ATLANTISv2 atl-design-digest #22

From: csd@microplex.com (Christian Daudt)

Date: Tue, 16 May 1995 00:00:00 +0000

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From: Lewis Haddow <9235367@arran.sms.ed.ac.uk>
Date:          Tue, 16 May 1995 14:54:45 +0000
Subject:       Re: Atl: Some suggestions

concerning this prisoner idea:
It seems very complicated and a bit unneccessary.  I see the point:
heroic rescues of valuable units.  Perhaps only leaders should be
taken as prisoners, and all the rest "lost" (either executed or
chased away) immediately.  Perhaps it might be possible to convert
defeated leaders to one's own faction.  In medieval Europe, loyalty
to one's country and so on did not exist, and physical force and gold
were the only ways of guaranteeing loyalty.  (The former more than
the latter.)
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From: adrian@per.dms.csiro.au
Subject: Re: ATLANTIS. Maintenance of allies ?
Date: Tue, 16 May 1995 21:58:19 +0800 (WST)

Eric Dedieu writes:
>
>I tried to rescue an ally unit by moving to its location with money, hoping
>that I would automatically share it with my starving allies as I would do with my own units. It didn't work.
>
>I suggest to make this automatic. Imagine for example a war faction A
>maintening an ally trade faction B : should A fail once to give money to B's
>units (because of an error in the orders), they will die. It is hard.
>
>So it would be a second difference between ally and friendly : you
>automatically rescue ally factions for maintenance as well as for battle.
>
>--
>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

I agree! I have often thought the same thing myself. If you are declared allies
then your units will fight to the death to defend each other .. it's not much
to expect them to dip into their pockets as well.

It seems incredible that A's units will defend B's from attack, then let them
starve to death on the streets. Why bother defending them?

#44 Mutants
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Adrian Smith
adrian@per.dms.csiro.au
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Date: Tue, 16 May 1995 16:25:14 +0200
From: "Michael O. Akinde" <strategy@kom.auc.dk>
Subject: Advanced skills

I`ve been looking at Jon`s skill list (being a war faction, I hate
surprises, and it seems to me thatare a lack of advanced skills in
the game. (Of course, some people may just not have been telling the
truth. :)

Anyway, here are some suggestions for advanced skills which I thought
up. *8) Strangely enough, they are skills which war factions can use...

Carpenter 3
A unit with this skill may PRODUCE catapults from 5 units of wood.

Fishing 3
Haven`t got a clue. pearl diving maybe? :)

Herb Lore 3
I couldn`t think of anything to append here either. :)
[Sigh, probably because I`m a war faction].

Horse Training 3
A unit with this skill may PRODUCE warhorses from 3 units of ordinary
horses.

Mining 3
A unit with this skill may PRODUCE mithril. :) Mining skill 3 is
needed to determine if mithril is present.

Riding 3
A unit with this skill may use warhorses in battle.

Healing 3
Tum-te-dum. Maybe use whatever Herb Lore 3 produces?

Combat 3
5 units with this skill level may utilize a catapult.

Riding 3
A unit with this riding skill may utilize warhorses in combat.

Items:
Catapults
Catapults can only be fired if operated by 5 men with combat lvl 3 at the
start of the combat. A catapult gets 0-5 attacks every round, and kills
automatically. Each crew member has a 50% chance of taking a shot. Catapult
also disregards behind orders.

Warhorses
A unit with warhorses can utilize their riding skill to lvl 5 as a combat
bonus.

Haven`t got any more time now. How about it, Geoff?

Regards,

The Legate,
Dragon Legions (93).

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Date: Tue, 16 May 95 08:50:19 PDT
From: "GDUNBAR.US.ORACLE.COM" <GDUNBAR@us.oracle.com>
Subject: Re: Atl: Some suggestions

--Boundary-10381342-0-0

Here are my thought on these matters:

* It should announce to everyone in the hex, or at least to units who
   are on guard in a hex, who is taxing in that hex; likewise, it should
   announce what units are entertaining.  The ENTERTAIN command could
   possibly take a descriptive argument for this purpose, e.g.,

ENTERTAIN "juggles colored balls"

results in

Clown (123) juggles colored balls for the entertainment of the populace.

Announcing who is taxing and entertaining can allow factions, guilds,
   or whatever to enforce controls on who taxes and entertains in an area.

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.

* 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).

