Combat Cards and Leveling Up - opinions desired

I kind of like the complex one. It reminds me of the way attack cards are used in A Game of Thrones: the Board Game.

In AGoT:tBG, when you attack a territory with your army, you add up combat points from a variety of sources: the army, any supporting armies, your iron sword (if you have it), and your attack card. Attack cards are chosen secretly and simultaneously and revealed at the same time. The attack card's value is added to the total score, and any effects from it are accounted for. Once used, an attack card is discarded. When you use up your last attack card, you take all of your discarded attack cards back into your hand except for the last one. Just like your game, the higher score wins the battle. This extra bit of unknown information adds a bit of intrigue to combat.

There's a mix of known and unknown information, such as the current battle score for each side and the cards that have already been used. It's a fun mechanic. Unfortunately, the game is full of complex mechanics that pose an enormous barrier to entry for new players.

I like the idea of your game and I don't think you need such a complicated rule. I think adding all these tokens and what not will take away from the game's simplicity and flow.

I too struggled with a leveling mechanic in my game Zodiak Legends but I figured it out using a simple Experience Points mechanic. In ZL you build up XP by successfully playing cards and later on you can remove those cards from the game to level up your Monster/character as long as the XP you built up is equal to or greater then the required "Level Condition" on that said Monster.

In your game you can easily use this same mechanic!

If each card has a value then allow those values to be added up as you successfully play cards. As long as these combat cards are played successfully (without interuption by your opponent) they can be added to a pool until you're able to level up your Character. Then simply send the cards to the dicard to show they've been used or back to the deck.

This mechanic is a tweeked version of "Fortitude" seen in the old wrestling card game "Raw Deal" so if you'd like to learn more about it you can email me at DevTeam@ZodiakUniverse.com or look up how to play Raw Deal.

I hope this helps!

Since you've said this was a deckbuilder, why implement tokens when you already have cards? Especially if the idea is primarily to place numbers on the tokens, which could easily be added on the cards. In addition, combat choices would create more interesting choices if players might have to discard critical cards in order to use the high combat numbers.

How about a stack of cards that simulates a tree?

A monster deck is shuffled at the beginning of the game and whenever a monster is needed one is turned over. Each monster has stats (for combat) and a color. When monsters are defeated they go into the discard. If not defeated, they would go to the bottom of the deck or out of the game. Tougher monsters have requirements before they will come into play that relate to how many monsters are already in the discard pile. i.e. the Ogre only comes out if 3 red monsters are already in the discard pile, 7 red for the dragon, 6 blue for the lich. The major boss monsters end the game if they are defeated. Some monsters could be multi-colored and fulfill more than one requirement. This way you have a rough tree structure, but still the variability of drawing from a deck and it creates a power curve that saves tougher monster for later (though you still might get an easy one).

You would return it to the bottom of the deck, or shuffle it in, or remove it depending on what works best for your game. I would usually think bottom of the deck.