I like „Civilization“ game, but lot of them are too long for occasional playing. So I would like to design game, which would be possible to finish within 2-3 hours. I will start to design game in near future. I am trying to collect interesting ideas now, which can be helpful for me.
The game will be situated to ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, because I like this age. Each player will play with one nation (Babylonians, Assyrians, Elam, Egypt). Game will end by approach of Persians (outside power). Each player will have his own board (something like Age of Mythology)
Basics of game is quite clear in my head, but I am trying to solve situation regarding combat now. Yes, combat will play some role in this game, but not so important. Something like spice in meal. Each player is able to create soldiers from part of his population. For example: Value of Babylonian population is 8 (Babylonian player has 8 small figures now, which he can send to do different activities). Babylonian player decides to create army. He takes one population figure and make army from it. He has army now, but his income from workers will be smaller. It seems, that it will be normal to have only one army, sometimes two, no more then three (yes, population will be increased in the course of time, but it will be very difficult to have three armies and go ahead in other aspects).
So question is: How to make combat interesting, if each side has only one army? How to make combat predictable (if I have two armies and opponent only one, I can calculate with victory with let’s say 80% probability), but variable (not only one throw for each side).
Factors, which could be calculate during battle according my opinion:
- size of armies (most important)
- personality of current nation ruler (talent for war)
- level of army training
- technology advances of each nation (bronze weapons, iron weapons etc.)
- walls around cities (give bonus to defender)
- any other?
I think about deck of battle cards for each nation. These cards would contain some typical action in battle (straight strong attack, attack by slings, outflanking manoeuvre atc.). Before battle, each nation would take determinate amount of random cards from this deck (for example: I have two armies, I can take 8 cards, opponent has only one army, so he can take only 4 cards). Players will play their cards during the battle and according to these cards battle will be solved (of course, good ruler is able to attack more powerful then weak ruler etc.). Result of battle should be mostly following: One side run out from battle. Only if superiority was too big, some army can be removed totally. Winner can take some resources, maybe take some slaves from defeating nation etc.
Idea about deck of battle cards is only proposal. Maybe, that it is too complicate way, how to solve combat, because as I said above, I would like to have combat only as something like variegation. Any idea will be welcome. More brains = more ideas.
Thank you (sorry for my English)
Ota
Thanks to all for suggestions and comments.,
I tried to think about it and my first proposal for quite fast battle is following:
Prerequisites:- only one type of unit
- soldiers are people, which are not able to cultivate corn, but need food, so amount of units in battle will be limited by nature (let’s say 1-4 on each side)
- each empire has his own board, where are cards of cities and another important things
Progress of battle:
- Attacker has to say, which city he will try to conquer.
- Attacker attacks with specific amount of units (let’s say “X”).
- Defender defends own city with specific amount of units (let’s say “Y”).
- Each town has its own Defence Number (DN). It depends on distance between this city and capital. If city has fortification, its DN is bigger (let’s say, that average DN of city is 8, average DN of fortified city is 12)
- Amount of 6-sided dices, which attacker will use during the combat = 2+X-Y
- Attacker throwns by specific amount of dices and calculate result of this throw. It is his Attacking Power (AP)
Difference between AP and DN (AP-DN)
-7 and less --> Attacker 1D
-6 / -5 / -4 --> Attacker 1E + 1H / Defender 1H
-3 / -2 / -1 --> Attacker 1E or 1H / Defender 1H
0 --> Attacker 1H / Defender 1H
+1 / +2 / +3 --> Attacker 1 H / Defender 1E or 1H
+4 / +5 / +6 --> Attacker 1 H / Defender 1E + 1H
+7 and more --> Attacker 1H / Defender 1D
Notes:
1 D = one unit was destroyed (it can have influence on amount of dices in next round of battle)
1 E = one unit escaped from battle (it can have influence on amount of dices in next round of battle)
1 H = one unit was harmed (harmed unit which is harmed again is destroyed)
1E + 1H = one unit is harmed and this unit escaped from the battle (if harm causes death of unit, escape is not valid for another units)
1E or 1H = player has to choose, if one of his unit escaped or was harmed
Harmed units fights as normal unit (simple harm has not influence on amount of dices in next round of battle)
Modifiers:
LEADERSHIP OF CURRENT RULER (values between 2-4):
- this number determines maximal amount of units, which ruler can use for attack (of course, empire can have more units, but for single attack can use only this limited amount)
TECHNOLOGY “ADVANCED METAL WORKING”
- if attacker has this technology, all his dices with number 1 are taken as dices with number 3.
- if defender has this technology, all dices with number 6 are taken as dices with number 4.
- if both sided have this technology, no modification with dices are allowed.
TRAINING OF ARMIES
- for each level of training can attacker add +1 to his total AP.
- for each level of training can defender take -1 away from total AP.
Results of battle:- If one side has no unit, opponent is winner.
- After each evaluation of throw each side can deside to go away from the battle.
- If defender is winner, no changes come
- If attacker is winner, he can take opponent’s town (it has another interesting consequences, but I don’t want to write here all rules)
Do you think, that this rules can work? It seems, that for conquering of city without fortification is necessary to have advantage of one unit and for conquering of city with fortification is necessary to have advantage of two units. It sounds quite reasonable from my point of view.