Sorry for the wall of text but I don't think I can shorten it. Anyways, I've been working on this space-themed strategy game for a while. I recently decided that using "hit" dice for combat is not the way I want to go for a number of reasons. I am shifting to a more deterministic combat resolution. I am quite adept at simulating combat in excel and I feel like this yields the results I'm going for.
There are a few things about my game that you'll need to understand for this to make sense:
Players have fleet tokens on a hex-board that move on the edges (settlers style). Each fleet token is numbered and corresponds to a stack of ship cards.
My design goals for these fleets is to encourage players to have a diverse set of ships to maximize effectiveness in combat. To this end, I have assigned each ship to contribute "combat points" into two combat pools. So far I have designated these pools "fighter" combat points, and "destroyer" combat points. The rationale is that larger ships have unique combat roles independent of fighter squadrons.
Players initiate combat by moving their fleet token into the same vertex as an opponent's fleet. My design goals for combat is to have a quick resolution where the fleet that consists of better ships has a higher probability of success. Either fleet can retreat after each round of combat to prevent weaker players from being squished flat-out.
Combat begins by each Player rolling a D6 with three possible outcomes (a 1/3 chance each) with the faces being: "fighters", "destroyers" or "player choice". Players must use the point pool that results or they choose if that face is up. This way, players have a 2/3 chance of using the aspect of their fleet that is best. Each player rolls this type of die so Player 1 vs Player 2 could be any combination of Player 1's fighters or destroyers, versus Player 2's fighters or destroyers. Basic ships of each type add 1 point.
At this point, players can play cards to modify their combat points. Players draw a fixed number of cards per turn and cards have both economic and combat bonuses making players choose between the two. The higher total of combat points and cards wins.
I have incorporated a means to allow players to win the game while being less-combat oriented (merchant fleets). I feel that in order to make this route to victory viable, I have to incorporate something that could allow a lucky and/or determined underdog to win. I suppose this can be accomplished through just cards but I have another possible solution.
There are 2 things I want to ask about:
1) What do you think of this type of combat? Will strategy board game hobbyists enjoy it and is it simple enough that non-hobbyists can play it?
2) Should I add a second die roll that randomly affects the combat points. I have played around with each player rolling a D6 with the faces: -2, -1, 0, 0, +1, +2. This number applies to whichever combat pool is being used for this round of combat. Players play cards after this die is rolled.
What I like about it is that it would allow a player with a combat strength 5 to beat a strength 10 if they roll a +2, play a card that is +2, and a player who has 10 combat strength to roll -2 and plays no cards.
I feel like the cards mitigate the randomness somewhat. However, I am a little worried that this 4 point swing may undermine fleet composition strategy. I have a couple of other concerns but this is already a wall of text and I'll post them in a bit.
To deal with this, I think limiting combat points, fleet size, or both is the best way to deal with this. I think limiting fleet size is the best route because it can force players to optimize.
Because of the ability to retreat, fleets lose ships slowly. This prevents players from being crushed entirely.
My biggest concern is that this project started out more similar to RISK and Axis & Allies. I don't think this combat method captures that same feel.