LackeyCCG

Galaxy Conquering Game

Cards
Races: Each has a racial advantage, name, Home world, turn order, and base income. Each player will have one Race for the whole of the game.

Planets: There is one Home world for each race + X number of worlds ready to be conquered. Each world has one of the following effects: Immediate income, Permanent Income, Draw card, or victory points. Some rare planets may have more than one effect. When a Home World is controlled by a different race than it original owner a special bonus will occur. Many Planets will also have a settling requirements based on three categories: Military, Science, and Diplomacy.

Ships: Each ship will have a name, race, cost, Hull Integrity, and values in the categories of Military, Science, and Diplomacy. Some rare ships may even give advantages like planets do. (There will be more neutral ships than race ships.)
Strategies: These cards include: Attachments, which enhance the ship or planet of which it is attached; Actions, which can change the outcome of a battle; and events, which can change the game in general. Some of these cards may require a cost or the use of a ship.

Tokens

Damage: These are placed on ships which have received damage during a conflict.

Currency: These are used to purchase various cards within the game. They may be collected and spent as the player seems fit.

Getting Started
1. Give each player a random race card and the Home World to corresponds with that race.
2. Deal 5 strategy cards to each player.
3. Give 3 currencies to each player.
4. Resolve any game start effects of races.
5. For ease of play you may reorder your seating to match the turn order.
6. Place the Planet, Ship, and Strategies on the table face down in separate decks.
7. Flip one planet and place it next to the planet deck.
8. Flip one ship card for every player in the game, and place it next to the ship deck.

Turns
Each Player may choose to do one of the following actions. Once that action is completed and any other resulting actions then that player?s turn is over. A player may also use any amount of strategies at appropriate times during his turn.

1. Discover
To discover a planet you must draw a card from the planet deck and place it face up next to the deck. There may not be any more discovered planets than there are players. If there is no change with the discovered planets in 3 turns then all undiscovered decks may be reshuffled into the planet deck. All planets in the discovered zone are attainable by any player.

2. Build
To Build a Ship a player may chose one of the face-up ships in the blueprint zone. The player must pay the cost that is shown on the card. If a player chooses to purchase a ship that is not a neutral or ship of his race, then he may pay 1.5 times the cost of the card rounded down.

Ex: If a ship of the human race is purchased by an alien race with a cost of 3 on the card, then the alien race would need to build it for 4. If the same player chose a human ship with the cost of 5, then they would have to pay 7 to build it.
Once a ship is build it is immediately place face up in front of the player and is ready to be used. Once a ship is removed from the blueprint zone a new ship will take its place from the top of the blueprint deck.
(Play testing will determine if a reshuffle mechanism is required for the ship deck.)

3. Strategize
If a player chooses to Strategize he may draw 2 strategy cards from the strategy deck and place them in his hand.

4. Conquer
This phase will produce 90% of player interaction during the game.
The current player may choose one of the discovered planets or one of the planets controlled by another player. In order to conquer a planet a player must meet or exceed the requirements on the planet card. In order to reach this goal a player must exhaust (turn a ship card 90 degrees) ships with the appropriate skills to conquer the planet.

Ex.  A planet requires 3 Science to conquer it. The player may chose to exhaust 1 ship that has 2 Military and 1 Science, and another ship with 3 Science.
Then, based on turn order, each player has the option to try to stop a player from conquering a planet. Only one player may try to hinder. To do this he may exhaust any number of ships. The Military skills of each exhausted card are added together. The conquering player may chose to defend with any unexhausted ship at his disposal. The Military skills are compared, and the player with the most Military should then choose one enemy ship either engaged in the battle or attempting to conquer the planet and place damage tokens equal to the difference of the Military points.

