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Yes, but only generic ones and only at the beginning of the game

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Yes, but only for the first few Seasons

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Yes! We need help!

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No Hints, please, I'd rather figure it out on my own

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Total Members Voted: 12

[Mephansteras]

I have a new boardgame I'm working on called Clansmen that I want to playtest a bit more. It occured to me that doing a version of it here could be fun.

Clansmen is a boardgame about a fledgling clan on the boarderlands trying to build up enough to be accepted as a true clan. The players must work cooperatively in order to survive and thrive. However, they are also competing to get the most Respect from the people in the clan and become the Clan Chief.

Each player will have several populations of clansmen under them (Farmers, Laborers, Craftsmen, and Warriors) that will need to be directed, housed, fed, and protected. As the game goes on more population can be acquired. Each Season players will have a few actions that they can carry out (2, initially) as well as a special action that can only be used once per year. Managing which actions you perform each season will be critical to your success. You will also need to feed your people each season, build up the settlement with buildings, and fight off attacks by raiders.

For those of you that are boardgamers, think Settlers of Catan meets Agricola in play, although it's not all that much like either of those games. The game is heavily inspired by King of Dragon Pass, for those of you who've played that.

As far as actually playing goes, it'll be a fairly slow paced game. Each player will post their actions in order until everyone is out of actions for that Season. As which point I'll do the book-keeping for the Season and we'll deal with any repercussions before moving on to the next Season. The game will last a total of 4 years.

We have 4 players so I'll be moderating. Probably better that way, since I'll be the one rolling dice and such. If we get anyone else who's really interested I can put them on a wait list in case someone needs to drop out.

Players:

• Scelly9
• Dariush
• Toaster
• micelus

[Mephansteras]

Rules

The goal of this game is to gain as much Respect as possible from the people within the Clan. All of the players combined will need to get a certain amount of Respect total in order to be accepted as a Full Clan. If that goal is met, then the player with the most Respect will become the Chief of the Clan. You gain respect through Buildings, Actions, and Victories in Combat.

You will need a combined Respect of at least 100 in order to win the game and have someone declared Chief.

Season Overview:

• Draw and resolve Event (ignore 1st Spring)
• Move Raiders & Raid if necessary
• Gain new populations if necessary
• Actions (Players will play 1 Action at a time in order until no more actions can be played)
• Harvest
• Restore Weakened populations
• Feed Population
• Check for Shelter. Food Rots. (Winter only)

The game is played on a series of Hex tiles. These hex tiles will each be one of six terrain types. Each tile can be Farmed for Food. Most can have a Laborer work on them to harvest Resources (Stone and Wood).

Tile Type	Farming/Season	Labor (Spring-Autumn only)	Tile
Lowlands	1/3/6/0	None
Hills	1/2/3/0	1 Lumber, 1 Stone
Forest	1/2/3/0	2 Lumber
Swamp	1/1/1/0	1 Lumber
Mountain	1/1/1/0	2 Stone
Lake	2/2/2/1	None

While you are all part of this new clan, you each have your own settlement. Each settlement will start with three population units; 2 Farmers and 1 Laborer. The settlements will start on a Hills tile surrounded by random tiles. All other tiles will need to be Explored before they can be used. Each tile can hold 1 Population. There are 4 types of population total.

Farmers: Each season the Farmers will Harvest Food from their tile. In general you get the most food during Autumn, and no food at all in Winter. 
Laborers: Each season Laborers will Harvest Resources (Wood or Stone) from their Tile. Laborers cannot work during Winter. 
Craftsmen: Each season Craftsmen will produce 1 Goods. Craftsmen are unaffected by the tile they are on. 
Warriors: Warriors are only used to Defend against Raider attacks and gain a +1 to their die roll. Warriors are unaffected by the tile they are on. 

You will need to feed your people every season. Each population requires 1 unit of Food. A population which has not been fed becomes Weakened. A Weakened population performs no work and is in danger of dying off completely if something weakens them again. Note that lack of food alone will not be able to kill your people, as they are restored each season. Even when weakened they manage to do enough subsistence farming and foraging to survive.

