General Maelstrom

[Jumpingfist]

Unless it is going to have an interactive map I would rather not have to plot my emissary movements.  The longest part of doing my turns at times is moving my groups around.

Just curious: I don't think you played Fall of Rome.  Is that correct?  That interactive map is on the agenda, but not likely for Maelstrom.  So in Fall of Rome, moving groups ("forces" in that game, which term I prefer)  was one of the easiest things to do.  Just click on your destination and it will show the quickest route and you can modify it if you wish.

Yes did not get to play.  I went to the site a few days after everything seemed to fail.   But have heard many mentions of FoR things.   So I could easily imagine how nice an interactive map would be for plotting movement.  The bananas parcer was almost there, you could click squares and it would tell you the letters to enter into the order form.

[Ry Vor]

With what has been mentioned possibly 25+ building and new characters.  Perhaps some kind of format that has kingdom stay in there home region the first 8-10 turns, building there kingdom how they would like before everyone starts a war.   The Ready button would likely accelerate these turn so they do not drag on.   It could be taken further to be you can not cross a regional boarder until the turn after you or they declare you enemy.

I'm kind of with you except when it comes down to how to execute it, its more difficult.

I have a new Alamaze-centric game I have notes on that I call (only to myself until now) "Baronies".  It may be the eventual Kingdoms of Arcania.

Anyway, the whole ruling class was wiped out on a crusade-like mission.  The King survived at home, but is in ill health.  You are a contender to become Baron of the land your father or uncle once ruled, but you have contenders for the title. 

You start with a much smaller fiefdom and entourage than in Alamaze.  You may come to know your initial 12 or so knights personally and see their reputations grow as does your legacy.

Lots of kingdom customization, spending points, bidding for things.  So it's not overtly the Warlock Kingdom, but you can kind of make it into that (for example).

[Ry Vor]

I'm thinking the default range for emissaries to be 6 instead of 8.  Even a patrol can only currently cover 25 movement points, why should some Count cover potentially more than 40 as is the case today?  I ask you, Citizens. 

Riders would have range 7, flight 8. 

Generally, both more "realistic" and political blitzes would require more staging. 

In general, I am looking for more of a 40 turn game than a 30 turn game, with more development.  I was originally against that as a designer in the 1980's because players were paying by the turn.  Now we pay for a subscription and for a game start, so players likely are in favor of a bit longer game, with more interesting ways to strategize when haste is not quite as important to winning.

I think the Range 6 would be VERY limiting.  I think Range 8 is pretty dead on.  You do have Riders trait and Red Elk Mount to extend.  As for logic, the much smaller emmy entourage could be assisted by lesser magics, ship travel, and fast moving carriages?  And the emmy entourage travels in a direct line from PC A to PC B, while groups are constantly exploring and always having to be prepared for combat plus you have the logistics of organizing potentially tens of thousands of creatures for movement.

I've settled on 7 as the default range (down from 8 in The Choosing).  Riders have 8, Flight has 9. 

Looking at the Maelstrom map and the city locations, I don't think we need any special setup changes, including in odd region shapes like Zamora.  In very rare setup circumstances, its conceivable a capital in say The Diamond Coast could be outside range of the undisclosed minor city location.  But that would be about 1 in 1000.

[Ry Vor]

Would add to the previous, with a human division outside each city stopping turn 1 and turn 2 emissary relocations to cities, the rush to control the city is already relegated a few turns.

Also, there will be a spell like a speed spell to accelerate emissary (political and agent) movement, likely by the wizard power -1. So a Power 3 can add 2 to the range of emissaries by casting a spell.

[Tomag Ironfist]

A big concern I have had for Maelstrom is all of the additions to a kingdom's infrastructure. I truthfully believe that many of these design features will go virtually unused. I believe that this is a design flaw because if you choose to invest in developing PCs, and then lose them, you are losing twice as much; you are losing the PC itself, plus all of the investment you put into it.

Along side my previous argument, I feel that there will be no room for these infrastructure enhancements if we must choose between these new enhancements and the orders that we typically see in a game of 3rd cycle. Would you rather spend two orders to upgrade a PC, or two orders to 350 move an emmy and then 330 to usurp a new PC? There are so many more orders that are much more beneficial than enhancing a PC that you already own.

