I was just wondering if people could list some other titles that use
this "distribute/build and then perform" type games. I've always
enjoyed games like this, going back to the good old days of Car Wars
and Battletech where players would try and create an interesting
design that focused on a particular style of play. Now I'm just
wondering if there are any other boardgames out there that use this
type of structure? I know CCGs use this element a lot to build those
'killer decks', but I'm hoping to find some more board games that
provide this element, especially if they are of the import variety.
The only that comes to mind at the moment is Die Macher, but even the
initial 'bonuses' the each player selects are minimal in comparison to
the rest of the game.
I'm also aware that there are many games that have very important
setup strategies, such as Settlers, but what I'm after specifically
are games where some kind of design or resource allocation is made
that persists through the game.
Someone mentioned Battletech and mech design? Pretty much any
point-based RPG can be used to generate some characters - then get
out a hex map, some counters, the optional combat rules, and you've
got a "board game" about on par with Battletech. Depends upon the
RPG, of course.
Tarquelne
<os...@apk.net>
I know how God can make a rock so big He can't move it.
************************
> :>>But what I'm after specifically
> :>> are games where some kind of design or resource allocation is made
> :>> that persists through the game.
> :>
>
> Someone mentioned Battletech and mech design? Pretty much any
> point-based RPG can be used to generate some characters - then get
> out a hex map, some counters, the optional combat rules, and you've
> got a "board game" about on par with Battletech. Depends upon the
> RPG, of course.
GURPS works very well for this.
Mike Schneider, VRWC Sentinel Outpost. "Autoguns, on-line!" +--+--+--+
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"From each, according to his ability..."
http://www.rahul.net/liberty/liberty/images/bergmarx.gif
Would you include games that allow players to set their own victory
conditions (within given parameters) at the start of the game?
Careers, Magic Realm, the UFOs in Illuminati...
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Speed Circuit requires you to build your car with 5 setup points to spend in
these categories: Start Speed, Acceleration, Deceleration, Top Speed, and Wear
(and Tear) Points.
IIRC, Wooden Ships and Iron Men had build-your-own scenario rules where you
spent points on rigging, hull, cannon, and crew.
A completely different game genre but with a similar concept: many of the
rotisserie/fantasy sports leagues. Players have costs attached to them and
everyone has a fixed budget to spend.
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I didn't think of Careers, which someone else mentioned, but I agree that's
a good thought.
Finally I've come up with Kremlin, which no one else has mentioned yet.
It's quite an interesting game in which each player begins by secretly
assigning influence points from 1-10 on his choice of 10 politicians in a
stack of 26, including some already holding positions in the Politburo.
(Numbers may not be exact -- it's been a while since I've played.) Then the
political machinations begin!
If I'm interpreting this correctly, both Star Fleet Battles and
Starfire use points allocated to build ships/fleets, and then
duke it out.
> I was just wondering if people could list some other titles that use
> this "distribute/build and then perform" type games.
Mayfair's Road to the White House allows you to create your own candidates
using a point allocation system if you don't feel like using one of the
many candidates included in the game. It's one of my favorite aspects of
the game.
The fact that you CAN'T design your own ships was always the thing that
most turned me off to Starfleet Battles.
--
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www.albany.net/~geenius * Lun Yu 2:24 dangerous and sexy."
> If I'm interpreting this correctly, both Star Fleet Battles and
> Starfire use points allocated to build ships/fleets, and then
> duke it out.
I don't know about Starfire. SFB does allow you to build fleets from
existing ships. My disappointment is that it doesn't allow you to build
new ships.
> I was just wondering if people could list some other titles that use
> this "distribute/build and then perform" type games.
