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Popularity Mechanic for Trading Game

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Midnight_Carnival
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Um, it's a fairly uninspired unoriginal worker placement game with tiles and resources. You know, choose location of your town well, place workers on various tiles and gain resources each turn. You can use these to build with but ultimately you want to hoard the resources so you can trade them.
There are a million board and computer games which work like this and the game itself is mainly something I want to develop so I can use it in lessons, not to sell or for my own enjoyment (although the latter is not precluded by the using it in lessons part).

The main thing I'm looking for is one of the most difficult things to do in a board game. I want to create a mechanic for a market.
On a computer it is very easy - well, assuming you can program - outside a computer I'm not sure how this could work.

Example of what I am talking about: Player A has a lot of lumber (just a generic resource - "settlers of what?! - no, I've never heard of that game...) player B has a lot of stone. Without any mechanic the two players could trade lumber for stone 1:1. Unfortunately B controls all 3 sites where stone is available and so the value of stone increases dramatically.
Then there is a situation where a "craze" develops for a certain resource, for the next however many turns that resource is worth 5x what it is normally worth. The more common an item is (the more players own it) and the more it is traded the less it is worth but the more it is used, the more it is worth. I also want to build in an "honour" or something mechanic whereby players get a higher rating by not being utter bastards and so their goods are worth more because it came from them.

So here are my ideas for how it would work

1) the boring way:
It is all calculated, there are thousands of Byzantine rules which makes this game into a highly mathematical affair. "calculate present value for lumber, add 4 as value for player's honour/reputation, multiply by 1.5 for market increment..." - If you're telling me that NO, that is the FUN way and the more calculations the more fun it is then you might be what is commonly termed a "nerd". The straight up number crunching wouldn't work with the craze thing, so I'd have to make it so the crazes happen at regular intervals and you could roll for the next craze resource or (yuk!) they could follow in sequence.
-I don't like this method for two reasons: 1, it is boring and restrictive and 2, it is my aim to use this game as a fun way to introduce business, marketing and accounting students to a lot of technical English in a more fun way. If I have to explain a complicated set of rules for 3 lessons before we can play the game it kind of defeats the purpose.

2) market cards:
So you'd draw cards which have an influence on the market, you can keep some and play some but you have to play one per turn. The cards may last a different number of turns depending on the individual cards and the players use these to virtually "build" the market in the middle of the game. The problem is that I'd need to make thousands of cards and the tcg mechanic might arise where is is all about getting control of "super cards" instead of playing what you have strategically - that is to say unless I carefully balance the card set which is more work. Anyway, the thing with the card system, which I like a lot, is that it gets too big and steals the focus from worker placement, territory control and resource monopolisation aspects of the game. It also requires a lot of players of roughly the same level of skill to make it interesting otherwise one will just manipulate the market to hell and win the game even though they have barely bothered with the other aspects of the game. I also want the principle of "outside forces" to feature somewhere in the market.

3) Dice, RANDOMIZZZZEEE!
I'm a deeply random person, I like random stuff. This more than satisfies my craving for "outside forces" but almost totally eliminates players' abilities to influence the market - I'm not going to point out what is wrong with this method since there are hordes of seething anti-random war-mongers who'd do this for me if I gave them the slightest hint that I was leaning this way. Seriously, even I would get tired of rolling for this and then rolling for the whatever else multiplier, rolling for consumption rates, rolling for the resource which is the object of the craze, rolling for how much it is worth, rolling for how long the craze lasts, rolling for how much player honour/reputation effects prices during the craze...

4) "choose your own (economic) adventure!"
This is the best compromise I can find between the various methods.
The cards would be replaced by a story with decisions and consequences, similarly, the number-crunching and fussy rules could exist, but would not always have to be implemented, sometimes the "safe" choice might have unexpected consequences. Dice could also feature, but the market needn't be built around totally random dice rolls.
The problem is of course writing the story! I mean I don't know how markets and economies work or I'd be making money instead of playing with ideas for millions of games I never get round to completing to the point where they can be published. I'm already writing short stories and novels about things perhaps slightly more interesting than the market...

Do you have any ideas, opinions on which method would work best, suggestions on new methods or things I could implement, suggestions for combinations of elements, etc?

Also, this is a general idea in development phase so if anyone comes up with a good idea they want to make money off, perhaps don't post it here. I´m totally ok with people splicing any good solutions which I choose to use or don't into their games.
Come on, let's see what we come up with (wish we could all meet in a dimly lit cafe over coffee to discuss this)

Tbone
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I might be totally off track

What if you had an honor track in front of you that kept track of how you were trading: good v.s. bad deal.

So for example everyone starts at 0 honor, but lets say if you sell 1 lumber for 4 ore you are profiting maybe too much off of having monopolized on lumber. So depending on how many you sold for a certain amount it may decrease your honor.

On top of this, have a deck that spits out a random market events like #2 after a turn. For example you have 3 honor (you made some decent deals) and you reveal a card that says "Generous Mines: All players with 3 honor or higher gain 2 ore." On the other hand you could have -2 honor and reveal "Aggressive Audit: All players with -2 honor or lower must discard two cards from their hand."

This would be really cool because it would encourage players to even get the bad end of the deal just to increase honor. Also, if this happens at the end of every persons turn it will seem like some of the downtime is hidden because people are always either afraid of the market events or excited because it effects all players.

