Again, this idea is highly random and again, it is at a rather rudimentary level – I'm not sure I'll ever complete this or even how far I will take it.
The idea is for a TCG (trading card game) inspired game which is absolutely free and public domain, players can go online and print as many cards as they want without paying anything for them and nobody will ever be able to make any money from it.
Instead of going the true TCG route and making it so it is all about who has the most/best cards, this game is meant to actually involve some strategy (basically you need to keep things as simple as possible, but keeping things simple enough becomes more and more complicated as you progress).
The theme is of a religious war set in a technologically under-developed world/age. The game presents a rather cynical take on religions, basically looking at them as pyramid schemes and allowing players to use “both sides” - I don't want to ever go into much detail about the religions in the game because they are arbitrary and as with real religious wars, the differences are inconsequential anyway, people will use any excuse. But the powers good an evil, heaven and hell can be called upon.
Rather than just summoning a demon to do 50000 damage or an angel to remove all active cards your opponent is playing and do 60000 damage which can not be blocked, multiplied by the number of churches you have or something contrived like that, I'm going to make it that the supernatural elements are more like “effects cards” and seldom have direct actions associated with them.
It might after all be two denominations of the same church at war, and if that is the case, we wouldn't expect the same god/ess to send angels to both sides to smite the sinful others.
The overall mechanics I think I have mainly worked out – there are 3 types of cards on a basic level, they are spiritual cards (which deal with supernatural and spiritual matters), ecumenical cards (which deal with the believers, so basically we can think of them as 'economy cards') and fervour cards (which effect the military). Not all cards will only have effects associated with their type though.
We can assume that for the purposes of the game, the population is infinite as neither it, nor the size of the armies ever feature. The idea is to get more out of your congregation and more out of your army rather than to build a bigger one. It works that your army deals a certain amount of damage per turn and it can also absorb damage (which decreases its attacking power for the next turn). The army has only one stat and that is Might, this is a measure of your army's attacking and defensive power (as explained above). Damage which is not absorbed by the army (though the player's choice or because the player does not have enough Might to absorb the attack with his army) effects Faith – The Faith works kind of like money and determines which cards you can play and what you can build (also cards which you play).
Each player starts off with a Holy Place, a Pontiff and a Prophet. Building churches/temples increases the amount of Faith these holy (wo/)men can generate in different ways and if you lose them, their effects can still remain if you build a Sanctum to house their remains – in which case they stay on as Martyrs until the sanctum is destroyed.
Most buildings such as temples/churches, and Sanctums only have a defensive strength and don't contribute to the Might of the army. They can be attacked and the Army can absorb damage directed at them.
The idea is to build up your Prophet and Pontiff by playing more and more cards which act as 'boosters' for them – they add to the (attacking) Might of the army and have defensive scores so they can also absorb damage.
Only one Pontiff can be played at a time but there is one Prophet who has the status of being officially recognised and then other Prophets can be played as Disciples although with this status they have limited effect and I'm not sure if they can be Martyred or not.
I am thinking of giving the various holy
One player achieves victory over another by destroying all his/her holy buildings, killing off all Prophets and Pontiffs and taking control of the Holy Place.
Ok, what I need now is not a whole lot of clever cards with carefully balanced effects and costs and with pretty pictures. What I need now is some clever game mechanics which prevent it from slipping into formulaic “get this one it is better” TCG style play (which would be pointless because the whole point of this is to make as much money as possible which I don't want to do) so that when said cards are developed it will be interesting, not just... well, like the others.
I'm thinking of a growing conditions and dependencies idea, but I'm not sure exactly how it would work. I want to make it that it is not only more expensive to build your next church/temple or Sanctum once you have one, but it is also more complicated... but as I said I don't know how that would work.
Ok, I don't understand why you felt the need to post that at all.
Firstly I said from the very beginning that it was a "TCG style game" - by which I meant TCG inspired, not a trading card game - yes, I actually do know what TCG stands for and if you'd read beyond the title or even read the title properly, you'd see that.
I did in fact devote rather a lot of words to explaining why this wasn't and why I didn't want it to become a TCG.
I really value well thought out criticism, even when it pulls everything apart, even if people say things I strongly agree with, just because it makes me think. I might not go with what the person is saying at all, but I will think about why I'm not going with it, why I don't feel that their criticism is valid in this case.
What you had to say completely fails at this, you seem to be nitpicking on technicalities and not even doing that very well because you DIDN'T READ. Moreover, your use of inverted commas around the word idea makes you come across as bitter and petty, I'm sure that was not your intention but it seems that way.
The truth of the matter is that I have had more useful, more relevant and more interesting criticism from young children. What you posted does not reflect well on your character nor your intelligence, I certainly hope you are just having a bad day and that this is not indicative of your character or intelligence, because nothing I have read which you posted before was anywhere near as uninspiring as this.
Perhaps next time consider keeping it in your pants?
Good luck(?!) with your "life".