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Dice-driven and Card-driven rewards

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MarkD1733
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In my semi-cooperative worker placement/economics war game, I chose to introduce dice into the game, much to my own surprise (I don't seem to take to dice games all that much). Each player plays a general which controls one type of troop--militia, infantry, cavalry, and officers. Each player rolls a specific set of dice for his respective troop type and together they fight in a battle. In addition, each player can move their general to any location to actually be in the battle. I have two other reward mechanisms in mind for success(es) in those battles and am wondering which would be the best way(s) to handle them. The assumption for this example is that the battle resulted in a win for all four of the players because all four of the troop types were involved. Losses would not trigger these reward mechanisms. Here is a summary of the game mechanics involved:

1) The battle consists of two types of victory conditions: 1) Troop Victory Condition for each troop type for which the dice results for each Troop meet or beat that value. 2) overall Battle Victory Condition--a single value that if the total sum of Troop dice rolls meet or beat it, the players win the battle regardless of the individual Troop results.

2) Foreign Support Cards: These cards give represent historical figures from other countries with various bonuses/rewards tied to their historical roles. In most instances, they provide additional resources (basic and supplies) upon achieving victory conditions. They are intended to help all the players generally the same, and as a matter of being only rewards, help out the team in all instances.

3) Spoils Dice: Similar to the cards, I made a set of dice which have various military supplies on them. They would be rolled to give the players additional supplies for other battles.

So here's the question: What do you think is the best way to reward the team for winning the battle and reward each player for achieving their troop's victory? I will give one example to seed the discussion...

IDEA 1: Draw one Reward Card for each player, regardless of whether their general was actually at the battle. Since each player controls one troop type, each player contributed to the victory, and the victory in its entirety gets the attention of foreign countries who wish to send support. In addition, only let those Generals who were at the Battle roll the Spoils Dice. Those Generals can distribute those spoils however they wish, immediately allocating them to another Battle.

This is just one example, but I am sure that you can see many other ways to works these mechanics. I look forward to your ideas.

X3M
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Some thoughts

How do you feel about reward cards that can be saved up and used any time? But are limited in uses.
How do you feel about permanent upgrades? (Different dice effects as example)
How do you feel about an upgrade by choice? (Same different dice effect, but only if the player wants too)

How do you feel about an extra reserve resource as reward?
And what about effects on opponents?

And finally;
Moral rewards: Where a player can get a bonus effect when reached a certain moral level. With 1 card, a bonus of 1. With 3 cards, a bonus of 2. etc.
You even could turn these into consumables if you want for better effects.

You can mix it up. But the maximum of your pile should be able to be a bit more then what the game is going to use.

MarkD1733
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all good questions

I. don't think "upgrades" fit the theme, which is the revolutionary war. While there is a tech track in concept, it is not aimed at improving the generals' special powers--those are set. That said, I could see one type of reward being an instant upgrade of a troop unit or two.

Reward cards that can be saved. I am not sure there is a benefit to saving cards, but there isn't any reason they couldn't be.

extra reserve resources is my primary choice for rewards. Originally, I was going to have the rewards on the battle cards (which contain the victory conditions). But that felt to static. That is why I moved to dice.

Also, the current concept has the foreign support cards rewarding guns, money, gunpowder, etc. The spoils dice represent only those things found in the battle--horses, guns, ammo. I made 4 dice, but maybe I only need two or three.

I am not sure the morale rewards are something I could translate into this game, but I was thinking of having a sliding scale for the foreign support--with every victory it moves up 1; every loss moves it down 1. I could tie the number of cards to that sliding scale. What do you think about that?

X3M
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MarkD1733 wrote:I. don't

MarkD1733 wrote:
I. don't think "upgrades" fit the theme, which is the revolutionary war. While there is a tech track in concept, it is not aimed at improving the generals' special powers--those are set. That said, I could see one type of reward being an instant upgrade of a troop unit or two.

Then having that instant upgrade is the best way. Although, depending on the power of an upgrade and the number of upgrades; you need to make this reward relatively rare.

MarkD1733 wrote:

Reward cards that can be saved. I am not sure there is a benefit to saving cards, but there isn't any reason they couldn't be.

extra reserve resources is my primary choice for rewards. Originally, I was going to have the rewards on the battle cards (which contain the victory conditions). But that felt to static. That is why I moved to dice.


With this, I primarily meant for example: emergency reinforcements. Depending on how much worth your units are, you can have for example 1 card with 10 infantry, or another card with 4 cavalry. In a sense, keeping the total worth of the rewards being the same.

MarkD1733 wrote:

Also, the current concept has the foreign support cards rewarding guns, money, gunpowder, etc. The spoils dice represent only those things found in the battle--horses, guns, ammo. I made 4 dice, but maybe I only need two or three.

If you can have the same results that you wanted with 4 dice. Then it is indeed better to use only 3 or 2 dice. You can try, but if you fail, take my advice, don't keep trying right away. Since it isn't your top priority.

