Complete Cyvasse Rules

[LordBiscuit]

The reason is that flanking doesn't stack. You can get a +1 bonus, but that's it. Having more flankers doesn't do anything.

I actually think about changing that, but the thing I have in mind is a bit complicated.

Here's what I have in mind:

You get +1 for the first flanker. You can get +2 if you have 2 more (3 total). You get +3 if you have 3 more (6 total)

You only need +3 if you wanna capture a fortress with an RPS piece that both counters you and is of a higher tier.

Why is that rule useful? To make the damn dragon easier to capture.

[el_spatula]

You are totally right.

Great idea, I had thought about the dragon being to invulnerable ...

[MikeL]

Honestly I think that complicates things way too much, for much the same reason we got rid of my old flanking rules. 1) it is more arbitrary rules for people to remember, and 2) it is too much calculation. It's a board game first.

What I can imagine is a simple additive effect, which would make it even easier to capture dragons than what you were suggesting. Keep it that flanking pieces must be same tier level or same weapon, but have each additional flanking piece be a +1. This would make dragons way more vulnerable to tier 3 piece attacks, but mainly at the beginning of the game when you have more tier 3 pieces. It would also mean 3 rabble could take down a tier 3 piece, which I like.

To work with this, I was thinking that the books make it sound as if the dragon piece is not even on the board at the beginning of the game. What I was thinking was that the act of "bringing out your dragon" actually means placing it on the board for the first time. How this could work LB is that you would press a button to "place dragon" and the program would give you possible moves like as if the dragon were already in your home fortress. You would then select one of those and your dragon would appear, capturing another piece if neccesary. It would also make the placement of your fortress even more strategic.

If we do the simple additive flanking, another advantage imo would be that we could allow a dragon enter either fortress (because a tier 3 with 2 flankers, or a tier 2 with 3 flankers, could still take it down). I mean, the history of asoiaf has dragons destroying harrenhal, and quite possibly other fortresses, so it's a bit of a crap rule that dragons cant enter fortresses and I would like to get rid of if we can justify it.

[LordBiscuit]

More brilliance by our good MikeL.

So, to summarize (mostly for myself to make it easier when programming)

Each flanker gives +1 - Super duper easy to program

Remove the stupid colossal special (That's what I call the no-dragon-in-fortress rule) - Again, really easy to do

Do that bring your dragon thingy - Cool, I like it. I hate making new buttons because it's tedious, but it's not too hard.

I also just arrived home and I have some new ideas for the game server (It won't be fancy and it will only be able a small amount of games [small = 256], but it should work well enough)

[MikeL]

Haha thanks. Yep that's it. I think those mods to the rules should work nicely. Also looking forward to seeing what you can do with the server.

[MikeL]

Some thoughts:

In the end, this game is probably something that will best work as a free, browser-based game, possibly with some money to be made from advertising. Because it is still effectively "fan fiction", I'm not sure about the legal implications of making any money from it, but I'll have a chat with some friends who happen to be lawyers, and let you know what they say.

So because of that LB, I guess I would suggest leaving the "chat program" style game server for now, because it seems like you need some back end help on my end which I don't know how to do, unless you can figure out how to do it on your own. It just seems like it would be a lot of extra work to figure it out, when it's probably not the final form the game will take.

For the meanwhile:

If you keep developing the game in hot seat mode I'm fine with that, the most important thing to me is seeing the rules in action.

If you can set up the place dragon button, and the new flanking rules, and let us know when we can download that, it would be great. I'm looking forward to having a play with that program (also looking forward to seeing any new icons from Rhaenys?).

[MikeL]

One last thing: The next version and last step I want to see before trying to port it into a browser based game is the terrain tiles, but hopefully I've made it a bit simpler to implement here.

I'm discovering I really like having 7 mountains, and I'm not wanting to reduce that. I was wondering what you think of this: have the terrain tiles affect the pieces as we discussed previously:

Water gives +1 to Scissor pieces (LH, HH), Paper pieces (Crossbows, Trebuchet) cannot enter Water tiles.

Forest gives +1 to Rock pieces (Spears, Elephant), Scissor pieces (LH, HH) cannot enter Forest tiles.

