So, I have been working on this game for the past year. I have gone through two prototypes and two playtesting phases. Here are the bare bones of my game.
The Goal of the Game: To gain the most VP
Trading Post consists of 4 Phases that are played over 8 rounds. 1 round includes all 4 phases. At the beginning of each round, the person with the first player token passes the token to their left.
PHASE 1: |Explore| During this phase, From the land card deck, flip over one unexplored land card per the number of players playing. There are three types of cards that you can roll for: Essential/Common (Cost 1 dice), Uncommon (Cost 2 dice), and Rare (Cost 3 dice). Each player has 3 dice to spend on land cards, one d4 dice, one d6 dice, one d8 dice. This allows for some strategy when rolling for cards. All players declare what land they are rolling for that round and roll at the same time. This goes on for three rounds or until all dice have been rolled. If you win a land, you take it into your hand and place it in front of you. If you are tied for land, you battle against the other player.
PHASE 2: |Gather| Every land in the game produces a different resource. Some lands are more common, some are very rare. During this phase, all player gains 1 specific resource for the certain lands that they own. Once all players have finished gathering their specific resources, then it is time to gather Framework cards. Framework cards are buildings that you can add on your trading post to gain more VP and special effects. Every Round, draw 8 framework cards, and starting with the person who has the first player token, they look at the cards, picks one, then passes the cards to their left. This continues until every player has received a card and then the rest of the cards is discarded.
PHASE 3: |Trade| During the trade phase, you may trade any resource and/or framework card (if you choose to) to any other player. Each trade phase, the player with the first player token will be in charge of letting everyone else know that the trading phase has started and end via using the 1-minute timer. Once the timer has run out, all trading stops. It doesn’t matter if you were in the middle of something. All trading stops when the timer hits zero.
PHASE 4: |Buy| Probably the easiest phase out of them out. During this phase, players may build one framework card of their choosing unless they have a special ability that allows them to do so otherwise. Framework cards cost different resources. Once every player is finished building, the round ends and the next begins.
ANYTIME: Any player once per round may purchase an action card. Action cards cost any 2 resources to buy.
BATTLES: Battles happen in one of two ways. First way is if two or more players tie for a land and don’t have a different land that they can win. When a player has won two or more lands, they can only pick one to keep. The other lands that they don’t keep, the next player, without a winnable land and with the highest roll, wins it unless they are tied. If they are tied, they must battle against other said player
When Battles happen, each player place facedown one of their three battle cards. These battle cards are: Club, Axe, Shield. Club beat Shield. Shield beats Axe. Axe beats Club. The player that wins doesn’t get a Consequence Card. All losers gain a Consequence Card and gain a wasteland card. If you tie, both people lose and gain a consequence and gain a wasteland card.
THE 8TH Round: The game end begins after the end of 7th round. This is called the “8th Round or The Final Frenzy”. In the 8th round, skip the first phase and finish only the last 3 corresponding phases. The winner is the player with the most Victory Points overall. There a bunch of different ways that you can earn or lose Victory Points. You get VP’s for each land that you have explored. The amount differs from 0-3 VP’s. You lose VP’s for various Badlands Cards, they range from -1 to -3 VP’s. Consequence Cards can make you lose VP’s For every building card and their effects. This can range from 0 - 11 VP’s.
That is a rough overview of my rules and my game.
Let me clarify that for you.
There are 15 different land types that produce 15 different resources. There are 15 separate decks for the resources. The land and resources are divided into 4 categories.
Essential (Land Worth 0VP): Forest (Wood), Quarry(Stone), Iron Deposit(Iron)
Common (Land Worth 1VP): Pasture (Wool), Field (Grain), Apiary (Honey), Pond (Fish)
Uncommon (Land Worth 2VP): Garden (Herb), Hunting Grounds (Meat), Bushland (Fur), Silver Deposit (Silver), Farmland (Parchment)
Rare (Land Worth 3VP): Riverbed (Gold), Silk Farm (Silk), The Cavern (Precious Stone).
The lands that are rarer are also riskier to roll for because spending all your dice on one land can result in you losing and gaining a wasteland.
There are specific Framework Cards that benefit from owning certain types of lands, but the main reason for exploring lands is to gather resources to trade with other players.
Each player can accumulate up to 7 different unique lands to help them accomplish what they are setting out to build.
A Consequence card (CS), when drawn, is something bad that will affect the player that drew it. For example, a player loses a battle and then take a CS card. It is FIRE! and the player that drew it must replace one of their lands with a wasteland.
As for the CLUB, SHIELD, AXE cards, as of right now they are only used for battling. I hope this answers your questions