Geoff

--Boundary-10381342-0-0
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Received: 15 May 1995 13:46:35                    Sent: 15 May 1995 13:46:22
From:"Jay Luo" <owner-atl-design@tango.rahul.net>
To: atl-design@tango.rahul.net
Subject: Atl: Some suggestions
Reply-to: owner-atl-design@tango.rahul.net
X-Orcl-Application: X-Mailer:  ELM [version 2.4 PL23]
X-Orcl-Application: Content-Type:  text
X-Orcl-Application: Content-Length:  2749

Just some things I was thinking would be nice:

ENTERTAIN "juggles colored balls"

results in

Clown (123) juggles colored balls for the entertainment of the populace.

Announcing who is taxing and entertaining can allow factions, guilds,
   or whatever to enforce controls on who taxes and entertains in an area.

* It would be nice if there were a stronger attitude than Allied, say,
   Cooperating; and you can only tax on land if the guards there are
   Cooperating with you.  Either that, or a weaker attitude than
   Friendly, say, Trading, where you can receive items from a faction
   which is Trading with you, but they cannot tax.  This is because
   there are lots of factions which I am Friendly to because we are
   giving each other things but whom I would rather not start taxing on my
   land.

* (Possibly complex.)  During a battle, at the start of any round where
   one side has only units which are Behind, that side should "surrender"
   and all remaining units are "captured".  (Possibly during the "rout"
   combat round, if the force is entirely eliminated they should be
   captured instead as well.)  Captured units become units under the
   control of the faction which won the battle, but retain a "prisoner"
   flag and remembers the faction whom they were captured from.  The winning
   faction can subsequently issue orders for prisoner units, but prisoner
   units may only be ordered to move, work, describe, or give.  A prisoner
   unit which is given to another faction remains a prisoner unit, unless
   given to the faction which formerly owned it (or maybe an allied faction),
   in which case it becomes a free unit of its original faction.  The faction
   controlling the prisoners must pay maintenance for them as normal.
   A combat ready unit of the faction controlling the prisoners may "execute"
   the prisoners (destroying the unit), although this action is seen by all
   units in the area.  If after the combat phase, a prisoner unit is
   ever in a hex where no combat-ready unit of the faction they are prisoners
   of are present, the prisoners automatically "escape," returning to their
   original faction.

(Possibly more complex) A unit with Stealth may attempt to "rescue"
   a prisoner unit; if its stealth skill exceeds the observation skill
   of the units of the capturing faction and its allies, it rescues one
   person of the prisoner unit (forming a new unit if necessary).

--Boundary-10381342-0-0--
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Date: Tue, 16 May 1995 11:44:12 -0400
From: nims@cris.com (Mike Inman)
Subject: Atlantis Design: Grouping Units together

The design list is hot this week, so I'll toss my
idea into the pot (now that I have found the address
again :>

I had a thought that might simplify order entry:

Could unit A "Join" unit B such that orders given
  to unit B would become default orders for unit A?

Details:

Joined units would have to be located in the same region.

To join a unit of another faction, that faction must be
  Friendly or Allied to you (perhaps Neutral, allowing
  unsuspecting parties to be followed around?  Perhaps a
  Follow order would be more appropriate?)

Joining a unit automatically cancels any previous join order.

Joining one's self cancels the current join order.

If overriding orders cause the "joined" unit to end up in
  a different region, the join order is cancelled.

If a unit cannot keep up with the unit it is "joined" to
  and ends up in a different region (walking instead of
  riding, Ship sailed without him, unit is too heavy to
  move, or whatever) then the join order is canceled.

Certian orders would not be passed on to "joined" units,
  examples: Assassinate, Steal, Reveal?, Buy, Sell, Give,
  Describe, Name, Destroy, Teach and Quit.

Orders might be processed as follows:

Any unit with a Join condition will ignore this if there
  are orders for it this turn, even if the orders are empty.
  Otherwise, the unit will copy any appropriate
  orders from the unit it is joined to.  If this unit is
  in turn joined to another unit and has no orders itself,
  the chain is followed until a unit with orders, or with
  no join condition is found.

If the unit at the top of the chain has no orders, then all
  units in the chain revert to default (WORK) orders.

If the unit at the top of the chain has empty orders, then
  all units in the chain have empty orders.

If the chain is circular (leads back to the original unit),
  then all units in the chain revert to default (WORK) orders.

--------------------------

Implications:

I believe this would make order entry easier, workers and guards
can join their leader, making moving around easier, and less
error prone.

It should also make coordination between allied factions easier,
since factions can join up with each other, sharing units without
having to coordinate orders each turn.

