How to Play Towers (or a version of it) with a Standard 52 Card Deck

[NotLiamRoss He/Him]

 

2 hours ago, PARJ4 said:

both people have there shardbearers on the field and neither of them want to loose so it ends in a draw. because you need at least 4 people to kill the shardbearer or i even if i have 4 people the other player isn't dumb enough to let there shardbearer get surrounded

Hi! As outlined in the updated rules (the google doc is a living document) if a player at any point has only a single Shardbearer deployed and no other non-Shardbearer troops, then that Shardbearer can be captured by any opponent's Shardbearer. This should get around the issue you were mentioning, and if someone starts trying to stall with their Shardbearer and one or two other troops, your goal should be to remove those other troops to leave their Shardbearer vulnerable to be captured by yours.

I've still got more thoughts and responses but don't have the time to sit down and write them up (a friend and I also played a variant where surrounding the enemy units was the way to capture them, which I know some other people have mentioned in this thread). I'll have a big post to make probably tomorrow outlining everything we've found and responding to other messages. As always so pumped people are looking into (and playtesting!!!!) this silly little game

[PARJ4]

1 hour ago, NotLiamRoss said:

 

Hi! As outlined in the updated rules (the google doc is a living document) if a player at any point has only a single Shardbearer deployed and no other non-Shardbearer troops, then that Shardbearer can be captured by any opponent's Shardbearer. This should get around the issue you were mentioning, and if someone starts trying to stall with their Shardbearer and one or two other troops, your goal should be to remove those other troops to leave their Shardbearer vulnerable to be captured by yours.

I've still got more thoughts and responses but don't have the time to sit down and write them up (a friend and I also played a variant where surrounding the enemy units was the way to capture them, which I know some other people have mentioned in this thread). I'll have a big post to make probably tomorrow outlining everything we've found and responding to other messages. As always so pumped people are looking into (and playtesting!!!!) this silly little game

ok cool thanks

[Spartan He/Him]

Hi. I am new here but I don't have time right now to read all the posts so I'm sorry if someone already suggested incorporating troop moral into the game. I was thinking that if a unit fights several rounds of combat they could break and have to run back to the other players hand. Then if the unit is deployed again they can't last as long in combat.

[Dalluminum he/him]

8 hours ago, PARJ4 said:

hello i have played this and it is really fun but i have a question how am i supposed to win with the shardbearers on the field? here's a example

both people have there shardbearers on the field and neither of them want to loose so it ends in a draw. because you need at least 4 people to kill the shardbearer or i even if i have 4 people the other player isn't dumb enough to let there shardbearer get surrounded

Glad you enjoy it! 

One of our current rules about Shardbearers is that if your Shardbearer is your only troop on the board, the other player's Shardbearer can defeat yours. If your Shardbearers are going one-on-one, your best bet is to beat the rest of their troops or force them to retreat.

Just curious, were you playing with the "dueling" rule we outlined (where one Shardbearer can engage the other, keeping them both in a duel)?

[PARJ4]

2 hours ago, Dalluminum said:

Glad you enjoy it! 

One of our current rules about Shardbearers is that if your Shardbearer is your only troop on the board, the other player's Shardbearer can defeat yours. If your Shardbearers are going one-on-one, your best bet is to beat the rest of their troops or force them to retreat.

Just curious, were you playing with the "dueling" rule we outlined (where one Shardbearer can engage the other, keeping them both in a duel)?

no i was not playing with that rule. i didn't see it in the google doc soooo

Edited January 6, 2025 by PARJ4

[NotLiamRoss He/Him]

On 12/30/2024 at 8:07 PM, Haydes said:

Hey! I’m new as well but delighted to find someone workshopping a way to play towers after finishing the book this weekend. I am a wannabe board game designer and would love to help! I have some quick thoughts but I would also be willing to go through the rulebook to edit for clarity and conciseness as I’ve written a few rule books now.

First off, hi! And thanks for the detailed response! I'll respond to some of your comments in line here, many of which I agree with and have already updated in the rules google doc.

On 12/30/2024 at 8:07 PM, Haydes said:

I would change artillery to archers, there are hardly any references to artillery but archers are commonly used, I was confused seeing artillery and I think it would take people out of the stormlight theme.

I think enough people have mentioned this that I'm happy to change it, and already have in the rules doc.

On 12/30/2024 at 8:07 PM, Haydes said:

I don’t believe you address what happens if you still have cards in reserve (or just troops, can you keep terrain in reserve?) at the end of the round when you shuffle deployed troops back into your deck. Do they stay in your hand or get shuffled in with the deployed troops?

This has caused some confusion for my friends who have playtested as well. I've added rule 3.05 explicitly stating that any Troops/Terrain still in hand, remain in hand for the next round. I think this makes sense as it gives a definite Strategic advantage to someone who is willing to recognize a lost battle and retreat the field. It also makes for an interesting push and pull for the player who's ahead "Do I push my advantage now for the definite round win? Or split up my troops and spend my movement for a few rounds to retreat some troops to have for next round?"

