Can I get a playtest? Strategy card game.

[valadil]

Hey folks! I've been on paternity leave for the last three weeks and in my reclusivity came up with a board/card game. I think I've done all the playtesting I can on my own though, and I'd like to see comments from other people.

Technically this is a card game, but it plays like a strategy board game. The reason for that is that the board is a grid of playing cards. One of my goals for this was to use generic, commodity game pieces. Deck of cards, some tokens, 2 players, and a pile of d6s are all you need. My playtests have been in the 15 minutes range, but I don't trust myself to measure accurately.

https://github.com/sagotsky/tactics-joker/raw/master/tactics_joker.pdf

There's three pages of rules, but they're more verbose than needed and the type is large. I also have a couple pages of optional rules (mostly races) and some design notes. I would greatly appreciate it if you could let me know if the rules are consistent and sensible.

I'd also like to hear about the game itself of course. I don't think I'll ever publish this, but I hope someone is able to have some fun with it.

Thanks.

[tigerusthegreat]

Thoughts:

Page 1 regarding the terrain cards: Shouldn't spades represent hills and clubs represent forest? Just my personal opinion, as spades look more like hills to me and clubs look more like trees. Check your wording on the bottom of page 1; you have spades representing forests and clubs representing hills, but in section 4 you have it reversed.

The whole section regarding terrain setup and armies is very confusing, you should rework it (bottom page 1)

Page 2: What counts as adjacent to a battle. If I have units adjacent to the square my army attacks from does it count as supporting? Or just the square the battle "takes place" in (where the defending army is?)

You don't define what the terrain bonus is. I'm assuming it's the number on the card, if that's the case how are face cards treated? (you mention later that it is 10, but this info needs to be on a chart for ease of finding) You should also reword where you say "face cards to not have a suit" because they do; but are being treated as if they do not have a suit.

Page 3: part 6: change wording to "Then player two may pick two castles.."



I didn't playtest it, but here are my inferences from the rules (in addition to the above rules):

1. You need to consolidate the rules because they are really all over the place. Nowhere did I find what I needed to roll to enter a forest/mountain, and it was hard to find a lot of other useful information.

2. You use the words unit and army interchangeably, but it seems a unit is one token, whereas an army is a group of tokens. Double check all uses.

3. Every terrain square has around a 1/3 chance of being difficult terrain (mountain or forest). They also have between a 1/4 and 1/3 chance of giving a +10 terrain bonus. Make sure these are within the parameters you want.

4. Do you have to make a successful roll to attack a mountain/forest as if you were enterring it? Probably yes, but it is never addressed.

[valadil]

Thank you!


Thoughts:

Check your wording on the bottom of page 1; you have spades representing forests and clubs representing hills, but in section 4 you have it reversed.

Page 2: What counts as adjacent to a battle.

You don't define what the terrain bonus is.

Page 3: part 6: change wording to "Then player two may pick two castles.."

4. Do you have to make a successful roll to attack a mountain/forest as if you were enterring it? Probably yes, but it is never addressed.

Done!




3. Every terrain square has around a 1/3 chance of being difficult terrain (mountain or forest). They also have between a 1/4 and 1/3 chance of giving a +10 terrain bonus. Make sure these are within the parameters you want.


I'm still working on that. I have a sneaking suspicion that the spent face cards have too high of a bonus. It hasn't been a problem in my own play tests, but I'm still considering changing it.



2. You use the words unit and army interchangeably, but it seems a unit is one token, whereas an army is a group of tokens. Double check all uses.


I just read through them again and didn't find any cases like that. The support section is a little confusing. The intent is that each neighboring unit adds a +1. If you have 5 dudes next to a battle, they add +5. Not +1 for being part of a single army right there.

I'm debating ditching unit and army though. It's more terminology than is necessary. I'm leaning towards using token and group instead.




The whole section regarding terrain setup and armies is very confusing, you should rework it (bottom page 1)

1. You need to consolidate the rules because they are really all over the place. Nowhere did I find what I needed to roll to enter a forest/mountain, and it was hard to find a lot of other useful information.


Well. I agree wholeheartedly. It might just be that I'm sleep deprived, but I'm finding it very hard to organize the whole thing, which is kinda sad because there aren't that many rules.

Basically I feel like you need to know how terrain, movement, and combat work all at the same time. That's making it really hard for me to decide which comes first. The result is what you see - a little bit of everything sprinkled everywhere. I'll gladly take suggestions on a logical order.

[Centric]

Looks simple and fun, and therefore cool. I have a couple questions.