MarkD1733 wrote:

I am not sure the morale rewards are something I could translate into this game, but I was thinking of having a sliding scale for the foreign support--with every victory it moves up 1; every loss moves it down 1. I could tie the number of cards to that sliding scale. What do you think about that?

I don't really know how your morale exactly works for a player. But if it has benefits. Perhaps having as reward an extra +1 on top of the victory might be good for the game. I completely support you using a sliding scale.
And allowing players to have more cards with more morale is a good benefit.

Zag24
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Don't forget morale

MarkD1733 wrote:
I. don't think "upgrades" fit the theme, which is the revolutionary war.

I agree concerning technological upgrades. But that's not the only sort of upgrade there is.

In the era of the musket, morale was incredibly important. To stand there and load your musket (which took 15-20 seconds) while the other side is shooting at you -- it's terrifying. It was the well-trained, experienced troops who had confidence in their leaders who could do it consistently. That confidence came from winning earlier battles.

MarkD1733
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what kind of upgrades?

I might be getting hung up on the term upgrades. In the game, workers upgrade to militia, militia upgrade to infantry, and infantry upgrade into either cavalry or officers. alternatively, workers, militia, and infantry can all be upgraded to spies. the other types of upgrades that exist in the game, are those related to resources and supplies. This is where you have to combine resources to make certain supplies and you need to use the supplies in the upgrades of the troops I mentioned above.

that said, how would you consider using Upgrades for rewards and preserve the theme?

currently, I have no type of morale built into the game. I'm not sure that I want to introduce that particular type of mechanic with all the complexities I currently have. In contrast to games like 1775 and 1812 which have the dice show fleeing as an option for the units, my battles are won straight away based on the dice rolls and there is no back and forth combat. my only other option to reflect that, would be to add militia volunteers or conscript additional infantry units based on the overall results of the battles--wins or losses.

Any thoughts on that?

Zag24
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Upgrades & morale

If you're concerned with historical accuracy, you're way off. In that time period, it was rare for enlisted men to be promoted to officers in the French army, and INCREDIBLY rare in the British, Spanish, and Portuguese armies. However, during Napoleon's occupation of Spain, many Spaniards joined the guerrilla (Spanish for "little war" and the origin of that term) as freedom fighters. Many became de facto officers, and I think the more famous and successful ones were absorbed into the regular army as such once the Napoleonic forces were pushed back.

Other than the rare promotions out of the ranks, only the nobility could become officers, and they had to buy their commissions. (This is true for the Brits; I don't know about the others.) There were battlefield promotions which didn't have to be bought, but that was the exception rather than the rule.

Cavalry and infantry were pretty severely divided, with little cross-over from one to the other. When you joined, it was decided which you were joining into. Since troops had to supply their own horses, that was usually the determining factor.

For the British, the militia was pretty irrelevant, more an decorative position than a soldier. (But if Nelson had lost at Trafalgar, things might have been very different, as French-speaking troops landed all along the coast.) Within enlisted men, the only promotion was to Corporal, Sergeant, and Sergeant-Major.

That said, if you're not that interested in historical accuracy, then your upgrade path works pretty well. If you wanted to be more accurate you might call them Recruit - Soldier - Veteran, with separate paths for infantry, artillery, and cavalry. Within those, a 3X jump at each step is not unreasonable. That is, a soldier is worth 3 recruits and a veteran is worth 3 soldiers, in terms of fighting power.

You can kind of say that this progression supports morale, as well, because there will be a correspondence. The more experienced soldiers will naturally have better morale overall. But it doesn't take into account the effect of the leaders, and you might just want to drop that effect for simplicity. OTOH, if you divided it a little more -- say Recruit - Enlisted - Soldier - Veteran - Warrior -- then you could just say that really good leaders pull the men up by one rank, and really bad leaders pull the men down by one rank, and most leaders don't have an effect. Then it gives you still one basic value being measured for an army, that encompasses experience and morale.

Just some thoughts. Feed free to take what you like.

MarkD1733
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I see your point, Zag24, however...

I am not disputing anything you said. The only thing I want to clarify is that the players are on the side of the American colonies only. This is a co-op game where all the players are officers in the Continental Army. I am settling for general historical accuracy to ensure the theme plays out well in terms of both economics and warfare. I certainly don't want to be inaccurate, but I don't necessarily want too fine of graining in this game. That being said...

-The colonial militia was obviously significant.

-Promotions within the Continental Army did occur, but again I am treating this more like technological upgrades rather than promotions. After some quick research, I feel this piece of the game is on track. Read the following article with particular attention to the section on the United States, "Early Use":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brevet_(military)

-I will look into morale as a mechanism a little more. With the fact that money was depleted and conditions for soldiers were poor, this could be fleshed out more possibly to greater effect...but I need to ensure a simple mechanic so as to keep the otherwise fast gameplay flowing. I am not looking to get bogged down in combat mechanics.

Thanks again for this terrific feedback!

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