ATLANTISv2 atl-design-digest #8

From: csd@microplex.com (Christian Daudt)

Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 17:28:17 +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: csd@microplex.com (Christian Daudt)
Subject: ATLANTIS: Slavery
Date: Fri, 27 Jan 1995 21:19:24 -0800 (PST)

I was thinking about the salvery subject and came up with a different
idea:
 1 - Slaves are obtained by the winning faction in a battle. A certain
number ( or all if the defeat was big enough ) of the loser's people
would turn into a new unit, which would be the winner's slaves.
 2 - This new unit would still be loyal to the original faction, but would
obey all commands ( except when 3 happened ) from the victor.
 3 - The loser would be able to issue some different commands for this
unit. Commands that I can think of would be:
 - not-obey: The unit would not obey the commands issued by the master
	faction for that turn.
 - attack: Would attack the opressing unit.
 - flee: Would try to escape that turn.
 - etc..
 4 - The slave unit would be specifically tied to the winning faction's
unit. If this unit is attacked and defeated, it would loose the slave
unit to the winner ( this would also be a way to recover one's unit ).
 5 - Since the slave unit could still be commanded by the original
faction, some faction trying to attack the master's faction could strike
a deal with the slaves to attack together and be freed later on.
 6 - Obviously the master's faction would have an extra command: free to
free a slave unit.

What do you think ?

--
----------------------------------------------------------------
Christian Daudt (csd@microplex.com)
Microplex Systems Ltd.
8525 Commerce Court, Burnaby, BC Canada V5A 4N3
Tel: 1-800-665-7798  Fax: 604-444-4239
FTP site:  ftp.microplex.com
URL: http://microplex.com/

----------------------------------------------------------
From: "Matthew S. Taylor" <matthew@clark.net>
Subject: Tactics & Trade
Date: Fri, 27 Jan 1995 11:58:14 -0500 (EST)

I have noted the several responses to my commentary on tactics, war factions,
and mercs.  One strong current is "who says war factions are governments?"
To this I say I am unconcerned with their dejure status as legitimacy does
not concern me, but theyare defacto governments.  They have the power to
tax and that makes them a government.  All the earliest [and present]
governmental forms offer the basic deal of If you pay taxes [tribute, etc.]
to us, we will protect you from the depradations of everyone else.  The
government does not always live up to its deal, and lord knows people cheat
on taxes, but the basic compact is there.  In Atlantis, the War factions will
generally be the ones to to take and hold a territory, make it safe, tax it,
and probably encourage merchants to come and prosper within the security
they offer.  Sounds like a government to me?

Regarding all troops being mercs.  Mercenaries are certainly the execption
rather than the rule throughout earth's recorded history.  The great empires
were not founded by mercs but by conscripts and or citizen volunteers.  Take
a look at Rome, Iran [Persia], Russia, the various empires of China and the
Indian subcontinent, the Mezo-American empires, and all the smaller empires
of the near east and not so smaller empires of Africa.  The use of mercs is
a historical exception to government stewardship.  Darius tried using some
Greek mercs agains Alexander to provide for an Iranian lack of heave inf,
but it was not the normal course of things.  I could go on, but I will give
the other side a word.

Regarding trade with non-player entities.  I think it would be far simpler
to implement a you pay what you offer, highest price gets accepted first
solution.  Players would be forced to bid what they think an item is really
worth to them at that time and place.
--
Matthew Taylor

matthew@clark.net

----------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 27 Jan 1995 12:45:38 -0500
From: mosherj@minerva.cis.yale.edu (Joshua Mosher)
Subject: Re: Tactics & Trade

At 11:58 AM 1/27/95, Matthew S. Taylor wrote:

