Deck Learning Rails - revisited

About 3 years ago I started working on a game that used the deck learning ideas from Eminent Domain, but in a different game. I based that design on one of my favorite games, Railroad Tycoon (AKA Railways of the World).

I built a prototype and took it to BGGcon with me back in 2014, and I got a chance to try it out there. To be honest, I didn't like how it felt. However, I do think the structure is fine -- using deck learning to drive a game about building and operating rail networks, and possibly replacing player interaction via role selection with interaction on the board. It might be the case that role selection is the best fit for deck learning, because it has the inherent possibility of wanting cards in your deck to take advantage of the things your opponent is doing, but I'd like to think the engine could work alright without role selection, so long as the interaction is there somewhere. I keep waffling back and forth on this.

Recently I've been revisiting this game idea, because I feel like it should work. I took a step back (easy to do after 3 years), and looked at the parts I didn't care for the last time around, and brought some fresh ideas into the mix. Here's what I would like to try:

Brand new Research (R&D) scheme

In Eminent Domain, one of the complaints some players have is that there are so many technology cards, it's hard to get into the game. For other players (like myself) this is more of a feature than a bug, but the point is well taken, especially in today's "cult-of-the-new," 1,000+ new games a year climate.

An idea I had which may address that concern is to remove the tech cards from the game altogether, and replace them. I'll see if I can describe this well:

Imagine a rondel, or ring of spaces with various techs printed on them. Each player would have a pawn on that ring. When you do a Research action, you'd move your pawn 1 space clockwise on the tech ring, changing what special ability you have access to. Maybe some of them have an immediate effect as well, but mostly they'd be like permanent techs from EmDo (in play), but temporary because they'd only apply while your pawn was on them.

When you do a research ROLE (boosted), you'd move your pawn farther around the tech ring (1 space per icon played). When you get to the starting space again, you'd get to add a 2nd pawn to the ring, so you could start having 2 abilities at once.

So if you don't concentrate on Research, you could slowly advance your pawn to the tech you want using research actions, or following research roles. And if you DO concentrate on it, then you can lap the tech ring once or twice, and end up with multiple abilities

New City/Board format

I also thought about modifying the city/board system like this:
This version of the game is train themed, so instead of planets like in EmDo, we have cities on cards. I could see a few different ways to do this:

1. Personal tableau, which is a horizontal line of city cards. When you get a new one, you have to add it to one end or the other. Like RftG windfall worlds, cities come populated with a cube (the card probably tells you what color the city produces, and what color the city demands). Delivery actions allow you to move cubes from one city to the next, eventually getting to the right color city that demands that cube (and scoring it). delivery ROLES of course let you move multiple steps at once.
2. Personal tableau, which is an implied grid of city cards. The supply that you draft cards from has cards at N/S/E/W, and if you take the N one, it has to go N of one of your existing cards. Otherwise similar to above.
3. Shared tableau, each player has a train piece on a shared grid of city cards. You get rewarded for adding cities to the tableau, and you can deliver cubes to other cities in the tableau by moving your train piece (delivery action). Of course a delivery ROLE (boosted) would let you move farther. you can take cubes with you as you move, and if you deliver them to a city that wants them, then you score. I guess this could also work without train pieces on the board, just moving cubes from wherever to wherever -- I thought a train piece might add a geographical component (you could tell if a cube was "safe" if nobody else's train was near it).

I like the idea of the N/S/E/W city card supply, but removing Survey, Warfare, and Colonize reduces the roles in the game from 6 in EmDo (S/W/C/P/T/R) to just 3 (Produce, Deliver, R&D).

What else could be done in this format?

What about stocks..?

Stocks are a natural fit for train games, and to be honest, I don't like that aspect most of the time. I'm not a fan of the 18XX style games, which are primarily stock manipulation games, where the board play (building rail lines and making deliveries) is merely the manner in which you manipulate stock values. However, Railroad Tycoon represents stocks in a way I don't mind at all -- you simply take them when you need money, and they serve as a penalty (round by round reducing your income, and at the end of the game reducing your score). So maybe there's some way I can include it in a way I don't mind so much. Get ready for some ideas, stream of consciousness style:

INVEST

Action: Buy or sell 1 share at the current price

ROLE: Buy 1 share of stock for current price, less $1 for each Invest icon played

Stocks could go up in value as they're taken, and be worth points at the end of the game (more points if more are out? Or maybe points based on some other measure of how that color is doing - like how many of that color city is in play at game end)

Stocks could come in maybe 5 colors, and relate to the colors of the city cards. Adding a city card to the board could increase the value of the stock. Making a delivery to a particular city could increase the value of the stock (maybe by simply rewarding you with shares).