Each Spring a batch of migrants will arrive to join you. Each batch will contain a random selection of Population drawn from a pool of 2 Farmers, 2 Laborers, 1 Craftsman and 1 Warrior. The players will select which one they want by turn order.

Population may be placed anywhere on the board as long as the tile is revealed and within 2 tiles of another population for that player.  With Roads (Dirt or Paved) the population can be placed up to 3 tiles away. The route to the next tile cannot go through unexplored space. Example:  Player 1 has a Farmer population on their starting Hills space. New population could be placed on any of the adjacent tiles or any of the tiles adjacent to those tiles.

Actions
Each player starts with 2 Standard Actions and 1 Special Action.

Standard Actions are the primary way that you interact with the game. Each Standard Action can be used to perform one of the regular Actions each season. In general, you can only use each regular Action once per season. You have a number of Standard Actions equal to 1+(Your Population/3 rounded down).

The regular Actions are available to every player, and each player may use each action. Some actions are only available in specific seasons.

  During the Action Phase of a Season the player will take turns performing actions, starting with the First Player. That player will declare their first action (Regular or Special), and all players will then take turns performing 1 action at a time until no more actions can be performed.

  Reorganize – You may move 1 population to a different Tile or change 1 population to a different Type. Any Season.
  Hunt – Gain 2 Food. Any Season.
  Explore – Reveal a new tile adjacent to an already revealed tile. Plese choose which tile to reveal when declaring this action. Any Season.
  Feast – Pay 1 Food, Draw 1 Tales Card. Any Season.
  Build – Build a Building. Spring/Summer/Autumn.
  Idle Hands – 1 Farmer or Laborer may produce 1 Goods this Season. Winter.
  Trade – Trade with the Homeland or another Player. Spring/Summer/Autumn.
  Gifts – Pay 1 Goods, Gain 1 Respect. Winter
  Pray – Requires a Shrine. Choose one of the following: Pay 1 Food or Goods to look at the next season's Event. Pay 2 Goods/Food (any combination) to Restore a Weakened population. Pay 3 Goods or Food to gain 1 Blessing. Any Season.

The Special Actions are only usable once per year, and unlike regular Actions only one player can perform each Special Action in a year. Each season has its own Action:

  Call for Kin – 1 Player only. Declare which type of population you are calling for. Gain that population in Summer during phase 3. Spring.
  Festival of the Sun - 1 Player only. Pay 2 Food and 1 Goods to either Draw 2 Tales cards OR discard your hand and draw 5 new cards. Summer.
  Caravan - 1 Player only. Trade with the Homeland, unlimited trades. Autumn.
  Festival of Lights – 1 Player only. Pay up to 5 Goods to gain that much Respect. Winter.

Note: You must be able to use a Special Action in order to play one.

Buildings
Buildings are a crucial part of the game. They provide shelter against the elements, build Respect amongst the people, and most provide other benefits as well.

Building	Effect	Cost
Shrine	Can use the Pray Action	3 Wood, 2 Stone, 2 Goods
Watchtower	One reroll in combat vs Raiders	2 Wood
Wooden Palisade	You suffer no Wounds on ties with Raiders, but they still plunder. Gain 1 Respect	4 Wood
Dirt Roads	Can place population 3 tiles away instead of 2	None
Long Hall	Gain 1 Respect at the end of each Year. Also saves 1 population from being Weakened during Winter.	2 Stone, 6 Wood, 2 Goods
Fences	Worth 1 Respect. Can be 1 per Farm. Can build 2 per Build Action. Can be Upgraded to Stone Fences.	1 Wood
Paved Roads	Requires Dirt Roads. Can double Trade action.	4 Stone
Stone Fences	Worth 2 Respect. Can be 1 per Farm.	1 Stone
Wooden Houses	Prevents Weakness in Winter for 1 pop. Each action can build 2 pop. worth of Houses. Houses are placed on Tile, 1 per.	1 or 2 Wood
Stone Houses	Prevents Weakness in Winter for 1 population. Gain 1 Respect. Houses are placed on Tile, 1 per.	1 Stone
Signal Tower	Requires Watchtower. You may reroll 1 Raider Die.	2 Stone
Stone Walls	You win on ties with Raiders. Replaces Wooden Palisade if you have one. Worth 2 Respect.	8 Stone
Grand Hall	Gain 2 Respect at the end of each Year. Replaces Long Hall.	6 Stone, 4 Goods
Granary	Reduces food Rot to 25% (0% with Cellars)	3 Wood
Cellars	Reduces food Rot to 25% (0% with Granary)	3 Stone
Healing Hall	Your populations are not weakened after a Victorious combat where they rolled <= the Raiders.	4 Wood, 2 Goods
Stables	Your Warriors engage Raiders before anyone Clansmen get to Roll. If multiple player have Warriors with Stables, they go at the same time.	2 Wood, 2 Goods

