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Streamlined war-game, help wanted!

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Mr Doctor
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Hi all

For a long time now I have on and off been working on a war-game and I would be grateful for any input and perhaps even a little help on a specific issue.

To be honest I have never actually played any tabletop war-games. I bought the Advanced Squad Leader Starters Kit 3 (ASLSK #3) out of curiosity but I quickly realised that I would never find anyone in my small hometown to play with. I also didn't feel it was all that "light" as the community would have me believe.

My goal is to make a fairly complex (in terms of strategy) although simple (small set of rules and ease of play) war-game. I have had to scrap a LOT of ideas I originally wanted in the game just to keep it as simple as possible. These things tend to snowball on you after a while so I feel it is very important to hold fast on the KISS rule.
Some games I have been inspired by are:
- Ars Victor (board game)
- Advance Wars (video game)
- Neuroshima Hex (board game)
- StarCraft (video game)
- Memoir '44 (board game)

I digress but basically my game is a very light war-game between two or more factions with some limited resource handling added to the mix.

- Players fight over resources which they use to build more units (more powerful units cost more and will take longer to build) until any of the scenario's victory conditions are met.

- Each player have a fixed number of points (OPs) per turn they can use to activate a unit (at a cost between one and three points) who may then perform any two of the two orders; move and attack.

- Unit counters have two sides; Fit and Injured/Damaged. When hit the counter is turned over to the Injured/Damaged side. No unit may withstand more than two hits before it is destroyed and removed from the board.

- There are six combat dice in total; 2x Light, 2x Medium and 2x Heavy. In combat the attacker will roll dice determined by the combat odds. It may result in; no hit, enemy retreat, one hit or instant kill. Any non-killed or not retreating enemy may retaliate.

- The terrain is kept to a minimum and the effects when moving are; None, Halt (ends the current order), Stop (ends the current AND any subsequent order). Terrain also matters when calculating the combat odds by checking a terrain matrix.

- More powerful units may also have special abilities such as marksmanship or bonus when moving in certain terrain. I have tried to keep them as few and as generic as possible just so they should be easier to keep in the head and not having to look at the ref sheet all the time. Not an easy thing to do as there is just so much fun coming up with new ones.

---

Well, there you have a very rough outline of the game. The game will focus on who is controlling the key resource squares as well as managing the OPs (activate a few and expensive elite soldiers or many cheap conscripts). I don't know, does it make any sense?

My main problem right now is that I have no idea what kind of units the game needs. I want wide variety as well as keep each factions unit type count low. I'm thinking maybe around six different unit types per faction.
Lets say I have an all human faction, what units should they have? Light, medium and heavy infantry? Just light infantry and AT-Infantry? What about specialist Snipers and/or SpecOps? What ground vehicles should be used?
Does anyone have any suggestions of a broad and condensed army?

After that comes the hardest task of playtesting and get the balance of it all:
Unit stats (move/attack range, defence rating, abilities, OP cost), build cost, build time, balance between factions...
And finally graphic design and layout.
Then, maybe, I will have made my first complete PnP game!

I'm hopefully awaiting any feedback and please ask me anything if I have been unclear about it all.

Ecarots
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How light

How light do you want it to be?

You could check out Dirtside 2 rules. (An old game by Ground Zero Games)It could give you a starting point to add to or remove from.

X3M
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Hey there, I am one of those

Hey there, I am one of those other war board gamers that is working on a game. Key point to designing a war game is to write down your idea's first as goals. Then you put together the game to fit all the idea's.
If you have new idea's during the process. Only implement them if it is possible.

Quote:

To be honest I have never actually played any tabletop war-games. I bought the Advanced Squad Leader Starters Kit 3 (ASLSK #3) out of curiosity but I quickly realised that I would never find anyone in my small hometown to play with. I also didn't feel it was all that "light" as the community would have me believe.

No, ASL is actually a very advanced war game if you would ask me. It depends if you are able to plan ahead or not. Those who plan ahead know of the possible strategies. The scenario's are well balanced: the result is that it might look hard for new players. Keep playing that game, eventually it is an easy one indeed. The only problem it has is that the rules seem chaotic at first and you need to use table's references.
For a detailed explanation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUgtQ-ucDiw

Quote:

Some games I have been inspired by are:
- Ars Victor (board game)
- Advance Wars (video game)
- Neuroshima Hex (board game)
- StarCraft (video game)
- Memoir '44 (board game)

Strange combination. I dislike Advance Wars. But Memoir '44 is a good one. The fact that you have Starcraft in the list surprises me. Is your goal turn based, simultaneous or real time?
Have you studied these games, or are they just inspiration?

