S3rgeus's Wheel of Time Mod

S3rgeus · Apr 26, 2015

Another thing I've been thinking about to do with Threads is that they're very patch-able. Releasing new Threads as part of updates to the mod is a great way to add new content to the player experience relatively cheaply (compared to adding any new systems or designing, implementing, and balancing whole new civilizations). That doesn't affect any of our targets for how many we want to do now, but it's something we can keep in mind for post-release updates (in that far-distant theoretical future), which could be cool.

counterpoint said:
We could rectify that, of course, but I could also see us ending up with more Major Light options and being fine with that.

Yeah, any small differences in the total numbers of available choices for Major Shadow vs Major Light are unlikely to be noticed by players in-game, so as long as there isn't a clear difference (one has double the other) then it should be fine.

counterpoint said:
I can say that i'm pretty surprised to see Culture come up so frequently. It feels like the Culture bonuses were often last-minute or shrug-worthy additions. Still, I guess I add up. The prevalence of happiness and science is also somewhat surprising. The lack of gold addition is definitely surprising.

I was surprised by Culture and Happiness too. I think we had a lot of references to Gold in the costs previously, so we over-estimated the number of Gold rewards that were being given out. I definitely expected to see more of them.

counterpoint said:
Yeah, FD points is weird. Weird enough that it may be worth excluding them. As far as how we'd represent them to the player... I don't know. Would we be really vague ('makes a False Dragon less likely to appear') or more specific ('delays a FD by X turns'). Differentiating between minor, normal and major also seems like it would be difficult.

I like "delay a False Dragon" as the general explanation because it's quite accurate. We'll see if players get enough information about how FDs are spawned to be able to infer how the underlying system works, otherwise we might be better going with something like "reduces False Dragons spawned in/near your territory."

counterpoint said:
Yeah, all the GP stuff will obviously be tentative. I will say, though, that it does seem that we may be unlikely to include the admiral as a true GP, though.

Cool and good point about the Admiral. I remember we discussed this very briefly many eons ago. I almost added an Admiral choice into one of the above Threads, but then thought of this!

counterpoint said:
definitely agree.

OOH, before I forget - another thing we could add - resources (luxury or strategic). I think we have exactly one of those, already.

Yes, definitely!

counterpoint said:
eh, A seems a little cheesy. Forgeries of HK portraits? It's not like the HK is a famous artist. How exactly are they "forgeries"? The notion also seems a little anachronistic. Maybe it should be selling counterfeit heirlooms or things like that. Still cheesy, but a bit more believable.
I feel somewhat similarly about the flavor of B. Goods the HK is famous for? That feels odd to me. Maybe it needs some clarification.
C is fine.

Homage to the High King
A isn't intended to be to do with any talents of the High King himself. He's the High King, so inevitably there will be portraits of him done by a variety of famous artists. If people like the High King, then there will be more demands for said portraits. You're selling forgeries to make some money. I could see counterfeit heirlooms working too, but I don't think they're much different. (Both are profiting from fakes that are valuable due to the High King's popularity.)

Clarification for B should make it clearer that it's goods the "High King civ" are famous for. (Alum is all the rage in the lands of the High King, hence increasing demand as people try to emulate them.) How about:

Choice B: Encourage merchants to trade goods the High King's nation is famous for far and wide (+GP points (<Great Merchant equivalent>))

counterpoint said:
This one definitely seems to me that you need to *be* the high king. Why are they crowning you if you aren't the high king? If you aren't the HK, then this one seems like it could take place in any era, and have no mention of the HK.
B should probably specify that they are being forced to do so or something, otherwise I don't understand the +Shadow element.

Crowns and Swords
The leader of each civ is still king/queen of their own land (even if that's currently a Province under the High King), and would therefore have a crown. It could definitely be generalized to be available at all times, but I think reference to the High King flavor adds some value too. It is available any time from High King onwards, so not just while the High King is in power. (Since a crown fit for a High King could be made at any time when people know what a High King is.)

For B, I can see either changing it to Minor +Shadow and leaving it how it is (goldsmith's talents being wasted to make trinkets to sell is bad, but not very evil) or go with forcing him and full +Shadow. Which do you prefer?

counterpoint said:
I like these, but I'm not sure about C. I know it's the neutral choice, but it does seem like it sticks out a bit, not having any yield bonus aside from the alignment. It can be fine, but I doubt people will take this. The difference between +S and M+S is likely not worth the loss of gold.

Play at Power
I see what you mean here. It's probably worth ballparking some numbers for what each Alignment amount represents throughout the game though, since this seems to come up on a lot of Threads.

I've been thinking that in the Ancient Era, Minor +Alignment would be ~10 points in that direction. +Alignment would be ~40-60 and Major would be ~80-120. (So a single major decision will go a long way toward pulling you out of the Neutral tier.)

We discussed that Alignment rewards would scale over the course of the game, becoming more extreme as time goes on. This means the Minor/Normal/Major will get farther apart as the game goes on. I'm thinking by the end of the game (Era of the Dragon, basically) Minor will be ~40-60, Normal ~150-180, and Major ~400-450. So by this point, Neutral players will be hard pressed to pick any non-Minor Alignment choices if they want to remain truly Neutral. (Making being Neutral a deliberate balancing act seems to be an idea we like?)

Depending on how we feel about the above, I think having choices like C could be good.

counterpoint said:
I worry that this is too powerful. I'm all for having some HK-only Threads, but should they necessarily be *better*? It seems like we should be careful providing extra bonuses for being the HK - we might be best off just trying to balance th e"normal" ones, without worrying about Threads.

However, I *do* think it could make sense to have these all be big, but Costed like big ones are supposed to be - only for all of the chocies, instead of one. High payoff, high risk/cost.

Within that, they seem fine. My overall inclination is to mellow it out a bit, though.

King of All
I definitely agree that we don't want High King-only Threads in general to be better, the intention was to experiment with just this one. I think even if we do have one powerful one like this, any other High King-only ones should remain normally-powered.

I considered having all of the options be costed big-payoff ones, but it seemed a bit depressing from the player point of view, like being penalized for doing well, since the Thread is clearly targeted at the High King. Even when they're net positive, all of the player experience stuff comes into play again, and magnified because the player is accustomed to plentiful cost-free choices already.

Mellowing it is certainly possible. We'd likely need to remove the free technology from B, since the others are basically yield payouts that I figured players might find comparable to receiving a free technology.

I'm unsure. I think it could be really awesome to discover this Thread as the High King. It's the kind of depth that I keep being really impressed by in Dragon Age - that there is a specific, scripted piece of content that rewards the player for the exact niche situation they've managed to get themselves into. (High King is less niche than a lot of BioWare's crazy combinations of voice overs for bringing different companions to various things, but still, we're just two people.) The other side of that is it's clearly very powerful, and the High King is already riskily powerful.

counterpoint said:
Good! Not sure I quite get the Major+Light element for C, though (as opposed to regular Light).

Seafaring Progeny
Done - removed Major from C.

counterpoint said:
I'd eliminate the Creator reference, unless you want it to only apply to Light side in the LB(and if so, should specify such).

Like it, though.

Endless Tides
For this and the next one I'd originally made them for the Trolloc Wars only and then later realized that they were also applicable to the Last Battle. I just forgot there were Shadow players in the latter case (pretty big oversight). I'll lock this and the next one (Delayed Harvest) to Light side for the Last Battle and come up with some Shadow-side only Threads below!

counterpoint said:
Like it, but on C, probably should say something like "lure the shadowspawn" instead of "telling" them.

Delayed Harvest
Done

counterpoint said:
great

Glowbulbs and Fire
Done

counterpoint said:
I like this one mechanically, but don't quite "get" the flavor. The.... artists... will be the crew of your ships, and we'll get a Great Artist out of it? Maybe I'm not quite getting it. I think we either need to clarify it, or else totally reflavor this. GP points should be about "discovering" great talent or speeding up their generation somehow.

Across the Sea
For all of them, you're allowing the guild in question to represent your civilization in a venture to find new riches. Whichever one gets chosen will be ramping up activity and recruitment to carry out the voyage, which means they uplift more people in the process.

counterpoint said:
-Influence isn't on the list of acceptable penalties, and I think that's a wise move. Making a stedding angry is definitely not going to be a big penalty for a lot of civs. I think this needs to be something more generalizable - -happiness seems right to me. Or minor.

Tree Poachers
I definitely think Happiness will work. But before we sign this one off, what if the Stedding declares war on you? Given the penalties we discussed for capturing Stedding previously, the player may not want to capture them.

counterpoint said:
very glad you remembered stedding. I had thought of that and promptly forgotten it. Maybe we should have another? Something like:

Ogier Stonemasons
Flavor: A group of renown Ogier Stonemasons have arrived in your capitol. They offer their services.
Choice A: Honor them with a brief festival and let them freely return to their stedding. (+Culture, Minor +Light)
Choice B: They can be put to work for the highest bidder (+Gold, +Shadow)
Choice C: Start a collaborative project with <stedding>, building a network of acqueducts between your lands (Minor +Influence with <stedding>, +Food, Minor +Light)
Choice D: These Ogier should stay and construct great works, and should be assisted by the learned men of your city (-Science, Gain a <Great Engineer equivalent>)
Restriction: Must have discovered a stedding on the same continent.

Looks good, the only thing I'm unsure of is -Science for D. Would we want to allow costs that require the player to sacrifice civilian units? This seems like an ideal situation for something like:

Choice D: These Ogier can elevate some of our craftsmen to masters of their trade (Sacrifice a worker, Gain a <Great Engineer equivalent>)

counterpoint said:
The Longing
Flavor: A group of Ogier have lost their stedding, and have arrived at your palace, apparently suffering greatly due to the Longing.
Choice A: These Ogier have much they could teach us about learned pursuits. They must stay and teach your scholars. (Minor +Culture, Minor +Science, +Shadow)
Choice B: They will die if they do not find a stedding. Send your scouts to find their home. (Sacrifice X strength of units, Major +Happiness, +Light)
Choice C: Surely these Ogier can teach your masons of their crafts before they leave. (+Production in Capitol, Minor +Shadow)
Choice D: We cannot find their home, but certainly they will be at peace in <stedding> (+Influence with <stedding>, Minor +Light)
Restriction: Obsoletes with Era of Freedom. Must have met a stedding

Great

counterpoint said:
This is good, providing we're ok with -FD points being there (which we probably are).

Re: D.... I don't see really how convincing people the Taint isn't so bad is aMajor Shadow action. I'd rather see something like:

Choice D: People who are afraid are people who are easily controlled. Spread tales of the horrors of this False Dragon, and use the resulting chaos as an excuse to crack down on dissidents (Major +Shadow).

Cautionary Tale
Done

counterpoint said:
Good.

Flourishing Inventions
Done

counterpoint said:
Question about these GP point bonus ones. They need to apply to cities capable of generating points for that GP, right? If not, those GP points will sit there, never turning into an actual GP How do we determine which cities get the GP points?

Good point for these! GP points are accrued on a per-city basis. I've gone back through all of these new ones and added a city specification to them in the master list. Wherever there was a city involved in the Thread, I've specified that city, otherwise I went for the capital.

counterpoint said:
ok. looks fine. should there be a version for Great Musicians?

Flourishing Arts
There probably should be equivalents for Great Musicians and Great Artists (or this one should be Artists and another Writers). It just seemed like a lot of Culture Threads when Culture was already out in the lead.

counterpoint said:
I don't quite get why - Pop in Capital makes sense for the flavor of A. Otherwise, looks good.

Talented Artisan
The intention is that he's already someone who's working in your city (he's one of the pop that's already there). By pulling him out and making him a GP, he's no longer doing his normal citizen stuff.

I've added all of the above to the master list with any components of them still under discussion highlighted in red. (Hopefully I caught everything that we're still discussing.)

A few more quick numbers about Policies and Philosophies.

# Threads requiring each Policy/Philosophy:
Authority: 2
Oppression: 0
Liberation: 0
Fear: 3
Tolerance: 2

# Threads requiring you not have adopted Policy/Philosophy X:
Authority: 0
Oppression: 1
Liberation: 0
Fear: 1
Tolerance: 0

I don't think we want too many of the latter restriction, but we could do with more for all of the former. I think we'll want more Fear vs Tolerance than the Philosophy ones, since players will adopt the Policies earlier than the Philosophies, so there's more time for one-Policy-only Threads to appear.

Right now, I'm going to shoot for having 3 of each for each Philosophy and 6 of each for Fear and Tolerance.

So, some more new Threads are in order!

Plague at the Tower
Flavor: A plague has broken out in the city around the White Tower. They have requested aid.
Choice A: This plague represents an opportunity for our scholars to do some questionable medical research (+Science, +Shadow)
Choice B: Rather than let the Tower's trade lapse as merchants flee the city, reroute their trade through your lands in the interim (+Gold, Minor +Light)
Choice C: Send stores of food and supplies to help the sick (+Tower Influence, +Light)
Choice D: We can leverage this situation to our advantage, forcing the Tower to send more Sisters to us (-Tower Influence, Gain Aes Sedai unit, Major +Shadow)
Restriction: must be Authority

So I've put -Tower Influence as the penalty for D. That's not one we've used elsewhere, but I figured an Authority civ is much more likely to find that penalty relevant, and gaining an Aes Sedai isn't as big a bonus as, say, a GP or a technology.

Learned Spark
Flavor: Visitors from foreign lands have been suggesting that more people may be able to channel than those whose abilities manifest visibly.
Choice A: These rumors are clearly ridiculous, publicly reassure your people they are untrue (+Faith, +Shadow)
Choice B: These new channelers are clearly dangerous as well, we must research new ways to find them (+Science, Minor +Shadow)
Choice C: This information will cause rioting and wanton murder, people can be distracted by a public fair, at least for a time (+Culture, +Light)
Restriction: must be Oppression

Channeling Secret
Flavor: One of your advisers has admitted to you that she is a channeler. She has been hiding this secret for many years and now submits herself to your judgement.
Choice A: Hang her (+Happiness, +Shadow)
Choice B: This embarrassment must be kept a secret, reassign her to a remote part of your empire (Minor +Faith)
Choice C: We can study her to find ways to ferret out other channelers in hiding (+Science, +Shadow)
Choice D: This secret will remain between you and her (Major +Light)
Restriction: must be Oppression

Enslaved Channelers
Flavor: A group of slavers have been capturing channelers among your people to sell on to the highest bidder.
Choice A: Channelers are not sold, they are earned, bestowed as servants by the crown. Seize their profits and outlaw this practice. (+Gold, +Light)
Choice B: The people seem to approve of them. Carry on. (+Faith, +Shadow)
Choice C: This kind of operation is the exclusive mandate of the crown. Reclaim the enslaved channelers as your own. (Gain Wilder? unit, Major +Shadow)
Restriction: must be Oppression

It is hard to come up with Light choices for Oppression civs.

