7 Innovative Mechanics in Cradle

Listing 7 innovative mechanics in Cradle that will truly make this board game a unique and thematic experience. 

#1 Variable Card Powers

Progress Track Highlight
Condition Highlight

Each card in Cradle has an unique special power that grows in strength each round. See the right progress track. Each round you will go up a step – your card will progress automatically and get better. The ratio of strength is 1:4 between the first step and last seventh step, so this is not a thing to ignore – cards played early will progress further during the game.  

Normally a played card will start in step 1, but  if you fulfill a condition on top of the progress track, you can skip couple of steps. This means that potentially your card can be in Super Saiyan mode from the moment you play it.

Thematically this makes sense – your cards represent what you invest in as a civilization, so normally with time, your people will get more skilled. And you will progress faster if you develop under the right conditions – if build your Gold Mine next to Craftsmen, your Religion Site next to an magnificent mountain, your Military Barracks next to a Blacksmith. 

#2 Delayed Conflict Resolution

Turns
Conflict Track

Players declare conflicts during their turns and then these conflicts are resolved in the reset phase.

And thematically it works – there is never in history where war was not anticipated, as tensions rose, as rulers needed time to marshal their armies and time to travel to foreign lands.

The attacker’s strength is calculated when declaring the conflict and the defender’s strength during the resolution. With this, Cradle gives the defending player at least 1 turn for minor and at least 3 turns to prepare for major conflicts. 

Conflicts with this stop being a blitz-suprise, but instead feel like a tug-of-war – you are anticipating and seeing the building of your rival’s army – you know an attack will come, and it is your decision how much you should invest in preparing for it vs focusing on other things. 

#2.5 Battle Cards

Battle Card
Battle Boost

As mentioned, the attacker’s strength is calculated when declaring the conflict and the defender’s strength during the resolution. But, this will make the game very calculating – we need battle fuzziness and this is where the battle cards come.

At the final step a random battle card is flipped that will give a bonus based on a condition. For example, in the battle of Immae, it was the light cavalry that really made a difference, so players that have light cavalry will receive a strength bonus.

In this way you can anticipate and statistically prepare for a battle’s outcome, but not really predict it. 

#3 City Slots for 10 Different Specializations

Once you play a card, you can optionally develop a district in the cards specializations. That specialization will contribute differently to your civilization progress each turn. 

In Cradle there are 10 different specializations and they all will move you up on different tracks. For example, CULTURE districts will contribute to the influence and discovery tracks, NURTURE districts to population growth and to order and so on. 

Each settlement has limited slots for developing districts, so you really have a choice to make there. 

Note that once a settlement is conquered, the benefits from it will go the victor’s civilization. 

So what do the tracks do?

The DISCOVERY track gets you powerful wonder cards. 

WEALTH and POPULATION get you coin and hardworking people for your civilization.

ORDER helps you manage your cards … you can cycle your cards faster, keep a card longer and keep more cards in your civilization row. 

CONTROL and INFLUENCE allow you to place large cities on the map and are also worth lots of VPs at game end. 

 

 

#4 Separate Decks per Spec

Creator Efka from “No Pun Included” when reviewing Ark:Nova, pointed out that too many cards brings issues – it is very hard to find the card you need. As we wanted this game to have between 400 and 800 cards, it was obviously going to be a problem that we needed to solve.

The solution – in Cradle each card has its specialization symbol on its back. This way a players can focus their search. There is still chance that you might not get what you want, but searching through a specialization you can maybe find something similar that would work. 

Additionally, no card in Cradle is dependent on other cards – cards have no costs or a condition to play. Of course some cards work great together, but this a bonus vs a hindrance. 

#5 Settlement Growth and Level-Up

Various conditions and bonuses will make a settlement grow. In Cradle this is tracked by flipping any of the specialization tokens on its ‘marked’ side. When all are flipped on marked and this settlement needs to grow – it LEVELS UP.

This is a huge thing …

  • new specialization slots become available – so you can develop new districts
  • the benefits given by the districts are multiplied by the city level. So for example a Level3 city with districts MILITARY and CULTURE would give equivalent output to 3 Level1 towns with CULTURE and 2 Level1 towns with MILITARY.

The tiles are reset to the unmarked side, so that means next time leveling-up will be a little harder. 

This opens up the game – you can decide to develop your civilization vertically, focusing on few major cities, or wide – expanding to many small towns. 

#6 City Factions

Slots for City Factions

When a town levels-up, to mark that on the board you add another hut, the sum of all huts referring to the level. 

However, if the settlement has placeholder slots for a faction, then that slot is filled with a hut, and not necessary with a hut from the controlling player, but actually from the player that is highest on the influence growth track. 

Thematically, this hut represents the peoples culture, beliefs and religion when the city expanded. 

So what does this mean for the gameplay? Well, nothing in the beginning – even with rival factions in your city, you still control the city, you still decide what districts to build and rip all the benefits from the city. 

However, a faction presents a potential future danger – the faction will fight against you if your city is attacked by the rival player and potentially there might be some cards in play that would also exploit having a faction in rival cities.  

You can see a visual explanation here: Explaining the City Factions

#7 Interdependent Progress and Growth

This one is the GLUE – it ties together the other mechanics – #1, #3, #5. 

When you play a card and develop a district, the card normally starts on step 1. However if you fulfill the condition, and develop your district in the right place, you will benefit from the other districts. Adjacent district will jump you +3 on the steps and districts in the same region +1. This means that potentially your card can be in Super Saiyan mode from the moment you play it.

Now, the settlements and districts that contributed to your card’s progress get a bonus as well – they grow and potentially those settlements might level-up.

And the best part is that these districts do not have to be controlled by you – that is right – rival players will contributed to your progress and get a growth reward themselves. 

This interdependent progress and growth is not optional – and thematically this makes perfect sense – you as a ruler make the major decisions and have no way to micromanage the trade between individuals. 

With this the rival cities are not just a place to be conquered, but also a hub for trade. A hub that can be leveraged to progress/boost the powers on the cards you play. 

You can see a visual explanation here: Interdependent Progress and Growth​

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