Quote:

I digress but basically my game is a very light war-game between two or more factions with some limited resource handling added to the mix.

If this is your first war game. Keep it to just one faction. If that sounds boring, give each player one special unit that the others can't use.
Also keep the resources to just 1 type for your first game. Having 2 resources already gives extra imbalances to the game. You need experience to tackle those.
I for example have sworn never to use 2 or more resources.

Quote:

- Unit counters have two sides; Fit and Injured/Damaged. When hit the counter is turned over to the Injured/Damaged side. No unit may withstand more than two hits before it is destroyed and removed from the board.

Each unit has 2 hit points. Check.
Was it a forced choice, thus dealing with the limitations of board games? Or did you consider other value's?

Quote:

Well, there you have a very rough outline of the game. The game will focus on who is controlling the key resource squares as well as managing the OPs (activate a few and expensive elite soldiers or many cheap conscripts). I don't know, does it make any sense?

It does. I find that a good idea.

Quote:

My main problem right now is that I have no idea what kind of units the game needs. I want wide variety as well as keep each factions unit type count low. I'm thinking maybe around six different unit types per faction.

If you are talking about armor types and weapon types. Remember that 6 types means 36 units as a minimum to get all the combinations.

Quote:

Lets say I have an all human faction, what units should they have? Light, medium and heavy infantry? Just light infantry and AT-Infantry? What about specialist Snipers and/or SpecOps? What ground vehicles should be used?
Does anyone have any suggestions of a broad and condensed army?

There is a fun and easy way to approach this:
As example, I am going to use 3 types. Infantry, Vehicles, Tanks
Take a piece of paper.
We are going to make a table of 3 by 3.
On top we have the 3 types, Infantry, Vehicles and Tanks.
On the left, we have the 3 weapons that are good against the 3 armor types. For simplicity, you call them anti infantry, anti vehicles and anti tanks.

Make a diagonal from the upper left to down right. This is your balance line.

Every thing on this line is balanced by itself. Thus an infantry that is anti infantry, a vehicle that is anti vehicle and a tank that is anti tank.
This same line, you use as a mirror.
If you fill in a block on one side, the block on the other side needs to be filled as well. Thus for an infantry that is anti tank, we have a tank that is anti infantry.
With this method, you can see that there is no need for filling in all the blocks. Thus if you have 6 types. You can keep the number of units to a minimum of 12, while using diversity.

Quote:

After that comes the hardest task of playtesting and get the balance of it all:
Unit stats (move/attack range, defence rating, abilities, OP cost), build cost, build time, balance between factions...
And finally graphic design and layout.
Then, maybe, I will have made my first complete PnP game!

Try to balance with math first. I don't know about your mechanics precisely. But it is important that you are aware of the interactions of each variable in the game.

Good luck!

Mr Doctor
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Hi X3M, just so you know I

Hi X3M, just so you know I have read a lot of your posts and find them very enlightening. You seem very active here on BGDF.

X3M wrote:

Key point to designing a war game is to write down your idea's first as goals. Then you put together the game to fit all the idea's.
If you have new idea's during the process. Only implement them if it is possible.

Yes, maybe I was a little unclear writing my post, it was in the middle of the night and I find that I tend to have problems organising my thoughts when I try to be concise.
Anyway, I have extensive notes about my idea/game. I have tried to implement most of my ideas but not at the cost of making the game seem bloated and convoluted.

X3M wrote:

No, ASL is actually a very advanced war game if you would ask me. It depends if you are able to plan ahead or not. Those who plan ahead know of the possible strategies. The scenario's are well balanced: the result is that it might look hard for new players. Keep playing that game, eventually it is an easy one indeed. The only problem it has is that the rules seem chaotic at first and you need to use table's references.
For a detailed explanation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUgtQ-ucDiw

I have read many articles about ASL and I have been very curious about it but my intention was never really to imitate or borrow anything from it. ASL seem to involve a little to much number crunching for my taste. I could never find neither the time nor the friends to play such a behemoth.

X3M wrote:

Strange combination. I dislike Advance Wars. But Memoir '44 is a good one. The fact that you have Starcraft in the list surprises me. Is your goal turn based, simultaneous or real time?
Have you studied these games, or are they just inspiration?

