How many cards?

I'd suggest crafting 6 armies, 4 leaders, 8 or so event cards, and 4 locations. This gives you several combinations of armies to playtest, along with a variety of your other variables to mix and mingle.

Shrug. It certainly sounds like it might be tactically complex. Or it might not be!

Just a quick note.. my main design strength is simplification, and I'll almost always suggest removing stuff from any design, and rarely adding :)

If you have 12 armies shuffled together, then there are 12 rangers, 12 spearmen, 24 swordsmen, etc. Then of all those 180 cards, I draw THREE? It sounds too random to me. I have very few options to choose from, and I could draw three similar Berserkers and then what do I do?

So again, without knowing what the game REALLY looks like, I think it sounds like either you have too many categories of combatant, or not enough cards in your hand. Or maybe both.

(oh, and I still don't know why there are 12 armies)

I suppose I'm just not getting it. I draw three armies (blindly?) and so six armies go unused, but I don't know what the difference is between Army A and Army B (and Army L). I guess some have attack-focused berserkers and some have special-attack-focused berserkers, etc.?

Do you have a (very preliminary) rule book written out? At the moment, you seem to be making assumptions that we understand the basics your game already, which I don't think we do unless there's another post somewhere here. A rule book would help tease out those assumptions, and it's an easy thing to get feedback on here.

You’ve lost me because it seems like you have quite a few unnecessary things in your game. I’m not sure what the purpose of locations is or why events need to be a thing. And where do your locations, events and armies go at the end of the day? To your hand? What is the size of your starting hand anyways? And how does combat work?

I sound like I’m being negative but I’m only saying something because I actually really like your game idea. I just think you need to put more thought into your rules above anything else and really make sure you clarify every single detail.

Still not sure why there are different armies. Maybe just to prevent bad randomness in what cards you get.

Oh, is "Rangers" an "army"? Typically an army would be composed of multiple types of units, so the term is a bit confusing (to the point that I didn't realize this, even looking at that image, until just now).

(just fyi, in that first diagram, the "armies in attack sequence" node isn't adding anything to that graph. That diagram is really just a list of the components of each army type.

Ah okay... So you have counters. Yeah that would greatly increase the way to "understand" which cards "benefit" from "Damage/Boost"! I'm very limited by "the cards themselves" ... Although your approach is pretty reasonable TBH! But in my case I need something "simple" ... because the cards are in a GRID and some cards affected cards in the same row or column.

Needless to say, that the abilities were COOL. But much too complicated for the "core" of my game. Now you get maybe a "2 Power" Modifier and a "1 Skill" Modifier for 2 Control Points. That's very reasonable and beneficial enough that it IMPACTS scoring rather prominently.

Note #1: I NEEDED a way to "localize" and focus the abilities to the card in question... NOT other cards in play. That was the crux of my problem! See if a card could be a "2 Power" modifier for ANOTHER card, that card would need a way to "track" the modifier... And like you said "counters" could be a GOOD way of doing this... I chose to go in a different direction (with the Decision Trees).

It also would be TOO MUCH "tracking". Like if a card is affected by MULTIPLE cards in play... You'd have "X Counters". Then if one of the cards affecting the other one is conquered, you would have "X-1 Counters".

A bit messy for my game...

Note #2: How it works in my game, is that when a card is played that has "Control Points" (1 or more), the player can allocated "X" (the amount of Control Points earned by the card in question) Modifiers.

So if (for example) my card is a "Bard" and has "2 CPs", I can choose to spend those 2 CPs on any cards in play (my own). So it can be "2 CPs" to 1 card, or 1 CP to 2 cards (those are the options). More CPs allow for more combinations and can be distributed among more cards (if desired).

Note #3: And since I will be using "UV Coating" you can DIRECTLY write on the cards themselves with the included Dry Erase Marker. Just so that people who don't want to buy sleeves can still PLAY with the cards without any "extras". Nothing prevents someone from using card sleeves on the cards but ... it's an option not a requirement.

Are there 93 or 25??? I'm a bit confused. Sorry my misunderstanding, I'm just following the thread and trying to figure out what the correct amount of "counters" you will have?!

What do you mean by this? The number next to "Plains" should be "*3" and the number next to "Forest" should be "*2". Is this correct?

Class Specialization

I took the "liberty" to come up with some alternatives to your classes. Please feel free to review and let me know what you think!

• Swordsmen can become "Militia" or "Berserkers"

• Spearmen can become "Archers" or "Rangers"

• Knights can become "Cavalry" or "Gryphon Riders"

I know I had to "invent" some classes ... Just an idea.

Feel free to ignore, if it doesn't "fit" your design. Just LIKED the idea of specialization from one class to another!