New Card type: Kingdom (and some rule changes)

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Ravenchild
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Re: New Card type: Kingdom (and some rule changes)

Post by Ravenchild » Sun Jun 26, 2011 10:41

Sorry for the late answer. I'm still pretty busy (no, not with Cardscape ;) )
snowdrop wrote:
I don't think scope would be any different than it is now. "One ore more
kingdoms" takes care of the ambiguity issue. I would be concerned about the
level of micromanagement introduced with this mechanic.
Agree that scope could work as it already does,
Correct
but the system makes less usage
of spatiality since a creature can defend and attack from everywhere,
Not true. A unit can only defend in the kingdom it is located in.
making it all very unintuitive in a new sort of way (but that's not a good
argument either, I admit). The main worry I have is that it
will fragment the game and make every hotspot have few cards around it and a
simplistic behaviour instead of having fewer hotspots with more complex chain
reactions and interactions: This goes without saying since the amount of
cards in the deck are the same but have to be divided somehow between
x kingdoms (in contrast to my suggestion, where they're divided between 2
fronts at most).
It is up to the players how much separation they introduce. In round 1 both
players have 1 kingdom (and therefore one front). Each player may choose to play
additional kingdoms in the course of the game, depending on his very own
strategy.
I'm not as worried about the microing, or administration of it as I call it
elsewhere, as the amount of cards is the same. Asp might have a point when he
points his it though as it would generate some additional admin
if creatures can move between kingdoms.
They also do that in the ORC. Don't they? Could you please tell me what kind of
problems you can think of?
I believe all ideas should be able to withstand a discussion and think that a
good idea will survive the scrutiny in a forum. By asking, questioning and
sharing we develop new ideas, improve old ones and trash some along the
process.
Well said
To be extra clear on this one: I have no issues with anyone testing anything
they want without me thinking it is a good idea or being excited about it. I
even think that would be good as I often consider myself and my conservative
and slow dev approach as one of the bottle-necks in the project. :?
I think it's a wise choice to be critical about the basic mechanics of the game.
Even if it is a bottleneck, it is a useful one.

raven:
The major difference between kingdoms and other card types is that
these kingdoms define how much "life" you have left. If you lose all of your
kingdoms, you have lost the game. Additionally, you can conquer
kingdoms
When you have lost all your kingdoms you lose the game.

1. So.. each kingdom is "one life"?
It could be regarded as such. Yes. This is probably unconventional for most CCGs
and we need to take special care that kingdoms are not easily be
defeated/conquered in the first 3 rounds. Keep in mind that each kingdom will be
defended by new units in the course of the game.
2. And there's nothing stopping a player from putting for example 10
kingdoms in play?
Correct. But I would consider such a move very risky. Kingdoms need to be
defended or else they will be conquered/destroyed.
3. If I conquer a kingdom, does it mean that it then counts to my own
life pool? And also, do I get it's effects?
That's the plan.
In the case where that (3) is true I am very reserved to it: The result of
losing a kingdom is double punishment: First it punishes the player by having
him/her lose the "hp". Then, it punishes her by awarding the opponent
once more by making his/her "hp" grow.
I completely understand your concern. That's why I said right from the beginning that the "conquering"-part can be omitted if it creates too much headache. But it would be an interesting aspect to have.

There could also be cards that prevent conquest by destroying the card the
moment the enemy has defeated the kingdom. Or you could have a ghost unit that
is somehow attached to a kingdom and will haunt the controller of the kingdom.

With these cards conquering a kingdom can be less rewarding for
the attacker. From total destruction to trojan horses many things are
conceivable.
An enemy always attacks a specific kingdom. It is then up to the defending
player to select defenders within that kingdom. If no defender is chosen for
an attacker, the kingdom card itself blocks each unblocked attacker. If this
defeats the kingdom card, the enemy gains control of the kingdom.
4. How does that work?

