Clans of Caledonia Automa

I designed an automa for Clans of Caledonia, a kind of program that simulates a real player. A single human player can play against the automa. The automa only consists of a deck of cards.

After some internal playtesting we are quite happy with how the automa works. Thus, we want to release the automa to the wider public to gain more data which might help us finetune the automa if needed.

Gavin has implemented a digital, web-based version of the automa which makes the automa quite a bit more accessible because the digital version is taking care of some part of the handling and it reminds the player of things that can easily be forgotten. Gavin has done a fantastic job, thank you! You still need the physical board game to play against the automa, though!

The automa follows similar rules as a human player but some things work quite differently. The automa does not gain any goods at all but money instead. For the human player all rules are the same except the final scorings of who has most contracts fulfilled and most connected settlements are a little different:

The scorings of max. number of fulfilled contracts and max. number of connected settlements work slightly different than normal: the player who fulfilled most contracts gains 8 VP as normal but the second player gains 4 VP if the second player fulfilled exactly one contract less. If the second player fulfilled 2 or more contracts less than the other player, the second player does not gain any VP for this scoring. Likewise the 1st player gains 12 VP in the settlement scoring as normal, whereas the second player gains 6 VP if 1 or 2 connected settlements less. If the second player has 3 or more connected settlements less than the other player, the second player does not gain any VP for this scoring.

Before playtesting the automa, please read both the short and full rules:

The automa rulebook

The automa short rules

Short, Instructional Playthrough Video

At the end of a playtest session the digital automa asks you to enter the data into a google form. Our spreadsheet automatically calculates yours and the automa’s final scores and you get an automated email with the final scores. That way you do not have to sum up the scores yourself and we can collect data which helps us finetune the automa. Win-Win! Have fun with the digital automa!

Digital Automa: https://cocautoma.github.io/#

Please note that the digital automa won’t be available for free forever but for a limited time only and eventually be offered for sale as a physical or digital product.