1. Can supporting units die as a result of combat? If so, can they be chosen for death immediately, or must the army in actual combat be destroyed first?
2. When you say reinforcements, you mean units not in play, correct?
3. The act of moving units is what is limited to three, and an individual unit can only attempt to move twice?

Sorry if these have already been adressed. I'm rewording some of the rules for clarity and succinctness, if that's okay.


EDIT: In Fog of War, can you look at terrain you do not occupy without revealing it to your opponent?

EDITEDIT: Are supporting units subject to high rolling for difficult terrain?

[valadil]

1. Can supporting units die as a result of combat? If so, can they be chosen for death immediately, or must the army in actual combat be destroyed first?

No.

2. When you say reinforcements, you mean units not in play, correct?
Yes.

3. The act of moving units is what is limited to three, and an individual unit can only attempt to move twice?

Yes.

Sorry if these have already been adressed. I'm rewording some of the rules for clarity and succinctness, if that's okay.

Not just okay, encouraged.

EDIT: In Fog of War, can you look at terrain you do not occupy without revealing it to your opponent?

My intention was that you would always look at the adjacent cards yourself rather than letting your opponent see them. Cards were only revealed when you moved into them.

However I found all the card flipping too tedious to be fun. I haven't done a full game with this rule, so I don't really know what works with it.

EDITEDIT: Are supporting units subject to high rolling for difficult terrain?
As of now, no. I might change that though because overcoming rough terrain has been the best use of supporting units so far.

[flabort]

OK, so each player gets 15 units. They don't start with all of them, but they can get that many (+ some more with races optional rule, kobolds).

But how many do they start with? 3 on each castle? 6 on each castle? 1 on each castle? none? :smallconfused:

I'm going to see if I can convince my brother to play a game or two of this. But I need to know how to set up properly to play. Thanks :smallsmile:

[valadil]

Flabort, five per castle. I'm sorry that wasnt explicit.

[Yitzi]

For the "races" variant, the humans seem to have a huge advantage; an extra 33% to movement is a major advantage.

Also, assuming nobody abandons castles, the game will end as soon as a castle is captured.

You might want to give castles immunity (or at least resistance) to the "attacking from mountains negates defender's terrain bonus" rule, as otherwise castles next to a mountain are worth far less than ones that aren't.

[flabort]

It ends when you have three castles, when you start your turn.

This gives the enemy a chance to retaliate before the game ends, and perhaps prevent a loss.

[valadil]

For the "races" variant, the humans seem to have a huge advantage; an extra 33% to movement is a major advantage.


Not quite. The extra movement only applies to a one unit army. You can't do as much with that. I figure it'll be useful for grabbing face cards early or stealing a mountain top.



Also, assuming nobody abandons castles, the game will end as soon as a castle is captured.

You might want to give castles immunity (or at least resistance) to the "attacking from mountains negates defender's terrain bonus" rule, as otherwise castles next to a mountain are worth far less than ones that aren't.

The way it's been working out in my own playtesting is that a castle next to a mountain defends itself by putting an army of its own in the mountain. So far I'm okay with this. That is a bit of an investment though. Maybe I should play with adding more reinforcements to each side so it's easier to spare defensive units?

What's actually more dangerous is a forest next to the castle. If an attacker gets into the forest, it's damn hard for the defense to root him out.


It ends when you have three castles, when you start your turn.

This gives the enemy a chance to retaliate before the game ends, and perhaps prevent a loss.

Precisely.

As I mentioned in the notes I've had some trouble with a win condition. Capture all the castles was too hard and I didn't even want to finish. Kill all the enemies ended up in a cat and mouse chase. Both options had foregone conclusions, but the game dragged. Start your turn with three castles was quick enough that the game was over when it was supposed to be over, but not so sudden that a sneak attack caused an abrupt ending.

That said, I've only played the game with myself. If the parameters don't work for you, please change them and let me know how they work out. I was actually thinking of making explicit the parameters that need work. 15 reinforcements, 6 men per army, 2 starting groups of 5 guys - all those are random numbers I pulled out of thin air. I'm surprised they work as well as they do, but if you find better I'm happy to make changes.

[flabort]

Ah, had a game with my brother. Both of us grasped the rules fairly quickly, although there were times when we forgot to roll for reinforcements at the castles :smallredface:

Also, I just realized:
Were we supposed to be able to move any number of units (max 6) at a time, moving three armies? I didn't think so.

So, we accidentally played a modified version :smallredface: I think? :smallconfused:

Anyways, he crushed me. after a few turns in which I though I had an advantage, he got two units at the castles, while I still hadn't any, and he advanced across the board like it wasn't there. He attacked my mountain beside my first castle, won, and then attacked my castle, took it. At the start of his next turn, he said "Lets just play until we have all four", made one move, and took my other castle.

