Status: Post-v0.6 discussion notes
Purpose: Capture promising ideas that should not be added to the v0.6 faction release, but may be revisited after v0.6 is locked, playtested, and released.
A future Engineer faction may use Overlays as a cornerstone of its gameplay.
The faction identity would be built around reshaping the Gauntlet itself rather than primarily conquering ground, negotiating around battles, exhausting the opponent, completing rites, buying leverage, or operating through hidden missions.
Possible identity statement:
Engineers win by modifying the ground itself.
Overlays should remain a normal Gauntlet card type that any faction may use when an effect is board-local and visible. Engineers would not own Overlays as an exclusive mechanic; they would specialize in Overlays and interact with them more deeply than other factions.
Engineers could make Overlays a core system rather than an occasional faction-card tool.
Potential Engineer interactions:
Possible Engineer Overlay concepts:
| Overlay | Concept |
|---|---|
| Bridge | Easier movement across or through a Territory |
| Barricade | Makes entry, battle, or capture harder for the opponent |
| Supply Depot | Supports draw, recovery, banking, or repeat use from a Territory |
| Workshop | Upgrades, repairs, or repositions other Overlays |
| Minefield | Punishes entering, retreating through, or fighting on a Territory |
| Fortress | Makes a Territory harder to capture, possibly with upkeep |
| Roadworks | Enables extra movement from or into a Territory |
| Demolition Charges | Sacrifice to remove an Overlay or force withdrawal |
Repair is reserved as an Engineer faction capability. It is not a universal v0.6 Action.
Ruins Overlays such as Scorched Earth may remain indefinitely unless a specific card or future Engineer effect removes them. This preserves a distinctive Engineer role without preventing other factions from creating board-local Overlays.
Future testing should decide whether Repair is:
The Engineer alternate victory should probably involve infrastructure, not merely control.
Possible directions:
The strongest version is probably some kind of connected route or infrastructure network, because it makes Engineers care about space, position, and board shape.
Do not add Engineers to v0.6.
Do not avoid Overlays in v0.6 merely to reserve the card type for Engineers. Other factions should be allowed to use Overlays when the effect is clearly factional, board-local, and more legible on a Territory than as an Asset, Condition, Territory, or normal card.
Engineers should be protected through depth and specialization, not exclusivity. A non-Engineer faction might place one or two specific Overlays; Engineers should be the faction that upgrades, repairs, moves, chains, dismantles, and wins through Overlay infrastructure.
When considering an Overlay for any faction, ask:
Park Engineers for v0.7 or later. Do not implement them in the v0.6 faction framework. Do not create a universal Repair action before the Engineer faction is designed.
A future v0.7+ module may support four-player Gauntlet.
This should not be added to v0.6. It should be explored only after the six-faction framework is stable.
Prior discussion explored a four-player variant with a two-tile-wide / 12-Territory Gauntlet and two players on each side.
Possible prototype:
Design questions:
Prior discussion also explored a cross-shaped board where multiple lanes meet at a central Arena.
Possible directions:
Design question:
Prior discussion treated free-for-all as a separate design problem, possibly under a Gauntlet: Arena style variant.
Open questions:
Park all multiplayer variants for v0.7 or later. Do not implement in the v0.6 faction framework.
Gauntlet may eventually include a Day/Night cycle as an optional or core module.
The game would alternate between Day and Night. Each player would take one turn during Day, then each player would take one turn during Night. After both players have taken a Night turn, the cycle returns to Day.
Proposed cycle:
This could be tracked with a simple two-sided Day/Night marker.
Each faction may have a Day or Night affiliation. Factions may receive small bonuses, altered timing, or card interactions during their affiliated time.
Potential affiliations for discussion:
| Day | Night |
|---|---|
| Military | Intelligence |
| Diplomats | Mystics |
| Financiers | Inquisition |
Day factions broadly represent open force, public legitimacy, visible institutions, finance, formal power, and battlefield command.
Night factions broadly represent secrecy, fear, hidden knowledge, rituals, surveillance, purges, and disruption.
Inquisition is flexible and could be reconsidered. It may fit Day if framed as public trial/authority, or Night if framed as fear, witch-hunting, purging, and condemnation.
To reduce first-player advantage, the game could begin during the first player’s unaffiliated time.
This prevents Player 1 from receiving both first turn and immediate affiliated-time advantage.
Day/Night should not be added to v0.6. It should be revisited only after the faction framework is stable.
If developed, the cycle should probably have no universal effect by itself. Instead, faction abilities, leader abilities, and cards may reference Day or Night.
Avoid harsh unaffiliated-time penalties such as disabling a faction’s core system. Players should not feel forced to stall until their preferred time.
Preferred approach:
Examples for later testing, not final rules:
Park this idea for discussion after the v0.6 release. Do not implement in the v0.6 faction framework.