Deck Building Strategy game inspired by one of my favorite CCGs

Hi everybody!

One of my favorite CCG games when I was younger was Spellfire. I always liked the Mix of D&D and being able to play with more than one player.

The game Idea I have takes inspiration from Spellfire, Dominion, Heroes of Might and Magic, Game of Thrones Board game, and some little mechanics from Runebound. I have currently written up over 400 unique cards combined over all of the different Decks to choose from and I am planning on undertaking the task of hand writing each card on a stack of index cards I have to start initial play testing. This thread will kind of serve as a progress report to see if this game has any chance of seeing life.

The basics:

The goal of the game is to capture and then hold 6 Territories for a turn, or have to most Territories by the time the Event Deck runs out.

The World Map will actually be made up by randomly drawn cards from a Territory deck, and placed in the Map formation dependent on how many players there are - so there will always be a static map to conquer (Traditional Strategy game). One perk to this is it is allowing me to create mechanics that can change the map during the course of the game which can alter strategies and pose unforeseen challenges for players.

Players will use Heroes to carry out their orders. Heros will be classed as Champions, Monsters, Clerics, Mages, and Rogues - traditional fantasy fare - each having their own perks. Heros will have basic abilities/skills which players will use as a basis to build their strategy with that hero.

Heros will then be customized and enhanced by Item cards (Limit two item cards per hero). Heros are then further dynamically altered based on the Territory terrain they're fighting on, any Property cards (watch towers for example) Spells that are cast, and ally cards that are played.

Heroes:

The basic design is kind of your traditional rock paper scissors, with some TNT thrown in!
The general concept breakdown is as follows

Champions: Tend to have higher base power levels, Generally no limit on item usage, and are your core basic fighters with not too much complication in operation. They're cheap to buy, but don't offer too much in ways of income or influence. Special abilities focus around direct combat.

Clerics: The balance between Champion and Mage. They dont have many item limitations, have a medium base power level. They can use Cleric spells, are of average cost, and give average influence and income. Special abilities focus around defensive Player hero improvements (buffs). Generally your go-to defensive specialists.

Mages: They have lower base power levels. Have item limitations. They can use Magic spells, are of average to higher cost and give lower income and influence. Special abilities focus around offensive debuffs or combat perks. Although a risk to go into battle with as they initially have a lower power level, they can quickly make up for it with the ability to use spells.

Monsters: The offset of Champions. They tend to have higher base power levels, but will range. They also are more often to have special racial features. They have some item limitations, expensive to buy, and offer little to no income or influence. They're also unpredictable and there are some event cards that can make you regret hiring a monster (spoilers!) No specific special abilities focus, as each monster will do it's own thing. Monsters are a compromise as their power usually comes with a consequence.

Rogues: Have lower base power levels. Not too many item limitations. Are of lower cost, but come with high influence and income. Their special abilities focus around offensive nuisance actions. Rogues are vital to your Kingdom's economy as well as throwing some monkey wrenches into your opponent's plans.

Combat:

Combat is reflective of Spellfire's basic combat in the sense that cards in battle are played one at a time, turn order determined by the player with the lower combat level, and victory coming when the player with the lower power level ceases to play cards or can no longer play any to increase their level.

Combat is engaged by a Player choosing to attack an opponent's adjacent territory (some heroes will have the ability to attack a non adjacent territory - such as flyers).

Consequences of Combat are in place to prevent players from turtling and gaining enough cards to just walk all over the map. They are:
Ally cards are a one time use in battle, win or lose, then returned to the discard pile.
Spell Cards are a one time use in battle, win or lose, then returned to the discard pile.
Heroes and their attached items are the only cards that will return to the victorious player's play area for repeated use until defeat.

I'm hoping this will translate into players wisely using allies and spells as needed, and to only really get over zealous with their card usage when it's absolutely vital to do so. Seeing as you can use all the Ally cards in your reserve and all the spell cards in your spell book in a single battle, I figured this to be a good way to discourage careless use of cards and keep a player from becoming overpowered by sheer numbers.

Deck Building/Market Deck:

Cards are gained with the traditional deck building mechanic - with some minor alterations.
There are two currency types - Influence and Income
Influence will be used to purchase Hero cards, and Property Cards
Income will be used to purchase Ally cards, Item cards, and Spell Cards
Players can gain up to 2 cards per turn, 1 from influence, and 1 from income.
The theory is that Influence cards are designed to help your kingdom grow, and income cards are designed to strengthen your kingdom.

