Candle'Bre

Velociryx · March 10, 2002, 12:32

Needed a place to put a file so the development team could take a peek at the core rules doc....::sheepish grin::

-=Vel=-

Velociryx · March 10, 2002, 12:34

Not sure why the file has two "zips" on it....will try to attach it again here...just in case....

-=Vel=-

Velociryx · March 10, 2002, 12:34

Much better....

ravagon · March 10, 2002, 20:34

Another veritable novelette by the master.

At a first glance it looks much easier to understand than the previous forum post collection.
Now I'll have something other than work to look at for the rest of the day.
Gracias

PS:

Quote:

insert fantastic logo here

I like it! You could almost leave that in as the final logo.

Chowlett · March 10, 2002, 21:32

Thanks, that'll be useful. Among other things, it may help me do those probablilities.

Skanky Burns · March 11, 2002, 01:48

Excellent!!

I agree that archers should not be allowed to capture any enemy units, only to deal death.

Also, the doc is missing this information: What happens when the cavalry units are told to support the infantry. They forfeit their cavalry charge, but what sort of bonus do the infantry get??

Chowlett · March 11, 2002, 10:12

Big, innit? Think I might work from the electronic copy for a bit...

ravagon · March 11, 2002, 21:29

Well, the manual did say feedback was welcome so I'll assume it could be put here. Could always be moved/deleted later.

The capturing units thing. It seems you can either ransom them back to their original owner for honour points (although a point for each unit released could add up to quite a bit over the game methinks. Don't know how rare the chance for capture is though).
Could you add the optional bribe attempt (carrot & stick sort of thing) with increased chances depending on your current honour maybe?
Is the ransom negotiable between players or fixed?
Can you opt to either hold on to the captives (either to prevent the opposition from regaining their units or as an "honour potential pool" for use later - maybe requiring an upkeep cost of some sort - or maybe use the evil swine (ie: they oppose me!) as forced labour?

As an alternative could you release them as neutrals (although I suppose this is similar to killing wrt removing them from the oppositions hand)? No honour gained. No gold gained. Opponent doesn't retrieve units. (kinda like a vow of neutrality thing I guess).

Espionage: Do you lose more honour if conducting it against allies or could this just be regarded as a DoW or something?

The map: Fixed for the boardgame but maybe (optionally) randomized for the computer version?
60 useful "player" provinces. Any others? Terra Impenetrabla or the like. ie: lake/swamp/mountainous or something. Basically to create more strategic provinces/channels etc.

Enough babbling, for now...

[PS: The honour thing wrt gifting to allies looks a little "shonky", and probably needs restricting in some way to once per turn or somesuch.
Example:
Vel: Here rav, have some units/gold *chalks up honour*

rav: Thanks Vel I appreciate it. Here, you can have some from me *gives different units/gold and chalks up honour*
ad infinitum]
[PPS: I'm sure the AI in Moo does this. Its the only way they could form alliances so early in the game

]

Skanky Burns · March 12, 2002, 00:50

Quote:

Don't know how rare the chance for capture is though

Capturing will be fairly common, expecially once you start fielding your more elite units. If a units attack strength is under 11, then whenever they roll exactly their strength they capture an enemy unit instead of killing him. Units with an attack strength of 11 or greater will capture enemy units when they roll 11.

The reason that we chose 11 was that each combat roll is done with 2 10-sided dice. Rolling a total of 11 is the most likely combination to occur, so to allow many captures during the game thats the number we chose.

FrustratedPoet · March 12, 2002, 10:43

Quote:

Originally posted by ravagon
The map: Fixed for the boardgame but maybe (optionally) randomized for the computer version?
60 useful "player" provinces. Any others? Terra Impenetrabla or the like. ie: lake/swamp/mountainous or something. Basically to create more strategic provinces/channels etc.

this is an issue we discussed quite a bit on the forum and in team chat, and it was decided that we would stick with the fixed map for the computer version for a few reasons. btw, if anyone else on the team knows better, then feel free to correct me

1: a major part of the game is the story, (or, at least, it will be when i get my butt in gear, and when Helio organises the Event Engine) and the map and provinces that Vel has put a lot of detail into are a major part of the story. therefore, we need the fixed map.
2: a random map, while a good idea, and a necessity as an option for multiplayer, is a pig to code compared to a fixed map. i believe we agreed that random maps are a must-include feature somewhere down the line, however the team are putting all our efforts into producing a playable v0.1 at the moment, to test Skanky's coding of the combat engine

among other things , and i think we wanna take things one step at a time.

you are right though, of course, a random map will give us so much (especially replayability) that a fixed map cannot, and will eventually be included. i think Vel is very keen on a map editor, which is a cool idea, but i have no idea how much more difficult that is to programme.

