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Moderator
of Candle'Bre
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Apr 1999
time: 23:14
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Another thread for the purpose of kicking around neat ideas and things that might be.
Note that I am NOT currently at a point where I can begin experimenting with this in the prototype yet, but this is an outgrowth of a question that kinjy asked in the thread on social dynamism, and it DOES tie in with the overall social dynamic of a province (and perhaps even, it could be argued, the kingdom as a whole...in fact, as I write this...this might be the "best place" for these types of traditions to live...they could start in a given province and spread, until they became an accepted part of the growing mythology of your kingdom).
So the first question is...what sorts of "traditions" would you like to see developed in-game?
The first and most obvious to the eye would be, as Kinjy pointed out, military style traditions.
This could manifest itself in the form of a certain kingdom being "known for" it's archers, or it's cavalry, or its general ferocity in battle.
Or it could be more formalized, and express itself in the form of an order of knighthood that you, as the player could opt to establish.
Or, it could be steeped in humanitarian ideals.
Or barbarism and bloodlust.
The possibilities are, quite literally, bound only by our imaginations.
And there are other traditions as well.
Imagine forming a "Silent Brotherhood" (assassins)
Or a Society of Greybeards (sages, wizards, etc)
Or a splinter religion
Heritical groups?
Anything.
So first...I would say, let's draw some bounding boxes and define what sorts of traditions would be fun (with the understanding that we can always expand/add more later), and then flesh out how they might come to be, and how they might express themselves in game terms.
If there's interest in furthering this discussion, that is.... 
-=Vel=-
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Prince
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Jan 2000
time: 01:14
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Are the traditions unique? In the sense of happening only once during the game like wonders of the world or special projects?
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King
Nashville, TN
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Mar 1999
time: 17:14
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quote:
Originally posted by Velociryx
This could manifest itself in the form of a certain kingdom being "known for" it's archers, or it's cavalry, or its general ferocity in battle.
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I like this abstraction. The Total War series does a bit of that, but it gets buried in the other info. If you go this route, please attempt to put some visual indicator right on the province on the main map.
What kind of triggers would be useful? Would this be a one-time only thing per province?
quote:
Originally posted by Velociryx
Or a splinter religion? Heritical groups?
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Yes please! And let's even allow for new faction formation on an ad-hoc basis! Here is how it might work:
You spend a good portion of your early game coddling the Merchant class cause you want more gold ya greedy bastad. Then you happen to notice you need some more high level troops which you can only get by expanding the Aristocracy. So, you go on a crash course on increasing the Aristocracy SocPower. This massive change in the fortunes (no pun intended) of the Merchants causes them to become rather disgruntled. They might even revolt and take a province or two with them!
quote:
Originally posted by Velociryx
Imagine forming a "Silent Brotherhood" (assassins)
Or a Society of Greybeards (sages, wizards, etc)
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Something like this would be cool, but maybe it should be somewhat random? Kind of stealing from EU here, but building a certain set of improvements and maybe researching certain things could bring about a chance for the Event that allows these Societys. Maybe something like:
1)Building a low-class tavern (+1 hapiness to Peasants) and
2) Building a high-class Salon (+1 happiness to Aristocrats) and
3) Researching Secret Codes
might allow for a Silent Brotherhood event that could result in the formation of the assassin's order.
So, you know that you have to "spread the love" around the SocPow graph in order to get these kind of things, but you also run the risk of causing turmoil among the classes. Sounds like an excellent risk/reward mechanism to me!
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Moderator
of Candle'Bre
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Apr 1999
time: 23:14
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Answers to questions:
I would say that the traditions would be "semi-unique" - that is to say....there could be, during the course of a game, more than one province that's known for it's archers, and in fact, in the mythos we've already got established in the game world, there's some of this already (the province of StroudHaven--per the game's existing body of fiction--is already renowned for it's bowmen "The Bowmen of the Pine Cross" hail from here). Likewise, the province of Kell is known for producing the finest warriors in the realm (again, this is drawn straight from the existing body of fiction in the realm), but there's nothing to say that as the game unfolds, some other province could certainly gain recognition for their archers, or horsemen, or whathaveyou (and this could be designed contextually...it would require keeping track of how many of what type troop was trained from a given province, so that over time, the computer would "know" that from the Dutchy of Kinjy, 85% of the troops you trained from there were Cavalry....thus, this might trigger a context senstive event that would bring that to the fore....maybe hence forth, all Cavalry trained in the Duchy of Kinjy would be treated as special units, with some bonus or other (an extra point of movement, higher attack value, lesser cost, or somesuch), and this is the sort of thing that could happen more than once during the course of a game.
