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Post by Sir Caedric Moore on Jan 19, 2018 12:08:48 GMT -8
the donald said: What keeps every Loreesi from building a lumber mills even though nothing on the map supports that much lumber production? Nothing, really, but it wouldn't be in their best interest to do so. Loreos has forests (jungles, etc.) but most of the region is grassland and desert; wood is a rare commodity. A lumber mill could be build, but it should only grant +1 Wood as opposed to an area that the lore suggests wood is plentiful where a lumber mill should grant +3 Wood: logically, if more trees can be put through a mill, more Wood can be harvested. So yes, while every Loreesi could build a mill and circumvent trading with another faction, they could produce Grain much easier and - in theory - trade it for more Wood than they could harvest on their own. Example Loreos Lumber Mill: 1 Wood: +1 Granary: 1 Grain: +3 Quarry: 1 Stone: +1 Lenfald Lumber Mill: 1 Wood: +3 Granary: 1 Grain: +1 Quarry: 1 Stone: +1
Loreos trades Lenfald +2 Grain for +2 Wood = Both factions benefit from the trade. A single 3-for-3 high-yield trade would grant the same Resources as three separate low-yield mocs. Garheim has 2 Quarries, yielding +6 Stone; they trade +3 Stone to Lenfald for +3 Wood, and +3 Stone to Loreos for +3 Grain. With only two Quarries to gather Resources, Garheim has acquired through trade the Resources they would normally only gather from three Mills and three Granaries. Yes, the Northmen could have built the Mills and Granaries themselves, but it is more cost-efficient to trade their region's high-yield commodity for that of another region. That's the bare-bones system.
Now, imagine the Guilds are involved. A member of Lenfald has achieved the rank of Merchants' Master by working through the Merchants Guild. If this Merchant is the one to make the trade, an additional +1 Resource will be gained (not taken from the trading party; just magically materializing out of thin air... because science ), meaning Lenfald trades +3 Wood for +4 Stone. Garheim isn't cheated; they simply didn't have a Merchant's Master. If they did, then both Factions would trade +3 Resources in exchange for +4 Resources. A little more complicated, but not much, and a lot more interesting. Basically, mastering the Guilds would help throughout the Economy and War systems. A Merchant's Master grants additional Resources; a Naval Master or a Hero's Master grants Military bonuses, making it easier or more difficult to win disputes and capture territory; a Mason's Master grants bonuses to structures built - maybe a +1/2 extra Resource gathered or a Military bonus. Enough to give players freedom to continue developing, but few enough to incite disputes when the War aspect comes in. A Free Territory must be claimed (with a moc) and then a structure must be developed (again, with a moc) to receive Resources. Say, three structures can be developed on each Territory; players from the Faction that holds the plot of land can build one of each (Mill, Granary, Quarry - others, if there are any, but I feel three Resources among three Factions is the most well-balanced), two and one, or three of the same, depending on what Resources they hope to gain. Do they play it safe and build one of each to ensure they get at least +1 of the low-yield Resources, or do they build three that grant high-yield and rely on other Factions' willingness to trade?
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Post by Cuahchic on Jan 19, 2018 12:42:16 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. 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. [...] I know I keep saying this, but the only way to keep track of an involved game is to automate it. Things will change much quicker than a person can keep up with, and the player participation will only last as long as things are being kept track of. It should be possible to scrape user posts in pre-defined subforums (easy - provided we set an agreed post style as Lego3364 alludes to) and then edit a post (harder - need to check I can keep the authentication while posting back). I really need to show you an example of this to prove what's possible, I will try and do this as soon as possible. Nothing, really, but it wouldn't be in their best interest to do so. Loreos has forests (jungles, etc.) but most of the region is grassland and desert; wood is a rare commodity. A lumber mill could be build, but it should only grant +1 Wood as opposed to an area that the lore suggests wood is plentiful where a lumber mill should grant +3 Wood: logically, if more trees can be put through a mill, more Wood can be harvested. So yes, while every Loreesi could build a mill and circumvent trading with another faction, they could produce Grain much easier and - in theory - trade it for more Wood than they could harvest on their own. [...] Loads of good stuff in here, and broadly conforms to how I imagine things. I'd keep relatively few resources, maybe food, wood, stone and gold (Age of Empires style...), to prevent over-complication. What you want to do though is allow players to build what they want - after all it's a LEGO game not an economic simulation. So you don't want to discourage Loreesi players from building lumber mills, it's just they don't benefit as much.
