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[Deon]

I've decided to develop a board game with dwarves about exploration, building and survival .

I've just started to develop the idea, so brainstorming and suggestions are really welcome.

Being a fan of many tabletop games, I know that it's the best idea to keep a balance between too simple stuff (becomes boring) and too complex stuff (hard to play and relax, becomes like a job haha).

So that's the main point: there will be no hundreds of stones, specific inventories with socks and tons of items and resources, no.

Phases:
1) Exploration
2) Income
3) Production
4) Combat
5) Special

Map:
The map has a hexagonal grid. You start in a central "staircase" and all other tiles do not exist.
You should uncover the hexes around the staircase to get an access to the first "ring". After that you will be able to get an access to the second "ring".


There will be specific map tiles for each ring. For example, there will be "rocky cavern", "mud cave", "mushroom forest", "stone pit" for the first ring, and there will be more than 6 (and random one is picked when a tile is uncovered), so different tiles will be there each game.

The second ring will have the same tiles plus some "special" tiles (like underground lake, crystal cave, small vein etc.). Basically the deeper you go, the more resources you will get.

Resources:
Resources will come in three types: natural, collected and manufactured. Natural resources will come with a tile (i.e. mushroom forest gives a wood resource), collected will come with a tile/building and require an action to be spent to gather them (examples follow: tile - webbed bushes, requires an action to get silk; building - lumbermill, built on a wood resource and provides 2nd if an action is spent).

During each turn the resources are "spent" in the production phase and are discarded at the end of the turn. Some building will require more than one unit of some resource type, so you will need either two resource sources or special buildings (like a warehouse which allows to store 1 resource during the discard phase). It means that buildings which require manufactured resources like furniture will require someone to spent an action making them, and another one to spend an action to build it, so teamplay will be really needed.

Players:
Each player will control a single dwarf. I am unsure on the amount of actions allowed, but I will definitely make it so there will be a chance to survive a combat (so it won't be a-la "civilization" game combat where there is a victor and a dead only). Constitution will serve this role, I think there will be strength/agility/toughness stats. Strength will determine the damage, toughness will determine the health and agility the action points.

A basic draft: Enemy's strength will be substracted from your constitution, and if the amount is not a zero or less you survive. Same applies in another direction: if your str. is higher than enemy's constitution, he dies, otherwise survives.

I will work on the combat system later and I accept any suggestions. A notice though: I don't want it to be too complex (like dnd), too simple (so there are ways to customize your combat abilities with specials, perks and equipment) and I don't want it to be luck based only (some random element is great, but planning should be first).

There won't be a complex inventory system: equipment, personality traits and goodies all will come in a kind of achievements: you will recieve special "chips" which will be important and not too frequent.

Guarding system: The enemies will have a chance to emerge from uncovered areas, more dangerous enemies will come when you explore caverns deeper. It will be dice-based, and you should be able to station your dwarf in the combat phase and guard all surrounding hexes, so any attacking critters will be spotted and affected. You should be able to station more than one player to protect important tiles (resources/buildings) from being clamed by enemies. Creatures will be able to attack only "border" tiles.

Invasions:
I want to implement an invasion mechanic (groups of kobolds/goblins/animal men coming from underground), but I will think about it after I am more confident in the resource/building/animal fighting fields, and again any suggestions are welcome.

Phew, I have much more ideas, but let's start with basics.

[Nadaka]

Were you planning on having more than 2 "rings" of tiles?

One thing you might consider is allowing expansion to the outer rings before the inner rings are filled.

Why? to balance risk vs reward. Do you play conservatively and slowly expand into the darkness? Or do you rush out to find what you can and hope you don't "dig to deep" before you are ready.

One possible invasion mechanic, one that would work well when combined with "digging to deep" is placing X number of enemy units on each tile with at least Y free edges.

[Max White]

Are recorses spent to convert a hex into a more useful squair? So for example, going out you find several blank hex's, a mushroom forest, and a rocky outcrop. You can then chop down some mushrooms and use the 'wood' in the custruction of a workshop to make more cooler stuff.

Or is it going to me more exploration focused? So after finding all the natural recorces to forge metal, you need to into deeper and deeper, therefor more and more dangerouse rings before you find a forge to start making your weapons.

[Deon]

I was not clear, there will be more than two rings, I planned tiles for at least 5.

