No Bottomless Pit! Kingdoms variant

[gull2112]

I think it would make campaign games more interesting if you only had a limited number of Elites and Standard units*. I devised all sorts of elaborate formulas and tossed them away in favor of this very simple method.

Make a roster listing each type of elite and standard unit* to go with your campaign turn sheet. Next to each elite unit draw four circles, next to each standard unit draw ten circles.

During the campaign every time an elite or standard unit is eliminated check the circle. The number of circles left indicates how many of that unit are left to build in the recruit phase. Of course, you must still observe all recruitment maximums per scenario.

*There are no limits on core units or standard units costing less than 100 points.

[lazyj]

Cool idea! Of course, if you're going to track how many you have, you could also track things like experience and attrition... 

An alternative method could be to instead make it so that each card in the Starter + Reinforcement set is all you get for the whole campaign. As in if your 4th Longbow unit is eliminated in the campaign you're out of Longbows.

I think this is a very interesting concept... now its no longer a simple chuck the trash unit out there and who cares if they die - you could run out of cheapies by the end! It would certainly make you more attached to specific units.

"Argh! That was my last Troll!"

[andrewgr]

One of the things that several players have been dissapointed about is the fact that the results of one battle don't help determine the army composition available in the next battle.

From a flavor perspective, unless you're playing a 2 player campaign, most of the time you're not facing the same opponent two rounds in a row.  So, I have no problem imagining that you're fighting a war on multiple fronts, and the army you use in Round 3 to fight the Dwarves is not the same army that you use in Round 4 to fight the Elves. 

From a mechanics standpoint, it seems like an awkward marriage of approaches.  The whole Kingdoms resources build-tree approach is to keep people interested in playing, even if they're not doing so well, by continually giving them access to new and better abilities, usually in the form of new units that can be recruited.  This tells one kind of story-- that of a war gradually escalating, so that more and more money is being poured in and more and more units are being trained, and getting experience so that they become better, etc.-- but it neglects the other kind of story, which is of the toll that the attrition takes.

If we did introduce an official optional rule for army attrition, it would be crucial to me that it not get in the way of the "carrot" factor.  I've seen too many campaigns fall apart because the player that isn't doing so well just stops showing up, or suddenly finds other interests.  Being able to finally muster a Dragon or Hydra, or finally being able to respond to the Undead by healing your own troops with Healing Mages, or whatever, is supposed to be a big incentive to keep showing up.  So, no matter how "realistic" it is, I wouldn't want players to routinely get into the situation where they can't field a good army because of choices they made in earlier rounds-- I mean, that's fine for the players that are contending to win the campaign, but for the rest of the people, I think it would be a bit of a wet blanket.

[NegativeZer0]

An alternative method could be to instead make it so that each card in the Starter + Reinforcement set is all you get for the whole campaign. As in if your 4th Longbow unit is eliminated in the campaign you're out of Longbows.

The problem with this is that not every army has the same amount of points in their card pool.

For Example if the Umenzi use very unit they have its 9922 pts
Where as high elves are 16680 and M&M come in at a whopping 17460
So using this method would not be at all fair.

[gull2112]

Maybe you could do a massive army points buy. Say 10,000 points with the same restrictions for elites. That would be your whole strategic reserve. You would still have to buy all the improvements in Kingdoms to gain access to certain unit types for recruiting. This would allow the Mercs to take on one of their true roles of filling in when there was a lack of native or household troops.

[lazyj]

I like that Gull! I could also see this as a special rule for an Invasion-style Kingdoms campaign.

An attacking invading force only has what they've started with minus their attrition. I'd envision only one side being affected by this rule, possibly to a more experienced General. Then there's a strategic bonus to the "defending" player for whacking that unit of Elites - because there aren't that many to be had.

Hmmm... fun to kick around in my brain, but I definitely want to keep playing with the rules "as is" for a while longer. I think its a testament to the innovation of these rules that they can spark the imagination like this.

[gull2112]

I agree James! I usually just throw these ideas out to get the old idea juices flowing. In this case I could see if we played a campaign turn every day and were getting bored with the basic campaign system, we might want to try some of these variations, but heck, I'm really looking forward to giving Andrew's one on one story campaign a shot, but I don't think that's gonna happen anytime real soon either. I still want to play Kingdoms some more with different factions and different builds.