Loyalty

War is diplomacy by other means...

-Carl von Clausewitz

A game about the politics and genocide of competitive bootlicking.

Proto-game notes:

Challenge: Create a game that capitalizes on shifting loyalties and inter-player politics, but also facilitates cooperation and genuine assistance. Most games I've played with a focus on intrigue (GoT, Intrigue, Diplomacy, Resistance, Cutthroat Caverns) usually boil down into each player biding their time, finding the best moment to screw other players over and steal an insurmountable lead. Only rarely do meaningful discusions come up, and when they do it's usually in the form of cutthroat ultimatums.

I want a game of constantly shifting player power dynamics that will be easy to teach, and that inspires adversery and cooperation organically rather than dictating it by the draw of a card.

Current mechanic inspirations: A Study in Emerald, Pax Pamir, Intrigue, Children of Fire, Fief.

Update space:

Idea, add a secondary loyalty system. Say red/blue/green

similar to Pax Pamir (Russians/english/turk)
Instead of converting citizens into military of their color, players can only convert citizens into miltary of their current faction allegiance.

I turn my citizens into red soldiers

Any player within that faction can control and take actions with those soldiers.
Majority benefit powers only go to the player with the most victory points within that faction.
Players may switch factions on their turn by doing

…. something.

Perhaps have cities only be able to swing loyalty when occupied by a single military faction. If contested, cannot be influenced.

This document comes in three parts:

1.) The loyalty system - How teams work, and victory conditions

2.) Game mechanics - Board, units, and interactions

3.) Play - Turn order and player actions

Main bullet points are core ideas,

sub bullets expand and clarify.

Italicized text contains mostly just commentary and examples.

Try not to go TL;DR by the length of some of the rules text. The main meat of each section is just in extra writing like this.

(?)’s Mark possible side ideas that may or may not work out.

The Loyalty System:

At the beginning of the game each player is dealt a single random card face down. Only they may look at it.

This card will put them on one of two teams: Loyal to the Pope, or Loyal to the King.

The deck these cards are dealt from should always be n+2 rounded up to the nearest even number where n=number of players, and be evenly split between the two factions. For three players set up a 4 card deck.

Ex. 4 players = 6 cards. 3 pope and 3 king. 5 players = 8 cards, 4 pope and 4 king.
This is generally so that players don't know how many people are on their team. Maybe its 2v2 or 3v1, but there will never be a scenario of all players being on the same team.

Teams do not win together. When a team ends the game, only the player on that team with the most victory points wins, and his partners loose.

HOWEVER, if the game ends, and a player on your team is in last place, everyone on your team looses, and the player with the most victory points on the opposing team wins instead.

If two players are tied for last place, they are both considered to be in last place.

Let's analyze this as it may seem counter-intuitive.

You can never know for certain who your allies or enemies are, but you cannot win if an ally of yours is in last place.

This means that if you're doing well, it is in your best interest to spend some of your resources in helping other players do well too, walking the fine line between keeping them healthy and giving them the ammunition they need to eclipse your strength.

Meanwhile, if a player you suspect to be on your team is rocketing ahead in victory points, it suddenly becomes in your interest to tank your own score and refocus your resources on setting up for a bigger play rather than maintaining victory point control, throwing yourself into last place and dissuading the leading player from ending the game until you're ready to take their lead for yourself.

Ending the game:

Diplomacy: If at any point three or more cities including the central capital are locked in as aligned with either the Pope or the King, each player will get one last turn after which the game is over.

If this happens, only the player with the most victory points at the end of the game who shares their starting loyalty with the previously mentioned cities wins. HOWEVER if the team that would have won the game has a member who is in last place, victory instead goes to the player with the highest victory points on the opposing team.

In essence, it does not matter how many victory points you have, you cannot win unless either you manage to ally three cities to your cause, or the team that does has a struggling member.
Since play continues for one round after the last city is locked in, there is still time for other players to shift the victory point balance.

It is possible for a player to try end the game while soundly in the lead, only to have their team mates steal their possessions in an attempt to take leadership, and to have opposing team members attempt to reduce them to last place while scrabbling over relative leadership amongst themselves.

Military: If at any point a player has zero victory points (owns no roads or cities), the game immediately ends. The team that player is a member of has lost, and the player with the most victory points of the opposing team wins instead.