That would be one quick and simple manifestation of such a tradition, but we could delve MUCH more deeply into it than that.
As Kinjy writes, we could tie the formation/creation of such groups to the changing dynamic of social power, or to a faction's honor/infamy score, or to certain combinations of buildings built, and even to certain totals of combinations built throughout the realm (making certain organizations quite rare to form).
These increasingly "exotic" (for lack of a better term) manifestations would and should be completely unique, appearing only once per game, and certainly appearing only once per faction (during the course of a given game, we should not, for example, allow one faction to establish half a dozen different holy orders of knighthood...one, if you're lucky, and that'd be about it).
Some additional thoughts I had after I wrote this;
* The "traditions" should vary widely and wildly in their overall power and effect. Some traditions would be very mild/minor with next to no tangible effect, and some traditions might even carry a net negative effect! ("The Pessimists society forms in the Duchy of Vel....-2% to the Max Loyalty of this province)...d'oh! Not such a great one, and maybe it forms after you lose a dramatic battle in an adjacent province or something (you badly lose a battle you shoulda won, for example).
* The "traditions" need not be formed by, or on the basis of the dominant social group in a province (example: let's say that the Academics are the dominant group in a province...they're the diametric of religious folk--typically, the two groups don't get along--but I could EASILY see some splinter fundie religious group forming in a province like this, as the few religious folk that ARE in the province band together to give themselves a louder voice (The religous folk of VellVille have formed together to form the "Society against the advancement of the Acadameia" - halves the effect of the Scribe's Tower here.
* Still others, could be formed by some combination of everything (the formation of the Order of the Heart, a inightly brotherhood, for example, might be a contextual event that activates (such that it has a % chance of appearing for you if:
You have an honor score of at least +50
Build a barracks and a temple in at least 4 of your provinces
Have researched up to at lease Mil 4 tech
Then, this event might occur.
If you get the event, you'd be required to invest X gold in the formation of the order, at which time, you'd get to build some new building in provinces that contained both a temple and a barracks, which would allow the training of the Knight of the Heart unit
And so on.
So....just tossing some more ideas out there to foster the discussion....I'll hush now, and stand back to see what else you guys come up with!
-=Vel=-
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King
Nashville, TN
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Mar 1999
time: 17:14
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Future Imaginary After Action Report:
So this was a pretty interesting game that brought out the deviousness of playing against other humans and how they can use the dirty tricks to swing the game back and forth...
Me, Leland and Vel were playing an MP game - all of us started fairly close together. Being the good builders we are, all of us focused on infrastructure early - but with different foci.
Vel, the brainiac that he is, went for schools, literacy and knowledge - building up quite the hefty lead on the tech tree. As expected, his Acadmeician's ruled the roost.
Leland got a special event early that gave him a boost to gold production for every Confessor unit. Guess the people wanted to buy their way clear of sin? To maximize this bonus, Leland starting building chapels and churches everywhere and his Clerical Social Power rose pretty quickly.
Because I wanted to stand some chance of eventually fielding a force large enough to counter Vel, I spend my early efforts building up the peasantry in an attempt to bolster my "hammers". A Tavern on Every Corner was my motto since those serfs like their ale. Every eight turns or so, I also gave a Fete so that the aristocracy would be kept happy (since I would need them to build the stronger troops later).
All was going fairly smoothly with Vel playing tech broker (and amassing a fortune, I am sure), Leland reinvesting his bonus cash into ever more impressive churches and my peasants ramping up my production lines.