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Post by thedonald13 on Jan 19, 2018 14:57:08 GMT -8
For funsies I had been working out what resources for each territory would look like. I took the 10(11 possible dice rolls) largest and resource rich provinces from each faction and I assigned them 3 resource that made the most sense on the map. The resources I used are Grain, Lumber, Ore, Gold, and Desert. Gold I figured would provide a mechanism to even out gameplay and resource production 1 gold can be traded for any other resource.
As example province used :
Loreos – Toberg (Ore, Grain, Lumber) I assigned this to #8 (6,7,8 statistically more common). I do think each faction should be allowed to pick what numbers they assign to their provinces. vs Lenfald – Stoneborough (Ore, Grain, Lumber) also assigned as # 8, but this has a city(x2) built on it, instead of a town. A town is upgraded much like colonies in the Western Isles.
I think this path is a bit more palatable, because it doesn’t penalize a faction for low participation, but it does reward for higher activity. Even if we weren’t able to automate this(awesome if we could), tracking wouldn’t be very hard.
Fun thought for warring system, when declaring, I would like to see a pillage option and raze to the ground option! Pillaging means the victor takes all resources the province produces and razing to the ground would mean if it were a city it would go back to town if lost in a fight.
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Ember
Lenfald
Preparing for the wars to come
Posts: 57
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Post by Ember on Jan 19, 2018 17:18:12 GMT -8
Fun thought for warring system, when declaring, I would like to see a pillage option and raze to the ground option! Pillaging means the victor takes all resources the province produces and razing to the ground would mean if it were a city it would go back to town if lost in a fight. I really like this idea. Expanding on that we could have resource production go down for a certain amount of time in the province that has just been looted/pillaged. This would simulate the "unhappy populace" you get after choosing the pillage option in a TW game. This would mean that the faction that has just looted the province would get a lot of resources in the short term but less in the long term. This would mean there would be some penalty for choosing to loot the province.
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Merc
Garheim
Posts: 143
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Post by Merc on Jan 19, 2018 21:10:53 GMT -8
Going of the raiding / razing aspect. Don't forget about castles (after all what is a castle Lego group without castles). It may be wise to assign it a build value even if a war system is not in place. An example o a cost could be 5 stone 3 wood. And then for war, allow a castle to give a defensive bonus or hold a percentage of the resources the fief produces. Such as letting a small castle protect 2 resources from a raid. However a bigger castle should require more resources yet also give a bigger bonus to protection.
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Post by Sir Caedric Moore on Jan 20, 2018 1:51:59 GMT -8
I'm really digging the Pillage/Raze idea! Going with the "unhappy populace" premise, a defending faction that wins a War (Raid/Raze) should receive a "happy populace" morale boost, producing the opposite: a temporary higher-than-normal yield. I also like the idea of Gold as the supplemental fourth Resource; it gives a Faction in need the option to acquire a Resource they need when they can't afford to trade any of their other Resources - or just don't want to Wood, Food, Stone, Gold. Some more ideas: - Leveling-up Fiefs into Towns and Cities grants the Gold Resource. - Replace Grain with Food: that way, players can build any sort of farm or ranch and have it produce the same Resource. - Have Free Territories (that any Faction can claim) produce fewer Resources while Faction Territories grant the Faction-specific bonuses. - Running out of/not producing enough Food causes a settlement to drop one rank (City to Town, Town to Fief) as a functioning settlement needs to be fed to support civilization.
