orc resource system

[Ravenchild]

I'm just curious: You said that you still have two ideas for the resource system? What's the current status of your ideas?

[snowdrop]

Good Q I'm currently pretty ill but will try to do my best to explain.

What I imagine is the following system, devised by a developer called Andreas Propst and used with permission by him (not that it's required unless it's pantented, but I am keen on keepin all aspects of WT legal and our asses free from problems and also asked of respect for the author that's also a indie CCG developer behind Elemental Clash - a really interesting project.) While basically the same system, It is not his original idea and I have modified it in some regards in order to streamline and simply it further. I.e. Andreas used dedicated resource cards (i.e. like lands in MtG) and didn't include redistribution:

• Each round the player is allowed to put down one card from her hand face down as a resource, in a resource pile. When doing so the player will either a) create a new pile or b) add to an already existing pile.
• The player can create any amount of resource piles: She can just create one with several resources in it, or many with a fewer resources in each.
• Amount of resources produced by a resource pile is equivalent to the amount of cards it's composed of. Ex: An RP with 5 cards in it produce 5 gold.
• To play a creature (and maybe even all other permanents?) the player places the card on an un-occupied resource pile that has at least as much gold in it as the card's gold cost.
• The creature now stays there until the beginning of the players next turn, in which it will, in start of her turn, be moved from its RP into play (yes, without summoning sickness)
• A RP can only have one creature on it and is considered to be "occupied" (actually exhausted or in progress with taxation/payment etc are better analogies) even if the RP produces more gold than the creature costs. Example: I have 5 resource in my RP and I place a creature that costs 3 gold on it. The 2 leftover gold are now "blocked" for the remainder of the round and can't normally be used as no other card may be placed on the same RP.
• All resource piles become un-occupied at the beginning of each turn since the creatures are put into play, thus, the resources are "renewed".
• The player may, at the end of her turn and by sacrificing one resource form any RP, reconfigure the composition of two of her resource piles by moving x amount of resources from one pile to any other pile. This may be done only once per turn.
• To play instants one has to have free RP:s with adequate funding in them. In contrast to creatures instants are played instantly and won't have to be placed in advance on the RP:s.

The above is still crude and would probably need to be tweaked, but think that sums it up, at least the big picture of it

[pennomi]

Wow, I really like this idea. It would also make WTactics fairly unique among CCGs.

[snowdrop]

Wow, I really like this idea. It would also make WTactics fairly unique among CCGs.

Uniqueness is cool and all, but not any kind of goal for the project. We just want to release a working kick-ass CCG that's open and can compete gameplay wise with some of the better commercial counterparts out there. So, originality isn't a priority - arguably, being to unique and too original would even shift the project from a CCG to something else.

That said, I'm bound to agree from what CCG:s I have ever seen - most don't use such a system, and from what Probst told me, he came up with the system himself.

If it works or not remains to be seen though - we should judge it after functionality, nothing else.

[pennomi]

In addition to testing a battle system with the LackeyCCG patch I created, I also tested out this concept. Unlike the battle system, I was really happy with the way this plays out. Here are a few of the problems I found and possible solutions:

1) By playing an extra card out of hand each turn, the player's hand becomes depleted rather quickly.
Possible Solution: draw 2 cards per turn. (An additional effect to drawing 2 cards is that you have better options in your hand at all times, since you, in effect, get to choose which of the two cards you want to play and which you want to use as resource.)

2) By waiting until the beginning of the next turn to deploy recruited creatures, the player is left vulnerable to attack by the opposing player.
Possible Solution: The last phase of the turn is the "deploy phase" or "reinforce phase" where the creatures are put into play ready to block incoming attacks.

Anyway, it seemed to function properly, provided card costs aren't ridiculously high. And, like you said, snowdrop, functionality comes before originality. If somehow we are able to capture both, we're in a very good situation indeed.

[snowdrop]

1) By playing an extra card out of hand each turn, the player's hand becomes depleted rather quickly.

What is the normal scenario here? That the player, in average, has 0 to 1 cards in hand? If so, then I'd agree it needs adjusting. However, in for example MtG, in a random deck the player would not have a very high average of cards in hand. Most of the time in mid and late game the player would not have 6-7 cards in hand. More like 2-4 or something along those lines, with most decks. (I don't know if all share my experience here though, it's my personal impression when playing MtG)

More importantly, a) how does playing one card from hand all the time differ from playing 1 land card in MtG every turn? (After all, that's what 90% of all players/decks would want to do, at least.) b) Why would a player play the card as resource if he doesnt need it, which he doesnt, if he has no cards in hand and keep on using them up as resource cards instead of playing them?

