Yet another SciFi CCG idea

[Malagar]

Hey,
I loved the old forum, sadly its gone. Lets do our best to fill the new boards with inspiring CCG design material. So, here is "yet another SciFi CCG idea". Feedback highly appreciated! I do my best to keep this short, but as there are no rules and no card templates yet - it is a bit difficult to explain the game idea just by words.

STORY

"In the far future, mankind is divided into different CorpoNations: Companies of galactic size and with so much impact on technology, politics, civilian-live and warfare that they form nations on their own. After the discovery of faster-than-light travel, the CorpoNations send highly specialised Spacecrafts to distant galaxies in order to tame and prepare uninhabitated planets for the human population. the CorpoNation spracecrafts are equipped with everything necessary to build a outpost on the planet - to mark the beginning of their sovereignty. sadly, the other CorpoNations pursuit exactly the same goal."

GOAL

Every player takes the role of one CorpoNation (the base set will include three different ones, with the option to add more in future expansions), the goal is to prepare a single wild planet for the civilian population. this is done either by eliminating the enemy player, or when the own outpost reaches a certain size/technology level.

DECK-BUILDING

Resources, Micro-Management & Economy are reduced to a minimum - this game is about two rivaling CorpoNations fighting over a distant planet. Its not about building libraries and schools for your people - that is the job of those who come after you. so, both players build a deck of 60 cards wich contains a good mixture of the available card types:

Structures (buildings, defensive turrets, power plants, research facilities...), Units (infantry, tanks, airplanes, combat robots...), Sectors (jungle, seashore, vulcano...), Tactics, Events and Agendas

Then, each player also builds a small side-deck of exactly 7 cards - wich is called the "landing pod" or "capsule". the player can choose any cards in the side-deck from his collection as long as their total MJ value does not exceed 21 points (more on MJ later on). The main reason of the side deck is to prevent mulligan and to give the player some cards to start the game with, without being too dependent on card draws. During the game, the player can decide to draw cards from his regular deck - or from the side-deck.

RESOURCE-MANAGEMENT

there is only one single resource in the game - wich is called Metajoules (MJ). everything in the game is paid using MJ, we just assume technology is so advanced that - given enough energy - literaly everything can be produced/made happen.

although there is only one resource in the game - there are many different ways to generate MJ. most common are power plant like buildings wich grant you a certain amoutn of MJ every turn. but there are also special units, events or agendas wich produce MJ.

One very important aspect of the game is, that all MJ producing cards are highly depending on their surroundings. for example a "hydroelectric powerplant" is only efficient when placed next to a location containing water. A "solar panel" is a very simple power plant, only able to produce MJ while the sun shines.

THE ENVIROMENT

the above being said, the enviroment is one of the key features of the game. there are several enviromental factors wich influence structures and units in the game like day/night, summer/winter, rain/wind/storm. some structures are only active while its day and others suffer from winter or rain. storm makes it more difficult for airplanes to maneuver and so on.

I can imagine by placing enough "sectors"  (locations or lands are placed by the players by sending some units on exploration missions, more on that later on) - the weather changes for example.

Event cards could turn the enviroment from day to night and agendas (permanent events) could gather tokens for every unit killed or structure built - triggering special planetary effects when a certain treshhold is hit.

SAMPLE CARDS (Powerplant like Structures)

Solar Panel (Structure)
*Staple - You can include any number of this card in your deck.
*Solar Power - During your energy phase if it is "day" and the weather is "clear", rotate to generate 1 MJ.

Wind Turbine (Structure)
*Staple - You can include any number of this card in your deck.
*Wind Power - During your energy phase, rotate to generate 1 MJ per "wind level".

Hydroelectric Powerplant (Structure)
*Naval - Can only be built on a "Naval" Sector.
*Water Power - During your energy phase, rotate to generate 3 MJ.

Necromass Powerplant (Structure)
*Necrodegrade - Rotate and Sacrifice any card you own local to Necromass Powerplant: Generate X MJ, where x is the cards printed MJ cost.

CONCLUSION

before i go too much into detail, i would like to stop the introduction of my game here (leaving the combat system, card placement and many other things up to your fantasy). Please keep in mind that besides the rivaling CorpoNations, i wanted the planet itself to be some kind of a "passive third faction" in the game. the planet reacts to the actions of the players and players can manipulate whats going on by interacting with the planet too.

Hopefully this introduction gives you enough information to post some feedback on the game idea, i love to hear your comments!

One more thing: although I can imagine having a "space war" expansion, this game is not about space ships! Its about planetary combat on the surface, about a harsh enviroment, a small outpost, megatechnology and short resources!

[Tokimo]

Going to reply piece meal since your post was long.

First thought: Why Metajoules when there are perfectly good metric prefixes?

