Asymmetric win conditions

Interesting idea, but sounds challenging. It sounds like players who cooperate might manage to have everyone win, if the humans and aliens can work together. But hurting the other side can help a player to meet their own goal. That's assuming the game doesn't just end the moment one player hits their win condition?

The commander does sound like a challenging part though. They sound like mercenaries who would just want resources, since they're willing to work for either side. They could go for honor or something if they're just working for one side, but flip flopping on either side of the war doesn't sound fitting for a goal of honor at all. Maybe secret objectives would work for something like this, so you don't know what the alien race wants, or what the commanders want?

I wonder if the game would feel too one sided as someone gets the commanders to work with them, crushing the other side. Or if the humans and aliens tried not to be too hostile with eachother, what would the commanders do?

To expand on the above colonist idea, you could remove player elimination from the game by either
1) making the game end when one colonist player dies (this would probably work best if only one player controlled colonists)
2) making the death of a player's colonist group cause him to lose a point (if he had zero points he now has negative one points) and start over with a new colonist group. With multiple colonists players competing, you could make it so that, in addition to a human/alien gov victory, the colonist player with the most points at the end of the game wins.

Reading some of the replies got me thinking about the "Aliens". Some suggestion was to allow them to survive a certain amount of turns to win the game...

My idea is a spin on "Alien" (The movie) in that the "Aliens" breed a certain type of alien in the beginning. However as the game escalates to a climax, I would make it that the "Aliens" would get much stronger aliens that they can wipeout the enemy in a few turns...

So basically the Government is trying to eradicate the aliens. The colonists are trying to survive by doing the governments business. The aliens too are trying to survive - BUT at some point the scales will tip and the once not too dangerous Aliens become a force to be reckon with.

I just thought the survive X amount of turns for Aliens to be a boring victory condition. Taking back their planet sounds like a more awesome result. And like I said after X amount of turns, the aliens become so powerful it's nearly impossible to beat them...

Maybe for the colonist to win (asynchronously) they must evacuate Y commanders from the planet. In the end with the Aliens taking control the losing party would be the Government - they were unable to contain the spread of the aliens...

These are my ideas on the game.

Best of luck with your game!

Update: I would make the game be about area control and escalation.

In the beginning the Government would have the most power and use it's Commanders to control territory and eradicate aliens. For example colonies would "negotiate" with the government who wants total control of the planet.

The government would make deals to help remove the aliens and force colonist to "battle it out" with nearby aliens.

As the turn counter expires and the government "loses control" of their colonization, that's when the aliens "try to take over". And then it's a matter of trying to save Y amount of commanders.

Update #2: You could say that if ONE (1) Colonist survive they also win the game (after escalation). That means ALL the colonists will work together to try to help one colonist player survive (sort of pool their resources together...)

The "separate winners" approach is perfectly valid, and can lead to some very interesting emergent experiences. Not to self promote here, but a party game we made has a few very lite similarities to what you are talking about.

There is two players that start of diametrically opposed, and the rest of the players are loosely attached to one of them. However, through the course of play, all characters can be forcibly switched from one side to another, making them accept a change in their win conditions on the fly.

This works because it is a super easy party game that relies more on suspicion and messing with human nature than it does any long term tactics; one of the few environments where quickly forcing a change in win condition is acceptable (think Fluxx for example).

For your game, I think your final paragraph does a very good job of clarifying what you should shoot for. Stay on track with that idea and I think you'll find some really interesting stuff.

However, I would hazard against the feeling that colonists "need" a greater win condition than surviving when you start of producing the actual game (and not just theorycraft). The more mechanics you have, the more variables there are, and the harder flow and balance will be.

I would suggest starting off by generating a working set of mechanics where all the colonists need to do is survive. While doing that, you will have to contend with balancing only two major different play styles, the Aliens and Government. At this point, the colonists are basically just neutral players while the Government is all coach, and the Alien is a hybrid of the two. It might be weird at first, but this will help you make a rock solid game engine. After you have that, then start playing with different colonial win conditions.

Maybe you then put in a "king of the mountain" win condition just among colonists. The largest population wins. That would certainly change up the dynamic of players willingness to give up too much allegiance to either alpha player, but it would also increase inter-colonial aggression.

Another fun options might be hidden agendas for each colony. These would get dealt out at the beginning of the game, and no colony would be allowed to reveal their true win condition.

Colony A gets "Xenophobia" and lose if the Alien wins, or has to kill X number of Alien units. Colony B gets "Ideological Neutrality" they win the game if it gets to turn 50 without either Alpha player wining. Colony C gets "Anit-Imperialism" and loses if the Government wins, or has to destroy X number of Government backed technological improvements. While Colony D gets "Insular and Aggressive" where they win after killing a total of X number of any units in the game.

Then, the alpha players get one play experience, where everyone knows what is going on, while all the colonist get really fun unique play experiences where they are trying to win through subterfuge or cooperation.

Best part of this, you could make 20 or 30 colonial win conditions, just so no one has any idea (through deductive reasoning) what is really motivating the colonist.

Anyways, just a few thoughts. I will admit, it sounds like a very fun idea. Let me know if you want a sounding board; I'd be happy to work with you on it some time. Either way, keep pushing forward and I hope to hear more about it.

I still like the idea of commanders being some big-ass companies invested in getting their piece of the cake from this planet. Sure, they send the colonists, but they have much more power than colonists typically do. Let's face it: likely there won't be a 'US American' colony and a 'Chinese' colony on other planets; much rather will there be a 'Thompson Mining Corp' or a 'Chang Pharmaceutical Ltd.' or whatever. This would also lead to different goals for the involved companies.