Goblin Squad Member
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Per Nihimon's request.
I'm really curious how much of the map is intended to be settled. If there are typically 4 or 5 empty hexes between my Settlement and my nearest non-allied neighbor, that's going to create a drastically different environment than if most Settled Hexes are expected to border at least one other Settled Hex.
I would also be interested in a fresh post that tried to lay out the mechanics of the Casus Belli system without trying to explain the logic of it, so that it's easier to understand from an engineering perspective.
Nihimon, the Casus Belli system would simply look at the conditions that exist (pretty much a CASE function, in old style programing) when War was declared in order to determine the standard set of penalties for declaring War on the agressor.
Simplest example would be If attacking settlement is LG and defending settlement is CE, no penalties are applied to the attacker (e.g. the LG settlement doesn't shift toward CE).
You could maybe have other conditions like, if more then X percent of the defending settlements members currently had CRIMINAL tags or BOUNTIES on them (i.e. they were "bandits" and the settlement was harboring "bandits").
I think the concept of the system is valid and not particularly hard to impliment from an engineering standpoint.
What's hard is coming up with the details of what conditions fit, and won't be easly exploited. Also figuring out what an automated program could possibly determine by examining existing conditions. I mean most of us would probably say assasinating another settlements monarch would be a justification for war, but unless the game actualy had a way of tracking who hired assasins and a mechanism for "discovering" that and storing it in some sort of data array, then it would be a non-starter.
@GrumpyMel Switch/Case statements are still around and kicking ;)
My thoughts for a Casus Belli fall more in line with your second suggestion, a much higher concept than whether a settlement is at odds with your Alignment, but a valid reason either way for declaring war. The game would need to track events and statistics for things like who has been fighting around resource nodes, or current density of Criminals, or even a settlements laws in regards to the WarDec's owner.. if they are completely excluded from being a lawful citizen or visitor under that settlement's laws.
Where things get interesting is what you mentioned about who has been taking out which contracts and such. It would be a matter of course to have the data for open and completed contracts a player has taken part in recorded, perhaps this could also be attached to a character's in-game statistics. A book keeping, little black book in a safe sort of thing. How this would be accessible by other players would need to be dug into, my initial thoughts lean towards thievery/infiltration sort of skills. How and where to acquire them? Not so sure. It seems a bit too easy to just be able to go rob someone because they're standing around, but maybe that's the answer. Now, not everyone is willing to leave behind a record of their dealings. Destroying individual records should be allowed, and it should be a Chaotic action being that is interfering with a system of order. So in addition to the records of contracts you've dealt with, you should have an additional section (separate from your own dealing) to contain the dealings of others. Any dealings, yours or others', should be something you can transmit in person to another player. A carbon copy of a contract if you will. This in turn can be attached to a CB during WarDec. Note on destroying records, it should not be a Chaotic action to destroy carbon copies, or at least not as chaotic.
Something similar to this can be done where settlement laws are concerned. Once a settlement's laws are discovered, these need to be posted somewhere by the way, this could be trackable in a sort of journal (which would be very helpful in avoiding unfortunate deaths from lack of regional awareness) and perhaps automatically update or update upon entering that hex any changes to a settlement's laws. This could also be attached to a CB.
I'll take a breath and let some constructive criticism occur over what has already been presented in these three posts worth of information. ;)
Darcies, in addition to what your saying is the reputation system. Players will have access to this Info. So it's to be considered when trying to compile a database of a players actions, whether the data is to be used by other players, or by the game, really doesn't matter I would think.
The game is already tracking each players alignment, based on many factors, so it's got that data. It will have to determine who lives within a settlement. I also needs to track visitors length of stay, to prevent a group, or band from skewing a settlements alignment.
I'm trying to understand how the game can use the alignment system to help it assign penalties, or not, to a war dec.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think you're right that Reputation should be included as possible reasons for CB. Though I am unsure of whether Reputation is currently something a player can accrue with PC run organizations, or how that would be approached.
It would be useful to get clarification on that point.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Is reputation artificially manipulable? If so, there is potential for exploitation. However, if the alignment of a settlement is the average of the alignment of its inhabitents, then alignment opposition is automatic for the polar opposite, but less clear for intervening shades of the alignment spectrum between polar opposites.
To determine the alignment hit of every case the averages might be compared. What then, in the hypothetical situation of blue on blue: say two lawful good settlements are in competition for resources. Using the alignment comparison model doing so would probably trigger the greatest alignment hit, and moreso for the attacker. The alignment hit would be along both Law/Chaos and Good/Evil spectra.
