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!

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

TMG updates, recent gaming, and Protospiel

It's been a little while since I posted any sort of update, so here're a few things that have been going on...

TMG Updates

* The Ground Floor kickstarter project went well, raising over $116,000! Skyline and Ground Floor are at the manufacturer, and production is underway.

* Michael mentioned in his last update that Kings of Air and Steam has suffered from some art delays, but the art updates we've received have looked great!

* People have received their Kickstarter copies of For The Win, and it seems very well received thus far.

Recent Gaming

* Lords of Waterdeep has been getting a lot of play lately, and I got a copy for Jeremy and Amelia for putting me up while I was in Seattle. I continue to be very happy with it. We've been playing without the Mandatory Quests and without the Lord who rewards buildings. However, after several games with my Seattle friends in which we added that building Lord back in, I am not so sure we need to leave it out anymore. I don't see us playing with the Mandatory Quests though.

* Castles of Burgundy is my most recent game acquisition, and I've played it a handful of times.  I like it, but it does tend to take a really long time.

* Ascension was never my favorite game by any stretch, but after several hours alone with the iPad app, I've definitely grown to appreciate it more.

Protospiel

Last weekend I attended Protospiel for the second time. It turned out to be really productive for me, and a fun time overall. Here are some games I played by other designers:
* A prototype in early stages by Kevin Nunn which he asked us not to discuss. Later in the weekend I didn't play but got a peek at another of Nunn's games which looked more interesting to me. I gave some comments for both which seemed promising, I hope they pan out for Kevin.

* A dice game by Andrew Juell which was pretty cool. It didn't really have a theme, but it reminded me of Dice Works a little bit.

* Pushka by Peter Dast is an abstract game which I thought looked pretty cool. You have different types of units, and you use cards to move them across the board, pushing or trapping opponents' pieces. Score by trapping pieces or getting your own pieces across the board. Later in the con we tried a modification to make it more like a weird game of football, which is a theme that seemed to fit the mechanics.

* I saw a low-bid auction game called Skyline (which the designer said he needed to re-name now that TMG's Skyline is coming out. I didn't play this, or even see it played, but that didn't stop me from talking about it for about an hour with the designer and making comments!

* Gladiators by Sam Liberty and Kevin Spak (Spoiled Flush Games) is a game which will be coming out from Rio Grande since it won the RGG game design contest. Something of a deck building arena game based somewhat on Texas Hold'em.

* Grave Robbers Dilemma is another game by Sam and Kevin. this one is all about double think and simultaneous action. It's very quick, and I ended up liking it a lot better than I thought I would.

* Avast is a pirate themed deck building game that I got the rules for at GenCon last year, and now I've played a few rounds with the designer. I think it's a bit too involved and fiddly as-is, but it had one aspect that I really thought was interesting - the idea that you actually bury treasure. In the airport on the way home I started to come up with one of my typical "this is how I might pursue that idea" things, and I've got my own thoughts about a pirate themed deck builder in which you bury treasure in order to thin your deck and score points. My version is more along the lines of Ascension in complexity, but of course that would be too simple for me, so there's a bit more to it than that.

* A Game of Cat and Mouse by Al Leduc is another simultaneous action double think game where you send your cat to collect mice.

* Beware the Dragon is a set collection game which is sort of like a trick taking game. Each round the 'leader' plays a card face up, then all other players play one face down as an offer. Once revealed, the leader may choose one of the offers to exchange with, or else keep his own card. This reminded me of the main mechanism in Oasis.

And I managed to get a fair number of games I'm working on to the table as well:
* Captains of Industry is a 2013 release from Tasty Minstrel Games formerly known as Titans of Industry, until a few months ago when a Kickstarter project popped up for a different game with that title. I had played that game last year at Protospiel, when it was called Industrialist... At first we were bummed that we had to change the title, but there are some advantages to Captains of Industry, which is what we've decided to go with. I sat out and watched a 4 player game of CoI with Al Leduc, Dave Whitcher, Peter Dast, and Steven Dast. The game (not including rules) took 2:15, which isn't too bad, especially for a con environment (I find that environment adds 10-20% to the game length). The game went well, and the players seemed to enjoy it. We played with a slight modification to the round end dynamic that I've been meaning to try, and I think it worked well. I got some good comments on a few details such as terminology, but the main feedback I got here was on the Captain cards - like Railroad Tycoon's Tycoon cards, the Captain cards confer end-game bonuses based on what you've done in the game. Those and the Advances are what I am really concentrating on at this point in development - the main rules and dynamics of the game are pretty much final.

