ATLANTISv2 atl-design-digest #9

From: csd@microplex.com (Christian Daudt)

Date: Thu, 02 Feb 1995 05:30:54 +0000

This file was automatically generated by csd@microplex.com
If you notice anything unusual, please e-tell me.
You better not kill Faction 9 or this service may be discontinued.:-)
Contributions in Silver will be gladly accepted.
----------------------------------------------------------
From: tulrich@unlinfo.unl.edu (Tim Ulrich)
Subject: Atlantis-design: coordinates
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 11:22:06 -0600 (CST)

While I love this game, there are a couple of things that I find a
little annoying.

1)  My main complaint is the coordinate system.  In trying to map out
the realm, there are some problems.

For most games that I've played, coordinates would look something like
this:

-2,2		0,2		2,2
     		-1,1		1,1
     	-2,0		0,0		2,0
     		-1,-1		1,-1
     	-2,-2		0,-2		2,-2

So, from 0,0 one can go north to 0,2, south to 0,-2, ne to 1,1, se to
1,-1, nw to -1,1, and sw to -1,-1.

Now, I don't mind the fact that as you go south the y coordinate gets
larger... no big deal.  What I do mind is that going north west from
3,3 puts you in 2,3.  Go south, but don't move one the y axis?  From
what I've been able to piece together, the following rule applies:

When x coord is odd,		When x coord is even

North			NW    North	NE
     	O			O-------O-------O
     	|				|
NW  	|      NE		   SW	|   SE
O-------X-------O		O-------X-------O
     	|				|
   SW  	|   SE				|
O-------O-------O			O
      South   			      South

That's not the beehive pattern that is described in the rules.  It is
kind of hard to visualize (ie, "O.k., I'm at 22,22 and I want to go to
where my friend is at 20,22.  If I go SW, I'm at 21,22, (over one X),
so if I go SW again, I sould go to 20,22....  Doesn't work.  That puts
me at 21,22.....")

With the other coordinate system, you actually go northwest when you
tell it to go northwest.  Up one y, and over one x.

Sorry to go one so long, but this took up considerable time yesterday,
especially since the rules, when printed out on WP produced the map
section looking something like / (2,0)\  / (3,0)\/
     				 \(1,1)   /   (2,1)\

etc.

So, I think it would be much easier if the final version of this game
went to the new coord system (I realize that a change now would not be
possible).

I had more, but I've forgotten them now.
--
Any views I express are probably my own...
Nobody else is willing to let me speak for them!

Timothy Ulrich					tulrich@unlinfo.unl.edu
----------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 18:17:44 --100
From: Laurent ROCHETTE <mickey@anacad.fr>
Subject: Re: atlantis 2

Geoff answers:
>> There are no conditional statements in Atlantis, and I don't think
>> there ever will be. They would complicate the game significantly.
>> One of the strengths of Atlantis is that it is relatively easy to
>> control many units, and I don't want to change that.

because I asked :
>> I'm in a mountain
>> region, so if I had not the horse, I will not be able to move.
>>
>> Can I write :
>>
>> MOVE E
>> STUDY something

I don't ask for conditional statement, but what happens in case there are
2 orders that taken an entire month ?

If the MOVE order can occur, is it erased by STUDY order or not ?
And if MOVE is not possible, is STUDY order performed ?

Mickey
----------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 95 09:44:47 PST
From: "GDUNBAR.US.ORACLE.COM" <GDUNBAR@us.oracle.com>
Subject: Re: atlantis 2

--Boundary-8337021-0-0

>> MOVE E
>> STUDY something

]I don't ask for conditional statement, but what happens in case there are
]2 orders that taken an entire month ?
]
]If the MOVE order can occur, is it erased by STUDY order or not ?
]And if MOVE is not possible, is STUDY order performed ?

The STUDY will erase the MOVE, and the MOVE will never be
attempted.

Geoff

--Boundary-8337021-0-0
X-Orcl-Content-Type: message/rfc822

Received: 31 Jan 1995 09:33:00                    Sent: 31 Jan 1995 09:30:48
From:"Laurent ROCHETTE " <owner-atl-design@tango.rahul.net>
To: atl-design@tango.rahul.net
Subject: Re: atlantis 2
Reply-to: owner-atl-design@tango.rahul.net
X-Orcl-Application: In-Reply-To:  <9501311552.AA13386@prodpyr2.us.oracle.com> (GDUNBAR@us.oracle.com)
X-Orcl-Application: Content-Length:  687

because I asked :
>> I'm in a mountain
>> region, so if I had not the horse, I will not be able to move.
>>
>> Can I write :
>>
>> MOVE E
>> STUDY something

I don't ask for conditional statement, but what happens in case there are
2 orders that taken an entire month ?