Hopefully I understand, if not, that is totally fine haha! Good luck!

let-off studios
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Skip the Calculations

Riffing off your second option, and TBone's response above... I say ditch the math. That will only slow things down.

Simply have cards that check for something the moment they are drawn and revealed. Make sure the cards provide situations to benefit or penalize both monopolies/majorities or pluralities (socialities?).

Additionally, you can have cards that check the state of the game for other aspects: worker placement, variety of goods, number of workers placed, etc. This increases the utility and consequences related to the rest of the mechanics in your game.

This way, the only math would likely be players who count cards, knowing that a certain number may affect their situation if drawn, and whether or not they still remain in the deck. Additionally, you're not imposing any particular value system in the game (which I personally think almost-always limits the educational value of a given game), and you're letting the players learn and/or draw their own conclusions. The critical thinking can come during a period of reflection once the game is done.

That's my suggestion. Good luck! :)

Midnight_Carnival
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2?

So you think I should make it all cards with the "outside element" being the luck of the draw?

questccg
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Player Markers

let-off studios wrote:
...Simply have cards that check for something the moment they are drawn and revealed...

I was just thinking the cards could have "Player Markers". Like this (Assume Player #4 is playing):

  • You (yourself)
  • All Players (All)
  • Everyone but you (Everyone else)
  • Player #2 (One - Specific)
  • Player #1 and #3 (Two - Specific)
  • Player to your Left (Left - Next)
  • Player to your Right (Right - Prev)

So this way the cards affect different players when played.

Just an idea. Best of Luck with your game!

let-off studios
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Midnight_Carnival wrote:So

Midnight_Carnival wrote:
So you think I should make it all cards with the "outside element" being the luck of the draw?
Sure. There's plenty of randomness in that - at least in terms of the order that cards are drawn. Combined with the signifiers listed above from questccg, there's a high chance that players will all be paying attention to the card drawn next, and less of a chance that "too much math" is required to resolve the situation.

Drawing/playing cards is also a nice way to mark the end or beginning of a turn as well. It's a distinct physical action that everyone sees while playing a game.

Example turn to test out:
1. Players move up to 5 spaces on the board. You cannot end your turn on the same space you started it.
2. Execute the action available on the space where the player landed, if desired.
3. Draw a card, resolve its effect.
4. Play moves to next player.

If you need to make it more complex, save it for the next prototype. You'll be able to make a more-informed design choice after seeing the effects of this example turn.

Midnight_Carnival
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I do and don't understand

I understand what you say about the cards and see how the player marker idea could be good, but I do not see how other things you say apply to my game.

The game is about controlling territory and gathering resources from the territories you claim - these are used to upgrade stuff or traded. Quite unoriginally there is a worker placement dynamic where you put little people on the different territories. Moving five spaces in a turn does not make any sense within this context.

I appreciate your efforts to help and wish I had more brainzzzzz so I could figure out what you mean. anyway, thanks

questccg
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APs for workers

Midnight_Carnival wrote:
...Moving five spaces in a turn does not make any sense within this context...

I think the idea is that you have FIVE (5) "Action Points" (APs) for your workers. Which means you could probably move at MOST five (5) of them on your turn...

That's how I interpret it, I could be wrong.

Midnight_Carnival
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Thank you (both)

It is an interesting idea and related to an aspect of the game I hadn't thought about. I originally had in mind that you would place the workers and leave them there. If you didn't want them you'd slit the slaves' throats and rush in to gulp down their hot jetting blood then feed their carcasses to the rest of the faithless maggots who call you their master- Um, ahem! I mean you'd give the workers and generous pension plan and send them into retirement with the rest of their families in the surplus worker pile.
I didn't think of moving them around.

As I pictured the game, each territory would have a fixed number of "sockets" and you could put workers their to harvest one of the resources or you could upgrade the territory using cards from a deck (we can assume that if I go with the market cards idea it will be another deck) - these cards would move towards specialising the territory so it only produces one resource, but a lot of that resource. I don't think the cards would have "sockets" onto which you can place additional workers... maybe a few very special ones.

let-off studios
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I just don't read much.

questccg wrote:
That's how I interpret it, I could be wrong.
I didn't re-read your summary prior to posting my example. My apologies. It's easier for me to give a contextual example when sitting at the table with the designer and their prototype in front of me.

Despite that, I still think the example turn can be adapted to your design (with or without questccg's addition of action points). I also think you ought to put something on the table as soon as possible. It's tempting to bask in the perfection of what's floating around in your head, but if it stays there then no one else will ever have a chance to play it. :)

Midnight_Carnival
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Agreed!

Story of my life, I'm known for having whole worlds and their climates, animals, plants and people floating around in my head.

Anyway, it may surprise you to know that I've made a few games already, I just don't talk about those because as you have said, I am discussing them with the few who agree to suffer the pain and humiliation of playing them with me. I have a card game made with standard playing cards which might become very popular.
But that aside, I was going to brute force most of the game and wanted to discuss the way the market and how which commodities became more valuable over the course of the game worked here with you.

I was hoping to discuss various options and see what came up, but it seems everyone likes the market cards idea (I do see its merits too). Thank you for your feedback, I may not seem very grateful all the time but take my responses as being genuine gratitude, a fair amount of interest and then some outside force compelling me to post sarcastic comments.

Thanks again.

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