Page: History.Page5 - Last Modified : Fri, 27 Sep 13 - 1130 Visits

Another very important part of the game is the invasion system. The combat resolution has not changed much but all the mechanics around the invasion system has changed a lot.

Basic idea

The basic idea behind invaders has always been that they attack with a lot of troops. In the beginning, invasions were resolved like regular battles. The main difference is that the invader roll 3 dice in combat instead of 2. It made invaders much more powerful and still give a chance to the defender to fight back.

Invasion restriction

Invaders came on the board from a section of the frame. There was some restriction to some kingdoms on which type of terrain they could invade from (hills, forest, north or south sea). I also think that the later you were in the game, the more segments you could use to invade. So in the first era, you could only use 1 segment and in the third era you could use 3 segments.

Reinforcements

In the early design, when there was a frame around the map, there was a concept called reinforcement. First, the invader stayed as invader for 2 turns. Being an invader made you gain the benefit of rolling 3 dice in battle even when defending. The 2nd turn you played was not played as a regular turn. You could not build anything during that turn, but you received reinforcement. Each territory you controlled received a number of troops equal to the reinforcement value on the segment you invaded from.

Multiple Kingdoms and Surrenders

Like in Britania, each player controlled multiple kingdoms which could eventually each get their unique abilities. There was a timing for each kingdom to invade (Turns and time section) and players tried to make the best out of each kingdom. The main difference is that a player could control 2 or more kingdoms at the same time.

It took quite some time before changing to one kingdom per player. One of my designer friend said that I should analyze the structure of the city control through the game. One of the problem is that it was getting repetitive and I needed to make the game more interesting. I came with the idea of surrendering your kingdom which could make somebody weak suddenly powerful.

I was also pleased with the idea because I would not need that much unique tokens anymore. One of the problem I had was that it was hard to make it a print and play game since each player needed from 2 to 4 different kind of unit tokens. Which made a total of 20 different unit token. With the new system, I only need 1 type of units per player and I did not need the initiative track anymore (see dead mechanics). So in overall, it was a major upgrade

Faster combat resolution

Some designers complained that the invasion process was too long, and that players not taking part of an invasion were wasting their time. So I had to find a way to accelerate invasions. Normally invasion should always succeed, the only difference should be the amount of units lost during the battle.

So I decided to jump straight on the problem: you only roll to know how many troops you lose. When you know this, you discard your troops and conquer the city immediately. It makes the invasion much faster and remove the need of placing all the attacking units on the board. In the new rules, the units are kept in the player's hand or outside the board.

Blockers

There has been various ways to block invasion paths to prevent the same area from being invaded twice in a row. I don't remember all of them, but I know that either a section, a path or the complete tile was blocked for invasion. There were also invasion blockers that last 2 turns instead of 1. Blockers were added to give a chance to the player that just invaded to grow and not get kicked out immediately.

The next section is related to invasions since it determines when should player invade.

Revised Details

The new revisions added some minor changes to make it more convenient to play. First, to avoid a problem where a port could block many invasion path, I made it possible to pass trhough a port you already invaded from. This allowed players to invade further in the land and help in a situation where multiple invasion path lead to the same port making them useless.

In the second revision, I added the possibility to invade a max of 6 cities in various pattern of 1-3 cities. So a player could invade 2 path of 3 cities instead of 3 path of 2 cities making it more convenient to invade certain area of the map or when there was not a lot of space left to invade.

<< Production and action system | Index | Turns and time >>