Stuck on development of turn-based-strategy game

Question

I am developing a turn based political/military strategy game similar to the DOS game Conflict. I have my game design document completed, but I'm having trouble actually putting together the logic of the turns.

How do I determine the strengths/weakness of the various nation-states in my game? Is there a common set of mathematical formulas somewhere on the interwebs that I can modify? Or do I need to come up with my own?

If I do need to come up with my own, how do I go about doing this? I have very limited experience playing games like Dungeons and Dragons and Settlers of Catan--would it be a good idea for me to buy a copy of a board game that is similar to my idea and model my game off that?

Answer 1

There's no easy answer, without your knowing what sort of strengths and weaknesses you actually want... And I'm guessing this is part of the problem.

You really don't need any fancy formulas (yet?). Start with simple arithmetic and take it from there. It's actually those very numbers that give your game a unique feel in terms of how it plays.

Before you go off and buy anything, think a bit more about the terms in which you want to differentiate the sides. This could be anything from resource gain to combat strength for all or particular units. It could be a special ability such as being able to have an additional turn before the enemy. It could be just about anything. Card games like MTG are a great example of things you can tweak to make play different from player to player.

If you start randomly tweaking some of your fundamental values in your game mechanic, according to which nation is being played, you'll start seeing imbalances quickly enough, and then you will start seeing opportunities juxtaposed.