If the MOVE order can occur, is it erased by STUDY order or not ?
And if MOVE is not possible, is STUDY order performed ?

Mickey

--Boundary-8337021-0-0--
----------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 95 09:44:44 PST
From: "GDUNBAR.US.ORACLE.COM" <GDUNBAR@us.oracle.com>
Subject: Re: Atlantis-design: coordinates

--Boundary-8336989-0-0

Good suggestion!

Geoff

--Boundary-8336989-0-0
X-Orcl-Content-Type: message/rfc822

Received: 31 Jan 1995 09:24:47                    Sent: 31 Jan 1995 09:24:02
From:"Tim Ulrich" <owner-atl-design@tango.rahul.net>
To: atl-design@tango.rahul.net
Subject: Atlantis-design: coordinates
Reply-to: owner-atl-design@tango.rahul.net
X-Orcl-Application: X-Mailer:  ELM [version 2.4 PL20]
X-Orcl-Application: Content-Type:  text
X-Orcl-Application: Content-Length:  2019

While I love this game, there are a couple of things that I find a
little annoying.

1)  My main complaint is the coordinate system.  In trying to map out
the realm, there are some problems.

For most games that I've played, coordinates would look something like
this:

-2,2		0,2		2,2
     		-1,1		1,1
     	-2,0		0,0		2,0
     		-1,-1		1,-1
     	-2,-2		0,-2		2,-2

So, from 0,0 one can go north to 0,2, south to 0,-2, ne to 1,1, se to
1,-1, nw to -1,1, and sw to -1,-1.

When x coord is odd,		When x coord is even

With the other coordinate system, you actually go northwest when you
tell it to go northwest.  Up one y, and over one x.

etc.

So, I think it would be much easier if the final version of this game
went to the new coord system (I realize that a change now would not be
possible).

I had more, but I've forgotten them now.
--
Any views I express are probably my own...
Nobody else is willing to let me speak for them!

Timothy Ulrich					tulrich@unlinfo.unl.edu

--Boundary-8336989-0-0--
----------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 13:20:37 -0500
From: mosherj@minerva.cis.yale.edu (Joshua Mosher)
Subject: Re: atlantis 2

At 9:44 AM 1/31/95, GDUNBAR.US.ORACLE.COM wrote:

>]I don't ask for conditional statement, but what happens in case there are
>]2 orders that taken an entire month ?
>]
>]If the MOVE order can occur, is it erased by STUDY order or not ?
>]And if MOVE is not possible, is STUDY order performed ?
>
>The STUDY will erase the MOVE, and the MOVE will never be
>attempted.

Would it be hard to change it so that the orders strictly followed the
sequence of events? In this way, since MOVE occurs before STUDY, it would
take precedence. If the MOVE failed, _it_ would be erased and the STUDY
would occur. As I think Tim Ulrich suggested this would seem to be a simple
way to simulate conditions without actually using them.

Josh Mosher

----------------------------------------------------------
From: "Matthew S. Taylor" <matthew@clark.net>
Subject: Atlantis - Roads
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 18:06:53 -0500 (EST)

I think that road construction would be a positive improvement to the game.
I would suggest the following:

All cities be assumed to have roads.
The only roads we are talking about are serious graded roads similar to the
old Roman roads.
The effect would be to negate other terrain costs so that all areas cost
1 mp to enter when entered on a road.  Winter would still have its effect
on a unit [halving its movement -we are not talking 4wd vehicles and trucks
throwing salt on the roads] but you could still enter areas otherwise
prohibited due to lack of mp since even walking you could move 1 area.
Flying units gain no bonus.

Roads may only be built in areas adjacent to areas that aready possess them,
such as cities or areas of previous construction.

You only get the road effect when moving from an area with a road to an area
with a road.

If roads can be treated as a structure then a road should have to be built
to connect with only one adjacent area ie building a road from 1,1 to 1,2
not to every surrounding province.

Roads should have a positive impact on available tax income, entertainment,
supply, and demand.

If plague and the like exist in Atlantis roads should speed the spread of
same.

Roads should require stone to construct [lots of it]
--
Matthew Taylor

matthew@clark.net

----------------------------------------------------------
From: tim.hruby@his.com (Tim Hruby)
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 13:53:42
Subject: Atlantis: combat Q and probable BUG.

