Re: Olympia: faction trees

From: hauck@cs.washington.edu (Scott Hauck)

Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1992 07:00:47 +0000

Okay, here's chapter and verse on my view of the system.  Some of the details
I'm not sure about, so I put them here as a starting point (specifically the
loyalty drop numbers).

During turn #t, day #d, PC "Cannonfodder" is killed.
A faction adjustment is scheduled for the last action on this day (day #d).
This should be the last action of the day, so that other actions on that day
can proceed (like parallel attacks), but must be the same day since the effects
of a PC murdered on the last day of a month show up in that turn's report.

During the faction adjustment, all factions have their loyalty decreased.  For
each unit, a random decrement is chosen from the range i..j, and applied to
the unit's loyalty.  These numbers should be chosen such that for normal
loyalty units (ie. what a FORMed unit starts with), 1/3 will desert after one
PC death, 2/3 after two, and all after three, assuming nothing is done to raise
the unit's loyalty in the meantime.  If we assume FORM'ed units start at 60,
and abandon at 20 loyalty, loyalty decreases are uniformly random from 1..60.
Units whose loyalty falls too low become "independent", and behave just as
independent units currently do, as of day #(d+1).  All units that remain
loyal continue with their normal moves.

Now, at the end of the unit's turn report for this turn, turn #t, the unit
recieves the "heir" lore sheet.  It states that the first command in the next
turn sent in must be either "heir <unit>", "restart \"name\"", or "quit".
Note that this comes before the first entity command, and doesn't have the
password on that line, but the file must contain the password in the first
entity command, even if the command is "restart" or "quit".  If the player
chose "restart", the player forfeits all current units, which become
independent.  The player also cannot move this turn, but is sent a new
position in the turn results, with a character named "name".  If the player
chose "quit", he is removed from all olympia mailing lists and is banished
from the olympian world.  If the player chose "heir <unit>", where <unit>
must be a valid identification for a unit which is still loyal to the
player's faction, the unit is now tagged as the "PC", with all the attendent
considerations.  Now, the turn is processed as normal.

BTW, I also think that at the beginning of any turn, a player could give the
"heir", "restart", or "quit" commands, which behave identically as the above.
The only twist is that an "heir" command with a living PC means that there is
a half-strength loyalty degradation (ie. if in the normal check a unit woul
lose 10 loyalty, it would now only lose 5 loyalty), and the old PC becomes a
normal unit (ie. the player has "retired", and gets to enjoy the glory days).
I don't think this is all that useful, except for
  1.) Dealing with a captured PC, when capture is available.  In this way a
      player is faced with the choice "Do I take a weak loyalty drop now, or
      do I risk a major loyalty problem and hope I get him back alive?"  Could
      be a fun decision!
  2.) Getting a new image (Listening Dr. Pain?).
  3.) Giving the PC unit away.

I don't think "heir" commands with living PC's is a major feature, but
"restart"s could be very nice for someone who's just botched things, and
"quit"s automates something I assume the server god has to do manually now.

Scott Hauck

References

Re: Olympia: faction trees
gl8f@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl)
Fri, 24 Apr 1992 04:25:06 +0000
Re: Olympia: faction trees
skrenta@cbnewsg.att.com (Rich Skrenta)
Fri, 24 Apr 1992 05:29:08 +0000

Referenced By

Re: Olympia: faction trees
gl8f@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl)
Fri, 24 Apr 1992 04:25:06 +0000
Re: Olympia: faction trees
skrenta@cbnewsg.att.com (Rich Skrenta)
Fri, 24 Apr 1992 05:29:08 +0000