People have often suggested a Plague or Nuke card for Incursion, both of which I've passed over several times--but I finally got an idea for how one might work that would be useful.
I'm now considering the possibility of a Plague card. Played against your own territory or an immediate neighbor (preferably an opponent's), it has the following effects:
- Resources may not be produced there.
- Cards may not be acquired there, even if an adequate stockpile exists.
- Gathering resources will not move any resources through or from an infected territory, although you may gather resources to one.
- At the end of the owner's turn, the owner rolls dice against the plague for quarantine. (I'll probably keep it simple, 1 player die vs. 2 plague dice, ties won by the plague.) If successful, 1 unit will die (unless only 1 occupies the territory); otherwise, 20% will die, rounded up to the nearest whole unit, until only 1 is left.
Now, here's the tricky business:
- Redeployments or raids of anything from this territory will infect whichever territory they go to. This means an infected stockpile is pretty much off limits.
- Attacks against or from this territory may result in after-battle losses at the end of the turn. The front lines, if they survive the battles, must be quarantined; even if they move somewhere else, at the end of the turn there will be a roll to determine whether they live or die. (The front lines are the maximum number of units involved in any skirmish.) This happens for any uninfected territory that attacks, or is attacked by, an infected territory.
This is a potential balance-buster, not to mention a bit complicated, so ideas to shore it up and make it a more coherent card (or, reasons why this card would never work) are encouraged.
Thinking about this, and a few other things, it occurred to me last night that it might be desirable for hosts to have control over which cards pop up during a game, and perhaps in which frequency.
Lummox JR
Anyways, what I'm thinking is pretty simple: at the start of the turn, instead of producing 1 resource, territories under famine lose one resource and one unit (if there's more than one in the territory) and can't produce cards.
Since the territory eats resources, the "can't gather through the territory" rule should also remain in effect.
If you wanted to make it a bit more complicated, you could also make all redeployments (including conquest movement) to and from territories in famine take off one resource and one unit.
I'm not sure how long famine should last... maybe have it removed by playing a second famine card?