The Best of Us
Flavor: An extremely powerful female channeler has arisen from among your people. She has been Healing the sick and needy in <city you control>.
Choice A: She represents the best of us, appoint her to public office (-Food in <city>, Gain <channeling> Governor in <city>, +Light)
Choice B: Spread tales of her valor across the land (+Faith, +Light)
Choice C: She doesn't turn away anyone? There are some smugglers in need of medical care. (+Gold, Minor +Shadow)
Choice D: Her strength must be directed to defend our lands (Gain Wilder unit, +Shadow)
Restriction: Must be Liberation

The Tainted Half
Flavor: The Taint that corrupts Saidin is a sickness in need of a cure. Male channelers in your land seek help in halting their eventual madness.
Choice A: The Taint cannot be Cleansed, but these men's lives can be made more bearable (Minor +Happiness, Minor +Light)
Choice B: Dedicate your best scholars to the task, the Taint must be removed (+Science, +Light)
Choice C: A cure? the Taint allows these men to see their true selves. It should not be destroyed. (+Faith, +Shadow)
Restriction: must be Liberation, Saidin cannot have been Cleansed

Tower Demand
Flavor: The White Tower is demanding one of your government officials, a powerful female channeler, be sent to the Tower to train. They offer to send a Sister as an adviser in exchange.
Choice A: We are a sovereign nation and do not bend to the Tower. Announce your refusal to your people. (+Faith, +Light)
Choice B: She has been indispensable at home, but now there is an opportunity to change the Tower from within. (Sacrifice a <channeling> Governor, Major +Tower Influence, Gain Aes Sedai unit, Minor +Light)
Choice C: This is an affront. Impose tariffs on any trade with the Tower (+Gold, Minor +Shadow)
Choice D: The Tower should see how vulnerable non-channeler officials are. Have a foreign official assassinated and hold them up as an example of why yours can defend themselves. (Major +Shadow)
Restriction: must be Liberation, must have met the Tower

Liberation was far and away the easiest of these to come up with. Now we have some policy-related ones:

Herbs and Power
Flavor: A Wisdom in one of your villages near <city> is being harassed, accused of using the One Power to Heal people instead of herbs.
Choice A: Brand her an enemy of the state (+Faith, +Shadow)
Choice B: Send known true Wisdoms to investigate the people's claims (+Food in <city>, +Light)
Choice C: Send samples of <luxury resource you do not have that is plant-like> to this Wisdom to see if she can correctly identify it (Gain <resource>, Minor +Light)
Restriction: must be Fear

Of Dragons and Men
Flavor: The existence of False Dragons is whipping your people into a frenzy. They seek to kill any they find.
Choice A: Stoke the flames of this hatred (-FD points, +Shadow)
Choice B: These people would be better off in a disciplined environment, like your military (Gain a military unit, Minor +Light)
Choice C: Denounce the False Dragon, elevating you in the eyes of your people (+Faith, +Light)
Restriction: must be Fear, there must be a living False Dragon you are aware of

Witches Abroad
Flavor: One of the witches from the White Tower has been sighted near <city you own>.
Choice A: The city must remain vigilant in its defenses! (Gain <walls equivalent building> in <city>, Minor +Light)
Choice B: Arrange an expedition to hunt her down and bring her to justice (+Faith, +Shadow)
Choice C: People need not fear the witches. Have one of your scribes release a memoir of your own past dealings where you bested the Tower's representatives. (+Culture, Minor +Shadow)
Choice D: Publicly demand that the Tower stay out of your affairs (Minor +Happiness, +Light)
Restriction: must be Fear, must have a city without <walls equivalent>

Advisers Unwell
Flavor: A dangerous sickness has been spreading in your capital and several of your advisers have been bedridden for weeks.
Choice A: Appeal to the Tower to Heal your scholarly adviser (+Science, Minor +Light)
Choice B: Your financial adviser claims to know a Wilder who can Heal him. Have her brought to the capital. (+Gold, +Light)
Choice C: Kidnap a Wilder and threaten to send her to the Tower if she doesn't heal your cultural adviser. (+Culture, +Shadow)
Choice D: A group of Wisdoms could Heal your quartermaster if offered tax incentives (+Food in capital, Minor +Shadow)
Restriction: must be Tolerance, must have met the Tower

Ends of Madness
Flavor: Some men in the later stages of madness from the Taint on Saidin have been nonviolent and seek to live out their final days in peace.
Choice A: They can live them out in peace, but abroad, where any madness episodes will disrupt someone else's empire, not ours (Minor +Shadow)
Choice B: Our people will understand if we show leniency (+Light)
Choice C: These men are beyond help, and must be killed now (+Shadow)
Restriction: must be Tolerance, Saidin must not have been Cleansed

Alignment-reward-only choices? Do we want to have any Threads like this?

Enhanced Power
Flavor: A cache of powerful items from the Age of Legends has been discovered buried near <city you own>. They enhance the channeling abilities of any channeler who wields them.
Choice A: This newfound strength could help our craftsmen in securing structures (+Production in <city>, Minor +Light)
Choice B: No one else may have them, we must uncover the secrets of making more of these items (Minor +Science, +Shadow)
Choice C: We can claim these items as a part of the heritage of our people (+Culture, +Shadow)
Choice D: The channelers of <city> should be able to use them for what they wish (Receive <channeling-related building> in <city>, +Light)
Restriction: must be Tolerance, must have a city that doesn't have <building>

Guild Channelers
Flavor: Some guilds in your capital have expressed interest in hiring some channelers to advise their luminaries in their work.
Choice A: Approve the scholar's guild's request (+GP points (Great Scientist equivalent>))
Choice B: Direct the craftsmen to hire a channeler who will spy on them for you (+GP points (<Great Engineer equivalent>), +Shadow)
Choice C: Direct the musicians to hire some channelers who have fallen on hard times (+GP points (<Great Musician equivalent>), +Light)
Restriction: must be Tolerance

I also said above that there should be some Shadow-Last-Battle ones since two of my suggestions from last time only work for the Light:

An Opportunity to Help
Flavor: Forces controlled by <fellow Shadow civilization> have been pinned down fighting the Light.
Choice A: I suppose we should save them from their own incompetence. We'll have to hang onto the soldiers though. (Gain a military unit, +Light)
Choice B: Use this failure to demonstrate <fellow Shadow civilization>'s foolishness to the Chosen or Shaidar Haran, currying favor for yourself. (Gain a Trolloc unit, +Shadow)
Choice C: This is your chance to undermine <fellow Shadow civilization> in truth. Feed the enemy intelligence about their positioning and formations. (Major +Shadow)
Restriction: You must be declared for the Shadow during the Last Battle, there must be more than one civilization declared for the Shadow

Though some of the +Shadow options seem to help the Light, the actions themselves are very representative of Shadow-y actions in-universe. The Shadow are well known for making life harder for one another.

What is that Smell?
Flavor: Your men have been complaining that Trollocs make smelly and unpredictable allies.
Choice A: The Trollocs are here to stay, they need to learn to like it (Gain a Trolloc unit, +Shadow)
Choice B: Split your forces so that the Shadowspawn are deployed separately from your human soldiers (+Happiness, Minor +Light)
Choice C: Perhaps those who complain should lead the next charge against the enemy (Major +Shadow)
Restriction: You must be declared for the Shadow during the Last Battle

And for everybody:

Ogier Warfare
Flavor: The Ogier are on the verge of completing a Stump that would see them enter into the Last Battle as combatants.
Choice A: Those fools are likely to side against the Great Lord, disrupt the Stump and ensure a consensus is never reached (+Shadow)
Choice B: The Ogier have been peaceful for millennia, that should not change now. Encourage the Stump to remain out of the fighting, they can help against the Shadow in other ways. (+Culture, Major +Light)
Choice C: We have some tacticians who believe Ogier could be formidable foes if given properly sized axes. They will be instrumental in holding back the Shadow. (Gain an Ogier unit, Minor +Light)
Choice D: We can offer the Ogier protection, but only if they refuse to support either side of the war. (Minor +Influence with all Stedding)
Restriction: The Last Battle must have started, there must be at least one Stedding left alive that you have met

This Thread may not work at all. I remember we discussed something of how the Stedding choose sides during the LB, but I'm not sure what we decided. Decisions there may make some of the above choices not make sense.

counterpoint · Apr 26, 2015

S3rgeus said:
Another thing I've been thinking about to do with Threads is that they're very patch-able. Releasing new Threads as part of updates to the mod is a great way to add new content to the player experience relatively cheaply (compared to adding any new systems or designing, implementing, and balancing whole new civilizations). That doesn't affect any of our targets for how many we want to do now, but it's something we can keep in mind for post-release updates (in that far-distant theoretical future), which could be cool.

This is a very good point. More threads can essentially be added whenever, and that includes a couple months from now, when we're working on other stuff and get random ideas. It's looking like we may very well have hit 100 with your post today, so, given that, maybe we should stop and move one once these are settled?

S3rgeus said:
Yeah, any small differences in the total numbers of available choices for Major Shadow vs Major Light are unlikely to be noticed by players in-game, so as long as there isn't a clear difference (one has double the other) then it should be fine.

Well, I was actually even thinking about the fact that having a surplus of Light opportunities isn't in and of itself a bad thing, maybe. But yes, even considering that, nobody would notice, especially since which Threads people receive will be random (right?). One player could randomly end up with the shadow-heavy stuff in one playthrough, or the science-heavy stuff, for instance.

S3rgeus said:
I was surprised by Culture and Happiness too. I think we had a lot of references to Gold in the costs previously, so we over-estimated the number of Gold rewards that were being given out. I definitely expected to see more of them.

Yeah, I think it's also possible that, for example, the gold ones were easiest to come up with, so we did those first, and then consciously looked for alternatives... a bit too much, perhaps (that's what happened with culture, I imagine).

S3rgeus said:
I like "delay a False Dragon" as the general explanation because it's quite accurate. We'll see if players get enough information about how FDs are spawned to be able to infer how the underlying system works, otherwise we might be better going with something like "reduces False Dragons spawned in/near your territory."

I think either of those could work, so would it be modified with a simple word, such as:

"slightly delay a False Dragon"
"delay a False Dragon"
"greatly delay a False Dragon"
?

S3rgeus said:
Cool and good point about the Admiral. I remember we discussed this very briefly many eons ago. I almost added an Admiral choice into one of the above Threads, but then thought of this!

Right, I think we were just going to make the Great Captain also be an admiral. We don't have to do this though... it's just that there isn't a lot of flavor for sea-stuff that isn't sea-folk linked in WoT. We can revisit this in our upcoming GP discussion. We can add threads if we need to, at this point, or else just make the GCaptain ones have an alternate admiral version.

S3rgeus said:
Homage to the High King
text)

Homage to the High King
Hmmm... I get it, it makes sense. I still feel like it's a little anachronistic, though. Forgeries of famous artists and whatnot. I suggest we either make it much more clear (e.g. specify that it is a famous portrait that is being copies) or go with the heirlooms thing, which seems to a make a little more sense to me.

S3rgeus said:
Clarification for B should make it clearer that it's goods the "High King civ" are famous for. (Alum is all the rage in the lands of the High King, hence increasing demand as people try to emulate them.) How about:

Choice B: Encourage merchants to trade goods the High King's nation is famous for far and wide (+GP points (<Great Merchant equivalent>))

Homage to the High King
Regarding B, I think this could be fine. This feels a little wonky if you are the high king, though. I'd say, actually, this whole Thread is a bit odd if you are the HK.

S3rgeus said:
Crowns and Swords
text

Crowns and Swords
Right. I think this should be stated a bit more clearly. Like, instead of just saying "a crown fit for a High King," make it more clear that you aren't the HK. Something like "Your adviser's tell you that you deserve a crown as grand as the High King's". That kind of thing.

I like, on B, forcing him for full shadow.

S3rgeus said:
Play at Power
text

For the beginning of the game, this seems fine to me. It's hard to say, of course, since we don't know exactly how often Threads appear - should we discuss that, by the way? I recall that they become more frequent over time, but did we decide exactly how? Our yields should scale with that in mind.

Another thing that popped into my head - Citizen yields don't change over time, right? So they, by definition, have less of a place in the later parts of the game. We're good with that, right?

I think the Scale-by-era thing should apply somewhat unevenly, with some changing hugely, and some not very much. Just going through the list:

Alignment - this should scale, but probably not actually that much. You have around 5x scale over the course of the entire game. This is probably fine, but it could probably be even less (2x or 3x). The truth is, requirements for Alignment tier to *not* scale by era, so we still want the extreme alignments to be difficult to get if you aren't very focused. And, also, we probably don't want a situation where a single act late-game knocks you two categories over (perhaps with Major Alignment being an exception).

Science - I think this should scale very very much. Probably exactly in line with tech-cost scaling (which you know better than I). This applies to costs and bonuses.

Culture - This should probably also scale very very much, in line with Policy cost scaling.

Prestige - This should scale for the same reasons as above.

Gold - I think this one should scale, but I could imagine the degree might be less than science and culture. I'm not sure I can imagine several thousand gold being dropped in an instant on a thread.

Faith - This should scale pretty handsomely by era.

Production - I imagine this would scale by era, but not to a huge degree. Late-game production is obviously greater than early-game, but it has a lot to with city size, which doesn't necessarily scale by era (at least not by definition).

Food - This one I imagine probably won't be scaling all that much, certainly not profoundly. Also, I may have asked this already, but is +Food a /turn thing, or a massive dump of Food (which is essentially mechanically identical to +1 pop)

Population - I'd guess this wouldn't scale by era.

Units - I'd assume this only scales by era inasmuch as the units you'd get are better in later eras.

Influence - This wouldn't scale by era, would it? We aren't doing Ajah influence yields (which would end up high numbers at the end of the game), and CSs/steddings/the Tower maintain the same relationship-requirements all throughout the game.

GP points - I actually don't understand enough of their mechanics to know if they scale by era at all. If they don't, then the yields shouldn't either.

Considering all of that, should we through out ballpark figures now, or wait?

S3rgeus said:
Depending on how we feel about the above, I think having choices like C could be good.

Play at Power
I'm still tempted to say the difference between M+S and +S isnt quite enough to justify this choice. As usual, I'm usually pretty fine with the Maj+S / Min+S difference, but not so much the +S / Min+S difference. But that is something that you and I have been going back and forth on this whole time. So, as ever: if you feel strongly about it, I'm fine with it. Otherwise, I say tweak this.

S3rgeus said:
King of All
text.

King of All
I understand, but I sort of feel like the random element is a little undesirable. Like, being the HK *could* give a player an unfair advantage, but it won't *always* do so. I'd feel better if this were a little more balanced. I suggest we either A) make a few (maybe 2 or 3) of the choices Big but Costed, which would prevent the frustration you described, or B) mellow it out a bit, maybe making it slightly better than average. As it is now,t hese benefits are on the level of "Costed" options elsewhere in the game, and that seems a little unfair maybe. Like, why the HK? Why not, say, the person with the best relationship with the tower, or who completes the World's Fair, or other in-game situations. It just feels arbitrary, somewhat.

S3rgeus said:
Endless Tidestext!

Endless Tides
that sounds like a good idea. the other solution is to make it TW only, and not apply to the LB.

S3rgeus said:
Across the Sea
For all of them, you're allowing the guild in question to represent your civilization in a venture to find new riches. Whichever one gets chosen will be ramping up activity and recruitment to carry out the voyage, which means they uplift more people in the process.

