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The rules have been an ongoing to do item over the 5+ years of development, constantly lagging behind the current state of the game. Things that are logical and easy to grasp are easier to write rules for, so as the development went on and the game was reworked again and again, the rules became easier to write.
We are very happy that the rules are done and players seem to understand them fine, even without having the components.
We have posted an extensive series of 30+ designer diaries. If you want to read more beyond what's here and in the rules, that's a good place to go, either to read from the beginning or to jump to specific articles that interest you. Alternatively, you can watch some of the historical remixes we were inspired by during development.
Deep Historical Theme
The designers enjoy many civilization board games and the Civilization series of computer games. We wanted a deep historical theme with connection between actual history and game effects. We took a lot of inspiration from the computer games and wanted to bring as much as possible of that experience into a board game format, without simulating all the small details that computers should keep track of for you. We also wanted to make a game without players directly attacking each other. Both fiddly details like moving units on maps and direct player attacks tend to dominate games to the detriment of other types of interaction and development.
The huge amount of work that went into the historical aspect of the game seems to have raised a lot of interest, as shown by the 800+ entries in the contest and detailed discussions of individual cards in the forums.
Complexity
Deciding that the game you are working on is going to be an advanced game can be important. Cutting away too much can kill the fun of it, but getting close to the lower boundary of suitable complexity can help in many ways as a two-hour game is far easier to get to the table than a three-hour game for most players.
We started to design the game only for ourselves, but from the start we were cutting away things that did not feel like they fit perfectly. This became more important when it was decided the game should be published.
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Back of the box image showing a sample game table
Learning the Game
In deep games with many unique cards, experienced players have an advantage. There is no way to avoid that completely. Even when you have as much experience as someone else, the actual skill in the game can vary quite a lot. To help with this and to tie back to the Civilization computer games, Nations has four difficulty levels, from Chieftain to Emperor. To make the game easier to learn, we also separated out cards into the advanced and expert packs for inclusion after a couple of games.
Stability
Many of the resources in Nations are pretty standard for a civilization game. The one that stands out is stability, which was inspired by the Civilization 4 mod called "Rhye's and Fall of Civilization", specifically the modmod "Rhye's and Fall of the Classical World". Stability is a very important factor to consider there, and it is entirely event-driven. We tied stability primarily to historical events. It is possible to take a risk and sit with low stability if you are in a tight spot, but overexpanding your empire and going into negative stability is generally a desperate measure that you want to avoid.
Game Info
Nations will be released by Lautapelit.fi at Essen 2013, with distribution by Asmodee (separate English and German versions), Ystari Games (French version) and Asterion Press (Italian version). The game is designed by Einar Rosén, Robert Rosén, Nina Håkansson and me. I will be at Spiel 2013, demoing Nations at the Asmodee booth (Hall 3, Stand B108) — come and say hi!
Rustan Håkansson
Promo cards split between the first edition box, Spielbox and Spiel/BGG store
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