My Top 10 Favorite Combat Mechanisms

hey this is Jamie with still Meyer games and today's video is gonna be pretty big and I want to say up front that I'm gonna talk about a lot of different combat mechanisms of games that aren't in my top 10 first and then I'll jump to my top 10 I'll start talking about my top 10 if you want to jump right to the top 10 Joe is gonna post right here somewhere on the screen a timestamp or a rough time to stamp that you can do now jump to if you want to go to the tongue tip top 10 and then come back to learn about all these other games all these different mechanisms and my thoughts on combat mechanism so I'm gonna do the discussion first and end with the top 10 versus what I usually do just trying to mix things up feel free to give me your feedback about that order of operations in the comments below so first I so yeah this is a big topic so I'm gonna jump all around but basically I am in currently designing two games one is a cooperative game and one is a competitive game and both have the potential both are probably likely to have combat mechanisms in them and so I've been thinking about it a lot lately both in terms of playing against having a combat mechanism against the AI versus verse another player or even other players plural so I've been thinking about it a lot lately that's why I'm talking about it today that said this isn't a mechanism or these aren't mechanisms that I or that's I love games that I typically gravitate towards and so I have very few visual examples Joe's gonna put some up for the top ten but for all the other games we're not going to do visuals and I don't have examples to show you although some might I could grab I'll let you know the games that I actually own on the list I'll also mention up front and I'll come back to this as I talk about gamers but the types of things that I look for in a combat mechanism that I really like are low spite so a mechanism where especially in a multiplayer game or you can't just pick on one player or where the game heavily incentivizes you not to pick on one player as I'm right as I'm saying this I realized that I forgot to put a game on this list I'm gonna add one here so hey the game that I'm running down specifically does that or has you not pick on one player I also like come in a combat mechanisms that are fast and don't take a lot of time especially in a multiplayer game and a dueling game that's a little bit different but in a mole play our game where you can kind of breeze through it I have an example of a game that I mentioned later where combat takes a long time and it's actually pretty cool but it just takes a long time I also like combat mechanisms where agency is very high where players have a lot of control they have a lot of information going into combat maybe there's a little bit of luck a little bit of variation some unknown information but players have a lot of control over why they might enter combat and why what they're going to get out of it and alas I always really really like combat mechanisms mechanisms where the stakes are high but you also have the ability to recover from it one of my favorite games that I'll mention him in the top-10 has as a great example of this a way to recover from combat yes let me jump right in I'll start with our games that features some combat the first is side seiyya is the first game that I published that I designed that has combat in it and it was by far the most difficult aspect of the game to design I went through over 20 different iterations of combat trying to balance things like how do I make combat worth it so an attacker so a player will attack someone else but at the same time that the defender has a reason to fight back but not so big of a reason that the attacker then doesn't have a reason to attack in the first place again I wanted both players to be able to recover from combat inside and I sorry I you know one players have a lot of information I didn't I I started with a lot of dice rolling mechanisms and size combat and I moved away from them ended up with no dice in the combat mechanisms because I wanted players to have a lot of control over the outcome it's not determining is deterministic you might hear that term thrown around a lot with tabletop games a deterministic combat that's when there there's nothing happening during combat at all you're just comparing two numbers that you enter that you know entering combat you know the outcome before you even enter combat whereas inside you have a combat dial you are spending power which is a resource that you're spending in combat secretly on the dial and you're also for every unit in combat every combat unit you have the potential if you want to I'm a combat card behind the dial and then you reveal it and show the total and attackers also wind ties inside that was a little different somewhat controversial is I think in many games that offender wins ties but in my opinion again it was part of that balance of giving attackers a reason to actually attack gives them a slight edge there and also in in my opinion thematically I think attackers thematically generally have the advantage as long as the defender isn't prepared for it so is some games thematically the defender might fully know when when combat is is about to happen and they can prepare for and then they do have the advantage but if the attacker is kind of surprising the defender then I think the attacker has a huge advantage and they should break ties in combat so that's why I had a tackler spring ties