New way to kill a few dull moments!

[Kazuo Shinrai]

Kazuo, great mastermind as he is, has come up with a new game to be played.

The name of the game : Covian Tactics

The way the game is played : With "cards" (little red books) and dice.

Playing field : A small red box (makes for an easy playing field).

Soon I will put up a vendor that distributes cards which can be purchased for a few gold coins.
Additionally, better cards may be given out as rewards for tasks (handed out by command for instance).
Finally, the best cards can be aquired by various means, for instance one could be placed at the bottom of a dungeon and the first one to get there would get the card.

Now, how the game works....
Each card will have a name, a small description and two values. One value will be offence, the other defence. Then certain cards may have a special rule bound to them that may affect gameplay. A game starts when one player challenges another and the challenged party accepts.

When the game starts, two players put three cards each on the table. Of these cards only one may be a "veteran" or "officer" card (explained later on). The person who challenged the other player gets the first turn.

On a players turn, he may opt to attack. When he does so he designates an attacker (one of his cards) and a defender (one of his opponent's cards). Both these cards have an offence and defence value, the attacking card uses the offence value and the defending card uses it's defence value.

Simple math you say? Well, quite indeed, you compare the offence value to the defence value and you'd have a winner. The losing card gets taken off the table. However, it's not quite that easy!

The attacker has to roll two dice when he makes his attack. The result will be 2d6 (two six-sided dice). Now, this is where is gets interresting! The first value is added to the attacker's offence value. The second is added to the defence value. Then after this is done the values are compared and a winner and loser is decided (and this one card gets taken off the table).

This means that an attacking card with 5 points in offence can actually be beaten by a card with only 2 points in defence, it's all in the dice!

When the attack is over, it's the other player's turn to attack. Attacks are exchanged until one party is left without cards.

Each turn, a player gets only one action. That means he has to select which card to use. Some cards have special abilities and sometime using such ability would count as an action. Additionally some special cards may summon other cards. At any time a player cannot have more than 4 cards.


Wagers :
This is what could make the game a bit more fun.
Either gold could be put at stake where both players put in say... 500 gold.
Or... the game could be played that the last card from the losing player that get's vanquished is won by the other player. This way actual strategy would have to be used on what card to leave to the end to maximize winnings.


Examples of cards :

Covian Recruit
offence : 1
defence : 1

Covian Watchman
offence : 1
defence : 2

Junior Guard
offence : 2
defence : 2

Junior Grenadier
offence : 2
defence : 3

Junior Dragoon
offence : 3
defence : 2

Regular Guardsman
offence : 3
defence : 3

Regular Dragoon
offence : 4
defence : 3

Regular Grenadier
offence : 3
defence : 4

Veteran Guardsman
offence : 4
defence : 4

Veteran Dragoon
offence : 5
defence : 4

Veteran Grenadier
offence : 4
defence : 5

etc. etc.

special cards :
- Cards with special abilities. With the summon cards, keep in mind that you can never have more than 4 cards on the table.

Officer Recruit
offence : 3
defence : 3
special : may summon any junior rank or below to the field instead of attacking

Covian Officer
offence : 3
defence : 4
special : may summon any regular rank or below to the field instead of attacking

Dragoon Sergeant
offence : 5
defence : 4

Covian Commander (rare card)
offence : 5
defence : 5
special : may summon any other rank to the field instead of attacking

Assassin (rare card)
offence : 7
defence : X
special : card cannot be attacked and is removed after killing one target

Samurai Mercenary (rare card)
offence : 6
defence : 5
special : honour - card may not attack opponents with 3 or less defence

Enhancement cards :
- These cards usually cannot be attacked unless they have a defence value. However if they do then losing a battle with these cards doesn't take the attacking card off the table. By playing these cards you opt to play with only two offence cards instead of three. Enhancement cards are generally used to boost the statistics of other cards.

