[Path-Shaper]

kind request: place label your actions as follows in the title:

player, phase + day, ACTION


please label your purchases and sales as follows:


Player, Day, BAZAAR

Please file questions and comments under your role, or open a new thread that makes clear that it contains thoughts.

This is some big administration I'm running, please help the poor P-S

[Hood's Path]

Path-Shaper, on 02 January 2012 - 05:49 PM, said:

On the first day of the war, before news of the invasion was even known on the streets, I was visited by Delat ibn Adaephon, Merchant Prince of the House named after him. After making him wait (not too long), I decided on receiving him while taking a bath. A Merchant Prince is hardly impressed by a display of riches, but perhaps this would inconvenience him. Delat has always had quick eyes and an even faster mind that moves in directions I cannot fathom. If this would grant me a minor advantage, then I'd gladly have him consider what is hidden under the rose petals covering the water. A few naked handmaidens may help, as well, so I ordered them into the bath with me. I presumed he wished to discuss intervention, and I was right. What I was not ready for, was just how quick ibn Adaephon was in matters of profit.

He had secured the full backing of the Houses of Agreement, and it seemed he had anticipated my demand to cease control over Ishktar to my palace. He promptly agreed, then proposed the creation of two offices to govern it. Within moments, we had agreed, and that swift white smile shone through. The Tax Collector of the South would tax all parties involved in this struggle, the Governor would rule Ishktar as my representative regardless of who would rule Ishktar after the war. To both offices, a hefty price was attached.

He left before my wine was served, and when I got out of the bath, even before Nika had finished towelling me dry, a chest filled with dinari was delivered, with a perfumed scroll from Delats own House. With the compliments of theTrading Emporium of Ishktar, the position of Tax Collector of the South was sold. I hate to admit defeat, but here, I was deftly outmaneuvered.

The Office of Tax Collector of the South has been sold to a Houses of Agreement player.

D"rek was right, Quick Ben is going to clusterfuck us all.

[Hood's Path]

Galain, on 02 January 2012 - 06:21 PM, said:

dragonsecks with no dragons? What is this i dont even

If you squint your eyes and use a bit of imagination...

[Hood's Path]

Anomandaris, on 02 January 2012 - 06:35 PM, said:

it also seems silly to have 2 thieves in a power struggle between the houses, khanate, and nepeth. I was thinking more of a three way struggle between these factions with another small wild card faction thrown in for kicks (would work well with a 14 person game)

Much as the first post would hintdicate three factions and a qadi the VCs are more like Nepeth are scum and everyone else is town.

[Path-Shaper]

The Bazaar is updated. New items in Green, sold items in Red, out of stock items struck through.

The Bazaar has the following goods for sale:

Sandstone: 4000 dinari.
Water: 4000 dinari.
Metal: 4000 dinari.
Livestock: 4000 dinari.
Slaves: 4000 dinari.
Weapons: 9000 dinari.
Artefact (1): 10000 dinari
Weapons (2): 8000 dinari
Magic (2): 8000 dinari

The Bazaar offers to buy the following:
Sandstone: 1000 dinari.
Water: 1000 dinari.
Metal: 1000 dinari.
Livestock: 1000 dinari.
Slaves: 1000 dinari.
Weapons: 3000 dinari.
politics: 1000 dinari.

Items, Retainers, Titles (see page 1, post #9 for description:
Al-Shazar's Bag of Plenty (1): 13000 dinari
Addas' Spyglass (1): 17000 dinari
Amaq's Torn-out Tearduct (1): 17000 dinari
Water Clock (3): 4000 dinari
Peasant Levy (10): 6000 dinari
Mercenary Irregulars (7): 10000 dinari
Court Eunuch (2): 10000 dinari
Tax Collector of the South (0): 15000 dinari
Governor of Ishktar Oasis (1): 22000 dinari

There are no Contracts to be fulfilled.

10 players have checked in. 4 to check in before the Bazaar is closed to new goods/ items/ contracts being put up.

This post has been edited by Path-Shaper: 02 January 2012 - 07:13 PM

[Galain]

Hood, on 02 January 2012 - 06:52 PM, said:

Galain, on 02 January 2012 - 06:21 PM, said:

dragonsecks with no dragons? What is this i dont even

If you squint your eyes and use a bit of imagination...

Wouldn't be the first time..

Hood, on 02 January 2012 - 06:55 PM, said:

Anomandaris, on 02 January 2012 - 06:35 PM, said:

it also seems silly to have 2 thieves in a power struggle between the houses, khanate, and nepeth. I was thinking more of a three way struggle between these factions with another small wild card faction thrown in for kicks (would work well with a 14 person game)

Much as the first post would hintdicate three factions and a qadi the VCs are more like Nepeth are scum and everyone else is town.

