Manifest Destiny (Discussion)

Subject: Re: Manifest Destiny (Discussion) Thu Aug 02, 2012 3:04 am

The retainer modifier is multiplied by 20, so +0.1 on retainers give 2 more of them. The modifier for all other troops (knights, legionnaires, centurions, rangers, mounted rangers, the different types of griffons) is multiplied by 10.

Finally the funds and donations (formerly known as money from the crown, now representing what you get from your newly joining members and from supporters) is calculated by multiplying the sum of all modifiers by 2000.

Subject: Re: Manifest Destiny (Discussion) Thu Aug 02, 2012 3:08 am

ok PM coming up...thanks for the help

Subject: Re: Manifest Destiny (Discussion) Fri Aug 03, 2012 12:30 am

Important announcement:

The season starting with the next orders will be the last one with royal procurement for the time being. Resources can from then on only be sold via bazaars and marketplaces (see the new post in the Manifest Destiny rules for details). If you fail to (or do not want to) build a bazaar for the next three turns you can also conclude an agreement with an order that has such a structure allowing you to use it, too.

Knight Posts : 1610 Join date : 2012-06-20

How will gold be handled now?

>.>

<.<

You know, for when the Silvermist lose control of the only one. Wink

Subject: Re: Manifest Destiny (Discussion) Fri Aug 03, 2012 12:46 am

Mordred still needs to make the final decision on that. Most likely the prices will drop a bit to prevent it from being overpowered compared to the other resources. Furthermore, the only buyer of gold would by law be the royal mint at Sarleon, so the gold caravans have quite some distance to travel from the far east to Sarleon.

Subject: Re: Manifest Destiny (Discussion) Thu Aug 09, 2012 5:18 am

I have now received information from all orders regarding their distributable modifiers for the upcoming seasonal report. I will inform you in your turn reports if there are changes to your modifiers. You can message me or post in your chapterhouse if you want your distribution of modifiers changed.

As soon as I get the reports from Aranor I can fill in the last missing parts (Shrines/Chapels having been ordered last turn) and then the seasonal report will be posted, too.

Knight Posts : 1610 Join date : 2012-06-20

I've been toying with some thoughts about the metagame, so I'll just post them and see what you think.

Spoiler:

My intention is to refocus the RP on the political struggle of military orders attempting to gain influence over the newly unified kingdom. Turning this from an economic to a political game makes it easier for the GMs to intervene on our fortunes based on the RP decisions we have made. For instance, under the current system we gain/lose nothing if we say betray a lord of a city in a hex we own. With this reform, that would be represented by a loss of influence... unless we do something else to gain that influence back.

An example would be a peasant rebellion. Should we decide to assist the Lord in crushing that rebellion, we gain influence over the nobility. (Higher influence in the hex, and boosted noble recruitment modifier with less peasant modifier.) It would also allow another Order to intervene and support that rebellion, potentially gaining some influence as well. Ultimately influence would need to be capped at 100%, allowing for more direct (though still not total war style) competition.

I feel like this is more of what the metagame was intended to be a the beginning, and the economic game took on a mind of its own.

Subject: Re: Manifest Destiny (Discussion) Tue Aug 21, 2012 11:04 am

Quote :: Turning this from an economic to a political game.

This is an interesting approach.

Right now the variables we have are too many and too mathematical: gold, goods, influence, buildings, etc.

If we could turn the focus to the political aspects, the variables could be reduced to relation towards lords, merchants and plebs. Then if some form of simplified economy could be kept (so as not to lose what we have been done until now), it would be great.

Knight Posts : 1610 Join date : 2012-06-20

That was an issue I wasn't entirely sure how to address. No one wants to scrap something they've spent so long building. That's why I proposed making the base value (That is, the base number of recruitment points it will provide) based on what has already been invested in the hex, it's 'simply' a matter of converting RP (money) generation into pure recruitment points... modified by influence much like the production modifier works now.

