Lets talk Combat. How does it work? The game has to have it, to create that 4X feel we’re going for. We also have Armies, which are by definition for combat. So how does combat initiate, how does it resolve, and what consequences are there to it?

One thing that has been on my mind since starting this project is Mayfair Games’s description of how they designed Cones of Dunshire. In essence, they thought of Ben Wyatt not as a genius architect of the greatest game ever made, but as a fanboy who went a little stir crazy and threw together a bunch of different systems from his favorite board games. So I considered some of my favorite games, and rising to the top of the list for interesting combat is Dune.

In Dune, combat happens whenever two opposing player’s units occupy the same space. Both players secretly dial in a number of units (in that hex) they are willing to expend for that battle. Whoever has the highest number wins and loses that number of units, while the losing player loses all of theirs. There are also a ton more rules about leaders and cards, but this is the core loop I’d like to steal for Cones. The maximum number of armies you can dial is equal to the number on the hex you are fighting over, and the number left over works the same as in Dune. But what about the other types of minis? The player minis and the soldiers of fortune? Well, they can each have their own unique “Combat Prowess” stat, which adds that number to your total for free. If you win, they do not get removed, but if you lose they do.

What happens when a mini is removed? For Armies, they would go back into a pool the player has, to be deployed later. For Soldiers of Fortune, they would go away, having to be hired again. For the Player Mini, they would be bumped back to the beginning of the board.

This brings up a unique challenge of the board’s design. It’s almost linear, a spiral with a few offshoots. This will make combat inevitable, even when the player might rather avoid it and just continue their ascent. I think a “safe zone” would be a good idea lower on the spiral, where the players just starting out can’t attack unless they are attacking a city. This will give players a little bit of a grace period before they have to watch out for attacks everywhere. This area will be called the “Treaty Zone”, and will end at a tile called “Nature’s Bane”. After that it is a lawless land.

Why should you attack? Why, for those precious resource gems! Each fallen army is worth 1 resource gem of that players cone affiliation (if they don’t have one it’s of their highest Sub-board rank), and when an army is in an enemy city, they can “scavenge” the city to remove one structure from it (also gaining half its build cost in resource gems). This gives players incentive to attack each other, but not enough to make a strategy of just attacking and never building yourself.

But what of player elimination? We know it has to happen at some point, but does it just happen when the four cone affiliations are filled? No, because we know that by the end of the game there are two players, not four. Player elimination can happen at any moment, regardless of how much I would prefer for that not to be the case. If a player is defeated they can’t instantly lose, but should face some sort of penalty. I think, perhaps, we should take a note from another fantasy malarkey board game Talisman and give the player a set number of lives, one removed whenever they are defeated. Lose all lives and you’re out. To continue the Talisman trend, let’s also give the player two stats akin to the game, one called “Combat Prowess”, which is how much strength they bring into battle, and “Guile”, which will let the player build specific structures, more opening up as they level up that stat. How do they level up their stats? on the Sub-boards! Some of the rewards for passing roadblocks should be upgrades to the two stats. Some cards should also add stats, permanently or temporarily.

With that settled, we have a simple but workable combat system. You might be asking, “Conesfan! Dunshire is not allowed to be simple!” And I agree. But, the complexity in Dunshire comes from all the contradicitons, the exceptions to the rules. Four cones win, but first… Pass the front of Tragarum, except for… To continue this trend of looking at little systems we’re going to face the most ridiculous contradiction yet. Roll dice to determine how many dice you roll.