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What struck me was that, although all of the factions had different powers, three of the factions had basically the same agenda — drop corruption in various areas for various reasons — and were thus more or less interchangeable. The fourth faction, however, had a completely different role; it won the game by killing the units of the other factions. Without this faction, the whole game would play differently.
Crescent Moon started as a thought experiment: What if I made a game in which every faction had different agendas, and every faction was somehow structural to the game?
The Factions
I started out designing the Horde (now called the Warlord), which is basically equivalent to the killing faction in Chaos in the Old World. Then, naturally, if you have an area-control game, the agenda of one of the factions should be controlling areas; this became the Caliphate.
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As I was searching for inspiration for other factions, I considered various themes, one of which was the Crusades. Peasant armies, knightly orders, Islamic states, and assassin cults — there was a lot going on! It didn't quite work out, but the idea of an assassin-based Cult faction (now called the Murshid) that competed not by warfare but by stealth and influence was one I was sure I wanted to include.
Having a faction that pursued influence added that mechanism to the game. It became not just an area-control game, but also an area-influence game. Each faction could compete in either arena, with one being more important to some than others. This led me to consider what other arenas of competition there could be. Surely one of them had to be economic? This led to the creation of the Sultans, the rich faction. Now I had four factions. Was that enough?
Lastly, I really wanted to have factions be reliant on the others in some way, as in one of my favorite games, Dune. This way, players would have a cost/benefit trade-off when performing certain actions because helping themselves would help those other factions. This idea helped flesh out the various objectives and powers of the existing factions, while leading to the creation of the last faction, the Nomads. They hire out their own units to other players for cash, and they can use cash directly to get victory points (VPs) for reliance and consequence.
There is a large degree of commonality between the factions. They almost all have access to the basic actions, and each faction has an extra ability or a tweak to an action here and there. The main differences come not from what they can do, but why. Each faction has four different ways of earning VPs. The Nomads, for instance, are rewarded if they can keep a certain number of nomad-influenced areas free of foreign control, whereas the Sultan is rewarded if they can control at least four connected areas. This results in radically different strategies and action choices.
The Game Board
Next, to design the board. When considering gameplay, I wanted players to be dynamic and fluid with their positioning and not get stuck developing static lines with a "trench warfare" kind of strategy. So unlike wargames that give defensive bonuses for occupying "difficult terrain", Crescent Moon's mountains and desert have no defensive bonus. Quite the opposite, they make it harder to defend by making it more expensive to build there.
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To make sure players didn't just avoid these hexes, I put the areas that are most desirable for various reasons — the holy site and mines — in the desert and mountains. That some of the most desirable areas are harder to defend with buildings also places a premium on units, which is a good thing because the best parts of the combat system revolve around units, and of course it makes the hiring of Nomad mercenaries all the more appealing.
Finally, I had to make sure movement wasn't too fluid as this would take away the importance of positioning on the board. The river is there to block movement between some areas. Now players must move their pieces a lot, but still have to be careful about their placement decisions. Do they want to position their faction away from contested areas, behind barriers? Or do they want to be more exposed, but have access to more desirable areas?
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In addition to sharing the game board, the players share a card market: a "conveyor belt" of nine cards that arrive expensive at one end and become cheap at the other. The most fun games seem to always have three or four things you can do at any given time, so when it came to the card market, I wanted to give players lots of options to think about.
Each of the Warlord, Nomad, Caliphate, and Murshid have their own aligned cards in the deck. Buying your own cards means paying half price and giving it to the supply. You can buy another faction's cards, but this means paying the full price to them; this is another way in which helping yourself can help another faction.
The Sultan doesn't have any aligned cards, but does have the opportunity to sell cards from their own market for any price they like. They can use this variable price to negotiate with other players; for example, lower prices could be offered to the Caliph for their protection of Sultan cities. Additionally, spending an action to restock the Sultan market gives them even more leverage because it allows them some control over what comes out next.
Combat
One thing I don't particularly like is dice-based combat. I get that some people don't mind it, and it does bring a certain "Yeah, I rolled well and crushed!" feeling, but on the other hand the feeling that you get from playing well in the planning and execution stage to produce what should be a good outcome from you only to have unlucky dice rolls take your reward away? That's not great.
I definitely wanted a battle outcome to be uncertain. Deterministic battles encourage a kind of arms race in which knowing that they aren't winning an attack, a player adds more resources to their position — which then results in their opponent doing the math and adding more resources of their own. It's static and frustrating for both parties. Uncertainty breaks the spell of determinism, and it also gives the exhilaration of victory or the theater of defeat when the unknown outcome is resolved.