Relations with specific groups within a hex are better left to RP, in my opinion. The influence would represent exactly that, the Order's overall power within a hex. The specific groups (Peasant, Zealot, etc.) are still represented with the new recruitment system anyway.

Basically the idea is to remove the ability to invest RPs in making more RPs (to refocus the game on troops and roleplay), and generally simplify the quantified aspect of the roleplay. We would have three numbers now. The base recruitment points of a hex, the influence modifier for that number, and finally troops. Troops are used for RP as well as for building influence.

Subject: Re: Manifest Destiny (Discussion) Tue Aug 21, 2012 1:20 pm

Interesting ideas. One thing you highlight that I am very much in agreement with; there is no reason for Orders to conflict with one another.

One fix would be requiring struggles between the rival Orders (Silvermists / Gauntlets, Eventide / Dawn) in order to maintain "Zealot" recruitment levels. Question is how do we balance this with the non-conflict Orders? Perhaps remove the Zealot bonus from the others as they have no ideology per-say (So the "bonus" of Dawn / Eventide is that they can boost recruitment during conflict but they must balance these conflicts and the level of conflict with their strategic goals). Alternatively we need to produce a code for the other Orders, so that they have standards they must maintain for their Zealot bonus. Personally, I am in favour of the former solution (the conflict Order bonus).

Another would be to allocate special bonuses to various hexes that will make the Orders want them. Of course some will simply be very valuable in terms of the recruitment modifier, while others will provide unique advantages (for instance controlling Sarleon grants a significant Loyalist boost, while having Senderfall provides +1 Weapon Damage thanks to the iron works there).

The Gamemasters can also provide lore goals that they need to achieve strategically... I am quite happy to produce those Wink

Knight Posts : 1610 Join date : 2012-06-20

On a mostly unrelated note, the recruitment types started to bug me. (One did, rather.)

I don't understand the loyalist type. I don't see any nobleman deciding to donate money or sons to the Dawn because they are loyal to the King... those are Griffon Zealots. On the other hand, I could see that nobleman deciding not to donate to the Dawn because they are disloyal to the King, and that could bring trouble. My thought would be to swap Loyalist to Rebellion, which acts solely as penalty. This way Orders have to make calculated decisions about how far they go to appease the peasants, zealots, merchants, etc.... it's also an incentive for everyone to not be goodie-honor knights. >.> (Yes, I hate the good guys!)

Anyway, I can just ignore it if you don't want to change it. I feel better just posting this mini-rant. Wink

Knight Posts : 918 Join date : 2011-10-16

Mordred wrote:: Interesting ideas. One thing you highlight that I am very much in agreement with; there is no reason for Orders to conflict with one another.

One fix would be requiring struggles between the rival Orders (Silvermists / Gauntlets, Eventide / Dawn) in order to maintain "Zealot" recruitment levels. Question is how do we balance this with the non-conflict Orders? Perhaps remove the Zealot bonus from the others as they have no ideology per-say (So the "bonus" of Dawn / Eventide is that they can boost recruitment during conflict but they must balance these conflicts and the level of conflict with their strategic goals). Alternatively we need to produce a code for the other Orders, so that they have standards they must maintain for their Zealot bonus. Personally, I am in favour of the former solution (the conflict Order bonus).

Another would be to allocate special bonuses to various hexes that will make the Orders want them. Of course some will simply be very valuable in terms of the recruitment modifier, while others will provide unique advantages (for instance controlling Sarleon grants a significant Loyalist boost, while having Senderfall provides +1 Weapon Damage thanks to the iron works there).

The Gamemasters can also provide lore goals that they need to achieve strategically... I am quite happy to produce those

...

perpetual war economy...

fuck.

ORWELL, IM SORRY, ITS HAPPENING AGAIN!!!

Subject: Re: Manifest Destiny (Discussion) Tue Aug 21, 2012 11:44 pm

My take on the the Loyalist bonus, was really how much of the King's benevolence you enjoy, he does after all have significant resources of his own to invest in the Orders, particularly when they work to meet his own strategic goals.

