Ideas for version 2.1

[Razapan]

So due to the inadequacy of the previous ruleset we've stalled a bit here. For awhile I thought that maybe letting things simply play out with imperfect rules would help get a more holistic understanding of the deficiencies, but after thinking about it for awhile I think that that is perhaps a stupid way to fix things. We only have so much time after all.

What follows is a series of basic ideas for fixing the major problems with the game we've so far identified. Those are:

1. Death's Toll
   
2. The lack of options for the difficulties of normal advancements
   
3. How to address truly stupendous actions, how crazy can we make this shit.
   

So far I think that what we have will provide a solid base for a discussion on how to proceed. Largely, the numbers side of the options below are still up for debate in large part because that sort of decision is more likely to involve a lot more thinking that Steve or I had time to devote over the last few weeks (He was farming, I was anti-farming).

[Razapan]

Lets first look at the lack of options for the difficulties of normal advancements. At the moment we really only have 3 options that aren't simply ways to say "fuck you" to whoever is making the proposal.

At 3d6 its a near certainty (since the houserule that an 18 on a 3d6 is a failure)
At 4d6 is still a near certainty
At 5d6 is still a pretty damn good chance, really.

At 6d6 you have to be really lucky.

The difference between 5d6 and 6d6 is stupid. So.

Lets get rid of the rolling altogether and instead make the advancement portion of everyone's turn more about budgeting resources.


Here are some proposals, note that the key idea here is that Mana portion of the discussion, the 30 isn't exactly crucial, but its my opinion at least that there should be some breaks on pushing big actions, making it so you don't have the mana to do everything you want to every turn is one way to encourage playing to your strengths and planning.

Basic Idea

Each player starts out with a mana pool consisting of two components. 30 Mana is naturally generated at the beginning of each turn, and combined with reserved mana from other turns to form that god’s available mana pool. In each turn (which recall, is an in-game generation), the players (the demi-gods) propose an advancement for their species in each of the first seven categories on the character sheet. Each proposed advancement should be put forth with an proposed mana cost to reflect the difficulty of the advancement. The proposed difficulty is then reviewed by the other gods, and revisions may be made for a consensus to be reached.

Simple -- Costs 3 mana “3d6” ish

Standard -- Costs 5 mana “4d6” ish

Special -- Costs 8 mana “5d6” ish

Super -- Costs 12 mana “6d6” ish

(These are guidelines, and intermediate values may be and are encouraged to be assigned.)

Alternate Base Values:

Trivial -- 1 Mana. Ridiculously small changes or things that could not possibly give a mechanical advantage except in the most absolutely absurd situations. Examples: Some of my people have red eyes, Only cherry wood is used in the construction of toilet seats, my people’s hair is naturally curly.

Simple -- 3 Mana

Typical -- 5 Mana

Advanced -- 7 Mana

Super -- 9 Mana

Absurd -- 11

Godlike -- 13

Inconcievable -- 15

From here you can make modifications based on previous advancements, environmental factors, your godly specialty, or other things not yet envisioned.

The issue with both this idea and the one before it is that we have no real way of determining what consitutes a "GODLIKE" action for... well, a God. This seems prone to argument in all but the most harmonious groups. Because of this I have a third proposal.

Alternate Alternate Way to determine base-costs:

Advancements start at a cost of 5 Mana. From there a variety of other factors influence the cost of the action, eventually culminating in its actual score. Each advancement category has its own list of modifiers, though some portions of each list are shared (for obvious reasons).

For instance here is a sample modifier list for a TECHNOLOGY advancement.

1. Is this a brand new technology in a field your people have never before advanced in? 
   
   
2. Is this tech advancement driven by Dire Need?
   
   
3. Is this tech largely superfluous or non-crucial for the survival of the species?
   
4. Is this tech an interative improvement upon an earlier technology?
   
5. Is this tech a horizontal improvement upon an existing technology?
   
6. Is this tech related in some way to your specialty as a god?
   
7. Are there environmental factors influencing the adoption of this tech?
   
8. Is this tech a large jump in a field you've already explored, one which would normally require several steps?
   
9. Do you control some artifact or location that makes this tech more attainable?
   
10. Do you control some artifact or location that makes this tech more difficult to attain?
    
11. Is your species particularly creative? Is this relevant?
    
12. Is your species particularly tradition based? Is this relevant?
    
13. Is your species dumber than average?
    
14. Is your species smarter than average?
    
15. Would the tech work given mundane phsyics?
    

Ect

Now one for Actions:Modifiers

1. Is the Advancement a simple jump from a previous Advancement?
2. Is the Advancement a large jump from a previous Advancement?
3. Is there no precedent for this action?
4. Can this Advancement be related to your Specialty?
5. Can this Advancement be related to a potential weakness?
6. Are there environmental factors driving this Advancement
7. Does this Advancement cover multiple hexes where you have worshippers?
8. Does this advancement cover multiple hexes without worshippers?
9. If it is an independent entity or entities, Will this Advancement perpetuate itself?


ect

Obviously, the lists are incomplete at this point, that's something I'll be working to flesh out if we, as a group, decide that they're the direction we'd like to go. Questions on the lists should be easily answerable as yes/no questions. Hopefully that will simplify what otherwise could be a point of considerably contention as we move away from the dice rolling.