On atl-players, Francis@nemesis.iic.uam.es writes:

> I have several questions about combat in buildings.
>
[all deleted, as I can't answer them until I check the new rules for changes]

Thinking about these caused me to think more about combat in buildings, and I
think I've found a very exploitable bug.  (maybe it is addressed in the new
rules, but I doubt it, since there's been no prior discussion about these
things).

It goes like this:

The Setup:  Side A has a fort (capacity 50), 50 swordsmen (set as the fort's
owners), and 100 archers.  The archers are set to "behind".

The Problem:  Side B attacks.  Although there is no room for the archers in
the fort, they still are effectively protected by the fort, as B has to go
through the fort-protected-swordsmen before he can attack them.

A Visualization:  A fort with 50 swordsmen manning the walls.  100 archers are
lined up next to it, as they don't fit in the building.  Under the current
code, the invading army has no choice but to attack the walls of the fort,
rather than charging the archers, even though the archers are free to rain
arrows down the backs of the wall-scalers.  It is just like the archers were
also in the fort, behind the swordsmen.

The Solution:  Any allied unit set to "behind" should be temporarily
"promoted" to building ownership (for the duration of the battle) ahead of the
"in front" units.  This would give 50 archers protection, while 50A + 50S
would be lined up outside.

After all, the reason you set a unit to "behind" is so that it is protected.
It is only natural that these "behind" units should get priority on the
protection of a structure's walls.

What do say, Geoff, good enough for 50 silver? (I threw in a solution at no
extra charge :-)

Tim

--
tim.hruby@his.com
PGP key available by server or request.
507/7305D1   2C 67 E4 30 A1 A1 B2 2D   94 12 6C 9C 9D F3 A7 B8
----------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 19:17:09 EDT
From: KATHRYN M TURGEON <KMTURGEO@ice.LakeheadU.Ca>
Subject: argh!

Please take me off the mailing list but keep me in the game.  I want
to play but I don't want all this "junk" mail.

Kathryn Turgeon
----------------------------------------------------------
From: Geoff Dunbar <atlantis@rahul.net>
Subject: Re: Atlantis: combat Q and probable BUG.
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 95 19:02:22 -0800

Hmm. I wouldn't call this a bug, since it always has worked this
way (from Atlantis 1 on). I think this is the correct way to
do things, too, as buildings would be much less useful if you
couldn't put your front line in them. I'm not sure how to
justify this on the realism end, though.

Geoff
----------------------------------------------------------
From: Eric Dedieu <Eric.Dedieu@imag.fr>
Date: Wed, 1 Feb 1995 12:55:05 +0100
Subject: ATLANTIS. Comments.

Earlier I signaled that comments were considered errors.

In fact, the comments that followed orders were OK; only the comments alone in
the line weren't recognized (i.e. a line beginning with a semicolon).

Comments are useful when re-using a previous order file for designing new
orders. I suggest allowing "pure" comment lines.

--
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: tim.hruby@his.com (Tim Hruby)
Date: Wed, 01 Feb 1995 12:48:39
Subject: Re: Atlantis: combat Q and probable BUG.

> Hmm. I wouldn't call this a bug, since it always has worked this way
> (from Atlantis 1 on). I think this is the correct way to do things,
> too, as buildings would be much less useful if you couldn't put your
> front line in them. I'm not sure how to justify this on the realism
> end, though.
>
> Geoff

No offense, but "it's always been this way" is hardly a worthy justification
for keeping something that is dysfunctional.

As far as this bug (I'm going to stick to that term, b/c I do think it is a
design bug) making buildings more useful than they realisticly should be,
well, that's my point, and is why I think it is a bug.

You can still put your front line in a building, _provided_ you have a big
enough building to protect both your cowards and your front line.  IMHO, this
is how it works in the real world and how it should be in Atlantis.

Correcting this bug just forces people to build fortresses at the size
realisticly needed to protect _all_ their forces.

If you think that correcting it is going to discourage people from building
(and you want to encourage it), I would say that the best way to handle this
would be to make building cheaper somehow, or change the benefits that a
fortress' protection offers.  That way, you solve the realism problem of unit
placement, and can adjust the cost of building or combat effect as necessary
to achieve the game balance and incentives that you want.  It's easy enough to
make these changes at this stage of the game, as no one has probably gotten
around to building yet.