The turning point came when Leland built his 12th church and gained access Grand Cathedral. This "wonder" allowed him to build the Inquisitor unit. He could only have two of these fearsome fellows so I wasn't too worried. Of course, I should have realized that a real person would use these guys much more effectively than the AI. Inquistor A went to VelVille to rail against the "godless" academies while Inquisitor B found his way into my lands and starting pitting the peasants against the nobles.
With my peasantry refusing to work and then getting slaughtered by the haughty aristocrats and Vel's research severly truncated, we decided to try to do something about this. We could not directly attack Leland since the Grand Cathedral would intervene in any wars between factions with at least a 25% catholic population (which we both had, given our proximity to Leland's lands and the natural spread of faith).
A diplomacy message from Vel asked me if I had built at least 12 Taverns and at least 4 Salons. When I replied that I only had two Salons, Vel asked if I could manage to crank out two more. I only had enough cash to rush one, but Vel was willing to loan me some cash (at a fairly moderate interest rate I might add!) to get the other. I said "Sure" but wondered how this would help our situation. "trust me" replied the mastah.
After building the fourth Salon, Vel gifted me the tech Secret Codes, saying, "This might do nothing, but be prepared to take advantage should the opportunity arise." While I am not one to look a free tech askance, I really had no idea what was going on.
Lo and behold, three turns later, I get an Event:
"Renaldo knew that no good could come of the illicit affair between his noble sister Samantha and the field-hand she slyly visited in the stables of their country estate. Confronting her directly would do no good, for her temper might cause her to do something rash such as openly take the peasant as a lover - causing no end of shame for the family. Likewise trying to covertly meet with some of the rougher elements of the taverns would surely fail.
Fortunately, Renaldo had been hearing of the most remarkable puzzles at Lady Amelia's Salon. Hiding messages inside poems might be an amusing diversion for the ladies, but the same principle could be used to communicate securely for other purposes. That poor field-hand just might have to meet with a tragic accident...
Arrange for the murder of the field-hand - 25 gold (30% chance of discovery and -2 Aristocracy)
Do Nothing - 0 Gold (-1 Aristocracy, +1 Peasantry)
Found the Silent Brotherhood - 150 gold (+1 Merchants)
"
Ooh, interesting. Me likee ninjas! With the assassin's guild up and running, I ordered a hit on Inquisitor B (Vel is nice and all, but I gotta look to my own lands first!). The SB isn't free to use though and I had spent all my gold on founding the damn group in the first place. Fortunately, the first act is free of charge. Two turns later, Mr. Red Cape was dead.
Something else I didn't know, each sucessful use of the SB provides an increased chance of them spreading to other factions. When they attempted to move into VelVille, they found a patron with piles of cash (from all the tech brokering earlier!). Inquisitor A soon met his end.
While I was rejoicing over this event, I suppose I should have seen what was coming next. Vel and Leland partnered up and turned on me. Vel used his cash hoard to sent assassins after my merchants, further restricting my own income, while Leland kept sending missionaries to distract my populace (I got increased happiness among the peasantry, but every time a new conversion took place, that peasant stopped production for one turn - multiply that by the fact that this happened every other turn and you see my trouble).
The Duchy of Kinjy soon fell into disarray and ruin...
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Moderator
of Candle'Bre
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Apr 1999
time: 23:14
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Okay, so I slept on it last night, and started thinking up some actual game mechanics means for establishing traditions.
I began with what I'd think would be the "easy" ones....a given province being "known for" its (insert troop type here).
To that end, here's one possible way we could trigger/track that tradition:
make a new series of provice-specific variables called:
Num(troopname)Trained:
One of these for each type of troop that you could possibly train in said province. this would simply be a counter that would increment by 1 each time you trained another of the troop type in question. It would be one of those "under the hood" variables that didn't do anything to the game, outwardly.
We'd tell the program to track this variable for each province, but to only pay attention to whatever province had the HIGHEST number here, for any given troop type. The rest would just be ignored.
Then, have another variable: Totalnum(troopname)Trained. This would be an empire wide variable.
So let's say we're tracking archers, for the sake of getting specific.
If we trained fifteen archers in the Duchy of Kinjy, then NumArchersTrained (for the province of Kinjy) would = 15.
