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Deck builder 4X

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Mzum
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Joined: 11/03/2014

I periodically tinker with the idea of a card based space opera. In my vision, players play cards, which affect a game board of 'planets'. Cards would place 'influence' (used for controlling area), ships (used for transporting influence), and Orders (forming a number of ships and influence local to one another into a group, and then moving it to a new planet).

Game play would consist of a 'blind' selection of 3 cards.
Everyone's actions are executed simultaneously, in order.
After all actions have been executed, Area Control is checked, and then resources for the turn are tallied. You use resources to buy new cards.

Concepts:
Players draft a deck of cards similar to dominion/core worlds etc.
Resources for acquiring new cards are also the tactical game board.
Players have asymmetric draft options.
Players have simultaneous action selection.

A turn outline:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pN6P6QBTl82mc1sapzq_2c3W4bd1YEB2dDsg...

Thoughts?

richdurham
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Joined: 12/26/2009
The opera part

hI Mzum -

Your first sentence had me hooked. A space opera game! It'll be like Star Trek, or the sci fi pulp of the '60s and 70s! Heavy on character and relations and light on the.....

Wait a minute. Controlling planets and ships? Ah man, it's an empire game, isn't it.

Okay what follows is a stream of consciousness about what I've read.

and go:

Is it a card game, or a board game? You mention a 'card based' game, but the focus of the action still seems to be the tactical board. Go for the throat! Ditch the board! You want travel lines between stars? Build them with the cards! They're practically tiles, anyways.

Do you anticpate a whole slew of cards for actions, or are players choosing, say, 3 of 8 cards that get recycled ?

Does each card have only one action or use? Why have separate income of rocks, if you have cards? Aren't they supposed to be the central element?

I suggest looking at some way to use the cards in multiple ways; a card you could spend on building a ship OR on creating influence OR on combat. Create situations where a player thinks, "Man I sure need to use it for combat now...but it's so good at spreading influence later....ought to keep it, eh?"

How are card executed simultaneously, in order? Do you mean revealed simultaneously, and then executed in order? Turn order, or card - value order?

Overall the core of what you seem to have started is a straight up combat over areas game. More areas mean more wealth, more wealth means more ships, more ships means more areas. And the cycle goes on. With only the one economic cycle to invest in (wealth converted into killer ships converted more area/wealth) winning will come down to an equation of (random card draws + reading right times to attack + random attack resolution = win!)

So the player's agency in this mockup is in timing their attacks when other players are instead 'spreading influence' or some such, and reading the odds in combat to the amount of ships they're pouring into the combat.

Is that what you're looking for?

end stream.

This did make me wonder if the tension and player chodice from a game like the one forming here could be also modeled with just the cards. Imagine three players each with a hand of cards. The cards say "attack left" "attack right" "Empire" or "Space ship"

Each turn, choose three from your hand and play in a stack. Simultaneous reveal of top card, then resolve in turn order (which goes around table or something, I don't know). Then resolve second card. Then third. Change directions if you like. I don't care yet.

  • Empire - Planet with a value of 1-5. Place in front of you. Value is score at end of game AND it's defence value. Number of Planets out is total number of spaceship points you can play in a turn on a spaceship action. Also, at turn end, draw a number of cards equal to number of planets.
  • Space ship - Value of 1 or 2. You may play an additional number of Spaceship cards from your hand so that the total value equals the number of planets you have in play. You must place them all in same area, if played on same action. Place next to one of your Empire cards, or in a separate "attack" pile. As they are in piles you may only see the number of cards.
  • Attack left/right - Launch an attack against player on your left or right with some number of your Attack pile ships.

Attacks: Attacker wagers a number of their Attack pile ships and places them next to opponent's Empire planet. Maybe there's a random element for good measure. Opponent ships at a planet add to planet's defence. Reduce each side by casualties. If Attacker wins, he claims planet card and puts it in front of him, defended by the attacking ships that weren't killed.

Play until I don't care when.

Hmmm....Maybe I'll test this and let you know.

Mzum
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Joined: 11/03/2014
Concepts

Thanks for the reply rich!

I'll elaborate on my idea; I need to think on your reply!

I'll pose a few questions:
What would a hybrid between deck building and area control look like?

That's what I'm actually trying to accomplish. Cards in your deck affect the board. I'd been working off of a drafting system, similar to those found in Dominion/Ascension/Puzzle Strike.

If we restrict how players can move from planet to planet (From planet A->B->C, but not necessarily directly from A->C) some tactical foot play can develop.

You've hit on at least one problem: The game could devolve into a positive feed back loop (good things beget more good things). One way to make this more strategically interesting.

Concepts:
New cards can be bought for your deck at the end of the turn. They're added to your discard pile. When you are forced to draw from an empty draw pile, shuffle your discard to make your new draw pile.

Certain cards (Units in particular) add blank cards to your deck. Now, the units that you wanted to play ALL the time have a real cost. Introduce a few cards to eat wounds, and you have something that might be interesting; to me at least.

Under this outline, we have interplay between playing units for immediate benefit, playing deck thinning cards so that your deck doesn't bloat with useless blanks, and the tactical need to acquire more resources and respond to what your opponent is doing.

Answers to a few of your questions (I might miss a few):

Card Utility: I'd been playing with limited utility. This restricts player actions available, and makes card drafting viable. Some cards might do multiple things (play units AND Move). That's a balance thing however.

Action Execution: Suppose there are 3 card-sized squares on the play area in front of each player, labeled 1-3. Each player lays a card of their choosing facedown on each square. After all actions have been placed, each player reveals the card on Square #1. Execute them in turn order. Repeat for #2-3.

Currently I had resigned to using some # of tokens to represent influence/ships.

larienna
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Joined: 07/28/2008
One of my ideas was turned as

One of my ideas was turned as a civlization deck building game.

But what could help make it work is the limited space. In my case, it took only place in japan, and each player played a family that evolved over all time periods. Sure players can expand, but it's pretty limited.

Because the space is limited, it restrict the exploration and expansion, but makes it easier and logical to have a centralised management mechanic a bit like in "nations".

Else, "rune age" have some sort of "Expansion" through conquering cities and stronghold, but there is still a short limit of those. They only give additional resources that your centralised "government" can use. But those cities does nothing by themselves.

Still, I think "rune age" is a deck building game worth exploring. There are probably many mechanics you can get from there that could be reused in your game.

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