If you had 6 Exajoules you could create matter weighing 150 pounds. If you had 2 Yottajoules you could create matter weighing as much as a large US Navy Carrier. Hmm... Seems like a bad idea for unit costs to be based purely on weight. I can see putting a lot of complexity into a system where you had a matter cost based on weight, a training cost based on person time required to train the units, and an upkeep cost based on how much energy the unit will use while it's active. That being said, I think it is a bad idea to use joules. Just use 'energy' straight up and you don't have to be bound by science.

[legend zero]

But then again, it's about faster-than-light traveling Coperations inhabitingother worlds, al-la AVATAR. Real science becomes merely a stepping stone in Sci-Fi. Joules would work, in my opinion.

I'm going to wait for the rest of the info before posting my final opinion, but in concept it soulds like something I'd not only like to play, but also be involved in.

[Dragoon]

As for day and night, I would suggest round shift

Round 1 - Day
Round 2 - Night
Round 3 - Day
etc.

Use sectr cards! At the start, each player should put some of them in the game, these sectors each have some abilities and traits. (wind level, water, etc.)

[Tokimo]

On further pondering the mechanic that really stands out to me is the Necromass Powerplant. I might recommend calling it a Reprocessing Plant (especially if you might consider that one probably would only reprocess the tanks, not the drivers of them as well, unless they can also create organic soldiers from whole cloth).

The reason this mechanic is interesting to me is you then get tactical choices where you sell everything you have to buy something else and try to win with this new card/combo (I have one sliver deck that has an Ashnod's Altar which I find I often sacrifice previously important slivers during my 2nd to last turn).

If the necromass plant is cheap enough, you'd expect to see heavy use of these as a tactical tool to pull expensive combos to bear very quickly (potentially destroying your military to put your technologically ascendent base into play). In this case how would the base win you the game? Is it opening a gate to a homeworld? Reaching a singularity threshold in terms of automation? Activating an orbital gun that can destroy opposing ground forces?

If the necromass plant costs a bit more you expect to see it only in specialty decks built to exploit above strategies, instead of seeing everyone do it.

Another thought on this: You might want to return cost-1 on the reprocess to reduce the incentive to build flexible swarms that collapse into huge monstrosities on later turns. Perhaps you like the easy come easy go though, in which case cool. It'll play differently either way.

[legend zero]

Like I said before, the whole conquest idea really brings out some fun ideas. What were you thinking as far as the board dimensions? Maybe a series of Hexes to represent Sectors to be explored and areas to be fought over would be coo, then you can even include a bit of range, ability, and even more strategy.

As I said before, hit me up and I will defiantly want to talk more about this game with you.

Also, for Day/Night. I do like the 1/1, but allow for some flexibility. Maybe let the players play on a desert planet with a 2/1 day to night ratio or a quickly rotating planet where each player would get stuck with a different shift. Would lead to diverse gameplay.

[Tokimo]

Question:

Can you draw your starting hand from the landing pod? Can you choose between the deck and the landing pod for each card in the starting hand? Draw 3, decide I need at least one from the landing pod, then decide to draw 2 more from the deck and then decide to draw the last two from the pod?

[Malagar]

Thank you for the replies - located in good old europe I just returned home from work (its 21:00 over here). So, i try to do my best answering your thoughts and questions and maybe give an insight or two about the other game mechanics. expect some templates soon!

@Tokomi @Legend Zero Oh come on guys! This IS science fiction, and metajoules just sounds cool. If I knew that, I would have thought about a different name for "mana" alltogether. Very interesting though, you may continue.

@Dragoon First I also thought about a round shift between day and night. right now the game starts at day and it can only be turned into night by special abilities. its a bit strange i know - seems like the game runs at slow speed and once a special card is played, time advances fast forward. but speaking about the solar panels for example, your idea would make more sense. i am evaluating it, do not want things to get too complex.

@Tokimo The cards posted above are just mockups. The Necromass powerplant is planned for the first expansion wich will introduce a few alien races the players can also play. nothing about the cards is balanced, just first sparks of thought. the basic idea of the plant was to feed it with objects you built earlier in the game and wich you dont need anymore later in the game.

@Tokimo The Main goal is to elimiate your opponent, how this is done is still in experimental state. another thought is working with victory points, or by depleting opponents deck - right now nothing is for sure. the second victory condition is much more clear: there is a "homebase" like building wich can be expanded over the course of the game - later on it turns into some kind of gigantic tower that reaches space, turning it effectively into some kind of space station. once your homebase reaches this state of development you are able to call your CorpoNation main fleet and win the game.

@Tokimo Right now the answer is NO. you draw from your deck and after that you decide from wich deck to draw. another rule was introduced to let a player sort the cards in his side-deck, so you know what you will be drawing next time.

@Legend Zero Wrote you a message

PS: this is in very early stages of development, "baby shoes" at best. if you like, help me to flesh this idea out - as i like it very much and think that it would be perfectly suited for a lackeyCCG plugin to be distributed freely via the internet

I am preparing another post about the game right after this one - depends if I finish it today.

