Maelstrom Continuing Development - Stage One

[Wookie Panz]

Rick will you at some point tweak the Primeval game?  It just needs a sixth player position and 5 regions for victory to make this a challenging game again and it's a nice game for newer players to learn on.  Where else can you get a second region without combat?  Oh yeah, confederations but then you have to play 2 positions.

[Ry Vor]

Will there be any clarification on how damage is calculated?  If there are these modifiers to brigade defense, and PC defense, the numbers on our turn results really don't give any clue as to how much damage we can expect to take from a particular PC battle.  Which is fine, maybe part of the game is figuring all that out.  Just curious.

Yeah, I have for a long time resisted making Alamaze into a series of calculations for players, but yes, the intention is to go from defense "Good" (for example) to specific number, like 2.2.  Also the defense and values per phase to include leadership, which they don't presently. The PC will also show its defense (loss divider).


These changes including limiting Fear and Valor to max 35%, reduction in Windstorm effect, along with the significant boost in PC loss dividers will both tactically make PC's maybe twice as hard to take instead of a frequent walkover with Windstorm and Fear as they are now.  I think Windstorm will still be used, but hopefully Tornado and such will be considered more closely now.

Also strategically, perhaps you have found when heading out of a conquered region for new conquest, someone moves in behind and your PC's can't currently defend effectively without some group/magic support.  Now your rear will be better able to forestall a blitz.

Finally, on the other hand though PC's will be stronger, especially with fortresses and castles as the economy allows, castles do not prevent sieges, which may come more into play.

[Ry Vor]

Rick will you at some point tweak the Primeval game?  It just needs a sixth player position and 5 regions for victory to make this a challenging game again and it's a nice game for newer players to learn on.  Where else can you get a second region without combat?  Oh yeah, confederations but then you have to play 2 positions.

Yep, it is about the first line in Stage Two.  I need to hear from Mike as to whether he is ready to move ahead, then I will post Stage Two which is almost complete from a design perspective.  As usual, its not so much what to add, as to what to leave out.

Stage 2
 
Game Creation and Processing:
·       Add Confederations and Primeval to the auto Game Creation utility on the Order Input site
·       Make Primeval a six (not five) player game

[Acererak]

Looking good on balance. Would like to see some other things changed that after years of playing I think to myself "huh, why wouldn't it be this way". Examples:

Extremely powerful wizards even a P8 or P9 can't do a single thing to protect emissaries from agents (or themselves if they don't have the direwolf spell and that is barely effective in the endgame). That seems silly. Also, if they can teleport army groups anywhere on the board why can't they teleport an emissary? If they can dome popcenters why can't they dome their groups? I'd think if you are at P5 or higher you should be able to at least effect agent actions against you, your groups or your emissaries if you cast a spell. P7+ have some kind of eagle familiar that finds hidden pcs? Of course they can.

Dragons are immune to some of the more deadlier spells in that they are partially immune to battle magic, are stalwart so can't be affected by fear, flash flood can't reduce their biggest combat multiplier and earthquake has no effect. However, it seems to me that Tornado would be even more effective against dragons than others so why can't it?

Rangers- Only move 5 in the plains? Huh? Any kingdom that has riders should automatically get movement of 4 in the plains.

People are still using moving Lvl 1 agents into the wild to find hidden pcs. This is an exploit (looking at you Dusi- it's how you cost me the game and my capital when I was the AN and you were the DW). This should be stopped somehow. Maybe agents can only move to a known,owned popcenter until they are P4 minimum.

I've got more. :-)

And my #1 10+ years in the asking totally makes sense change that I recently re-upped: stationing leaders and wizards at popcenters.

[Pine Needle]

I think the counter-espionage effects of buildings and fortifications should either be eliminated or broadened to apply to emissaries and artifacts in that PC. I don't understand why the building CE would be limited to anti-sabotage and theft of gold or food.

This one is kind of specific- I think the plow is way overpowered, similar to bounty spell. It clearly is the best fine artifact, and might be the most valuable artifact of all- so at least bump up how hard it is to get.

Thanks, Ry Vor.

[PTRILEY]

Extremely powerful wizards even a P8 or P9 can't do a single thing to protect emissaries from agents (or themselves if they don't have the direwolf spell and that is barely effective in the endgame). That seems silly. Also, if they can teleport army groups anywhere on the board why can't they teleport an emissary? If they can dome popcenters why can't they dome their groups? I'd think if you are at P5 or higher you should be able to at least effect agent actions against you, your groups or your emissaries if you cast a spell. P7+ have some kind of eagle familiar that finds hidden pcs? Of course they can.

Dire wolf should increase protection as the power level of the wizard increases..

[Acererak]

One other thing I meant to mention which I think is really unbalanced in Maelstrom: the power of the Port building. If you don't have a place to build a port you are at a severe disadvantage. For example- Mythgar. Worst region on the board for exactly this reason. No income from fleets -18K/turn most of the game regardless of season. So in a 30 turn game let's say 500K gold lost. Port- so powerful and for me I usually will hidden ore/fertile fields and bounty until I'm at least at 100K in one or the other and then when you pop a Port on it the return is ENORMOUS.