inside another game that we have is is my little sighs my little society has pie fights that are also very much inspired by side there's there's a dial your spending magic spells instead of combat cards and the one little little twist of my little side is that you can only earn and it's actually its size - there's a reason to have you not just go on a rampage throughout the world which is that in my low size you can only earn one victory point essentially one trophy from winning combat so you can't just spend the whole game attacking you could but you you'll only earn one star and you're spending that combat that power resource throughout each combat so you're you're depleting your ability to even win combat same with size you can only get two stars inside from winning combat again a reason to not just spend the whole game attacking the other thing in my little side is if you if your your friendship level is too low it's another thing that you have to monitor in the game something that you can build up and get rewarded for it but if it's too low and you win combat you don't win anything at all you only you don't get a trophy you in the combat but you don't get a trophy also in my little side I really like this recovery mechanism where when if you lose combat you're you're taken back to your home base same thing inside they're taking back to your home base and so you're not actually known as killed you're just kind of forced to retreat and on my little side you get a recovery bonus for whenever you return it we're code end up at your home base and four sides as well if you put up any sort of a fight in combat this is a reason to give defenders a reason to at least fight back a little bit and to put attackers on edge if you fight back even a little bit you get a combat harder than if combat the last game that I that I published with compact and I'll try to speed this up obviously this is gonna be a longer video today but it's tapestry tapestry doesn't have a very involved combat basically when you conquer you the other the opponent only has the option of playing a trap card and if they do then then they actually then the Conqueror doesn't it isn't successful basically and you're out you still put an outpost there on the territory but the the player who played the trap their outpost remains upright giving them still control of the territory so it's always a little bit of uncertainty there into in terms of who's going to win combat even though in general when you try to conquer a territory controlled by someone else in tapestry you in general you are going to succeed in that combat and you always get rewarded you're still going to roll the the conquer dice even if you aren't successful in conquering the territory and get a bonus from it and I'm excited in the tapestry expansion that I've been working on there are there are some new elements to combat that that don't make it any more involved it's just as streamlined as it already is but but there's a number of twists a number of other things to consider and think about some surprises that can happen if you try to conquer an opponent's territory anyway let's move on for my games that took longer than I thought so I'll try to oh definitely try to speed this up a bit the next category I wanted to talk about our digital games very briefly there's I have a video about void tyrant which has a kind of a pusher luck mechanism with combat I haven't played slave aspire but I've heard it's a delightful deck building game that uses where you're pretty much just fighting through an ongoing stream of different monsters that have really high life totals that you have to fight off regalia regalia is a game that I'm currently playing with Megan and Megan is handling most of it because in regalia the combat is a huge part of the game I'm interested in like the choose-your-own-adventure part of the game the combat can take a long time I've seen Megan get in combats that last like 20 minutes where you're fighting just a few people and it looks really cool and the thing that I actually really liked about it despite the length is that there are these abilities that power up the longer that you survive in combat so I think that's pretty cool that if you you have like these very powerful abilities that just take time to power up you know you're gonna get to use them eventually if you survive but they just take time I think that's really cool there's Heroes of Might and Magic too I think is the one that I played way back in the day and I might be remembering this completely incorrectly but the thing that I really loved about it is basically the opposite of regalia what I recall is that and here's a money magic you can kind of set out all of the different units and you you kind of position them on the battlefield and then you just press play and let them fight and that part happens really quickly so it's all set up and then and then automation so it speeds it up a ton you're not actually controlling units one by one over the course of 15 to 20 minutes I might be totally remembered that incorrectly but if that's what it was I really liked that I really like how how combat is sped up in that way but you still have a lot of agency going into it and then you get to kind of sit back and watch this battle unfold in front of you Dark Souls is one where I've heard great things about the combat in Dark Souls it's basically from what I've heard you're fighting very difficult bosses very very difficult but when you learn their patterns and you increase your