Here is the art - you do the rules.

[eyerouge]

Based on the rules in the wiki 4:th of August 2010:

1.
The players have to have locations for 20 or more points in their decks, but there is no requirement that actually guarantees that even 25% of them (10 p worth) or any at all are every played. Imagine a case where one player has a strategy to include them, but not really use them, hence, by doing that making the other player dependent of his/her own locations and getting them in hand. (Now, that means there are only 20 p of locations in play ever, if that player playes every one of them, has none of them milled etc).

Is this a problem for one of the win conditions? It seems so, because there's no inherent "hard" rule forcing the player to have locations in play, or is there? And even if there was, a player could just go with the minimal point giving ones in play (sure, it would eat up more % of the deck, but it's a strategy that seems to be possible...)

2.
"If two or more game effects happen at the same time, the person who controls a Location decides which effect resolves first. "

Can more than one location be controlled? Can both players control an equal amount of locations? If so, this needs a minor tweak.

3.
"Death after combat. Originally the rules allowed for the loser(s) of a combat to remain in play."

Won't that clog up the table with more and more creatures in play on both sides with each turn that passes by?  Here I guess it's important to estimate how many creatures that will enter play in average each turn, even if it's hard to know that.

4. "Life points. If the game turns out to be completely clean of micro management, maybe this could be added and tested."

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. That and KISS If you actually manage to create a CCG with no loss of strategy and minimal micro it's very good design. You shouldn't add stuff just to increase the level of micro for the sake of having it there If you add it, only do so  if it add's strategic depth to the game, or is necessary for some other reason. 

[xchokeholdx]

1.

Both players are forced to have 20 points of locations. so in total a single player could in theory get 40 VP. Since it is obligatory to start the game with a Location in play, there will always be one in play, since the rules force you to replay a new one when the current one is conquered.

So starting with an impossible to conquer location is a good strategy? yes, if your deck is geared towards the other win con. But don?t forget that I am able to simply play an easy to conquer location to have yours discarded.

A rule tweak IS needed here, since your opponent will be able to replay that imposible to conquer location after you completed yours. So the rules will change into:

old text:
Use game text on a Location in play to conquer it

You announce you want to conquer the current Location. You check any requirements and costs that action may have and pay them. Once resolved, you place that Location card to the side to keep track of how many Victory Points you have amassed during the course of the game. After that, you check its Flow to see if you are able to use more actions for that turn. The owner of that Location must immediately play a new Location card from Hand, Draw deck or Graveyard (their own choice). If he or she is unable to, you may play a new Location from your hand, Draw deck or Graveyard.

new text:
Use game text on a Location in play to conquer it

You announce you want to conquer the current Location. You check any requirements and costs that action may have and pay them. Once resolved, you place that Location card to the side to keep track of how many Victory Points you have amassed during the course of the game. After that, you check its Flow to see if you are able to use more actions for that turn. The conqueror of that Location must immediately play a new Location card from Hand, Draw deck or Graveyard (their own choice). If he or she is unable to, his or her opponent must play a new Location from your hand, Draw deck or Graveyard.

Forcing an opponent to DO play locations, albeit only to hinder my Conquering deck!

2. Nope. Just ONE location Active and in play. As soon as a player plays a new one, it is discarded. Or when a player conquers it, it is replaced.

3. Yep, that is why now the rules read: lose a combat and you?re out of here! (magic style combat).

4. yep, but maybe an exception could always be created: If this creature loses a combat, place a token on it. It may not be discarded from play unless it has 2 tokens. A nice a simple way to work around "life"

[xchokeholdx]

One might wonder why a separate "location" deck is not more appropriate, and rightly so.

The biggest PRO would be that this win condition can always be completed by both players, as the availability of Locations is easier and more structured. A few simple rule tweaks would allow players to "play" cards from this Location deck for example.

I does however on the otherhand, take away the focus of the game, and that is not what I am looking for. I want the ability to win the game with 20 VP points to be a more or less "secondary" win con, like with each three games you?ll play, 2 are won by decking your opponent, while the third is won with a conquered Location victory.

