As some of you now know, I'm working on a board game for BYOND modeled a little bit after Risk. My goal is to end up with something that has very much the feel of Risk, and some similar rules (when it comes to dice rolls and such), but with lots of elements that are unique or borrowed from other conquest games. So far I have a lot of little ideas, but they don't yet make up a coherent system. It's time for me to scout for advice, especially since that discussion belongs here but it's beginning to take up valuable space... er, elsewhere.
One of the big concerns is the style and pace of gameplay. I'd like gameplay to be faster-paced, if possible, than Risk, because it's an online game. (My best idea to this end is to allow escalation of battles to do more damage at once.) I'd like strategy to revolve around taking and holding key territories (maps are randomly generated) that form geographic bottlenecks. I want a resource system in which territories produce resources when held for a full turn, but I don't yet know what to do with those resources. I want to allow abandoning a territory (at least, I think so), but need combat and movement rules to handle empty territories gracefully. Risk rules I don't intend to use are the conquest cards and the continent bonuses, but I'd love to hear creative alternatives to these.
So, what are people's thoughts here? What strategy board games have you played, and how might their concepts benefit my game? I don't intend for Risk to be the sole influence here; it just happens to be the strategy game with which I'm most familiar. Lords of Conquest is another good one, but its resource concept is very much tied into the way battles are run, and I don't want to use its battle system (which relies on force points based on neighbors and weapons and uses simple win/lose battling).
Lummox JR
ID:265086
 Nov 30 2001, 6:47 am
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Nov 30 2001, 9:06 am
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Gughunter
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I can give you a quick "house rule" to consider: at the end of the turn, all units may be reallocated anywhere as long as the movement only crosses over territories the player owns. I think there's a rule like this in official Risk, but it's more limited.
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Gughunter wrote:
I can give you a quick "house rule" to consider: at the end of the turn, all units may be reallocated anywhere as long as the movement only crosses over territories the player owns. I think there's a rule like this in official Risk, but it's more limited. I was thinking of a compromise between those two. In Risk the strategic move rule is that you can move any number of armies from one territory to an adjacent territory, and that's it. I want to expand that so you can make any number of such moves, provided no troops move more than one territory away. Lummox JR | |
Wow, that sounds like a great idea (Risk is one of my favorite games). Are you going to use an actual map of the world or are you going to make your own map? Perhaps with your resource system you could make it so that the loyalty of the population of the country determines how many resources you get, the higher the better. Therefore, when you first capture a territory it won't produce as much, but if you occupy it for a long period of time then the loyalty of the citizens would increase and the resource benefit would as well. This would also make it so that players would want to hold on to their territory, protecting some sort of central homeland and not spreading themselves too thin. If you can't figure out a use for resources, have the loyalty determine the number of troops per turn that a territory produces instead. Anyway, that's just one idea. Good luck with your game.
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SilkWizard wrote:
Wow, that sounds like a great idea (Risk is one of my favorite games). Are you going to use an actual map of the world or are you going to make your own map? The map is randomly generated for each game. Territory names are also randomly generated; the name generator produces some interesting results. Lummox JR | |
Lummox JR wrote:
SilkWizard wrote: Hee hee. I'd be willing to wager the territory name generator I've got in the strategy game I've been working on produces more interesting results. Too bad I don't have any earlier versions around, from before I got around to limiting some of the more interesting letter combinations. | |
I have an interesting idea I got from KODT.. Use special cards, similiar to the old risk cards, for various bonuses. Instead of getting a territory card, there could be a chance to get one of these cards instead. Various bonuses like double recruited armies for one turn, rebel uprisings, raids, sneak attacks, and a whole host of other special abilities can be incorporated into the game this way
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I was thinking of a compromise between those two. In Risk the strategic move rule is that you can move any number of armies from one territory to an adjacent territory, and that's it. I want to expand that so you can make any number of such moves, provided no troops move more than one territory away. Wouldn't you think that the movement phase would slow the pace of the game down more than it's worth? I mean, if you had to type a command, select a country, select a number, and select destination for each different country, that doesn't sound like too much of a "fast paced" online game. Unless you can find a way to streamline the process, I think the time taken and lack of fun for the waiting players outweighs the strategic value. Just my thoughts. :) PotentialSwords CROWN - The epic nothingness! Coming... sometime. | |
Mikal768 wrote:
I have an interesting idea I got from KODT.. Use special cards, similiar to the old risk cards, for various bonuses. Instead of getting a territory card, there could be a chance to get one of these cards instead. Various bonuses like double recruited armies for one turn, rebel uprisings, raids, sneak attacks, and a whole host of other special abilities can be incorporated into the game this way Something like this I actually have in mind. One of the better ideas I had was a "general" card that gives you an extra die to roll. The die is 8-sided, numbered 0-6 with 3 appearing twice. If you roll a 0, the general "dies", but otherwise the number contributes to the roll (in figuring the maximum dice for who loses their armies). If you have any good card ideas, I'm very open to suggestions. Lummox JR | |
