Excellent.
You know, I'm pretty sure that I finally rolled and ordered everything correctly... and I use the wrong alias.
Tacticslion is, of course, the Dark Seer in the gameplay page. My apologies.
It's fine. I've done that a few times myself. Besides, I know who you are.
It looks like the first full-scale wars of the gods have begun!
Yep. S+@@ just got realzz, yo.
S$#~. Just. Got. Realzz. Yo.
...I'll just suck on my corner, thanks.
Man. This stuff is getting intense.
We have four Gods involved in active combat right now.
The whole 10 Religion? No. Just no.
This is the absolute first time this game has ever been run. I am sure that in the next game there'll be tweaks.
I don't think we can justify any mid-game tweaks, though. As we're all building with the same information.
I'd add that smite seems like it's a bit too powerful for its cost.
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Yeah, I agree. I'm thinking that next time, religion cannot produce more power from a settlement than that settlement's population.
If you think about it, Religion completely supersedes Agriculture. Every turn, a settlement will generate +1 power per Religion, or cost -1 power per growth. Either way, you get the same result: a total excess of 1 power--except that you don't always have to grow the settlement.
You grow your settlements for worshippers and the ability to make settlers/armies.
Yeah. Religion is too powerful at the moment... Just wait two turns and you will see what I mean ;)
Yes, but a person with Religion X gains X power per settlement, while someone with Agriculture X saves X power per settlement, unless the settlement is of size X or less.
Since you can't grow a settlement more than once a turn, there is no situation in which Agriculture nets you more power than Religion, while there is always a situation where Religion nets you more power than Agriculture.
This is what happens when motivated to create a game by inability to sleep and the madness that ensues.
Some tweaks that should be considered:
-Adding phases to rounds. See below for details.
-Adding a 'relationship overview' table for each player. See below for details.
-Giving units 'action points'. Moving, building a settlement, and so on, all cost an action point. No more crazy chain-settler-settlement spam!
-A city cannot do anything on the turn it has been founded.
-Slight tweaks to costs of miracles, powers, domains and so on.
Phases:
1) Gather Power 2) Grow Cities 3) City Events 4) Unit Moves 5) Round wrap-up. The Gods should be able to take actions at any point, but with our collaborative 'LET'S POST OUR TURNS' frame that means that certain actions can disrupt phsae 1, 2, 3 and 4. My suggestion is that when a phase gets interrupted, the players actions until then are processed, but the game is halted while the gamemaster and the players resolve the rest of the turn. Does it make it clunkier? Yes. Does it make it more rewarding for all players involved? Yes, because it doesn't become a game of 'ambush the other after he posted'.
Relationships:
1) Players must set a 'mood/opinion' for each other player encountered/known. In my opinion it should range roughly from 1 to 10, 1 being open war and virulent hatred, and 10 meaning you see them as allies that you love, trust and perhaps want to get funky with.
2) Each turn players can change the mood/opinion in phase 3 or 4 by one or two steps.
3) Doing things that are not in line with your current mood/opinion will upset/confuse the people. What the punishment for this should be (less power generation??), I don't know. But it means that you can actually cultivate positive AND negative relationships and it adds a new layer of strategy to the game.
That's my 2 cp.
Population is also very useful for advancement which costs 0 and gets you science, which buys you the advancements (including religion) we all need.
I mean, there is definitively a reason that you should grow your settlements. But I agree: Religion is a -tad- bit too powerful. Especially when united to low-cost science.
But any tweaks right now would be very hard to implement without breaking the current game. It would require some serious restitution.
I, for one, have invested heavily in religion and would not want that destroyed.
I didn't want to have phased gameplay as that would slow down the game considerably. You are right, and I very much don't like the 'ambush post' style that the ruleset encourages.
I think that in original draft the units moved and acted before cities. So settlers built that round could not go and create a new city, which built a settler, which moved, which built city, which... Etc.
