Hi folks,
I'm currently developing a board game of my own, based on the background of "A Song of Ice and Fire". Since this is the first time I'm actually doing this, I wanted to ask if anyone would be interested to take part. I developed some parts yet, which I am glad to share. For easy discussability and changeability, I posted them in a forum, here:
http://www.razyboard.com/system/forum-dsafellbach-a-song-of-ice-and-fire-the-boardgame-2139866.html
The forum software is in German, but the posts are in English, so you should have no problem accessing it. I would really enjoy any critics on my thoughts and gladly accept every offer of help!
Enjoy.

Hi. I am a little austrian "developer" myself, and i skimmed through your first few ideas.

For now, its in a very very early stage, too early to give a lot of feedback... But some thoughts:

One thing i noticed : it seems to be VERY complicated and complex. Complexity is not really a bad thing (my games /addons are usally very complex too, which i mostly have too reduce to be fun to play) but your game needs 14 or 15 Rulers for movement... thats a bit ... well... a lot I have no idea how those rulers will look, but it seems like an overkill. I imagine movementphase with 8 player... taking an hour or two .... But maybe you had something in mind, thats still fast to manage, i don´t know, there is no example or map or something. However: I found the golden rule to be: keep it "fastgoing". This is no computergame, where the PC does the math

But i have to admit: i can´t image how this works in detail? this seems to be one of your key-features, maybe you should give an detailed example or something. Is it like a table Top game? = (move "normal" units on swamp 6 cm far? ) But in that case the Combat System makes no sense... i am confused

Combat: Sounds interesting, i once tried to do the same thing for LotR-Risk (a sperate battle Ground) Didn´t really work there, maybe it will with AGOT. For now there is little to nothing to give feedback (although i have a lot of ideas, but its your game, and i plan to save mine for my AGOT addon ).

All in all: I like the idea

Whats next... Balancing . 8 houses with 8 major and 8 minor goals... You have a lot of work to do to balance this, especially when you design the map. But I have to see this first, before i can comment it. However, i just made a Map for the standard-Game, and it was very difficult to balance... i can´t imagine doing for 8 different houses with different goals...

Thats all, the rest of your ideas are still unter donstruction, so i can´t say much about it

Thanks for the first thoughts!

The number of rulers is just early stage. Some of them could surely be combined to reduce the overall number (e.g. fastest army movement and slow ship movement). They should work just as in Android, shaped like semicircles. You just put one end to the unit and you can easily see which point it can reach. I definitely DON'T want to get the tabletop feeling of measuring cms. I hate that.

As for complexity: Yes, it is going to be complex, about the level of TI3 or SCTBG.

As for the balancing: Yes. I plan to build the game in a way that there is an end-calculation of VP or whatsoever, in which the Goals give major points, but other factors work as well. They needn't to be totally balanced, after all. I want to get the feeling of the story, and not all houses have the same chances. House Tyrell, by example, is definitely one of the easier ones.

As to the number of players: You don't really need eight players. Five should be sufficient, even four, because I want to have rules in it for those houses to behave like in the book if they are not played (Greyjoy goes raiding, MArtell doing nothing, Tully will be played by the Stark-player).

I'm a fan of the series and think you have a really neat set of ideas, if the combat pans out it could be very cool.

I do feel tho that the number of players required still, even with only 4/5 needed seems restrictive, i'd really like to see it be able to be played to some degree by two people even if the intent is to be played by many more.

Depends if the event-system can take that that up, but I doubt it.

Neat....

I like the stuff Your'e doing. Different goals are genious since with them the game can preserve alliances (in the main game everyone has the same goal so backstabbing is compulsory). Great

I have to agree with the ruler stuff. Why don't You use hexes instead? I don't mind the ruler (I liked the Warhammer movement system) but You don't need so many of them. Just use inches or centimeters with the regular ruler and change the amout of movement with the terrain type (e.g. 1/3, 1/6).

With armies You could use the system from Warrior knights - The character moves on the map and has army cards which show what kind of troops he is carring.

If You want to make a deck of event cards for every house You better be prepared for major brainwreck. One option would be to use Fury of Dracula's card drafting system. It also depends what kind of cards do You intend to make.... One possibility would be to use the two-way event cards - just like in War of the Ring. In that way You could also use those cards You don't use in combat and that would also solve combat cards problem

I have to keep my mind keen on the combat system. Meybe something comes up.

That should be all...

Thank you! The reason I don't want hexes is that I want to avoid the artificial feeling of areas that can be hold just by being in there.

With the event cards: yeah, they will be major brainwreck. I already thought about the LotR-style with the two options, but these would cover the "good" and "bad" event. And I'd definitely prefer a diceless combat system.

So, I came up with some new ideas regarding combat and event cards and would like to know you're thought. Again, everyone's invited to work with me on the project.

