Correct. And Academy gives a bonus to Steam Level, right?
Man, I would build GPs that unlock achievements all day long!
Interpret a viewing
cool. we're in agreement then!
Awesome sauce-em!
I can definitely see the merit in unlocking it at a certain point, but you're right, I think it's quite risky.
I think the truth is I'm finding all the LB-related ones (that don't simply concern alignment) to be problematic. GPs being useful throughout the whole game is part of what makes the system work. If there was incentive to do a "GS Rush" in the Modern era or something, it would sort of break the system. LB GP abilities are by definitely going to be clumped in their use, and I think that leaves them very vulnerable to exploits and weird unintended meta games (or else total irrelevance).
Totally agree, let's keep this in mind as a tertiary if we like later, but most likely not going to be used.
I'm very torn by T'a'r. On the one hand, it is pretty central to the books, but on the other hand....man, I just don't love it. It feels like an "extra" thing that isn't going to be super well integrated into the game, and/or will feel very civlike. It's almost by definition going to be a Big Deal that is Restricted to Very Specific and Rare Circumstances, namely the few GP and Wise Ones. That's fine for certain mechanics, but something like this.....? eh.
As much as I'd love to say "table it!" Like I have with Ogier Ass warriorsand Waygates, the truth is it's highly likely that one or two of our desired GP types (Wolfbrother and Dreamer) will either somewhat or entirely rely on T'a'r. This is not something we can ignore, as much as I'd hate to start a parallel conversation.
So my longer bit on t'a'r will happen at the bottom of this post, in order to keep the GP-ability stuff together.
More detail on T'a'r thoughts way below!
Legendary Monument
Interesting though. That seems to be an option. If this is to make up for the more DFC potential of wide civs, how does this one favor Tall civs and make up ground? Would they be more likely to produce these?
Exactly, we'd want a spawning mechanism that favors Tall civs. However, it seems like the sister ability of this one has been axed above, do we want to keep this around?
Recruit
Sure. That's cool. I wonder if it's too intrusive on some UUs that might exist, though.
It's already possible to get other civs' UUs via relationships with CSes (though I'm not sure if the UUs are always from civs that aren't in the current game). I don't think that's too big a problem though - civs who see this unit coming should move their most valuable units accordingly. (Which I'm sure the AI will be categorically terrible at doing, but we'll try!)
Ancient Memories
Thing thing is intended as a replacement to the GG +% effect that is flavorful in regards to Mat... maybe there's a promotion we could instead grant to nearby units that is somehow flavorfully related?
Yes, I like that! Expend the GP to promote all nearby units with a promotion that grants extra EXP sounds like a lot more fun.
Call Wolves
Yeah, a single-time attack seems kind of lame for a GP though, right?
I feel like wolves have to show up *somehow*, right? Just from a flavor perspective.
Maybe they're simply the wolfbrothers T'a'r manifestation?
Please say more about why you don't like unit generation from GPs.
More about wolves way below.
I can't quite articulate why I don't like unit generation from GPs, which probably means it's not a good reason to not like it. I get the impression it's an
unusual divergence from the way BNW works, but I can't quite place why.
Discover Relic
I'm looking at this now and wondering why I thought this was a good idea. Like, totally steps on the toes ofthe archaeologists and such.
Weird idea - what if, instead, this GP ability changed the nature of a GW? Like, switched its nationality? Or, crazy even, switched it from a GWA to a GWM (equivalent) or some insanity?
Changing the nature of a GW is a very unique and cool idea. It's quite a niche use of a GP though - possibly giving it multiple uses would make it more comparable to other GP abilities?
Ta'veren Influence
right. all good points....
what if it was something like a uber coup or "election shenanigans" or something that intersected with the Eyes and Ears system? A way of hitting diplomacy without literally being about influence.
"expend to stage a coup in this CS" kind of thing? A bit risky - I think to make it a valuable GP ability we'd need to make it a guaranteed coup, but guaranteed coups undermine a lot of the way the CS relationship system works.
Reducing all other civs' influence (election shenanigans, as you've mentioned) is possible, but won't be very visible - only rare cases where that causes a player to eclipse another as an ally would cause visible effects, and in that case they could have bought past them/used a GMe (or whatever has the GMe ability).
