Hi all,
I am working with a mechanic used for *conjuring* units. The problem is that I want the unit to remain unknown until the unit is attacked. However the problem is that certain information must be made available to the other player to make sure nobody cheats.
For example: To conjure a Pikeman that requires 2 mana points. I don't want the opponent to know that it's a Pikeman. But I want to make sure the player uses 2 mana poinst to put the card in play.
I think it is stupid to try to hide the rest of the card and to only try to show the top.
I was thinking to have information on the BACK of each units cards... But I'm not certain about it. MtG requires players to have enough land cards and to tap enough to put a unit into play.
I don't think it is wise to leave it up to the players... I'm certain some would cheat (which defies the purpose of playing - just conjure any card you want ignoring the mana cost).
Anybody care to comment? Thanks.
Change the time when someone pays for the card. Let them put it on the table and have to pay for it later when it attacks, instead of at deployment. This could also work as a bluffing option. You may have more cards on the table than you can afford to attack with, but your opponent does not know that. If you follow this idea, you can then turn the cards back over after attacking and keep them concealed for later in the game play. Maybe swap some cards at some point in time. That way it keeps your opponent on their heals.
This is interesting - but I would have to change my *mana* mechanic.
What I am using is the following: on each turn, players roll 5 dice (each of a different color). Then the player uses the "dice" to conjure units. So if you roll 2 on the White dice, you get 2 White mana points. So you could conjure up 2 units that require 1 White mana each or 1 unit that requires 2 White mana (plus other mana from the other dice).
I like this - it's a good application of luck and it adds a nice layer of strategy: which units do you conjure up given resources at hand. Also no need to keep track of mana, it changes each turn.
See what I am thinking is that units have different colors and a Blue unit may require Blue mana - OR NOT. Maybe it requires the opposing unit's color: Green or Black. So I can *misslead* a player into thinking that a different unit is being conjured.
And since cards lay on top of the other cards, you no longer see the *mana* requirements of the cards, except the closest one (the one on the top of a card pile). So the first card you must *defeat* is the one with the *mana* requirement displayed... This means a LOT of strategy: is this card a *bluff* (from another color) or is it really from that color... Kinda like in Poker - you need to read into the player to see which it is - a bluff or not.
And this has a LOT of importance. Why? Because guessing wrong means you can fight a card from another color. If you choose wrong, you might be at a disadvantage. Ideally you would want to be on the same level - not penalized. But if you are penalized, then the odds are in the opponent's favour... Something like when the player ATTACKS, his attack is penalized. When the player DEFENDS, his opponent has an advantage.
So I can picture some players *trash talking* like "... What is that? A Pikeman... Your deck is White..." The player has been counting cards and knows the deck is white (yes - I will allow players to count cards.) You can *fake* a deck by putting your cards in another color box (Blue deck in a Black box - for example)... Or bring your cards in a bag! :P
And yes... I plan to have 5 different game boxes (one for each Color). You MUST build a deck with certain requirements which leads to a deck HEAVY in ONE color (which will be the primary color of the deck). What this does is make a deck WEAK to some colors, STRONG with other colors and EVEN with the same color.
Not sure how I would implement this - any ideas???