I've got this idea that players could be factions that control, but also build and improve the same city.
Have you seen this before ?
How would a game similar to Scythe would look like if all meeples on the board were shared ?
Fri, 04/08/2022 - 20:34
Fri, 04/08/2022 - 21:16
#1
Two Thoughts, Two Games
A couple games that come to mind for some reason are the following:
Battlestar Galactica: Something about the voting and shared discussion - all while the potential of a traitor is in the mix - makes me think that competing interests can work together for a while. The thing about BG is that savvy players will always be on the lookout, and if one plays the traitor they ought to learn how to maximize their input so that if/when they finally are revealed, they're in a better position.
Another title that comes to mind is Lords of Waterdeep. It's been many, many years since I've played this, but to my foggy recollection each player had a faction they controlled, while everyone was criss-crossing the same city to gather resources and add strength to or deplete strength from various city influencers. It also seemed highly-interactive, and everyone had secret objectives.
If you've not already, it may be worth your time to research both of these titles and see what you can learn from and adapt for your own goals.
Best of success for your design(s)! :)
Fri, 04/08/2022 - 22:18
#2
You're a bit VAGUE in the OP...
Firstly what would be the point of SHARING a city and having different Guilds? I mean this must be like The original City of Ravnica was made up of 10 districts.
Furthermore in Magic: the Gathering (MtG) you are NOT forced to side with any of the 10 districts. You can actually choose forces from the Faction of your liking meaning you don't need to have forces all from one guild, you can MIX-N-MATCH.
So MtG Ravnica sound a bit like "Controlling" one city with several Factions that can be controlled by different players. And in some case, units can be SHARED and in other case not.
To answer your question: "Have you seen this before?"
The quick answer is YES in MtG. But I don't know all the other games in existence out-there! So there may be others that do something similar.
The other concept I was thinking about was Menzoberranzan (City of Guilds of the Dark Elves). There are 50 Houses as part of the Lore of this underground city.
So I guess this "Video Game" or AD&D RPG universe is also another example too!
Cheers.
Note #1: I have also seen something similar in Star Trek: TNG. With the Klingons which also have a House Structure (and they have 24 Houses that are represented by the Council). I know this is Sci-Fi ... But I felt it was worthy of mention.
Just to discuss a common-thread of examples.
Sat, 04/09/2022 - 07:44
#4
Suggestions
However, whatever they build that has a board presence is shared with all the other players. This inherently creates a dilemma (e.g. do I build now, or is it risky because it'd benefit someone else in their next turn?).
I understand a bit better, thanks! I did a little browsing on BGG and a couple games came right out: 2021's Boonlake and its predecessor: Maracaibo. Both were designed by Alexander Pfister, and seem to be on the heavier-Eurostyle end of the spectrum.
Two other games also come to mind: one old, one new. From out of left field, you have the card-chaining game Nightfall, which you still might be able to find here and there. A bit further afield is a dice game I bought for myself not to long ago and I enjoy: Mike Fitzgerald's Football Highlights: The Dice Game. To sum it up, the active player selects one of up to six different actions, while the rest of the players choose from the "leftovers" still available and make their (lesser) actions. Both of these examples appear to be much more of a tactical nature than you're seeking, since there's no "mutual city-building" that persists from turn to turn.
Finally, you may want to research some "collaborative story-telling games," such as The Quiet Year. There's not necessarily a clear-cut victor in games like that (or even concepts of "winners" and "losers"), as it's more about creating a shared story or scenario full of drama and changes. However, constantly riffing off what the other players inject into the game is essentially what those games are all about.
An interesting dynamic I began to think about while reading up on Faiyum. It seems like you are asking about games that provide a "symbiotic role-selection" feature. For example, many games allow players to choose a role, which becomes an exclusive action, bonus, etc. that only that player benefits from. Other games allow for opponents to "tag-along" and perhaps take a lesser-powered action afterward. A number of games use this kind of mechanic, so you may want to research various role-selection games for tidbits of useful info and examples.
Hopefully this response was (at least a bit more) useful!
Sat, 04/09/2022 - 16:44
#6
I guess what you are looking for is...
