100 Years Atop Mount Ellumbee100 Years Atop Mount Ellumbee

100 Years atop Mount Ellumbee is a turn-based strategy game where up to six factions fight over one mountain for a century. It is a board game at heart. I designed it as one, with a real board and real cards, and then used my good bud Claude to build this version so that people could play it without me having to print everything.

You pick a faction, claim Provinces on the mountain, build up your economy, research, and fight your neighbors in a series of Battle Card exchanges. These activities earn Legacy Points. The player with the most Legacy Points at the end of the century wins. Legacy Points are never lost, so every one you earn is yours for good.

The Mountain: The game board consists of three rings of Provinces around the most valuable Province, the Summit. The game board grows and shrinks depending on the number of players, with the maximum game board involving Seventy-two uniquely-named Provinces.

A turn. Everyone takes their turn at the same time, so nobody waits around. In one turn you can:

• Claim a new Province.

• Take a market action (buy a new Battle Card, pick up a Liberty for certain advantages, or use the Forge to make a card you already own stronger).

• Build and research. Extraction Sites pay you every round, Barracks unlock market actions, a Monument scores Legacy Points at the end of the game. Complete research tasks to unlock additional advantages: a second Commander, cheaper cards, free marching, and many more.

• March your Commanders as far as you can afford.

• Declare War, or don't. Declaring is secret, and the order people declare in is the order they fight in. Declare first and gain the Momentum of battle.

The game uses two resources, gold and materials. Players need both throughout the game. Materials are capped and can be wasted. Gold accumulates and adds to a player's end-game score.

The fight. Every War is settled the same way, in a Battle Card duel I call an Engagement.

Players each hold a hand of Battle Cards, select one to play during each Battle Card Exchange, and reveal them at the same moment. The Battle Card with the higher Force wins the Exchange, and Battle Card text applies to sway the battle. A battle tracker called the "Standard" moves along the battle board (the "Tide of Battle") so players can visualize the battle's progression.

Card effects control the battle. Some hold the line even when they lose. Some pay their holder. Some reach across the field and weaken what your opponent plays next. Commanders have a reaction that can be used to affect the battle; Liberties are one-shot cards that can be played to do the same.

Players' Battle Card hands start small, at 5 cards, and grow as the game progresses through the Eras of the Century.

Six factions, and none of them play alike

Everybody's board is identical. Nobody's deck is. There are 168 Battle Cards in the game, 28 to a faction, and each faction is built around one idea:

• The Metal Munchkins hold ground and get paid for it.

• The Haymakers hit the hardest.

• The Crones lose ground slowly and take it back forever.

• The Featherweights have low Force and high evasion. They reverse the Tide instead of winning it.

• The Diehards replenish their hand. Their best cards keep coming back.

• The Weasels win with small cuts.

Battle Cards also read the field, and have secondary effects that trigger depending on what has been played earlier during the Engagement. So no two fights are alike.

Ways to play

• Against the computer at four difficulty levels, with three to six factions at the table.

• Online with friends through Steam. Create a table, invite people from your friends list, and everyone picks their own chair and faction. The game starts when everybody says they are ready.

• The Ladder, a two-player match that is all duel and no map: best of seven Engagements, with new Battle Cards and Liberties to buy between fights. Around twenty minutes.

• Three game lengths . The full 27 round Century, two-thirds of the century (18 rounds), or a nine-round evening.

• Turning Peak, a variant where the inner ring of the mountain rotates every round once anyone takes a Province on it.

• A guided tutorial for each game, with a coach who talks you through your first fight in his own voice (and what a wonderful voice it is!).

• Achievements. 23 achievements to earn.

How long it takes: A nine-round game against the computer is about twenty minutes. The full century is an hour or two, and longer with friends who like to think.

Where it came from: This started on a table, with a board in six printed sheets and cards I cut out myself. The look is still that: ink on paper. Nothing on the screen is doing anything you could not do by hand (ish). The computer just does the counting, and finds you someone to play.