Ex. Player A chooses to conquer Xoeva which requires 2 Science and 1 Diplomacy. Player A Chooses to send 2 Colony Ships each with 1 Science and an Ambassador with a Diplomacy of 2. Player B chooses to hinder with a Ceb which has a Military of 2 with an attachment that adds 1 to that total. Player one chooses to defend with Regulus with a Military of 1, making the difference in military 2. Because Player B has more Military then he may choose which ship to place all of the damage. He may select from any ship conquering or defending. (2 Colony Ships, Ambassador, and Regulus) Player B Chooses to place his 2 damage on one of the Colony Ships. Since a Colony Ship only has a Hull of 1, the ship is destroyed and placed in the discard pile next to the Ship Deck.

Now with the conflict over, Player A?s ship attributes are compared with the planets requirements. In our example, Player A only has 1 Colony Ship and an Ambassador making his total 1 Science and 2 Diplomacy. Xoeva?s requires 2 Science and 1 Diplomacy which means that Player A cannot conquer Xoeva and the planet is placed back into the discovered planet zone. ( I may have them just discarded to cycle through more planets per game.)

Game End
The game ends when a player starts his turn equal to or over the required victory points. The player with the most vp at this point wins the game. If there is a tie then currency is the tie-breaker. If there is still a tie then you add all the attributes of all the ships and compare.

I see this as a 2-6 player game.

This is not a CCG because you don't have to collect cards. There may be expansions though. Races/ Planets/ Ships/ Strategies. Your base set would have enough to play at the max player limit. For example if the game has a limit of 6 players then the base set would include 6 races and the other cards that match.

I guess I am just talking to myself, but here is a Race card with a description. Obviously I know the artwork is very crude. If someone wanted to help me out and show me some template ideas I would be fine with that. I am not very artsy. Anyway here is the description. At the moment every card type will have the same template and I know that is generally a bad idea, but that is fixable after play testing and I want to be able to do that by the end of the month. I am almost willing to just write these out on 3x5 cards to test the rules.

Starting from the top left moving to the right and then down.

1. Race Icon (Also seen on Home Worlds and ships of this same race.)
2. Race Name
3. Turn Order
4. Picture
5,6,7. Military, Science, and Diplomacy attributes of the race. A + or - with a number will appear if a value is greater than 0.
8. Text (I know it is not necessary, but it looked really dumb without anything there, and I think flavor text adds to game universe. Although with good artwork I could get rid of the text and just have the icons and player imagination develop the Race characteristics.
9,10,11,12. Immediate Credits, Permanent Income, Drawing Bonus, (I think this would be an immediate bonus.) and Victory Point Bonus (A more thematic term other than victory point idea would be helpful.)

Oops I forgot the file  :o



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Wow business is slow around this site. anyway I have made an update on the rules. I noticed that exhausting ships never had a time to refresh, and refreshing at the beginning of every turn gives to much of an advantage to the defender of a planet, and refreshing at the beginning of each round gives too much to the player with the lowest turn order race. My solution as to allow refreshing all ships during the strategize phase. If a player chooses to draw cards he may also refresh and his turn is over.

Also income is added at the beginning of each players turn.

hey r0cknes! sorry, saw your post a few days ago - but im so busy with real life and other stuff.

now that you are replying to your own post, i just had to write something ;-)

have not read it all, but: sounds good! reminds me of the community space-game we thought about a good while ago. i will read all your posts now, maybe i add some feedback later on.

sadly my computer crashed some month's ago - taking the community space-game templates with it. But if I can recover some of the files I will send them over!

That would be a great help. I have been thinking of that project since it ended. I have simplified things a great deal however. For instance, less attributes, no deck creation. This game will hopefully match the simple yet fun And strategic games that you would see made by fantasy flight games. More of a ero style game play if you will. It would be very easy to develop this based on the mass effect universe too, but for the sake of copy write issues I would rather chose to make all new stuff. Not to say I can't base some of my races on theirs.

yeah, its sad that the project ended. but for me alone it was just too much work and i wanted something that really feeled like its my creation. hope you understand: creating a game where everyone contributed but where the "hard work" is left to (more or less) one person - is no fun.

besides that, we just lacked the dyanmic community we required to make something like this coming true. I just wrote a thread on boardgamegeek.com about that "games need a single designer to suceed". well, we can argue that point - but there is a lot of truth in it!

here, i found the old rules and uploaded them. cant find anymore templates though (still searching!)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/283mgratun98k9v/galaxian-rulebook.txt
https://www.dropbox.com/s/m5417lx07lhkxfv/galaxian-rulebook-newer.txt

Thanks, I am not as interested in the rules, but they may be helpful in some way. I am pretty sure my core set of rules is done, but as every game goes, play testing will reveal plenty of flaws. Let me know if you ever find those templates though, because I remember them being pretty sweet.

