Imbalance of Power

I thought you might like to hear about a design I'm working on.

I have long enjoyed and admired The Game of Nations (TGoN) as a fairly abstract representation of Middle-East politics and the oil interest. I still consider it one of the few "old school" titles which stands up well amongst modern strategy games; but there are one or two issues with it which have been brought to the fore by others. One of the main downsides, which often leaves a bad taste for proponents of the modern game, is the concept of player elimination; which leads on to another characteristic of the game, in that it generally ends up as a drawn-out two-player match once the initial elimination is out of the way.

I set about trying to compensate for these shortcomings a few years ago, tweaking the rules of the base game, but this was to no avail. The only real solution I could reach was to shorten the endgame significantly, and even then it is a bit hit-and-miss because players must make a judgement call as to whether it is worth continuing the game beyond the fixed point of  the last elimination.

Another game I found interesting over two decades ago was Superpower (SP), a Games Workshop product from happier times. The theme is well-represented, with players exploiting Third-World nations in four regions of the World, first by providing economic support then military support (in the form of appropriate influence markers). The game also used propaganda (and propaganda wars would break out frequently), and an abstract commodity known as "World Opinion" - which was lost when carrying out actions and counted towards the victory conditions. Where SP suffered as a game was the lack of any real control. Just about every action was dice-driven; which made it an interesting journey with an unknown destination.

I decided some time ago that it would be good to combine the best of both, and Imbalance of Power was born; that being my working title for the resultant game. Version 0.1 consisted of a board divided into fictional nations. Each nation was divided into regions, roads and cities; regions would contain resources, such as oil, minerals and grain (a la Supremacy, not a game I was trying to assimilate by any means); cities would allow particular actions to be carried out by moving a leader onto them (like the leaders would move in Game of Nations - at a cost), and roads simply connected cities and divided regions. Players would place economic influence in nations to place advisers; depending upon advisor types, a number of actions could be chosen, either paid for by the players or by the nation. Players would receive resources in order of priority - the player with the most economic influence in the region gaining first choice and so on. Resources could also be bought and sold on a market, the price fluctuating according to supply and demand. Military support could be given to a nation on a one-for-one swap of economic influence, and if war broke out between two nations (usually because one player wanted it) forces would move onto regions, roads and cities - effectively blocking their use.

That first draft had some problems. It was difficult to balance the resource values against economic and influential values (as well as against each other). The initial board design was very busy and irrecoverably imbalanced. The player choices were overcomplicated by the convoluted decision-tree that the choice of actions produced. Most of all, things just didn't fit cleanly together. I decided more abstraction was needed.

I now have a playtest-ready copy of v0.2. The board has been abstracted into something not too dissimilar to that used in TGoN. Eight points on a circle form a "Nation"; but in this game each player can place and move one advisor around these points. Unlike TGoN, there are no connecting arrows to neighbouring nations because the advisers stay in the nation they are assigned to. Each Nation is effectively a rondel, with each space on the rondel representing a single "Player Action"; ranging from the economic to the clandestine.

Within this circle is the "Capitol", divided into different "Offices", between which the Nation's "Leader" moves, allowing particular "Leader Actions" to be taken by players. One such Office is the "Department of Defence", in which "Armies" are raised. An appropriate action in the "Foreign Office" allows a declaration of war, permitting cross-border movement by that Nation's Armies. Armies invading occupy spaces, which must then be skipped (I haven't decided yet whether players will still have to count them as part of their movement - but then, that's why the playtesting is required).

Only oil is produced in this version (much like TGoN); this has been for me a welcome simplification and allowed me to easily rationalise the value of the economic unit, an army and the oil itself. This also means, while I still have to finalise details regarding scoring, having the most oil is an easy measure of player success.

So before I start tweaking for best effect, I now need to sort out a few core elements:

1. Scoring - oil scores by quantity, but extra scores for presence and potential oil yield need to be finalised.
2. Set-up - having decided on a basic set-up, I now need to work through a couple of playtests to set a point where I feel the game ought to start. Then I need to introduce a fair method for setting up the game so that no player is overpowered (or underpowered, even).
3. Game End - with a basic model that directly effects how the game flows, I need to pick a fixed end-point. My basic idea is to play up to a fixed number of oil units being produced, then ending the round; my problem is ascertaining where that point ought to be. Essentially,  have to find the sweet-spot for the endgame.
4. Scaling - I'm going to be initially playtesting with four players, but I want the game to fit between two and six players if possible. Additionally, I need to find the best number of nations to use for each number of players - I have consider twice the number of players, double the number of players minus one, two more than the number of players and one more than the number of players. This will need some thought, some work and some testing.

So there you have it. Most of my testing has been in the rather static environment of solitaire play by me, the designer; future playtesting will be in the more dynamic environment of a critical group. I'll let you know of any progress I make.