Idea: When making a delivery, you get $X (where X is the 'length' of the delivery -- number of icons spent), and with that money, you're allowed to buy stock in that company (1 at a time) if you want (you probably want). So making a big delivery gets you more stock/money.

Idea: When a City is built, you get to choose 1 of 2 different colors of good to put on it (and maybe when you produce as well). Or maybe you choose any color (not the same as the color of the city itself)?

So building a city should help stock value, and creates demand for a certain color good, and creates supply for another type of good. Delivering goods should increase stock value.

Investing in stocks could be useful for game end scoring, and could maybe be useful as a way to get money (get stock from doing a delivery, then sell it to get money to buy a new station (city card) or technology).

Delivering should probably be worth some straight points in addition, so that it's not idiotic to sell your stock (which could be VP at game end). Maybe the stock should start at NEGATIVE vp, so if you're stuck with shares of a color that didn't get used much, then at game end you LOSE points -- so selling that stock would be welcome, or else boosting that color would be welcome.

It would be nice and clean to have a small, limited number of shares of each color, but I worry that they'd run out and there would be weirdness. But like what if they cost 1/3/5/6/7 or something? Maybe when they're out, you can't buy one? And if they're out and you are supposed to get one as a reward, it triggers an event ("dividend"?) where everyone gets 1vp token per share of that color, then puts one share back?

Like maybe you get a share when you add a city to the board, which means you may get VP for it, or sell it for $, and you add a cube to the board that someone can deliver.

Maybe cities should only be able to take 1 delivery (leave the cube there), so that you can't deliver over and over to make the stock skyrocket.

To sum up:

City cards in multiple (5? 8?) colors, coordinating with "rail line" colors.

Stock exists in each color. The more shares of a color are out (owned by players), the higher the value of that color stock (both money-wise in-game, and vp-wise at game end).

2 ways to get City cards into play:

BUILD: add track tokens until there are "enough" (maybe like 4 all the time?)

BUY: pay a $ cost depending on how many shares of that color are out (maybe 2-6) -- early game buying is cheaper, but by late game, building would be cheaper, so starting out building means late game you can maybe be adding enough track to build multiple city cards with 1 big role.

Maybe city cards have a standard build cost, and then have a "kicker" cost for an immediate bonus effect. So you could build a city without too much trouble, but if you concentrate on it and get big Build roles, then you can get either multiple cities worth of builds from a single role, or you can get a city and an immediate benefit. Buying the city wouldn't give that bonus.

Strategic Paths

Here's a summary of the strategic paths I could see being available in this game:

1. Build a lot: like connecting major lines in RRT, score for some specific configurations of city cards in play -- maybe like the cards from Takenoko
2. Build+Deliver: take advantage of the free cubes when building a city by placing them near their demand (and/or near your train) and delivering them with Deliver actions or follows
3. Produce+Deliver: build a little to get a network going, then stop (or let others build, in the shared tableau scheme) and concentrate on producing and delivering. Look for long routes (for more points, and to avoid snipers?) and maybe chains (pick up a black good from a yellow city, deliver to a black city where there's a yellow good to return)
4. R&D: primarily to support one of the above strategies, but heavy R&D could mean multiple active techs, and potentially points somehow. Maybe you get points for how far along the tech ring your pawn is at the end (so lapping the board and keeping going means giving up points in exchange for more power? Maybe you collect VP tokens if you do that). Maybe the tech ring would have L1 tech first, then L2, then L3, in random order each game (within appropriate tiers)?

Maybe I was on the right track the first time with having 2 ways to add a city, "build" one by piling up track tokens until there's enough, and "Buy" one right out.

And maybe Survey could be like in EmDice, where you see what you're getting -- instead of the N/S/E/W thing? I kinda like the N/S/E/W thing though.

A simpler personal tableau might be good. There's something nice about a single line of city cards.

The more cards you have, the longer your deliveries can be.

For Major Line type of strategies, maybe you should be rewarded for having certain sets of cubes undelivered on your cards. Or maybe that's a tech you can get?

That's about all I have for now. Maybe soon all of these ideas will coalesce into a rule set, then I can update my old prototype and give it a try.

Defining "Deck Learning" - in case I haven't yet...

