New game 'Nora Nation' using Pox Nora as a basis

I wasn't really sure whether this thread should go here on in the general discussion section since it references the Pox Nora game. IF the mods deem it should go there, then let it be there.

This is not about the Pox Nora community (though they would be certainly welcome to join this game if it could be developed).

This is not about changing the Pox Nora game itself, but it will cover modifications needed for this other game.

This is some ideas I've been tossing around in my head since I started playing this game.

In short, the game I'm envisioning is a nation building 4X strategic game that uses Pox Nora (or something like it) to execute the battles. The strategic level would also use a card based system as options for the player. I have not run across such a game. If there is one please let me know.

The card games I've seen are basically tactical games in which people build their deck and the battles are on some arena like in Pox Nora or cards facing each other or some other type of a stylized combat system. Each battle is a game. There may be a campaign, but those battles have in a strict order of battle A before battle B etc. You cannot get to the next battle unless you win the previous. None that I have found put the tactical battles within a strategic framework. The key strategic decision is what cards to put in the deck. Beyond that are the tactics involved dealing with which cards come up within the rules of the game. That is fine if that is all that is desired in the game.

I'm looking for something beyond that. Pox Nora is a good game that plays well and is pretty consistent internally. It has factions and races that lend itself to a strategic game. I find it better than either Epic Arena or Conquest of Champions (in its present form). Yet I feel unfulfilled as a player even when I win. I would like to be able to move my battle groups around a map to initiate battles with some goal in mind. Am I trying to conquer a city state? Am I trying to wipe out a monster lair that is bothering me? Am I trying to keep some one else from conquering me? There's none of that in Pox Nora. I presume the game design has no intention to do anything like that.

I do not have the skills (particularly programming) or the time to develop the myself. I hope the developers will be intrigued enough to do so. I realize this would not be a trivial effort. in fact it would be a rather extensive effort. The game would not be a free game.

 

There isn't such a game; Age of Wonders is probably what comes closest to it, and it is still far from that.

In itself I am quite intrigued by the idea. I'd play the hell out of that game. But, as you said, the effort needed would probably be crushing, and I strongly doubt that DoG could do it.

First, it would be a risky investment that could drag DoG down.

Second, DoG had enough trouble hiring new coders for Pox, for all I know, so the funds aren't there in the first place, not to speak of the manpower.

Third, Poxnora is already a niche game which basically a group of elitists and enthusiasts plays; a second game that occupies that niche would engage in dangerous competition.

That said ... If it was less dauntingly complex than Pox, but still an excellent strategy game, it could find a greater market.

 

Changes to the battle part 1---

For every battle there would be a defined attacker and defender. In general the attacker would be the player who is moving. The defender would be who got moved into. There will be exception when parlaying with a monster group triggers a combat. As is standard in strategic games the over all balance between the battling groups will not matter in determining who the attacker and defender are.

Each battle group will have a defined commander. That commander can either be an avatar (I envision more of them than the existing 8 in Pox Nora and they would be gained by using an 'avatar is available' card and then hiring them) or a champion in the battle group. That champion would buffed to represent their rank. I'm thinking something like +5 dmg, +1 speed, +2 def and +20 hit points. That buff would go to which ever champion was chosen to be the commander.

For each battle group the player will get to assign a certain nora worth of runes to be the 'initial assault force' or IAF and the 'initial defense force' or IDF. The order of play would be the attacker deploys the IAF on his deployment zone, the defense deploys the IDF on his deployment zone or nora fonts, the attacker begins turn 1 with the IAF having some AP and there would be an attacker bonus in nora, what nora was not used to create the IAF and of course the nora generated that turn. Finally after the attacker's first turn the defender would have his first turn with the IDF with full AP, what nora was not used to create that defense force and the nora generated. The tactical battle would then continue essentially like it does now. The idea of the IAF and IDF is to get into the battle more quickly. The same runes do not have to be in both groups. After the battle you may have to change them. BTW the nora values of the IAF and IDF would be dependent on tech and would naturally increase with certain techs as the game progresses.

There will be battle field attrition. If a champion is KIAd (turned into a nora globe or is otherwise destroyed) that rune is lost. The runes of relics or equipment destroyed during the battle would also be lost. Spell runes would be lost if battle group commander is KIAd.

The above means you can play with an incomplete battle group.

 

changes to the battle part 2;

The participants of each battle would get the opportunity to determine if they want a maximum effort or be a meeting engagement. The primary difference is with a meeting engagement you would have the option to withdraw if the battle appears to be going badly and keep your battle group intact (well for the survivors). If you retreat you still lose the runes of any relic deployed or equipment that went to a champion that fell. If you win you get to keep those runes.

With a maximum effort it is win or die. If you lose your battle group is destroyed at the conclusion of the battle, poof, all gone.