Some tweaks that should be considered:
-Adding phases to rounds. See below for details.
-Adding a 'relationship overview' table for each player. See below for details.
-Giving units 'action points'. Moving, building a settlement, and so on, all cost an action point. No more crazy chain-settler-settlement spam!
-A city cannot do anything on the turn it has been founded.
-Slight tweaks to costs of miracles, powers, domains and so on.Phases:
1) Gather Power 2) Grow Cities 3) City Events 4) Unit Moves 5) Round wrap-up. The Gods should be able to take actions at any point, but with our collaborative 'LET'S POST OUR TURNS' frame that means that certain actions can disrupt phsae 1, 2, 3 and 4. My suggestion is that when a phase gets interrupted, the players actions until then are processed, but the game is halted while the gamemaster and the players resolve the rest of the turn. Does it make it clunkier? Yes. Does it make it more rewarding for all players involved? Yes, because it doesn't become a game of 'ambush the other after he posted'.Relationships:
1) Players must set a 'mood/opinion' for each other player encountered/known. In my opinion it should range roughly from 1 to 10, 1 being open war and virulent hatred, and 10 meaning you see them as allies that you love, trust and perhaps want to get funky with.
2) Each turn players can change the mood/opinion in phase 3 or 4 by one or two steps.
3) Doing things that are not in line with your current mood/opinion will upset/confuse the people. What the punishment for this should be (less power generation??), I don't know. But it means that you can actually cultivate positive AND negative relationships and it adds a new layer of strategy to the game.That's my 2 cp.
In a play-by-post format, it is fun-killing clunky to make "phases". I would not be interested in a game that takes a week per turn because each player has to deal with multiple phases. In an actual tabletop game, we'd have sequential turns and such to resolve ambush attacks. As it stands, it is in your best interest to play defensively.
Rapid expansion seems a valid strategy. It makes the game too slow if we have to more or less settle one square per turn. It costs a lot of power to chain-settle. I spent most of my power last turn, for instance, simply in creating settlers.
Also, why should information pertaining to mood/disposition be public knowledge? Part of strategy is deception. Moreover, many players won't interract for quite a while. Most of us in the NW won't interact with you two in the South for a long, long while. It makes little sense to have an established disposition to them.
Now that being said: I think it would be wise to give us some more land to play with. That big island in the NE is pretty much never going to be touched by us for about a month because it would take so long to get there. Perhaps sea travel should be much faster than regular travel?
Do we want to continue our current game, or put in an effort to - as a group - rebuild the rules for a more satisfying and enjoyable reboot?
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I am for continued game with tweaks to the rules on the fly...
Starting with religion being capped by population of settlement.
*sigh* My precious-precious power...
I do not want a reboot. This game has just gotten interesting and I would be extremely displeased to start from the beginning.
I have absolutely zero complaints in actually continuing this game, with these rules, till the end of the game. If the choice is between restarting the game, or altering huge swathes of it, or just keeping it "as is"? I suggest "as is".
Some MINOR tweaks, with RESTITUTION, however, would be useful. If we are nerfing anything, we need to allow players reasonable changes to accomodate this. Otherwise it ruins all our strategies, as we're all playing the same game and should be aware of the consequences of our choices.
Ai. My phases idea didnt come across as intended! I meant it as a way for playera to structurize their posts and the way the DM processes the rounds. That streamlines gameplay and lets us know what and cannot (reasonably) happen.
And one more thing: these type of games stand and fall with the respect you have for your fellow players. Yes, only one can win, but if we play it right we all win :D
And one more thing: these type of games stand and fall with the respect you have for your fellow players. Yes, only one can win, but if we play it right we all win :D
We should all play in a spirit of good cheer and JOLLY COOPERATION!
\o/
Wait, wrong game.
But no, I agree: Good sportsmanship is a must. But right now, I see nothing disregarding that.