[Razapan]

Next up: EXPANSION IS TOTALLY BUGGERED

Again, my bad, I put the current expansion system in place with a few assumptions (that all turned out to be wrong, so I won't add to my idiotic humiliation by going into too much depth here). Regardless, making expansion its own advancement category COULD potentially fix some of the issues that we have currently.

7. Expansion

In this phase, the player may claim adjacent hexes, or develop ways to divide up their population. Without any advancements, a race will evenly distribute among the controlled hexes and can expand to claim as many hexes equal to the turn number (example on turn 3, I may claim up to 3 hexes) Hexes claimed this way must at least have at least 50 people to count as occupied. Examples of possible advancements, congregation in to towns, decreased density for farmland, development of cities, roads, or claiming new territory.

Like ver 2.0 population density will be a major driver for DT (which is also getting revamped). Having a expansion advancement column will hopefully allow us to mitigate some of the issues related to that.

[Razapan]

Death’s Toll:

Each category of death’s toll starts off with a 15% point rate. At the appropriate part of the turn, each player sums their deaths toll, and that percentage of the population is lost.

Advancements may mitigate the Death’s Toll percentages that you suffer each turn. An advancement may mitigate percentage points up to the number of mana spent on that advancement. The specific value must be collectively decided upon in that turn’s advancement thread.

Advancements may also have the opposite effect, and incur a Death’s Toll as a result. This penalty is not bound by the difficulty. For example inventing the guillotine, may only cost 3 points after the creation of metal blades, ropes and pulleys, but would likely incur a much greater Death’s Toll than 3% points due to the ease of public execution.

EXAMPLE: Marcius, God of the Hearth, is tired of his people starving to death, so he decides to teach them farming, a 5-point mana advancement. He proposes that this mitigate his base 15% Hunger Death’s Toll by the full 5 points. The in-thread discussion yields that he may mitigate 3 of the 15 points.  At the end of the turn (and every turn that his people continue to farm), Marcius only takes a 12% DT from hunger.

Alternate DT idea (Not formalized yet, but I’d like your thoughts)

Gentlemen, lets do away with Deaths’ toll “the phase.” It’s current incarnation is clunky, leads to a population growth chart that looks like Jackson Pollok puked on it, and leads to no possible bonus (not really) to societies that adequately protect themselves. It also does a poor job of accounting for variance across large areas, but I don’t think that that issue is likely to be solved any time soon.


Lets do away with the Death’s Toll phase and replace it with dynamic population growth rates. In a certain light, that isn’t a “change” at all, but I think it will make things a bit easier.


My idea, through example: In Eden everyone starts with a reproductive rate of 2.0, this is a bit faster than we’re used to,but helps us accelerate through the otherwise slow turns of Eden.

Pop By Turn:

50


100


200


400


800

At the end of Eden each player will have ~800 population.


Upon entering Exodus (which I actually propose we title Diaspora, as I’m getting a bit fatigued of all the Judeo-Christian terminology in the mix) they take a -0.2 Reproduction Rate Penalty for each of the basic deaths toll modifiers.

Those being:

1. Disease
   
2. Exposure
   
3. Hunger
   
4. Wild Animals
   
5. Crime
   

That brings them down to a Reproductive rate of 1.0. Stagnation. God forbid they haven’t mitigated anything. Mitigations can proceed much like you mentioned before, with each advancements basic mitigation calculated off of how many Mana Points it cost to put into play.


Thus, if the species has managed to mitigate half of all their penalties, they’ll still have a reproductive rate of 1.5. They’ll continue to grow, Albeit slowly. If and when they neglect their expansion later, density dependent factors will hammer them into the ground. The wonderful thing about this system is that it autocorrects, after a few turns of very low, or negative, growth the density dependant factors will iron themselves out. Better yet, the whole process is bundled with population growth, so there’s one less thing that needs to be done each turn. Advancements go in, then Population goes up (or down). Done. No calculating DT afterwards, no discovering that you claimed 10 extra hexes that will now be empty (causing the map guy to go into hysterics). You get the idea.


The last part of it includes another way to use the expansion column. To directly alter reproductive rate. Say your species is just fucking clumsy, you will constantly be the victim of a low-reproductive rate due to persistent losses. Players can increase the reproductive rate of their races through advancements to offset the pain of density dependent losses, ect. Though you might be able to see how that could quickly spiral out of control.

