Darkshade Forum
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: diddly on April 24, 2018, 11:20:36 PM
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I've thoroughly enjoyed playing Kingsburg, but it occurred to me, wouldn't it be nice to have a pocketable version? Can the fun and frustration of Kingsburg translate to a card game?
Here's my thoughts so far:
- Rather than tracking victory points, you just keep cards with victory point values
- Rather than dice, there are 18 cards numbered 1-6. Players are dealt as many of these each season as dice they would roll.
- Rather than individual provinces, there is one collective pool of available buildings
- You can only build the left most building (and keep it for victory points and effect)
- This opens up the next available building for a competitor!
- Only 3 years instead of 5, since buildings will disappear faster
- Lay out the 18 advisors as individual cards
- Include an extra jester, smuggler and queen for each year (to replace kept victory points)
- Advisors are kept by players until their resources (completely or partially) are spent, then returned (unless they have victory point values)
- Each player gets 2 soldier count cards: One with sides numbering 1,2,3,4 and one with 5,10,15,20. Rotate the cards to represent your current number of soldiers
- In winter a random army attacks (from 1 of Barbarian, Goblins, Demons, Zombies cards)
- Deal 1 dice card per year to the army to determine its strength
- There's 5 "+2" cards, and 3 "3x +2" cards (not to be used as +6, but represent an abundance of +2)
- One card for Kings Envoy and One card for Seasons (that rotates so the current season is on top)
- Instead of "secretly looking at the top card" of the enemy deck, you can "load" the appropriate number of dice cards onto the enemy as you see fit.
That should be 86 cards in total, and otherwise follows the same rules as the board game. It should go a little faster since it's only 3 years, and should be a little more frustrating because not only is there competition for advisors, but also competition for buildings.
There's still some things to consider though, like buildings that earn additional VP under certain conditions. But this is a start.
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After play-testing an initial draft of the card game, we had some observations:
1) We were "starving" for victory points. We would just build buildings for the points and damn the consequences of winter battles.
2) We were usually tied for most / least productive so never got the bonus die
3) It was definitely frustrating to find the advisor / building you wanted was now unavailable (as designed, so good!)
4) We couldn't possibly defend against year 3 enemies
5) Swordsmen are often an afterthought in the board game, even more-so here
6) We never got to use an advisor above 11
7) Hoarding advisors leads to a serious slow-down in building, and lots of wasted "rolls"
Changes I'm contemplating:
* If an advisor you rolled is unavailable, you may move up or down to the next available advisor. (Like market building power, but only if advisor is unavailable)
* Reintroducing dice. Saves cards, more random.
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New idea!
Call this portable version of Kingsburg "Kingsburg: Province", and the rather than emulating the board game directly, take inspiration from it. In this version the players are council members for a single Kingsburg province. That's why there's only one pool of buildings.
Other changes to fit the new theme:
* Swordsmen are pooled instead of individually accounted
* If victorious in battle, player who committed the most soldiers gets the best loot
* If defeated in battle, player who committed the least faces the steepest penalty
* Each productive season starts with the mayor influencing an advisor. This becomes a "pool" resource everyone can benefit from
* If you happen to be holding the advisor the mayor influences, it leaves your hand to become a pool resource
* End of each productive season returns pool resource to the table.
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Chiquita and I play tested this new variant, and it was much more "productive". One additional rule was decided upon:
* If the mayor influences an advisor you currently hold, you gain a bonus die for your foresight this productive season.
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Hawkeye, Shabadu, and I played the latest variant. Things to consider:
* Not having the type of invaders and their rewards/penalties printed was missed.. so need to print those out before next time
* How we count soldiers wasn't great
* Shabadu really missed using real dice, but would at least prefer more randomness (ie, more cards)
* Shabadu also missed holding physical representations of goods, rather than the advisors themselves
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Some new card designs, including a glimpse of the reworked dice cards, for increased randomness. You draw two such cards, and the arrow in your top left points to the value of your "roll" on the second card. If you need two dice, you can use both arrows on the left (top and bottom).
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A neat feature of Tabletopia (aside from playing free games with your friends online) is the workshop where you can create your own games. I'm currently setting up Kingsburg:Province so I don't have to keep printing out prototypes. :)