180 orders

[Jumpingfist]

RyVor, Lets take a recent example.

The commands, the Gen Rules, the Spell lists, the setups dont indicate that the DE Princes have a natural aversion to Kidnap.  The Setup does specifically indicate that they have an aversion to assassinate.  I assumed that since assassinate was specifically identified and kidnap was not that to kidnap would have the same chance as a normal Prince. I raised an agent to L15 in preparation for my kidnap attempt.   I set a standing order to kill all prisoners of enemies.  I declared the DE an enemy and I set an agent to guard prisoners, just in case.  I evaluated the traits of the player running the DE kingdom and I set a trap assuming they would use their DE prince in a specific situation.  The scenario worked as I planed and I sprung the trap.  According to all published documentation I should have had a 70% success rate and a 3% rate of capture.  OOPS, sorry charlie.  The unpublished rules give the DE Princes a natural aversion to kidnap also.  Oh Well, live and learn.  Except that it cost me a L15 agent.

Any player who has gone through this level of preparation and then lost a significant game piece will feel frustration.  The fact that the loss of the agent was greatly contributed to because the rules were not complete gives me even more frustration.  Had I known that my chance of success was actually less than 25% I would not have even tried.

I'm a strategic player.  I use the rules.  If I want a game of chance I'll go to Vegas.  At least there I know the rules by which I might lose or win.

I actually thought the same thing as you about the DE and based on the argument brought by UM on the scandal issue I am surprised to see the DE now gets a bonus vs kidnap when it clearly only states it is vs assassination. That used to be a way to get at the DE.   There are lots of artifacts that help assassinate but have seen none help kidnap so game mechanics support the idea that they are separate functions

I also think you may be making a mistake if you think my main strength is diplomacy 

[Ry Vor]

I'm sort of inclined to just leave this alone, but I don't want to have to go through it again down the road.  Here is the reality:

Chess has 4 pages of rules.  It has six different pieces that are the same for both players.

Civilization, the board game, which requires much more explanation and exposition since there is no computer to resolve things, has 27 pages of rules, of which about 1/3 are illustrations.

Alamaze is a computer game, so players don't have to resolve their own actions, and the depth we have gone to, to document so extensively, I don't think should be dismissed as "whatever", you missed this pretty esoteric thing in either the rules or the code.  Its flattering to think we (two people) should be infallible and predict all possible nuance of this variable meeting that variable under these conditions for all 15 kingdoms.  Doesn't Microsoft usually have a hundred or so errors in a single faceted application when released?  They have more than two people.

OK, I am done with this topic.  Moving on.

[HeadHoncho]

I don't understand the "dismissed as 'whatever'" comment at all. You're the first person to use the word "whatever" in this thread, and the point isn't about being dismissive... it's about the reality that most people are going to want to know how to play the game well, and in the world of the Internet -- as opposed to the more simple and almost quaint pre-Internet world where Alamaze began -- there are very few secrets. Indeed, the entire point of this brand new forum section you created is, in fact, to share tips, tricks, and tactics.

It's an interesting dynamic that no one uses 180 because no one understands the formula. You seem to regard that as a plus, but I'm honestly not sure that it is.

[gkmetty]

Now I get my final rant before Moving on. I find it very upsetting that Rick has no qualms about taking my hard earned money every month and then again at the beginning of every new game and when an issue is brought to light he dismisses the issue by saying there are only two people working on the game. I DONT CARE if you have two people or fifty people. You keep taking my money. I expect a quality experience. A mistake in coding or in documentation does not detract from a quality experience as much as the attitude displayed on this forum by the game designer. We are your customers. We treat you with respect, pointing out mistakes in the game does not show disrespect, you should treat us with an equal amount of respect.

I enjoy playing Alamaze for the strategic challenge. If you decide to turn the game to more of an exploratory game I'm certain many players will enjoy it. I will not. I will continue to play the current version of Alamaze, if it is available, until the new version reveals its secrets. Then I will move to the new version. I'm sorry Rick but no amount of telling me how many rules are published for Alamaze or any other game will change my preference to enjoy strategic and not exploratory games.

Now I can move on