On 12/30/2024 at 8:07 PM, Haydes said:

Also @NotLiamRoss are you on the 17th shard discord? You could try posting in their tabletop-games channel, you might find other people willing to help! Excited to see how this goes!

I'm not and I'm unfortunately not much of a discord user... I suppose I could look into getting it set up though! For now there's so much good discussion in this thread that I'm loathe to split the discussion by pulling it somewhere else if that makes sense.

On 12/30/2024 at 8:07 PM, Haydes said:

It looks like NewMania mentioned this in the time I was writing this up, but I agree - If we move one troop at a time like chess, how could a shard bearer ever be surrounded on all four sides? They are the best troop type and I can’t see a scenario in which if they get surrounded by nearby infantry they’re not just taking out one by one. With a starting hand of 10 troops (and less if terrain is involved) troops are very costly to lose, and putting them anywhere near a shard bearer will have massive losses) would you consider making the movement phase to move two or three troops? That could help.

This rule I have tweaked a bit to make things play a little smoother. Rather than being fully surrounded, now the requirement is that if they are ever surrounded on three sides, without a friendly troop covering the final side, they are vulnerable. This was suggested by a friend while playtesting and I think it does a few interesting things

1. It disincentivizes charging with your Shardbearer into a heavily fortified position. If your Shardbearer were ever to fly into an enemy line which was two units deep then it would naturally be surrounded on three sides and become vulnerable to counter attack
2. It incentivizes you to keep your Shardbearer with the rest of your forces and keeping it adjacent to at least one friendly troop makes it impossible to capture. This both balances play, by making sure that the Shardbearers aren't flying all over the board all of the time, and matches the text as Shardbearers are often seen to have a rearguard of regular Infantry (such as in the siege of the Oathgate in Azir)
3. This matches the text even further as Kaladin, when trying to remember the rules to a card game (which may or may not be Towers) mentions that the "King" (Shardbearer in our lingo) can be captured if attacked by 3 enemy units

I've got more thoughts about particularly Infantry movement and alternate ways to win rounds to avoid stalemate, but I've got to run off for now. I'll update the post with those thoughts this afternoon.

I also updated the main post to have a link to the google doc to make it easier to find for people. If you're new to the thread, please check it out as it's (slightly) more concise than the full discussion had in the thread

[NotLiamRoss He/Him]

Okay here we go. This is a big change so feel free to either take it or leave it, but upon playtesting, this seems pretty fun and makes Infantry into a more interesting Troop type IMO.

Infantry Movement and Formations

With the rules as they were currently laid out, there were some obvious pitfalls with Infantry that friends pointed out

1. Infantry didn't feel right being able to zip around the battlefield as fast as cavalry. Infantry should be more plodding, and focussed, acting more as mobile terrain than shock troopers.
2. Any move made by a single Infantry would move it away from its supporting units making it vulnerable, which led to a lot of sitting around staring at each other without much progress.
3. As pointed out by several people (@newMania and @Haydes in particular as I can think of off the top of my head) it's very hard to surround enemy Troops, in particular the enemy Shardbearer when you can only move a single unit at a time.
4. As Infantry are the most common unit type (and I think they should be) having them be un-fun to command kind of makes the whole game less fun.

The solution to the first point was to restrict their movement, and the solution to the rest of them was to be able to move multiple Infantry at once. To solve both problems at once I suggest the creation of a new concept, the Formation!

A Formation is any collection of adjacently continuous Infantry. The following are all examples of valid Formations (where white squares represent infantry and black squares represent empty spaces on the battlefield)

□□□□ |  □□■■■ | □■■□□□ | □■■■
□■■□ |  □□□■■ | □□□□■□ | □□□■
■■■■ |  ■■■■■ | ■■■■■■ | ■■□□

The following are not examples of Formations (or at least not examples of a Single formation)
 

□■□■□■□ | □□■■□ | □□■■□□ | □■■
■□■□■□■ | □□□■□ | □■□□■□ | ■□■ 
□■□■□■□ | ■■■■■ | ■■■■■■ | ■■□

Any Formation of Infantry may move together using the same Movement action, but must all be in the same direction and can only be at most a single cards-length in any orthogonal direction. This moving may mean moving all of the infantry together as one (say across the battlefield), or moving only some members of the Formation which results in either the Formation changing shape, breaking into multiple Formations, or both. Some examples of valid Formation Movements are as follows

□■■■■□     ■■■■■■
□□□□□□  >  □■■■■□ 
■■■■■■     □□□□□□
-----------------
■■■■■■     ■□■■□■
■□□□□■  >  ■□□□□■
■□□□□■     ■■□□■■
-----------------
■■□□■■     ■■■□□■
■□□■■■  >  ■□■□■■
□□■■■■     □□■■■■

Some examples of Invalid Formation Movements are the following

□■■■■■     ■■■■■■
□□■■■■  >  ■□■■■■  Diagonal Movement is not allowed, only orthogonal 
■■■■■■     ■□□■■■
-----------------
■■■■■■     ■■□□■■
■■□□■■  >  ■■■■■■ All units in a single movement must move in the same direction
■■□□■■     ■□■■□■
-----------------
■■■■■■     ■■■■■■
□□■■■■  >  ■■■■□□ Movement can be at most a single cardslength
□□■■■■     ■■■■□□

