Changes Coming for Classic

[Destitute Noble]

Everything looks good except these:

Chaos:
Please increase the spell power level of Chaos by 1 level for all kingdoms.

Chaos is not effective against a group led by a Warlord. Spell fizzles. Text result that the spell failed because the target group was led by a Warlord. Chaos spell description reflects all changes.

Chaos against a group led by a Marshal increases that group’s retreat % by 30% (points, so 40% becomes 70%), but not above 80%.

Otherwise, Chaos increases the target group’s retreat % to 80%.

Wall of Flame:
While a group may issue up to 3 Wall of Flame spells if its wizards are capable, no more than one can be effective in a single turn against a single target group.

>>From my limited experience I feel you should think long and hard before penalizing the spellcasting kingdoms too much - waaay too easy for them to get run over early on by significantly larger armies. Ilike the changes to "teleport and invisibility" spells though...

Reduce the chance of a HP dying to 15% and increase the Influence Loss for hiring a HP from 0 to 0.5.

>> I think the percentage should still be higher - but more like 25-33% range. Love the influence decrease also...the subjects are snickering cause the king has to rely on some freaky priestess to aid him - how embarrassing!!

Eliminate all food, gold, and morale costs for post move transfers.

>> I still feel there should be some detriment to late transfers, but less than it is now...

[HeadHoncho]

Reduce the chance of a HP dying to 15% and increase the Influence Loss for hiring a HP from 0 to 0.5.

If you make this change, you should probably reduce correspondingly the AN Consul divination chance of dying, perhaps to 5%.

[Ry Vor]

To the five or so players that have said something to the effect of "don't change teleport", there is no change to teleport.

To those that have asked, "is this a poll?", no. This is notification. As I have said many times, these changes are required to allow new players to enjoy the Alamaze experience as our more experienced players do, and their implementation also provides a better game for our veteran players. These changes improve Alamaze and allow new players a chance to absorb and acclimate in a much better way than they could before. Tell your friends.

[Hawk_]

To the five or so players that have said something to the effect of "don't change teleport", there is no change to teleport.

To those that have asked, "is this a poll?", no. This is notification. As I have said many times, these changes are required to allow new players to enjoy the Alamaze experience as our more experienced players do, and their implementation also provides a better game for our veteran players. These changes improve Alamaze and allow new players a chance to absorb and acclimate in a much better way than they could before. Tell your friends.

Any idea when the Classic Changes from this thread will take effect?

Will it effect all games and will we receive notice of the changes before we enter orders?

[Jumbie]

Yes, yes, this is notification, but everything is still subject to change, just ask Coke about New Coke or Microsoft about XboxOne...

I see most of the changes as positive, but the nerfing of multiple firewalls seems like the most likely to cause trouble.

[Harry O]

Invisible groups are easy to deal with. I’m not sure why this of all things needs to be fixed? Orders 855 is a low level spell available to everyone cheaply and 760 is available to everyone but does cost. Invisible groups are a first strike weapon. I had it used against me by 2 nations in game 108 recently and my only problem is I guessed the wrong nations to watch. More than half my nation was taken out and I’m not sitting here begrudging rules, I’m annoyed with myself that I didn’t guess who was watching me. I expected the move and am now countering a couple turns later. Isn’t that how it’s suppose to be?

My problem with the game is secret victory. Back in the snail mail days on a pay per turn basis 5 out of 15 nations striving for standard victory 30 or 40 turns cost the processors as much as 15 nations early in the game. Now pdf’s are emailed and the cost per turn is based on a subscription. 5 players fighting for standard victory are using the same subscription slots as 15 players in a new game. The other 10 are now in new games taking up subscription slot. I'm not saying a game with 5 players is less costly these days I'm just saying the revenue is not as much less than it use to be per game. I can go on but my point is secret victory needs to be harder or eliminated. Or if standard victory gets a free game slot on their subscription or something that means more than status points. Or so much status points can be spent and standard victory earns a ton of status points. I will submit the incentive to quit games because a turn use to cost the same for a game winner vs a game loser is gone so people hang on now as long as it's fun and there isn't a new game starting.

Mike
AKA Harry O

[Ry Vor]

I also like that since there is no charge per turn, players will stay in games longer even if not expecting to win, and respect the players that respect their competitors by not unbalancing by exiting.

In 3rd Cycle, we will be reviewing Early Strategic Objectives and Secret Victory Conditions, as well as the Standard Victory Condition. I agree it should not be a given that SVC is the de facto victory condition - I'd like to set them so standard victory and secret victory are each about 50% likely.

[Titus]

i have perhaps a small change. The wand of lighting and Fire. Perhaps make their damage equal to the wizard that holds it, with a base of level 2. These two artifacts hold little combat value even in the early game. Or perhaps change them to tornado or earthquake to up their combat potential

[HeadHoncho]

I love Titus' idea on the wands/rods.

I agree on the SVC vs. standard victory issues, perhaps a rebalancing of standard victory would be appropriate.

That said, I really like the current service level setup. I think an important part of Alamaze is being able to play it the way that you like to play it. We already see this with the extremely varied and creative Kingdoms, and with negotiations/diplomacy, but service levels allow for a player to make his or her own decisions as to how long to stick it out in the game. Hopefully everyone will stick it out to T12 (the breakpoint for an "honorable drop") but I know some players prefer to fight to the bitter end, and I respect that. Other players like to free up service level space for another game that has more potential, and I respect that as well.

The overall point that games are harder to win now (especially via standard victory) is well-taken, however, but I personally kind of think that's more of a neat feature rather than any kind of unpleasant flaw. If Rick makes some tweaks in Third Cycle, that will be plenty for me. But yes, with Standard Victory being so hard to obtain now, it might be worth incentivizing via some kind of Quest.

On the invisibility issue, I think it's actually a bit overpowered, and I say that as someone who just used it to great effect a turn or two ago in a game. I like the changes, and don't think it unduly hurts the Wizard Kingdoms, it just allows for some additional counters (which is appropriate, IMO). Even with a counter in place, you'd still need to guess at Kingdoms and groups, and spend a whole bunch of orders trying to deal with the unknown.

That's the problem with using 855, which you already highlighted... you need to spend a ton of resources defending against a strategy that can be employed on-the-spot by a number of different Kingdoms, which means the cost of defense will often be higher than the cost of attack. In most games I know, you are usually looking for the opposite. If anything, even with the additional counters, I'm not sure the cost of defense is very much lower than the cost of attack.

[Titus]

Thanks HeadHoncho. Rarely does the old light bulb on top of my nugget come up with such a good idea. I normally only come up with Yogi Bear style ideas.