Simultaneous Actions

Hi Kyle,

Race for the Galaxy is the first one that leaps to mind, which uses simultaneous card reveals by players choosing which phases happen in a round and again to choose which cards are played during those phases potentially.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/28143

Well worth a look if you haven't already encountered it.

Cheers,

Meddler

Wings of War is a dogfight game in which players secretly select three "maneuver" cards from a deck and place them in first, second, and third order. These are then revealed: all the "first" cards are shown and planes execute those maneuvers (and then fire on each other if they are within range), then the "second" cards, then the "third". It works very well (and is a lot of fun). It may seem that the later cards might as well be randomly chosen, but in fact the heart of the game lies in successfully predicting what your opponents will do (and successfully surprising them with your own). All movement and firing is simultaneous.

RoboRally has a similar mechanism. Unlike Wings of War, the robots that you are directing can collide and push each other around. A robot unexpectedly colliding with (or getting in the way of) your own can send your robot off course, so that the rest of your programmed moves become wildly inappropriate. This is more like what you're fearing: that moves programmed too far in advance may be useless (or worse than useless) when finally executed. RoboRally players simply learn to enjoy the chaos.

Most movements in RoboRally can be made simultaneously, but not all. To resolve situations where "simultaneous" movement is ambiguous, every movement card has a unique "priority number". The higher-numbered card is executed first in any situation where it matters. Players get their card hands by drawing from a common, shuffled deck.

In your case, it will very much depend on what actions you make available to your players. This is a game that (I predict) will take a lot of playtesting, tuning, and tweaking before it plays to your satisfaction. But I don't see any inherent reason why it can't work.

I haven't time to address any of your other questions at the moment, sorry! I may have more time later.

Your suggested alternate them of a battle between armies would actually explain this one nicely, especially if the battle's setting doesn't include instant communications (so couriers rather than radio for example). Time spent waiting to receive reports, making a decision and sending out orders means forcing the commander/player to make decisions well ahead of observing recent outcomes would be perfectly in theme.

From a personal perspective I also quite like the armies theme - there are a number of personal combat/dueling card games around, I at least haven't encountered as many that use a larger battle skin (though I'm sure others will be able to mention plenty).

I'd been assuming the cards themselves would be the units, so for example you'd play a 'Scouts' card, representing a unit of scouts being sent out into the battlefield. Could then have the various attributes you'd discussed above in an individual sense converted to an army sense so that, for example, your army has an 'Infantry' rating of 3 or whatever and some cards used that rating/had certain requirements (allowing one 'Scouts' at 1 infantry point and one 'Skirmishers' at 2 points in a single turn, but no 'Shock Troops' which requires 4 infantry or somesuch). Somewhat different spin on things to what you'd outlined above admittedly, guess it really depends on how you want to represent the different armies.

There are two problems here.

If a movement card doesn't specify the movement precisely, then you need a "simultaneous" way for the players to reveal their destinations. You can do this by having them write it down after the cards are revealed, so nothing is given away during card selection. This would mean they could postpone the decision until the card is revealed, but that isn't necessarily bad. Or you could use a move selector (like a cardboard spinner, except the pointer stays where you set it instead of spinning freely). Each player has their own. Players can quickly and easily choose a movement on the selector, and keep it secret (face-down) until the movement occurs. The game Maharaja: Palace Building in India uses a selector with two pointers to allow simultaneous selection of two actions. (Click here to see a picture of this device.)

Or you could just have the movement cards specify the exact movement. ("Two steps forward.")

The second problem: what happens if simultaneous movement causes a collision between two (or more) players? There are a number of possible solutions to this one.

1. If the pieces' full movement would cause them to finish on the same location, then all pieces cease movement one step before the common location.

2. Have a "Priority track." Each player has a marker on the track. The player in position 1 on the track moves first; other players move in track order. Every so often, change the ordering. This could be done by rotation, by auction, or by random draw. One interesting way would be to include a "Priority Action" card in your deck. The effect of this card is just to move that player to the front of the Priority Track. If multiple players play this card simultaneously, they keep their positions relative to each other, but move ahead of all players who did not play the card. This lets players compete for priority.

3. Allow multiple players to be at the same location.

Hope this helps.

If it is a game of battling armies, rather than dueling heroes, let it be warfare in a period where armies met in battle lines. Instead of mapping movement precisely on a game board, boil it down to just a few options: flank, retreat, advance, charge.

I generally use simultaneous actions to reduce downtime between turns. It has been mostly used in my game variants, but also in a few of my game.

For example in my starcraft and twilight imperium variant, all production and technology phase are done simultaneously. Only combat and invasions are done in order. In my arkham horror variant, all players perform thir actions at the same time. The people only wait at the combat phase to see who is engaged in a battle.

Personnally, I really like simultaneous phase especially in long epic games. It makes you more in the game and reduce downtime.

What I'd really love to see is a game with teams. Where one person would have powerfull cards that they plan in advance, and the other person would have quick Reaction cards. This could be like the Adimral and the Captian, or a Fighter and a Coach. Whatever theme, I would just like to see the interplay of such a term trying to co-ordinate actions (without talking of course.)