Interacting with an Eyes and Ears in that city is an interesting one, though I'm not sure what useful effect the GP could have on the way the Eyes and Ears work.
Sniffer
Can you think of any other possible way we could include a sniffer-related ability? Or is he simply destined for some weird back-alley flavor elsewhere in the mod?
I'm afraid I can't really think of one! He could be a unit. Like, normal unit that unlocks on a tech. We could give him some flavorfully useful ability then, which has a whole different parameter set/design space from GP abilities.
Anger Dragonsworn
on the list, it should be, then!
speaking of which, is there going to be a "list" that we choose from? Right now, things are a bit crazy....
There should be a list. Oh, there should be. I'll try to make one tomorrow!
So, some thoughts on T'a'r. This isn't an extensive and procedural "Introduction" like I normally do, because 1) I've been doing this for 2 hours, and 2) I can't wrap my brain around t'a'r enough to do so.
You mean your posts don't always take 2 hours?
This is a great start to this topic and it's an essential topic for us to move forward correctly on GPs, thanks for getting it up and running! Related to that, shall we freeze the existing GP quote-blocking and focus on the T'a'r stuff until we've nailed it down, and then come back to the quote-blocks from this post? It will let us focus in on it quicker and probably get at least a post in each day from each of us, so we can have a more informed discussion about how GP abilities intersect with T'a'r.
OK, so Tel'aran'rhiod seems to be able to be worked in in two ways:
1) Literally - units go into it and do stuff.
2) Abstractly or indirectly - things are flavored with it in mind, and are perhaps mechanically unique, but don't involve actual movement in t'a'r.
I have to confess that at this point I'm tempted to lean towards the second. The literal units-on-a-map-layer thing just seems like a lot of work and a lot of game that won't get seen very often. I find this a problem.
I would usually be one to advocate less technically complex solutions to our design dilemmas, but I think in this case I'm leaning towards #1. Mostly because we'll be dealing with this decision's ramifications for mechanics in WoTMod for a long time - a future T'a'r-related-anything will have to be linked into the game through the general architecture of how we elect to make the launch T'a'r abilities. (Or even leading up to that, our approach of treating the contents of summaries as relatively fixed quantities allows us to make further design decisions that are dependent on those assumptions, so we'll design ourselves into whatever system we choose here.)
We have an opportunity now to go whole-hog on a "proper" T'a'r system that accurately reflects the books in a way that players will find conceptually and mechanically pleasing. We're also free to leverage the flexibility of such an "in-depth" system for any other T'a'r-related fun (of which I'm sure there will be at least some!) that we come to later. Even from what you've discussed below, I can see some of the abilities that don't interact with the whole "T'a'r as a map layer" concept from a mechanical perspective, but still incur the technical costs of making T'a'r work like a map layer. We'll be permanently fighting these types of abilities because, as we've already seen in the last few posts, the kinds of things T'a'r represents are well modeled by this alternate map-layer approach.
Also, it's worth noting that map layers aren't
quite as large as they might at first seem. (He says, bravely, having not delved into the code that makes map layers work.) There are a lot of edge cases, but then CiV is a game of edge cases, where we introduces infinitely more with each system. The map layer we're discussing isn't actually a "huge" departure from the way CiV works currently.
As it stands, and as I understand it, there are 5 map layers that most players interact with most of the time. The military layer, the civilian layer, the naval military layer, the naval civilian layer, and the trade layer. You can see from the divisions there that units that exist in different map layers can stack (in the event that they are capable of occupying the same hex, due to any other restrictions they might have). Map layers don't interact with cities or plots. The trade layer isn't actually for the Caravans/Cargo Ship units
that you build. Those exist in the civilian layer (hence Caravans don't stack with Workers if you just move them). The trade layer is for all those little dudes that move between two cities when a trade route is active. All of those little guys are actually super simplified units that exist in their own map layer. So the trade layer is actually explicitly set up to allow "internal stacking" as well - any number of trade units can occupy the same hex at the same time.
