Since my last update, my game has not been playtested. There have been too many things going on to provide enough time to play a 2 hour game with about an hour of instructions. To that end, I did some thinking earlier this week, and had what I hope to be a breakthrough.
First, though, I want to explain a little about the former structure of the game. Since I started designing this game, it has been 3 Years long, with each Year consisting of 5 turns. Each turn, all players pick 1 card and choose to either build it or discard it for a resource production boost. The remaining cards are passed to the next player (similar to 7 Wonders). Then players take their workers and place them to either build or upgrade their cards, activate abilities on their cards, or gather resources.
I knew that the addition of worker placement to the card drafting scheme would add length to the play time; however, I did not think that the length would be tripled due to the additional options made available. To that end, I have decided to lower the number of rounds per year from 5 to 4.
With this change, I also had to make some decisions on starting hand size and card allocation. Previously, the starting hand size was 7, with players discarding 2 cards at the end of the year (1 of the cards would be shuffled into the cards for the next year). Also, the card distribution was fixed based on the number of players (for example, there were always 2 copies of Saloon in a 3 player game).
While I liked the idea of always having a fixed set of cards every game (the drafting mechanic would allow for plenty of replayability), I was not always fond of hunting for all the 3+ cards for a 3 player game. When I designed the cards for each year, I took my time to attempt to balance the power of each card when compared to the other cards of that year. So now, here are the other big changes I plan to make:
1) Each player will start the year with a hand of 5 cards. After 4 are played, the last card will be discarded (not added to the next year's deck).
2) To add a little more variety, there will be extra cards that are not dealt to the players (in a 2 player game, 10 of 12 cards will be dealt...15 of 24 and 20 of 24 in 3 and 4 player games, respectively)
The 2nd change is the one that will have the largest impact. By having some cards unknown to all players, the strategy level gives way to more tactical thinking. The biggest problem I am having with this change currently is that I feel that 3 and 5 player games will be a bit too tactical due to the additional 6 cards that are not used when compared to 2, 4, and 6 player games. A thought I have to address this is to either have players choose buildings to remove from the decks for each year to makeup the difference, or reveal 6 cards from those not used each year.
I am still attempting to figure this "issue" out, and welcome any ideas that you all wish to share.
At this point, I have many changes to make to have the game ready for a playtest. Those changes include:
1) Board changes (both player and main board) to account for 3 fewer rounds
2) Card changes to account for fewer rounds. This includes the removal of the Synergy abilities (they will be replaced with more Upgrade abilities)
3) Changes to the rules to account for all changes listed above
With this list, I do not believe that I will be ready in time for SWIC, but do hope to have something ready the following weekend when I have friends over to play games. Wish me luck!
