Ember
Lenfald
Preparing for the wars to come
Posts: 57
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Post by Ember on Jan 17, 2018 22:50:22 GMT -8
I feel like we should just start small and then build on it. Let's just start with an economic system first and then when people have got there head around all the rules and such slowly introduce the war system in test trials and tests.
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ludzik
Lenfald
Lenfald Freeman
Posts: 1,047
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Post by ludzik on Jan 17, 2018 23:00:37 GMT -8
so here's my perspective: my build time fluctuates... there are years (months, days, what have you) when I have plenty of time to build and then there is a dry year like last year where I think my build time dropped off about February or March..... So while I check the forums it sometimes gets hard to follow what is going on and when I have time to build I either just missed a GC or am just before one.... or I am so fricking lost that I just give up and go have a beer instead. So please don't overcomplicate, don't erase people's accomplishments - build on what's there, take into account those that have somewhat complicated life and can't build as much as they can (now that I have plenty bricks I have little time ). One thing that I recall from when MB was starting up - I asked if people could put their cities, villages, castles on the "official" map and I was told... not really - do it yourself if you want to but don't expect to be on the "official" map. I think that folks that provide a good backstory should be able to get placed on a map which would allow for others to tie their builds into those stories as well. More collaboration and more interaction would be a good thing. Oh yeah, and we need more Jambalayas
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Post by Sir Caedric Moore on Jan 18, 2018 9:34:50 GMT -8
I definitely want a War-gaming system , but I feel that is predicated on a solid Economy system. It wouldn't be too complicated, really. Going by what's been suggested, build mocs to earn Resource Points (+1 Wood, +1 Grain, etc.); collect/spend Resource Points to gain Victory Points; first Faction to 100 (or so) Victory Points wins the season/game. The War aspect would be over Resources, Land (which grants resources), and Victory Points; a Faction challenges another for one of the three. I don't know if any of our members know website design, but an interactive map would be phenomenal. Link each fief/town/city to a page with that settlement's description: lore, resources (mocs), and Resource Points gathered that season/game. At the least, doing so for each Faction would be beneficial. There should definitely be a stimulus for trading between Factions. Yes, the factions are competing with one another in the proposed game to see who wins, but collaboration is always fun and it would make the system interesting: Loreos trades Lenfald +3 Grain for +1 Wood, as Wood is scarce in Loreos but Grain is plentiful and vice-versa; a Faction would need a pre-determined amount of each Resource to earn/purchase Victory Points. This way, a Faction could still complete the conquest without collaboration and trade, but it would be to their detriment. Actual prizes would be interesting, for sure, if people were willing to host the season/game and offer up prizes - bribery is always a good incentive
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AK_Brickster
Innkeeper
Scouting the Lenfel Border
Posts: 3,272
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Post by AK_Brickster on Jan 18, 2018 9:39:13 GMT -8
Another thing to be mindful of is people just cranking out crappy builds for the sake of earning points. I'd suggest a max point cap / month (like we currently have for freebuilds) so that people don't abuse the system (Yes, I know we are (mostly) honorable folk, but I could see a young TFOL signing up and exploiting an uncapped system).
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Post by Sir Caedric Moore on Jan 18, 2018 9:59:55 GMT -8
Another good way to balance and regulate that is to use the lore of each Faction to determine the amount of Resources gathered for a moc in each region: It would take a while to gather Resources that aren't plentiful in your Faction. A lumber mill in Loreos or Garheim would grant +1 Wood, but a lumber mill in Lenfald would grant +3 Wood. A granary in Lenfald or Garheim would grant +1 Grain, but in Loreos would grant +3 Grain. A quarry in Loreos or Lenfald would grant +1 Stone, but a quarry in Garheim would grant +3 Stone. It would take so many of each Resource to purchase Victory Points, so trade would be essential; you can't win just with a surplus of Stone.