If we had 22 archers total (the value of TotalnumArchersTrained = 22
Using these two variables, we could determine what % of Kinjy's archery contingent of his army hailed from Kinjyland, rather than some adjacent/outlying provinces...in this case: 15/22, or ~68%.
We could make another "under the hood" variable called: ArchersPresentinBattle. This would be either 0, or 1...true or false, and would only be assigned a value if/when a battle occurred.
So any time Kinjy fought a battle, this little gizmo would check if said battle involved any archers on Kinjy's side.
A "yes" answer warrants a "renown check," and a "no" answer warrants...nothing.
So....another new variable.....LevelofRenown
Each time the little gizmo above indicates that there should be a renown check, a % "roll" is made (random number generated, 1-100). If the number is less than or equal to (NumArchersTrained/TotnumArchers), then the LevelofRenown variable (which starts at zero), increments by +1.
At some point (say, if this value rises above +10), then each turn that this value increases thereafter, there's a % chance that the "renowned" event will trigger, which would grant the archery units in the Duchy of Kinjy "special unit" status, and give them a perma boost for the rest of the current game.
Or....something like that.
-=Vel=-
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Moderator
of Candle'Bre
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Apr 1999
time: 23:14
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How an order of Knighthood might be established: (again, this is just me thinking out loud....if anybody has some other ideas about this, or thinks that the below is just all sorts of out of whack....don't hesitate to speak up!)
Honor must be above +50
At least half your provinces must be dominated by either the Aristocracy or the Clergy
At least half your provinces must have BOTH a Shrine (or one of its upgrades) and a Barracks in it
You must have researched at least up to Diplo4 and Mil5
If all of the above conditions have been met, then the “Order of KnightHood” event activates for you.
Note that this event may occur only once per game, per player.
(players would get to name their own order)
Costs of founding the order:
2000g per province the player controls (small kingdoms—5provs or fewer—pay half this amount)
Must build a new building (Templar Chapel, or somesuch), in order to train Knights of the (whatever the player calls them) unit.
Player selects from a menu of choices re: what his/her knight unit will “look like”
Baseline Knight unit: Cavalry, 2 moves, with a 10 attack value and a 10 defense value. Costs 1000g to train one unit.
Player specific choices, relating to their knights:
· Merciful (each unit begins play with the Medic II promotion)—heals self faster, and heals other units with him
· Staunch Defenders (+2 defense value, -1 attack value)
· Ferocious in battle (+2 attack value, -1 defense value)
· Vow of poverty (each knight gives all he owns to the order. Price to train and upkeep (which is 10% of the training price, paid per turn) is reduced by 50%)
· Harsh entry requirements (may have no more than five in play at any given time. Attack and Defense values gain +3 each, unit gains +20 XP when trained (promotions to be selected by the player as the unit is trained))
And possibly others? (this would be a fabulous point of further discussion!!)
-=Vel=-
Last edited by Velociryx on 07-02-2008 at 13:02
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King
Nashville, TN
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Mar 1999
time: 17:14
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quote:
Originally posted by Velociryx
make a new series of provice-specific variables called:
Num(troopname)Trained:
...
Then, have another variable: Totalnum(troopname)Trained. This would be an empire wide variable.
...
We could make another "under the hood" variable called: ArchersPresentinBattle.
...
So....another new variable.....LevelofRenown
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Somewhat technical, but what language is being used for the coding? The reason I ask is something of pet-peeve of mine. Some languages do a much better job of garbage collection (destroying left over objects, cleaning out calc results, managing variables) than others. I've seen many a program get bogged down because the programmer didn't manually manage the garbage and the coding language didn't do it for him/her.
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King
Nashville, TN
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Mar 1999
time: 17:14
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Looking at the mechanics suggested in the Archers post above and then taking a step back...
This model will encourage province specialization: "okay, i am going to use province a for my archers/artillery, province b for cav and province c for infantry. That means prov a needs buildings 1 and 4, prov b needs buildings 1, 2, and 8, and prov c needs 1 and 3."
