ATLANTISv2 atl-design-digest #23 From: csd@microplex.com (Christian Daudt) Date: Wed, 17 May 1995 00:00:00 +0000 ----IMPORTANT-------- I'm thinking of discotinuing this service.Does anyone read this, or am I just generating these digests to a ghost audience ? ---------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 16 May 1995 18:22:21 -0400 From: jhigham@k12.oit.umass.edu (Joshua Higham (NMH96)) Subject: Re: Atlantis 2.0: Attitudes I like the idea of changing the faction relationships. I also agree that allies should maintain each other, although perhaps a cap should be set, or some type of barrier. Otherwise a faction could, either screw up real bad and make another faction spend a lot of money maintaining, or it could backstab a faction by putting a lot of units with no money in various places. > >One other point that was raised was that perhaps allies should >automatically support their allies in attacking, as well as >defending. This does take away some flexibility, as you couldn't >hold your men out of an attack. Consider this case: > >Faction A and B are allied. >Regions 1 and 2 are adjacent. > >Faction A has 1000 men in region 1, and 1 man in region 2. >Faction B has 1 man in region 1, and 1000 men in region 2. > >Faction A issues an attack in region 1, and faction B issues an >attack in region 2. Say the attack in region 1 gets run first. >Faction B gets pulled in, and if any casualties are sustained, >the attack in region 2 will not get run. I like this idea, but how about just making it a command: "Support" You could support any number of units, and whichever one attacked first you would join. > > >It would simplify things a bit though; what do you guys think? > >Geoff > > > > -- GCS d(?) H s: g+(?) p? au0 a-- w+ v(-) C++++ U[whatever]>++++ !P L (!)3 E N++(*) K- !W M+(++) !V po--@ Y+(++) t(+) !5 j+ R G tv+ b+++ D++ B- e@ u** h* f+ !r !n !y+ ---------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 16 May 1995 18:32:39 -0400 From: jhigham@k12.oit.umass.edu (Joshua Higham (NMH96)) Subject: Armor I would think that the platemail armor includes everything, helmet and all. Also, about being stealthy and entertaining, etc. Perhaps certain actions should be disallowed if you are stealthy (actually make you visible). This would be similar to combat, so if you taxed, or entertained, you would no longer be stealthy (for that turn). -- GCS d(?) H s: g+(?) p? au0 a-- w+ v(-) C++++ U[whatever]>++++ !P L (!)3 E N++(*) K- !W M+(++) !V po--@ Y+(++) t(+) !5 j+ R G tv+ b+++ D++ B- e@ u** h* f+ !r !n !y+ ---------------------------------------------------------- From: vjg@cbnea.att.com Original-From: v.guinto Date: 16 May 1995 18:44 EDT Subject: re: Attitudes > I would *really* like to see these two functions split up, somehow. > The "assist" idea above is not bad, but I would like it to be simpler > than that: have one command, "Assist", that determines whether you > will help your own units or allies by going to another hex, and > another command, "Avoid", that determines whether you will help your > own units or your allies in your own hex. (I am now suggesting two > separate state commands, not one command with more than two states). I agree, separate "avoid" and "assist" flags would be good. For example, the battle in the other region might be a lost cause, and I might want my units in neighboring regions to run away instead of getting dragged into the battle and slaughtered. But I may want those units to kill the enemy scouts before they run away, so I can't set them to avoid. > The issue of letting allies joining attacks is a separate one, and > one that I am fairly apathetic about, though I tend to lean against it; > but in any event, the above terminology could be used to facilitate > this, and avoid confusing mistakes. Yes, this is separate, and unlike others who have posted on this, I dislike auto-attacking for allies. My allies may not have quite the same opinion of other factions as I do, or I may be cutting a deal with a faction in one region when an ally attacks that faction in a completely different region. It is hard to look friendly to another faction when your troops are killing their units somewhere else. Only *I* should decide who my units will try to kill, not my allies. It helps with coordinating attacks, true, but that's part of the fun of trying to work with other factions. -Vince Guinto Renaissance (faction 30) vjg@cbnea.att.com ---------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 16 May 1995 17:11:56 -0600 From: "David R. Shook" <shook@ibg.colorado.edu> Subject: Atlantis 3.0 > [fwd'd from tajones@beagle.colorado.edu] > > a few thoughts on Geoff's commercial atlantis ideas: > > I like the idea of normals only able to go to skill 1 in most areas, skill > 2 in 3-4 areas, and level 3 in one. Orcs being 0/4 combats woubld be good. Something should be done to make the various races more