Fortunes of Victory - New Cards

Once you have a certain number of posts you can post photos and links. You can also attach files directly to the post if they are not on an image sharing service, but you may need a threshold of posts for this too. I don’t really know.

I like using cards since I think it adds a bit more flavor to the game. There are some pretty awesome decks on the forums already. I will take a look at yours and repost them for you if you would like. My email should be public on my profile. If not, send me a PM.

YoungGrasshopper’s G40 Delta Deck:  http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=33997.0

This is the best one I have seen and one that I helped with in a small way. I know that he wants to revisit or revise it at some point.

Here are those cards you wanted to upload. I am selecting about half to do for right now.

Auxiliary Cruisers.pdf
Deutches Afrikakorps.pdf

A couple more

General Stillwell.pdf

Some more

King’s African Rifles.pdf
Legion Etrengere.pdf

Couple more

Salvage Operations.pdf
Torpedo Squadron.pdf

Last one

Undersea Cruisers.pdf

The files are here if people want to download and look at them, but if you want to make it a little easier to view and discuss them, I would suggest uploading the raw images when you can or send them to a file sharing website and then embed the image on this thread.

@Trenacker:

I’m especially interested in feedback on style, to begin with. I designed these with Microsoft PowerPoint 2013 and the trial version of SnagIt. I have no skill in Photoshop, but I’m open to suggestions about how to improve the appearance of the cards. I want to be able to create a template that can be easily edited.

The roundels are all images from a Google search. I sometimes add a white base to make them easier to identify against the various backgrounds.

The diagonal stripes running across the left corner of each card is color-coded according to card type, although there is also a silhouette that communicates the same information. Probably the stripes are more elegant, but the silhouettes were too neat to remove without soliciting additional feedback.

I would say that you have a pretty good format down for the cards. The design is pretty good considering the tools you had to work with, though I think they could use some refining with proper photo-editing software. I forget what YoungGrasshopper used for his. I do not have Photoshop or anything like it, so my resources are somewhat limited also.

I do not know how many card ‘types’ or categories you have, but those are always nice for organizational purposes. Not that these correspond exactly to what you have, but something like Special Ability/Tactics, Reinforcement, Redeployment or Supply/Monetary Bonus… those are just off the top of my head for possible different categories of cards. Either silhouettes or card colors could designate what kind of card it is. Ex: a commander image for tactics/ability, infantry image for reinforcement, truck image for supply… Whatever works best in the style that you like.

@Trenacker:

I’d love to add flavor text, but the cards seem crowded enough as is.

I think this aspect is actually more critical than it seems, in terms of implying both quality, uniqueness or standardization throughout your deck. YG used different text styles, roughly corresponding to the nation of focus, for the ‘title’ text on cards. I think these look pretty darn good.

One thing that I did not really understand about your cards is why you have multiple text colors in a single word. Ex. DEUTSCHES AFRIKAKORPS. That kind of baffled me and I found it very distracting.

A particularly good thing about your cards, unlike YGs Delta Deck, is that they pretty much contain all the instructions or restrictions you need to use them on the card itself. It may ultimately be necessary to include a supplemental page detailing rules for each card and addressing loopholes, but putting as much pertinent info as possible on the card is a good thing IMO.

@Trenacker:

The idea is that there will be cards corresponding to units, leaders, events or conditions, and technologies.

Every player begins with a selection of cards representing various units, leaders, events, and technologies specific to their nation. They may later draw from both national and generic decks.

I sort of touched on this above: I like the idea of giving individual flavor to each nation as much as possible. This may present tactical inequalities between powers, but that is something which will have to be mitigated through lots of playtesting or much contemplation. Probably both. I always say that I really liked the National Advantages found in the back of the rulebook of A&A Revised. These were purely nation-specific abilities based on generalized historical association. Many people disliked them because they were not scientific… meaning some countries would have clear, unearned and uncounterable advantages. Not everyone was on the same footing. I agree this can be a problem. So the challenge is to balance them as best as possible to give everyone an equal chance at victory.

@Trenacker:

Figure, every card has got to have:

• A nifty picture corresponding to the unit, event, or technology in question.

• A short, crisp, clear instruction that explains how it affects gameplay.

• A roundel or other device indicating which nation is eligible to play the card.

• A symbol corresponding to the type of card.

• A cost.

I like your list. Honestly, I have never considered the ‘cost’ aspect. Such that some cards may require IPCs to use the ability/unit. That could be important as a mitigating factor, such that not every ability is simply free.

