So I've been tossing a few ideas around in the back of my mind for a card game system played with a standard deck of playing (poker) cards, sort of in the vein of Dominion, Race for the Galaxy, and/or the Schotten-Totten family of games. I've worked out a few ideas that aim to reduce randomness and really enjoy the idea of having a layout of X number of cards whose relative positions affect the game, and I'm toying with the idea of possibly making the object of the game to capture your opponent's king. Having a hand of cards from which you choose to play is also a must, to reduce the impact of randomness inherent in a deck of cards. I'm thinking it would be a two player game, red versus black, and (under the premise of capturing the king) I'm thinking you will secretly select to which suit your real king belongs for the sake of misleading your opponent into a false victory. Now then, the question I have is-primarily-has anyone ever played or designed a rule set for a strategy game that uses a standard deck of cards? If so, please let me know where I can acquire these rules so I can do some research on elements that may be similar to the game I'm working on. And secondly, what suggestions or ideas do you have (have you had) for a game such as this?
Thanks in advance to anyone that helps!
Strategy Game Using Standard Deck of Cards
I am not familiar with anything like it. It is a very interesting concept, though. All the best!
I did a game a while back (it was on here as a GJ, I think) where your cash, operatives and combat were done using the game "War" as the engine. The biggest issue was one where an arms race made things REALLY swingy when it came to combat, so be careful with that.
EXAMPLE: Spades were "bullets" which you could use to even the fight with your "Agents" (hearts). Clubs were "Clubs," literally, to give you an extra draw in the actual fight (one per player per fight). So things would go like this:
ANDY recruits w/ the 4H and arms them with one attack draw each using 4+S.
BILL recruits w/ 6H, but can't give everyone a draw as he only has 3S, so he uses 4C to supplement.
This spirals out of control REALLY quickly, and I never quite found a good fix.
I like this concept though. Are you limiting it to one deck only? If you wanted, could you conceivably go 4-player with two standard decks (making it suits vs. suits?)?
Relative positions is a neat concept here too-- there's a card game out there that's CCG-ish in flavor/design, but fixed-deck. It's some kind of goblin warfare thing, but where you put your cards really impacts how they can be used. I'm blanking on the name, but it might be a good start for some inspiration on mechanics.
This sounds interesting. I look forward to seeing what you come up with.
Seconded, a propper strategy game with standard cards - brilliant idea :)
Hope it goes well :)
I triple agree that the idea is intriguing. Poker cards are a rich source of variety, so often wasted on boring games. Best of luck, and please do post when you have it to a playable phase.
I would humbly suggest using the Rainbow Deck as an alternative to poker cards. It is 162 cards game system that revolves around colour, numbers and letters.
I'd like to limit it to one deck, just for the sake of keeping it simple and minimal, as part of my motivation for creating this game is creating a decent strategy game with a fair amount of depth that I can carry with me on an extended backpacking trip. However, a more-than-two player variation would definitely be in order if I come up with something good. I was able to find this game (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/36737/army-ants), thanks to a little help, and it seems to fit the bill and seems rather interesting, but in the meantime, I'm getting quite close to finishing my own!