This made Infantry maneuvering a lot more interesting in our playtests and led to fun traps where overextending into an opponent's formation could lead to your troops being surrounded and cut off from support/retreat. In our rules, a formation could retreat together (required they all fit within your Deployment Zone) but individual Infantry needed to be deployed one at a time to build the formation up. Let me know what you think, but although this adds some complexity to the game, I think the fun quota you get from adding these rules more than makes up for it. But let me know what you think and feel free to playtest more yourself! I look forward to hearing your feedback

More info to come on alternate win conditions (I know lots of people have been thinking about these) in a little bit, maybe tomorrow. Today's my first day back to work in the new year so I probably should get at least some work done today. Let me know what you think of what I've posted so far!

Edited January 6, 2025 by NotLiamRoss

[VanWagon He/Him]

Hello, I just checked the rules to make sure and didn’t find one, but have you set a rule on the size of the “battlefield”. I think I remember some earlier talk of there being a mobile easy version of the game and then a game with a dedicated board. But I don’t remember seeing a defined area size for the battlefield. In @NotLiamRoss post of formations there is one (not formation) with 7 card slots and that seemed to be the max formation they created for infantry. I’m eager to play test and excited to see each update for the game and its mechanics. 

Edited January 6, 2025 by VanWagon

[NotLiamRoss He/Him]

Hi VanWagon! Nice to see lots of new people commenting on the post, welcome to the Forum!

5 minutes ago, VanWagon said:

I just checked the rules to make sure and didn’t find one, but have you set a rule on the size of the “battlefield”. I think I remember some earlier talk of there being a mobile easy version of the game and then a game with a dedicated board. But I don’t remember seeing a defined area size for the battlefield

I think currently the size of the battlefield is just the size of your play surface. This naturally means that some battlefields will be larger and some will be smaller depending on where you are playing, which I view as part of the whole "Terrain is important" thing listed in the text. That said it could be that casually it can be played on any surface, but in more competitive environments there's some standardized shape or width, I'd just rather have us discover what a fun size of board is through playtesting rather than try to declare it by fiat.

8 minutes ago, VanWagon said:

In @NotLiamRoss post of formations there is one (not formation) with 7 card slots and that seemed to be the max formation they created for infantry.

This was just a coincidence and was because I didn't want to have to fill the whole space with black squares. Theoretically, the largest formation you can have would be all 10 of your infantry (the cards ranked 2-6 from both black or red suits) but I'd expect it to be pretty rare to actually have one that big!

[PARJ4]

@NotLiamRoss i have a question about the rules. at the beginning of the game you put down your terrain cards but can you keep some of them in your hand? do you need to place them all down at the start? if you can keep them can you put them down mid game?

[NotLiamRoss He/Him]

2 hours ago, PARJ4 said:

@NotLiamRoss i have a question about the rules. at the beginning of the game you put down your terrain cards but can you keep some of them in your hand? do you need to place them all down at the start? if you can keep them can you put them down mid game?

Nope! But cards remain in hand between rounds so you can choose to deploy the terrain at the beginning of the next round. It also conveniently bluffs that you have troops in reserve waiting to deploy and surprise the opponent!

To be 100% clear, the only time you can deploy terrain is at the very beginning of the round. With current rules there’s no way to deploy terrain mid round, maybe there’s room for a Soulcaster variant which can turn squares into terrain (this is hinted at by the text) but for now we’re just trying to pin down some basic rules of the game

[Spartan He/Him]

Hi, I managed to play test the game with some of my friends and I ran into two problems. One is personal and one is about the game. The first problem is that I don't have enough friends that are interested in playing a board/card game instead of video games. The second problem I ran into is that after me and my opponent deployed our terrain and troops we were too comfortable with are defensive positions and neither of us wanted to move so several games ended in draws.

Edit: I forgot to say that another thing I was thinking about and what confused me and my friends is that, if two infantry lines attack each other and there was no way to attack their flanks how would you decide who comes out victorious in the engagement.

Edited January 7, 2025 by Spartan

[NotLiamRoss He/Him]

10 hours ago, Spartan said:

The first problem is that I don't have enough friends that are interested in playing a board/card game instead of video games

Ain't that the truth for all of us :p. The overlap between my boardgame friends and my Cosmere friends is thankfully non-zero, but it's still single digit for me and a few of us live in different cities. Playtesting has definitely been slowed down because of this

10 hours ago, Spartan said:

The second problem I ran into is that after me and my opponent deployed our terrain and troops we were too comfortable with are defensive positions and neither of us wanted to move so several games ended in draws.

Hmmm I can definitely, see how this would happen... Maybe with the updated movement rules for Infantry it makes sense to set up terrain and then Deploy troops as normal going turn by turn (Move, Attack, Deploy). This would likely make it so that you need to dynamically build up your lines and it means you probably won't get your perfect defensive position every time. It probably makes things more dynamic too. Anyone want to try out that variant?