Blessings

  A Blessing represents the favor of the gods. Players keep Blessings until they are used. A Blessing may be used to Ignore an Event (with some exceptions), restore a Weakened Population, or Reroll a die in Combat.


Events

  At the start of each Season (excluding the 1st Spring) and Event will be drawn. Events can be good or bad, and in almost all cases they effect all players equally.

  Some Events will persist for the entire Season (Such as a Bad Harvest, which effects the Harvest Phase), while others must be resolved during the Events phase before moving on.

Spoiler: Possible Events (click to show/hide)

Event	Effect
Storms	Cannot explore this Season
Raiders	Raiders Attack. Reset Raid counter
Scarce Game	Hunting only gives 1 Food
Abundant Game	Hunting give 3 Food
Bad Harvest	Farming produces 1 less Food this Season (No effect in Winter)
Good Harvest	Farming produces 1 more Food this Season (No effect in Winter)
Rainbow	Each player gets 1 Blessing
Peaceful	None
Refugees	The player with the lowest population gains 1 Farmers. On tie goes to player with the lowest Respect and turn order. Raise the Raider track by one.
Rat Infestation	Remove 1 food from each player's food stockpile for each population
Serious Illness	All players move 1 population to Weakened. If no unweakened population is available, 1 population is lost.
Explorers	All players may pay 1 food and 1 goods to Explore a tile without using an action
Highwaymen	Cannot Trade this Season
Tales of Conflict	Move the Raider Counter up 1
Tales of Victory	Move the Riader Counter down 1
Peddlers	All players may perform an immediate Trade Action for Free
Wandering Bard	All players draw a card from the Book of Tales

Some events are rarer than others. Not all events will appear in a given game.

Trade

  Using the Trade action players may trade with either the Homeland or with another player.

  With homeland: Can trade 1 Goods for 1 Food or Resource OR trade 2 Food/Resources for 1 Goods. Food/Resources can be traded for Food/Resources at a 1:1 rate.

  With other players the trade is up to the players. Food, Resources, and Goods can all be traded. Population, Blessings, and Tales cards cannot be traded.

Winter

  Winter brings with it two special events; Checking for Shelter and Food Rotting

  Shelter: All people must be in permanent Houses in Winter or they will suffer from exposure. Any populations without houses will be Weakened at the end of Winter.

  Food Rots: Food will rot over the long winter months. Half of each player's food supply will Rot unless they have Cellars or Granaries. With one of those buildings, only 25% of the food will rot. With both, no food will rot.

Book of Tales

  Telling great stories from our Ancestors will bring them honor, and so they shall honor us. Our great deeds, in turn, shall be passed down to our children and grandchildren when we ourselves become the Ancestors.

  Each player will start with 5 cards from the Book of Tales. These Tales cards can be used to mitigate bad situations, gain an advantage over the other players, or perform actions not normally allowed. These will be PM'd to each player at the start of the game. More cards can be gained using Actions.

  Cards are generally played during the Action phase of a Season. Players may use any number of cards during their turn as they wish.

