Bastion - Card game with drafting/simultaneous actions, looking for feedback

Thanks for looking at it!

I have actually done about 4 playtests with the current rules and cards (and another dozen or so with rules that are between kind of different and totally not the same game) so I guess I'll tell you about them here.

There isn't a rule to keep the starting decks from being too good, except by virtue of the pool of draftable cards containing less of the better/more expensive cards. On top of that, you need a certain threshold of cards of any specific type to be able to play more than a couple of them as tactics. If you are going strong with infantry and artillery, your deck is always made better by buying up those cards at the end of each round. Of course, the best way to get a lot of money is to sell the expensive cards instead of using their effects, so getting more of them into your deck is always a good thing.

Still though, there have been some pretty off-balanced draft decks in a couple of the playtests, so I've been bouncing around between a couple of ideas for fixing it - giving the players preset starting decks would be a pretty simple solution, I think.

The way damage works right now (defender chooses where to place all damage, and each damage is affected by the resist that the defender played) seems to be working, since you always get to choose which units are taking the damage. After a certain amount of damage though, your choices begin to dry up and you have to play more units. Also, it makes the multi-damage cards more interesting, since they are better when unimpeded, but worse against +Resist cards.

There are some cards in the set already (The structures: Ravelin, Rampart, and others) that let you play an additional tactic on the turn you play them, these are used primarily to find out what the other guy played, and then play whatever counters it. For flavor/theme reasons I am probably going to change the name of those cards, or make a specific "spy" card, but that will come later after more playtesting.

Did any part of the rules seem confusing to you? Right now I am mainly concerned with the rules file since it'll let me get the game out to more playtesters without me having to stand watch and make sure none of the rules are forgotten.

After that it's card tweaking and numbers tweaking, plus there are a couple big kludges in there that I hope to smooth out someday.

Good finds. I'll answer them here and update the rules sheet after I figure out where each of these go.

How exactly does the drafting work at the beggining of the game?
Shuffle all of the cards together (this is the stockpile) and draw 8 cards to put face up on the table. Players alternate picks until they are gone. Do this again with 3 more rounds of 8 cards, switching which player picks first each time. The players should have 16 cards, of which they choose 12 to be their deck. The remaining cards go into the junkpile.

Is there a disadvantage to having less than 3 units on the field/running out of units on the field?
Having less than 3 is definitely a disadvantage, since it restricts the tactics you can play to less card types. To be able to play every card you get you need to have at least 5 units in the field.

Once you lose your last unit, however, each player then shuffles their units in the field into their deck along with everything else, and the next round starts with a hand of 7 and a pick of 3 starting units. This allows a player who takes heavy casualties in one round to get back into the game by evening out the number of units everyone has in the field. The cost of this is that in the process of going from 3 to 0 units, you lose 3 morale.

Even though I feel it might be necessary to prevent a runaway winner, this rule is pretty clunky. A couple alternatives I have been thinking about:

* Players lose the game if they lose their last unit (would be paired with the following 2 options, or by itself)

* At the beginning of a round draw an extra card for each unit less than 3 that you have in the field, and you get a corresponding extra unit placement

* You can "withdraw" your remaining units at the end of any round, if you wish. You lose a morale per unit you withdraw, but then all players shuffle their units in the field into their deck before the next round, and they get to draw 7/place 3 again.

What is the difference between the junk pile and the discard pile?
Each player has their own discard pile, which is where played tactics and sold cards go to. They get shuffled back into your deck after each round. The junkpile is where dead units go, and those get shuffled back into the stockpile once the stockpile runs out.

Is the draw step optional like the rest of the steps?
Nope. Even if it was, there is almost no case where it would be useful to skip your draw.

Can you buy one card, and flip over the next card to see if you want to buy it, during the same buy step?
Yes, you can do this as many times as you wish, as long as you have coins to pay for the cards. You will always have 3 cards to choose from.

As the days progress won't the decks get smaller? There doesn't seem to be a way to recover lost money from the units that are destroyed, maybe each day both players could receive 5 coin or something.
The decks do get smaller unless the players are actively trying to get coins by selling cards. There is an opportunity cost to selling cards, since you can't use it as a tactic or unit, but you get the card back for the next round (since the discard pile is shuffled back in), in addition to whatever cards you are buying, so you are essentially taking a hit on an early round to bolster your army for later rounds.

The other strategy information like this is definitely going to get moved to its own section. Thanks for taking the time to look through this, it's been incredibly helpful.

I've set aside the front/back line idea for now, since it's too complicated for now, although it would be neat to use for a future game.

I've also changed the victory condition for the game - rather than trying to reduce the opponent's morale from 10 to 0, you instead collect 1 prisoner card each time you destroy an opponent's unit. The prisoner card starts in your discard pile, so you get a chance to draw it during the next round. When you do draw it, you can either discard it to sell it for one coin (like most other cards) or you can field it. As soon as you field your 8th prisoner, you win the game.

At the end of each round, you have to pay an upkeep of 1 coin per prisoner. Any prisoners who you can't pay for escape back to the pile of prisoner cards, and you'll have to capture another one to catch up.

You can field your prisoners as soon as you draw them, although it will hurt your economy to pay their upkeep each round. Alternatively, you can save up all 8 and field them in a single round (to avoid paying the upkeep). However, this will mean you end up drawing mostly useless cards throughout the game, your deck getting progressively worse each time you capture a Prisoner.

This new mechanic plays well, and fits in with the other mechanics while making it easier to keep track of how well you are doing.

One thing that isn't working in the game is the way the economy for buying new cards works. Right now, the cost on the cards is used both to buy and sell - this ends up meaning that the first person to get some good, expensive cards can use them as fuel to generate a lot of coins for each round, allowing them to buy more good, expensive cards. Also, it makes it too easy to afford the upkeep for 5-6 prisoners, which barely slow down your strategy at that point.

I've been trying to think of a couple ways to combat this, which can be put in at a couple points:

1. Instead of drafting the starting decks, give both players X coins and they buy cards the same way that the normal buy phases work. This gives both players more control over their starting situation, so you aren't likely to fall behind economically.

2. Reduce the selling price of all cards by 1/2 (rounded up).
Example:
$1,$2 sell for $1
$3, $4 sell for $2
$5, $6 sell for $3

3. Reduce the selling price of all cards to exactly $1 or $2 (value to be determined by testing)

Other things I could tweak is the number and strength of cards that generate money as an ability, abilities that actually cost coins to use (mercenaries?), increasing cost for the last set of prisoners you collect ($1 for the first 4, $2 for each one after that).

Any other ideas?

I'd love to have you playtest!

It'll be a base set with possible expansions, kind of like Dominion or Race for the Galaxy. I'm not too certain how expandable it'll be, since both players are getting cards from a shared supply, and making that supply bigger makes it harder to shuffle/play with.

I need to update the printable sheets I have with new/updated cards, so I'll post them here when they are ready. It'll be about 110-120 cards to print in sheets of 9.

I made a LackeyCCG plugin for Bastion:

The autoupdate URL is http://b.diehrstraits.com/LackeyCCG/plugins/Bastion/updatelist.txt