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Processor unit for military games

6 replies [Last post]
Tue, 04/07/2009 - 16:37
stuka
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Many military games include a unit upgrade option. In computer games, the machine keeps track of upgrades and their effects, but when you have to do that administration on table, it can become inconvenient. While designing a game that involves fighter and bomber aircraft, I came up with this idea. It is a simple object consisting of a base and several rods attached to it. The rods are labeled for their function, in my case Fighter Range, Fighter Combat and so on. When a player buys an upgrade, he puts a ring onto the appropriate rod. This allows others to see what his units can do.

Picture: http://www.bgdf.com/node/1237

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Tue, 04/07/2009 - 16:58
#1
larienna
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I somewhat had this kind of

I somewhat had this kind of problem with startcraft lite. One of the thing I did is that upgrades only affect the player controling the unit so that the defender does not need to know the changes.

For example, the health value of units never changed so that opponents could easily remember the unit stats of their opponents.

My second solution was to use cards. Each upgrade has a card with the effects written on it. These cards stay hidden until the combat is resolved.

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Tue, 04/07/2009 - 17:08
#2
stuka
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Hidden effects are a

Hidden effects are a completely different cup of tea. That is handled by cards usually. This solution is for global upgrades that involve all units of a certain type.

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Wed, 04/08/2009 - 01:31
#3
SiddGames
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Nice work. You could actually

Nice work. You could actually use that device for any game with upgrades of any kind - resource harvesting, economic power, etc.

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Wed, 04/08/2009 - 12:24
#4
simons
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Not a bad idea. I think Axis

Not a bad idea. I think Axis & Allies does something similar. With them, they just have an extra board with the names of each upgrade, and empty tiles. So, if Germany researches "Super Submarines," that player puts a token over that dot.

I guess the systems are almost the same. I guess the advantage of Axis & Allies is it's probably cheaper to make that way (and uses already existing game tokens), and the advantage with yours is that it's harder to accidentally knock everything out of the way. Yours might also lend itself better to having lots of multiple upgrades (such as super submarine +4).

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Wed, 04/08/2009 - 14:17
#5
stuka
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Yes it is designed to

Yes it is designed to indicate multiple upgrades of a few types. You can boost your bomber's range or combat rating by a maximum of ~6 (to be determined by testing), but there is only 5 attributes to upgrade (Ftr Range, Ftr Combat, Bmr Range, Bmr Combat and missile range). The game aims to be simple and much more Euro than A&A.

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Wed, 04/08/2009 - 23:19
#6
InvisibleJon
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Joined: 07/27/2008
A ring of a different color...

You can encode additional information with rings of different colors. Directions for game design from this are left to the reader for exploration...

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