Another thing I would iron out is how these cards are given, earned and played. I think you touched on this, but we can firm it up a bit. Here are some questions that I would consider, again just off the top of my head:

• How do you earn these cards? Do you need to do specific things to earn certain types of cards (if there is more than one deck to draw from)?

• How many can you earn per turn?

• Are the cards drawn as a whole (collectively for all Powers) at the beginning of each game Turn?

• If drawn by individual Powers, are cards drawn before or after your Power’s turn?

–- In line with the above two bullets, is there one large deck for everyone or one deck each for the Axis and the Allies or is there an individual deck for each Power?
— Will Minor Powers (ANZAC, China, India) be able to take cards or have the ability to use them? Will the UK affiliated dominions (ANZAC, India, Canada?) be able to use advantages gained by the UK? Perhaps on a one turn delay?

• Are cards able to be played before, during or after your Power’s turn?

• Are the cards to be drawn publically and displayed for everyone to see? Or are they drawn privately and only revealed among allies or when utilized?

• Do cards return to the deck circulation after use or are they discarded and unusable for the rest of the game?

• Is there a maximum of how many cards you can hold at once?

• Is there a limit on how many cards can be used per turn?

Some of these are questions that will only be answered as the cards are developed, but they are things to consider. These are all things I am considering too for my future card deck.

@Trenacker:

My intent is that the “unit” cards will represent army divisions, naval squadrons, or air groups. Special units can be represented with special markers or pieces obtained from the secondary market.

In cards that get as specific as yours, aftermarket pieces will be a necessity I think. There needs to be some way to distinguish them. Depending on who you normally play with, this could still be problematic. Some people will recognize the difference between a self propelled artillery piece and a tank… but I play with people who have issues telling cruisers and destroyers apart. Just depends.

I will say that in all things… Simpler is always better. Doesn’t mean you can’t have a lot of different parts, as long as it is logical, understandable and limited in scope. In any event, there will be a lot of new rules to memorize and units to keep track of.

@LHoffman:

One thing that I did not really understand about your cards is why you have multiple text colors in a single word. Ex. DEUTSCHES AFRIKAKORPS. That kind of baffled me and I found it very distracting.

My guess is that the multiple letter colours are intended to reflect the colours of each nation’s flag, since the letter-colour schemes very from country to country.  I agree that it’s distracting and makes the cards hard to read.  Simple black lettering would be better.  Having roundels on the cards is more than enough for national identification purposes.

@Trenacker:

First of all, many thanks to both of you for your replies. This is exactly the kind of feedback that I was seeking.

No problem at all. The customization area is my favorite because you can only play the OOB game so long before it becomes a science. Expanding and improving on the game is enjoyable for me, both in a mechanical and artistic sense.

@Trenacker:

Is there anyone out there who can render an informed opinion on whether Photoshop is a must-have for this kind of work? PowerPoint 2013 has a lot of improved functionality over earlier versions, but because it isn’t made for photo editing, a lot of clumsy work-arounds are required to produce layered images.

One big question I have is how to deal with card backings. I know the old trick of printing out the two sides separately and gluing them together, but I’d prefer to print a single sheet, front and back.

Surely there must be a template out there, used to create cards for other games, that can help me size the cards properly?

YG used some program, I forget which, but it was not Photoshop. And he also used an internet card printing company called Artscow to custom print his decks. It was my impression that people could go to the website, find his deck and order their own sets. I believe it was all based on a 52 card deck in standard playing card size.

That should be a good resource to start with. I did not work with them specifically, so I do not know if there is any flexibility in size.

@Trenacker:

The idea is to have three sets of cards. One set is a general deck of cards that will be used in common by all the players. The second set is divided into multiple, smaller, national decks, one for each player-country in the game. Players will draw a hand of 5 cards, two from the general deck, and three from their respective national deck, at the start of the game. (If one player is representing multiple countries, they will draw full hands for each individual country, respectively.) Cards will indicate when they may be played. The third set of cards is the Event deck. One Event is drawn and played immediately prior to the start of each nation’s turn.

Beginning in the second round, players will draw one new card from both decks (two cards in total) at the start of each turn, first from the national deck, and then from the general deck. Players stop drawing when they a full hand of 7 cards and may not draw again until they have played one or more of those cards, reducing the size of their hand to 6 cards or fewer.

Sounds like you have the general mechanics pretty well down. 7 cards per nation looks like a lot to me, but depending on what they are it really may not be too much. My concern with drawing one card per turn was that not enough cards would be able to be played. Drawing a few to begin the game alleviates that.

