[Malladin's Gate] Epoch - the D20 game of civilisations

[malladin]

Malladin's Gate are proud to announce that our new game, Epoch will be available soon.

Epoch is Malladin's Gate Press' first venture into board game design, and provides the players with the chance to develop their civilisations over centuries of history and technological advancement.

Epoch uses the D20 system to simplify the development of your growing empires, whilst providing an original game mechanic for quick and simple gameplay.

As a pdf product, Epoch comes with all the game tiles and counters you will need to print and cut out yourself.

Malladin's Gate Press
www.malladinsgate.com

 

[malladin]

Also, provided take up is good on Epoch, we will be supporting it with expansions supplements.

Cheerio,

Ben

 

[Eridanis]

Cool idea. WIll you have some kind of preview available?

 

[malladin]

Cool idea. WIll you have some kind of preview available?

Yep, there should be something available before we release it. Watch this space ... .

 

[HellHound]

I look forward to this.

The last attempt at a d20 civilization style game was a horrendous disaster to try to play (in the opinions of many of the buyers at least), so I look forward to your good design gracing this product.

 

[malladin]

I also have bought the otherwise unnamed civilisation game and thought that while it was inadequately executed, the central concept was interesting and worth a second look. Hence we dragged out my old Mighty Empires for the game pieces and saw what we could do. Epoch is the result.

Cheerio,

Ben

 

[Cheiromancer]

Epoch is Malladin's Gate Press' first venture into board game design

d20 board games? What next, d20 Monopoly?

 

[Eridanis]

Well, if you can have a d20 card game (Warlords), why not a d20 board game? Especially if Ben & Co. are doing it; it will be worth looking at.

 

[malladin]

d20 board games? What next, d20 Monopoly?

I kind of like the idea of expanding out the scope of the D20 system. I'm pretty sure the D20 system wouldn't work for all board games, but for what we've got here it works like a dream.

I was blooded on the Civilisation board game years ago, before the computer game came out. I wasn't massively impressed with the board game as there was little scope for attacking each other, with the general ethos of teh game being that wars do lots of harm to both sides. Whereas I might agree with that philosophy in real life, it makes for dull gaming . That said, I really liked the idea of guiding a civilisation through centuries of development.

Then came the computer game, which drastically expanded out on the potential the board game showed, but took full advantage of the CG media by keeping track of lots of different aspects (points for technology development, different types of resources, money, lots of different types of units, etc) that could never be worked into a board game.

So, the idea of Epoch is to try and capture the scope of the computer game in the board game format. To do this, we need to drastically simplify the different aspects of the CG, which the D20 system allows. In Epoch, all technologies are feats, all units are skills and all civilisation types are classes. The game includes XP awards to advance your civilisation, so as you play your 'character' advances in the same way as a D20 system character. Each class lets you build a set amount of units and develop your technology at a given rate, thus eliminating the need to monitor hundreds of different tracks to mirror the computer game. Therefore the D20 system is just what the doctor ordered, simplifying the CG whilst retaining it's scope and detail.

Hopefully that's persuaded you that it's at least worth a look at when it comes out .

Cheerio,

Ben, Malladin's Gate