[Bendal Home]

Olar Ethil, on 24 May 2015 - 07:04 PM, said:

Path-Shaper, on 24 May 2015 - 06:42 PM, said:

"I am who I am, Milord Mercatore. Fifteen minutes, and then, open battle."

He bowed.

How long is fifteen minutes in mafia time?

That depends which time zone you are in

[Olar Ethil]

Bendal Home, on 24 May 2015 - 07:08 PM, said:

Olar Ethil, on 24 May 2015 - 07:04 PM, said:

Path-Shaper, on 24 May 2015 - 06:42 PM, said:

"I am who I am, Milord Mercatore. Fifteen minutes, and then, open battle."

He bowed.

How long is fifteen minutes in mafia time?

That depends which time zone you are in

I'm in the one I have always been in silly!

[Denesmet]

Olar Ethil, on 24 May 2015 - 07:04 PM, said:

Path-Shaper, on 24 May 2015 - 06:42 PM, said:

"I am who I am, Milord Mercatore. Fifteen minutes, and then, open battle."

He bowed.

How long is fifteen minutes in mafia time?

That would depend upon whether PS is at the keyboard or hugging the toilet. Still sick Taps?

[Path-Shaper]

Still not too well. I have everything wrapped I think, "just" need to put every tab in every attachment for 9 of you, 2 got their stuff already.

Tomorrow morning after breakfast and before I leave for Amsterdam I might have some time, otherwise tuesday morning.

[Path-Shaper]

Tuesday morning.

[Path-Shaper]

It is tuesday morning now, and I think I'll have to do a spur of the moment thing - I literally just answered Khell about a rule question - but I am going to call the game.

There's a couple of good reasons for doing so.

First, selfishly and foremost: modding costs me several hours a day and I don't have that time, not at work and not at home. I just got another large project handed to me that comes on top of my normal workload, too.

Secondly, a conclusion to the game seems 4-5 game days off, which will be another 2 to 3 weeks real time. I don't want this to become Survivor or the Dresden Files II.

Third, the mafia element of the game is completely dead apart from obligatory mod-kill avoidance. That makes it more or less a board game, and if it does become a (forum) board game, I can do a whole lot better in design - cutting out the mod and introducing player resolution, for one.

Fourth, there's a more or less unbreakable alliance with in-game majority, with another 5 days to its duration. If another faction moves ahead of them in board position, they'll just start lynching, reducing the fun factor and incentive to play well for the non-allied players, if not now, then down the line. If this alliance was balanced by the other factions doing exceptionally well on resources, board position and Noble possession, it would be one thing - but they are (starting to) lag(ging) there, too.

I guess introducing a fifth faction would have been better, apart from the fact that we'd need 15 players, of course.

Fifth, I have made some balancing errors that are (going to) affect(ing) the game. The prime troublemaker is resource creating companies and a disparity in their spread over factions, but there are some abilities that will be problematic, too.

Finally, players with less time are falling visibly behind (no heirs, no ability uses, no armies, just a stack of unused resources, which starts to pale besides the income of more active players as well).

[Tattersail_]

Good effort. Enjoyed the game and I'm not disappointed. The mod kill was unfortunate because there was chatter off thread and the difference between posting a post that says mod kill avoidance over not posting at all is pretty much no difference.

Enjoyed planning my armies and I think it's great when everyone has actions to perform.

Much hate for people who didn't put in the effort. In terms if actions it took about 20 minutes at the start of the cycle to plan the actions for the next cycle and if you've got time to come on the forum and post elsewhere then you've got time to post an action in here. I don't want to hear that you were busy because I've been busy myself. Regardless of whatever it is you do 36 hours is more than enough time to put in a set of actions.

You're going to tell me in your working day you don't get time to yourself? Toilet breaks lunch time after dinner after kids have gone to bed before you go to bed. Bollocks. I bet you have time to play other games watch shows read books etc. Well it's disrespectful to sign up for a game and not give it a go.

Don't bother in future, you just spoil it for the ones that actually want to play. It's a shame we cannot get 12 to 15 active people to play these games. A Damn shame. This was a Tapper special and it didn't get the justice it deserved. Think of how much time this guy has put in to creating the game. Modding it. Answering questions. Angry doesn't cover how I feel.

This post has been edited by Tattersail_: 26 May 2015 - 08:27 AM

[Messremb]

The Papal Alliance does declare itself the victor in these struggles for the estates of Noblesse, all hail the Pape!



I'd have to agree with calling it; the amount of time spent answering questions alone is formidable with this game and real life always has to come first. Having had a setup post eaten by the forum didn't help either when we started asking complicated combat questions. Perhaps the next mindfuck should have a mod-assistant who is fully up to speed to spread the load a little?