This should ensure that two settlements of paladins would do all they could to avoid war between them. They would be more likely to merge into a Kingdom than go to war.
To resolve leadership it might be possible for a contest, a Feat of Arms or even a Feat of Charity to decide the issue, but the nature of that contest could be agreed between them.
If a Lawful Evil versus Lawful Evil conflict erupted, their alignment hit would likely lie primarily on the Law/Chaos spectrum.
Is reputation artificially manipulable? If so, there is potential for exploitation. However, if the alignment of a settlement is the average of the alignment of its inhabitents, then alignment opposition is automatic for the polar opposite, but less clear for intervening shades of the alignment spectrum between polar opposites.
To determine the alignment hit of every case the averages might be compared. What then, in the hypothetical situation of blue on blue: say two lawful good settlements are in competition for resources. Using the alignment comparison model doing so would probably trigger the greatest alignment hit, and moreso for the attacker. The alignment hit would be along both Law/Chaos and Good/Evil spectra.
This should ensure that two settlements of paladins would do all they could to avoid war between them. They would be more likely to merge into a Kingdom than go to war.
To resolve leadership it might be possible for a contest, a Feat of Arms or even a Feat of Charity to decide the issue, but the nature of that contest could be agreed between them.
If a Lawful Evil versus Lawful Evil conflict erupted, their alignment hit would likely lie primarily on the Law/Chaos spectrum.
So, using your example, if one of the towns decided to go ahead and build a siege camp (start hostilities) in front of the other settlement and initiate war. What sort of alignment hit should occur from that? It's a pretty severe act after all. Both settlements will lose money and resources, many will die. For rationalizations sake, say a LE character convinced the leader that he had to go to war with the other town, for the "greater good of the greater number".
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Being I think that is a reasonable result for the simulations you're looking at.
@Valandur Based on the WarDec laid out in this thread it would fall under Scenario A, as one party commits unagreed upon hostilities on another.
Is reputation artificially manipulable? If so, there is potential for exploitation.
Ryan once mentioned that the reputation system is sort of like Ebays user rating system. Based on your dealings with someone, you will be able to fill out a rating card which will be applied to that persons reputation.
Now if I sell you some iron out in the wilderness, will the simple trade window allow both people to rate the other? I would make sense for the system to work that way. But say a group decided to mess with someone, and each member bought stuff off of the character. Then each member filled out a "bad" rating on that person. Would those ratings be enough to shift the reputation of the character into a negative area? Will there be a way for a character to have ratings reviewed like you can on Ebay?
You don't have to answer those questions if your not interested in going there :) it's just what came to mind as I was pondering the matter.
As a way to establish what the laws are in a settlement, what would you all think of a questionnaire that the founder fills out when they establish the settlement. Questions like "is murder against the law?" Things that the game could then track and apply to individuals and the settlement if applicable.
There would need to be a way to update that questionnaire.
Another method would be for a laws menu which could be added to the settlement system and all potential things that can be regulated, placed within that menu, it would accomplish the same thing.
This would enable notice boards which could be placed in certain locations informing residents and visitors of the laws within the settlement/surrounding areas. Or some other method of notification could be used.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Is there a way for towns to be merged?
Looking at nihimon's I initial post, I'm assuming towns can expand over multiple hexes, given the size of a hex, and given a large enough clearing, you may end up with more than one town expanding into the same territory. There are many ways they could be merged. By agreement they could amalgamate into one, or by war and conquest become one.
Or do they need to attack and actually wipe out the rival town and build on the ruins?
Is there a way for towns to be merged?
Looking at nihimon's I initial post, I'm assuming towns can expand over multiple hexes, given the size of a hex, and given a large enough clearing, you may end up with more than one town expanding into the same territory. There are many ways they could be merged. By agreement they could amalgamate into one, or by war and conquest become one.Or do they need to attack and actually wipe out the rival town and build on the ruins?
Good question. We know that two settlements can enter into an alliance. Eventually they could grow to become a nation. (I'm pretty sure) they could do this while remaining two separate settlements.
If there were to be a way for two settlements to merge into one, to me that would be an interesting mechanic to see play out.
In the case of conflict though I'm interested in exploring how a victor could go about taking over a territory. Would victory be enough? Or would the town leaders have to /quit the town, or be killed? I'm unclear how the game could recognize that these conditions were met.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think some of that is what I was getting at. Do the victors control the town or just occupy it? Do they HAVE to demolish it to use the land? How close can a settlement expand to another.
Think of a place like New York, London or Sydney, these were multiple towns, even cities, that have expanded to the point they are now one city.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Settlements can't merge as far as from what I have read.
