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City of Guilds - Updated rules and a request

As mentioned in other posts, I did some playtesting over the weekend and updated the rules to City of Guilds, plus some of the cards. The links below give you everything you need to play the game, so I'm desperately searching for play testers.

Just a quick note, the rules are designed to be printed double-sided on a sheet of A4, and then folder in half to form a 4 page booklet, so if you look across the columns in the pdf below you'll actually see the pages in the order 4,1,2,3.

City of Guild rules (pdf)

Cards - sheet 1 (pdf)

Cards - sheet 2 (pdf)

Cards - sheet 3 (pdf)

Board/Map (jpg)

Comments

Wow.

This looks pretty simple and fun!

I will definitely try to play test it some, and post about how it goes.

:)

City of Guilds - Quick Update

Just to fill anybody following the development of this game in with the current developments.

I've been really busy with work recently, but did manage to sneak in a couple of play tests with players new to the game, and even a 3 player test (previously I had only been able to test 2 player games).

On the plus side, the game was very close, and the players enjoyed the game. On the down side it is clear there isn't enough money generated in a 3+ player game. In a two player game you get 1 gold for each area of the city you control at the end of a round. In 3+ player games there are far more tied areas and fewer area with outright control, especially early in the game. This results in very little gold being given out and therefore nobody having any in later rounds to construct buildings or play other cards with a gold cost.

My solution to this is in 3 and 4 players games to change the way gold is distributed slightly. In 2 players games it will remain 1 gold for each area a player outright controls. In 3 and 4 player game it will be 2 gold for each area, and 1 gold for each tied area. I'll need to play test this, but it feels about right.

Regarding the cards, I'm nearly there, I think around 28 or the 31 cards are now finalised/confirmed, with the others needing tweaking or replacing.

I've also had an idea for an advanced variant, probably to be included in the basic set (I'm trying to work it out so there are 54 cards total for easy publication). I'll give more info on this later, but rather than being a simple who controls the most areas game, there will be victory points awarded for controlling areas, amount of gold earned and agendas completed.

City of Guilds - latest new

I've just uploaded updated rules and guild cards. I've managed to get quite a lot of playtesting in recently, plus quite a few BGGers have downloaded and played the game.

I would like to think play testing is nearly done and the game is nearly "finished", though I'm sure I'll be proved wrong!

Obviously doesn't mean I don't want even more feedback :o)

And now the game is nearing completion hopefully more people will play it.

Here's the links to the relevant files again:
http://www.awakener76.net/games/guilds/city_of_guilds.pdf
http://www.awakener76.net/games/guilds/new_map.jpg
http://www.awakener76.net/games/guilds/Guild_Cards.pdf
http://www.awakener76.net/games/guilds/building%20cards.pdf
http://www.awakener76.net/games/guilds/Action_Cards.pdf

Thanks
Andy

Roles vs Guilds, and other rules Q's

The rules begin by referring to Guilds, but then seem to start calling those Guilds "Roles." Is that on purpose?

Another question... do players basically take turns each round taking 1 action at a time, where an action is "play 1 card"? When exactly do you get the benefit of your Guild card (which I presume you take at the beginning of the round when you determine which guild you will be).

Speaking of guild cards, does each player have their own set, and therefore 2 players can be members of the same guild? Or are the guild cards drafted at the beginning of the round such that if you take Merchant, I cannot take Merchant this round?

Aside from the Recycle card, and at the beginning of the round when you fill up to 3, how do you get more cards? Might I only get to play 1 card (suppose I am playing the Theif guild and draw 2 building cards) while an oppoennt could play 5 (1 being Recycle)? Is that OK?

I think your game sounds really good, but there are lots of details about the rules that I have questions on, Idon't think I could play it from the rules. I'd like to try it though.

Re: Roles vs Guilds, and other rules Q's

Probably my mistake using guild and roles interchangably.

Players take turns each round, taking an action each, the actions are:
Draw a card
Play a card
Discard a card
Use a special ability (once per ability)

The round ends when there are no more cards in the draw pile and both players have either emptied their hands (by playing or discarding the cards therein) or have passed (players may pass and keep 1 card for the next round).

There is only one set of guild/role cards, so two players can't be the same role.