Well let me elaborate on my choices:
- Ars Victor
Fast gameplay, simple rules, modular maps. Seem a bit fiddly with all the cards and tokens.
- Advance Wars
Simple and casual gameplay but too cute and Nintendo-ish.
- Neuroshima Hex
I like the idea of the different factions as well as the simple gameplay. A bit too chaotic though...
- StarCraft
From what I've heard one of the best balanced games with three factions. Though I'm not that big of a fan of real-time games.
- Memoir '44
Seems like a very bare-bones war-game. I like the orders mechanic.

X3M wrote:

If this is your first war game. Keep it to just one faction. If that sounds boring, give each player one special unit that the others can't use.

Why is that? Massive balancing issues?

X3M wrote:

Also keep the resources to just 1 type for your first game. Having 2 resources already gives extra imbalances to the game. You need experience to tackle those.
I for example have sworn never to use 2 or more resources.

Again, how come?
My idea was that the main faction, the humans, would need all three resources; humans/manpower, metal and finally energy.
Thus, to build simple infantry the player just needs one human in resources but to build a tank I figured they would need humans/manpower to build and operate it, metal for the raw material and also energy to move it.
Another faction, say an army of robots would only need metal and energy to build their units.
A third faction, this time a zombie hoard (although I'm really fed up with the zombie craze of recent years, but they fit the bill rather good in this case) would only need humans to chew on (thereby creating new zombies) as a resource.
This might lead to enormous headache inducing balancing issues but this is kind of the core of my idea, no two factions play like any other.

X3M wrote:

Each unit has 2 hit points. Check.
Was it a forced choice, thus dealing with the limitations of board games? Or did you consider other value's?

No actually I see this as a strong point of the game mechanics. I get to do away with extra counters and tokens to mark a unit as injured as well as the Injured/Damaged side may have reduced (and maybe sometimes improved) stats such as impaired movement, shorter attack range, reduced attack values or even loss of the special abilities.
Note that just because the units only have two hit points will they not be equally vulnerable. The defence value will of course be much higher for tanks and heavy units thereby lowering the odds of hurting them with units with low attack values.
The way combat is handled is to subtract the enemies DEFENCE value from your own ATTACK value. This results in a number that tells you what dice you may use in the attack. Possible results are; miss, force enemy to retreat, enemy takes one hit, enemy is killed. There are three types of dice and there are two of each type. I have already calculated the odds for every possible dice combination and thus have a very good understanding of the combat results. Just need to play-test like a million times to get the balance just right.

X3M wrote:

If you are talking about armor types and weapon types. Remember that 6 types means 36 units as a minimum to get all the combinations.

What I meant was that I find it redundant to have like three types of infantry units with only small variations. Since there won't be all that many types of units in each faction I want them to be as diverse as possible and still fill a broad spectrum. So my idea was to have something like this:
Light infantry - An ordinary rifleman
AT-Gunner - More effective against heavy armour
Light vehicle - Long range, good against infantry but also fairly good against armour. Sort of an IFV.
Tank - Deadly but not invulnerable. Infantry in cities pose a threat.
There would also be two or three specialised units such as snipers, EMP troops and whatnot...

X3M wrote:

Try to balance with math first. I don't know about your mechanics precisely. But it is important that you are aware of the interactions of each variable in the game.

I have and I will. I feel that I will spend quite a lot of time with the math, adjusting variables up and down. But in the end I will have to make extensive play-tests. But for now I want to get most of the rules tweaks in order before I go about that.

X3M wrote:

Good luck!

Tanks!

X3M
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Quote: I have read many

Quote:

I have read many articles ... friends to play such a behemoth.

Talking about number crunching. What statistics are you going to use in your game?

Quote:

- StarCraft
From what I've heard one of the best balanced games with three factions. Though I'm not that big of a fan of real-time games.

The balance in Starcraft has been created by the constant massive play test. But is a bad game to follow if you want to make a board game. Starcraft has much much more different statistics to work with than most war games have. And I am talking about the "invincible" ones too.

Quote:

Why is that? Massive balancing issues?

Yes. Think it like this: Each additional unit requires a test with all the previous ones. Thus the more units you have, even more tests to do. Not only that, but combinations of 2 units also requires a test. A combination of 3 units also requires a test. etc. When having different factions. Each faction is a combination of units. Not only the entire faction has to be balanced. Each individual unit needs balance as well. Or you get these, 5 out of 6 factions.

In the first Red Alert, a lot of players never used infantry. Why? They where too weak in most combat. So eventually no one used them. Each game was an all out tank versus tank war.

