12 replies to this topic

[Molly Mae]

Spoiler for Lords

The Seven Houses--each House may make one invasion per night. Any successful invasion will allow for the occupation of the invaded land. A Lord without a wizard may choose to search/recruit a wizard in addition to his invasion. More details on that below (under Phases)

Demincus--A kingdom hungry for power. Every night, Demincus may invade a second time (but may not invade the same Lord twice in a night). If at least two other Lords have recruited a wizard, Demincus may invade a third time (and may invade the same Lord twice in a night, but not three times). If Demincus invades three territories in a night, all invasions are at -5% success rate. No Wizard will ever work for Demincus. (Land: 1)

Drevis--A small and naive nation intent on making a name for himself. All invasions by Drevis are at +15% success. All invasions by Drevis' wizard are at +5% (Land: 2)

Anniata--The Houses of Anniata and Massian were long ago joined together. Although far apart, the two are defaulted to alliance (may be broken by either party). Knows who Massian is. While they remain allied, they may not invade each other. While they remain allied, they may not invade each other, but may cross each other's territories if connected. Wins if all lands are controlled by either her or Massian (or are neutral). (Land: 1)

Calliah--A wise king who controls the mountain pass which joins West Wessol with the East. At the beginning of the game, he may choose one wizard. That wizard must join Calliah. (Land: 2)

Winnter--The King's Killer. A knave who has popularised himself through this action. May move to any territory that he controls, regardless of how far it is from his current location OR if he is conquered by another Lord, he joins that Lord as a vassal regardless of whether the conquering Lord wants him. (Land: 4)

Massian--The Houses of Anniata and Massian were long ago joined together. Although far apart, the two are defaulted to alliance (may be broken by either party). Knows who Anniata is. While they remain allied, they may not invade each other, but may cross each other's territories if connected. Wins if all lands are controlled by him or Anniata (or are neutral). (Land: 2)

Movius--Controls the capital. The capital cannot be captured unless it is Movius' last territory. (Land: 2) (If anyone else is in control of the capital, they do not gain the ability.)

Spoiler for Wizards (Indies)

The Five Wizards

Trohomt the Requisitioner (Summoner)
May summon a temporary defense force to keep intruders at bay (cancels all invasion against the territory he occupies).

Libronalah the Scholar (Invoker)
Knows the deepest secrets of flame--may assist his lord by calling fire down on his enemies, allowing his lord to capture enemy territory (an additional invasion) (may not do so two nights in a row).

Tomathar Vishna, who Changes (Transmuter)
A powerful transmuter who may alter landscape and enemy alike to redirect any force to another target (standard redirect for targeted actions).


Spinnysprout Specklesprocket the Failure (Illusionist)
A master of all things false, the Illusionist may conjure an illusionary beast which will scare and stop any player from acting (block--chosen by player name)


Urthal the Life-Bringer (Necromancer)
May conjure the dead once per cycle to assist in attack or defense. If used for attack, success rate for any invasion from the territory the wizard is on will be increased by 20%. If used for defense, all success rates of invasion on that territory will be decreased by 30%.

Spoiler for Phases: (OOP)

1) Actions
2) Movement
3) Recruiting
4) Blockading and Fortifying
5) Invading

Actions: (OOA) Redirect > Block, blocks work on passive actions.

Movement: A Lord may only invade a territory which is adjacent to the territory he is on. He may only move to territories that he controls that are connected (regardless of distance) OR he may only move to territories that he controls that are adjacent to his current territory. (except for the Massian Alliance--the two may move through the other's land as long as the alliance stands).

Recruits will not list details about lords and wizards--just that a recruit happened.

Invasion is chosen (and published) by character to numbered territory. That is, the post will show that Demincus invaded land area 4 (and not that Araver invaded Hirkala).

Gray land needn't be captured to win, but can be captured as normal. If two or more Lords successfully invade a neutral land on the same night, the land remains neutral.

