> 5) The lack of underlying story line to jump start the game. One of the things
> that made BSE so interesting was the 'factions/companies' that the game
> started with. This gave the gaem some flavor to build on and provided everyone
> with some initial reasons for being even if these were eventually changed by
> the players and game play (which they most definitely were).
This gave BSE flavor, but not really much else. I joined BSE in early
1983, so perhaps my view of this isn't the same as someone who was in
at the start, but basically BSE in 1983 was much like Olympia is
today: there were alliances consisting of folks who cooperated for
various reasons, either closely or not. Many of these BSE alliances
cut across company lines, making company affiliation somewhat useless;
the Greenville Mafia was one such group, as were the folks in
Chatanooga, TN. Olympia has done fine on that score so far, except for
a few rude things that crept in from the last game. Players have
something very real to fight over: resources, magic items, access to
the Cloudlands, and so on.
> 6) Having everyone start in the same location with no easy way to quickly
> disperse if they wanted to.
Build a ship and sail. Any pair of players has enough wood to build a
galley without leaving the safe haven city. Many folks have indeed
done this. And I haven't heard of any piracies near to the Imperial City.
> 7) Having to spend several boring turns just to start up nobles and get a
> starting skill set. I would much rather be given XX NPs and XX gold to spend
> on a set-up and then go from there. say 6 NPs and 1200 gold. Anything not spent
> on setup would go into the claim stuff (which is where these should be taken
> from to begin with since I think you starting numbers for NP/gold are about
> right). I think implementing this in g1 would be a good way of making newbies
> more competative with older players even now.
This is a feature, not a bug. In games which give players a
substantial sum to spend right at the start, some players will make
major mistakes because they don't understand the game at all. These
same players end up dropping out. I've already seen too many players
in Olympia make the mistake of buying too many redundant or
unnecessary skills with their starting cash and then have to scrape a
bit to buy what they wanted later.
My vision of the game in 100 turns is this: various alliances will
have garrisoned all the land provinces within 50 squares of the
Imperial City. These alliances will be actively recruiting new
factions, but mainly to provide mages and priests and commanders for
roving military patrols and defense units, i.e. "we'll trade you a
place to live for some noble points."
I would suggest that Rich make the cost of buying a noble gradually
rise as a faction gets more nobles. This was in the alpha-test for a
while, but the rise in cost was steep and it was abolished. I figure
that anyone who's already got 10 nobles doesn't need 1 more per 8.
-- g