Bay 12 Games Forum

Honestly, that is a good piece of advice I will follow. Also I am trying to play many various card games now to explore different mechanics (both online and physical ones). And I guess I will add shortly 2-3 early card designs to give you guys some visualisation of my idea. I think it would also help a lot in potential discussion.

You know what would be cool? Card-based worldgen for an adventurer mode variant.

The adventure mode boardgame would be cool, ideed. But that is not the case here, the idea is different as I understood it.

Now we have to decide wherether or not these buildings are to be card based, or do we have them as freely contructible things.
A good thing might be to have a combination. Ie, once you build, for example, a central gearbox, you can build windmills and watermills on the surface.

As for the player cards, they should be placed in 3 types:
   -Buildings : These are placed on the map, both for the friendly and the evil player.
   -Instances: Has a direct effect.
   -Summonings  : These can place a variety of counters on the map. For example, a goblin invasion counter places goblins on the map.

Or we can simplify and say that the evil player can have no buildings, and the good one no summonings(And needs to get militia counters from say, a barracks building and resources.)

We need to get card ideas for the different biomes and players too...

Uhm... The first idea was to try to incorporate (and possibly alter slightly) my cards into the boardgame. I don't know if you changed your minds, but I am still willing to help you. As for card design, I will upload shortly some samples, so you'd have a visualisation of my idea. Then the discussion will become way more fruitful in my oppinion.
If you don't want to use my help, that is fine too, but still I think it would be fair to include me in credits though, cause you are clearly taking much inspiration from my ideas.

I say that you hit spot.
It's well written and well thought.
Nice impression it did make,
it resembles me Will Blake.

I love how you cross the verge,
how evil from good emerge.
So conclusion I have made,
it's wise as sage and sharp as blade.

Why do I rhyme in reply,
you may ask shaking your fist.
It is simple I would say
I just never can resist.

If you posted a black and white pdf of the cards I would print them out, cut them up, and try them.

I can't guarantee that anyone else will, though. I tried the same thing here a few months back with my card game, but no-one was willing to give it a shot. It is possible that I didn't talk it up enough, but it was a bit of a let down.

(This is sort of the reason why I am trying to be helpful - It sucks to put something out there and not have anyone help you out on it.)

Well if someone would think of it as some kind of problem I don't think such a person would be willing to provide any useful feedback at all.
To be honest, I make the game for myself as well, so if no one responded I would make this anyway. But the more I am happy to hear some insightful feedback and that there are some people actually interested.

Ah and send me those links - to the pdf's and rules if they are not included in files.

Co-op isn't the only kind of games with no badguy.

For example there is "Score" where the goal is to do the best, "Race" where the goal is to achieve something first, and "Knockout" where the goal is to stay in the game the longest. Sometimes these include ways to sabatage the other players.

What I mean is... does there have to be another player playing the "Bad guys" as in the demons, goblins, elves, humans, animals, THAT THING BEHIND YOU!?!

Yes. Mostly because I don't want random experience. There should be mind behind 'evil' actions, because then the challenge can be provided constantly with progressive difficulty. I also believe that most fun comes from direct clash not running for some points or from some other indirect competition.
And it's not just 'bad guys' player, but rather 'every-misfortune-that-can-happen' player. I won't lie that my personal preference doesn't play a big role here - I am looking forward to playing the 'evil' deck, because I know it would be extremely satisfactory - driving your opponent to tears, sabotaging his every effort to build his puny fortress . No I definetely don't want to abandon this idea.

@Hoggypare
Perhaps a way to accomplish this would be to give the evil player a hand of event cards. Each turn they pick the event card that they want to play and draw a new event card from the deck. Then the 'kobold thief' attack (or whatever weak attack that they draw) would gum up their hand until they play it, but would not actually force them to play it if they preferred to keep it in their hand. Perhaps as the game progresses, the evil player would be able to play multiple attacks per turn (maybe one attack per artifact that the good player has or something like that)

I have some ideas about how to make the challenge keep up with the dwarven player progress, but actually this one of launching more attacks after certain accomplishments seems interesting. Thanks for a hint.