Hill gives +1 to Paper pieces (Crossbows, Trebuchet), Rock pieces (Spears, Elephant) cannot enter Hill tiles.

NB I'm starting to think if we do this we should just call them Water pieces, Forest pieces, and Hill pieces.

But just make it so that when you place your tier 2 and tier 3 pieces, it's the same thing as placing the tiles, so wherever you put a horse becomes a water tile, placing Spears/Elephant makes it a Forest tile, placing Crossbows/Trebuchet makes it a hill. This would save on the time it takes to place everything at the beginning, and make it even more ludicrous to bring your dragon out too soon. It would mean there are 7 mountains and 14 other terrain tiles, which is a lot, but it shouldn't look any more crowded than the board already does, right?

[LordBiscuit]

Maybe make it so that only tier 2 or 3 come with terrain. 14 is A LOT.

About bringing the dragon out: that can only be done when the fortress is empty, right?

Edit: Ok, new flanking thing implemented and dragons can enter fortresses now.

Screenshots (My debug folder has REALLY old icons): http://i.imgur.com/Nbytv.png

I will do the button thing soon. As I said, I hate adding buttons.

Edit 2: .exe is avaliable to download from the usual link.

[MikeL]

If it's both tier 2 and tier 3, that amounts to 42/127 = 33% of the board being covered by mountains or terrain. If you discount the mountains it's 25%. Yeah it's a lot, and way more than I had originally thought, but I think it could actually work - my main objection to having more tiles was in the amount of time it takes to set up the game, and this would solve that.

If I had to choose between tier 2 and tier 3 pieces getting it I'd choose tier 2 just cause that would make things interesting, but I hate the inelegance of some rock paper scissors pieces getting it and others not. I'd prefer to just say you have 7 mountains and 7 "other" terrain tiles, mix and match.

Edit: I thought you should be able to bring out the dragon whenever you want, including putting it in the fortress if it's empty, but if it's full you should just be able to put it somewhere outside. I guess that's a programming headache :P any ways around it?

[LordBiscuit]

It's not a programming headache, it's just one more line of code (A really long condition line, but one line nevertheless)

[I Am TheSongOf IceAndFire]

when does production start? i love the idea of this and would request a 'set', preferablly done in weirwood and onyx

[LordBiscuit]

When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east, when the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves, when Dany's womb quickens again, and she bears a living child. Then production will start, and not before.

[MikeL]

Haha. Well it's funny you should mention that. My brother is friends with and is going to the wedding of the managing director of this boardgame company. http://kangagames.com/ I could potentially talk to him about getting this made.

Definite potential legal issues there though: I want to have that conversation with my lawyer friends before I think about that.

[MikeL]

Still not managed to have that conversation yet, so I've not done anything further. How's it going with adding the button LB? :)

[LordBiscuit]

It's not a matter of "how's it going". As soon as I actually sit down and do it, I'll finish it easily. I just don't get to it.

[Dabhrak]

I've only recently finished A Dance With Dragons but was instantly curious about cyvasse when I first read about it so I'm very glad to see that some passionate fans are there to try and procure us with the rules to this game.

I've read through the whole thread and came up with a few remarks (some of them have been made by other people already but it couldn't hurt to bring them up again) :

• Terrains : I think we can all agree that there should be different kinds of terrains in the game instead of the mountains actually being a unit. Though the whole "rock-paper-scissor" you proposed seems interesting it doesn't necessarily make sense because every units (except dragons I guess) respond pretty badly to water and could properly fight on it. Regarding this issue I believe dylanrw's version of the rules gives us a more "realistic" (I believe it to be quite an important factor) approach : water slows a unit by forbidding it to move the next round (not sure it would work with the current rules but I'm just saying it should be looked into) and forests diminish the unit's range (this one makes a lot of sense). To do this would nevertheless forfeit the RPS system because it would mean the catapult should be back on board (this could be a matter of debate, but I trust GRRM to use the correct words when he's writing and trebuchets and catapults are indeed different things)
  
• As stated by someone earlier, the ability to promote every unit to a superior tier seems a little bit far-fetched and though I probably haven't been able to play the game as much as you guys might have I wonder what depth does it really add to the game (promoting a unit when your King is dead to have a new one is pretty genius, but for lesser units it seems like an easy way to replace some of your tier-2 and 3 units to adapt to your enemy strategy, which isn't necessarily a bad thing I have to admit).
  