I am not taking a position as to whether that is good or bad, but just posing a question:
Is this what you want?
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Moderator
of Candle'Bre
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Apr 1999
time: 23:14
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 LOVE the sound effects idea! And, since this is a freebie game (or will be, when we're done), I think it'd be easy enough to embed a few "audio easter eggs" into the mix.... 
Good question as to the language and the cleanup....yes...I have learnt the lesson the hard way where that is concerned.
I'm no coder (not by ANY stretch), so the prototype engine isn't built around a traditional "language" per se, but is constructed using GameMaker 6, with lots of drag and drop options for idiots like me who want to try their hand at stuff.
IMO, that's the telling difference between the prototype engine and the actual game.
What I'm doing is great for my purposes, but is almost certainly NOT robust enough for a full fledged effort...thus my caveats listed before...
Specialization of provinces toward certain specific unit types....I agree with you....these particular rules would tend to make one gravitate toward specialization. Now, you could prolly make a valid argument on both sides of the fence as to whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, but IMO, the more interesting choice would be to introduce some *other* rules set that would tempt you off in some other direction (in this case, a more generalized approach...example...what if we made a rule that said that if your barracks became "adept" at training a wide variety of troops, it could earn the right to train troops faster than usual? Now we're talking about some intriguing choices! )
-=Vel=-
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King
Nashville, TN
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Mar 1999
time: 17:14
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quote:
Originally posted by Velociryx
And we don't have to stop there.
Bardic tradition (as above, but would be a blending of Academic and Aristocratic (who are the stand-ins for our militant folk), with also the possibility here that you've got to already have a troop type "of renown"
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I like that bit about already needing to have speciality in order to even qualify for the chance to get something from this whole other level of specialities. Encourages experimentation and enhances replayability.
So, let's look at breaking down what levels might be viable:
Level 1: Level of Renown
- Archers
- Light Infantry
- Light Cavalry
- Gentleman Spy
- Diplomats?
Level 2: Orders of Legend
- Longbowmen or Xbowmen
- Knights (both Infantry and Mounted)
- Assassins
- Double Agents
Level 3: Mythic Forces (very rare)
- Some sort of artillery (think of things like the ancient chinese cannons)
- The Immortals (Infantry that demoralize opponents)
- Ninjas
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Moderator
of Candle'Bre
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Apr 1999
time: 23:14
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Yep...as we've continued to kick the idea around, that seems to be the direction it's headed...which is no biggie...the way it's set up in the prototype engine is that each province is its own "bucket" (object, I guess would be the proper programming term), and I do a lot of copying/pasting to make sure that the variables IN each bucket are consistent, so all I gotta do is make a new subsection in the military "area" of the bucket, define a few new "bean counting" variables, and we should be all set....that should be all that's needed to lay the groundwork!
Now....I think we've hit upon something here, in this discussion, that bears more talking about, and that is....the idea of encouraging a certain amount of specialization, but also, providing different *types* of bonuses for the generalist (which, in my mind, would further encourage experimentation, and enhance replayability).
Granted, the more of this stuff we add, the trickier it becomes to make it all work, balance wise, but that (for me, at least), is the great fun of it all, and besides, the more KINDS of choices like that (with the proviso that we can make them provide meaningful in-game bonuses for those who choose to pursue them), the more "real" the game becomes....or at least, that's the hope.
-=Vel=-
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King
Nashville, TN
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Mar 1999
time: 17:14
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quote:
Originally posted by Velociryx
Now....I think we've hit upon something here, in this discussion, that bears more talking about, and that is....the idea of encouraging a certain amount of specialization, but also, providing different *types* of bonuses for the generalist (which, in my mind, would further encourage experimentation, and enhance replayability).
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Yep, need to think about the generalist mode a bit.
I would imagine that the Specialization route will result in better troops, so I guess the natural counter is more troops for the Generalist (through reduced cost I would imagine).
Perhaps the Specialist route would also reduce your ability to go "outside your zone" so other troop types would become more expensive in that province, while the Generalist would have no such burden.
