Major Game Changes - Need Your Vote

[unclemike]

Good to hear from you, Mike! If you’re ever willing to implement a new map, let me know, I had Ralph create two. I’d also like to add a few spells that are essentially variants of existing ones (e.g., Wall of Sand mirroring Wall of Fire) so we can add more theme with less coding. Let me know what you think!

Sure, not only new maps but also new kingdoms. New kingdoms are what makes the game exciting for players. Any ideas for new kingdoms because that's the route to go...

We can also include all of the changes that you want done for the new software that's coming up in the current Java version as well. Send me an email with what you want done, and I'll see if I have the time for it all.

Jeez, just stopped by to say hello and already getting dumped with work :?

[Brekk]

Thanks, Mike. Not having your skills around has really stalled some of the updates I had planned, so I’m grateful you might be interested. I’ll reach out by email—let me know if your address has changed. A new kingdom (or three) could be interesting, no idea what the lift would be, but even a new map on its own would be great!

[Lord Garth]

I voted for a polished release. Figure multiple chaotic and confusing mid game releases would just lead to frustration for many. And I care about all of you too much to want that to happen.

[LordLittlebutt]

This is going to be long and no TLDR

Some background to help with my perspective, I'm sure a couple of you will know me before my signature.

I started playing Dungeons and Dragons in 1979, then Traveller, Call of Cthulu, Top Secret, Gamma World, Champions, etc
A lot of Avalon Hill boxed/bookshelf games played, Axis and Allies, Diplomacy (the best game ever created), Titan, Kings and Things, Melee, Ogre, and had a member of our gaming group move on to work for Steve Jackson Games in Texas, lots of discussions about what made good games, balance, genre, and so on.

Play by Mail with Illuminati, because that was a fun little card game, and while I didn't make it into the first Alamaze playtest, I was in the second or third public game.

Before I was out of high school, I constantly had at least one Alamaze game going and really enjoyed seeing the big white envelope arrive in the mail.
I struck up a friendship with Phil McDowell; we played a lot of Alamaze together. He would later let me know that his brothers, Russ and Rick, frequently chided him for taking advantage of a poor teenager. But we trusted each other and, like he did with so many other Alamaze players, we had plenty of good conversations. This continued while I was in college and he was kind enough to put me up for a night on my road trip back home at the end of my junior year, I think I missed Russell's visit by a couple weeks that time. I'd make another visit to Waynesville, play some racquetball, golf and talk Alamaze and gaming with Phil and his son Patrick.  I had a pair of tickets to a Masters practice round one year and my dad was recovering from eye surgery, so I invited Phil. He came down and met my wife and infant son. Found out later that was one of his bucket list items, I think he took hundreds of photos of the course in Augusta. I would later score some World Series tickets, another bucket list item of his, but by then he was too sick to accept.  One day I got a call from his number and when Polly (his wife) was on the other end, I was speechless. She assured me that Phil was OK, but you know, I have no idea what was in the rest of that conversation. When Phil did pass, I was touched to be invited, but couldn't bring myself to go to the funeral, which was of course a mistake.

Back when I was 12, a little after the D&D thing started, I took a summer computer programming course/camp at LSU (put those together and you get N-E-R-D btw). The next summer it was BASIC rather than Fortran and a Pascal AP comp sci class in high school. An intro class in college to fulfill a core requirement was then end of programming for me - I was a business a major and didn't want to write code.

Towards the end of Alamaze under Phil's watch, he lamented having problems finding help with changes he wanted to make to the game. I found a book on eBay about that ancient Clipper language and got to work to help out. A while after Phil was gone, Rick reached out to see what might have survived, and I had the code and some rudimentary capabilities to make updates, so Alamaze was resuscitated. Things benefited with the addition of an actual skilled programmer and the rest as they say is history.

Alamaze, for me, is more than a game. Any individual matchup/game# isn't a big deal, but I have a strong emotional connection to "the game", I expect you've figured that out with all the words above. I've recently retired (maybe a mini, we'll see), and after having played in the 80s, 90s, 00s, and 10s, I wanted to see what's become of it.  I'm currently in eight games in this, my fifth decade with the game. Play balance, multiple approaches that can be successful, freshness, expansion, monetization, efficiency, and more were all constant topics of conversation over the years.
So far 65 turns across 8 kingdoms in 30 days. Pretty early for an assessment, but one game in particular and some notes from a couple others seem to be coalescing into an opinion.

Monty Hall was the host of Let's Make a Deal, the old gameshow on TV back in the day.  His name (or Monty Haul) became synonymous with dungeon masters that would shower their players with rewards and end up with campaigns filled with level 20+ characters and godlike capabilities and more loot than you could ever functional use.

Alamaze is now a Monty Haul game. Gone is the spine of the contest - where do you put limited resources to increase your chance of success? It seems you don't have to do that now, it's just a race. On turn 10 in one game, I have eight artifacts. On turn 15 in another, I have seven, but two of them are Quest (Gem/Staff) - and that's after losing my top 3 leaders on the SECOND sighting.
I sent a note to support early on when it looked like gold wasn't being accurately subtracted.  My mistake, those old costs for political resources don't exist. And it doesn't say the do anywhere, and the input routine doesn't show any charges.  I didn't fully grasp the consequences of this change, made to allow kingdoms to keep fighting and not be wiped out by a quick strike I was told.