power level you have a much better chance of defeating those monsters and I've heard it's very satisfying to have these very powerful monsters these very difficult battles to fight and fight and fight and finally figure it out and last is super hot I've heard really cool things about the combat in super cop which is basically for my understanding that the enemies only move when you choose to move so it's kind of real tough it's not really even real time that because as you choose to like to to if you choose to like move over here to dodge or improve your line of sight that's when your opponents can move but if you're not moving they stay perfectly still so you can kind of really think through every move it's more of a puzzle than then a dexterity button-mashing experience and super hot those are digital games let's move on to tabletop games was the main focus of this video and first I'll talk about games that were you fighting against the AI and until I get to the top ten on even in these different categories I'm not going to mention the games that were that ended up in the top ten so games that have combat versus the AI glue maven is probably the the elephant in the room here number one game in the in the world according to board game geek and glue Haven has a combat mechanism where you're choosing two cards from your hand you're choosing the top of one of them and the bottom of one of them and each card also has like a default element to it where you can just choose the default instead of the the the special ability every character in the game has their own special deck of cards so they're their combat abilities feel very different than other players very very cool car driven combat mechanism there's a big focus on on initiative in the game in what order you are going to act versus the other players and versus the the monsters that you're fighting yeah so pretty cool comment that goes in there one that I haven't played this tainted Grail but I want to the comment mechanism you take two girls sounds really cool where you're playing some cards and trying to match up icons a series of icons and numbers I believe from what I've seen you can maybe comment more on that in the comments below that sounds really cool too that I have played again versus the AI one is Kingsburg which I almost didn't put on this list but I occur to me that this kind of a combat against the AI the combat itself is very simple you're just comparing two numbers but what I really like about the combat in Kingsburg and actually the the next game that I mentioned as well is that you don't know what you're fighting unless you go out of your way to learn what the the what the invader is and so I like that choice and the same with the next thing I'm going to mention is legendary alien encounter or legendary encounters alien I like that idea that the combat itself is very simple just comparing two numbers but it's kind of the element of the unknown that is in play that is that gives players an interesting decision do you decide to as this invaders coming as this alien is creeping through the spaceship you know in legendary encounters do you take your time to actually see what they are and see what you're about to fight and prepare for it or do you just kind of had your bets and hope that you're okay I really like that that uncertainty decision in in both Kingsburg and budgetary counters alien so that's a combat in games you're playing against the AI let's move on a dueling game so this could've been a whole list of dueling games so they're plenty of games that or you're fighting back and forth to players I'm sure I've left plenty off this list I didn't even put key forward on this list I didn't mention hearthstone but I didn't matter to gathering magic gathers is one that I think is and as inspired dueling mechanisms and a ton of games where each each creature has an attack strength and and a defense number so two numbers that you weigh your you're dealing damage there's there's a ton that goes into the combat in magic it's a huge part of the game seven wonders dual combat isn't a huge part of this game but military itself plays a huge role in seven wonders tool it uses a tug of war style track where as you advance on the track as you claim military cards and move in one direction along that track you a get closer to a outright military victory and B you force your opponent to lose coins so even if you don't push that all the way to a military victory you are making your opponent's spend money and forcing them to not do things other things that they want to do with that money and you're also kind of if you decide to go military and seven Wonders duel you're making your opponent think about that - you're making them think a little bit about taking some military so you can't push all the way to the end of the track Stratego so she go is actually a game that i own in love so my favorite two-player games the combat in Stratego is simply for the most part you have these you know these little units that are facing you you can see what all your units are but you don't know what your opponent has and the lower the number the better so the number one unit there's only one number one unit can be pretty much anything on the board if they attack that unit they can't meet bombs and if a spy attacks the number one the spy the spy wins but is this very simple system of the lower the number the better but it's just a fun given a level of uncertainty you know what you have but you have no idea what your opponent has until