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Author Topic: The Dark Age - A Vanigo Empire Game - The Dark Age Has Ended  (Read 80546 times)

lemon10

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Re: The Dark Age - A Vanigo Empire Game - Turn 74 - Death of Kings and Captains
« Reply #1050 on: February 25, 2015, 09:50:53 pm »

I am so screwed.
I would be willing to intervene (aka, murder all the Danes up north, and allow you to take the cities back) if you agree to serve me as a vassal state (the conditions for such being accepting me as your overlord, sending troops to aid my plans of world conquest (for what little use those troops would be), and don't trade with any other players without my permission). You would also be allowed to survive as a vassal state after I finish clearing out the rest of the continent.
You wouldn't be in very good shape, but you would be alive.
For real? I confirmed it in my freaking post.
If you don't have the trade in the same post as your turn orders (and within your spoiler), then its assumed that you never finalized it.
Am willing to trade for more wood, what ever you need Ireland I got everything but wood and stone.
To be honest, the only thing I really need is wood. I would be willing to trade you some stone for food and money though.
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And with a mighty leap, the evil Conservative flies through the window, escaping our heroes once again!
Because the solution to not being able to control your dakka is MOAR DAKKA.

That's it. We've finally crossed over and become the nation of Da Orky Boyz.

lemon10

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Re: The Dark Age - A Vanigo Empire Game - Turn 74 - Death of Kings and Captains
« Reply #1051 on: February 25, 2015, 10:07:16 pm »

Spoiler: Ireland turn 74 (click to show/hide)
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And with a mighty leap, the evil Conservative flies through the window, escaping our heroes once again!
Because the solution to not being able to control your dakka is MOAR DAKKA.

That's it. We've finally crossed over and become the nation of Da Orky Boyz.

Varee

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Re: The Dark Age - A Vanigo Empire Game - Turn 74 - Death of Kings and Captains
« Reply #1052 on: February 25, 2015, 10:27:13 pm »

Wait... Not ireland , pictland :P
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Squeegy

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Re: The Dark Age - A Vanigo Empire Game - Turn 74 - Death of Kings and Captains
« Reply #1053 on: February 25, 2015, 10:44:41 pm »

He needs military aid, I suspect, and you're on the wrong side of the island for that.

In addition to fixing the broken as fuck combat mechanics, it would be neat if Vanigo added the ability for two countries to make (and break) an alliance, allowing them to assist each other in battles as though they were on the same side.
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lemon10

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Re: The Dark Age - A Vanigo Empire Game - Turn 74 - Death of Kings and Captains
« Reply #1054 on: February 26, 2015, 12:08:11 am »

He needs military aid, I suspect, and you're on the wrong side of the island for that.

In addition to fixing the broken as fuck combat mechanics, it would be neat if Vanigo added the ability for two countries to make (and break) an alliance, allowing them to assist each other in battles as though they were on the same side.
There isn't any good way to make combat movement work with simultaneous turns (without substantially different mechanisms). If the turns were sequential things would be much easier to manage, but obviously that wouldn't be practical for a forum game.
Hurm, bidding would actually work quite well the more I think on it.
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And with a mighty leap, the evil Conservative flies through the window, escaping our heroes once again!
Because the solution to not being able to control your dakka is MOAR DAKKA.

That's it. We've finally crossed over and become the nation of Da Orky Boyz.

Squeegy

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Re: The Dark Age - A Vanigo Empire Game - Turn 74 - Death of Kings and Captains
« Reply #1055 on: February 26, 2015, 12:09:14 am »

I'd be fine with sequential turns. Anything to get rid of the luck-based initiative system. Or, hell, if it was decided as soon as the turn started and everyone knew what order they were going in. That would be fine.
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lemon10

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Re: The Dark Age - A Vanigo Empire Game - Turn 74 - Death of Kings and Captains
« Reply #1056 on: February 26, 2015, 12:33:28 am »

This game would go far slower with sequential turns, it really wouldn't work out very well, and would make a fairly slow game much slower.
Having a turn take a week is pushing it enough, having a single turn take 4 weeks would be sufficient to kill the game, as people would lose interest.
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And with a mighty leap, the evil Conservative flies through the window, escaping our heroes once again!
Because the solution to not being able to control your dakka is MOAR DAKKA.

