I've been trying to squeeze the entire spectrum of a war game into a simple card game (again) - here are my thoughts. Yes I know, its a huge wall of text - but your feedback is very welcome!
Note that the text has been put through google translate (because im lazy), so please excuse any errors.
1. Required Materials
Only special playing cards are used, at most a few counters and the rules-booklet, nothing else. That means this is a game without dice and without a game board.
2. Types of cards
There are basically only 3 types of cards: units, terrain and tactics. Where tactics
could also represent spells , items or equipment (artifacts, war-banners, etc.).
3. game play
the game is basically intended for 2 players, but could easily be played with more players. for the sake of simplicity, let's focus on the 2 player game. in the game two warring armies face each other and the aim is to determine the winner in an epic battle.
4. playing field
since there is no game board, neither hex fields nor measuring tape are used. instead, each player has 3 slots on which unit cards can be placed. these represent the left flank, the center and the right flank. the cards share such a space are considered as regiments. if a regiment attacks, it first aims at the opponents cards in the same space (i.e. the center attacks the opposite center). only if the opposing space is empty can another space be attacked as an alternative.
5. combat system
the fight itself is kept very simple: you just add up the strength of the units on both sides. the player with the higher total value wins this fight. the difference between the two values results in the damage that is added to the enemy units. for each point of damage the loser has to put a damage counter on one of his units. Most units can only take one point of damage and are then discarded, while others can withstand multiple hits.
6. fighting types
to spice up the battle, each unit not only has a strength value but several types of strength. these are represented by small symbols on the card. so there is melee, ranged and magic (or similar). A unit can have one or more symbols (e.g. warriors could show 2 melee symbols, but a magician could have 2 magic symbols and 1 ranged combat symbol).
if a player attacks now, he can choose the symbol which is used for this fight. the player only adds up this symbol (e.g. ranged combat) on his unit cards.
Whether his opponent must now use the same symbol or can also choose a symbol remains to be decided. There could also be another symbol "defense" which is only used during the defense.
to make the fighting types work out well, there should be lots of special rules that
refer to them. most notably would be terrain and tactic cards, but a units special
abilities could play a role here as well.
7. tactics and the rest
Since there are no dice and hardly any luck elements, the tactic cards are used to spice up the fight. each player can play a certain number of tactic cards when attacking and / or defending. the tactic cards are played out of hand and can influence the ongoing battle.
Example: "Higher Ground" - if your regiment attacks with ranged combat, it receives +1 to its total strength for this combat.
tactic cards can also represent spells or equipment. the equipment would be permanently attached to the regiment and improve it (e.g. +1 to close combat).
Of course, the units can also have special skills (in addition to the various symbols), I think one skill per unit is sufficient, in rare cases there could also be two. It shouldn't get any more complex than that.
ultimately, terrain maps could be used. these are placed on one of the spaces (left flank, right flank or center) and there can only be one terrain card per space. these would be permanent and would affect the units located there on BOTH sides. How exactly the terrain card placement works, still needs to be clarified.
Example: "Woodlands" - ranged combat attacks are at -1 strength at this location.
8. Open questions
Many questions are still unanswered if someone has an idea, your feedback is appreciated:
8.1 Defender Fighting Style
As mentioned above, a decision has to be made as to how the opponent will defend (same symbol as the attacker, choose your own symbol or a special defense symbol). see also point 6 above.
8.2 terrain cards
how they should work still needs to be clarified. see also point 7 above.
8.3 win condition.
how to win the game is also not yet clear. The good old "destroy all units" has several mistakes: firstly, it takes a long time, secondly, you can no longer win from a certain lower limit of units and thirdly, it becomes problematic if you want to add reinforcements later (so that the players will add new units during the play a running game)
another idea would be that each player has 3 "flags". one each on the left flank, the center and the right flank. if undistributed damage points are left after an attack, these could be transferred to the flag. if a player loses all of his flags, he has lost the game.
8.4 how to deploy units and reinforcements.
this point is also still open. do the players start with all units on the field? Do the players play the units of cards like in a trading card game every round by paying resources for it? one could also introduce a "reserve" zone behind the flank / center areas in which supplies are waiting, which may then advance. ask anything unexplained.
gold coins (or command points, however you want to call it) could be the resource that is used to bring new units or tactics into play.
8.5 deckbuilding
deckbuilding is another thing. shall we use preconstructed decks, fixed decks or allow the players to customize their decks? i like preconstructed but customizeable decks with about 30 cards each (should be enough with 20 units and 10 tactics or so).
9. Taboos
I would like to define a few "taboos" which should not be discussed here, because those would be beyond the scope. all other points can be freely discussed.
9.5.1 setting / genre
please no genre discussion, the game is completely independent of it ("magic" can simply be exchanged for "psi" etc.).
9.5.2 dice / board etc.
please do not insert any dice or a real hex-based game board, the rough framework of the game works without these things.
9.5.3 complexity
please do not expand the complexity (in terms of card types, size of the playing field, combat system), I think that it is sufficient.
9.5.4 no ccg
nope, this game would be NO ccg/tcg. you get all the cards that you need right away (also im leaning towards a free print-n-play game right now). not said that there is no deck-building though.
Well, that's about it - I would be very excited about your input!
A bit of brainstorming later, these rules seem like good additions to the core rules. Not very innovative but i suppose the game would work just fine this way:
1. Supply Points
A resource to pay for cards is a requirement, without its very hard to balance the power of cards. You can call this one gold coins or whatever. Im more for a fixed supply points system instead of using cards to represent resources. So the rule would be quite simply:
At the start of each players turn, that player gains 3 supply points. Unspent supply points are carried over to the next turn.
Unit cards cost between 1 and 5 supply points to bring them into play, the same could be true for tactic cards as well (unless someone has a better idea).
2. Victory Condition
The "banners" or "flags" mentioned briefly in the introductory post seem like a good victory condition. Each player uses a spare card, placed face-down behind each one of his/her zones. These face-down cards represents the flags that your opponent must conquer.
So each player starts the game with one flag on his left flank, one on the center and one on the right flank.
When attacking an army at one location, any excess damage points are carried over to the flag. Just 1 point of excess damage is enough to destroy the flag there.
This victory condition is strongly inspired by games like Duelmasters (an old CCG). Instead of 5 face-down cards, we use just 3 of them, that should be enough (creates some tension as well). As the flags are positioned at the three zones, this setup also adds more importance to where to place your units (in order to defend your flags).