10 hours ago, Spartan said:

I forgot to say that another thing I was thinking about and what confused me and my friends is that, if two infantry lines attack each other and there was no way to attack their flanks how would you decide who comes out victorious in the engagement.

It's entirely likely that two Infantry lines can't make progress on each other without other Troops involved, and I think this is a feature not a bug. If the Infantry lines can't access each other's flanks without making their own flanks vulnerable, then this is when you need to swing in with Cavalry, send in your Shardbearer, or try to maneuver your Archers onto high ground (maybe escorted by your shardbearer or a second formation of Infantry). I kind of equate this to closed positions in chess, where the pawn structure can be such that no pawns can make a move, this isn't a failing of the game in my mind, and in fact it serves to highlight the power of the minor and major pieces in chess.

[Spartan He/Him]

Quote

It's entirely likely that two Infantry lines can't make progress on each other without other Troops involved, and I think this is a feature not a bug. If the Infantry lines can't access each other's flanks without making their own flanks vulnerable, then this is when you need to swing in with Cavalry, send in your Shardbearer, or try to maneuver your Archers onto high ground (maybe escorted by your shardbearer or a second formation of Infantry). I kind of equate this to closed positions in chess, where the pawn structure can be such that no pawns can make a move, this isn't a failing of the game in my mind, and in fact it serves to highlight the power of the minor and major pieces in chess.

Ok, thank you

[PARJ4]

@NotLiamRoss i think you should add a map like thing like maybe you can go like 10 down and 10 across or something like that because terrain doesn't really do much (other then high ground) because you can just play your troops on the other side of the map

Edited January 10, 2025 by PARJ4

[NotLiamRoss He/Him]

11 hours ago, PARJ4 said:

because you can just play your troops on the other side of the map

I'm curious what you mean by that. During troop deployment at the beginning of the round you are limited to deploying on your half of the battlefield (the half of the play surface closest to you). During play when you choose to deploy troops you can only do so in your Deployment zone (the area one cards-length in front of you on the battlefield). There's no point at which you can deploy troops on the other side of the map

11 hours ago, PARJ4 said:

because terrain doesn't really do much (other then high ground)

I'm not sure I buy this either. Terrain still will block troop movement and attacks even in the case where you could deploy anywhere. You can put archers behind Chasms, hide a vulnerable troop behind Mountains, move your Infantry to shore up a flank with High Ground. I'd argue it still has an impact on the game.

[Qianweilian He/him]

Recommendation: Add forests that block archers and make cavalry slower there.

[NotLiamRoss He/Him]

18 minutes ago, Qianweilian said:

Recommendation: Add forests that block archers and make cavalry slower there.

I like the idea, but Rosharan ecology (outside of Shinovar) doesn't have forests so I don't think they would factor in. Some Earth (or Yolish) version could though!

[PARJ4]

4 hours ago, NotLiamRoss said:

I'm curious what you mean by that. During troop deployment at the beginning of the round you are limited to deploying on your half of the battlefield (the half of the play surface closest to you). During play when you choose to deploy troops you can only do so in your Deployment zone (the area one cards-length in front of you on the battlefield). There's no point at which you can deploy troops on the other side of the map

I'm not sure I buy this either. Terrain still will block troop movement and attacks even in the case where you could deploy anywhere. You can put archers behind Chasms, hide a vulnerable troop behind Mountains, move your Infantry to shore up a flank with High Ground. I'd argue it still has an impact on the game.

oh ok i didn't not know that did not know that about the deployment zone being one card length though you should still make a map because i play on a pretty big table (i know this can vary) so if i put a mountain in the middle of the map my opponent can just put all his troops on the left or right because the map is the hole table

 

 

Edited January 10, 2025 by PARJ4

[Ishikk]

Hey guys, new to posting in this thread but I have been following it and have done some playtesting. I feel that the basic version that is in the rule book doc right now makes for a pretty fun game, but me and my friends were more interested in making and trying out variants which are often mentioned in WaT. Below are some of the variants that we tried or came up with, which I would recommend either trying, or somehow incorporating into the basic game.

1. One of the most boosting variants that we tried was a point value version that somebody mentioned earlier (I could not find it) with infantry and archers having a value of 1, cavalry having a value of 2 on the front of card and a value of 1 on the flank, and shardbearers having a value of 3. To capture a piece, a military piece has to have a greater value which can be boosted by either adjacent friendly units (adding them to the value, eg. two infantry adjacent both have a value of 2.) or by positioning around terrain with +1 value with high ground, +1 value if backed up against mountain (can't retreat so fight harder). This makes the positioning of troops much more important as they have to be supported by others. We also allowed people to move 3 units on a turn, but the other person can make one move before the first person attacks, making movement more important and adding more strategy. This also made shardbearers more realistic as a shardbearers could attack an infantry or cavalry and win, but if 3 infantry are together there is no way for a shardbearer to win. (They all die)

2. Changing the drawing of cards)  This is a simple change that makes additional troops more scarce, while keeping holy numbers   While using a terrain deck, each player draws 10 cards at the beginning of round 1. Round 2 each player draws 4. At the beginning of round 3 each player draws 1. All holy numbers in Honors eyes, except for 15 total cards, so we added that during the 3rd round at any time after the deployment, either player can call for 1 more card to be drawn, making a total of 16 cards. This adds more strategy, to either call it right away, wait for when you really need it, or trying to destroy your enemy before they can call for it on their turn.