* I have trouble testing the Escalation, the expansion to Eminent Domain, because in order to do so I really need people who already know the base game. Last year I tried testing Exotic, but I first had to teach the base game by itself, and one player asked why we were playing a published game at Protospiel... This year I was able to put together 3 players who had at least played EmDo before, though 2 of them were only barely familiar with it, while the third was a bit more familiar, but none were really all that experienced with the game. But it was enough that they knew the rules! I sat out while they played a 3 player game with the expansion. I think it went pretty well - in fact it was kind of a lousy playtest, since there wasn't really much in the way of feedback. Gil mentioned that he felt like there wasn't enough to do with Destroyers, and that might be a missed opportunity. Gil did end the game with a few leftover Destroyers he couldn't use, but he also passed up on the opportunity to take some planets to spend them on and stuff like that. It brought up a good question though - should a player be allowed to spend a Destroyer as if it were a fighter? It's a bad deal, and since a Destroyer is harder to get (and therefore "better"), one might expect it can do anything a Fighter can do and more... I am considering allowing that, as I think it won't matter very often, and when it does matter, it'll only disappoint people if they cannot spend their Destroyers like Fighters. I haven't made a final decision on that yet.

* Alter Ego is a game I've been stuck on for a while now. I love the theme and basic idea of the game, but I haven't been happy with the design. I was ecstatic to get not 1, but 2 different groups to play it this year at Protospiel! First, I got a 3 player game going, during which I realized that I had forgotten to remove a number of (about 1/2 of) the Henchmen cards. We cut that game short and talked about it a bit, then we tried again, incorporating some of the comments (and I removed those cards). Unfortunately, the cards I removed (because they were unaligned with the Arch Villains) happened to also be the cheaper Henchmen, AND one of the suggestions was that the display size might be too big - so this resulted in a game where players could only play 4 cards at a time, and the Henchmen mostly cost 5 Fight symbols. In theory this is not impossible, as players can use Teamwork tokens and trophies, but getting there was tougher than it's supposed to be and the game didn't go exactly right.

As that game was wrapping up. 4 other people walked up and inquired about the game, so when the first 3 had to leave, the next 4 sat down and we started again! More great comments and suggestions this time. All in all I probably had about 4 hours of Alter Ego on the table. Very useful!

* I played Exhibit with Sam Liberty and Kevin Spak (Spoiled Flush Games), to test the finishing touches I'd put on that game. Everything worked really well except for one thing, and I'm not sure if that was an anomaly or not, so I'll have to play it again with that rule (lopping off a round by starting the game with 2 tiles in each auction).

* All For One: My biggest disappointment so far in my short game design career is that the first game I worked on that was any good, All For One, never went anywhere. For years it was very well received at conventions by just about everyone who played it, but now it feels sort of, I don't know... old fashioned or something. I have been wanting to revive it though, so I brought it with me to Protospiel. Fortunately I was able to get it to the table late Sunday. There were 5 people interested in playing it, and I'd forgotten that 5 is not the best number for new players because the level of chaos is higher - so we played a 5 player game (I watched). I had thought about not using the guards, but since I hadn't played it in so long, I just left everything the same and figured I'd take comments on what the players thought of the current state. Sadly I forgot the rulebook somehow, but on the up side, my player aids were very descriptive, and I remembered how to play the game!

A41 went over well, everyone seemed to like it. There were some suggestions which I liked, and some I'm not sure I agree with - some players didn't like how you can duel to affect the game end timer (and thereby end-game bonus), and they especially didn't like that you could start a fight (with a Demand action) intending to lose. Thematically that might be a very valid point, though if players are sort of storytellers, then it stands to reason that they can manipulate the characters like that. It might be good though to make it such that the Active player does not have any incentive to tank a fight.

Thanks to everyone at Protospiel who played my games, and to those who showed me theirs. I had a great time, and look forward to the next event!

Yet Another New Game

Finally, as I mentioned, some of the hours in airports and on planes on the way home from Protospiel I spent outlining my version of a pirate themed deck building game based on the idea I got from Avast. I'm calling it Scourge of the High Seas. Maybe I'll get some cards together for it and give it a try, but I'm not sure if or when that will happen.

