I'd love some feedback on this idea for a game I've put together called La Colonia. It's still a bit rough, but most of the ideas are there. I'll need to spend time going over specific values and numbers and statistics, but that will come in time.
It's meant for 2-6 players, played in roughly 120-180 minutes. And it's a pretty hefty game, but I don't think it's all too fiddly.
I know there's already a game by Queen Games called "Colonia," so let me know if "La Colonia" is too similar. Also, I want to be non-offensive with this and have the feel be similar to how Indians are portrayed in the recent Lewis and Clark, so I'd appreciate people's thoughts on that as well.
*Edit: Added google doc.
First of all, thanks for taking the time for reading through what I have so far. If there's anything I could do organizationally to make the instructions / ideas more clear for future readers, please let me know! (I'm talking more in layout and order of the instructions more than grammar.) Also, I'm super pleased to hear you think this game has enough of its own style to stand on its own. Always a satisfying piece of feedback. And the last thing I want to do is become too attached to any mechanics, when its the big picture I should be worried about.
I have been "doing my homework" to try to understand where my game fits within the board game spectrum. I have taken influences from games like Keyflower (incoming ships), Archipelago (tile placement, native reputation), Puerto Rico (role selection, buildings, selling goods), as well as many others that I've played over the years. As it stands, I agree with you that I need to narrow down the focus of my game so that it can be compacted into an evening of fun, rather than "that game" that you only break out with the most dedicated of fans.
The most important parts of this game to me are:
1) Creating an expanding world. I could eliminate the exploration role, and just have each player take turns laying a new tile every turn. This ensures that the world does indeed expand at a constant rate (that I can use in calculating when the game should end, how rare resources should be) and doesn't rely on players wanting to place a worker (potentially break the engine I'm trying to create).
2) Building a colony. I want constructing buildings to be a goal of every player, so most likely I will award VPs for doing so. Essentially, goods produced from plantations or other means should work towards constructing buildings. Otherwise, if I award VPs for trading in resources, players may merely compete for those all game, keeping players from wanting to really make buildings at all. At the end of the game, I want all players to feel like they've created this world in front of them and all been a part of its evolution. This is one of the reasons I want to stick with everyone building the same colony, even if it means I need to cut back on other mechanics in the game. Similar to Carcassone or Archipelago, I think worker placement games play more strategically or agressively when you're competing over the same resources. I also want players to have to find a balance between essentially exploiting the world around them and not making the natives too angry too quickly, because that could make someone win.
3)Relationship with the Natives. Which brings me nicely to my third thing I want present in this game: managing the relationship with the natives. Essentially, things that bring you VPs will look great on your resume with the Europeans, but will be frowned on by the natives. In other words, rushing for VPs will hurt the colony (you, more than others). But if you can handle it later in the game, you may find players who think they have more VPs than the others purposefully trying to "tank" the game and get the natives super angry so that it ends early. I will definitely need to find a good balance here, but in my opinion its worth it to give the game that extra flavor that makes it unique.
Ok, now to address a few other things you brought up.
I do want to reduce the economic complexity of the game. Eliminating goods from Europe or reducing them to a generic "trade goods" may be a good solution for that. I could also eliminate the idea of trading with the natives altogether, forcing players to instead get natives to work on plantations and the like if they want to get any resources. Resources could then be sold back to Europe for coin, which is in turn used to construct buildings. (Perhaps then I could make this a static exhange rate, rather than a complicated dynamic one that adjusts to supply and demand. That sort of system could indeed be beyond the scope of this game and unnecessarily alienate a huge audience it would otherwise have. I'll look into this and play around with it to see what feels better.)
Yup. Conquistador is definitely too strong. As a TI:3 fan, I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment. Darn Imperial card. Anyway, I will look into simplfying role selection in general. In addition, I don't want to make any role that essentially guarantees VPs to be overpowered (Looking at the Architecht, if buildings are worth VPs). I like the ideas in Citadels and Puerto Rico where certain actions can only happen if someone chooses that role that round, so I still want to have essential roles like the Architect, but perhaps more limited so as to prevent them being too overpowered.
And finally (hope I haven't lost you yet...) I think using ship tiles or cards like a timer could allow me to put static amounts of "goods" on each ship when it arrives, so that each player receives them. It could vary from ship to ship, so that some automatically give each player gunpowder, or each player is forced to take one or two cubes of smallpox, or everyone gets a horse. That way, I don't have to deal with the added complexity of choosing resources from Europe, and they wouldn't have any trade value; they'd just be something everyone gets.
And finally finally... still wondering about things like Smallpox, how to refer to the "natives" and if the name La Colonia is too similar to Colonia, but I'll worry about those a bit later.
Phew. This is the first time I've put this idea out to the general public, so thanks for taking it as what it is. I'll take a look through the rulebook I have and see what types of changes I want to make. I'll try to keep a changelog as well so others who come across this can (try to) follow my train of thought.