Hex dominion

Because my muse is recaltricent but annoyingly stubborn, it never normally says "lets design a board game!" but a month before my wedding it suddenly does! :)

That's an exaggeration, it's fairer to say "had an idea for" than "designed" because approximately 100% of first ideas don't actually become playable games. But it's still fun to think about, especially if your stupid muse won't let you sleep until you print out some cards and try them.

The basic rules are:

You have 100-200 hexes. 1/2 field, 1/2 divided evenly between forest, mountain and water. Six of the mountain hexes have mines one. Shuffle them face-down into a big blog and turn them all over.

Each player starts with three settled field hexes, and one army.

You have a starting deck of cards, like in dominion. The cards let you:
- move armies
- settle new hexes
- destroy opposing armies
- buy better cards

A turn consists of:
1. At the end of the previous turn, draw until you have 5 cards.
2. Play any number of cards. Everything else you can do is instructed on a card.
3. Discard or keep any number of unused cards.

The last player with any hexes or armies left on the board loses wins.

( Read more... )

Other random comments on hex dominion

I wasn't sure about prototyping, I have very little experience physically making bits and pieces :) I decided the easiest way to make the hexes was not to make physical hexes at all: just generate a couple of random maps on the computer and print them out.

There are currently four sorts of pieces: settlement counters and armies in each player's colour; forts (I was going to use drafts pieces, but it never came up in the first playtest); and depletion counters (ideally little discs with a skull and crossbones on). In the first playtest I eschewed settlement counters and drew a circle on the hex in coloured pen instead, adding a second circle if someone added another counter. Similarly, depletion counters can't be shared with anything else, so I just drew a big cross through the hex.

I hope those counters can be simplified a bit. ( Read more... )