With that said, I believe that these are mechanics that need to be implemented into the game in some way. It adds so much dynamic, and augments the preexisting strategy of the game. All of the ideas are SO FREAKING COOL! I would LOVE to build castles, hire engineers, and add secretive defenses to my PCs, but I am afraid that I would miss out on these features because I would need to expend all 20 of my rulership orders to move 12 emmies, recon 4 PCs, and move 4 military groups to work toward the goal of winning the game - acquiring more regions!

I have a proposition that I believe is inarguably the best solution to the inevitable ignorance of these new features to Maelstrom. We are already separating RULERSHIP (the number of orders that you can issue) and INFLUENCE (the potency of emmies)... I would like to suggest the addition of a new distinctive 'order set' called "craftsmanship." Craftsmanship is separated from rulership entirely, and would be the amount of orders that you issue on infrastructural features, such as new buildings, new PC characters, and various PC enhancements.

So now, you have 20 rulership order to move your 12 emmies, 4 recons, and 4 military groups AND your kingdom has 10 "craftsmanship" that can only be expended by making PC enhancements. This distinction gives players incentive to use and strategize the new features, in a way forcing their use and implementation into the meta of the game.

I really want these features to be in the meta of the game because I want to be able to play with them AND be competitive with the kingdom that I am playing. I believe that without this distinction that they will be benevolently ignored because there will be more 'pressing' orders to attend to each turn. By distinguishing the infrastructure orders (craftsmanship) and rulership, players are forced to take advantage of the new features, making for a more engaging gameplay experience

Obviously, I am open to the name (craftsmanship) being changed as well as the numbers being toyed with for the sake of balance. But I would like to urge you to consider the concept!

As always, thanks for reading Even if it just churns some creative juices!

[RELLGAR]

I was thinking almost the same thing, great post. I was thinking of not using almost all these new features and winning some games, while other players where distracted by the new orders.

[Ry Vor]

OK, good discussion, and as I age I become less defensive on design, I think.  Maybe. 

So the argument is to have extra orders to build your economy rather than have to decide between that and other objectives.  Am I correct?

I'm not seeing that as a design improvement.  I think harder choices are what matters, not mitigating hard choices.  I think Maelstrom, starting with "your" region, and how to develop it, will play differently than The Choosing from the get-go.  We'll keep running The Choosing games.  But in Maelstrom, there will be more reason to develop your region and less emphasis to and reward from swarming.  It makes Alamaze even more strategic.

[unclemike]

To help encourage pc development, the game could be changed to be more like Age of Empires where there are fewer pc's to conquer but they are much tougher and more developed in nature. That way, there will be more emphasis on pc development since there are fewer pc's on the map and they could be better protected by your groups. About craftsmanship, it'll probably be easier just to make all pc improvements free like group transfers.

[Ry Vor]

To Tomag's heartfelt post, again, there are lots of differences in Maelstrom.  For example, your Duke and Count won't be moving to a city on turn 1 or turn 2.  That's four extra orders early and 18,000 more gold to spend.

The limit on Rulership will be 30, so along with Enamor and Denigrate being shared results with anyone with possessions in the region, the Ruler orders will take a bit more reflection from the player.  Starting militaries about one brigade less and wizards a bit less plentiful for the wizard kingdoms and spell lists a bit higher.  So it seems without putting in a rule to restrict invasions, there will be a period of development.  Probably recruit some brigades not normally done now.  You'll need a wizard tower to get above Power 5.

The PC defense improvements are stronger than the existing 600 order and probably less expensive.  The economic improvements can be powerful to fund your other efforts.  For example:    Granary. +25% supplies production,  +0.1 to influence, -5 points (more susceptible) counter espionage from civilian traffic.   To construct, costs 5k supplies and 5k gold.   Compare that to the current #600 that costs 6000 gold and 3000 food (supplies) to increase one element 1000.

I don't think we'll have to twist arms to have the PC improvements utilized, and I didn't even mention castles.  Oops.

[JonDoe]

along the lines of giving information about denigrate and enamor. What about something like a global news section of the turn. Where you randomly get information of battles and conquests. I would think based on group size or PC size.

Examples could be the 1GN army group defeated the 3AM army in plains of QD. Suffering minor losses and dealing devestating losses to the Amazon force. This would give some basic information and in this case likely the GN is not even there anymore by the time the report comes out.

PCs could also generate report when conquored or successfully repelling an enemy.

A very low percentage per battle should generate a bit of new most every turn. It could be possible the same report is made from both sides of the fight. Something like.
Div 0.5%, army 1%, army group 2%, 100% destruct x2 chance
Village 0.5%, town 1%, City 2%, capital 5%