"Evil Empire" Cooperative fantasy world domination simulation board game. *New Title*

QuestCCG: To clarify some things I'll address your comments in order,

The calendar would work much in the way you were talking, I didn't mention cards before but this was always the idea. There will be three types of these world event cards: Enemy Actions, Disasters, and Imperial Matters.

Enemy Actions will dictate how many units the enemy nations receive and if they send units to attack your Empire. These may also be assassins who will come after the council members directly.
Disasters would be random events that have a negative impact on the Empire. Such as droughts, plague, storms, etc.
Imperial Matters would consist of situations the council has to deal with. The idea behind these are subjects come to the council with problems and they debate the best course of action to take. The cards will have a description of the problem and usually two choices the council votes on. Each choice will benefit one player, usually with a reward of influence. The key is to talk (or bribe) the other players into voting your way. The choices may also have positive or negative repercussions on the Empire. So, you might have to talk someone into doing something that is bad for the Empire but good for you personally.

The main goal of the game is to defeat the forces of good, which will be represented by four enemy nations. I'm thinking about scaling the map down to add more detail to the landscape. Instead of being a world, like in the image I posted here, it will be one continent with the Evil Empire's fortress near the middle. You send your armies out to conquer neighboring territories with the goal of taking over the four enemy capitols. Once you've conquered an enemy capitol, you will be allowed to train their units and heroes to serve in your army. When you've taken all four capitols, the Evil Empire has prevailed and the players all win.

Each role in the game will have a number of tasks that, when completed, will gain that player influence. The High Commander, for example, is in charge of the military so whenever he conquers a territory he will gain influence. Any player can send armies out to attack but only the Commander will gain influence from it. Whenever the Master Mason builds all the structures needed to upgrade a city he will gain influence for it. When the Ambassador succeeds at diplomatic missions or assassinations he will gain influence. The Quartermaster will gain influence from setting up trade routes. These are just some examples but I think you can see what I'm getting at. There will be more tasks to gain players influence when the game is finished.

So, it will be pretty easy for a player to gain enough influence to become the Dark Lord before the game is over. This is kind of the point of the game, the Empire needs a Lord to lead them to victory and everyone on the Council wants to rise to that position. There will be benefits for becoming the Dark Lord, so everyone will be cutthroat about getting there and staying there. Even though everyone is still working together to win the game.

The "end of each round" thing was kind of confusing, sorry. It was replaced by the world events on the calendar. Each player's turn will consist of them taking their number of actions. Actions will include exploring territories to find resources or unique items; attacking territories; moving units; building structures in cities, your keep, or walls around a territory to block the enemy from invading, and so on (still working on all the particulars).

After a player completes their actions, you would move the marker on the calender and if there is a world event, you would draw a card and resolve its effects. Once the marker has made it all the way around the board, the game would end in a loss for all players. This could be explained as a prophecy that foretells of a champion who will rise and defeat the Evil Empire and you are working to prevent the prophecy from coming true. Or, that it is only a matter of time before the forces of good find the council's weakness and use it to stop them.

The rest of your comments I agree with, about the game feeling like you are overseeing the aspects of running the kingdom, instead of going out and doing everything yourself. I think the way things are going, this theme will be conveyed well. Though, roles I see more as being chosen or randomly dealt out at the beginning of the game and there are ways of changing your role through the course of the game.

The races I mentioned would be represented by the different nations. The Evil Empire I see as being mostly human, dark elf, orc, and goblin. The other nations could consist of Dwarves, Elves, Gnomes, Dragons, etc. You would only have access to specific units when you start the game. As you conquer territories, make diplomatic arrangements, and enslave the other nations you will gain access to new units based on who lives where you are attacking. In this, you are sort of building a technology tree of what units you can recruit to your armies. This tech tree will grow as you take over more of the world. It does offer some replay-ability in how you go about conquering the world, which nations you attack first, and which units you use.

I was thinking about adding two more roles but can't think of other aspects of managing the Empire that would seem dynamic enough. Perhaps a Master-at-Arms who oversees the creation and distribution of weapons and armor to units? Oh, or an Archmage to direct magical affairs and research for the Empire... could even have a Domestic Adviser who is in charge of keeping the masses happy and preventing riots or rebellion?

After hammering out more details on how this game will actually play, I've come to some conclusions:

1. Combat needs to be more interesting and dynamic, since it's a large focus of the game (conquering the forces of good to win). I haven't come up with a solid system yet, I'd still like to keep the units having different dice to represent their strength. Thinking there needs to be a variable system for how much damage the enemy deals to you. Maybe flipping the actual unit tokens and having different damage values printed on either side?

2. This game need to be EPIC! I'm talking, something you not only play but talk about long after the game is over. To achieve this, I'm thinking about implementing a campaign system. The first stage of the campaign would be sort of a tutorial town, where the Dark Lord is still alive and leading the Empire against the forces of good. You would still act as Council, directing the affairs of the Empire but influence would then be used to buy favors from the Dark Lord.

You would start against one enemy nation, placed randomly on the map. You're goal is simple, to take their capitol, and the game will probably only last an hour or two. Once you've conquered them, you keep their capitol as a city for the Empire in the next games you play. Each game after the first would add another enemy nation, so in your second game you would have two enemies to defeat. In this game, though, you would be able to use the units of the nation you conquered in your previous game. So every time you play, you gain more units to recruit into your armies. The nations you fight in each game could be randomized as well, adding further variability.

When you play for the fourth time, fighting four enemy nations at once, the Dark Lord is slain during the final battle (whether the players win or not). In the story of the campaign, this cripples the Evil Empire and they lose their control over the territory they've already conquered. From this point on is when the players use influence to vie for the position of Dark Lord. You're also given the option of setting the difficulty for individual game sessions. Go up against all of the enemy nations, at once, for a real challenge. Or continue as a campaign, conquering each of them in succession. This offers a wide range of replay options that can be furthered through the release of expansions and user created scenarios and campaigns.

Really excited about getting this to the play testing phase, just need to figure combat out...