PotentialSwords wrote:
I was thinking of a compromise between those two. In Risk the strategic move rule is that you can move any number of armies from one territory to an adjacent territory, and that's it. I want to expand that so you can make any number of such moves, provided no troops move more than one territory away. Well, are there actually that many different actions to be performed other than moving armies and attacking (Not spectacularly familiar with Risk, so this isn't just a rhetorical question)? If not, then a good interface would be click source territory, click destination territory, and have the computer sort out whether you're moving or attacking based on who owns your destination, and prompt you for a number to move/attack with. Even with more varied types of actions to be performed, the interface you describe sounds very unnecessarily clunky and not at all necessary. | |
PotentialSwords wrote:
Wouldn't you think that the movement phase would slow the pace of the game down more than it's worth? I mean, if you had to type a command, select a country, select a number, and select destination for each different country, that doesn't sound like too much of a "fast paced" online game. Unless you can find a way to streamline the process, I think the time taken and lack of fun for the waiting players outweighs the strategic value. Just my thoughts. :) You raise an excellent point. The solution I have in mind is similar to what Leftley described: Click a territory, click another one, and type a number. Or, clicking and dragging should be acceptable too. This reduces pop-ups to a single box. Attacks will be handled in a like manner: Click and click, or click and drag. As for the number of dice to roll, I'm thinking the way I'd like to do this would be to create an on-screen "dice box" where within the board there's a small box with clickable buttons to choose various options. The only problem with the dice box interface is that I don't think it's possible yet to make a clickable image, and yet this has to be implemented as images or else the box (if not necessarily the contents) will be visible to all players and possibly even in the way of what they're trying to see. That is, unless I make sure there's always an open ocean area for that box. Lummox JR | |
Evilkevkev wrote:
Z's "Sixes" uses clickable dice on the Map. Unless I'm missing where you want the dice to be... I do want them on the map. Here's the problem, though: The dice box needs to be visible only to certain players, so that it's not in the way of others. I don't think it's possible at present to make images clickable; only objs. Lummox JR | |
You are probably right. When i looked up image() it said: "Images are "virtual" objects, which have a purely visual effect."
However, it ALSO said: "Once created, they can be made to appear to selected players." Not sure what this exactly means but it might be possible. Worth a shot anyway. | |
Evilkevkev wrote:
You are probably right. When i looked up image() it said: "Images are "virtual" objects, which have a purely visual effect." The problem isn't that he's having trouble getting the images to appear selectively--that's the whole point of images! However, the help file also makes it sound as though clicking on an image calls the Click() function of the object it's attached to, so although it would be a minor hassle I don't think it would be particularly hard to track clicks on the images. | |
Lummox JR wrote:
Here's the problem, though: The dice box needs to be visible only to certain players, so that it's not in the way of others. I don't think it's possible at present to make images clickable; only objs. You can create objs with no icon and place the image on the obj. Then in the Click() proc make sure the person clcking is one of the people able to see it. If not, click the item under the obj. I'm not sure if you will be able to click the obj in this situation though. I normally use this with turfs, but it may work with objs as well. If it works how I expect, only the people able to see them will be able to click them. For that matter, you could place the images directly on turfs that are out of the way of the players who can see them. In the general turf/Click() proc, compare the turf location to see if it matches the location of the usr's dice. | |
Shadowdarke wrote:
You can create objs with no icon and place the image on the obj. Then in the Click() proc make sure the person clcking is one of the people able to see it. If not, click the item under the obj. I'm not sure if you will be able to click the obj in this situation though. I normally use this with turfs, but it may work with objs as well. If it works how I expect, only the people able to see them will be able to click them. I was thinking along these lines myself. I'll do some experimenting and see if it works. (Or then, maybe I won't; to experiment properly I need multiple players!) For that matter, you could place the images directly on turfs that are out of the way of the players who can see them. In the general turf/Click() proc, compare the turf location to see if it matches the location of the usr's dice. I've kinda got the board smothered in objs, except in a few places, so I'm not sure how well doing this with turfs would work. Lummox JR | |
Shadowdarke wrote:
You can create objs with no icon and place the image on the obj. Then in the Click() proc make sure the person clcking is one of the people able to see it. If not, click the item under the obj. That's automatic...if there is no image showing to a player for the object, then that object won't receive a Click(). [edit] More importantly, you can check clicks from the player perspective using client.Click()... | |
Just wanted to offer an update on how rules are progressing here; they are progressing somewhat now that I'm working on some online help.
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