The style of this reminds me of Killer Bunnies, which isn't customisable in the same sense as a CCG but has several expansion sets to play(you can choose a coloured starter deck and a coloured booster to accompany it, but all players share a deck so it's just for the sake of variety).

I'm a little confused about the Conquering function: can you defend with any category or just Military? Good if it's just Military, but you didn't state whether or not this is the case.

Also noticing a few flaws in the names of things, and function when compared to reality. The main issue is that ships become 'exhausted'. How does that make sense? A ship doesn't have a respiratory system; it's a machine, so it doesn't become tired. It may run out of fuel, or have to recharge sub-space engines or something like that, but it doesn't get exhuasted.
Also not sure how a ship can have a certain Diplomacy rating; does the design of the ship somehow affect how well its occupants can negotiate? I think it would be cool if there were Captain cards, which determine Diplomacy and may increase other stats. Perhaps certain Captains could even get bonus effects on certain Strategies. Just a thought  ;)

I really like the idea of the Planet deck; it suits the space frontier genre perfectly. If I ever make a space-themed CCG I may have to copy that idea; with adaptations and your permission of course.  :D

Go ahead and take the planet idea, I don't mind.

This game is very much still in the thinking stage of development, so excuse some of the poor terminology. For instance, by exhausted I  don't mean the ship didn't get enough sleep. LOL I just knew exhausted was a very commonly understood term, obviously I would need to theme the terms better later on.

Yes only the military skills are compared among ship battles. That means not only are there more ships with military values, but they will be more coveted.

I see your point with the diplomatic skill issue. My goal is to not have a CCG so captains would be too difficult to implement because you are using a shared deck. Although I am sure that most of the game concepts may change, I am not willing to switch to a deck building game with this concept. My original thought was that not the ship but the crew of the ships are more designed for certain mission. I wouldn't send a dreadnaught out to make intergalactic negotiations. And if a dreadnaught was in my system I would not assume they were there for a social visit.

That categories have this flavor to them.

Military - A planet that is very protective of its planet, and is not kind to visitors no matter what advantages they may bring will have a military capture requirement.

Science - These planets are most often the non colonized planets. Planets that would require personnel with knowledge of the sciences and supplies to start a new life on this world. Military Ships may be helpful in some cases because you never know what type of alien creatures may be lurking in the darkness.

Diplomatic - These are worlds of peaceful people who love the idea of sharing their resources and trade goods. In some cases a strong military may be required, not to scare them or destroy them, but to show that you have something to offer to them.

If anyone else has any thoughts I would love to hear them. Thanks.

Exhausted does apply to ships. Their resources can be exhausted (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/exhausted?s=t). Particularly in the second definition although all the first 3 of the second dictionary referenced apply. There may be something more thematic, but exhausted isn't missapplied in this case.

Quote from: r0cknes on February 01, 2013, 12:34:37 PM
1. Discover
To discover a planet you must draw a card from the planet deck and place it face up next to the deck. There may not be any more discovered planets than there are players. If there is no change with the discovered planets in 3 turns then all undiscovered decks may be reshuffled into the planet deck.

I didn't understand what this meant.

How is the income and currency governed? Is there any way to win a 'battle' through diplomatic means? (like the enterprise often did)

I like this concept especially if military was not the way to an easy victory like it is in most card games.
Please change the 'player one' to 'player C' in your battle example. I was kinda confused by having 2 different example naming conventions.