Combat:

I came up with some new ideas regarding combat. Every card could have Attack and Defence values just like in SCTBG that need to be matched or exceeded. The combat part of the event cards (see there) could then strengthen specific troop values (like: +1 attack for all archers on the left flank or something like that). When the flank or centre is stronger (matching or exceeding the enemies defence value with its attack value), then losses would be inflicted. Some method needs to be created when the flank or centre breaks and how this affects the battle as a whole. The key is not to make the battles too long in order to avoid downtimes.

Event cards:

I had a new idea of the event cards. There would be two event decks for each faction (making a total of sixteen event decks…), one good and one bad each. They would match specific events of the story, if some conditions are given, or match specific events that could have happened but didn’t. Below that, a combat effect is listed, like in LotR – The Battle of the Ring. One can always only choose one effect to take place. The event effect is used when played during the round, the combat effect only in combats.
Additionally, each event card would have very little symbols in the corner which only take effect when the faction is not played. The allow the player using them to activate armies of that faction, recruit and do other stuff so the house is not just a neutral bystander. Of course, certain events can be triggered as well. To create situations in which you can trigger major effects to the damage of a rival faction would be a key element of the game.

I'm not sure that I understand what You mean with the combat system.... But I like the event card method....

But all the combat systems I come up with are too complex and include dice...

You should also consider terrain - cavalry not so powerful in woods and swamps...

Damage vs. each unit type would be too heavy, uh? I was thinking what You said earlyer - the main force and the flanks. The main forces combat each other, the flanks with each... If one of the flank breaks (we'll figure something out) then the winning flank's strength would be added with the main force - easy enough? Archers wouldn't take part of the battle but would do damage before the main battle. Also if they have no-one to defend them, they would be overrun. In that way if one of the players have played only archers on one flank the opposing (let's take supporting light infantry for example) flank would kill them just after the shots are taken and then carry on supporting the main force....

Casualities are inflicted on both side - that would make possible battles that were won but not very useful (i.e. the winner took heavy losses). But rahter than die some portion of defeated units would be injured rather than dead - that would give loser a chance to pull back and rebuild his/her forces and the winner wouldn't need to retreat for reinforcements...

Also units would have supporting and attacking strength - archers sure are better behind other troops...

How about it?

I really like the ideas, but they intend a very, very complicated battle. If the game is played with four, five or even eight players, you would wait your arse wound watching the battles. I estimate about five to ten minutes for each battle, and that's really much if you just sit there and watch. I would rather streamline it in a way that takes as many of these effects in account, but only needs one measure to have the result.

What definitely is something I have to take in account is your idea what a breaking flank can do. Adding the power to the main host is a great idea! Perhaps combined with small penalties for the other one, or else it would be a nobrainer to stuck everything in the centre - you would only get the bonuses anyway.

But thank you very, very much for your ideas, and I hope you will help me along in the process!

OK...I had a flash of ideas while feeding my little gamer... It's very raw and needs much work but it's a start - and it's diceless

The attack value (better name even: kill rate) in the number of troops that the unit is able to kill in one round. The number is usually high and varies from 50 to 500.

For example heavy cavalry with attack value of 500 would be able to kill 500 defenseless babies (just an example, I'm not into kid-violence...) while unit of ill armed peasants are only able to kill 50 of them...

Defence - also could be called survival percentage. This number is usually low (from 0 (babies) to 9 (bad-ass warmongers) - as the 10 is practically immortal). This is the number how many troops are able to survive the enemy attack or defend themselves in the heat of battle out of ten. It could also be expressed by percentage (50% survive or something similar). This resembles the defencive tactics and armor the unit has. Also leadership could add defence since troops woun't ruch into spear-wall.

Again for example light infantry with defence rate of 2 and attack rate of 200 is under attack from heavy cavalry with attack rate of 500 and defence of 7 (heavy armor kicks ass). When calculating the casualities attack and defence rates are compared. Light infantry while being ill-equpped and ill-armored is able to cause the cavalry (200 * 0.4 (as the 6 out of 10 (or 60%) survive) = ) 80 casualities while cavarly with superior fighting skills and weapons is able to leave (500 * 0.8 =) 400 dead and mortally injured enemys on the battlefield....

I have to admit it uses some calculating resources, is still somewhat stiff and has a lot of room to improve but that's why we have this discussion, right? The other drawback is changing troop amounts. This could be resolved with pen and paper or something else (out of ideas here)... Also the attack value of unit could be changed into attack value of a one troop (i.e. one knight could inflict 5 damage to the enemy [agains recuits (light infantry) it would cut down 4 of them in a round). That way players could also take into account the number of units and their respective amoun of damage. It's almost like warhammer but without those **** dice..

Any ideas how to make this stuff smoother?

P.S. "My little gamer" is not my ***** but my son...

P.P.S. If You got some files with rules this far could You sent them to me? My e-mail is [email protected]

I HATE THIS FORUM! All gone, I have to write anew.

So, I sent you the rules but they can be found in the forums I linked in the inital post, too.

