ok, so just for the sake of clarity, we aren't changing anything at all about the:
Ogier Stonemason
Merchant Lord
Scholar
Artisan
Gleeman
Doomseer (not counting what its specialist does)
correct? I'm assuming we can keep it much the same, though it's possible that the existence of the Doomseer Specialist might create an extra abundance of all LP points -it's possible this could cause us to lower some of the thresholds across the board as compensation.
Yes, all correct.
Also, are we keeping the "link" between OS, ML, and Sc (a la GE,GMe, and GS), while keeping the Ar, Gl, and Do separate? I don't see a reason to change such things.
Yep, let's leave that the same since it should provide the same value as it did in BNW.
Yes, we might want to bump up the EXP requirement a little. However, in CiV, if you gain X EXP from combat units and gain a GG, and gain Y EXP from naval units and gain a GAd, you'd then have two GP. I don't know if X=Y, but if they're similar, we should probably just keep the spawning EXP the same (so that once the player has X+Y exp of *any type*, they'd have two GC units (instead of one GG and one GAd)?
If X is definitely not equal to Y, then things are a bit more complicated - can we weigh the accumulation of different kinds of combat EXP differently (or create an invisible tally of GC points to accomplish the same?)
Every GG/GAd you spawn in CiV increases the EXP requirement for the next one, right? Are these linked, or separate? If they're linked, we're fine, but if they're separate, we'll need to adjust that accordingly to compensate for the fact that you'd be, potentially, missing out on some potentially units because this one will be getting "expensive" more quickly. That said, that's somewhat complicated to balance, because a land-heavy civ in BNW might be cranking out a ton of GGs, but when they finally get a GAd, it would come "cheaply," but here, such things would be linked (though the GC does of course work in water). Not necessarily good or bad. just different.
I'm not sure if they're separate, but I also think that Firaxis didn't do a very good job of explaining and sensibly connecting up GGs/GAds with EXP rate. Ostensibly GGs are spawned by exp, but (I forget which way around this is) either melee or ranged units don't count towards GGs. Just completely arbitrarily. (Unless this was patched at some point, I'm fairly sure it was the state of the game for at least some time.) Which might have been a byproduct of them wanting to reduce the GG spawn rate, but not being able to adjust the EXP output without throwing the whole promotion system out of whack.
They could have adjusted the EXP thresholds for spawning though - I'm not sure if they had another reason for
not doing that or if it was an oversight. Handily, I think we can adjust the EXP thresholds for spawning Great Captains if we need to address this disparity of spawn rate introduced by fusing the GG and GAd. GAd was only made separate in G&K though - so I can look at the source for vanilla and see what kind of progression GGs had and if it was different to the later ones. The two are unrelated in G&K onwards, I believe (so not like Engineer/Scientist/Merchant, which are linked). Assuming they spawn at about the same EXP thresholds, we may want to go with increasing the Great Captain rate by a factor of 1.5 or so (I don't think we'd want to double it, since we're effectively providing a more flexible unit at a higher frequency).
right. As of now, I see no reason to change this.
Cool, sounds good.
Right. Just to be absolutely clear, are we 100% sure these guys should be on the same counter? I don't see a big problem with it, but at the same time, it is unlike how the other LPs (or GPs) work.
I think that it's not too far a departure since similar mechanisms exist in BNW via free GPs and the Mayan UA. So, I don't think that it's a problem that they're a bit different from other GPs.
In terms of whether we should do it, I think it makes sense given that they're balanced to be competitive with each other, while still both providing unique T'a'r abilities. I think most civs will choose to spawn some of each over the course of a game. Dividing them up would also mean spawning them separately and given their intended balance-placement against each other in T'a'r, we'd need to balance their spawning mechanisms against each other as well. Both represent progress for the same system (T'a'r) and so actions it makes sense that their spawning is driven by actions that are indicative of T'a'r strength for the player. They can also both be relatively long-lived in T'a'r, so unlike Scientists/Artists/etc., the player won't feel they need to monopolize always picking the one they like the most (not necessarily the best), since they may still have some of the older ones around from the last time they spawned one.
Also, does the value of LP points for T'a'r units increase after successive spawns?
Yes, I figured it would go along a similar progression trajectory as GP point costs of Scientists/Engineers/Artists etc. do (whatever those exact numbers are, I'm not 100% sure).
Of these, I'd go for either Glimmer or Pattern. Is the player going to see this, or is it just for us? I'd say Glimmer Points is the simplest (we're still calling other things points, right?). Pattern is awesome and would be my favorite, but might feel a little confusing to drop here.