>Regarding all troops being mercs.  Mercenaries are certainly the execption
>rather than the rule throughout earth's recorded history.  The great empires
>were not founded by mercs but by conscripts and or citizen volunteers.  Take
>a look at Rome, Iran [Persia], Russia, the various empires of China and the
>Indian subcontinent, the Mezo-American empires, and all the smaller empires
>of the near east and not so smaller empires of Africa.  The use of mercs is
>a historical exception to government stewardship.  Darius tried using some
>Greek mercs agains Alexander to provide for an Iranian lack of heave inf,
>but it was not the normal course of things.  I could go on, but I will give
>the other side a word.
>
There are many more examples of mercenary armies than you seem to think.
The late Roman empire was almost entirely defended by mercenaries. The
conquistadores were primarily mercenaries. Many principalities and even
kingdoms in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance depended largely upon
mercenaries. On the naval side, think of the infamous privateers of the
16th through 18th centuries. Or look further East: the Seljukids (a Turkish
tribe which ruled Iran and Anatolia in the 11th century) used another
tribe, the Turcomans, as their military. The Turcomans never developed any
loyalty to their employers, instead they fought for pay and booty. Citizen
armies were actually fairly rare for standing forces until the modern era.
Atlantis armies are most certainly standing armies--I don't think it too
unreasonable to consider at least some of them mercenaries, especially if
that's how they portray themselves :)

>Regarding trade with non-player entities.  I think it would be far simpler
>to implement a you pay what you offer, highest price gets accepted first
>solution.  Players would be forced to bid what they think an item is really
>worth to them at that time and place.

I agree. Atlantis is relatively uncomplicated. Let's try to keep the
changes simple.

Josh Mosher

----------------------------------------------------------
From: Geoff Dunbar <atlantis@rahul.net>
Subject: Atlantis 2.0: atl-design list
Date: Sun, 29 Jan 95 23:38:59 -0800

This is a weekly posting for the atl-design mailing list. This list
is meant for anyone interested in the rules and design of Atlantis
2.0. The moderator of the Atlantis 2.0 game is on this list, so your
ideas could actually become reality! To send a message to everyone
on the list, send email to:

atl-design@tango.rahul.net

To subscribe or un-subscribe to this list, mail to
atlantis@rahul.net. Make sure you specify exactly what you want me
to do, because a lot of mail goes to this address.
----------------------------------------------------------
From: Eric Dedieu <Eric.Dedieu@imag.fr>
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 1995 11:33:57 +0100
Subject: ATLANTIS. Bug in comments.

The rules tell semicolons introduce comments, but :

Errors during turn:
; is not a valid order.
; is not a valid order.
; is not a valid order.

--
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: Mark Hesidence <hesiden@Stoner.COM>
Subject: atlantis: magic
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 1995 09:28:41 -0600 (CST)

While most of this message is gripes and complaints overall I'd say
atlantis 2.0 is looking very good.

Magic:  Well I just read in the times that there are now 6 spells.
        I assume that more spells will be added since there are
        7 areas of magic and only 6 spells.
        Since I just studied energy and got:

No skill report for energy 1.

will I be notified that a spell for that level has been added?

Also it is very disappointing to gain a skill level and get
        nothing.  While I realize that part of atlantis is to discover
        things, I can't help but notice there is nothing to discover
        about combat and as for trading there must be a few hidden
        things at high skill level but overall you know what to expect.
        I can make an informed desision on whether to be a war faction
        or a trade faction.  But to include magic limits me to a max
        of taxing/producing 5 regions (I could be taxing more than 5
        regions in 2 more turns, i.e. using taxes to support my scouts)

What do I get for limiting myself to 5 regions?  I don't know
        nothing so far.

What would make me happy?  Have at least one skill level 1
        spell for each area of magic and say that these low level
        spells are so common that everyone knows about them and maybe
        add a few rumors about higher level spells.

Taxing: Some people have been saying taxing should be a month long
        command since you can both tax and study.  I have to disagree
        because this would slow down the game, it already takes too
        long to get skill levels.  I suggest giving a bonus to trade
        factions so that they learn while producing.  It only makes
        sense that you would learn while doing.  So once you reach
        skill level 1, when you produce you gain more skill.
        If this sounds to good there are ways to tone it down, such
        as you only learn at 1/2 the rate of studing or while improving
        your skill you loose some of the product since your are
        still learning your technique.

Bonus Feature:   If a unit gets no month long order either due to
                 e-mail problems, over sight by player, other then
                 it automaticly will WORK for that month.
----------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 95 07:44:19 PST
From: "GDUNBAR.US.ORACLE.COM" <GDUNBAR@us.oracle.com>
Subject: Re: atlantis: magic

--Boundary-8311050-0-0

>        What would make me happy?  Have at least one skill level 1
>        spell for each area of magic and say that these low level
>        spells are so common that everyone knows about them and maybe
>        add a few rumors about higher level spells.