In an Anonymous game, my hidden capital was landed on by an opponent - a non-wizarding kingdom opponent.
Took me a couple turns to figure out what would have allowed that. Revelation must have been cast. A power 6 spell, cast the turn before so that the groups could arrive and be seen on my turn results.  These were 3 Army+ sized groups, four power-4 wizards among them and after the following turn's combat results - 15 kingdom brigades, 13 high level companion brigades and 6 level 4 summoned brigades. A tour through my capital relocation towns cemented the Revelation theory.

Wow, what a well developed position. My region being attacked was the third this kingdom conquered. So, not just building and then unleashing, but expanding, unleashing and building. From this info, I would have (pre-current Alamaze), expected the game to be turn 16-18, 20 or so?  Nope. Groups arrived on turn 12. Revelation must have been turn 11. With the summons as well, looks like this position had  P6,P4,P4,P4,P4 on turn 10. While having taken two regions by then as well. 
TURN FUCKING TEN. 
This game has 3 kingdoms with power 7 wizards (2 owned by this well developed position) on turn 15. None of them are wizard kingdoms.

Maybe I'm handicapped by my experience.  Have I had plenty of 'get off my lawn' and 'that used to cost a nickel' moments? Hell yes.  
But do I have the self awareness to know it, and be open to embracing change?  Hell yes.
Will I stick around and try some other kingdoms and see how I can adapt to this new world? Probably, at least for a bit.  Those Monty Haul campaigns could be fun once in a while, but the allure never lasted.

My vote on the proposed change implementation?
Seems like re-arranging deck chairs Captain Smith, but who knows?

Thalion
Cipher
LordLittlebutt
David Pitzel

[unclemike]

Dave, glad to hear that you're back again for a while at least.

I was thinking about your comments of the game being too easy and how it is skewering results, we could resolve your concerns with a tougher variant of the game.

Similar to the Ice Age version where food resources are reduced due to an everlasting frozen condition of the realm, we can go even further and reduce food/gold that much greater in a tougher version of the game.

Maybe something like a Dune-style catastrophic event of planet warming that caused the entire realm to become arid, all water in the seas are evaporated, forest areas become dried and fragile, mountainous areas where gold used to be plentiful have become depleted, magical artifacts scrapped or recycled for raw materials so that only a few remain in the game (and greatly treasured if you have one), etc.

The result of it all becomes a very severe reduction in food/gold/artifacts to being just a trinkle of the normal game. That'll really reduce the rapid development of kingdoms, and everyone would have to carefully contemplate the planning of their actions each turn. Think of austerity on steroids, that is if you can handle it. Oh, we can make the game much more tougher and challenging if you want...

And your timing is perfect too. John (Brek) is in the process of designing a new release for this older Java version of Alamaze before moving to his other developer's version so this new tougher variant could be the ticket that you're looking for. Provide some details on this thread and we'll see if it's possible.

Anyway, glad that you're back and keep those opinions flowing. They are much appreciated even if the development team both old and new doesn't have the chance to implement them...

[LordLittlebutt]

It's not that the game is too easy. Zeroing the costs for political and covert actions removes a constraint that dramatically impacts game play.
If remaining emissaries and agents would work for no costs when a kingdom had fewer than 3 pop centers or less than 10k gold production, that would allow for continued play without such a massive change in the scale of overall kingdom development and re-introduce that decision making around utilizing more resources that are finite....

[Moopy]

I am Moopy and I vote for choice 1.

Yes.

[unclemike]

It's not that the game is too easy. Zeroing the costs for political and covert actions removes a constraint that dramatically impacts game play.
If remaining emissaries and agents would work for no costs when a kingdom had fewer than 3 pop centers or less than 10k gold production, that would allow for continued play without such a massive change in the scale of overall kingdom development and re-introduce that decision making around utilizing more resources that are finite....

Well, of course, players won't be able to do things for free anymore in the tougher version of the apocalyptic variant.

Even the initial kingdom customization order will be reduced from 20 pts to a mere 6. That would help limit the overwhelming amount of freebies that players get without earning their way.

You'll still be able to craft magical items through the 5th level spell, but those are limited to having mithril, which would be greatly reduced as well. 

Also, every region will have fewer towns/villages and they will all be human-controlled at the start of the game.

So, there's all kinds of measures that can be used to prevent the acceleration of kingdom development and make Alamaze more strategic-oriented where a player's decision matters and is valued with each turn.

For now, if anyone is interested in giving themselves more of a challenge, try playing an Ice Age version of the game and see if you like it better...

[Tacticus]

These changes are great!
Hence current version gives too many food, gold and high level figures at mid and later stages.
Meanwhile could you please do something to make it easier and faster to choose the map location at order entry menus? Instead of always scrolling down from map area AA, starting letters where the reference figure /group is.

[unclemike]

These changes are great!
Hence current version gives too many food, gold and high level figures at mid and later stages.
Meanwhile could you please do something to make it easier and faster to choose the map location at order entry menus? Instead of always scrolling down from map area AA, starting letters where the reference figure /group is.

For skipping thru a dropdown list, just press the first letter on your keyboard. So, if you want to go to map area MP, hit the M key and the list will jump to the M's...