Recruiting a wizard: Each night, a Lord may choose one wizard to recruit. At the end of the night, the host will PM each wizard with the name of the player who has sent a recruit request. If the wizard accepts the request, they are joined. No wizard may work for two Lords and no Lord may employ two or more wizards. A wizard may choose to leave his lord at any time. A lord may choose to fire his wizard at any time.

A wizard who loses or leaves his lord may become a wanderer and any Lord may recruit him. Any wizard without a Lord may not act, but may publish a message in the night post (50 char max). This ability is active at the beginning of the game and includes N1.

Blockading and Fortifying: Each cycle, every player may fortify one border. No invasion may occur at that border for that cycle.

Spoiler for Map (not yet created)

Accompanying this game will be a map of Wessol. The land will be divided into several territories. Each territory will be numbered (static) and coloured (dynamic based on occupying lord [gray is neutral]). A base % will be posted on each border showing success rates for invading from one territory to another. Percents going one way will complement the opposite way to 100% (e.g., if one way is 35%, the other way is 65%). These will be the base %'s and can be modified by active and passive abilities.

Spoiler for Additional rules

There are no rules on BTSC except for this: If you are added to a conversation by someone, you cannot add any other person to that conversation without permission from the person who controls the conversation. The person who controls the conversation is whoever I PM'd initially. You may, however, copy/paste information from one thread to another.

There is no penalty for role-outing. There is no penalty for betrayal. The game ends when all lands are controlled by a single Lord or are neutral. If any Lord conquers another Lord, the conqueror may request to recruit the conquered. If he does so, the conquered may accept or decline the invitation. If either Lord declines the recruit, the conquered Lord is removed from the game and any wizard employed by the conquered Lord becomes unrecruited. If he accepts, he becomes a vassal of the conquering Lord and wins a lesser victory if his new Lord wins. The vassal may continue to employ a wizard (or recruit if he does not have one). If the Lord of the vassal is ever conquered, the vassal is removed from the game, but the conquered Lord may become a vassal of his conqueror as normal. (I hope this makes sense to everyone).

Informal alliances are acceptable and encouraged, but two Lords (non-vassal) may not win.

Biggest discussion points are in green--they involve Winnter's ability and the rules for Movement. I'd really like opinions on this. The two go hand-in-hand, so resolution on one will also resolve the other (mostly).

EDIT: Added a "not".

Edited by Molly Mae, 07 October 2011 - 05:19 PM.

[Molly Mae]

An additional note that I forgot to mention: Wizards may also invade and move as Lords do. Wizards win with the Lord they are attached to. A Wizard and Lord may invade a territory together and have an invasion bonus of 20%.

If two Lords successfully invade the same occupied territory on the same turn, the Lord with fewer lands gains the territory. If they have the same number of lands, it becomes neutral territory.

[flamebirde]

do I sign up here?

[plasmid]

The lords seem reasonably balanced except for the Anniata + Massian alliance.
Demincus can grow at ~2x a theoretical "vanilla" lord's rate early in the game, and closer to 1-1.5x near midgame (when most other players have a wizard to give themselves 2 invasions/turn). Endgame will depend on whether his increased invasion buff stays in place when it's down to him vs one other lord (and therefore only one employed wizard). If he loses his invasion buff then he will only have one invasion/turn against his opponent lord + wizard invasion and he will get stomped. If he keeps the invasion buff, it should stay balanced in endgame. Anyway, total strength will depend mostly on how early the wizards join other lords.
Drevis has a ~1.3x growth rate (if average invasion success rate is ~50% and his invasion success rate is ~65%).
The Anniata + Massian alliance as a whole has a ~2x growth rate compared to a single player.
The degree of advantage to Winnter and Movius seems very dependent on how the map is arranged. For Winnter, more lands = bigger advantage from movement ability but less advantage from starting with 4 lands. And unless the capital is extremely strategically positioned, it sounds like Movius would probably be underpowered compared to the other lords... capital immunity would probably not make that much difference if the players can fairly easily just invade different lands he controls until he's down to his last territory.
Calliah's power seems sort of useless if the wizard he forces to join him can leave anytime he wants... does the wizard have to stay until Calliah dies or dismisses him? If Calliah can force the wizard to stay, it seems he would have an early growth advantage similar to Demincus.

