Re: Map feel

Carl Edman (cedman@golem.ps.uci.edu)
Tue, 11 Aug 92 17:30:17 PDT

Varian writes:
> A) I feel that very few links should be less than 10 days
> long. Why? I don't think units should be able to travel
> more than 2 or three regions in a turn -- even with roads.

> Anything more is a defensive nightmare. Picture those
> Orcs moving and attacking across 3 locations or more per
> turn, not to mention warlords. If they are cities or
> buildings, that is one thing but I have a problem with
> rapid region hopping. The world seems small enough some
> times without it.

I absolutely agree. That is the reason this should not
change even if it gives you ridiculously large areas for
each region. This is one of the point at which even a
dyed-in-the-wool realist like myself has to concede
that sometimes playability has to take precedence.

> C) I really don't like using "stack" for buildings and
> cities. I think the relationship is significantly
> different. It is logical that a neutral unit cannot stack
> with a neutral unit (picture a stranger sitting down at
> the table with you at an inn) but it isn't logical that a
> neutral unit cannot enter your inn (picture a stranger
> walking into your inn). Stopping a unit from entering is
> an unfriendly act, plain and simple, while preventing a
> unit from stacking need not be. Stacking is also
> currently not hierarchical and, perhaps, it should stay
> that way. Enter could be.

I think you are complicating things here. You can always set the
default attitudes for a structure to cooperative if you want anyone
to be able to enter or leave it. Stacking needs to be hierarchical.
Consider this situation:

Leonic
Guardians of the Art, 3rd division, 100 men

Melpomene
Bodyguard, 80 men

Maybe both Melpomene and Leonic are afraid that some evil warlord
will swoop down upon them, so they'd like to stack together. With
non-hiearchical stacks, the only possibility is like this:

Leonic
Guardians of the Art, 3rd division, 100 men
Melpomene
Bodyguard, 80 men

But that exposes Melpomene completely to Leonic as Leonic can at any
time just "UNSTACK Melpomene" and then "ATTACK Melpomene". The
UNSTACK would just throw out melpomene on her own, but the Bodyguard
would remain with Leonic, so when Leonic ATTACKs Melpomene, her own
bodyguard will help to kill her ! In other words, as things are today
if you stack with somebody you have to trust him or her totally as he
execute you at will without risk. Hierarchical stacks prevent that.

So, your proposed movement difference between ENTER/EXIT and
STACK/UNSTACK can be solved by default attitudes and both need to be
hierarchical. So why bother making them two different commands ?

IMHO, you are quite right that there are subtle differences in the
meaning of STACKing with a unit and with a building, but I have yet
to see a convincing reason to recognize this programmatically.

> D) I would do away with the population figures for
> structures. Make what you can see inside a function of
> observation/stealth with no observation meaning no
> idea what is inside (BTW, I have no units with observation
> so this hurts me in a big way).

Well, population figures for buildings are not all that elegant, but
IMHO anybody should be able to see whether a castle is an empty hull
or hundreds of people live inside. That those not require observation
skill.

> E) Remember, if you define region ownership by the
> position of not only units by structures, owners should
> be allowed to promote cities and buildings as well.

Absolutely.

> F) If you attack something owned, you attack the owner. If
> a city own a region and a castle owns the city and a unit owns
> the castle, if you attack the city, you attack the castle
> and the owning unit and any units stacked with the owner as
> well, but not the others inside the city or castle.

Well, we've disagreed about that one before, I seem to remember. :-)

Carl Edman


Main Index  |  Olympia  |  Arena  |  PBM FAQ  |  Links