Dream Game: Ideas, Concepts, and Brainstorming

I understand your thinking of this invention, however I think maybe you have several games in which you are trying to put into one big game, in general as the world is today.
To increase the simplicity of your gaming, maybe you should try one theme at a time. For example since you are obviously trying to create a non time consuming game with all the worlds problems try focusing on politics for one game. Another subject such as climate control or something to that effect.
Good luck

Have you played Imperial?

Imperial is a game focusing on several different countries and their economics. There is an extremely basic military (one unit for land and one for water), and the economy of each country is also very basic and derived from the size of the country and a few buildings. From this extremely simple setup you get a very full, rich, and complex game. Just adding the complexity of differing terrains, would double the game's complexity, to say nothing of many different military units, politics, technology, and several other things you are adding.

I'm not saying it can't be done or that you shouldn't do it. Heck, I'm designing my own massive Civ game, but I built it up slowly, only adding to it when something felt missing. When I got to adding Economics and Politics, I realized it didn't fit, and I stepped back.

Knowing where you want to go, is good, but don't start at the end. Start with the map. Then define how your country will grow in both size and technology. Then figure out how each country interacts with the other. Then add financial. Then military. Build it slowly.

As to the comment you made about magnetic pieces, the problem of pieces flying all over the place if someone bumps the board or loses their temper is not unique. I'm sure every game in existance suffers from this problem, yet it is not a problem I hear discussed often. If it was a major problem then we would have more locking pieces or magnetic setups out there. So I either don't think it is much of a problem, or developing magnetic pieces is just too cost prohibitive.

In my Civ game, I saw that I had the potential for a lot of pieces that would constantly be moving everywhere and it would be very easy to get them all confused. My solution was to laminate my player boards and keep lots of the information with dry erase markers. You can jostle the board all you want, but the numbers won't change, yet armed with a Q-tip, they are fairly easy to change.

Hey AMR,

Wow, that's quite the big game idea you've got going there! I have to say that when your first listed inspiration was "Advance Wars" I instantly became interested!! I have many fond memories of that game, and while playing it I often pondered how it would translate into a board game. I figured, though, that keeping track of the units' HP, differing terrain, etc would be too much to keep track of and would bog down the speed of the game.

That's why, reading this blog, I was particularly fond of your focus on not making the game drag out too long. I also really like that you want your rules open enough that every game could play out very differently. For this to happen, of course, there need to be a lot of ways to win. This is what makes Civilization games so interesting: multiple victory conditions.

That being said, if you want to incorporate ALL the aspects that you've mentioned in your blog post, you're going to have a big challenge on your hands trying to figure out how to make it quick and playable, yet not bogged down in details. Computers handle details well, humans don't... which is why the kinds of games you are talking about tend to be video/PC games.

I remember playing a card game version of Age of Empires. My friend and I, both avid gamers, tried playing twice and both times got too bored with so many details.

Here's an example of what I mean: you mention that you want different resources, such as oil, food, water, etc. This is a good idea, but you want to make sure that players don't have to spend too much time updating these things. For example if they have to calculate how much they gain of each every turn, that could be bothersome. On the otherhand, if you had tokens representing how many SOURCES of each they had, then they would only update it once in a while: whenever they discover a new one, or another player offers a source.

Also, I think that terrain features for defense are fine, since it's easy to see what it is after you get used to the defensive values of terrain. However, make sure not to fall into the trap of having it so that for every combination of units and terrain there are a different set of movement rules. A good idea is that a certain unit type has 4 movement points, and a forest costs 2 movement points. It's a bad idea to say that one unit has 4 movement points and forests cost 2, but then another unit has 6 unit points but a forest costs 3... that would cause a lot of headaches.

If you want to limit the time taken in your game, then make sure there are no elimination features... those can be annoying and take forever. Instead, you could set a point limit, or even a turn or time limit. (You mentioned time limits briefly, so I think you already have that in mind)

You mixture of turns and same-time actions has very good potential for allowing more game depth without other players having to suffer through long turns. I'm imagining something like all-at-once, everyone updates their stats (or what have you) and then one by one the players take their turn. After each as taken a turn, they update once again. I could imagine this working very well.

For research, I imagine something like this: every turn, players have a certain amount of research points. They can put them on a separate board which has the "flow" of research already laid out. When they finish research on something, they take the card from the board itself: it is no longer on the board to show where in the "flow" they are currently at. It also makes it clear which technologies they have, because they lay the card in front of them for the rest of the game for everyone to see.

