A Dance with Dragons
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Let's Create Cyvasse
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Just to start this off I thought that maybe there could be a square on the board which the dragon would always be deployed on and while the dragon hasn't been moved it is invulnerable that way keeping the dragon in reserve is a viable strategy (just like in the book) without the game having to be balanced in such a way that the best way to use your dragon is to keep it in reserve. That is if we even want to make it a powerful strategy.Oh and if the game is modeled so that you give each unit a command, to move or defend for example, there could be a rule that the dragon would have to move each turn after it is moved for the first turn (to make it more of a glass cannon - the way it is described in the book)
Here's a set of rules for the game (free .pdf download) that allows options for both square and hexagonal chessboard play and varying complexity -- from a chess-like game at its simplest to a Blitzkrieg-like game with terrain and flanking rules at its most complex.https://sites.google.com/site/nonamep...
I've seen some people make this, actually...http://www.nerdist.com/2014/06/game-o...
http://www.cnet.com/news/3d-printed-c...
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:92172
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http://gameofcyvasse.com/
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:92172
http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/...
http://skitzinc.wikispaces.com/Cyvasse
You can find the quotes from the books in the links above. According to GRRM the game is inspired by Blitzkrieg, Stratego and Chess so Cyvasse will be a perfect information game except for the deployment phase and won't have any resurrection system (so you will need to use the units you have to develop a strategy, there is no other resource).
First thing's first, we need to agree on certain aspects of the game:
There are 10 pieces (FoC pg226) however the books mention: King*, Dragon*, Elephant*, Catapult, Trebuchet, Crossbow(men)*, Spear(men)*, Heavy Horse, Light Horse*, Chariot, Rabble* & Mountain. So things we'll need to agree on (*: according to the books these are definately unique pieces):
Are mountains pieces?
- They are configurable so there will have to be a mountain piece but they can only be deployed not moved so this is a valid question.
Chariot tautology? (that is Chariot = Heavy Horse)
Trebuchet/Catapult tautology?
The answer to two (and only two) of those questions is Yes.
I think everyone can agree that like Stratego and Chess players alternate turns and get one move per turn and that each "square" can only house one unit (with the possible exception of units standing on mountain pieces?).
- We will need to decide how the move works (do you decide what each piece does each turn or do you decide which piece to move each turn or some will we use some combination?) If the players has to give each piece an action every turn then pieces can defend or move which adds another dimension into the game.
How big is the board?
- IMO this question should wait until we have defined the functions the board and units must have.
If we want Cyvasse to bear any resemblance to what it is in the books then it has to be simple. Like Chess or Go it should only take one practice game to learn how the units move and there should be no complicated balance rules ("if today is friday and your heavy horse is next to a catapult then you can't stand up for three minutes"). However since this is an open source game made by a community we will need a way to determine when the game is to complex. (Consider this a question)
Because we don't want there to be any best way to deploy (rendering the deployment phase useless) and we don't want the game to degrade to rock-paper-scissor deployment patterns (rendering actual gameplay useless) we will need the decision tree to be large enough so that a good tactician can win a good strategist and vice-versa (what I'm trying to say is that the game should not be lost or won in the deployment phase but rather it should work like openings do in Chess, decide the pace of the game and determine your overall strategy but someone who only knows opening still loses to someone who has a knack for playing). We will therefor need to tweak the movement of units and the default terrain to accommodate both parts of gameplay.
According to the books the board changes from game to game according to how the players arrange their home squares. Now how we define home squares and how the terrain on them is is entirely up to us but I don't think it wise to have more than three terrain types (obviously there are mountains and then there is normal terrain so we could add one more type).
- I think the most practical way to execute this feature is to split your deployment zone into parts which can be rotated and are interchangeable (could be just two parts but not to many (each part has to be atleast 3x3 IMO so that the player can't just ignore the terrain). Eight parts for example is bordering on to much)
Is the board made of Squares, Hexagons or some other unit?
Are all the "squares" the same size?
Things the books mention that could be actual things:
Stronghold?
- This could refer to the units on the field after deployment (they create a stronghold around the king) or it could be an actual thing on the board.
Passes?
- Could be that there is area between the deployment areas that is always the same and creates chokepoints.
Deciding how the capture system works should be the first decision we make since it will impact every other decision.
- In my opinion it is simpler and very Game of Thrones-y (yes I know the series isn't called that) that any unit can capture any other unit (like chess) but there is no mention of that in the books and GRRM said Cyvasse is inspired by Stratego as well as Chess so either capture system should be fine.
How do mountains work?
- Dragons can obviously somehow bypass the restrictions they impose. But since Blitzkrieg is one of the inspirations (and now I'm out of my depth since I don't really know anything about the game) we have to consider the possibility of mountains being easy to defend and slow to move through. Capturing mountains would then become a tactical goal and would add depth to the game. Also I guess we can't throw out the outside possibility of the mountains being move-able in some way.
How do Catapults work?
- There might depending on how we decide to proceed also be a Trebuchet unit but for now we should keep in mind that a Catapult is apparently capable of capturing two units by shooting in a line or with splash (if we decide to have both T & C we can have one with splash and the other with lines)
I think everyone has realized by now that the number of different games that can be made with the restrictions we have is an astronomically large one. Therefor I am of the opinion that we should, while we haven't decided how to proceed, split Cyvasse into genre's and create working examples of each genre using the biggest impact decisions above to decide genres. Now luckily this work has already begun like the links above show but it is nowhere near complete. There is no reason why Cyvasse can't be an timeless classic strategy board game like Chess or Go and because of how popular these books are we hopefully have enough interested people to make a game whose popularity will not be limited to GoT fans.
Now how do we proceed? Goodreads is definitely not the right place to work on a game and I hope someone here has a good idea for the next step. This is a community project and anyone who is interested can be helpful. Eventually we will have to move this project elsewhere (https://code.google.com/p/cyvasse/ ?) and hopefully pick up contributors from elsewhere as well but for now we need to discuss how to organize ideas and proceed with playtesting.