Re: (Review) Fantasy Nations

From: Jacob@Proffitt.nospam.com (Jacob Proffitt)

Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 00:00:00 +0000

On Wed, 09 Jul 1997 23:53:21 GMT, Jacob@Proffitt.nospam.com (Jacob Proffitt)
wrote:

Okay, the day after I posted my review, Mike (the Fantasy Nations Ref) made
some pretty substantial changes to the rules.  I thought it only fair to
report what those changes are and how I perceive them changing the game
overall.  The blizzard of activity on rgp as a result of my post obviously
requires this :)

Anyway, for those interested (you both know who you are :) . . .

The most obvious change in the rules separates productivity from population.
Previously, your income was equal to the population of your provinces, the
assumption being that you taxed one silver talent per population point, with
each pop. point producing two silver talents (i.e. taxes start at fifty
percent of production).    That meant that when you built a mine or other
improvement, immigrants apparently moved in to the province to work them.
You strict realists will recognize that that is kind of awkward.  The new
change creates a formula with two new factors used to determine your income.
You still tax half of production, but each population point produces one
talent times 'productivity' times 'resources'.  Since each province starts
with (as of the changes) productivity and resources of 1, that means we lost
exactly half our prior revenues.  It's still equal as the same thing
happened to everyone, but you can do less than you're used to (since most
prices stayed the same).

Along with the new productivity rules, trade was eliminated as a province
building option.  That means you can no longer pop income into the black
hole of 'trade' and expect your province to grow as a result.  This cripples
the Merchant Prince as one of my special abilities was a trade limit equal
to my production (10 times the limit all other races have).  Frankly,
though, it's not a big loss.  I haven't been able to afford trade for some
game-years anyway.  The elimination of Trade means that you have to improve
your province through boosting productivity and resources.  This adds some
flavor to game play as you choose which projects to build and which tactics
to employ for best future growth.

In addition, you cannot save money from one turn to the next.  You have to
purchase supplies with it, or purchase 'specie'.  Since supplies deteriorate
at roughly 10%/turn, specie is by far the preferred option.  Like most
budget items, specie is limited by what improvements you have in your
provinces.  If you have a silver mine, for instance, your specie limit will
raise by $400, meaning you can save up to $400 per turn (presumably in
silver ingots).

Scholars were eliminated as well.  In the old rules, certain projects had a
chance of attracting scholars.  Those scholars would, well, schol, and each
turn you had a chance of discovering something useful--it was a small
chance.  It was a chance that paid off big, though, for at least one player
whose scholars had discovered gunpowder.  This brings up the reason for the
change.  Mike thought it kind of rediculous that a player with two scholars
had lucked out while one or two players with 12 scholars were drawing
blanks.  He killed off the scholars and created a 'scholarship' line item in
the budget.  Like specie, you are limited on how much you can spend on
scholarship by what monuments you have built.  Building a college, for
example, increases your scholarship limit by $500.  After building the
college, you then have to spend money on actual research.  Mike further tied
research to church spending, again emphasizing the schism between technology
and magic--more on that later.

Minor changes were made to the magic rules.  There is better delineation
between the different schools of magic, as well as a new 'minor magics'
school that can be utilized by anyone.  I don't use magic, so I can't tell
you what kind of specific effects this change might have.

A major change has been made to the rules governing troops.  Essentially,
there are no standing armies.  Each turn, you spend as much money as you
feel you need for troops, with the former purchase price eliminated.  The
downside to that is that you no longer have troop gradations (I lost my
fanatics :(  ).  All troop costs are now paid for using supplies (a minor
simplification, no real change) except for Garrison upkeep (which I believe
is used to indicate how well 'guarded' your population is).

The best change for me, though, has to be the new rules governing navies.
Basically, ships got a whole lot cheaper to run.  Instead of being their own
military unit, ships are now considered a 'monumental project' with a rating
indicating how many troops are required for rowing purposes and how many it
can hold for fighting purposes (how many marines).  Big ships still rule the
seas, but no longer carry such monumental operating costs.  Also, you can
determine how nasty you want the marines to be by stocking the fighting
positions with spearmen instead of security guards (who make excellent
rowers, BTW ;).

Technology vs. Magic

Okay, some of the effect of the new rules drive a tight wedge between magic
and Technology.  As before, increasing your church limit decreases your
magic limit and vice versa.  Since church spending is necessary to build
research facilities (some of which are religious anyway, like the
Monastery), that means you really do have to choose between magic and
technology.  This can be mitigated somewhat by complimentary allies,
nevertheless, it's a strong split.  As before, I still think that magic has
the best short-term benefits with direct purchase of offensive capability.
However, scholarship spending is the only way to increase productivity.
Leaving Magic-users the option of increasing resources only.  This is
something I've noticed about Mike--that he likes to present the choice
between short-term and long-term payoffs and see who takes what options.  To
me, it seems the long-term payoff is well worth the wait, and I'll work
toward that end.  If only I can survive long enough to cash in the dividend.

As always, with rules this complex, there are loopholes.  You can get around
the supply degradation, for example, by purchasing granaries which can be
cashed in for original cost and have no limit on purchasing.  As a result, I
expect Mike to implement a few minor changes as he gets a feel for how
things will run under the new rules (like limiting granary purchases to one
per province--I've only ever had one used per turn by grateful, starving
peasants, anyway).

Another change that directly affects those of us on the internet is that
Mike has dropped sending the Excel and MSWord documents.  He sends results
entirely by email, attaching a .tif for the map and a .rtf (rich text
format) for some province information.  That means he's officially out of
Microsoft's pocket.  I send him my results in email/straight ASCII text and
that seems to work fine.

Well, happy hunting, and I hope this is useful.  If you have any questions,
please email me and I'd be happy to answer what I can.  I love the game and
would love to share ideas and strategy tips (and the occasional ally is
always useful).  Just don't forget to take the 'nospam' out of the return
address (I know I said that last time, and forgot to put it in--I paid for
that with a small deluge of junk email by those dorks who insist on trolling
newsgroups for bulk email purposes--I'm not going to forget again, soon).

Jacob

References

(Review) Fantasy Nations
Jacob@Proffitt.com (Jacob Proffitt)
Wed, 09 Jul 1997 00:00:00 +0000