2004 Lang Codex Archive
12/23/2004Icon Week, Part IV
The end of the year approacheth, and so we come to the conclusion of the 'icon series' of columns. This week, we come to the investigation icon and what it means to the game as a narrative and mechanical concept.
This was the most difficult of the columns to write, because this icon has two very different meanings (although in pure game context it only has one). So bear with me while I bounce from 'wannabe writer' mode to designer mode for this one.
'Then You Get to Investigate!
I have a rather artsy vision of what the investigation icon represents in the Mythos, and why it does what it does in context of the game. If you read H.P. Lovecraft's stories, the most pervasive theme is our complete ignorance of what the universe actually is. The horror of the Mythos is our inability to comprehend anything that really matters, anything greater than our meaningless, mundane lives. And, as horror, it works spectacularly; the greatest fear is that of the unknown.
So how can somebody 'win' at Cthulhu? How can an existence so definitively meaningless be zero-sum for anyone in any possible situation? My answer: knowledge is power. We may never understand the true nature of the universe (and the more we do, the more it drives us insane), but with every little thing that we learn ' every little thing that doesn't kill us ' our actions in the Mythos take on a little more meaning. Just a little bit; you can't 'beat' the Mythos, but our victories were never meant to be complete.
If you can learn or discover something and not die, that's victory enough. And from one point of view, that's what the stories are about.
(If any of the above intrigues you at all, and you have not tried it, I highly recommend the Call of Cthulhu RPG. Riveting experience, amazing game.)
The investigation icon coming last in the struggles is narratively significant. When you confront the Mythos with the intent of understanding it, you run the risk of losing your sanity and your life. You've got to endure the trials before you get to learn anything. It's the hardest fought and most easily circumvented of the four icons, and deservedly so. It directly helps you win the game.
See? You can win at Cthulhu' unless your deck doesn't behave.
Rhythm and Tempo
Enough of the artsy-fartsy, you say? Okay, on to the nuts and bolts of the design. Bring on the tech-talk!
One of the most important things about designing a CCG is that these type of games, more so than any other, rely on a satisfying play pattern. I mean, just think about how many games of COC you've already played! Because of this, the 'core ritual' of the game (in this case, the story phase) needs to have a rhythm that's easy to repeat thousands of times, and a varying tempo.
In English, you need to be able to perform the same ritual of play hundreds of times, but your increments of progression can't always be identical. Okay, that wasn't exactly English (and I do apologize for the excessive designer-speak), but you probably get my meaning.
Here's another try: broken down to its fundamentals, Cthulhu CCG is about putting 'dots' on story cards. The result of all your struggles gets you on 0-2 or 0-3 stories every phase. That alone is a fair amount of variation already, but the game's tempo is fairly easy to predict at this stage. You are going to need a minimum of 3 turns to win a story card under these conditions, and while that doesn't seem like a whole lot, 3 turns in this game is a pretty big deal (and intentionally so). Games under an invariable rules set like this would nearly always boil down to a battle for board control (via character domination or excessive 'kill').
With the investigation icon (which, in designer-speak, represents a variance in tempo at a variable rate, since the amount of investigation in a game is never fixed, like the rest of the rules), you can run away with a story card in 2 turns. That is a dramatic difference! Plus, with the threat of a speedier victory in the process, it messes up each player's 'combat math' during occasional turns, when the threat of a sudden investigative character and the right defense denial can sweep a '2-dot' story right out from under your nose.
And that's all she wrote, folks! I hope you enjoyed the columns; they were fun to write. Had I more time on my hands, I'd have written a lot more about each and every one of them, but that's what future columns are for, I suppose.
Join me next time, when we wrap up the year 2004 and take a walk on the literary side.
12/16/2004Icon Week, Part III
"That which doesn't kill me - oh for the love of Cthulhu! How many barrels does that gun have?!"