The previous implication about following units around actually
changes game-play somewhat, but could be an interesting addition:
High stealth unit tracking a big army unit without their knowing.
Allies exchange "observer" units to verify activities.
Big coalition of War factions roam the countryside together.
Big coalition of Trade factions produce things together.

What do you think?

Mike Inman
NIMS@CRIS.COM

----------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 May 95 09:15:35 PDT
From: "GDUNBAR.US.ORACLE.COM" <GDUNBAR@us.oracle.com>
Subject: Atlantis 2.0: Attitudes

A couple of points dealing with attitudes have come up recently:

] * It would be nice if there were a stronger attitude than Allied, say,
]   Cooperating; and you can only tax on land if the guards there are
]   Cooperating with you.  Either that, or a weaker attitude than
]   Friendly, say, Trading, where you can receive items from a faction
]   which is Trading with you, but they cannot tax.  This is because
]   there are lots of factions which I am Friendly to because we are
]   giving each other things but whom I would rather not start taxing on my
]   land.

This does seem to be a valid point. Allowing someone to tax your regions
is definitely a bigger trust than receiving items and payment from them.
Something like this:

Hostile- attack on sight
Unfriendly- Don't admit to regions that are guarded
Neutral
Trading- Receive goods from them
Friendly- Allow Taxing in guarded regions
Allied- Automatically defend

Alternately, I could change it so that your units would accept items from
Neutral factions. Since you can't dilute skills using GIVE now, that
danger is gone. There is still the danger of being given 100 units of
stone, and being unable to move, but you could always declare the
faction Unfriendly if you were anticipating hostilities.

I'll be thinking about this.

]I tried to rescue an ally unit by moving to its location with money, hoping
]that I would automatically share it with my starving allies as I would do
with my own ]units. It didn't work.
]
]I suggest to make this automatic. Imagine for example a war faction A
]maintening an ally trade faction B : should A fail once to give money to B's
]units (because of an error in the orders), they will die. It is hard.
]
]So it would be a second difference between ally and friendly : you
]automatically rescue ally factions for maintenance as well as for battle.

This is probably a good idea. Although it is a pain to rescue poorly
planning allies, I imagine in most cases you would want to do this.
Any objections?

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

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From: "D.J. McGaw" <u3djm@csc.liv.ac.uk>
Subject: Armours
Date: Tue, 16 May 1995 17:10:46 +0100 (BST)

There has been a lot to do with skills mucking about on (and off) this list!
 Time for my two-penny-th!

I have had this idea a long time, and can't remember if this list is familiar
with it, so I'll elaborate :

The armorer skill should be structured like this :

Level 1 - Chainmail, weighs 1 unit
Level 2 - Stagnant
Level 3 - Platemail, weighs 3 units

Proposed additions (for leaders skills only, ie greater than 4)

Level 4 - Helmet
Level 5 - Sheild

These items do the following bonuses to life vs death situations, :

Helmet +1/12, and weighs 1 unit
Sheild +1/6, and weighs 1 units

This fits in lovely with the currect scheme of things, thus :

Chainmail gives +1/3
Platemail gives +2/3,

so what if you had :

Chainmail (+1/3) a Helmet (+1/12) and a Shield (+1/6) ???

Well, you would have +7/12 protection, carrying 3 units!

But what about the Platemail? :

Platemail (+2/3) a Helmet (+1/12) and a Shield (+1/6) ???

This yields protection of +11/12 weighing 5 units!

What does this crud mean?

Well basically, you can have a well armored man who can fight, or a tank that
cannot (5 units of armour leaves nothing for a weapon).

I also propose that such men cannot ride horses due to the weight factor!

Sound good?

Mail the list for responses - NOT ME!

I have too much stuff to deal with as it is!!!

Regards as ever

Dave McGaw
----------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 May 1995 12:21:31 -0500
From: jobollin@iumsc4.chem.indiana.edu (John Bollinger)
Subject: Re:  Atlantis 2.0: Attitudes

Geoff wrote:
>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.

In the scenario above, Faction B could make sure his troops didn't get
dragged into an extra battle by setting the avoid flag on either of the
relevant units.  [I think.]  However I am not sure that I like the auto-
attack support idea as it stands.

On the other hand, wouldn't it be fairly easy to support both the current
and the proposed functionality?  For instance, give the avoid combat flag
a third state, "assist."  A unit with the avoid combat flag set to "assist"
would join in any attacks initiated by an allied unit in the same region,
with the normal effects on other units of the assisting unit's faction.

