Board Game Designers Forum

Siege War card game

Overview:

Two city states that occupy the same coastal plain are at war! Surrounded by mountains and the sea, both burgeoning nations are feeling pressure from each other and in this fight, only one can survive! This is a two player card game with the goal of obtaining most victory points through optimum use of fielded and defending forces. Players face off with each other by fielding forces (cards) either in their town, field, or outside their opponent’s walls.

Cards:

There is one deck of cards. Cards are either: fighting units, objects, terrain modifiers, special units (non-fighting), or actions.

Fighting units: basic fielded forces… infantry, cavalry, range, siege, etc. Units are limited by the amount of time they are able to stay in the field until they start to lose effectiveness (degrade). Unit cards played start out in a player’s city (except for units played at game start up). Unit strengths, abilities, and movement are displayed on the card.

Objects: items that can be attached to units for upgrade. Objects are descriptive on the card. Not every unit can use a given object. Some objects become permanently attached to a unit, others can be stored/swapped out in an armory. Some objects can be dropped or captured.

Terrain modifiers: change the nature of the battlefield… trenches, stakes, bunkers/forts/ towers. These are permanent in nature (ie. once a trench is dug, it stays there until it’s filled in). Players can abandon occupied terrain modifications and reoccupy them throughout the game, no matter which player built them. Each type of terrain feature takes a different number of turns to complete. Once started, a project can be abandoned prior to completion. Any player can take over an abandoned project or opt to destroy the project prior to completion. It takes a fielded unit to build a terrain modifier (not all units can build all terrain modifiers).

Special Units: units that convey abilities to other units or allow for action cards to be played… king*, priest, lord/royalty, spy, sergeant, banner man, etc. These units may, depending on the card’s description, integrate with other units for enhancements or be in proximity to other units for enhancements.
*note: each player has their own king card that must be placed during starting layout

Actions: allow a player to accomplish tasks outside of normal game play.

Starting layout:

Play starts by shuffling the deck and dealing out a set number of cards to both players. Each player then has the opportunity to assess his/her cards and decide on a course of action. The players bid on who goes first by naming the highest/strongest unit card that each player chooses to field outside of his/her city. The higher card is fielded first, with each player then taking turns playing out the remainder of the cards in their hand. Cards can only be played in areas under control (each player owns a third of the play area at the start of the game with the third in-between as buffer). Once the starting layout is established, players refill their hands to a set number of cards.

Play Area:

The play area consists of the area (table space) between both players. This space is divided into six? rows with three? columns:

player 1 Base 1 player 1
player 1 player 1 player 1
neutral neutral neutral
neutral neutral neutral
player 2 player 2 player 2
player 2 Base 2 player 2

Players can move the frontlines accordingly with their movement of troops. The play area represents the plains separating the two city states.

Game Play:

Game play starts with a card draw.

The player can then play any cards remaining in their hand (max amount of cards player can carry over to next turn is xx?). Example: the player can place new units from their hand into their city barracks, outfit/refit units in their city and/or reequip their armory, build/start build terrain features, and/or play action cards.

The player then has a movement phase that can end in a combat phase. Movement is based on the type of unit, terrain modifiers, other modifiers, and time in the field.

Combat resolution?

End turn by placing token (penny) on all units not garrisoned to account for time in the field. Place token on any projects worked on during turn (if token count is achieved, terrain modification is complete and fully functional… remove token(s)). Remove token(s) from units garrisoned entire turn to account for recoup time.

Turn goes to next player.

Objectives:

Players are trying to achieve victory over opponent as determined by victory point (VP) progression. In this game VPs are not necessarily tallied as a progression of events (i.e. players don’t run through a list of objectives that can be tallied up over time through a historical progression). VPs are tallied/calculated at the end of each turn as a representation of the current state of conflict.

VP conditions and awarding:

Siege: trapping opponent in city.
Forward basing: controlling outside towers or structures
Fielded units: strongest type(s), most, etc
Leadership: having king outside town, having most leadership (priests, lords, banner man, etc) outside of walls… this represents overall unit morale.
Morale structures: chapel/temple, statues, etc

Once a set VP differential between players is reached as well as crossing threshold (i.e. a player has over 10 VPs as well as a 5 VP lead), the game progresses one more turn before final VP tally.