Risk-like game in need of advice

No. Your post meets the criteria to stay posted in the game design forum. You've asked specific questions to specific issues. The journals are to be used when you're just posting your game idea for others to read about and you're not really looking for specific feedback.

-Darke

Hi Qundar!
Your idea is definitely workable. My first suggestion to you is to start on a small scale and add stuff one piece at a time. There are two reasons for this:
1. You get to try out stuff sooner.
2. It is impossible to weave all of the elements into a cohesive unit at once.

Have you ever tried to program a PC? How about write a story? Both of these creative endeavours require a bit of planning up front. Same with game design. For me, the difference with a game design is that, if I am basing it on an existing game (RISK), then I already have a framework.

My oldest three boys and I have created quite a few flavors of RISK, so I know you can do this. Here are some ideas (some of which have nothing to do with RISK):

Check out Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. To me, it represents the best of the space-based conquest genre. You'll get a feel for how different elements of the game fit together. It has resource gathering, expansion of territory, diplomacy and back-stabbing, military units galore and technology research (which leads to advances in military might, economic exploitation, ecological enlightment and scientific serendipity).

To sneak a large army into a territory is actually unrealistic, but here is what you could do: give each player some uniquely colored chips. Each chip has a number on it. One a player's turn, he could take a slip of paper and write down how many troops and armor make up the invasion forces.
Turn the paper face-down, write a chip number on it and place it in plain sight (maybe tucked under an edge of the board). Now, the player "deploys" his chip to the board. It can be revealed on a later turn. Other players can't attack the chip, however, if the territory is taken from the chip's owner before the invasion can occur, then the player removes the chip and the slip of paper. Presumably, the invasion force would have included the visible troops on that territory, so the force can no longer exist.
The total size of the invasion force does not have to equal the total number of troops and armor currently available (otherwise, there would be no point to secrecy). Instead, the total size is a "bet" that the player can, on a future turn, bring forward that number of troops from all territories that he controls within a specified range (or radius? or within air-lift range?). Perhaps an invasion could be some super-move that accelerates deployment at the expense of vast quantities of resources.
I say that sneaking is unrealistic because troops have to mass at the border and you can't really hide that.

Regarding the "poor sap": I would not spend too much time trying to control what a group of players decide to do. That stifles creativity. Besides, the poor sap is going to be one of two things - either a despot who has been terrorizing the other governments, or a weakling in world affairs who is ripe for conquest and enslavement (polictically sensitive game element, by the way, perhaps you could just say that the conquered player expeditiously switches allegiances :) )

And now, for the economic model: I love the idea that you have for forests, mines, workers and loyalty. These ideas can be seen in Empire Earth II. Study that also. I suggest that you abstract the concept of money. Think of RISK, you don't spend x dollars to deploy your troops. Nor do you feed them. The idea is there though, in the fact that you can only move from one territory to a connecting territory. (Unless you are playing the variation which allows for longer advances through connected territories.)

One way to abstract the economy is to create a guns-or-butter system.
Perhaps each player could have a chart with a scale from 1 to 10. The player places a pawn on the scale to show his guns-to-butter relationship.
The closer the pawn is to 1, the more resources the player collects per turn. The closer the pawn is to 10, the more capable his military production is per turn. The pawn can be moved only one number at a time (eg: from 3 to 4 or from 3 to 2). Furthermore, the pawn can only move after particular events:
1. Diplomatic meeting: player A and player B agree to reduce military build-up by sliding their pawns one space toward 1.
2. Military supremacy: the player with the most territories can unilaterally advance his pawn one space toward 10 whenever a new territory is claimed.
3. Economical Advantages: players taking a resource-rich territory can unilaterally advance their pawns toward 1.

Okay, I'm done for now. If you like the guns-or-butter system, you can probably come up with several this-or-that charts to handle your other issues, such as loyalty-vs-rebellion, diplomatic-vs-tyrannical, etc.

Have FUN!

Mitch

Qundar wrote:

Each player has two militairy aliance cards and one economic aliance card. Every round before batle or moves, a player may ask other players to forge an economic or military alliance.
You can only forge one alliance each round and you can never have two military alliances with the same player.

Forging a militairy alliance:
1] Two players agree not to attack each other, and they pass one of their militairy cards to eachother.
2] They both choose a territory that borders on a territory of the other player and they place two extra armies on it.
3] The player who's turn it is may not attack from this territory or move from this territory during that round.

Breaking a militairy alliance:
The moment a player decides to attack the player he has a militairy alliance with, he breaks the alliance, AND he must destroy one army automaticly before every battle with that player during that round.

Forging an economic alliance:
1] Two players agree not to attack each other, and they pass their economic cards to eachother.
2] They both receive a card now if they did not battle AND did not move during a turn. The maximum number of cards they may have in their hands is raised to six.

Breaking an economic alliance:
The moment a player decides to attack the player he has an economic alliance with, he breaks the alliance, AND he must discard one of his cards. If the other player has six cards in his hands, he has one card too many since he may now only have five cards. The player that breaks the alliance may blindly choose one card and put it on the discard deck.

Just another idea...
Cheese again!

Before making your "More complex risk", have you played a war game which is more complex than risk? If not, do so. And play a lot of them. This will make you familliar with the various elements of a war game. My suggestions are : Axis and allies (all versions), Bells of War, Samurai Sword, Diplomacy, and many other.

When you have tasted all the elements of a war game, now you can choose what elements you want to keep and which element you want to drop. You might also have better rules ideas for certains elements.

By the way, the time period in risk is around 18th century. Time period can be important because in WW2, there are planes and sub. The strategy is different.

Well there is always a way to get in touch with a game even if you have no game, no cash, no friends.

First, you can always play against yourself. You won't be able to test correctly all the elements of a game since you know both side strategy, but it can help you assimilate the rules.

Second you can read the rules of the game. Many rule books are currently on the internet. Check also in game store if they make demo playing or tournaments, or if you can get in touch with somebody who has the game and is looking for people to play. Or sometimes, there are RPG and game club in school. You could try to find people there too.

I have played many war games and I currently don't own any war games.

A reason why I insisted that you play war games first is to make sure you do not re-invent the wheel. Which mean, do not re-invent rules or system that already exist. You should take what is already existing and then decide to improve, remove or create new stuff.

Anyways, one thing for sure, is that you will have a lot of potential players in the navy and there should probably have a lot of war games around.