thought I'd run by this all of you for some ideas.
Background Story:
Talondor used to be a prosperous and happy country, with many flourishing towns. That is, until the dragon came along. Along with the dragon came roving bands of orcs, goblins, and occasional giants that would come out of their hiding places up in the mountains. The king, widely considered incompetent, does nothing and his knights and him sit in their castles all day feasting and drinking while the dragon pillages.
As leader of your town, you have grown tired of this and you set out to right the wrong, gathering recruits from towns and fighting bands of monsters along the way. You can choose to work with other village leaders (the other players), or by yourself.
The first player to kill the dragon wins the game. (possibly more victory conditions, tbd)
The game is medieval fantasy style, and the game board is going to consist of square spaces 16x16 (spaces)
2-4 players.
Towns and castles are randomly placed at start of game, as are mountains, which are the spawn point for monsters.
Players will move about the board, visiting towns to gather supplies for questing. They will be able to build buildings in their home town such as farms, weapons shops, etc in order to supply themselves and gather more recruits.
Every so often, an event card will be played determining spawning of monsters(and their movement), weather, etc
Quest cards will also be randomly drawn from the event deck for players to compete in completing said quests for a sum of money or other reward.
Players will be able to attack static troops belonging to the king in their castles to gain said castles as strong points.
In essence, it's going to be a rebellion/liberation type game, and you can work with or against the other players on the board to accomplish the victory conditions.
Very rough draft, hope it doesn't sound too convoluted, but I'd love to hear your ideas!
Cheers!
I'm thinking for the placement elements, each player takes a turn placing towns, castles and mountains at the start of the game, starting with their home town. The player rolls three dice. The first roll represents the x plane on the board, the second the y plane. So if a 7 is rolled, then 14, the player's home town will be placed 7 spaces to the right, then 14 up from the players starting corner on the board.
After the home towns have been placed, the above method continues for all other towns castles and mountains, although those tiles will be upside down until placed so you don't know what.
I think you nailed it when you said to strike a balance between teamwork and competition. I want to make it so you want to think carefully about aiding your ally, lest you speed up his development. You can always barter for a slice of the pie with him/her.
The fun part will be trying to build up your town and acquiring resources to recruit infantry to your cause. Each town leader will be able to field one army with a cap limit in units, and as they gain more money and resources, will be able to hire up to four more mercenary generals to field more armies, for a limit of 5 armies in the field.
The trickiest bit I think will be making a balanced card deck. For monster spawns an even card will say which mountain range it spawns at (ranges and towns will have names) and which town they move towards and at what speed. It will then state the reward for eliminating that band of monsters.
I've yet to decide how the players will interacts with non player controlled towns, but I think they will be capturable, or at least will be able to be influenced towards different players, to aid them in their quests, and ultimately the throne and killing the final dragon.