Deck-building non-CCG games:
Knightmare Chess
The Very Clever Pipe Game
Fight City
Up Front City-Fight-in-Four (and other DYO scenarios/wargames)
Ringside (I think that's the name -- the boxing game from Best of Dragon
Magazine Games)
Man-to-Man (the combat precursor of GURPS)
Hunter
--
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GURPS Japan 2/E coauthor (1st draft done, playtest online)
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Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
For games where there is an initial setup or configuration which will later
effect the types of strategy most likely to be used by a player, is the
setup hidden or open to the other players who are simultaneously
configuring???
for example, your victory conditions in careers are secret and it is the
fact that they are secret that lends excitement to the middle and end of the
game.
or another childhood example, in Stratego, you essentially setup a board
which is simultanously trying to fool your opponent as to the location of
your flag while supporting a variety of initiatives to locate theirs. You
slowly must expose your plans as you begin to move your pieces until
ultimately all of your information has been given away(hopefully winning
before the ultimate piece is gone).
Or in a game such as PowerPlay, where you are playing a series of hockey
games, and for each game you must select a team composition..... the
opponent begins to get a feel for the resources at your disposal, and can
try and predict trends in the type of cards you will choose and the order
you play the cards.
Or in a race game, where the initial choice is private, but the moment the
cars reach the line, the opponents see your car and know what strategy you
are most likely to use while driving....
bottom line, is all the information hidden at the start. is it all divulged
instantly, then to be used throughly the game, or is is slowly exposed as
needed as the game progresses?
Dave
Not mentioned yet, but of a similar type, and one which I like a lot, is Up
Front, using the bidding rules. Basically both players jointly design one
side's forces, then using points values for each man/vehicle/etc, design
their own force to beat it. Player with *least* points value wins the bid
and gets to play the force he designed. The other player gets to play the
jointly-designed force. V good for experienced UF players.
--
alan paull
<Sig>"The Goddess of Victory will bestow her laurels only on those who are
prepared to act with daring."</Sig>
> Fight City
I'm not sure this one really fits the criteria of the initial question,
which implied that you had free will in choosing how to spend your
resources in the setup phase. In Fight City, you're dependent on the
cards you draw. If you allow this case, then you have to add in all sorts
of other games as well -- Illuminati, for instance.
Fight City has a deck-building option -- take both decks (or whatever
cards you have), pull the 50-60 cards that you want to play with, and
then deal from that.
--
Dave Boyd | Parents travel far | From a place that lacks
Systems | They view a new dimension | Bilateral symmetry
Analyst | Getting me only | This lousy F-shirt
Neil Carr wrote in message <3785dd6d...@news.supernews.com>...
>I didn't really know how to title the header but I was wondering about
>games that exist or have existed where some kind of point based
>distribution is requried at the begining of the game and then lasts
>throughout the game for each player. I'm thinking of games such as
>Circus Maxiumus where each player distributes a fixed ammount of
>points towards the properties of their racing teams. These properties
>remain fixed througout the game and underscore the basic strategy the
>player is going to use for the game.
>
>I was just wondering if people could list some other titles that use
>this "distribute/build and then perform" type games. I've always
>enjoyed games like this, going back to the good old days of Car Wars
>and Battletech where players would try and create an interesting
>design that focused on a particular style of play. Now I'm just
>wondering if there are any other boardgames out there that use this
>type of structure? I know CCGs use this element a lot to build those
>'killer decks', but I'm hoping to find some more board games that
>provide this element, especially if they are of the import variety.
>The only that comes to mind at the moment is Die Macher, but even the
>initial 'bonuses' the each player selects are minimal in comparison to
>the rest of the game.
>
--
Bob Rossney
r...@well.com
"Who is to say that pleasure is useless?" -- Charles Eames
Also PanzerBlitz/Panzer Leader, same as above.
I'm not sure if arlready mentioned, but MtG is the all time best at design
strategy before playing (assuming of course that you have spent the bucks and
acquired tons of cards).
I was thinking of
United, a PBM soccer game, in which you distribute points between players of
different ages to build your starting team.
Lion Heart, in which you have to choose which units you will use.
Mush, where you have to choose what kind of training your dogs get.
Star Quest, in which you have to choose the weapons for your marines.
Silent Death with different spaceships.
Ronald Hoekstra
http://home.wxs.nl/~rubik
> I suppose it's really reaching here to suggest Die Macher, where you start
> the game by firing one member of your shadow cabinet.
But in the new Die Macher, none of them are fired.