Oh, I have an idea:
Why don't we have moves made in secret until all players have moved? Then we cannot know how to PARTICULARLY target any individual's actions.
It might be difficult with how Paizo works, but we get rid of "waiting until the other player posts" to ambush them.
I think this is a fabulous idea.
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We should play this out as is, no tweaks. In many ways, this is a playtest, and we should understand what the good and bad sides of the game are. It's fascinating, it's fun, it's interesting. Once we've had enough with this game, we can reset with a new board and new powers and new rules and try again.
Umbral Reaver, this is just the start of a really fun experience!
As I've said: I agree. I like the game as is, though I am really behind the idea, in the next game, of making moves secret until all players move.
I am willing to bear the burden of playing without tweaks as well if you insist...
At the moment I propose to make a cap of 10 on discoveries. Or at least religion.
A cap for each advancement seems wise.
And yeah, the GM would have to do more, but that's part of being in a GMed game.
Sadly, there is no "hide post" feature that could be turned off.
Again, I would like to reitterate: If we are to nerf anything, we have to have reparations for any player hurt by it. No "unmodified" nerfs. Those are BS.
But yes, a cap on certain skills makes sense.
Perhaps costs should scale with level? For example, if I've got Religion 5, buying Religion 6 has the same cost as buying Agriculture 1.
It already does.
The cost of a science is equal to how many sciences you already have.
1 science free.
2 science = 1
3 science = 2
4 science = 3
5 science = 4
Et cetera.
If you wanted it to scale with level, you would make agriculture 1 cost less than religion 6.
Sorry, yes, that's what I'm saying, maybe Religion 6 should be more expensive than Agriculture 1.
Okay.
So how about something like:
The cost of an advancement is equal to the total number of advancements you already have + twice the rank of the advancement to be advanced.
Example:
Religion + 5
Agriculture + 3
Survival + 2
To go to religion + 6, I would have to calculate:
(5 + 3 + 2) + 5(2) = 20.
As opposed to merely 10 otherwise.
IF you really want to ratchet up the cost, you could make it three times the rank of the advancement to be advanced. That could really lower the propensity to reach stupidly high ranks very quickly.
I'm going to sleep now. I hope to see input from the others on this topic.
As is, I think we can keep playing this game with some minor modifications. Here's what I propose:
1. I will process the current turn with the old rules. Yes, you get all of your religion power.
2. On later turns, religion will not produce more power from a settlement than it has population.
3. Next turn, you may trade in any number of ranks of the religion advancement for any other advancements. This is a single opportunity change your advancements.
4. Advancements will be (tentatively) capped at 10. That's the highest we have so far, and I won't make anyone drop below what they already have.
Further possible changes:
Turn Structuring! I'd like some opinions on this.
Step 1. Power:
Gather Power from population and religion.
Step 2. Grow Settlements:
Spend Power to grow settlements, no more than once per settlement.
Step 3. Force Movement:
Move armies and settlers around. You may use the inspire forces miracle in this step.
Step 4. Settlement Actions:
Advance, build armies and settlers, etc. You may use the inspire city miracle in this step.
Step 5. Other Miracles:
Perform any miracles except inspire.
This does mean no more chain-settling (which I kind of liked) but it organises things much more coherently, both for the player and the GM. One of my tentative goals for the system was that once all players understood it sufficiently, the GM role could be removed and the players could handle the map updates themselves. I don't know if that's still a realistic goal.
EDIT: huh, ninja'd twice
Over-all, I agree with the idea of the turn structure. Sounds good.
EDIT 2: Are you saying all advancements - all advancements total - are capped at ten, or any individual advancement is capped at ten?
Sorry, yes, that's what I'm saying, maybe Religion 6 should be more expensive than Agriculture 1.
This is actually the modification that I would support, if anything. Right now, the fact that all sciences, regardless, cost the same for the next tier means that there is little reason not to pick your favorite sciences and go to town.
