Re: Brave New Olympia

Rich Skrenta (skrenta@blekko.rt.com)
Wed, 12 Aug 1992 10:07 EDT

Scott Hauck:
>> This is not a direct design choice; this is a consquence of these
>> mechanics.

> This isn't actually true. Right now we can do things with items that are
> almost as complex. Examples (with a change to TRANSFER semantics):

Well, it is true. Of course I can make new commands to equip, train, and
move armies that aren't in my faction. But the whole point was the you
wouldn't be doing these things. If you are going to be doing these things,
I'll just leave the army in your faction.

> Equip an Army:
> GIVE "Fist of Gondor" "Plate Mail" 12

The army isn't declared friendly to you.

> Note: Unpaid armies and armies not stacked with a unit (and thus alos unpaid)
> lose loyalty. Low loyalty armies may unstack and randomly attack people in
> a province. Low loyalty armies also suffer desertions (so an army left
> totally on it's own will dissolve eventually).

Sounds good.

But I'm not going to explore raising armies from the populace and such
if players are unwilling to give up control of them.

Perhaps instead armies should be allowed to be in player's factions,
but they are more specifically differentiated from normal character
units. Mmmm, but see what you've let back in? Skill dilution, GIVE men,
all that crud.

> 2.) I think an ideal Olympia should be an almost equal mix of:
> Adventure/Exploration/Dragonslaying
> Economic
> Warlord/land ownership

Yes, well put.

So here is plan 2:

"army" is a type of unit
armies can be recruited or raised from a local population
this may take a long time and be very difficult
armies can be disbanded. The men go into the local population.
armies have a very high maintenance cost
armies that desert may pillage and attack randomly. Individual
men desertions will eventually cause them to erode away

So the army unit is in your faction. We can limit its autonomy, perhaps:

armies can only issue the commands GET, GIVE, ATTACK and STACK
an army must be stacked beneath a character to move
an army can be trained in battle skills with the TRAIN command

This is all off the top of my head. I've moving the pieces around and
trying to make them fit. Help me, don't flame me!

--
Rich Skrenta <skrenta@rt.com>  N2QAV


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