- A cultist's last words
Welcome to combat week here in the pages of the Codex. Today, we'll take a look at the icon that gives the biggest bang for the buck, so to speak. Combat is, literally, the deadliest icon of the four that a character can have. It's the only way that characters can 'naturally' kill one another during the story phase (as opposed to 'unnatural' wounding effects like Son of the [Sibilant] Sleeper ' say that name five times fast!).
Combat in Cthulhu is a dangerous proposition, both from a gameplay and design point of view. In gameplay the danger is obvious, but looking at it from a design angle there was clear tension between the two mediums (Lovecraft's stories and CCGs). In the stories, combat isn't an everyday thing; people tend to end up either insane, dead, or on Death Row. CCGs thrive on object-oriented conflict ('my combination of stuff beats up your combination of stuff'). So what were we to do?
I'll tell you what: design a darn good Cthulhu CCG. There's one soundbyte you could apply to our vision of the Mythos: 'The three T's ' terror, tommyguns and tentacles.' Evocative, yes-no? A slightly Hollywood-ized vision of the Mythos would definitely require more gun-toting action' and this fit the demands of a CCG to a 'T.'
Combat following terror in the icon struggle sequence was a purely narrative design decision. First you go insane, then you die. That's Lovecraft.
Kicking it up a Notch
We take as much inspiration from Chaosium's 'Call of Cthulhu' roleplaying game as we do from the works of H.P. Lovecraft. And while the spirit of the game holds true to the unspeakable horror of the Mythos (remind me to tell you one day about my old Linguistics professor who didn't know one end of a pistol from another, but under the sway of a Mi-Go scientist managed to kill his fellow investigators from beyond maximum range! Ah, the good old days'), players could quite feasibly fantasize about situations in which even [some of] the Great Old Ones would fall to a properly orchestrated assault.
Combat, originally depicted as a gun icon, allows characters to do just that. Okay, you can't quite kill Cthulhu with a tommygun (the big green guy being invulnerable and all), but the G-Men could sure mow down an Elder Shoggoth if they happened to cross paths.
Sir! You Wound Me!
There is a definite and intentional difference between wounding and destroying a character, even though they often have the same result. In earlier versions of the game, all characters had variable 'hit points' and took multiple wounds to kill. That led to too much record keeping and table clutter (we wanted characters to die!), so the game rules were quickly changed to 'one wound and you're dead.' Of course, I liked the idea of variable hit points for some characters, and hence Toughness was born.
Another key difference between wounding and destruction is that there is no built-in game mechanic to 'save' you from destruction like there is for wounding (you can cancel wounds). If you want to stop destruction, you have to cancel the entire effect, and that's more expensive in game terms than simply stopping wounds (which doesn't necessarily cancel other parts of a card effect).
That's all for this week. While writing this column, I was reminded of just how narrative some parts of this game really are. Atmosphere, baby. It's all about the atmosphere.
Join me next time, when we investigate the final part of the icon design codex.
12/1/2004Icon Week, Part II
Or, 'The Terror that came to Cthulhu'
This week we are going to talk about the tentacle. The terror icon is both visually and mechanically one of the most important parts of this game. With this column I hope to illuminate some of the design process for you.
Ooooooh, Scary!
A Cthulhu game that doesn't involve people being scared [censored] by things too horrible to describe (although Lovecraft did devote quite a bit of ink to describing just how indescribable they were in his own little way) just wouldn't be Cthulhu. In fact, previous versions of the game were all about people going insane ' and then dying. It was fun to watch, but a tad frustrating to play.
In the many versions of the game that followed, terror evolved in many subtle ways, but the core concept remained the same. Using the Mythos as a guide, I made sure never to stray from the True Path in any of this icon's many designs.
In story terms, the terror icon represents a character's ability to cause others to go nuts. There are many ways to do this: being scary as all H-E-double hockey sticks, having the capacity to use mind-warping magicks, having more dimensions than the mortal mind was meant to comprehend. This is why monsters are not the only kind of character that can cause you to go nuts.
First You Go Insane'
Some of you may be wondering why the icons appear in the same order on every story card. Here's the thing: the order in which the icon struggles are resolved is an important part of each icon's identity. The fact that terror resolves before any other icon makes it as terrifying as it ought to be.
