“Adventures in Hyboria” is the upcoming expansion for the Age of Conan Strategy Board Game, designed by Roberto Di Meglio, Marco Maggi, and Francesco Nepitello. In this article, the third of the Designers' Notes series, they explain how the Stretch Goals of the Kickstarter campaign were defined to further improve the expansion's gameplay.

When Ares decided to launch Adventures in Hyboria using Kickstarter, we knew that the possibility of reaching stretch goals was there. Obviously, Ares asked us what else we could do to expand the game beyond Adventures in Hyboria… without risking a delay to the scheduled release date (so the "famous" 5-6 players expansion was immediately ruled out...).

We started to design Adventures in Hyboria more than four years ago, to improve the game in some critical areas, and specific design goals in mind. When we started to playtest Age of Conan again, this summer, new ideas about the game started to flow immediately about how to improve Adventures in Hyboria itself – and how to go beyond that. We soon realized that, in the course of the years, many of those ideas also popped up in unofficial expansions, created by fans of the game like Christoffer “azjerei” Lundberg or Mike “Mantuanwar” Smith.

This was not too surprising. There are certain background elements, which were not a part of the original game – such as Hyborian Religions, for example. And in terms of gameplay, there cannot ever be “enough” Conan in Age of Conan – his adventurous career, so rich of changes, for example, was not fully covered, even, by the new Conan mechanics.

There are also other concepts, in the original game, that could have been expanded – but weren’t, to avoid too much rule complexity or the use of too many different decks of cards. Changes of this type were not as critical to gameplay as those included in Adventures in Hyboria, but could still have a positive influence on the game. Let’s take, as an example, Objective Cards: in the original game, they fill a very specific role, to provide a focus to players to develop their actions, without getting “lost” in too many options. It’s fun to achieve objectives – but in game terms, they are not as rewarding as they might be.

Therefore, we decided to focus on this kind of add-ons for our Stretch Goals. We knew that we could develop these ideas in a reasonable time frame, without delaying the project. Moreover, most of them could be added to the game as cards and tokens – too many new miniatures, or fancy components, and delays would have been impossible to avoid. So, we kept the focus on gameplay… and here’s what the new “mini-expansions” created thanks to the success of the Kickstarter will add to that.

Sorcery Cards

Sorcery already plays an important part in the game. Sorcery tokens fuel some of the most powerful Kingdom cards, and they can save your day in a battle by allowing a full re-roll of your Combat Dice. But it’s true that they cannot capture all the nuances of magic in the Hyborian World. Moreover, in a game like Age of Conan, the differences between Kingdoms creates a beautiful asymmetry in gameplay. Sorcery cards develop both these elements in one go: each Kingdom will have access to a different ‘spell book’, emphasizing the attitude of sorcerers and priests of that nation. At the same time, Sorcery tokens will have more uses than just granting re-rolls, adding to the range of choices available to you during the game. Should you keep that Adventure token to win a bid for the Sword of Atlantis, or exchange it for Sorcery to cast a powerful battle spell?

Cursed Items

Cursed Items are the logical extension to Companions. Conan encounters companions during the course of an adventure, as determined by the draw of an appropriate Adventure token. But we know that a lot of perilous items and places are also a part of Conan’s stories, so why not make them a part of Age of Conan, as well? Cursed Items are added to the pool of Adventure tokens. When you draw one, you will take the matching item card. Cursed Items create negative effects for your opponents, rather than beneficial effects for you like Companions do– especially, but not exclusively, to hinder their use of Conan, to represent Conan encountering the evil sorceries and ancient relics that lie waiting in the darkest places of his world.

Conan’s Chronicles

We designed this set of cards to represent the various “career changes” during the lifetime of Conan, and their effect on the game. In a normal game of Age of Conan, when the Conan player is successful in bringing Conan to his final destination, he receives a prize in the form of Adventure tokens. With Conan’s Chronicles, each adventure will become a part of one Chronicle, and depending on the current Chronicle, the reward will be different. Is Conan a Pirate? A Marauder? A Thief? The player will always have the choice to pick the “normal” reward, or the reward appropriate to the current Chronicle.

Artifacts

Initially, this goal was simply a “physical” one – creating a visual enhancement for the players, so that it is clear at a glance who is the owner of an artifact at a given time. Then, we decided we could add a little bit of gameplay to the concept of Artifacts as well. We developed one alternate version of each of the three Artifacts. Their main “theme” (War, Intrigue, Sorcery) remains the same, but the effects change subtly with the new versions. Players may decide at the beginning of each game the Artifacts to use; or you can decide to allow the player who wins a certain artifact to choose the version he prefers between the two alternatives, when he win a bid to control it.

Conquest Cards

The concept of these cards originates from the Objective Card variants developed by Mike Smith, and by our shared feeling - as we told you before - that Objectives are fun, but not as rewarding as they should be. Conquest cards are connected to the fulfillment of Objective Cards. Each time an Objective is achieved, the player gains victory points – but now, it also gain a specific bonus, as indicated by the Conquest Card. Now, establishing a trade route, or defeating pirates, will also have a more tangible, and thematic, effect than just bumping up a little your Empire track.

Hyborian Gods

Once again, an idea that was anticipated by the (unpublished) variant developed by one of our greatest fans and supporters, Christoffer Lundberg. In Age of Conan, we have war, sorcery, intrigue. We have the greatest barbarian ever. We have savages, adventures and empire-building. What do we miss? Religion, of course! In most Conan stories, religion appears only as the occasional curse… “Mitra and Ishtar!”, “By Crom!”.

But if we look at the Hyborian world, we can see that there’s more to that. There are temples, priests and rituals. Gods sometime show up – Lovecraft style – through the wrinkles of space-time. Wizards-priests invoke their deities to create magical effects…. So definitely, Gods deserve a greater spotlight in Age of Conan than they have now.

From a gameplay point of view, we saw a great opportunity. We have a lot of elements which influence the actions of individual Kingdoms and the performance of the players – but not many “overarching” effects who have an influence on the game in a global sense. Objective Cards, in part, do have an effect in making each Age different – because players have to achieve different goals depending on the cards drawn. Especially now, however, they do not “shape” the game much. With Gods, we have the opportunity to make each game, and each Age within the game, subtly different from the others. Each God – Mitra, Ishtar, Set, Erlik, Crom (of course!) will be associated to a different all-encompassing effect. At the start of each Age, players will decide which Faith is “embraced” by their Kingdom, and depending on their choices, one of the Gods will be the dominant power of that Age, influencing the game with its specific power.

That is definitely a lot of stuff! We are very excited that the Kickstarter allows us to develop all these “mini-expansions”. Players will have the opportunity to include some of them, all of them (or none- hopefully not!) to customize the complexity of gameplay to their group’s taste. All of these goals except the last one have been unlocked at the time of writing, and we really hope that the last one – Hyborian Gods - will also be unlocked before the end of the Kickstarter (else, we shall have some other way to get those Gods into your games!).

Until Monday, 4 AM CET you can still pledge to receive all these add-ons together with your copy of Adventures in Hyboria. Visit visit the Age of Conan Strategy Board Game - It's back! Kickstarter page for details.

Tags: Adventures in Hyboria, Age of Conan, Designer's Notes, Preview