A Co-opetive (Cooperative & Competitive) game in which the structures are shared and the workers are distinct. Meaning each faction/player has his/her own units but the structures built for the "city" are shared.
Am I understanding this correctly???
Maybe something like this (Valley of the Dragons):
https://boardgamegeek.com/image/1046460/dragon-valley
This is a preview of the board. There is a central castle and room for 4 players to play the game (in the Valley). Again, I think this is still different from what you are proposing. Getting a bit closer to what you are thinking ... But still different.
The interesting part is determining WHEN a player should BUILD or not.
That is in many ways a universal problem. Why? Because in many games some players take their time building their side of the board. Meanwhile aggressive players (the Spikes of the World) are full frontal assault trying to demolish their opponent as quickly as possible.
So that's an interesting problem... One that we can discuss further. But perhaps not in relation to your thread. Unless you feel like this is something relevant to discuss...
Cheers!
Sat, 04/09/2022 - 16:58
#7
Risk vs. Reward
Perhaps you need an INCENTIVE to build a particular building. This has nothing to do with your game idea... But is still relevant. Let me continue to explain.
If you build a Gold Mine... You could have a ONE-TIME Reward of earning a BONUS of 100 Gold.
This BONUS is awarded to the player who initially BUILT the mine. Sure the other players can collect gold (maybe 25 Gold per turn) but the player who initially decided to BUILD the mine, gets a one-time bonus of 100 Gold.
So that's a way of making it INTERESTING in REWARDING the player who has the CHOICE to build or not. Sure that Gold Mine will help the other players but at the SAME TIME, the player who built it ALSO got a permanent reward too.
If you build a Market... You could have a bonus Reward of getting 5x 5 of each resource (so 25 Resources) each time you visit the Market as being the owner of said structure.
And normally when you use the market play you get only 3x 5 of each resource (so 15 Resources). So it gives the owner +2 of each resource when visiting that Market.
Of course other players can maybe choose to build their OWN Market ... And maybe there can be 1 to 2 Markets in the game (for example).
That's another way of rewarding the Builder of the structure by giving them a PERMANENT bonus in terms of resources being collected.
So as you can see there are TWO (2) SOLUTIONS that I have proposed to incentivize the players to BUILD structures because they will benefit from them too... And either get a one-time bonus to boost a specific resource or get a permanent bonus in terms of quantities when they use that structure.
Other designers may want to chime in with other possibilities to encourage the building of structures because it is ADVANTAGEOUS to be the builder in some way or fashion.
Best.
Note #1: I thought of an additional reward. It goes something like this:
If I build the Library, I can have two (2) scholars learning at this location.
Meanwhile all the other players may only have one (1) scholar making it that the player who built the Library gets 100% faster learning of spells (2 vs. 1).
That's another way to go too...
Note #2: These sort of INCENTIVES can go a long way of kinda "forcing" or making it VERY WORTHWHILE to be the builder of the structures. In a way it will force players to EXPAND and conquer the world (or map) presented to them...
You can OFFSET this bonus system with a "Tax Collector" Event which forces the player with the most resources to pay 10% of his total hoard. That could be a way of THROTTLING the game and allow the players that are a bit behind CATCH-UP to the leading player.
There are probably a ton of other ways to incentivize and to throttle the game when it comes to something co-opetive.
Another way to OFFSET is each player must pay 10% of the resources to help fortify the city soldiers to help defend it from hoards of barbarians. So this means that the richer players PAY MORE ... Another way to catch-up with the other players too...
That's another EVENT that could happen (for example).
The bottom line is that there are tons of ways to give bonuses and then throttle the game so that players lagging behind can catch-up. If these were not things that you knew about when thinking about HOW to ENCOURAGE building of structures (or buildings and what not...) this should get you at least thinking that it is possible to get players to "do the right thing" most of the time with a small reward or a small penalty.
Note #3: How to encourage players to EXPLORE the map and go beyond their city ...? Well you could have like "small" barbarian villages and when you convince them to join your cause... You get a reward also (which can be indicated on the opposite side of the village chit) for example. Like +25 Gold or +10 Ore or +5 Wood, etc.
