Hollandazed: Thoughts, Ideas, and Miscellany — Aurelian

I had a problem: I needed a new combat system. The set piece battle sub-system I used in Agricola, Master of Britain and Charlemagne, Master of Europe involved deploying your troops along one side of a staggered square grid opposite randomly drawn enemies. In a series of alternating attack and defense rounds, each of your units would roll against the enemy. Once you had made your initial deployments, your options were limited to a choice of adjacent targets during the attack rounds, and so the battles were basically resolved on a sort of auto-pilot roll-off. Reaction to the system in...

Around the time that Charlemagne came out, I stealth-announced the next game in my series of "cup adjustment" solitaire games, Aurelian, Restorer of the World. A few months later, I started working on the rules, prototype map, and counter-mix, and then I had to set the whole thing aside while I tried (perhaps in vain) to put a dent in the ever-growing submission pile. Mary pointed out that since it says "Lead Game Designer and Chief Bottle-Washer" on my business card, that maybe I should take a break from the submission pile and design something, and also maybe wash some...

Around the time that Charlemagne came out, I stealth-announced the next game in my series of "cup adjustment" solitaire games, Aurelian, Restorer of the World. A few months later, I started working on the rules, prototype map, and counter-mix, and then I had to set the whole thing aside while I tried (perhaps in vain) to put a dent in the ever-growing submission pile. Mary pointed out that since it says "Lead Game Designer and Chief Bottle-Washer" on my business card, that maybe I should take a break from the submission pile and design something, and also maybe wash some...