The example I gave was not the most extreme.  Consider a tower with ten
leaders manning it.  They are combat(5), riding(2), on a terrain that supports
it, swords, and plate armor.  Assume that a force of 100 archers and a
tactician is stationed close enough to react to join them if attacked and
provide missle support from "behind".  (I.e. you have a central region and six
border forts, reasonable for any half-War faction, and you are protecting your
frontier with these skimpy border forts -- I'll grant the defenders are
expensive, but it's what players will strive for).  Assume no free round.
_Equivalent_ mounted knights will attack the tower's defenders at -2, or the
1:4 table for a (.5 * .2 * .33 = ) 3% chance of a kill;  this will be even
less for regulars.  The only chance the attacking side has is if it has
crossbows (X2 <no more elite Xbowmen, I see> = 1:1 table = .5 * .5 = 25%
kills).  It takes 40 Xbowmen to kill all the tower defenders in one turn.  Of
course, while all this is going on, 100 archers are raining down missile fire
on the attackers  (33 hits a turn if L3, and at double the r ate of fire of
the Xbows).  To add insult to injury, provide some "front line" troops to the
reaction force, and they'll be able to rain death even longer while protected
from the remnants of the attacker's forces.  It is going to have to be a huge
attacking force to withstand all this long enough to do 50% before the other
side routs them.  And all this for a little tower.  I imagine that the central
region will at least have a Fort, if not a Castle.  Tone all this down and put
10 elite orcs in the towers instead of knights, and it's still pretty ugly.

Of course, you are God, and can do as you see fit.  But since I've been
discussing this with you publicly, I would expect all the War factions will
now be taking advantage of it, if they hadn't realized it before.  This does
and will cause a extra shift in the balance towards the defense in wars of
territorial conquest, which will tend to discourage such wars.  I don't know
how this affects your vision of what you want to encourage and discourage in
the game.

Personally, I'm more defensive minded, and want my alliance to have a strong
enough defense to discourage attacks from the lawless bandit players, so that
we can do other things, like explore the magic system, etc.  But I view this
particualr defensive advantage as a distortion, because it's not rooted in
reality.  That's why I brought it to your attention.

Tim
----------------------------------------------------------
From: Mark Hesidence <hesiden@Stoner.COM>
Subject: Re: Atlantis: combat Q and probable BUG.
Date: Wed, 1 Feb 1995 12:18:59 -0600 (CST)

Tim Hruby writes:
>
> > Hmm. I wouldn't call this a bug, since it always has worked this way
> > (from Atlantis 1 on). I think this is the correct way to do things,
> > too, as buildings would be much less useful if you couldn't put your
> > front line in them. I'm not sure how to justify this on the realism
> > end, though.
> >
> > Geoff
>
> No offense, but "it's always been this way" is hardly a worthy justification
> for keeping something that is dysfunctional.

Chill dude, he said it wasn't justification but that he wanted to keep
buildings useful.

> As far as this bug (I'm going to stick to that term, b/c I do think it is a
> design bug) making buildings more useful than they realisticly should be,
> well, that's my point, and is why I think it is a bug.

It's not a bug, is a feature ;-)

> The example I gave was not the most extreme.  Consider a tower with ten
> leaders manning it.  They are combat(5), riding(2), on a terrain that
> supports it, swords, and plate armor.  Assume that a force of 100 archers
> and a tactician is stationed close enough to react to join them if attacked
> and provide missle support from "behind".   Assume no free round.
> _Equivalent_ mounted knights will attack the tower's defenders at -2, or the
> 1:4 table for a (.5 * .2 * .33 = ) 3% chance of a kill; this will be even
> less for regulars.  The only chance the attacking side has is if it has
> crossbows (X2 <no more elite Xbowmen, I see> = 1:1 table = .5 * .5 = 25%
> kills).  It takes 40 Xbowmen to kill all the tower defenders in one turn.

Actually it will take more as building defense bounus applies to bows also.

The chance for the knights in the tower to kill the _Equivalent_
knights outside of the tower is (.5 *.5 *.33) = 8.25%

Not a very big difference, and since you usually want to attack with
2 to 1 odds.  I'll even be nice and say that the attackers only have
10 of the _Super Knights_.  So the attackers have 10 super knights,
100 combat skill 1 men with swords and 100 crossbow men.  Who will win?

Chance for the crossbow men to kill defending knight: (.5 * .2) = 10%
So 100 crossbow men kill all the defending super knights and the
attacker's regular swordsmen will do nasty things to the defending archers
since they defend as skill 0.  The attackers will take some losses,
but its easy to replace the skill 1 swords men.

However, you need to take into account the cost and time.  How hard will
it be to get 100 crossbow men?  How hard will it be to get 10 super knights?

>  Of
> course, while all this is going on, 100 archers are raining down missile fire
> on the attackers  (33 hits a turn if L3, and at double the r ate of fire of
> the Xbows).