Across the Sea
I see it. I think as described now, it doesn't make sense. With a bit more description, I think it could make sense.

The other way to do it is to have it be sort of a World's Fair thing, where you can send people to share our civ with other civs, and see who should be send (scholars, artists, etc.). This could actually be a separate thread, one that's essentially the same, but different in flavor. Something like:

Touring Delegation
Flavor: The rest of the world yearns to learn of our civilization. Your advisers suggest you send a Delegation around the world, showing our people and customs to the rest of the globe. Who should lead this delegation?
Choice A: We should send our greatest scholar (+GP points (<Great Scientist equivalent>)
Choice B: We should send our greatest performer (+GP points (<Great musician equivalent>)
Choice C: Our greatest minds should remain at home, serving their people (+Happiness, Minor +Light)
Choice D: Require foreign peoples to pay a fee to meet our delegation... full of only second-rate individuals (+Gold, +Shadow)

of course, logically, the first two above should also generate Prestige, but... oh well. Also, this (and yours, as well), could be tweaked in several ways to include a great many different GP types.

S3rgeus said:
Tree Poachers
I definitely think Happiness will work. But before we sign this one off, what if the Stedding declares war on you? Given the penalties we discussed for capturing Stedding previously, the player may not want to capture them.

Tree Poachers
Hmmm... That could work. I feel like it sticks out a little, though. Like, this one thing, in all the threads, causes a DoW. I say keep thing in the terms we've already been using.

S3rgeus said:
Choice D: These Ogier can elevate some of our craftsmen to masters of their trade (Sacrifice a worker, Gain a <Great Engineer equivalent>)

Ogier Stonemasons
Same as my comment above, it seems a little too random to have pop up for one thread. Also, that seems like a really really easy trade. Essentially, it is exactly the same as -Gold (whatever the cost of a Worker is during that era), since worker's can be bought. Not enough, and shares the same problems -Gold has (hard to balance, and the whole "what if I don't have one" thing)"). I say -Science ftw.

S3rgeus said:
Good point for these! GP points are accrued on a per-city basis. I've gone back through all of these new ones and added a city specification to them in the master list. Wherever there was a city involved in the Thread, I've specified that city, otherwise I went for the capital.

right. So the thread will only pop up if you have a city that produces those GP points, and that city must, by definition, be the city mentioned in the thread, then?

S3rgeus said:
Flourishing Arts
There probably should be equivalents for Great Musicians and Great Artists (or this one should be Artists and another Writers). It just seemed like a lot of Culture Threads when Culture was already out in the lead.

makes sense. We just need to make sure in the end, we have equal Writer/Artists/Musician thread options, at least roughly.

S3rgeus said:
Talented Artisan
The intention is that he's already someone who's working in your city (he's one of the pop that's already there). By pulling him out and making him a GP, he's no longer doing his normal citizen stuff.

Talented Artisan
Ah, right. Population = Citizen. Right.

S3rgeus said:
I've added all of the above to the master list with any components of them still under discussion highlighted in red. (Hopefully I caught everything that we're still discussing.)

A few more quick numbers about Policies and Philosophies.

text

Right now, I'm going to shoot for having 3 of each for each Philosophy and 6 of each for Fear and Tolerance.

ok, agreed. That's actually a lot more threads, though! We'll be over 100.

S3rgeus said:
So, some more new Threads are in order!

Plague at the Tower
Flavor: A plague has broken out in the city around the White Tower. They have requested aid.
Choice A: This plague represents an opportunity for our scholars to do some questionable medical research (+Science, +Shadow)
Choice B: Rather than let the Tower's trade lapse as merchants flee the city, reroute their trade through your lands in the interim (+Gold, Minor +Light)
Choice C: Send stores of food and supplies to help the sick (+Tower Influence, +Light)
Choice D: We can leverage this situation to our advantage, forcing the Tower to send more Sisters to us (-Tower Influence, Gain Aes Sedai unit, Major +Shadow)
Restriction: must be Authority

So I've put -Tower Influence as the penalty for D. That's not one we've used elsewhere, but I figured an Authority civ is much more likely to find that penalty relevant, and gaining an Aes Sedai isn't as big a bonus as, say, a GP or a technology.

City around the white tower - should we not just say "The city of Tar Valon"?

OK, as much as i'm iffy with there being exactly one -Tower Influence thread.... I see your logic and am fine with it.

S3rgeus said:
Learned Spark
Flavor: Visitors from foreign lands have been suggesting that more people may be able to channel than those whose abilities manifest visibly.
Choice A: These rumors are clearly ridiculous, publicly reassure your people they are untrue (+Faith, +Shadow)
Choice B: These new channelers are clearly dangerous as well, we must research new ways to find them (+Science, Minor +Shadow)
Choice C: This information will cause rioting and wanton murder, people can be distracted by a public fair, at least for a time (+Culture, +Light)
Restriction: must be Oppression

I don't quite follow the alignment here. Why is C a light action? Why is A the most shadow of them all? It seems B is clearly hatemongering, but A.... you're an Oppression civ, which isn't by definition evil. This is simply reaffirming your own people's beliefs. Seems pretty neutral to me. I'd suggest A=neutral, B =Min+S, and C=Min+L

also, what about

Choice D: Perhaps the people deserve to know the truth. This may cause some chaos, but this revelation will shape our people's destiny and guide them in the future (-happiness, starts a <Golden Age equivalent>, +Light)

uh, are we doing +Spark? It seems like we should be, but I don't remember it happening much. Choice D seems like it might deserve to have that instead, or replace one of the earlier ones.

S3rgeus said:
Channeling Secret
Flavor: One of your advisers has admitted to you that she is a channeler. She has been hiding this secret for many years and now submits herself to your judgement.
Choice A: Hang her (+Happiness, +Shadow)
Choice B: This embarrassment must be kept a secret, reassign her to a remote part of your empire (Minor +Faith)
Choice C: We can study her to find ways to ferret out other channelers in hiding (+Science, +Shadow)
Choice D: This secret will remain between you and her (Major +Light)
Restriction: must be Oppression

i'm with you here. Seems like D probably shouldn't be Major Light. Maybe only +Light? It's sort of a selfish act - saving her life is also saving embarrassment.

S3rgeus said:
Enslaved Channelers
Flavor: A group of slavers have been capturing channelers among your people to sell on to the highest bidder.
Choice A: Channelers are not sold, they are earned, bestowed as servants by the crown. Seize their profits and outlaw this practice. (+Gold, +Light)
Choice B: The people seem to approve of them. Carry on. (+Faith, +Shadow)
Choice C: This kind of operation is the exclusive mandate of the crown. Reclaim the enslaved channelers as your own. (Gain Wilder? unit, Major +Shadow)
Restriction: must be Oppression

Yeah, I think this is all fine.

S3rgeus said:
It is hard to come up with Light choices for Oppression civs.

It's probably hard to be a Light-following Oppression civ! How many dictators do you know that are on the +Light side of the alignment spectrum? That's hard work!

S3rgeus said:
The Best of Us
Flavor: An extremely powerful female channeler has arisen from among your people. She has been Healing the sick and needy in <city you control>.
Choice A: She represents the best of us, appoint her to public office (-Food in <city>, Gain <channeling> Governor in <city>, +Light)
Choice B: Spread tales of her valor across the land (+Faith, +Light)
Choice C: She doesn't turn away anyone? There are some smugglers in need of medical care. (+Gold, Minor +Shadow)
Choice D: Her strength must be directed to defend our lands (Gain Wilder unit, +Shadow)
Restriction: Must be Liberation

This one is good. C is a little silly sounding, though. I'd just make sure it isn't when we do the actual verbiage.

S3rgeus said:
The Tainted Half
Flavor: The Taint that corrupts Saidin is a sickness in need of a cure. Male channelers in your land seek help in halting their eventual madness.
Choice A: The Taint cannot be Cleansed, but these men's lives can be made more bearable (Minor +Happiness, Minor +Light)
Choice B: Dedicate your best scholars to the task, the Taint must be removed (+Science, +Light)
Choice C: A cure? the Taint allows these men to see their true selves. It should not be destroyed. (+Faith, +Shadow)
Restriction: must be Liberation, Saidin cannot have been Cleansed

Wow. C is a trip! I think it should probably be minor shadow though.

What about:

Choice D: These men should be allowed to flourish, mad or not. Let them define our nation for eras to come! (-Production in Capitol, A Golden Age begins, +Shadow)

I thought of the cost being - Happiness, but that was a little weird (and I do it above). Could also be -Food.

S3rgeus said:
Tower Demand
Flavor: The White Tower is demanding one of your government officials, a powerful female channeler, be sent to the Tower to train. They offer to send a Sister as an adviser in exchange.
Choice A: We are a sovereign nation and do not bend to the Tower. Announce your refusal to your people. (+Faith, +Light)
Choice B: She has been indispensable at home, but now there is an opportunity to change the Tower from within. (Sacrifice a <channeling> Governor, Major +Tower Influence, Gain Aes Sedai unit, Minor +Light)
Choice C: This is an affront. Impose tariffs on any trade with the Tower (+Gold, Minor +Shadow)
Choice D: The Tower should see how vulnerable non-channeler officials are. Have a foreign official assassinated and hold them up as an example of why yours can defend themselves. (Major +Shadow)
Restriction: must be Liberation, must have met the Tower

D: also a trip.

So, I like this one, but is the sacrifice on B too specific? Are civs of this nature always going to have a channeling Gov (whatever the heck that is!), or might this be one of the frustrating moments you were speaking about? What if instead it was that the tower requests some of our channelers in general, so it was a -Spark?

S3rgeus said:
Liberation was far and away the easiest of these to come up with. Now we have some policy-related ones:

Herbs and Power
Flavor: A Wisdom in one of your villages near <city> is being harassed, accused of using the One Power to Heal people instead of herbs.
Choice A: Brand her an enemy of the state (+Faith, +Shadow)
Choice B: Send known true Wisdoms to investigate the people's claims (+Food in <city>, +Light)
Choice C: Send samples of <luxury resource you do not have that is plant-like> to this Wisdom to see if she can correctly identify it (Gain <resource>, Minor +Light)
Restriction: must be Fear

I think A should be Minor Shadow. It's not necessarily evil, right? if you say she should be executed, then sure, +Shadow.

Also,

Choice D: She must be Stilled, and used as a model for the way citizens of your nation must Heal (+Points towards Golden Age, +Shadow)

better wording?

S3rgeus said:
Of Dragons and Men
Flavor: The existence of False Dragons is whipping your people into a frenzy. They seek to kill any they find.
Choice A: Stoke the flames of this hatred (-FD points, +Shadow)
Choice B: These people would be better off in a disciplined environment, like your military (Gain a military unit, Minor +Light)
Choice C: Denounce the False Dragon, elevating you in the eyes of your people (+Faith, +Light)
Restriction: must be Fear, there must be a living False Dragon you are aware of

good

S3rgeus said:
Witches Abroad
Flavor: One of the witches from the White Tower has been sighted near <city you own>.
Choice A: The city must remain vigilant in its defenses! (Gain <walls equivalent building> in <city>, Minor +Light)
Choice B: Arrange an expedition to hunt her down and bring her to justice (+Faith, +Shadow)
Choice C: People need not fear the witches. Have one of your scribes release a memoir of your own past dealings where you bested the Tower's representatives. (+Culture, Minor +Shadow)
Choice D: Publicly demand that the Tower stay out of your affairs (Minor +Happiness, +Light)
Restriction: must be Fear, must have a city without <walls equivalent>

I think B would need to include some "consequence," i.e. -Tower influence. You're capturing an Aes SEdai! Consequently, I think we should change the flavor so that isn't necessary:

Choice B: Arrange an expedition to find her and drive her away from your lands (+Faith, +Shadow)
or Minor Shadow, probably.

S3rgeus said:
Advisers Unwell
Flavor: A dangerous sickness has been spreading in your capital and several of your advisers have been bedridden for weeks.
Choice A: Appeal to the Tower to Heal your scholarly adviser (+Science, Minor +Light)
Choice B: Your financial adviser claims to know a Wilder who can Heal him. Have her brought to the capital. (+Gold, +Light)
Choice C: Kidnap a Wilder and threaten to send her to the Tower if she doesn't heal your cultural adviser. (+Culture, +Shadow)
Choice D: A group of Wisdoms could Heal your quartermaster if offered tax incentives (+Food in capital, Minor +Shadow)
Restriction: must be Tolerance, must have met the Tower

I don't see why A wouldn't be Tower influence? Can it be tweaked to make sense with Science? It currently doesn't.

I'd say either A or D coould be/should be neutral.

S3rgeus said:
Ends of Madness
Flavor: Some men in the later stages of madness from the Taint on Saidin have been nonviolent and seek to live out their final days in peace.
Choice A: They can live them out in peace, but abroad, where any madness episodes will disrupt someone else's empire, not ours (Minor +Shadow)
Choice B: Our people will understand if we show leniency (+Light)
Choice C: These men are beyond help, and must be killed now (+Shadow)
Restriction: must be Tolerance, Saidin must not have been Cleansed

Alignment-reward-only choices? Do we want to have any Threads like this?

Interesting. I can see this, but it feels a little weird. I generally like the alignment only ones "standing out" in a thread - either as the only way to NOT have a bunch of alignment earned, or as the only way to get a bunch of alignment.

I think an "Alignment only" thread should probably *feel* that way. Like it is directly about the Shadow, the upcoming LB, the TWs, the forsaken, darkfriends, something like that.

I'd suggest here adding yields to at least two of these. Otherwise, this one feels sort of arbitrarily yield-barren

S3rgeus said:
Enhanced Power
Flavor: A cache of powerful items from the Age of Legends has been discovered buried near <city you own>. They enhance the channeling abilities of any channeler who wields them.
Choice A: This newfound strength could help our craftsmen in securing structures (+Production in <city>, Minor +Light)
Choice B: No one else may have them, we must uncover the secrets of making more of these items (Minor +Science, +Shadow)
Choice C: We can claim these items as a part of the heritage of our people (+Culture, +Shadow)
Choice D: The channelers of <city> should be able to use them for what they wish (Receive <channeling-related building> in <city>, +Light)
Restriction: must be Tolerance, must have a city that doesn't have <building>

These are fine. Shouldn't one of them produce Spark though, or the "ter'angreal cache" strategic resource, if not that? The flavor seems to demand it. Of these, B seems the most removable.

S3rgeus said:
Guild Channelerstext

C seems a little silly. Like channeling musical-apprentices? Maybe it should be that the musicians perform ABOUT said channelers or something.

S3rgeus said:
I also said above that there should be some Shadow-Last-Battle ones since two of my suggestions from last time only work for the Light:

An Opportunity to Helptext.

I agree, but I think A should consequently be Minor +Light, then.

S3rgeus said:
What is that Smell?
text

great

S3rgeus said:
And for everybody:

Ogier Warfare
text

I think as phrased this one mostly doesn't work. I think, truth is, the Ogier CAN'T choose the shadow. I think that's who they are. If I recall correctly, they can choose to fight, to leave this world, to ignore it, etc. I don't think they can go shadow though. I could be wrong, though. Search the Thread for "Book of Translation" - I think that's when we were talking about it (I totally don't have time now).

