Vincere First Post
I have never blogged before, but understand it is a necessity to promote Vincere. Who knows, maybe I will really get into this, and it will be read by tens (no, I didn’t mean tons) of people. I am a little excited about it because I want to talk about Vincere! And I would like to help people understand the trials and tribulations of developing a game from scratch without any gaming industry knowledge or contacts. I will try to keep the two separate, but they are sort of mingled together at this time preparing for the Kickstarter launch.
I would assume you would like to know a little about the game creator and author of these posts. My name is Davis Conway, X Gen, Business owner (non-gaming) for 27 years, BS in Business Management and Supply Chain (helpful in getting the game out), Member of Mensa and Intertel. I have always avoided social media so this should be interesting. If you need more information about me, feel free to visit davisconway.com
Vincere – Latin = To win, conquer, defeat, vanquish, overcome, control, dominate.
Images included are 1st generation concept art and are either trademarked or copyrighted.
Strategy
I wanted to create a game that I would enjoy playing, that was flexible enough for short-term and long-term play, that would allow players to enter and leave the game during a long-term play without having to restart everything, and could be easily adapted to chess like (though it is nothing like chess) tournament play. And have a storyline that would grow with any future editions or versions. There are lots of other detail items that I wanted, but you will just have to read my other posts to find out how/if they turned out. Mostly because some of those things are still up in the air. For instance, if Kickstarter fails, everything ends.
Vincere is a strategy game, I guess it is a war strategy game since the objective is to gain the most VP by fighting/defending against other players. I would like to call this a pure player skill-based strategy game but player cards and dice rolls inject a certain amount of luck in the base game. Tournament rules greatly reduce the luck aspect by removing random card draws, leaving only the dice roll variables.
I additionally wanted to keep the setup time and dice roll calculations simple. Set up time should be about 10 minutes or less the second time you play the game. First time should not be terribly long, but some people are more methodical than others and I don’t want to guess. I tried to keep the dice required down to D10 only, but one required function of the game was just simpler by adding a single D6 die. All battle is determined by addition and subtraction of D10 rolls. With exception to 1 minor aspect of the game, there are no +/- to die rolls. Bonuses and penalties are generally determined by number of units, dice, and hit point totals.
In my mind another necessary aspect was to keep the player balance equal. Unlike historical games (what my group seems to play a lot) that tend to have a set up and balance that 90-100% of the time results in a historical outcome, or other games that have different special abilities for each player that need to be remembered. Don’t get me wrong, a couple of my favorite games have the individual special ability features, but that is not what this game is about. Vincere is about starting on a level playing field and defeating the other players, not the game.
Did I mention that this game does not allow (except for tournament play) anyone to ever be eliminated? There is no complete defeat and lose everything you have built or earned and go home. Sure, you may be behind in VP, or not, and it may take you some time to build your armies back, but you are not done. Maybe your group wants to play a long game over several weeks and everyone can’t make it the next session or someone new wants to join in? That is ok, mechanics are included to allow for both of those instances without causing a huge hubbub or restart.
Vincere History
In the year 2070 a cataclysmic event takes place destroying 99% of the population and alters the planet in an inconceivable way. Today is approximately 500 years after the event. The cause of the event, if ever known, has been long forgotten. While the sun does shine during the day and stars can be seen at night, known land borders abruptly end in in pure darkness regardless the time of day. Nobody has ever returned from entering the darkness.
Strange anomalies that are best described as an unfocused blob of air have been found on every known land mass and are currently the only known way to travel through the darkness. Over time, the people of the land mass known as Vincere have discovered how to travel directly between known anomalies to reach specific destinations, but all anomaly locations are unknown. This ability has allowed the Crown to bring all land masses found by traveling through anomalies under their rule, with exception to two.
The Crown province is where the ruling council resides and is a 100% neutral area. The Crown province contains the Great Anomaly, the only way to access or leave the Crown and Player provinces, and the only way to reach the Dragon and Tyrial realms.
Earth? Human? Magic? All questions currently unknown to us.
Main Objective
Obtain the most Victory Points (VP) by special objectives, controlling territories, and defeating or defending against other players.
This game was specifically designed so that both defensive and aggressive play styles have the ability to earn VP. These mechanics were included to further impose strategy over following simple process steps.
Characters
Noble – You. Pictured below
Armies – The foot soldiers of the game.
Assero – The main villains (outside of the other players) of the game we really don’t know much about, yet. Assero Priest shown below.
Tyrial – The current Assero foot soldiers
Dragons – What is a game without Dragons?
I kept the number of characters and special abilities limited to further provide balance in players abilities and emphasize strategy. Was a Dragon needed? Not for game mechanics, but YES. They are super hard to get and expensive to keep.
Movement
All players must travel from their home to a neutral area before attacking another player or traveling outside the main area. This aspect is a very intentional and critical part of the game.
Are they stacking troops to attack me? Do a quest? Attack outside territories?
What do I do? Recall troops? Build more troops? Shore up territory defenses? Stack up next to them so they wonder what I am doing?
Travel to outside territories is random as determined by dice roll (remember that D6 mentioned earlier) until you have previously been to a location or been given a location. Then travel can be direct
Player and Crown cards
I am not going to smooth over this too much, several of the cards were designed for the specific purpose of seriously messing someone’s day up. And sometimes that is the card holder. Other cards are the typical gain a this or that, reduce other players something or other, and the ability to do a specific quest.
Cards can be the proverbial “wrench in the works” of the best planned strategies. And keeping cards in hand can be difficult.
Imagine finally getting a quest card in hand you have been waiting for (one type is the only way to get a dragon), building up your troops, moving into position, playing the quest card, and having another player use a card that voids any other players card! Yes, including my quest card! I about threw a fit, pouted about it for the rest of the night, considered making quest cards exempt from the Void card. Then I realized, it was the most fun we all had during any test play. We always had fun, or this game wouldn’t be coming to reality, but that game was the “it is finished” moment.
Well, finished except for – Graphic design, 3D modeling, selecting a 3PL, pricing Kickstarter levels beyond the base game, social media, advertising, and about 300 other things that have nothing to do with the actual game mechanics.