Looking for an Alamaze Map

[Lord Diamond]

I love it Rick. My only question is, why do you care if a player has a character called 'Billy Bob'? Billy Bob might be from a long lineage of proud Gnome wizards, each of them also named 'Billy Bob'. To a fellow Gnome, or to nearby Troll clans, 'Billy Bob' might be a name that instills awe and fear. I think it's mighty ballsy of you to disparage such a respected lineage!

Besides, if you don't like him you can always try to kill him.

Hear Hear, death to Billy Bob.

Seriously, We will see a lot of stange names. I had a team mate once that named all his new agents and emissaries after different types of meat. But that is a minor anoyance. With all the thing Rick is proposing I can overlook individual foibles.

Billy Bobs henchmen shall be 'Sirloin', 'Top Choice', and 'New York Cut'!

[unclemike]

I like some of Rick's ideas on improving Alamaze in the coming months however, priority should be given to generating games for a smaller pool of players.

It would be ideal to mimic Microsoft's Age of Empires game where one can choose the number of opponents and size of map in the game. And I wouldn't just limit this effort to dropping from 15 players to 9 but make this aspect even more flexible like 2, 4 or such players each playing a single kingdom on a smaller sized map. This will make game startups much faster without people waiting for a game to fill (like game 101 which is taking a week and we still don't have enough of players to start it yet).

Second priority should be given to the randomized hex map which can make each game different from each other. It's not difficult to do this coding-wise and it would make the game more enjoyable. Though the hex map format reminds me of the Forgotten Realms PBM map that was done for Reality Simulations Inc.

Third priority could be given to customizing a kingdom as in adding an extra wizard, +2 influence, ... and this will add a nice touch.

However, I'm having second thoughts on allowing any type of kingdom to be chosen for the game. Having all wizard kingdoms in a game would be a boring one. I think having flexibility with limits would be better, like any two military kingdoms may be chosen with any two magic kingdoms and such. Otherwise, it could suck playing a game if everyone chooses the Underworld....

[Lord Diamond]

I like some of Rick's ideas on improving Alamaze in the coming months however, priority should be given to generating games for a smaller pool of players.

I agree. I am pretty sure that Rick's ultimate vision is to have games available for both smaller groups and much larger.

It would be ideal to mimic Microsoft's Age of Empires game where one can choose the number of opponents and size of map in the game. And I wouldn't just limit this effort to dropping from 15 players to 9 but make this aspect even more flexible like 2, 4 or such players each playing a single kingdom on a smaller sized map. This will make game startups much faster without people waiting for a game to fill (like game 101 which is taking a week and we still don't have enough of players to start it yet).

We are just now getting the word out to older players and getting this ramped up. With any luck, and a reasonable player base of 60 or so players on fairly priced subscription service, we shouldn't see too many issues with players waiting for games. Not as long as Rick continues to innovate and give us new reasons to play.

Second priority should be given to the randomized hex map which can make each game different from each other. It's not difficult to do this coding-wise and it would make the game more enjoyable. Though the hex map format reminds me of the Forgotten Realms PBM map that was done for Reality Simulations Inc.

Third priority could be given to customizing a kingdom as in adding an extra wizard, +2 influence, ... and this will add a nice touch.

I don't know how easy it is to code a random map. Do you have any coding experience? If so, let Rick know! The hex format would be more like Fall of Rome than Forgotten Realms. Of course, Rick designed both games..

I think the more realistic near term expectation would be one or two non-random maps for us to play on. Remember, a lot of coding has to happen for each game. Rick is just getting ramped up, after all, and a lot has to be done to update the existing game.

However, I'm having second thoughts on allowing any type of kingdom to be chosen for the game. Having all wizard kingdoms in a game would be a boring one. I think having flexibility with limits would be better, like any two military kingdoms may be chosen with any two magic kingdoms and such. Otherwise, it could suck playing a game if everyone chooses the Underworld....

I tend to disagree. If we get to the point that players can choose and edit their kingdoms, I can't see how restricting each kingdom type would be feasible. I think it's either going to be a game where you can edit everything or where you can't select your kingdom at all.

There is nothing stopping players from getting games together and agreeing to which kingdom type they will choose. For purely random 15-player games, I can't imagine that havibng 15 Underworld kingdoms would be a realistic worry. Even if it is, it'll be interesting!

[Sancus]

I like some of Rick's ideas on improving Alamaze in the coming months however, priority should be given to generating games for a smaller pool of players.

It would be ideal to mimic Microsoft's Age of Empires game where one can choose the number of opponents and size of map in the game. And I wouldn't just limit this effort to dropping from 15 players to 9 but make this aspect even more flexible like 2, 4 or such players each playing a single kingdom on a smaller sized map. This will make game startups much faster without people waiting for a game to fill (like game 101 which is taking a week and we still don't have enough of players to start it yet).