A "Settlement" is an advanced Fort. It's not a city.
They also want to limit territory control.
Keeping Player Nations limited in size and ensuring that there is no "best" territory to control either in terms of resource or choke points should keep the map much more fluid and allow players to profitably engage in more territorial back & forth.
Also, settlements have to be demolished, they can't be taken over.
You'll need to establish territorial control over that area, a fort must be advanced using a special settlement construction process. Before this can begin, the hex must be cleared of any watchtowers or forts owned by any character not a signatory of the settlement's charter.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Settlements don't merge with other Settlements into larger Settlements. Instead, they merge into Player Nations.
Check out Put It in Writing for all the juicy details :)
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Also, as a note on size,
NPC Settlements occupy about a 4th of a Hex.
He noted that an NPC settlements would have a *population* of about 600 where as a player settlement would have a *population* of about 1000. So you might be looking at settlements taking up half a hex.
(Note population is including the NPC common folk I would assume)
Hehe I just finished my wiki sections on chartered companies, settlements and kingdoms so this is all fresh in my mind :P
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Being Ryan has stated concerns about 'gaming' the reputation system. I think he suggested that in order to harm somebody's reputation, a person would need to 'spend' some of their own. That could also be the case if somebody wanted to add to another's reputation to stop abuse of the reverse.
In this way, maybe new characters could not 'gang up' on a single person to harm their rep since they wouldn't have rep to spend?
@Valandur I have high hopes that settlements will have an interface from which to set laws just like for taxes.
@Darcnes The reason I think the CB system fell apart in the first thread (and the second discussion, which prompted you to start this one), was because people were looking for too many specific cases in which to apply it.
I like the Casus Belli system, I just think you guys were getting way too specific and expansive with it in that other thread.
My suggestion was just give Casus Belli to settlements of opposing alignment on one of the axes (good vs evil or law vs chaos) and for neighboring settlements.
This would encourage warring (indeed, Ryan stated that he expects there to be plenty of reasons for conflict between neighbors) in an uncomplicated way. It would also lead to things like moderately-sized powers supporting smaller settlements between them and a large power, sort of like propping up 'buffer states' for mutual benefit.
Of course, I imagine a settlement could still declare war on whomever they wished; the Casus Belli system simply removes some of the costs for war declarations.
Yes, I agree with yours and GrumpyMel's and others' suggestions of things that surely are just causes for war.
I don't believe the problem we are trying to fix is that the cost of wars is too great. We can only guess at the direct and indirect costs of wars. The reason I suggest the Casus Belli system is to promote some conflict by lowering the cost of some wars. Casus Belli should only be given against a settlements' neighbors and against opposing alignments.
We can keep the system simple, promote a little warring (or at least a little suspicion about one's neighbors... think of the deceptions and betrayals! ;), and do it in a way that promotes settlements to grow organically (neighbors) or promotes Roleplay (opposing alignment).
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't think we've really dug into the purpose of the Casus Belli until now.
I view a CB as a small subset of the WarDec itself, literally a written justification that might be used to circumvent the need for Scenario B of the WarDec proposal. It would in effect add Scenario C, which is that the CB mechanic has been invoked and that the actions listed in themselves add up to a declaration of war in and of themselves. Murdering a monarch for example, in my mind should certainly bring the wrath of an entire Kingdom down on whichever organization(s) orchestrated it, with the blessings of the Gods, if they can prove it via the CB.
Regarding the cost of wars, I want to be clear that I feel the cost should be one of consequence rather than mechanic. It COSTS to build and maintain siege weapons and whatever other accouterments must be provided for. I do not believe this should be a Tax levied by the system to charge for the privilege of war. It begs too many difficult questions, like what happens when one side runs of out of money to pay to continue the war, but the other side is very wealthy. If approached from a tax perspective, it turns this scenario into a bit of a silly mess. If approached from one of consequence, it's a bit more simple. The one who runs out of money first, is almost definitely going to lose because they're no longer able to supply their war efforts. This in and of itself becomes a motivation to end the fighting quickly.
One of the points we did not finish settling in WarDec was duration. Whether it should be renewed regularly and maintained, or left open until ended or otherwise finished. The former would not really have an impact except on Scenario A type WarDecs in which participants would take an Alignment cloud again. It would also inspire the attackers to finish their business quickly, else they face descending into CE rather quickly and possibly tearing their own organization apart along the way as personal and organization alignments start to stray further (supposing some members stayed out of the war, or just didn't log in for the duration). Scenarios B (and C from up above) would have no actual cost in this fashion as they are being done by mutual consent. (Murdering a monarch and getting caught or a series of embargos being tantamount to a formal declaration.) The latter duration would be less detrimental to unlawful WarDecs, and more closely match what would essentially be the case between two lawfully warring organizations that have no intention of ending things quickly.