In a comment on a recent post, my friend Thomas asked exactly what I meant by "Deck Learning".
"Deck Learning" is the term I coined for Eminent Domain to set it apart from "Deck Building". I know I've talked about this before, but I don't know that I've formally defined the term. Since I use that term a lot it's probably worth a post defining it.

In a deck BUILDING game, you add cards to your deck because you want them in your deck, and that's cool and interesting because they'll come up later. In a deck LEARNING, your deck gains cards as a side effect of the actions you take. This is similar in some ways -- your deck changes over time and the new cards will come up later like in a deck building game -- but also different in a few important ways. By way of example, in EmDo you might call a Survey role simply because you want a Survey card in your deck, but MOST of the time you do it because you want the effect of the Survey role. In fact, one could argue that after a point, adding another Survey card to your deck is actually a detriment.

So the more often you call Survey, the more Survey cards you get in your deck, and therefore the better you are at surveying (you can boost Survey more and more often), so it's like your deck "learns" how to Survey.

In Eminent Domain, one of the main features is this deck learning, but the catch is that you can't do well by just being really good at one of the roles. Rather you need to manage your deck so that you can pursue some strategy, and any successful strategy needs to incorporate at least 2 and usually at least 3 of the roles in the game.

Hopefully that helps clear up any questions you have on what I mean by "deck learning", if you would like any more information, lease leave a comment below!

Worker Learning - applying deck learning concepts to a worker placement game (YANGI)

I've mentioned before that I'd like to do something more with the deck learning mechanism, and that has led to a few ideas... some of which I've pursued more than others.

A recent post in which I had a mechanical idea for "worker replacement" led to some discussion which grew into something that could incorporate some of the ideas of deck learning in a worker placement game... Yet ANOTHER New Game Idea, which I suppose I could refer to as "Worker Learning".

This new Worker Learning idea combines some aspects of deck learning with ideas I've had to use something from the online CCG Solforge, by the guys that made Ascension. Oh, and Richard Garfield.

In Solforge you have a 5 card hand, and you play exactly 2 cards per turn. When you play a card it "levels up" and gets better. After your turn you must discard your hand and draw a new one. So as you go through your deck, you are faced with decisions... not just "which card effect do I want," but also "which cards do I want upgraded for later?" This is a quintessential deck building / deck learning type of question. Furthermore, after cycling through your deck once, you will face choices like "do I play this level 2 card I've drawn to make it a level 3, or do I play another level 1 card to make it a level 2? Do I want to evenly upgrade my deck, or would I prefer fewer, more powerful cards?"

I thought that core component of Solforge was super interesting, and I've been wanting to explore it for some time now. Perhaps "worker learning" is a good way to do that. One way it could work is that you'd have some workers (maybe 8), each labeled (maybe A-G). Each worker would have a track on your player board which indicates whether they are level 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. Then you play a worker placement game, where your workers upgrade as you play them, and each worker space has a stronger effect the higher level your worker is. Like Tzolkin, Manhattan Project, or Concordia, if you want your workers back you must spend a turn recalling them. Perhaps there's some cost involved in recalling as well, maybe based on the number of workers that remain unplaced.

This way you have the option to play out all your workers before recalling (upgrading them all evenly), or recall early and then re-play upgraded workers -- upgrading them further. If the dynamics of the game are balanced properly, and the number of recalls work out to range from maybe 2 to 3 on the low end to 5 or 6 on the high end, then I think there could be some real diversity of strategy to be had.

So here we are again, another mechanics-first idea in need of a theme!

Deities and Demigods - deck learning with a common deck (further thoughts)

If the central deck is "calling roles" as it were rather than other players, then it makes much less sense to need a hand of cards from your own deck. So perhaps the "cards in your own deck" should just go in front of you in a tableau.

So when the card in the deck comes up, it tells you what action to take, and you get to boost it with all the cards in your tableau that apply.

And if they're in front of you in a tableau, then they don't really need to be cards as such, they could be tracks with a single marker on each, showing how much "devotion" you have to each deity. This would cut the number of cards needed in half.

This makes sense to me. Now, what should the common/starting actions be, and what should the actions of each of the deities in the pantheon be? And how exactly should the turns resolve?

One thought I had on turn order was that maybe one of the gods - let's say Zeus - dictates turn order... when given the opportunity to do so, you 'buy' a Zeus card (into the deck, as well as increasing your devotion), thereby improving your turn order. Maybe turn order is based on devotion to Zeus, from highest to lowest, where tied players reverse relative turn order (so if you're a later turn order player, you can get better turn order by obtaining a Zeus card).