The overall feel of the game is defined by the icon order. You want to win the game fast? Fine, don't look at the [censored] that's going to drive you buggo, stay away from the [censored] that's just gonna kill you. Then, and only then, do your skills at investigation actually come into play. That's how it works in the roleplaying game, that's how Lovecraft aficionados expect it to work, and by gum, that's how it works.
Terror happening before combat is essential because combat has the most powerful board-affecting outcome (see next week's column). Characters specializing in combat always have this icon to consider before making the decision to commit. That is, unless they have Willpower or the terror icon themselves'
Terror is the only icon in the game that provides defense against itself. If you have terror you cannot go insane, simple as that. In an earlier version of the game, this was not the case; Cthulhu could be driven bonkers by three Hungry Dark Young. It was quickly decided that this situation was inappropriate, so an exception to the rules was added to accommodate the theme.
'I Wanna Be Sedated'
Even though this week's column is about the terror icon, I'd be remiss if I did not spend at least some time talking about insanity itself. I am very pleased with how insanity is represented in this game; it was the final cog in the great machine.
The idea was that insane characters would be easy to identify on the board (easy, they're all the face-down guys!), really annoying ('they're just sitting there!'), and potentially dangerous to their controller (Mass Hysteria).
Now, in the 'real world' ' that which is faithfully simulated by the Call of Cthulhu RPG ' characters who go insane generally don't get better. They end up looking like the guy in 'Sedated' (from the new set ' that is one of my favorite pieces of art in this game. Medication time!!!). In earlier versions of the CCG, insane characters never came back. They just sat there, drooling and yelling at things nobody else could see. This was quite amusing, but not overly fun; it took up a lot of table space too.
For the sake of game play, insane characters were made to return to normal (sort of, they do leave the asylum exhausted, after all. I consider that wonderfully appropriate).
That's it for this week! One more look into the deranged workings of R&D, and the secrets of yet another facet of this game revealed. As we continue with this series, you'll get a broader and broader view of Things You Were Not Meant To Know. Hope it doesn't drive you insane.
Join me next time when we get to the second part of the 'First you go insane, then you die' mantra I so religiously followed in design.
11/17/2004Icon Week, Part I
It's time to talk about one another fundamental principle of Cthulhu CCG design, one that is quite integral to the game. Of course, this particular area of the game is so rich that I need to split it into multiple columns. One for each icon, with a little seasoning every week. Sound good?
Of course, each week I'll be talking about the icon and its effects (the struggle consequences). Throw in a little design talk, a bit of 'what could have been,' and you'll gain a bit more insight into the development of this game than you've ever had before.
History of Icons
I'm a big fan of icons in CCGs. If you play our other game, A Game of Thrones CCG, you'll see some superficial resemblance between them on this level. Icons handle multiple duties in a game: they compress information so you don't have to read about it a hundred times on a hundred different cards, they create nice points of comparison for players and designers alike (''Oh yeah? Well, for a mere 4 cost, my Yog servitor gets four combat icons and a high skill!!'), and they create more variables on a card to tinker with in uncomplicated ways.
They also tell an evocative, encapsulated story about the game. Immediately upon first glance, most players notice the stunning artwork (by the powers, the artwork!) and graphic design, and then their eyes tend to lead them towards these little icons on the side of the character cards. A batch of tentacles? Skulls? Is that a book? A magnifying glass, you say? Interesting'
When I was doing in-office demos of the game, I already had very strong ideas of what these icons would look like (originally the skull was a gun, but that was a bit too evocative, in the 'Hey, why is Cthulhu shooting me?' sense). Being a big believer in harnessing intuition, I would often just let people look at the cards and then say something like, 'Okay, so there are four attributes a character can have: terror, combat, arcane, and investigation,' and just watch as players automatically make the connections in their heads.
Of course, nothing beats walking a player visually through a card, pointing at icons while explaining, 'First you go insane, then you die, then you get a chance to learn forbidden lore, and finally you can research the strange [censored] you just encountered!
