'Sanctuary' Discussion

[Lord Diamond]

Regarding the new 'Create Sanctuary' order described at http://kingdomsofarcania.net/forum/showt...p?tid=9769 since that thread is not editable by most.

Personally, I love this order. It is an outstanding compromise to the 'to eliminate or not to eliminate' discussion. Thank you UM and Rick for the foresight and technical prowess to create this compromise. I am impressed. 

[Jumpingfist]

Is this the only way to be eliminated? I saw no politicals as another floating around.

[Ry Vor]

A player is eliminated if he has no regent, meaning he had no political emissaries.  This is another thing players could presumably prepare for, hiring an additional governor, etc.   I really want to close the book on Classic, for those players that have said they want to know exactly what rules are in place at the moment, which is understandable, and also so we can go on to creating new, exciting adventures.

[Lord Diamond]

A player is eliminated if he has no regent, meaning he had no political emissaries.  This is another thing players could presumably prepare for, hiring an additional governor, etc.   I really want to close the book on Classic, for those players that have said they want to know exactly what rules are in place at the moment, which is understandable, and also so we can go on to creating new, exciting adventures.

Okay, I qm starting to understand your comments about Classic. You want to stop the changes to this game at some point, separate it off, and have future changes be part of some other game. 

Unclemike is clearly an innovator, so you are just going to have to draw a line at some point. The tweaks, additions, and (sorry) improvements are not going to just stop coming. 

Why not call what you have today (or last month) Classic and separate it out. Then the version that keeps getting tweaks can be called something else. 

[HeadHoncho]

I get the sense that the new platform and "last bits" are still requiring some final tweaks to Classic, but generally I agree, it would be great to get to a point of final lockdown and then move on.

Although I would like to make one last appeal to tweak the leader/death/advancement formulae. That and finalizing the battle algorithms on the new platform are the only things that "feel" significantly different in recent weeks and months, compared to the larger overall Alamaze Classic experience.

[Ry Vor]

I get the sense that the new platform and "last bits" are still requiring some final tweaks to Classic, but generally I agree, it would be great to get to a point of final lockdown and then move on.

Although I would like to make one last appeal to tweak the leader/death/advancement formulae. That and finalizing the battle algorithms on the new platform are the only things that "feel" significantly different in recent weeks and months, compared to the larger overall Alamaze Classic experience.

Yes, I think we are close to closing the loop/door/window on Classic.  Its a nice problem of sorts when UM kind of does things before I expect.  Two that come to mind are apparently the Black Dragons can indeed get a Phoenix brigade at the Fire of the Void (which is at NN), if they meet the other requirements (including several BL brigades and a Marshal), and there may be the artifact Oracle of the Old Gods in place in a couple games.

Generally, I want to do a whole rework of artifacts and spell lists in The Choosing.  Of course I want to have the 24 possible kingdoms of which 12 will be active in any one game.  I'd like to introduce a few more agent, political, and military orders (likely tactical selections).

And then I am struggling still as to where to draw the line on the next release (The Choosing) vs inclusion in 3rd Cycle, and for that matter, Kingdoms of Arcania.

And for the community in general, I would like a period of stability myself, so I would be more comfortable reaching out to the other Alamaze players on hiatus and showing them where we are now - with Resurgent, web order entry, the changes to commands that have stopped or at least reduced the single turn annihilation possibility, which also goes towards players wanting longer games, to somewhat stabilize the variants we have, to continue to present results more engrossingly, and get the player base to where we start games even more frequently than we have from the beginning of the Resurgence, which is averaging more than one new game started per week.

[Lord Diamond]

Leaders and wizards are dying far too frequently now. Pretty soon, the only usable battle spell will be Guarded Attack. Hell, make that now. I ahve never seen them die so quickly. In 152 I lost a P-4 and a P-2 attacking villages with overwhleming odds.

[Ry Vor]

Once it is all settled, I think players will like the leader promotion, emergence, death circumstances.  I mean players will value even captains higher, and that Warlords become the rare commodity they were supposed to be, with corresponding benefits, such as some already identified like detecting the presence of some invisible group, without revealing the exact group.  Maybe needed for tactics, or for recruiting a certain brigade type.  I don't know if I really identified wizard death percentiles in combat for the transition and we will have to look at where that stands.

I sometimes get criticism from a few hardliners that I am simplifying the game, but in general, I don't like really awful results like 3 wizards being assassinated in a turn or HP's dying more than rarely.  So again, another anticipated change is that there will be other health statuses other than alive or dead, as we had in Fall of Rome.  For those unaware, a status might be "critically wounded", which would mean the character is not able to issue orders or do anything constructive for three turns, but is not permanently lost.

[Lord Diamond]

You could always call the Alamze after Classic 'Evolution' to signify that it is very mutable. People would expection frequents tweaks and changes to Alamaze Evolution.

I don't want you to dumb the game down or make every kingdom similar in ability and feel, but I am okay with the concept of making the game more consistantly fun. In the Championship game I murdered four Sorcerer wizards on the same turn. While I doubt your tweaks would substantially have changed that, I could see why that might ruin his game and make it less fun for him. Rather than make it impossible for me to kill his wizards, I would rather you give us ways to add wizards beyond the ESO.

[Ry Vor]

The FoR health status would allow for poisoning, critical wounds, etc. 

When we look at heroic fantasy, and enjoy that, the heroes are not often killed, at least until the conclusion.  I am working on a different hero-centric game when time allows, but perhaps in addition to heroes being wounded, wizards could lose a Power Level instead of being wounded. 

In general, my feeling is players should get more attached to their characters, rather than them being merely a captain or a Power 2, or L5.  I know, this makes it more a RPG, but I don't know of many epic strategy multi-player RPG's, so that might not be a bad direction, although it does move a bit away from the wargame that some of our players view Alamaze to be.

Eventually I would like certain icons attached to characters for actions, and that kings will be be more widely reported in results, as well as heroes, powerful wizards, feared assassins.  Want to take it from the near-generic to the next step.  Where it's not just your Governor was assassinated, but maybe "Governor Anterix of the Eastern Steppes was seen by several witnesses to be garrotted by the infamous agent Cantorus, presumed to be loyal for the moment to the Red Dragon kingdom."

A spy report locating Cantorus might show a couple icons that identify assassinations, sabotage, rescues, etc.