My suggestion (though I'm in the camp that we want to finish this one with rules-unmodified, preparing for the next go-round) is that Science costs an amount equal to your current science plus an amount equal to your ranks in a particular science. This will slow down the increase in science substantially, but will over-all encourage the increase of the diversification.
Thus your base total cost remains the same:
Acquire-------cost
1st science - 0
2nd science - 1
3rd science - 2
4th science - 3
5th science - 4
6th science - 5
7th science - 6
8th science - 7
... and so on, but it's modified by the amount of ranks you have in a particular science. So, for example, putting lots of power into religion...
1st science (religion): cost 0
- plus the cost of religion (0) = 0+0=0, total: religion 1
2nd science (religion): cost 1
- plus the cost of religion (1) = 1+1=2, total: religion 2
3rd science (religion): cost 2
- plus the cost of religion (2) = 2+2=4, total: religion 3
4th science (religion): cost 3
- plus the cost of religion (3) = 3+3=6, total: religion 4
5th science (survival): cost 4
- plus the cost of survival (0) = 4+0=4, total: survival 1
6th science (religion): cost 5
- plus the cost of religion (4) = 5+4=9, total: religion 6
7th science (survival): cost 6
- plus the cost of survival (1) = 6+1=7, total: survival 2
8th science (religion): cost 7
- plus the cost of religion (6) = 7+6=13, total: religion 7
... and so on.
You could always increase the points for going to the next rank by double or triple, but that seems a bit much... of course, I could be wrong.
I'm going to sleep now. I hope to see input from the others on this topic.
As is, I think we can keep playing this game with some minor modifications. Here's what I propose:
1. I will process the current turn with the old rules. Yes, you get all of your religion power.
2. On later turns, religion will not produce more power from a settlement than it has population.
This produces the opposite effect. Religion goes from being +1 for every settlement, to...+1 per population? How do I rank that up? +2 per population? +3 per population?
Suppose I have rank 5 in religion under the idea expressed above, and I have 15 worshippers. That would still mean I gather 75 power per turn! That's significantly higher than what is current!
Conversely, if I only get +1 power per population, there's no way to increase religion. Religion would become useless.
Further possible changes:
Turn Structuring! I'd like some opinions on this.
Step 1. Power:
Gather Power from population and religion.Step 2. Grow Settlements:
Spend Power to grow settlements, no more than once per settlement.Step 3. Force Movement:
Move armies and settlers around. You may use the inspire forces miracle in this step.Step 4. Settlement Actions:
Advance, build armies and settlers, etc. You may use the inspire city miracle in this step.Step 5. Other Miracles:
Perform any miracles except inspire.This does mean no more chain-settling (which I kind of liked) but it organises things much more coherently, both for the player and the GM. One of my tentative goals for the system was that once all players understood it sufficiently, the GM role could be removed and the players could handle the map updates themselves. I don't know if that's still a realistic goal.
I don't like that structure very much. It doesn't let me take advantage of my actions in this turn to maximize results. Being able to advance science mid-turn after I've already grown some settlements, but not others, allows me to maximize cost efficiency. I like being able to mid-turn buy Survival 3 and such.
Chain settling must also definitely be kept in. It defeats the purpose of expansion if we have to slow-go it. There are, after all, fairly bad consequences of over-expansion in the creation of new settlers cost (though that is being offset by how much power we gain from religion which is one of the reasons religion needs to be nerfed a tad).
EDIT: huh, ninja'd twice
Over-all, I agree with the idea of the turn structure. Sounds good.
Sorry, yes, that's what I'm saying, maybe Religion 6 should be more expensive than Agriculture 1.This is actually the modification that I would support, if anything. Right now, the fact that all sciences, regardless, cost the same for the next tier means that there is little reason not to pick your favorite sciences and go to town.
My suggestion (though I'm in the camp that we want to finish this one with rules-unmodified, preparing for the next go-round) is that Science costs an amount equal to your current science plus an amount equal to your ranks in a particular science. This will slow down the increase in science substantially, but will over-all encourage the increase of the diversification.
