Medieval Conquest game - Does this sound like fun?

Have you seen Warrior Knights?

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/22038/warrior-knights

If you could make a game with a similar feel but is more streamlined and takes less time, you would be accomplishing quite a feat.

It sounds nice on paper, but heres a few things to consider for when people will be playing the game:

-32 rolls for population each turn.
This is A LOT of mandatory rolls. Might be a way to maybe streamline this?
What about the roll for this being for your total population and that the player may choose how to divide the added population?
Maybe there could be different terrain cards for fiefs that could determine how much population could be added each turn?
Farmlands could allow for more to be added than a mountain terrain for example.

You could have several kinds of tiles, each could offer a different advantage. This would add some tactical decision making.
Some could offer more gold for example or make it more attractive to train troops of a certain type there.

-Population chits might take up a lot of space.
With 32 fiefs and them having villages, castles and soldiers on them there might not be much room for chits. Of course it can be reduced a bit by having chits worth more than one population too, but still its important to consider how much space there is on that tile. Though if the chits are placed on the village or castle itself, that way it might save space on the tile.

People speak about originality as though it were an objective term, but its objectivity is an illusion -- it does not exist in reality. Originality is an entirely subjective perception.

Deckbuilding was original to me the first time I played it, even though it had existed for years. You may say, "yeah, but that's because you were ignorant!" But so what? The bottom line is that the existence of games I never heard of had no bearing on my opinion, or my ability to enjoy the games I was playing.

Seeking out obscure games to see if you've come up with something original is time that could be spent refining your game. If you're deeply involved in the hobby, watching reviews all the time, etc., and it seems original to you, then odds are whatever games mirror what you've done are largely unknown, or old enough that no one will care. Basically, if a game is more than 10 years old, and/or doesn't appear on Tom's top 10's, it's out of sight and out of mind to the hobby overall.

Now, it sounds like you've got a classic war game on your hands here, and fans of that genre are somewhat segregated from the rest of the hobby. There are two types of gamers -- those who own tweezers, and those who don't. What's old hat to a war gamer will be original to many, many gamers, but you've got to be sure to target non-war gamers specifically.

If you can bring this chit-stack war game style to the masses in a way that seems less technical and more familiar than traditional war games, I think you've got something. War gaming, much like ballet, clearly has a powerful appeal because millions of people love it, but many people just don't see that appeal because of their bias going in (largely born of the dry, historical themes common to the genre, and the aforementioned cultural divide). Overcome this by making it as simple as possible, both mechanically and graphically, keeping the scale manageable, and the turns and pacing fast. Harvest that inherent appeal, while pruning off everything that repels the masses from the genre.

Theme is also a huge factor. Originality in theme is a non-issue; this is not subject for debate. Exhibit A: the continued success of generically-themed fantasy games. Medieval is a theme that sort of meanders about the divide between Euro and Ameritrash gamers, but I believe it leans more toward the Euro side. Personally, I'm a little skeptical when I see this theme. I start sniffing around for meeples and wooden cubes, and if I see them, you've lost me forever. If popularity is your goal, I would say pick a side and make sure your theme speaks clearly to the side you've chosen.

Mechanically, you've got to play it and see what's what. The problems will jump out right away. I see no roadblocks to this being fun, though.

Way t' be, and keep it up!
Brian Blackwell

A very small detail that might add some to the immersion is to give the army of each color a name or maybe nationality.
It would not affect gameplay, it would simply add flavour to it.

I really like how they did this with lords of waterdeep.
When you choose the yellow agents, you are not the yellow player. You command the knights of the shield. And what normally would just be the green player, is now the commander of the harper scouts.
Changes nothing in gameplay, but it just adds some style to it, which is shown on the tokens and on the player's sheet where they put their resources, agents and completed quests.

For example if the red player is england and blue player is france, you could show this on the player's sheet and their tokens. The different artwork would add to the experience.
The french chits could be blue with a fleur de lis symbol, and the english tokens could be red with three yellow lions.

It's all just theme though, but it can help make it stand out a little and theres many choices here.

Could go with a british isles war featuring England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland.
Or a war between four Italian city states.
Or four different princes of the holy roman empire.