The big problem is that these choices seem like they'd actually AFFECT the stump, which they won't of course... we need to rephrase so it makes more sense that these threads actually do nothing (beyond for this player)

Choice A is a good example. It is cool, but flavored like that, it would need to "matter," I think. Like, actually affect the stump. I'd rephrase it so that it doesn't seem so certain (i.e. no "ensure" and such).

Choice B is similar - slight change in phrasing is probably good.

C should simply seek to "recruit Ogier sympathetic to our cause" or something.

D can't work, Idon't think, since we can't put conditions like "only if they refuse".... since the player can't control that. We could change it so it's about lying to them, "swearing" we will protect them, or something, but that would also require a +Shadow element.

Also, what about Golden Age points ones? We should have some, right? I added a few above, but.. .is that enough!

Got to go, running late!

counterpoint · Apr 27, 2015

Alright. So I had a little time. I thought I might add a few more threads to fill needs that might exist.

Horse Thief
Flavor: Your scouts have discovered a merchant caravan transporting a high number of the legendary Razor horses through your lands.
Choice A: This is an excellent opportunity to 'secure' such prized beasts! (+2 Horse, +Shadow)
Choice B: Surely these merchants will give us a good deal on some of their merchandise for permission to travel through our territory. (+1 Horse)
Choice C: They seek to move their wares through our lands? They much pay a toll! (+Gold, Minor +Shadow)
Choice D: These merchants are harming no one. We can secure our mounts on the open market later (+Light).
Restriction: Era must not have reached Era of New Beginnings, <technology that unlocks Horses>

Unclaimed Mines
Flavor: Your miners have discovered untapped deposits of Copper just outside of your borders.
Choice A: These resources are not ours to collect, but our scholars should study the deposit to see if they can learn where to find some within our lands. (+Science, +Light)
Choice B: Sell the location of these deposits to the highest bidder (+Gold, Minor +Shadow)
Choice C: Nobody else is using them. Seize the deposits!(+2 Copper, +Shadow)
Choice D: This ore will be invaluable in helping our industry in the Capitol (+Production in Capitol, Minor +Shadow)
Restriction: Era must not have reached Era of New Beginnings, <technology that unlocks Copper> must have been researched

Peat Culture
Your explores have discovered an untapped source of Peat! Unfortunately, they have also discovered the artifacts of a lost culture buried within the precious bogs.
Choice A: This culture means nothing to us - harvest the Peat. (+2 Peat, +Shadow)
Choice B: This requires a grand expedition. Secure the artifacts for posterity (Minor -Production in Capitol, Gain GW of Artifact type, +Light)
Choice C: Some evidence of this culture should be preserved, but otherwise we should utilize this resource. (Minor +Culture, Minoir +Production in Capitol, Minor +Light)
Choice D: This site represents a failed civilization. It would tarnish our unblemished history to use such tools of weakness. Set the bogs ablaze! (Minor +Faith, Major +Shadow).
Restriction: <Technology that unlocks Peat> must have been researched

Laboratory Resource
Flavor: Your scholars have discovered that, using the majesty of Science, they can create a substance that bears a striking similarity to <luxury resource the civ does not have>
Choice A: Amazing! Distribute it throughout your civilization immediately. (Gain <luxury resource the civ does not have>)
Choice B: This miraculous discovery should be shared with the entire world. (+Prestige, Minor +Science, Major +Light)
Choice C: This fantastic technique should be put to use towards more important things - perhaps it can yield even more astounding secrets. (+GP Points <Great Scientist equivalent>, Minor +Light)
Choice D: We should trade this resource with our rivals - no need to tell them it is a forgery! (+Gold, +Shadow)
Restriction: Era must have reached Era of Encroaching Blight

Forbidden Pleasures
Flavor: Some extreme zealots within your kingdom are asserting that <luxury resource the civ has> is sinful and should be avoided.
Choice A: These men and women are influential, we should follow their lead and halt the distribution of this resource (-Happiness, Major +Faith, Minor +Golden Age Points, +Light)
Choice B: Encourage your people to consume <resource> only in moderation (Minor +Faith, Minor +Light)
Choice C: This is silly. This luxury provides a great distraction for your people (Minor +Shadow)
Restriction: Must have a majority Path

Note: I'm giving a -Happiness for A instead of removing the actual resource... seems simpler that way.

Dawn of a New Day
Flavor: Now that the Shadow has been defeated, your soldiers await direction.
Choice A: Let your soldiers return home, honoring them with a grand celebration (+Golden Age Points, Minor +Light)
Choice A: We must remain ever vigilant - double down on our defenses (+ X Strength Military units)
Choice C: Idle soldiers can only cause trouble. Keep them far from their homeland (Minor +Happiness, Minor +Shadow)
Choice D: These men are heroes. They should be brought home and given a high place in society, where they might serve as an example to the realm. (Lose X Strength Military units, Starts a Golden Age, +Light)
Restriction: Must be the Era of Freedom, the Trolloc Wars must have ended.

Schism
Flavor: Your advisers tell you of a few outspoken leaders of your Path. They seek major reformations.
Choice A: These men should be exiled. We have no need of such changes (Gain a Missionary Unit, +Shadow)
Choice B: If our brightest minds desire change, they shall have it. Provide these leaders and their people whatever resources they need to achieve their goals (-Food in Capitol, Gain <Great Prophet equivalent>, Minor +Light)
Choice C: A healthy dialogue is the best solution - call a conference where these issues can be debated openly. (+Faith, +Light)
Restriction: Must have founded a Path that is still present in your civilization.

Infiltration of Belief
Flavor: The heathens from other civilizations have begun to convert our people to their foolish Paths.
Choice A: This is an outrage! We must rally the faithful to extinguish these preposterous beliefs (Gain <Inquisitor equivalent> unit)
Choice B: Perhaps the best way to retaliate is to do the same to their cities! (Gain Missionary unit, Minor +Shadow)
Choice C: The real issue is whether or not our people's moral framework has been compromised. We must rally to prevent disruption of our way of life! (Gain Herald unit)
Choice D: Perhaps this time of division can inspire our people towards greater understanding and a new era of enlightenment (+Golden Age Points, +Light)
Restriction: Must have a majority Path. Must have at least one city that has been converted to a different Path.

Moral Path
Flavor: <City with Shadow-leaning Alignment> has gradually drifted from the righteous moral direction you try to inspire.
Choice A: Your people must be taught the correct way by example. (Gain Herald unit, +Light)
Choice B: There is nothing wrong with your people - they are smart, and will do the right thing on their own (+Faith)
Choice C: Perhaps an unscrupulous city is an asset - your people need a place to go where they can conduct business of the unsavory sort (Minor +Happiness, Minor +Shadow)
Restriction: Must have overall Light Alignment. Must have at least one city that has an Alignment that is too far towards Shadow.

Prudish Folk
Flavor: <City with Light-leaning Alignment> has been corrupted by the puritanical nonsense of other civilizations.
Choice A: You should make an example of these folk - show them what happens to the weak (-Pop in <city>, +Faith, Gain X Strength Military units near <city>, Major +Shadow
Choice B: How silly. Show them what it really means to be a citizen of this civilization. (Gain Herald unit, +Shadow)
Choice C: Perhaps the citizens there are more trustworthy than your other folk. It may be a safe place to conduct international trade (+Gold, Minor +Light)
Restriction: Must have overall Shadow Alignment. Must have at least one city that has an Alignment that is too far towards Light.

Build for the Future
Flavor: Your civilization is ever growing, and needs your citizens to fulfill its needs
Choice A: We should recruit citizens from the surrounding villages to work towards the betterment of our cities (+Production in Capitol)
Choice B: We should aim to make our streets cleaner and our cities safer - put our citizens to work towards that end (+Food in Capitol, Minor +Light)
Choice C: Certainly these citizens would be best used working on our infrastructure (Gain Worker unit)
Choice D: Our citizens have grown fat and happy at home. Send them away to spread our greatness abroad (-Pop in Capitol, Gain Settler unit, Minor +Shadow)

And that's all I have! And probably all I *will* have in the near future.

S3rgeus · Apr 27, 2015

counterpoint said:
This is a very good point. More threads can essentially be added whenever, and that includes a couple months from now, when we're working on other stuff and get random ideas. It's looking like we may very well have hit 100 with your post today, so, given that, maybe we should stop and move one once these are settled?

After your last post, we're at 111 total now. So yeah, I think we can hold off on making any more until (and if) we discuss some other mechanics that haven't been included in the existing ones and should be.

counterpoint said:
Well, I was actually even thinking about the fact that having a surplus of Light opportunities isn't in and of itself a bad thing, maybe. But yes, even considering that, nobody would notice, especially since which Threads people receive will be random (right?). One player could randomly end up with the shadow-heavy stuff in one playthrough, or the science-heavy stuff, for instance.

Yeah, exactly. Since Threads are random, small differences in choices' Alignment availability would only be observable by players if they tracked which ones they encountered and made a statistical model over multiple playthroughs. (Or they could look at the database, much simpler.)

counterpoint said:
I think either of those could work, so would it be modified with a simple word, such as:

"slightly delay a False Dragon"
"delay a False Dragon"
"greatly delay a False Dragon"
?

Yep, these sound good. Though I don't think we have any Minor or Major FD point reductions, which is fine.

counterpoint said:
Right, I think we were just going to make the Great Captain also be an admiral. We don't have to do this though... it's just that there isn't a lot of flavor for sea-stuff that isn't sea-folk linked in WoT. We can revisit this in our upcoming GP discussion. We can add threads if we need to, at this point, or else just make the GCaptain ones have an alternate admiral version.

Sounds good. We can address the Admiral when we do GPs then.

counterpoint said:
Homage to the High King
Hmmm... I get it, it makes sense. I still feel like it's a little anachronistic, though. Forgeries of famous artists and whatnot. I suggest we either make it much more clear (e.g. specify that it is a famous portrait that is being copies) or go with the heirlooms thing, which seems to a make a little more sense to me.

It's not necessarily a single portrait being copied, but anyway, the flavor of this seems to be confusing then. Let's go with heirlooms.

counterpoint said:
Homage to the High King
Regarding B, I think this could be fine. This feels a little wonky if you are the high king, though. I'd say, actually, this whole Thread is a bit odd if you are the HK.

I see what you mean a bit, but the only real difference we'd need if we were writing exclusively for the High King would be to substitute "your" into a few places instead of "High King's". Having too many High King-only Threads doesn't seem like a good idea, since there's only ever a High King for a very short amount of time, compared to how often Threads are given out, and High King-only ones are only available to one player, during just that time. I think this Thread is fine for both High King and non-HK civs. The language will of course change for the final entries, so we should be able to make it more suitable then, as long as we've captured the essence of what the choices mean for now.

counterpoint said:
Crowns and Swords
Right. I think this should be stated a bit more clearly. Like, instead of just saying "a crown fit for a High King," make it more clear that you aren't the HK. Something like "Your adviser's tell you that you deserve a crown as grand as the High King's". That kind of thing.

I like, on B, forcing him for full shadow.

The phrasing "a crown fit for a High King" is specifically intended to allow the High King to also see this Thread and for it still to make sense. (My previous post was the explanation for how it makes sense for non-High King civs.) This way it's applicable to any civ, as long as a High King has at some point been crowned. This also isn't final copy, as we've said elsewhere, so the specific wording may change, but the applicability to both High King and non-High King players is intentional.

Changed B.

counterpoint said:
For the beginning of the game, this seems fine to me. It's hard to say, of course, since we don't know exactly how often Threads appear - should we discuss that, by the way? I recall that they become more frequent over time, but did we decide exactly how? Our yields should scale with that in mind.

We should! We didn't decide on any numbers, just a general gist that Threads become more frequent over time. I think we may have ballparked happening every 20-30 turns. That sounds to me like a good place to start at (Ancient Era) and get more frequent from there on.

Simple range proposal, in turns:

Ancient Era 20-30
Classical Era: 17-26
Medieval Era: 14-22
Renaissance Era: 11-18
Industrial Era: 9-15
Modern Era: 8-13
Atomic Era: 7-11
Information Era: 6-9
Fourth Age: 5-7

Alternatively we could take a probability approach, where the player has X% chance of encountering a Thread each turn, where X is defined by which era the player is currently in. (Are we using player era or world era? I think either could work.) This would mean Threads sometimes come closer together and farther apart than expected. Do we think that added randomness is valuable or a liability? I'm leaning towards the latter, but not strongly.

counterpoint said:
Another thing that popped into my head - Citizen yields don't change over time, right? So they, by definition, have less of a place in the later parts of the game. We're good with that, right?

Well, they do effectively change over time. Various buildings/policies/resources make tiles/specialists produce more yields, so each citizen contributes higher yields by the end of the game than at the start. I think these guys should scale up too.

counterpoint said:
I think the Scale-by-era thing should apply somewhat unevenly, with some changing hugely, and some not very much. Just going through the list:

Alignment - this should scale, but probably not actually that much. You have around 5x scale over the course of the entire game. This is probably fine, but it could probably be even less (2x or 3x). The truth is, requirements for Alignment tier to *not* scale by era, so we still want the extreme alignments to be difficult to get if you aren't very focused. And, also, we probably don't want a situation where a single act late-game knocks you two categories over (perhaps with Major Alignment being an exception).

The 5x multiplier means that a Major Alignment change at the end of the game would put a Neutral civ in tier 2 of that Alignment (just about, unless they were already leaning the opposite direction a bit, then it might leave them at the high end of tier 1). I think that works, as you've said. A Normal one would knock them out of the Neutral tier into the bottom of tier 1 (unless they were already leaning a bit the other direction). Minor would likely let them keep the same tier, unless they were right on the edge of tier 1 already. It's this kind of endgame situation where the Neutral civs are almost boxed into the Minor choices, and increased non-Alignment payout in the non-Minor choices becomes more tempting to make them choose a side. (Especially since Threads are coming closer together, if they decide to commit now, they'd never get to the highest tiers, but they could make it worth their while to do.)

Requirements for Alignment tier don't scale by era and I think the scaling of Alignment is what allows us to set up the tiers the way we did (progressively farther apart). It's more interesting to allow the civs to swing more and harder towards the end of the game, and also meshes with how CiV manages other yields and mechanics in general. I think we should set up the initial Alignment yields (so in the Ancient Era) in such a way that if they remained fixed for the duration of the game at that level, it would be impossible to reach the highest tier on either side. It's only the scaling that lets the players reach tier 8.

This also meshes well with our notion that Alignment become more important as the game goes on. Similar to Tourism in BNW, it is very difficult to generate large quantities in the early game, so it becomes a more late game relevant mechanic.

I also totally agree that the different rewards should scale unevenly, because some of them need to be scaled differently to remain relevant.

counterpoint said:
Science - I think this should scale very very much. Probably exactly in line with tech-cost scaling (which you know better than I). This applies to costs and bonuses.

Culture - This should probably also scale very very much, in line with Policy cost scaling.

Prestige - This should scale for the same reasons as above.

Gold - I think this one should scale, but I could imagine the degree might be less than science and culture. I'm not sure I can imagine several thousand gold being dropped in an instant on a thread.

Faith - This should scale pretty handsomely by era.

