A New Rules Concept - Wesnoth:BattleTactics

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sweep
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A New Rules Concept - Wesnoth:BattleTactics

Post by sweep » Wed May 11, 2011 08:02

Hi all,

This is Sweep again. I've already introduced myself, but now I'd like to introduce what I and my friends have been doing.

In the spirit of keeping everyone informed, and partly in response to Snowdrop's recent call for regular updates/reports, I'd like to introduce you to a new rules set. Myself and my friends have settled on the name 'Wesnoth: Battle-Tactics' - or just WBT for short. Let me tell you a little bit about it.

WBT uses similar card types to the ORC, but (we think) places a larger emphasis on unit-to-unit combat. That emphasis is produced in two main ways -

1) WBT allows for two types of 'combat' - raiding (which units do on an individual basis, and which offers smaller rewards to the attacker, but is harder for the defender to stop), and battle (which is a form of mass-combat more like that seen in the ORC and in games like Magic: The Gathering).

2) In general players will have the chance to make multiple decisions as part of each 'real combat' (that is, each battle) in WBT - even if all the creatures involved are 'vanilla' creatures (that is, creatures with no rules text).

Some other interesting features of WBT are:
  • Cards are not 'marked' (or 'tapped', 'committed', or whatever). Instead they move to different zones of play - ("into the field", for example) and their abilities are limited (or increased) depending upon which zone they are in.
  • A very simple turn structure, with only two phases.
  • An element that is, functionally speaking, superficially similar to resource piles in the ORC, but really quite different, and branded to allow the notion of 'terrain' to matter...
  • A variable number of 'fronts'.
  • You win by reducing your opponent's influence to 0, and their influence is equal to the number of cards in their draw deck.
  • You have a standard hand size rather than a maximum hand size, and can draw up to it at the end of your turn.
Anyway, hopefully that whets your appetites for more. If you have any questions I'll answer them as best and as promptly I can, but rest assured a proper rules document will be made available on the wiki as soon as possible.

The WBT team has also been developing cards (all still at the 'concept' or 'approved for playtesting' stages), which, when we get sufficiently organized (soon!), we will put onto Cardscape. Obviously these cards are designed for use with the WBT rules, but hopefully they provide ORC developers with as much inspiration as we've been taking from their creations!
Last edited by sweep on Mon May 16, 2011 01:23, edited 2 times in total.
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Q_x
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Re: A New Rules Concept - Wesnoth:BattleTactics

Post by Q_x » Wed May 11, 2011 13:23

If you need a specific board here on forums - poke snowdrop :)

I'm looking forward to know more details of it. I like a lot the concept of not marking cards at all, same thing with two-phased turn. This will most probably be build over time, so I'm not asking about anything specific.

As for the last thing (hand size) - just keep in mind we are targeting asymmetry between factions, with fixed hand size you may hit some balancing problems (that is IF we will develop factions in the way they are balanced for one or two cards per turn type of play). This is hopefully all avoidable somehow, eventually by varying hand size (like having more than 50% of RB or Gaian cards in the deck increases your hand by 1 card, and having more than 40% of Empire cards reduces the hand by 1 card) or in other way.

And finally - we are discussing lots of various ideas. I wanted to start a separate ruleset as a form of dustbin for all this stuff that is early to discuss, and may be valuable in the future. Also I'm wondering if there are some aspects fixed now in ORC that could be in fact made flexible, or at least bendable. For example of such problems that would go to this notebookish RS: how to determine game length? how to make longer games with smaller decks? how to make more interesting battles? what new types of cards could WT have? how to solve resource system in a way that will made balancing easier? How would making cards in resource piles easy to play once the pile is no longer needed change the game? Pretty much general stuff, but also some specific ideas along with it.
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snowdrop
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Re: A New Rules Concept - Wesnoth:BattleTactics

Post by snowdrop » Sat May 14, 2011 20:06

or just WBT
Nice. Then it will use those letters from now on. =)
WBT uses similar card types to the ORC,
Speaking of card types, this is a hard nut to crack that we have't pulled of yet since we haven't really decided on exactly how many and which card types we'll use in ORC: How do you guys defined what should be a card type of it's own or not?
Anyway, hopefully that whets your appetites for more. If you have any questions I'll answer them as best and as promptly I can, but rest assured a proper rules document will be made available on the wiki as soon as possible.
I'm very happy that you're aboard our magically powered ship that moves with the speed of a newly awoken koala, yet with the unmovable determination of donkey ;) and am confident that we'll have plenty of exchange from each others team.