We would have completed our half of the allied VCs in 2-3 more days I think, depending on how much manpower I spent pushing uits. I think me recruiting Andorian had too much of an effect on game balance; our 4 allied with Khells 3 meant should we desire to do so we could have lynched everyone else and then we could have lynched Khells. As it happens we had decided not to lynch though as we were enjoying the mechanics. FWIW once I had 2 of the D'arsenale estates if Khell hadn't taken at least 1 I was giving serious thought to breaking the alliance and taking them myself for a solo faction win. Sorry Khell!

Those falling behind no doubt have their reasons but I just see them as grain to be crushed in the mill of life.

I would be very interested to see a different version of this put forward. Although if you keep the resource generating companies spread on my faction I'll be very happy...

Thank you for the game Tapper


(Now where's the SH thread because we have about 50 pages of PMs to post...)

[Path-Shaper]

Tattersail_, on 26 May 2015 - 08:27 AM, said:

Good effort. Enjoyed the game and I'm not disappointed. The mod kill was unfortunate because there was chatter off thread and the difference between posting a post that says mod kill avoidance over not posting at all is pretty much no difference.

Enjoyed planning my armies and I think it's great when everyone has actions to perform.

Yeah, in hind-sight, that was perhaps unnecessary - but it is mafia, and thread presence is required, I had kind of hoped that the mod-kill would kick off more discussion.

Quote

Much hate for people who didn't put in the effort. In terms if actions it took about 20 minutes at the start of the cycle to plan the actions for the next cycle and if you've got time to come on the forum and post elsewhere then you've got time to post an action in here. I don't want to hear that you were busy because I've been busy myself. Regardless of whatever it is you do 36 hours is more than enough time to put in a set of actions.

You're going to tell me in your working day you don't get time to yourself? Toilet breaks lunch time after dinner after kids have gone to bed before you go to bed. Bollocks. I bet you have time to play other games watch shows read books etc. Well it's disrespectful to sign up for a game and not give it a go.

Don't bother in future, you just spoil it for the ones that actually want to play. It's a shame we cannot get 12 to 15 active people to play these games. A Damn shame. This was a Tapper special and it didn't get the justice it deserved. Think of how much time this guy has put in to creating the game. Modding it. Answering questions. Angry doesn't cover how I feel.

Well, to be fair: I guess where the drop-off started is not so much in planning actions, but in getting up to speed with the game mechanics and how they interact.

Khell, Blend and Messremb were amongst the most active and succesful players/planners but still had questions about rules this far into the game. I guess the problem starts right at the beginning, with the (length of the) rule set. If someone had 10 hours total time pre-game and another player had half an hour per day, the 10 hour person will understand the basic rules, asks the questions about them, and gets in the back-and-forth.

The half an hour per day person has 30 minutes, gets half-way through the rules and then has to re-start the next day.

And frankly, one reason for halting modding was because I also want some time to watch a show or two and read a book without feeling (a little bit) guilty for putting the game second, so I understand that

[Path-Shaper]

Messremb, on 26 May 2015 - 08:44 AM, said:

The Papal Alliance does declare itself the victor in these struggles for the estates of Noblesse, all hail the Pape!



I'd have to agree with calling it; the amount of time spent answering questions alone is formidable with this game and real life always has to come first. Having had a setup post eaten by the forum didn't help either when we started asking complicated combat questions. Perhaps the next mindfuck should have a mod-assistant who is fully up to speed to spread the load a little?

We would have completed our half of the allied VCs in 2-3 more days I think, depending on how much manpower I spent pushing uits. I think me recruiting Andorian had too much of an effect on game balance; our 4 allied with Khells 3 meant should we desire to do so we could have lynched everyone else and then we could have lynched Khells. As it happens we had decided not to lynch though as we were enjoying the mechanics. FWIW once I had 2 of the D'arsenale estates if Khell hadn't taken at least 1 I was giving serious thought to breaking the alliance and taking them myself for a solo faction win. Sorry Khell!

Those falling behind no doubt have their reasons but I just see them as grain to be crushed in the mill of life.

I would be very interested to see a different version of this put forward. Although if you keep the resource generating companies spread on my faction I'll be very happy...

Thank you for the game Tapper


(Now where's the SH thread because we have about 50 pages of PMs to post...)

password to SH is feedingtime

It includes only 2 synopsises of how the game went according to me, plus a little bit on economics and Brujah stating his thoughts.

Also, I think Tattersail had a good chance of seizing 1-2 victory tiles in the same time frame. The problem for him would be holding on to them (and an impending lynch). He had an ability that targets an estate, and the first time his units enter battle there, they'd win automatically. If he faced your armies first and then the D'Arsenale guys, the D'Arsenale would probably end up victorious, but if you'd arrive later, he'd kick them out and just spam the ability.

That was one of the balancing problems I mentioned above.

