Weekly Rules 1: The Turn System
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Weekly Rules 1: The Turn System
by Theogar the Oathsworn Fri Jul 15, 2016 3:09 pm
Welcome to the first of our weekly rules posts!
We’ve designed a balanced turn system for Fog of War, one that allows for both player strategy and a degree of randomness. We’ve actually come up with two different systems that are broadly similar and we’re in the process of deciding between them. Both are centred around ‘actions’ and action points, which are explained below.
Actions
Actions are the different kinds of commands that can be issued to units during a turn. Every unit can perform the standard actions, such as moving, charging and shooting. Some units have special actions, based either on equipment or skill. None are finalised yet, but we’re experimenting with some like ‘Shieldwall’ or ‘Berserk’, which would change the way that unit works.
Every action you issue to a unit uses up one of your actions for that turn. You will have fewer action points than you do units, so you will have to make tactical choices. Units can act more than once per turn, but most actions have a ‘cooldown’ associated with them that prevent the unit for acting again until a certain number of other actions have passed. This prevents you from moving one unit from one end of the board to the other in one turn, for instance, or shooting five times with your powerful warmachine or crossbowmen. Learn more below.
Action Cooldowns
Action cooldowns are the amount of global actions that must pass before a unit can act again. Global actions are actions performed by either player during play. We’re toying with the idea of weapons having independent cooldowns - for example, if you shot a weapon with a cooldown of three, but the shooting action only has a cooldown of one, then you would be able to act again after just one action, but three actions must have passed before the unit can shoot again. This would allow ranged units to move into range of another target before they shot again.
That’s an overview of how actions work. Here are the ways we’re currently thinking of implementing them:
Idea One
Turns are split into actions. The game begins with each player rolling a ten-sided die; the one who rolls highest begins the game. At the start of the winner’s turn they roll 2D5 and pick the highest value. This is the number of actions they will get in their turn. The player then makes his units act until all his actions have been used up. When all of their actions are spent, their half of the turn is over. The other player then rolls 2D5 and picks the highest value, and does their turn in the same way. Once both players have performed their actions, the turn is over: units that are currently moving get to move their full movement and if there are any ongoing combats, a round of each is performed. The turn ends, turn two begins. This is repeated until one army has achieved the game’s objective. There will be a system for providing more actions to each player for larger battles, so they don’t end up ignoring half their army.
Idea Two
The second idea we’ve come up with is a little different. As before, each player rolls a D10 to determine who is the active player. The loser is the reactive player. Turns are always a set amount of actions long, and only the active player acts in a turn. Once the active player has used all the actions available to him in a turn, the reactive player can attempt to seize the initiative from him. They do this by selecting a unit, declaring an aggressive action (e.g. shooting attack or charge), rolling 1D10 and getting a lower value than the chosen unit’s intuition stat. If they succeed, they become the active player. If they don’t, the other player remains the active player. For each failed seize initiative attempt, the reactive player gets a boost to their dice roll, so their next attempt would be made at 1D10+2. The reactive player is not entirely passive, however: they will have various methods open to them to intervene in the active player’s turn - by shooting, for example, with a stationary ranged unit at an enemy unit that moves too close, or by setting up certain actions for their units that allow them to act if the active player uses a certain action during their turn.
Please tell us below how you feel about this, and which of the two ideas you prefer, and why. Thanks!
We’ve designed a balanced turn system for Fog of War, one that allows for both player strategy and a degree of randomness. We’ve actually come up with two different systems that are broadly similar and we’re in the process of deciding between them. Both are centred around ‘actions’ and action points, which are explained below.
Actions
Actions are the different kinds of commands that can be issued to units during a turn. Every unit can perform the standard actions, such as moving, charging and shooting. Some units have special actions, based either on equipment or skill. None are finalised yet, but we’re experimenting with some like ‘Shieldwall’ or ‘Berserk’, which would change the way that unit works.
Every action you issue to a unit uses up one of your actions for that turn. You will have fewer action points than you do units, so you will have to make tactical choices. Units can act more than once per turn, but most actions have a ‘cooldown’ associated with them that prevent the unit for acting again until a certain number of other actions have passed. This prevents you from moving one unit from one end of the board to the other in one turn, for instance, or shooting five times with your powerful warmachine or crossbowmen. Learn more below.
Action Cooldowns
Action cooldowns are the amount of global actions that must pass before a unit can act again. Global actions are actions performed by either player during play. We’re toying with the idea of weapons having independent cooldowns - for example, if you shot a weapon with a cooldown of three, but the shooting action only has a cooldown of one, then you would be able to act again after just one action, but three actions must have passed before the unit can shoot again. This would allow ranged units to move into range of another target before they shot again.
That’s an overview of how actions work. Here are the ways we’re currently thinking of implementing them:
Idea One
Turns are split into actions. The game begins with each player rolling a ten-sided die; the one who rolls highest begins the game. At the start of the winner’s turn they roll 2D5 and pick the highest value. This is the number of actions they will get in their turn. The player then makes his units act until all his actions have been used up. When all of their actions are spent, their half of the turn is over. The other player then rolls 2D5 and picks the highest value, and does their turn in the same way. Once both players have performed their actions, the turn is over: units that are currently moving get to move their full movement and if there are any ongoing combats, a round of each is performed. The turn ends, turn two begins. This is repeated until one army has achieved the game’s objective. There will be a system for providing more actions to each player for larger battles, so they don’t end up ignoring half their army.
Idea Two
The second idea we’ve come up with is a little different. As before, each player rolls a D10 to determine who is the active player. The loser is the reactive player. Turns are always a set amount of actions long, and only the active player acts in a turn. Once the active player has used all the actions available to him in a turn, the reactive player can attempt to seize the initiative from him. They do this by selecting a unit, declaring an aggressive action (e.g. shooting attack or charge), rolling 1D10 and getting a lower value than the chosen unit’s intuition stat. If they succeed, they become the active player. If they don’t, the other player remains the active player. For each failed seize initiative attempt, the reactive player gets a boost to their dice roll, so their next attempt would be made at 1D10+2. The reactive player is not entirely passive, however: they will have various methods open to them to intervene in the active player’s turn - by shooting, for example, with a stationary ranged unit at an enemy unit that moves too close, or by setting up certain actions for their units that allow them to act if the active player uses a certain action during their turn.
Please tell us below how you feel about this, and which of the two ideas you prefer, and why. Thanks!
Theogar the Oathsworn- Admin
- Posts : 8
Renown : 3
Location : Usar, Istaria
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