When a planet is conquered as of right now a player must use an action to flip a new planet face up thus discovering it. I am still not sure if this is the direction I would like to go with this game yet.

I am looking for ways to win conflicts other than through military. I have never played it but I have read the rules and I know game of thorns allows for non military conflict with much success and I believe that could fit this theme very well. Stargate tcg has an interesting way to deal with conflicts as well.

I am not sold with some of the mechanics I have chosen for this game yet. All I am sure of is that I want this to be a all in the box type of game. I don't want a CCG. I may allow for a lcg format, but I would prefer a game with shared decks if possible. I also want this to be a very strong multi player game.

One idea I am toying with in my mind is objectives. It seems lots of games are now using them now and I like it.

One more thing I am sure of is that I am not trying to reinvent the wheel here. I know I am bound to hear things like, "it sounds too much like this game" or "that doesn't sound original." My ultimate goal is to make this game fun for my friends and me. Yes I will be "stealing" mechanics from other games, because I like those other games. I am not trying to make millions. I am trying to make a game I feel is fun and if it makes someone else happy so be it.

Again thanks for your thought. I will be adding things shortly. I am playing lots of card games and reading lot of rulebooks to strengthen my imagination.

I will be watching this to see what brews. A conflict system that does not make military 'the king of all conflicts' sounds very interesting to me.

I am currently leaning toward winning certain conflict leads to a particular action. Like if a "diplomatic victory" conflict is won then a random card is discarded from the loser or a card is drawn by the winner. Here is what I can think of for conflicts:

Diplomacy or Intrigue or a speech skill - Incompacitate an opponents card. Incompacitate means to flip the card so it does not completely refresh before the next round. This is kind of close to military so I am unsure if I like it or not.

Military - Destroy a unit. I think I don't want to have "HP" for cards. I would rather just have dead or alive, so if there is a military battle, then the winner can destroy a unit.

Science - Draw a card or make opponent discard a random card.

Another thought I have had is how to structure the turns to allow for strategy while allowing for a good amount of multiplayer player interaction. I don't want people to have to sit there and wait for their turn. I would be combining two mechanics I have seen in other games. Every player has a base number of actions he may perform during a round. Lets just say that number is 3 to start with. Sometimes you may use those actions outside of your turn to block another player. Example of that would be to use an action to play an event card to disallow an action of the current player. That will leave you with only 2 turns on your turn however, so you must consider if that is the best action for you to take.

Also as the game moves on, each player will have more actions to use each round. The number is determined by how many "points" the leader has. Therefore the closer he is to winning, the harder it will be to finishing the game. I am not sure how this will work entirely yet, but we will see where it goes.

I am also leaning toward an objection card mechanic. If you complete an objective, then you get "points" and also the card itself may help you through an effect, however if you do not complete an objective (ie an opponent destroyed it) then there is a penalty against you; maybe an effect or a loss of "points".

I could attach this to the military conflict or come up with another skill all together. If a military conflict is unopposed then damage could be placed on the objective, or have any "extra" military strength of the winner damage the objective card. So if I win a conflict 6 to 5 then I deal one damage to the objective, but if I win 8 to 5 then I deal 3 damage to the objective. With this then military becomes the main thing which I don't want. I think I want another skill for that reason.

So some actions you may use during your turn. Each one uses an action

1. Earn credit
2. Start Conflict
3. Put a card into play

Some actions you may use outside of your turn.

1. Engage conflict
2. Put an "event" card into play

So obviously after reading this you may realize this will end up being a deck building game.

Some problems I am seeing. How can I get rid of cards not used in military conflicts. Like a science vessel that is just making a killing, Yes there is the option to incapacitate it, I want some way to keep those cards from just hanging around. Maybe the attacker engages a specific card and the defender may chose to protect it? I don't know about that one yet.

Also, I think I am going to use a tactics card type, which will work much like the "jutsu" card in naruto, or "Fate" card in the new SW lcg. I think that will add much to the conflict aspect to the game. Things like if you lose a conflict deal one damage to an objective or the "increase stats" effects or even destroy or incompacitate card effects.