The wizards seem like they might be more problematic.
Trohomt's ability must be nullified if he is on the last territory that his lord owns, and Spinnysprout's ability must be nullified if there are only two lords in play, otherwise the game could end up in a stalemate. (Er, can Spinnysprout block ANY invasion from the named lord, or just an invasion into the land that he's at? If it's any invasion, then he seems too overpowered toward endgame when there are only a few lords. If it's only on the land he's at, then he seems underpowered compared to Trohomt.)
For Libronalah, does every player know where each lord is (which would help with anticipating where an invasion to redirect might come from), and can redirects end up making a lord invade a land that's not even attached to his current empire and other such complicated stuff?

If an invading lord captures the land that the defending lord happens to be sitting in, does the defending lord get kilt or just booted to an adjacent land that he owns? More to the point, when it gets closer to endgame, I could envision this turning into a total grind if there are two players and they each own like 20 territories and both of them are spending their time invading each other's territories with similar odds of a successful invasion. They would just trade territories as both lords move around capturing whatever enemy land they happen to be next to, with no real definitive head-to-head combat.

All of the above might be best evaluated by a test run of the game, but there is one more practical point. If this is to become a board game for people to play IRL, would you need to have 13 people (7 lords and 5 wizards and a host [so actions can be submitted and Tomathar redirects processed and the relationship between players and which lords they represent can be kept secret]) in your house to play a game?

[flamebirde]

Plasmid, I think you made a mistake. The wizard doesn't get another invasion, If he chooses to invade, then he would add a 20% bonus to the lord he's attacking with.

[Molly Mae]

Plasmid, I think you made a mistake. The wizard doesn't get another invasion, If he chooses to invade, then he would add a 20% bonus to the lord he's attacking with.

I got a big response coming up for Plasmid (and some changes based on his post), but Wizards do get their own invasion at -5%. The 20% bonus only happens if the lord and wizard are invading the same territory (even if not from the same territory).

The redirect kind of stems from the original mafia idea, but I've strayed from that. So I will be changing the redirect ability.

Edited by Molly Mae, 08 October 2011 - 08:57 PM.

[MissKitten]

Meh. I'll sign up. I got nothing better to do. And maybe I'll get hotterthnfire to sign up too.

[Molly Mae]

The lords seem reasonably balanced except for the Anniata + Massian alliance.
Demincus can grow at ~2x a theoretical "vanilla" lord's rate early in the game, and closer to 1-1.5x near midgame (when most other players have a wizard to give themselves 2 invasions/turn). Endgame will depend on whether his increased invasion buff stays in place when it's down to him vs one other lord (and therefore only one employed wizard). If he loses his invasion buff then he will only have one invasion/turn against his opponent lord + wizard invasion and he will get stomped. If he keeps the invasion buff, it should stay balanced in endgame. Anyway, total strength will depend mostly on how early the wizards join other lords.

He keeps his invasion buff.

Additional note: Vassal Lords and Wizards also get 1 invasion per turn.

Drevis has a ~1.3x growth rate (if average invasion success rate is ~50% and his invasion success rate is ~65%).

Base % will be 50 and be modified by terrain. Like-terrain territories will be 50-50.

The Anniata + Massian alliance as a whole has a ~2x growth rate compared to a single player.

I think that puts them at a disadvantage, though, based on how Amber, ST3, et al played out. The team with the natural advantage gets hit hard early. While there are no other formal alliances in the game, any teams may work together to eliminate a common threat.

The degree of advantage to Winnter and Movius seems very dependent on how the map is arranged. For Winnter, more lands = bigger advantage from movement ability but less advantage from starting with 4 lands. And unless the capital is extremely strategically positioned, it sounds like Movius would probably be underpowered compared to the other lords... capital immunity would probably not make that much difference if the players can fairly easily just invade different lands he controls until he's down to his last territory.

