I present to you the glorious Game of War.
IntroductionWhat's
Game of War?
Game of War is an attempt to create a game that could simulate a conflict between two tribes, countries or even civilizations.
Was this attempt successful?
The game passed its first phase, it found interest, but will it pass the
"it's playable and fun to play" stage it is yet to be known.
RulesTurns:The game is played on a map of a real world region but the whole world and setting can be made up so in the area of our-world France (this worlds France might actually be somewhere else than ours) you could have communist fighting the democratic North Korea (just an example). Each team of players consists of 2 players and a leader. The leader communicates with the GM. The game is played in rounds, each round having two phases the first phase is called the planning phase, it takes around three real-world days and no in-game time. In this phase each team secretly discusses what moves they are making, what are their units doing etc. Are they waiting, moving, attacking? Than you send a pm to me saying what your team is doing, after I get the PM from both teams we proceed to the second phase, the resolving phase.
The resolving phase is pretty self explainable, it will take an in-game month and as much time as the GM needs to resolve it (usually no more than a day). The will do all your actions as long as they are doable in an in-game month. If the two teams meet (even if it was intentional) I will stop the resolving phase right there, tell you the in-game date and let you resolve the conflict. For resolving battles look below. After the battle is fought we continue resolving the phase till the end of the month. If there were any hidden actions made (like secretly moving units to a location) I will post the map with only the revealed units, and send the hidden action result to the team leader. Players are supposed to keep a map of their hidden units themselves but if you lost track you can ask me to PM the map with your units.
Player Roles:The players take on the role of commanders. One of them is the leader, he will be either chosen by each team or randomly. The players discuss secretly their turn actions, but the leader is the person communicating with the GM (sending the PM with their turn description and receiving secret action results). The leader is supposed to tell the team the secret action effect. The leader is not allowed to share with others PMs from the GM and he must use his own words to describe the results.
Other roles:
Cartographer - the cartographer, chosen by the team or randomly, is the only player who the leader may share the GM PMs with. He/She is supposed to create the map for the team.
Actions:
During the planning phase almost any actions may be planned, but not all of them will succeed.
Some of the more common actions:
Moving units - it's just what it says, moving units (depending for the unit type, for walking units it's around 200km/week). In the PM the leader should add an image with an arrow leading from units right now and where they are supposed to go. The GM will determine how much time it takes and if they even make it. In rough terrain units will move at half speed.
Attacking - for attacking see bellow.
Building - for building see bellow
Buying units - see bellow
Conquering cities - if cities don't have an enemy unit in them and citizens don't wont to fight (determined by the GM) the city is conquered and belongs to the new player.
Units:Usually there are three types of units: attackers, defenders, and scouts.
Attackers are units that get +1 bonus when attacking. An example of an attacker might be a knight or a tank.
Defenders are units that get +1 bonus when defending. An example of a defender might be anti-aircraft warfare.
Scouts are units that don't move at half speed when going thru rough terrain and they also get a +1 bonus when trying to move stealthy (see below). Some kind of special task force might represent scouts.
Sometimes different units will get different bonuses.
Conflicts:Conflicts happen when units of two teams meet. The teams discuss if they let the conflict go or fight. Fighting will mean that a D6 is rolled for both teams and the higher numbers destroys the lower number, pretty easy however there are bonuses given for some things like having the high ground, being hidden in a forest etc.
Buildings:There are two kinds of buildings possible to be build by the players. First is a camp, a camp allows the units to rest in a place for a longer time and is build by units that can build (obviously). The second is a working camp it produces money and is upgraded from a camp. Both of those buildings require around a week to be build. To build a construction the leader should PM the GM with the map and an camp in the place you want to build it
Cities:There are three kinds of cities ranging from small to big. In the smallest city only weak troops can be produced consisting from local people, in medium cities a bit stronger units can be produced and in the big cities strongest troops can be produced.
Money:Money is not used that much in this game and how much units you can buy is just judged by common sense. If its hard to judge you can use this rule:
every unit uses half a coin a month
building a unit costs around a coin
Your country provides you 5 coins
Small cities provide 1 coin
Working camps provide 1 coin
Medium cities and big cities each provide 2 or 3 coins.
Secret Moves:Almost any move can become a secret move. To perform a secret move you have to pass a D6 roll against a number determined by the GM. However secret moves can be discovered and there are two ways of doing that. First way is to obviously have units in the area so that they can see it and report it to you, scouts have extra sight range. The second are spies. Spies are a special kind of unit that can't be destroyed or killed, the enemy also doesn't know where he exactly is. Spies start in the capital and can be moved for (at least) 1 coin to any other city (even enemy city). They also can be ordered to do actions which costs 2 coins. Most important actions are:
Finding out about any secret actions in an area (area range determined by the GM) - just what it says, looks if there is anything hidden if there is it's revealed on the "revealed for all map", but the spy does not reveal where he exactly is;
The second action is to examine a new weapon, machine, unit type - The spy needs to be moved to the area where this unit is then he can report back about any new thing that hes been used in war and then the thing can be researched for 2 coins and then bought, but in the beginning can only be bought in big cities.
If a team thinks it knows where the enemy spy is it may pay a coin to move him back to its countries Capital.
The easiest way to understand the rules is to either play or watch a game.
So these are the rules. I'm sure there will be still some rule-changing. Suggestions and criticism welcome. On this thread we can also discuss the upcoming game.
Current game in-game thread.