Is there going to be any system to account for combined arms? If so, then the Generalist would be able to capitalize on that while the Specialist would not (or would get reduced returns). Such as system needn't be complex, perhaps a +5% to-hit per troop type in a stack.
Perhaps the Specialist might gain movement bonus in particular terrain types and a corresponding penalty in opposing types, while again, the Generalist would incur no penalty (or get bonsues).
I can't really think of any other mechanisms that don't feel contrived. So, maybe a good way to encourage the Generalist would be through events:
"The young boys and girls of the realm always flock to see the Parade of Arms in the spring and fall. Seeing the vast array of bowmen with their colorful fletchings, the cavalry in their splendid horses and the wickedly sharp swords of legionairres is enough to spark dreams of different life than that of their parents.
+ 10 happiness for 15 turns"
"The Council of Warre has decided to show their appreciation for the Field Marshall's training program.
+500 gold"
"Sir, you simply must read this," exclaimed Sam, your aide-de-campe. "What is it now, Sam, another petition from the farmers for recompense for the grain we appropriated?" you replied wearily. "No Sir, it is a treatise from Master Vel at the Academy. He has a theory of using different troops in combination to complement each other."
For the next 15 turns, when stacked together, your troops are more likely to make successful attacks (+1 range to archers, +10 hp to infantry, +15% charge attack to cavalry)"
etc...
etc
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Moderator
of Candle'Bre
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Apr 1999
time: 23:14
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These are just notes to self, mostly, so that when we get the social dynamism thing worked out, and I start on this, I’ll have a basic idea of how the “flow” of it would work in the prototype engine.
For each province, I’ll need to set up a new barracks subsection inside the military section.
The following variables would need to be added for bean counting:
NumInfTrained
NumArchTrained
NumCavTrained
NumSiegeTrained
TotUnitsTrained
(note to self: these would all have starting values of zero, and I’ll need to remember to make them increment by +1 each time the training module gets activated, so that the running total is current).
RenownedThreshold: 0.85 (this is just an arbitrary value I picked…it could be anything, and what’s more fun is that we could vary it from one province to another, such that some provinces could gain “units of renown” more easily than others, and, if we set the value above 1, then some provinces could NEVER do so…Luria? Interesting….
InfofRenown
ArchofRenown
CavofRenown
SiegeofRenown
All these variables default to zero (false) until one of them succeeds a check. Then, all the others are frozen at zero for the remainder of the current game.
Other Variables would be
Barracks of Quality = 0 (only equals 1 if the conditions are met—see below)
To see if the “RenownedThreshold” has been met for any given troop type:
How many units have been trained here? If less than 100, then it doesn’t matter anyway.
If more than 100, then, for each troop type, we do:
Num(trooptype)Trained/TotUnitsTrained to see if we get a result greater than 0.85. If we do, then the first TIME we do, that unit’s “renowned” variable = 1, and the rest are froze at zero (this check for this barracks no longer needs to be made).
Possible bonuses:
(player gets to name his new unique unit – new unique unit can ONLY be trained in the province that the check succeeds in, and only ONE such unit may be trained at a time, regardless of the province’s training limits).
Units of Renown have default settings of +1/+1 above and beyond the normal type, plus the player gets to select an additional bonus
(some ideas for these additional bonuses could be)
Free (and extra) XP (say….+4 free experience)
Make a set of promotions that are unique to units of renown (more stuff to kick around)
Homeguard (an extra +0/+1 when defending any province you control)
King’s Vanguard (and extra +1/+0)
And others….(just a few tossed out there to get us started)
HOWEVER (and this takes Kinjy’s notes in the post above into account), any time you train troops other than the “renowned” variety, they cost 20% more from this particular barracks/province.
If a barracks becomes a Barracks of Quality, it gains the following bonuses:
Training rate = +1
Morale hit for troop training = halved
+2 troop training points per turn (meaning that troops will be trained faster in this barracks)
-=Vel=-
PS, re: Combined Arms….yep….it’s definitely in there! I’ll see if I can put together the notes on the D.A.M.(n) combat system… (I dearly love that acronym!)
Edit:
So...the actual flow would go like this:
At the start of every turn, we'll go thru each province.
If we find a p | |
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