I love Cthulhu.
So anyways, iconography is a big deal to me, and this game went through a lot of changes throughout development. I wanted to make sure that all of the icons both fulfilled an elegant, interlocking mechanical function while telling a story that preserved the atmosphere of this game. With Cthulhu, atmosphere is of paramount importance; the Mythos isn't about any one particular story, it's about the mood.
I'm going to go into the design and development history of each icon during its own week in the spotlight.
The Arcane Icon
You'd think I was going to talk about them in order of their appearance on a card, didn't you? Hah! Shows what you know! This week is going to be about the arcane icon, because it has the shortest of all four stories. That way, I could wax philosophical about icons in general without bloating the column. Clever, huh? Thought so.
The arcane icon (called magic at one point during development) used to be represented by the Elder Sign. I really liked that, as you don't get much more Lovecraft than an Elder Sign. Problem was, that particular sigil comes with very definite connotations. You make the Elder Sign to protect yourself from powers unspeakable, which goes totally against the grain of what the icon wanted to accomplish mechanically.
It was also the last icon I designed, made specifically to complete the cycle of four and round out the tactical possibilities of the story phase. Unlike the other icons, it can't win you a game all by itself or single-handedly deny your opponent a win, but it can supplement any of the above with astounding results.
In game play, arcane is the most single-minded and aggressive of all the icons. You generally want to maximize its use during your turn, so you can 'both attack and defend,' so to speak. Sure, there are situations in which you want to use it on 'defense' (like Priestess of the Yellow Sign, commit her, ready, then use her horrifying ability), and situations like this will likely only increase as more cards get printed, but ' at least for now ' those are the exceptions, not the rule.
It also tends to work better with some factions and strategies than others. A Syndicate deck packing Burning the Midnight Oil and a bunch of arcane guys is pretty awesome to behold. Giving arcane to characters with 'exhaust abilities' gives them more than dual use, assuming they survive.
The coolest thing about arcane, and something that I almost had to push through development, is that it lets you ready any character at that story, regardless of whether or not they have arcane. Which makes for meatier tactical decisions ' do you toss in the arcane guy and the combat monster to secure the story? Or do you save him to prevent your opponents from doing the same?
That's it for this week. Hopefully you've learned a bit about the lunatic, feverish inner workings of this game. It's only going to get crazier.
Tune in next time, when we have a look at the terror icon. Grr. Arg.
11/10/2004Unspeakable Tales - A Review
Welcome to another Lang Codex! By now, you've either heard of or seen a whole bunch of the new set, so I won't bother you with redundant spoilers (although I'll be posting a nice batch of card images with today's column for you to sink your teeth into).
Let's take a quick overview of some of the themes in this set:
Environments
These cards add a new layer to the story cards by splicing a variable and adjustable set of 'rules' to each one. For those of you who like to play a more tactically rich, thinking man's game, play with a bunch of these and adjust the skill level of play to your liking. Nothing beats making your opponent play on your terms! A handful of cards in the set that have synergy with Environment attachments bring this subset of cards to the fore, and I'll keep adding to them in the future.
Skill Matters
One of my only disappointments with Arkham Edition was how undervalued skill was until you really got to the higher levels of play. Struggle icons are so important that if you don't match your opponents, your skill won't matter (unless you have a way of protecting yourself). This is fine, of course, as struggle icons should matter more than skill, but I had always envisioned the skill stat as having more than one function. The cards in this set that revolve around skill show off the versatility of this stat, and hopefully give you an idea just how rich with possibility this game really is. We've only begun to scratch the surface!
Encounters
These were amongst my favorite cards to design, as they serve multiple functions. First of all, they are fun ' surprise characters always are. Secondly, they add another element of uncertainty to the story phase, which is always a good thing. Thirdly, they help set (or cement) a precedent that I will be continuing in this game: cards that change types during play or upon entering play. This is a hugely fun (if not somewhat abusive) principle, and really fits the strange atmosphere of the Mythos.