Both have their merits, I believe renewing the alignment costs is just a better way of encouraging wars to be shorter in some cases, but not necessarily any better of a solution than letting them be declared in perpetuum.
Also, as a note on size,
NPC Settlements occupy about a 4th of a Hex.He noted that an NPC settlements would have a *population* of about 600 where as a player settlement would have a *population* of about 1000. So you might be looking at settlements taking up half a hex.
(Note population is including the NPC common folk I would assume)
Hehe I just finished my wiki sections on chartered companies, settlements and kingdoms so this is all fresh in my mind :P
Is your Wiki online yet? What's the URL? :) it would be nice to have a FAQ all on one web page with what we know about the different topics.
Half a hex seems kind of small, since they said it takes what, 4 mins to cross a hex? So it's 1000 people within 2 mins walk of a point? That seems awfully crowded.
Maybe they are going for that Neocron kinda feel :P
That doesn't seem right. Was that 4 minutes walking? Or 4 mins by horse?
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Goblin Squad Member
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From Time is the Fire in which We Burn:
For game design purposes, we assume an average human can walk about 3 miles per hour. Hexes are about three quarters of a mile from edge to edge, so it takes about 15 minutes for a character to walk across a hex. At 4× time, crossing a hex on foot will take less than four minutes, assuming the character can walk in a straight line from edge to edge. This passes a basic sanity test when considering the travel times required to cross the zones in other MMOs.
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Goblin Squad Member
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TBH I think faster time always fails a sanity test, as it means actually everyone is very slow, unless I can also fire arrows at 4x the speed I could in the real world, with my arrow travelling 4x as fast, swing a sword 4x as fast. All of which would be utterly ridiculous.
In this case, as I've said already, it makes things sound very small to me.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Consider that a hex is about 1.2Km/.75mi across. A good rough estimate is 16-20 city blocks/mile, or about 12-16 blocks in a hex (across the widest point in a straight line). Each block would be roughly 2.5-1.6 Acres (10,117sq m/6475sq m). Going for the middle estimate (14/blocks across) that's about 1.98 acres/8013 square meters. If we assume a density of 1 person/100 square meters (1076sq ft), that's 80 people/block (these are closer to rural population densities than metropolitan, obviously). The area of each hex (if we envision it inscribed within a circle where the diameter of the circle [which is the longest distance between two corners of the hexagon]is twice the length of each side, iirc my math correctly) is about 3,741,229.74 square meters.
If a settlement can take up 1/2 a hex (1870614.87sqm) or 1/4 a hex (935307.435sqm), that's about 233 or 117 blocks. Assuming 50% of that area is for residential, then you're looking at a potential population of
9,353 to 4,677. If you drop population density to 1/250sqm, that's 3741 to 1871. A yet more reasonable population density would put it at 1:500sqm, yielding 1871-935 people in the settlement.
That seems fairly reasonable to me.
@Jameow/Nihimon: I was under the impression you would walk across the hex at fifteen minutes but if you're fast traveling you'll pass through at four minutes? Did I misunderstand?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Jameow/Nihimon: I was under the impression you would walk across the hex at fifteen minutes but if you're fast traveling you'll pass through at four minutes? Did I misunderstand?
Yes, that's a misunderstanding.
You can walk across the hex on foot in 15 minutes of in-game time, which corresponds to just under 4 minutes of real time.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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For further clarification on hex,settlement sizes:
Search for Pullman, WA
This is the college I attended many, many moons ago. It is roughly the size of a Hex. This town holds about 24,000 folks (Washington State University is 19,000 of them).
In Pathfinder Online, this would be the largest type of settled area. In the Crusader Road area there are no settlements this large, although Mosswater is an undesigned area at the moment.
Now go north of Pullman, to Garfield. This town holds about 600 folks. It's about the size of one of the three NPC settlements. It occupies about a 4th of a Hex. A very large PC Settlement would be something roughly this size. Garfield is a town that you drive through on your way from Seattle to Pullman and its the center of a large farming community so it's daytime population is higher than 600 residents, more like 1,000 people.
Now to give all that some scale, go west to Mount St. Helens. The mountain would fill approximately 4 Hexes (2x2). So you could have something the size of a massive volcano taking up just a corner of the map, and dozens of small settlements scattered all around it without feeling crowded.