I have been thinking about a new design for Houses of Orion. It will inevitably bare some resemblance to the existing ones, insofar as many of the components of draw and play games are similar. And, at this point, I’m pretty convinced that it will NOT be a deck building game. As you said, the expansions to Dominion explore the dimensions of that design concept better. So, I’m not sure that duplicating their efforts is worthwhile. I’m feeling like an entirely new design is in order.

To that end, I’ve been thinking about what I want the game to do. Not the rules, or the mechanics per se, but the experience. Whether I want to have components other than cards, whether I want it to be customizable, expandable or stand alone, whether decks are fixed or everyone draws from a common pile, whether it plays quickly or requires long-term planning, whether it is a duel or a multiplayer game, whether players strive to build up points or get rid of their rivals… all these ideas and others have been circulating in my mind for a while, influencing all the earlier designs. But, recently I also started thinking about the perspective of the players, or you might say the conceit of the game. I mean, what is Houses of Orion all about? Who do the players represent? What is life like for the personalities they represent? What do they want to do?

The design so far has focused on vague notions of influence, based upon the presumption that how the numbers interact with each other is the most important part of the design. But, I’m less sure now that this approach will make the game interesting. I’m more inclined to say that a realistic ‘modeling’ of the world might not only make the game more interesting but also get me away from the simplicity of numerical comparisons which seems vital to customizable and expandable games.

The games that I have designed so far are theme independent. They don’t try to accurately represent a particular real phenomenon in history or life, but more rely upon the strategy that comes from manipulating numbers (and/or special powers). As such, they stand-alone well. And, they also provide a good amount of replayability, since the strategies quickly become complex. But, Houses of Orion is a real world, alive and full of activity. Granted, it is also fictitious, and, insofar as it is a product of my imagination, unfamiliar to other people. But, I’m thinking that a ‘model of reality’ simulation approach might work two purposes at once. It could flesh to the world better than any Euro-style game and it could open up lots of idiosyncracies that make for a good customizable game.

So, what do I want to simulate? Being an immortal and a baron in the universe of Orion’s Arm. Someone with a long life, a lot of wealth and extensive connections who has aspirations to royalty. Basically, the type of militancy, intrigue and politics that occurred between the Italian city-states and duchies before and during the Italian Wars. During that time, the cardinals, through their selection of popes, acted as a check on each state’s aspirations for control over all of Italy, as well as the threat of outside intervention by France and Spain and the constant threat posed by the Turks. Despite the massive amount of in-fighting, no state was able to eliminate the others to a sufficient point where it could claim rule, but a number of duchies did arise with significant power. I think that I want Houses of Orion to simulate this struggle in a scifi setting.

In this scifi setting, interstellar republics competed with galactic duchies over land, trade routes and cultural achievements. Their battles occur on the Mercurian Council, in the courts of the immortals, in the meeting of fleets and armies, in commercial dealings and the patronage of skilled artists, scholars and writers. Rarely are they decisive, but certain houses fall and others rise in the process. Support, tacit or real, of the greater kingdoms of Orion’s Arm can make or break the fortunes of any particular house. But to gain that support, houses risk drawing the kingdoms into the imbroglio directly and undermining their own efforts to sovereignty. So, all houses plot carefully. At their disposal are the wealth of their commercial activities, the strength, moral and training of their subjects/citizens, their position on the Mercurian Council, the power of their galactic navies, the prosperity of their planets, moons and asteroids, alliances that they can form and prominent individuals that they can attract to their courts.

Now, how all these resources come together, interact and produce a decisive outcome, I’m not sure. But, the game has to end decisively, and preferably quickly. So, some condition has to be placed on victory. And it has to arise somewhat naturally from the game play. The actual paths to victory should be innumerable, complex and dynamic, depending upon the choices that players make throughout the game. But, the goal needs to be clear. Is it control of land? Is it wealth? Is it some ephemeral notion of prestige? Is it fealty? Is it represented by a number (gained or lost)? Or could it be represented by something else? What could that be? Is the goal the same for everyone or do players have separate goals (like Illuminati)?

