#control!

[mecronprime-blog]

Our first stretch in just over a week!  Thanks everyone!  Lets get to more stretching!!!!

[mecronprime-blog]

In just a couple hours!  Thanks everyone!  Let’s keep going!

[juniperpyre]

i'm doing a quick little bit of research for a one-off line in a little earth after rain-verse one (two? three? stop me please) shot about christian mysticism in the middle ages and finding some info about how female mystics were targeted in inquisition.

i already knew women were targeted, but women who communed with god and had visions being targeted is interesting bc it fits so well with my hp history.

my personal hc is that the distinction between wizardry/witchcraft was not gender but magical practices, and that magicks that were seen as lower were witchcraft. only these practices were targeted, divination being once of them. wizardry/witchcraft as well as light/dark magic ended up being gender and racialized in the late middle ages/early modern era for the same reasons that shit happened irl.

[virginiadre]

snap!

[mecronprime-blog]

Update 7: Design Friday: Cards of Give and Take! · Sword of the Stars: Control!

-Hello everyone! Just 8 days into our campaign for this card game and we are very close to our first Stretch Goal!Today is Design Friday, so we have another short essay from Lead Designer Martin Cirulis about the SpecOps Cards of the game. Take it away, Martin!- -The ESPIONAGE card comes in two varieties, ESPIONAGE-1 and ESPIONAGE-2. These cards allow you to force another player to discard 1 or 2 cards at random from their hand.These cards are meant to partially disarm a dangerous opponent and to at least disrupt their plans. In general, ESPIONAGE cards should be used to either blunt the ability of another player to counter-attack you once you have captured one of their worlds, or to reduce the power of the person currently leading the game. There is a non-scientific idea that when hit by an ESPIONAGE card, players will often put their best cards on the outer edge of their hand, as people tend to randomly select middle cards when shown a fanned out set of card backs. The wise galactic tactician may want to keep this in mind!- -The SPY card comes in two varieties, SPY-1 and SPY-2. These very powerful cards not only allow you to look at another player’s hand, but also steal one or two cards to add them to your own hand.This can be a devastating thing to do when an opponent is loaded up with their own SpecOps cards. Nothing disrupts a plan more than having your NUKE card stolen and then played against you! One option that the acting player often overlooks is that you can immediately play a stolen card. I learned the power of this very painfully when I was hit by a SPY-1 card while having a powerful hand myself. In the first hit, my enemy took my SPY-2, which she immediately played against me to steal 2 more cards. One of those was a SALVAGE card that she then played, retrieving the SPY-2 card to immediately play it on me again! She effectively stripped my entire hand and rendered me helpless for a couple turns till I rebuilt. I still have nightmares! - - The TRAINING card comes in two varieties, TRAINING-2 and TRAINING-3. These cards allow you to pick another 2 or 3 cards from the deck, respectively.These cards are clearly great for building up your hand at any time, but they work best in two particular situations. The first is to recover from either using up a lot of your own cards after an attack, or when your hands is attacked by ESPIONAGE and SPY cards. Nothing throws opponents off more than you being dangerous again when they were expected that you would be harmless for a couple more turns!The other perfect time to use a TRAINING card is for a hurry-up offense. In a situation where your hand is nearly full, but nothing you have is strong enough to conquer an enemy world, the use of a training card can turn things around in a flash. This card is very straightforward, but often players will use it very early on in the game, where its potential is wasted against worlds with little or no defenses. If your hand size grows until you are discarding the extra cards you just gained, you're not using these cards to your best advantage. - -The REINFORCE card seems of small use at first glance, but can often make the difference between a game-winning score and a second place finish. It also comes in two variants, REINFORCE-1 and REINFORCE-2, to allow you to add 1 or 2 cards of the correct suit to any world you have previously conquered. While adding force to any world is a good idea, picking the right moment is critical. Used in conjunction with a SHIELD card, it can turn an average world into an unassailable fortress. If you manage to save a REINFORCE-2 till the last turn, it can add a big chunk of points to your final score in a flash.Remember those Army point totals make up the bulk of your final points, and surprise additions at the last moment can push you from a no-threat player in the middle of the pack to a score leader. If you play this card in the final turns of a round, there will be nearly no time for other players to react.-That's it for today folks! We are excited about the success of this campaign and itching to make it to more of our Stretch Goals, so please remember to share our page wherever you can! We'll be back tomorrow with another Dev Diary on Lore Saturday with another entry from Lead Writer Arinn Dembo.Stay tuned, and thank you for your support!

