“So we’re spending these ‘points’ of resources on units,” says my hypothetical reader, picking up the conversation from where it dropped earlier this week. “What does that get us? How many points is each type of unit worth?”
It’s at this point I admit that early prototyping is as much art as science. Ideally, there’s a formula for such things waiting to be formulated, playtested, and perfected. Truly I hope that there is; formulas make my life easier. But for now, all we have a baseline and a rough guide.
The baseline I’m working from is the weakest unit, the Milita. I want it to cost 1 Population. Thematically, you’re recruiting Joe Farmer, handing him a sharp stick, and pointing him at the invading spider army. He’s not very effective, but he costs you nothing in terms of training or equipment.
1 Population is worth 1 “point,” so this is what we’re looking at for our base:
Militia: +0 Attack, 3 Defense, 1 Life, no special abilities / Cost: 1 pt.
The next “level” of unit is what I’m generically calling the Soldier. His stats are a bit better, reflecting some training and oh, I don’t know, a sword or spear or something. So I’m thinking he should cost a Population and a Metal, which puts him at 3 points.
Soldier: +0 Attack, 4 Defense, 1 Life, simple special ability like “On a 6, deal +1 damage” / Cost: 3 pts.
(Game Design Note: I expect this to be the bread-and-butter unit of most armies. As such, I kept the Attack at +0 because adding even a small modifier can be cumbersome when you’re rolling multiple dice.)
At the top tier are the Specialists. These probably vary from one player faction to another, and players probably have different types of Specialists to choose from within their own ranks, but I reckon they’re all better than Soldiers. Most require Milk to pay for them, but some might just need a lot of Metal or Population. If they cost 1 Population, 1 Metal, and 1 Milk, they’re worth 6 points. Some surely cost more, but this seems a good place to start.
Specialist: +1 Attack, 4 Defense, 2 Life, some sweet special ability / Cost: 6 pts
That seems really expensive, especially compared to the Militia. But then I remember that the original concept of the game included trading, and I’m okay with it. Your heroic Spider Slayer costs 5 Metal but you only have 1 Metal? Trade some of that Milk you’ve been hoarding to the player next to you; she’d love to give you some of her Metal in exchange.
So now we’ve got a board, a combat system with basic units, and a basic economy. Looks like we’re ready to build a prototype and — oh. Oh, right.
I still need to figure out how the game works for the spider player.
Oh, we could just have the spiders use the same resource system as the humans, but that feels wrong. Thematically, the spiders might have an interest in resource, but those resources don’t drive their war-making efforts. Besides, in an asymmetrical game, the two sides should play asymmetrically.
I’ve got a couple ideas for this. I’ll let them germinate over the weekend and see what sprouts next week.
