The Basics

The first thing you need to understand about a factory is that it's still a continent.  It may seem to do crazy things at times, and can be confusing, but in the end it's still a continent.  In Risk, at the beginning of your turn, you analyze the board and identify which entire continents you own, based on ownership of the territories that make those continents up.  Then you are granted units based on the bonus that the continent provides.  Factories do all of that.  

Instead of granting you units to place anywhere you want to, if the player sets a Factory, the units are automatically placed in a specific territory that is associated with the continent.  The territory in which the units are automatically placed is called the "Factory."  

For example.  If I owned all of Australia on the standard Risk map, but the bonus instead had a factory in Alaska;  Instead of getting 2 units to place, 2 units would automatically be placed in Alaska.

 

It gets a little more complicated, but if this numbered list makes sense to you, skip the next section.

Standard (adds units only if you own the territory) AutoCapture (assigns the territory to the player and adds units) Universal (add units to territory no matter who owns it) Universal-N (add units to territory only if it is not occupied by Neutral) Universal+N (add units to territory only if it is occupied by Neutral)

 

The not-so-Basics

 

There are different types of factories that change based on who owns the factory when your continent bonus is calculated.  The reason for these differences are due to cases in which the factory is not a territory contained in the continent (just like the Australia > Alaska example above).  The following are descriptions for each type of Factory.

Standard Factory

The units granted from my continent bonus are placed in the factory territory if:

I own the territory: yes.
Anybody else owns the territory: no.
The territory is neutral: no.

 

AutoCapture Factory

The units granted from my continent bonus are placed in the factory territory if:

I own the territory: yes.
Anybody else owns the territory: yes, but now I own the territory with 0 units + the new bonus.
The territory is neutral: yes, but now I own the territory with 0 units + the new bonus.

 

Universal Factory

The units granted from my continent bonus are placed in the factory territory if:

I own the territory: yes.
Anybody else owns the territory: yes.
The territory is neutral: yes.

 

Universal -N Factory

The units granted from my continent bonus are placed in the factory territory if:

I own the territory: yes.
Anybody else owns the territory: yes.
The territory is neutral: no.

 

Universal +N Factory

The units granted from my continent bonus are placed in the factory territory if:

I own the territory: No.
Anybody else owns the territory: No.
The territory is neutral: yes.

 

Now this should make a little more sense:

Standard (adds units only if you own the territory) AutoCapture (assigns the territory to the player and adds units) Universal (add units to territory no matter who owns it) Universal-N (add units to territory only if it is not occupied by Neutral) Universal+N (add units to territory only if it is occupied by Neutral)The not-Basics-at-allNow come the uses of this oh-so-incredibly powerful tool.To use these tools, you will need to have abandon on, with territories reverting to neutral immediately.

Counters

One of the first tools that is important to understand is how to make a turn counter.

Create a column of 10 territories.   Label them 0-9.  Create another column of 10 territories.   Label them 10-90  Create a continent that contains Territory 0 Make that continent bonus +1 with an AutoCapture Factory. Make the Factory Territory "1" Create another continent that contains territory 0 Make the continent bonus -1 with a Standard Factory Make the Factory Territory "0" 

 Have the player begin owning territory 0.  At the beginning of his next turn, he will gain ownership of territory "1" and lose ownership of territory "0"

From there, you can build any clock you want.

 

With a timer in place, you can link events to certain time intervals.  I can say "Every 4 turns" by using a timer where the continent includes "Territory 4" (from the example above), and reset the clock at 4.  Now you can have Continent bonuses cool down.  You can even have a continent bonus reset the clock.  All you have to do is make one territory abandon all its units with a negative factory bonus, and gain a new territory to keep track.

 

AutoCapture FTW

If you want to have an objective based victory.  Have your objectives make up one big continent that autocaptures your opponent's capital city to end the game.  You can even have the capital not connect to anything at all, but just sit there and wait for the objective to be met.  

You can also use the capital as a member of a continent, so that you can be sure that a specific player triggers the continent, not just anybody.  This is a very helpful tool.

 

 

What happened to the Basics

 

Unit Tracking and Spawning 

This is a very specific type of play, but something that particularly interests me.  This allows you to simulate a top-down multiplayer game, in which each player controls a restricted number of territories at a time.  This allows for King of Hill style games, as well as what makes Ninja Ball work.  I'm currently working on a game, that for now, I'd like to keep secret, but it uses this in a way that makes me happy.

 

Create your arena

• This can be anything you want.  It's the battlefield that your players will play in.
• Include a location, or a series of locations in which you'd like the players to enter the board.