Spoiler: List of Cards (click to show/hide)

Card	Effect
Valor	One of your dice is automatically a 6 in combat.
Silver	Requires a Harvester on a Mountain space. Each season you may have a craftsman produce +1 Goods, but you only Harvest 1 Stone. Stays in play.
Fine Clay	Requires a Harvester on a Hill space. Each season you may have a craftsman produce +1 Goods, but you only Harvest 1 Wood or Stone (not both). Stays in play.
Mussles	Requires a Farmer on a Lake space. That Farmer produces +1 Food. Stays in Play.
Apple grove	Requires a Farmer on a Forest space. That Farmer produces +1 Food in Summer and +2 Food in Autumn. Stays in Play.
Rich soil	Requires a Farmer on a Lowlands space. That Farmer produces +1 Food in Spring/Summer/Autumn. Stays in Play.
Shrewd Trading	Play with Trade. May trade Goods at 1 for 2 Food/Resources rate or Food/Resources for 1 Goods rate
Stalwart	You may Explore despite Storms
Skilled Hunting	Ignore Scarce Game
Bog Iron	Requires a Harvester on a Swamp space. One of your Craftsmen produces +1 Goods each Season. Stays in Play.
Brilliant Organization	Play with Reorganize. Double Reorganize's effect
Lavish Gifts	Play with Gifts. You may give 2 Goods for Two Respect
Memorable Feast	Play with Feast Action. Gain 1 Respect
Sheep Herds	Requires a Farmer on a Hill space. That Farmer produces +1 Goods in Summer. Stays in Play.
Cattle Herds	Requires a Farmer on a Lowlands space. That Farmer produces +1 Goods in Autumn. Stays in Play.
Pig Herds	Requires a Farmer on a Woods space. That Farmer produces +1 Food in Spring/Summer/Autumn. Stays in Play.
Healing Herbs	Restore 1 population to an unweakened state
Group Effort	You may play 2 Build Actions this Season
Bold Move	May play special action that another player has taken
Aid from Homeland - Resources	Gain 2 Resources of your choice
Aid from Homeland - Food	Gain 2 Food
Preemptive Strike	Reduce the Raiders track by 1
Decisive Action	Play 2 Actions this turn
Hunting Party	You may play 2 Hunt Actions this Season
Wagon Train	You may play 2 Trade Actions this Season
Spices	Requires a Farmer on a Swamp space. That Farmer produces +1 Goods in Summer and Autumn. Stays in Play.
Cats	Ignore Rat Infestation

Note: Some cards are more common than others.

Raids

    Raids happen whenever the Raiders hit the top of the Raid track or whenever a Raid Event is drawn. During a Raid the players must choose how many clansmen and Warriors they will commit to the defense of the clan. Successfully defending from a Raid will gain the Respect of the Clan, but defeat means the injury and death of many warriors and leads to a weakened population. Each player may use as many Clansmen as they have population (excluding Warriors) and as many Warriors as they have in Warrior Population.

  However, the choice of defense is kept secret until the attack. Each player will PM me with the number of Clansmen/Warriors being used as well as which ones (For example, if you have 1 Farmer on Lowlands and 1 on a Forest, you could specifiy that it is the Woods farmer being used to defend). Once everyone has sent in their choices I will reveal the results and start setting up the combat.


    Combat is handled by rolling dice (done by me via Random.org).  Raiders get dice based on where they are on the Raid track. Players get 1 die for each Clansman or Warrior they have defending. The player’s dice are divided evenly amongst the Raider Dice, with Warriors split first then Clansmen. If there are remainders, the players may place them as they wish.  By default, Raiders win on ties, although Buildings help tip things in the players favor.

    Success: For each Raider defeated, the players with Defenders against that die gain 1 Respect.

    Defeat: For each die that fails against a Raider, that die’s corresponding population is weakened. In addition, that Raider gets to Plunder. If the population in question was already weakened, it is removed from the game.

    Plunder: The Raiders make off with 1 Food or Goods from the players.

To determine who loses the items, we use this precedence chart. Each Raider that Plunders starts at the top.

1) Any player with Goods stockpiled that did not contribute Clansmen/Warriors to the defense. (This is only counted once per player, so if multiple Raiders get to Plunder a player who didn't defend doesn't get penalized more than once.)

