2016 The Choosing Philosophy and Other Stuff

[Jumpingfist]

SA has 4 brigades. But I was actually thinking even the 4th brigade would not show up until turn 5. A kingdom like the TY would get 5 brigades and then the 6th on turn 5. Early on brigades are the main scouting force for most kingdoms so you would likely reduce squares scouted making it harder to know where to move those emmies. Maybe cause to fighting over the cities if others start finding themselves with extra idle emmies.

[HeadHoncho]

I assume you mean groups, not brigades?

[Jumpingfist]

Blooded.  Couple issues with this one.  
The concept that having a certain percentage of your friends die to get promoted is ridiculous to me having served in the military.   The average Roman Legionair had a mortality rate of 40% over 25 years of service compared to a normal mortality rate of 25% over the same period during that time.  I think there is no arguement that the Romans were likely the most veteran and elite organized military of there time.  The US lost 6800 troops out of 2.5 million that were sent to Iraq and Afghanistan or 0.3%.  Iraq lost 50k of its approx 350k military troop during that time, 14%.  Would you say the US basically has no veterans? And the Iraqi has more?
From a game perspective it is basically dictating a tactic that to my knowledge never exitisted any where in history where you purposely send in a force with the goal that you will loose a certain amount of troops.
I think blooded and other items like battle ratio, battle length are fine to be a part of troop/brigade advancement but should not be gating items.  Experience is the number 1 item for advancement being involved in the real situation.   Some experiences have a greater chance to advance.   If your unit has fought in 5 battles (1/8 a maximum length game just in battles) with no brigade advancing under any condition likely something is wrong.

Promotion is not about friends dying.  Getting promoted only because your friend died would be ridiculous and baseless.  The term "blooded" actually comes from Roman legions, where a newly formed legion was not trusted in combat unless it had been blooded and they would be assigned missions to overcome this hurdle.  Within a legion, its least experienced legionaries were in the front lines so that they might become blooded.  Veteran troops were in the second and third manacles. These blooded units went on to become the veteran legions.  This is also where the term "decimated" comes from: a legion which showed cowardice would be decimated, meaning every tenth (deca) legionnaire would be executed to ensure such behavior was not repeated.  I'm looking here at my bookcase of at least 40 books on Roman, Gothic, and Ancient military history and could pull any number of examples on how various military cultures integrated the concept of units being blooded to prove they were battle-worthy.

I have posted that the algorithms that are in use to evaluate elevation, brigade losses, leader death and promotion, are under review.  When they are settled upon and enacted, I will publish them. 

This blooded sounds like a great idea for a new order to train your troops from green to regular without spending gold but still not the one true test of a unit advancing in rank.

[Jumpingfist]

On politicals and 310, please see below.

http://kingdomsofarcania.net/forum/showt...8#pid35498

This is a huge philosophical change, with enormous gameplay implications. Will make attacking a region a lot harder, politically.

i would like more detail on this.   Could we get some examples.   Without traits and such influencing results.   Something like prince Joebob with a king of 16 influence tried to take a town in from his enemy in there region.   He has a suspicious reaction level to the enemies friendly reaction with control.  The enemy has governer Georgey with a kings influence of 16 that issues a 320 order.   Joebob brought along his sister baroness Joeybob she issues a 315 order.

I know Ry Vor does not like to spit out the numbers but could you at least tell us the effective influence of each emissary?

[Ry Vor]

On politicals and 310, please see below.

http://kingdomsofarcania.net/forum/showt...8#pid35498

This is a huge philosophical change, with enormous gameplay implications. Will make attacking a region a lot harder, politically.

i would like more detail on this.   Could we get some examples.   Without traits and such influencing results.   Something like prince Joebob with a king of 16 influence tried to take a town in from his enemy in there region.   He has a suspicious reaction level to the enemies friendly reaction with control.  The enemy has governer Georgey with a kings influence of 16 that issues a 320 order.   Joebob brought along his sister baroness Joeybob she issues a 315 order.

I know Ry Vor does not like to spit out the numbers but could you at least tell us the effective influence of each emissary?

Stir Unrest works like Maintain Status Quo, but with the opposite effect.  So a Baron of a king with 16 Influence in a Tolerant region Stirring Unrest does (16 influence / 2 Tolerant * 50% Baron = 4 points Stir Unrest.  This would offset up to 4 points of Maintain Status Quo or reduces PC Resistance by 4.

[Ry Vor]

i"m inclined to pitch the first formats of The Choosing to be Magic (four teams of three kingdoms).  This is because with the limited, in-team communication of Magic, players can learn the new game and the kingdoms, traits, abilities, spells faster by having controlled communication.  I think there will be high excitement on the strategic diversity and would like players to be able to at least share that with their teammates, if not 11 other players.