Is the combat against the undefended Kingdom resolved as it would be with an
enemy creature, where the Kingdom "survives" (is unconquered) if the
attackers combined ATK values are less than the Kingdoms DEF?
Correct. It's the same combat mechanics as with normal units.
Like any permanent card they may have any ability. For example the
kingdom could give +0/+2 to all local units. It could also have abilities like
"deal 2 damage to a unit attacking this kingdom (use this ability only once
each turn)". Most abilities will probably help to defend the kingdom or
support your own troops when they attack. But other abilities are also
conceivable.
With other words, they don't really bring effects that can't be brought by
other means: Their real thing that set them apart from other types are
conquerability & them being the same as the players HP.
Plus the fact that they cost no gold to play and that they introduce dynamic
fronts.

spatial brokenness
a) Movement and almost all spatial b) strategy becomes totally broken by this
suggestion, and is almost removed altogether.
Yes, you need different strategies with these rules. I'm not entirely sure if
it will work out well, but I like the idea and therefore I presented it to
you.
Movement is almost insignificant in your setup and the benefits it brings to
the game are lost. I explain some of these in another recent post to
aspidites in
http://chaosrealm.net/wtactics/forum/vi ... p=940#p940
In summary (if I understood you correctly), the fronts-system requires the
players to take long-term strategic decisions. According to the current ORC,
units at the front A of player 1 can only attack front A of player 2 (same with
front B)

In my system any front may attack any other enemy's front. This requires a lot
of planning on the defensive side. You don't know which front will be
used to attack you. So I don't think movement is insignificant because you also
need to distribute your units among the kingdoms to built a proper defense.

In the first post in this thread I proposed that the defending kingdom may call
any amount of unmarked units from X other kingdoms for help where X is the
number of kingdoms attacking the defending kingdom minus 1.
Another (simpler) rule comes to my mind: Any kingdom may not be attacked by
more than one kingdom in one turn.
There might be other ways to use spatiality to bring strategic depth that I'm
not aware of, but in the case with the ORC I won't ditch movement because of
the intro of a new cardtype. I think the spatiality stuff the fronts
introduce should be kept intact, at least in ORC, and that it is the cardtype
that should be adapted to it instead.
I doubt that this will work out well. Of course you could associate a kingdom
card with one of the 2 fixed fronts but I don't see much of a gain in doing so.
That said, I am not claiming your suggestion as it is wouldn't work out in
another ruleset or that spatiality is a must in a good ruleset: I'm sure
there can be much more delicate and deeper rules created without involving
spatiality, but I'm not the one that can deliver them. I would however love
to read them and try it all out.
I don't understand. What kind of rules would you like to read? Spacial-related
rules or unrelated ones?
Quests
I won't quote everything here. Just write a summary of my thoughts:

Quest could require the enemy to do different things. But his
deck may not be optimized for fulfilling these tasks. In constrast the quest-owner
could optimize his deck so that these quests are even harder to fulfill.
And keep in mind that a player will (in most cases) not put a quest into play,
if he isn't equipped with the right cards to hinder the enemy from succeeding.

The conquest of kingdoms can be seen as one type of quest.
However, each player's deck is built with battles and conquest in mind.
The players are expecting conquests and also expect the enemy to have
certain counter-measures.

If quests are somewhat arbitary, I fear that you could built a deck with lots of exotic quests that will make the game frustrating.

I don't know if quests need to be accomplishable with any deck. There could
still be cards that destroy a quest card. In that case the caster would not
fulfill the quest but the owner would also not benefit from it any further.

The best way to approach this topic (quests) are probably examples. Q_x,
would you be so kind and tell us what you have in mind? It's probably a good
idea to open a new thread for this and post a link.
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Re: New Card type: Kingdom (and some rule changes)

Post by Ravenchild » Sun Oct 16, 2011 17:08

I had some more discussions with snowdrop on this topic. The problem is that the aspect of spatiality is mostly removed by my suggestion, Therefore I propose the following:

Whenever a player puts another kingdom into play and he has less or equal kingdom cards than the enemy, he must declare war to an enemy kingdom that is not yet at war. If there are more players than 2, there are still no more than 2 players involved in a kingdom-vs-kingdom war.

So, while the number of fronts is still dynamic (depending on the minimum of kingdom-cards in the game), the directions units can attack are fixed.