Knight Posts : 1610 Join date : 2012-06-20

Alright then, moving back to the metagame!

It goes deeper than just these flavorful changes though. At the moment, the Orders are in an economic arms race. In order to appropriately boost troop numbers, they have to constantly invest RPs in the complex economic side of the metagame. The result is that there is too much risk in declaring a war (political capital is still a consideration here, but not as much as the economic) with almost no gain from doing so. The GMs could manipulate the situation so that the political considerations of a conflict change, whether isolated to a single hex or a larger multi-hex war, but the metagame is far too complex to do that easily. To make a conflict potentially profitable, you guys would have to seriously intervene in the metagame, potentially screwing up the balance of the economy.

That's why I first started thinking about scrapping that side of it. Since the metagame is such a slow pace (both through what is accomplished in a single turn, and how long a turn takes) it takes far too long to see the real result of a few changes. Like the resource prices, they terribly unbalanced the economy, but it took months to really see what it was going to do. It's fairly easy to see what impact modifying the influence levels of a certain hex, the base recruitment of that hex or the cost of troops has. Such as knocking off ten points of influence for a foolish RP decision.

The ability to share the influence of a hex would also allow for less of a total war mindset. An Order could be induced with the proper event to send troops to another hex (since we aren't playing territorial states, that isn't necessarily grounds for an invasion), with the potential for a small conflict that brings the easily identifiable rewards of X recruitment points modified by Y influence equals Z number of extra troops. Anyone can do that math and make a true calculated decision, with the economic game... not so much. Anyway, the point is that this should make it easier for everyone to know what they're doing, both the players and the GMs.

We would also be directly linking the roleplay and the metagame. We could RP out all of these influence building actions: Varys takes fifty knights and intimidates a Dawn hex. There is potential for RP there, sure, but it would become tedious and a chore instead of fun. We can use the metagame to abstract some actions and focus on the good ones, but the RP and metagame are still very directly linked at all stages.

Subject: Re: Manifest Destiny (Discussion) Wed Aug 22, 2012 12:59 am

How would you propose to limit the influence skirmishes, and prevent them from escalating? As you say the meta game is at the moment a zero sum game, where you would pretty much have to commit all your forces to a war.

I am thinking about letting the Orders designate an "Aggressiveness" rating for each hex they are trying to influence, which essentially provides a % chance of intercepting a foreign Order's parties in that hex and attacking them. Also each Hex should have a "controller" with other Orders reducing the influence bonus they get rather than themselves actually getting some. This will make it necessaries for Orders to get defensive (ie Aggressive stance) to get the full benefit. Other Orders could then set their own stance as either passive (to reduce the controllers benefit) or raiding (to siphon off some bonus for themselves, at the higher risk of armed conflict).

Orders could then get faction bonuses, for instance Silvermists might be really good at raiding a hex and avoiding enemy parties, while the Gauntlets are able to lock a hex down and get a significant bonus to intervention when being aggressive. This lends a little more identity to each Order, and allows them to pursue different tactics.

Additionally, to get the hex unique bonus (where they exist), an Order should have to be set on Aggressive, as if they do not have full control of the hex then they will be unable to exploit the benefit.

EDIT : Players can also designate which Hex they are commanding (outside of the events?), with the opportunity to roleplay their own actions and engagements for additional intervention modifiers? Trying to think of how to engage non-Grandmasters in the meta game here. So if the Griffons kept raiding a coastal Dawn province, they could find Ana and her fleet suddenly appearing to combat them in person, with an increased chance in intervention as a result?

Knight Posts : 1610 Join date : 2012-06-20

Mordred wrote:: How would you propose to limit the influence skirmishes, and prevent them from escalating? As you say the meta game is at the moment a zero sum game, where you would pretty much have to commit all your forces to a war.