Quote:

[PS: The honour thing wrt gifting to allies looks a little "
shonky", and probably needs restricting in some way to once per turn or somesuch.
Example:
Vel: Here rav, have some units/gold *chalks up honour*

rav: Thanks Vel I appreciate it. Here, you can have some from me *gives different units/gold and chalks up honour*
ad infinitum]

hmmmm .... very good point ... and i think you've pointed out a potentially highly exploitable loophole in the system here. also, if i gift huge amounts of gold/units to my ally i will receive huge amounts of honour. if my ally then gifts them all back to me the following turn then they too will receive huge amounts of honour without either of us really sacrificing anything. i don't have any thoughts right now about how this could be avoided, but it's a concerning issue i think. thanks a lot for raising it!

Velociryx · March 12, 2002, 12:11

Oh oh! LOL....it's funny...I had not even thought to look here to see if any comments mighta been made here, but Stoo posted a comment back at the Candle'Bre forums, and so I moseyed this way to check and I'm glad I did!

Rav: I'm glad you like the core rules, bud! Yes....Helio did a SUPERB job at taking my feverish lack-of-sleep induced rantings and turning them into a sleek, sharp looking rules set!

Couple of observations and comments:

Excellent catch, re: the honor abuse! That's something we had discussed with regards to fate cards being perpetually traded but not specifically as it applies to units....outstanding point tho, and you're right...the easiest fix in both cases (and the tentative conclusion we came to regarding the cards) would be to limit such actions to one per turn.

Archers and unit captures: I agree with the concept, but here's what I'm thinking...lemme toss this out here and see what the general thoughts are.

From a systemic (entire army) perspective, leaving archers able to capture units puts the total number of captures at just about perfect. By taking the capture ability away from archers, the total number of captures an army will do on average becomes too low, I would think. True, that makes the whole capturing aspect of combat somewhat of an abstraction, but it seems like it streamlines the code.

OTOH, we could remove the capture option for archers and double the chances of cav to capture (10 or 11)...something like that? In this way, the units would become more specialized.

Thoughts there??

-=Vel=-

ravagon · March 13, 2002, 00:34

Quote:

Originally posted by Velociryx
Oh oh! LOL....it's funny...I had not even thought to look here to see if any comments mighta been made here, but Stoo posted a comment back at the Candle'Bre forums, and so I moseyed this way to check and I'm glad I did!

Sorry Vel. Playtesting/Things that suck should've been more obvious. D'oh. Your site looks extremely organized & I didn't want to put anything in the wrong place.

PS: If you ever want anything broken, er, tested

I've been told I'm quite capable in the stress department.

I'm not real popular with the tech support guys though...

FrustratedPoet · March 13, 2002, 11:00

Quote:

Originally posted by ravagon
I didn't want to put anything in the wrong place.

hehehe, i wouldn't worry about that, mate, it's a pretty free-and-easy forum ... quite a lot of the threads tend to wander off-topic every now and again.

Skanky Burns · March 13, 2002, 20:19

Or a bit more often than that

Velociryx · March 13, 2002, 23:16

Indeed....but that's all part of the fun and magic, I think! And yes! Soon as we get the alpha build up and running (v0.1 of our endeavour) we'll be testing the hell out of the basic engine to see how badly unbalanced my original designs are. Should be great fun, with LOTS of exploits thanks to my SWAG methodology of balancing the units, but testing will get them all sorted out!

-=Vel=-

Cyclotron · March 14, 2002, 02:17

Doubling the capture ability for cav is probably not such a good idea. I've tried to build the terrain map with their limitation in mind, and it seems like the added ability might overpower them. If anything, inf should be given the bonus. They are much too underpowered as it is, and need an edge. Think about it: Light Inf are better attackers, pike are better defenders, mercs are cheaper... consider it.

By the way, I'm also in the process of expanding my sample core rules. I just wish I had a few more comments on them (hint, hint).

Spaced Cowboy · March 14, 2002, 19:04

Jeeze C7 you're worse than my wife. I'll review it I promise. Hey my wife buys me beer btw.
http://www.ninjamicros.com/soulgirl/...s/beerchug.gif
RPM

Skanky Burns · March 14, 2002, 19:09

Don't worry Cyclo, we came to the same conclusion about cavalry.
Heres a quick run-down of what was discussed, or just go to that particular thread and take a look.

Cavalry can capture on normal attacks, but not on charges.

Light Inf and standard Inf have twice the chance of capturing enemies.

Archers cannot capture at all.

All other infantry units capture at the normal rate.

Cyclotron · March 14, 2002, 19:11

Uh... thanks rpm...

It's not nagging, it's... uh... "liminal!"