Page: GameIdea.GameIdea201007300357PM - Last Modified : Wed, 20 Apr 22 - 2048 Visits

How much do you like this idea? Not rated yet Already Exist Very bad Bad Fair Good Very Good
Very Good	(10/10)	The game is very interesting, make it as soon as possible.
Good	(8/10)	Great idea but some modifications are required.
Fair	(6/10)	Interesting but a lot of things are missing.
Bad	(4/10)	Would need to completely redesign the idea in order to work.
Very Bad	(2/10)	It will never be interesting, abandon the idea.
Already Exist	(0/10)	Do not waste time on this game idea.

Status: CLOSED

• Must be at least a 2 player game
• Could do research for tactical single player games
• Good idea of mechanics since it's a remake of battlemaster.
• Not Very original so far since it's a remake

Progress: Partially designed
Priority: High
Number of players: 2 - 4 players
Expected Play time: 15 - 60 minutes

Description

A tactical fantasy war game where each player controls and army and need to fulfill certain conditions to win the battle. It's indirectly a remake of "Battle Master".

Objective

The primary objective is to make a game that looks very close to Battle Master but that has much more flexibility on the theme and the rules to give me more freedom on what I can design. The second objective is to make it possible for this game to become a side game to another of my game design "Spellcraft: Power and ambitions" if people are crazy enough to detail the battles.

Inspiration

Battle Master is my primary source of inspiration. I first thought of making an home made version of BM, but after making many changes, I realised that it would just be better to create a new game from scratch.

Priority Evaluation

Theme vs Mechanics: Based on mechanics, basically battle master.
Video vs Board Game: Could be played on both platform.
Single vs Multi player: This is a multi player game for sure.
Rating = 8/12

Digitizability

- Cartography: Hex maps are required.
- Scripting: Scripts should be required for certain units special abilities like in Hero Scape.

Mechanics

Now the fact that I am using battle master as the base system, it might speed up the design process. Still, the dice roll will be different. Only the attacker needs to roll the dices VS a TN determined by the defender.

The movement of units is determined by cards drawn in hand. According to the number of units on the battlefield, you can draw X and play Y card. Each unit has 3 cards in the deck. A played card allow to move a unit or make it attack. It can also be used to counter attack in defense. If the unit use a special ability, it will be written on the card. So in over all, you do not have complete control on which unit you can move every turn.

It will also be possible to add fortifications and bring in siege engines in the game to destroy stuff. It will be possible to place hidden traps that the ennemy can fall into. Each piece of construction, trap and unit will have a price. You will be able to assemble an army of a certain price before the battle.

Then you can add another layer: the magic system. Since this game needs to be compatible with another game, the controlling wizard must be able to cast spells in battle. So there will be a deck of spells that the player can use to change the outcome of the battle. Players can also bring in summoned creatures if they want.

As for the components, the game will use labelled poker chips that will be placed on an hex map. The top chip will have the unit info, and each chips under it will be a blank chips that keep track of the unit's life points. The dice will be regular 6 sided dice, there will be no need to have dices with special faces. Finally, there will be tons of cards since there will be many units and spells.

The connectivity with "Spellcraft: Power and ambition" will not be so hard to do. Each unit card in the 1st game will correspond to 1 unit on the battlefield. There might be some prefixed constructions if for example, you have a city wall in your cities. Or you might get X points of traps if you builts traps in your cities. The selected maps will be indicated by a combination of codes on the hex.

Problems that prevent development

Since I am basing this game on BM, I should not stumble into many problems. Right now, the challenge would be to select and design the units. Making sure that the cost of every object in the game is balanced will be the hardest thing. I intend to use the probability tables to determine the cost.

For the connectivity of both game, the only problem is the time, so the battles will have to be small enough to be resolved fast. Still if you have the space, you could have multiple battles being resolved at the same time to speed up the process. Still, combining the games is just a crazy idea for those who really want the epic stuff.

The second problem is to make sure that the units and spells I select will be exactly the same units and spell in the other game. So sometimes, I need to think a bit ahead.

News, changes and updates

October 25th, 2010 : After playing romance of the 3 kingdom XI, I was impressed by how the tactical battles where resolved. In that game, units have plenty of tactics that makes the unit move and attack in different ways. There is also strategies that allows you to plan various subterfuge.

So I thought that a good solution for the card system is that instead of having cards for each unit or each unit type that just make the deck of cards grow as the number of units increase, what if instead, cards would only be used to hold Tactics, strategies and spells. You would be allowed to move a fixed amount of units every turn which could be supported with your cards. Or moving units and playing cards each requires action points. So the more cards you use, the less units you move.

April, 2022: This game idea can potentially be used as a mini game inside a video game. I am thinking a Gemfire remake where the tactical battles are made with this game idea. An alternate card play is that each unit gets 2 cards in deck with a special attack on it(ex: charge), then you can either play on your turn 1 card of each type (ex: cav-inf-art), or all cards of the same type. Combat could be resolved with special face 3-2-1 distribution D6. Some face could trigger special effects. Still could be easier just to say X+ target number if willing to modify the probabilities to hit.

See my WizCiv detailling of combat mechanism. I think max level complexity would be required for this game which implies manipulating the battlefield by pulling units, taking advantage of terrain, Having units in certain status (ex: fortified, overwatch,etc). THere is also WarChest board game that apparently have a lot of strategy and unit type. I would probably remove any spells from the combat system. Only units, but there could be tantasy or a unit of mages, not sure yet. Like Gemfire, wizards are a unit, not the combat commander.

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