Yes, exactly.  The "evil" player would, of course, have better and worse cards, and after that it's a matter of play balance to keep it fun.

If players need encouragement not to be "passive," there are options.  For instance: suppose hand size is small and card draw is large.  This is what Card Hunter plans to do (to an extreme): draw two cards per turn, discard down to two at the end.  Pretty "active" play there.

But I believe that Hoggypare understands all this and has a different sort of vision.  Hopefully these suggestions are helpful.

Ok honestly I don't know if I certainly have different sort of vision Because seriously I can't determine that before playtesting. Hell, I don't know yet what the resource system for 'evil' player should be. I have many ideas but they need testing, then I may choose the best. Because theory can always differ from practice. I just explained my concerns, but that doesn't mean I said 'no'. It means that I might use them if I come to conclusion they are needed. Therefore I say - you guys are extremely helpful, even if I don't quite agree with everything.

EDIT: And thanks for that link. I was looking for some good online ccg and this one looks really promising. And it's artstyle... amazing!

I heartily encourage this endeavor.  Some thoughts:

Balancing the two players - You're developing more and more ways for the dwarves to win, and this is good.  Having "the 'evil' player runs out of cards" be a victory condition is terribly unsatisfying, not to mention impractical if deck composition ever changes (i.e., you make a single expansion).  Think of some other game with clearly different sides, like Netrunner: the "evil" player in there owned the victory conditions.  That is, the Corporation player put Agenda cards into play, and both players wanted to score those cards in order to win.  What if your "hazards of the world" player somehow controlled dwarven victory conditions?  Either, say, by dispensing the goodies themselves ("upright masterwork adamantine sword"), or by having attempts to kill the dwarves grant "victory points" if the dwarves survive them?

Yes, I know it is unsatysfying but it may happen eventually and I have to find a solution for that state. Although main goal for dwarves will be acquring wealth factor (or something called similarly). Eg. you may produce some artifacts, deploy some nobles or build some buildings that are not resource efficient (costing much more than providing) but they give those wealth points that count towards winning the game.
Your idea seems interesting although I have one concern with it. There is a problem, how to make the evil player provide constant challege for fortress, so the both players can equally play and enjoy the game. This would greatly discourage 'evil' player from taking actions that may fail. I fear the game could become somewhat passive.
But you actually gave me some insipiration. There can be another victory condition. Dwarven player may call 'final resolve' (or there will be such card) that lets the 'evil' player for more actions for limited time, after surviving that dwarves win.

Keeping the feel of DF - I hope "making a fortress" is central to dwarf play.  The "layers" idea struck a chord with me: yes, it would require re-thinking the game, but it fundamentally enforces gameplay around "digging a fortress in the earth."  But I also see that layers could be annoying if players have to memorize the pattern (instead of having a computer game track it).  You've spoken about your card layout plan: could you go into further detail on how the player "makes a fortress" in your scheme?

It is essential, but I can't make exact tabletop copy of DF. Eg. I can't make herbalist specific card, because his role in DF is rather limited most of the times. Therefore I merged both similar jobs that involve collecting stuff on the surface - plant gathering and tree cutting - into one card 'Forestry and foraging' (name subject to change). But back to fortress building. There will be trait system in addition to resources. Main aspect of fortress design is of course balancing resources and defences but traits add some complexity to it. They determine the type of a card (dwarf/structure/place/event) its positioning (underground/surface) and other things. They determine relations with either player's or opponet's cards. Some cards may eg. target structures only, or may be played only if card with some trait is already in play. Some special effects of cards will add bonuses to cards with certain traits.
I hope that explains it, if not you're free to ask what is yet unclear - I'll happily answer.