There are going to be ~25 territories, although the map isn't finalised.

Movius ability change: Movius gets +10% to defense on all territories as long as he controls the capital?

In the original concept, there were to be 4-5 cities that gave bonuses to whomever controlled them. Should I go back to that and give Movius a bigger beginning advantage?

Calliah's power seems sort of useless if the wizard he forces to join him can leave anytime he wants... does the wizard have to stay until Calliah dies or dismisses him? If Calliah can force the wizard to stay, it seems he would have an early growth advantage similar to Demincus.

Good call. Calliah can either force a wizard to stay employed OR choose a new wizard if the old one leaves. Problem with latter patch: If no wizards remain. I'll decide on the first (forcing the wizard to stay employed) unless there's protest.

The wizards seem like they might be more problematic.
Trohomt's ability must be nullified if he is on the last territory that his lord owns, and Spinnysprout's ability must be nullified if there are only two lords in play, otherwise the game could end up in a stalemate. (Er, can Spinnysprout block ANY invasion from the named lord, or just an invasion into the land that he's at? If it's any invasion, then he seems too overpowered toward endgame when there are only a few lords. If it's only on the land he's at, then he seems underpowered compared to Trohomt.)

I see the problem. Hmm. Patch: Trohomt can choose one territory controlled by his Lord and protect it from 1 invasion. If many players invade, the ability only applies to the first invasion.

Spinnysprout chooses a player and phase to block: so he can choose to block Plasmid's action or Kluemaster's invasion. Invasion has its own phase (separate from action). Any ability (even passive) might be blockable (donno how to block the Massian-Anniata alliance...). Bonuses for controlling the capital or Trohomt's ability could be cancelled that round. Likewise, a player's movement or invasion might be blocked.

For Libronalah, does every player know where each lord is (which would help with anticipating where an invasion to redirect might come from), and can redirects end up making a lord invade a land that's not even attached to his current empire and other such complicated stuff?

The redirect is going away. I'm going to get him a new ability. I came to him first and didn't consider him again after rule changes. =/

But Lords' locations will be listed by character name. Wizards will only be listed as a Wizard (not player or character).

If an invading lord captures the land that the defending lord happens to be sitting in, does the defending lord get kilt or just booted to an adjacent land that he owns? More to the point, when it gets closer to endgame, I could envision this turning into a total grind if there are two players and they each own like 20 territories and both of them are spending their time invading each other's territories with similar odds of a successful invasion. They would just trade territories as both lords move around capturing whatever enemy land they happen to be next to, with no real definitive head-to-head combat.

The lord/wizard would be moved to an available adjacent territory of the Lord's choosing (timing might be bad, though).

All of the above might be best evaluated by a test run of the game, but there is one more practical point. If this is to become a board game for people to play IRL, would you need to have 13 people (7 lords and 5 wizards and a host [so actions can be submitted and Tomathar redirects processed and the relationship between players and which lords they represent can be kept secret]) in your house to play a game?

I doubt I would adapt this directly as an actual board game, but it could be done with fewer people (3-5, maybe?). If adapted, the host would be eliminated and player+character (RID? =P) distribution would be public knowledge. The real-time gameplay (all players submit actions at the same time) might be given up to order of play. It's possible, but I doubt I'd actually do it. Although it might be a project for next year's panel at Daisho, since Hirk and I aren't doing "Building Your Board Game" this year...

[Molly Mae]

Spoiler for Lords

The Seven Houses--each Lord may make one invasion per night. Any successful invasion will allow for the occupation of the invaded land. A Lord without a wizard may choose to search/recruit a wizard in addition to his invasion. More details on that below (under Phases). WINCON: Be the last Lord to control land.