How does that sound?

John Bollinger
Melvin's Marauders (105)
----------------------------------------------------------
From: yaj@cc.gatech.edu (Jay Luo)
Subject: Re: Atl: Some suggestions - Prisoners
Date: Tue, 16 May 1995 15:43:19 -0400 (EDT)

> Maybe I'm being over sensitive, sitting here in UK where we've just
> celebrated end of WWII, but I find the idea of labour camps and
> summary execution a bit distasteful. I guess it depends how
> 'realistic' Geoff wants Atl to be.

Actually, I thought of this idea after I accidentally wiped out most of
a faction in battle, not even having known they were there.  The defenders
were wiped out to a man.  I would much rather have captured the leaders
(who were set 'behind') and offered to release them on good behavior or
something.

Since prisoners occur when you could have just killed the units in
combat anyhow, it's my theory that having the ability to take prisoners
will result in more humanitarian combat, rather than less.
----------------------------------------------------------
From: KRISTIAN MAGNUS PETTERSEN <FE6@stud.hibo.no>
Date: Tue, 16 May 1995 21:38:53 MEZ-1MDZ
Subject: Re: Atlantis 2.0: Attitudes

> Date sent:      Tue, 16 May 1995 12:21:31 -0500
> From:           jobollin@iumsc4.chem.indiana.edu (John Bollinger)
> To:             atl-design@tango.rahul.net
> Subject:        Re:  Atlantis 2.0: Attitudes

>
> Geoff wrote:
> >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.
>
> In the scenario above, Faction B could make sure his troops didn't get
> dragged into an extra battle by setting the avoid flag on either of the
> relevant units.  [I think.]  However I am not sure that I like the auto-
> attack support idea as it stands.
>
> On the other hand, wouldn't it be fairly easy to support both the current
> and the proposed functionality?  For instance, give the avoid combat flag
> a third state, "assist."  A unit with the avoid combat flag set to "assist"
> would join in any attacks initiated by an allied unit in the same region,
> with the normal effects on other units of the assisting unit's faction.
>
> How does that sound?
>
> John Bollinger
> Melvin's Marauders (105)

Sounds Great.
 Kristian M.Pettersen
  Xenos (3)
    Kristian M. Pettersen (FE6@stud.hibo.no)

(sig. sigh. Where are you?)
----------------------------------------------------------
From: yaj@cc.gatech.edu (Jay Luo)
Subject: Re: Atlantis 2.0: Attitudes
Date: Tue, 16 May 1995 15:58:12 -0400 (EDT)

> Something like this:
>
> Hostile- attack on sight
> Unfriendly- Don't admit to regions that are guarded
> Neutral
> Trading- Receive goods from them
> Friendly- Allow Taxing in guarded regions
> Allied- Automatically defend
>
> Alternately, I could change it so that your units would accept items from
> Neutral factions. Since you can't dilute skills using GIVE now, that
> danger is gone. There is still the danger of being given 100 units of
> stone, and being unable to move, but you could always declare the
> faction Unfriendly if you were anticipating hostilities.
>
> I'll be thinking about this.

Sounds good to me.  I do think slightly finer granularity for attitudes
would be nice.

> This is probably a good idea. Although it is a pain to rescue poorly
> planning allies, I imagine in most cases you would want to do this.
> Any objections?

I think this is also a good idea, so long as the fact that you had to
maintain an allied unit is noted on your turn report, so you can cut
off allies who depend too much on your generosity.

> 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.

I would in fact like it to be easier for allies to support offensive
operations.  I think the suggestion someone else posted, that an
'assist' flag indicating that units are willing to support attacks,
would be ideal.

----------------------------------------------------------
From: yaj@cc.gatech.edu (Jay Luo)
Subject: Re: Armours
Date: Tue, 16 May 1995 16:17:28 -0400 (EDT)

> Level 1 - Chainmail, weighs 1 unit
> Level 2 - Stagnant
> Level 3 - Platemail, weighs 3 units
>
> Proposed additions (for leaders skills only, ie greater than 4)
>
> Level 4 - Helmet
> Level 5 - Sheild

It seems to me that a shield would be the easiest thing of all to make.
And possibly shields should be made by carpenters (weren't most shields
mostly wood?).

> These items do the following bonuses to life vs death situations, :
>
> Helmet +1/12, and weighs 1 unit
> Sheild +1/6, and weighs 1 units

If a chainmail weighs 1 I wouldn't think a weight 1 helmet would make
sense.  Perhaps we could just drop the concept of helmets and have shields
manufacturable by carpenters?

