Re: Ultimate Goals in Olympia From: srt@sun-dimas.aero.org (Scott Turner) Date: Fri, 06 Jan 1995 17:06:00 +0000 morrow@gandalf.rutgers.edu (John Morrow) writes: >>srt@sun-dimas.aero.org (Scott Turner) writes: >>[one faction shouldn't be able to do everything] > >The only problem is that you get two months worth of "You learn a >little more about sailing ships" in your turn report or spend months >finding a single cave with an orc in it. I don't see how that follows. Suppose that we extend the idea of noble points and call them "skill points" instead. Charge 1 point to create a noble, 10 points to learn a skill category that the faction doesn't already know, 3 points to learn a skill category that a faction does know, and 1 skill point to learn any subskill. Start factions with (say) 20 skill points, and give a faction 1 new skill point a turn. Under this kind of scheme you could become a sailing master and start building ships just as quickly as in Oly II, but you wouldn't *also* be able to become a master builder, a master weaponsmith, miner, etc. as well. Or... Don't let people create their own nobles. Give each faction an initial noble with 2 general skills. From then on, create nobles randomly in the cities, each with 1 or 2 general skill categories depending upon the city. Factions can win over these unattached nobles in various ways -- with money, persuasion, force, etc. -- much like the current game. These noble can learn new subskills in his general skill categories as desired, but cannot learn new skills. Some skills might be quite rare -- I would expect conflict to control the city where the College of Wizardry produces the occasional rare and powerful noble with Magic. At any rate, you get the idea. There are ways to prevent factions from doing everything at once that won't necessarily slow the pace of the game. >This can be quite frustrating. A certain element of frustration is a *good* thing. I know that right after I get an Oly turn I'm frustrated that I can't immediately submit my next turn. I've felt the same way playing the old Empire. But having played Blitz Empire, I realized that simply speeding things up so that I'm never frustrated does not make for a better game. >Perhaps if such things as exploration and study were *automatic* >things that you do while doing other things. I'd like a slightly different solution to this problem. If we go back to my idea of extended noble points, you get a situation where you could create drone nobles without any skills. These nobles can go out and do things like exploration, etc., that any noble can do. Somewhat like controlled units work in the current game. (I think you'd want to make "commanding men in battle" be a Combat subskill in this case, so that people can easily create a large number of powerful stacks.) -- Scott T. Referenced By Up