3. Changing shardbearers to king, and jokers to soulcasters) This fits the Kaladin dialogue in Ob if we assume that the game is towers. Shardbearer rules do not change just name so that's not important, but adding soulcasters adds some fun plays. These are the soulcaster rules we came up with: Same movement of infantry, if using point values, their value is 0, and so they completely rely on adjacent troops, and can not attack. Instead of an attack, on their attack turn, they can construct a random terrain drawn from the terrain deck (or if in hand, you can build terrain separate from the beginning of the round). This can support troops and block enemy advancements. Biggest problems are space, as this works better on a bigger play area, and mountains. Mountains require two other cards and so take up other terrain, and are realistically way too big to be soulcast. As such we changed mountains to hills that you can not occupy, and which only need the king. This also makes more sense in terms of Roshar, as the only mountains are part of large ranges, not individual ones in the middle of a battlefield.

4. 2 decks and teams) We used two of the same deck to create two mega armies, with each suit being controlled by each person. This just allows more people to play without making the playing surface too complicated. We made it that the play order was 1st red suit - 1st black suit - 2nd red suit - 2nd black suit. This made the game take much longer as there was a lot more movement and less fighting. 

 

[Mattel]

Wow I absolutely love this! While I was reading I was just thinking like "I really wish this existed" so I really appreciate people trying to make it a reality.

 

I do have some ideas and suggestions.

I haven't played this at all, but it sounds unfair that up to six of your hand could be filled up with terrain cards. To me, it seems better to have each person take turns placing terrain cards. You could perhaps change the amount each plays based off of: how many players, or the size of the table. Generally I think three or four per person seems like a good starting range. I agree with those that have said that the terrain should remain the same across all three battles. Though, you could choose to mix it up each time, since that doesn't change gameplay too much. Perhaps, for some added fun and difficulty, you increase the amount of terrain cards you place each time a new round starts.

I also think that, based off of what Adolin said, it is a key and vital part of the game the fact that when you lose a card that card is out of the game. So I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the idea of drawing extra cards past the original ten that you take. I do agree that ten seems like a good number to start with. Because if, as someone previously mentioned, you draw four cards after one round, that seriously changes the way you play, and seems like that would be something that would be considered a variant version. However, it does seem like it is realistic to expect reinforcements to arrive. Perhaps before your third round, and after your second round, you are allowed to draw a few extra, so as to simulate reinforcements arriving, but to not expect too much help. Generally what you start with in a battle, turns out to be what you have for that battle, I think, based off of how the real world works. Either that or you hold out and wait for a large reinforcement, but I don't think we can properly do that in a towers game. Perhaps one person could have larger numbers, but be at a placement disadvantage, and the other person has fewer numbers but a well defendable area. The first person is the "attacker" and the other person is the "defender," and the attackers job is to beat the defender in three rounds, and the defenders job is to hold out until "reinforcements" arrive. So essentially the attacker has three rounds to try and win and if they can't then they immediately lose. That sound like a fun variant, but is a variant so I will move on, now. In my mind, you should start with ten cards, and if you lose any cards during any of the rounds, then those cards are out. I also imagine that the amount you lose determines the amount you can have for future games, bringing back that point I made about what Adolin told Yanagawn about Towers. So here's how I picture it. Any card you lose is out for the entire game of three rounds, and the amount you lose determines the amount of cards you can have for future rounds. You start with ten cards in the first round, and then lose three. From there we have a few options. Option One: you place all seven of your cards back into the group of cards that you draw from to decide what cards you will have next time. This seems like it would really change the gameplay, for better or worse, but also seems unrealistic to how battle works, and therefore not like how Towers seems like it would actually be played. Towers in Roshar is a game designed to teach battle strategy, so it seems unlikely that you would swap out your cards after each round. Option Two: you keep all the cards you originally had, so both you and your opponent knows what the other has, but maybe not where you will deploy it. This seems realistic, but like it could possibly just lead to more boring rounds. Option Three: you place some of your cards into the draw pile and then shuffle it up, and draw the right amount of new cards. This would mean you still maintain some of your cards, but your opponent doesn't know everything that you have. I am leaning more in favor of this way. So from option Three we have a few choices to make. Decision One: Do you, or your opponent decide which you lose? If you decide which you lose, do you choose randomly after shuffling up your own hand deck or do you pick and choose. I am leaning more towards you pick and choose which ones you lose. Decision Two: how do you decide how many you lose? Perhaps you and your opponent talk it over and come to a decision and both agree that we will remove and draw this many new cards. Perhaps you remove half? But do you round up or down if it is an uneven number? Or maybe it is a set number, like three, or four because that is supposedly a holy number. I am in favor of it being a set number that you have to get rid of, if you choose that path. Of course we can always make it that you could keep the cards you have, but with the knowing drawback that your opponent knows what you have. Then I think we should have whoever decides what they will do in between rounds first should alternate, or be based off of who won. Whoever won the round should be forced to choose if they will get new cards or keep theirs, first. Decision Three: How many cards should you increase your hand after each round? I personally am in favor of after each round you draw one more card than last time. So if you didn't lose any cards, for the first round you would have 10, for the second round 11, and for the third round, 12. This is to add a measure of mystery each round, so that no one truly knows what the other has, and to balance out when you inevitably lose cards. Drawing your extra card will come after you exchanging your cards, if you choose that. So back to the original example, you have ten in the first round, and lose three and are brought down to seven. Perhaps you choose four cards to get rid of and get new ones. Then you draw a new card, and now you have five new cards and three familiar ones, and your total amount is eight. Perhaps in the second round you lose a few more, and are brought down to, say, four. One of which is a shardbear, and you don't want to run the risk of losing that, so you don't choose to get four new cards. (if you choose to get new cards, you have to do the amount that we eventually decide upon. Four seems like a well balanced number and holds certain relevance to the actual story.) You draw one new card so now you have five cards and you enter the last round. 