I'm trying to make this game along the lines of Ascension, sort of. There's a "center row" like Ascension has, only there are 2 of them: displays from a Tortuga deck and a High Seas deck. Each turn players will first visit Tortuga, where they can upgrade their treasures into better treasures (like combining 3 Copper into a Gold, to use Dominion terms), spend treasure on Crew, Equipment, Ship parts, Rum, and Treasure Maps. Then they will go a-plunderin' on the High Seas, where they'll spend Crew and stuff to plunder ships, or they'll spend Treasure Maps to find Buried Treasure. When these things are done, they'll confer some booty (some combination of treasure, goods, rum, maps, etc), any or all of which the player can take into their discard pile. Finally, the player will visit their Island Hideout, where if they choose, they can bury any number of Treasure cards, setting them aside in a score pile. However in doing so, they'll have to take an Island Hideout card into their deck, which is completely useless. I suppose this could be simplified to 'players BUY Island Hideout cards of a particular value with their Treasure by returning the treasure to the supply. Anyway, the more often you do this, the more useless cards will be in your deck, so the idea is to get treasure, maybe combine it into fewer, higher value treasure cards, then build up a hand of those and then bury them.

I expect Ships my have treasure value on them, so you can use them to buy stuff - allowing you to bury the treasure in your deck. I also foresee "goods" which you would be able to turn into Treasure if you have the right cards (Avast had something like this as well), to offer a strategic path there (If you have the cards which allow you to Trade Goods, then you go after/keep Goods cards, otherwise, maybe you let them sink rather than take them as plunder). Rum is for activating better abilities on some Crew cards, allowing players to either ignore it, or get some rum and crew with good Rum abilities. I think there will also be a Hold on your ship which allows you to hold over 1 card (plus 1 more card for each Hold Ship Part you have obtained) - which should help players build up a good hand for either plunder, or a hand full of treasure to bury.

I'll let you know if this pans out at all, if I ever get around to making cards for it!

Why Deckbuilders seem to "play themselves"

I've read many comments about deck building games (and here I generally refer to "Dominion games") suggesting that the decisions in the game are automatic, or that the game plays itself.

I think these comments are naive, off-base, and generally are a result of players thinking that the main decision points in the game happen as the cards are being played turn by turn. This is simply not the way deck building games (or Dominion games) work. The main decision points in Dominion are not which cards to play each turn, or what order to play them in... the main decisions in the game are which cards to add to your deck.

One major aspect that makes the deck building work is that early game decisions have a lasting impact on your game. The decision to buy that Silver on turn 1 instead of that Village (for example) will manifest over and over every time you draw that card. The sum total of these decisions (which cards you buy) combine to produce hands which, sure, play themselves to an extent. The point is that playing out a hand is the resolution of the decision, not the decision point itself.

When playing Puerto Rico, when you decide to choose the Trader you've made a meaningful decision. the fact that it seems really obvious which of your goods to trade (most of the time it's the one that will get you the most money, though occasionally complicated by things like which goods are on boats) doesn't mean the game plays itself - I think that's pretty obvious. However, when it comes to Dominion, I think people see the action as the playing of the cards, and therefore expect that to be the decision point.

So that's my theory on why some players think games like Dominion play themselves.

Quarriors play at Strategicon: recap

I played a game of Quarriors at Strategicon about a week ago. Here's how it went:

3 player game, me going first.
Turn 1: I rolled enough Quiddity to bu some 3vp blue die which had the special ability of drawing additional dice after it scored.

Turn 2: I rolled 3 Pawns, and activated them all.

Turn 3: Score 3 points, cull 3 dice. Rolled the Blue die, which came up creature and killed the Pawn one opponent had played. I think I bought another Pawn as well.

One opponent bought a Red creature die. That die came up 2 or 3 times, but never rolled the creature side the whole game.

Turn 4: Score 3 points, cull 1 die, drew 1 extra die (from Blue die ability). Rolled something unimpressive, I think I bought a Portal or another Pawn or something.

Turn 5: Rolled the Blue die again, came up Creature again, killed 1 of opponent's 2 pawns, killed the other opponent's pawn. I think I also activated a Pawn.

One opponent finally scored 1 point (not the one who bought the red creature die).

Turn 6: Score 4 points, cull 2 dice, draw additional 2 dice (from Blue die ability). I think I activated a Pawn or 2.