@Trenacker:

In terms of categories, I think we can confirm:

• Units - Cards that allow a player to place special land, sea, or air units on the board during his or her Placement phase. Special units may be represented by special markers (e.g., slips of paper, coins placed beneath an OOB game piece) or by after-market pieces. Units are represented at the army corps, naval squadron, and air wing level.

• National Advantages - Cards that attempt to approximate conditions specific to each nation, including industrial capabilities, technological leads, doctrinal preferences, the actions or contributions of “minor” allies (e.g., Finland, Siam, etc.), and special military capabilities (e.g., access to colonial troops).

• Leaders - Cards representing various personalities with a decisive impact on each nation’s war effort, especially political and military leaders.

• Strategy & Tactics - Cards representing various doctrinal and logistical innovations that provide the player with advantages in combat and production.

• Events - Cards that deal with political events that could have changed the outcome of the war. For example: an aggressive naval building program by the Dutch, resulting in deployment of large cruisers to the NEI; the Rasputitsa in Western Russia; or the opening of a neutral port to Axis commerce raiders and submarines.

National Advantages:   As stated, for some reason I really like these. I am struggling with whether or not these should be disclosed when the game starts though. Depending on what exactly these are determined to be, it may be a little unfair to spring them on your enemy without him at least knowing it will come at some point.

Leaders/Strategy&Tactics:   I see these categories having a lot of overlap and could possibly be combined. Leaders and national tactics are intertwined. Just my opinion.

Events:   This one I am little unsure of. The events you allude to in your examples border on examples of alternate history, which I do not like as a framework for the game. Granted, Axis & Allies is an exercise in alternate history in-and-of-itself, however to introduce alternate history into the game artificially through cards and rules is not something I am for. At least, that is my opinion.

My proposition would be an event card which is predicated on an action by the cardholder. For example, to open said neutral port to the Axis, Germany must do ‘A’. Sort of like one of those old Mission Cards in Risk. To get X reward you must accomplish X task. This would provide for the introduction of actual historical pivot points where if certain decisions were made alternate paths may have been taken. I think that most of these would be political in nature since you already control the tactical part.

My conception of the Event Card is also informed by the Fortune cards from Axis & Allies: D-Day. If I remember correctly, they involved things like weather conditions or chance events that you can either improve, keep normal or make more difficult based on a pre-roll. Food for thought at least.

@Trenacker:

The flavor text – a little “factoid” providing background on each card – is a sticking point only because I think that every card already needs to include all the rules necessary to use it. This, combined with the need to include a decent-sized picture and all the other relevant information, leaves very little space for even a sentence or two of interesting information at the bottom. One option is to ditch the roundels in favor of identifying faction association on the backings of each card. Another is to use the stripes in the upper left-hand corners, or else just the colored borders of each card, to communicate information that would otherwise be presented as a silhouette elsewhere on the card itself.

The indicating style is really up to your aesthetic tastes. I personally like either the roundels or colors. The factoids would be cool, but as you said, you likely won’t have enough space for it.

@Trenacker:

I agree that the initial focus should be building something fun. We can then move progressively to balance it based on user feedback.

Agreed. Though as before, I would stress simplicity above all.

@Trenacker:

In a first round, I plan to make full decks for the US, UK, FEC/ANZAC, China, France, Russia, Italy, Germany, and Japan. Each national deck will also cover contributions of “minor” allies. Thus, the Japanese deck will include cards relevant to Manchukuo and Siam. Some cards may need to be discarded during play. For example, the Japanese may be required to discard an unplayed card allowing it to place troops in Siam if an Event has already been played that causes Siam to remain “true” neutral or enter the Allied camp.

Sounds like some of your ideas may work best with Historical Board Gaming’s Global War map. It has a lot more detail for the minor Axis/Ally members and neutrals.

@Trenacker:

In a second round, I may make additional decks based on the Global 1914 map, with the intent of doing a play-through into the WW2 period. Thus, I’d need to add decks for the Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, Portuguese, and Spanish Empires. I’d love to see a custom map adding a Confederate States of America and the possibility of playing all of the ABC nations in South America, but I won’t hold my breath.

This is very ambitious. As CWO Marc pointed out, this is very much alternate history. It almost would require some sort of graphic board to move political boundaries. That is just the start of issues. But more power to you and good luck.

On the subject of a photoshop alternative, I suggest looking into Gimp. Gimp is an open source (free) image manipulation program with many of the same capabilities as photoshop.  The user interface can be a little less than intuitive at times,  but there are many tutorials on the Web and YouTube that can get you started.

Nice cards,  by the way.

There are a number of tutorials on the website at gimp dot org/tutorials (sorry,  don’t have permission to post links yet).  See also: gimp-tutorials dot net.