Brutality
There are a few cards in the set that really up the stakes in the game. Some do it in obvious ways (Lair of the Deep Ones), others in more subtle ways (Arkham Library). Either way, this handful of cards will probably shake up the metagame in ways that will force a lot of decks to adjust their play styles. After all, that's what expansions are for, right?
Also, as with all first expansions to a CCG, a fair number of these cards were designed during the Arkham period, and just didn't make it into the set for lack of space. Unspeakable Tales will flesh out a lot of previously unplayable deck types, as well as introduce a few more to the mix.
And now, for the art gallery:
<Images removed to save space/time, and because you've seen all these cards - Chris>
I can't wait for you all to play this set! It's going to be a load of fun, and pave the way for some of the incredible craziness (pun intended) I've got planned for you in the future.
Tune in next time, when I go back to design talk, and start to explore the struggle icons.
10/26/2004The Key and the Gate, Part II
Welcome to another installment of the Lang Teasers. This week, I'd like to introduce you to a new version of an old friend. In fact, all four of the Great Old Ones (GOOs for short) get new versions.
And none of them are Loyal.
Unspeakable Tales brings us a new era of big characters, slightly more 'splashable,' and more varied in focus. Big old Yog here showcases two of his faction's strengths and interests: the use of the discard pile and the Spell event.
It's almost as though every spell currently printed in the game has just received the additional text: 'Oh, and by the way, lower the cost to play Yog-Sothoth by 1.' Not a bad metagame effect for a single card.
It Spells your Destruction
So what kind of useful spells could you use in a deck with this guy? Frankly, I'd be surprised if you were to ask that question. Not even counting the new spells this faction gets in the new set (every single Yog event in Unspeakable Tales is a spell), they've got a plethora of great options. The inimitable Sacrifical Gate ' a spell which, around the office, is always accompanied with the yell of 'C'mere, Pop Tart!' (ask me about it one day at a con) ' is a great lead-in, although a bit expensive. Hastur, already a great partner, provides Power Drain, a card which I've heard is pretty good on occasion.
Of course, there are great new spells in the new set, and I'm sure you'd love to hear about every last one of them, but then this article wouldn't be a teaser, would it? Even if I were to accidentally spoil one of them (say, an event that allowed you to rearrange all of the resources on your domains in any way you like ' oh, and by the way, lower the cost to play Yog-Sothoth by 1), it doesn't change the fact that this new version of Sothoth is awesome.
Even better, you could play with both versions in your deck! When one gets killed, you simply bring out the other one. Each has its own strengths, and while this one tends to come into play faster, the Arkham edition one lets you replenish your hand for each Spell you use (sensing a theme here?).
As an added bonus, this guy is absolutely nuts against a 'discard deck' - that is, a deck designed to win by running you out of cards in your deck. There is nothing quite like having your opponent lower the cost of your own GOO for you.
One Faction's Trash'
The unspoken mechanics on this card perhaps speak louder than the printed ones. You'll find, both now and in the future, that Yog-Sothoth as a faction is obsessed with the discard pile. While other factions, like Shub-Niggurath, can easily bring their characters back into play, Yog is a bit more versatile. You'll probably notice that a Yog player is paying equal attention to his or her hand and discard pile at all points during play. And it's only going to get more combo-licious as the game continues. Just wait until March, when' ok, enough teasing.
Tune in next time, when we explore the unexpected bonuses of cards' limitations. More teasers to come!
10/6/2004Skill Matters
It's week two of Unspeakable Tales teasers, and I'm ready to start having some fun. Take a quick look at the card to the left of this text' go ahead, don't be shy. Now let's talk.
Usually while designing a set, I have two or three mechanical themes in mind as well as aesthetic themes. When both combine (i.e. Story attachments), I am happiest. Most of the time, however, the two (mechanics and aesthetics) are separate and each needs a treatment throughout the set.
What does Skill Mean?
Thematically, skill represents a number of things: it could be a character's survival instinct, their professional aptitude, their street savvy, their reflexes' skill represents any (or all) of those things in one stat. Ultimately, a character's skill at whatever they do will help them to succeed at a story card.
