This might be a concept more convenient for single player video games, but some part of it might be applicable to board games.
I'll start with an example, lets take a civ video game, in this game the player and the AI play the game with the same rules and they all have a fair chance of winning like any other board games where each player has a fair chance of winning.
My idea is to proceed otherwise and instead focus the game on the player's experience (single player game). Which means that all other AI players are actually actors that works together to give the player an optimal experience rather than trying to win a game.
It's like if a group of people decided to pull a prank on someone and they each played the role they were assigned to give the target maximum experience without it realized that everybody was working together from the start.
- The first impact is the development of AI which is much more easier because the games is not played by the AI the same way than the players. Simpler AI also means easier to implement in a board game.
- The other impact is the measuring of the player's engagement in the game to keep the player in the game. For example, if the player is on a lone island without much to do, then more events are going to happen to keep the player in the game than if he was actually managing a large empire because he is already busy.
Another example is that 2 neighboring empire might declare war with each other to give the player some dilemma on which country he is going to support. The 2 fighting empire don't necessarily want to control the world, they simply work together to give the player's that dilemma.
- Another possibility is that the player could not lose the game. Maybe this will be done thought the achievement of various victory or bad victory conditions. For example, you won, but you were is a so bad position that you had to nuke the planet to win.
A player about to lose might get more events or be able to put more focus on diplomacy and espionage to hold on the invader. That is an interesting experience for the player and that is what the game want to create. Else the player will just say that he has no chance to win and abandon he game.
I think for board games, this kind of concept could only be applied to mechanics used for AI, or external events not triggered by the players.
What do you think?
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Typo in the title, its "Making"