Sun, 04/10/2022 - 07:54
#8
Rentier Mechanic, etc.
Note #1: I thought of an additional reward. It goes something like this:
I seem to recall something like this being prominent in Lords of Waterdeep. In addition, whenever a sale or some sort of transaction occurred within a player's property, they "skimmed a little off the top" so they took in some resources whenever another player/opponent did something at their store, on their land/turf, etc. Even Monopoly could be considered as having a form of this mechanic.
If I build the Library, I can have two (2) scholars learning at this location.
Meanwhile all the other players may only have one (1) scholar making it that the player who built the Library gets 100% faster learning of spells (2 vs. 1).
I'd suggest that this gives a game a certain type of "landlord" vibe, and testing might help you understand if it's the kind of feeling you want your game to cultivate in your players.
In terms of providing incentives, I also like questccg's suggestion on rewarding expansion with one-time bonuses (his "barbarian village" example, above). A pick-up-and-deliver design I tinkered with provided "graduated" rewards to visitors, where the first player to visit received the highest-value reward, and subsequent visitors received incrementally-lesser-value rewards.
Again, testing and your observations can help you determine if this is the kind of theme or feeling you're trying to cultivate in your design.
Wed, 04/13/2022 - 00:02
#9
For Shared Meeples, I thought
For Shared Meeples, I thought that Raiders of the North Sea / Raiders of Scythia had a cool turn structure with "Place a worker" to perform that action, then "Take a worker" from another space and perform that action.
For building stuff that your opponents get to do things with, I've seen some lately where you build into a shared map and mark your buildings with a token of some kind, and if an opponent uses it, you get some small reward.
Actually, I think Charterstone does this (another Stonemaier game) but without the reward for others using your stuff?
Also, I always thought the mechanism in Keyflower was cool where you use meeples to bid on stuff, or to activate stuff, and if your opponent bids on (and wins) an activated tile (regardless of who activated it), they also collect meeples from that tile for next round. You can activate tiles in your opponent's village: you get the action, they collect the meeple to use next round.
The meeples aren't of your own color, but they need to be a matching color for activations and bidding.
Wed, 04/13/2022 - 21:58
#10
Great advice...
For Shared Meeples, I thought that Raiders of the North Sea / Raiders of Scythia had a cool turn structure with "Place a worker" to perform that action, then "Take a worker" from another space and perform that action.
That's a neat observation and unique type of game play. Two (2) distinct ways of using "actions".
For building stuff that your opponents get to do things with, I've seen some lately where you build into a shared map and mark your buildings with a token of some kind, and if an opponent uses it, you get some small reward.
Yeah that was what I was trying to explain with the various "rewards" that the player who initially built the structure would get some kind of reward.
Also, I always thought the mechanism in Keyflower was cool where you use meeples to bid on stuff, or to activate stuff, and if your opponent bids on (and wins) an activated tile (regardless of who activated it), they also collect meeples from that tile for next round. You can activate tiles in your opponent's village: you get the action, they collect the meeple to use next round.
The meeples aren't of your own color, but they need to be a matching color for activations and bidding.
This is cool too because it seems like a hybrid: you use your meeples on MY structure, so I can use those meeples on my turn. That's also pretty interesting too! I really like this concept and will remember it... Because it gives control to the player who make the more useful structures and grants him/her more meeples at the start of his/her next turn.
Definitely some great ideas here!
OK, let me rephrase. I purposely didn't leave much info, but maybe it wasn't a great idea.
So imagine a game of scythe right? A lot of stuff happens on the board, but all the meeples belong to a color.
So I had this idea, that players are all part of the same country, city, call it whatever you want. Each one of them controls a faction with a different set of special abilities.
However, whatever they build that has a board presence is shared with all the other players. This inherently creates a dilemma (e.g. do I build now, or is it risky because it'd benefit someone else in their next turn?).
The only example of something similar that I could think of is a game named Faiyum. There should be others though, it can't be such an original mechanism. Does anyone else know of something like this so that I can research a bit?