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Post by Jayden & Moira on Jan 20, 2018 10:30:40 GMT -8
Alright, so I'm working on the proposal and really having a hard time convincing myself that this "three resource system" is necessary. I don't want to leave it out entirely because so many of you guys seem interested in it but I really need someone to explain to me why you need any of the resources. So far it seems like the only explanation is that you might need these resources to improve and maintain your settlements but if that's the case why aren't we allowing people to simply build improvements with Lego? At the moment I'm simply planning on the settlement development consisting of a long series of Lego builds. It would start with houses and farms, progress through necessities like carpenter shops, black smiths, and fortifications, and eventually lead to amenities like a tailors, brewers, fletchers, etc. This way players don't have to rely on other players with their own settlements in different regions being active to trade with. Players could just build because they want to build. If I've missed a big post where the point behind the resource trading was explained, please let me know. If not, please explain it to me. Right now it just seems unnecessarily complicated to me. Also what you guys are talking about sounds a lot like Crusader Kings II and I would definitely be down for a big LoR game of CKII.
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Post by Mark of Falworth on Jan 20, 2018 10:40:15 GMT -8
It seems you guys are moving forward with your ideas and I'm interested to see what you all come up with! I really can't share as much as I would like but I can tell you this new group will be a bit more involved and detailed than any other group so far, this will be possible in part by computer automation (Like Cauchic keeps mentioning) to complete the more mundane and time-consuming tasks. We have already made significant progress in this subject. Forums and even websites like Flickr are fast becoming obsolete as effective ways of communication and community creation. The faraway start date is there because we still have a lot of programming and planning to do before the system is complete. The second thing I can tell you is that it will be very much focused on warfare and conquest. The real heart of every competition is to do better than the opposition, outright battles are the ultimate expression of that competitiveness. Again this will be made possible by a hefty automation system. Ideally everything will be super easy and streamlined, making it more fun and less time-consuming for everyone involved. The third thing I can tell you is that we really can't do much until after Brickworld this June. Almost everyone involved in creating this project will be busy building a gigantic display for it. So at this point I would say keep exploring and discussing ideas, just remember that likely towards the end of the year a HUGE and dynamic new group will be going live. I feel that you guys are going to REALLY like this new project, but hopefully you will have the opportunity to decide for yourself soon enough!
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Post by Sir Caedric Moore on Jan 20, 2018 11:18:12 GMT -8
If I've missed a big post where the point behind the resource trading was explained, please let me know. If not, please explain it to me. Right now it just seems unnecessarily complicated to me. Basically, what we've been running with is the idea that Resources aren't faction-specific, but the amount yielded of each Resource depends on the region: in Garheim, Stone is plentiful so Quarries/Mines yield more Stone when built in Garheim; Wood is plentiful in Lenfald, so a Mill built there yields more wood; Food is plentiful in Loreos, so a Farm there yields more Food. A Faction can still produce all three Resources without collaborating with another Faction, but trading would allow them to obtain Resources that are normally only low-yield in their own Faction. The idea would promote collaboration (which up until now we've had very little if any collaboration between Factions) and make the system a bit more dynamic; it creates sort of a rock-paper-scissors scenario to provide balance. The downside to letting every Faction produce the same amount of each Resource across the board would be that people wouldn't have any reason to collaborate; they'd just keep to themselves. One hyper-active builder could win the entire game for his/her Faction, that way. But, if it requires a set amount of each Resource to build Resource-yielding and Defensive structures and to purchase Victory Points, it would ensure that a faction couldn't win simply with a surplus of any one Resource. Players could still build whatever they want to - they would just benefit from building within the parameters of the challenge and it would promote collaboration. On the issue of active and non-active players, I think a faction switch-up is likely as these sort of systems need balance, and I doubt it would be too difficult to find someone who wants to trade their Resources; even if you can't find someone willing to trade, you can always earn the Resources yourself - it just takes longer. A player begins by starting a settlement the same as you would now for the Colonization Challenge out west; what changes is that from there you can build specific things to obtain Resources and enter into the Economy of Roawia. It's a good way to work the lore of LoR into the game and make the Colonization system more interesting. Collecting Resources helps level-up settlements, lets you build structures to defend Resource-producing territory (for the War aspect), and lets you purchase Victory Points; the first Faction to collect a set amount of Victory Points declares Victory and wins the game. Then, we start over and play again
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Post by Jayden & Moira on Jan 20, 2018 13:04:03 GMT -8
Collecting Resources helps level-up settlements, lets you build structures to defend Resource-producing territory (for the War aspect), and lets you purchase Victory Points; the first Faction to collect a set amount of Victory Points declares Victory and wins the game. Then, we start over and play again Alright in that case, I am very opposed to this system. Its sounds like, from what you're saying, that LoR will cease to center around storytelling. Instead of implementing an optional system for settlement development and war, you are proposing a version of LoR that revolves around those things. "Winning and starting over" sounds very unappealing to me. I thought I was working on a proposal for making LoR slightly more game-like not making a game that is slightly LoR-like.