they start moving their pieces around and then you might have a clue or you might say that they're not moving this piece and they is it a bomb or then plopping them so mom you don't really know so I like that element of combat in Stratego reminds me a little bit actually if captain sonar captain sonar is use the the battle battleship mechanism where you are trying to sink the opponent ship but you don't know where it is and so you're using various missiles you get to choose the type of missile that you charge up and then launch to deal damage to a big area a small area specific target but you don't know if you're gonna hit anything at all and I think that's pretty cool in Captain sonar adds a lot of fun and tension to the game especially when you just have an outright miss or an unexpected hit star realms storerooms combat is is it's a deck building game two-player dueling game and the thing I really like actually about and bout comm item Start realms well two things one from the first term of the game the first few terms of the games who are already dealing some damage to your opponent life in this game is is how you win or lose but I also really like that there are certain ships that you can build that stay on the board and you must attack them first you can't they they kind of serve as a big shield for you if you build them that the opponent must attack them first and there are other ships that are may attack so you you may choose to attack this ship or the opponent and if you leave that ship out there it's going to be having it has generally a bear powerful ability that that opponent is getting every term instead so that's an interesting level of decision there the ability to kind of put a big shield out to protect yourself or a a possible shield that that leaves the the choice in the hand of your opponent and skulk hollow scope Hollow is one other one that I do have my shelf over there where it's very it's an asymmetric two-player dueling game one player has a lot of different units that they're controlling another player has one big unit that they control and I really like the big unit that it's kind of a big monster and the the player with all the small units kind of send their units they climb on to the monster and deal damage to different parts and as they deal damage to different parts the player who controls the monster can no longer use abilities associated with those parts I think that's really cool I'd love to see that in a game where the monster is controlled by the AI because it doesn't feel great as the player who is the monster to get weaker and weaker but if you're playing against an AI and that monster is controlled by yeah I think that would be awesome because you don't feel bad that you're making the AI you're limiting the AIS abilities by doing that now I do have some dueling games that her show up on the top 10 but before I do that a couple one other cat two other categories one is brawling games one of these will end up on the top ten so I won't mention it but one is Arctic scavengers our two scavengers is so I'm this brawling category or combats where a lot of people are involved not just one on one a lot of people are involved in the combat and Arctic scavengers at the end of every round players can save cards in their hand these are a deck building game they're saving cards in their hand and then we're revealing them for their total combat strength and if you have the highest total you get to dig through this this kind of scrap yard deck to get what is typically actually no you don't take through I'm sorry you get the top card of the deck that is generally a very powerful card so winning the brawl is a big deal in Norfolk scavengers but if you're holding back cards to do the growl then you're not using those cards you're not spending those cards during your turn to do something else but I like how elegant of a a growing mechanism it is and how all players are involved in in the brawl then the last category and I'm just a bunch of games that that I think have clever combat mechanisms but didn't make the top ten one is rise of tribes the thing that I like about rise of tribes I don't actually even remember how the chromatic is itself works but I really like that multiple units and rise of tribes can occupy the same tact and territory but they they don't actually attack each other unless they reach a certain threshold so if it's too crowded then they end up attacking but until that point they just peacefully get along I think that's really clever Game of Thrones the board game has has a combat mechanism that I think is you're revealing cards from your hand and getting rid of them and then eventually you replenish your hand of cards you have this hand of special cards you're spending them in combat and then eventually replenishing and this is done I would I'm not gonna say better but differently in another game that made my top ten that's why this one is in the top ten Rex has a really cool combat mechanism but I've only played Rex with one so I didn't want to go into much detail cause I remember at all that much but I know that it directly inspired the mechanism inside well you have a combat dial of sorts you are associating a leader with it in Rex and then fighting against the opponent and there's a lot of asymmetry and in Rex as well more so than then even inside where it's I don't remember all the details of Rex I thought it was pretty cool though I would highly recommend looking it up and learning more about that one seven wonders seven