I'm working on it! Just keep studying for now, and some areas to
Research will begin to pop up.

>Taxing: Some people have been saying taxing should be a month long
>       command since you can both tax and study.

I'll weigh in on this issue. Taxing depends on how much territory
you control, not on any highly developed skill. One month of study,
and you can tax. The drawback to this, is that other players see
this easy income, and will fight you for it. I want the actual
taxing to be easy; controlling the land is the hard part.

Geoff

--Boundary-8311050-0-0
X-Orcl-Content-Type: message/rfc822

Received: 30 Jan 1995 07:33:26                    Sent: 30 Jan 1995 07:33:13
From:"Mark Hesidence " <owner-atl-design@tango.rahul.net>
To: atl-design@tango.rahul.net
Subject: atlantis: magic
Reply-to: owner-atl-design@tango.rahul.net
X-Orcl-Application: X-Mailer:  ELM [version 2.4 PL23]
X-Orcl-Application: Mime-Version:  1.0
X-Orcl-Application: Content-Type:  text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
X-Orcl-Application: Content-Transfer-Encoding:  7bit
X-Orcl-Application: Content-Length:  2348

While most of this message is gripes and complaints overall I'd say
atlantis 2.0 is looking very good.

No skill report for energy 1.

will I be notified that a spell for that level has been added?

What do I get for limiting myself to 5 regions?  I don't know
        nothing so far.

Bonus Feature:   If a unit gets no month long order either due to
                 e-mail problems, over sight by player, other then
                 it automaticly will WORK for that month.

--Boundary-8311050-0-0--
----------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 95 07:54:19 PST
From: "GDUNBAR.US.ORACLE.COM" <GDUNBAR@us.oracle.com>
Subject: Re: Atlantis: War factions

--Boundary-8311203-0-0

]At 10:13 PM 1/27/95, Jonathan Roy wrote:
]>You mentioned how you can't train while producing.. How about
]>if a months produce is worth 1/5 a month training, or something, or
]>perhaps the amount of training gained from produce is lowered as your
]>level goes up? (Practice has less of an impact as you go up in level.)
]>
]>THe same may be true to give some experianced to units that fight battles,
]>or magiciains that cast spells.
]>
]>Just an idea. :)
]
]This is approximately how it worked it Atlantis 1.1. You got 10 days
]experience from researching new spells, combat (if you lost one or more
]fighters), and producing. Geoff changed this, and actually I would not mind
]an explanation for why he did this. Geoff, want to comment?
]
]Josh Mosher

2 reasons:

1) This led to a bunch of units with different skill levels, that
you couldn't combine if you were trying to be efficient.
2) It sounds good on paper, but really has little effect in practice.

Geoff

--Boundary-8311203-0-0
X-Orcl-Content-Type: message/rfc822

Received: 27 Jan 1995 19:42:56                    Sent: 27 Jan 1995 19:42:51
From:"Joshua Mosher" <owner-atl-design@tango.rahul.net>
To: atl-design@tango.rahul.net
Subject: Re: Atlantis: War factions
Reply-to: owner-atl-design@tango.rahul.net
X-Orcl-Application: Mime-Version:  1.0
X-Orcl-Application: Content-Type:  text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

At 10:13 PM 1/27/95, Jonathan Roy wrote:
>You mentioned how you can't train while producing.. How about
>if a months produce is worth 1/5 a month training, or something, or
>perhaps the amount of training gained from produce is lowered as your
>level goes up? (Practice has less of an impact as you go up in level.)
>
>THe same may be true to give some experianced to units that fight battles,
>or magiciains that cast spells.
>
>Just an idea. :)

This is approximately how it worked it Atlantis 1.1. You got 10 days
experience from researching new spells, combat (if you lost one or more
fighters), and producing. Geoff changed this, and actually I would not mind
an explanation for why he did this. Geoff, want to comment?

Josh Mosher

--Boundary-8311203-0-0--
----------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 1995 11:07:38 -0500
From: mosherj@minerva.cis.yale.edu (Joshua Mosher)
Subject: Month-long orders

At 9:28 AM 1/30/95, Mark Hesidence wrote:

>Bonus Feature:   If a unit gets no month long order either due to
>                 e-mail problems, over sight by player, other then
>                 it automaticly will WORK for that month.