As always, please add your thoughts.

Sounds good, just a minor change that could tidy things up:

Science - Just draw a card.

Intrigue - Your opponent discards a card.

You could also come up with variable actions that happen when a conflict is won. I have a few more ideas for the different topics:

Intrigue (Alternative) - Your opponents mills the top 2 cards from his deck.

Science (Alternative) - Gain additional resources.

Other thoughts:

Maybe remove non-military vessels completely from the game. So all spaceships are only for fighting.

instead you could have a new card type: buildings. these would be always non-military. that could be embassies or science buildings etc.

but this depends on your personal taste and the rest of the rules.

That "jutsu" stuff sounds good. In the Babylon 5 CCG they had "Aftermath" cards that could create special effects when a conflict of some sort was either won or lost. adds interesting stuff to the game.

Its good to see that you are still working on this. And its quite true to the roots of the old community project.

As I have mentioned before I have been reading rulebooks and playing new card games to me, most of them under the catagory of sci fi. One of those games was eve ccg. I noticed some great ideas in that game, but it didn't work for multiplayer very well and they tried to do too much. I think I will lump ships and characters into one category. Ships would be more militaristic in nature with a few exceptions such as  a stealth vessel for intrigue, or some science vessels for science.

I think if i simplify the battle system enough then there will be limited down time which will lead to more enjoyable multiplayer games.

@ Malagar

Thanks for the extra ideas. What does "milling" mean though?

I think before I can nail these battles down I need to figure out what the victory conditions will be for sure. There are games where you complete missions or objectives. You could complete a set number of missions or missions are worth more or less points based on the effects or difficulty of the mission. These could also be regions that you must explore or conquer. Regions or locations would require more ships in the game though.

The new starwars card game has you just destroying enemy objectives. That is not my favorite mechanic, because it kind of feels like you are not "doing" anything. You are simply winning be defense. I love the game, but that is not a mechanic I want in mine. Stargate has a very solid mission completion mechanic, but it does not work for multiplayer at all.

Although I have never played it Game of thrones lcg has a simple victory condition where one of your "conflicts" earn you "power" or you can take power from another player. That leads to great mutiplayer and it fits the theme of that game well, but I love feeling like I am doing something, so if missions and the power idea could be fused that would be awesome! What would it be like?

Thoughts?

I love the idea of creating my own universe for this game and maybe I will, but that is a ton of work. What do you think about a game based on the hit video game series of mass effect? I understand that there is a copyright issue here, of course, but that universe seems tailor made for a card game. I don't plan on selling this idea unless it is amazing. Then I would obviously need to contact a publisher and ea games for permission.


****************EDIT****************

Another edit because I thought of something else. I want this universe whether based off of a vidio game or not to feel like it was already their and active for a long time. That being said, I don't feel resources or currency fit that theme, but maybe something like currency called influence. You are influencing the cards in your deck too join your cause. I guess it is not much different than currency or resources, but i feel it fits the theme better. It also allows for more flexibility in deck building, because now you are not bound by a particular resource type, but you can base your deck on your specific strategy.

I am thinking of making my first 8 starter decks based on races rather than alliances. I like the idea of these races working to complete their own goals while struggling control over the galaxy. By the end of the game I do not want the winner to feel as though he controls the galaxy, but that he has the greatest influence in the ever changing galaxy.

A bunch more races would be considered neutral that you could also influence to join your cause. Maybe some of these neutral races could give you an advantage in one area but a disadvantage in another area. and depending on your style of play or deck they may be useful but they also may not work for other decks.

I was also thinking of having a mutual enemy of every race, and these would be seen in event cards or obstacle cards you may attach to another players missions. I am sold on the event thing, but depending on how long the mission is in play that would determine the effectiveness of obstacles. Obstacles would be special event cards that could be played only during a progress conflict to hinder an opponent from completing it. Maybe adding difficulty or adding a failure text, or even card destruction.

ah sorry, too much old MTG slang: to mill means to take the X top cards from your deck and put it into your graveyard.

there was (still is?) a millstone in MTG, the term "to mill" evolved from it :-)

cheers
-Malagar (Tobias)

OK I understand now. I never played magic. I assumed it was a term from that genre. That is nice option to have.

