Game Length Variants

My apologies for the lack of updates or information this past month.  Another series of frustrating delays prevented us from launching our KS campaign in June.  You really learn to develop your patience as a game designer, especially when working with established publishers.  There are so many factors in play that are simply beyond your control.  In addition, we got some valuable feedback from playtesters who got a chance to try out Clockwork Wars at Origins.  I've been wrestling with some of the key issues for the past few weeks.

One concern expressed by a number of folks was game length.  This is a sensitive issue for me, since I always wanted Clockwork Wars to play fast: 90 minutes at most.  However, several of the learning games at Origins were clocking in at over 2 hours.  As such, I've been trying to tighten up the turn structure a bit and, more importantly, develop a couple different ways (variants) to play the game.

The basic game will now be a shorter, tighter experience.  It will last 7 turns, with an Early Age of 2 turns, a Middle Age of 2 turns, and a Late Age of 3 turns.  For those who don't mind having a more drawn-out strategy game experience, there is an "epic game" variant that is 9 turns long (3-3-3), as per the previous rules.

Shortening the game down to 7 turns necessitated a few minor rules changes.  Capitals now provide 4 workers per turn instead of 3.  And each player starts with 1 Sorcery, Science, and Religion IP each, to help kickstart discovery.

I've been playtesting this shorter version quite a bit lately, and there's a lot to like about it.  Every turn feels incredibly important.  The first turn in each age is all about maneuvering on the map and acquisition of key discoveries.  The latter turn is about acquiring Victory Points or court dominance.

Originally, I tested a 2-2-2 version, but a 2 turn Late Age had some issues.  Players who researched late age discoveries only got 2 turns to use them - and that's assuming they researched them right away.   This made late age discoveries far less valuable, when they should be the most exciting and "over-powered" ones in the game.  With a 3-turn late age, players get the benefit of having a lengthy final stage to the game where all their toys are in play.  

Otherwise, we'll still working through a lot of the component design and should have some updated (and near final) prototypes in time for GenCon.  

Clockwork Wars website is live

We've launched a great new website dedicated to Clockwork Wars, and you can find it here:

http://clockworkwarsgame.com/

You will find lots of information about the game, including artwork and reviews.

We also have an Art Contest running, so if you're interested in the possibility of getting your artwork into the game (and winning $150), please enter!  The deadline for submissions is June 15th.

Attrition

After a brief lull, we're moving into our final push of Clockwork Wars development before the Kickstarter launch.  I'm starting to get anxious!

In today's designer diary, I want to talk about Attrition.  In war, attrition refers to a gradual loss of strength and effectiveness of your military presence through the consequence of sustained attack or pressure.  One critical mediator of attrition is supply.  

I always wanted Clockwork Wars to be a (relatively) simple wargame that could still model complex and interesting interactions.  I've tried to keep the "rules of engagement" lean - thus, the one-for-one combat resolution which I've discussed previously. However, I also wanted to include a few wrinkles that would offer players more strategic and tactical options.  As such, supply lines exist in Clockwork Wars, but they don't invoke significant rules overhead.

A tile with your units on it is in supply if it it connected, through a chain of tiles under your control, to either your capital or one of your cities.  If that chain is ever broken, your troops that are out-of-supply must suffer a penalty. The penalty is straightforward:  you lose a Soldier from every out-of-supply territory at the end of every Combat Phase.

This simple rule can have a powerful influence on military strategy, especially, I have found, during the Middle Age (turns 3-4).  The Early Age (turns 1-2) in Clockwork Wars is often defined by players rushing for territories and saving up Influence Points for that first big Discovery.  There are often skirmishes, but rarely major battles.  However, in the Middle Age, most players have successfully claimed a section of the map - but not shored up their defenses.  There will likely be weaknesses in your opponents' "empires."  And if you can exploit these weaknesses, you'll be in an excellent position to take a significant lead in Victory Points as you move into the Late Age.   

Here's an example of how attrition works in practice.  This is actually an excerpt from my first instruction manual:

Key:

Purple hex is a Capital (Jules').
Yellow hexes are Shrines.

Red hexes are Towers.

Green hexes are Forests.

Blue hexes are Lakes.

Brown hexes are Citadels.

White hexes are Villages/Cities.

Hopefully you can see how you need to be vigilant in defending and developing your empire, as soon as you see that your opponents are within striking distance.  I've won (and lost) quite a few games of Clockwork Wars because of Attrition.  

