plenty of time for noodling around.

The I have been working on is called Pillars of Civilization. The game will be a LCG style civilization builder. My goal is to publish the game on The Game Crafter. Below will give you an idea of the theme...

You are the founder of a great civilization. All of your ideas, morals, and philosophies are now what make up your vision for the future and will soon pass down through the generations. Take hold of your empire by making decisions on both the macro and micro level of development. Timing your expansion, preparing for battle, and gathering what you need for further progress. The four pillars of civilization: government, military, economy, and culture will be at your disposal to help you build, direct, trade, and conquer your way to dominance. Move through time as you use history as your guide to creating the best civilization. Only time will tell who can master the pillars and change the fate of the world’s most powerful nations.

Here are the rules

I would really appreciate some feedback.

Top
Tue, 05/17/2016 - 02:24
#1
Tbone
Tbone's picture
Offline
Joined: 02/18/2013
Furthering card design.

Added the current design for the cards for testing when I complete two decks. Cards will be color coded to their resource type. Red - Military, Blue - Government, Green - Economy, Yellow - Culture. Also card keywords will be moved from the bottom of each option to the top. For example "Donation" will be a keyword for cards that help other nations through trading (tentative). This is found to the right of the cost for the option.

Top
Tue, 05/24/2016 - 02:17
#2
Tbone
Tbone's picture
Offline
Joined: 02/18/2013
Territory Addition?

I have been thinking of ways to expand the game to where it involves a little bit of conquest and territory control...

For right now I am picturing 6 land cards for two players (adding two more land cards for every extra player) that are split in half into two territories. Each territory will have a special ability and a civ point number which will count toward your score at the end if you control it.

This will be interesting because instead of building cards in front of you you will build on these territories.

Also, what I am thinking is that the Civ Point cards will have different backs on them, either a Unit token, Structure token, or a Counter token. This will reduce production cost and a mass of components.

There will be an action that you can perform that will allow you to discard a card from you hand and produce an amount of units equal to the power number on the card. Also when claiming territory you will place a Structure token on your territory. And finally, there will be instances where abilities and cards will need to have counters.

These are just some ideas. I need to be careful because I can't get into the habit of just adding things in hopes that it will help the game. But, this does add some cool features that make it feel more like a Civilization builder.

Top
Tue, 05/24/2016 - 05:37
#3
ElKobold
ElKobold's picture
Offline
Joined: 04/10/2015
I would strongly recommend

I would strongly recommend rotating your cards 90 degrees.

This will allow you to make the text on the cards larger.

Right now it's barely readable.

Top
Wed, 05/25/2016 - 12:48
#4
Tbone
Tbone's picture
Offline
Joined: 02/18/2013
Feedback

I appreciate the feedback! I'll see what I can do.

Top
Wed, 05/25/2016 - 12:49
#5
Tbone
Tbone's picture
Offline
Joined: 02/18/2013
Different Mechanic

So after some thought, I realize now that there could be a lot of problems with the Territory addition mainly because it will extend the length of the game past what I want it to and that it will most likely be too fiddly. I have decided to streamline this endeavor and try a mechanic I built for another game that didn't turn out so well for a number of reasons; reasons that do not a apply to this model.

What I have come up with is cool way of creating distance from players without actually using a grid or actual distance/measurements. The main mechanic is that each player will have five territories in front of them that they will be able to build on and move their units to. The first territory closest to their deck with be their HQ. This is the territory furthest from the enemy.

Now, in order to create this artificial distance there are two positional modifiers: the attack modifier and defense modifier. These will determine how difficult it is for enemies to attack any given territory as well as how easy it is for you to defend the territory.

Your HQ (or the first territory) has a defense modifier of five and an attack modifier of one. As you move from territory to territory away from your HQ your defense modifier decreases and your attack modifier increases. So in territory two the defense modifier is four and the attack modifier is two.

You compare these modifiers with you're opponent's territories when initiating you or someone else declares a battle/conquest. They will then chose which one of their territories is attacking one of yours. For the attacking player you will compare the defense modifier of the enemies' territory to their chosen territories attack modifier. You will subtract the defense value from the attack value. If it is a positive number that is how much power must be discarded from their hand for each unit they attack with. If it is a negative number that is how much power must be discarded from the defenders hand for the defending player for each unit he defends with.

Top
Thu, 05/26/2016 - 22:11
#6
Tbone
Tbone's picture
Offline
Joined: 02/18/2013
Theme Direction: Is it needed?

I've have been playing around with the idea for the character/identity cards that will give your deck a bit of a shell/central strategy that you can build around. I think it would be cool if the game was set in an alternate universe where the history of civilizations are guided by beings called the "Founders". These Founders will be the players themselves and you will chose a Founder to builder your Vision (deck) upon. I'm not sure how well the current game could fit into this skin but it would definitely be interesting. They will use the Pillars to create the best civilization and come out victorious. You could even have different factions or guilds. A Founder who specializes in developing tyrannical environments with the Pillars of government and military could be a faction. Or an Founder who focuses on industry and commerce could mainly use the Pillars of economy and government.

I will keep developing this idea...

Top
Thu, 06/09/2016 - 02:56
#7
Tbone
Tbone's picture
Offline
Joined: 02/18/2013
Big Update

The main forum post has been redone and the game has gone through some heavy renovations. The rules have been created and my next step is to start creating cards for the prototype.

Thank you for the support!

Top
Sun, 07/17/2016 - 21:05
#8
Tbone
Tbone's picture
Offline
Joined: 02/18/2013
Continuing the Polishing

The game is progressing quite nicely, as every time I play I fix something that seems to make the game more enjoyable. This encourages me a lot. The mechanics are working together quite nicely and this may turn into my dream game - bringing in mechanics from other games that I have thought of.

Currently, the two main concerns are balancing the four main ways of gaining Civ points: Expansion, trade, discovery, and conquest, as well as testing the new end game mechanic.

Each of the four main ways of gaining Civ points are unique in their own way and have both strengths and weaknesses. These need to be tweaked so that each are equally usable.

Originally, the end game mechanic rested on the players gaining at least 10 Civ points and advancing to the 6th era. This really pressured the players in a negative way. First, if you you attained 10 Civ points all you would focus on was advancing - it wasn't a healthy atmosphere. Second, advancing was NECESSARY to win or at least control the end game. This also hurt the focus of the game.

A solution I am testing is taking the players' control of the end game away. Instead their decks will decide. In each players deck there will be 5 "End of the Age" cards scattered throughout the deck. When you draw or discard an "End of the Age" card, you will place it in the Age pile. Once the Age pile has a number of "End of the Age" cards equal to the amount of players times two plus one, the game will end and whoever has the most Civ points wins.

This is so much better as the players have much LESS control over the end of the game and players can stay in Eras that their deck works best in. Civ points are now the focus of victory and that is great. Plus it adds tons of variability to the length of the game, keeping players guessing and adapting to the changing times!

Super cool. Love developing this game.

Top
Syndicate content


forum | by Dr. Radut