That's it. We've finally crossed over and become the nation of Da Orky Boyz.

Squeegy

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Re: The Dark Age - A Vanigo Empire Game - Turn 74 - Death of Kings and Captains
« Reply #1057 on: February 26, 2015, 12:47:58 am »

No, it would take just as much time. The turns are only slow because certain people are slow. Their turns would take just as long. Everyone else's would be much faster.

Look at Baytrayal at House in the Forum. That game does sequential turns and it goes at a brisk pace.
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Rolepgeek

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Re: The Dark Age - A Vanigo Empire Game - Turn 74 - Death of Kings and Captains
« Reply #1058 on: February 26, 2015, 10:10:39 am »

sequential turns wouldn't work because of the way the system is designed and because of resource production.

Also defeats part of the point. Xanatos Gambits are a lot of the point of combat in this game.
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Kashyyk

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Re: The Dark Age - A Vanigo Empire Game - Turn 74 - Death of Kings and Captains
« Reply #1059 on: February 26, 2015, 10:51:17 am »

Although I haven't looked at Vanigo's code, it would potentially be possible to move all units of a certain speed together, then process all combat at the end of that step. The downside to this is that it will be impossible to intercept a unit of equal speed unless it chose to stay still, and hostile units could effectively walk past each other without fighting. Although if you iterated through the first step of each army, then did the next step you could get around it. Would most likely increase the processing time for a turn though.
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Squeegy

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Re: The Dark Age - A Vanigo Empire Game - Turn 74 - Death of Kings and Captains
« Reply #1060 on: February 26, 2015, 12:24:29 pm »

Although I haven't looked at Vanigo's code, it would potentially be possible to move all units of a certain speed together, then process all combat at the end of that step. The downside to this is that it will be impossible to intercept a unit of equal speed unless it chose to stay still, and hostile units could effectively walk past each other without fighting. Although if you iterated through the first step of each army, then did the next step you could get around it. Would most likely increase the processing time for a turn though.

We already suggested that hostile units that move into each other could be locked in place until the end of the step to solve that.
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Rolepgeek

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Re: The Dark Age - A Vanigo Empire Game - Turn 74 - Death of Kings and Captains
« Reply #1061 on: February 26, 2015, 06:28:55 pm »

Again, that means that you can, no matter what, use just one unit to slow down an army that goes afterwards. One spearman to slow down a massive army with but a single siege engine. One Horseman can slow 40 Swordsmen, Halberdiers, and Crossbowmen. Random chance can be annoying when it screws you, but if everything went exactly according to plan, it would stop being interesting.

A sure thing might be, well, a sure thing, but it's not really exciting, now is it?
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Squeegy

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Re: The Dark Age - A Vanigo Empire Game - Turn 74 - Death of Kings and Captains
« Reply #1062 on: February 26, 2015, 06:46:28 pm »

Again, you could use an advance force to prevent that, as was already said in the thread. I would also be 100% fine if the randomly generated turns were pre-generated every turn and saved with the .XML so that you knew what order you would be going in.

Random chance is not exciting. It is 100% pure, unadulterated bullshit. It prevents legitimate strategizing because you have no idea what is going to happen, and based purely on a 50/50 chance, you could either A) be in an extremely good position, or B) be completely fucked and waste tons of time and resources for no reason. There is already a great degree of uncertainty in the game, such as what actions your opponents are going to take this turn, and how well your soldiers will fare in combat. This randomness is part of the game, it can be planned around and is therefore part of strategy. The 50/50 blind initiative is not possible to strategize around, and it serves only to aggravate players and prevent foresight.

