In order to prevent the player from winning the game as soon as the game starts, a series of restrictions is required to be setup by the game. After some analysis, I found 3 types of restrictions (there could be more, send your suggestions)
Assets: Players requires resources, currency or any other stuff they can accumulate to do something. Ex: Resources cards are required in settlers of Catan to build stuff.
Time: In some games, certain things happens or gets unlocked when the game reach a certain point in the time of the game play. For example, in Lords of water deep, players get an extra worker when reaching the middle of the game.
Opportunity: This is a random or semi-random mechanics that prevent the player to get all the options possible. For example, in magic the gathering, you can only cast the spell located in your hand, you do not have access to your whole deck.
I was working on a civ like game and was wondering if I could lift the "Opportunity" restriction. Players would be allowed to perform a series of actions classed in in 5 different groups: Civil, Empire, Technology, Military, diplomacy. The game would be flexible enough to allow removing or adding new actions without breaking the game.
With no restriction, players would be allowed to do all the actions every turn. If I wanted to add opportunity restrictions, I could use a mechanic that would make only 3 of the 5 groups available every turn. So players would choose what are the 3 most important group for their turn, and only make those actions.
Without opportunity restrictions + It gives player more freedom + Prevent the need of forward planning the turn - Could lead to many dominant strategy, would need to reinforce the other type of restriction to make sure the player does not do the same thing every game.
With opportunity restrictions - Each groups of action must be balanced to make sure that each group is useful at any phase of the game. (ex: Diplomacy could be less useful at the beginning, while civil could be less useful at the end).
I was not sure to restrict opportunity, because I wanted to give players some freedom. But on the other hand, using a light restriction system like the above (3 of 5 groups are used), will make the design easier since I will no need to put more restrictions else where. It seems that I cannot remove restriction to make the game playable, but rather move them somewhere else.
I also intended to use a very flexible opportunity restriction mechanic that could be played in 3 or more different ways according to player's taste.
Do you think it could be possible to make a game with a low amount of restrictions?
Mirror Threads
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/9965915#9965915
