Olympia - Getting Too Complex? From: rwallace@unix1.tcd.ie (russell wallace) Date: Mon, 11 May 1992 19:35:33 +0000 Does anyone agree with me that the Olympia rules are getting too complex, that the direction of modification seems to be perpetually in the direction of adding more and more rules? For example: Loyalty - what does this add to the game? Fatigue - ditto Prisoners in combat - ditto Extra CANCEL options - ditto Guilds - these are good, but IMHO should not be implemented in the rules, but rather left to player politics to work out. Unit maintenance costs - do these actually add anything to the game except bookkeeping? All that happens is that units have to spend X amount of time WORKing. Why not instead just decrease slightly the amount of money units can obtain with WORK and increase the hiring charge for new men? This would achieve the same financial limitation on the acquisition of large units while reducing the administrative burden on the player. Varying month lengths - why not just make them all the same length? Easier to keep track then of how many days of activity you have per turn. Why have the TEACH command? There is already one way to learn skills and conceptual integrity suggests that extra ways to do something should not be provided without good reason. Combat: bows are better weapons except in wet weather when the bowstrings are wet so swords are better. What does this add to the game? Why not just assign a fixed weapon value to each? (or alternatively have different weapons better against different types of armor or something like that, so it would still be complex, but would at least be meaningful complexity?) What do people think of these suggestions? -- "To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem" Russell Wallace, Trinity College, Dublin rwallace@unix1.tcd.ie Referenced By Up