• Regarding the whole "first-round slaughter" I wondered why should a dragon be limited in his movements when a horse isn't ? From a "realistic" point of view it would seem to me that a dragon could fly far farther than a horse before it gets tired. Maybe some adjustments in that department could solve the issue, but I wouldn't presume to present such modifications since I believe you two (LordBiscuit and MikeL) have worked a lot on that and I respect your work.
  

A few more things that came to me while writing this : I almost never played Stratego nor Blitzkrieg but I played a lot of Chess and a quote from Tyrion came to me : "Death in four". Once again I have not played cyvasse nearly enough to have a good grip on it but it didn't feel like this would be something you could say playing the game because it felt a little "too messy" to me (although it probably comes from the fact that like every new game you need a certain period of time before you can comprehend how the tactical mechanisms work).

Finally regarding the board I thought a lot about this and I don't know if it should be a hex-board because both Chess and Stratego use a square-board. Nevertheless, Blitzkrieg uses hexes and I think it could reflect what GRRM meant when he said that the board would change every game : you can literally arrange the tiles to make rivers, mountains etc. which gives a lot of depth to the game (this only backs up my "Terrains" argument :P)

Once again I'm just amazed by the work that has been done here and hope to be able to help our community to get the game of cyvasse it deserved (and hopefully as close as possible to what GRRM envisioned).

PS: Regarding the whole "copyright-issue" : if you don't gain any profit whatsoever and credit the work of GRRM properly there shouldn't be any problem. If you intend to make money off it (even a very small amount through ads) you should probably get in touch with GRRM himself to settle this matter.

[IronBorn To be WILD]

I don't want to sound like an ass, but the way the rules and pieces have been compiled in this thread are way to modern. You've pretty much made blitzkreig 2.0 , a completely modern hybrid of different modern games (with the exception of chess). I printed out paper pieces, printed a board, went over the rules here and tried to play it and halfway though the game we realized its too complciated and you can end up with a ridiculously long stalemate because of the movements on a hex board associated with the pieces you have. now you're kind of on the right track but you need to keep in mind the world the game is set in. Westeros doesn't have chess or stratego. keep the square grid just expand it, make terrain tiles and pieces and wait for the series to end so we can hear more about it before we jump to conclusions about the gameplay.

[MikeL]

Hi Dabhrak, IronBorn TBW, thanks for commenting.

My lawyer friend said pretty much the same thing as you Dabhrak: as long as it is a not-for-profit exercise, there's no reason to be worried about people coming after us as long as we give credit to GRRM. As soon as money starts changing hands, either as an iOS app or as a website supported by advertising, we need to get in contact with GRRM or his surrogates. In any case, I don't think any of us were really wanting to think about that before the rules are finished (except possibly MichaelMurphree but we haven't heard much from him lately, nor has he really contributed to the thread - he sounded pretty gung ho about creating the iOS version though, so I'd be keen to hear an update on his progress).

With regard to rules and realism, you've probably noticed I've tried to keep simplifying the rules so it doesn't become too complicated (it is already on the limit of what I think is acceptable), I mean it has to be easy enough for kids to play, which to me means no more complicated than chess (which I did play as a kid). I don't think having a hex board is too complicated, but maybe there are too many pieces/tiles atm. I think it will become a lot more understandable once we have a program that everyone can play.

I can see that most people are going to react badly, or at least want an explanation for the idea that a horse or elephant can travel further than a dragon. The way I think of it is this: dragons are like the ultimate bird of prey. Like eagles and hawks, they are substantially bigger than other birds around them and can strike with speed and devastating impact, but because of that they're not built to be travellers, like those migratory birds that migrate South (or North) for the winter. They're way bigger than a sparrow, and way more muscled/armored than an albatross. Eagles and hawks can stay aloft for hours, but only by staying in updrafts and gliding - they tire out really quickly when they actually have to flap their wings and fly. Dragons are essentially ambush predators, unlike horses, elephants, wolves etc which can keep going for days on end. This is how I make sense of horses and elephants being able to travel further. Add to that that no other piece can best a dragon one on one and we have to limit the range - otherwise it would be too damn powerful.