I do not want to force players to have a side deck of X cards, while their main deck has a totally different goal (in this case: Conquering locations vs decking)

Note that a player is forced to have a MINIMUM of 20 VP worth of Locations in his deck. This could be just a few high VP Locations, or a bunch of easy to do lower VP Locations.
If you want to focus on this win con, you still can, by simply having MORE than 20 VP worth of locations in your deck, so you wont have to "rely" as much on some of your opponent?s Locations to conquer. So if you find out that most of your opponent's use difficult to conquer location, you could simply play more locations yourself next time to have a higher chance of drawing and playing one (discarding your opponent?s), and include more than 20VP on Locations in your deck. How much is a good figure? I don't know, but I think a good mix between easy to do Locations (1-3 VP), a bunch of so-so midrange ones (3-4 VP), and one or 2 big finishers (4-5 VP) for endgame purposes. And anywhere between 20 and 25-35 VP. depending on the type of build of course. Meta will figure this one out for themselves. maybe 20 will do fine.

On the other hand, if you want to focus on winning by Decking your opponent, you could just use (example) 4x 5 VP Locations and still have 56 cards in your deck working towards that goal, no losses there.

There will be OF COURSE creatures,equipment, artifact and tactics that will help you with this, for example:

Compass of the Soiled Sands
Equipment
(X) Equip to target Undead creature you control. Each time a (X) Location is played, you may gain 1 Power.
(X) Gain 2 Power.
+0/+1

Wanderer of the Road
Creature
Drain (1)
(X) when Wanderer of the Road enters play, search your domain for a Location card, reveal it and take it into hand. Shuffle your domain
(X) Gain 1 Power for each conquered Location target player controls.
(O) Gain 1 Power.
1/3

"whoa!", you might say, Gaining 2 cards by discard one other (Power text on the Compass): "Gain 2 Power", is broken and will lead to combo and imbalanced decks.

Nope, because if you read the rules, you will find out that doing so would take up your whole turn ((X) means RED flow), no more playing cards for you this turn , and even though you can draw 2 extra cards at the end of your turn, you successfully drained yourself 4 cards closer to losing the game. (1 from discarding the compass, 2 from drawing power, and one because you spend your whole turn and draw a card start of next turn)

that, together with losing cards from your domain by losing combats will go a lot faster than you want to.

for example, a card that lets you discard the top 5 cards of your draw deck to gain 10 power might (and is probably) a great card, but it also brought you 1/4th closer to your death.

[eyerouge]

playing locations form everywhere
Your suggestion is that a location should be playable "from Hand, Draw deck or Graveyard". This insures that the locations won't be "lost" by milling, and is well.

My concern here is that it adds administration to the game while it's on-going: You'd need to search your grave and/or drawdeck whenever you wouldn't have a location in hand. The problem is that you would also have to shuffle the draw deck each time this happened (I assume, if there are random draws in your game, which I believe there is).

If it was my baby - and notice I'm aware it's not and fully understand if you have a totally different view of it - I would have done it differently and like this instead:

• Each player has to have a total worth of x location cards with him/her to the game.
• Only 1-2 copies of each location is allowed in your location pile.
• No upper or lower limit of the number of location cards one might bring.
• Each player has them in his/her location pile. The piles are placed in the center(?) between the players.
• The pile if faced down, and the order of the cards are predetermined by the player before the game starts.
• Both players flip the top card face up of their pile, and also place the card on the top of the pile, now facing up.
• Both players can pursue to conquer each other's locations if they wanted to.
• When a location is conquered, it's removed for points keeping purposes, and the next location in the pile is turned face up.
• A player can discard his/her own location and make the next one in his/her pile appear by some kind of punishing cost. (I.e. mill 3 cards from draw deck)
• When location pile is emptied you don't lose the game. Exactly what happens then is hazy to me right now, but I'd be happy with "nothing" as an answer.

The benefits of the above are that you don't have to do searching and re-shuffling all the time. Also, you don't get card draws that are locations, when you'd want and expect something else, which you would do most of the time when you were using your draw deck, even in your suggested system. Another benefit is that the above is very open for inserting "mission/quest cards" etc as well, should you want to. A third is that it brings even more meta to the game - the order of the cards - how you will place them, will suddenly also be an issue, if you  go with the pre-determined model I suggest (it could ofc be swapped out for a random shuffled pile instead).

Drawbacks are unclear to me: It doesn't even take more space on the table, since the location card should be placed on top of the pile. I guess one could be that now a player has to have different boxes for his decks (draw deck and location deck) or a separator in the same box, but that's also not true: Just put the location pile faced forward against the draw deck's face forward, and separating the cards from each other even when they share the same box is instantly and easily done, without any extra effort or equipment. 

[xchokeholdx]

playing locations form everywhere
Your suggestion is that a location should be playable "from Hand, Draw deck or Graveyard". This insures that the locations won't be "lost" by milling, and is well.

