So let's talk about the card system today.
As the game is a game of nation growth and expansion through time (much like civ) you start in the earliest of the stone ages and move into the bright utopian world of tomorrow. For reference, the era's go Stone Age -> Bronze Age -> Iron Age -> Classical Age -> Industrial Age -> Atomic Age -> Information Age -> Quantum Age (thanks ExtraNoise for the original ages). As I took a look at how I wanted the player to move through the game, I came up with a neat idea: why not make it seem like a card game (ala Magic)? Once I had that idea in my head, the rest of the mechanics began to flow like I had opened the flood gates to my mind.
This is what I typed up for myself so I had an idea to follow:
Cards are the main control mechanism for the game; everything must be drawn and then played through cards. But they are not all instantaneous; some items require a certain number of turns to implement. Think of cards as “game changing” decisions, the options available are semi-random; yet tie into decisions that you make changing what shows up.
Cards work in “Decks”, where each technology age is a new deck. This ties in with the tech research with unlocks new “card packs” that gives you more options. You also have government specific cards that affect your nation as well.
Deck 1 (stone age) Cards: These are general cards; they are common and available from the start. Present are things like settlement cards, basic infrastructure (huts, farms, sharp sticks, and simple agriculture). Cards in this deck set the tone for how your nation moves forward so you are able to also have a lot of basic moral/civic/military choices that push to towards hope or fear style tribal government.
Deck 2 (bronze age) Cards: Settlement cards, more advanced infrastructure (mills, buildings, barracks, larger farms, settlement walls). Government cards should be pushing player into feudal age governments by end of deck.
Deck 3 (iron age) Cards: Settlement cards, more advanced infrastructure (castles, dirt roads, black smiths). Complex political infrastructure cards, actual nations beginning to form.
Deck 4 (classical age) Cards: Settlement cards, Cultural infrastructure cards in full swing (education, arts, etc), more advanced infrastructure (cobble roads, buildings, etc) trade and civilization improvements. Governments begin to hit centralized.
Deck 5 (industrial age) Cards: Settlement cards, Electricity and other civic innovations, gravel roads, city formations. Advanced civic concepts (decentralized government facilities, etc), Railways and other forms of mass transportation.
Deck 6 (atomic age) Cards: Settlement Cards, Large city improvements, asphalt roads available along with mass transportation, power and telecommunications, freeways, ability to begin nuclear research! Governments emerge into modern styles.
Deck 7 (information age) Cards: settlement cards, mass communications, underground transportation, wireless compatibility, mass electronics. Space constructions begin.
Deck 8 (quantum age) Cards: Settlement cards, wide spread space networks, governments begin to transition to utopian.
From that I created the basic run down of bullet points to flesh out the idea:
- Each "Age" is represented by a base "deck of cards".
- Each deck (currently) has 25 cards in it.
- These cards are how you grow and control and grow your nation.
- When your nation evolves into the next Age, the current base deck is scrapped in favor of the new one. This means you cannot go back and get old cards.
- As you progress through technology research, different techs each have "booster packs" of a few cards which are added to your main deck.
- Same for governments, whatever government your nation has adopted adds in its own booster pack.
- The cards are split into 6 main types: Civic, Expansion, Military, Infrastructure, Financial, and Reward.
- Cards also have a response rating, which acts similar to the light side/dark side meter from Knights of the Old Republic. They can fall into: Fear, Minor Fear, Neutral, Minor Hope, Hope. This affects how your government forms around your actions, along with what potential technologies you have access to (some only are available to hope, some only to fear).
- You can hold Seven (7) cards at one time in your hand, you can keep these cards for as long as you want.
- You can also discard a card if you do not want it (for instance, you are playing to a hope side and get a strong fear based card).
- You can also trade cards to other nations once trade has opened up.
- Some cards are "one time" cards that effect overall nation states, and some can be drawn and used multiple different times on military tokens, cities, or other "smaller scale" subjects.
Currently I only have the Stone Age base deck complete (which you can see below), as I spent a majority of the time hammering out the base mechanics for such an important key aspect of the game. Hopefully I can finish another deck this weekend (with the help of some key collaborators), and then the rest as quickly as possible.
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I also spent some time coming up with a rough mockup of how the card viewer/selection will look and work with gestures in game:
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