Alternate Alternate DT Plan

As Above, but with a one major distinction.


Consider Advancements that improve safety to be armor against sources of Deaths Toll. Each turn all those possible sources are summed and the resulting value is subtracted from the sum of all the values granted by that Armor. The result is then applied to the species reproductive rate. THIS WORKS IN EITHER DIRECTION. One of the crucial aspects of the DT theory is that it doesn’t really account for “all” deaths, just those above the norm. In this system races that are very safe (through whatever means) would be rewarded with a passive bump to their reproductive rate (basically the “normal” amount of deaths decreases. The subtractions/additions granted in this method are cumulative.


Thoughts?

[Razapan]

Hex Sliders

Here’s another idea for making assigning DT easier. Right now each hex is designated as a different terrain type but each hexes description ends there. What I’m suggesting is that each terrain type has a different rating in three distinct categories: Food, Hostility, Climate. Those three ratings correspond directly with the amount of BASE DT assigned for the Hunger/Thirst, Wild Animals, and Exposure categories.


In order of Nicest to Worst the Hunger slider would look something like


Idylic (Eden/Supernatural) > Lush > Bountiful > Average > Unproductive > Barren > Desolate (Apocalyptic/Supernatural)


The Climate Slider be similar, with the two sides being the relative extremes. It would look something like:


Blistering (Supernatural) > Scorching > Hot > Temperate > Cool > Frozen > Icebound (Supernatural)


Finally, the Hostility slider would look something like this:


Halcyon (Supernatural) > Tender > Benign > Neutral > Antagonistic  > Hostile > Malevolent (Supernatural)



An Example: The Plains, fertile and currently bereft of horrible predators or frightening geography would be rated at: Bountiful / Temperate / Neutral.


Meanwhile the Jungles of the Razta tribe would have started as be Bountiful/ Hot / Antagonistic, but are currently more like Lush / Hot / Malevolent because of the advancements I’ve made to the terrain and wild animals that inhabit the area.


Through advancements each race can adapt the to the terrain to reduce their DT, however equal advancements will have unequal results. More importantly, without SIGNIFICANT alterations/advancements it should be nearly impossible to move a slider more than 2 spaces in either direction.

[RavensVigil]

I personally like the mana idea for making advancements, and basically how much mana each person gets can be totally aritrary (30 is fine) and since we're all working with the same amount we'll all have a rough feeling on how much a mana point is worth.

I prefer the idea of just suggesting and discussing mana costs though, all those things in your list should be considered by the debators, but if you make a set list then something will always be left out and its inflexible when one consideration might be more significant than another.

[RavensVigil]

As for Expansion, I like the idea of an extra phase dedicated to it. I think we should consider actually making more hexes (smaller geographic area per hex). Then we could be more specific as to how our population is distributed. Large cities could sprawl over many hexes, and attacking these would represent attacking different parts of the city (maybe giving the defenders bonuses as long as the city remains entirely in their hands, and removing them once the city walls had been broached.) Obviously this would mean an increased number of allowed expansion hexes each turn.

[RavensVigil]

Adjusted pop growth in place of DT is a brilliant idea, and is actually closer to how we view world population irl.

The terrain sliders seems like a pretty hefty complication though, how will it work once we expand beyond our natural habitats? I feel like this might be another particular best left to discussion rather than inflexible graphing.

[Razapan]

I like the idea of more, smaller hexes, that in particular might work well with the new system of buying advancements. In our limited playtesting so far we've found that actually expanding quickly would require you to take rather severe penalties in other areas, which feels right, more or less.

We should skype or do a google hangout sometime soon, man. There's a lot to catch you up on and I'd like your thoughts on a couple new concepts.

[Razapan]

Adjusted pop growth in place of DT is a brilliant idea, and is actually closer to how we view world population irl.

The terrain sliders seems like a pretty hefty complication though, how will it work once we expand beyond our natural habitats? I feel like this might be another particular best left to discussion rather than inflexible graphing.

So far the sliders have actually worked pretty well. The combined total of the slider values gives the pressure score for the hex and that pressure score influences how productive (or not) that hex is. Advancements that improve or worsen conditions can move a slider by 1 (or a maximum of 2 for truly stupendous/supernatural advancements). This appears to have the advantage of really incentivising smaller steps in the advancement categories, since breaking a 'large' advancement into 3 smaller steps actually nets you a greater benefit than simply paying a bunch more and buying it in one turn. Obviously, you're also paying an implicit opportunity cost when you split an advancement over 3 turns.

As far as the advancement cost lists go, the final question in each list is something along the lines of: Does God's Council want to impose a penalty or reduce the cost of this advancement?

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