My concern here is that it adds administration to the game while it's on-going: You'd need to search your grave and/or drawdeck whenever you wouldn't have a location in hand. The problem is that you would also have to shuffle the draw deck each time this happened (I assume, if there are random draws in your game, which I believe there is).

If it was my baby - and notice I'm aware it's not and fully understand if you have a totally different view of it - I would have done it differently and like this instead:

• Each player has to have a total worth of x location cards with him/her to the game.
• Only 1-2 copies of each location is allowed in your location pile.
• No upper or lower limit of the number of location cards one might bring.
• Each player has them in his/her location pile. The piles are placed in the center(?) between the players.
• The pile if faced down, and the order of the cards are predetermined by the player before the game starts.
• Both players flip the top card face up of their pile, and also place the card on the top of the pile, now facing up.
• Both players can pursue to conquer each other's locations if they wanted to.
• When a location is conquered, it's removed for points keeping purposes, and the next location in the pile is turned face up.
• A player can discard his/her own location and make the next one in his/her pile appear by some kind of punishing cost. (I.e. mill 3 cards from draw deck)
• When location pile is emptied you don't lose the game. Exactly what happens then is hazy to me right now, but I'd be happy with "nothing" as an answer.

The benefits of the above are that you don't have to do searching and re-shuffling all the time.

Agreed, it makes for a more "cleaner" game in first sight. but what if I do not want to focus on conquering Locations, but on Decking my opponent instead? then it seems strange to me that I am still forced to turn a Location around every now and then. I do not want to force players into playing ALL win conditions.

Also, you don't get card draws that are locations, when you'd want and expect something else, which you would do most of the time when you were using your draw deck, even in your suggested system.

Not quite true, as i could easily use those drawn Locations to create Power out of them (each card has a Power number that lets you create power). If I plan my deck well, I could even use only (O) Locations so it wont even set me back one turn!.

Another benefit is that the above is very open for inserting "mission/quest cards" etc as well, should you want to. A third is that it brings even more meta to the game - the order of the cards - how you will place them, will suddenly also be an issue, if you  go with the pre-determined model I suggest (it could ofc be swapped out for a random shuffled pile instead).

true, it could increase deckbuilding, but it also might include sudden losses because "those 2 Locations weren't supposed to be in that order, so now my deck is ruined!!".. rage quit etc.. only because a little mistake in Location ordering.
I do like the fact that we can add other types of effects to the Location Pile, like flipping over a Thunderstorm effect, killing half a dozen creatures unexpectedly.

Drawbacks are unclear to me: It doesn't even take more space on the table, since the location card should be placed on top of the pile. I guess one could be that now a player has to have different boxes for his decks (draw deck and location deck) or a separator in the same box, but that's also not true: Just put the location pile faced forward against the draw deck's face forward, and separating the cards from each other even when they share the same box is instantly and easily done, without any extra effort or equipment.

There are several drawbacks which you might not see on the first glimpse:
? You need to have another way to figure out who has priority, as there are now 2 Locations in play..
Scratch that, we can still have just one in play, with players alternately flipping a new one.. this opens up a lot of ideas.. 

I still need to find a way to be able to let players change the Location. as your are not "playing" them from your hand, a new way must be found (to prevent a very difficult to conquer location blocking the whole game from the start). Maybe adding an "Unrest Step" to the rules is an idea, see below:

So I suggest the following change:
? Players bring to the game a side deck of x Location cards, amounting to 20 VP points each, in total 40. Minimums and maximums of numbers might need to be fixed too, needs testing.
? both players (this needs testing if it works ok) determine the order of their Location deck.
? both players place their own deck in the center of the table, Separately from each other, not shuffle into one Location deck.
? Randomly decide which player "flips" the First Location from their Location deck. that player goes first and determines order of effects and assigns first as well.
? Players can use Power during the Unrest step to change the Location:
Unrest Step:
Starting with the player controlling a Location (the one active in play), Players use turns to change that Location if they want to.
Each player may use x power, where x is the Location?s unrest value (new value added to the Location to add balancing) to change the Location. If a player chose to do so, that Location is then immediately placed face down underneath the controlling players' Location deck and a new Location is flipped face up from the Location deck of the player using the Unrest option.

this creates another push for players to create Power, and it increases interaction and strategy. I like it.
I hate to have a side deck needed, but I can see that it clears up a lot of issues and game play, besides, with just 4x 5VP Locations, it could be a very minimal side deck if you wanted to.

