Some Specific Design Ideas for Maelstrom

[Thunderb0lt]

Wow. The implications are mind boggling. Now will the Greater or Legendary castle impart more control of a region assuming a standard numerical value of 4 for friendly? Also, will we be able to improve defenses of these structures through a 600 order or 601 spell?

[Ry Vor]

Wow. The implications are mind boggling. Now will the Greater or Legendary castle impart more control of a region assuming a standard numerical value of 4 for friendly? Also, will we be able to improve defenses of these structures through a 600 order or 601 spell?

Good question.  I am hoping to eliminate the 600 order via these and the other to be announced PC improvements.  TBD.  The 601 spell may be modified but I expect to continue.

Yeah, there are a lot of implications in just the castles.  So those are a couple of the PC improvements, which are together a big part, maybe 20% of Maelstrom. 

Not sure about the comment on 4 for Friendly.  In the new political model, Friendly will be 1.5 (instead of 1.0).  But a castle or PC with a castle cannot be Incited or Usurped until the castle is conquered. 

This area I think is something of a breakthrough in games.  Its an advance both technically and strategically and with an eye to verisimilitude on how the kingdom is looking.  I think it is a huge advance over #600 order to create more of a novel-like feel, as well as creating more strategic choices.  It's hard to draw conclusions from just that bit shown so far, but we'll keep revealing more. 

For example, as PC improvements become important and alter targets, the Sabotage order changes, to destroy or diminish an improvement rather than the abstract we have now with 600 and a flat reduction in sabotage.  So now, for example, a Sabotage might target an under-construction castle down a step, from the verge of completion to back to foundation.  And sabotage can stack, so the castle project sent back to foundation with a second successful sabotage brings it back to zero. 

While it seems castles and other improvements diminish agents, maybe not.  Not to mention the advent of Diversion and somewhat diminished ability of counter espionage which instead of protecting everything requires either characters or buildings, and then a limited number within that.

Boom shak a locka.

[Ry Vor]

A little surprised we didn't get more reaction on the Castle and village improvement ideas.

Probably Mother's Day.  Man, people turn out for that.

[RELLGAR]

It's cool. A bit to complex and not something that will help much with a first place Rex victory,  but will be for people trying to stay alive the entire game or take 2nd and 3rd place.  Would need to be tied to a Rex victory or it can be mostly ignored.

[JonDoe]

It does seem like a lot of orders to get up to effective levels. Not just the orders to build but a lot the new builders/persons you may need to hire and maybe even level up.
I think the power gamer may just to avoid this and work on the basics. Perhaps if you tie max rulership and or influence to castle level. I.e. You cannot have 25 influence unless you have a legendary castle. All the cool kids have big castles.

[Ry Vor]

Alright, thanks for the additional feedback.  Again, castles are just an example of maybe 20 PC improvements coming.  I don't think they'll be ignored, especially with #600 eliminated in favor of a more robust, visceral system.  This is a major expansion of the economic model.

I have a first draft of the Maelstrom map back from Ralf, which I'd like to share now, but will let him continue a bit first, even if I don't wait for the final version to post.

[Greyhawk]

Players who have followed the forum for a long time will attest most complaints are about making changes, not the lack of making changes. 

In fact, we are missing about a dozen of our best players who have expressed they miss 2nd Cycle.  I don't know what to do with that.  We just can't go backwards.  Old exploits are gone, yes.

I would like to see maybe an old school kingdom game, but with the 3rd cycle rules.  Bring back the Westmen and Paladins.

[Ry Vor]

Players who have followed the forum for a long time will attest most complaints are about making changes, not the lack of making changes. 

In fact, we are missing about a dozen of our best players who have expressed they miss 2nd Cycle.  I don't know what to do with that.  We just can't go backwards.  Old exploits are gone, yes.

I would like to see maybe an old school kingdom game, but with the 3rd cycle rules.  Bring back the Westmen and Paladins.

Hawk, other players like Morgan Kane have said they like the nostalgia aspect.  Meanwhile some players want all new kingdoms every couple years. 

Have you tried the Amazons?  Should be much more interesting than the 1st Cycle Westmen.   The Sacred Order adds interesting abilities over what the old Paladins were.

[Ry Vor]

Wow. The implications are mind boggling. Now will the Greater or Legendary castle impart more control of a region assuming a standard numerical value of 4 for friendly? Also, will we be able to improve defenses of these structures through a 600 order or 601 spell?

I think I understand this a bit better (maybe not) now.  Castles don't add to the population, or the theory players have on how many "points" are needed to control a region, so don't directly change requirements for regional control.  They do make it a lot tougher to take a PC with a castle. 

On that note, again, on Maelstrom the regions will be of different sizes so a straight formula for how many villages and towns are needed will not be reliable.

[Thunderb0lt]

What i was thinking was that if a region was friendly and had a numerical value of 4 ( hostile=1, suspicious=2,tolerant=3, friendly=4), then a Legendary castle may make it they love you = 4.5. You gain influence by building it so why not extra regional influence over the population is my thinking. Kind of like the Demonic ability of Regional Submission or Denigration. Also i would like to see Influence increase to say 30 with these improvements in 40+ turn games as the control of 4 regions implies that you need many more emmissaries/agents thus more orders to control your territory.

Looking at the build orders and resource requirements to get a legendary castle, ie 8 turns, 125K gold/food supplies for 72k defense is quite the time and resource expenditure. But still a triple 600 order for 8 turns would only cost 96k gold/ 72k food but also would only raise the defenses of a PC w/o a castle 24k. Unless one wants to assign a 3 wizard group to add another 48k to defenses by tying up your wizards for 8 turns and no one will want to do that. So to me it is a bargain in addition to providing the PC with diplomatic immunity surrounded by a castle. This is an incentive to move your capital to a city and go for the legendary castle and still build up your city defenses regardless of the castle. Since it takes 5 turns to siege a legendary and 3 to seige the city it should be looked at as a deterrent to the enemy. Unless you are willing and able to outright attack the castle and then the city and time is important, who wants to waste 8 turns sieging? ( and dont be picking on my spelling).

The benefits listed are +1 Rulership- what is that? And +1 influence. Perhaps each Kingdom that builds a Legendary castle can gain a promotion for emmissary as we do with gain of a region. Also maybe they can gain a trait like Feudal or something different for every nation to give them another incentive to build it. I also think that another benefit should be an increase of gold and/or food production in villages and towns in the region due to the increased security and defenses provided by the controlling Kingdom of the region.Not transferable to conquerors who would have to start over building the Legendary castle.

Just thoughts on the implications. Because of the expense of time and resources to build there should be good reason to do it with good rewards to match imo. Thanks for taking the time and energy you put into the game. I am criticizing nothing.