Turn 7: Rolled the blue creature die a 3rd time, came up creature side for a 3rd time. Also rolled 2 Pawns.

This game was over at 15-1-0, I made 1 choice (buy the blue die) and was completely hopeless for both opponents. I'm not sure if it mattered WHICH die I chose, the fact that it came up Creature every time and my opponents dice didn't meant I was going to win no matter what.

I'm not terribly impressed with Quarriors. I'm just sayin'...

Sidetracked!

I SHOULD be working on EmDo expansions, Alter Ego, Kings of Air and Steam, Exhibit, Dice Works, etc...

Meanwhile though, I have been distracting myself with yet another deck building game idea. I thought of another game using deck building - this one was going to be a more typical style deck builder at first, but when it came down to the details, I could not bring myself to copy Dominion. So instead it's more like the Research mechanism from Eminent Domain broken out on its own.

Skyline
The game is called Skyline, and in it you use deck building to add cards to your deck, collect sets of cards in your hand, and use them to put those cards into play as buildings. The idea mostly came from the visual concept of the cards with silhouettes of a building on them, so when stacks of these cards are splayed side by side, it would look like a downtown skyline.

Here's a rundown of the game in its current form (obviously subject to change, as I have not tried it yet!):

Game turn:
Architect Phase: Play a card for it's effect, or draw 1 card.
Bid Phase: Play cards to purchase a card from the display, or draw 1 card.
Construction Phase: Play a card onto your tableau (pay by discarding cards), or draw 1 card.
Design Phase: Draw 1 card

In each phase you can EITHER play cards, OR draw a card (obviously in the Design Phase you just draw a card). This is instead of refilling your hand at the end of the turn. I don't know if that will work, but it sounded like a neat change to me.

Cards in the display will be from 5 face down stacks - one each for 0-cost, 2-cost, 3-cost, 4-cost, and 5-cost. Each stack has cards in some number of colors (5 or 6 probably). The more expensive the card, the more VP it's worth and the better the effect on it. The cost is the number of cards of that color which must be discarded to purchase the card, or to play the card to the table. Currently I'm thinking that except for the 0-cost pile (building bases, what you need to start a building), the stacks will each be shuffled and the top card revealed and available for purchase. there might need to be more cards available, I'm not sure yet.

That's the idea anyway. I hope to create some cards and give it a try soon. I'm sure you'll hear more about it at some point.

Aaaaaand another one...

Skyline has not been my only distraction. Just today I was inspired while reading the review of Funkenschlag: The First Spark on Opinionated Gamers. I thought of a resource gathering mechanism (which is completely unrelated to Funkenschlag). Tonight I created some hex tiles and sorted some meeples and wooden discs to give it a try.

The basic idea in this one is that you lay out an array of hexes, each with radial lines dividing the hex into 6 'spaces,' and a circle of color in the center. When joined, these lines create spaces for meeple placement, each touching 2 of the circles. After a few rounds of worker placement, players use the resources (colored circles) their meeples are touching to build some "technology" or "building". Also, each circle could have a token on it, maybe a 1-shot resource of a particular type (like the resource cubes in Olympos), or maybe 1-shot abilities (like the tiles in Hansa Teutonica).

That's about as far as I've got on this idea. Who knows if it will get anywhere.

The state of things... games in development and TMG submissions

I haven't been posting as often as I'd like in this blog. For one thing I would like to keep my readers interested with what's going on in my gaming life, and for another I like to chronicle my thoughts for my own use later!

So here's what's going on with some of the games I've been working on lately for TMG...

I posted about a week ago about my latest thoughts on the 1st expansion for Eminent Domain, and about 3 weeks before that about The Untouchables (a simple coop game I was experimenting with). I haven't done any more with either of those since their respective posts.

Kings of Air and Steam
I have been worried about some aspects of Kings of Air and Steam that have not come together quite like I'd like, and I'd had some unfortunate playtests at Protospiel and Gen Con. I've been discussing some things with the designer, and we've finally addressed the boards (something I'd been leaving for later) as well as some other items that weren't working out too well. I think we've made some huge steps in the right direction, and I'm feeling much better now about the state of this particular game.

Josh Cappel will be doing the art for this one, and I'm looking forward to it looking every bit as good as Belfort.

