I am trying to simplify a game to reduce the level of fiddlyness and the amount of required component.
One idea is to only use 1 unit per territory to conquer and use units of various strength to represent group of units of various size.
I am trying to look at other games with similar mechanics to see how they handle their attack and movement system since units cannot be stacked.
Any suggestion worth looking at?
Purely from the components standpoint.
Unless the components are cardboard, having multiple copies to represent stronger units is actually much much cheaper.
I.e.
Let's say you have max strength of 3.
You will then use 3 different models for str 1, 2 and 3 consequently.
They will cost you much much much more than trippled amount of 1s which you'll stack.
If you're planning to use cubes, I would still prefer many cubes over a numbered token. Easier to setup, visually easier to assess the board situation as you don't have to read the numbers.
But if you're adamant in not going for it, then consider Civ5 approach. 1 unit/tile and units may move 2 per round and can go through spaces occupied by friendlies.
Well the problem with cubes is not that I don't like it, is that if I hold in average 3 or more cubes per territory, I would need a lot of cubes. My map currently have 46 territories, but it could be reduced a bit.
But if I reduce the number of territories, It will reduce the possible strategic maneuvering on the map. So it's a delicate balance.
Also all territories must be occupied, this is why If units are different and I want movement, I must use swaping.
If I can hold many units per territories with cubes, then movement and attacking is easier.
I could still try to limit from 1 to 3 cubes per territories to reduce nb of cubes required to play and maybe reduce number of territories. I'll need to add strategy elsewhere by using more abstract mechanism.
Another advantage of 1 unit per territory if they are all the same token, is the lack of logistic and movement. Which speed up the game, but removes some strategy, or force putting the strategy elsewhere.
Somebody suggested the game W1815 which has no movement. Does not really fit with my game design, but the idea behind is interesting. I will see if I can pull something out of it.
If I want different tokens but do not want to handle movement, one thing I could do is use different tokens to mark immobile stuff like Fortifications or lairs that could give bonus to attack and defense for example when a battle occurs there.
W1215's system is possible due to the use of cards. Originally, I wanted to have a kind of dice fest of units a la "battle Mist" and maybe each engagement, you chose a strategy card that influenced those rolls. This is why I did not want to use cards for attacking like other games are doing.
But if I want to remove the fiddliness of moving stuff, Maybe I could combine the card play above with army composition card. For example, you could have a "raiding army card", or a siege army card, and you play those cards when initiating a battle or when you are attacked. That card could combine the strategy type and army composition if necessary.
In that case, no token movement will be required, and played card could be deactivated temporarily or permanently after battles forcing some recovery time, or the need to rebuild them.
I understand from a "Risk" perspective, that each location needs to remain occupied.
But from other (war)games, some locations don't need to remain occupied.
What is the reason that you want each location to remain occupied? If it is ownership only, how about using a different set of tokens for that?
Switching tokens, doesn't seem like a good idea to me, since you would be switching units??
What happens if the ownership of a location is changed? Does the player that conquers that location, place a new token?
The fight is between humans (AI) and monsters (Players). if a territoriy remains free, it comes back to human control.
Here is the project's page:
http://bgd.lariennalibrary.com/index.php?n=GameIdea.GameIdea-WrathDarkPr...
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Another idea I came with is that the "troop" maneuverability is abstracted off board. For example you could have various pool of units like "On front", "in transit", "routed", "reserve", etc. Certain actions like attack and defense would ask you to take units only from certain pool.
I even had the routing idea during battle, unit can die or be routed and come back later in the battle. In this case, routing will come back to another pool usable for other battles instead.
The idea of units pools reminds me of Byzantium. Here is the board where the player put those pools.
What if you have tokens with the 3 numbers printed on them? And then have 1 cube indicate which number to use?
Although, I don't know how this would work when you are going to use off board pools.
It's one OR the other, I could use the off board pool if I do not want to have any movement on the map. The pools are an abstract representation of troops movement around the map.
Considering the game is played against and AI, it could be more convenient for an AI engine to use off board pools. Much more easier than scripting maneuvers on the map.
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Well my idea was that instead for example of having a territories with 3 to 7 cubes, I would use tokens labeled 3, 5 and 7 and only keep 1 token per territory. So it should require less components and It also takes less space on the board.
Now the issue is how to handle attacks and movement, as attack will free a space, which mean I need some sort of fill the blank mechanism.
As for movement, since no two units can occupy the same space, I need some kind of swaping mechanism or pooling (like in vinci small world)
This is why, I am exploring the possibilities.