2) Any player with Food stockpiled that did not contribute Clansmen/Warriors to the defense. Same rules as #1

3) The player with the Most Goods, if that is >= the greatest amount of Food

4) The player with the Most Food

5) The player with the Start token. From here, it's just clockwise in turn order. This basically just breaks ties.

Note that Raiders can attempt to plunder a Player with no Food or Goods stockpiled. In which case, they get nothing but the Raider track goes up by 1.

Win Conditions

   There needs to be an average of 25 Respect per player for the Clan to succeed. (So 100 for 4 players). After that, the player with the most Respect becomes Chief. In the case of a tie, the player with the highest population wins, then the one with the most Goods & Food combined. A tie after that is resolved by Turn Order.

 Respect Bonuses/Penalties - Before End-game Check:

 These are calculated before the general win check is performed.

   Each Warrior is worth 1 Respect
   Each Weakened Population is worth -1 Respect

 Respect Bonuses/Penalties - After End-game Check:

 These are calculated after the general win check is performed. On a tie, each player gains 1 Respect.

   The player with the most Warriors gains 3 Respect
   The player with the most Population gains 3 Respect
   The player with the most Goods gains 3 Respect
   The player with the most Food gains 3 Respect
   The player with the most Buildings gains 3 Respect

[Mephansteras]

Current Turn Order:

• Toaster
• micelus
• Scelly9
• Dariush

Player Stats:
Dariush  Respect: 6  Food: 6  Goods: 3  Wood: 6  Stone: 5
    Farmers: 2   Laborers: 2   Craftsmen: 1  Warriors: 0

    Actions - 2 Unused
    Special Action - Unused

Toaster  Respect: 4  Food: 13  Goods: 2  Wood: 6  Stone: 9
    Farmers: 3   Laborers: 2  Craftsmen: 0  Warriors: 0
    1 Blessing
    Actions - 1 Unused, 1 Idle Hands
    Special Action - Call for Kin - Farmer

    Rich Soil on Lowlands
    Silver on Mountains
    Dirt Roads

micelus  Respect: 4  Food: 11  Goods: 2  Wood: 2  Stone: 1
    Farmers: 2    Laborers: 1     Craftsmen: 0  Warriors: 1
    1 Blessing
    Actions - 1 Unused, 1 Gifts
    Special Action - Caravan

Scelly9  Respect: 4  Food: 17  Goods: 1  Wood: 5  Stone: 3
    Farmers: 2    Laborers: 1   Craftsmen: 0  Warriors: 0
    1 Blessing
    Actions - 1 Unused, 1 Feast
    Special Action - Unused


Season
Winter

Event: Abundant Game

Special Action:  Festival of Lights

Raider Track
1-2-3-4-5

Spoiler: Current Map (click to show/hide)

[Scelly9]

Sounds fun! I'd be interested.

[Johnfalcon99977]

Yeah sure, I'll join.

[micelus]

I'm interested...not sure about playing.

[Mephansteras]

Updated the OP a bit.

micelus, did you have any questions about it that would help you decide?

[micelus]

• What actions can we take?
• Is there a map?

[Mephansteras]

• What actions can we take?
• Is there a map?

The basic actions are:
Explore
Hunt
Build
Trade
Feast
Reorganize

There are also Season specific actions.

There is a map, which is made up of hex tiles. Some of them will start off revealed, but you'll need to Explore to reveal the other tiles.

[Toaster]

I am interested.

[micelus]

I guess I'll join then.

[Mephansteras]

Cool! That's 4. I'll start working on the write-up of the rules. I don't think I'll need to tweak much to make it a Forum game, so that shouldn't be too hard.

[Mephansteras]

Started getting the Rules up. It's not done yet, as I have to figure some stuff out, but take a look and feel free to ask any questions that you have.

[Toaster]

What if multiple players want to do the same special action in one year?

[Mephansteras]

What if multiple players want to do the same special action in one year?

They can't (generally). Each Special Action can only be used once per year, and each Player gets 1 Special Action per year. So people will have to decide very carefully which Special action they want to do. Turn order changes every year, so that should help balance things out over the game.