Civilization Deck-Building Card Game

Take for example "San Juan" which is STRICTLY a card game. It is all about building building that give you access to resources or give you certain bonuses (during the game or at the end). It could be considered a civ-TYPE game without it "feeling" like civ-LIKE game. And it is a very unique game.

It is sort of a "lite" version of the board game called "Puerto Rico".

You can download and play a free version that is written in Java:

http://www.compoundeye.net/jsanjuan/screenshots.html

Good luck with your game, hope it is a success!

I like the idea of the citizens - I have never played the Civilization card game (didn't know there was one actually) but if there was , I would agree with the others here that it would be very good to stay away from it, otherwise you will simply make a clone.

I think a better analogy is like dominion but with static cards. Eg: the market place has all standard cards in it, but whenever you "play" a civilian, they always stay on the table - thats cool. Of course then there are cards that effect differnetly depending on the type of X civilians or Y civilians and others that effect the opponent depending on how many (whatever type) civilians he has.

I don't like (personal preference) combat that ruins things. Combat systems that destroy stuff that you have spent a long time to create. The game then feels like it would never be the best: I will never be able to get 100 civilians and the best cards and the best "wonders" as I am always fighting a battle. It makes it seem a lot like a struggle. This is if you take things away that I have made. Now if you only "limit" things that I have made, I like that better. For example, you could do a "resource" thing similar to Magic the Gathering does mana. So farmer produces 1 "food" per turn it is in front of you. The food can only be used that turn then vanishes away, to be produced next turn again. If you have a special card: Bumper Crop - Farmers get an extra 2 resource this turn" then you would have 3 food, enabling you to buy a new type of villager say. But combat-wise I have a "Spearman" and every turn it stands out, it takes 1 food resource away from YOUR team. So you still have the farmer, but he is being battled by the enemies spearman, nullifying his standard "one resource / mana " per turn but allowing the "bumper crop" card to still activate. This way of course your enemy is focussed on taking you down, but wastes the fact that he could have had his own farmer instead of a spearman.

I really love the "win more" cards in Race for the Galaxy. This could apply here: so for example they would cost 10 "mana/resource" cards that say "Industrial Farming: at the end of the game, you get an extra VP point for every farmer civilan you have and 2 VP extra for every farming related technology you have" and of course "Militaristic State: You get an extra vp from every war-based unit on the field and every war-related building improvement" this gives players a goal to work towards "Right, this game I am going to try and be a development maker and hope to get the Development card!".

Artists: need a "place of work" like, an art-house / a town office / music school / theatre (whatever is appropriate for your theme) and then the building is also constant perhaps; "Artists may store there VP resource points in this building, all VP's on this card at the end of the game count towards your final score" or seomthing like that: enabling a civilian to store their resources. If that happens to be too unweighted and broken: then perhaps the artists have to make up there VP points - 1 point every 3 turns of play - so they would have to build up three thirds of a "Theatre piece" or a "Symphony" over the course of three turns, and the theatre piece/symphony would count for 1 vp each.

Winning: love the idea of a game end card, Literally pull it: "THE GAME HAS ENDED!" or "THE GAME ENDS WHEN THE FIRST PERSON BUILDS A NEW TECHNOLOGY" or somethign like that: similar to the helicopter evac card in the game Zombies!!!

You could even have a few different variant game cards to give the game a different campaign and increase replayablilty: "first person to acrue 10 civilians", "Game ends after 10 turns", "game ends once tech X and Y have been discovered" each of those would push people into a certain mind set and perhaps change the attitude they would approace the game with.

Sounds fun :)

First off, as far as I know, there is no Civilization deck-building board game, is there? I think questccg was referring to the computer game, no?

Anyways...

I agree with ilta's comment about tech producing modifiers. I was also thinking that you could have some buildings that need a certain level of tech before they can be produced. If you have multiple units then maybe some units are only available after you reach a particular tech level.

Sort of like going from slinger to archer to rifleman.

Of course, going back to ilta's idea about the modifiers, the units could simply receive a "level" in their stats. Say, take 2 food away instead of 1.

As far as combat goes, while I don't go for it all that much, I'm not averse to having it. Oh, sure, I'll get as frustrated as the next guy when something that I had just built gets destroyed. Destruction isn't the only part of combat, tho. So, if you want to go the non-combat combat way, I guess you could just say that they're your conquered lands and the resources you take are taxes or something.

You could also have units capture opposing citizens, buildings and tech for your own use. Units be used for defense as well, I'm guessin'. So, if your opponent has the same number of units as you, you're not gonna be able to grab his brand new granary. Unless, perhaps, you've researched better weapon tech.

Are players going to have their own tableau where they can put citizens or will cards be put into a used pile once after a player's turn?

I'm a fan of various goals as well and like Cogentesque's idea. Perhaps you could have a small set of cards that the player picks at random listing the goal. This would, I believe, give your game more replayability as well.

I like the sound of your game and hope to see it finished. (Unlike mine. o.O)

Good luck and have fun, Empires!