Re: Ongoing Strategy Games.

From: rwallace@cs.tcd.ie (Russell Wallace)

Date: Fri, 09 Jul 1993 23:22:58 +0000

wbruvold@weber.ucsd.edu (William Bruvold) writes:

>a) A diseconomy of scale build into the rule making it difficult to
>exert force that far away from your homeland.

It is difficult in Atlantis to attack people at a long distance, because
your forces must spend a long time moving, and not training during that
time (this is true even if they are travelling by sea); the defenders
can use that time to build up and train their forces.  (I'll confine my
comments to the way things are specifically done in Atlantis here, but I
think most open-ended games should be able to find some equivalent
method.)

>b) No "natural" limit on learning and advantage curve, as currently
>there is regarding bow (no reason to train past 2 in xbow/ 4 in
longbow)

There is the slowing down of training in all skills, where it takes long
er to achieve the next skill level, the more skilled you are already.
Eventually this pretty much amounts to an upper limit.

>While projecting force is a tedious proposition, (a lot less fun
>than playing civ. solitaire imho) it isn't so hard that you are at a
>disadvantage when you arrive at your location.  (the area with the
>newbie sheep).

It is because they aren't newbie sheep by the time your forces have got
there, they're tough and well-armed, and probably better trained than
your forces.

>Starting new players in new areas is like starting in say an "open"
>(everyone starts with one territory 5 armies) risk game 3 turns
>late.  By that time you might be able to build up a position before
>your opponents get there but they have an advantage (because of the
>size they have built up) when they decide to destroy you.

No so (see above).

>NON atlantean hit "n" now....

>Lets look through the rules and realize why some of us who will die
>in a couple of turns are droping out in the immediate future and
>will not be asking for a restrart in all likelyhood.....

>1)  You can train while sailing.

No, you can't.  (Perhaps I should state this more clearly in the rules.)

>journey across the sea isn't costly except for the "captain" of the
>ship.  You can, of course, train while waiting for the ship to be
>built
>2)  "tax" takes no time.  Allows players to "tax" and move (or
>study)
>A big
>advantage and no constraint on power projection across the map
>3)  The 20:1 ratio between tax and support needs.  Means that for an
>army of say 600 grunts you need only 30 armed men.  The buildup of
>funds in plains squares make it almost certain that your army can be
>fed along its march.

Tax is intended to be limited by the amount of revenue available in the
territory you control, not the amount of tax collectors you have.  And
you can't tax while travelling across ocean.

>4)  The high learning curve for advantage in magic and bows and low
>curve for swords.  Yes, my pet game balance problem as it gives a
>"trump" to those factions which got to that resource first.

You seem to have this idea that swords are a totally invincible weapon
system which can defeat everything else.  This is totally untrue,
especially if you have the advantage of the strategic defense.  I won't
tell you how to win the war, but you should be able to work out an
effective strategy yourself.

>And one last one that has come to light by participating in a
>straightforward war game (star empires).   By putting newbies in the
>same area and making email addresses public you "encouraged" people
>who had played in Oly and elsewhere to ally with one another OR to
>send in multiple accounts to play numberous factions.

If people want to ally together, that's fine by me - diplomacy is
supposed to be an important element of the game.  Multiple accounts is a
potential problem I have to keep an eye out for - same goes for any PBEM
game.  (How would keeping email addresses secret help?)

>How atlantis might be saved.

>Russel, you need to admit that this game is NOT a rpg.  It isn't
>because there isn't anything to role play about.  Oh sure, you can
>set up a illicit establishment like the player did and post
>announcement to the times but visiting said house did nothing to
>change game play so it was cute but nothing one could not have found
>on countless muds.  Without uniques things to do (other than kill
>others) it is a slow "conquer the world game" with a bit of "magic"
>(a skill hard to get) and neat names of provinces.  If you wanted it
>to have a RPG the most straightforward method is by having NPC who
>can add excitement (read goals) to the game.  Make an evil lord,
>perhaps commanded by you or a dummy program) reside to the north of
>Wallace iseland and thus encourage cooper/coordination between the
>players.  Have a sword to be found of great power and the questers
>immune from attack.  Special squares, Portals to different places on
>the map.  etc.

Yes, I think you're basically right - perhaps not in detail, but in the
point that the main thing Atlantis lacks at the moment is an adequately
complex world, together with some incentives for people to specialize,
and not have everyone be a warlord.  There is a lot of role playing
going on at the moment, but it could be improved.  I don't have time to
implement this at the moment but I hope to later on in the summer
implement a more complex world (while keeping the rules simple).

>THE OTHER WAY is to reroll but this time set up however many maps
>you need and then let players start off _APART_ from each other.
>This would allow players to build up before they encountered others
>and would encourage more interesting diplomacy, intrigue, and
>excitment.

How would this help?  Won't people starting off several regions apart
with 10 or 20 regions to grab for themselves, have less incentive to
interact, rather than more?  Also I would have to accelerate the
movement rates a lot to cope with the huge distances that this would
create between widely separated players.

--
"To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem"
Russell Wallace, Trinity College, Dublin
rwallace@cs.tcd.ie

References

Re: Ongoing Strategy Games.
cedman@golem.ps.uci.edu (Carl Edman)
Thu, 08 Jul 1993 22:46:51 +0000
Re: Ongoing Strategy Games.
rwallace@cs.tcd.ie (Russell Wallace)
Fri, 09 Jul 1993 00:01:40 +0000
Re: Ongoing Strategy Games.
js138@cus.cam.ac.uk (John Sloan)
Fri, 09 Jul 1993 04:33:12 +0000
Re: Ongoing Strategy Games.
wbruvold@weber.ucsd.edu (William Bruvold)
Fri, 09 Jul 1993 15:56:52 +0000