Thus your base total cost remains the same:
Acquire-------cost
1st science - 0
2nd science - 1
3rd science - 2
4th science - 3
5th science - 4
6th science - 5
7th science - 6
8th science - 7
... and so on, but it's modified by the amount of ranks you have in a particular science. So, for example, putting lots of power into religion...1st science (religion): cost 0
- plus the cost of religion (0) = 0+0=0, total: religion 1
2nd science (religion): cost 1
- plus the cost of religion (1) = 1+1=2, total: religion 2
3rd science (religion): cost 2
- plus the cost of religion (2) = 2+2=4, total: religion 3
4th science (religion): cost 3
- plus the cost of religion (3) = 3+3=6, total: religion 4
5th science (survival): cost 4
- plus the cost of survival (0) = 4+0=4, total: survival 1
6th science (religion): cost 5
- plus the cost of religion (4) = 5+4=9, total: religion 6
7th science (survival): cost 6
- plus the cost of survival (1) = 6+1=7, total: survival 2
8th science (religion): cost 7
- plus the cost of religion (6) = 7+6=13, total: religion 7... and so on.
You could always increase the points for going to the next rank by double or...
Twice the cost of your rank in that individual advancement seems more reasonbale, as I expressed above, to really give it "decreasing returns".
Another solution is to maximize the total number of ranks you can have in sciences period.
Say you can choose 20 advancements over the course of a game. Once you reach that level, you cannot choose higher, and no one individual advancement can go higher than 10.
So you could end up with a list like:
Religion + 10
Weapons + 3
Sefaring + 2
Survival + 2
Agriculture + 3
And then never be able to advance again. You've reached optimal development.
Twice the cost of your rank in that individual advancement seems more reasonbale, as I expressed above, to really give it "decreasing returns".
Yeah, noticed you'd mentioned that after I realized I'd been ninja'd... by fifteen-ish minutes.
After reflecting on it, I suppose it's fine - I don't like it, but that's a personal reaction, not necessarily a good intellectual one. So, if there was a change, that would be what I'd recommend.
This produces the opposite effect. Religion goes from being +1 for every settlement, to...+1 per population? How do I rank that up? +2 per population? +3 per population?
Suppose I have rank 5 in religion under the idea expressed above, and I have 15 worshippers. That would still mean I gather 75 power per turn! That's significantly higher than what is current!
Conversely, if I only get +1 power per population, there's no way to increase religion. Religion would become useless.
I think you're misunderstanding.
She's saying that Religion is capped at population per city.
So let's look at scenarios:
1) Cities: A1 (population 2), A2 (population 5), A3 (population 1); religion 20
- this means that no matter how high my religion is, I'd never get more than one additional power out of A3, never more than 2 out of A1, and never more than five out of A2... until I grow those cities.
2) Cities: B4 (population 6), B5 (population 9), B6 (population 43); religion 3
- this means that no matter how high my population is, I'd never get more than three additional power per city.
In other words, the religion is capped twice - once by the number of cities you have, and once by the amount of population you have.
Make sense?
Twice the cost of your rank in that individual advancement seems more reasonbale, as I expressed above, to really give it "decreasing returns".Yeah, noticed you'd mentioned that after I realized I'd been ninja'd... by fifteen-ish minutes.
After reflecting on it, I suppose it's fine - I don't like it, but that's a personal reaction, not necessarily a good intellectual one. So, if there was a change, that would be what I'd recommend.
Sounds good.
I think you're misunderstanding.
She's saying that Religion is capped at population per city.
So let's look at scenarios:
1) Cities: A1 (population 2), A2 (population 5), A3 (population 1); religion 20
- this means that no matter how high my religion is, I'd never get more than one additional power out of A3, never more than 2 out of A1, and never more than five out of A2... until I grow those cities.2) Cities: B4 (population 6), B5 (population 9), B6 (population 43); religion 3
- this means that no matter how high my population is, I'd never get more than three additional power per city.In other words, the religion is capped twice - once by the number of cities you have, and once by the amount of population you have.