Besides conquer text on locations, since they now do not have the option to gain power with (not in hand anymore to use), maybe we can add other stuff to it, like:

Lost Road to Wesnoth
Location
Unrest: 1
when Lost road to Wesnoth is flipped, players may return one card from their graveyard to hand.
Conquer: Use 1 Power and remove the top 4 cards of your domain from the game.
3 VP

Not only having just a VP value and a Conquer requirement, but actual effects on the game as well. Hopefully it all fits into the template.

I still need to see how and if the Flow can be incorporated into this, as you are not really playing Locations anymore from hand, and it is during a whole other "step" of the game. Maybe when you play the next location and it is a RED flow one, you may not change it anymore.. could work. that way, we can still have other cards that interact with it: If you control a RED location, do Y; If the next Location is a GREEN location, do X; etc etc..
the other issue is that if you create a (lets say) 12 card Location deck, with only 1 and 2 VP Locations, that your Domain (draw deck) is reduced to only 48 cards. I am not sure if that should stay that way, as it sort of punishes you for a certain strategy.. maybe the Location deck should be totally seperate from the draw deck.
Draw deck: 50 cards (to offset the added amount from the Location deck (deckboxes, sleeves, need for more than 60 card in total, etc))
Location deck: 20VP worth of Locations.

that way, it does not punish you for playing easy to conquer Locations, if that is your "style"...

this all of course, needs testing. But it shows signs of very good playability.

[xchokeholdx]

Just a small overview of some sample cards I am about to print to playtest my rules with. I will not go into detailed cards and core strategies here, I only want to see if the rules work.

name   attack   defense   influence   flow   playtext   flow   tactic text   flow   power
Skeleton Warrior   1   1   1   O   When you play Undead Skeleton Warrior, Draw 1 card.   X   Reveal the top 2 cards of your domain. Play all Undead creatures revealed and discard the rest.   O   1
Skeleton Mage   0   2   2   O   Skeleton mage is +1/+0 for each other Undead creature you control   O   Influence: 2   X   2
? Madclops the Wicked   3   2   2   X   When you play Madclops the wicked, Influence: 1.   X   Discard 1 Undead creature you control from play. Gain 1 Power and Revive 3 Undead creatures.    O   1
? Red Baron   2   2   1   O   Discard Red Baron from play when you control 3 or more Creatures   O   Revive 2 Undead Creatures   O   1
Arch the Archer   2   1   1   X   When you play Arch the Archer, Influence: 2   O   Discard 1 undead creature you control from play. Target undead creature is Attack and Influence +3 until the end of this turn   X   2
Skeleton Archer   1   1   1   O   When you play Skeleton Archer, Influence: 1   X   Influence X, where X is the number of Archer creatures you control.   X   1
Axeman   2   2   2   X   Any creature killed by Axeman is removed from the game.   O   Until end of turn, each time you win a combat, revive 1.   X   1

I will give it a few tests with some friends before labeling it my "final" rules submission. What you want to do with it is of course up to the devs of Wtactics. I think the rules are solid enough, and only some minor tweaks like hand size, draws and such should be adjusted. Maybe after the design of the real cards, the VP condition needs to be tweaked to be on par with the "decking" win condition, but that is of course all in hands of the devs. And of course if they choose to go with these rule setting at all.

will update with some testing soon.

[eyerouge]

Looks interesting.

What's done with it (or not) is up to you/whoever that wants to pick it up and develop it further: Currently we're the only two ones on the project, if you leave your rules "in the wild" there's no guarantee somebody will embody them and actually make what you suggest playable by releasing cards for it. (I myself can't, since I believe you have a way better understanding of your system and what the cards should look like in it than i do. I also can't since I'm already occupied with the rules of my own already, eating all spare time.)

The cards themselves are a such crucial part of the dev. of a CCG that it's hard for anyone to evaluate the system unless an actual game can be played with it. For that to happen in a relevant enough degree I guess it would take between 50 to 100 unique cards, allowing the players some space and actual deck building as well. Also, that kind of playest cardpool will show a greater variety of cards. =)

You have all you need to create card available in the downloads section of our site, including instructions in the README in the package and/or the /trunk.  There's already art for at least 120+ creatures. Also some art for non-creature cards, and, new art is coming in all the time.

If you want to create cards that you lack art for just create them anyway without art - that way they at least would exist and playtestable, and the art would be placed once it was done, in the future.

[laser12]

I don't mean to promote another game website but since your looking for some rules you could try out something

[Edge]

Excuse me, do you mean that you are doing a project about fantasy card game, you have fine art, but you need an idea, and a ruleset?