Board Game Designers Forum

A co-worker of mine often talks about the "Cups of War." I don't know what the heck he means, but it did spark the following game idea.

Cups of War
Players try to eliminate other players' forces using a combination of dexterity and military strategy. Games are meant to be quick, consisting of at most three turns, with the dexterity components rewarding speed of play. Each turn consists of three phases: Logistics (players readying their available units), Battle (players attacking each other), and Recovery (players removing destroyed units).

Fundamental Mechanics
1) Dexterity -- each player has a large cup filled with set of tiles representing military units. Each round, players simultaneously shake their units onto the battlefield, then quickly stack them to attack other units. The round ends when any player has stacked all his units and shouts, "Done!" If a player shouts "done" with unstacked units, Battle continues but he is no longer allowed to move his pieces.

2) Special rules -- before each game, players draw three cards from a "command deck." Each command card defines conditions under which it can be played and a power-shifting rule it invokes when played.

3) Unit strength -- each player starts with the same number of units: 5 of strength '1', 4 of strength '2', 3 of strength '3', 2 of strength '4', and one of strength '5'. In addition, one unit in each strength category is a "command unit," with a star on one side. All non-command units display unit strengths on both sides. Command units landing star side up have a unit strength of 0 for the current turn. If they land number side up, they have the strength shown by the number. In addition to showing a number, each unit shows a "unit type" -- one of Infantry, Armor, or Air Support. These come into play when activating Command cards.

4) Stacking rules -- players attack and defend by stacking units on top of each other. No stack may exceed 3 units. The bottom-most unit defines the "defending team," all other units are considered "attackers."

5) Unit interactions -- Players resolve attacks by evaluating units strengths during the Recovery phase. If the defender's total unit strength exceeds the total unit strength of all attackers, the defender keeps his tile in play and attackers discard their units. If attackers' total strength exceeds the defender's, the defender must discard his unit. If the attackers' strength equals the defender's strength, players must discard all units. In the case where a stack consists of three players' units, first resolve the stack normally, then, if the player owning the second unit (in the middle of the stack, vertically) so chooses, re-resolve the stack using only the remaining units (after the first defender has discarded his tile, the second unit will now be the bottom-most, and therefore, the new defender).

6) Activating Command cards -- players activate Command cards by removing units from the battlefield and stacking them on the appropriate card. Players can execute at most one Command per turn, and cannot stack units on more than one card during the turn. Command cards require various combinations of Command units and unit types to activate. Once players have met the stacking requirements for a card, they can play the card at any time during the appropriate game phase ( Logistics, Battle, or Recovery). Discard the card after playing it and return the units used to activate the card to the surviving battle force.

Units placed on Command cards cannot attack or be attacked via stacking. If a player tries to activate a Command card but fails to accumulate the required units, he loses those units at the end of the Recovery phase, but doesn't lose the Command card.

Example 1: Player 'A' has an 'Air Strike' command card that requires one Command unit (star-side up) and two Air Support units to activate. Assuming player 'A' can places these units on the card during his turn, he can execute the command during the Battle phase. Air Strike allows him to place the card anywhere on the battlefield and remove all enemy Armor and Infantry cards it touches.

Example 2: Player 'A' tries to power up his 'Air Strike' card. He manages to stack a Command unit and one Air Support unit on it when player 'B' calls "Done!", signifying that he has successfully stacked all his units. Since 'A' did not accumulate the required units to activate the Command, he must discard the Command and Air Support units on the card at the start of the next Logistics phase.

Example 3: Player 'A' tries to power up his 'Air Strike' card once again. This time, he succeeds and, during the battle phase, shouts "Command!" indicating he has a Command ready to execute. Play stops while he applies his Air Strike. He first places the units used to activate the card back into his Battle Cup for use next turn, then applies the effects of the Air Strike, after which he discards the Command card.

7) Game length and scoring -- each game lasts at most 3 turns. If, prior to 3 turns, only one player has units left, that player wins by default. If more than one player remains after the third turn, players determine the ultimate winner by a final "shake off," in which they place remaining units in their cups and shake them onto the board, totaling the unit strength shown (Command units landing star-side up still count as '0' strength). The player with the highest total wins, and ties are allowed.