So I have a little project I am working on. The Theme is byzantine nobles all vying for power in the empire.
I'm looking for options on the theme. I'm not sold on this, and I want to brainstorm alternate ideas that aren't generic fantasy. Let me explain gameplay.
All players share a common resource pool, which are things like military, economy, food, health of the population, and culture. Each resource is rated on a scale of 0 to 10. If any one of those resources reaches 0 the game is lost. The players all have a hidden win condition.
Each turn they players draft cards, which they then play using the communal resources to pay the cost. The effect of these cards will be to increase one or more of the resources or provide a player with bonuses or resolve a Crisis.
Crisis are events that are played every turn and represent events like a plague, famine, invasion, revolt, etc. These crises will reduce the resource pool each turn until resolved. Some crises can be resolved by playing cards face down (like Dead of Winter), others by effects of cards normally.
So basically I'm looking for theme ideas. The resources can be changed to represent anything. In the example above they represent the health of an empire. What do you think? Do you like the theme as is, or do you think something else would be more engaging?
I've got a history degree. Problem is I have designs on a lot of historical games. Obviously haven't published them, but problem is that makes the whole history genre seem a little over used to me. I'm looking for ideas to expand my horizons.
The thing with having a shared resource pool and the game ending when 1 of the resources is empty means that it is possible to have 1 player try to use all of a particular resource, but by drawing cards by draft it is possible for the other players to replenish the resources or plan turns around more available resources. I haven't moved this into prototype yet, but I will be after Fallcon this weekend, so we will see how it works then, I guess.