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Post by Cuahchic on Jan 18, 2018 11:40:19 GMT -8
So much good discussion to be had here! It really feels like the forum is alive again, and certainly gives me plenty of reading on the toilet... Ok. I know my interaction has been limited in this thread, but I can tell you I have been keeping close tabs on all of the updates. Part of my reasons for limited responses are that the current story line does, in a big was, address many of these concerns. I haven't opening revealed any plot points, because I don't have sole authority to give these away. People much more creative and with much more more time have painstakingly crafted a story that addresses many of the points brought up, The Western Isle, defunct characters, shifting focus. The KC is discussing this, but I think it would be best to keep the future storyline details under wraps for the moment. There is a big surprise coming that we've been building up to for a very long time, and I'd rather that it is revealed in a proper storyline update. However, I will say that the storyline in mind would be able to accomplish both objectives that you've suggested. It will move the focus back to the mainland, (really that's been one of its goals from the very beginning, the GWI prologue has just taken way too long), and it could also could provide the catalyst for the shattering of Roawia into a much larger array of warring factions, if that's what we want. So I think it's fair to say everyone is stoked about a new GC update, but there are two questions: firstly, when can this realistically be released? If the KC wants to do this then I would say the sooner the better. Secondly, can this update be released before any game systems are created? If so, I'd say as soon as it's ready then it should be released! The longer we are all kept in the dark the harder it is to design any rules (I'd say context first, rules after, especially if we are going to design the economic system before the warfare system). As far as the points/economic system. Keep it simple. I always think Settlers of Catan, assign the factions resources and at the end of week we have an admin or bot roll to see what resources they collect. Loreos= lots of grain, little wood Garheim= tons of mining, little food Lenfald = tons of lumber, little mining Outlaws = oddly, the most balanced of them all Collecting resources allow you to buy victory points. GC wins get you points. Winning a war gets you points. First team to a 100 points wins. I think points should only be claimed by an accompanying build. Another good way to balance and regulate that is to use the lore of each Faction to determine the amount of Resources gathered for a moc in each region: It would take a while to gather Resources that aren't plentiful in your Faction. A lumber mill in Loreos or Garheim would grant +1 Wood, but a lumber mill in Lenfald would grant +3 Wood. A granary in Lenfald or Garheim would grant +1 Grain, but in Loreos would grant +3 Grain. A quarry in Loreos or Lenfald would grant +1 Stone, but a quarry in Garheim would grant +3 Stone. It would take so many of each Resource to purchase Victory Points, so trade would be essential; you can't win just with a surplus of Stone. Sir Caedric Moore sums up my response to your post thedonald13 - when designing the economic system I wouldn't restrict what factions can build only give them bonuses as described above (the exact numbers can be redefined later). I would make the points thing a bit wider, and say that the winning faction needs so many warfare, monetary and resource points to win (otherwise how do you equate a resource to a point?). I would base the resource amounts on the size of build - i.e. +1 wood for a vignette, +2 bignette, +4 unrestricted, etc. Last time I looked at maps Each faction had about 6 official cities including their capitals. The outlaws may have had only 1 or two. If I remember correctly players were allowed to make-up cities but they were never canon. What if you tied the creation of new canon fiefs (cities) to personal points. In order for a player to make a new canon city they must earn X amount of personal points. Earning personal points is done by creating buildings in established cities, creating a personal story-line, finishing up guilds, beating someone in a rival challenge, etc. An idea? A bit more complicated then what you were saying thedonald13 . But it solves the overpopulated work scenario. According to this map there's a lot more than 6 cities per faction, more like 12. With such a small player base, I see tallying points for this many cities to be too fragmented. What I would say is many of these cities were proposed by players who are no longer active, so you could have a cull. The alternative is only tally points at the faction level. All: There are a lot of good thoughts here. However, before we get too carried away in the minutiae of possible rules, I think there is one major decision we need to make. It seems to me that there are two quite different general possibilities in view here.[...] I think a mix of the two would be best. Allow players that have already established their towns/cities thus far in their personal storylines and builds to keep what they've created, but have them start from scratch like everyone else where the points are concerned. Personal storylines should still be important - that is the original essence of LoR, as you said. Allow players to build the world both with bricks and with words, if that makes sense. Maybe we could even incorporate the Guilds. A faction that has "Heroes" and a "Navy" could be granted a bonus towards Military. A number of "Masons" could be beneficial towards Structure. "Merchants" could provide additional Coin or Resources gathered from a trade. Guild membership could provide multipliers to the overall points earned; this would put some focus on the guilds and highlight a currently seldom-used system while simultaneously driving the Economy system forwards. Again, I agree with Sir Caedric Moore 's points here - we should try and do both. There should still be an element of structured challenges (I had previously proposed players would vote who would set these, but you could still do it via a KC) but there should also be a dynamic game system simulating the economy, warfare, etc. I will say I love the idea of the guilds influencing the faction scores, as you progress up the guild trees it should give bonuses to your builds. This makes the guilds relevant again, which I feel currently they're a bit pointless. Keeping with the theme of realism, farms/homesteads support towns; towns support cities; cities support countries. While the main focus with the proposed economy system should be to the benefit of each country as a whole, it's only logical that building up small towns would in turn benefit the larger cities (and then