I was thinking last night about my previous post. I mentioned the desire to have the players actually accomplishing something, as opposed to destroying others goals. I also talked about game of thrones power mechanic. What if instead of power you may place progression on your own missions. The rules would need to balance the difficulty of this. I want everyone involved in every turn. I don't want people just sitting at the table while 2 people battle it out.

**********EDIT**************

Alright so I just thought of something.

Military - Destroy a card in play

Science - Opponent must discard

Espionage or intrigue - Remove progress from an opponent's mission card.

Progress (Need a better word) - Place progress on your own mission. I could also not have this as a skill and instead have you put progress on your mission if you win any type of conflict. I think I like the progress skill though. I like 3 skills better than 4 but I think 4 fits well here.

Couple of questions though. Should I have multiple missions in play for each player or just one. If it is just one should I have just one mission per round with the exception of some card effects? or should they remain until they are completed? I think completing a mission within a certain time frame fits the theme pretty well, but what do you guys think?

well, i like the progression counter idea. i think we did have something like that for the community card game? cant remember...

even better: it gives you an additional component to play with when designing cards. cards can target progression counters (add/remove) or have conditions tied to them (if there are x progression counters on this card etc.)

i guess the old idea was to have missions as a card type of its own. you mix them into your deck and can play various of them at once, it just depends if you manage to complete them. and: some missions "target" your opponents missions, so having too many in play could be a bad idea.

PS: traffic on the boards is really low, where have they all gone?

Yes traffic is very low! It is stunting my creativeness! :o

Yea I don't want there to be missions that effect each other. I want them to be a separate small deck you make to go along with your playing deck. The question is how long should they be available to complete? Either I keep them on until completed, or I have a limited time. One turn seems to be low. I could have a card turning mechanic like in eve CCG. A mission could last from 1 to 4 rounds. Depending on that and the difficulty of the mission I could include failure or success text on the mission. Failing a mission is great and I want to be able to take advantage of failure text.

As far as the failure text or success text goes, it will all be temporary advantages or disadvantages. Here are some examples I can think of:

Failure: You lose 2 influence.
Failure: Each opponent gains one progress on their current mission. (This would be for an easier mission, because the failure is so drastic.

Success: Search your mission deck for one mission. Reshuffle the deck and place that one mission on top of the deck.
Success: Select unit and ready it.
Success: Gain 2 influence

Other missions could have an effect as soon as it is put in play, good or bad for you:

Effect: All players draw one card.
Effect: All players ready a unit.
Effect: Each opponent readies a military unit.

All of these texts will be determined by the time and difficulty of each mission. That will require some balancing on my part.

Quote from: r0cknes on February 02, 2013, 05:20:14 PM
Oops I forgot the file  :o

The symbols and fonts are the wrong size ratio to the card. Scale the card down to 200 pixels wide, and if something looks too small, you need to change the ratios.

Thanks for the advice Trevor. My card is going to change considerably from the beginning of this topic though. I will use your advice on my next template though.

I am about half way done with writing the core rule book. It is nothing like the beginning of this topic, and I may even start a new topic eventually. In the meantime I will keep everyone updated on this topic.

Overall I have decided to go with the Mass effect theme, and I have decided to have the following conflicts.

Combat - Target a card in play to destroy.

Science - Opponent discards equal to difference.

Espionage - Take progress off of another players mission card. Every 2 points of difference take one progress off of the mission rounded up. So, 1,2 take off one. 3,4 take off two. 5,6 take off three and so on. (play testing will determine if this system works or if it needs to be scaled back or even increased.)

Progress - This is the only conflict not contested so every point of progress earns one progress. However reaction cards can be played by any player.

Next update will be the rule book, and then at least one template. Woohoo!