Does longbow skill effect the chance to hit?  It seems to me from the
rules that skill level doesn't matter.  Anyway if the skill only 1 or if
it is fixed then:

100 archers * .5 (chance for attack) * .2 (4:1 odds) = 10 hits/round
     100 Xbows    * .5 (chance to attack) * .5 (1:1 odds) = 25 hits/2 rounds
                                                          or 12.5 hits/round

In otherwords crossbows are better than longbows if the the battle lasts
an even number of rounds.

>  To add insult to injury, provide some "front line" troops to the
> reaction force, and they'll be able to rain death even longer while protected
> from the remnants of the attacker's forces.  It is going to have to be a huge
> attacking force to withstand all this long enough to do 50% before the other
> side routs them.  And all this for a little tower.  I imagine that the central
> region will at least have a Fort, if not a Castle.  Tone all this down and put
> 10 elite orcs in the towers instead of knights, and it's still pretty ugly.

No, its not very ugly if you do it right.

> Of course, you are God, and can do as you see fit.

Geoff gave his reasons, try to be more diplomatic. ;-)

> But since I've been
> discussing this with you publicly, I would expect all the War factions will
> now be taking advantage of it, if they hadn't realized it before.

Actually you would think the trade and magic factions would take advantage
of it and the war factions would have to find a way to work around it.

I suspect there are or will be a number of spells that will make it easy
to wipe out 10 super knights or perhaps destroy the tower before the
battle starts.  Personally I would find 10 super steath assasins to be
much more useful.

>  This does
> and will cause a extra shift in the balance towards the defense in wars of
> territorial conquest, which will tend to discourage such wars.  I don't know
> how this affects your vision of what you want to encourage and discourage in
> the game.

Its suppose to be easier to defend.
----------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 1 Feb 1995 17:55:28 -0500
From: mosherj@minerva.cis.yale.edu (Joshua Mosher)
Subject: Re: Atlantis: combat Q and probable BUG.

At 12:18 PM 2/1/95, Mark Hesidence wrote:
>Tim Hruby writes:
>> and will cause a extra shift in the balance towards the defense in wars of
>> territorial conquest, which will tend to discourage such wars.  I don't know
>> how this affects your vision of what you want to encourage and discourage in
>> the game.
>
>Its suppose to be easier to defend.

I don't want to get into the main argument of this question of the
reasonableness of building and defense, I think Mark and Tim are doing very
nicely. :^) Still, I find that last comment needs some modification.
Defense in reality is supposed to be easier, but, Mark, you have already
agreed with Geoff that reality matters less than game balance. Thus the
important question, which Tim suggests, is how will this tactic of leaving
your archers outside the fort affect game balance. Geoff said earlier that
he wanted to make taxing easy but holding land hard. If this tactic makes
it really easy for War factions to hold land, then Geoff's purpose is
defeated. Therefore, I don't find Tim's concern as unwarranted as you
suggest.

Still, if Geoff does not want to do a major overhaul of this system for the
playtest, we should just do our jobs and try our darnedest to break the
game! If we succeed, then maybe Geoff will decide to change it according to
Tim's idea of cheapening building materials but requiring all forces to be
inside.

Josh Mosher

----------------------------------------------------------
From: Geoff Dunbar <atlantis@rahul.net>
Subject: Re: Atlantis: combat Q and probable BUG.
Date: Wed, 01 Feb 95 20:40:49 -0800

Well, this has certainly sparked a lively debate! I'm very
interested in the game balance here, and want to know more.

In Atlantis 1.1, I have never been involved in a battle
involving a building. Have any of you? I'm guessing that
they don't have that great of an effect as is, though
they are something of a help.

At this point, I'll probably leave them as is, despite the
lack of realism involved.

Geoff

----------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 1995 00:14:43 -0500
From: mosherj@minerva.cis.yale.edu (Joshua Mosher)
Subject: Re: Atlantis: combat Q and probable BUG.

At 8:40 PM 2/1/95, Geoff Dunbar wrote:
>In Atlantis 1.1, I have never been involved in a battle
>involving a building. Have any of you? I'm guessing that
>they don't have that great of an effect as is, though
>they are something of a help.
>
I definitely have not--my faction still is too busy just establishing
itself. Still, I recall reading in the Times about the war with the
Northern Wind alliance vs. Diamante and Emperor Shaddam; I specifically
remember Vox sneering at his opponents for wasting their time building big
castles. Is one of the participants from that war on the list and
interested in commenting on the effectiveness of buildings?

Josh Mosher