Our proposed T'a'r layer would be exactly like the others - units that exist in it can stack with units that exist in other layers. The main difference is that units in the T'a'r layer can only be seen by
other units in the T'a'r layer - so they're invisible to anyone whose vision on that hex comes from non-T'a'r sources. And that's pretty much it - all of the rest of the distinctness of the way T'a'r works is all smoke and mirrors with flavor and mechanics that make it look like a "separate world" by restricting interactions to and from things in that layer to a narrow set of usable actions.
I'm sure Firaxis have made a veritable pile of spaghetti code in order to make map layers work, but I believe that conceptually, that's pretty much how everything should tie together.
Another advantage of approaching the T'a'r problem in full now is it allows us to guide other parts of the mod so that other major systems can hook into it (like GPs), much in the same way as diplo and trade interact, or religion and culture, and things of the like. Rather than us deciding that we
do want to do this later and having to retrofit it in.
Dreamspike example
The other thing is that literal use of t'a'r feels very action-game or RTS to me. It's one character doing one thing once. CiV is normally about "units" of thousands of soldiers doing stuff. Of course, we've destroyed that with Aes Sedai and such, but still, entering tel'aran'rhiod to do stuff seems like a kind of weirdly high level of detail. So, somebody spies in T'a'r.... that's a logistical detail.
I see what you mean here, but I think we have some mitigating factors against that RTS-like feel. One is that in general, WoTMod is more specific-person (as opposed to legions of guys being one unit) than BNW is. The way the flavor from the books inspires mechanics tends towards the importance of individuals.
Another is that it's a more abstracted notion than it might first appear. Someone spying in T'a'r could definitely be made into a logistical detail of a mechanic - as you've mentioned below, we could capture that flavor to an extent with one-shot abilities. But there's also some uniqueness to spying in T'a'r vs spying in reality - different types of things you can learn.
We might as well design a whole system to describe sword combat.
No, we will *not*.
Now that you mention it, a system of promotions based on the swords forms, which have dependencies on one another, and interact with a kind of advanced rock-paper-scissors style mechanic sounds like it's right up our alley!
Don't believe the madman above (me), let's not do that.
But, then the problem is what to do that's a sufficient indirect use of t'a'r? Here are some things about t'a'r that might be worth considering:
A)People wander around in it. Spying on others
B)People occasionally do battle in it
C) Wolves hang out there
D) People can enter via a Talent or ter'angreal
E) Dreamspikes are a thing, preventing traveling
F) You can track a person's specific Dreams
G) Nightmares are a thing that popped up a few times
H) People can Will T'a'r into various forms/break the laws of physics if they are awesome enough at it.
I) The Heroes of the Wheel/Horn hang out there.
J) Dreamers can tell the future with Dreams, which may not be directly connected to tel'aran'rhiod.
So, some possible uses for that t'a'r that enter my mind (some are not new) that aren't directly related to map layers and stuff
a) a "guard tower" sort of sight-generating beacon , most likely in the form of an improvement (a la a fort). Reflected flavorfully as a in-dream "lookout", probably using a ter'angreal.
b) another offshoot of a Spy/Eye and Ear. A t'a'r spy that has some different features. Or similiarly, a unit (wise one or GP) that instantly does some of the same things as a spy, instantly, via t'a'r.
c) an improvement that generates some sort of yield, either happiness or faith or something, flavored to reflect a Dreamspike or something,
d) traveling-blocking, as previously discussed as Dreamspikes
e) a few more threads or quests could be reworked to deliberately insert t'a'r flavor (like the hawkwing-ripped-from-the-pattern one)
f) Dreamers creating GW of Prophesy
g) a promotion available to channelers that boosts some ability, flavored to describe them going into t'a'r for some advantage. +Sight. +somethingelse.
h) a "sight bomb." Click a point on the map, reveal it.
I'm out of ideas.
These indirect uses of T'a'r can definitely be made to work. However, I think we'd be making separate flavor compromises on every ability in order to keep clear of the necessity for a map layer.
Some specific examples of mechanics that the map layer lets us do:
Dreamspikes provide vision to their owner and block Traveling to and from the location they cover (X hexes) for
everyone. They can be placed in T'a'r (saying they're "placed in T'a'r" is flavorful smoke and mirrors for letting them stack with improvements)
outside of a player's territory, or even in
enemy territory. Only one Dreamspike can cover any single hex at a time (further Dreamspikes are unable to be placed until the other is moved or destroyed).