Production - I imagine this would scale by era, but not to a huge degree. Late-game production is obviously greater than early-game, but it has a lot to with city size, which doesn't necessarily scale by era (at least not by definition).

Food - This one I imagine probably won't be scaling all that much, certainly not profoundly. Also, I may have asked this already, but is +Food a /turn thing, or a massive dump of Food (which is essentially mechanically identical to +1 pop)

Population - I'd guess this wouldn't scale by era.

Units - I'd assume this only scales by era inasmuch as the units you'd get are better in later eras.

Influence - This wouldn't scale by era, would it? We aren't doing Ajah influence yields (which would end up high numbers at the end of the game), and CSs/steddings/the Tower maintain the same relationship-requirements all throughout the game.

GP points - I actually don't understand enough of their mechanics to know if they scale by era at all. If they don't, then the yields shouldn't either.

Considering all of that, should we through out ballpark figures now, or wait?

I agree with these.

Just to run some numbers for how much things cost. Costs of all techs and buildings are modified by a variety of game speed, map size, difficulty, and all sorts of other in-game fun. But comparing the underlying DB costs, the first line of techs in the Ancient Era cost a base of 35 beakers each. Future Tech costs 9500 (previous column before Future Tech cost 8800 each). A Monument costs a base of 40 hammers. The CN Tower costs 1250 Hammers, so clearly Production scales much less so than Science. (And as a wonder, the CN Tower probably isn't a fair comparison, a Recycling Center, which is the most Hammer-intensive non-Wonder building I see, costs 500.) Units actually scale more aggressively than Buildings - they start at 25 with the Scout and end at 1000 with the Nuclear Missile. (Space ship parts are 1500.)

I imagine the amount of Population we give out won't change over the course of the game. Given that it costs more Food to grow a larger city, that's technically still scaling over the course of the game. (Assuming larger cities in later eras.)

GPs cost more GP points for every GP you generate of that GP category. All of the Culture GPs are their own category, so spawning a Great Artist makes your Great Artists cost more GP points, but doesn't affect any other GPs. Great Scientists, Great Engineers, and Great Merchants are all in the same category (so making more of any of them, makes your next of all of them more expensive). Great Prophets have their own magic Faith-based system unrelated to GP points. Great Generals and Great Admirals also make subsequent of themselves more expensive - you get them from EXP earned from relevant units.

Upshot of all that, yes, GP points should scale per era, since GPs will be more expensive later on. But not drastically so, certainly nothing like Science.

For the Food thing, I think our rewards should be Food per turn for X turns, but that's really just a feeling, because it makes it mechanically distinct from +X Pop (as you've said, otherwise they'd be the same).

I don't think we necessarily need to put numbers on these yet. We'll probably want to consider game speed and difficulty as well as progress through the game, which I don't believe we've actually addressed before. I've been thinking about the technical design behind how we can get the Threads to work in-game for a while now and have been itching to try it out. (Need to find the time!) We don't need to have finalized any numbers for me to put that in place though, since changing the actual magnitude of the yields is a simple XML swap out, no code changes. So I think we can leave it for now.

counterpoint said:
Play at Power
I'm still tempted to say the difference between M+S and +S isnt quite enough to justify this choice. As usual, I'm usually pretty fine with the Maj+S / Min+S difference, but not so much the +S / Min+S difference. But that is something that you and I have been going back and forth on this whole time. So, as ever: if you feel strongly about it, I'm fine with it. Otherwise, I say tweak this.

I think it will be fine. A smaller difference is more likely to tempt the Neutrals and possible start a snowball on them. It will be easy enough to change later if we find in-game that this choice stands out as unuseful.

counterpoint said:
King of All
I understand, but I sort of feel like the random element is a little undesirable. Like, being the HK *could* give a player an unfair advantage, but it won't *always* do so. I'd feel better if this were a little more balanced. I suggest we either A) make a few (maybe 2 or 3) of the choices Big but Costed, which would prevent the frustration you described, or B) mellow it out a bit, maybe making it slightly better than average. As it is now,t hese benefits are on the level of "Costed" options elsewhere in the game, and that seems a little unfair maybe. Like, why the HK? Why not, say, the person with the best relationship with the tower, or who completes the World's Fair, or other in-game situations. It just feels arbitrary, somewhat.

Yeah, I agree on the randomness. So let's mellow him out a bit:

King of All
Flavor: The Blight grows restless and, as the High King, you wield enough power to rouse the nations against any Shadowspawn that seek to range beyond their home.
Choice A: Muster your forces and urge the Provinces to step up their defenses, sending men and supplies to the Blightborder (+Happiness, +Light)
Choice B: If the Borderlanders are willing to hand over some of their weapons technology, you could be convinced to help find troops for the war effort (-Happiness, Free technology, +Shadow)
Choice C: The Borderlanders will fight and die as they always do, we can thrive in peace while they defend us (+Food and +Production in capital, Major +Shadow)
Choice D: The High King should lead from the front. Lead your armies in victory against the Shadowspawn. (+Prestige, Minor +Happiness, Major +Light)
Restriction: You must be High King

counterpoint said:
Endless Tides
that sounds like a good idea. the other solution is to make it TW only, and not apply to the LB.

Done (Light-locked)

counterpoint said:
Across the Sea
I see it. I think as described now, it doesn't make sense. With a bit more description, I think it could make sense.

Ok, how about:

Choice A: Scholars in our land should benefit from the prestige of sponsoring this journey
Choice B: Artists in our land should benefit from the prestige of sponsoring this journey
Choice C: The faithful of our land should benefit from the prestige of sponsoring this journey

counterpoint said:
The other way to do it is to have it be sort of a World's Fair thing, where you can send people to share our civ with other civs, and see who should be send (scholars, artists, etc.). This could actually be a separate thread, one that's essentially the same, but different in flavor. Something like:

Touring Delegation
Flavor: The rest of the world yearns to learn of our civilization. Your advisers suggest you send a Delegation around the world, showing our people and customs to the rest of the globe. Who should lead this delegation?
Choice A: We should send our greatest scholar (+GP points (<Great Scientist equivalent>)
Choice B: We should send our greatest performer (+GP points (<Great musician equivalent>)
Choice C: Our greatest minds should remain at home, serving their people (+Happiness, Minor +Light)
Choice D: Require foreign peoples to pay a fee to meet our delegation... full of only second-rate individuals (+Gold, +Shadow)

of course, logically, the first two above should also generate Prestige, but... oh well. Also, this (and yours, as well), could be tweaked in several ways to include a great many different GP types.

We could flavor A and B as uplifting individuals for the delegation, to avoid the association with Prestige, like:

Choice A: Have our greatest scholars work in concert to educate our representatives for the delegation

Or characterize it as a search:

Choice B: Search far and wide for new talent to aid our performing delegation

Either approach could apply to both.

counterpoint said:
Tree Poachers
Hmmm... That could work. I feel like it sticks out a little, though. Like, this one thing, in all the threads, causes a DoW. I say keep thing in the terms we've already been using.

Agreed, Happiness it is!

counterpoint said:
Ogier Stonemasons
Same as my comment above, it seems a little too random to have pop up for one thread. Also, that seems like a really really easy trade. Essentially, it is exactly the same as -Gold (whatever the cost of a Worker is during that era), since worker's can be bought. Not enough, and shares the same problems -Gold has (hard to balance, and the whole "what if I don't have one" thing)"). I say -Science ftw.

Done

counterpoint said:
right. So the thread will only pop up if you have a city that produces those GP points, and that city must, by definition, be the city mentioned in the thread, then?

There's no prerequisite for generating GP points in a city, so whichever city the Thread is relevant to, we can add the GP yield to that city. GP points are more effective in cities that already produce them, since they'll get to the GPs faster, but finding the correct cities the player controls is already quite restrictive, I don't think we want to make it more so.

I'm assuming we're adding GP points per turn for X turns? Or do we prefer a dump of points?

counterpoint said:
makes sense. We just need to make sure in the end, we have equal Writer/Artists/Musician thread options, at least roughly.

Flourishing Arts
Yep, that sounds good.

counterpoint said:
Talented Artisan
Ah, right. Population = Citizen. Right.

Done

counterpoint said:
City around the white tower - should we not just say "The city of Tar Valon"?

OK, as much as i'm iffy with there being exactly one -Tower Influence thread.... I see your logic and am fine with it.

Plague at the Tower
We could say Tar Valon. This was me being a bit of a technical stickler on the text, because the way the Tower system is set up to loosely support multiple Towers means that the city with the White Tower isn't necessarily Tar Valon in all configurations. But it will be for the main game, at least as we're approaching it now. So we could say Tar Valon. If we ever have a Schism scenario and that scenario includes Threads, we won't remember to change this though! But that's a small eventual if that doesn't matter all that much, so let's say Tar Valon.

counterpoint said:
I don't quite follow the alignment here. Why is C a light action? Why is A the most shadow of them all? It seems B is clearly hatemongering, but A.... you're an Oppression civ, which isn't by definition evil. This is simply reaffirming your own people's beliefs. Seems pretty neutral to me. I'd suggest A=neutral, B =Min+S, and C=Min+L

also, what about

Choice D: Perhaps the people deserve to know the truth. This may cause some chaos, but this revelation will shape our people's destiny and guide them in the future (-happiness, starts a <Golden Age equivalent>, +Light)

uh, are we doing +Spark? It seems like we should be, but I don't remember it happening much. Choice D seems like it might deserve to have that instead, or replace one of the earlier ones.

Yeah, we've done +Spark on a couple of Threads already. So shall we have D be:

Choice D: Perhaps the people deserve to know the truth. This may cause some chaos, but this revelation will shape our people's destiny and guide them in the future (+Spark, +Light)

Agreed on the Alignment changes to A, B, and C.

counterpoint said:
i'm with you here. Seems like D probably shouldn't be Major Light. Maybe only +Light? It's sort of a selfish act - saving her life is also saving embarrassment.

Channeling Secret
Done

counterpoint said:
Yeah, I think this is all fine.

Enslaved Channelers
Done

counterpoint said:
It's probably hard to be a Light-following Oppression civ! How many dictators do you know that are on the +Light side of the alignment spectrum? That's hard work!

Hard work indeed!

counterpoint said:
This one is good. C is a little silly sounding, though. I'd just make sure it isn't when we do the actual verbiage.

The Best of Us
Done

counterpoint said:
Wow. C is a trip! I think it should probably be minor shadow though.

What about:

Choice D: These men should be allowed to flourish, mad or not. Let them define our nation for eras to come! (-Production in Capitol, A Golden Age begins, +Shadow)

I thought of the cost being - Happiness, but that was a little weird (and I do it above). Could also be -Food.

The Tainted Half
-Production is a bit of a non-cost, because a Golden Age gives you a big global production boost. -Food works.

We always seem to think quite differently about the Alignment implications of the Taint. I've always thought that anything that encourages/maintains the Taint is definitely quite evil, because it prevents a whole host of otherwise powerful people from standing against the Dark One. (The Taint is also a part of the Dark One's essence, which should be quite evil.) The Taint also seems to tip maddened men towards the Shadow.

Purely from the flavor, I would say C is more Shadow-y than D, since D is uplifting actual people, who may themselves not be Shadow-y. (As opposed to the Taint, which always is.) But mechanically I think we like the big payout to be on the more Alignment-y choices, so let's go with that.

counterpoint said:
D: also a trip.

So, I like this one, but is the sacrifice on B too specific? Are civs of this nature always going to have a channeling Gov (whatever the heck that is!), or might this be one of the frustrating moments you were speaking about? What if instead it was that the tower requests some of our channelers in general, so it was a -Spark?

Tower Demand
Ah, the Thread should have had a restriction that says they already have a channeling Governor. I'm not sure what a channeling Governor is exactly yet, until we discuss it, but presumably we'll have Governor types (a la GP types and most other things that correspond to yields), so whichever is most relevant to channeling seems sensible.

We could reflavor B for -Spark, but then D wouldn't really make sense anymore, and I think that one's really cool.

counterpoint said:
I think A should be Minor Shadow. It's not necessarily evil, right? if you say she should be executed, then sure, +Shadow.

Also,

Choice D: She must be Stilled, and used as a model for the way citizens of your nation must Heal (+Points towards Golden Age, +Shadow)

better wording?

Herbs and Power
Sounds good re Alignment change for A

Possible alternate wording for D:

Choice D: She will learn to heal people with herbs once she's been Stilled

It doesn't make as much sense for Golden age points then though.

counterpoint said:
good

Of Dragons and Men
Done

counterpoint said:
I think B would need to include some "consequence," i.e. -Tower influence. You're capturing an Aes SEdai! Consequently, I think we should change the flavor so that isn't necessary:

Choice B: Arrange an expedition to find her and drive her away from your lands (+Faith, +Shadow)
or Minor Shadow, probably.

Witches Abroad
I think +Shadow is fine, mainly so we don't have two Minor +Shadow choices in the one Thread. It seems like the more evil of the two.

counterpoint said:
I don't see why A wouldn't be Tower influence? Can it be tweaked to make sense with Science? It currently doesn't.

I'd say either A or D coould be/should be neutral.

Advisers Unwell
A makes sense, for each of these choices, it's which of your advisers you have Healed that determines what the yield bonus is. A is having your scholarly adviser Healed, hence Science.

Let's go with D being Neutral, since I think we've made Science a Neutral choice on a few other occasions.

counterpoint said:
Interesting. I can see this, but it feels a little weird. I generally like the alignment only ones "standing out" in a thread - either as the only way to NOT have a bunch of alignment earned, or as the only way to get a bunch of alignment.

I think an "Alignment only" thread should probably *feel* that way. Like it is directly about the Shadow, the upcoming LB, the TWs, the forsaken, darkfriends, something like that.

I'd suggest here adding yields to at least two of these. Otherwise, this one feels sort of arbitrarily yield-barren

Ends of Madness
Agreed. How about:

Choice A: They can live them out in peace, but abroad, where any madness episodes will disrupt someone else's empire, not ours (Minor +Happiness, Minor +Shadow)
Choice B: Our people will understand if we show leniency (+Golden Age points, +Light)
Choice C: These men are beyond help, and must be killed now (+Faith, +Shadow)

Not sure if Happiness is the right thing for A though.

counterpoint said:
These are fine. Shouldn't one of them produce Spark though, or the "ter'angreal cache" strategic resource, if not that? The flavor seems to demand it. Of these, B seems the most removable.

Enhanced Power
Totally, new B:

Choice B: They will make powerful weapons! (Gain 1 Ter'angreal Cache resource, +Shadow)

counterpoint said:
C seems a little silly. Like channeling musical-apprentices? Maybe it should be that the musicians perform ABOUT said channelers or something.

Guild Channelers
I would assume that channelers who work for a musician's guild would be doing things like making Power-infused instruments and the like, rather than necessarily training to be musicians. The same kind of way they'd be interacting with scholars in A or craftsmen in B, enhancing the work the existing skilled workers do, rather than training to make it themselves.

counterpoint said:
I agree, but I think A should consequently be Minor +Light, then.