Mechanically, there are two things I wanted to accomplish with skill. One is the ability to compete in stories, obviously. The other is a bit more subtle, and you'll be seeing it unfold in slightly more detail. Skill is also a form of 'effect immunity'; the higher your skill, the less chance you'll have of being affected by certain types of harmful effects in the game. You've already seen this illustrated with the direct damage cards from the Agency, or Son of the Sleeper in the Cthulhu faction.
Well, now we expand on this a little bit by giving the high-skill characters a chance to do unto those with lower skill. Check out the Two-Fisted Archaeologist now! Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat!
Sniper Rifle is one of about a dozen cards in this set that will reinforce skill as a means to doing something other than collecting 'dots' at a story. How the rest of it unfolds is up to you guys and the opening of the packs.
Quick Teaser
For those of you who read my column for our other game (A Game of Thrones), you know by now that I like to leave 'easter eggs' throughout these columns in the form of teasers for other cards in the set. Some are subtle, many are not. For today's teaser, I'd have to say 'look for an Environment in Miskatonic that combines what I talked about last week and this week too.' It'll be interesting to see how that one affects the metagame.
Something else you may find interesting to note: there are several cards in this set that were originally designed for Arkham Edition. This was one of them, but I removed it from the file before handing it to development. At the time, I knew that Unspeakable Tales would have a 'skill matters' subtheme, and this card would be one of the few that really illustrated this.
That's it for this week. I'm looking at my calendar, and just drooling over the teaser I'll be hitting you with next. Boy, I can't wait for this set to be released!
Join me next time when '
Well, you'll see.
9/30/2004Unspeakable Tales - Preview Week 1
Well, well, well! I had a look at my schedule the other day, and suddenly realized that I've only got six weeks to tease you mercilessly about the next expansion before it's released! So about what I said last week (that we'd look at icons this week)' well, fuggedaboutit! It's time to start looking at what sort of cool stuff the future holds.
I've been debating internally about just how to handle previews for COC CCG. I mean, we have seven different factions, each vying for attention, plus a bunch of cool neutral cards that would love to have some of the spotlight.
So what's new with this set? Glad you asked! Because this game had a much richer and more diverse faction and card pool than most right out the gate, we certainly did not feel the need to start adding factions to the game any time soon. There's so much design space to be explored in this game without adding a single thing to the rules. Not to say you shouldn't expect any new keywords or anything in the future, but Unspeakable Tales is all about making you rethink the way you play the game using the rules we've already got.
Rules for Stories
This entire expansion set was inspired by a mechanic that got dropped from one of the original versions of the game. Originally, each story card had a whole bunch of 'rules' that affected character and player interaction at that story. This was quite flavorful, but it was not nearly as elegant as what we have today. As a generalization, the more complex a set of rules for a CCG, the less interesting the cards tend to be. I opted for simpler story cards with more swingy effects, because they were ripe for expansion using a whole bunch of interesting cards.
This leads me to'
A Change in Environment
'Customizable story cards.' That's the premise behind this subgroup of attachments. You've seen it here first, and you'll see even more of them in the future. These are attachments that you stick on to a story card to add a set of additional 'rules of conflict' to the story card. This way, players can decide exactly how involved they want their story phase to be by dedicating some of their deck to bending the rules in their favor.
In the case of today's preview card, I think you can see how you Cthulhu players would find this card useful. Weenie investigator rush decks giving you a hard time? Slap this on the story you want to protect, and lie in wait until you're ready to Deep One Assault them to death.
The card has another, more insidious side to it. The effects of most Environment attachments are cumulative and 'stackable,' meaning that if you stick two of these on a story, all committed guys lose two investigate icons. But if you're sneaky and want to play it in a deck in which you want to play with investigation characters (preferably those with more than one icon), you essentially rule the field.
I've seen story cards with a whole ton of Environments piled on to them. It's fun, but note that these guys, like all attachments, don't stick around after the story card is done. Use them to your advantage, but be mindful of this.