Suddenly, the Dreamspike can be a tactical tool to disable enemy Traveling. Place it over a city you're about to invade and watch as your enemy scrambles to move units hex by hex in reality, stripped of the ability to Travel their most powerful units there quickly. (And since we don't have analogues for planes, which could fly in, that makes it even more powerful.)
Alternative side of the equation: you create a unit (be it a GP, a normal unit, whatever) that can plant a Dreamspike in your capital. But its "Plant a Dreamspike" ability is currently disabled! "Only one Dreamspike can cover a location at a time." "Who's planted a Dreamspike in my lands!?" Now you've got potential early warning of an attack, or at least knowledge that someone thinks you're dangerous enough to keep an eye on. And now you'll probably want to make some kind of T'a'r unit that can destroy that Dreamspike.
Other thing this lets us do: our Wolfbrother friends. A very simple ability that could prove very useful once T'a'r is prolific enough (more on that in a moment): expend this GP to create (a) wolf unit(s) in this location in T'a'r. Wolves are T'a'r combat units.
Wise Ones can retain some of their combat strength (if they have any) in T'a'r.
Forsaken can roam there leading up to and during the Last Battle.
Dreamers can project a "scouting" unit into it.
Perhaps there's some way of unlocking an Aes Sedai ability that affords them a similar capability to Dreamers, but less powerful?
We could have civs that have relevant uniques to T'a'r (like the Wise Ones).
Spying should definitely intersect with T'a'r, as that's come up a few times - enhancing its effectiveness in some way, or affording Eyes and Ears with different capabilities.
Wonders can interact with T'a'r: "units not controlled by you in T'a'r cannot come within 10 tiles of this wonder," and things to that effect.
Sources of yields (some yields, whatever we find appropriate: just one? many? none? all depends on the purpose of T'a'r, discussed in more detail below)
And all of the above are only one of several variants of ways to capture the flavor of each of the things they describe. Whereas with a non-map-layer approach we have to make concessions in order to include the flavor we want to see, this way we have an abundance of mechanical possibilities that we can pare down to the minimum set of really good ones that we want to be part of the mod.
I think it should be like the other "systems" in that there's a "primary" way that it works, and then lots of little links into it from other systems. The above are
mostly examples of the little links in. I think what we should consider here is: what's the primary role of T'a'r in WoTMod? Once we have that then players should have a "normal" way to interface with it in a relatively regular manner, rather than have it be the exclusive realm of GPs and wonders, which are relatively scarce resources, as you've mentioned.
There are a few candidates, that I can think of right now, and there are probably more good ones:
- Scouting - certainly possible
- Spying - great flavor for this one. We would need to consider what mechanical effects we would want T'a'r to have on a civ's ability to spy or not.
- Tie it to a victory - we could make T'a'r an essential part of some existing victory condition.
- Make it a primary source of Culture and Prestige to tie it to the Culture victory.
- Make it essential to effectively conquering the world to die it to the Domination victory.
- Allow it to let you see/sway other player's Compact votes (mm, seeing Compact votes? our Diplomat equivalent?) or make it affect CS relations, and tie it to the diplo victory.
- Make it an essential part of discovering the Seals or defeating the Dark One/Forsaken to tie it to the LB victory.
- Tie it to another system - make developing a Path somehow linked to T'a'r, or any other non-victory-specific system.
As far as the literal map-layer thing, there's a few ways this could go. Again, the main issue to me is that this isn't used by many units and so feels like a big deal for little benefit. However, if it can be made to be not-a-big-deal, this is probably the ideal use of t'a'r, yes?
I suppose I feel like a full map layer that units can travel throughout at will (which t'a'r should be) is what seems overwhelming to me. I'd rather see it re-purposed into something that feels more like a single "mission." In civ a turn is a year or even years, so the trip a wise one goes on over a isngle night seems weird as a turns-spanning quest in civ.
I agree that we want to avoid a big system that's only interacted with in a few very niche ways. I think, given the way T'a'r is so important in the books, it will pay off for us to integrate it more fully into the rest of the game, rather than nod to it with flavor.
