Hello everybody!
I'm a new starting amateur game designer. My favorite games are 4X games (and my least favorite games are deck builders) So it's no strange thing that I like to design my own 4X games. Although mostly they turn out to be not more then another worker-placement or resource-management game. That's why I joined this forum, I can use all the help I can get. So now on to my current project: The Rise of the Guilds (work in progress name)
In the Rise of the Guilds, players take the role of one of the many different Guilds in a city. They try to expend their influence throughout the city and become the ruling faction. But they can't do this alone. Paying the villagers of the city to build their buildings or give them soldiers might be to expensive sometimes, but if one of the players is the Builders-guild or the City-watch they can pay them a reduced amount to get what they want. But the players have to be aware, because not everybody in the city is happy with the Guilds... So what will you do, and who will you ally with, when you try to get your Guild to the top?
The most basic idea of the game is to create a 4X game where the players try to be cooperative and fight each other at the same time. Now I'm just looking for some other cooperative 4x games with a last-man-standing-wins element in it. I've played all kind of games from Diplomacy to Twilight Imperium. But I'm looking for more of these kind of games. And it would be interesting to hear your opinion about it.
I'm not 100% looking for a 4x game with a player element element in it. But more of a 4x game where people need to cooperate but with only one winner eventually. Most 4x games have not enough diplomacy or reasons to work together. In Rise of the Guilds, people have to need eachothers help, so eliminating a player punishes the other players.
The idea of Rise of the Guilds began a couple of years ago when I was playing Catan with friends. I was thinking if it was possible to give every player a monopoly of a resource. One player has all the wood, one player all the wool etc. So that way people NEED to trade to play. Then I started thinking if it was possible to let players also have a monopoly in buildings. So if you wanted to build a city, you could pay 2grain and 3iron to the bank. Or give another player 1 grain and 1 iron to get your city. Of course, because of other rules in Catan this would be almost impossible.
That's why I decided to make my own game. My first game was highly Catan inspired obviously. The Kingdom of Ellian. Every player was a faction in the kingdom. The Arcane University, Steamwork Inc, The Holy Church, The Deamon Cult, etc etc. They fight each other both on the battlefield and with politics. But they also work together to survive. The university can sell elementals or spells. Steamwork Inc sells airships and builds railroads for faster transport. The Church can protect your city and soldiers. Or you might kill the current King and blame it on the Cult (which helps them become more notorious).
One added thing to this game was that every faction had his arch-enemy (magic-tech, holy-demon) and eliminating your arch-enemy was one of the victory conditions.
But I put that game on hold, it became a little bit to big. So I'm almost starting from scratch with Rise of the Guilds. So to say it easy, my design goal is to combine both competitive and cooperative gameplay. The best I can think of atm is Shadows over Camelot, but with every player having their own hidden agenda.