[Shadow]

Bummer....I was enjoying that.

[Inane Babble]

As suggested in the PM, a way to balance the resource producing units is;

Increase all estate income, ability and building costs, and unit costs by a facto of 10, so a steward collects 10 of each resources, Exchange Hostages now costs 30 Influence and a regiment costs 20 Manpower to start, and you invest 10 manpower at a time to buy unit tiers.

Basically the game plays exactly the same in every regard except for the resource production of the units themselves. They can be set to produce 1, 2, 5 or 10 income of a resource per "unit tier point" depending on how you want to balance it. So it would take a unit with a resource bonus of 2 five turns to produce "1" Manpower. A unit with 3 "unit tiers" of influence income would generate 6 influence per turn, taking 2-3 turns to produce "1" Influence. Stacking the production of separate units would make this extra income more reliable, without running away with the show.




Also; In for the board game!

[Path-Shaper]

Shadow, on 26 May 2015 - 09:40 AM, said:

Bummer....I was enjoying that.

Glad to hear!

[Inane Babble]

I would hesitate to make the game player resolution, would that not mean that spies lose a lot of their purpose, as well as let people toy with the combat calculator to properly defend any incoming threats? Or do I not understand the way a player resolvable game would work?

[Inane Babble]

Slightly curious if I would have beat the player at A5 with my unit after failing miserably with the B7 fiasco.

[Khellendros]

Messremb, on 26 May 2015 - 08:44 AM, said:

I think me recruiting Andorian had too much of an effect on game balance; our 4 allied with Khells 3 meant should we desire to do so we could have lynched everyone else and then we could have lynched Khells. As it happens we had decided not to lynch though as we were enjoying the mechanics. FWIW once I had 2 of the D'arsenale estates if Khell hadn't taken at least 1 I was giving serious thought to breaking the alliance and taking them myself for a solo faction win. Sorry Khell!

No worries Mess, literally as soon as I found out that you had four members instead of three I started plotting your downfall, knowing that you could feasibly lynch our faction at some point If we'd had an equal number of members, I would have kept to the alliance no question, but you having that fourth member was too much of an imbalance of power for my liking. So I was looking at setting up neutrality treaties with the others and giving them info on who was in your faction, or helping out on a lynch on one of your members, etc. Alas, responses from the other faction leaders were slow in coming...

It sounds like you would have had a tougher time with the TCK than you envisaged too - it would certainly have made for an interesting and chaotic endgame I think!



Tapper: Thank you for the game, I had a heap of fun and an even bigger heap of questions. Some (a lot?) of that was my fault in that I did not read the rules properly at points. I think there could have been a slightly clearer layout too, I found that with a few things I had to cross-check with other rules in a different part of the OP to make sure that I understood correctly.

Also, it may be that you threw in a few too many new things all at once. You have to treat us like idiots at all times, so perhaps it would have been worth introducing one new mechanic per game (whether estates, military units, diplomacy, etc.). I know it would have taken a lot longer to get to the point you really wanted to get to, but it would also have given you extra testing time for each mechanic, seeing how long it took you as a mod to deal with it, seeing how well or how badly we understood the mechanic as it existed, etc, and how well it all balanced.


The thread, was, obviously, the main problem, and I think only Mess can be proud of his attempted contribution. Lynching was of course the big fear factor (and indeed, as an alliance, we actually agreed not to lynch straight everyone else straight away when we could have in order not to ruin it for everyone else). Perhaps an in-game thread, and lynching, could still be possible - but what if lynching, rather than removing you permanently (if you have no Heir), simply removes you temporarily from the game (almost like a "skip the next turn" action in a board game). It impacts in a detrimental way on your game, as it should, but it does not leave you seething on the sidelines (for too long) while everyone else continues to play.

[Path-Shaper]

Inane Babble, on 26 May 2015 - 10:00 AM, said:

I would hesitate to make the game player resolution, would that not mean that spies lose a lot of their purpose, as well as let people toy with the combat calculator to properly defend any incoming threats? Or do I not understand the way a player resolvable game would work?

What I am thinking of now is removing Spies altogether, because they wouldn't work.
Likewise, Building operators, Overseers and Messengers would go - keeping Tax Collector, Steward, Lobbyist, Envoy (action performance), Commander and perhaps adding Ambassador (ally with a player by exchanging courtiers).

Removing spies means having all the tiles out in the open, either on a fully symmetrical board or by having each player design a certain area of the board with a fixed set of estates and unaligned units, after which all players rotate a number of spots (as determined by a dice roll), to make sure there's a slim chance they'll end up in their own section, but probably won't.

For a forum game, the combat calculator could stay - it works (mostly...) and it is fun. By just showing armies on the map, but not the contents of each, armies could be decoys or full fledged invasion forces.