I'm both relieved and saddened by the fact that yours is the first team to actually join up in over 1,5 year :roll: and am eager to see your work and to support you guys in any way I can, as mentioned per e-mail correspondence. Just shout whenever you need something or have an idea or question.

Don't forget to put all your work into the wiki. The more you guys use it, the easier it will be for the world to see your work and also contribute to it one way or the other.

Also - did you guys want us to setup a copy of cardscapefor you? So you can use it to dev new cards for WBT?
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sweep
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Re: A New Rules Concept - Wesnoth:BattleTactics

Post by sweep » Mon May 16, 2011 01:22

Q_x wrote:If you need a specific board here on forums - poke snowdrop :)
Thanks. I shall - though I take it he's probably read your suggestion here...
:)
Q_x wrote:I'm looking forward to know more details of it. I like a lot the concept of not marking cards at all, same thing with two-phased turn. This will most probably be build over time, so I'm not asking about anything specific.
:D
Glad to hear it! I am hopeful that this week some of the blank spaces currently on the wiki will be made slightly less blank.
Q_x wrote:As for the last thing (hand size) - just keep in mind we are targeting asymmetry between factions, with fixed hand size you may hit some balancing problems (that is IF we will develop factions in the way they are balanced for one or two cards per turn type of play). This is hopefully all avoidable somehow, eventually by varying hand size (like having more than 50% of RB or Gaian cards in the deck increases your hand by 1 card, and having more than 40% of Empire cards reduces the hand by 1 card) or in other way.
I suppose I hadn't thought of hand size as an issue specifically in relation to balance. That said, it's something I'll keep in mind now that you've raised it. I'd certainly be interested in hearing more of your thoughts on the matter.
Q_x wrote:And finally - we are discussing lots of various ideas. I wanted to start a separate ruleset as a form of dustbin for all this stuff that is early to discuss, and may be valuable in the future. Also I'm wondering if there are some aspects fixed now in ORC that could be in fact made flexible, or at least bendable. For example of such problems that would go to this notebookish RS: how to determine game length? how to make longer games with smaller decks? how to make more interesting battles? what new types of cards could WT have? how to solve resource system in a way that will made balancing easier? How would making cards in resource piles easy to play once the pile is no longer needed change the game? Pretty much general stuff, but also some specific ideas along with it.
Maybe a wiki-page where we can submit questions that we think may be important to address at some stage? I suggest a wiki page because we may not necessarily want to address the questions immediately, but that way the development teams could occassionally/regularly review the material that's there and focus on the questions that seem most important/urgent/relevant? I'd think that one such page would be enough, but maybe it could be divided into thematic subsections? eg: Questions relating to game length, Questions relating to faction balance, etc.

Maybe you'd like to set that up? ;)
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sweep
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Re: A New Rules Concept - Wesnoth:BattleTactics

Post by sweep » Mon May 16, 2011 02:06

Card types: This is a (very) difficult question for the WBT team too. Currently we are trying to split it into two slightly less difficult questions: (1) 'What do the cards do?', and (2) 'How should that be branded?'.

In relation to (1), we have to ask ourselves further questions, like whether the card has a continuous or one-shot effect, as well as when it can be played. Other questions might be 'what sort of basic attributes' does it have, and so on.

In part, we are hoping the answers we come up with to (1) will help determine answers to (2). A card that requires a caster to be in play and has difficult timing requirements but a powerful effect - maybe that could be called a 'Sorcery'? A card that somehow attaches to another card to give it a bonus in a fight? Sounds like a 'Weapon' of some kind - though a thesaurus could probably give us more words to use, and some might be better...
That sort of thing.

However, it works in reverse too. We want a game that represents units fighting each other in battle, so we need cards that will represent units. And they of course need to function like units do. So the aesthetics dictate to a card's function too.

At present, we know that we want soldiers to battle other soldiers, or monsters, or whatever. We have settled on the term 'Unit' for these cards that engage in battle in this (primary) fashion. We also wanted terrain to matter, and so the cards that permit this are called 'Domain' cards because we thought that sounded cool.

At this stage, however, I'm encouraging the team to invent new card types for whatever cards they want to playtest. When we have a sufficiently large pool of cards we will begin discussing how we can group them - based on the functional/aesthetic considerations outlined above.

Cardscape: A copy of cardscape for the WBT team would be great!

And thanks in general for the warm welcome guys. Looking forward very much to working with you all to make this wonderful project reach it's full potential.
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