Scott designed some new boards, hexes rather than rectangles, which I liked very much. They are more modular, and more attractive, and they don't have as many dead corners. I think the hex boards are definitely an improvement, but it's possible the playing area was too large in general - this is based on some of the negative feedback we'd gotten. You see, the interaction in this game comes mostly from the threat or worry that another player might be going for the same thing as you. If the board is so big that much of the time the other players are not near enough to you to matter, then the interaction seems to go away. Scott just made new boards (updating things like the number of cities and factories) and has made each with fewer hexes. We'll see if this makes the overall game feel more crowded and hopefully more fun.

The new boards also have a nice, more confined number of factories and cities of each color, which I think will create a good number of cubes over the course of the game, and a good amount of demand for those cubes.

One thing I was not happy with at all was the Depot buying mechanism. I've tried several iterations, each of which had their good points and their bad points. Something that I came up with in an effort to justify depot pricing and also fix another problem in the game (some players have more than enough actions and end up passing) was this - make depots worth money at the end of the game! Therefore, while buying a depot eats up your working capital, it represents a profit in points in addition to something you need in order to deliver goods. Also, when confronted with an action when you have nothing better to do, now you could purchase a depot thereby scoring points. The escalating cost of depots ($4/$6/$8 for the 1st/2nd/3rd depot on a line). Another way to look at this, which is technically the same thing, but I think is somehow a little nicer, is to say that instead of your score being the total money that you have, score 1 point per depot, plus 1 point per $10 at the end of the game. I played with this rule yesterday and it seemed to go well. Thematically your score is based on the 'strength' or size of your network, as measured by your depots in place. Of course, money counts too.
Thinking about is a little more right now I'm wondering if it shouldn't be 2vp/depot + 1vp/$10...

At Gen Con I was listing my concerns to Andy Van Zandt, and he suggested that perhaps passing could entail collecting a couple of dollars - maybe $1/depot you've already built. In addition to this being something a player could do when they have no reasonable action to take, this turned out to be good because it allowed players who are a little bit short of cash to get enough money to make an upgrade or buy a depot without them having to make a delivery. I decided it might be simpler to decouple that from the number of depots made (especially if depots are worth points, you already have incentive to build them) and instead make it that you get $1/round... so in round 1 you collect only $1 when you pass, while in Round 5 you collect $5. I like the way that scales, and it's easily communicated on the Market board.

The new production rule didn't seem to go over well in the 1/2 game played at Gen Con, but has seemed great when played lately. The current rule is that each factory produces 1 cube, and in addition, each market tile generates 1 cube per factory of that color. I think the number of factories changed between Gen Con and recent playtests, so that explain the difference in how it has worked out.

Bank Job - a TMG submission from Phillip Dubarry
I love the sound of Kingdom of Soloman (coming soon from Minion Games), so I was interested in checking out this submission by Phillip Dubarry. I like the theme - it's like a Heist movie, where you assemble a crew and go rob a bank and stuff. Michael was excited about it and enjoyed it. I like the idea of the game, but I am finding I'm not fond of Simultaneous Action Selection, especially when resolved in some arbitrary turn order. I had wrestled with that for Kings of Air and Steam (where it's less of a big deal) and solved it by sorting the character powers and allowing those with weaker powers to have better priority when in a timing conflict.

In Ruins
I played Andy's post-apocalyptic card drafting game In ruins at Spielbany, at Protospiel, at my friend's game night, and again at Gen Con. I enjoy it, and I like the theme of the game, as well as the innovative drafting mechanism. It may be a title that TMG eventually picks up. One thing I worry about is how well it'd go over (sell) - novel card drafting isn't as hot a mechanism right now like Dice Drafting is (was? Is it still big?) or like Deck Building or "dice building" (Quarriors) is. Or is it? Is the popularity of 7 Wonders (and potentially 51st State) enough to imply that players are interested in games driven by a card draft? One other potential turn off is that the core mechanism, the reason the whole thing works, MIGHT just piss off players (any new, awesome card that comes up may be blocked by a player, therefore more often than not it may seem like you're drafting the dregs of what's out there). The last thing I think might be a problem (commercially) is that it's not a 'quick, simple game' like 7 Wonders. Which is not a knock on the game - the rules aren't actually very complicated at all, but the cards are, and the game has depth and is subtle. I worry that people may prefer a simpler game like 7W which is easier to grasp - which is a concern really on the general state of gamers (one I'm sure I've discussed before) more than it's a concern about any specific game. I mentioned to Andy that I might like to see another, different, simpler game using this draft mechanism which may be more likely to become a "hit" in the way something like 7 Wonders or Dominion has. I mean, one could probably take a copy of 7 Wonders and replace the booster draft mechanism with Andy's draft mechanism and see how that goes!