Covian Standard Bearer
offence : X
defence : X
special : adds +1 offence to all military cards

Covian Healer
offence : X
defence : X
special : adds +1 defence to all military cards

Covian Fortifications
offence : X
defence : 4
special : adds +2 defence to all cards

Covian Siege Engines
offence : X
defence : 3
special : adds +2 attack to all cards

The Baron of Cove (rare card)
offence : X
defence : 1
special : adds +1 attack, +1 defence to all cards
special : may be defended by a grenadier instead


Card balance :
Generally offence and defence values cannot exceed 6.
In certain cases (such as assassin cards) exceptions are made.

[Delcarakdur]

BRilliant!

[Khaelieth]

Magic; The Gathering!

But insanely good!

Add Scouts! Give em first strike!

[Conan Darkmoon]

  I actually used to be excellent at "Magic the Gathering" making pro-tour trials a few trials, but alas it is a thing of the past for me.  Very well thought out though! 

[Nicholi Ravnthorn]

I demand the creation of Nicholi Ravnthorn cards A.S.A.P.!

[Kazuo Shinrai]

Actually... now that you mention it, yeah it does resemble that, heh whaddaya know!

Anyway, the system should not be hard to implement, the rules are simple to understand and except for the continuous distribution of cards there is hardly any maintenance needed to keep this running.

As for Nicholi Ravnthorn cards, well that is not gonna happen.
At first I wanted to introduce character cards like Gregor Eason and Baron Octiovus, but I prefer to keep things simple.

And isn't it amazing all sentences in this post start with an A?

[Khaelieth]

Set it up, but add the scouts and have a competition

Junior Scout:
Offence: 2
Defence: 1
Special: Sneaky git (Look at opponent's hand)

That works?

[Kazuo Shinrai]

Opponent's hand is visible anyway.
Scouts aren't implemented for now.

Need to leave room for an expansion!

[Kazuo Shinrai]

Additional concept : Card Uniquity

Each generated item in UO has an ItemID, a unique piece of code which identifies the item.
This means that when the item is created on the server (this could be an item put in your backpack after purchasing it off an NPC vendor, removing a single item from a stack, claiming an item from a token, items that are generated as loot, etc.) it gets a serial number which the item can by identified by.

EasyUO is a program which can read these itemIDs and possibly store them in a datebase.
This means that if the ItemIDs from generated cards (e.g. the red books when they are purchased off a vendor) are collected and stored, it's quite easy (by running a scriped macro - which is not illegal) to tell weither cards are false or not. Heh, just to prevent a person from making his or her own cards.

As for creating the cards, I'll get a script to do that as well, this way distribution and checking (the IDcheck script will be made public as well as the database) of new cards will be hardly any efford at all.

Furthermore, new cards will be occasionally stocked on a set vendor, which is located behind a door that can be opened by guildmembers only. Additionally all new cards will be put inside a locked container so that when you purchase a new card, no one knows exactly what card you're getting.

Also I'll have some Covians assigned to help in distributing the cards IC.

The only slight drawback when using vendors is for people to have the ability to just up and empty a vendor, thus claiming it's entire stock. But no worries, I'll think of a way to work around that.

[Locke DaOrt]

Interesting... although sounds very familiar to Grd top Trumps 

[John Dell]

And Grd top trumps reminds me of magic the card game... 


Also:

John Dell (rare card)
Offence: 10
Defence: 0
special: Berzerk - +2 Offence, Left over damage from attack on target attacks another target (Is removed after attack)
special: The Juggler - May Entertain an enemy card (The card may not attack or defend until next turn)


Eh eh? 

[Khaelieth]

What about Snudrud?

Offence: -4
Defence: -4
Special: Can be used to steal a card from the other player. The other player must then fetch you a glass of water.

Unglued! B.F.M.! Big furry monster! 99/99!

[Kazuo Shinrai]

Nice ideas but I was making an attempt at building a serious and constructive thread.

Thread locked.
Updates will be posted here but by me only.