An Opportunity to Help
Done

counterpoint said:
great

What is that Smell?
Done

S3rgeus · Apr 27, 2015

counterpoint said:
I think as phrased this one mostly doesn't work. I think, truth is, the Ogier CAN'T choose the shadow. I think that's who they are. If I recall correctly, they can choose to fight, to leave this world, to ignore it, etc. I don't think they can go shadow though. I could be wrong, though. Search the Thread for "Book of Translation" - I think that's when we were talking about it (I totally don't have time now).

The big problem is that these choices seem like they'd actually AFFECT the stump, which they won't of course... we need to rephrase so it makes more sense that these threads actually do nothing (beyond for this player)

Choice A is a good example. It is cool, but flavored like that, it would need to "matter," I think. Like, actually affect the stump. I'd rephrase it so that it doesn't seem so certain (i.e. no "ensure" and such).

Choice B is similar - slight change in phrasing is probably good.

C should simply seek to "recruit Ogier sympathetic to our cause" or something.

D can't work, Idon't think, since we can't put conditions like "only if they refuse".... since the player can't control that. We could change it so it's about lying to them, "swearing" we will protect them, or something, but that would also require a +Shadow element.

Ogier Warfare
Mm, I think it might be better to axe this one. It steps on too much of the Stump and what the role of the Ogier is in the Last Battle.

I think we also decided against the Ogier being able to leave the world in the end. Fighting or remaining Neutral ring a bell as the things we chose for their available options.

counterpoint said:
Alright. So I had a little time. I thought I might add a few more threads to fill needs that might exist.

We're over the character limit for the Part 2 Threads list as well now!

I've added Part 3 below and linked to it from the misc summary and part 2.

counterpoint said:
Horse Thief
Flavor: Your scouts have discovered a merchant caravan transporting a high number of the legendary Razor horses through your lands.
Choice A: This is an excellent opportunity to 'secure' such prized beasts! (+2 Horse, +Shadow)
Choice B: Surely these merchants will give us a good deal on some of their merchandise for permission to travel through our territory. (+1 Horse)
Choice C: They seek to move their wares through our lands? They much pay a toll! (+Gold, Minor +Shadow)
Choice D: These merchants are harming no one. We can secure our mounts on the open market later (+Light).
Restriction: Era must not have reached Era of New Beginnings, <technology that unlocks Horses>

Great

counterpoint said:
Unclaimed Mines
Flavor: Your miners have discovered untapped deposits of Copper just outside of your borders.
Choice A: These resources are not ours to collect, but our scholars should study the deposit to see if they can learn where to find some within our lands. (+Science, +Light)
Choice B: Sell the location of these deposits to the highest bidder (+Gold, Minor +Shadow)
Choice C: Nobody else is using them. Seize the deposits!(+2 Copper, +Shadow)
Choice D: This ore will be invaluable in helping our industry in the Capitol (+Production in Capitol, Minor +Shadow)
Restriction: Era must not have reached Era of New Beginnings, <technology that unlocks Copper> must have been researched

Great

counterpoint said:
Peat Culture
Your explores have discovered an untapped source of Peat! Unfortunately, they have also discovered the artifacts of a lost culture buried within the precious bogs.
Choice A: This culture means nothing to us - harvest the Peat. (+2 Peat, +Shadow)
Choice B: This requires a grand expedition. Secure the artifacts for posterity (Minor -Production in Capitol, Gain GW of Artifact type, +Light)
Choice C: Some evidence of this culture should be preserved, but otherwise we should utilize this resource. (Minor +Culture, Minoir +Production in Capitol, Minor +Light)
Choice D: This site represents a failed civilization. It would tarnish our unblemished history to use such tools of weakness. Set the bogs ablaze! (Minor +Faith, Major +Shadow).
Restriction: <Technology that unlocks Peat> must have been researched

Sounds good

counterpoint said:
Laboratory Resource
Flavor: Your scholars have discovered that, using the majesty of Science, they can create a substance that bears a striking similarity to <luxury resource the civ does not have>
Choice A: Amazing! Distribute it throughout your civilization immediately. (Gain <luxury resource the civ does not have>)
Choice B: This miraculous discovery should be shared with the entire world. (+Prestige, Minor +Science, Major +Light)
Choice C: This fantastic technique should be put to use towards more important things - perhaps it can yield even more astounding secrets. (+GP Points <Great Scientist equivalent>, Minor +Light)
Choice D: We should trade this resource with our rivals - no need to tell them it is a forgery! (+Gold, +Shadow)
Restriction: Era must have reached Era of Encroaching Blight

Science!

counterpoint said:
Forbidden Pleasures
Flavor: Some extreme zealots within your kingdom are asserting that <luxury resource the civ has> is sinful and should be avoided.
Choice A: These men and women are influential, we should follow their lead and halt the distribution of this resource (-Happiness, Major +Faith, Minor +Golden Age Points, +Light)
Choice B: Encourage your people to consume <resource> only in moderation (Minor +Faith, Minor +Light)
Choice C: This is silly. This luxury provides a great distraction for your people (Minor +Shadow)
Restriction: Must have a majority Path

Note: I'm giving a -Happiness for A instead of removing the actual resource... seems simpler that way.

The Thread flavor and the Alignment of the choices seems to characterize the people claiming <resource> is sinful quite differently. I would expect supporting "extreme zealots" to generate Shadow, rather than Light. We could change the Thread flavor to:

Flavor: Some of the more influential nobles in your lands are claiming that <luxury resource the civ has> is immoral and should be avoided.

Also potential D:

Choice D: People like <resource> and it should stay that way. Sentence its detractors to hard labor as retribution (+Production in capital, +Shadow)

counterpoint said:
Dawn of a New Day
Flavor: Now that the Shadow has been defeated, your soldiers await direction.
Choice A: Let your soldiers return home, honoring them with a grand celebration (+Golden Age Points, Minor +Light)
Choice A: We must remain ever vigilant - double down on our defenses (+ X Strength Military units)
Choice C: Idle soldiers can only cause trouble. Keep them far from their homeland (Minor +Happiness, Minor +Shadow)
Choice D: These men are heroes. They should be brought home and given a high place in society, where they might serve as an example to the realm. (Lose X Strength Military units, Starts a Golden Age, +Light)
Restriction: Must be the Era of Freedom, the Trolloc Wars must have ended.

Cool

counterpoint said:
Schism
Flavor: Your advisers tell you of a few outspoken leaders of your Path. They seek major reformations.
Choice A: These men should be exiled. We have no need of such changes (Gain a Missionary Unit, +Shadow)
Choice B: If our brightest minds desire change, they shall have it. Provide these leaders and their people whatever resources they need to achieve their goals (-Food in Capitol, Gain <Great Prophet equivalent>, Minor +Light)
Choice C: A healthy dialogue is the best solution - call a conference where these issues can be debated openly. (+Faith, +Light)
Restriction: Must have founded a Path that is still present in your civilization.

I think -Production or -1 Pop works better as a cost for B.

counterpoint said:
Infiltration of Belief
Flavor: The heathens from other civilizations have begun to convert our people to their foolish Paths.
Choice A: This is an outrage! We must rally the faithful to extinguish these preposterous beliefs (Gain <Inquisitor equivalent> unit)
Choice B: Perhaps the best way to retaliate is to do the same to their cities! (Gain Missionary unit, Minor +Shadow)
Choice C: The real issue is whether or not our people's moral framework has been compromised. We must rally to prevent disruption of our way of life! (Gain Herald unit)
Choice D: Perhaps this time of division can inspire our people towards greater understanding and a new era of enlightenment (+Golden Age Points, +Light)
Restriction: Must have a majority Path. Must have at least one city that has been converted to a different Path.

A seems like a Shadow-y choice to me, hunting down believers and such. +Shadow? Looks more evil than B.

counterpoint said:
Moral Path
Flavor: <City with Shadow-leaning Alignment> has gradually drifted from the righteous moral direction you try to inspire.
Choice A: Your people must be taught the correct way by example. (Gain Herald unit, +Light)
Choice B: There is nothing wrong with your people - they are smart, and will do the right thing on their own (+Faith)
Choice C: Perhaps an unscrupulous city is an asset - your people need a place to go where they can conduct business of the unsavory sort (Minor +Happiness, Minor +Shadow)
Restriction: Must have overall Light Alignment. Must have at least one city that has an Alignment that is too far towards Shadow.

Should B be Minor +Light? Seems like having faith in your people to choose well is a relatively Light-minded attitude for a ruler.

Also, do we want to offer an option that allows the player to switch their Alignment focus?

Choice D: When did we become a nation of the Creator? This city should serve as an example to us all. (Major +Shadow)

counterpoint said:
Prudish Folk
Flavor: <City with Light-leaning Alignment> has been corrupted by the puritanical nonsense of other civilizations.
Choice A: You should make an example of these folk - show them what happens to the weak (-Pop in <city>, +Faith, Gain X Strength Military units near <city>, Major +Shadow
Choice B: How silly. Show them what it really means to be a citizen of this civilization. (Gain Herald unit, +Shadow)
Choice C: Perhaps the citizens there are more trustworthy than your other folk. It may be a safe place to conduct international trade (+Gold, Minor +Light)
Restriction: Must have overall Shadow Alignment. Must have at least one city that has an Alignment that is too far towards Light.

Same here as above, if we'd like an additional switchover choice:

Choice D: Corrupted? It is us who have been led astray! We must return to the embrace of the Creator. (Major +Light)

counterpoint said:
Build for the Future
Flavor: Your civilization is ever growing, and needs your citizens to fulfill its needs
Choice A: We should recruit citizens from the surrounding villages to work towards the betterment of our cities (+Production in Capitol)
Choice B: We should aim to make our streets cleaner and our cities safer - put our citizens to work towards that end (+Food in Capitol, Minor +Light)
Choice C: Certainly these citizens would be best used working on our infrastructure (Gain Worker unit)
Choice D: Our citizens have grown fat and happy at home. Send them away to spread our greatness abroad (-Pop in Capitol, Gain Settler unit, Minor +Shadow)

Hmmm, the value of C varies wildly throughout the game. If this is the first Thread you see, C is amazing and by far the best choice. If it's the endgame when you've already built improvements on all available hexes, then a worker is less useful. Although given the Last Battle should lead to an increased prevalence of pillaging, workers may retain their usefulness longer than in BNW.

We could have a restriction on this that you must reach the Era of Consolidation? That way C doesn't become an obvious choice for an early worker. I think I'd still be sorely tempted by C in most cases though. Maybe if we give it some Alignment, that will help, since as an Alignment-less choice, it's all upside for everybody.

We could make it a Shadow option, along the lines of:

Choice C: It sounds like we can afford to force some folk into working for the crown then. (Gain a Worker, +Shadow)

But then D should probably be Shadow-er since it's a costed one and I'm having trouble coming up with a very Shadow way of making a Settler. We could make C a Light option, but then Shadow players may feel cheated if they can't/won't pay for D.

Then again, maybe just the era prerequisite will make them comparable.

S3rgeus · Apr 27, 2015

Guild Channelers
Flavor: Some guilds in your capital have expressed interest in hiring some channelers to advise their luminaries in their work.
Choice A: Approve the scholar's guild's request (+GP points (Great Scientist equivalent>))
Choice B: Direct the craftsmen to hire a channeler who will spy on them for you (+GP points (<Great Engineer equivalent>), +Shadow)
Choice C: Direct the musicians to hire some channelers who have fallen on hard times (+GP points (<Great Musician equivalent>), +Light)
Restriction: must be Tolerance

An Opportunity to Help
Flavor: Forces controlled by <fellow Shadow civilization> have been pinned down fighting the Light.
Choice A: I suppose we should save them from their own incompetence. We'll have to hang onto the soldiers though. (Gain a military unit, Minor +Light)
Choice B: Use this failure to demonstrate <fellow Shadow civilization>'s foolishness to the Chosen or Shaidar Haran, currying favor for yourself. (Gain a Trolloc unit, +Shadow)
Choice C: This is your chance to undermine <fellow Shadow civilization> in truth. Feed the enemy intelligence about their positioning and formations. (Major +Shadow)
Restriction: You must be declared for the Shadow during the Last Battle, there must be more than one civilization declared for the Shadow

What is that Smell?
Flavor: Your men have been complaining that Trollocs make smelly and unpredictable allies.
Choice A: The Trollocs are here to stay, they need to learn to like it (Gain a Trolloc unit, +Shadow)
Choice B: Split your forces so that the Shadowspawn are deployed separately from your human soldiers (+Happiness, Minor +Light)
Choice C: Perhaps those who complain should lead the next charge against the enemy (Major +Shadow)
Restriction: You must be declared for the Shadow during the Last Battle

Touring Delegation
Flavor: The rest of the world yearns to learn of our civilization. Your advisers suggest you send a Delegation around the world, showing our people and customs to the rest of the globe. Who should lead this delegation?
Choice A: Search far and wide for new talent to aid our scholars' delegation (+GP points (<Great Scientist equivalent>))
Choice B: Search far and wide for new talent to aid our performing delegation (+GP points (<Great musician equivalent>))
Choice C: Our greatest minds should remain at home, serving their people (+Happiness, Minor +Light)
Choice D: Require foreign peoples to pay a fee to meet our delegation... full of only second-rate individuals (+Gold, +Shadow)

Horse Thief
Flavor: Your scouts have discovered a merchant caravan transporting a high number of the legendary Razor horses through your lands.
Choice A: This is an excellent opportunity to 'secure' such prized beasts! (+2 Horse, +Shadow)
Choice B: Surely these merchants will give us a good deal on some of their merchandise for permission to travel through our territory. (+1 Horse)
Choice C: They seek to move their wares through our lands? They much pay a toll! (+Gold, Minor +Shadow)
Choice D: These merchants are harming no one. We can secure our mounts on the open market later (+Light).
Restriction: Era must not have reached Era of New Beginnings, <technology that unlocks Horses> must have been researched

Unclaimed Mines
Flavor: Your miners have discovered untapped deposits of Copper just outside of your borders.
Choice A: These resources are not ours to collect, but our scholars should study the deposit to see if they can learn where to find some within our lands. (+Science, +Light)
Choice B: Sell the location of these deposits to the highest bidder (+Gold, Minor +Shadow)
Choice C: Nobody else is using them. Seize the deposits!(+2 Copper, +Shadow)
Choice D: This ore will be invaluable in helping our industry in the Capital (+Production in Capital, Minor +Shadow)
Restriction: Era must not have reached Era of New Beginnings, <technology that unlocks Copper> must have been researched

Peat Culture
Your explores have discovered an untapped source of Peat! Unfortunately, they have also discovered the artifacts of a lost culture buried within the precious bogs.
Choice A: This culture means nothing to us - harvest the Peat. (+2 Peat, +Shadow)
Choice B: This requires a grand expedition. Secure the artifacts for posterity (Minor -Production in Capital, Gain GW of Artifact type, +Light)
Choice C: Some evidence of this culture should be preserved, but otherwise we should utilize this resource. (Minor +Culture, Minor +Production in Capital, Minor +Light)
Choice D: This site represents a failed civilization. It would tarnish our unblemished history to use such tools of weakness. Set the bogs ablaze! (Minor +Faith, Major +Shadow).
Restriction: <Technology that unlocks Peat> must have been researched

