Space empire card game

. . . something sort of like that. Mine is more of a sailing/ocean/ pirate-y theme. Right now I have islands that generate little wooden cubes to play ships/ characters/ technology/ actions/ etc. Um, it's pretty early in development, and sort of stemming from ideas for a board game that would be impossible to self publish and a ton of work for a first design should I ever try to sell it.

Anyway, problems that I'm running into that might be something you encounter as well:

Game space is getting a little sprawling. even with four players having five or six islands each, and everyone being able to move cards around to them, there is quite a lot of stuff to keep track of, and it requires quite a bit of room for everyone to have space to put everything. This wasn't a problem for me with the old star wars ccg, but that was only two players (and I imagine it was a problem for tournament organizers).

Movement for me is sort of a problem (though I bet in space it's easier to manage) I'm trying to figure out where and how far ships can move. If they can't move far enough, there won't be as much interaction with players far away, and if they can move to far, trying to defend anything seems futile.

Combat is another problem for me. In a 1v1 game, blowing up opponents ships is good, losing your ships is bad. In a multiplayer game . . . well I don't want the person who sits back and does nothing to win simply because they didn't waste resources. So, I am needing to find a way to reward combat, and reward efficient resource management. I'll probably go with a revised TI3 method of points rewarded for objectives centered around both: You wont always know which ones you may have to do in the future, so players who prepare the best for all options will be rewarded, while players who chose to focus on one or the other may also be able to muscle a win.

Also, controlling islands is an issue for me. I think I will just have islands owned by players, and if enemy ships control them, then they can pirate resources/ blockade/ something that makes it an incentive to go occupy your opponents. I don't want the island themselves being fought over with, say, ground troops and armies and such. that seems to bog down the idea. So, you never really steal islands, but you can go there and get benefits (some trade ships would perhaps benefit both players?) I have read about race for the galaxy, and my copy should be in at the game store when I go down this Sunday. It seems in that game, planets never really get taken, I think? I've read quite a bit about it.

That brings up another question. Have you played race for the galaxy? It sounds a little similar maybe . . . certainly in theme. Like I said, I haven't played it yet, but will soon, but I'm sure it would be a good comparison to look at, if you have not already.

Sigh. I have to go to work, but definitely am very interested in this thread. I'm sure it will be relevant to the ideas I've been obsessing over for a while, and if you can make it into a working, functional game, it sounds like one I'd be buying!

:)