My Little Vineyard
I haven't thought much about or done much with this since Protospiel. The designer hasn't either - Scott told me he'd been dealing with personal stuff rather than game design. I still generally like the wine theme and the dice drafting mechanism, but I'm beginning to wonder if the general game buying public is over both of them. If not, then I think it would make a nice addition to the TMG line, so long as all the kinks get worked out!

Quarriors
I apologize for the negativity that is about to flow here...
I finally played Quarriors. Frankly, I cannot think of a bigger waste of time or effort. The game is simpler/less interesting than Dominion, and yet it's more fiddly/complicated to explain/play. It's like playing Dominion with a severely diluted deck - like whenever you buy a Village, you gain 3 Villages, 2 Copper, and a Silver. The fact that the only choice you really make - which die to add to your deck - only MAYBE means you get the effect of that die I find entirely regrettable, I feel like that defeats the entire purpose of the game.

The worst part about all this is that despite Quarriors being so little of an actual game, it will sell thousands of copies because it's the first game of it's kind - the next twist on deck building - and because it's got lots of dice and comes in a nice tin with nice art.

I do however like the idea of a deck building game where the cards in your deck have variability to them (like dice). But how do you make such a game that isn't disappointing like Quarriors? I think some of the same reasoning I put into Eminent Domain to set it apart from typical deck building games may apply here as well. However, I also think that any die added to your 'deck' really has to do it's job no matter what face is rolled on it. Maybe the effectiveness or intensity of that effect could be variable depending on the face rolled, or maybe a secondary/alternate effect could be based on the face rolled but the general/standard effect should be based on the die itself, and the fact that you have chosen to add it to your deck.

A BGDF member has been working on a 'dice building' game for quite some time, and I think it's closer to what I'd expected to see out of Quarriors. I haven't seen the latest version, but I think it would be cool to check it out. If it's everything I want it to be, then I think it could make a good addition to the TMG line.

Deckbuilding Discourse

What with Eminent Domain coming out soon, and a rash of other deck building games popping up left and right, I've been doing a lot of thinking about the Deck Building mechanism. What is so interesting about it?

I think the single most interesting thing about deck building is that the iterative small scale decisions you make throughout the game have a direct relationship with your late game position. Every card you add to or remove from your deck has a lasting impact on the game for you. Which means that you need to consider long term ramifications of short term decisions, making even somewhat trivial choices more interesting.

What does this mean in terms of designing a deck building game? It means that for one thing, the end game goal should be clearly stated from the outset, so you have some way to reasonably know what cards you'll want in your deck later on. How do some of the existing, well known deck building games do this, and are they successful?

Dominion does this by allowing you to determine what you want your endgame plan to be. How will you attempt to win? Do you want to draw 8+ Gold and buy a province each turn? Do you want to be drawing your entire deck every turn to buy multiple Victory cards? You can look at the set of Kingdom cards and make that determination, and every card you choose to put into your deck can either work directly to that end, or might be a step toward a deck that will create that endgame situation for you.

Thunderstone does NOT really do this, which is why I do not like Thunderstone as much as I like Dominion. In a game of Thunderstone there are 3 different Monster types, and each one might have it's weakness, but due to the nature of the "hallway," it's not feasible to really specialize in any given monster type. You pretty much want to make a deck that produces more and more power, and it doesn't matter much what kind or how much more, just more = better.

Ascension also does not do this at all. The center row, similar to the hallway in Thunderstone, makes it impossible to really plan ahead on what you might need. The best you can do is specialize in one of the 2 currency types and hope that there will be good options for you when it's your turn. Ascension does offer you the ability to sort of build combos in your deck, by going after, say, Machina Constructs, or Lifebound cards... but considering you can't tell when those cards will come up, you don't really get to build those synergies on purpose. Every card in Ascension is worth points, and mostly at about the same efficiency. I've had a lot of success at that game simply buying pretty much whatever I could afford - I almost don't care what it is. Given a choice, a card that says "draw a card" on it is better than one that doesn't. I don't have any long term plan which I want my cards to fit into.