Second priority should be given to the randomized hex map which can make each game different from each other. It's not difficult to do this coding-wise and it would make the game more enjoyable. Though the hex map format reminds me of the Forgotten Realms PBM map that was done for Reality Simulations Inc.

Third priority could be given to customizing a kingdom as in adding an extra wizard, +2 influence, ... and this will add a nice touch.

However, I'm having second thoughts on allowing any type of kingdom to be chosen for the game. Having all wizard kingdoms in a game would be a boring one. I think having flexibility with limits would be better, like any two military kingdoms may be chosen with any two magic kingdoms and such. Otherwise, it could suck playing a game if everyone chooses the Underworld....

Sound advise!

This also would have been good advise for FoR II when games were slow to start. It would have been great to start games within an "aging algorithm" when insufficient personas were signing up for less than the full complement of all kingdoms.

Sancus

[Ry Vor]

I like some of Rick's ideas on improving Alamaze in the coming months however, priority should be given to generating games for a smaller pool of players.

It would be ideal to mimic Microsoft's Age of Empires game where one can choose the number of opponents and size of map in the game. And I wouldn't just limit this effort to dropping from 15 players to 9 but make this aspect even more flexible like 2, 4 or such players each playing a single kingdom on a smaller sized map. This will make game startups much faster without people waiting for a game to fill (like game 101 which is taking a week and we still don't have enough of players to start it yet).

Second priority should be given to the randomized hex map which can make each game different from each other. It's not difficult to do this coding-wise and it would make the game more enjoyable. Though the hex map format reminds me of the Forgotten Realms PBM map that was done for Reality Simulations Inc.

Third priority could be given to customizing a kingdom as in adding an extra wizard, +2 influence, ... and this will add a nice touch.

However, I'm having second thoughts on allowing any type of kingdom to be chosen for the game. Having all wizard kingdoms in a game would be a boring one. I think having flexibility with limits would be better, like any two military kingdoms may be chosen with any two magic kingdoms and such. Otherwise, it could suck playing a game if everyone chooses the Underworld....

Sound advise!

This also would have been good advise for FoR II when games were slow to start. It would have been great to start games within an "aging algorithm" when insufficient personas were signing up for less than the full complement of all kingdoms.

Sancus

Hmm, maybe my watch stopped or something. Game #100 was filled and the thread closed in <24 hours. I believe the Game 101 signup started four days ago and had 10 players within 2 days. This for Alamaze that hasn't been released yet and we have made no push for players - we don't even have a website for it yet, its just word of mouth on this forum. Let's not be too pessimistic or exaggerate to the negative. We'll look for players when we have our processes in place and a website up.

[Lord Diamond]

Hmm, maybe my watch stopped or something. I believe the Game 101 signup started four days ago and had 10 players within 2 days. This for Alamaze that hasn't been released yet and we have made no push for players - we don't even have a website for it yet, its just word of mouth on this forum. Let's not be too pessimistic or exaggerate to the negative. We'll look for players when we have our processes in place and a website up.

Great point, Ry Vor. I am thrilled that we have 25 or 26 different players this early. Neither game is scheduled to begin until March 29th anyway..

[Lord Diamond]

I wouldn't want to see non-winners scramling to suck worse than the others at the end of the game.

There will be Valhalla titles and game credits for all finishers.

[Kellenved]

It's my understanding that there will be two new scenario added with a month or two: The Epic game (5 players each controlling 3 kingdoms) and the Titan game (two players each controlling six kingdoms). While these variants will require a subscription to a higher service level, the lower # of players in each will allow them to start quickly.

[unclemike]

Second priority should be given to the randomized hex map which can make each game different from each other. It's not difficult to do this coding-wise and it would make the game more enjoyable.

I don't know how easy it is to code a random map. Do you have any coding experience? If so, let Rick know! The hex format would be more like Fall of Rome than Forgotten Realms. Of course, Rick designed both games..

Ah...its easy to write that code. The attached java file took me like 15 mins to do. Its rather crude but it does generate a random map of any size. And you can always manually fine tune the map afterwards and assign terrain as you like (if you want a larger forest area or such).

---

After running the code a few more times, seems that Java's random number generator doesn't work that well with limited ranges. So to have more water areas show up (water was last in the list for Java to select), I would make the following change:

From:
int terrainType = rand.nextInt(5)+1;

To:
int terrainType = Math.round( rand.nextInt(60)/10);
terrainType++;

It provides the same range but allows Java runtime virutual machine to give a better spread of terrain types. Doh !

[Lord Diamond]

Maybe you should be programming Alamaze Online!

Then again, what do you know that will actually work on an iPad? If Java worked on my iPad, and I could play Fall of Rome on it, I'd be in a lot more games.