The VC's make it abundantly clear that this is a town vs scum game. I'm thinking that there are multiple town factions, though. We don't gain anything from killing eachother IN THIS GAME but killing others off now could give the faction an advantage in future games... it's tricky.

[Telas]

Eh, I hate "Town v. Scum" talk in an obvious faction game. Nepeth need to survive to get vote parity, thus making them probably the smaller faction here, but more powerful players consequently.

And, then we go from there.

[Galain]

No harm in trying to figure this stuff out, Telas.

Path-Shaper, on 02 January 2012 - 09:16 AM, said:

victory conditions:

Nepeth: achieve vote parity. The Qadi does not count for determining when parity is reached.
Everyone else: remove all Nepeth from the game.

So it's basically everyone vs the nepeth vs everyone with the qadi as some other factor?

Because everyone wins by removing the Nepeth from the game, not by removing eachother. But how do the Qadi factor in?

Of course, the different factions should have no hard feelings about getting rid of eachother. All's fair in love and war.

[Serc]

Checking in, and trying to catch up

[Telas]

Oh, I just meant using the "town" and "scum" verbiage in faction games, even in games where the comparison is apt like this. It confuses new players because even though on the surface it looks to be basically the same, the factions aspect changes everyone's ulterior motives dramatically.

No idea what the Qadi's purpose is in the balance of the game. Could be as the Khaliff's personal hit-man, to obtain certain resources, to help maintain some sort of balance amongst two of the factions? Pure conjecture.

[Hood's Path]

Galain, on 02 January 2012 - 07:32 PM, said:

No harm in trying to figure this stuff out, Telas.

Path-Shaper, on 02 January 2012 - 09:16 AM, said:

victory conditions:

Nepeth: achieve vote parity. The Qadi does not count for determining when parity is reached.
Everyone else: remove all Nepeth from the game.

So it's basically everyone vs the nepeth vs everyone with the qadi as some other factor?

Because everyone wins by removing the Nepeth from the game, not by removing eachother. But how do the Qadi factor in?

Of course, the different factions should have no hard feelings about getting rid of eachother. All's fair in love and war.

The Qadi is one player, representing the Khalif. He doesn"t count for parity though and the Khalif describes him as immortal so I wonder if he might not be unkillable or near-unkillable. Since he"s representing the Khalif he would want the Nepeth gone also.

[Path-Shaper]

I'm out to grab some food, back in 30 or so.

[Serc]

Well, "trying to catch up" was a bit optimistic.

I think I get the phases, I start to understand the Bazaar, I'm not certain I get what actions are, and I finally saw the tiny bit with the victory conditions.

I feel a bit like when I play a RPG, I don't care about the story I just want to get some loot and the snazziest armor.

[Galain]

Hood, on 02 January 2012 - 07:36 PM, said:

The Qadi is one player, representing the Khalif. He doesn"t count for parity though and the Khalif describes him as immortal so I wonder if he might not be unkillable or near-unkillable. Since he"s representing the Khalif he would want the Nepeth gone also.

Ah, that clears things up.

So I'm looking at the factions in the OP. Gonna do a bit of guessing here.

Nepeth:

Royal family: They could be any number of things, possibly power roles. Don't know what to think here.

The court: Most likely Traders and Summoners.

The army: All generals and high generals. Obviously the attackers.

So I'm thinking the Nepeth royal family might have a thief or an assassin somewhere in there. I feel that their aren't any raiders here, but I could be wrong obviously.

The Qadi:

I have NO idea what this could be.

The Khanates:

All the various clans look similar, having a Khan and Tar-Khan. Looks like its primarily warriors and raiders here, so I'm thinking the clans are the only ones with raiders possibly. I don't know what the Khan/Tar-Khan's powers would be. Maybe one of them is a thief.

The Cult of the Vulture:

Masters Mages Witches and Summoners. Your guess is as good as mine for them.

The Night Prophet faction:

The inner circle looks like a bunch of special roles, dunno about those.

The assassins are... assassins Obviously. I'm starting to see where contracts could come into play.

The sons of life seem like they could be something to do with healing, they;re called Blood and Bone, so that seems likely.

The Orphanage has what seems like one of each role, basically.

The houses of agreements:

I looked through all the various houses, and it looks like its literally all traders here with the exception of "Hila the Gorilla, exotic pet". Does this mean someone could be playing a pet? Hah.

The beggars guild.

Thieves, Pickpockets, and Swindlers. So the first two are obviously thieves, with the swindlers as possible power roles.

So there are 7 factions. With only 14 players, this means it would be 2 people per faction if it's balanced. Not likely, imo. This leaves a few possibilties.

Some factions are not present. The Cult of the Vulture hasn't been mentioned I don't think, so they could be missing, etc.