This is for the player - for them to track how close they are to spawning a T'a'r LP (and to have some feedback from gathering Glimmers - otherwise they won't see any progression). I figured we could present it as a yield - like Culture or Faith (more like Culture in presentation, since it will be X/Y where Y is the amount you need to spawn another T'a'r LP and X is the amount you've produced since your last LP spawn).
This ventures into territory where I'm a bit of a novice, as I don't know the number crunch as well as you. Something like +3 for regular gather, and a +1 for a repeat gather seems like it could be good. What do you think?
As to how many points it takes to make a T'a'r LP.... I suppose it has to be quite a lot less than the LP points for others, as those are generated every turn. Although, if it makes the balancing easier, we can keep the T'a'r LP requirement similar in scale to the other LP types, and just beef up the points you get from a Glimmer (e.g. +15 and +5).
I touched on this above, where I think we can use a similar trending pattern (even if not the same values) as the Engineer etc. points in cities. I believe this should result in thresholds of 1000+ per LP by the end of the game. (Or possibly sooner.)
Also remember that gathering Glimmers increases T'a'r point
rate, rather than being little lumps of points. So if gathering a Glimmer provides +3 then it means the player produces +3 T'a'r points more
per turn. I think +3 and +1 sound like good starting places for the kinds of progression we want above. I don't think we need to do the math out in full for this one because, unlike Alignment, other systems don't directly hang off the values we choose here. We just need to choose values that result in LP spawn rates we like, which we can adjust outright without throwing other systems out of whack.
I'll start by saying, yes, let's accumulate points.
These just apply to the Ambassador, right? Can they not be Ambassador Points? Are we tossing Points because they don't feel very wot-like? If so, then we need to broaden this discussion to include all the other LPs as well.
Like T'a'r points above, I figured we could present this as a yield to the player (in a similar kind of X/Y format). That's why I think we should use a more flavorful (and shorter) name than Ambassador Points. Other GP points (Engineer etc.) are already separated for us as a part of the city menu, instead of something the player always sees, so we don't necessarily need to rename them.
As far as those you mentioned, I definitely think Daes Dae'mar should be saved for something else, likely a policy or even Cairhien UA. Political capital is ok, but is very modern. Could also see "Bargaining Power" or "Leverage" or "Cloud" or something.
Saving Daes Dae'mar for something else sounds like a good plan.
Hilariously, I just Googled 'wheel of time "political capital"' to see if that phrase ever popped up in the books, and my previous post is result #3 (after two irrelevant economic articles). So, agreed, it's too modern a phrase.
I like "Bargaining Power" from a flavor point of view, but I worry that it's too long of a phrase ("Political Capital" has the same problem, actually) - it would be great to be able to capture the flavor with a single word (Science, Culture, Gold, Food, Production, etc.). I like "Leverage" - it's going in the right direction and is definitely my frontrunner at the moment. The last one (intended to be "Clout"?) seems a bit colloquial.
Just running through a few other candidates I can think of in case one stands out:
Influence
Command
Leadership
Reputation
Dominion (possibly a bit negative, but cool)
CS allies - ok, this is one that would potentially throw all the other values out of whack, as this would otherwise end up, by far, the largest source of points. If it's every turn, +1, then the previously mentioned +1 would turn into, say, +50 or something. I do like the idea of CS alliances mattering though - would be nice to give you some diplomatically-oriented benefit to having them in the pre-WC era.
Quoting out of order because this affects all of the other ones - I totally agree here. I figured we'd be using something like +1 per turn per CS ally and bigger dumps for for the much more infrequent things (like Compact votes and Stumps). Turning the values you mention here in +50-ish sounds like exactly the same ballpark I was thinking.
Right, if we consider the first one to be the "baseline" source of points (which it may not be. see below), let's make that one a +1 and the Amyrlin one be, say, +3, or perhaps scale it based on the influence you have with the Ajah.
Again, since these points accrue more rarely, if we wanted them to spawn at point values that approximate the other LPs, we'd need to scale these significantly.
I'd say the Amyrlin one should be fairly high payout because it's something that's almost impossible to guarantee for yourself and reinforces the political importance of the Tower. (Also feeds back into the Ambassador getting you a Sister - creates a Tar Valon feedback loop like the other LPs have.) So based on our scaling up discussed above, this should possibly pay out 400 or so? (This is a point dump, rather than a rate change.) I'm thinking that 400 or so would be the amount required to generate a single Ambassador the first time and it would scale up from there. Given the infrequency of the Amyrlin elections, this sounds like a reasonable amount.