In my mind, Towers seems to be very similar (in the book) to how attacking and movement is in the game Civilization. I'm talking the video game, Meier's Civilization. What I specifically have in mind is Civilization five, because it is what I grew up playing and am most familiar with. In it, each type of unit has a set number of movements, generally two or three, and after you choose whether or not to move, you can attack, with each having a set number of distance for how far away they can attack. For most infantry it was a distance of one was how far they could attack, so they had to be next to the thing they were attacking. Archers had two, but further in scientific development, actual artillery had three attack range, so I don't know what you will want to do for archers. Cavalry, in my mind, would attack in straight lines, with probably a high mobility number, and could attack at the end of a move. So you can choose to move them forward, say, three spaces, and then immediately attack with cavalry. Shardbearers... I don't know how they fit into this. It seems slightly unrealistic and yet realistic at the same time to have them move in any direction any distance. Yes, they are fast and very maneuverable, but even still they are only a human with a magic set of armor. They should probably have the same amount of movement range as a cavalry, but can only attack things directly next to it.

Did we decide whether or not you could pull out several troops during the "deploy" part of your turn? I feel like you should have the ability to pull out all your troops at once and "retreat" in one turn if it finally comes to that. In the Google Files sheet it says you can only pull one troop out at time, but I prefer you being able to remove several. I do agree with the specific way of you have to progress with your turn with moving from Movement, to Attack, and then Deploy. A strange case specificity that we should address, is I think you cannot remove or "retreat" a unit that you just used to attack. I feel like that would lead to a lot of unsportsmanlike hit and run strategies. If this wasn't the case, during your turn you could just move, attack, and then return that unit to your hand, and not have to worry about the opponent possibility retaliating against your unit. So definitely any unit you use to attack you cannot remove from the "board" and I'm not sure where I stand about units that you move. If you move a unit, should you be able to remove it? I am thinking no, merely because during a real battle, if you move a unit to the front line, and then realize you don't actually want to attack, it is too late to pull them back (which would be the equivalent of returning them to your playing hand deck) once you put them out there they will face the consequence of possibly being attacked. So, I guess any unit that you move or attack with you cannot pull back during the same turn. Hmm... Perhaps if a unit is out of range of attack from an enemy unit, then you can safely retreat it. If it is within range of attack from an enemy at any point, then you can't pull it away. This actually seems like a good idea, since in real battles you wouldn't realistically retreat unless you knew you wouldn't suffer heavy losses. This is a direction that I am hesitant to go, but potentially we could say, if you have a unit that is within range of the enemy, you can still retreat, but you roll dice to see if you lose it or not. Similar to how Risk works. Which is why I am hesitant to go this direction because it can start to bring such elements of luck and chance that can be really annoying at times. We would probably want the person retreating to have slightly better odds of retreating with their unit and not lose it, but the enemy would still have a chance of defeating the unit while it retreats. Thoughts on this idea?

I'm kind of more in favor of having hexagon or square pieces. This would make it so much more clear about how movement works relative to one another. Even if we don't do this (which I get why we wouldn't, you would have to custom make pieces, and generally every household has a deck of cards) I do also think I personally would prefer having a board, or at least having some way of setting up a grid. I like the idea of every time you play it could be different merely because of the size of the surface you are playing on, but it would be nice to have some way of forming a loose graph that would tell you where pieces can move relative of each other. Two opponents across from each other could accidentally start playing with their pieces offset by half a card, and then when they get closer and they realize that, what do you do? It seems like such a common, yet annoying problem that could be solved by creating perhaps some piece of thin paper you lay next to your "board" that has like tally marks that denominate the length of one card. I'm not a huge fan of the idea of having to "rotate" cards so that they can attack in different directions. That seems... slightly unrealistic to battle and also such a hassle. Would rotating them be one turn? What determines in real life what the side of an army is? Armies can arrange themselves into circles with only one group of soldiers, while we can't do that with cards super well. I think it works better to have them always be facing the direction of your opponent, and then if you have friendly cards or unfriendly cards along the long side of the card, that has either better effects or negative effects. This way flanks can actually have a chance of being performed and will always be in the same set position/place on different cards.