As a final side-note, there's a lovely (and quite cheap) Early Age Religion discovery, Monasticism, that allows you to ignore the effects of Attrition.  

Integrating theme with mechanics

I think it’s fair to say that every designer approaches the issue of “theme” in a slightly different way.  A game has to have theme, or else it’s just an excel spreadsheet with a random number generator.  But it’s also clear that some designers are willing to sacrifice thematic relevance for game mechanics.  Eurogames, classically, have been guilty of this.  Many Eurogames possess clever mechanics which interlace in fascinating ways – encouraging players to explore the gamespace and become proficient in manipulating the various levers and pulleys.  The thematic overlay is simply there to provide an attractive backdrop.

Lately, I’ve been playing some Alien Frontiers.  I like the game quite a bit, and everyone I’ve played it with has been quickly impressed with its intricate design.  I like how it combines dice-rolling, worker placement, resource management, and area control.  And I like the retro sci-fi look to the whole package.  But the two - mechanics and theme – are not intertwined in any meaningful way.  There is nothing about rolling doubles, for instance, that screams out, “build a new ship” – or rolling three in a row that evokes “raiding.”  The only minor exceptions to this lack of thematic integration are some of the alien artifacts, like the Plasma Cannon.  Because of this disparity between theme and mechanics, Alien Frontiers ultimately leaves me a bit cold.  Again, I like it – but it won’t ever be one of my favorites.

One of my guiding principles in designing Clockwork Wars was thematic integration.  I love steampunk, especially for how it flaunts anachronisms and envisions alternative histories.  I also think it has enormous potential to influence game design, since it’s so evocative and “culturally diverse.”  Let me see if I can explain this.

I knew early on that my best opportunity to weave theme into the game mechanics was within the Discovery cards.  Like in any good civilization game, I wanted the player’s personal narrative to unfold both within the realm of conquest and exploration, as well as technological discovery.  When you’re playing Civilization or Nations or Through the Ages, your civilization is largely shaped by what you research.  Setting a game in a steampunk universe opens up the technology tree in fun and unexpected ways - especially, if you also allow magic and sorcery in.  Now you can have a game where one player is researching Necromancy and Philosophy, while another player is developing Gunpowder and Dirigibles.

 But beyond the simple anachronistic pleasure of this, I wanted to ensure that each of the discoveries made mechanical sense.  As such, the specific rules for each discovery are very much guided by theme.  They are not arbitrary.  For example, the Dirigible lets you move units around the map and reinforce your battles easier.  The University helps you generate Influence Points faster.  Inquisition forces your opponents to discard sorcery and science influence.  Divine Right grants VPs for every Shrine you control at the end of the game.

Developing the discoveries was an interesting design process.  I did start with some guiding concepts.  I wanted sorcery discoveries to be aggressive, powerful, and relatively expensive.  I wanted science discoveries to provide flexibility.  Religion discoveries were defensive, often focused on enhancing your villages and shrines, and cheap.

Then I started making lists of “cool things” I wanted to include in my game.  Like dirigibles, and druids, and a colossus, and pestilence.  So I started with images – narrative – first.  Then, for each image, I tried to conceive of a mechanic that would make sense for that card.  I got surprisingly far using this approach.  Indeed, it was only later in development when I began looking through the rules for mechanics which were available to manipulate through new potential discoveries (in other words, starting with a mechanic and trying to find a theme to match it).  For example, once I came up with the idea of discovery tokens being placed on the map, I wanted there to be a discovery that could help you defend them.  Thus, the Golem (right) was born.

In contrast, I get the sense that a lot of games (even heavily thematic, “Ameritrash” games) are developed through spreadsheets.  Let’s use an imaginary game example.  Let’s say I’m developing a civilization game where there are 3 civilization “attributes”:  military, economy, and culture.  There are also 2 resources:  gold and science.  In this game, there are dozens of potential discoveries for the players to research.  For example, a discovery that gives you +1 military and costs 1 science to research.  It is now a simple matter to generate a spreadsheet and create all possible permutations.  You can even have very complex techs, like something that gives +5 military/+2 economy and costs 4 gold/6 science.  But it’s all numbers.  Once you have your list of permutations, you give a name to each one.  Cheaper ones might come from ancient times (like a granary, or polytheism), and more expensive ones from modern times.  But the thematic integration is bare-bones here.  You might be calling that +8 military card an aircraft carrier, but nothing about the card itself – or its effect on the game – has anything to do with a ship that carries jets.