Politically, we are in a zero-sum game. However the metagame and the RP (I'll call it the political game for simplicity) are distinct. Right now it isn't a zero sum game, as the Orders don't have to fight each other to gain in absolute strength. They can sit passively and invest their RPs to gain strength... which given the way the metagame has turned out, is certainly the wiser choice.

I don't think a hard limit is needed to prevent the Orders from really going to war. If we were the kind of group that likes to make bold gambles and fight everything to totality, we would have seen that already. At the moment we are a very peaceful group that is trying harder not rock the boat than to aggressively pursue their own strength. (For example, the Dawn and Shadow Legion ideology changes. If we were a more aggressive group of the sort that makes the slightest offense into a general war, they wouldn't have had any need to play the good guys and sever ties to their darker sides).

Should a skirmish escalate to a war, the GMs have to be ready to inject variables that would help calm the situation down... after a while. The King, for example, can intervene to mediate a dispute after the war has been fought for a time or could act before it explodes into a general war on Pendor. I would argue that the King's existence is for exactly that, both in the story and for the game.

The aggression and defensive idea is interesting. It definitely makes this more interesting in regards to an Order's strategy. I'm afraid it might add an extra layer of complexity; certainly not bad by itself, but I feel like we should see how this plays out before we begin adding to it. The aggression also lends itself to playing defensively, as if you're simply hurting the opponent instead of hurting them while gaining yourself, the incentive for actively playing is lessened.

Knight Posts : 1610 Join date : 2012-06-20

To Mordred's edit:

That is an exceptionally good idea! It would force the Grandmaster's to delegate a bit more and encourage everyone to participate. This would make it feel more like an entire organization is involved instead of just a few people playing different colored factions. It might help pull us in to play our characters instead of boardgame players too.

Subject: Re: Manifest Destiny (Discussion) Wed Aug 22, 2012 2:21 am

Quote :: I am thinking about letting the Orders designate an "Aggressiveness" rating for each hex they are trying to influence, which essentially provides a % chance of intercepting a foreign Order's parties in that hex and attacking them.

Just a thought experiment: what if you used a fixed resource point value and let the orders decide what to do with it? Kind of like this:

100 points, to attribute at will for the following attitudes (choose better names later):
Aggressiveness
Defensiveness
Foster economy
Recruit training
Trade
Infiltration
Something

*. economy here meaning the sum of one's infrastructure, buildings and their maintenance. Trade meaning foreign trade (i.e. trade with people outside one's order). Fostering economy generates (among other things) gold, while fostering trade generates (among other things) a certain number of trade goods (for example: the much wanted linen and iron for the ships).

For example, Order X could have set

Aggressiveness:10
Defensiveness: 20
Foster economy: 40
Recruit training: 10
Trade: 20
Infiltration: 0

A trade of value 20 grants him 2 different resources, so the player chooses iron and silver.
He uses the aggressiveness of 10 for only two enemy hexes, granting 5 for each.
Then he gives 4 defensiveness to each one of his five border hexes.
An economy value of 40 gives the order a base income multiplier of .4, and allows the player to build
one tier 3 or 4 buldings,
two tier 2 buildings,
or four tier 1 buildings.

Or something.

Knight Posts : 1610 Join date : 2012-06-20

Wouldn't we just be playing the same kind of metagame then, with too much complexity for the GMs to properly intervene where necessary, and with the Orders being in a better position to just re-invest in their economy and building roads than to actively struggle for influence in Pendor?

Subject: Re: Manifest Destiny (Discussion) Wed Aug 22, 2012 2:30 am

I honestly don't know. It seemed to me that implementing different attitudes would reduce the importance of economy, while highlighting that other actions are also possible.

Knight Posts : 1610 Join date : 2012-06-20

There are still other actions possible in the current metagame, but due to the complexity of the buildings and how they are used to determine troops, the economy is the only part of the game that matters. It's so in depth that for the time we're playing, we've gone into a long-term arms race.

