Game #23 Chariots of War by DarkDream

I've been interested in chariot racing for sometime now. I have collected every single commercial chariot racing game out there including a 1960's Ben-Hur game.

I have also studied intensively chariot racing in ancient Rome and have many books and articles printed from the internet.

When designing the game I wanted to keep it simple. I liked the idea from "Ben Hrvt" (Cheapass Games) of having an auction which I have done. I also love the betting element in games so I included that as well (Romans were huge gamblers and huge amount of bets did go on the races). Avalon Hill's "Circus Maximus" was a monstor of complexity, and sadly "Circus Minimus" did no better and in my opinion was a mess. I thought it was funny that "Circus Minimus" advertised itself as a "fast-paced" chariot racing game, when it took us around an hour to complete one lap.

I insisted that each player or faction had two chariots. I would have liked more, but I thought the game would be bogged down too much. I wanted multiple chariots so as to add a "story arc" (to use Jonathan Degann's idea) where there would be definite transitions in the game where at first chariots are jockeying for position and then the team mate behind tries to block or hinder other chariots and so on.

The money in the game functions as a type of multiple VPs where money can be gained not just from winning the races, but by betting and being good at selling units to other charioteers.

The one thing I learned about the trading card games is there what makes the trading card games so popular is that there is a meta game aspect of it which involves creating your super deck which may take many hours before you even are ready to play. The aspect of auctioning for charioteers and choosing what horse teams go with what chariots and so on is a small meta game aspect that I think will be neat for players.

The energy chip mechanic is I think fairly novel in the way it is implemented. The neat thing is if you constantly whip your horse to get ahead you will soon deplete you energy and other more prudent players will eventually pass you. The handling of energy and knowing when to "break" (use all your reserves for the final sprint) is of crucial importance and adds realism at the same time creating agonizing descisions.

Due to time constraints I have left out a couple of things. For one thing I have left out the possibility of a charioteer flipping out of his chariot should a crash or severe ram occur. I will add this. Interestingly enough, in ancient Rome a chariot could win without a driver. According to the records, a horse team won without a driver that got thrown from the chariot at the start! I will make a loose team able to win as long as the chariot is intact (this will help mitigate early elimination).

Second thing I have left out is a player whipping another player's horses.
This tactic would be used to force a player to gallop (in the corner for instance) causing a skid or simply using up energy when the opposing player did not want to do so.

I would write more, but I've got a final exam today.

--DarkDream

Ensor,

Thanks for your response. To reply,

I at first thought about having players add cards to the auction, and if a card was sold they would get money from it instead of the bank. I stopped doing this idea as I could not come up with a easy way to do this. Any suggestions appreciated!

I instead added a selling and trading phase to the game to acheive the same goal of players getting cash for their units while adding to the interaction between the players.

There will be a total of three selling and trading phases in the game. A player must pay upfront at the beginning of an auction money to keep a charioteer or horse team. In the auction, the player may get something better. As such, he would like to get rid of his less desirable unit and either trade it for something (maybe he wants a good horse team or charioteer) or simply sell it for a bit of extra cash. Players may even be willing to trade two chariots for one charioteer, I don't know.

The phase is really there for a wheeling and dealing phase where players try to get what they really want from each other.

If I had more time to day, I would be happy to do a quick reference chart. To give a super duper summary here it is (for the race):

There is two phases in a players turn:

1) Movement Change Phase. If player's current speed is above his or her tiring speed (on horse team card) player must move black pawn to tiring speed number amount. A player during this phase can:
a) Whip -- Costs 4 energy and can roll blue die and increase speed by amount on die
b) Rein -- Costs 2 energy and can roll yellow die and increase speed by amount on die
c) Maintain speed -- Costs 1 energy and speed is not altered
d) Brake -- Costs no energy and can decrease speed up to three
e) Nothing -- Costs no energy and speed goes down by 1

2) Movement Phase -- A player must move the exact amount of squares equaling the player's speed at the beginning of the turn. A player moving can
a) Move forward for one movement
b) Change lanes by moving one square directly to the side at the cost of 1 movement provided player has already moved one square in current lane
c) Swerve -- Costs 1 movement and decreases speed by 1. Can move to square directly to the side *without* having to move one square in current lane. If swerve into another player then it is a ram.

If ram another player draw a ram card. If crash in to a wall, draw a crash card. If current speed is over the number printed on a square draw a skid card.

That's really it.

To help you get a clearer picture, I would look at the pdf files of all the documents (especially the unit cards and mats).