This represents a player achieving victory by totally knocking another player out of the game.
This should be very difficult to do as it requires a lot of military resources, and every other player will resist you, even your own team. A player pursuing this end game condition also runs the risk of accidentally demolishing, or at least crippling a member of their own team, destroying themselves in the process, or at least making it harder to win diplomatically.
However, simply building a massive military in pursuit of this end game condition gives nothing away about your own loyalties the way that building the loyalty track of a city does. And, if your aim is true, even if you fail to destroy a member of the opposing team, you may hurt them enough to pin them to last place while your team mates o the legwork for a more diplomatic victory.

Overall, taking this approach is a bit like trying to shoot the moon in hearts. Possible, even occasionally viable. But difficult to do cleanly.

Revolution: If at any point a player has more than half of the possible victory points available depending on the board and player count, the game is immediately over and that player wins regardless of their loyalties or the status of their team mates.

This represents a player saying "To hell with the Pope or the King!" and winning over the hearts of the people for themselves.
Like with military conquest, this path will be difficult to achieve as it requires considerable resources to create enough citizens to build an empire of the size required, and enough military units to defend them as literally every other player will be motivated to stop you.
However, like with military conquest, cleverly building an empire will reveal nothing about your loyalty, leaving you with the freedom to say what you like without your actions necessarily contradicting your words.

The Board:

The Board is composed of 5/9 cities, (depending on player count) each worth 5 victory points if owned.
Connecting each city are 8/16 roads, (depending on player count) each worth 2 victory points if owned.

Total victory points achievable in game is 41/77

The central (Capital) city should be worth more victory points if controlled. 10?
These numbers are pretty arbitrary right now. Haven’t even play tested it yet. It’s all just living in my pretty little head.

Hypothetical layout for a board. Cities are circles roads are lines.
Conversely, instead of having a board, cities and roads could be free standing discs and connections, allowing players to construct their own unique geography each game.

Actually, if cities are just disks, roads don’t need their own map piece, and can just be assumed to exist in the negative space between cities.

Cities:

Each city, as previously stated, is worth a number of victory points if owned by a player. Central city is worth more. (people should be fighting over it.)
(?)Each city also generates a certain amount of tax income to the player who has religious control over it. ((?) Ownership?) Central city produces more income than other cities.
Each city has an affiliation track that runs around it that starts at zero in the center and leads to loyalty to the Pope on one side and loyalty to the King on the other. Players may pay 2 coins they have located in the city to advance the track one tick in a direction of their choice, for each priest they own in the area.

(?) If a tracker becomes maxed out, it becomes locked in an may no longer be manipulated by the players.

Represents our campaigning for/getting elected nobles/public figures loyal to one side or the other.

The game ends if three (four, five?) cities (including the central city?) are all completely loyal to either the king or pope.

There are 3 kinds of units:

Citizens

Citizens are your basic unit that you'll need to win the game.
As an action on your turn, you may transform as many of your citizens as you like in a city into either militia or priests.
Having more citizens than any other player in a city or a road grants you ownership of that city or road, awarding you it's corresponding victory points.

If you loose ownership of a city or road, you also loose its corresponding victory points.
If you have ownership of a road, you may choose to pass your units through that road as though it did not exist, landing in the adjacent city, if possible. You may also extend this ability to other players at any time.

It is possible to attack a city with milita units stationed in a neighboring city if you have ownership of, or are granted permission to use the road between both cities.
Ex. Another player wants to move units from one city to another using a road I own. Normally, this would take two actions: Moving to the road, then moving to the next city. He asks me to allow him to cross in one action instead. I say that I’ll let him if he pays me two coins for the privilege.

Militia

Militia units may attack or defend other units.

When attacking, pick a city or road with militia you own in it, and pick (a) player(s) to attack who has units in the same or adjacent city/road. Then declare how many of your militia you are dedicating to the fight.

Militia units defeat other militia 1 to 1.

Ex: 4 Red militia attack 3 Blue militia. Red wins with 1 militia unit remaining.

Militia units defeat civilian units (citizens/priests) 1 to 0.

Ex: 4 Red militia attack 5 Blue citizens. The end result is 4 Red militia, and 1 Blue citizen.

Attacking Militia must defeat all of a defending player's local militia units before they can kill any civilian units.

Ex: 4 Red militia attack 3 Blue militia & 5 Blue citizens. = 1 Red militia & 4 Blue citizens.

After a player announces their intention to attack, and how many militia they plan to commit, any other player with militia in the threatened region may choose to defend the threatened player. It's up to them to discuss who looses units first.