For an adaptation towards table top, I'd probably do something entirely different. I have been thinking on ways to make that work but haven't really found a good solution yet.
Maybe have each player design 3 army designs before the game from a fixed amount of pips per stat, and being able to recruit only those, and maybe have the War Council boost one or two stats per faction.

[Inane Babble]

Create Division 15 total manpower in A7, move to A5 -15 manpower 6/0/4 1 left)

Division 14 Companies


Charismatic Preacher 1 unit tier(109 left) OFFICER

Warrior monks of the Golden Order x2 (10 Pike 4 morale 4 toughness 2 Money) 20 unit tiers (89 left) RESERVE

Knights of the Golden Order x4 (20 pike 4 morale 8 toughness 4 Money) 36 tier units (53 left) FLANK

Patriarca Elite (1 attack minus 2 Charge 2 morale 1 toughness 1 Money) 7 tier units (46 left) CENTRE

Papal Pavise Elite (1 Attack 4 Range 3 Morale) 8 tier units (38 left) CENTRE

D'Orvale Elite x2 (6 Pike 4 Morale 2 Toughness 2 Manpower) 14 tier units (24 left) CENTRE

Gaian Pavise Crossbowman x4 (8 ranged 4 morale 4 toughness) 16 tier units (8 left) CENTRE


This was the unit moving to A5, can whoever was on A5 post their unit/s and see what the outcome would have been?

[Khellendros]

Inane Babble, on 26 May 2015 - 10:48 AM, said:

Slightly curious if I would have beat the player at A5 with my unit after failing miserably with the B7 fiasco.

Tell me more about B7!

I never actually got to the fighting stage as I was busy accruing my sweet sweet gold I was going to send in some armies to weaken a D'Arsenale tile this cycle.

Indeed, in the end, I never got round to using a single ability, either personal or ones available in the OP, other than marriage and heir (built a War Council and Spymaster though). But I was getting to the point where I had enough resources to carry out lots of actions every night, which is when I would have really got going.

[Path-Shaper]

Khellendros, on 26 May 2015 - 10:49 AM, said:

Messremb, on 26 May 2015 - 08:44 AM, said:

I think me recruiting Andorian had too much of an effect on game balance; our 4 allied with Khells 3 meant should we desire to do so we could have lynched everyone else and then we could have lynched Khells. As it happens we had decided not to lynch though as we were enjoying the mechanics. FWIW once I had 2 of the D'arsenale estates if Khell hadn't taken at least 1 I was giving serious thought to breaking the alliance and taking them myself for a solo faction win. Sorry Khell!

No worries Mess, literally as soon as I found out that you had four members instead of three I started plotting your downfall, knowing that you could feasibly lynch our faction at some point If we'd had an equal number of members, I would have kept to the alliance no question, but you having that fourth member was too much of an imbalance of power for my liking. So I was looking at setting up neutrality treaties with the others and giving them info on who was in your faction, or helping out on a lynch on one of your members, etc. Alas, responses from the other faction leaders were slow in coming...

It sounds like you would have had a tougher time with the TCK than you envisaged too - it would certainly have made for an interesting and chaotic endgame I think!

Spoiler

Tapper: Thank you for the game, I had a heap of fun and an even bigger heap of questions. Some (a lot?) of that was my fault in that I did not read the rules properly at points. I think there could have been a slightly clearer layout too, I found that with a few things I had to cross-check with other rules in a different part of the OP to make sure that I understood correctly.

You're welcome, and I agree.

A

Quote

lso, it may be that you threw in a few too many new things all at once. You have to treat us like idiots at all times, so perhaps it would have been worth introducing one new mechanic per game (whether estates, military units, diplomacy, etc.). I know it would have taken a lot longer to get to the point you really wanted to get to, but it would also have given you extra testing time for each mechanic, seeing how long it took you as a mod to deal with it, seeing how well or how badly we understood the mechanic as it existed, etc, and how well it all balanced.

True - but unless it would always be the same participants, such a testing procedure would mean that any "old hand" would have less issue digesting the new information than a new player, which would hurt attendance. Oh well, I always tend to dive in

Quote

The thread, was, obviously, the main problem, and I think only Mess can be proud of his attempted contribution. Lynching was of course the big fear factor (and indeed, as an alliance, we actually agreed not to lynch straight everyone else straight away when we could have in order not to ruin it for everyone else). Perhaps an in-game thread, and lynching, could still be possible - but what if lynching, rather than removing you permanently (if you have no Heir), simply removes you temporarily from the game (almost like a "skip the next turn" action in a board game). It impacts in a detrimental way on your game, as it should, but it does not leave you seething on the sidelines (for too long) while everyone else continues to play.

This is a very good idea, but will work better when every player is on his own: it will then be used to nerf the person ahead of the curve, instead of the numerical majority using it to hamstring a dark horse.