The Market Decks are divided by Property card deck, Hero Card Deck, Ally CArd Deck, Item Card Deck, Spell Card deck. Each market offer is determined by the amount of players. 2 player games will have 3 revealed cards from each deck, 3 player games 4 cards, 4 player games, 4 cards, and 5 player games 5 cards.

Influence and Income are gained by the Cards a player has in play on their kingdom boards, as well as Territories they own on the game map. Each card will signify if it's generating income or influence based on it's icon and number.

Kingdom Board/Player Operations:

Players will be given their own Colored Kingdom boards, Reserve boards (where Heros will be placed so they are available for combat and spell casting) with an attached Spellbook (where players can place magic and cleric spells to be used).

The Kingdom board will have 6 slots for Property cards and 6 numbered Kingdom Boarder tokens. The numbers on the boarder tokens will correspond with the Property card slots - to keep track of what Property card is applying to what Territory card that player controls. I am contemplating adding more boarder tokens (but still a limit of 6 property slots) to allow players to gain more than 6 territories in a turn in hopes of defending enough attacks to retain 6 or more territories to win the game. The Player will also get a collection of numbered kingdom tokens. Kingdom tokens are generally called into use to mark targets/locations of spell or hero ability effects, and are used as an easier book keeping tool. (eg. Player 2 has Player 1's kingdom token #4 on one of his heros. Player 1's second Kingdom Token #4 is placed on one of his own Heroes in his reserve. Player 1's hero states to use that kingdom token to mark when the Hero has used his ability. That hero's ability was a Charm meaning that Player 2's hero that has Player 1's Kingdom token #4 on it cannot be used in battle against Player 1 for this round [deep breath])

The reserve board will have 4 hero slots (contemplating 6) with an Ally slot (where ally cards that are available for use will be placed) and a Tavern slot (pending rename) where Heros will go to be swapped out with another hero in Player's hand.
Attached to the Reserve board will be the spell book with one slot for Magic spells and one slot for Cleric spells. Like the ally slot, cards here will be available for use on the player's turn.

These player boards will be populated from the Player's hand. A player's hand is limited to 8 cards. A player can place one Property card, One Hero card, unlimited Ally cards, unlimited spell cards, and unlimited (respecting hero equipment limits) item cards onto their boards each turn.

The hero placement may likely change after some play tests - I'm worried a limit to one hero per turn may cripple a player too much if they had a bad streak of losses.

Event Cards:

I decided that these were a good idea to not only control the game's flow and play time, but to also alter the game enough to prevent a player from being able to get over powered without risk. I've currently got almost 100 unique Event cards designed, with the plan of having 1-3 copies of each depending on the severity of the card. Playtesting will determine the actual final numbers, but my basic idea is

Short game - 20 cards
Medium game - 30 cards
Long game - 50 cards

Each card in the vent deck essentially is a "Round". I quickly realized that being able to capture and hold 6 territories could drag on forever, as players will all immediately target a player who has 5 or 6 territories, causing a never ending stalemate until someone gets lucky.

Initial Concerns with my design:

Right now im worried Clerics and Mages can get overpowered seeing as they can use Spells AND allies in combat. I've done things so far to offset it a bit, such as limiting items and spells. Some items can't be used by mages, and some spells require a specific base mage hero level to use for example.

I do have a lot of unique cards, and im worried that despite lots of play testing there's still a large chance overpowered combos will not be able to get weeded out. I suppose this is the nature of the beast, though.

Downtime is something i want to try to avoid. I'm thinking that It will really depend on the player of who's turn it is - however, with the basic complexity of the game, I'm also hoping that the players who are still waiting for their turn will be going over strategies on what to do their turn - keeping them busy enough to not be overly affected by downtime.

My concept map design layouts should allow for all players to generally border eachother, allowing for everyone to always be able to engage the others in combat, however there could be ways for players to line off their territory limiting their neighbors.

Anyway, I thank anyone who didn't TL:DR and went through my post. If you have any criticisms or thoughts on any holes in my design I would love to hear it! Thanks for looking!