I suppose that could work like the turn order track in In the Year of the Dragon for example, maybe when Zeus comes up you can either buy a Zeus card, or advance X spaces on that track (where X is your devotion to Zeus) Or both?

So in this structure, a card would be revealed, and in turn order each player would get the option to 'buy' devotion to that god (spending some resource), and (or?) gain the benefit of that god.

So another example is maybe getting gold. So maybe Hermes (god of trade) offers gold... when Hermes comes up maybe you can buy devotion to him, then receive some gold, plus 1 more per devotion to Hermes. This gold is maybe what you pay to 'buy' devotion to gods.

If you are cash rich, you could buy devotion to lots of gods, making all your actions better, but you're going to need to spend actions getting money. And maybe the cost of devotion increases for each devotion you already have (so maybe 1 devotion to each of 4 gods is cheaper than 4 devotion to any 1 god). Big Money could be a strategy, but it wouldn't be very focused.

On the other hand, you could show devotion only to those gods that support your strategy for a more focused approach, with less need to worry about collecting a lot of gold.

If 2 people support the same god, more cards for that god will be in the deck (this is sorta like in EmDo where 2 players will call the same roll more often if they're sharing a strategy), so maybe the cost of devotion should be more based on the number of cards left in the pantheon and less on the number you've already bought. That jives with an idea I had last October about deck learning anyway.

I'm liking the direction this is taking. Maybe I'll keep thinking about it...

Deities and Demigods - a new deck learning game?

Playing all this Deus and Elysium got me thinking a bit about the Mythology theme. In short, I like it. I liked it way back when I played Cyclades in 2009, when I played Olympus in 2010, and when I played Olympos in 2011. I've got my own design that centers on Greek mythology (Odysseus: Winds of Fate), and I've always wanted to work on a game about Hercules and his 12 labors.

I may have also mentioned that I'd like to find more uses for the deck-learning mechanism from Eminent Domain. I think there's more to that mechanism than just the one game. The other day when I was discussing design stuff with Dan Keltner, and he had some ideas which reminded me of some of the roots of the ideas that became EmDo - there was a thread on BGDF.com some years ago about Queen Games looking for games using their Cube Tower. I had a couple of thoughts about that - one of which ended up in EmDo, but another of which involved a central cube tower as well as individual cube towers for each player. The individual cube towers would have an effect on a player's individual game, but the central tower would be accessible by all players, and its contents would change based on the collective actions of all players. In terms of deck learning, this would translate to a central deck that would affect all players, and would be affected by all players.

One idea I had to which I could apply a Greek Mythology theme is to have such a central deck with a couple of standard actions in it, as well as a Pantheon (stacks of cards like in EmDo) of cards corresponding to Greek deities. The central deck would be shuffled, and cards revealed one at a time - giving each player a chance to do that card's action. In lieu of the effect of that card, a player may choose to instead pray to one of the gods in the Pantheon, thereby getting some effect related to that god, and putting a copy of that god's card into the central deck's discard pile. The next time through the deck, that card will come up, and if you wanted it in the deck, then ideally it'll benefit you more than others. In this way the game would be a deck-learning game with a single, shared deck.

The idea of a single shared deck is interesting, but I'm not sure it fits the deck-learning format very well. The variation in your deck creates player differentiation. Therefore maybe another approach would be more appropriate.

I do like the idea of a Pantheon of different deity cards, each supporting some game action. In order to have meaningful actions, I think there would have to be a game board to support land units (Ares), sea units (Poseidon), buildings (Hephaestus), agriculture (Demeter), and etc. I think a modular board would be popular, so I might try something like in Tempus (which I guess is also similar to Deus). I'll have to figure out what it means to have groups of units on land or on sea, but it would make sense if Poseidon let you add units to a sea space, or move units in the sea and stuff like that.

If your deck is made up of cards from a Pantheon (which I think is a great, thematic name for the central card stacks), then what would you as a player represent? My current thought is that players would be heroes or demigods from Greek mythology, like Perseus, Achilles, and Herakles, honoring the Olympian gods to aid in their conquests (or their empire building, or whatever).

I said in my earlier post about deck-learning that I don't think Role Selection is required to make the mechanism work, so long as there's some other form of interaction in the game. Though Role Selection does fit perfectly with having a hand of cards... Maybe this favors the above "common deck" idea, as the common actions could act like roles even if the game isn't exactly a role selection game. Or maybe it's fine not to worry about role selection, even if that sort of wastes some of the hand management aspect of deck-learning.