Also, maybe it's possible that players who have finished a research can make deals with other players. For example, if I have the "gunpowder" technology, I could offer another player that technology if they give me 1 source each of oil and food. That player is then able to take the research card off their flowchart and put it into play without paying research for it.

I don't know about the "if your government falls you lose the game" rule, since this promotes elimination, which is no fun. Instead, maybe the status of your government dictates what you can and cannot achieve. For example, a card you might want to play requires that your government level is at such-and-such.

For income purposes, you want it to be very quick to calculate. You don't want players to have to sit there and count units every single turn. Instead, I would recommend that you have a board, like a scoreboard, to keep track of your income. When you do certain things, you move your token up or down accordingly RIGHT AWAY to adjust to your new income. For example, as soon as you built a town, your income goes up 2. When you begin your turn, where ever your token is determines how much money you get. It's quick and simple and updates as necessary, to minimize calculations.

Unlike the pessimistic view of some of the comments here, I really do think that this is a doable game, as long as it is designed well. The key is to minimize time taken for things, and minimize micro-managing. You want everything that happens in the game to be interesting and exciting, not yet another count of this and that. :)

I wish you luck on creating this game, and would love to hear more about it whenever more is available.

I am a fan of grand strategy games, both PC and board. I like all the concepts that you've outlined in the OP, but I think it needs some simplifications to make it playable as a board game in a reasonable time frame.

Take Axis and Allies, for example. It has a world map divided into territories, no terrain. It has some differentiation in military units (infantry, tanks, fighters, subs, destroyers, etc). The economic system is quite simple and it has no political system. So overall it is much simpler than what you propose, yet the game plays very slowly (in my opinion). That said, Axis and Allies does not take advantage of simultaneous turns and combat slows things down.

I second Jean's comments about having "Sources" (or "Income") rather than stockpiles of resources. Keeping track of both Income and Stockpile in 6 different resources would be prohibitive for a board game. However, with a nicely designed player mat you could keep track of a variety of sources without too much trouble. Still, I'd recommend consolidating the number of resources.

Have you considered abstracting the military units into a "Military" rating for each country rather than having individual units? The Military rating is handled just like the other resource ratings; e.g. each Military Base you own gives you +1 Military. You could put Army / Task Force markers on the map representing specific missions, which then disband once they have finished their mission. You can gain advantages over other countries based on your research, without needing to represent these units directly on the game board. Different research may also allow different mission types. E.g. You have researched Bombers, which lets you declare a Bombing Mission.

Money could be handled using a GDP rating, rather than stockpiling money. In fact, in economic theory money is the flow of wealth, not a tangible asset in itself. This is why countries are ranked on GDP, not on gold stockpiles. Each turn you can allocate your GDP to different things (supporting Military bases, international aid, resource exploration, health care program, etc), but you can't stockpile it from year to year.

Some quick random thoughts:
- Make as much use of simultaneous turns as you can. Waiting for other people to have their turns is a major drawback of grand strategy games, but you can overcome this with good game design.
- Simplify everything. After that, simplify it again.
- Consider different methods of "conflict". Countries can fight in political, military, and economics. With a suitable abstraction you could use the same "conflict resolution" system for all three if you wanted.
- Consider your time scale. If "turns" are 1 year or more, then there is no need for individual units on the board; only capability matters. If "turns" are less than 1 year, then there is not much scope for research or developing new capability. For example, developing a new military capability (e.g. the JSF) takes far more than 10 years from concept to operations even when working with what is essentially existing technology. Developing an operational military capability from ground-breaking research takes decades.
- Maintaining military capability typically costs far more than acquiring it, and providing an effective capability is completely different to the initial research. For example, the principles of nuclear weaponry are well understood, but turning this into a viable nuclear weapons program takes a huge amount of effort to maintain. So military research could be expressed as a cost, not a benefit. I have to choose which technologies/capabilities I want to maintain. Maintaining my nukes costs me 2 GDP. Maintaining my aircraft carrier fleet costs me 3 GDP. Maintaining my spy satellite network costs me 1 GDP. On the other hand, each of these technologies allows me to perform certain actions that other countries who do not have these technologies cannot perform. But I could scrap my carrier fleet to implement a health care program to increase stability within my country, or implement an international aid package to expand my political influence.
- Be careful of mechanics which "spend money to increase income" or "spend research to increase research rate" (these mechanics turn up in many grand strategy computer games). While not necessarily unrealistic, they can lead to runaway leaders which is undesirable in a game.

All the best with your game design. Have fun and keep the ideas flowing.

Regards,
kos