Ex: 5 Red militia attack 3 Blue militia. Yellow has 4 militia in the same city, and decides to defend blue, but demands that Blue fights before he does. In the end, Red has 0 militia remaining, Blue has 0 militia remaining, and Yellow has 2 militia remaining. None of Blue's remaining citizens or priests have been harmed.

If you attack a player in an adjacent city/road and win, then move all surviving militia you committed to that fight into the attacked city/road.

(?) You may also move any civilian units in the same area as your attacking militia along with the militia.

If you have more militia than any other player on a road or a city, you gain military control over it.

This means that you get to decide whether or not to allow other player's units to enter that road or city freely.

This does not mean you can expell units already in residence.
Ex. A player wants to move new units into a city I have military control over. I refuse him entry. Until I change my mind, the only way those units may enter is if they attack my militia with a militia of their own, thinning my numbers and potentially causing me to loose control.

If you have military control over a road, then your militia units there count towards determining Military control over neighboring cities.
If you have military control over all the roads surrounding a city, then you gain military control over that city by default.

Priests

Priests allow you to generate more citizens.
As an action during your turn, for each priest you have in a city, you may spend one coin to generate one citizen.

You may not generate citizens in cities you do not have any priests in.
You may not generate citizens in roads, even if a priest of yours is present.

As an action during your turn, for each priest you ave in a city, you may spend two coins to move the loyalty track of a city one tick in a direction of your choice.

If you manage to max out a city’s loyalty track towards the king or towards the pope, it becomes locked and no player may alter it.
(?)When this happens, if you were the player to lock that city in, you may look at one of the unused loyalty cards that were not passed to anyone at the table. (Some knowledge of burnt cards) If you do, separate the card you looked at from the rest of the burnt cards. Other players may later choose to see the card you looked at, or another card from the burnt deck in subsequent lock-ins.

If you have more priests in a city than any other player, then you gain Religious control over that city.

This means that at the end (beginning?) of each of your turns you tax that city for it’s printed income.

^design: end of turn grants you more control over actually getting the income you’re working for. If you set yourself up during your turn to achieve religious control, before it becomes your turn again someone might have altered the dynamic.
On the other hand, if you tax at the end of your turn, multiple players could all tax the same city successfully and manipulate the dynamic.

(?) Odd idea: Each city has it’s own economy, and taxation depletes it. All money spent in that city refills that city’s pot. Forces players to reinvest in certain cities, or move on after ruining it.

Perhaps there can me the possibility for riot: At the end of every round that a city remains broke, all players with military units present loose one militia, and the loyalty tracker moves one tick closer to neutral.

This creates a dynamic where a player with total priest control over a city can hold it ransom to other players, forcing them to pay in money to maintain their loyalty reputation, and immediately taxing the money out again.

Turns:

A players turn consists of them taking any two of the following actions. The same action may be taken twice.

Move

With a move action, a player may take as many units as they like of any kind from a single location, and move them to an immediately adjacent location.

If the acting player already has ownership of a road they would be moving into, or has permission from the player who does, they may skip over the road as though it did not exist, and over into the neighboring city.

A player may not move units into a city or road that another player has military control over without that player’s permission.

(?) If a road is owned by one player, and under the military control of a second, both permission to enter and permission to fast travel are required to pass through the road as though it did not exist.

Attack

Attacking is just like moving, only with more death, and where getting permission to enter an area is moot.
With an attack action, a player may use as many militia as they like in a single location to attack players in the same location, or in an immediately adjacent location as described above.

If a player has ownership of a road located between a city in which he has militia and a city he wishes to attack, or has the permission of the player who does, he may attack the latter city as though the road did not exist and the two cities were immediately adjacent.
If a player is attacking a neighboring location and wins, he moves his surviving committed militia, along with as many other units of his as he likes from his starting location to the attacked location as if he had preformed a normal move action. Permission is not required.

Proselytize

Pick a city. For each priest you own in that location, you may pay 1 coin to that location’s bank to recruit 1 new citizen there.

Ex. If I had 5 priests, I could pay 5 bucks to get 5 citizens. # of priests constitutes religious recruitment bandwidth.

Call to Arms

Pick a city. You may transform as many citizens as you like from that location into militia.

Call to Faith

Pick a city. You may transform as many citizens as you like from that location into priests.

Campaign

Pick a city. For each priest you own in that location, you may pay 2 coins to move the political track for that city one tick in either direction.

If a city’s political track has been locked in (pushed all the way to one side or the other), you can no longer influence it.