Since in most battles the losses are not so important (you can kill as much as you want, if they break your lines the day is lost). The real losses come when an army is defeated, because the soldiers are killed in the pursue.

Following that, our rules should govern how to break through the enemy lines and if an army is able to defend the defeated army or if it was just able to cover the ground.

That's much shorter than what I wrote before, I hope it suffices.

Please check out this thread, too, where the issue is also discussed.

http://www.ti3wiki.org/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1233278903

Have I offended you in some kind? If yes, that was not my intention.

No-no...

I've just been very busy... Haven't had much time to think about anything... Well, to be honest I've been playing all weekend long Battlestar Galactica and 1870...

Just Your answer was so brief that I thought there would be more coming

I didn't had an access to the link You gave us....

And if You want to break an army You need a morale attribute. The moral value would represent how frigthening the troop would be when charging into battle and how far it's willing to go when it's attacked... To think about it's more like battle of wills before the crossing of swords so it would be best to name it will attribute. But what of the mechanics...

It shouldn't be static - i.e. one knight wouldn't frighten 100 peasants with pitchforks but with 10 of them it would be much harder to stay put when they charge... But still I'm not sure that not a little piece of random would work that well. If You just compare the wills of different troops and say "You run!" it's not fun. If troops flee before the first wave of attack they're probably really green of battered in countless battles lost that have weakend their morale. In that sence the moral would be changing value that would rise if You feed Your troops, pay them their wages and fight and win alongside with them. The morale would be lost if they have to starve, stay pennyless, lose battles or they have no great warlord who would lead them.

Hey...here comes another good idea - leader's leadership value that indicates how many troops can the leader command...

Coming back to the morale - if Your opponent's flank breaks You have the opportunity to pursue them and do damage that would exceed normal damage (let's say) tenfold. In that way Your troops would also be unable to flank the main force for (let's say) 3 battle rounds. But first we have to invent something that would measure the amount of morale...

I'm off to sleep...It's almos 5 o'clock in the morning here...

Ove said:

Well, that’s totally understandable. Gaming weekends are dire needs that need to be satisfied.
I don’t know why the Link doesn’t work. You got the mail, though? Try the direct link to the forums: http://www.razyboard.com/system/user_DSAFellbach.html. It’s the subforum at the bottom of the site.
But back to topic. I don’t think another value is necessary to cover the rules for breaking flanks. Let’s assume we have some bunch of peasants fighting a squadron of knights. In the game the peasants would be represented by four cards, one of which would be in the front of the flank, while the rest is supporting. If the Attack/Defense value of the peasant unit would be 6/6, for example, and that of the knights 10/10 and every peasant unit supporting would add one to the peasants in front, the final values would be 9/6 to 10/10. In this situation, the knights would break through the defense of the peasants while they would not break through defense of the knights. But if the player plays a combat card (which would add an element of chance to the game) like “Pikes. Applys to footmen only. +2 vs. a mounted unit.”, then the values would be 11/8 to 10/10. Now every unit breaks the enemies defense value. Both sides harm each other, but none breaks.
What do you think of this idea?

So You suggest that if the attack value of one army is greater than the totaled attack value of other army(es) the first one would win and the others would flee? That's how I get it... But it doesn't make any sense...

What would happen if the knights break through the defence of the peasants? Would they flee or would only knights deal damage this round? That also wouldn't make sense...

If You don't want to add a new attribute we could also play with casualities... If an army loses like 8/10 (80%) of it's fighting units it's forced to retreat. This one also requires much calculation but it may be efficient.

Could You describe Your idea a little closer?

Well, my idea is based on one simple fact: as long as both enemy units are engaged in combat, they will suffer casualties. But this is not the main purpose of attacking the enemy; you want him to break and flee and give ground to oneself, so you rule the battlefield (a thing that is covered by AGOT-boardgame rather good, I think). The greatest losses are those inflicted on retreat and, of course, desertion which often follows defeat. Oftentimes, the losses on both sided are similar, but one side has won and one side has lost.

So, my idea is that if you inflict a certain ammount of damage - e.g. by matching the defense vulue of the enemy unit - you weaken it, but it stands ground. This could be done in the game by turning the corresponding army card, which other side shows weaker values. If casualties are inflicted on the same unit again, it's routed and removed from game. If you exceed the defense value of the enemies unit by more than [number], you cause them to break. Their army card is turned, and the flank breaks as the units try to flee. One could rule that some units like knights have a special trait that allows the owner to order them to stand (and so perhaps to prevent the total breaking), but that are minor details. The main idea is that the battle only lasts one combat round. Either you decide it in this round or you have to attack again the next round. Since the enemy only can move his army away with your permission or by taking serious punishment which needs to be specified, that would make combat fairly quick (however it still will need some ammount of time), complex (because of different units, traits and combat cards) and realistic feeling, since it matches the description above.

What do you think?

I mailed you a new version of the rules. Have fun!