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However, uncertainty doesn't necessarily mean randomness. Crescent Moon uses card-based combat in which players can buy cards that produce various effects and turn the result of a battle. Players with large armies can also choose to secretly commit units to die to produce better combat results. Early in the game, people can generally keep track of which cards people are holding and have played or not, but as the game progresses to the crucial later stages, invariably people lose track of who is holding what. Battle outcomes become uncertain. In addition, the Murshid faction can also involve itself in the battles of other players if they occur close to cult influence, bringing another dimension of uncertainty and politics to combat.
The result is combat that is rich in nuance, decision making, and theater...and not left to random chance.
Negotiations
In Crescent Moon, it is not always possible to execute your plans entirely on your own resources, say, through clever card play or overwhelming force. Often you will need help to achieve your goals by enlisting the aid of an ally — and often your goals will be compromised in the process of enlisting that ally.
There are a few natural alliances in the game...up to a point. The obvious one is the Sultan and the Caliphate, the two factions most heavily invested in maintaining infrastructure. The other natural alliance is not so obvious, but it is the Warlord and Murshid as they both have a hard time hurting each other anyway, and the Murshid is the one faction that can benefit from the destruction the Warlord wreaks. The Nomad, as befitting their independent status, doesn't really favor any of their opponents, and maintaining the status quo is probably their best bet as it maximizes the value of their own bargaining chip — their mercenaries.
Crescent Moon has been designed to provide a very high level of interactivity, both on the board and in negotiation, while avoiding being predictable. In area-control games, it is often advantageous to promise and betray; that comes with the territory (literally). But here, while it is very hard to win without at least some negotiation, you're not required to always negotiate in bad faith. Because each faction has different ways of scoring points, it is not a zero-sum game. Faction positions can co-exist and overlap on the board. Players can make mutually beneficial agreements that don't inevitably end in betrayal. The best experience of Crescent Moon will be a game full of hard-nosed, but good-natured negotiations comprising all manner of threats, bribes, and compromises.
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Balancing
Balancing this game has been hard. My goal was to give each faction an equal chance to win without players having to recognize from the start that one faction is intrinsically more powerful and must be ganged-up on, but doing so when each faction has been designed to be interdependent is a bit of a nightmare, to be honest.
For instance, if the Warlord is too strong, then everything gets destroyed and the economy of the game stagnates, but if they are too weak or isolated, then the Sultan and to a lesser extent the Caliphate prosper in the extended peace to an undue extent and some military tension leaks out of the game. As the main obstacle to the Warlord running rampant is the Caliphate, these two must be delicately balanced. This is largely a military balance as the military strength of the Warlord's numbers must be balanced against the Caliphate's fortifications and unit upgrades.
The solution has been not so much a straight increase or decrease in strength of factions in isolation, but the tweaking of each faction's goals so that they are more or less inclined to direct conflict or alliances. The balancing process has been long and involved, fine-tuning military cards and rules and modifying the objectives of each faction to get the desired thematic feel and dynamics between them all. At this stage, it feels like it is close; there are a few acknowledged areas that need to be closely monitored, but overall it feels close now. A couple more months of playtesting...
Osprey on Board
The placeholder artwork for the very first playtests in 2016 largely consisted of images from Osprey Publishing's "Men at Arms" series of books, most of those inked by the incredible Angus McBride. My bookshelf has many of these books from my tabletop wargaming days. It wasn't until much later that Osprey Games officially took on the project, but somehow the Osprey link was there all along.
One of the first things Osprey focused on was the game length, which originally clocked in at five rounds. We came up with an accelerated set-up to the game — placing more pieces, and starting with some cards in hand — that allowed the number of rounds to be trimmed.
Next, they brought in Navid Rahman to do the artwork in an authentic style that is a real point of difference. I love the box art in particular.
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Finally, Osprey made the smart decision to hire a consultant to make sure the cultural aspects of the game were on point. For example, the placeholder icon for the Sultan faction in the prototype featured some beautiful looking Islamic calligraphy that I chose because it had a pleasing circular shape. What I didn't know is that I had selected a Bismillah, which has religious significance that made it inappropriate to use.
Publishing through the pandemic probably extended the release date of the game by about a year to accommodate the extended lead times on production and freight, but finally the game has hit retail shelves. A big thanks to Anthony, Filip, Ben and the rest of the gang who made this possible!
I'd also like to take the opportunity to thank some very supportive friends whose many hours of playtesting and valuable advice helped shape the game over the years: Adrian, Chris, Jack, Kim, Matt, Nick, and Przemysław in particular were invaluable. Thank you!
Steven Mathers
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