Demincus--A kingdom hungry for power. Every night, Demincus may invade a second time (but may not invade the same Lord twice in a night). If at least two other Lords have recruited a wizard, Demincus may invade a third time (and may invade the same Lord twice in a night, but not three times). If Demincus invades three territories in a night, all invasions are at -5% success rate. No Wizard will ever work for Demincus. (Land: 1)

Drevis--A small and naive nation intent on making a name for himself. All invasions by Drevis are at +15% success. All invasions by Drevis' wizard are at +5% (Land: 2)

Anniata--The Houses of Anniata and Massian were long ago joined together. Although far apart, the two are defaulted to alliance (may be broken by either party). Knows who Massian is. While they remain allied, they may not invade each other. While they remain allied, they may not invade each other, but may cross each other's territories if connected. Wins if all lands are controlled by either her or Massian (or are neutral). (Land: 1)

Calliah--A wise king who controls the mountain pass which joins West Wessol with the East. At the beginning of the game, he may choose one wizard. That wizard must join Calliah and stay with him until dismissed. (Land: 2)

Winnter--The King's Killer. A knave who has popularised himself through this action. Winnter may not be invaded by more than one faction on any turn. (Land: 4)

Massian--The Houses of Anniata and Massian were long ago joined together. Although far apart, the two are defaulted to alliance (may be broken by either party). Knows who Anniata is. While they remain allied, they may not invade each other, but may cross each other's territories if connected. Wins if all lands are controlled by him or Anniata (or are neutral). (Land: 2)

Movius--Controls the capital. Movius' faction gains an additional +5% for every city controlled (including the capital). (Land: 2) (If anyone else is in control of the capital, they do not gain the ability.)

Spoiler for Wizards (Indies)

The Five Wizards--Any recruited Wizard may invade in the name of his Lord (but at a -5% to success rate). A Wizard and Lord may invade a territory together and have an overall invasion bonus of 10%. WINCON: Wizards win with the Lord they are attached to.

Trohomt the Requisitioner (Summoner)
May summon a temporary defense force to keep intruders at bay (cancels one invasion against a territory he chooses).

Libronalah the Scholar (Invoker)
Knows the deepest secrets of flame--may assist his lord by calling fire down on his enemies, allowing his lord to capture enemy territory (an additional invasion) (may not do so two nights in a row).

Tomathar Vishna, who Changes (Transmuter)
A powerful transmuter who may alter the landscape of the territory he occupies from plains to forest, forest to hills, or hills to mountains (or the reverse of any of these).

Spinnysprout Specklesprocket the Failure (Illusionist)
A master of all things false, the Illusionist may conjure an illusionary beast which will scare and stop any player from acting (block p x--where p is player name and x is phase to block--x may be action, movement, recruiting, blockading, or invading).


Urthal the Life-Bringer (Necromancer)
May conjure the dead once per cycle to assist in attack or defense. If used for attack, success rate for any invasion from the territory the wizard is on will be increased by 20%. If used for defense, all success rates of invasion on that territory will be decreased by 30%.

Spoiler for Phases: (OOP)

1) Actions
2) Movement
3) Recruiting
4) Blockading and Fortifying
5) Invading

Actions: (OOA) Blocks work on passive actions. All actions are calculated first and typically alter other phases (mostly the invading phase). If a player has two (or more) invasions and his invasion is blocked, only the first invasion is blocked.

Movement: A Lord may only invade a territory which is adjacent to the territory he is on. He may only move to territories that he controls that are connected (regardless of distance) OR he may only move to territories that he controls that are adjacent to his current territory. (except for the Massian Alliance--the two may move through the other's land as long as the alliance stands).

Recruits will not list details about lords and wizards--just that a recruit happened.

Invasion is chosen (and published) by character to numbered territory. That is, the post will show that Demincus invaded land area 4 (and not that Araver invaded Hirkala). Gray land needn't be captured to win, but can be captured as normal. If two or more Lords successfully invade a neutral land on the same night, the land remains neutral. If two Lords successfully invade the same occupied territory on the same turn, the Lord with fewer lands gains the territory. If they have the same number of lands, it becomes neutral territory.

Recruiting a wizard: Each night, a Lord may choose one wizard to recruit. At the end of the cycle, the host will PM each wizard with the name of the player who has sent a recruit request. If the wizard accepts the request, they are joined. No wizard may work for two Lords and no Lord may employ two or more wizards. A wizard may choose to leave his lord at any time. A lord may choose to fire his wizard at any time.