Yes, and small world was ONE such game. Why are there not hundreds of such games, as there are hundreds of more traditional war games? Small world did very well. Stands to reason that more games in that vein might also do well.

(Personally I found small world so removed from the epic feeling of the more complex games as to become uninteresting)

In fact there have been a few good ones coming out more recently. Blood Rage/Chaos in the Old World might fit in that category. There may be room for at least one more, if it has great gameplay and can be sufficiently themed to be intriguing.

Of-course you don't have to create a new genre (though if you do manage this extremely difficult and unlikely feat, your game has considerably higher chances of success).

However, creating a clone of existing game is pointless if you plan to publish it eventually.

Unless it fixes some problems in existing games in the same niche or provides a new twist to the formula, you simply won't sell it.

Ok, I'm responding to your original post, not everything which came after it here so sorry if I am behind the times.

Would I play it?
I'm not sure. The whole thing depends heavily on the actual board and piece design.
How big is the board going to be? how big are these fiefs you talk about?
Am I going to have a hard time moving my vast armies from one territory to the next? I mean would I actually want to physically move them or would I say "ok, you have more men than me, you will" and take them off the board because it is too much of a hassle to move everybody when I know that they are not going to survive?

Ok, then concerning your combat system... I understand that you went for a deterministic type of combat because you would (probably) try to build up larger armies and it would be a lot simpler. I would not play a game which required me to roll dice individually for 60 archers shooting arrows at 60 men at arms who must roll to see if they can block each arrow with their shields. However, you must know that strategically there are certain decisions players will make when they know the outcome of every battle before it begins. Will there be any opportunities to take risks which may or may not pay off in your game?
then I would like to know about the actual difference between men at arms and archers?

How long will it take to finish a game? if I go to visit my brother at 13:00, will I be able to play against him an his wife and finish the game before I need to start heading home an 17:00?
Are we going to have to leave this giant 2mx2m board somewhere with the men in the exact place they have to be and pray that in the week before I can visit again the cats, dogs and small kids don't wreck it?

I have been working on a board game inspired by early Romance of the Three Kingdoms games, I didn't get very far and kind of lost a lot of the work. I might just be able to dig something up and throw it at you although don't hold your breath!

Please do not take my questions as criticism, your game does sound very interesting and I would like to know more about it before I tell you whether I'd play it or not.

The premise sounds pretty awesome to me. Execution is king, of course, but it sounds like you've at least got some footing.

A thought about the population mechanism: Instead of rolling, what if it was linked to some sort of player-based decision. Just off the top of my head, something like...a village built on a river would gain more population than one in the desert, or a village near a food source provides some kind of boost. If this were the case, a player could make meaningful decisions about which fiefs to go for and where to focus efforts and resources, instead of being totally at the whim of the die roll.

Just my two (or ten) cents. Idea sounds like it has potential, though.

After reading through this thread I'm keen to hear how it all went, and I'd love to know what changes you've made, not only from your original post (and subsequent replies) but post play-test.

My rather later two pennies would be:
The thing that most intrigues me about this game is governing your people AND the strategic warfare.

Personally, I don't see why your population would have to be physically represented on the board at all, does the actual population of a village matter - or should the total populace of a player's fiefdom matter.

I'd be tempted to throw back to a streamlined Sim City style population mechanic which concerns itself with simple things like taxes/safety/employment/populace happiness. The player would set the tax rate, the rate of pay and would have to capture/control certain tiles to ensure there was enough food and work to go around - this would calculate a growth rate, which you'd then apply.

I know I'm late joining, but if your still playing around with it all i figured it wouldn't hurt to share my thoughts.

On the note on originality:
I like worker placement games - I have several of them.
Resource management games I like too - again, i have a few of them.
Zombies! Zombies are great; I have a few zombie games, movies, books and computer games.
My point is: enjoy designing this game, playing it and play-testing it. Learn from it. Finish designing this game, that way you might be able to sell it, in which case you'll have done all the above AND sold a game, and if you don't sell it, you'll have only miss out on selling a game. Your experiences and learnings will be just as valuable for your next one