Eventually, we will hit max development level for our hexes, max troop levels, etc. Then the only thing left to do is fight WWI.... and this will take place in a few years. That's why I thought to simplify it and put the max development within sight, and very easy to calculate it.

Say there are 100 recruitment points in a hex, and you have 100% influence, so you're getting X number of knights for it. It's very easy to calculate that, know where you stand, and where you will stand if you continue to do that. However, you also know where the other Orders are standing. Assuming no one is going to accept that they're in the weaker position, there are very obvious ways to go about influencing your Order's standing without necessarily breaking into a total war as the case would be now. The GMs can very easily intervene in this for events and player-initiated roleplay. They cannot do so if the system is too complex to see what the end result of their intervention will be, as is the case now.

For me at least, there is also the immersion struggle of trying to understand why the Orders are building farms and roads when there are still nobles (and the King) that ought to have that responsibility. We're playing Settlers of Catan instead of Diplomacy or (/shudder) Risk.

Subject: Re: Manifest Destiny (Discussion) Wed Aug 22, 2012 2:45 am

Early version of the meta game actually had Nobles building stuff themselves if the Order had a low influence, that was scrapped because it then meant there was little point to building up influence (as they did it automatically anyway) and it was a complete headache for the GM's to designate what was built, where. They were basically having to act as the GM for all the Orders build commands.

I like the idea of scrapping buildings entirely and stripping the system to just influence and troop movements. The meta game then becomes about the tug of war for influence in the hexes in order to get as many troops as possible, however my concern at the moment (and with the meta game in its current form to be honest), is that some Orders simply cannot compete any more due to a lack of activity at the beginning which utterly crippled their expansion and potential now.

The meta game in its current form is not fulfilling its objective (namely to provide tangible outcomes to the role play, plus to limit the resources available to the Orders... the number of times I had to slap down someone coming in with "10,000 Mercenary Cavalry that I just pulled out of my arse..." was exceptional.

I also know that it takes hours to properly handle the admin behind the scenes, one of the reasons I am so grateful to Aranor and Iskar from taking it off my hands, and I am sure they will appreciate if we can reduce that overheard time even more.

Knight Posts : 1610 Join date : 2012-06-20

I agree with what Mordred has said. The Metagame should facilitate and enhance the RP, not become a replacement for it.

If we were to implement the basic influence-on-hex-to-troops system, we have a few numbers we would need to sort through first.

1) Troop costs. The end result of the metagame is having more troops to play with, as this is (or at least should be) the most important thing for a military Order.

2) The recruitment points of each individual hex. The Metagame has developed some hexes more than others. I don't think we should just give each hex the same base recruitment points. This has to be linked to the troop recruitment.

3) Starting influence levels in each hex. I think every hex is now occupied, so what influence do we begin with? I would be content with Orders starting at 100% influence in their own hexes. Given the outcomes we've seen in the current Metagame, everyone wants to consolidate their strength first anyway. So let's just skip that step and get right into it.

Edit: A way to help the Orders that were crippled at the start is a temporary bonus for them to get them back to a level where they can compete.

Subject: Re: Manifest Destiny (Discussion) Wed Aug 22, 2012 6:06 am

I see a general problem, one that the metagame was just designed to circumvent:people will come up with a lot of idead as to what to ddo to increase or hold their influence, ideas that need to be evaluated (by the gms) and there will be debate about why one action has stronger effects than another. There will be unfruitful debate and we will finish by establishing more and more rules which willrequire even morr debate and in the end we will end with just another version of the metagame with even more work for us gms.

In general i think it is the slow events that keep us from warring, not the risks of the metagame.

Subject: Re: Manifest Destiny (Discussion) Wed Aug 22, 2012 6:21 am

Iskar wrote:: In general i think it is the slow events that keep us from warring, not the risks of the metagame.

Absolutely. I think we should hurry them up like we did with the invastion / liberation / siege events. People are getting bored of them I think, particularly as there were meant to be "mini".

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