> Well basically, you can have a well armored man who can fight, or a tank that
> cannot (5 units of armour leaves nothing for a weapon).
>
> I also propose that such men cannot ride horses due to the weight factor!

I don't think such a creature would make sense; historically didn't your
average joe with plate armor also wear a helmet, shield and carry a sword
and lance and ride a horse?  It ought to be possible to wear all the
appropriate armor and still wield a weapon and sit a horse.

----------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 May 1995 14:59:21 -0600
From: "David R. Shook" <shook@ibg.colorado.edu>
Subject: Attitudes (thread 2)

> From: yaj@cc.gatech.edu (Jay Luo)
> > [From Geoff]
>
[regarding the conflict between trading with someone, and letting them tax]

> > Something like this:
> >
> > Hostile- attack on sight
> > Unfriendly- Don't admit to regions that are guarded
> > Neutral
> > Trading- Receive goods from them
> > Friendly- Allow Taxing in guarded regions
> > Allied- Automatically defend
> >
> > Alternately, I could change it so that your units would accept items from
> > Neutral factions. Since you can't dilute skills using GIVE now, that
> > danger is gone. There is still the danger of being given 100 units of
> > stone, and being unable to move, but you could always declare the
> > faction Unfriendly if you were anticipating hostilities.
> >
> > I'll be thinking about this.
>
> Sounds good to me.  I do think slightly finer granularity for attitudes
> would be nice.

This is not a bad idea, though actually, I would prefere that "trade"
be another 0/1 state command, specifying your willingness to accept things
from a given faction; eg. "trade 1 222" would indicate your willingness to
trade with faction 222.

There are many occasions on which I would like to trade with someone who
I would not like to allow into a region that I am guarding.  Just because
you are willing to trade with someone should not imply that you are willing
to give them free reign of your whole territory.

In general, I would like to see commands that affect different things
spilt up into different commands that are not mutally exlusive in
effect.

[regarding allies donating upkeep to each other]

> > This is probably a good idea. Although it is a pain to rescue poorly
> > planning allies, I imagine in most cases you would want to do this.
> > Any objections?
>
> I think this is also a good idea, so long as the fact that you had to
> maintain an allied unit is noted on your turn report, so you can cut
> off allies who depend too much on your generosity.

I agree.  Everyone screws up their orders sometimes, and this would be
a really nice saftey mechanism, especially now that working is not
the default (I still like the idea of a PICK command.... ;).

David Shook
Holy Order of the Sacred Purple Kumquat (379)

----------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 May 1995 14:44:12 -0600
From: "David R. Shook" <shook@ibg.colorado.edu>
Subject: Attitudes

> > On the other hand, wouldn't it be fairly easy to support both the current
> > and the proposed functionality?  For instance, give the avoid combat flag
> > a third state, "assist."  A unit with the avoid combat flag set to "assist"
> > would join in any attacks initiated by an allied unit in the same region,
> > with the normal effects on other units of the assisting unit's faction.
> >
> > How does that sound?
> >
> > John Bollinger
> > Melvin's Marauders (105)
>
>  Sounds Great.
>  Kristian M.Pettersen
>   Xenos (3)
>     Kristian M. Pettersen (FE6@stud.hibo.no)
>
> (sig. sigh. Where are you?)

Yes, I think there needs to be some addition to the "avoid" command,
and have been agitating for this for a while now.

As it stands, Avoid really does two different things:

1) keep your units from getting dragged into adjacent hexes when you
don't want the too be.

2) keep units in the *same* hex from getting involved in a combat.

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).

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.

How do other people feel about this issue of the Avoid command
currently being too complicated?

David Shook
Holy Order of the Sacred Purple Kumquat (379)
----------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 May 1995 15:19:16 -0600
From: "David R. Shook" <shook@ibg.colorado.edu>
Subject: seeing what other units are doing

> From: yaj@cc.gatech.edu (Jay Luo)
>
> 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.
>

I too think it would be nice to have some way of seeing what another
unit is doing; for example if a unit with OBS at least one level
higher than another unit's STE give the command "Observe <unit>",
then it should be able to see either what that unit did for the turn,
or which direction it went when it left the hex.

Observe would be a non-full-turn command, but you could only issue
one Observe command per unit.

As it is, all transactions, production, studying, taxation, etc. is
completely invisible, which is a bit unreasonalbe, though handy
sometimes... ;)

Dave