And yeah, I consider making it possible to expand deeper without "clearing" the inner ring, but with special tools (torches) or skills (spelunker) which are in fact almost the same things (due to a nature of items and skills being special personal chips).
I want it to be possible, but not too easy (to stop people from rushing outside immediately , I want some controlled pace).

I don't plan to change the "tiles" (they are "base" terrain), but as I said you can build various stuff on top of them.

Basically tiles will have "exploration bonus" which you recieve when you uncover them (1 food from mud cavern, 1 rock from rocky cavern) and buildings will require either a specific "exploration bonus" or "resource" present on the tile.

I am not sure about the food system. I think as a general idea to separate years in seasons, so one season would be a few turns, and you have to eat once per season (or "starve", losing actions/toughness).

you need to into deeper and deeper, therefor more and more dangerouse rings before you find a forge to start making your weapons.

As I said you will be able to make buildings to make "manufactured" resources, but you will need specific resources to make those buildings first.

So there will be two strategies: either explore fast to get more natural resources, or turtle and construct stockpiles, to store and thus "multiply" existing resources (in fact I want it to be the best option to combine both methods, but it should depend on the play style).

The first method would be dangerous due to cavern inhabitants, and the second should increase a second value ("wealth") which should attract ambushes/sieges from outside. So there will be at least two viable strategies, and I want to balance the odds for each one.

P.S. The game will be point-based, so each player will get points for specific achievements, and in the end (the fort has to either die or reach an ultimate goal) the points will be counted and the winners declared. I've learned that a game without a competition is not very interesting. However I want it to be a friendly game, so consider it to be a "compete who helps the fort the best" type of game. I do not expect it to be balanced points-wise anywhere in the nearest future, it's hard to balance such things, but I want it to be at least interesting and cool to play .

[Tilla]

This idea is interesting and I will be following along. Been toying with Vassal modules a bit, it might be interesting to throw it together in that.

[Max White]

Well it might help to start building what your sure with. That is to say, you seem sure on the idea of locations and this hex grid and rings, so start there and build both inwards and out.
Making a list of all constucts/resouce wells would be a good start. Your looking for brainstorming right? If I may start with some suggestions...

Mushroom forest - For harvesting of mushroom logs.
Fern forest - For harvesting of herbs.
Rocky outcrop - For stone harvesting.
Ore vein - For ore harvesting

Ungerground pond - water source, includes some pesky creatures.
Magma pit - for easyer ore smelting, includes some large and nasty creatures.

[Deon]

This one:
http://www.vassalengine.org/
?

Well if it works and becomes a game I will definitely find a way to make it a game (maybe even in Flash) for a computer too. However my original intention was to make a carton game (I have quite a decent photoprinter) and a forum game.

I don't plan to "finish" it in a nearest future, but I want to try to work on it "in batches", to avoid endless development and finally a stagnation and death. I will start with simple ideas like building and exploration, then throw in natural dangers, then outside threats, then politics (some "fame" system with ranks and abilities to gain at higher ranks, probably more stuff like dispensable followers etc. in form of tokens), then religion (RNG gods and "favor" system, with a possibility to organize a cult).

That's the main plan, I want a firm base based on single characters and tokens for everything else, and I want it to be not too boring . I will probably throw in an "event" phase at some point, with cards with events.

I have no experience in such things, so don't expect it to be playable soon. However with your help I may progress much faster hehe.

Ninja post by Max White

That's a nice example of a kind of post I would love to see from other people as well. Good general ideas, some specific ideas. It speeds up my thinking process .

I am most interested in basic systems right now though. What are you favourite simple yet interesting systems?

For example, the uncovering of map tiles I took from Settlers of Catan. However there the map tiles are randomized from the start, so I just took the general idea and turned it into an "exploration" minigame.

I am totally unsure about the combat system. I can invent a lot of minigames for other stuff, but I want to be careful with the combat system, and I MEAN it. I don't want it to be frustrating to the point of Civilization (where people just reloaded multiple times after they lost a tank to a spearman, it's a well-known example), yet I don't want it to be too easy/simple.

[Max White]

So how large do you want one of these hexagons to represent? The smaller they are, the more you will need and need to keep track off. It some set ups, this will make it harder to manage as a board game. The larger they are, the less controll you have over stratergy.

[Deon]

It's just a visual representation, I will find the best size, don't worry . It will be easy for an eye. One hexagon = 1 tile and building and/or resource, also it has different properties (some special events, bonus yields on discovery etc.).