Perhaps some have heard of a game called Die Siedler von Catan.
In that one you design what kind of products your settlements
will produce and how frequently, and how close they are to future
settlement sites and ports.
;)
Brian
I was thinking of ...
and I forgot to mention Breaking Away. You divide points between cyclists in
your team at the start of the race.
Well, there's Careers, where players secretly set fame, fortune, & happiness
goals before the game starts.
(Sorry if this is a repeat. I haven't followed this thread from the beginning
& am too lazy to go back & research.)
***
A couple domino sites I've enjoyed:
General info & links:
http://xs4all.nl/~spaanszt/Domino_Plaza.html
Windows downloads & more:
http://members.aol.com/DominoPage/
AH's "Kremlin" - allocate different points to various leaders and then try
to ensure they "come through the herd" into a position of power...
Derek
--
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The Board Gamesbook: Free Board Games
It seems that nobody mentionned Yaquinto's Swashbuckler, which uses a RPG
like character system (and my first published game, Baston, which owed a
lot to Swashbuckler).
All games in which you have to chose a starting position are more or less
of this kind. In Settlers, you can start far or near from the sea, put
your two settlements near or far away one from the other. In Valley of the
Mammooths, you can chose central or border locations, near from the lake
or deep in the mountains...
There are lots of games whicvh were not designed that way but which are
usually played that way.
When playing CE, if you adopt a rule like "chose two aliens among five" or
"chose three aliens among six" (our usual rules), you can design
strategies (if the concept of strategy is relevant in CE...).
When playing Axis and Allies, or Full Metal Planet, we sometimes use an
army construction rule, with x points for each type of unit.
When playing Tikal, you have to decide in the very first turn if you'll go
more for treasures or for temples, and you must hold to your decision if
you want to have a chance to win.
--
____________________________________________________
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tel & fax 01 40 33 17 95
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http://wwwusers.imaginet.fr/~faidutti/
_____________________________________________________
>
>When playing Tikal, you have to decide in the very first turn if you'll go
>more for treasures or for temples, and you must hold to your decision if
>you want to have a chance to win.
>
In the few games we've played, it seems to be to everyone's advantage to rush
in for the treasures when they appear. The unequal appearance of the treasures
seems to be the best reason for the auction rules (which we've never played),
as it's hard to beat someone with a pile of treasures.
Matt
And, in the same vein, Adventurer.
the Mav
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The Classic Microgames Museum
http://www.angelfire.com/ca/themav/micind.html
The Macho Women with Guns Homage Page
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Lair/6747
> The fact that you CAN'T design your own ships was always the thing that
> most turned me off to Starfleet Battles.
Well, you can, sort of - just draw an SSD. There's just no provided
way of determining if they're balanced against each other; I'm under
the impression that determining ship point values was somewhat of a
black art even among the designers (just adding up the point values of
various systems doesn't tell the whole story).
I have heard the opinion floated that Car Wars originally had a good
balance between the importance of designing your car vs. actually
playing out duels in the arena, but that eventually it lost this as
supplements came out, and 90%+ of the game was won in the design
phase. The claim is that later rules threw out of whack the balance
between weapon weight vs. damage delivered, allowing one to build
optimized fast-kill death machines. Caveat: I've never played Car
Wars.
Perhaps SFB's designers didn't want this happening to the game.
Certainly it has been long-lived as players try to figure out how to
"dance with them that brought ya".
Does this sort of problem exist with, say, Battletech?
--
Erich Schneider er...@caltech.edu Caltech Information Technology Services
There are about, what, 6 different Games Workshop games built around
creating armies/fleets/etc. from a finite number of predetermined points.
And that's just Games Workshop.
As a side note, is there a REALISTIC (non-GW) modern day warfare miniature
game with the "initial design" feature? (I'm sure there is, but I wanted
to know an opinion from someone who had one) How comprehensive is it (in
terms of artillery, supply, air support, etc.)?
How 'bout design yer own monster in Creature That Ate Sheboygan?
