So here is another installment of the Dev Diary for what I am tentatively calling "Axe Age" as in the first age of Ragnarok.
We have had about a half dozen test plays so far in the last 3 weeks. Tuesday nights and Friday nights have been Axe Age nights, not counting the few single player Axe Age games.
One of the things that I really want to simplify simplify simplify are the number of phases. I dislike games where turns take 45 minutes. Large world maps are great for 4x games, but 4x games tend to require a bunch of phases during a single turn. Each turn is roughly a decade in time, so players need to be able to do a few things- the trick is to ensure those flow in unison for all players (simultaneous actions), or that actions/phases run quickly and smoothly. Since we have nobles and quests that can "age", every turn their age marker increases (and eventually they die/end), so we need an AGE phase.
Now everyone holds territories, either exclusively or shared by placing influence tokens. Each zone can accommodate up to X influence. Historical population density would determine how much maximum influence a zone may have. If you have influence, you gain 100% of the benefits of that zone (territory/country/province/etc). I thought about having resource gathering (like wood, iron, food, gold) but decided against it since this game is at a real macro level. So all resources boil down to coins. In order to exploit your zones of influence, we need a REAP phase.
So we've set the stage, given players some coins, it's time to take some actions. How many? What kind? The first iteration of the game had an action auction system. This would allow for a gold sink for players who are in the lead, and create an interesting player-to-player dynamic. However this took a long time to play out, dragging out most turns. So then we tried a flat 3 actions per player based on a first come first serve basis (worker placement). This was more successful, but was still awkward as players reached over a huge map (inevitably knocking stuff over) to place their workers. They also strained to see who was placed where and what each action could do. So now we're at action cards. The actions deck has several of each action type and gets passed around in turn order and players select an action in secret. The deck goes around until everyone has taken the X actions allotted to them. Then everyone executes their actions 1 at a time, again in turn order) until everything is resolved. This is the ACTION phase.
Then we definitely want a living and breathing world. So we need a phase where the world does "stuff". Neutral kingdom threats appear, plagues happen, bountiful seasons in some areas and global quests begin. This is the EVENTS phase.
Lastly turn order shifts clockwise by 1 position and we are ready to rinse and repeat.
The map has become pretty expansive. It's a really large map with 72 locations. It's a tri-fold board with 3 regions: 24 northern zones, 24 central zones and 24 southern zones. Depending on the number of players, you'll use a set amount of board space.
1 to 2 players = Central region only
3 to 4 players = Central and Southern regions
5 to 6 players = Whole board
I think different scenarios may mix and match the above configuration.
Oh and why 24? Because there are 24 runes and enough space for 24 interesting countries/kingdoms. Each zone in a region has a unique runic symbol assigned to it. The northern zone is designated as blue, the central as red and the southern as green. If you need to resolve a random location, you draw 2 runes, the first indicates the region by colour and the second indicates your specific zone. Pathing from zone to zone is tri-coloured as well, so if you need to handle random unit movements, just draw a rune.
Some actions during the ACTION phase involve having to resolve conflict (military, diplomatic, other) and rune decks are used for this. They are quick, don't knock over board components when "rolled" and remain thematic for the setting.
Well that's where we were at two weeks ago. The Dev Blog will need to catch up to where our latest thoughts are at.
It's a game where you build a royal lineage over a few rounds (each round is about 10 years) and work to build and maintain influence throughout Midgard (using military and political might). There is a questing and myth/divine aspect to the game as well (more analysis required due to Islam and Christianity in the southern portions of the map). It's still early in the design process so some concepts may fall away and new ones may be added.