A wizard who loses or leaves his lord may become a wanderer and any Lord may recruit him. Any wizard without a Lord may not act, but may publish a message in the night post (50 char max). This ability is active at the beginning of the game and includes N1.

Blockading and Fortifying: Each cycle, every player may fortify one border of the territory they are presently occupying. No invasion may occur at that border for that cycle.

Spoiler for Map (not yet created)

Accompanying this game will be a map of Wessol. The land will be divided into several territories. Each territory will be numbered (static) and coloured (dynamic based on occupying lord [gray is neutral]). A base % will be posted on each border showing success rates for invading from one territory to another. Percents going one way will complement the opposite way to 100% (e.g., if one way is 35%, the other way is 65%). These will be the base %'s and can be modified by active and passive abilities.

Cities: For every city controlled by a player's faction, all invasions are granted a +5% bonus. For controlling the capital, all invasions are given a +10% bonus.

Terrain:
Plains -- No bonus or penalty to defense
Forests -- +5% to attack and defense
Hills -- +10% to attack and defense
Mountains -- +15% to attack and defense

Spoiler for Additional rules

There are no rules on BTSC except for this: If you are added to a conversation by someone, you cannot add any other person to that conversation without permission from the person who controls the conversation. The person who controls the conversation is whoever I PM'd initially. You may, however, copy/paste information from one thread to another.

There is no penalty for role-outing. There is no penalty for betrayal. The game ends when all lands are controlled by a single Lord or are neutral. If any Lord conquers another Lord, the conqueror may request to recruit the conquered. If he does so, the conquered may accept or decline the invitation. If either Lord declines the recruit, the conquered Lord is removed from the game and any wizard employed by the conquered Lord becomes unrecruited. If he accepts, he becomes a vassal of the conquering Lord and wins a lesser victory if his new Lord wins. The vassal may continue to employ a wizard (or recruit if he does not have one). If the Lord of the vassal is ever conquered, the vassal is removed from the game, but the conquered Lord may become a vassal of his conqueror as normal. (I hope this makes sense to everyone).

Informal alliances are acceptable and encouraged, but two Lords (non-vassal) may not win.

Repost.

Everything in bold is new or updated.

I'm considering making all Player/Role combinations known. Thoughts on that?

[plasmid]

Ok, mostly just some minor clarification questions to add into the OP when it gets finalized.

- Do Drevis' lackeys (er, vassals) and their wizards get +5% on invasions?
- If multiple different factions invade Winnter, whose attacks go through?
- When a lord invades a territory, do they move into that territory? If Demincus invades multiple territories or another lord does with Libronalah's help, do they pick which of the invaded territories they move into?
- Do the wizards roam around the map while they are un-recruited, or do they suddenly appear in the land of their lord once they're recruited?
- Is there a limit to the number of vassals you can have?
- If a player gets kilt from invasions by multiple factions on the same turn, which one claims him as a vassal? Does he get to pick? Since vassals seem like they would make a huge shift in the balance of power (+1 invasion per turn by the vassal and +1 from the vassal's wizard), determining rules for who gains a vassal seems very important.
- Do vassals keep their special abilities, and does it apply to their new lord as well?

For movement, I vote for letting a lord and wizard move to any territory in their realm (unless their realm gets fragmented, then move to any territory within the fragment they're currently in) just to keep the game moving and not have people waste five turns crossing the map.

I would lean towards making player-role combinations known to everybody. It just seems like it would be easier to pull off cloak and dagger stuff than if you had to post "Does Winnter want to tell me who he is so we can do some strategizing?" Also makes recruiting wizards much more straightforward if they know what they're getting into.

I'm also still a little worried that endgames might drag on. How would you feel about having each player publicly name one of their starting territories as their stronghold, and saying that having your stronghold captured = defeat?

Oh, and be sure to add the part about vassals being able to invade territories to the OP once it's ready to roll.