Make sense?
Yes it does.
That is a pretty huge downgrade in power, but it does make more sense and seems in line with say...survival never giving you negative difficulty on squares. Or ag being wasted on +1 pop squares.
I could live with it, as it would make religion synergize well with agriculture. It also encourages building up your cities while still potentially being an extremely powerful tool.
If you have religion + 5 and 7 settlements of 5 pop each, that's 35 extra power per turn! That's very doable and very, very powerful.
Another solution is to maximize the total number of ranks you can have in sciences period.
Say you can choose 20 advancements over the course of a game. Once you reach that level, you cannot choose higher, and no one individual advancement can go higher than 10.
So you could end up with a list like:
Religion + 10
Weapons + 3
Sefaring + 2
Survival + 2
Agriculture + 3And then never be able to advance again. You've reached optimal development.
While this might be the best way, I confess that I really don't like games that go, "You must stop here." Even in PF, I got frustrated by the (implied) level cap, even when I didn't see it in games, though mythic helped with that substantially.
One alternate idea is to have a science (or something else) that... expands how much total science you can have. So, for example, if you have no ranks in, say, Limitless Potential <it's a working title, unless we all like it>, you have a hard limit of 10 total science. If you put one rank it expands to 20. If you put two ranks, it expands to 25. Three Ranks is 27. Four ranks is 28. Six ranks is 29 (you gain no benefit for five ranks, except you make progress towards six ranks). Ten ranks is 30 (ranks seven, eight, nine, and ten are not relevant except as a cost towards getting to ten). When combined with the increased cost as outlined above, this would tend to get substantially more expensive to move beyond the cap. A tentative "cap" can be placed on it, at ten ranks (same as any skill), allowing you to expand up to ten ranks.
If we wanted a more even distribution, it would just be two ranks per point. So...
Ranks/Capacity
00......10
01......12
02......14
03......16
04......18
05......20
06......22
07......24
08......26
09......28
10......30
Either way, really.
Of course, it's really easy to mess this up - if you don't put ranks into it early enough, you can easily shut yourself out of ever getting it. Thus, in my suggestion, it wouldn't count against the total ranks in other skills.
The fact that it does nothing except allow you additional skills means it's not nearly as potent as it otherwise could be - it's basically a Science sink to get more science.
Extending the cap only to 30 is a little bit of a frustration, but ultimately I'll accept it if it's something the community wants to do.
It's frustrating because, at best, that's only three skills. It's understandable because that helps to differentiate our races mechanically beyond the godly differences.
Yes it does.
Cool.
That is a pretty huge downgrade in power, but it does make more sense and seems in line with say...survival never giving you negative difficulty on squares. Or ag being wasted on +1 pop squares.
I could live with it, as it would make religion synergize well with agriculture. It also encourages building up your cities while still potentially being an extremely powerful tool.
If you have religion + 5 and 7 settlements of 5 pop each, that's 35 extra power per turn! That's very doable and very, very powerful.
That makes sense. It also nerfs my own preferred strategy, but that's what I'd generally agree makes the most sense as well.
Maybe another way we can balance the game is to allow for another method of power collection?
As it stands, religion is the only non-roll way of getting power.
One possibility I'd thought of is requiring something like "sacred alters" to gain the power from religion - like storage tanks. The problem is that either they'd have armies constantly stockpiled on top of them, or they'd be far too vulnerable.
It's possible to put artificial caps on it, but then things get more and more complicated - not exactly what Umbral was hoping for.
I haven't figured out an answer to that conundrum yet.
Also, Umbral, I'd like to say that you created a surprisingly robust and well-thought-out system for one night of banging ideas out on the computer. This is actually really great stuff.