In real ancient roman racing, a chariot that crashed would be removed immediately. However, there could still be a debris counter left that could do some damage. Nice suggestion, I'll definitely keep it in mind. Also for crashes that don't completly decimate the chariot a debris counter could be placed as well.

Thanks for your comments.

--DarkDream

Zaiga,

Thanks for your candid response. To quote:

I think I agree with you. With the current version of the rules the game does not really know whether it wants to be a simulation or not. For right now, for the fact that *a lot* is going on, I am going to try to stream line it as much as I can to the bare essentials. My ultimate test is to play it with my girlfriend and her kids, and get them to like it. I know for a fact if it is too much, they won't play it. Look for a version 2 of the rules coming out soon.

At first I tried to add the ability of factions selling their units to the auction. I ran in to difficulties of the exact mechanic of doing this -- this was the real reason I came up with the trading and selling thing. As there is a lot going on, I will try to integrate it in.

Wow! Let me see if I understand your idea correctly. To begin with, for example, you draw 4 face up cards to form the basis of the auction. Next each player decides whether to keep his units or sell them to the auction (at the cost on the card). Note: right now when you buy a card you must pay the cost to keep the card before entering the auction. Continuing, if a player has too many cards at the end of an auction (right now the limit is 4 charioteers, 4 horse teams and 2 chariots) he or she must discard them.
I understand your point about players having to plan ahead for what cards they want, but I fail to understand your last point, "However, selling an item before the auction also means you now must acquire that item in the auction, or be left with nothing at all!" Why would you have to get something you sold? The only situation where I can see this is if the player fails to get what he or she wants, and there is nothing left except the card he or she sold.

When I was thinking of being able to sell cards to the auction, I thought of players paying for their cards (re-hiring) and then placing the cards in the auction by adding them face up (to distinguish between card not placed in by players) to the face down auction deck that would be shuffled. If a face up card is picked then the money would go to the faction that sold the card to the auction if it was bought. If a face down card, then the money would go to the bank. The problem I thought about is players forgetting what their unit cards were. This lead me to the idea of all players autioning off their cards in order *prior* to the face down cards being auctioned, but this seemed sort of weak.

I really like the idea behind what you are saying Zaiga. An open auction like you are talking about is very interesting. I thought about an open auction before but disregarded it. You are sparking some thoughts.

Interesting thoughts. My intention was for players to bet on who they one, and try to make a profit on it. The rule about all other bets not exceeding the amount bet on your own faction, was to prohibit a player from betting on a faction with really low odds of winning and purposely loosing -- by at least forcing the player to bet as much on himself there would be a mitigated amount won.

Let's run through a couple of examples:

Red Faction has a total popularity of 5.
White Faction has a total popularity of 7.
Blue Faction has a total popularity of 2.
Green Faction has a total popularity of 5.

This makes a total popularity of 19. Let's say I'm the White Faction and I am the clear favorite to win. For the sake of argument, I bet 300 on myself and 100 on every other faction. Zaiga, your question was, why would I ever bet more than 100 on any other faction? Let's see.

If my faction wins (White) I get 600 plus my 300 for 900 minus 300 for the other factions bet on for a total of 600. If red or white wins then I get 300 back plus 100 wagered for 400 minus 300 on the other factions for a total of 100. If the blue faction wins then I get 900 plus 100 for 1000 minus 300 on the other factions for a total of 700. Obviously, if I really feel that the blue faction has an actually decent chance of winning I may put 200 on it as the risk of 200 well outweighs the payoff.

Now it is true the White faction may throw the race and try to come second so as to claim the betting amount (maybe put 300 on the Blue faction and 300 on himself) which would net him 2700 (minus amount wagered on self) for the bet and 2000 for second for 4,700. This is opposed to him coming in first getting 3000, and 600 (minus 300 on Blue) for betting to get 3,600.

However, other players may come up with a similar strategy and want to net second place so it is not a forgone conclusion of getting second place. Also the Blue faction himself may put, for instance 300 on himself (300 also on White) and get 2700 payoff from bets and 3,000 for winning for a total of 5,700.

The point is, letting another faction win, may not put you in the lead.

I will definitely stream line it to get rid of the loose teams, trampling and charioteers being dragged. I agree it may detract from the flow.

I am not sure what you are refering to as "special cards"? The ram, crash and skid cards are to indicate what happens when a special situation occurs. I think this is pretty important to have.

