The existing map for Clash of Empires is too small for more than 2 players, and not designed to work well with the game. I am currently working on fixing those problems with an updated map.

A draft of the map is below.

Today, I ran several more playtests at a Break My Game event.The game received good feedback from playtesters, which means I can now start focusing on balance and making the game easy to learn.

Playtest comments

Gameplay

• Avoid punishing a successful attack with a militia card.
• It is difficult to play with a strategy of getting better combat cards because it takes too much time.
• Be careful about ruining game with too many changes.
• The game is unique due to the way it combines Go with a deckbuilder.
• Avoid making the game too complex, the game strikes a good balance of having deep strategy without being too complex.

Rules clarity

• Improve explanation of supply and territory control mechanics.
• Add a player aid.
• Make it clear that Switzerland cannot be controlled.Theme
• Rename combat cards.

Based on the results of the playtest, I plan to focus on the following things over the next couple of months.

• Add a better explanation of the territory control mechanics.
• Update the map. My goal with this is to make the gameplay more clear and give players the option of playing with a larger map.

Special thanks to Break My Game and The Board and Brew for hosting.

Today, I ran several playtests with modified rules to simplify the game and add strategy for picking territories to expand to.

Here are the major changes.

• All your territories must be able to trace a supply line to an empty territory or your capital. You lose control of any territories that cannot trace a supply line.
• Claiming territory does not cost troops, and you can claim any empty territories on the board.
• In order to take an action on the board, players must play an action card.
• Combat is resolved by playing a combat card from your hand and picking the highest value.
• Each territory can only have one troop.Overall, things went well, and players enjoyed the new mechanics. For the next playtest, I plan on fixing balance issues.

Here are some of the comments

Gameplay

• “Great game feel”.
• “Combat feels off”.
• “It felt like playing Go with a combat subgame”(The area control mechanic is very similar to the one used in the board game Go).
• Combat felt like a stalemate.
• Combat had too many draws
• “Ties are weird”(The combat mechanics had a lot of ties)
• Add a better end condition.
• Improve theme.
• The game ended too quickly(Players did not have enough time to build up their deck).
• As the game ended one player said: “I feel we are getting to the interesting part”

Ease of learning

• “Make territories more clear”.
• “Change colors”

Suggestions

• Add an action to upgrade cards in deck.
• Add bonuses for controlling territories.
• Increase incentive to attack.
• Give bonuses to territories.

Changes for next version

• Figure out the optimal starting deck.
• Change map so that is it bigger,and the territories are more clear.
• Improve theme.
• Have a better end condition.
• Figure out a way to deal with a useless hand. In one game, I ended up having a hand without any actions for several turns, and I had to come up with an immediate fix for that.

Today, I ran a playtest with the new region cards and a small set of action cards. The new region cards worked out well, but I am planning to make a major change to combat based on feedback.

The playtest consisted of a 1 v 1 game with a seasoned board gamer that did not have much experience with deckbuilding.

Gameplay comments

• Combining deckbuilding with area control was a cool mechanic.
• The number of choices for purchasable cards was confusing.
• Game is like 2 player Risk and does not work.
• There is a problem due to a lack of troops

Other observations

• It was too easy to get money.
• The region cards give too much of a boost to players who took territory because of the extra money they gave

I am now planning to implement a new combat system. Players will not gain extra troops from regions, and troops will get displaced instead of destroyed during combat.  Here are the advantages I see from this new system

• The balance of the region cards is no longer as important. The region cards were originally designed in order to prevent people with too many regions from running away with the game.  When I made the region cards too weak, board play was discouraged. When I made the region cards too strong, they didn’t do a great job of preventing runaway leaders.
• There was often an incentive to avoid attacking because a player would lose troops.
• Players will not need to spend time constantly adding and removing troops.
• As players expand, they will have the same number of troops, but the troops will be spread out, which makes it harder for them to be a runaway leader.
• More opportunities to make meaningful decisions.

Here are some of the main mechanics of this system

• Players will start off with a fixed # of units on the board.
• When combat occurs, players will add the number of units in the contested region, and they will be able to play cards to boost strength. The loser has to retreat troops to a region of the winner’s choice.
• Players can purchase cards that boost combat strength.
• All regions  must trace a supply line to a capital region. Players lose control of any regions without a supply line to the capital, and any units in those regions are sent back to the capital.

In order to encourage players to take territory, I am creating region cards.  When a player takes a neutral territory in a region, they will gain a card that is specific to the region with the following benefits.

• Victory points at the end of the game.
• Will give +$2 during a turn for buying cards.
• Bonuses when combat occurs in the same region. Below are some possible region cards.

Also, I am switching back to a Early Modern Europe theme since it is a better fit for the region card mechanics.

I am planning to have the theme of Clash of Empires revolve around the colonization of North America in the 16th and 17th century.

Here is a draft of a new map.

This month, I made the changes to Clash of Empires in order to problems with the deckbuilding and board portions of the game working well together.