[Ry Vor]

i"m inclined to pitch the first formats of The Choosing to be Magic (four teams of three kingdoms).  This is because with the limited, in-team communication of Magic, players can learn the new game and the kingdoms, traits, abilities, spells faster by having controlled communication.  I think there will be high excitement on the strategic diversity and would like players to be able to at least share that with their teammates, if not 11 other players.

Just did a mini-draft with four personas in a snake, so Alpha got choices 1, 8 and 9.  Obviously there will be all kinds of outcomes, but this Magic format draft had this result:

Alpha:  Necromancer, Dark Elves, Red Dragon
Beta:  Illusionist, Gnomes, Nomads
Gamma:  Sorcerer, Sacred Order, Pirates
Delta:  Warloick, Druid, Atlantians

The Second draft was thus:

Delta:  Cimmerian, Dwarves, Demon Princes
Gamma:  Amazons, High Elves, Black Dragons
Beta:  Rangers, Halflings, Tyrant
Alpha:  Lizardmen, Ancient Ones, Underworld

[Jumpingfist]

I would expect to see the first draft at least as the kingdoms currently are, well except I would likely take SA as one of the last picks. For the sloppy seconds draft it is interesting that the TY was taken so late. Of the military kingdoms they are pretty strong I think. First draft I would rank Delta the best, second draft edge to Beta but others are close. Beta having 2 solid southern regions plus the tyrant to terrorize the other two southern region seems a big advantage to me in the early game.

[Lord Thanatos]

i"m inclined to pitch the first formats of The Choosing to be Magic (four teams of three kingdoms).  This is because with the limited, in-team communication of Magic, players can learn the new game and the kingdoms, traits, abilities, spells faster by having controlled communication.  I think there will be high excitement on the strategic diversity and would like players to be able to at least share that with their teammates, if not 11 other players.

I think a Forum-Only Diplomacy game would fit your desires better.

Also, I greatly desire to be the first Necromancer player -- but not in a Magic format.

[Ry Vor]

Battles against Population Centers.

I'm inclined to revise significantly PC battles.  I acknowledge that to veteran players, they have a generic feel over time.  Some things I am considering for The Choosing and beyond include:

• The terrain of the PC will influence the defense of the PC based on the controlling kingdom.  So an Elven PC in the forest would have a substantial bump to defense, for example.  We didn't do that in Fall of Rome because it was surmised PC's were cut out of clearings, rather than (say) Elves building their PC's among the trees, or Dwarves directly within mountains, etc.
  
• Instead of PC's going directly and only off a fixed value of PC defense, the relative infrastructure of the PC influences how it fights.  So a PC with a defense of less than 5000 likely has no towers, wooden walls, etc - not offering nearly as much as a fortified town of 15,000 defense with stone walls, towers, etc.  Those PC's would enjoy greater defense and missile values than the smaller village, expressed not just in one numerical value, but in round by round combat.
  
• The traits of the owner of the PC can in some case transfer to to the PC in defense.  PC's controlled by a kingdom with Military Tradition have better trained militia, kingdoms with Cunning place traps like flooding a ditch, murder holes, or pouring boiling oil or fire, kingdoms with Siege Engineering have defensive catapults.
  

From the beginning, defensively minded Alamaze players have felt their strategic approach was not well served by combat resolution, particularly protecting "the homeland".  I admit this makes sense in a medieval setting, where the rule is at least 3 to 1 to attack over defenders.   I think I'll go with the above modifications for PC defense, modified somewhat.  So terrain adeptness, some cultural traits, and regional control will improve the defense of those PC's controlled by those kingdoms.

• If a kingdom controls a region, the internal lines and logistics, as well as nearby rural militia improve PC defense by 10%;
  
• Terrain adeptness modifies the PC defense of controlled PC's by the same percentage as groups, so Master provides 20% to controlled PC's in that terrain.
  
• Several cultural traits including Stalwart, Military Tradition, Cunning, Siege Engineering also increase PC defense by 10% each. 
  

These are under review - not official changes, but I invite replies.  We will probably show two values for PC defense, one as is currently, and a second showing the effective PC defense given the current PC owner and what his kingdom's traits and abilities do to modify defense.

I want to try not to get cuter with making some traits more than 10%, some less.  Let's keep it fairly simple for now, and it can be modified later.  I think this change, along with presentation and combat result changes will liven up PC battles and provide much of what the Turtles have wanted.  What Dwarven King would not be happy with the above?