I don't know, this is a new idea and I'm just feeling it out at the moment, kinda brainstorming. Please leave comments with any thoughts you have on this!

Deck Learning Rail Game

Deck Learning Rail Game

A deck Learning game for 2-4 players by Seth Jaffee


I finally got a prototype together for the Deck Learning Rail Game I've been talking about... check it out!












Components:
* 108 Role cards - Put in stacks by type (Build, Deliver, Fund, Upgrade).
* 4 Engine cards - Give 1 to each player, return the rest to the box.
* 27 City cards - Separate by Stage, shuffle each stage and stack Stage I atop Stage II atop Stage III.
* 18 Upgrade cards - Shuffle and reveal 3 to form the Upgrade pool.
* 36 Route cards (6@1vp, 12@2vp, 12@3vp, 6@4vp) - Shuffle each set and deal each player 6 Route cards (1@1vp, 2@2vp, 2@3vp, 1@4vp).
* 40 Track tokens (10 each in 4 player colors) - give each player the Track tokens in their color.
* 50 cubes (10 each in 5 colors) - Set aside in a supply.
* 26 coins - Set aside in a supply.
* 26 VP tokens - Set aside in a supply.

Setup:
* Each player should create a starting deck by taking 2 cards of each type (Build, Deliver, Fund, Upgrade). Shuffle your starting deck and draw a hand of 4 cards.
* Place the top City card into play, and place the cubes indicated on the card from the supply.
* Reveal the top 3 City cards from the deck to form a City pool.

Game Play:
On your turn, follow these steps:
1. You may play a card from your hand for its Action effect. Alternatively, you may use the Action printed on your Engine card, or any of your tech cards in play.
2. You must choose a role from the stacks. Take a card from the stacks and put it into play. You may boost the role by playing additional icons from your hand or from techs in play.
3. You may discard any cards you want, and keep any cards you want, then reset your hand to 4 cards.

This game is not a Role Selection game though, so there will be no Following or Dissenting like in Eminent Domain.

Actions and Roles:

Build:

Action: Place one of your Track tokens adjacent to a City card in play.
If there are as many of your Track tokens adjacent to a City cad as the number printed on the station on that side of the card, then you may Build a Station (see below) instead of placing track.

Role: For each Build icon played, place one of your Track tokens adjacent to a City card in play. If there are as many of your Track tokens adjacent to a City cad as the number printed on the station on that side of the card, then you may Build a Station (see below) instead of placing any track.

Building a Station: Reclaim your Track tokens and place one of the City cards from the supply in that location, oriented as you choose. Replace the City card from the deck to return the pool to 3 cards.
If another player also had any Track tokens in that location, return them to their owner along with $1 for each.

Deliver:

Action: Move 1 cube in play to an adjacent City card. If that City card has matching demand, you may Complete the Delivery (see below), but Stations do not pay out when using a Deliver Action.

Role: Each Delivery icon played gives you a number of movement points to spend moving 1 cube in play [to a City card that has matching demand]. The cost to move from one city to the next is 1 movement point, plus the difference between the numbers on the stations between the cities.

For example, consider that the board looks like this:

[City A][2][5][City B][4][3][City C]

Moving a cube from City A, through City B, to City C would cost (1+(5-2))+(1+(4-3)) = 6 movement points.

Delivering a cube to a city with matching demand Completes the Delivery (see below). When doing a Deliver Role, Stations pay out: When a cube passes through a pair of Stations, the owners of those stations receive a reward. One of the Station owners receive $1, the other owner receives 1 Victory Point. The active player chooses which Station pays out the $1 and which pays out the 1vp.

Completing a Delivery: When moving a cube to a city with matching demand, you may choose to Complete the Delivery. Remove the cube from the game and claim the Delivery bonus printed on the City card.

Fund:

Action: Buy a Station (see below) or Collect $1.

Role: Buy a Station (see below), or instead, collect $1 for each $ icon played.

Buying a Station: Pay the total $ cost (as described below) and then place one of the City cards from the supply adjacent to a City in play, oriented as you choose. The total cost is the amount listed on the Station on the adjacent (existing) City card PLUS the difference between the numbers on the Stations of the new city and the adjacent (existing) city. If you cannot pay this amount, then the whole move is illegal.
Replace the City card from the deck to return the pool to 3 cards.
If another player had any Track tokens in that location, return them to their owner along with $1 for each.