One that's not been mentioned yet: Sea Strike
This was one of the first commercial "sort of" board wargames I played at
school (early 70s ? we were mainly into miniatures then). It had the
additional attraction of being cheap to buy (supplied in a ziplock bag at
that time; subsequently available boxed).
Points values (via monetary value to purchase) and selection of force
components were intrinsic to the design. It's a modern naval game with a
good "look and feel"; though I guess the purist might claim it is more of a
miniatures game than a board game. The pieces were plastic laminated, so
you could mark damage with a chinagraph. Also *many* rules for upgrading
weapon systems. Included aircraft, shore-based SAM and SSM sites, MTBs,
frigates, destroyers, cruisers and subs.
It had a neat scenario-generation system. There were a number of objectives
(and force mixes) printed on paper, concealed in envelopes. These
objectives ranged from "sink one of opponents surface vessels" to "wipe out
all opponent's surface vessels". Each player selected one at random (or
perhaps one from three random picks) and basically you fought it out. A
conclusive victory was to achieve your own objective while denying your
opponent's. Draws were fairly common, so you could calculate victory
according to the proportional value of materiel lost.
>I was just wondering if people could list some other titles that use
>this "distribute/build and then perform" type games.
In Barbarian Kings, you choose three abilities for your king before
the game starts. These abilities can be schools of magic or "heroic"
abilities (combat, movement, etc).
In Empire Builder and similar crayon rail games you take some initial
rounds building tracks before using these. While you can build more
track later, the initial build sets your strategy for most of the
game.
Similarly, in 1830 and some of the other 18xx games, the initial
bidding for private companies can determine a lot of your strategy.
The bidding process has, however, very much interaction between
players, so it can hardly be called an independent design phase.
Torben Mogensen (tor...@diku.dk)
--
Andy Lange
ala...@rahul.net
The Auction rules MAKE this a great game - and that's a quote straight from the man
who brought this awesome game to the USA, Jay Tummelson. He was here in California
last week for Manafest and showed up at our local South Valley Boardgamers meet
(which met the Wednesday before the convention). We were learning the basic rules
and he came up and said with a smile "Nobody ever uses the basic rules after they
've learned the game - so let me just skip ahead and teach you the Auction rules!"
He was right. It adds a very interesting element to the game.
Our first game was decided by a single victory point, with the 4th player only 12
points behind.
Scott Di Bartolo
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Stop by and check out our Man O War Community at Deja.com - a place for all
MOW admirals to gather and discuss GW's best game. (IMHO of course...).
we are at:
In ANCIENT EMPIRES, players choose their starting locations which
affects their stratetgy: land/sea power...trade goods or materials rich
for money or building. Then they get three 'build' points which can be
used to spread out (resources and manpower) or build 'up' in one spot
(money)
see for yourself at http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Atrium/8123/
have fun
Steve Mathers
> Our first game was decided by a single victory point, with the 4th
player only 12 points behind.
Our first game was completely opposite, with a wide disparity at the
end. I had by far the most treasures (three complete sets), yet finished
in last place. My particular woe: The player to my right drew three of the
four volcanoes, and I myself did not once draw a "empty" hex (allowing me
to put a base camp in a strategic area).
Mike Schneider, VRWC Sentinel Outpost. "Autoguns, on-line!" +--+--+--+
Reply to mike1@@@winternet.com sans two @@, or your reply won't reach me.
"Voting on how to rule is no defense against tyranny; on the contrary,
it's a brilliant defense OF tyranny. It invites everyone to share
equally in the corruption of government." -- John Kennedy (the smart one)
Be sure you are playing the volcanos correctly. All players get a scoring turn
when a valcano is drawn. Being the person who draws the valcano is not always
an advantage in scoring.
As for the luck of the draw, that is what the auction game is for. IMO, the
rules it adds are minor compared with the decisions it adds.
>In article <378AD414...@ix.netcom.com>, SCO...@ix.netcom.com wrote:
>> Our first game was decided by a single victory point, with the 4th
>player only 12 points behind.
> Our first game was completely opposite, with a wide disparity at the
>end. I had by far the most treasures (three complete sets), yet finished
>in last place. My particular woe: The player to my right drew three of the
>four volcanoes, and I myself did not once draw a "empty" hex (allowing me
>to put a base camp in a strategic area).