• Players get most of their points by buying scoring cards: Before, players scored points every 5 rounds. This mechanic did a poor job of tying the deckbuilding and board elements together and interrupted the flow of the game.
• Players mostly get troops by playing cards from their hand: Before, players would get troops every 5 rounds, which also interrupted the flow of the game.
• Various balance tweaks to the cards: In previous games, there were some cards that nobody purchased, and that was an issue I wanted to address.

The idea of combining a deckbuilding game with a board was well-received,but there were several issues that came up during the playtest.

Difficulty attracting players.

This points to an issue with generating a positive first impression of the game. In order to fix this, I  plan to spend time improving the theme and visual appeal of the game components.

Ruin cards detracted from gameplay because they discouraged board activity.

A major part of the game was the fact that players gained ruin cards every time they took a territory that just clogged up their deck. As a result, players avoided playing on the the board and taking territory.

In order to solve this,  ruin cards should have some sort of positive effect or they should be removed from the game.

Players did not like the idea of having to buy point cards.

The mechanic of buying point cards seemed like it was a tacked on idea that did not integrate well with the rest of the game. To fix this, I need to find another way of giving points.

Too much complexity.

The game had several rules which added complexity without adding much to the game, which confused players and made it difficult for them to understand the issue. This also means that I need to be careful about adding complexity when fixing the gameplay issues I mentioned.

Players were not having fun, and were distracted easily.

This is a result of the other gameplay issues I mentioned above, and it is something I need to fix.

Possible changes.

Gain a card representing a region into your deck when you take it that gives you some sort of bonus action and/or points.

This mechanic would go a good job of giving players an incentive to take regions on the board, and it would do a good job of tying the board and deckbuilding elements together.  Also, giving victory points for regions will eliminate the need to have purchasable point cards.

However, this mechanic will add additional complexity to the game.

Add a simple supply system and the ability to claim territories anywhere in a manner similar to the board game Go.  To compensate for the added rules, players will no longer be able to build troops and ruins will be removed from the game.

Go manages to have a signficant amount of strategy with rules that can be explained in one minute. If properly implemented, this would do a good job of fixing the gameplay flaws I mentioned.

However, properly implementing this idea would require signficant gameplay changes. Also,  I’m not sure if players would like this idea.

Special thanks to the Break My Game group for helping to organize the playtesting event.

Today I ran another playtest of Clash of Empires.

Notes

• There was a $2 cost card that allowed a player to discard and draw up to five cards, which was broken.
• Players often ended up with $2.  For the second playtest, I took away the $2 card,  which annoyed players when they couldn’t buy anything.
• One player had a strategy of trashing cards, and then having cards that gave extra actions and cards. This player was clearly winning from the middle of the game.
• Players spent a lot of time trashing ruins.
• There were long periods within the game where players were not doing anything on the board.

Comments

• I love the idea, but it needs balance
• There is an issue with the “rich getting richer”.
• Allow players to upgrade low-value money cards more easily.
• Make it easier to buy gold.
• Encourage players to do stuff on the board.
• It feels like the board element is tacked on.
• I feel like I’m playing Dominion and not doing anything on the board.
• I like the way ruins are used in the game.

Balance suggestions

• Give players victory points for winning battle
• Don’t give players points for controlling territories until the end of the game.
• Make it more desirable for players to buy “Upgrade” cards to improve their deck.
• The board needs to be more integrated with the deckbuilding part of the game.
• Allow players to gain territory without attacking people.
• Encourage players to attack.
• Consider giving bonus actions to a player that controls a region.
• Have quick setup rules with set starting positions for each player instead of random territories.

Other

• Rules need to be more clear for new players.
• Make it clear that there are unlimited buys.

Things to Change

• Add neutral territories with a unit in each of them: This will encourage players to attack to get extra points and troops. Netural territories are a better option than attacking other players because the neutrals will be weaker, and will not counterattack.
• Come up with a balanced $2 card: The current $2 card I had was imbalanced, but the game needs a $2 card.
• Various modifications to the costs of cards: Some of the cards were broken because they were too cheap, and there were some expensive cards such as gold that nobody bought.
• Make it more difficult for players to avoid the negative effects of gaining ruin cards.
• Balance ruin cards to encourage attacking: Players were too passive. However, I need to be careful to make sure the changes don’t make it easier for someone to snowball.
• Consider switching to a theme about colonization: A colonization theme fits in well with the balance changes I plan to make, and is a theme that more people are familiar with.
• Modify end condition: A fixed game length of 20 turns has been a problem because it was forced, and did not accurately represent when a game was supposed to be over. I need to have end conditions that trigger when a player is pulling too far ahead, or based on some organic condition such as several piles of cards running out.
• Make sure board is more integrated with the deckbuilding: A couple of players felt that they were playing a deckbuilding game with a tacked on board.
• Make the rules more clear: The players were confused about several of the rules at the beginning, and there were instances where a player was surprised by an important rule in the middle of the game.
• Minor changes
  • Make it clear that players cannot buy ruins.
  • Make it clear that players have unlimited buys.