How many cards?

The idea would be to offer three (3) standard units:

• Swordsman, Spearman and Knight.

Each unit has 15 cards. Top three (3) are common for ALL of that unit's technology tree. Bottom two (2) are specific for that class. Which means that ten (10) cards are COMMON and the last FIVE (5) are selectable:

So if you have a Swordsman, he can remain so with his 15 cards. But if you would want to use the Militia or Berserker, you would discard the Swordsman bottom two (5 cards) and choose either the Militia or Berserker FIVE (5) cards to enable that style of play.

Therefore you have 15 cards x 4 units = 60 cards + (2 specialization x 5 cards each x 2 units) = 60 + 20 cards = 80 cards. You can play around with the "core" units ...

Instead of four (4) "core" units (of type Swordsman), you could have THREE (3). And then you would have 45 + 20 = 65 cards! You can cut it further by have only ONE (1) of each specialization: 45 "core" + 10 cards = 55 cards (even less)!

Anyhow just some ideas ... you can explore them if you wish to do so!

Note #1: In total you would have 55 x 3 = 165 cards for only the units (but 9 units in all). Instead of 180 army cards... So 15 cards less (a small saving) ... but 9 instead of 12 units.

That you can have ALL the "units" and their classes with less cards if you use the "specialization" method that I described!

How you manage the "Class Tree" is pretty simple. And an example is something like this:

• Swordsman becomes Militia with the use of Large Shield.

• Swordsman becomes Berserker with the use of Two (2) Short Swords.

• Swordsman remains Swordsman with the use of a Short Sword ONLY.

So you have 3 Tech items: Short Sword, 2 Short Swords and Large Shield. Each of these Tech "clusters" contain 5 cards each + the Tech card so 30 cards in total... (3 Swords + 15 Cards) + (1 Two Swords + 5 Cards) + (1 Large Shield + 5 Cards) = 30 cards.

And so your PACKS are identified with three (3) Tech items above the cluster of cards used for specializing the class to 1 of 3 combinations.

You can apply the SAME logic for "Spearmen" and "Knights".

Anyhow it's your design... I'm just explaining HOW you could use Class Specialization and have ALL of the classes plus a couple that I invented for the purpose of this "exercise".

If you have questions or need some further clarification, just let me know and I'll provide further details in relation to your concerns. I personally think it would be a shame to limit the game to LESS classes than to explore a way to "tighten" the design for more variety.

But like I said, at the end of the day, it's YOUR design!

I'm just providing you with additional details and concepts relative to what Fri introduce and what I "fleshed-out" a bit in further detail.

Cheers!

Here's another idea: Keep the Swordsmen and Spearmen but take out the Knights and use them for an expansion called "Royal Order". So Knights + Cavalry + Gryphon Riders could be for that monumental "expansion".

With that being said, the Swordsmen and Spearmen could be boosted to 4 of each unit and 2 of each specialized class.

Now if I do my math based on your own data I get something like:

1. 4 x 10 "core" cards = 40 cards
2. 4 x 5 "specialization" cards = 20 cards
3. 4 x 5 "core unit" cards = 20 cards
4. Total for one unit = 80 cards.
5. Do that for both types of units or 80 x 2 = 160 cards.

Bottom line: your game would have 160 cards, 2 "core" classes and 4 specializations, 2 per unit.

Just something that I was thinking about when you said you might want to "remove" something from your current "configuration".

Again feel free to ignore if you feel you want to go in another direction.

Cheers!