How do the formations for ordinary infantry work? Specifically, how do they work when pieces are diagonal to each other? If their corners are touching, is that enough to form a formation, or do they need to have some piece connecting them along a side? I looked at your specific message about formations @NotLiamRoss and you said that a formation is formed by "adjacent infantry" but with rectangles how do we decide that? Again, I prefer squares and above that hexagons for something like this.

Did we decide whether or not you absolutely started with the shardbearer or not? It seems like an unfair amount of randomness for your opponent to possibly draw a shardbearer card and you not, yet always starting with it feels sort of... cheap. I dunno. What are Sharders thoughts on that specific question?

While chasms are so familiar and unique and representative of the world of the story of the Stormlight Archive, they are not something that occurs naturally everywhere in Roshar. Chasms seem like something that you could add if you decided that you would have a specific piece of terrain specific to a place on Roshar. Rivers seem like such a good and natural other option, but again, Towers probably wouldn't have rivers. Kaladin was like shocked when he saw a river in Shinover; it is something that doesn't occur everywhere. Perhaps we could just call one card "uneven terrain" and say it is like rockbuds, or weird rock formations, or boulders piled up somewhere, that either you can't use (meaning it is similar to how a chasm functioned anyway so now my idea seems dumb) or if we decide to use that point based system, it would lower a units attack by one. I like the idea of high ground giving more range for archers, or maneuverability for infantry or cavalry, and I like the idea of having either a mountain or some sort of high ground that you can't be on. 

Idea: We do the points based attack system, but we have custom attack and defense numbers based off of the card face value. Currently we have five different cards for infantry but they are all the same. But Rosharans use different tactics, pikemen, heavy infantry, etc. So perhaps we could have the attack and defense be different and correspond to the number of the card. That would make it easy to remember how much one is capable of. 

So I just did some thinking about a points system and how it would work, and looked at some other posts people have made about it. And here's what I'm thinking. I think it works better to do something similar to Stratego, rather than assign a low base number to each type of unit. So I am thinking that the number on the card represents how much damage it can give and how much damage it can take. But this does require moving around units because otherwise archers are broken and can kill all normal infantry from a safe distance, which doesn't seem super fair. So my revised idea is this: Archers are moved to 4 and 5, and we have infantry be 2, 3, 6, 7, and 8, and Cavalry be 9, and 10, and I will talk about Shard bearers in a second. The reason I moved the archers into the middle is because if they continue to be 7 and 8, then they can kill all normal infantry (which previously were 2-6) without requiring some help. While I believe archers can achieve some serious damage on normal infantry, being able to kill all of them seems... cheap. To make up for the break between the infantry, I suggest that infantry of 2 and 3 are more mobile than the other infantry (6, 7, and 8 ) to try and balance them being so weak. I'm not sure if this would mean increasing the amount 2 and 3 can go, or decreasing the amount 6, 7, and 8 can move, so I would like y'alls advice on that. Cavalry would still work the same, moving in straight lines and attacking forward. So you can combine attacks from different units. During your turn, you would first move units into position, and then when it is the part of your turn where you attack, you could aim several units at one unit. You could use a 5 archer, paired with a 6 infantry, to overtake a 10 cavalry. If either one tried attacking the cavalry alone, they would die from attacking, but the two scores add up to be greater. We have two options here then: if the scores add up to be the same you both lose all the pieces included in the skirmish, or the attacking pieces win. I don't know which is better so again, asking for what the Shard community thinks. High ground I think should add something like two or three to any unit that is one it, either both in attacking power or just in defense. Potentially both. Not sure which right now. Someone previously mentioned being backed up against a wall would make people attack harder would I agree would add some attack and defense strength. So I have an interesting idea for how infantry and formations work. It takes one move of all infantry involved during one turn to create a formation. So when it is your turn you start off with the movement part, and you can choose to turn two or more of your infantry into a formation. The infantry that you choose cannot be moved during this turn. You can move other pieces, but you can't move those specific infantry involved. Not sure if they can still attack during the same turn. In your next turn (definitely at the next turn) you can move the formation all at once, and can attack with them combined. If you had a 3 and an 8, and you moved them into a formation, and then attacked, you would attack with a force of 11. Similarly, if they were attacked, it would require a force of definitely 12, possibly 11, to defeat them. Again, we are presented with two options: Either when you attack a formation and beat it, you only take out the part of the unit you attacked, or you take out all of the formation. I am leaning towards you take out only the one you attack. It seems like it would be a fun balanced part of the game that would add a lot  towards gameplay. That way formations can add length to the game, but you don't lose all of your infantry in a formation at once. 