Laboratory Resource
Flavor: Your scholars have discovered that, using the majesty of Science, they can create a substance that bears a striking similarity to <luxury resource the civ does not have>
Choice A: Amazing! Distribute it throughout your civilization immediately. (Gain <luxury resource the civ does not have>)
Choice B: This miraculous discovery should be shared with the entire world. (+Prestige, Minor +Science, Major +Light)
Choice C: This fantastic technique should be put to use towards more important things - perhaps it can yield even more astounding secrets. (+GP Points (<Great Scientist equivalent>), Minor +Light)
Choice D: We should trade this resource with our rivals - no need to tell them it is a forgery! (+Gold, +Shadow)
Restriction: Era must have reached Era of Encroaching Blight

Forbidden Pleasures
Flavor: Some of the more influential nobles in your lands are claiming that <luxury resource you have> is immoral and should be avoided.
Choice A: These men and women are influential, we should follow their lead and halt the distribution of this resource (-Happiness, Major +Faith, Minor +Golden Age Points, +Light)
Choice B: Encourage your people to consume <resource> only in moderation (Minor +Faith, Minor +Light)
Choice C: This is silly. This luxury provides a great distraction for your people (Minor +Shadow)
Choice D: People like <resource> and it should stay that way. Sentence its detractors to hard labor as retribution (+Production in capital, +Shadow)
Restriction: Must have a majority Path

Dawn of a New Day
Flavor: Now that the Shadow has been defeated, your soldiers await direction.
Choice A: Let your soldiers return home, honoring them with a grand celebration (+Golden Age Points, Minor +Light)
Choice A: We must remain ever vigilant - double down on our defenses (+ X Strength Military units)
Choice C: Idle soldiers can only cause trouble. Keep them far from their homeland (Minor +Happiness, Minor +Shadow)
Choice D: These men are heroes. They should be brought home and given a high place in society, where they might serve as an example to the realm. (Sacrifice X Strength of units, Starts a Golden Age, +Light)
Restriction: Must currently be the Era of Freedom, the Trolloc Wars must have ended

Schism
Flavor: Your advisers tell you of a few outspoken leaders of your Path. They seek major reformations.
Choice A: These men should be exiled. We have no need of such changes (Gain a Missionary Unit, +Shadow)
Choice B: If our brightest minds desire change, they shall have it. Provide these leaders and their people whatever resources they need to achieve their goals (-Production in Capital, Gain <Great Prophet equivalent>, Minor +Light)
Choice C: A healthy dialogue is the best solution - call a conference where these issues can be debated openly. (+Faith, +Light)
Restriction: Must have founded a Path that is still present in your civilization.

Infiltration of Belief
Flavor: The heathens from other civilizations have begun to convert our people to their foolish Paths.
Choice A: This is an outrage! We must rally the faithful to extinguish these preposterous beliefs (Gain <Inquisitor equivalent> unit, +Shadow)
Choice B: Perhaps the best way to retaliate is to do the same to their cities! (Gain Missionary unit, Minor +Shadow)
Choice C: The real issue is whether or not our people's moral framework has been compromised. We must rally to prevent disruption of our way of life! (Gain Herald unit)
Choice D: Perhaps this time of division can inspire our people towards greater understanding and a new era of enlightenment (+Golden Age Points, +Light)
Restriction: Must have a majority Path. Must have at least one city that has been converted to a different Path.

Moral Path
Flavor: <City with Shadow-leaning Alignment> has gradually drifted from the righteous moral direction you try to inspire.
Choice A: Your people must be taught the correct way by example. (Gain Herald unit, +Light)
Choice B: There is nothing wrong with your people - they are smart, and will do the right thing on their own (+Faith)
Choice C: Perhaps an unscrupulous city is an asset - your people need a place to go where they can conduct business of the unsavory sort (Minor +Happiness, Minor +Shadow)
Choice D: When did we become a nation of the Creator? This city should serve as an example to us all. (Major +Shadow)
Restriction: Must have overall Light Alignment. Must have at least one city that has an Alignment that is too far towards Shadow.

Prudish Folk
Flavor: <City with Light-leaning Alignment> has been corrupted by the puritanical nonsense of other civilizations.
Choice A: You should make an example of these folk - show them what happens to the weak (-Pop in <city>, +Faith, Gain X Strength Military units near <city>, Major +Shadow)
Choice B: How silly. Show them what it really means to be a citizen of this civilization. (Gain Herald unit, +Shadow)
Choice C: Perhaps the citizens there are more trustworthy than your other folk. It may be a safe place to conduct international trade (+Gold, Minor +Light)
Choice D: Corrupted? It is us who have been led astray! We must return to the embrace of the Creator. (Major +Light)
Restriction: Must have overall Shadow Alignment. Must have at least one city that has an Alignment that is too far towards Light.

Build for the Future
Flavor: Your civilization is ever growing, and needs your citizens to fulfill its needs
Choice A: We should recruit citizens from the surrounding villages to work towards the betterment of our cities (+Production in Capital)
Choice B: We should aim to make our streets cleaner and our cities safer - put our citizens to work towards that end (+Food in Capital, Minor +Light)
Choice C: It sounds like we can afford to force some folk into working for the crown then. (Gain a Worker, +Shadow)
Choice D: Some of our citizens have grown fat and lazy at home. They should be exiled to foreign territories, where they might prove their worth to the homeland. (-Pop in Capitol, Gain Settler unit, +Shadow)
Restriction: Must have reached the Era of Consolidation

counterpoint · Apr 27, 2015

S3rgeus said:
After your last post, we're at 111 total now. So yeah, I think we can hold off on making any more until (and if) we discuss some other mechanics that haven't been included in the existing ones and should be.

nice!

Are you linking to the three master lists on the front page, or from the Misc summary?

So what's next? Forsaken Quests, right? What exactly are we hoping to do with those? Like, how many of them? I don't suppose we'd need too many.

Perhaps a flavor-dive is in order, if we want to match some quests to the appropriate Chosen (e.g. World of Dreams ones for Moghy, etc.).

S3rgeus said:
It's not necessarily a single portrait being copied, but anyway, the flavor of this seems to be confusing then. Let's go with heirlooms.

Homage to the HK
ok. agreed.

S3rgeus said:
I see what you mean a bit, but the only real difference we'd need if we were writing exclusively for the High King would be to substitute "your" into a few places instead of "High King's". Having too many High King-only Threads doesn't seem like a good idea, since there's only ever a High King for a very short amount of time, compared to how often Threads are given out, and High King-only ones are only available to one player, during just that time. I think this Thread is fine for both High King and non-HK civs. The language will of course change for the final entries, so we should be able to make it more suitable then, as long as we've captured the essence of what the choices mean for now.

Homage to the HK
OK, I understand. we just need to get the language up to snuff when the time comes.

S3rgeus said:
The phrasing "a crown fit for a High King" is specifically intended to allow the High King to also see this Thread and for it still to make sense. (My previous post was the explanation for how it makes sense for non-High King civs.) This way it's applicable to any civ, as long as a High King has at some point been crowned. This also isn't final copy, as we've said elsewhere, so the specific wording may change, but the applicability to both High King and non-High King players is intentional.

Changed B.

Crowns and Swords
Right, well I was kind of thinking this one makes best sense if we don't allow it to be for the HK civ. Makes the language smoother. Not a big deal though.

S3rgeus said:
We should! We didn't decide on any numbers, just a general gist that Threads become more frequent over time. I think we may have ballparked happening every 20-30 turns. That sounds to me like a good place to start at (Ancient Era) and get more frequent from there on.

Simple range proposal, in turns:

Ancient Era 20-30
Classical Era: 17-26
Medieval Era: 14-22
Renaissance Era: 11-18
Industrial Era: 9-15
Modern Era: 8-13
Atomic Era: 7-11
Information Era: 6-9
Fourth Age: 5-7

Alternatively we could take a probability approach, where the player has X% chance of encountering a Thread each turn, where X is defined by which era the player is currently in. (Are we using player era or world era? I think either could work.) This would mean Threads sometimes come closer together and farther apart than expected. Do we think that added randomness is valuable or a liability? I'm leaning towards the latter, but not strongly.

I think a small degree of range through randomness is welcome. I don't think the probability approach is necessary, though. I think the windows of range you have for some of these early eras is too great, though. I'm thinking no more than 5 or so swing between each Thread. Maybe even less. The goal is that a civ can't predict exaclty which turn they're going to get one (so no temptation to do weird things in order to accommodate them). What we don't want is certainly civs getting more than one or two MORE thread opportunities (or less) due to random luck. Maybe even a swing of 2-3 turns.

I'd say they may end up too frequent by the end. I'm fine with the 20-30 starting point (maybe 25-30 or 24-26 or something?), but I'd say by the end of the game we should be looking at 10-12 turns or something. I know the turns are long at that point, but with quests and other random events, I think it might be a bit much.

S3rgeus said:
Well, they do effectively change over time. Various buildings/policies/resources make tiles/specialists produce more yields, so each citizen contributes higher yields by the end of the game than at the start. I think these guys should scale up too.

Right. sure.

S3rgeus said:
The 5x multiplier means that a Major Alignment change at the end of the game would put a Neutral civ in tier 2 of that Alignment (just about, unless they were already leaning the opposite direction a bit, then it might leave them at the high end of tier 1). I think that works, as you've said. A Normal one would knock them out of the Neutral tier into the bottom of tier 1 (unless they were already leaning a bit the other direction). Minor would likely let them keep the same tier, unless they were right on the edge of tier 1 already. It's this kind of endgame situation where the Neutral civs are almost boxed into the Minor choices, and increased non-Alignment payout in the non-Minor choices becomes more tempting to make them choose a side. (Especially since Threads are coming closer together, if they decide to commit now, they'd never get to the highest tiers, but they could make it worth their while to do.)

Requirements for Alignment tier don't scale by era and I think the scaling of Alignment is what allows us to set up the tiers the way we did (progressively farther apart). It's more interesting to allow the civs to swing more and harder towards the end of the game, and also meshes with how CiV manages other yields and mechanics in general. I think we should set up the initial Alignment yields (so in the Ancient Era) in such a way that if they remained fixed for the duration of the game at that level, it would be impossible to reach the highest tier on either side. It's only the scaling that lets the players reach tier 8.

This also meshes well with our notion that Alignment become more important as the game goes on. Similar to Tourism in BNW, it is very difficult to generate large quantities in the early game, so it becomes a more late game relevant mechanic.

I also totally agree that the different rewards should scale unevenly, because some of them need to be scaled differently to remain relevant.

OK. You make good points, and I think it can work like this in general. Obviously we do need to facilitate the high-tier alignments.

But something I think we want to avoid is your choices in the first half of the game, alignment-wise, being totally meaningless. Assuming you don't care to be Tier 8 Light, say, according to this math it seems you could pretty much behave totally willy-nilly with alignment (picking tons of shadow, or essentially whichever would benefit your situation in that moment, without really worrying about long-term consequences. The happiness opportunity-cost associated with, being, say, Tier 4 Light (instead of Tier 8) might be easy to make up with 3000 years of choosing the +Happiness Threads, regardless of Alignment.

I'd say Tier 8, for example, can probably only be accomplished through impeccable attention to your Alignment (including Heralds and killing shadowspawn and all that). I think the problem above makes that essential.

But beyond that, I'm not sure how to prevent these issues if we go with differences as high as 5x. And I don't know that the Alignment Tier spreads are a good enough reason to allow that - we can always change the spread between them to accommodate the situation we want.

I'm all for scale, but when a single late-game Major is as powerful as *ten* early-game normals (and 40 minors!), it makes the alignment in the first half of the game essentially meaningless. And I don't think that's flavor/user behavior we're trying to promote.

S3rgeus said:
I agree with these.

Just to run some numbers for how much things cost. Costs of all techs and buildings are modified by a variety of game speed, map size, difficulty, and all sorts of other in-game fun. But comparing the underlying DB costs, the first line of techs in the Ancient Era cost a base of 35 beakers each. Future Tech costs 9500 (previous column before Future Tech cost 8800 each). A Monument costs a base of 40 hammers. The CN Tower costs 1250 Hammers, so clearly Production scales much less so than Science. (And as a wonder, the CN Tower probably isn't a fair comparison, a Recycling Center, which is the most Hammer-intensive non-Wonder building I see, costs 500.) Units actually scale more aggressively than Buildings - they start at 25 with the Scout and end at 1000 with the Nuclear Missile. (Space ship parts are 1500.)

Yeah, those details are very essential to balancing all of this. I'm guessing we should make things scale at precisely the same rate (when possible), right? Units costing different amounts to buildings is obviously tricky, but we can probably split the difference and make it work.

S3rgeus said:
I imagine the amount of Population we give out won't change over the course of the game. Given that it costs more Food to grow a larger city, that's technically still scaling over the course of the game. (Assuming larger cities in later eras.)

Right. Agreed.

S3rgeus said:
GPs cost more GP points for every GP you generate of that GP category. All of the Culture GPs are their own category, so spawning a Great Artist makes your Great Artists cost more GP points, but doesn't affect any other GPs. Great Scientists, Great Engineers, and Great Merchants are all in the same category (so making more of any of them, makes your next of all of them more expensive). Great Prophets have their own magic Faith-based system unrelated to GP points. Great Generals and Great Admirals also make subsequent of themselves more expensive - you get them from EXP earned from relevant units.

Upshot of all that, yes, GP points should scale per era, since GPs will be more expensive later on. But not drastically so, certainly nothing like Science.

OK, all good to know. Agreed.

S3rgeus said:
For the Food thing, I think our rewards should be Food per turn for X turns, but that's really just a feeling, because it makes it mechanically distinct from +X Pop (as you've said, otherwise they'd be the same).

Right. agreed. If it's super minor, it *could* be permanent, but that might be a bad idea (maybe it's a % increase, like some wonders do?)

S3rgeus said:
I don't think we necessarily need to put numbers on these yet. We'll probably want to consider game speed and difficulty as well as progress through the game, which I don't believe we've actually addressed before. I've been thinking about the technical design behind how we can get the Threads to work in-game for a while now and have been itching to try it out. (Need to find the time!) We don't need to have finalized any numbers for me to put that in place though, since changing the actual magnitude of the yields is a simple XML swap out, no code changes. So I think we can leave it for now.

Yeah, throw in whatever you need just to test it. Let's hold off on actual values for now.

S3rgeus said:
I think it will be fine. A smaller difference is more likely to tempt the Neutrals and possible start a snowball on them. It will be easy enough to change later if we find in-game that this choice stands out as unuseful.

Play at Power
OK, we'll do it that way,then.

S3rgeus said:
Yeah, I agree on the randomness. So let's mellow him out a bit:

King of All
Flavor: The Blight grows restless and, as the High King, you wield enough power to rouse the nations against any Shadowspawn that seek to range beyond their home.
Choice A: Muster your forces and urge the Provinces to step up their defenses, sending men and supplies to the Blightborder (+Happiness, +Light)
Choice B: If the Borderlanders are willing to hand over some of their weapons technology, you could be convinced to help find troops for the war effort (-Happiness, Free technology, +Shadow)
Choice C: The Borderlanders will fight and die as they always do, we can thrive in peace while they defend us (+Food and +Production in capital, Major +Shadow)
Choice D: The High King should lead from the front. Lead your armies in victory against the Shadowspawn. (+Prestige, Minor +Happiness, Major +Light)
Restriction: You must be High King

Much better now!

