Re: Olympia - Getting Too Complex?

From: gl8f@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl)

Date: Tue, 12 May 1992 01:04:04 +0000

In article <1992May11.215826.17553@cbfsb.cb.att.com> skrenta@cbnewsg.att.com (Rich Skrenta) writes:

>     o	My goal is to produce a very rich world, but have
>	the game still be easy to play.
>
>     o	Much of the complexity in Olympia come from features which
>	the players themselves demanded.

Of course, the big trick is figuring out which features are the right
ones to add to the game. I'd hate to see you wasting your time
implementing things which don't add much, compared to the features
that do add a lot (the ones *I* suggest, of course, are in the second
category ;-) ;-)

>Why is it a problem if combat keeps track of a hidden fatigue
>factor?

I don't think this one is a PROBLEM, but it's not something that will
come into play that often except for newbie massacres. Or maybe I'm
wrong. Certainly this one does not DETRACT from play, so there's no
reason to remove it once you've already spent the time coding it.

>Loyalty is an integral component of the whole maintenance cost/
>persuade/terrorize/impress system.  This is a large part of the
>game for some players.

Yes. I certainly like what loyalty adds to Olympia, and this is the
most enjoyable game system I've seen so far in this respect. Great
idea.

>I'll remove the varying month lengths if enough players agree with
>you here.  I should probably put a line in the turn report that
>says how long the next month will be, so you don't have to look it
>up in the calendar.  This was just for some flavor.

What is this, a democracy? Sheesh ;-) Adding something to the turn
that says how long the next month is should go a long way towards
reducing careless errors.

>What do other players think?

Olympia has some things I like a lot (loyalty, magic, sailing ;-),
some things which are still a bit too surprising for my taste
(combat), some things which are unfinished (economic system). If the
new stuff keeps the streamlined richness of things like the loyalty
system, this is going to continue being a good game.

References

Olympia - Getting Too Complex?
rwallace@unix1.tcd.ie (russell wallace)
Mon, 11 May 1992 19:35:33 +0000
Re: Olympia - Getting Too Complex?
skrenta@cbnewsg.att.com (Rich Skrenta)
Mon, 11 May 1992 21:58:26 +0000