The horse team and charioteer cards is to add a meta game element (see prior post) where players can invest in VP (cash) to try to gain more VP (cash). The cards will appeal to different players and may appeal to their strategy (let's ram everything that moves, opposed to lets get a quick start). I think this part is pretty neat as it lets players experiment with things and makes the game different every time.

I thought if you run out of energy, your speed is "1" and you only move one square. The use of the energy chips is the fundamental part of the game. The whole point is that the faster you go the more energy gets used up opposed to going at slower speeds. This adds an intuitive dimension to the game. If I go really fast at first, I will deplete my gas tank and get beat or I can go at a medium speed and leave some reserves for the last stretch.

I may add the possiblity of gaining energy because people who run out of energy will probably get really frustrated. Maybe the denominations of the energy chips will be 8,4,2,1 where 8 is for a roll of the highest number die, 4 for the other lower number die, 2 to maintain speed and you gain 1 energy if you decrease your speed by 1.

What do you think?

Yes, runaway leader is definitely a problem to look out for. Thanks for the heads up.

Thanks for spending the time with your detailed comments.

--DarkDream

Zaiga,

To respond to your second post:

I thought of the action of reducing speed by 1 (an action of "nothing" in the rules) would get 1 energy.

Maybe this works, I'm not sure (this is why I thought of the 4 denominations). For example, you have 2 energy and your speed is 6: do nothing, speed is now 5 and energy 3. Next turn, do nothing, speed is now 4, and energy 4. Next turn, use up 2 energy to roll die and get a 2, speed is now 6, and energy 2. Thus, you are keeping a constant energy that is not slowly going down. Your speed may go down if you keep repeating this tactic (you roll a 1 for a rein instead of a 2), but your energy will stay constant. Maybe this is ok.

In your game, you could keep the payout in money for winning a race and betting. However, the player with the most "fame points" at the end wins the game and not the player with the most money. You can award these fame points for different things than for winning the race. Perhaps a lot of ramming and such gives you fame points or ending the race with a lot of injuries (the crowd loves dangerous riding!). I'm sure you can come up with something better than that, but you get the idea. It is probably a good idea to give some kind of bonus at the end of the game to player with the most money, so that winning money in the last race is not totally useless.

That's quite an interesting bit of advice. Keep resources seperate from victory points. I'll have to give the fame idea some thought, but I understand your basic point.

Thanks again for your comments.

--DarkDream

Svan,

Thanks for your comments. To quote:

Yea, I thought this was neat. Thanks.

I always wanted to have two chariots per faction as it gives some more depth: chariots can work together with one chariot protecting while the other one concentrates on getting ahead. I think with two chariots it makes it more interesting. If the game really bogs down, I will keep it in mind with 4 or less players of allowing each player to control one chariot.

I've recieved quite a few comments about the betting. I thought betting on factions to win would be a fun and neat thing. Right now all bets are in secret and revealed *after* the end of the race. I realize that there is the possibility of a faction trying to throw a race by betting on an underdog and letting the underdog win. I think I'll try it out and if it looks like the game can be broke by what you are describing then maybe I'll have to take the betting out or at least come up with a better way to do it. Betting on yourself to win is definitely a thought. I'll have to think about it more.

Right now there is a small gold coin worth 50HS, a medium at 100HS and a large one at 1000HS. My brother pointed this out, and I agree that it would make it simpler to say 1 medium gold coin and show the denominations as 2 small gold coins = 1 medium gold coin
10 medium gold coins = 1 large gold coin.

However, how would you show something as a cost for a card with 5 medium and 1 small gold? I'm not sure. You would have to show maybe two different symbols on the card, and next to each symbol show an "X" with a number after it to indicate how many.

Thanks for all your comments. You have really given me some food for thought.

--DarkDream

Zaiga,

Thanks for some input. To quote you:

I'm glad you looked at the new set of rules and like them better.

What I try to do is imagine the auction actually going on and see if I can create agonizing descisions from it. With the four face down cards, I believe it creates more tension for players. Players are thinking to themselves, "There may be a good card I can purchase in the auction or there may not be. The card I have is ok, but I'm not sure I want to risk selling it. However, if I don't then I may pass up a good oportunity. Darn, ok, I will sell it." As the auction goes on (I'll take your suggestion of discarding the sold card) and as each card is turned over the tension mounts as people are not sure to hold out as there may be a better card around the corner or there might not be. I may go ahead and try really hard to bid on this decent card, but if I get it, I'll deplete my cash for something really great that may come along.