So how does my game stack up? I'm not going to preach from my soapbox that my own creation is perfect, but I will say that I am pleased with how it turned out. One of the design goals of Eminent Domain was to provide a late game goal which players need to take into account when choosing their role each turn in order to have a strong endgame. In EmDo cards enter your deck as a side effect of taking actions, which is in itself very different than other deck building games. But with reference to the topic at hand, your strategy in EmDo will influence your role choices so that late in the game you will be able to have big, useful turns. For example, if your plan is to research out some level 3 technology in the late game, you can't neglect research and then all of a sudden score a 5 point Tech card. you'll have to take the Research role or otherwise collect research symbols in your Empire in order to score well off of research.

The next deck building game I'm working on, Alter Ego, will also provide a clear end game goal. The Arch Villains you must defeat in order to win will be face up from the beginning, so that you know what you need to go for and which intermediate villains you need to pursue in order to get there.

I really think this is a key element in deck building games, and I think despite their popularity and sales levels, many of the Dominion clones and other new deck building games out there are failing at this aspect.

What do you mean "failing?" You just said they were popular and are selling well!"

Yeah, that's true - it's hard to argue with success. And more power to them! I'm not saying they're not enjoyable, but it's kind of a shame because I think most of the deck building games out there could probably be better than they are. It's like they're missing the point, but since deck building is hot right now, it doesn't even matter. A good theme and the deck building mechanism will only carry you so far, I predict that before long people will get bored and the hype will die down, and the only deck building games that will remain will be the ones that do more than merely put cards into your deck. I don't know how long it'll be before that really comes to pass, but I hope that Eminent Domain will be one of those games when it does!

Dominion engine

Dominion is arguably the most innovative game to hit the hobby game industry in a long time. It appeals to a lot of people for a variety of reasons. For me it invokes the feelings I used to get when building decks for Magic: the Gathering. In Dominion, turn by turn you modify the contents of your deck, adding better action cards and getting rid of the less efficient starting cards. Lately I've been pondering the use of this "engine" to promote a game...

Last night I played the recently released Thunderstone, which is an RPG style adventure game which builds on the Dominion engine. In Thunderstone you "play Dominion" in order to fill your deck with heroes, weapons, spells, and equipment and then go dungeon diving to defeat monsters. It's an interesting extension of the Dominion mechanism, but to me it felt like a lot of work for what is largely just playing Dominion.

My own thoughts on using the Dominion engine are a little more along the lines of a different game than Dominion altogether, with a central mechanic using a variation of the deck building mechanism. I'm actually adapting an older idea I had to represent a players personal "tech tree" (set of abilities, like in Goa or Hansa Teutonica) and I think a deck building mechanism could work well. Each player's deck would contain cards relating to the various actions in the game, and whenever you take an action, you would add a card to your deck that associates with that action. The intensity/strength/potency of that action would be based on how many cards for that action are in your hand/drawn/revealed from the deck. Here's an example of my first thought for the mechanism:

Let's say there is an action in the game which is "collect wood" and another action which is "attack" - among other actions. Your starting deck would have maybe 2 cards for each action in it. When you choose to "collect wood," you reveal the top 2 cards from your deck and for each of those that has the "wood" symbol you collect 1 additional wood resource. Then you take a Collect Wood card and put it in your discard pile. In the future, your revealed cards are more likely to show wood icons because the concentration of them in your deck is higher. Similarly, if you choose the "attack" action, you would reveal 2 cards and get attack bonuses for each attack icon, then you would get a little better at attacking.

Now, consider that there are other cards you could add to your deck as well, perhaps an Axe. An Axe might have both a Wood symbol (because it helps you chop down trees and get wood), and an attack symbol (because it can be used as a weapon). Each time the Axe comes up, it will boost either the Attack or the Wood action, so it's better than either of the basic cards. The idea would be to get cards in your deck that boost the actions you want to take, and then of course take those actions. There would also be an action which allows you to reveal more cards at a time, thus making you 'better' at all actions - it would probably have some cost associated, allow you to take any 1 'basic' card, and increase the number of cards you reveal each time.

