I am considering modifications to the combat mechanics that allow players to respawn troops lost in combat.

Details

• Players start off with 15 troops plus  1 troop per territory they own.
• Each player has a reserve area where they store troops lost in combat. The reserve starts off with 0 troops.
• Combat
  • Troops lost in battle are placed in a player’s reserve.
  • If the attacker wins, the attacker places one troop from their bag on the conquered territory, and the defender removes one troop from their reserve.
• A player may spend an action to place any number of troops from their reserve onto one territory.

Summary

I am considering changes to the scoring system to periodically give points for controlling or dominating certain map regions in place of modifying the combat system. This will encourage attacking to secure points for a region and prevent opponents from getting points in a region.

Details

• Players will get points for having the most territories in a region.The players in 2nd and 3rd place will also get some points.

For the Europe map, regions will be scored like the following.

If there is a tie, each player gets half of the possible points, rounded down.

Playtest report

Observations

• Occupying an entire region was valuable to stop other players from getting points.  However, it was better to expand in regions controlled by an opponent to get points from them.
• Controlling the center of the map is difficult because a player can be attacked from multiple sides
• Brown did well because they were not attacked. Green and Orange were too busy with other parts of the map.
• Orange became a lame duck by the middle of the second round because they were fighting too much and did not have enough troops. Part of the problem is that they were trying to hold onto Central Europe, which is in the center of the map.
• It is significantly easier to control a region near the edge of the map.
• Players spent a lot of effort fighting over 2nd place in a region.

Potential changes

• Decrease value of outer regions
• New reinforcement system
  • Players will be able to redeploy troops lost in battle
  • Players will not gain bonus troops at the end of each round.
• Players will gain a troop when taking over a territory, and lose a troop when they lose a defensive battle.

Change

The defender can chose the location to retreat to after losing a battle.

Reason for change

Currently, the attacker can choose which location a defending army retreats to, so the attacker doesn’t have to worry about the army retreating to a location more favorable to the defender. If a defending army can chose the location that they retreat to, then the attacker needs to spread out their army in order to prevent the defender from retreating to certain locations.

Playtest results of change

The change appears to reduce the incentive to concentrate troops in one location. However, further testing is necessary to see if the changes are enough.

Clash of Empires currently has some issues with people being discouraged from attacking, especially early in the game. The winners were usually players who did not attack for the first half of the game.

Probable causes

During combat, the attacker will always lose the same number of units as the defender. This is a problem for the attacker because troops are difficult to replace.  A successful attacker is often vulnerable because they have fewer troops and more territory to defend.

Potential changes.

• In order to make attacking worthwhile, players will not lose units during combat, and the losing side will have to retreat to a spot chosen by the attacker.
• Players will have a fixed number of units based on the number of cities they own.
• Combat will be resolved by rolling dice, with friendly troops in adjacent territories giving bonuses.

Observations

• Poor troop positioning is a major problem.
• There was no disincentive to attack other players
• Concentrating all your troops in one place is a powerful strategy. It is not as efficient to move smaller armies, and larger armies are more effective in defense.
• The game may work as a 2 player game

Conclusion.

The new combat system seems like an effective way of encouraging attacks. However, some balance changes need to be made to discourage people from concentrating all their armies in one location.

A major problem with board games is people getting bored while waiting for their turn. After realizing that this was a major problem with Clash of Empires, I decided to find a way to make the game shorter Instead of allowing people to take unlimited actions as long as their units could move, I limited each player to 1 action per turn.

Based on playtesting with shorter turns, things went well. The other two players were more engaged, and did not get distracted with their phones because of low downtime between turns. Afterwards, their feedback was very positive, and said they enjoyed the game more than Risk.

One of the main goals of Clash of Empires is to make sure that stronger players cannot gain an overwhelming advantage over other players. With the new rules for turns, weaker players will be more efficient at using actions to attack and defend themselves.