Because of the above there is one more structure; the command post. If you choose the maximum effort, you get the shrine with its 45 nora per turn. If you chose the meeting engagement you get the command post which would be worth less nora say 30 per turn.

You don't automatically lose by losing your commander. You lose all spell runes and the ability to deploy relics and equipment. You can still battle on and retreat if it's a meeting engagement. You lose if your command post or shrine is destroyed. If the former, the battle ends and battle group with its survivors retreat. The retreat can either be a simple 1 hex retreat or a rout in which the bg will move towards its nearest city or military base to rally (i.e. be available). (The bg could be rallied using a card on the strategic level.) Determining if its a retreat versus rout is TBD, but I'm thinking it will depend on how quickly you lose or how many runes you have remaining in the bg. If your shrine is destroyed you immediately lose all remaining runes that are not deployed. You fight on with only what is on the board. Theoretically it is possible to destroy your opponent's shrine in a mutual annihilation. Both bgs would be gone. You could destroy your opponent's command post after losing your shrine. He retreats and you maintain control of the hex pending results of other battles and movement.

The battle group commander whether an avatar or champion would be deployable at a cost of nora maybe after a certain amount of turns. There would be no transfiguring or nora penalty for activating your avatar. BTW the non-avatar commander has to be a champion which is at least tied for having the highest experience level in the bg.

So at the start of the battle the attacker would have his shrine or command post. The defender would have his shrine or command post and all nora fonts on the battlefield.

 

Strategic part 1

The strategic map would be hexagonal and of varying sizes depending on whether the game is a tutorial, a walkthrough or a full game that can be small all the way to an immense planet online in which there could be a lot of players and AI nations vying for control of the planet. You could have teams of players playing one large nation. Single player campaigns can be played offline. The map would show national boundaries, cities, resource gathering sites, other special sites and battle groups. For the scope think in terms of Heroes of Might and Magic or a game like that, but potentially a much larger size.

A free demo would probably have up to a small single player campaign. Access to multiplayer or larger single player would be in the full game.

Unlike Pox Nora where experienced players have the advantage of cards as well as experience, they will only have the advantage of experience in Nora Nation.

Each player nation would start with say 4 cities ( a capital city with 10 pop points and 3 other cites with 5 pop points each). You would chose the faction and the race of at least 3 of the 4 cities. The race of the 4th one would be compatible with the other 3. Race is important because that would define which champion runes the city could build. The faction would determine which relic, spell and equipment runes could be built. There would be a variety of buildings to produce the runes which would the go into reserve and deployed to a bg. Each of these cities would start with an appropriate set of buildings.

Each city would have a zone of development so you would gain the benefit of any resource production site in that zone including for food. The city could build any facility or building within the zone with its own production capability. Building improvements outside the zone of development would require using bgs with construction unit runes. Utilizing resource site beyond the zone of development would require bgs with worker unit runes. Beyond the zone of development would be the zone of control. That zone would have detection capability so no bg could sneak in closer to the city without being spotted. Also any bg stationed in the city could move out to engage a hostile force in a defensive movement and still be the defender or attacker (sallying unit's choice) in the ensuing battle. Beyond that would be a zone of vision in which any bg would be spotted unless it was stealthed. Each of these zones would be in movement points aside from the zone of development would include all adjacent hexes to the city.

The strategic option cards would be drawn at the start of the turn depending on the size of the economy the previous turn. The larger the economy the more cards you get. This amount would be modified based on your tax rate. If the tax rate is above some threshold you would get less cards, but more gps. Likewise if your tax rate is below some threshold you get more cards, but less gps. These cards would be played on cities. Of course there would be a limit to the number of cards you can play on each city. You can keep a certain number in your hand (of course there would be buildings that would increase that). There would be a variety of different cards. These represent immediately available options. There would be some options you can always do without a card, but it would be more expensive. Other options like forming bgs would always be available provided you have the gps. To add spice a few cards will be fates (usually bad hopefully not worse than a nuisance, but enough to keep the player on their toes while things are quiet.)

 

why not simply flesh out the single player in pox to play like a 4x game? instead of a bunch of disconnected skirmish and 'campaign' games, throw a hex grid over the pox map and create a strategic layer.

 

I don't think that would be much less effort, but the result would be ... imperfect. I mean, if they really focused on creating a 4x it would be a lot more suited to it than just shoehorning in Pox. I doubt I'd play that very much

 

Strategic Part 2

Research would be very important. You get access to new and better runes through research. In Nora Nation there would be a hierarchy of runes. You start with weak and fairly cheap runes and you get the better ones through research or discovery. You get access to better buildings through research. You gain or improve capabilities through research.