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Post by Sir Caedric Moore on Jan 20, 2018 16:39:44 GMT -8
Nothing's set in stone, of course; these were just ideas for an Economy and War system in addition to the already existing LoR when incorporating the Colonization Challenge to the mainland. I just kind of compiled everyone's suggestions. LoR would still be about story-telling; there would just be more layers to it and a given incentive to build - which, right now, no one is doing.
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Merc
Garheim
Posts: 143
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Post by Merc on Jan 20, 2018 17:19:04 GMT -8
I guess maybe someone should also outline how story builds will play a role. For example if someone do not want to play a part in an economy/warfare how can they still contribute to their factions through story building, guild building (this may have been talked about), and rivalry building? Just a thought
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Post by Jayden & Moira on Jan 20, 2018 17:31:42 GMT -8
Nothing's set in stone, of course; these were just ideas for an Economy and War system in addition to the already existing LoR when incorporating the Colonization Challenge to the mainland. I just kind of compiled everyone's suggestions. LoR would still be about story-telling; there would just be more layers to it and a given incentive to build - which, right now, no one is doing. And I have no problem with adding layers of incentive, in fact I'm totally in support of it. I think we may just be taking it too far. War should be common and should have consequences, I mean who wants to be a pacifist knight? I'm just concerned that implementing a system where one faction completely annihilating another is a real possibility, will very quickly destroy the game we're working to construct. We need change, this is true, but not major change. I think a lot of the issues that have been brought forward could easily be sated by simply dividing the factions into small regions. These regions could be conquered, settlements could be established and developed within them, if trade is necessary we could implement resource values attributed to them; but these things need to be contained. We don't want players that are interested in politics and storytelling to feel like they have to own and develop a settlement in order to be a relevant part of LoR.
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Post by Cuahchic on Jan 21, 2018 1:27:37 GMT -8
For funsies I had been working out what resources for each territory would look like. I took the 10(11 possible dice rolls) largest and resource rich provinces from each faction and I assigned them 3 resource that made the most sense on the map. The resources I used are Grain, Lumber, Ore, Gold, and Desert. Gold I figured would provide a mechanism to even out gameplay and resource production 1 gold can be traded for any other resource. [...] - Replace Grain with Food: that way, players can build any sort of farm or ranch and have it produce the same Resource. Sorry thedonald13 , I didn't quite understand what you did here. What was the 11 possible dice rolls for? In the examples given, what does #8 actually mean? Does it mean they produce 8 of the three resources each turn? Sorry for being a bit slow on the uptake here. I do agree with Sir Caedric Moore that food rather than grain would be best - then fishing, husbandry, foraging, etc can be counted as food. Alright, so I'm working on the proposal and really having a hard time convincing myself that this "three resource system" is necessary. I don't want to leave it out entirely because so many of you guys seem interested in it but I really need someone to explain to me why you need any of the resources. So far it seems like the only explanation is that you might need these resources to improve and maintain your settlements but if that's the case why aren't we allowing people to simply build improvements with Lego? At the moment I'm simply planning on the settlement development consisting of a long series of Lego builds. It would start with houses and farms, progress through necessities like carpenter shops, black smiths, and fortifications, and eventually lead to amenities like a tailors, brewers, fletchers, etc. This way players don't have to rely on other players with their own settlements in different regions being active to trade with. Players could just build because they want to build. [...] Alright in that case, I am very opposed to this system. Its sounds like, from what you're saying, that LoR will cease to center around storytelling. Instead of implementing an optional system for settlement development and war, you are proposing a version of LoR that revolves around those things. "Winning and starting over" sounds very unappealing to me. I thought I was working on a proposal for making LoR slightly more game-like not making a game that is slightly LoR-like. I understand what you're saying around LoR being story-driven, and I know a lot of players get a kick out of advancing the stories of their characters. But there's also a lot of players, myself included, who want their characters to be a bigger part of the