Custom Game Type - Development

[Szei]

The first version is complete. I welcome all suggestions from general gameplay to balancing (of which I'm sure there will be a lot).

I've only play-tested a little so though I've fixed some errors, I'm sure there will be many more. Any bug reports will be appreciated. =)

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V0.1.1: Here // February 15, 2010

Notes:
-The profile currently included with the game is meant for testing purposes. In later releases when most of the bugs are gone and the game is more balanced the profile will only include the worker unit for each race and water sources. Upgrades and sorceries will have to be found in the shop.
-The ai deck included is a random assortment of cards meant to be used to gain a basic grasp of the game, not as a serious opponent (the ai can't really play effectively anyway)

Next Release (0.2.0)
-21 new structures (9 unique structure branches, i.e. 3 towers and a race specific 'town hall' for each of the 6 races)
-Heroes (at least one per race, more will be added in later updates)
-Additional sorceries (a counter sorcery for sure and a few others)

General Plans for Future Updates
-Balancing: I expect for this game to require extensive balancing as in its original state, some cards and races are definitely over or under-powered. I eventually want most of the cards to be useful in some situation but even with my brief play-testing I've noticed a few cards/units that I would never consider using.
-AI Decks: The deck I included is just for testers to get a feel for the game. I ultimately plan to make AI decks that are actually thought out and not a bunch of random cards thrown together.
-Images: The images are pixelated. I figured that it was more important to release a working version of the game and focus on game-play than appearance for now, but eventually I'll look into fixing this.
-Name: At some point I need a name for this game-type. Not really high priority though.

CARD ID RANGE: 900000-930999

Basic Concept

Players create buildings in order to produce their units reminiscent of an RTS. The players can then strengthen their units via upgrade cards which give bonuses to toughness, power, and sometimes add abilities.

So, how does this work?

Card Types

Resources

Blue: Water (From Water Source) || Used to create Forests, Fields, and pay for some upgrade cards (spell training) and activated abilities.
Green: Lumber (From Forest) || Used to create buildings and pay for some units (Archers, etc.)
White: Food (From Field) || Used to pay for mana cost of most living units and for some activated abilities.
Red: Fire (From Blacksmith*) || Used to pay for most upgrade cards (equipment) to augment power and toughness of units and to add basic abilities (first strike, haste, reach, etc) to units.
Black: 'Dark Magic' (From Necromancer**) || Used to pay for mana cost of Undead creatures and for some activated abilities.

*Blacksmiths require the Forge structure.
**Necromancers require the Arcane Tower structure.

Structures

Type? Structures are classified as 'Enchantments'.
Function? Structures are used to create units (creature tokens). The player pays a mana cost and taps the building to produce a token representing the unit created.

Units

Type? Units are classified as 'Tokens'.
Function? Units will do the bulk of the combat. Each unit has a creature type consisting of the unit's Race / Weapon / Armor Type. The armor types are Light, Medium, and Heavy. These specifications are utilized by upgrade cards.

Upgrades

Type? Upgrades are classified as 'Enchantments'.
Function? Upgrades cost red mana produced by Blacksmiths. Only the first card in the series of upgrades is a physical card that can be put in a deck. All subsequent upgrades of the same type are tokens created by the initial upgrade. For example, a player can pay {R} to play the 'Iron Plating' upgrade card from his/her hand. This upgrade (enchantment) gives all Heavy armor units +0/+1. The enchantment also has the ability {R}{R}{T}: Research the 'Steel Plating' upgrade. If this upgrade is researched, the 'Iron Plating' upgrade is sacrificed, and a token representing the 'Steel Plating' upgrade is created. The 'Steel Plating' upgrade gives +0/+2 to all Heavy armor units and can be further upgraded into 'Mithril Plating' via the same method. Additionally, some upgrades will add basic abilities like double strike, reach, haste, etc.

Sorceries

Type? Sorceries are classified as 'Sorceries'. (Surprised, aren't you?)
Function? Sorceries function in the same manner as they do in standard MTG. In this custom, however, there are comparatively few types of sorceries. This game is unit based and therefore sorceries only serve to add minor variation to game-play.

Races

Dwarves
- Armor: Medium, Heavy
- Cheap, weak, best upgrades
- 4 Base unit types (8 total, includes all ranks/evolutions of base units)
- 1 Exclusive structure
- 6 Exclusive upgrades

Elves
- Armor: Light, Medium
- Best archers
- 5 Base unit types (8 total, includes all ranks/evolutions of base units)
- 1 Exclusive structure
- 4 Exclusive upgrades

Humans
- Armor: All
- Varied, but limited unit types
- 5 Base unit types (6 total, includes all ranks/evolutions of base units)
- 1 Exclusive structure
- 0 Exclusive upgrades

Orcs
- Armor: Medium, Heavy
- No common theme
- 6 Base unit types (8 total, includes all ranks/evolutions of base units)
- 2 Exclusive structures
- 2 Exclusive upgrades

Undead
- Armor types: All
- Unique abilities (wither, persist, etc), some units have no armor
- 8 Base unit types (12 total, includes all ranks/evolutions of base units)
- 3 Exclusive structures
- 0 Exclusive upgrades

Dragons
- Armor: Heavy
- Expensive, powerful, most flying units of all races
- 4 Base unit types (10 total, includes all ranks/evolutions of base units)
- 1 Exclusive structure
- 0 Exclusive upgrades

Deck Construction

A player's deck will consist of Water Sources, Stuctures, Upgrades, and Sorceries.

Card Quantity Limits

The following are the limits for the number of cards of the same name a player can have in his/her deck (in MTG this number is 4 for all card types except basic lands).

