Situation
In many fantasy 4X video games that involves being a wizard that cast spell (Warlock, Elemental, Planar Conquest), I always say that there is not enough spells that are not related to combat. Which means that if you remove tactical combat, you remove most of the spell.
That makes it very inconvenient when trying to adapt such game as a board game because most of the time, you'll remove the tactical combat resolution which throw most spells to garbage.
Now I tried to analyze "Master of Magic" spell book to realize that most spells are only made for combat resolution. And the reason for that is because the possibility space for overworld spells is pretty limited.
Most overland spells will either
- Boost income or reserve of resources and city resource production (ex: more gold, food, etc)
- Affect the board geographically and mobility ( teleporting units, moving units faster, Floating islands, etc)
Else what differ is just casting modalities: like target self/ opponent, target 1 city/all cities, etc. But the effect remains the same.
But combat seems to have a larger possibility space. So what makes combat so different is because there are conflict between units. And special abilities does not necessarily trigger on it self, but in relation to other units.
For example, your unit could have a fear spell that prevent the defending unit to counter attack. By itself, fear does nothing, it need to be put in relation with somebody else to be effective.
You could have counter abilities, like invisibility that can be countered with a "true sight" spell. Again, "true sight" by it self does nothing, but it must be put in relation to other units.
You also have status effects like poisoned, sleep could have a permanent effect, but also could be countered by other abilities. Like for example, undeads cannot be put to sleep or poisoned.
Solution
Relations: So my idea, is in order to increase the possibility space of non-combat spell, why not put cities in relation to reach other competitively. Like for example, economical competition, spying attack, cultural attacks, etc.
You could have counter abilities too. For example, a spell could increase your surveillance level, preventing spying attacks. Or a spell could make your population charming which makes you more competitive economically, since your population get all the sales.
Status Effects: Then you could add status to those cities. You could have a city that is paralyzed, and therefore unable to produce anything. Put a city in riot, that prevent making military maneuvers, because they are buzy fighting in their own city.
So by adding relations and status effect, it opens up many more possibilities. Not sure if it could work as a board game if multiple cities with multiple type of relations are present.
Do you think it could be interesting?
Will it increase the possibility space for special abilities?
Do you have other ideas and solutions?
MOM and warlock have spells that interact with terrain (change terrain, raise volcano). I just steamline to the most common spells. Still, in the end, it means boosting income of the city, but using a different approach.
Still terrain changing in board games is touchy to record. I think "Terra Mystica" allow terrain changing, but it requires much more components.
For now, as a board game, I intend to use the system above only on a 1 to 1 relationship where each player owns only 1 city facing each other.
The goal is that it makes it easier to record the status information in a board game. In video games, it's not an issue.