the country). The more resources gathered by the people of the land, the more wealth and bounty the land has; it shouldn't really matter exactly where in the country/faction they come from. I feel restricting the system to capital cities would limit creativity and possibly even activity as the existing capitals in general are centrally located and players are scattered/spread throughout their factions, building in the regions/climates they prefer. Allowing players to build up their own towns would grant a boon of appreciation; the system should just limit players on how much of the resources gathered can be used by the player (for their town) and how much is owed to the faction. This would allow active players to feel justified that their actions benefit their faction but also that they themselves (their characters) are benefited by participating. In short, player-controlled towns grow slowly; capitals and countries grow quickly. So I do agree with many of your points here, it makes sense that smaller towns support bigger cities. However, with around 12 map drawn cities per faction I feel the focus could be too sparse to make progress up some kind of development tree. Do you know what I mean? Good proposal. We could have "seasons" that way, like professional sports do - maybe even end a season with "The Playoffs" of some sort like the C.R.A.S.H. games or a no-holds-barred mocathalon. There's a lot of opportunity, here. I can't say the idea of seasons appeals to me. The game should be open ended because the dynamic game elements don't make sense to have an end date. That's a great idea. As suggested earlier in the thread, a faction declaring a "War" challenge on another faction would state their desired goal i.e. what they want to gain from said conquest: Resources, Land, or Goal Points/Victory Points (towards the final goal of 100 points to win the season). This would allow the factions to keep tabs on each other; checks and balances. ex. Lenfald feels Garheim has gained too many Victory Points so they declare War; their booty is Victory Points. If Lenfald wins, they remove a pre-determined amount of Victory Points from Garheim's score, possibly even stealing them towards their own score; if Lenfald loses, Garheim gets their declared booty, instead e.g. Resources or Victory Points. It would be a gamble to challenge a rival faction in this way - your faction could win and benefit (or sabotage a rival faction), but you could also lose and inadvertently benefit a rival faction through said challenge. Resources and Victory Points would be easiest to incorporate into a system like this, while land would be more difficult; people don't want to lose their own player-controlled cities to War Challenges and/or a portion of land where they have built their settlement forever. Ideally, land that is conquered/changes hands is only land that directly affects the Season Challenge and at the end of the season, all land and borders are reset. This would prevent PC cities from being erased and players' accomplishments from being nullified. This is the basis of how I imagined the war game in my head.. There's lots to be gained from a successful war, and the goal should be stated in advance, but there should also be risks too. I think territory can change hands without annoying the players by splitting the map into core territories that can never be conquered and surrounding territories that can. Once I get a dynamic map built (see below) I can give you a better idea of what I mean. I feel like we should just start small and then build on it. Let's just start with an economic system first and then when people have got there head around all the rules and such slowly introduce the war system in test trials and tests. I agree with this. The economic system is simpler than the war system and probably should be the initial focus. I will try and draft up some economic rules over the weekend. so here's my perspective: my build time fluctuates... there are years (months, days, what have you) when I have plenty of time to build and then there is a dry year like last year where I think my build time dropped off about February or March..... So while I check the forums it sometimes gets hard to follow what is going on and when I have time to build I either just missed a GC or am just before one.... or I am so fricking lost that I just give up and go have a beer instead. So please don't overcomplicate, don't erase people's accomplishments - build on what's there, take into account those that have somewhat complicated life and can't build as much as they can (now that I have plenty bricks I have little time ). One thing that I recall from when MB was starting up - I asked if people could put their cities, villages, castles on the "official" map and I was told... not really - do it yourself if you want to but don't expect to be on the "official" map. I think that folks that provide a good backstory should be able to get placed on a map which would allow for others to tie their builds into those stories as well. More collaboration and more interaction would be a good thing. I like the idea of players being able to get their towns/cities on the map (but as discussed earlier this should require a number of builds points before it's recognised). However, the first part of your post sort of contradicts this - in order to add new towns and cities to the map, it's inevitable that at some point old ones will need to be removed. This may erase people's accomplishments. But if someone drops out due to real life (I've been there) then the game has to adapt to the active players - I don't think you can expect a place to be held indefinitely. If someone conquers your land or decides to build in your cities then I don't think there can be any complaints. I don't know if any of our members know website design, but an interactive map would be phenomenal. Link each fief/town/city to a page with that settlement's description: lore, resources (mocs), and Resource Points gathered that season/game. At the least, doing so for each Faction would be beneficial. I can definitely help here, I'm thinking something like this but with the map of Roawia drawn. I'm going to say I hope to have a first draft of this by the end of February, it will take a bit of time. Another thing to be mindful of is people just cranking out crappy builds for the sake of earning points. I'd suggest a max point cap / month (like we currently have for freebuilds) so that people don't abuse the system (Yes, I know we are (mostly) honorable folk, but I could see a young TFOL signing up and exploiting an uncapped system). This is a good point. Rather than have arbitrary caps the other potential solution would be that a verified member has to approve a build before the bot picks it up. The quality level of each player should really be judged by the standard of their previous builds.