Water Sources: None
Structures: None
Upgrades: None
Sorceries: 6

Example: A player can have any number of 'Barracks' cards (structure card), but only up to 6 'Torrent' cards (sorcery card).

Why only Water Sources?

All other resources come either directly or indirectly from Water Sources (blue mana producers). Forests (green mana producers) and Fields (white mana producers) are tokens of Water Sources (Water Sources can be tapped to produce either). Blacksmiths (red mana producers) and Necromancers (black mana producers) are created using 'food' (white mana) generated from Fields. In other words, Water Sources are the only non-token resource producer.


__________

NOTE:
The AI will have no idea how to play this game type, so a 2 player mode or a dedicated AI is needed for this custom to truly work.

[Psyringe]

This sounds very, very interesting. I hope we can make tokens work the way you want/need them.

I only have a minute right now, so here's just quick thought wrt to the mana screw problem with three "land" types: Consider giving your water source the ability to fetch other "lands" from the library, basically a fetchland. (You can code a fetchland that doesn't sacrifice itself after fetching.) Of course, getting us to enable mana-producing tokens will be the better option.

Come to think of it: Wouldn't the tokens get land-producing abilities if you gave the water source the respective "lord" ability? That would make plains and forests usable only when you control a water source, but I guess that would actually work well with the spirit of the game?

[Szei]

Come to think of it: Wouldn't the tokens get land-producing abilities if you gave the water source the respective "lord" ability? That would make plains and forests usable only when you control a water source, but I guess that would actually work well with the spirit of the game?

I'm not all too clear on how the lord ability works, but based on your description, it sounds great. I'll try to figure it out. My only qualm would be that the player would only need one water source for all of his/her Forests and Fields (if my understanding is correct). By the way, I just realized that I won't be able to classify the plains and fields as lands if they are tokens. I guess I can just make them 'creatures' with the indestructible ability so that they will function in essentially the same way (assuming 'indestructible' is recognized by Wagic). Actually, where is the list of keywords incorporated in Wagic? I did a brief forum search and found the threads regarding how often keywords appear in MTG and which ones work in Wagic, but I'm assuming there is an 'official' location that lists supported words.

I only have a minute right now, so here's just quick thought wrt to the mana screw problem with three "land" types: Consider giving your water source the ability to fetch other "lands" from the library, basically a fetchland. (You can code a fetchland that doesn't sacrifice itself after fetching.)

That's a good idea. I'll do this if the lord ability you suggested doesn't work out how I want it to.

Thanks for your input!

[Psyringe]

Actually, where is the list of keywords incorporated in Wagic?

Check this page. It's badly in need of an update though, so another good approach is to look for cards that do something similar to what you want, and see how they are coded.

Regarding mana-producing tokens: Check the card "Sachi, Daughter of Seshiro" (COK) for how to give mana-producing abilities to other cards (all cards with type shaman, in this case). I *assume* (but don't know for sure) that this would work as well for tokens that are produced with the "shaman" type (or a "forest" type in your case). I think that tokens can do many of the things you want to, the parser just currently doesn't give you a way to tell the game that they actually should have these abilities when the are produced. I might be wrong though, wololo will have the right answers.

[Szei]

Ah. I see. Thanks a lot for the link. If I understand correctly, this means that I could make an Archery structure a lord card that gives Archer tokens the [T]: Deal 1 damage to target creature ability, right? I'm assuming so because it sounds like I will be able to make the Water Source give a [T] ability to Forests and Fields which is similar to giving Archers a [T] ability.

[Psyringe]

If I understand correctly, this means that I could make an Archery structure a lord card that gives Archer tokens the [T]: Deal 1 damage to target creature ability, right?

I think so, but I have never coded a "lord" card (or a card that involved tokens) myself, so I can't be certain. In any case, it's worth giving it a shot imho.

One other thing: "lord" abilities apparently do have a much higher performance impact than "usual" abilities, because they are continually checked. So if you can do without "lord" abilities, the game will run smoother on the PSP (for PCs it shouldn't matter). But if you can't, then "lord" abilities are a good alternative.

[Seekingtruth86]

Afraid I can't help you with the coding issues here, but just want to say this sounds like a fascinating gametype. MTG + RTS elements sounds like a win in my book... paritcularly if two-player mode returns. Good luck, I can't wait to try this out once you get it going!

[wololo]

I recently added a possibility to create tokens in a more flexible way, to match your expectations for this mod, here is an example from RV:

[card]
text={5}, {T}: Put a 1/1 Insect artifact creature token with flying named Wasp onto the battlefield. (It can't be blocked except by creatures with flying or reach.)
auto={5},{T}:token(-1138)
id=1138
name=The Hive
rarity=R
mana={5}
type=Artifact
[/card]

[card]
text=Flying
abilities=flying
id=-1138
name=Wasp
type=Artifact Creature
rarity=T
power=1
toughness=1
type=Artifact
[/card]

This code works and has been tested in the current SVN, so consider this way of writing tokens as 100% official from now. The older way is, of course, still supported

[Szei]

Thank you so much wololo! I really appreciate it and will get back to working on my mod ASAP (I haven't made much progress the past few days since I was still weighing my options on how to work around my issues, but now I don't need to =D).

[Szei]

New question:

I was wondering if it is possible to create cards that only give bonuses to creatures that match entire creature types. Say that I want a certain card to give +1/+0 to all creatures with the "Sword" creature type, but another card only give a +1/+0 bonus to creatures with the entire "Elf Sword" creature type. Would this be possible or would the second card give the bonus to any creature with "Sword" in its creature type (for example, "Orc Sword").

Thanks in advance.