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Sword and Planet Pt. VII: Near Final Playtest Map 1.0 and Rough Order of Play

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There Will Be Games

I know it's been a bit dry on the updates recently, so I'm going to try to bring in more updates as I move along the way. I'm nearly finished with the first playtest map (keyword PLAYTEST) and I thought I would show it to try and give an idea of what it will look like. My graphic design is pretty amateurish, but I'm doing my best to at least make it look passible.

 I'll begin with an overview of the map. Due to the compression of the map down to fit in on the blog, it's been distorted and looks a lot more busy than it will look at print size. It is, however, a bit busy. I'm going to modify the map significantly in the future, but I'm going to stick with it for now for the first round of playtesting. Suggestions are welcome (other than things such as "the ocean should be blue").

 The main features are cities (the colored hexagons), the point to point movements (smaller circles between cities), fortresses (the white hexagons) and the guardian itself (the white fortress in the middle of the river).

 This is a closer view of the map, focusing on the northern edge of the map, the appropriately named "barbarian lands." The area will be the holding box for barbarian armies which will grow over time - eventually to gain a leader and invade southwards and begin wreaking havoc. The red lines indicate invasion routes which will bring barbarian armies onto the board, interfering with the players designs for greatness. I must note that I'm really not happy with how the "barbarian lands" area turned out, and it will receive a massive work over when I come back to it. The movement spaces with white letterings "ro" and "br" equate rough and broken terrain, which will slow player armies, but which the barbarians are largely unaffected by. The white hexagons are ancient fortresses placed to protect the northern edge of the empire - but they have no benefit unless the players fortify them with their armies. If the players neglect to, the barbarian armies may simply destroy them before moving south into the heart of the region.

 Moving south, you get a better idea of what the rest of the map looks like. Cities are colored according to what region they're in. Refresh cards will help the regions recover, helping to prevent the demise of cities. The number spaces below the cities will be marked by control markers, showing the relative resource value of the city at the time. To gather resources of a city, you have to drop it down a space, but once they drop below the last space, they are gone forever. So spend wisely! The gaurdian is an ancient white fortress and capital of the ancient empire, guarded by mechanical men, anyone who gains control of the near-impenetrable fortress is said to be the next Empreror to be. Wall levels are also marked on some cities (indicated by gray lines surrounding the city tile) which will grant a degree of protection. On some cities is marked a colored political marker - designating a royal capital that could be used to rebuild a kingdom. 

 Some cities have the benefit of being far removed form the dangers of the barbarians, but not all are so fortunate. Luck for them, they were built with fortifications to withstand invasions, but will need to use them more than many other cities! You can catch a glimpse of a red invasion arrow, proving the peril that these great cities are in. 

I just thought I'd try and show off the map, it's a long ways from perfect, and undoubtedly, I'll need to tweak the city values for balance. For now, it'll work!

I also thought I would show some rough notes I've taken about how a turn will play out.  This is only a rough idea of how each turn will play out, but I thought it might give an idea as to how things will pan out.

 

Order of Play


1. Card Draw Phase – Players choose ratio of resource/action cards

- 1.1 each player draws amount of resource cards as desired

- 1.2 each player fills hand (unmodified 7) with action cards

2. Initiative Phase – Initiative by greatest amount of action cards/ties resolved by higher glory first

- 2.1 Player with most resource cards is designated first on initiative chart, second most is second, etc.

- 2.2 any ties are resolved by glory, higher glory begins first, further ties are determined by number of controlled cities, further ties are settled by rolling 3 dice

3. Resource Phase – Acting in initiative order, play of resource cards, collection of resource, may hold 1

- 3.1 beginning with the player with the highest initiative, each player plays 1 recourse card on their resource impulse proceeding in initiative order

- 3.2 resources may be played as face value, discarded to draw resources from a city or discarded to replenish a cities resources by 1 space

- 3.3 resource cards played for face value are placed into the waste heap, resource cards played for resource draws or from replenishing are placed in the hold

- 3.4 cards in the hold remain there unless an event card is played during the course of a turn, then they are reshuffled into the resource draw deck at the end of the turn

- 3.5 if a player holds either 1 resource card that isn't an event, or doesn't hold any, he may elect to pass for the remainder of the phase. Once a player has passed, they may not reenter the phase until next turn.

4. Action Phase – Acting in initiative order, play of action cards, activation of leaders, may hold 1

- 4.1 beginning with the player with the highest initiative, each player plays 1 action card on their action impulse proceeding in initiative order

- 4.2 action cards may be played for face value to carry out the action depicted on the card, to activate a presently controlled character or villain, or to take control of a villain

- 4.3 action cards are placed into the exhausted action pile after use, and reenter play after the entire action deck has been cycled through

- 4.4 action cards are played by each player on their action impulse, and they may choose at any moment to pass for all remaining action impulses on the turn, once passed a player may not reenter the action impulse cycle for the remainder of the turn

- 4.5 character activated may command their armies with their activation, and the player may designate an attack

- 4.5.1 Designate Attack

- 4.5.2 Attacker chooses combat stance, defender may attempt to contest the stance

- 4.5.3 If contested, opposing tactical check is made

- 4.5.4 If defender succeeds, he may designate a new combat stance

- 4.5.5 If defender fails, the defender gains a surprised marker (all hits scored on the defender are taken as casualties) and the attacker chooses the combat stance

- 4.5.6 Winners of combat receive “victorious” markers, losers receive “vanquished” markers

- 4.6 Once all players have either elected to pass or hold no combat cards, the action phase concludes

5. Combat Resolution Phase – Resolve all combats initiated this turn, victors take ground, losers retreat

- 5.1 Combat proceeds starting according to combat initiative ranking, ties proceed in order of the attacker with the higher initiative ranking

- 5.2 attackers who win a battle take ground, moving into the space they were attacking – attackers who lose a battle retreat 3 movement points in the direction from which they were attacking

- 5.3 defenders who win a battle hold ground, retaining their space – defenders who lose a battle retreat 3 movement points away from the direction of the attack

- 5.4 each combat grants glory for the victor and the loser receives 1 glory regardless

- 5.4.1 +4 glory for winning a battle, +1 for winning a battle as attacker, +1 for defeating a higher class general, +2 for winning a battle as a slave general (stacks with class difference)

6. Glory Phase – Assign glory for control of cities, titles, etc.

- 6.1 +5 glory for each controlled city

- 6.2 gain glory from any titles, non-combat characters, etc.

7. Conclusion Check – Check for winner, if none, continue to next turn

- 7.1 Victory by control of the guardian, if any player controls the guardian, they are victorious

- 7.2 Victory by glory, if any player has 50 glory more than the next

- 7.3. Conclusion by devastation, if there are 18 or less standing cities the game ends, highest glory in the winner

- 7.4 Conclusion by resource exhaustion, if there are presently no resource cards available in the resource draw deck, the game concludes, highest glory is the winner

The biggest change that I've come up with, is how and when combat will occur. During the card plays of the action phase, players will declare their combats and will make tactical maneuvers right away. This will set the combat stance for the end of the turn, which will then play out order of the speed of the attack type (sieges being slow and raids being fast, etc.), allowing players ample opportunities to intercept attacks and mass force. Each turn covers a large amount of time (scale is fuzzy of course, but each turn is decades of time!), so players should have plenty of opportunities to react to each others actions. 

 I hope the preview is of interest, I'll keep posting things as they come up. Next, I'll start digging into the cards. Any idea on how many cards is reasonable for a 2-6 player game?

 

 

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