Compact votes are more frequent than Amyrlin elections, but only occur towards the end of the game, when players will have used other sources to spawn previous Ambassadors. (So they'll need more than 1000 points or so to spawn a single LP.) These could be a similar ballpark to the Amyrlin one, due to their late-game-weightedness, maybe 300 each? They're a quite a bit easier to do than the Amyrlin one though, so I could see a fair argument for 100 each as well.
Stedding - ok, maybe something like +1 and +3 for those moments?
Scaling up again - +30 (dump, not rate) for getting a Stedding to use your vote and +100 (dump again) if the Stump chooses the Age you want?
Related question: do you get the Stump bonus if you chose a specific Age but the Stedding you chose for didn't vote for that Age? (You get points despite not contributing to the actual decision that caused the Stump to choose?)
What if a player is influential with a few Stedding and splits their vote between the different available Ages - do they get the bonus if
any of them are chosen or just one?
If just one, how do we or the player choose which? Or can players only choose to support a single Age with their votes for all Stedding they have any internal votes with? While this gets rid of the above problem, I think it's way too restrictive - tactical voting that unexpectedly swings an election is the most fun part of this kind of process, and we'd be making that impossible. Isolated example: 4 Stedding - you can easily sway 2 (somehow, doesn't matter how for this example), you contest the third against another player, and you have no influence with the fourth. By voting so that Stedding 3 and 4 end up voting for
different Ages (regardless which Ages those are), you can win the overall Stump age selection through Stedding 1 and 2. If you know what Stedding 4's ally is likely to make it go for, you can sway Stedding 3 to vote for whatever is different that's most likely to win.
This example may present us with a solution to my question above - give the bonus for the Age that the player cast the most internal Stedding votes toward (if that Age succeeds). Alternatively, we could scale it based on the proportion of the player's available votes they put towards the Stump-succeeding-Age, but given that the internal Stedding votes are separate and relatively unrelated from the player's point of view, that could be quite confusing. I think most-internal-votes-for will capture the player's intent in almost all cases.
Diplomats - Hmmm... I could see them producing a +1 per turn, if +1 is what you get for a CS ally.
Totally, sounds good - this is +1 per turn (rate) as long as the Diplomat is around.
Are we keeping the name Diplomat?
Embassies, etc. - yes, definitely. The weird thing about this is that "establishing" the embassy is confusing, because it can be broken and reestablished multiple times. Maybe it should be per turn? If we do that, though, we're talking REALLY inflated point values for everything else, because having an embassy should be, by far, the weakest source of these points. I could see only DoFs and DPs creating points, if we wanted to keep it simple.
Agreed, Embassies can be re-established, but only after denunciations or war, so not very frequently. (Maximum turnaround on war is 15 turns I think - you can't make peace immediately, and even if you can, it still relies on the other player co-operating.) Denunciations have a hard turn limit (depending on game speed - I think it's 30 or 50 on standard). And both of these actions have much bigger knock-on effects than individual Ambassadors (let alone Ambassador points) will have, so players don't have a real incentive to do them just for the points. So I think having another civ accept your embassy could provide +10 (dump) points? And accepting someone else's embassy could provide +4 (dump)?
Open borders (either direction) could also be +10 (dump).
DoFs are much more rare and could probably be +50, maybe +75? (all dumps)
Defensive Pacts are even more rare than DoFs and could yield as much or more as Compact votes - +100 (dump) or more.
For the same reason as the T'a'r points (nothing hangs off the Ambassador points rate except for Ambassadors) we don't need to be as exhaustive as we were with Alignment, since we can change and calibrate as we go without huge knock-ons.
right. I should say that this point didn't end up much of a "frame" at all - more like a full on "beginning"!
The whole post or just this point?
In terms of how often we want to see Ambassadors, I'm thinking a similar kind of rate as other GPs, mostly. So varying based on the player's success in the relevant system, probably the fastest would be the same rate a 3-city-Tall-Culture-civ produces each of the 3 Culture GP types, and the slowest would be the rate that same civ creates GGs. Because CS alliances and Compact votes are significant sources of Ambassadors, I think they'll generally be weighted toward spawning mostly in the latter half of the game.
), Gold from kills (+X 
), or clear a forest (+X 
).