That's it for this week. Environments are one of the linchpin new mechanics of this set. There are quite a few of them, and we'll cover them from week to week, so stay buckled in.
Tune in next week, when we have a look at something that will make you look twice at the Two-Fisted Archaeologist.
9/20/2004Resources
Welcome to another week of the Codex! As promised last week, I want to spend some time discussing the idea of resources: how they work, the design process, and perhaps some deck building ideas.
The Requisite Backstory
This is a design column, so you should come to expect that every time a mechanic is talked about, there will be some story to its development. For those of you who are not interested in design stories, this section will always be kept nice and neat under its own header. Usually!
As I've oft stated, COC had a hard birth. Like most games such as this, it went through many different incarnations. All of them, however, had a unifying theme: I wanted to have a fairly linear 'resource curve' (unlike our other game, which has an explosive resource growth pattern). Additionally, I wanted all of the cards in the game to have dual use; this is a trait common to many card games I've designed in the past.
Since I knew early on that I wanted COC to be a mix-n-match faction game, it made perfect sense for the resource system to be tied into factions. This was approached several ways, however, before getting to the final design (which is by far the best of all of them, in my humble opinion).
The domain/resource system came fairly late in the design process, actually. Of course, it was the element that sealed the deal. Once I had hit upon this, we knew that we had something really special on our hands. My catchphrase for this system was 'action points of variable power.' The key was that players would be constantly wanting to do more than they could, making each decision as nail-biting as possible. This, coupled with the card pool, accomplishes this quite well, if I do say so myself.
Finally, I wanted a game with a resource system most players were used to intuitively, but that felt different from any other game on the market.
The Resource Tree
How you develop your resources in this game is the strategic element. Unlike most CCGs, where you develop your resources based on what sort of 'mana' or 'discount' locations you draw, in COC you normally come to the game with a resource plan already formulated.
What is your strategy? With a 'weenie deck' (a deck comprised mostly of characters with cost 2 or lower), for example, you may decide to go 2-2-2 ' put a single resource on each of your Domains on turns 1, 2, and 3, and then stopping. With a heavy-hitter deck, you may want to build 4-1-1 or 3-2-1; the latter giving you room for slightly more powerful events and effects on your 'secondary' domain while getting one of them built up quickly for beefy guys.
For newer players and those new to CCGs in general, I recommend spending some time with your deck, studying how it 'flows,' and deciding how you would like to set up your resources for ideal draws and situations.
Of course, not all situations are ideal. That's what opponents are for.
Discounting and Resource Acceleration
There are many cards that can facilitate an accelerated resource tree. Mi-Go Worker (a Shub-Niggurath common) or Fertility Rites (Shub event, uncommon ' sensing a theme here?) are good examples of sacrificing some of your early story capacity to get the potential for playing strong late game cards early. It is quite feasible, for example, to get a turn 1 Scientist leading into a turn 2 Fertility Rites (putting the two extra resources on your '4' domain) and a turn three Shub-Niggurath herself! Now that's acceleration.
Shub is not the only faction capable of this, of course. Each faction has access to 1-point 'discount' locations (like Academy of the Mad). They are not for every deck, but if you want to play with larger characters, these will definitely speed up your development to match that of a weenie player.
Other cards such as Forgotten Temple (how strong is this?!) and The Stars are Right can rush in Servitors and Great Old Ones so fast it will make your head spin. Such cards are more luck-dependent than the standard resource strategy, and not that difficult to foil, but boy are they fun! In playtesting, my 'GOO-for-you-on-turn-2' deck was the most fun of all that I played.
That's it for this week! I only have two more columns to go before starting to preview cards from the forthcoming expansion. Speaking of which, I'd like to hear your input on what sort of articles you'd like to read in the future. If you have an idea for a Lang Codex ' something design or development related ' that you'd like for me to write about, drop me an email anytime. I am really busy, but I do read every email that shows up in my inbox.
Tune in next time, when I talk a bit about icons.