So what’s new?

Another week and another Leviathans Blog post.



This week we are taking a look at how the Leviathans game of 2012 compares to the game of 2022. This will not be a complete look at every mechanic but  more the major changes that have been made to make the best Leviathans game possible. Some of these have been covered in the past but are worth talking about still. I want to be clear before going into these that at least 85% of the game has remained unchanged. Leviathans is a great game and we would never mess with what makes this game something that people have loved playing without new content for the last decade.

With that said, what has changed?



Point System

One of the first things added when playtesting started up again was a point system. While there were many great ships in the original game, they were not all created equal, thus making balanced matches hard to accomplish. A lot of time has gone into working on the new point system to make sure it can cover the many different ships and factions that are in the game. This project has taken by far the most time in playtesting to get right. How much is a gun worth versus an additional MP. Does a +1 armor slot equal a crew location (no… except when it does). All of that had to be taken into account. We can say that we are very happy with where it stands as of now and hope you feel the same when you get your hands on it.

Terrain

When we first started looking into terrain for Leviathans, we did get stuck because in the sky you have mountains, clouds and….thicker clouds. On top of that we wanted to make sure that the maps looked as good as possible, something that wouldn’t be possible with a mountain template. This led us to have mountains set into many maps in order to have well balanced maps that still looked good. For the clouds there will be cards that can be pulled from to decide where they go on the map, which has created many interesting matches during playtesting.

They are of course still empty maps for those that want it, but now there are many other options for those that want something different.

Faction Slots

When the French and British were designed, they had very different playstyles while having all the same slots       (guns, crew, Tesla Coils and so on). While we have put effort into keeping that going for all the factions, we quickly found that unique slots were needed to help make each faction feel different. This process has led to some really exciting and fun additions to the game. Some have become my favorite ways to play the game, such as German Bracketing crew, Russian Precision guns or the American TED guns. All of them add a whole other level of play to an already very tactical game.

Objective game play

One of the last things we have worked on is objective based gameplay. Scenarios such as breaking through enemy lines or protecting a cargo ship allow for other ways to play besides just blowing up the other player (though that will always be a great way to play). In the future I will  go over in detail the exact scenarios and how they are played.

Non Ship Options

As of this post this is the last major project we are working on where gameplay is concerned. With that being the case I won’t go into much detail here. What I can say is that players will have more to bring to the battlefield besides just Ships. Admirals for instance can be added to a fleet to provide special bonuses, and each faction will have special Admirals for them.



We are very excited to bring all these changes to everyone when they are all finished. As a send off for today, below is a new ship card.



See you here again next week on Tuesday for the next post.

Bryn Bills