:smallbiggrin: We had fun. We would have played a second round, but we argued about whether recording the game would take too long. And it was such a sweet set-up, too. I would have wound up with all my reinforcements out on the field in two rounds :smallfrown: Although he still had a major advantage, because I had to move through difficult terrain to get to any face cards at all.

:smallbiggrin: Still, this is a blend of luck and strategy requiring much more thought than poker, but it's so much simpler. I like it. (And If he would let me record a game to show how it went....)

[valadil]

Ah, had a game with my brother. Both of us grasped the rules fairly quickly, although there were times when we forgot to roll for reinforcements at the castles :smallredface:


Yeah, I'm not in love with the reinforcement rule as it's currently written. I keep forgetting too. It seems like one extra step that just isn't really necessary.

The alternative (and original method) was to spend a move action to get to roll for reinforcements. The result of that was that players were rolling every single turn and the game took forever because of the steady stream of new recruits. I think I'd like to go back to doing it this way, but maybe changing the numbers to give fewer recruits.



Also, I just realized:
Were we supposed to be able to move any number of units (max 6) at a time, moving three armies? I didn't think so.


A move action can move a whole army. That's the point of putting them together. I think when the rules are a bit more finalized I'll provide some examples and diagrams of what can be done, since my text on it's own is vague.

Thanks for all the feedback, I'm glad you've enjoyed it!

One additional side note, yes I'm okay with the games being quick. Luck is a really big factor in this game. I wouldn't want to play an hour long game if I ended up with poor terrain from the start. But if I spend that hour playing four fifteen minute games, having one or two bad runs isn't such a big deal.

[erikun]

What counts as adjacent? For most games it is horizontal-vertical only, but some may consider diagonal adjacent as well.

As I read it, each player begins with 15 units on their one castle, and is forced to make two moves. Given that the castle starts in the corner and no more than 6 units can occupy a location, they will be forced to move to the three surrounding areas. Wouldn't it be better to simply start the units 5-5-5 in the castle and two adjacent areas? It also prevents problems where a player encounters a mountain and thus can't move into it, trapping all 15 units on the same location for the end of the turn.

If someone is attacking from a mountain (Spade) to a forest (Club), are both the attack terrain bonus and defense terrain bonus negated?

Do castles count as terrain? If so, then you should limit the players to only hearts/diamond Kings for the beginning. Otherwise, you'll have players fighting over who gets the King of Clubs.

Note that it is entirely possible to play a game with less than 4 castles. You are using 49 cards out of a deck of 54, meaning you set 5 aside. If you set aside the two jokers and one king (or two kings and one joker) then you will be playing with only three castles. You might want to force a reshuffle if any Kings appear among the leftover cards, or implement some optional secondary win conditions (below).

What happens if one player controls all the visible castles? The second player still has units and may still take turns, but no longer has any home base.

What happens if one player is completely wiped out of units? They have no way to gain additional units.

[flabort]

I have a suggestion:
Move some stuff from the last chapter, "how to play", to the first, "set up."

And make it something more like this:
Set-Up
Joker Strategy is a game for two players that can be played without any special materials they can't get elsewhere.

Players will need:

An ordinary deck of Cards
A few six sided dice (get them from your monopoly game if you can't find any others)
15 playing peices each (These can be coins, bottle caps, poker chips, monopoly houses, whatever, as long as players can tell the difference)

To set up, set aside the kings from the deck. Shuffle the rest, jokers included, and deal them out in a 7x7 grid, face up. Remove the corner cards, and put a king at each corner. Each king represents a castle (See the section on Terrain, below). One player gets to pick one castle, and puts five of his tokens on it (A token represents a unit, see the section on Units and Armies, below). The other player then selects two of the remaining castles, and puts five tokens on each. The remaining castle becomes the first players, and he puts five tokens on that castle, too. He then takes the first turn (See the section on the Anatomy of a Turn, below).

Then the section describing what a player does during his turn (Roll for new units, then three moves, then other guy's turn starts, really simple), and include combat rules here; then a section describing what a Unit, and what an Army is, and what you may do with an army during a move; Thirdly, a section on how Terrain works, and it's bearing on combat; fourthly, extra/optional rules.

I think that order would be easier to understand.

[valadil]

What counts as adjacent? For most games it is horizontal-vertical only, but some may consider diagonal adjacent as well.


Diagonal.