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ludzik
Lenfald
Lenfald Freeman
Posts: 1,047
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Post by ludzik on Jan 18, 2018 11:44:47 GMT -8
I like the idea of players being able to get their towns/cities on the map (but as discussed earlier this should require a number of builds points before it's recognised). However, the first part of your post sort of contradicts this - in order to add new towns and cities to the map, it's inevitable that at some point old ones will need to be removed. This may erase people's accomplishments. But if someone drops out due to real life (I've been there) then the game has to adapt to the active players - I don't think you can expect a place to be held indefinitely. If someone conquers your land or decides to build in your cities then I don't think there can be any complaints. Why does adding new towns to the map mean we need to erase others? Anyways if a player drops off a town can still remain on the map and the game moves around it.
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Sir Daren
Lenfald
Training men and looking for work
Posts: 260
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Post by Sir Daren on Jan 18, 2018 11:48:36 GMT -8
Possible theory(s) involving a bit of everyone's thoughts:
If we begin the gameplay "change-over" slowly, by say first implementing an economic system before war begins, this gives us the chance to test the budding system, AND allow for the Global Storyline to play out, as KC members have stated that it would get our focus back to the mainland and war. (and allow an eager Sir Daren to see how the story unfolds)
As for city creation, why not make a rule set for "cities" similiar but more simplified than the Colonization effort. Say that if you create one good build, even if it is an urban build, it counts for so many points (vignette, bignette, unrestricted) and in order to become a "city" instead of a "town" or "village" it would need so many build points. Ex: I would need 4 or 5 vignettes to get to "town" rank, but I could do two unrestricted and level up to "city". Also, if there was an interactive map that could be moderated by the KC, then the KC can keep players from abusing the system. Note: The points i just used were examples, not thought out numbers.
By simply having points and not categories of points like the Colonization challenge, a player can have the fun and freedom of developing his/her city the way they like and not kill them self just to have a city of their own. Ex: a person who likes building fortifications and make good ones should be allowed to have a city even if they aren't good at building industrial buildings, ports, etc. and someone who makes great cities but never makes walls should also be good (because in this day and age the walls are there, even if not yet seen in a build. A sort-of example is Durrough which does have some walls seen, but is mainly made up of its city buildings and streets)
In the sake of freedom of building while still getting points, towns would be worth a certain number of economic points (of some sort) and cities would be more, etc.
Also, we could be allowed to designate our city a "war city" or a "peace city". A "war city" could be actively attacked and maybe conquered once we put war rules into play, whereas a "peace city" would allow a player to make a city without being in total fear of losing it completely (storyline would say that the faction's armies were able to keep the enemy from conquering this city, and rendering it safe). However a war city would be worth more points (thus why it would be a worthwhile target to conquer). Note: multiple players could work on the same city.
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Sir Daren
Lenfald
Training men and looking for work
Posts: 260
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Post by Sir Daren on Jan 18, 2018 12:20:49 GMT -8
For me personally, I am looking forward to the game change because I want my infrequent builds to count more. I enjoyed doing a large build last summer, and want to do another one, but am daunted by the fact that it will only be forth a few freebuild points. As an infrequent builder, I want my builds, whenever I am able to get them done, to count. If players spend lots of time on a large build, the build should still count towards the game whenever they finish it, rather than insisting on lots of small builds in order to be more actively participating. I think that the players who are very active in the game should be rewarded for it, but that players who are still interested shouldn't be penalized because they aren't as active. The game should (and can) support both.
A thought for faction bonuses: Just like the Crash games a player's character got a bonus in that faction's competition, we could do that for players builds. Instead of a flat timber bonus for Lenfeld, each build could have that bonus. Ex: a town that doesn't really show logging would have a small lumber bonus, while a timber harvest operation would earn even more. These bonuses could be faction specific (and apply to conquered regions) or it could be region specific (if Lenfald takes a Garheim mine, because of the region it would yield more ore).