Another Design Friday entry covering the ins and outs of more spec ops cards from SotS:CONTROL!  Come on by and read it on the kickstarter page with all the pretty graphics!

[mecronprime-blog]

Heading towards our first Stretch GOAL!!!!

And remember, your game will come with all applicable stretch goals.  Join in the invasion NOW!

[mecronprime-blog]

Update 4: Design Friday: Spec-Ops Cards of Mass Destruction! · Sword of the Stars: Control!

-It's Design Friday! Lead Designer Martin Cirulis is going to break down the cards and mechanics of Control! for us over the course of the campaign, starting today with the game's Weapons of Mass Destruction:NUKE, SHIELDS, SABOTAGE and POINT DEFENSE.- -We might as well start at the top with the grandaddy housewrecker SpecOps card of them all, the NUKE. The NUKE is intended to be the ultimate leveling device. Your opponent has a world with 20+ points of armies on it and you just feel like you are never going to get more than the 8 card in your hand? Then lay down that hammer of fire.Sure, you wipe out all the civilians as well. But at least you get that world. In terms of rules, the NUKE card is unusual because it is the only SpecOps Card that functions as an invasion. You MUST have an appropriate card to take over the world you just nuked. (Someone has to clean up the mess you just made!)On the plus side, at least you know that the invasion succeeds no matter how low value your invasion force is. And remember, the NUKE just doesn’t make a world easy pickings! If used on the right target, it can deprive your enemy of a ton of points.- -SHIELDS are the natural answer to the NUKE card, and can be placed on any world you control during your turn.Once placed, the card stays attached to the planet even if it is conquered by another player using conventional Army cards. The only thing that can destroy a SHIELDS card is a SABOTAGE card . When that happens, sadly you should prepared for a nuking--the nuclear strike usually follows a successful Sabotage mission. (Curse those Ewoks and their Rebel friends!) Since a Shielded world can still be conquered the old fashioned way, experienced players are careful not to play their Shield card before a world has at least 15 points of Army cards occupying it. Also, ASSASSIN cards still work just fine through a set of planetary SHIELDS, so try not to rely too heavily on defending your shielded world with a high/low card pairing!- -SABOTAGE is a rare and relatively straightforward card to employ. It has one mission; it takes down a SHIELDS card. Fiery destruction generally follows.Of course, like many things in Control! --timing is everything! Ideally, you want to play a SABOTAGE card in tandem with a NUKE card, in order to take a high value world from an opponent. Of course often the deck is not so kind, and you find yourself late in a game with a SABOTAGE card in your hand and no thermonuclear buddy to go with it.It’s here that you find yourself with a couple of interesting choices. The first is just to sit on the card and hope you pick up that NUKE before the CEASE FIRE comes up. Alternatively, you could look around the table and decide who needs to be taken down a peg. Taking down the Shields of a valuable world could open the door for another player to use their NUKE card. This is one of many ways to take down a player who has built a powerful point advantage. And it never hurts to have the NUKE used on someone other than you!- -POINT DEFENSE is currently the only SpecOps card that you can play during someone else’s turn. Understanding this is critical.When another player tries to play a NUKE card on you, all you do is smile and play your POINT DEFENSE card and both cards get discarded. At this point, the only thing that can go wrong is that your opponent gives you an even bigger smile back, and plays the second NUKE card that you can’t do anything about. NOTE: in 5-player games where NUKE cards are likely to be spread around the table, sometimes it’s useful to reveal that you have the POINT DEFENSE in your hand! This will encourage the players holding a NUKE to use them against other, less well defended players. --That's it for now, folks! We are 60% funded in less than 48 hours and still climbing--thank you for your support, and for sharing our campaign!

Designer Diary!

   Today we posted some of my musing on the first 4 spec-ops card in CONTROL!  Feel free to ask any questions.