30-07-2002 00:22									#31
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

Vel first off congratulations on your book and your upcoming game I dont know if you remember me or not but we talked a time or two on brave net and the smac forum when I had the screen name Thantos.

I have just read through the core rule set for the game and had a few ideas that might be of some assistance to you so I figured I would run them up the flag pole so to speak and see what you think of them.

Combat Notes

1) It seems a bit unfair that a single pikeman unit with the wall ability can effectively shut down an entire army of cavalry. I would suggest that you compare the total number of cavalry to Pikeman and during the charge phase every cavalryman in excess of the pikeman that the other side possesses gets the benefit of the charge while the rest attack at normal strength against the pikemen.
2) The withdrawal section seems like it could use a bit more flexibility as well units which are fast by nature should be harder to capture and defending units that are fast by nature should find it easier to pursue and capture. How about this idea when withdrawal is announced you look at both sides remaining units the armies if the withdrawing army has more 2 moving units in it than the pursuing army has then their units are captured only on a 2. If the pursuing army however has more 2 movers in it than the withdrawing army has then it captures units on a 2,3 or 4. This could also.
3) You might want to seriously consider a promotion system for units perhaps with different unit types receiving different possible bonuses, or it could just be a nice uniform system of improvement.
4) This might be better in another section but what if captured mercenaries became active units on the other side after a fight?
5) What about a pillaging rule a army composed largely of mercenaries may be harder to control when taking a province. Say for instance add up the total number of mercenaries in the invading army after the battle and this represents the chance of something naughty occurring in the conquered province for instance destroying a random building or population hit in the province causing a bit of infamy

Economy Notes
1) I think you might want to tweak unit upkeep costs a little at the very least you might want to consider increasing the maintenance cost of mercenaries to 3
2) Secondly it seems to me that mercenary units are far less likely to accept nonpayment meekly and simply sit in a province. Some kind of pillaging rule would seem appropriate. While a house unit may serve for honor a merc first and always serves for cash.

Espionage Notes
1) I would think that a unit that was not paid would be easier to subvert and bribe than one would otherwise be the case a bonus to the bribe roll would seem appropriate and an additional bonus if it is a merc unit as well.
2) In inciting revolt I would add percentage bonus to the chance of success equal to the number of mercenaries in the territory

Honor Notes
1) Large scale use of mercenaries probably should bring some sort of hit to honor as mercs tend to conduct themselves with less than perfect honor.
2) Perhaps as you gain infamy hiring mercs running espionage activites as well as building thieves guilds should be cheaper? A matter of not being so concerned about appearances.
3) Every thieves guild in excess of the total number of temples cost you 1 honor point a turn perhaps? As the lands you rule become a hotbed of cut throats and thieves.
4) A player should have the right to decline a gifted I think, nothing worse than getting your butt kicked by someone all game long and then having to take a “gift “ from him only so he can win that turn.

	30-07-2002 00:55									#32
	Inflate your Upload Space

Just a side note:

The core rules doc has been downloaded 82 times now!

	02-08-2002 18:26									#33
	Get a bigger avatar today!

Nos/Thantos! Hiyas! And outstanding observations on the rules! Your timing is good too, cos I'm doing a top-down review and another round of tweaking soooo.....

-=Vel=-

	03-08-2002 01:13									#34
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

Thanks Vel glad you liked my ideas, and since I dont know when to leave things well enough alone I figured I would go ahead and add a few more ideas .


New Unit considerations

Militia/peasant levies 0 attack/3 defense/0 move 5 gold hiring cost 1 gold upkeep.

Your basic cheapy defense unit whose whole purpose in being is to die in mass numbers for the kingdom. Like mercenaries does not require a training center in order to be purchased but cannot be purchased in unhappy provinces (it is for some bizarre reason considered a bad idea to arm men who are quite upset with you, not sure why though)

Crusaders: Not sure what if any natural bonuses to assign just yet. Thinking it should be +1/+1 when fighting units from a nation that has a religous tolerance level of your primary faith set lower than your own.

Any normal unit may be raised as a crusader as long as you meet the minimun theocracy slider level (not sure where to put it at say between 60-70), and require the pressence of a dominant religon.

A crusader unit may only be raised in a province of your dominat faith that also holds a temple.

The single biggest benift of a crusader unit is that it reaffirms your Faith in the church increase your influence in the church by the total value of crusader units you currently control divided by x.

Or alternatively your crusader units may act to make it easier to slide the theocratic slider to higher states of theocracy easier.

A drawback to crusader units is that they automaticly pillage the church buildings of any faith other than their own in any province they cross. And act as mercenaries when checking to see if they pillage if they are in a province other than their Faiths.


Technology considerations

Decisive Cavalry.

This technology reverse the normal order of cavalry charges. Instead of waiting a turn then charging on the second turn. You instead may charge on the first turn then wait on the second turn, as your cavalry regroups for another go. (Personal note I think this might go better as a house ability of the Furries).


I have a few more ideas I can share with you if you would like Vel but unfortuantly real life is calling for me once again

	16-08-2002 04:52									#35
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

I heard about this from the Poly newsletter and was curious, so I looked through the threads mentioned. I'm wondering why you don't have ANY naval units.

	16-08-2002 11:47									#36
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

because there is hardly any water, just one medium-sized lake.

	16-08-2002 18:19									#37
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

That's on your standard map, right? So, if you have random maps, you should put in naval units. I like your combat system, and I think that it could be easily adapted for water combat.

Is there any chance that this could be extended to become more like Civ, i.e. 4000 BC to 2000 AD sort of thing? It would RULE.

	28-11-2002 20:24									#38
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

Apologies for the LONG delay in answering this question! Sometimes I get so lost in the depths of the work that I forget to check the threads as regularly as I should.

The short answer to the question of whether or not this could be adapted to encompass "Civ-Timeframe" would be yes! In fact, I'd very much like to see that eventually! I'm not sure if it'd work for the game we're doing now, but once we get the core game engine in place and get all the bugs worked out, get everything balanced, I see no reason why the basic design couldn't be used to craft any number of games....expand the tech tree suitably, "turn off" the magic elements of the game, add in naval units, and you'd be on the road to making a civ-style game (more than this would obviously need to be done, but that would at least put you on the path).

-=Vel=-

	28-11-2002 22:05									#39
	Full PM-box? Change here!

skywalker hasn't posted for 2 months, but I'm sure he will appreciate the response if he ever sees it.

	14-12-2002 03:16									#40
	Tired of ads?

I'm back now.

	14-12-2002 04:17									#41
	Increase Your PM Length

Welcome home.

	02-04-2004 11:36									#42
	Tired of ads?

Wow, what's sad is that I actually REMEMBER that exchange.

	07-09-2004 19:16									#43
	Put an end to popups!

Something that should receive cheers all around....now that the basic event engine is fleshed out, and as I am working with AG to finalize it, I am going through and making the long overdue revision to the rules document, slanting it specifically for the first release. (I'm doing this in conjunction with finishing up the Event Engine because in order to actually finish it out, I need to gain access to our still-down forums...so, in an effort to keep myself productive till the forums are back, I'm going ahead and beginning this process too!)

It will take some time yet, to get the aging document fully fleshed out and modernized with all the changes and revisions that have occured over time, but when completed, this document will be a reflection of the stat of the game upon first release.

Update coming as soon as I've got more information on it.

-=Vel=-