If you have done any month-long activity in the past, that will be your
default for the month. You start out with WORK as the default.

Josh Mosher

----------------------------------------------------------
From: enigma@MIT.EDU
Subject: re: Month-long orders
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 1995 13:24:14 EST

Yous guyz wrote:

At 9:28 AM 1/30/95, Mark Hesidence wrote:

>Bonus Feature:   If a unit gets no month long order either due to
>                 e-mail problems, over sight by player, other then
>                 it automaticly will WORK for that month.

If you have done any month-long activity in the past, that will be your
default for the month. You start out with WORK as the default.

Josh Mosher

Well, it ain't true.  My report shows no default action, and neither
did my leader study the same magic skill (for which he has the funds),
nor did he work this last turn when I submitted no orders.

-Chris

----------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 1995 23:34:13 -0500
From: mosherj@minerva.cis.yale.edu (Joshua Mosher)
Subject: Default orders

I said:
>>If you have done any month-long activity in the past, that will be your
>>default for the month. You start out with WORK as the default.
>>
>>Josh Mosher
>
Chris said:
>Well, it ain't true.  My report shows no default action, and neither
>did my leader study the same magic skill (for which he has the funds),
>nor did he work this last turn when I submitted no orders.

Hmm, I just checked the rules, and it does say once that, like in Atlantis
1.1, default orders do exist, and you start with WORK. I thought it was the
same in Atlantis 2, but I guess not. Geoff, is this a bug or a feature?

Josh

----------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 12:39:58 --100
From: Laurent ROCHETTE <mickey@anacad.fr>
Subject: atlantis 2

Hi,

Somebody must give me an Horse, and only if I get correctly this item,
I will move. How can I write my orders to prevents to do nothing if
the gift is happening wrong (study for example). 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

Mickey
----------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 95 07:52:07 PST
From: "GDUNBAR.US.ORACLE.COM" <GDUNBAR@us.oracle.com>
Subject: Re: atlantis 2

--Boundary-8334186-0-0

]Somebody must give me an Horse, and only if I get correctly this item,
]I will move. How can I write my orders to prevents to do nothing if
]the gift is happening wrong (study for example). I'm in a mountain
]region, so if I had not the horse, I will not be able to move.

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.

Geoff

--Boundary-8334186-0-0
X-Orcl-Content-Type: message/rfc822

Received: 31 Jan 1995 03:55:42                    Sent: 31 Jan 1995 03:55:36
From:"Laurent ROCHETTE " <owner-atl-design@tango.rahul.net>
To: atl-design@tango.rahul.net
Subject: atlantis 2
Reply-to: owner-atl-design@tango.rahul.net
X-Orcl-Application: Content-Length:  322

Hi,

Can I write :

MOVE E
STUDY something

Mickey

--Boundary-8334186-0-0--
----------------------------------------------------------
From: Eric Dedieu <Eric.Dedieu@imag.fr>
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 17:23:10 +0100
Subject: Re: atlantis 2

"GDUNBAR.US.ORACLE.COM" writes :

>There are no conditional statements in Atlantis, and I don't think
>there ever will be. They would complicate the game significantly.

The idea was to devise a way to do it without modifying any sources - to
exploit the mechanics to simulate some kind of conditional orders in some
specific situations.

Mickey proposed:

MOVE E
STUDY xxx

hoping that when a MOVE order is refused, the rest of the orders are not
aborted but still processed.

The answer is interesting... for example, if you fear being blocked by an enemy
in a move, or being stolen before moving, can you try the above order to study
in case you are blocked ?

--
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: tulrich@unlinfo.unl.edu (Tim Ulrich)
Subject: re: conditionals
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 10:51:33 -0600 (CST)

In regard to the conditionals, I just want to toss in my two cents.

It would seem to me that an order like:

MOVE N
STUDY XXX

should allow one to do just what is being asked... study if the move
command doesn't work.  If one attempts to buy something and doesn't
have enough money, or the item isn't there, the command fails, and the
remaining orders are carried out.  I think it's reasonable to think
that if a month long order fails, some other order can be done in its
place.
--
Any views I express are probably my own...
Nobody else is willing to let me speak for them!

Timothy Ulrich					tulrich@unlinfo.unl.edu