As I read it, each player begins with 15 units on their one castle, and is forced to make two moves. Given that the castle starts in the corner and no more than 6 units can occupy a location, they will be forced to move to the three surrounding areas. Wouldn't it be better to simply start the units 5-5-5 in the castle and two adjacent areas? It also prevents problems where a player encounters a mountain and thus can't move into it, trapping all 15 units on the same location for the end of the turn.



Not quite. It's 15 units total per player. Not all units are on the board at once. Maybe reserves would be a better term than reinforcements? At any rate it needs to be explicit that several units will be left out at game start.

Starting setup is 5 units per castle with each player controlling two castles.



If someone is attacking from a mountain (Spade) to a forest (Club), are both the attack terrain bonus and defense terrain bonus negated?


Correct, but I should have made that explicit.




Do castles count as terrain? If so, then you should limit the players to only hearts/diamond Kings for the beginning. Otherwise, you'll have players fighting over who gets the King of Clubs.


No. I think I said face cards don't count, but only mentioned jacks and queens when I said that. Needs to be more explicit.




Note that it is entirely possible to play a game with less than 4 castles. You are using 49 cards out of a deck of 54, meaning you set 5 aside. If you set aside the two jokers and one king (or two kings and one joker) then you will be playing with only three castles. You might want to force a reshuffle if any Kings appear among the leftover cards, or implement some optional secondary win conditions (below).


That's only true if the cards are totally random, which was meant to be one of the optional rules. Kings should be in each corner of the board. Should probably make sure this is clear in setup.




What happens if one player controls all the visible castles? The second player still has units and may still take turns, but no longer has any home base.


Player one takes a turn and gains all the castles. Player two gets a turn. Player two will have to displace player one in two of the castles, or else player one wins when his turn starts (current win condition being control 3 castles at start of turn).




What happens if one player is completely wiped out of units? They have no way to gain additional units.

There is a reinforcements phase at the beginning of each turn. The player with units will have to try to claim the castles before the lonely player rolls a 6 on one of his castles.



I have a suggestion:
Move some stuff from the last chapter, "how to play", to the first, "set up."

And make it something more like this:
Set-Up
Joker Strategy is a game for two players that can be played without any special materials they can't get elsewhere.

Players will need:

An ordinary deck of Cards
A few six sided dice (get them from your monopoly game if you can't find any others)
15 playing peices each (These can be coins, bottle caps, poker chips, monopoly houses, whatever, as long as players can tell the difference)

To set up, set aside the kings from the deck. Shuffle the rest, jokers included, and deal them out in a 7x7 grid, face up. Remove the corner cards, and put a king at each corner. Each king represents a castle (See the section on Terrain, below). One player gets to pick one castle, and puts five of his tokens on it (A token represents a unit, see the section on Units and Armies, below). The other player then selects two of the remaining castles, and puts five tokens on each. The remaining castle becomes the first players, and he puts five tokens on that castle, too. He then takes the first turn (See the section on the Anatomy of a Turn, below).

Then the section describing what a player does during his turn (Roll for new units, then three moves, then other guy's turn starts, really simple), and include combat rules here; then a section describing what a Unit, and what an Army is, and what you may do with an army during a move; Thirdly, a section on how Terrain works, and it's bearing on combat; fourthly, extra/optional rules.

I think that order would be easier to understand.

Duly noted. I think that makes the most sense. I'll probably a do a rewrite/clarification in the next day or two. It doesn't sound like we're ready for rules changes yet, partially because the current rules are so vague that I can't be sure we're all playing the same game.

[erikun]

Not quite. It's 15 units total per player. Not all units are on the board at once. Maybe reserves would be a better term than reinforcements? At any rate it needs to be explicit that several units will be left out at game start.
I think the problem was that it wasn't mentioned how many units you started with, and the only thing to indicate how many was the "15 units for each side" for the required materials.


That's only true if the cards are totally random, which was meant to be one of the optional rules. Kings should be in each corner of the board. Should probably make sure this is clear in setup.
I didn't realize that all four kings were supposed to be in all four corners; it sounded like the only requirements for setup were the two castles in opposite corners.


There is a reinforcements phase at the beginning of each turn. The player with units will have to try to claim the castles before the lonely player rolls a 6 on one of his castles.
I read that as requiring one unit on a castle in order to get reinforcements. It still doesn't solve the issue of, say, one player losing all units and the other controlling both visible castles.

[valadil]

Stuff

The problem is that I have a newborn and wrote this game to pass the time while he wasn't letting me sleep. Coffee be damned, I'm not a good writer when I've slept 6 hours total in the last week. The rules are vague and the organization is poor (although in my defense the organization is poor because the document grew one rule at a time as I playtested on my own). That your interpretation varied from my intent means I need to edit the rules better.