Thread by @garius

I should probably point out that I have legit thought about how a digital CCG of the Great Game would work before.

So following the comments on the quoted tweet, this was my thinking...

https://twitter.com/garius/status/1140997159325753344

Three playable nations at launch: Britain, Germany and Revolutionary Russia.

'Game board' is the Caspian Sea c. 1918/19

Ways to win:

- Control most POLITICAL CENTRES at game end
- Opponent runs out of cards
- Control ALL political centres for two rounds

To control a political centre you must have the most POWER within it.

To take one you simply need more power there than the current owner.

Centre owner political power ticks down by 1 every round, unless they take actions to boost it.

Cards that modify power fall into three classes, MONEY, FORCES and CHARACTERS.

These can either have positive power effects for YOU or
negative power effects on your opponents.

Some cards stay in play for a continual effect, some are instant.

Continual effect cards that stay in play can be targeted by power actions and removed from play, in the same way as power can be used to control centres.

So a lot of nuance comes in whether you should target a continual effect (maybe it's boasting their power in controlled centres or ticking yours down faster) or take a centre yourself.

There's one FINAL value/resource: RAILWAYS.

This work slightly different from the other three. Your railway value doesn't have a DIRECT impact on POWER, but dictates HOW QUICKLY a card you play happens.

The more POWERFUL an effect, the slower it is to come into play, and that timescale is modified by your RAILWAY value.

Control more of the railway network and your stuff will happen faster.

So playing cards, in effect, SPENDS one of three resources (Money, Forces, Characters) and time-until-impact is modified by their RAILWAY value.

Those three resources tick up each turn, at a steady (but modifiable with cards) rate, except railways which is a CONSTANT unless modified.

Each of the three nations have different tick rates for those resources and start with a different railway value.

This (and their cards) gives them a different flavour of play.

Both players can't pick the same nation, so gameplay is ALWAYS asymmetric.

Britain:

RAILWAYS: Low
MONEY: High
TROOPS: Low
CHARACTERS: High

Russia:

RAILWAYS: High
MONEY: Low
TROOPS: High
CHARACTERS: Low

Germany:

RAILWAYS: Medium
Money: High
TROOPS: Medium
CHARACTERS: Low

And that's broadly it. You're trying to control stuff, counteract stuff, and ALL THE TIME deal with the fact both sides have delayed actions coming into play.

So maybe you know they've got a boost landing on round 4. If you know you're going to have to play your thing to counter it in turn 2 (because of IT'S railway delay) then you have to plan for that.

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE.

Because modifying YOUR or THEIR railway value AFFECTS QUEUED CARDS WAITING TO ENTER PLAY as well as new ones.

Can you fuck them up by making THEIR card play earlier, by positively increasing their railway value? Great!

BUT! you've also just helped them deploy stuff quicker in future. etc. etc. and maybe that was their plan...

...or maybe they can counter that by modifying their own railway value back.

Basically, you win the game not just by better controlling the SPACE of the playfield (political centres), but also by controlling TIME (railways)

And because you can ALWAYS see what BOTH PLAYERS have queued up, you can set off some awesome cascades of cause and effect by doing different things at different times.

Gonna lose a political centre? Then why not screw with your opponent's railways so the thing that was going to target it when YOU controlled is now delayed and targets THEM instead?

etc. etc.

Future EXPANSIONS you can explore by adding things that influence one of the resources, or add new 'nations' in the form of local powers (Transcaspia, Persia, India) to spice things up.

And there you go, in broad terms, that's my 'Great Game' Digital CCG.

It'd probably be called:

Great Game: Battle for the Caspian or something.

Blizzard call me. etc. etc!