specifically useful; as it stands, you can do most anything you'd want to with any race, as more than a skill level of 2 is not worth bothering with anyway. Something like the above might encourage trading in races. Also, making the higher skill levels more interesting is a good idea; others have made many suggestions to this effect. > Allow normals to have 3 skills, no more. Allowing all skills is too much. > Dividing leaders by race would be more interesting as well. Perhaps leaders > would have a skill max of 3 in most skills, 4 in 3-4 areas, and 5 in one. > Perhaps it is silly to parallel the normals though. > > Forcing production to be based on building mines and logging mills makes > Trade factions even more undesirable. Not only do they lose turns studying/ > building production capacity, lose turns transporting/selling goods, they > are vulnerable to war factions trashing their sessile production facilities. > If someone claims the land they're set up on, they lose it all if they must > move. Unless other changes are made that improve trade factions, I have to agree with this. I guess that is one advantage of forcing war and magic factions to buy stuff directly from trade factions, making them invaluable. > ______________________________________________________ > strong opinions > _______________________________________________________ > > Taxation should be a month long command to put it more in line with the > other faction types. Alternatively, allow taxation as an instant command at > 1/3 effectiveness. Taxation is definitely what makes war factions much more powerful than others at the moment; *something* needs to be done to balance this. > Pillaging is too cut and dried. Allow the chance of peasant revolts to cause > damage to the pillagers. Also, you will lose control over some of you men > if you allow free rein to pillage. You should lose 1-10% of you forces > from desertion. > > Alternatively, make pillaging a month long order. Also, pillaging shouldn't > be 100% effective in trashing a sector. It isn't; it seems to depend on how many men you pillage with; just enough, wages go to $11; 2X that, wages drop to $9. I'd think the population would drop significantly too? And perhaps the raw materials available for production... > tom Dave ---------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 17 May 1995 11:13:45 +1200 (NZST) From: Peter Fleming <pfleming@eros.otago.ac.nz> Subject: Re: Prisoners Hi all, There doesn't need to be a rule change, A faction could surrender a body of Troops or whatever anyway, while still keeping nominal control over them. All it takes is a bit of email. ie. an arrangement that those units would throw down their weapons and follow the orders of their captors. It wouldn't work in a battle-zone, too close to the front, and it wouldn't work in an "uncivilized" area. BUT it could work, especially if a Treaty of Geneva ( i don't think this is right)setup were negotiated, reciprocal rights. -banj0 PS my faction (177) would be interested in becoming signatories to some Atlantis-wide Treaty on the honourable conduct of war. ---------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 17 May 1995 11:39:02 +1200 (NZST) From: Peter Fleming <pfleming@eros.otago.ac.nz> Subject: Re: Attitues again Hi yet again, I posted and then thought of something else. A flag for whether that UNIT will recieve from other factions GIVE orders. ie. recieve 1 = will accept the results of another Factions GIVE recieve 2 = will not accept -banj0 ---------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 17 May 1995 11:44:36 +1200 (NZST) From: Peter Fleming <pfleming@eros.otago.ac.nz> Subject: Re: Attitudes Hi again, Why can't we just trade with anyone ?? Why do you need to set an attitude ?? If i GIVE something to another UNIT then why can't i just GIVE something to another UNIT ?? Oh Yeah, i could give a crippled fool to that Unit of Combat 12 Hero's in Battlesuits with Plasma Rifles. Ok, my proposal... you can't give another the unit of another faction people. The best way is to give em a (new) unit. But you can GIVE anything else to anyone else (in the same hex) simple. -banj0 ---------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Re: ATLANTIS. Maintenance of allies! Date: Tue, 16 May 1995 18:08:37 -0700 From: Anson Winsor <apwinsor@span.CS.UNLV.EDU> It would be better to set a flag to do automatic dole of food to allies. You can set it for the very close allies. That way you share food and battle both. There are some allies you might not want to dip into your moneypool. This could act like avoid, behind, sort of flags that you have full control over. Would also like the flag to keep units in place and not leave to join in battle outside the hex. Anson ---------------------------------------------------------- Subject: See the competition Date: Tue, 16 May 1995 18:29:42 -0700 From: Anson Winsor <apwinsor@span.CS.UNLV.EDU> Geoff writes: >Atlantis, that I've played, has never given messages for production. Of >course, taxing and entertainment are a bit different, because you can't >see the results on the turn report (since you can't see other faction's >money). However, it would be quite a bit more information on your turn >report, and those things are already pretty long. > >I'm not sure what I think; on the one hand, the information is usually >extraneous. On the other hand, there's no reason why you shouldn't be >able to see a taxing unit, or an entertaining unit. For taxing, since >you can prevent others from taxing, I'd probably say there's no need for >this. Not sure about entertainment yet. If I were to add this to reports, >you would need to be able to see the unit to see it entertain. I think you should be able to see who produces in the hex you are in if you are a Trade or trade combination for sure. You need to check out the competition and know who they are. You do not need to know just how much they produce. Taxing should be seen by the guards in the hex. Only if you have units on guard do you get the report. They will be interested in anybody that is trying to tax citizens. Only if you have Entertainers, should you be interested in just who is entertaining in your hex. Others may watch them and give them a bit of money, but you are interested in your competation and try to find out who they are. Of course, this should only apply if your faction in the hex has the observation to actually see the units in question. You will need observation higher than the competing units have. Geoff, could this be implemented? It all seems reasonable things for the game, but how hard to implement is it? Anson Winsor ---------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Joint Attacks Date: Tue, 16 May 1995 18:40:20 -0700 From: Anson Winsor <apwinsor@span.CS.UNLV.EDU> By Geoff: >One other point that was raised was that perhaps allies should >automatically support their allies in attacking, as well as >defending. This does take away some flexibility, as you couldn't >hold your men out of an attack. Consider this case: > >Faction A and B are allied. >Regions 1 and 2 are adjacent. > >Faction A has 1000 men in region 1, and 1 man in region 2. >Faction B has 1 man in region 1, and 1000 men in region 2. > >Faction A issues an attack in region 1, and faction B issues an >attack in region 2. Say the attack in region 1 gets run first. >Faction B gets pulled in, and if any casualties are sustained, >the attack in region 2 will not get run. > > >It would simplify things a bit though; what do you guys think? > >Geoff For some reason, I thought you did join allies in attacks. I haven't been in a battle and didn't find this out. If you currently want to do a large scale attack with all of your allies, do you currently have to give all the units involved to one faction for them to be in the same battle? Or can you all issue separate attack orders and all will attack at once? Or when you issue separate attack orders, do each take turns attacking? Please let me know about this, Geoff. It makes all the different in plans for large scale attacks somewhere. Anson Winsor ---------------------------------------------------------- From: yaj@cc.gatech.edu (Jay Luo) Subject: Re: Atl: Some suggestions Date: Tue, 16 May 1995 16:24:32 -0400 (EDT) > Atlantis, that I've played, has never given messages for production. Of > course, taxing and entertainment are a bit different, because you can't > see the results on the turn report (since you can't see other faction's > money). However, it would be quite a bit more information on your turn > report, and those things are already pretty long. > > I'm not sure what I think; on the one hand, the information is usually > extraneous. On the other hand, there's no reason why you shouldn't be > able to see a taxing unit, or an entertaining unit. For taxing, since > you can prevent others from taxing, I'd probably say there's no need for > this. I actually just want to know who is taxing so I can tell who is grafting some missing tax money in some of my sectors; I have declared a number of factions friendly so as to trade with them, but don't want them to tax on my land. If attitudes were modified as described in another message so that you can set up trade relations (only, no taxing) then the need for this might go away. I do think there might be times when you want to be allied with someone for defense, but not want them to tax on your land, as well. I don't really care about seeing other types of production since it should be fairly obvious who is producing what, just by seeing that unit 123 is now carrying 4 iron that it wasn't. Silver, though, is fairly invisible, so you can't tell who is taxing, entertaining or whatever. Perhaps a 'spy' command could be used which allowed you to ascertain the