wonders has a very simple combat mechanism where every round you're just simply comparing yourself to the opponents on your left and right I think that's really cool it's so simple there's no spite involved you're not targeting a certain player at the table you're just saying okay left and right we're gonna compare our military strengths and I like how it escalates over the course of the game so at the end of the first round you're only getting one victory point and only losing one victory point if you win or lose combat but the deeper the game goes you're losing or gaining three points or losing or gaining five points I think that's really cool and seven wonders flick him up there's another one where actually the first example on this list that I've mentioned where dexterity matters I haven't played flick him up but but I know that dicks there any matters in combat and flick them up I do have a different dexterity game though I'm like an appearance on my top 10 root has combat it's very simple asymmetry I think makes the combat and root interesting but I like how they they chose a very simple combat mechanism in route and built all the heavier aspects of the game around it around other aspects of the game Rising Sun has a really cool combat mechanism that I think is it was inspired by and perhaps in my opinion done better by a different game that's on my top 10 list I won't go into that here forbidden stars forbidden stars is a game where combat can take like 15-20 minutes between two players and it's so weird when I mentioned AI eluded this at the beginning of the video forbidden stars actually has a really cool combat system it's I have it's been too long for me to even go into it in this video but feel free to check it out it's a really cool combat mechanism but it also kind of leaves out the third and fourth player if you're playing three or four players for quite some time which is the reason that I haven't returned to the game but the kind of the comment itself that the game itself was just a Dueling game and it was just combat like even just three combats I think that would be a really cool game but forbidden stars is a like three to four hour game for my experience and lastly the game that probably should have been on my top 10 but I haven't played it in a while as adrenaline adrenaline has a really cool combat system where and I don't remember all the details of it I would highly recommend checking it out though because it's kind of like a gyro game that uses a lot of cool combat mechanisms and it has some great incentives for not targeting weaker players and instead targeting stronger players and it's almost like area control or area time an area majority or majority for which opponents you've hit throughout the game I don't remember all the details about it but I just remember being a really cool comment mechanism in fact if you search my channel for adrenaline I go into that mechanism on this channel if it's just been too long since I played it all that said finally let's get to the top ten probably keep this not too long here so these are my top 10 favorite games that use Kombat these are my top 10 favorite Kombat mechanisms in games and number 10 is cosmic encounter and the thing I really like about cosmic encounter which is ends up being just you're comparing two numbers to strengths both in terms of the units that you have on the board and a card that you're playing from your hand but the thing I really like about it is that all players can potentially be involved in combat in ways that have repercussions throughout the rest of the game so if two players say okay I'm gonna go fight you all other players can say okay I'm gonna support player a or player B as part of this combat and I love that I love that that all players can potentially be involved in combat and Cosmic Encounter and that's why it's my number 10 combat system combat mechanism in the tabletop game number nine is one of the games that I own number nine is flip ships so this is the other dexterity game on the list this is perhaps the only given list that's combat versus an AI it's just an ongoing stream of ships here you can kind of see on the back of the box where these ships are just coming at you and coming at you throughout the game and dealing damage to you if they get to a certain level and you are flicking off the edge of the table to try to get your tokens on top of these ships to deal them damage there are different rules about these ships like certain ships protect other ships and I think there's a ship that actually like if you deal it damage to it it also damages your ships around it and you also have the mother ship in the background you're trying to flick things into this little box before the end of the game to destroy the mother ship and it's just a really cool AI system that is a lot of fun to fight against in a cooperative game let's flip ships my number 9 my number 8 favourite combat mechanism deals a lot with spite or not having spite is king of Tokyo very simple combat in itself and that you're just rolling dice Yahtzee style you can roll then you can reroll a couple times and you look at the combat values on those dice but it's who you're dealing damage to that I think is really interesting you're in king of Tokyo you're either the monster that's in Tokyo itself or you're not in Tokyo and if you're not in Tokyo then you're not choosing which monster you're dealing damage to rather you are always dealing damage to the monster that's in Tokyo if you're in Tokyo you deal