Whatever it is, it seems to me that in order for it to be effected quickly, it must accumulate over the play of the game irreversibly. Illuminati can balance itself out too perfectly, or monopoly for that matter, resulting in a very long game whose ending is liable to be created as much on account of boredom by one of more players as anything else. If it is land that defines victory, then lands cannot be destroyed. They may be able to be traded between players, but, as each land is introduced, it is brings the game irreversibly closer to ending.

I’m not sure that wealth (as it is usually conceived of as currency) can function properly as long as the game has any destruction component. If players have the ability to eliminate components, then the accumulation of currency can be reversed. On the other hand, if they don’t have the ability to eliminate components, then the game would seem to quickly devolve to optimum resource management techniques. Of course, Euro games prove that you can still have some interesting strategies even without ‘attacking’ other players. So, wealth as a goal is not completely written off. In fact, it may have one mechanical appeal, insofar as it creates its own balance… if a certain amount of wealth is needed, then at some point each player is going to have to stop spending it to accumulate enough. But, wealth seems like an awfully thin thematic victory condition for an aristocratic space opera.

Now, if ‘influence’ is the currency, and high influence is functionally equivalent to high wealth, then the theme doesn’t seem too compromised. Influence could be the currency that is recycled throughout the game to perform actions, including its own increase, allowing two possible victory conditions: when a house reaches a certain influence value, or when a rival house is reduced to 0 influence (since effectively they will not be able to do anything). Of course, the capacity for influence to be reversible introduces the aforementioned delays that I would like to avoid, so the real question then becomes how players can interact so as to delay each other. Unless this form of passive aggression can emerge, it will instead turn into a race of who knows card synergy better or who gets lucky.

But, perhaps, I should not write off the reversibility hypothesis for wealth just yet. Provided that there are sufficient limitations to gang up on the leader, it may be an interesting dynamic, having to be constantly worried about overextending. If accumulation requires expense, the greater the reward, the greater the risk. This has a way of equalizing the risky and the risk averse, as well as preventing a snowball effect created by initial inequities. In effect, each player has a real opportunity to win as long as returns on investment scale with risk of principle. Since, over numerous players either the risky can win at any time or the risk averse will eventually win, and each player must gauge when It is his own time to lay it on the line based upon his assessment of the risk environment and his ability to play to it.

Of course, gang up on the leader is the principle problem with reversibility. With no distance between players, all games will devolve to GUOTL. Distance here meaning built in obstacles to effecting other players, whether that is illiquid resources, physical distance on a map, a clockwise or counter clockwise rule, etc… As long as aggressive resources can be brought to bear at any time and in their full amount to retard or reverse another players capacities then each player inevitably plays against the coalition of all other players.

Prestige is an interesting goal though. Essentially it is the same as normal victory point systems. Prestige can be granted by a card, independent of its place in the economy of the game, allowing any and/or all cards to have different values of prestige. Prestige can also be linked to the cards themselves or accumulated in a separate token pile, allowing actions over the course of.the game to grant prestige as well as cards. Either way, prestige seems like a compromise between land and currency. It accumulates but it is also something that adheres to more than just a specific set of cards, with the potential to be tied into the economy.

If it accumulates in tokens (or drops in the case of health) then prestige is easy to track but then the game requires more components than the cards themselves. It might still be possible to trade or lose (gain) prestige, and thus delay the ending of the game, but it is unlikely that it would be tied directly into the economy as cards in play might. Tokens also add an additional dimension to the game, susceptible to manipulation. Card based prestige would not create additional dimension unless they were dedicated to prestige as in the case of lands or such.

The fealty of everyone else seems untenable as a victory condition in a zero-sum game. Since a vassal has every interest in overturning his lord, fealty would be effectively meaningless unless it came with a tremendous benefit. And, likewise, voluntary vassalage would seem rather silly unless there were accompanying benefits. But, in the end, if only one person can win, requiring the fealty of others is equivalent to achieving a status superior to the combined force of everyone else. Which is as unlikely as it is undesirable considering the amount of effort that is required to do so.

However, the fealty of NPCs seems perfectly feasible. If cards grant fealty to their controllers, then effectively the players are competing with each other for the loyalty of enough other barons or lords to claim royalty. This would operate somewhat similarly to prestige, with the added benefit of it being more thematically appropriate, if royal status is indeed what the goal is. On the downside, it is difficult to conceive how this might be represented except on cards in play. So, it might eliminate the concept of tokens along with all that it entails.