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Basic Concept

I decided that since there are too many nations to be played by players, the players will instead play as an ideology. Many times nations of the same ideology find themselves close allies anyways. I maybe ambitious by I chose the years 1770 to 1950. As it is a period of emerging ideologies and technologies. The time frame is long and will most likely be broken into scenarios, some hopefully short. Additional years will probably be cut off the ends.

I partially want to end the game with the invention of the atom bomb, since I feel it is the beginning of the end of international wars, instead of civil wars. However the goal is not a game about global warfare. The ideological struggle behind the war, sure. With warfare it is really a focus on quick resolution.

The game will be designed for 4 players representing the ideologies: Classical Liberalism, Traditionalism, Socialism and Nationalism. They will control the nations with an ideological faction. The winning ideology controls the most resources at the end of the game. Or perhaps other scenario based conditions.

Here are the goals of the game:
• Give each ideology and nation appropriate historical feel
• Represent cause belli and global tension
• Give players the tools of espionage to use to their end (I feel this is rather underappreciated).
• Let major nations develop personalities, which may or may not end up being historical.
• Use diplomatic policy to get to their end.
• Give a feel for the economic imperialism preformed by Europe
• Show the rising technologies of the industrial revolution
• Rapid, easy resolution to armed conflict

The core mechanic Awareness

Awareness is a very important concept within my concept, so I included it here. Each region on the map will have a Awareness level. Awareness is a measurement of how open the population is to more new ideas and how involved they are with their government.

Awareness does a number of things:

First, the game will be card driven to an large extent with factors such as ideological propaganda, diplomacy, etc. Awareness, will work as an upper limit to the number of cards which can be played in that region. Of course this allows a player to try to spread their ideologies influence. Most political effects will come into play this way. And of course each ideology will have its own

Secondly, Awareness will govern when a country can declare war. Many effect have a secondary part which is cause belli/tension. Players cannot use the nations they control to start a war unless the tension exceeds the Awareness. Of course war spread influence, but they are not designed to be the focus of the game. In fact may represent a series of wars instead of just one war. I am still testing out different ideas for warfare. The current champion idea is the regional conflict, limiting the conflicts to a couple of regions instead of being total war.

Finally, technologies. The higher the Awareness the faster they get new technologies. I imagine a track of technologies. There would be a global level and the individual regions will be x spaces ahead based on Awareness.

It is worth mentioning my vision of regions, since they are tied to Awareness.

Regions maybe very large sections of land containing a number of resources. Europe will be well flushed out, but the rest of the word is less important because well Euro-centrism. Each region can have a collection of nations. Because of the scale of the game many minor nations may not be represented, due to not be historically significant enough. However minorities are an important part of the game and many minor state will need to have an impact, even if they are not sovereign.

An example of an important minor is Serbia, who played a critical part in WW1 beginning.

Lastly Talk about influence level:

Influenced is the lowest level of influence and offers no special privileges.
Leaning is the level at which a player controls the nation given them privileges in diplomatic options and war declaration.
Complete Control is the highest form of influence and dramatically limit other players ability to act in that nation. It is more difficult to obtain than the others.

Let me know what you think. I might be being a bit too ambitious, but as a fan of history I felt this type of grand-game was always missing. There are plenty of war games and empire building games which decay into war game. I believe there is an audience which will appreciate this. I of course am looking for critics and suggestions.

Comments

Great ideas!

Hi
I've also always felt that such a kind of grand-game on ideology was missing. Twilight Struggle would be kind of my reference with its pros and cons. I'm working on one draft too.
But anyway, I think your ideas are great. I have a few questions.
I'm wondering what the winning criteria are. Are all regions expected to aim for being the first to develop the atom bomb?
Otherwise what are the characteristics of each ideology? How will for example "nationalism" affect the gameplay for that specific player?
Nicely presented!
Cheers

Ideas

As deciding the feel of the ideologies will be a top early priority. I think this topic is worthy of its own journal so I will gather my thoughts and post that, next. It is something I defiantly want critics on.

Currently I envision the winning criteria being resource control a matter of counting up points. I however felt the end of a game should feel climatic and not just like another turn, so it needs work.

The invention of the atomic bomb is more of a game ender than 'the goal'. Although it should give a noticeable boost to whoever gets it.

Ideologies

I added an entry about my plans for the ideologies if you care to read them.

It is ambitious

I think it is ambitious but not *overly*.

You may have the start of an interesting game, with unique concepts, however you will need to transform this into interesting stats & mechanics.

I'm not personally certain about all the "terminology" (Conciousness, Sympathies, Extremism, etc.) Some of those don't seem 100% correct. I get the concept - however I'm not certain it's the correct terms. Like "Cause Belli" is actually "Casus Belli" which leads me to think there are other errors in terminology.

But overall I get the idea - it seems interesting.

Reply

As to the terminology I am open to suggestion, if something sticks out. As for consciousness, it kind of an 'opened-mindedness' of society. So perhaps that is what it should be called. Does that sound better to you?

I understand the concept

I would use "awareness" or "sensibility". Either or... I think they both sound be than "consciousness".

But that is very subjective. It's just a term, but since it plays deep into the overall game - the term needs to be the right one. Both of those seem to suggest a certain type of specific "knowledge". No?

I'm not a fan of

I'm not a fan of "sensibility", but I could definitely see it called "awareness".

More realistic IMHO

"Consciousness", to me, IMHO seems to want to make a distinction between dreams and reality. While your usage seems to indicate a specific type of knowledge or "awareness" of the population.

That's why I think "awareness" sounds better... less dreamy.

BTW

I after some thought, I decided to rename the levels of influence.

This should make them easier to use.

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