OK here it is... I still need to finish the Glossary. Do you see any obvious issues? The core is set. I don't want to here about preferences at this point, but I am welcoming helpful criticism. I am concerned with down time, foreseeing issues of run away leaders and the such. Any help is embraced.


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I get nothing but a blank page when I download the pdf.

Thanks for letting me know. The PDF writers don't like the fonts I was using. Here is the file...


*******EDIT************

After further thought, I don't think I need to restrict people to a certain race. Instead, You are an "illusive man" so to speak and your deck may take on any form it likes. Much like the game your deck can take the side of the good or the renegade type. Thus allowing an even greater amount of deck variety. This fits the theme of the game quite well, because in the game you recruit allies based on your light or dark type decisions. You are not like Shephard, but more like the puppet master "Illusive Man". The danger I fear is some cards becoming obsolete more easily this way. Does anyone else see that and have any advice in that area?

I will update the rule book shortly to reflect this minor change shortly.

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Small update... It seemed that having a time difference between some missions and a difficulty seemed redundant. I am going to change it so every mission will be available for four turns. I will have other cards that will turn mission cards reducing the time remaining.

Here is an example of a mission I have worked on. I am not an artist, so don't expect to be wowed...

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If you're keeping it available for 4 turns, you could rotate the card to track the turns - and have different text for each of the orientations.

Yes that was my plan, to rotate once per turn unless a card said otherwise. Once it is upright again time is up and the mission is failed. Some units or events may turn a mission card, thus increasing or decreasing time left on the mission. I don't plan on adding text to each turn at the moment for the sake of simplicity, however that is a great idea. It adds a strategy as to when you want to complete your mission, but I don't think I will add it to make balancing easier. That is why i simplified the mission time.

The previous card is a test run. I would like to get the metal darker. And the numbers and words are place holders really. The top left is difficulty and top right is supremacy. Obviously the numbers are wrong.

Here is another card template. This is of a unit. I plan on having the tab that says unit move to the center for enhancements and to the right for event. The number to the mid right is for skill strength much like in Game of Thrones. On the bottom is the skill place holders. Each unit will have only the symbols of skills of which they are actually proficient. Any advice from the artists out there? From left to right the symbols are: Combat, Science, Espionage, and Progress.

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Sorry I've been a bit absent from the boards since it's been a busy month.

Progress could be a gear icon. Combat could be a gun shape.

This seems to be becoming very similar to game of thrones in the challenge mechanics. I would hate for this to become 'game of galactic thrones'. Do you still make challenges on specific locations or planets? Making specific attacks combined with the missions system sounds like it could be different enough to seem novel to me.

I have never played game of thrones, but i have read the rule book. I know there are similarities to game of thrones,  but the winning conditions is much much different. You have to complete missions. The best I can describe the theme is that you are a puppet master, who influences several races in completing small tasks (missions) to give you more strength as a puppet master of the galaxy as a whole. You're agenda is just to be the most prominent puppet master.  The missions just help you do that.

Although I like the gear idea better than the arrow,  I still don't think that is it. Anyone else dislike the explosion for combat? And I need another word other than progress. It makes sense, but i wonder if there is a word that fits the theme a little better.

For combat, I've always liked the cross and circle of a rifle scope.

Here is a pointer for you r0cknes (and all others of course - but mainly for my lackeyCCG forum comrade)
- check out these icons:

http://www.game-icons.net

1000+ game icons, free of charge (even for commercial projects), highly professional and easy to download

Thank you very much.  I will check it out. Icons have always been a pain for me.

Also the background for your avatar is what I need instead of this awful sheet metal on the card. Any chance you have that somewhere on your computer?

Well, you will have to show some initative on yourself. Just do a google image search on various background themes. Then check the source of the image (is it royality free?). So far I can recommend wallpaper sites, as long as you are using the image for non-commercial purpose. No one will care.

And add a rounded, black border to your cards - together with a better background, this will lift your design a whole level.

Progress could be called development, or advancement.