Terrain also needs a bit of an explanation: The way I think of it is that yes all units are disadvantaged in water, but calvary less so because they have height, so the heavy horse/light horse have a relative advantage over all other units in water. I definitely think that having terrain reduce range is a complicated can of worms. If terrain affects movement it should be all or nothing, like mountains. The RPS thing that LB came up with really simplifies things as far as remembering it, so I still think it's the best idea we've come up with so far. Personally I think the game works just fine with mountains as the only terrain, but GRRM had to go and include others didn't he? :)

I still like my earlier idea that each piece should have a terrain associated with it when you "set up your tiles" to start with. I think it simplifies things if when you put say a heavy horse on the board, that tile automatically becomes a terrain advantageous to the horse (+1 bonus). I also think LB was probably right when having all 14 tier 2 and tier 3 pieces associated with a terrain tile is too many terrain pieces.

What Dabhrak said about promoting every pieces made me think that this is going to be a major strategic element that I haven't really thought about much. If people are going to be doing that anyway we could even reduce the number of pieces on the board to start with (for the version of the game that includes terrain). What about this: we stop having 7 of everything and make 5 the magic number? It would certainly make the board less complicated to look at and and see what was where (only 17 pieces plus mountains).

Tier "0"

5 Mountains.

Tier 1

5 Rabble - no associated terrain, Rabble can enter all tiles.

1 King - placing piece makes hex a fortress tile, King can enter all tiles.

Tier 2 (total of 5 pieces, no more than 2 of any one piece)

Light Horse - placing piece makes hex a water tile, LH can't enter forest.

Spears - placing piece makes hex a forest tile, Spears can't enter hill.

Crossbows - placing piece makes hex a hill tile, Crossbows can't enter water.

Tier 3 (total of 5 pieces, no more than 2 of any one piece)

Heavy Horse - placing piece makes hex a water tile, HH can't enter forest.

Elephant - placing piece makes hex a forest tile, Elephant can't enter hill.

Trebuchet - placing piece makes hex a hill tile, Trebuchet can't enter water.

Tier 4

Dragon - no associated terrain - must be placed within a move of the fortress at some point during the game. Dragon can enter all tiles.

[MikeL]

• Terrains : I think we can all agree that there should be different kinds of terrains in the game instead of the mountains actually being a unit. Though the whole "rock-paper-scissor" you proposed seems interesting it doesn't necessarily make sense because every units (except dragons I guess) respond pretty badly to water and could properly fight on it. Regarding this issue I believe dylanrw's version of the rules gives us a more "realistic" (I believe it to be quite an important factor) approach : water slows a unit by forbidding it to move the next round (not sure it would work with the current rules but I'm just saying it should be looked into) and forests diminish the unit's range (this one makes a lot of sense). To do this would nevertheless forfeit the RPS system because it would mean the catapult should be back on board (this could be a matter of debate, but I trust GRRM to use the correct words when he's writing and trebuchets and catapults are indeed different things)
  

If I had to include both Trebuchet and Catapult, (I still think of them as interchangable - historically they were just different kinds of siegecraft built for the same purpose - I wrote a post about it earlier on) I would differentiate them on movement because Trebuchets apparently have to be disassembled and reassembled each time they are moved. Trebuchets would be immobile turrets (like mountains) that are what LB would call missle pieces (you don't have to move the piece to capture others), where as Catapults would be inserted into the RPS system as we have it currently. I don't think it contributes that much to the gameplay so I'm not that keen on the idea.

[LordBiscuit]

That's not what I would call a missle piece :P

I call the Xbowman and Trebuchet missle pieces because they capture farther than they move.

Anyway, going to 5 as the magic number sounds like a plan, but if we do that we should also reduce board size (Six hexes a side? We'll have to playtest that). I still think that terrain should only spawn with tier 2 pieces. It makes it so you have to choose if you want the tile to be strong early (Tier 3 ready for action) or late (Tier 2 being weaker, but a terrain tile spawns with it, so you can easily fortify it later)