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Lego3364
Lenfald
Gotta love Cracklink
Posts: 574
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Post by Lego3364 on Jan 18, 2018 13:13:56 GMT -8
This suggestion may have come up before so pardon me if it has. But if a war system is decided upon maybe having conquerable areas and non-conquerable areas? Make the conquerable areas have like double resource collecting at the risk of losing it to other factions during war. That way a faction can't be wiped out but a faction can also grow. Also having greater resources in conquerable areas would make people choose them over non-conquerable areas. And for each area you'd have to build a farm to get the food resources, a logger for timber, and a mine for stone/ore. Each area can only have three harvest areas. For most it'd be one of each, but for some like in a mountainous area you could build two mines and one logger, but you couldn't build a farm. And make it so that each player can build a limited number of 2 harvest builds for each war. So if Faction 1 conquers 4 areas in one war. It'd need to build 12 harvesters to unlock all the resources. So It'd need at least 6 active players to receive all possible resources.
You could also make something so for smaller factions there's a way to save the previous faction's harvesters. It'd cost more of (blank) but they wouldn't need as many active builders.
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Post by Jayden & Moira on Jan 18, 2018 15:29:40 GMT -8
Alright, you guys have put forward a lot of great ideas, starting now I will be working on a proposal to present to the other members of the King's Council. There is a lot of stuff to go over here and on the jibber-jabber thread so if anyone is worried about me missing their posts feel free to direct message me with your ideas. Also anybody interested in helping me work on the proposal or just wanting to talk about anything relating to LoR feel free to join the new discord server I set up here: discord.gg/NsDBrQZ
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AK_Brickster
Innkeeper
Scouting the Lenfel Border
Posts: 3,272
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Post by AK_Brickster on Jan 19, 2018 9:36:28 GMT -8
One thing that comes to mind from a logistics perspective is just keeping track of everything. Who is going to be responsible for keeping track of how many lumber mills/mines/farms that each faction has at any given time? Once you build a mill, does it keep generating lumber indefinitely / until it is destroyed? Maybe those kind of details are yet to be worked out, but from experience, I can tell you it's really easy to come up with a lot of game mechanics, and a lot harder to find people who will be able to keep them updated consistently for years without interruption. Not saying we can't do it. But keep the logistics and management in mind as you develop your ideas.
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Lego3364
Lenfald
Gotta love Cracklink
Posts: 574
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Post by Lego3364 on Jan 19, 2018 9:58:13 GMT -8
Well, I'm not a game mechanic so this maybe harder than it sounds, but I'd imagine a list/thread that the game administrative staff would monitor with a list almost like a faction points or challenge list. And then whenever a war is settled the winning faction leader would make a post saying they conquered areas 1, 2, and 3. And then the game administrators would edit the title the color of whichever factions holds possession. And then whenever a build required is posted either the builder or the Faction Leader makes a post saying that this has been built so resources may be collected. You could also make replying for Game Admin and Faction Leaders only, so it's kept cleaner.
For example
Area 1 (Lenfald)
Farm: Built. (User)
Mine: Not Built Logger: Built (User)
Area 2 (Loreos)
Farm: Built (User)
Farm: Not Built
Logger: Not Built
Area 3 (UNCLAIMED)
Farm: Not Built
Mine: Not Built
Logger: Not Built
If used I'm not sure how many conquerable areas would be used but this is just an example.
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ludzik
Lenfald
Lenfald Freeman
Posts: 1,047
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Post by ludzik on Jan 19, 2018 10:55:05 GMT -8
One thing that comes to mind from a logistics perspective is just keeping track of everything. Who is going to be responsible for keeping track of how many lumber mills/mines/farms that each faction has at any given time? Once you build a mill, does it keep generating lumber indefinitely / until it is destroyed? Maybe those kind of details are yet to be worked out, but from experience, I can tell you it's really easy to come up with a lot of game mechanics, and a lot harder to find people who will be able to keep them updated consistently for years without interruption. Not saying we can't do it. But keep the logistics and management in mind as you develop your ideas. potentially I could... but the question is how many updates and how many members we are looking at.....
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Post by thedonald13 on Jan 19, 2018 11:10:27 GMT -8
I do have to agree we should keep things simple. We want to promote building between challenges, but I don't think automatic resources should be awarded for every build. What keeps every Loreesi from building a lumber mills even though nothing on the map supports that much lumber production. I makes more sense to level(like in the WI) up from a village to a city and allowing bonuses to come through that way. Resource production shouldn't be easy, in turn this does make it easier to track by an admin.
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