I suppose I could have approached the design of Clockwork Wars' discoveries in that fashion, but it wouldn’t have been as fun – and it wouldn’t have created a thematically meaningful steampunk game.

The one major obstacle to creating game elements that consistently tie theme with mechanic is balance.  It’s (relatively) easy to balance cards, for example, generated from a spreadsheet. But when every card is different – and breaks the rules in fundamentally different ways from every other card – balance becomes a nightmare.  It’s been a major design challenge for me – one that I enjoy greatly – but one that is not easy to address.    For example, the late age Sorcery discovery, Necromancy says:

For every Shrine that you control at the beginning of the Recruitment Phase, you may recruit 2 additional workers.

What’s the value of this card?  How many Influence Points should it cost?  Is it a “better” card than the similarly priced Dirigible?  This part of game design feels uncomfortably like intuition at times, since play-testing can only reveal so much.  In one game, Necromancy might be used to great effect – in another, hardly at all.  So player feedback on its value will vary wildly.  Again, I really enjoy thinking about this kind of stuff, but it’s also a constant source of anxiety for me.

The evolving map: discovery tokens

I’d like to tell you about one rule in Clockwork Wars that makes every game different and interesting.

I’ve previously talked about the Discoveries in the game.  In every Age, there are 3 Discoveries available to research:  one based in Sorcery, one based in Science, and one based in Religion.  An example set from the Early Age might be:  Golem (Sorcery), Gunpowder (Science), and Monasticism (Religion).  These Discoveries are available for all players to research.  As such, they represent another point of competition and conflict of which all players must be constantly vigilant.  If you’re not careful, a wily opponent will research two different discoveries that have a powerful effect when played in concert (for example, Steam Train and Knighthood).

Discovery token (prototype)

When you research a discovery, you pay the necessary cost in Influence Points.  There is both a card and square cardboard token associated with each discovery.  You can place the card in front of you as a reminder of its special effect, but you must place the token somewhere on the map.  This token represents your actual discovery – in play.  As such, it now becomes a potential target for conquest.  If another player takes over the territory that holds the discovery, they will become the new owners.

I love this rule for so many reasons.  First, it creates a difficult and interesting choice for the player who makes the discovery.  They must decide where to put the token on the map.  They can place the discovery in their capital.  The advantage of this is that no player may ever attack another player’s capital, so the discovery will be safe for the rest of the game.  However, any one territory, including your capital, can only hold one discovery.  Let’s say you research Medicine – a powerful early age science discovery.  Do you place it in your capital, knowing that any subsequent discoveries you research – including the most powerful ones of the late age – will have to be placed in vulnerable locations on the map?  Or do you risk it by placing Medicine on the map?  If the latter, you better commit some of your valuable forces to defense of the territory.

When you can place the discovery on the map, it must be put in a research territory within the same "discipline."  Science discoveries must be placed on Manufactories.  Sorcery discoveries on Towers.  Religion discoveries on Shrines.  Furthermore, some Discoveries have powers which directly relate to their position on the map.  For example, the Catapult - an early age Science discovery - states:

During the Reinforcement stage, you may kill 1 enemy Soldier in any territory within two tiles of the Catapult.  Catapult may target its own territory.

This means that every map you play in Clockwork Wars will evolve in different strategic directions.  There’s already infinite replayability in how you set up the map itself, using 9 different terrains and any configuration your heart desires.  And then you add on top of this, players developing the map by deploying discoveries and radically shifting the value of individual hexes.

I recently played a game where I researched Soul Drain, an early age sorcery discovery, on Turn 2.  It’s a powerful card that says:

Whenever you win a combat versus a lone enemy Soldier, you gain 1 VP and may add a worker to your recruitment pool.  

I began using it to great effect over the next two turns (especially since it combos well with the Spymaster ability, Tactical Operations).  However, my opponents recognized the threat quickly and immediately began assailing the tower where I had the discovery stored.  I couldn’t keep it, while still expanding my empire, battling over court influence, and developing my villages.  So then one of my opponents took control of the tower and Soul Drain – and started using it against me the very next turn.  It was brutal!  Soul Drain changed hands a couple times that game, and every time it did it shifted the power-balance.  If you research something in Clockwork Wars, you have to be prepared to defend it.