Quote:

X3M wrote:

I for example have sworn never to use 2 or more resources.

Again, how come?

I often find it useless to have 2 resources in a game. The only reason why I would add 2 resources would be to give a player the chance to disrupt 1 of the 2 for the opponent. But then there are 2 outcomes: A, the other player can't build any more. Or B, the other player has only access to only 50% to 33% of available units. Thus shifting the strategy for the attacking player.
I find that B is a valid reason. But the impact is too big for my taste.

Quote:

My idea was that the ... factions play like any other.

That is a well thought idea.

Quote:

Note that just because the units only have two hit points will they not be equally vulnerable. The defence value will of course be much higher for tanks and heavy units thereby lowering the odds of hurting them with units with low attack values.

That's a given :). Have you also considered the possibility of units having less or more defence value's after losing 1 health?

Quote:

The way combat is handled ... get the balance just right.

Sometimes calculating can take away tons of play tests. And it can show you results that you have never thought of being possible. If you need help with calculating, I got some experience in that. However, you already know the possible outcomes when rolling dice? Why do you need play tests for that?

Quote:

What I meant was that ... snipers, EMP troops and whatnot...

I see. You where talking about giving infantry different weapons. I often forget that in most games, an heavy infantry is an anti tank infantry.

Mr Doctor
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Quote: Talking about number

Quote:

Talking about number crunching. What statistics are you going to use in your game?

Well, since I am aiming for a simple game I have some stats on each counter such as movement, attack, defence and OP cost.
Otherwise the only other numbers will be a terrain matrix for combat modifiers. The rest will be taken care of by the dice.

Quote:

The balance in Starcraft has been created by the constant massive play test. But is a bad game to follow if you want to make a board game.

Just to make it clear, the games I mentioned was for inspiration purposes only, I'm not trying to emulate StarCraft on a board. As for the balance, I'm in no hurry. My intention is to sketch the game out as thoroughly I can in my notes and then when I feel I have a fairly solid rule-base I will print maps, counters, player sheets etc. and start play-testing. One alternative I was thinking of, since I plan to make the game PnP, was to pre-publish it and hope that someone might want to help play the game and report any tweaks back to me, sort of a community effort. Might be hard to garner that support though...

Quote:

In the first Red Alert, a lot of players never used infantry. Why? They where too weak in most combat. So eventually no one used them. Each game was an all out tank versus tank war.

Well, Red Alert came with a lot of units. A game with a limited number of different units will probably force players to make the best of what they have. It might even be so that RA is unbalanced in the sense that heavy units should have been more expensive. Unit cost might very well be the easiest variable to change if you what to alter the balance in a game.

Quote:

The only reason why I would add 2 resources... Thus shifting the strategy for the attacking player.

But this is not entirely true for my game though. If you are fighting an opponent that doesn't need 2/3 of the resources then what? Sure, the the opponent could block your efforts to reach your resources but then he would have to post guards to protect the source and thereby wasting valuable units. Anyway, I have already anticipated that problem and I'm letting the players exchange their resources at a slightly higher cost. This way you may manage anyway but you would have to pay a higher market value of sorts.
And by the way, shouldn't a game with resource handling do exactly that, force players to adapt to new situations and change your strategy and tactics accordingly?

Quote:

Have you also considered the possibility of units having less or more defence value's after losing 1 health?

Of course, as I said before "the Injured/Damaged side may have reduced (and maybe sometimes improved) stats". Each unit has about seven parameters so there is a lot to toy around with.

Quote:

Sometimes calculating can take away tons of play tests. And it can show you results that you have never thought of being possible.

Maths IS a very strong tool indeed, one that I have relied on solely up to this point. There is no denying though that sooner or later play-tests must occur. For instance, my values for the terrain modifiers have so far been arbitrary numbers that I 'felt' was reasonable. There is no way I can be certain they are the right values until I start testing. Maybe hill terrain should offer more of an advantage. Maybe less. I won't know until I try.
Seeing that there are so many variables in even a simple game I guess they will all float together when I start playing, to the effect that changing one value might force you to change many other.

Quote:

However, you already know the possible outcomes when rolling dice? Why do you need play tests for that?

I'm not entirely sure what you mean?
I've come up with three custom dice; one for weak attacks, one for medium attacks and one for heavy attacks. When you attack your enemy your total attack value will determine which of these dice to roll. There are nine possible dice combinations so those results aren't that hard to compute. Who knows, maybe I have to tweak the dice as well, play-test will tell, I guess.