[Tokimo]

Slightly disappointed to hear that the necroplant won't be a mainstay of the game, it sounded like a pretty stelar mechanic to always be burning your old stuff (if it's a basic function of the home base there's no fear of balance even).

[Cyrus]

I really like this idea for a game. It sounds really awesome, lots of fun for sure. My only concern at this point is the landing pod. Although its a great way to prevent mana-screw and other sorts of bad hand things commonly found in other games, it seems like it may allow combo decks (or swarm decks) to get quickly out of control if built right, especially if you allow it to be stacked in whatever order the player chooses.
Either way I could still see down the line decks that just set up for 3-4 turns, then play some sort of card(s) that allow them to draw a big portion from their landing pod, and then clean-up the board with it. Maybe not though, just something to think about in design.
Also I'd vote for just a linear board made up of the location cards that you and your opponent play. Maybe limit it to 6 locations, so the beginning of the game can have a slight race to set up the planet, unless the layout isn't that important to your deck, then you can just start setting up your forces and not worrying about the layout. Sort of adds an element of something that is simple to understand, but hard to master.
Regardless keep up the good work, I'm pretty excited about this

[Malagar]

@Cyrus the landing pod really needs work - i realize just by now. for the rest of your reply: read this post!

THE GAMEBOARD

before going more into the details of the game, let me explain how the board actually looks like. I have included a picture to show you how the different zones of play are distributed over the board. first of all: there are no squares or hexes, its all CCG typical kept simple and cards aligned to zones. most cards have to be attached to zones and there is limited movement between zones, thats all.



1. So you can see each player has his own deck, landing pod and discard pile.

2. The sectors form a line where both players align their units and structures. the example picture shows 4 sectors, but theoretically the players can bring as many sectors into play as they want - expanding the "battle line" horizontally. the first two sectors are chosen by the players from their card hand - the rest has to be explored by sending units on a "explore mission", wich is time and energy consuming - and dangerous. the first player to sucessfully explore a sector may bring another sector card from his hand into play - the bounty for facing the dangers of a strange planet.


Its late over here and I am really tired. Please keep on posting as you help me flesh out the rules bit by bit. This process is interesting and helps me very much. I try to shorten my posts from now on, so more to read in a few days.

Malagar over and out!

"Slave for the MegaCorps, hail the CorpoNation! One for all and all for Hedoth and the planetary conquest!"

[Tokimo]

Players should get an advantage for exploring a sector, otherwise it makes focusing on military and just taking each sector by force an appealing strategy.

Inherent advantages of exploration:
-Sectors come into play on your turn, you can set up a power plant in a sector and have it defended before your opponent can act against it.
-You can choose which sectors come into play. You pick nothing but naval sectors and your hydro electric plants are going to be rocking. If you try to sector surf with hydro though, you might be disappointed to find you're playing against a desert deck.

Potential advantages to add:
-Give a discount to structures played to a newly discovered sector to represent being able to bring in construction crews with lighter defense than normal.
-Allow an empty sector to be occupied by units who 'bunker down' making it harder to defeat them.

Another thought on sectors: Instead of playing sectors from your deck, what would happen if exploring for a sector could garner a draw and play from a standardized sector deck (only one deck per game, same X cards in it every game).

[Malagar]

@Tokimo Again, thank you. But please slow down. This is very complex and I dont write fast enough to take all the notes. Good ideas though - what about simplifying it? You explore, you play a sector card and in addition to that you may draw another card from your deck? the idea of a universal sector deck is somehow against my deck-building strategy thought.

I am heading to bed right now - to give you a clue about the game - here are three card template samples. All very simple mockups without any text and all share the same background pattern (wich will change later on).

As I told Legend_Zero earlier: some may be shocked by the pixelated artwork - but as the game will be distributed via lackeyCCG (means: via internet) alone - no one will ever care about image resoultion and such. in fact: pixelated retro-oldschool-artwork just rocks (as long as it stays on screen and is not printed). it should just work - if you ask me, and i have a library of age-old games to rip for graphics at my hand. as the game will stay free/open-source I can't imagine any company complaining about copyrights.

So, this is just to wet your tastebuds. Not now - not soon, but later on - there WILL be spaceships (AND gigantic robots)

[legend zero]

THe white fonts on the light BG is eye killing. Maybe the text dark for some contrast. Other than that it's a bit busy (We obviously don't know all the card parts yet) so I can't judge on it until I see some semblance of what belongs on a card first.

[Tokimo]

I think a card draw would also be an appealing advantage to give for playing sectors. Doing such would allow people to effectively thin their decks by putting sectors in. Seems like a very appealing system. That being said, it's not obvious to me that you need to provide additional advantages beyond the two inherent ones, but it's something to keep in mind.

Posted my thoughts on art in the art forum.