A kingdom that is not at war can not attack and does not need to be defended. Therefore a player can not place units on it.

I'm also thinking about the possibility that some units require the player to have a minimum of kingdoms in play. So if you want to play really cool units, you need to have 2-3 kingdoms (or more) at later phases of the game. (Yes, that's similar to the concept of thresholds).
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Re: New Card type: Kingdom (and some rule changes)

Post by Ravenchild » Sun Oct 23, 2011 10:26

After some more discussions we could further refine the kingdom cards concept. A summary of possible rules and considerations can be found in the wiki:
http://chaosrealm.net/wtactics/wiki/ind ... gdom_cards
ngoeminne
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Re: New Card type: Kingdom (and some rule changes)

Post by ngoeminne » Fri Mar 11, 2016 17:01

I like this concept, and it could help solve several other problems, it shouldn't be dismissed easily.

First problem, the discussion about the threshold/loyality mechanics and the restriction of using multiple factions in a single deck. Personally I don't like being told by the rules which card combinations are forbidden. As stated by snowdrop the loyalty mechanics are there to solve a problem what's solved by MTG by using different type of lands. However, after reading the rules about 5 times it still is very hard to understand. And I'd be glad if could get rid of them.

Secondly, I think the fronts have little to no semantic (themable) meaning, it's just a place part of the table. Also the number seems to be arbitrary, why 2? Why not 3 or 4.

Here is my version of the concept:

First of all, I'd like to call them cities instead of kingdoms.
- A city card belongs to a faction, e.g. the city of 'Lothlorien' is a Gaia city.
- It does have a casting cost (building the city).
- Entering a city with a creature requires a cost (e.g. entrance fee/recruitment fee), and only creatures of the same faction can enter the city (unless stated otherwise on the card - e.g. tolerance for the undead).
When a city is attacked, it can recruit creatures from other cities or creatures not assigned to a city.
-The city also has a defense/toughness before it is destroyed. (whether it should go over to the attacking player can be an option)
- Events, enchantments, magic can only be played if you control at least a city of the given faction ( or if the player belongs to the given faction)
- Roaming creatures (not assigned can not attack), so you first have to build a city and move your creatures to it.

An other cool thing would be, an avatar card for the player (also belonging to a faction). Then the player could also enter a city. When a city is attacked, either it's residents, the city, or the player inside the city could take the damage. If the city is destroyed/captured, it reduces the points of the player by the toughness of the city.

During each player's turn, for each of the cities he controls he can declare a skirmish (battle) between to cities. or in case the opponent doesn't have a city between the his city and the roaming creatures of the opponent.

Besides all those things a city can have additional abilities (defensive/offensive) and there could be interactions with the city cards. E.g. Famine : For each resident of target city, the city's owner pays one resource, or sacrifice a city resident.

Using these rules, the gameplay will shift drastically, and it will change during the game itself, start-game, middle/end-game.

All in all, we can get rid of the horrible loyalty points. (or they could be used to mark the rarity of the card).
and the number of times it can be in a deck/play.
3 LP => singleton in deck/singleton in city/ singleton in play
2 LP => 4 in deck / singleton in city / singleton in play
1 LP => 4 in a deck / singleton in city / 4 in play
0 LP => 4 in a deck / 4 in city / 4 in play

Kind regards.
Nico
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Re: New Card type: Kingdom (and some rule changes)

Post by Ravenchild » Tue Mar 15, 2016 19:31

First of all: Sorry for not going into the details. I just wanted to say that:
ngoeminne wrote: First of all, I'd like to call them cities instead of kingdoms.
I like the idea. This fits much better with the concept of conquest than kingdoms because the latter are just so much larger. A city is something that you can "more realistically" conquer in a single turn.

I need more time to think about the rest.
ngoeminne
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Re: New Card type: Kingdom (and some rule changes)

Post by ngoeminne » Thu Mar 24, 2016 21:33

Hey Ravenchild,

I've also drafted up a word doc, with some possible rules and gameplay.
I'll attach it here.

Kind regards,
Nico
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