You know you can put a base camp in an empty treasure hex, right?
Brian Keenan
: in last place. My particular woe: The player to my right drew three of the
: four volcanoes,
This is actually the optimal situation for you assuming you were going
first. For example, say the 1st volcano was drawn by the player going last
in the 2nd round. By the time each player scores they will have been able
to spend this number of action points in Total
4) 20
1) 30
2) 30
3) 30
You as player 1 have the advantage. You have been able to spend
50% more points than player 4 and spend points in advance of players 2 and 3
(which is an advantage in that if you end up fighting for a temple, you get
to act first and thus take it more easily). Poor player 4 is at a big
disadvantage. In the one non-auction game I played, I was player 4 and drew
the first 2 volcanoes and felt at a significant disadvantage because of it.
Because of the small number of turns in this game, I feel that the
normal advantage in games of going first is expanded in this game and is
a problem. The auction game solves this. Without the auction, I think some
alternating turn order might be in order.
: Mike Schneider, VRWC Sentinel Outpost. "Autoguns, on-line!" +--+--+--+
: Reply to mike1@@@winternet.com sans two @@, or your reply won't reach me.
Aaron
aar...@bu.edu
http://scv.bu.edu/~aarondf/ (the Last Homely House)
Yes, but it's usually a poor second option, since by the time the
treasures are gone, the surrounding area is usually depleted or guarded.
Mike Schneider, VRWC Sentinel Outpost. "Autoguns, on-line!" +--+--+--+
Reply to mike1@@@winternet.com sans two @@, or your reply won't reach me.
"Voting on how to rule is no defense against tyranny; on the contrary,
> slight wrote:
> > Our first game was completely opposite, with a wide disparity at the
> >end. I had by far the most treasures (three complete sets), yet finished
> >in last place. My particular woe: The player to my right drew three of the
> >four volcanoes, and I myself did not once draw a "empty" hex (allowing me
> >to put a base camp in a strategic area).
>
> Be sure you are playing the volcanos correctly. All players get a scoring turn
> when a valcano is drawn.
We did.
> Being the person who draws the valcano is not always
> an advantage in scoring.
He's the guy that won. (He didn't dig for a single treasure, BTW.)
> As for the luck of the draw, that is what the auction game is for. IMO, the
> rules it adds are minor compared with the decisions it adds.
Could you post the variant's rules in this thread? Thanks.
>In article <378AD414...@ix.netcom.com>, SCO...@ix.netcom.com wrote:
>> Our first game was decided by a single victory point, with the 4th
>player only 12 points behind.
> Our first game was completely opposite, with a wide disparity at the
>end. I had by far the most treasures (three complete sets), yet finished
>in last place. My particular woe: The player to my right drew three of the
>four volcanoes,
Having the player to your right draw (or buy) a volcano is to your advantage.
you get to move second. You get to take those pyramids the first player
didn't go for cheaply, and those he took relatively cheap.
Klaus O K
> > You know you can put a base camp in an empty treasure hex, right?
>
> Yes, but it's usually a poor second option, since by the time the
> treasures are gone, the surrounding area is usually depleted or guarded.
>
You do realize that each player can only have 2 guards in the game.
There should be at least some unguarded temples in the vicinity. Also, a
player can place only 2 base camps. So, there should also be some
available empty hexes as well.
Larry
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Note: To Reply remove "Not" from the e-mail address
> Could you post the variant's rules in this thread? Thanks.
The auction rules are included with the game already, and every
translation I've seen includes them as well.
--
Eric Amick
Columbia, MD
eam...@clark.net
You make it sound easy: "I'll just *teleport* guys in from outer space!"
It didn't work out that way.
BTW, the guy to my right was first player, so everybody was at even
points as they scored.
As in Settlers of Catan "hidden variant" (which I loathe), it all
matters in how the tiles and numbers get flipped, and who gets 'em. IMO,
the person who draws an "empty" tiles at just the right time has an
enormous advantage in increasing his mobility.