I can imagine with your version that when players see the cards, there will be more planning involved but less tension. People will think, "Wow the third card looks really good. I'll definitely get rid of this card and this other card for some extra cash to bid on the card I really want. The second is not too great, but I'll only bid up to 300HS for it. In case I can't get the third card, I'll really go for the not so great 4th card." While there is definitely more strategy and planning involved in your method, I am not so sure that it adds as much tension and agonizing decisions to the game. I do agree there is more skill involved in your method and less in mine.

I would throw my hands up at this point and play test with both and see which is better. Don't get me wrong, its definitely a good suggestion. Thanks.

Excellent point. I agree with you the less there is to auction the more valuable each card will appear to the players and hence more competition to get them adding tension and suspense to the game. I'll change the rules so the cards sold are discarded. Thanks again.

Yes, I thought of this too. Right now there can be 2 to 4 factions playing. I think you are correct that there should be something like 2 cards per faction playing or something. I'll have to test to see which ratio is the best but with the idea to keep it low.

The idea of a different unit having a cost is to represent the fact that some cards are better than others and you will have to pay more to keep them. As the rules now currently stand, the cost is how much you can sell the unit for and how much it will take to keep such a player. The reason for the maintenance cost is to make those people pay more if they want to keep a winner who will more likely win. I consider it a balancing mechanism in the game. I'll certainly try to reduce the costs for the units.

A maintenance fee helps keep the money tight, and if a faction with a good card wins, it will help reduce the winnings or at least give the faction a second thought on keeping such a good player. If you have a winning faction with a good unit card, that faction is not going to pay anymore to run the same unit again thus increasing the player's advantage instead of reducing it somewhat. Players who don't have such great players will pay less maintenance and therefore will have more cash around to possible get better players.

Why don't you like the maintenance? I'm just curious.

Also with a "cost" associated with cards, factions can actually profit off of charioteers by getting a low price for him at the auction and sell it to the bank. I thought this was a neat idea, and would award skillful acquisition of purchases.

The problem I see with your idea, is once a faction purchases a decent card, it seems to me they would never sell it for such a dismal price of 100HS or 200HS when they got it for 600HS and it is actually worth that amount. It would be a huge loss. The only time they would sell the card, and even this would be tough, is if they see something they really want, and they were sure they could get it. This brings up a good point. Under this scenario, most players would rather keep the card considered for sale and only discard it later when they got the better card. It would not be worth it for them to not get the auctioned card and be without a good card they sold for peanuts! If I did use this idea the auction would have to be open, otherwise players would never sell.

Like I said above, I see a potential problem with selling the units for 100HS. The sold units being discarded I will definitely corporate. You specify two complete sets. Currently the rules has a 3 set limit, the reason for this is to have a set for reserves. As the rules stand a charioteer that is injured does count towards the 3 charioteer limit. Maybe it is better to keep with the two complete set units, and a injured charioteer does not count towards this limit as he is not being paid and just sitting out. I think that is better.

This brings up an important point where I'll need your expertise from you and anyone else. The lesson I learned after my first rule revision is to only have rules that actually contribute. If a rule does not result in adding strategy to the game or help create agonizing decisions then it should be removed. My trampling charioteer rule was a perfect example of a rule that did not add to the game. Also a rule that a player is always going to do does not carry its weight, it another type of rule that does not add anything.

Right now, the ram cards will have to be changed so the desision is a little more agonizing when it comes in terms of ramming a chariot in to a wall. If a defender brakes, their should be a chance that the ramming chariot will swerve two square so if there is a wall it will slam in to it. This makes the descision more agonizing due to the risk.

Right now I am feeling that the rules for repairing chariots and tending to injuries might be nixed. If players had to really consider whether to actually use a damaged chariot or horse team, then it would add a layer of strategy. Right now the cost to fix them up is low, and so players will look at it as a nuisance. If you make the costs more to fix, then players will simply discard the cards. Also a charioteer waiting out for a game, doesn't really seem to add a whole lot.

Zaiga, what do you think?

However, if you sell your current charioteer and you fail to get another one in the auction, because you are outbid, you have to buy a basic one back for 200 HS, which means you lost 100 HS. I like this decision process, I can see it creating some tough decisions.

I like your idea but I'm not sure players will actually sell their units. The basic ones maybe, but not any of the good ones.

Got to get back to work.

You've really come up with some great suggestions. I can see why you won the BGDF competition. Tell me what you think.

