Re: Ongoing Strategy Games.

From: rob@ccc.govt.nz (Rob McNeur)

Date: Sun, 11 Jul 1993 18:36:14 +0000

In article <8JUL199321593584@gergo.tamu.edu>, carl@gergo.tamu.edu (Carl D.
>Perkins) writes:
>
> A very large part of the problem seems to be an unrealistic level of
> information being provided to the players of the games.  If a player's
> character, Mr. Wombat, is in an area, then all other players with a unit
> in the area recieve a report that "Mr. Wombat is here". In reality one rarely
> has such accurate information, particularly in an area like a city - Emperor
> Crumpet will not normally be informed that Mr. Wombat is in city X unless he
> has told his troops specifically to do so or Mr. Wombat is in some way
> famous (or infamous).  In a system which acted in this way, the newbie
> Mr Wombat would not be being looked for by Emperor Crumpet's units as he
> can't have told them to be doing so since Mr Wombat didn't exist until just
> recently and he has never heard of him and they won't report him on their
> own as he is not someone that they recognize as being unusually
> important/interesting/famous/infamous.  To implement this all that needs
> to be added is a "fame" value to each individual and/or unit that increases
> under various apropriate circumstances and also an "APB" command so that
> players can instruct their units to report sightings of specific characters
> or units (the spotting of which may not be automatically successful even if
> they are in the same area).  The fame rating could, for example, start at
> 0 and increase to a maximum of 100 and represent the probability of a
> character or unit being reported automatically as someone who is interesting.
> In a complex game more than one type of fame value may need to be tracked as
> any given character may become well known in different areas (like military,
> trade, financial, legal, etc.), but in many cases one value should be
> sufficient.
>
In fact, this could be extended so that an individual would only 'notice'
others who are 0.75+ of their own fame. Hence they see everyone equal to or
greater than themselves in fame, and also those who are up and coming in
the world, but not those who have only arrived and not yet 'made their mark'.
hence the most famous players would only notice the newbies if the newbie
were involved in something visible (a theft, a battle etc), otherwise
those lower down on the 'fame' scale merely get ignored and passed over.

This stops the major players from beating on the later arrivals because they
don't notice them until they have had a chance to develop.
Of course, a good intelligence system can always bypass this, but from my
recent experience, often those who are involved in beating on everyone else
don't always maintain decent communications with the rest of the players.

> I think that a system such as this could help in reducing the "nuke the
> newbies" syndrome. Until they have actually gone out and done something
> notable they are simply beneath the notice of the other players' units.
> This should also have its drawbacks - for example if a powerful player
> has some of his units visit a village to impress some peasants into
> service and the impressors don't recognize a new character, which will
> presumably be the case if the character is really new, they could
> very well attempt to impress him (and even succed in doing so).
>
But of course, the new arrival automatically sees them coming and keeps away,
hence cannot be impressed by someone that can't see them.

> Additionally, it sounds as if the most common reason for simply killing
> any new character encountered is that they are very vulnerable and may
> have stuff that is worth taking.  Both of these things could be countered.
> The vulnerability can be countered by having any single character have
> an excellent chance of fleeing from a hostile force, particularly for a lightly
> equiped new character against a unit that is better equipped as all that
> equipment, such as good armor and weaponry, is going to slow down the
> attackers' persuit.
Except that the attackers usually make sure they outnumber the new character
by 5 to 1 (if possible) and come equipped with horses, so the poor new character
can't escape anyway (outnumbered and outmanouevered).

Safer might be to start them in a city in which *all* battle is outlawed on
threat of instant death. This provides a safe haven for beginners and everyone
else if they really need it.

Anyone attacking someone else would be instantly captured and killed by the
lcal ruler as an overwhelming force (ie deus ex machina) as soon as the
battle is completed. Hence no treasure is gained (all possessions go to the
king) and there is nothing to be gained from attacking someone except where a
suicide attack is considered worth it (ie an assasination of a hated enemy)

Of course, such protection would cost in taxes, but thats a small price to
pay for initial survival.
If the residency tax is 15% of the starting money, or 15% of the character's
current money, this will allow starting characters to stay in safety for 6
turns before being forced to earn more money.
if they can't get established in 6 turns, they may be asking to die anyway  :-)
It also provides a good incentive to get out of town again as they start
getting better (it costs too much !). And, by having the fee for residency
being a % of the amount of money the character possesses, this also helps
to keep the total number in the city down (protection if you can pay for it).
Collect the fee everytime anyone arrives in town, and it also stops too many
people ferrying money in and out to avoid the tax !  :-)

>The theft aspect can be countered by having new characters
> start with very little that an experienced character would consider worth
> the risk - a new character may have 50 gold sovereigns and a sword, but that is
> how much you have to pay the 5 men who you sent to kill him each week, and
> that's not counting medical expenses if he injures one of them is injured or
> payment that may need to be made to the dead soldier's family, but it is
> enough for the new character to survive on for a month if he is careful.
He needs enough to survive for at least 4 months or more, whether he is careful
or stupid. Most newbies do several stupid things early on (like trusting
Dr Pain or similiar  :-)  ) and they need enough money to survive these
initial foul-ups, otherwise there will be a high dropout rate, just due to
a couple of minor errors that cost too much money.

Rob McNeur
Rob@ccc.govt.nz

References

Re: Ongoing Strategy Games.
srt@aero.org (Scott 'Dr. Pain' Turner)
Thu, 08 Jul 1993 15:45:36 +0000
Re: Ongoing Strategy Games.
carl@gergo.tamu.edu (Carl D. Perkins)
Thu, 08 Jul 1993 21:59:00 +0000