orders of a unit during a given turn, depending upon the observation and/or stealth skills. > Not sure about entertainment yet. If I were to add this to reports, > you would need to be able to see the unit to see it entertain. Well, if no one can see the unit which is entertaining, then how is it going to make any money by entertaining? > * Prisoners > > I don't think that's something I'm going to add. It would add quite a > bit of complexity, on the programming, rules, and playing fronts, and > I don't think it would add too much to the game (other than a bit of > realism). No problem, I knew it was a bit complex... :) ---------------------------------------------------------- From: Bean <ATLANTIS@bluebean.demon.co.uk> Date: Tue, 16 May 1995 20:57:51 +0000 Subject: Re: Advanced skills > I`ve been looking at Jon`s skill list (being a war faction,... > Fishing 3 > Haven`t got a clue. pearl diving maybe? :) More productive fishing. > Herb Lore 3 > I couldn`t think of anything to append here either. :) > [Sigh, probably because I`m a war faction]. Super strength potions(can carry extra weight)/super fit potions (extra movement point). I'm thinking of the potions in Asterix. Super perception potions(learn faster/see into the next hex/see nearby non-allies turn reports). Or maybe they could just make beer! ---- Bean. Email atlantis@bluebean.demon.co.uk ---------------------------------------------------------- From: Eric Dedieu <Eric.Dedieu@imag.fr> Date: Wed, 17 May 1995 10:23:40 +0200 Subject: Tricks about the avoid flag and supporting attacks 1) ABOUT THE AVOID FLAG There was one thing I didn't understand up to now and allows much flexibility (I was for an HOLD flag, but no more now) : If you have a unit with its faction revealed, it will automatically join any combat in its own hex, but avoid joining those in other hexes. If you don't reveal the faction, then it will also try to avoid combat in its own hex, provided its faction cannot be seen by the attacker. 2) ABOUT AUTOMATICALLY SUPPORTING ATTACKING ALLIES I rather suggest this : if two allies issue an ATTACK order against the same units, there are considered together for one combat, rather than two separate combats. The advantage is that you can make your support automatic or not at your will : * If the attack was issued via an ATTACK order, you just make an agreement with your ally to attack together. * If the attack was due to an ADVANCE movement, and the two allies are on guard with the same unfriendly attitude against the intruder, they automatically join, but not in an other case. -- Eric Dedieu (Eric.Dedieu@imag.fr) LIFIA - 46 av. Felix Viallet, 38031 Grenoble Cedex, France Tel: 76 57 48 13 - Fax: 76 57 46 02 - Dom: 76 49 78 80 ---------------------------------------------------------- From: Eric Dedieu <Eric.Dedieu@imag.fr> Date: Wed, 17 May 1995 10:35:07 +0200 Subject: Re: ATLANTIS. Maintenance of allies ? "D.J. McGaw" writes : >Stoopid Suggestion, matey!!!! >Absolutely idiotic!! >So for this idea! >STOOPID! Wow ! Ridicoolous answers are a match... you win. Now, let's DISCUSS why I think the advantages overcome the drawbacks : >If your ally has an absolute tonne of leaders and you have a few working men, >then he will drain your resources! In this case you would have make him a friend, not an ally. Maybe HE should have set you ally, rather. >I set my allies as people I work with closely, and try to set myself up with >them! This IS stoopid. Ally is not just a token of being nice : your allies are people you automatically defend in a battle (that's the only thing ally adds to friendly). For example, I hardly imagine a pure trade faction without an army having any allies. Many friends : yes. If you have an ally, you have combat units to help him. Most frequently, these combat units also tax, and CAN support the maintenance of many others. So the "drain of money" case would be rare. An annoying one, but for me the advantage of automatic support would still be stronger. IMHO. -- Eric Dedieu (Eric.Dedieu@imag.fr) LIFIA - 46 av. Felix Viallet, 38031 Grenoble Cedex, France Tel: 76 57 48 13 - Fax: 76 57 46 02 - Dom: 76 49 78 80 ---------------------------------------------------------- From: Lewis Haddow <9235367@arran.sms.ed.ac.uk> Date: Wed, 17 May 1995 09:47:17 +0000 Subject: Re: Attitudes You can't give single characters anyway, only whole units! > Hi again, > Why can't we just trade with anyone ?? > Why do you need to set an attitude ?? > If i GIVE something to another UNIT then why can't i just > GIVE something to another UNIT ?? > > Oh Yeah, i could give a crippled fool to that Unit of Combat 12 > Hero's in Battlesuits with Plasma Rifles. > > Ok, my proposal... > you can't give another the unit of another faction people. > The best way is to give em a (new) unit. > But you can GIVE anything else to anyone else (in the same hex) > simple. > > -banj0 > Referenced By Up