damage if you deal damage you deal damage to all other monsters all monsters that aren't in Tokyo so I love this this taken all form of spite out of the game because you you are not deciding who you're attacking and it's very gratifying a little scary but gratifying to be in Tokyo and deal so much damage in dealing damage to everyone else at the table but you know that they're all dealing damage to you as well and there's a toy sinking of Tokyo as players choose to attack you if you're gonna stay in Tokyo or move back out that's that's your choice in the game really really cool system I love that a this falls into pretty much the brawl category even though players aren't making individual into individual choices throughout combat they're just making choices on their turn but but I really like that that unspeak full system in king of Tokyo my number eight favorite combat mechanism in the tabletop game my number seven is Arcadia quest now I don't remember all the details about kama and Arcadia quest I've only played it once I would recommend trying it but the really cool thing in it are the exploding dice basically there's a certain face on the dice that you're rolling in Arcadia quest where if you roll it you deal a damage and you get to roll that die again and so going into any combat whether you're attacking or someone else is attacking you you have a chance you have the chance that you could roll that exploding dying and deal a damage and then roll again and then maybe even do another damage and roll again it makes it really exciting and I really like that the idea that in combat that you always feel like you have a chance there's always hope that you can win even when the odds are against you and so that's why the exploding dice mechanism in Arcadia Quest is my number my number seven favorite combat mechanism in a tabletop game whenever 6 is the siege mechanism in a few acres of snow the thing that really love about this mechanism and it's been a while since I played this game but basically combat takes place over multiple terms where it's this tug-of-war track where you are trying to pull the opponent or to push the opponent onto one side of the track it's either a push or a pull but it's not just a one time deal it's it's it's a it's a tug-of-war track and it really represents that feeling of a siege it's not just one battle that matters 1 1 1 a fight but a series of fights where you are slowly wearing down your opponent over multiple battles using this technical received mechanism I highly recommend check it out a video about that that goes into more detail it's been a little bit too too long for me to go into big detail about it but I love I remember loving that that siege mechanism in the game that's why that siege mechanism is my number 6 favorite combat mechanism in a few acres of snow blood rage is my number 5 or has my number five favorite combat mechanism which is a draft that that turns into combat basically in blood rage you are drafting cards and you were going to use those cards in combat during the the next phase of each round a I love the draft I love that it gives you information about what other players are acquire and the other combat cards that they are acquiring so I might see in my hand that I have a really tricky card that I can use in combat and I have like a very powerful card and so I know I have a choice there as to which one I keep but I also know what I'm giving to my potential opponent and what card that they are likely to take I also really like those tricky cards particularly the low key cards specifically in that it does not always spending on what you choose to draft it's not always in your best interest to win combat there might be a reason to actually lose combat using those low key cards I think that is really really cool in blood rage my number 5 game with a we're number five combat mechanism in a game whenever for favorite combat mechanism is the other game that I own and that is dice throne this is a dueling game involving dice you're chucking lots of dice and there are two things that I really like about combat in this game one is the thing that I've always mentioned about dice throne which is these mega abilities that you can you can have go off so like the the Pyromancer character has scorched the earth so if you roll roll all five of your dive dice to have a very specific face then you deal a ton of damage and it's so satisfiying to trigger those giant abilities I'd love to see that in another game I putting that one in one of my games someday but the other really cool thing about combat in dice throne is that the defender gets to do something so when I attack you I've rolled all my days I've decided okay I'm dealing this much damage to you and then the defender has the chance to respond they roll fewer dice typically but they get something in return there they're gonna maybe deflect some of the damage they're gonna gain some life back or they're gonna deal damage back to you so both players are involved in combat enticed thrown but in very different ways the tacking feels very different than defending and so those are my favorite mechanisms my number four favorite mechanisms in a in a game and has combat dice room number three this one caught me off guard but I have to give credit to it as a game that I played a long time ago I haven't played since tiny epic kingdoms that's a really great comment mechanism in my opinion basically each player has a d12 a 12-sided die and they are gonna hide it behind their hand and choose