I'm striving to say this in the politest possible way, Rolepgeek, but I don't think you really "get" strategy. The genre is about using superior intellect and planning skills to outmaneuver and outplay your enemies. What makes a strategy game exciting and interesting is when you use cunning to gain an advantage over your opponent. Random chance isn't strictly necessary in that sense, it only serves to help balance by making it possible for more powerful units to underperform, so that they aren't objectively better 100% of the time. If I foresaw NQT's attack on Lampeter and moved my units back in time to prevent him from taking it while it was undefended, that would be exciting and interesting. The fact that it is completely out of my hands whether or not this turn is going to be utterly disastrous for me or result in my biggest foe being permanently crippled is not exciting. It is not interesting. It is frustrating and unfair. If I wanted to play a game where I had a 50/50 chance of winning no matter how smart I was, I would go flip coins in real life.
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Rolepgeek

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Re: The Dark Age - A Vanigo Empire Game - Turn 74 - Death of Kings and Captains
« Reply #1063 on: February 26, 2015, 07:10:06 pm »

No, you couldn't, that's my point.

Say Army A is 10 horsemen, and trying to conquer a city. Army B is 30 Halberdiers, and trying to kill them, because they own the city. There's a road to the city, and Army B is 2 tiles away(aka they can get there in one turn). Army A dispatches a single unit of horsemen to the tile between them to delay them, while Army B sends a 2 Halberdier vanguard towards the city, then the rest, to ensure defeating any basic rearguard action the Horsemen might have. Since Horsemen have a higher move speed, they go first, the rearguard gets into position, the vanguard of Halberdiers arrives, and...then we get to the rules split.

With current rules, the Vanguard hits the horsemen, almost certainly kills them, and then the other 28 get into the city and turn it into a glue factory.

With that suggestion, the Vanguard hits the horsemen, gets stopped, and then the other 28 hit the horsemen, and get stopped. 1 Horseman, 30 stopped Halberdiers, 1 Conquered city.

And that is incorrect, you may not know what's going to happen in terms of the exact way things will come down, but you know what they'll probably do just as easily. It's not based purely on 50/50 chance, either.

Because here's where I think you're not understanding strategy: In real life? Shit happens. Things go wrong, things outside of your control or the enemy's and are just complete fuck-ups. And you have to plan for those. You let yourself get into a position where you would have to live or die by a 50% chance. Because you are describing tactics. Strategy is long-term. Strategy is not one turn; strategy is ten turns. Because you didn't foresee his attack. You were outsmarted; not by much, but by enough that it's a 50/50 chance. Because I can tell you that it is quite possible to plan around the 50/50 chance. That's how I normally play this; I consider what my actions are likely to result in based on either scenario and try to make it so my moves are effective either way.

I disagree with you as to what makes it exciting; winning isn't exciting, for me. Winning means it's done. Might be cathartic, but it's pulling myself back from the brink of defeat, of overcoming both the challenges of other players and the whims of Lady Luck, that I find enjoyable. Of continuing to strive and compete. I actually really dislike games without any luck involved in them, because it means that if I'm even marginally worse, my loss is already certain. Or if I'm better, my victory is. And that's not the point. Random chance serves to add a third party variable that no one can account for and yet everyone must. If there was no random chance, it could very well mean that you would just have a 100% chance of being screwed, instead, which is worse. Or they would, which obviously they wouldn't find much fun either. Nobody likes not even having a chance.

Like I said. Xanatos Gambit. Make it so no matter which way the dice fall, you win. It's certainly possible. Difficult, yes. And in your case, it's too late, but...well, at the moment it seems like you're pushing for a fundamentaly rules change to give you an advantage much, much harder than my suggestion to give the Danes back something they previously had, which you attacked me for. Like, personal attacks, too.