---

Anyway, back to my basic question (that I see now wasn't formulated all that well). I'll give it a new try, so let me rephrase:
If you where to make a light war-game, in which resource handling was an integral part, and you only had 10 different types of units, what units would those be?
Think of the units the way they where done in games such as Command & Conquer, Red Alert, StartCraft etc...

McTeddy
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My first instinct would be to

My first instinct would be to build 3-4 "Common" units. For example: Infantry, Armor, and Scout.

While there may be minor differences in the stats the functionality would be similar. Armor crushes infantry, but scouts are good vs. armor etc. Balance the game based on these core units before adding 1-2 "Unique" forces to each faction.

One group may have snipers who can kill from a distance, another might have bombers that deal massive damage but are slow.

The more units you have, the more difficult it will be to balance and the harder it will be for players to learn.

Mr Doctor
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Quote:My first instinct would

Quote:
My first instinct would be to build 3-4 "Common" units. For example: Infantry, Armor, and Scout.

While there may be minor differences in the stats the functionality would be similar. Armor crushes infantry, but scouts are good vs. armor etc. Balance the game based on these core units before adding 1-2 "Unique" forces to each faction.


Seems reasonable.

Quote:

One group may have snipers who can kill from a distance, another might have bombers that deal massive damage but are slow.

My idea was to have each faction completely different from each other. As in, no two factions would have the same kind of units. They will differ in stats, resource cost, abilities, pretty much like the factions in Neuroshima Hex.

Quote:

The more units you have, the more difficult it will be to balance and the harder it will be for players to learn.

Yes, and that's why I was aiming for a low unit count in each faction, so it would be easier/quicker to learn.
The way I see it, it will be a nice addition to the game to have new factions made. Wouldn't it extend the games life? Sure, players would have to learn how to play a new faction but it works the other way around as well, doesn't it? I mean, players confident with a certain faction would have to learn how to fight the new kid as well.

---

Thank you for your input.

kos
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Unit classes and functions

Mr Doctor wrote:
If you where to make a light war-game, in which resource handling was an integral part, and you only had 10 different types of units, what units would those be?

Simple version:

I would start by choosing how many different unit classes I wanted to have, followed by the funtions which these units need to fulfil. Then create a matrix for each faction to decide which unit class will fulfil which function(s).

Long version:

Examples of "unit classes" in a modern warfare game:
- Infantry
- Light Vehicle
- Heavy Armor
- Off-map Artillery (incl. cruise missiles)
- Support aircraft (helicopters)
- Off-map aircraft (jetfighters, bombers)
- Surface (ships)
- Underwater (subs)

If you throw in sci-fi or fantasy elements this list can expand even further, such as:
- Phase-shift
- Tunnelling/Underground
- Ethereal/Incorporeal
- Mega-robot
- Cyborg

The key is to not try to do everything in the same game, especially since you want to make a streamlined game. It's up to you what scale/style you want, and limit the unit classes to only what you want. Don't try to make a "do everything" system.

Eg: I want a skirmish-level game featuring small infantry squads and light vehicles supported by off-map artillery and air strikes, set in an urban streetscape.

Eg: I want a tactical-level game featuring subs, ships and amphibious tank platoons supported by off-map cruise missiles and orbital drop troopers, fighting for control of an island archipeligo.

Eg: I want a squad-level game featuring individual troopers, phase-shifting aliens, and techno-mages, set within the tunnels of an underground city.

Functions are determined by both your unit classes and the rest of your rule-set.

For example, if you have only 2 unit classes (infantry, light vehicle), then immediately you have 2 functions: anti-infantry and anti-vehicle. You can quickly add another function: transport infantry. If you have off-map artillery / air strikes you may have a function for spotting or calling in air strikes. If you have cyborgs/AIs you may have a function for anti-cyborg (haywire, malware) as distict from anti-human (gas, poison).

Functions should flow naturally out of your rules. Given that you want resources, you may have functions involving gathering, controlling, stealing, or converting resources. Given that you want to activate units via OPs, you may have functions involving gaining or storing OPs. Depending on your rules for line of sight / fog of war / cover / stealth, you may have functions around hiding and detecting hidden units. Other common functions include healing/repairing and engineering/fortifying.

As with unit classes, you need to decide how many different functions you want to incorporate into your game. Don't try to do everything.

Eg: I want my game to feature fog of war, stealth/camoflague and calling in artillery / air strikes.