So... shard bearers. I think that there should be two ways you can capture or kill them. First, I like the way it was previously described. If you surround a shard bearer on three different sides and the shard bearer does not have an ally card on the fourth side, then any attack regardless of strength will kill the shardbearer. I also think that if we use a point system, the shard bearer can be taken down by a high enough number. I just think that it should be a very high number which requires two strong cards or three cards regardless. I am not sure what it should be. 20? 

 

Welp, those are my thoughts on this. I apologize for writing so much but I really really love this idea and want to make it work. I would love if people would post what they think of all that I said.

[Ishikk]

14 minutes ago, Mattel said:

To me, it seems better to have each person take turns placing terrain cards.

I totally agree, I just tried this out, and with a terrain deck, we took turns placing terrain with three each. It felt balanced and fun.

15 minutes ago, Mattel said:

However, it does seem like it is realistic to expect reinforcements to arrive. Perhaps before your third round, and after your second round, you are allowed to draw a few extra, so as to simulate reinforcements arriving, but to not expect too much help.

What me and my friends liked best was 10 the first round, then 4, then 1, and then somebody can call for 1 more reinforcement during the third round. This ensures that if somebody does poorly or does not draw their king in the first round they can still have hope, but you get less and less, making beginning rounds more important. The extra one is just to have a total of 16 with some extra strategy.

18 minutes ago, Mattel said:

In my mind, you should start with ten cards, and if you lose any cards during any of the rounds, then those cards are out.

I think that is something we all agree on, one a troop dies, it is gone.

19 minutes ago, Mattel said:

ou place some of your cards into the draw pile and then shuffle it up, and draw the right amount of new cards. This would mean you still maintain some of your cards, but your opponent doesn't know everything that you have. I am leaning more in favor of this way

This sounds fun, and I am leaning towards letting your opponent chose, as otherwise you would get rid of lesser cards and just get stronger cards, which is unrealistic.

25 minutes ago, Mattel said:

A strange case specificity that we should address, is I think you cannot remove or "retreat" a unit that you just used to attack. I feel like that would lead to a lot of unsportsmanlike hit and run strategies.

Because you can not move after an attack, your opponent can always try to counter before you can retreat, just part of the game.

I'll finish reading your book  later

[Mattel]

2 hours ago, Ishikk said:

What me and my friends liked best was 10 the first round, then 4, then 1, and then somebody can call for 1 more reinforcement during the third round. This ensures that if somebody does poorly or does not draw their king in the first round they can still have hope, but you get less and less, making beginning rounds more important. The extra one is just to have a total of 16 with some extra strategy.

Okay. Well since it seems like you have actually played this and liked that, I'm totally cool with making that part of our "official rules"

2 hours ago, Ishikk said:

This sounds fun, and I am leaning towards letting your opponent chose, as otherwise you would get rid of lesser cards and just get stronger cards, which is unrealistic.

But we are in agreement that your opponent chooses randomly?

Quote

Because you can not move after an attack, your opponent can always try to counter before you can retreat, just part of the game.

Well, but the way we have a move work currently, is you move, attack, and then deploy or retreat. You could move a unit, attack something, and then without any rules put in place for this, return the unit to your hand.

2 hours ago, Ishikk said:

I'll finish reading your book  later

lol I know my family was in the same room as me as I typed that out and they were like "what is he doing" "is he okay?" "What's up with all the frantic typing???" And then they also saw the length of what I had typed and just laughed.

Edited January 12, 2025 by Mattel

[Ishikk]

1 hour ago, Mattel said:

But we are in agreement that your opponent chooses randomly?

Yes, otherwise it would be the opposite, just getting weaker and weaker troops.

 

1 hour ago, Mattel said:

return the unit to your hand.

Maybe I misunderstood, but I have been playing that you can only retreat in the deployment area, requiring movement to attack and then get back. That's why I said that.

[Dalluminum he/him]

I'm going to propose that everyone who wants to should write their own rulebook for the game. It's kind of confusing to list out every rule you were playing with in a play test, and Towers has a lot of variations. It seems to me that many of us are going to have different preferences on gameplay for a while, so individual rulebooks for this early testing phase might be good: then we can combine/revise them to make a more common ground rulebook we can spread around.

Feel free to shoot down this idea. It just seems like we all have our own take on the "official" rules we currently have, and it's faster to revise your own rulebook and share your ideas after testing it out.

Overall, I love the way this is coming along!

 

Oh, before I go, thought I'd comment on this.

18 hours ago, Mattel said:

While chasms are so familiar and unique and representative of the world of the story of the Stormlight Archive, they are not something that occurs naturally everywhere in Roshar.

This is absolutely true, and something I've been meaning to bring up. Chasms are super iconic to us, but anyone from Azir would be unfamiliar with chasms as common terrain. Chasms seem to fill a nice niche in the system we currently have, giving archers an advantageous position, but some other terrain could work just as well. I like your idea of "rough terrain" or something similar to prevent or slow movement but keep the battlefield open.