Upgrade:

Action: Buy an Upgrade from the Upgrade pool by paying its cost. Alternatively, you can discard any number of Upgrades from the Upgrade pool and replace them by drawing 1 more than the number discarded. If the Upgrade deck runs out, shuffle the discards.

Role: Buy an Upgrade from the Upgrade pool by paying its cost, less $1 per Upgrade icon played.

Upgrades: Upgrades give you static abilities such as discounts on buying Stations or Upgrades, additional money when your Stations pay out, and the ability to place additional Track when placing track. These abilities are always on, and apply whenever it makes sense.

Game End:

I am notoriously bad at game end triggers, so I'll just make something up for now and I'll likely have to change it later.

The game end will trigger when one of the Role card stacks or the City card stack is exhausted. When this occurs, finish the current round and play 1 final round before the game ends. Players count their VP tokens and add end game bonuses from their Route cards and any Upgrades that apply. Highest score wins!

More Deck Learning?

I've mentioned before that I've wanted to explore more uses of the Deck Learning mechanism from Eminent Domain, and I've had a couple of general ideas as to what kinds of game I'd like to try with it...

The other day I started putting some real thought into how a Railroad Tycoon style network building/pickup-deliver game driven by a deck learning mechanism might work. I ended up with some interesting, maybe clever ideas as to how to do cities, connection costs, and deliveries in a certain way, and on the airplane yesterday I fleshed those ideas out pretty well, but I did run into an issue. More like a question, really...

Does the Deck Learning mechanism necessarily require Role Selection? Or is it enough to use the stacks and card drafting outside of a Role Selection game?

I'm not sure I know the answer to that yet, but my first thought was that the Role Selection provided almost all of the interaction in EmDo, so the only way I could use the deck learning in a non-RS game would would be to use some other form of interaction.

So with the ideas I have right now about this rail game (what should I call it? Manifest Destiny... ha ha... Or how about Eminent Do-Train? EmTro? EmTrak? Man, I amuse myself!), my first thought was to use the Role Selection, and each player would build up their own little mini-map. But my current thought is to have a common board where players compete to build cities onto the map and deliver cubes from city to city, and try it without Role Selection.

As a player, would you expect a deck learning game to work more like Eminent Domain (using Role Selection)? Or no?

Beyond EmDo

I played Eminent Domain again yesterday - teaching some new players. I continue to be very pleased with how that game turned out! I'm excited for the upcoming Escalation expansion, I'm happy with the following Exotica expansion thus far, and I look forward to working on the future (and final) "Agendas" expansion.

I mentioned before that I put some thought into an Eminent Domain Dice Game, and that came together quickly. I'm happy with EmDice, and I think it's likely to be published soon.

I'm very proud of the 'deck learning' mechanism, and while it's done wonders in Eminent Domain, I don't know if I'm done with it. I've had some thoughts on other ways to utilize this mechanism. Here are 2 examples of possible games I might try to make based on EmDo's deck learning mechanism...

Railroad Tycoon style train game
I played Railroad Tycoon today - first time in a long time. I really, really like that game. I've considered a game based on Railroad Tycoon, using a deck learning mechanism to drive it.

There would be a board with cities and hexes, like Railroad Tycoon. Using your deck of cards you would build track to connect cities, deliver cubes, upgrade your engine, complete specific routes, etc. Main strategies would involve expanding your network and making deliveries, and like EmDo, I envision that early game players will need to add cities to their network, then at some point players will have to decide if they'll concentrate on continuing to expand their network, or if they'll transition to making more deliveries for example.

Historical Civ game
EmDo is basically a civ game set in outer space. I had originally intended to set it in a more common, historical, terrestrial civ game setting. I can imagine doing a civ game in such a setting with deck learning in it, and a game board, perhaps similar to Eight Minute Empire. Or perhaps like Princes of the Dragon Throne, with colored regions and cities (or locations) of each color within each region.

I imagine 2 rows of "tech cards" - each row a display from a shuffled deck (like Ascension's center row). One row with a money cost, the other row with an Influence cost. Perhaps one of these rows has cards which go into play (like EmDo planets) while the other has cards which go into your deck. Or perhaps cards of each of those types are shuffled all together. Maybe both rows even come from the same deck.

Actions/Roles would be things like:
Recruit: Move units from "provinces" (general supply) to "court" (personal supply)
Place: Place units on the board
Move: Move units around the board
Get "tech" card type A (based on Money)
Get "tech" card type B (based on Influence)
Trade(?): Get money somehow
???: Get Influence somehow