Status points for actions

[Lt Gisgo]

What if instead of rewarding players for sitting back and casting bounty spells you rewarded them for actually doing things.

You could award status points every time a player took a human opponents pop center via an army or emmisary, or every time they assassinated a character, or beat another players army.  You could still have the other status points but this would reward players for fighting each other.  As it is you lose emissaries, agents, gold and food fighting your neighbors and other than a few status points for elites, warlords, etc there is not much reward.  Even taking their whole region only counts the same as one legendary castle.

If that's not feasible I think the status points should be rebalanced. Why should a legendary castle be worth the same as controlling a region?  Why should great temples be worth more than holding a king hostage?  It seems legendary castles being impervious to diplomatic actions and extremely hard to take militarily is its own reward.  What if you only got status points once for each building type?

[Senior Tactician]

What if instead of rewarding players for sitting back and casting bounty spells you rewarded them for actually doing things.

You could award status points every time a player took a human opponents pop center via an army or emmisary, or every time they assassinated a character, or beat another players army.  You could still have the other status points but this would reward players for fighting each other.  As it is you lose emissaries, agents, gold and food fighting your neighbors and other than a few status points for elites, warlords, etc there is not much reward.  Even taking their whole region only counts the same as one legendary castle.

If that's not feasible I think the status points should be rebalanced. Why should a legendary castle be worth the same as controlling a region?  Why should great temples be worth more than holding a king hostage?  It seems legendary castles being impervious to diplomatic actions and extremely hard to take militarily is its own reward.  What if you only got status points once for each building type?

I seem to remember myself questioning the status point rewards for various activities years ago, but I have since concluded its a decent system.  Some numbers may be rebalanced, but I don't think it's at all critical to overall game balance.  If I may play the devil's advocate, taking a PC is easy, holding it is a different story.  And the short answer to a lot of your suggestions is that status points are already awarded for those things... like combat (marshals, warlords and elites give status).

You do lose status points for fighting your opponents, which is easy... but you gain a lot of status by eliminating them, which takes a lot more skill.  Eliminating an enemy and keeping his region gives you those PCs to build in and reap status.  Capturing his emissaries, his king, his artifacts, all good status.

Allowing a neighbor to sit back and cast bounty is a choice, you could go and make his life more interesting by taking his PCs, or destroying his villages, for example.  But there are 12 players, you can't police every builder, and occasionally, people are going to greatly benefit from not doing much in the early game.  I'm generally one of them.  I discourage people from attacking me by building a reputation as someone who doesn't ever quit the game, and making sure that whoever attacks me won't win the game.  I expect some people leave me alone for that very reason, but others probably take it as a challenge, and are ever more eager to try and eliminate me.  But I have once even have come back from a sanctuary to retake control of my region and see the end of the game.  The player who sent me to my sanctuary ended up dropping the game.  To me, it felt like a victory, even though I don't think I placed in that game.  But, in that game I learned something very important, if you build your sanctuary on the coast, you can build and use seapower for merchant trading.

Twelve people play, only one can win, and the one who wins isn't always the most skilled or the most active, there are a lot of variables that can't be controlled.  I've stopped playing Alamaze in frustration more than once until I learned this.  I don't so much try to win anymore as I do try and do interesting and unique things, and most importantly learn all the ins and outs of all the rules, kingdom traits and characteristics, some of which I am still learning.  Sometimes, an opportunity to win presents itself, if you are prepared and skilled, this will often happen and sometimes you even get to take advantage of it.

[Wookie Panz]

What if instead of rewarding players for sitting back and casting bounty spells you rewarded them for actually doing things.

You could award status points every time a player took a human opponents pop center via an army or emmisary, or every time they assassinated a character, or beat another players army.  You could still have the other status points but this would reward players for fighting each other.  As it is you lose emissaries, agents, gold and food fighting your neighbors and other than a few status points for elites, warlords, etc there is not much reward.  Even taking their whole region only counts the same as one legendary castle.

If that's not feasible I think the status points should be rebalanced. Why should a legendary castle be worth the same as controlling a region?  Why should great temples be worth more than holding a king hostage?  It seems legendary castles being impervious to diplomatic actions and extremely hard to take militarily is its own reward.  What if you only got status points once for each building type?

I seem to remember myself questioning the status point rewards for various activities years ago, but I have since concluded its a decent system.  Some numbers may be rebalanced, but I don't think it's at all critical to overall game balance.  If I may play the devil's advocate, taking a PC is easy, holding it is a different story.  And the short answer to a lot of your suggestions is that status points are already awarded for those things... like combat (marshals, warlords and elites give status).

You do lose status points for fighting your opponents, which is easy... but you gain a lot of status by eliminating them, which takes a lot more skill.  Eliminating an enemy and keeping his region gives you those PCs to build in and reap status.  Capturing his emissaries, his king, his artifacts, all good status.

Allowing a neighbor to sit back and cast bounty is a choice, you could go and make his life more interesting by taking his PCs, or destroying his villages, for example.  But there are 12 players, you can't police every builder, and occasionally, people are going to greatly benefit from not doing much in the early game.  I'm generally one of them.  I discourage people from attacking me by building a reputation as someone who doesn't ever quit the game, and making sure that whoever attacks me won't win the game.  I expect some people leave me alone for that very reason, but others probably take it as a challenge, and are ever more eager to try and eliminate me.  But I have once even have come back from a sanctuary to retake control of my region and see the end of the game.  The player who sent me to my sanctuary ended up dropping the game.  To me, it felt like a victory, even though I don't think I placed in that game.  But, in that game I learned something very important, if you build your sanctuary on the coast, you can build and use seapower for merchant trading.

Twelve people play, only one can win, and the one who wins isn't always the most skilled or the most active, there are a lot of variables that can't be controlled.  I've stopped playing Alamaze in frustration more than once until I learned this.  I don't so much try to win anymore as I do try and do interesting and unique things, and most importantly learn all the ins and outs of all the rules, kingdom traits and characteristics, some of which I am still learning.  Sometimes, an opportunity to win presents itself, if you are prepared and skilled, this will often happen and sometimes you even get to take advantage of it.

Well stated.  This attitude and play style shows you are definitely one of the coolest characters to play the game.

[Lt Gisgo]

The point was you wouldn't have to police anyone. Building up would still be a viable strategy but going to war would be also.