This 'tech tree' mechanism seems like it would work and be good for a variety of games, but thematically I think it would be nice in a civ building type of game where it represents the strength of your civilization in the various aspects of the game - population, warfare, agriculture, culture, technology... the kinds of things you find in games like Through the Ages. Michael had asked me to think about how a streamlined card game version of Twilight Imperium might work, and so I started considering this mechanism for something of that theme - a space opera civ-style card game. Here are my current thoughts on that:

Imagine there are 6 different actions in the game - probably the same or similar actions to those you'd see in Twilight Imperium. For each action there's a stack of cards in the center of the table, and each player begins the game with a deck of 2 cards for each of 5 the actions (we'll say that one action is called Warfare, and at the outset no one is good at that action so you don't start with any Warfare cards in your deck). There is also a deck of Planet cards which show the category or type of planet, and maybe some value as to how difficult it would be to settle, on the back of the card and details of the planet's benefits on the front. Finally, for each of the (3 or 4?) types of planets there is a deck of Technology cards - color coded so you know which associates with which.

Like Twilight Imperium, on your turn you select 1 action (role), and you take a card for that role from the center and add it to your discard pile (you have now become a little 'better' at that action for future turns). Then all players, starting with you, get a chance to take that action. Each player has a hand of cards, and when resolving the action you can play the appropriate cards from your hand to boost it in some way. Having chosen the role, perhaps the card you took from the center actually goes into your hand, effectively giving you an extra card of that type to use that turn. Possible actions are as follows...

Explore: Draw 1 card per Explore icon from the Planet deck LOOKING ONLY AT THE BACKS OF THE CARDS. Choose 1 of them and place it FACE DOWN in front of you. You have explored this planet, but have not settled it yet, and therefore get no benefit from it yet.

Settle: The back of the Planet card indicates how hard it is to Settle the planet. In order to succeed you must have the appropriate number of symbols. There could be different types of Planets -
- Uninhabited: In order to Settle you need a certain number of Settle icons.
- Civilized: In order to Settle you need a number of Settle icons, but you can use Armies to pay for some of them.
- Hostile: In order to Settle you must spend a certain number of Armies.

Research: You can research at a planet which you have settled. Draw 1 Technology card per Research symbol from the Technology deck matching a Planet you have Settled, and add 1 of those cards to your discard pile (putting the rest on the bottom of the deck). These cards would be like the Axe example above, they would be more efficient than the basic action cards, either giving more than 1 symbol of a type, or symbols of more than 1 type, improving your capabilities. The type of planet would indicate the sorts of abilities in the deck.

Warfare: Gain 1 Army per Warfare icon. These will be used to settle Hostile planets, and maybe could be used in a defensive capacity in some way.

Harvest: Produce 1 Resource per Harvest icon, perhaps based on the capabilities of planets that you have settled. These could be used to trade for VPs or perhaps could substitute for Armies or Settlement icons for Civilized (or Hostile?) planets. Perhaps some planets have slots on the back, and an alternate way to settle them is to fill those slots with the appropriate Resources.

Trade: Exchange 1 Resource per Trade icon for Victory Points

Turn by turn players would choose roles, allowing each player to participate in the role, and at the end (beginning?) of your turn you would refill your hand to 5 cards. Maybe you get a chance to discard cards you don't want, and maybe there's some way (via the technology deck) to remove cards in hand from the game so you don't need to draw them anymore. The game would end when either the Planet deck or one of the action piles, or possibly when the VP pool, is exhausted. Planets would be worth some VPs, as would points earned throughout the game by Trading*.

* Thought on trading that just popped into my head - perhaps when you trade stuff it goes into a common pool, and you can trade for other resources in the pool (pre-seeded with 1 or 2 of each) at a 1-for-1 rate. This would be a good way to get resources you don't have access to - which would matter if it took specific combinations of resources to do certain things. Maybe "victory points" is one of the "types of resources" - so you can always trade for those, or you can trade VPs for resources you might need to use (players would start with some VPs). The pool would be pre-seeded with a bunch of the VP resource, and maybe the game ends when that one runs out.

I think this could be a solid game using the deck building mechanism inspired by Dominion as a base for players to build a their strategy. How will they advance their game? Will they Settle a few select planets and then improve their technology, gaining points and abilities that way? Will they produce lots of Resources to trade? How will they settle planets - through normal means? Military force? Trade? I think this will offer players a lot of ways to go about improving their capabilities and earning points. I guess I'll have to make a prototype and find out if I'm right about that!