Game Board

We’ve talked about this a couple of times in chat, but nobody has put it down here in the forums so people can really sink their teeth into it and see if they think its a good idea or not.

I think the Board should be larger. I’m suggesting it be setup as a 6 column x 8 row Grid, or perhaps even a 6 × 10 grid. It would add several dynamics that are lacking right now, in my opinion.

First off, it would slow down the rush decks a bit and give the currently almost useless Boom decks a chance to compete. Boom decks are decks that are slower to build, because they require lots of resources like most victory point decks, resource heavy creature decks, etc.

Second, this would give us 3 extra spaces in our Kingdom. I’m not sure if the limited space was intended to be a factor, but on several of my non-rush decks, I have to either be very careful about what I put down, or I have to discard some stuff towards the end, because I run out of room in my kingdom.

Another dynamic this would facilitate is something I’ve been milling around in my head for a while now, the use of ‘larger cards’. Meaning, actual Wall (or trench) type cards that take up two spaces. As it stands now, you need 5 of your starting 7 cards to be ‘walls’ for it to be effective. With an even number of columns, you could use wall cards that take up two columns, and only need 3 of your starting 7 to make an effective wall. Leaving you room in your starting deck to actually do something with.

Now I know these are changes that aren’t going to be rushed in over night, but this is something I think would add more strategy to the game. This is a game with tons of potential, but to be honest, right now its really all about whose rush deck is faster.

I would love to get the game more strategic. To increase the board size would be easy. It would, however, decrease the overview – you would have to scoll more and it would become harder to keep track of what happens in your own kingdom while fighting on the other end of the board. The columns are currently limited by low resolution monitors (1024×768). There are a lot of people who still have such monitors (about 25% of all visitors). One more column would be possible, however.

Do you think a board size of 8 rows would be worth the scrolling-hassle?

I currently also plan on other rules that should make alternative strategies more reliable. It’s about deck-building:

• a minimum of 30 cards per deck.
• only 3 zero-cost cards can be in your starting hand. (would hinder rushes)
• All basic resource (forest, iron mines, stone querry) will get the ability too upgrade their storage over time.

About the two-field-sized cards: They are already planned. Its also a matter of time. Another type of card against rush decks, will be mass-damage cards.

“The columns are currently limited by low resolution monitors”

Honestly I never even thought about it from that perspective. The computer I use right now, is probably over the 5 thousand dollar mark, if bought retail. I pay about 1/3rd of retail for computer stuff I get due to my former job, so I honestly forget about those kind of limitations sometimes. I have a top of the line mostly custom computer, with a 24 inch monitor and I use Firefox. I just ‘zoom out’ twice and I can see the whole playing board, so I never thought about actually having to scroll around to see what was going on. I actually meant to talk to you about how all that worked, because I have to ‘zoom out’ twice, to see the whole board, and I wondered if that was something that could be easily fixed… never even thought about people not being able to see the whole board at once.

• a minimum of 30 cards per deck.
  * only 3 zero-cost cards can be in your starting hand. (would hinder rushes)
  * All basic resource (forest, iron mines, stone querry) will get the ability too upgrade their storage over time.

I don’t like the first two of these rules. Of the two dozen or so decks I’m up to now, I think maybe 3 of them have 20 cards in them, and I honestly think only one of them has 30 cards in it.. and its a deck that sucks right now, cause I’ve yet to figure out how to make the deck with that many cards in it, viable with the current set up. lol.

I’m not opposed to a minimum deck size, but I think 30 is too much. The counter to that is, most ‘rush’ decks, have their starting 7 cards, and the rest of the deck is largely irrelevant, so having a deck minimum size would literally have zero effect on most of the current rush decks.

The 3 limit on zero cost cards… now that is something that will require more thought on my part before I give a solid answer (I’m mostly drunk right now.. but mostly drunk for me, means I’m also mostly coherent.. but anyway..) That would destroy most of the current rush decks.. but that would also destroy almost all the decks I have built right now. All Land is ‘zero’ cost.. so only 3 ‘land’ in a starting hand… that would require a complete change in how all decks were built right now. Not necessarily a bad thing.

1. All basic resource (forest, iron mines, stone querry) will get the ability too upgrade their storage over time.

I’m still of the opinion that the starting ‘Library’ should be upgraded to a ‘Castle’, or ‘Base’ or something, or just flat out add, the storage capacity for 1 of each of the standard (Wood, Stone, Iron) resources. This might actually help out some rush decks, but I think it makes more sense. I believe you should always (Unless someone actually manages to destroy your starting library.. in which case your probably done anyway) have storage space for one of each of the standard resources.

I much prefer my solution to the ability to upgrade the current Iron Mine, Stone Quarry, Forest. I’m quite satisfied with the way the ‘base’ resource generators work right now, especially considering you can build warehouses, and secondary ‘resource generators’ that store more, or produce faster, etc. I think its too early in the games progress to really mess with those yet. They work well as is, in my opinion and think we should leave them as is, unless something is seriously broken with them, that I’m just not seeing yet.

There is indeed one thing, that – I think – is broken. In most tcg/cgg’s you build storage slowly over time and can produce rather fast. For example, in Magic the Gathering, you can only lay out one land per turn. This means your storage (not called storage in Magic, but it’s a similar concept) grows slowly. You can however produce one mana per land/per round.

In fantasy cards rt, you can put out 7 basic resource cards if you want and start the game with 7 storage. That’s mostly what leads to strong rush decks (4 forests → 2 wolves).

The 3 zero-cost cards limit is just one possible solution. After some thinking, I have to say – I like your solution even better. If you start with one storage per basic resource each, we can drop the storage from basic resource cards. If all cards, that provide additional storage have some costs attached, the problem should be gone. You would have to build extra storage buildings or upgrade your base card (castle, warehouse, whatever).

I agree with that for the most part. Only thing your going to have to watch is Mana/Pop. The above setup, greatly reduces the ability to create a ‘rush’ deck…. except for Mana/Pop. Yato is still possible, and the Vampire is still possible. I’m still of the opinion that Yato/Vampire should be fixed by Magic Mushroom either being removed from Starting decks, or limited to perhaps one or two per starting hand. There is no real Pop only rush, they all require mana. So fixing Magic Mushroom and with that resource fix, I think will way more balance the playing field for Rush decks vs non-rush decks.

the original idea on this thread was increasing the board size. with hat idea in mind one of the ideas i had posted which is a minimap on the side would make it easier to keep track of the larger board and if it is possible make it so you can use the minimap to gather resources or perform single click actions on buildings you cant see on the board(such as draw a card with your castle ect…