Create your Trackers

• These are a series of territories off the board that operate without the player needing to know what exactly is happening.
• The number of territories will change based on what exactly you need them to do, but you need them to do a lot of things.

 

Rules

 

1 territory only

• I want each player to only be allowed to have 1 territory in the arena, at any given point.
• I want that player to get a new territory if that one is destroyed

Spawn

• Create a continent that includes a single territory in the arena
• Make that continent bonus -1 with a Universal Factory
• Make the Factory territory the Spawn Location
• Repeat for every territory in the arena
• Create a continent that includes your Player's Capital City
• Make that continent bonus +1 with an Autocapture Factory
• Make the Factory Territory the Spawn Location

Now, as long as that player owns any 1 territory in the arena, the Spawner gets a -1 bonus.  Every turn, your capital is producing a +1 bonus to the same territory.  So, as long as the player owns any territory on the arena, no units will spawn.  As soon as that player loses the territory in the arena, he also loses the -1 bonus to the spawner, so the +1 from the capital, captures the spawner with a new territory for the player. 

 

Multiple Territories

• I want each player to have 5 territories at a time.
• If one dies, I want it to respawn.

The difference

• Instead of making the spawn location the Factory Territory, Use a Tracker.
• Add 1 tracker per territory you wish the player to keep.
• Make your -1's into +1's and +1's to -1's.

Continents

• Create a continent that includes a single territory in the arena
• Make that continent bonus +1 with a AutoCapture Factory
• Make the Factory territory Tracker 1
• Repeat for every territory in the arena
• Repeat for each Tracker
• Create a continent that includes your Player's Capital City
• Make that continent bonus -1 with an Universal Factory
• Make the Factory Territory the Tracker 2
• Make that continent bonus -2 with an Univsersal Factory
• Make the Factory Territory the Tracker 3
• Repeat for as many trackers as you wish.
• Create a continent that includes Tracker N
• Make that continent bonus -1 with a Standard Factory
• Make the Factory Territory Tracker N
• repeat for each Tracker
•  
• Be sure to make your tracker territories have a maximum of 1 unit.

Now we have +n units to trackers, where n is the number of territories owned.  We also have a cascade of negative bonuses.  Depending on how you're tracking, you can invert the positive and negatives.  This system causes your trackers to either be "ON" with 1 unit or "OFF" with 0 units.

From here you can determine how many units you have, and can create a continent system similar to the one above, to have new territories spawn at the base.

 

Is he Basically done yet?

 

There are a lot more things you can do with factories, but it's important to understand exactly what they are, so we all can use them to make fantastic things.  I still am finding new ways to use these things, and it hurts my head trying to figure it out, but it's so gratifying in the end when you get it right.  If you have any questions, comments or concerns about anything factory related, please ask and I would be happy to answer.

 

 

 

ouch. that hurts; but it's good to chew over given time.

clarification: no matter the factory type, i have to wait for my next turn to generate a factory for a bonus i completed on my current turn? so there's an entire turn/round delay for anything factory related? is there any way to generate access to something in the same turn?

thanks for posting this.

there should be a tutorial thread, but i guess there kinda is one with the board designer thread.

never mind. :)

weathertop wrote:

ouch. that hurts; but it's good to chew over given time.

clarification: no matter the factory type, i have to wait for my next turn to generate a factory for a bonus i completed on my current turn? so there's an entire turn/round delay for anything factory related? is there any way to generate access to something in the same turn?

This is generally correct.  With some things, you can have enough math flying around that it calculates sooner.  For example, with spawning, you can have the territory spawn on the turn following the one in which you lose your last territory, but if you want to track a little more deeply, you might have to wait a turn to register the information.

Since they are just fancy continents, they only register when a continent does.

tag, will try and working on updating the Factories Help page with this info.  Thanks for writing up!

Excellent job Nygma. I know that cleared up a couple points of confusion I had about the non-standard factories.

I'm happy to say that Factory Conditions are better than ever :)

Could we get some clarification on what "Team Factories" setting means?

For simplicity, let's start with a standard factory and say that "Team Factories" setting is "on".

Does that mean that if teammates as a group own the continent, that the factory bonus will be given?

Or

Does it mean that if one person owns all the territories in the continent, that the factory bonus will be given to any teammate who owns the target territory?

what does FTW stand for?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FTW

Trivia Aside - FTW means approximately the same thing as Sieg Heil.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Sieg_Heil

 

(Sorry Cram, that's a good question, but I have no idea).

I could be wrong, but to the best of my understanding, Team Factories state that Standard Factories still place units if your Teammate owns the Factory.  

 

Wikipedia For The Win