Speaking of buildings there would be a variety of them. Some buildings would be built in the country on the resource sites for example, but most would be in the cities. You could build infrastructure like roads to improve your mobility or watch towers to improve your sight distance. Building types would include research, construction, economy, culture, governance,mining, farming, infrastructure, military and naturally rune building of various subtypes (spell, relic, equipment, ranged attack, melee attack, the latter 2 with different attack forms i.e. physical is a different form than magic).The list is only to give a flavor. The important thing is each category of building or structure will have an important role in the game. Many buildings will need a pop point or more to operate.

Diplomacy; In general you negotiate with nations or independent cities and parlay with wondering monsters. I'm defining wondering monsters as any bg that isn't associated with a nation or a city. Negotiations would cover things you expect like war, peace, trades or treaties. You can also engage in covert activities provided you have hired a spy (spy available would be another card). Those activities would be either espionage to get info or sabotage to actually destroy something. Espionage would include things like locations of bgs, what a city is building, what defensive structure does the city have, how many food points are stored in the city and gaining research points to aid your own research (that would show as getting an additional option card). I don't foresee going as far as getting a full tech through spying. Sabotage would show up as an adverse fate card to the target such as some building was destroyed (or damaged) by known agents of some nation or by unknown agents. Spies can be caught. Suffice to say that most spying will degrade relations.

In part 1 I mentioned option cards. There would be a variety of them. Obviously in game like this it is critical to have a sound proportion of each type of card available to draw. I envision main categories such as initiate build (categories of buildings not specific buildings), pop growth, research, avatar available, fates, rally bg and others that add to the game.

 

Strategic Part 3--

Bgs would have a certain amount of movement points per turn based on the slowest champion or device (devices would be larger structures that are with a bg and include things like catapults or ballistas to reduce fortifications) in the bg. As in any strategic game, you get a certain number of movement points (mps) each turn. You cannot carry any forward like you can the AP in Pox Nora. You initiate a battle by moving into a hostile bg. You can parlay with it by moving adjacent to it and if you have a diplomat rune in your bg. This a way to talk to wondering monster bgs to get them to not attack you (i.e. they disband) or you can get them to attack somebody else or even hire them. If they've been hired to attack you the battle is next and your diplomat is killed, but you are the defender in that battle. Or you could simply chose not to parley and attack it or ignore it and hope it moves on out of your territory.

You will have the opportunity to parlay with a nation or independent city's bg that moves into a zone of control of one of your cities. In this case you're basically announcing your presence and asking them to leave. Again you would need a diplomat in the bg to do this. Of course they would have the choice to honor your requestor not.....(BTW you could build the diplomat rune with your Capital Town-Center building which your capital would start with. That building along with the Town Center for non capital cities could work on one at a time of several important supporting or special runes needed in the game such as colonizer, construction worker, resource gatherer, wagon or explorer-mapper. Naturally there would be other buildings that specialize in these runes. You would need the explorer-mapper in a bg in order to reveal or scout unknown hexes. Resource gatherers are needed to get resources from sites that are outside a city's zone of development. You would also need something to carry those resources back to town like wagons (another type of equipment or it could be a device mentioned above). Inside the zone you would use pop points or buildings. Construction workers are needed to build buildings or structures outside a zone of development. For the latter 2 you would need a certain number of the resource gatherers or construction workers to get 1 point of resource or apply 1 con point. And finally you need a certain number of colonists to found a new city with one pop point.

New cities from colonists would have a town center using one pop point. That building would give some basic economics, construction ability, governance and ability to store some food. It would not give culture or research. There would be some basic food production on the adjacent hexes. The new city's zones of development, control and vision would expand slowly until reaching the nation's standard. You could apply option cards to it beginning next turn and it would be adding to your economic strength. The beauty of using the bg approach rather than building a special unit (a colonizer as I was originally thinking ) is now you have a bg all ready there ready to be reinforced with more runes i.e. you don't have to create a new bg.

 

Strategic Part 4----

Your nation's rune reserve and reinforcing bgs; Any new rune with one exception (a city under a fully effective siege-see below) would go to the nation's rune reserve. The reserve is not on the map. (BTW all other resources than food would be likewise stored in reserve off map.) Reinforcing bgs would be a function of movement. It would take say 1 mp to move 1 rune from reserve to the bg or visa vera. The choice of runes to which bg would be up to you. Decks limits particularly for range 1 physical attack melee type runes would need to be increased.

Taking a city in war; There will be 2 primary ways. One is attack the city. I'm not sure what the standard stacking limit would be, but I'm sure there would be buildings that would increase that in a city. To take the city by force all defending bgs would have to be destroyed or forced to retreat. Cities should not be easy to take by force of battle. If a city is undefended and you can walk into one consider yourself lucky. A city will have some defensive benefits (possibly city walls that will need to be breeched before your ground pounder melee forces can engage the enemy) and some nora generation benefit over a rural location battle. That is before factoring in the impact of other buildings that improve the benefits further such as a keep, castle or bastion.