I need to upload some modified files as I've made a few changes that I discovered were necessary after quite a bit of play-testing. I won't have time to do that this week, but basically there now 6 guilds (though only 5 rounds still), the riot cards have been removed (where just too powerful and too random) and all the "Gain Influence in xxx" cards now have the additional text "Pay (2) to remove an opponents [1] from xxx", this was because in the later rounds there weren't any spaces, so the Gain cards became useless. Also it gives more purpose to try and gain money.

The riot cards have been replaced with a number of different cards that let you gain either influence or money.

Hope that all makes sense. I'll re-upload the map now so that people can get it, though I'm thinking of making a couple of minor changes, just adding some additional influence spaces.

Thanks
Andy

comments on the comments

awakener76 wrote:
Players take turns each round, taking an action each, the actions are:
Draw a card
Play a card
Discard a card
Use a special ability (once per ability)

Yeah, I'd definitely put that in the rules then ;)

Why is there a discard action? is that so you can sort of stall for a turn? In an area control game like this it seems like you might want to stall frequently, and if there's also a Draw action, mightn't people just spend a lot of time discarding or drawing until they have a hand they like, then playing cards? I'm not sure, but it sounds like there might be a better way to do that... unless this sort of stalling is what you want in the game. Sounds a little anticlimactic though - you want people making plays, right? Not just cycling cards.

Quote:
There is only one set of guild/role cards, so two players can't be the same role.

That sounds better. In 2p do you get 2 roles each, or just 1?

Quote:
I need to upload some modified files as I've made a few changes that I discovered were necessary after quite a bit of play-testing.

I'd like to see the new cards when they're ready.

Quote:
The riot cards have been replaced with a number of different cards that let you gain either influence or money.

I thought the Riot cards sounded too powerful/random... funny you found the same! :)

Re: comments

The discard action is there because of the hand limit size, and though it does stall the round slightly, it has to be used carefully.

In a 2p game for example the draw pile is only 9 cards, so rounds are pretty short and stalling to discard could lose you time.

You still only play 1 role per turn in 2p. The reason for the number of roles is to try and avoid both players needing to play the same role at the same time. Initially I had 5 roles, but in a 5 round game this meant there was an outside chance of both players in a 2p game needing the same role in the last round. So the extra role was added. Now 2p and 3p games shouldn't have the role clash problem and even in 4p games it's unlikely.

So in 2p games there are 9 cards in the draw pile, whilst in 3p there are 11 and 4p games there are 13. This then influences the total number of cards. If there are 4p there are 12 cards (3 each) dealt out and then 13 in the draw pile. If all 6 buildings are in play then that's a total of 31 cards, hence there are 32 in the deck, ensuring that even in a last round with all buildings already out players can't be 100% certain of what cards will be available.

Most of my testing has been 2p, where we draw roles randomly at the start of the turn. I'm thinking in 3p and 4p games that it shouldn't be random, but instead players should bid for roles. In the first round it would still need to be either random, or selected in some predetermined order, but after that an auction could take place each round. I envisage this being a case of the 1st player bids 1 gold coin for the role, and then each player can increase the bid by 1 until none of the other players want to outbid the current high bidder. If a player has no gold coins then they simply get the choice of the remaining roles. Players can only play the same role more than once if they literally have no choice.

I'm probably going to produce a new prototype this sunday (hopefully), in which I'll probably replace the board with 9 cards. This won't effect gameplay at all, but I think it may increase the chances of publication.

The riot cards really were far too powerful. You could spend 4 rounds building up a strong position only for your opponent to draw 2 riots in the last round and completely change the game.

Thanks
Andy

I couldn't get the map page

I couldn't get the map page to load. But, everything els I have printed and will do what I can.

maybe the jpg is called map.jpg?

The Magician wrote:
I couldn't get the map page to load. But, everything else I have printed and will do what I can.

I tried editing the url - there's a file called map.jpg instead of new-map. I don't know if it's the latest version, but you can at least see what it looks like.

Map

I've re-uploaded the map, so it can be downloaded from http://www.awakener76.net/games/guilds/new_map.jpg.

Thanks
Andy

PlayTesters.Net

Just a note that we started a site to help you find the playtesters you're seeking.
http://www.Playtesters.Net

Good luck!
James
http://www.RPGOverstock.com

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