So, in short: I think you're wrong. On the other hand, I would be okay with randomly generated, but pre-informed turns, as well, but the game doesn't actually work like that and making it work like that isn't actually easy.
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Squeegy

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Re: The Dark Age - A Vanigo Empire Game - Turn 74 - Death of Kings and Captains
« Reply #1064 on: February 26, 2015, 07:29:00 pm »

Because here's where I think you're not understanding strategy: In real life? Shit happens. Things go wrong, things outside of your control or the enemy's and are just complete fuck-ups.
With all due respect, that's completely irrelevant. This is a game, not real life. In real life, there would be a period between when your army arrived and when they actually set up at the defenses, during which the enemy could storm the place while they were unprepared. The game doesn't model that. Why should it model "things going wrong"? It's a strategy game.

And you have to plan for those. You let yourself get into a position where you would have to live or die by a 50% chance.
Horse shit. I've been in a position like that for 2-3 turns now. It's a fundamental flaw in the design of the game, not a failing on the part of my tactics. NQT's army can move 5 squares per turn. It could have popped up anywhere in my country. And here's why this really pisses me off: No real player would make a gambit like NQT is. Why would anyone steer their inferior force to one of my most heavily defended strongholds, completely unaware that my force would be outside its walls the next turn? Unless NQT is cheating, he made a transparently poor choice. The only justification he could have for doing this is because he has nothing to lose. He is steering a manufactured enemy force, designed to be an "interesting threat" rather than having to plan for the long term. I made the correct tactical decision against any sane, non-cheating player.

Because you are describing tactics. Strategy is long-term. Strategy is not one turn; strategy is ten turns. Because you didn't foresee his attack. You were outsmarted; not by much, but by enough that it's a 50/50 chance. Because I can tell you that it is quite possible to plan around the 50/50 chance. That's how I normally play this; I consider what my actions are likely to result in based on either scenario and try to make it so my moves are effective either way.
My friend, you are losing this game. If the Danes hadn't made a 90 degree turn towards me to unload all their knights (which was, again, a tactical decision made to be an "interesting threat" rather than being sound, because his knight-deficient armies were promptly utterly trounced by Ireland), I would have sent all those forces I was gathering to roll over your New Mercian Army and crush your ability to oppose me. Just a few pages ago you were whining about how this game was hopeless for you now. With all due respect, I am going to choose to ignore your tactical advice. I chose to abandon Haverfordwest and Lampeter because it's the tactically sound decision to not gamble your army on a 50/50 chance. I've made what I still believe to be all the right choices. And if there were one single tiny change to the way the game works, I would have been able to make my decisions based on fact rather than blind speculation, and would have been much better able to strategize against NQT's invasion. The only tactical error I made was not realizing that NQT's knights could circumvent my army on the road by traveling through the plains. I won't make that mistake again, but I haven't made any others.
 
Like I said. Xanatos Gambit. Make it so no matter which way the dice fall, you win. It's certainly possible. Difficult, yes. And in your case, it's too late, but...well, at the moment it seems like you're pushing for a fundamentaly rules change to give you an advantage much, much harder than my suggestion to give the Danes back something they previously had, which you attacked me for. Like, personal attacks, too.
The Xanatos Gambit is a stupid trope that occurs in amateur writing. It has no place in a strategy game. And I really do not understand how your thought processes work, because this rules change would not give me any advantage over the other players. All players would still be on equal footing. The only difference is that everyone would know what order they would be going in, and everyone would be able to plan around that. Yes, it's true that I'm pushing for this because it affects me at the moment, but it's not going to be implemented in time to save me from my current predicament, so I'm pushing it purely because I feel it would improve the game for everyone. Your accusation has no basis in reality here.

So, in short: I think you're wrong. On the other hand, I would be okay with randomly generated, but pre-informed turns, as well, but the game doesn't actually work like that and making it work like that isn't actually easy.
As someone with actual programming experience, I disagree. But I've already contacted Vanigo to ask him about it. In short: The game already generates the turn order when you hit "Run turn." The only difference would be adding an extra parameter in the XML that saves the turn order, and generating it for the next turn rather than the current one (as well as when you create a new game). It might be marginally difficult to add some way of presenting this to the players, but it's not strictly necessary in the short term. They can just read it in the XML.
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