The second way to take a city is by siege if you have the patience. There will be different effective levels of a siege the most effective being the fully effective siege. With that the city is isolated; no resource gathering including food, no deploying from reserve, no using option cards and a harsh production and economic penalty. When the food stores reach zero, the siege ends and the city surrenders. The attacker won't know how many food points are left (unless they use a spy). Of course defending bgs can sally forth and attack or other bgs can try to break the siege.

There will be game mechanics to move food from one city to another.

Independent cities are AI controlled city states that are in between the monster liars or monster guards and the AI nations. You can either attack them, trade with them, ignore them or try to improve relations and ultimately annex them peacefully. This would be done through negotiations (giving them favorable trade deals) or by using accumulated culture to awe them favorably and improving relations that way. The annex city state option card will give you the ability if you have enough culture, gps and good enough relations with such a city to execute it. If you annex a city state you get all its assets including rune reserve, resource reserves, food, bgs and cost reduction of techs it has that you don't.

OTOH you can use culture to alienate a city state or AI nation so you can declare war on it and conquer it. The AI will not take kindly to a player back stabbing or declaring wars on nations or city states unless the relations are very bad to hostile (when it is more excusable and expected). Relations will worsen slowly with adverse trade deals, but using culture will be faster.

BTW there would be a limit to the size of the reserves (rune and resource) depending on number of cities and buildings.

 

I can't see you winning a flower pot with verbosity, to be honest ... Brevity is a virtue.

 

While brevity is a virtue, being superficial is not. Describing a new game is not easy.

 

well I wouldn't want a true 4x where you have a build cities etc. Im just talking about using the map as a place to chart your progress through the single player experience. imagine logging into pox the first time. hitting tutorial and being able to see the faction wheel, clicking on the icons to get a rough overview, then when you pick one the world map comes up centered on the appropriate region. You see the different locations of interest in your zone. So say you picked FW, you start in Elsarin. There are a series of missions to choose from at that locale that reward you with FW cards. something like that. and each location of interest in the FW zone would have unique set of (missions/skirmishes/campaign scenarios) however you want to construct it. With the goal being the earning of cards/shards and glory. Eventually the missions you select could be pvp in nature. or each objective could have a single player or multiplayer method of achieving it. So by use of a '4x simulacrum' you can tie in the solo and pvp pox experience using the map and DoW as the glue. I just feel a lot more could be done with the map and to give players a reason for playing other than just a gold or rank grind.

 

I think I see where you're going which is a vastly different. I think it will also work. Players will get a chance to choose the order of their battles to a large extent. The one thing I would add is there be an assessment of the difficulty of the battle. Is it aimed for a beginner, intermediate, experienced or high level player? In D&D you don't want to send level 3 characters into a dungeon aimed for level 10-15 for example. There would need to have the ability to restart the campaign with a different bg (say your own versus continuing to use a public deck) while keeping the ability to continue with the other deck.

It seems to me you're more interested in the battles than the 4X aspect. With the game I'm thinking of the example of you and me lends itself to team play. I could play the nation on the strategic level while you run the bgs.

 

from what I've seen of 4x games the combat is not very tactical in nature. Even in age of wonders the force composition dictates the outcome a lot of the time. But this works for 4x as the 'gameplay' is largely at the strategic level. Yes you could use the poxnora pieces in a 4x style game, but I don't know how well an in depth tactical battle format would fly with those who just want to get on with the empire building. And how well would the devs be able to program an auto combat feature?

 

could do it something like what total war has maybe, give an option to take control of the battle yourself or have it auto-resolve


would require decent ai for ai on ai akshun

 

Or an algorithm that doesn't give a damn about tactics. Like, compares army value, perhaps ranged/melee comp and counters and calculates a win/loss out of that.

 

In civ cities demolish enemy troops like hot knife through butter.

 

That can certainly be the case.

I don't recall any 4x strategy games I play in which there appeared even to be the intention for the tactical part of the game to be any more than a quick or merely acceptable way to resolve battles. The emphasis of the game was clearly the strategic level and possibly most so with the Civilization series.

In this game I'm envisioning you all ready have a good, working way to resolve the battles. What is needed is to make some adjustments so it can interface with the strategic layer that would have to be developed.

While the zero-sum game of strategic versus tactical is a common issue as you described before, I don't see any need for that. I don't see why the two have to be mutually exclusive. A player who is good at both the empire building and the tactical battles will likely be better than one which is only good at one aspect or the other.

Obviously a player who is only interested in one aspect or the other will not likely be interested in this game unless in team play. It would be interesting to see how many players would be interested in a game (hopefully well-designed) that places strong and roughly equal emphasis on the battle and on empire building.