Varied Victory Conditions

Without a general idea of what a diplomacy scoring mechanic would look like, it's hard to tell whether the constraints on victory conditions would be too lax or too restractive.

That sounds pretty cool. What if you did something similar with the mission cards you mentioned? Maybe have cards with several missions on them, and the player could choose whichever one(s) fit with the commander card they have. Some commanders could be better suited to certain missions, but wouldn't necessarily have to pursue the mission the other players "assume" he would pursue.

Spiff might be better at exploring, but maybe he also goes after a secondary conquest mission while he's at it (both are listed on his mission card, after all). Or maybe tries his hand at negotiating a peace treaty (mission) at the newly discovered planet, since he's the first there...granted, he may need a really lucky die roll, or whatever...

Consider creating a single factor for scoring that can incorporate the methods you described (Diplomacy, Battle, Exploration). For example set up a trading system.

Exploration - Important to find untapped resources and systems that can buy/sell resources.

Battle - Take over opponent resources for yourself, blockade trade routes important to your opponent, protect your terrirory etc...

Diplomacy - Maybe not a direct player to player thing. But a system where the players become the "Power Diplomatic Players" and can influence the free systems to different degrees depending on how much "Diplomatic Influence" they have with the system. Factors for this could be size of fleet and proximity to the system, how much trade you do with a given system etc... The effects of this diplomacy could be to create trading barriers for other players, like tarrifs on imports/exports, in extreme cases a system refusing to do business with certain players and placement of passive defensive systems (ie. space mines etc...) to protect trade routes.

By doing this you could set up an economy system. The goal to reach a certain economic level or have the most economic success over a period of time. Then the big three factors could be used in different ways (Battle, Diplomacy, Exploration) to enhance a players prospects.

Ok, here's an idea for a "diplomacy" mechanic. As I'm probably not going to use it in any design soon, feel free to use it, or modify it for your own needs.

Every player has a player mat with three open slots for allies, numbered 1 to 3. At the end of a player's turn he may ally with one of the other players. He does that by placing a marker of the opponent's color on one of the numbers, and paying that many gold (or whatever resource you have) to the bank. The opponent places a marker of the current player on the same number (he doesn't have to pay any gold). Both player's are now considered allies.

Now, at the beginning of a player's turn he receives 1 VP for each ally he has. At the end of his turn he may break up one alliance, if he wants to. He does so by paying a number of gold pieces equal to the number the alliance marker is on to the bank.

An alliance should have other side effects, and it should be a double egded sword. For example, players in an alliance may not attack eachother, a player may look at his allies' hand and swap one resource from his own hand, etc.

Example: at the end of player A's turn he forges an alliance with player B for a value of 3. Both player's put the other player's player marker on the '3' on their player mat. Player A pays 3 gold to the bank. Player B receives 1 VP at the start of his turn for this alliance. He may not attack player A, though. At the end of player A's turn he may break up this alliance by paying 3 gold to the bank, or he may decide to let it live a bit longer.

The idea behind this is that any player can force another player into an alliance for at least one turn. It might be a good idea to limit the number of times a player can go into an alliance with the same player, to prevent an endless cycle of a player from forcing an alliance, the other player breaking it up again, the first player forcing it again, etc.

Also you might award a "peace token" instead of a VP for being in an alliance, and then at the end of the game award VPs to the player with the most peace tokens. There are plenty of ways to modify this mechanic to suit your own needs.

Ska_baron wrote:
So you're suggesting that on the Commander cards (which list Victory Stats) that there be missions also on the card?

Ska- I was thinking more along the lines of separate mission cards - so that each game you can get different combinations of commander cards and mission cards - allowing for more replay value. But the way you suggest would work too - so why not have both? Each commander card could have their basic missions - Prime Directives if you will - and mission cards can supplement those and provide for a different game experience each time - as suggested above.

Players may even tend to find a 'favorite' commander card that matches their style of play - or you can make it a random draw.