I think there should be SOMETHING else you can build at your capital that is landlocked to get some level of bonus similar to the Port. Not sure what but where you get 25% bonus to both food and gold minimum on top of bazaar and granary since the Port is so so so worth it.

[Ry Vor]

I think the counter-espionage effects of buildings and fortifications should either be eliminated or broadened to apply to emissaries and artifacts in that PC. I don't understand why the building CE would be limited to anti-sabotage and theft of gold or food.

This one is kind of specific- I think the plow is way overpowered, similar to bounty spell. It clearly is the best fine artifact, and might be the most valuable artifact of all- so at least bump up how hard it is to get.

Thanks, Ry Vor.

I continue my leaking of Stage 2 design notes:

Artifacts:
·        Ring of Protection 25 point, not 20% reduction to assassination.  So a 50% chance becomes 25%, whereas as a percent, it would be 40%.  Grants 100% resistance to Sleep.  Does not prevent beneficial spells.  Also review Amulet of Protection for similar treatment.
·        Weapon artifacts: Fine +10% as a General and 30% chance to kill a leader or wizard (not invisible or Guarded) at random, Excellent +20% (between Marshal and Warlord) and 50% chance to kill a character, Superior +30% and 70% kill chance, Quest (Elan) +40% and 100% chance to kill a character.
·        Weapon artifacts, ensure the bonuses and disclose in the artifact description in the artifact owned list.  Add battle text that the wielder battled against an opposing named leader or wizard, and either did or not kill him with the weapon.  (Wielder) (Killed/Slew) the (leader/wizard) (name) with (weapon artifact name).  Also make the Wand of Lightning and Rod of Fire target a random leader or wizard at the same odds of death as an excellent weapon and make them excellent sightings if not already instead of fine. 
·        Armor only protects the highest ranking leader, not all leaders and leizatds.  Add two more armor artifact sightings, armor considered a Fine artifact.  Armor of Achilles, Shield of Dragon Scales.
·        Plow of the Prophet provides 2x food production instead of 3x and is reclassified as a Superior Benevolent artifact with Superior guardian.
·        Artifact distribution will be more balanced in setup (see below).
 

[Ry Vor]

One other thing I meant to mention which I think is really unbalanced in Maelstrom: the power of the Port building. If you don't have a place to build a port you are at a severe disadvantage. For example- Mythgar. Worst region on the board for exactly this reason. No income from fleets -18K/turn most of the game regardless of season. So in a 30 turn game let's say 500K gold lost. Port- so powerful and for me I usually will hidden ore/fertile fields and bounty until I'm at least at 100K in one or the other and then when you pop a Port on it the return is ENORMOUS.

I think there should be SOMETHING else you can build at your capital that is landlocked to get some level of bonus similar to the Port. Not sure what but where you get 25% bonus to both food and gold minimum on top of bazaar and granary since the Port is so so so worth it.

I'm not quite following that one.  You don't need your capital to be coastal to merchant sea trade, just any PC.  I actually don't see many ports being built, and there is an adjustment in the works.  One new order, "Retrofit Fleets" so once built which is usually after a navy has already been constructed, you can raise your quality as the action for the navy with a port.

There are other advantages to the landlocked regions, for example, gaining two Mammoth brigades at the outset can be significant, and if you really want fleets, go up and grab a coastal PC.

[Acererak]

I think the counter-espionage effects of buildings and fortifications should either be eliminated or broadened to apply to emissaries and artifacts in that PC. I don't understand why the building CE would be limited to anti-sabotage and theft of gold or food.

This one is kind of specific- I think the plow is way overpowered, similar to bounty spell. It clearly is the best fine artifact, and might be the most valuable artifact of all- so at least bump up how hard it is to get.

Thanks, Ry Vor.

I continue my leaking of Stage 2 design notes:

Artifacts:
·        Ring of Protection 25 point, not 20% reduction to assassination.  So a 50% chance becomes 25%, whereas as a percent, it would be 40%.  Grants 100% resistance to Sleep.  Does not prevent beneficial spells.  Also review Amulet of Protection for similar treatment.
·        Weapon artifacts: Fine +10% as a General and 30% chance to kill a leader or wizard (not invisible or Guarded) at random, Excellent +20% (between Marshal and Warlord) and 50% chance to kill a character, Superior +30% and 70% kill chance, Quest (Elan) +40% and 100% chance to kill a character.
·        Weapon artifacts, ensure the bonuses and disclose in the artifact description in the artifact owned list.  Add battle text that the wielder battled against an opposing named leader or wizard, and either did or not kill him with the weapon.  (Wielder) (Killed/Slew) the (leader/wizard) (name) with (weapon artifact name).  Also make the Wand of Lightning and Rod of Fire target a random leader or wizard at the same odds of death as an excellent weapon and make them excellent sightings if not already instead of fine. 
·        Armor only protects the highest ranking leader, not all leaders and leaders.  Add two more armor artifact sightings, armor considered a Fine artifact.  Armor of Achilles, Shield of Dragon Scales.
·        Plow of the Prophet provides 2x food production instead of 3x and is reclassified as a Superior Benevolent artifact with Superior guardian.
·        Artifact distribution will be more balanced in setup (see below).
 

If you have Elan does that mean you can't get any other valor spell bonuses or brigade bonuses since it's all capped at 35% yet Elan adds 40%?