In terms of voyaging for multiple turns meaning a multi-year adventure in T'a'r, I think that's a general manifestation of CiV's immortal units mechanics. I think allowing "units" to traverse T'a'r over multiple turns is exactly the same kind of manifestation and that players will take to it quite readily, being already accustomed to how it's handled in BNW.
To that end, I wonder if we can turn the "direct" t'a'r abilities into one-turn deals. One turn abilities also make more sense for GP, as well.
a)The "Sight Bomb" described above is one way.
b)a sort of wise one "teleport" is another. Be able to pass through units in movement in ways you normally couldn't. Wouldn't make their movement longer or make them invisible or anything,b ut would let them cross cities, ignore ZoC and other units, etc.
c) a "hide" ability - make yourself vanish for a turn. To heal or something.
d) maybe "hide" combined with some movement. Like, move, stay invisible, come out of it and appear once that turn is done.
What I don't love is the idea of a unit going into t'a'r, moving around t'a'r, encountering other units in t'a'r, doing stuff with them, coming back into t'a'r.... It just feels like another game we're building. Also, it doesn't play nice with the GP single-use-ness.
OK, none of this is particularly good, I know.... this is why we don't yet have a great solution for t'a'r!
In terms of GP single-use-ness I don't think we should build T'a'r in general specifically for GPs. I think we should develop it as its own system while keeping GPs in mind as one of several consumers of that system. So we don't need to worry about the nature of multi-turn existence in T'a'r diverging from GP single-use, because the GP's abilities can be made to interact with a persistent T'a'r in a way that's consistent with the GP's want for single-use.
Like I mentioned above, it's not as much of a separate game as it looks, which is part of what makes it good. We can make a player experience that is very distinctly a "separate world" when the only real divergence is visibility and "detection" of that layer. ("Detection" being: stuff that does things based on other things being in that layer, in much the same way anything in CiV does stuff based on the state of any other independent thing.) It just becomes another axis for us to consider effects for - "we can make this a bonus for T'a'r units" or "we can make T'a'r yields better" or anything like that (tiny slice of what's available, of which we obviously won't want to use everything).
I don't think we want a single unit traversing back and forth between T'a'r and reality, if that happens at all it should be reserved for some very niche/rare Slayer/Wolfbrother something. I think it should primarily be about "projecting" things into T'a'r from reality in order to achieve a goal. (Projecting a scout to check out your enemy's city placement. Project a Dreamspike to block his Traveling. Projecting wolves to destroy enemy scouts/Dreamspikes/sources yields in T'a'r.) It makes it a "secondary world" from the player's perspective, which captures a lot of what T'a'r was in the books.
And those are my initial thoughts. Also "T'a'r" is an awesome abbreviation. So much easier than all of its alternatives.
Agree. I know I'm the kinda player who'd save up all the LB related GPs until the LB and only then use them all. It's great fun when you're the only one doing it but much less so when it becomes a common tactic...
Exactly, and even though BNW is less susceptible than our LB-related guys, "bulbing" by hoarding Great Scientists is apparently a good strategy for high difficulties!
I think this one definitely needs to have a Ta'veren related name if we do it! Pull of the Ta'veren?
Yeah, that sounds like a good name!
As for Tel'aran'rhiod... I'm a bit torn about it. On one hand I'd love to see it as a map layer thing as that kind of a system feels like a good match for T'a'r.
On the other hand counterpoint is right that it may be too much for something that is still just a small feature.
Maybe we should just first see how many T'a'r related abilities we seem to be ending up with so it's easier to decide how to deal with them?
It would be nice to be able to look back and see all of our potential consumers of T'a'r after we look through them all, but that creates a kind of chicken-and-egg problem, where the things that want to use T'a'r need to use it within the context of what it is and how it works. T'a'r could also (as I mention above) interact with a lot more than GPs (which I think is essential to making it a worthwhile inclusion, which is something we all seem agree on - that a big feature that's only interacted with by a few GP abilities isn't something we want to do).
I definitely agree with the sentiment that the "map layer" approach lets us create a much more true-to-universe experience, something that players will find immediately recognizable as the T'a'r they know.
Originally I was going to go and build some spaceships after this, but I seem to have run out of evening.