Rules complete

Just a quick update today.  It's been a busy couple weeks with regards to Clockwork Wars.  We're in the home-stretch, trying to be 100% ready for the KS campaign - as well as generate some pre-campaign buzz via Facebook, BGG, etc.

I'd say at this point we've got about 50% of the art finished, but our artists are completing 2-3 pieces per week.  With over 50 cards in the game, each one featuring unique art, we knew it was going to be a time-consuming task from the beginning.  But I love the artists we're working with right now, and their enthusiasm is invigorating.

Graphic design work on the game-board, card layouts, and tokens is coming along nicely.  I'd say we're about 60% done there.

The best news is that I've submitted the rules to Eagle for translation into French and German.  In other words, I'm 99% confident that the bulk of rules writing and editing is complete.  I, and several other people, have gone over these rules dozens of times, and I think they're well-organized, clear, and complete.  If anything, I've erred on the side of making them too long and detailed.  I'd rather the rules be precise, without any holes or contradictions, and with plenty of gameplay examples. In terms of rules complexity, I consider Clockwork Wars a light-medium weight game.   For most strategy gamers who regularly play modern board games, the rules will be easily manageable.  On par with Memoir '44 (or really any of the Command and Colors series) or Conquest of Nerath, if you're familiar with those titles.  However, if Risk is the only strategy game you've ever played, CW might be a little overwhelming at first glance.  But I guarantee you that after a turn or two, you'll get the rhythm and be seeing the possibilities unfold.

We've got some new prototypes in the works and will continue play-testing, ensuring that the card balance and race balance, in particular, are just right.  That stuff is always hard (asymmetry is fun, but a pain-in-the-ass from a design standpoint), but I can promise you it's at the top of my mind.

Cheers, all.

Ritual of Blood

Today, I'd like to show off some art and also tell you a little more about how specific discoveries work in Clockwork Wars.  Here's the current art for the sorcery discovery, Ritual of Blood.

Pretty grim! Purebreed technowizards conducting nefarious experiments on some poor Mongrel captives.  I find a lot of steampunk art, especially in games, cartoonish or whimsical. We aimed for a slightly more mature style with Clockwork Wars and think we've achieved it. I love this piece and can't wait to show you more from the same artist. He's got a unique eye.

So how does Ritual of Blood work?  First of all, it's a sorcery discovery, which means that you need to collect sorcery influence points (IP) by controlling towers on the map.  Each turn, every tower that you control generates 1 sorcery IP.  Ritual of Blood costs 7 sorcery IP to purchase, which is relatively expensive.

In addition, Ritual of Blood is not available to research until the Late Age.  A game of Clockwork Wars lasts for 7 turns.  Turns 1-2 are the Early Age, turns 3-4 are the Middle Age, and turns 5-7 are the Late Age.  At the end of each age, there's a scoring phase where players earn victory points for any resources territories (Forests and Lakes) that they control.  The ages also determine what discoveries are available to purchase.

Let's say you planned things just right.  It's turn 5, you've got the first player token, and you have 7 sorcery IP tokens. When the research phase comes around, you can declare that you're "discovering" Ritual of Blood and take the card and its associated discovery token.  That token must be placed in either your capital or any tower that you control.  Discovery tokens represent the discovery itself - and they can be captured by your opponents.  If you place Ritual of Blood in a tower under your control, but then one of your opponents captures that tower on a subsequent turn, you will need to hand over Ritual of Blood to your enemy. Brutal!  However, a discovery placed in your capital can never be captured.  Unfortunately, any single territory, including your capital, can only ever hold one discovery.

So now you own Ritual of Blood.  What does it do for you?  Every research phase, you can activate it for the following effect:  for each Tower you control, you may kill up to 2 Soldiers in a single territory and gain 1 VP per Solider killed.

In effect, Ritual of Blood lets you attack your opponents anywhere on the map - AND get VP's for doing so. The more towers you control, the more powerful it is.  Imagine if you controlled 3 towers! You could kill 6 enemy soldiers per turn and get 6 VP every time you did so:  18 VP just from late age use of Ritual of Blood.  Almost certainly a winning strategy.  But if your opponents let you pull this off (by ceding control of so many towers), they deserve to lose the game.

From the beginning, I wanted discoveries to be real "game-changers."  They're not supposed to be subtle or slight.  They should change the landscape of the conflict in a significant fashion, create drama, and provide enormous advantage to those who research them.  As such, you ignore research and discoveries in Clockwork Wars at your peril.