Maelstrom 2.0 Military Changes

[Ry Vor]

Yes, I am talking with Uncle Mike on timing for the next upgrade.  He is keen for a straight flush, so it may take a bit of time.

[Wookie Panz]

Yes, I am talking with Uncle Mike on timing for the next upgrade.  He is keen for a straight flush, so it may take a bit of time.

I guess it is a sign of the times that the phrase, straight flush, brings t.p. to mind.   How quickly our thoughts return to our current predicament.

Keep up the fine work Ry Vor and U.M. too.

[Ry Vor]

Yes, I am talking with Uncle Mike on timing for the next upgrade.  He is keen for a straight flush, so it may take a bit of time.

I guess it is a sign of the times that the phrase, straight flush, brings t.p. to mind.   How quickly our thoughts return to our current predicament.

Keep up the fine work Ry Vor and U.M. too.

Wook, you have your own brand of humor. 

To clarify, Mike has his own stuff going on, and Alamaze development is something that requires a lot of attention, so for Mike, he wants to go big or stay home.  So my job is to wrap things up by the end of April - going bigger than I thought - and then turn it over to Mike.

Just since I am on this topic, various things go on behind the scenes.  For one, we are trying to get our websites to be labeled as secured, so https instead of http so visitors don't see "this site is unsecured" and run away.   We had that IBM hosting issue where we had to act fast to move everything to a different hosted server, and I did consider doing just what other PBM companies do and run Alamaze on my own machine, or a new machine in my house.  But we chose to keep having a hosted server with IBM, and their manager despite causing a bit of panic with the announcement that we had a week to act was pretty helpful getting us through the transition.  Of course, there are other issues related to the business, recently doing the Subchapter S corporate tax return, lately trying to change domain registrars, other stuff. 

We also see we don't retain potential players because they don't register for and use this forum. You may have seen a few attempts by newbs to directly start 12 player games in the game creator, and they die. So we want to change how games are formed and simplify that process.

We hope players will attempt to get friends and acquaintance to experience Alamaze.  In this age of point and click its really hard to get non-PBM players to launch in Alamaze, even with recent efforts from Strylian.  So we kind of need players to mentor new players that they can introduce to what we think is the best strategy game they can play.

[RELLGAR]

The game order input site and the forum need to be one in the same, not separate.

[Ry Vor]

The game order input site and the forum need to be one in the same, not separate.

I don't know how to do that, exactly.  Actually it is quite surprising how many third parties are involved.  But yes, we want to change the Queue and the whole process of the game sign-up to not require forum registration.  Ultimately of course, we want these players to join the forum, but not for the forum to be an obstacle.

[Senior Tactician]

"c. Orc brigades capped at 15% morale bonus if 5+ brigades in group"

NNNNnnnoooooooooooooo!!!!

Ooooh my poor Orcs.....

Gor no like.

Seriously though, I know its probably too late for this round but I just had an idea: making water combat more interesting.  You could make the different ship types (galley, barge, etc) actually mean something tactical... like ships could, for instance, grapple and the troops on board could fight for control of remaining ships.

Big ships with cannons could blow away their enemies from a distance, sure, but they could also grapple and commandeer enemy ships.  High quality ships would be faster, and could more easily either escape or close with their slower enemy, as the situation dictated.

If interested I would be happy to help come up with specifics for more involved naval combat.

[unclemike]

"c. Orc brigades capped at 15% morale bonus if 5+ brigades in group"

NNNNnnnoooooooooooooo!!!!

Ooooh my poor Orcs.....

Gor no like.

Seriously though, I know its probably too late for this round but I just had an idea: making water combat more interesting.  You could make the different ship types (galley, barge, etc) actually mean something tactical... like ships could, for instance, grapple and the troops on board could fight for control of remaining ships.

Big ships with cannons could blow away their enemies from a distance, sure, but they could also grapple and commandeer enemy ships.  High quality ships would be faster, and could more easily either escape or close with their slower enemy, as the situation dictated.

If interested I would be happy to help come up with specifics for more involved naval combat.

Experimental game 300 (back in 2nd Cycle days), had more advanced naval enhancements like Greek Fire, Battering Ram, Reinforced Hull, Admiral Maneuvers, etc. which showed up on the kingdom turn report under the seapower section but Rick didn't like them so they were scuttled :>

BTW, that experimental game also had high level wizard spells that did more damage with special effects like Ice Torrent, Acid Rain, Prismatic Rays, Disintegrate, Cry of the Banshee, among others. Pretty cool stuff but Rick decided to go another route and introduced the concept of spell density which enabled current spells like Firestrike to do more damage against larger-sized foes.

About the Winter 2020 Update that I just posted, I wished I had more time to include more items but that's all that I can do this time around. Rick has more design stuff planned but it will have to wait until next time...

[PTRILEY]

UM, thank you for what you do to try and enhance the game. It’s appreciated.

[Wookie Panz]

This is the kind of stuff that gives fresh legs to the game.  It's always nice to have something new that we have not tried out yet.  Thanks to both Ry Vor and Uncle Mike for keeping us going.

[Senior Tactician]

"c. Orc brigades capped at 15% morale bonus if 5+ brigades in group"

NNNNnnnoooooooooooooo!!!!

Ooooh my poor Orcs.....

Gor no like.

Seriously though, I know its probably too late for this round but I just had an idea: making water combat more interesting.  You could make the different ship types (galley, barge, etc) actually mean something tactical... like ships could, for instance, grapple and the troops on board could fight for control of remaining ships.

Big ships with cannons could blow away their enemies from a distance, sure, but they could also grapple and commandeer enemy ships.  High quality ships would be faster, and could more easily either escape or close with their slower enemy, as the situation dictated.

If interested I would be happy to help come up with specifics for more involved naval combat.

Experimental game 300 (back in 2nd Cycle days), had more advanced naval enhancements like Greek Fire, Battering Ram, Reinforced Hull, Admiral Maneuvers, etc. which showed up on the kingdom turn report under the seapower section but Rick didn't like them so they were scuttled :>

BTW, that experimental game also had high level wizard spells that did more damage with special effects like Ice Torrent, Acid Rain, Prismatic Rays, Disintegrate, Cry of the Banshee, among others. Pretty cool stuff but Rick decided to go another route and introduced the concept of spell density which enabled current spells like Firestrike to do more damage against larger-sized foes.

About the Winter 2020 Update that I just posted, I wished I had more time to include more items but that's all that I can do this time around. Rick has more design stuff planned but it will have to wait until next time...

If I had money, or skill, I'd help out. Unfortunately, all I have is time.  You are doing a fantastic job, I wish I could give you some of my time.