More likely, only a few people are present from certain factions. ie, there is only 1 representative of the beggar and night prophet factions, as in 1 thief and 1 assassin. Only 1 Qadi... The Cult of the Vulture is my biggest unknown in this scenario, but assuming their is 1 or 0 representatives here, that would leave 10 or 11 people for 3 factions. Nepeth probably has 5, so 3 Khanates, and 2 House of Agreements traders?

It's all conjecture. Any thoughts?

[Path-Shaper]

Serc, on 02 January 2012 - 08:01 PM, said:

Well, "trying to catch up" was a bit optimistic.

I think I get the phases, I start to understand the Bazaar, I'm not certain I get what actions are, and I finally saw the tiny bit with the victory conditions.

I feel a bit like when I play a RPG, I don't care about the story I just want to get some loot and the snazziest armor.

"we have all kinds of snazzy armor at Tapper's Bazaar, come here my friend, you like that tapestry? No? Maybe a brass lamp for the lady? Hmm? Also no. Huh. I have a pair of silk slippers here, special price for you my friend, very snazzy, you see? No? Look, look, no buy, ay? Well, you should go see my friend Morgoth, he has an excellent restaurant on the corner of Khalif's and Vizier's street. Excellent. Special price for you, just say him hello from his friend Tapper."

[Telas]

I'm going to assume it's much like Romance in that not all the factions are present per game in the sequence, but they will eventually be in a game. At least until something not in the OP or game outline shows up so as to not confuse myself.

Imagine Drek's list of characters if she'd have had them all from the very beginning in the first game.

[Path-Shaper]

Regarding victory conditions and factions et cetera (I'll post this in the OP, too):

basically, this is like Spycraft. We have a group of factions (number unknown, but the OP contains hints) that all have the goal of eliminating one other faction.
Unlike Spycraft, where there were hidden VCs based on points, we here have the bigger meta-game as a background mechanic. Serc is more or less correct in comparing this game to an RPG, it more or less is on the meta level. There is winning this game, of course there is. But there is also ToD 0.66 and further, just like Rot3K had multiple games and recurring characters.

So you also play for keeps.

A player whose character who comes away from this game with, say, 2 upgrades, a filled treasury and a filled storage, maybe an item or an extra Retainer, has secured a strong position for the next game that character appears in. Even better if you manage to kill/ drive into poverty someone from a faction who is on your side in this game. Because he sure as hell won't be in a future one.

[Eloth]

Yep, I agree, I would say not all the factions (or even most of them) are present here.

At a guess, to judge from the OP, I would say Nepeth army faction (rather than the court etc.) has representatives in this game; the Qadi of Loathing, Tarkin the Bitter-Hearted is here also; the White Foal Clan of the Khanates; and some people from the Houses of Agreement.

Of the last, I'm not sure whether to think that they're all from the House of Magic like Delat (who we know is here because of the scene where he bought the Tax Collector title), or representatives from various houses.

[Hood's Path]

Like Telas said, I don"t think all the factions will be present here. From Tapper"s hinting seems like we"ll get more complicated ToD games later and this is just an intro.

from the OP here"s my speculation:

Tapper, on 29 December 2011 - 03:14 PM, said:

and the Pharaoh sent out the armies of the Nepeth to conquer the nearest source of water that is big enough to relieve his population. He sent them marching to Ishktar Oasis

from this the Nepeth are probably mostly or all military

Tapper, on 29 December 2011 - 03:14 PM, said:

I know you are a foreigner, but surely you must have heard of Delat and Meshkir? They are two of the five great Merchant families that together, from the bazaars known as the Houses of Agreements, rule the flow of wealth to and from Madeena al-Salaam

from this the Houses of Agreement players are all from DElat and Meshkir

Tapper, on 29 December 2011 - 03:14 PM, said:

The Sea of Sands is the territory of the White Foal Clan of the Khanates, and as any clansman will tell you, the White Foal are the best raiders of all of them

from this the White Foal clan are the khanates in the area

Tapper, on 29 December 2011 - 03:14 PM, said:

“I am the Khalif. I value peace and prosperity. Everyone knows that, and even before a single drop of blood was shed, all three parties had asked me to mediate. The Nepeth wanted water, but I had not a drop to grand that isn't already someone elses. The Houses wanted protection, but I have no army. The White Foal wanted aid, but they have always taken more than they need, so why would I help them take even more? Even so, judgment was required, and I am the Khalif

confirmed

Tapper, on 29 December 2011 - 03:14 PM, said:

And thus, I dispatched a force that could enforce all three. I sent one entity. I sent the Qadi of Loathing, that immortal creature with magic of unimaginable power at his disposal. One of the three Heartless who serve me

and the Qadi representing the Khalif

[Hood's Path]

I would not be surprised if there turned out to be other roles in here though. Vulture Cult and Night Prophet seem too organized to ben included and unmentioned but the begger"s guild could easily have a person or two.