Eg: I want my game to feature command quality, unit morale, and supply lines.

Eg: I want my game to feature psionic duels, force fields, and fortifications.

Once you have chosen your unit classes and functions, you can allocate them to the factions. Each faction does not necessarily need to use all of the classes and functions, or they may combine them in different ways. One faction may have anti-tank infantry, the second has anti-tank helicopters, and the third has stealth to hide from tanks.

Eg: Putting it all together into an example setting:
- Classes: Infantry, Cyborg, Support aircraft
- Functions: Anti-infantry, Anti-cyborg, Anti-air, Stealth, Transport, Combined attack
- Faction 1 focuses on infantry and unmanned VTOL drones, with specialisation in anti-air infantry and anti-cyborg EMP attacks.
- Faction 2 focuses on helicopter gunships and stealth infantry, with specialisation in anti-infantry miniguns and helicopter troop transports.
- Faction 3 focuses on cyborg infantry and stealth hover-drones, with specialisation in anti-infantry poison gas and lasers that can combine together into a death-star-mega-attack.

This post ended up getting very long, but it was fun coming up with random settings. Anyway, that is the way that I have approached unit creation for the games I've made. But you have to be ruthless in cutting down your number of classes and functions otherwise you end up with an unplayable mess.

Regards,
kos

McTeddy
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Mr Doctor wrote: Wouldn't it

Mr Doctor wrote:

Wouldn't it extend the games life? Sure, players would have to learn how to play a new faction but it works the other way around as well, doesn't it?

Don't underestimate how little it takes to drive away players.

If a player has a bad experience trying a faction he doesn't understand there is a tendency to think it was "under-powered".

If their first experience was "Unbalanced" they are far less likely to pull it out again.

Depending on how lite you go, this might not be a problem. Just make the core game simple enough that they won't be overwhelmed when they start learning to play.

- - -

The other thing to remember is development time. Balancing 4 factions isn't four times harder than making 1.

Faction A vs. Faction A

With 4 you need be balance:
A vs. B, A vs. C, A vs. D
B vs C, B vs. D
C vs. D

Counting individual units and things can get out of control fast.

Again, depending on the complexity and your goals, it could be worth the effort.

Just keep a close eye on things.

X3M
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Quote:My idea was to have

Quote:
My idea was to have each faction completely different from each other. As in, no two factions would have the same kind of units. They will differ in stats, resource cost, abilities, pretty much like the factions in Neuroshima Hex.

Then it is better to design units one by one. And assign them to a race later on.

How about you start mapping out each possible combination of stats.
With only your attack/defence/speed. This is easy to do.
OP should be linked somehow to how strong the unit is.

For zombie idea's. Take a look at "plants vs zombies".
For machine idea's. Take a look at the matrix. But Series9 from KKND2 is also a relatively good example.

Mr Doctor
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Great feedback!

kos wrote:

This post ended up getting very long...

Long post are always great when they're as meaty as this one.

McTeddy wrote:

Don't underestimate how little it takes to drive away players.
If a player has a bad experience trying a faction he doesn't understand there is a tendency to think it was "under-powered".
If their first experience was "Unbalanced" they are far less likely to pull it out again.

I am a tad short on play-testers but I will do my best. Anyway, as I was planning of making this a PnP I was kinda hoping that players might get in touch with their thoughts and opinions on the game. Then it would be easy to just release new versions. Well, that is someone wants to play to begin with. But don't get me wrong, I won't skip my own share of testing.

McTeddy wrote:

Depending on how lite you go, this might not be a problem. Just make the core game simple enough that they won't be overwhelmed when they start learning to play.

This is where the streamlining comes in. I was kinda hoping to make it a fairly simple game system and with that it would be a lot less work to add new factions. Again like the Neuroshima Hex game, although I myself feel that they are kinda making it harder and harder for players by adding in new abilities every time the release a new faction. I can see the joy with coming up with all that but in the end you end up with a bloated game instead of just working with what you've got and try to do new and interesting stuff with that.

X3M wrote:

With only your attack/defence/speed. This is easy to do.
OP should be linked somehow to how strong the unit is.
Zombies...

Well the complete list of unit stats are:
- Move range
- Attack range & strength
- Defence
- OP cost
- 0-2 abilities
The OP will naturally be higher for more advanced units.
I will look into PvsZ, up until now I have mostly based my Z's on the ones in Left 4 Dead (in my opinion one of the best co-op FPS games ever).

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Thanks for your feedback guys!

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