newMania

With regards to your stalemate, I feel that both players could agree to a draw for the round giving neither player a point. This would mean black is playing for the win next round while Red is playing to tie the game. Still not much incentive for red to call a draw though. Maybe we need a rule that forces a draw if neither player is committing to an attack for more then two turns. Yeah that's it, apart from a shardbearer nothing really holds more value over anything else. This is part of the reason why I was messing around with the idea of pieces having a value. I see infantry as kind of like a pawn. Lowest value unit but lots of them. Archers holding the same low value but able to attack at distance. Calvary should be worth more than an army and a way to do that I feel would be to give them a higher value. Like a single infantry unit shouldn't be able to take them down alone, but maybe archers could. Also with your stalemate, I think the move phase and attack phase happening seperstely could solve this also. With the way you had the game in your picture, the red shardbearer could just keep moving around trying to flank something. Black player will only be able to move one piece per turn and eventually may end up not being able to protect both. If movement happened before attacking, this gives black a chance to position two pieces to reds one piece before attacks happen, which would be more likely to force red to have to retreat or either commit to removing one unit at the cost of their own.

I had another thought about movement and attacking. What if movement and attacking were two seperate phases of a turn in a round. Moving one card at a time, I can't see a situation where a shardbearer could possibly be surrounded as any infantry that came near it would be killed by it the next turn. What are thoughts on taking turns to move each piece once until everything has been moved or until a player decides they do not want to make further movements and then attacks happen simultaneously. I feel this could mimick an actual battle more realisticly as well as give the game more of a diplomacy feel than chess. I think it would also help open the game up to adding in a third player. It could also give a player the option to retreat at the start of the next movement phase, allowing them to return any card that is not surrounded and has direct line of sight to their base. Retreating would award the other player a win for that round.

What are thoughts on units having a value. Like infantry having a value of one, cavalry having a value of 2 and a shardbearer having a value of three. And units need to beat another units value to win, even values can either cancel each other out or destroy each other. Adjacent units could provide advantage, giving each unit a plus one value. Two infantry would need to be placed against an enemy to remove it from the board. Four infantry to beat a shardbearer. Terrain could give advantage or disadvantage. An infantry on high ground could gain advantage allowing it to remove an enemy infantry on its own. A river could give disadvantage of minus one value meaning a single I fantry would lose to another single infantry.

I've played a lot of Gwent over the years and feel it has a few similarities to towers. Gives me the same vibe, just more physical pieces rather then cards. But the way the mechanic works in gwent has always felt good. Your cards feel important because there isn't much more coming and then few cards you do get in later rounds feel immensely important as reinforcements.

Yeah I've been a lurker on the site for a few years but until now have always enjoyed just reading. I've felt pretty taken by the chapters of adolin teaching the game and went googling thinking someone must of had the idea of wanting to make a ruleset and found your post. I was thinking this too. I feel that if cards are randomly drawn and you don't have a shard bearer in hand it could represent a real life scenario of the shard bearer not being ready or not arriving yet. Then drawing them in a later round could really boost your chances in later rounds. They say it's good sometimes to retreat if you can see the round being lost. If you didn't draw a shardbearer in round one you could maybe try bluff your opponent into thinking he's been deployed forcing them to commit more on an early round so that you could hope hes ready for a bigger assault on a later round.

i was thinking that the terrain could be set up pre game. As in have a separate terrain deck made up of face cards, shuffle and deal three to each player who then take turns playing terrain onto the board before deploying troops. This would allow some degree of control as you can choose half of the terrain to benefit yourself and hinder your opponent as well as randomness as you have no idea what terrain you will receive and no control over where your opponent plays it. And sets it up before deployment so you can plan around it. I was thinking you could do something similar to GWENT. which is almost the same as what you had. Draw say 10 cards to start the game. play the round and at the start of the next round you only draw 2 and then 1 more in the final round. this would boost your hand slightly to give you more options however still gives importance to whats already on the board.