one face of that die and then they're gonna reveal and compare those two faces with a few catches one is that and the higher number will win so you're not rolling the die you are placing it on the number that you want one of the catches is that you must be able to pay for pay resources equal to the number that you show so if I show a 5 that I need to actually pay those resources and I believe both players pay the resources in combat so if you put a 2 on your die and I put a 5 we both have to pay those resources I think I'm pretty sure so I like that I like there's there's an expense to come it you don't want to just show that any random high number you're picking a very specific number that you can afford to spend based on what you need what other things you need those resources for the other thing I really like about it is that the twelfth face of the dye I remember the first face is a white flag which just says I'm not going to spend anything and if we both show white flags we just coexist I love this and it it brings in a prisoner's dilemma element to a game which I really would like to see in more combat games especially dueling games or not dueling games non dueling games that have one-on-one combat where you can potentially say in tiny epic kingdoms you can say to the opponent you know let's just share this territory let's get along I'm gonna put a white flag down and the opponent might say okay yeah sure I'll agree but then when you reveal do you actually do that do you actually or were you bluffing or not I love that Tabletalk added element and that that feeling of being a little mischievous in negotiation and the repercussions that might arise from actually lying to an opponent when you do that I'd love to see more prisoner's dilemma mechanisms in in combat in games and so that's my number three tiny a combat in tiny epic kingdoms my number two is cry havoc cry havoc again another game that I don't play these combat games a lot but I still respect them and really enjoy them when I do in cry havoc you whenever you there's combat in the territory you pull all your units off that territory and then you place them on a combat board on one of three different slots and then you compare units and then you can play some cards to move around those units to boost their their abilities and then in each of those categories you compare your units the opponent one category and this is the cat this is the end it's kind of like Rising Sun this one I think inspired the combat mechanism in a Rising Sun one of the the little mini battles that happen on this board determines who controls the territory so if you have more units than your opponent you end up controlling the territory there's another category of prisoners of war essentially you can take prisoners if you have more units than your opponent in that category and the last category are in actually it's not always comparison I think you just take the prisoners immediately and the last category is how many units you're actually going to kill so you're determining how many units actually survived the battle I'm not describing it very well here so I would recommend taking watching like another video about the the combat mechanism in cry havoc it's really really cool I think even I have a video about it so if you search for cry havoc on my channel you should probably see it that's number two cry havoc my number one Kem it I love the comet mechanism in kemon it does everything that I want to camp in combat it's fast it's you have full agency over what you're doing but a little bit of uncertainty about what your opponent is doing there's table talk in it and basically in command I should I just should arrive at first you are comparing your combat strength to your opponents but you're also potentially hiding little sneaky combat cards behind bigger cards that you're playing so the bigger cards everyone has the same cards and you always have to choose one and discard another so you're cycling through this deck you have information about what the what your opponent is already played and those cards do things like in cry havoc where they they determine how many units what who's actually gonna win combat versus like how many units are going to die and there's a defensive stat to on those cards so there's that and then if you lose combat your units kind of die but you also gain resources from them so it's very easy to bring those units back onto the board you're never really beaten down in combat in a way that you can't come back from very quickly and also combat can be enhanced by the units and other things that you gain during the game so you can you can boost your combat abilities through a number of different things that you have control over I'd recommend watching a video again about Kemet chem its combat mechanism is really really cool yeah it's it's my favorite it's my favorite combat mechanism in a tabletop game that's my number one long video today thanks for sticking with me if you decided to stick through all this and I'd love to hear your thoughts on games that I've mentioned on comment mechanisms that I haven't mentioned what are your favorite combat mechanisms and tabletop games or even talking about video games especially if we can learn from them as tabletop game designers I'd love to hear about that as well thanks you

Channel: Stonemaier Games

Views: 51,644

Keywords: game design, tabletop games, board games

Id: rl0lhG6ZwMA

Length: 37min 45sec (2265 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 15 2020