Thanks once again,

--DarkDream

Zaiga,

Thanks again for your great comments and input. To quote:

Right now with the current version of the rules, the only way a charioteer can die is if the chariot collapses. If this occurs the charioteer can get injured or die. Regardless, the chariot counter is removed. Therefore, you can not finish the race without a charioteer or chariot.

I agree, it would definitely provide more of a reason to sell a damaged unit. However, right now a charioteer who gets injured can't race in the next race. To incorporate the charioteer in the equation would mean eliminating the ability of the charioteer to get injured or keeping with the clunky rule of getting healed by waiting out one race.

For example:
- Removing 1 injury marker or hit costs 50 HS
- Removing 2 injury markers or hits costs 100 HS
- Removing 3 injury markers or hits costs 200 HS
- Removing 4 injury markers or hits costs 350 HS
- Removing 5 injury markers or hits costs 550 HS
- Removing 6 injury markers or hits costs 800 HS

Surely this scale will need some tweaking, but you get the idea. The idea behind the increasing scale is that it will make the decision whether to pay for healing and how much to pay, will be tougher. With a normal scale (50 HS per injury/hit), if it is worth to pay 50 to remove one hit, then it is also worth 200 to remove 4 hits, for example.

Right now a charioteer can only take 2 hits and then dies. A chariot can take either 5 or 7 depending on the grade of the chariot. A horse team can only take as many hits as its tiring speed -- usually 6. Healing a charioteer will always be 50HS.

Rene, do you agree that we need to bump up the selling cost greater than 100-200, more like I have it now? I just think selling the units for this price is way too low. I like your idea, except, players will always heal their charioteer (a no-brainer which does not create an agonizing decision).

As for repairing/healing the horse teams and chariots let's have a look. Right now the chariot costs 200 for a regular chariot and 350 for an elite one. Going by your chart (I realize it may have to be tweaked), it is apparent that for an elite chariot you sell it if it has over 4 hits. For a regular chariot, you sell it if it has more than 2 hits.

I just think players will intinctively make it a top priority to heal their units and heal them up to the maximum amount they can without it becoming no longer cost effective to do so. I believe, if they cannot heal a unit almost full way, then they will discard it, hence eliminating an agonzing decision; I feel players are going to be very adverse to driving with a dinged chariot or horse team.

To me if you are going to have a cost to heal, you should have only the option to discard and not be able to sell. This will increase the chance of the players actually healing.

In summary, I think players will be ok with depleting their cash to fix up a sure thing in front of them, rather than hope to use the small amount of saved cash to try to buy a not so sure thing.

I think your first suggestion, where players either decide to play with dinged units or get rid of them, will work as long as a player gets nothing for selling it. In fact, I think the game would be better without the selling aspect (for both injured and non-injured units).

It seems to me if you can't sell units for cash, it would actually help make more agonizing decisions. For example, "My horse team is a good one and it is a little beat up. It's about as good now as a decent team. I've already paid 700HS for it, and it would be a huge loss to get rid of it as I would get nothing! I would then have to buy another replacement chariot at 200HS which I would love to use this cash to bid on something really great!" As you can see, if I got something for my dinged team, let's say 200HS, then it makes the decision easier to sell it and get rid of the card.

Here is what I propose. Please tell me what you think:

- There is no selling of units.
- 2 charioteer and horse team limit.
- Injuries cannot be healed, or damage fixed up.
- If over the 2 limit you must discard a card.
- For a charioteer, if the chariot collapses, he is either ok, or seriously injured and removed from the game.
- There is obviously no cost on the cards.

In this way, there is no injury pay back charts, no tending to injury phase and adds focus to the auction and helps make the decisions more agonizing. I thought it was a neat idea selling units to get back money. The only strategic thing from this idea is that with selling skillfully you could make some cash. I think it deters from the central theme of the auction to buy!

Zaiga, my final idea for making things a lot simpler is not having any continuation between the races. In otherwords, after the first race finishes, all unit cards would go back and you start a new game from scratch except players do not get any cash, they use what they currently have.

The advantages obviously is there are no injuries, notions of maintenace and so on. Also if players just want a quick bash, they could just play one race instead of three and seeing the winner after one race.

The disadvantage I see in this approach is that there is no continuation between the races that players may like (there is more of a story going on of players slowly building up cash for better players. Also players may become partial to their horse teams and chairoteers). Also the auction would need to be changed for more cards which may extend the time on the game.

What do you think?

Once again Rene, you have really raised some good questions and excellent suggestions.

Thanks,

DarkDream