world, influencing the story and so on. Let me put it another way - up until now the story has been created by a small closed group (the KC) who produce fantastic and well thought out story updates, but which mainly focus on their own or NPC characters. These KC and NPC characters are the ones who decide what happens in the world, which factions go to war, which islands are discovered, what the other player characters can and can't do. Occasionally, there are stories which contain non-KC characters, but generally they are in a supporting role and it's the KC who decides their level of involvement. Essentially the players are building in a world created and maintained by the KC. The only way that non-KC players can add to the canon lore is by winning global challenges. All other game events, the brawls, the guild system, personal stories, exist in isolation and don't affect the faction scores or storyline. The one exception to this is the colonisation challenge - the allowed players to build, and their points actually were added to the faction totals when certain conditions were met. In my view, the colonisation challenge was hugely successful and had lots of quality submissions. So assuming the above is how the majority feel (and 17 out of 18 voted for structural changes to LoR), we need to define the requirements and how these requirements will be met, subject to whatever constraints we want to impose. The requirements as I see them are: (R1) give players a chance to influence the story and lore by undertaking actions outside of the centrally controlled storyline (R2) provide a number of game systems to allow player actions to benefit their factions (R3) allow more player-player interactions through collaboration/competition (R4) allow players who don't want to participate in the game systems the ability to create character stories in the world (R5) allow players to feel involved in an active world, i.e. don't let them feel like their builds are for nothing The constraints we have are: (C1) the majority of players want to keep the historical lore (C2) the majority of players want to keep the existing map (C3) a proportion of players want to keep the existing factions I think we can meet the requirements subject to the constraints by these outcomes (I would suggest we tackle and introduce these in a phased manner): (O1) create a multi-resource economy system that players can build and benefit their faction (R2, R5) (O2) reinvigorate the brawling and guild systems so advancing in these affects the economy system (R2, R3) (O3) create a war game that allows for players to initiate battles against other players or NPCs with risk and reward but without allowing a hard loss (R1, R2, R3) (O4) create a lore and environment that are suitable for the game system (R4) (O5) keep track of resources, war scores, maps and stories so players can monitor their contributions (R1, R2) This is only my point of view mixed in with what I've read in this thread, the requirements and outcomes I've listed here will need refined, I'm not precious about them and would like input. Whatever we agree as outcomes, and more importantly the detail associated with those outcomes, will not keep everyone happy and we are all going to make compromises on what we feel is the "best" way. For example, I would obliterate all Roawia lore and start again with a new map and lore, but 11 out of 18 participants would disagree, so I go with the majority. One thing I would say about the yet to be designed war system is it's important players can't be destroyed and eliminated from the game. That will likely discourage participation. They way I imagined that could be solved is that when a player has lost all his losable territories (I would still give every player a core territory that can't be lost) then the conqueror becomes the overlord of the defeated player. This should have some benefits for the overlord (perhaps a small portion of resources from the defeated player) but should also confer benefits to the defeated player (anyone declaring war on him also declares war on the overlord).
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Post by Jayden & Moira on Jan 21, 2018 9:55:27 GMT -8
Thank you Cuahchic, that clarifies a lot. The value of the resources seems a little more clear now. I do still have a concern in that I don't think war should be as prevalent as your suggesting. I believe that no region or settlement ought to solely belong to one player and that war should only be declared by the leadership of a faction. To prevent ridiculous conquest we could probably assign some sort of attrition/advantage value to the heartland of each faction. Northern Garheim is too cold, southern Loreos is too hot, central Lenfald is too heavily wooded, etc... Make it so that factions can grow and players can participate in the war effort without damage so severe being inflicted that a faction ceases to be relevant. Believe me, ever reaching a point that we have to restart will kill LoR as we know it. All previous story lines will be erased and all character development undone, I can't imagine a worse legacy to leave on a story building game that has been running for years.
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