Possible Solution: draw 2 cards per turn. (An additional effect to drawing 2 cards is that you have better options in your hand at all times, since you, in effect, get to choose which of the two cards you want to play and which you want to use as resource.)

If it's a problem, indeed, this could be a solution. Maybe another could be to just put the max hand size to 8, but I doubt it would fix anything really...

I am not convinced (yet) that it's a problem, mainly because I'm tired right now and can't for the love of god see how this can be broken here but work ok in MtG since there should be no diff really, not in an ideal MtG game.

2) By waiting until the beginning of the next turn to deploy recruited creatures, the player is left vulnerable to attack by the opposing player.
Possible Solution: The last phase of the turn is the "deploy phase" or "reinforce phase" where the creatures are put into play ready to block incoming attacks.

Round 1 - P1 puts 3 creatures on the resource piles. He can't put them into play.
Round 1 - P2 sees this. He puts 4 creatures on the resource piles.
Round 2 - P1 moves creatures from resource pile into front. Then attacks P2, which can't defend ofc.

Compare with MtG:

R1 P1: Plays 3 creatures. They're summoning sick, so they can't attack.
R1 P2: Plays 4 creatures. All things the same, but, sickness allows them to block!

Yes, there's the issue you mention. Nice catch, really shows how this hasn't been playtested yet or we'd discover it eons ago. Dunno what I was thinking... lol...

Deploy phase that you suggest could very well be the remedy. Should perhaps be right before cleanup phase.

Edit: Apparent thing that could be done is to NOT add yet another phase that requires them being moved into the front, but to simply do it as in MTG: All we need to do is to state that creatures on a pile CAN block but not attack. Ta-da... Don't know which is more elegant though...

[pennomi]

Deploy phase that you suggest could very well be the remedy. Should perhaps be right before cleanup phase.

Edit: Apparent thing that could be done is to NOT add yet another phase that requires them being moved into the front, but to simply do it as in MTG: All we need to do is to state that creatures on a pile CAN block but not attack. Ta-da... Don't know which is more elegant though...

The only problem I see with allowing creatures on a resource pile to block is that with two fronts (north and south), there is now a question of where the creature can block.

[Ravenchild]

The only problem I see with allowing creatures on a resource pile to block is that with two fronts (north and south), there is now a question of where the creature can block.

I vote for both fronts. It's an advantage that only applies for one round for each unit so this is not too powerful.

[pennomi]

I vote for both fronts. It's an advantage that only applies for one round for each unit so this is not too powerful.

Perhaps if you use a creature to block in one front, it must be deployed to that front. (Either immediately or at the beginning of next turn).

Or, we can say that, like in BfW, the recruited units are sitting in the castle tiles next to the commander, so any unit attacking the commander would come to them instead of them going to a front to block.

[snowdrop]

The only problem I see with allowing creatures on a resource pile to block is that with two fronts (north and south), there is now a question of where the creature can block.

I vote for both fronts. It's an advantage that only applies for one round for each unit so this is not too powerful.

Problem with that is that the advantage would be very easy to repeat over and over again since a player could keep playing cretaures, even cheap ones, and that it will lock up / slow down the game. The following scenario illustrates it:

P1 wants to attack in north front, with 2 of her creatures.

P2 Has 2 creatures in his north front that can defend. P2 also has 1 (or even 2) creatures on his RP's that can also block.

Now, when P1 is evaluating if it's a good idea to attack or not she has to understand which creatures P2 can use as blockers. In the above example there's already a high number of combinations of blocking creatures: Any creature in front could block alongside any creature on a RP, or, only creatures on front could block, or, only creatures on RP could block.

Sum of this is that the game will have fewer attacks and that it adds to overall playing time. It's simply too powerful, and it also is a problem for the meta game where a deck with few expensive creatures would try to beat a game with only cheap ones - whoever has more creatures and can put them on an RP the fastest seems to be favoured of the suggestion.

Hence, while I suggested it myself, and while it solves one issue, I think it causes several more severe problems than it solves in the end.

Perhaps if you use a creature to block in one front, it must be deployed to that front. (Either immediately or at the beginning of next turn).

I think your initial suggestion to have a phase near the turns ending was a good one: Let them come into play just before your turn is over (after attack and movement phases, right before or after cleanup phase). It should work and solve all problems.

Another way would be to just let each resource pile be associated with a front, but I think that it's a less elegant solution really, and that it will open up new things to deal with and make the RP system even harder to taim and utilize for the player.