Re: Olympia: New skill system

From: srt@aero.org (Scott "TCB" Turner)

Date: Wed, 20 May 1992 21:04:52 +0000

What do people think about expanding the skill system to include
certain things that are currently implemented as commands, such as
PERSUADE, TERRORIZE, ATTACK, EXPLORE, RECRUIT, IMPRESS, FORM and WORK?

There are several advantages to this: (1) Skills can be used for
variable time periods, so that you could, for example, PERSUADE for
only 2 days if you chose, rather than having to PERSUADE for a week.
Likewise, you could ATTACK for 7 days, indicating that you wanted to
keep fighting for 7 days or until a conclusion was reached.  (2) You
could study up or get more experienced at things like recruiting,
impressing and so on, all of which seems reasonable.  (3) You might
also be able to get some sub-skills, such as (for PERSUADE) Bribery.
(4) It makes the interface more consistent, since you'd access these
(things via USE.

I'd make Form, Recruit, Bribery, Public Speaking sub-skills of a new
skill called LEADERSHIP:

LEADERSHIP
	Level 1		Form, Recruit
	Level 2		Bribery
	Level 3 	Public Speaking

Public Speaking sways a unit's loyalty by giving a stirring public
speech and generally campaigning (as opposed to Bribery, which involves
a cash payout).

The PC unit would start off with LEADERSHIP 1, which would give it
subskills of Form and Recruit.  Recruit would be changed a little bit
so that you could recruit for another unit, i.e., the PC would Form a
new unit and then start Recruiting men for that unit.  Experience in
Form would allow you to create new units at reduced costs.  Experience in
Recruit would help you recruit faster and possibly cheaper.

I'd make Attack, Impress and Terrorize sub-skills of COMBAT.  I'd
probably also put Archery under here as a sub-skill, and at the higher
levels there would be Tactics, which would improve your use of Attack.

COMBAT
	Level 1		Impress, Terrorize
	Level 2		Attack
	Level 3		Archery
	Level 4		Military Leadership
	Level 5		Tactics 1
	Level 6		Tactics 2

One advantage of this is that Attack won't be immediately available,
and while every unit will be able to defend, only trained units will
be able to attack.  This seems reasonable and should reduce the
"newbie" problem.

WORK would have sub-skills such as Manual Labor, Craft Apprentice, and
so on, that would model a unit working at some unspecified tasks,
basically a catch-all for all kinds of work that aren't explicitly
modelled.  As with all other sources of income, this would be limited
and split up between the units WORKing in a province based on their
experience and so on.

WORK
	Level 1		Begging
	Level 2		Manual Labor
	Level 3		Apprentice
	Level 4		Craftsman

I'd put EXPLORE in as a sub-skill of a skill called RESEARCH, which
would also subsume the old LORE skill, and learning any other skills
for which no teacher is available.

-- Scott T.

References

Re: Olympia: New skill system
jrives@tridom.uucp (Joel Rives)
Tue, 19 May 1992 22:31:05 +0000
Re: Olympia: New skill system
M22367@mwvm.mitre.org
Wed, 20 May 1992 19:34:09 +0000
Olympia: New skill system
skrenta@cbnewsg.att.com (Rich Skrenta)
Tue, 19 May 1992 19:35:29 +0000