S3rgeus said:
Ok, how about:

Choice A: Scholars in our land should benefit from the prestige of sponsoring this journey
Choice B: Artists in our land should benefit from the prestige of sponsoring this journey
Choice C: The faithful of our land should benefit from the prestige of sponsoring this journey

Endless Tides
I like it, BUT I suggest we not use the word "prestige," for the obvious other things it calls up. How about "the honor of sponsoring" instead?

S3rgeus said:
We could flavor A and B as uplifting individuals for the delegation, to avoid the association with Prestige, like:

Choice A: Have our greatest scholars work in concert to educate our representatives for the delegation

Or characterize it as a search:

Choice B: Search far and wide for new talent to aid our performing delegation

Either approach could apply to both.

Touring Delegation
I like the search actually. Makes the most flavor sense with + GP points

S3rgeus said:
There's no prerequisite for generating GP points in a city, so whichever city the Thread is relevant to, we can add the GP yield to that city. GP points are more effective in cities that already produce them, since they'll get to the GPs faster, but finding the correct cities the player controls is already quite restrictive, I don't think we want to make it more so.

I'm assuming we're adding GP points per turn for X turns? Or do we prefer a dump of points?

Right, but if you add a bunch of GP points to a city, and then those run out (whether they're per turn or a flat bonus), won't the city just sit there, never finishing its build up and never actually producing a GP.

And I see with your second question why we are having this confusion. You're thinking it would be a bonus to GP point creation in a city *forever*? I see. Yeah, that could work. It is way better to have that in a city that's already producing some, though.

For what it's worth, I was assuming we were talking about a GP point dump, which could theoretically produce a GP immediately. The problem, of course, with the +turn ones, is that they're less useful late-game. Not the end of the world, though.

S3rgeus said:
Plague at the Tower
We could say Tar Valon. This was me being a bit of a technical stickler on the text, because the way the Tower system is set up to loosely support multiple Towers means that the city with the White Tower isn't necessarily Tar Valon in all configurations. But it will be for the main game, at least as we're approaching it now. So we could say Tar Valon. If we ever have a Schism scenario and that scenario includes Threads, we won't remember to change this though! But that's a small eventual if that doesn't matter all that much, so let's say Tar Valon.

oh. yeah, that's being... a little overly cautious. *If* we do a tower schism scenario, we can just disable this thread. Or, it could still say tar valon...

S3rgeus said:
Yeah, we've done +Spark on a couple of Threads already. So shall we have D be:

Choice D: Perhaps the people deserve to know the truth. This may cause some chaos, but this revelation will shape our people's destiny and guide them in the future (+Spark, +Light)

Agreed on the Alignment changes to A, B, and C.

Learned Spark
Your choice D works well.

S3rgeus said:
The Tainted Half
-Production is a bit of a non-cost, because a Golden Age gives you a big global production boost. -Food works.

We always seem to think quite differently about the Alignment implications of the Taint. I've always thought that anything that encourages/maintains the Taint is definitely quite evil, because it prevents a whole host of otherwise powerful people from standing against the Dark One. (The Taint is also a part of the Dark One's essence, which should be quite evil.) The Taint also seems to tip maddened men towards the Shadow.

Purely from the flavor, I would say C is more Shadow-y than D, since D is uplifting actual people, who may themselves not be Shadow-y. (As opposed to the Taint, which always is.) But mechanically I think we like the big payout to be on the more Alignment-y choices, so let's go with that.

Tainted Half
good point about production.

As far as the alignment of the taint, obviously the taint itself is evil. I just don't necessarily think the male channelers are necessarily evil, or that being anti them is necessarily 'good.'

That said, I don't feel strongly as to which of C or D is more shadowy.

S3rgeus said:
Tower Demand
Ah, the Thread should have had a restriction that says they already have a channeling Governor. I'm not sure what a channeling Governor is exactly yet, until we discuss it, but presumably we'll have Governor types (a la GP types and most other things that correspond to yields), so whichever is most relevant to channeling seems sensible.

We could reflavor B for -Spark, but then D wouldn't really make sense anymore, and I think that one's really cool.

Ah, the restriction! That makes it all make more sense. I say leave B alone. Obviously if we end up scrapping Channeling govs, we'll have to scrap/change this one.

S3rgeus said:
Herbs and Power
Sounds good re Alignment change for A

Possible alternate wording for D:

Choice D: She will learn to heal people with herbs once she's been Stilled

It doesn't make as much sense for Golden age points then though.

That's too bad, re: Golden Age points. Is there a way to build one that has flavor that matches that? If not, oh well, I did add a few that had GA points earlier today.

S3rgeus said:
Witches Abroad
I think +Shadow is fine, mainly so we don't have two Minor +Shadow choices in the one Thread. It seems like the more evil of the two.

Fair enough.

S3rgeus said:
Advisers Unwell
A makes sense, for each of these choices, it's which of your advisers you have Healed that determines what the yield bonus is. A is having your scholarly adviser Healed, hence Science.

Let's go with D being Neutral, since I think we've made Science a Neutral choice on a few other occasions.

A - I see, right. A bit wonky, but ti'll work.
D - sure.

S3rgeus said:
Ends of Madness
Agreed. How about:

Choice A: They can live them out in peace, but abroad, where any madness episodes will disrupt someone else's empire, not ours (Minor +Happiness, Minor +Shadow)
Choice B: Our people will understand if we show leniency (+Golden Age points, +Light)
Choice C: These men are beyond help, and must be killed now (+Faith, +Shadow)

Not sure if Happiness is the right thing for A though.

looks good.

S3rgeus said:
Enhanced Power
Totally, new B:

Choice B: They will make powerful weapons! (Gain 1 Ter'angreal Cache resource, +Shadow)

good.

S3rgeus said:
Guild Channelers
I would assume that channelers who work for a musician's guild would be doing things like making Power-infused instruments and the like, rather than necessarily training to be musicians. The same kind of way they'd be interacting with scholars in A or craftsmen in B, enhancing the work the existing skilled workers do, rather than training to make it themselves.

Oh, I wasn't assuming that, especially since making items of power is impossible for the vast majority of channelers for most of the third age.

Maybe just keep it ambiguous, "assisting the musician's guild"

counterpoint · Apr 27, 2015

S3rgeus said:
Ogier Warfare
Mm, I think it might be better to axe this one. It steps on too much of the Stump and what the role of the Ogier is in the Last Battle.

I think we also decided against the Ogier being able to leave the world in the end. Fighting or remaining Neutral ring a bell as the things we chose for their available options.

Alright. let's axe it.

We can revisit the ogier stump stuff later, obviously. It probably won't take long.

S3rgeus said:
The Thread flavor and the Alignment of the choices seems to characterize the people claiming <resource> is sinful quite differently. I would expect supporting "extreme zealots" to generate Shadow, rather than Light. We could change the Thread flavor to:

Flavor: Some of the more influential nobles in your lands are claiming that <luxury resource the civ has> is immoral and should be avoided.

Also potential D:

Choice D: People like <resource> and it should stay that way. Sentence its detractors to hard labor as retribution (+Production in capital, +Shadow)

Forbidden Pleasures
Yeah, I like your thread flavor.

I'd prefer not to add D if C stays Minor +Shadow. Yeah, that same logic, coming back again! We can add D, but I say only if we add something to C.... Minor +Happiness?

S3rgeus said:
I think -Production or -1 Pop works better as a cost for B.

Schism
sounds good.

S3rgeus said:
A seems like a Shadow-y choice to me, hunting down believers and such. +Shadow? Looks more evil than B.

Infiltration of Belief
A - sure, +Shadow. intolerance and all that.

S3rgeus said:
Should B be Minor +Light? Seems like having faith in your people to choose well is a relatively Light-minded attitude for a ruler.

Also, do we want to offer an option that allows the player to switch their Alignment focus?

Choice D: When did we become a nation of the Creator? This city should serve as an example to us all. (Major +Shadow)

Moral Path
Sure, that could be minor +Light.

Yeah, I can see the epic evil Choice D. Though, assuming we get the era scaling under control (see above) - we wouldn't want this to be an easy last-minute-undo-the-previous-200-turns.

S3rgeus said:
Same here as above, if we'd like an additional switchover choice:

Choice D: Corrupted? It is us who have been led astray! We must return to the embrace of the Creator. (Major +Light)

Prudish Folk
Yeah, do it (concern noted above).

S3rgeus said:
Hmmm, the value of C varies wildly throughout the game. If this is the first Thread you see, C is amazing and by far the best choice. If it's the endgame when you've already built improvements on all available hexes, then a worker is less useful. Although given the Last Battle should lead to an increased prevalence of pillaging, workers may retain their usefulness longer than in BNW.

We could have a restriction on this that you must reach the Era of Consolidation? That way C doesn't become an obvious choice for an early worker. I think I'd still be sorely tempted by C in most cases though. Maybe if we give it some Alignment, that will help, since as an Alignment-less choice, it's all upside for everybody.

We could make it a Shadow option, along the lines of:

Choice C: It sounds like we can afford to force some folk into working for the crown then. (Gain a Worker, +Shadow)

But then D should probably be Shadow-er since it's a costed one and I'm having trouble coming up with a very Shadow way of making a Settler. We could make C a Light option, but then Shadow players may feel cheated if they can't/won't pay for D.

Then again, maybe just the era prerequisite will make them comparable.

Build for the Future
OK, I say:

- Era locked - post consolidation
- Make C minor shadow, forcing people as described by you
- for D:
Choice D: Some of our citizens have grown fat and lazy at home. They should be exiled to foreign territories, where they might prove their worth to the homeland. (-Pop in Capitol, Gain Settler unit, Minor +Shadow)

S3rgeus · Apr 28, 2015

counterpoint said:
nice!

Are you linking to the three master lists on the front page, or from the Misc summary?

From the misc summary and the end of each part links to the next one.

counterpoint said:
So what's next? Forsaken Quests, right? What exactly are we hoping to do with those? Like, how many of them? I don't suppose we'd need too many.

Perhaps a flavor-dive is in order, if we want to match some quests to the appropriate Chosen (e.g. World of Dreams ones for Moghy, etc.).

Yep, Forsaken Quests up next! I think we still need to define the format of them. Which players they become available to. We discussed before about wanting some objectives to be self-destructive for the player and while yielding a lot of Shadow points, not necessarily paying off directly unless you're very far towards the Shadow already.

counterpoint said:
Homage to the HK
ok. agreed.

Homage to the HK
OK, I understand. we just need to get the language up to snuff when the time comes.

Done

counterpoint said:
Crowns and Swords
Right, well I was kind of thinking this one makes best sense if we don't allow it to be for the HK civ. Makes the language smoother. Not a big deal though.

Done

counterpoint said:
I think a small degree of range through randomness is welcome. I don't think the probability approach is necessary, though. I think the windows of range you have for some of these early eras is too great, though. I'm thinking no more than 5 or so swing between each Thread. Maybe even less. The goal is that a civ can't predict exaclty which turn they're going to get one (so no temptation to do weird things in order to accommodate them). What we don't want is certainly civs getting more than one or two MORE thread opportunities (or less) due to random luck. Maybe even a swing of 2-3 turns.

I'd say they may end up too frequent by the end. I'm fine with the 20-30 starting point (maybe 25-30 or 24-26 or something?), but I'd say by the end of the game we should be looking at 10-12 turns or something. I know the turns are long at that point, but with quests and other random events, I think it might be a bit much.

I see what you mean here, but I think two parts of this are at odds. Making the variance smaller makes the Threads occur at more predictable intervals, rather than harder to predict. But it does make the worst-case scenarios for some players receiving more or less Threads than each other less extreme.

I see why from a balance perspective we would want to make sure some players have more Thread opportunities than other, but any system that isn't completely fixed will create these situations sometimes. The player also won't be able to tell, unless two human players are coordinating and sharing information about what Threads they receive. I also think that the Thread payouts will generally not be too balance-upsetting, not to the point where one or two more for one player would give them a significant advantage. How the player focuses their cities, where they choose to found cities, who they declare war on, what order they research techs/build buildings, I'd see these as being much bigger contributors to overall yields.

This all makes me think that maybe Threads should be generated from some source the player can control the generation of, like False Dragon points? Even if they can't directly see the underlying yield, they can at least learn how to affect it, so Thread incidence becomes a matter of skill rather than always being random. (For new players who don't yet understand the underlying mechanism, the two systems would act quite similarly.)

In terms of how far apart we want them to be at certain stages of the game, we seem to be in the same place for the start of the game. I wonder if every ~25+ turns is fast enough? This actually plays into the Alignment discussion coming up next, because ~25 turns is likely to only cycle around once in the first era before the player progresses on to the next one. If the player only sees a nominal number of Threads in the early game, this is necessarily going to contribute only a small portion to their Alignment, whichever way they choose.

It's worth running through how many Threads a given player will encounter in a single game on average with given variances, and see if we like the feel of those numbers. Hilarious assumptions for ballparking ensue:

The player will spend limited time in the Fourth Age, so we'll divide the length of the game by 8.5 instead of 9.
The scaling of science means the player will spend a roughly equal amount of time in each of those 8.5 eras.
The player will encounter a Thread on the turn that represents the average of the variance for the era that is currently occurring.
The game is 350 turns long.
There is no "initial Thread" on turn 1, the player's first Thread is at the end of the first incidence period, not the start.
The turn the player's next Thread will appear is recalculated when they move between eras by taking the turn their previous Thread occurred on and adding the new era's average Thread rate. If the calculated "next" turn is in the past, the Thread happens immediately (don't know if this will happen yet).

This means the player will spend ~41 turns in each era (so they move to a faster Thread incidence every 41 turns). This means the era changes occur on turns numbered multiples of 41: 41, 82, 123, 164, 205, 246, 287, and 328.

Varying from 20-30 to 5-7:

The player encounters a new Thread on turns: 25 (Ancient), 47 (Classical), 69 (Classical), 87 (Medieval), 105 (Medieval), 123 (era changed to Renaissance and the Thread average coincided on this turn), 138 (Renaissance), 153 (Renaissance), 165 (Industrial), 177 (Industrial), 189 (Industrial), 201 (Industrial), 212 (Modern), 223 (Modern), 234 (Modern), 245 (Modern), 254 (Atomic), 263 (Atomic), 272 (Atomic), 281 (Atomic), 289 (Information), 297 (Information), 305 (Information), 313 (Information), 321 (Information), 328 (Fourth Age - would have happened on 327 but hadn't reach this era yet), 334 (Fourth), 340 (Fourth), 346 (Fourth).

And then the game ends on 350. This has led to the player seeing 29 unique Threads over the course of a single game. Obviously any individual game is extremely likely to vary from that number, but it shows us approximately what kind of incidence the player would see.

To model your suggested variance of 24-26 to 10-12, we can use the following progression:

Ancient: 24-26
Classical: 22-24
Medieval: 20-22
Renaissance: 18-20
Industrial: 16-18
Modern: 14-16
Atomic: 12-14
Information: 11-13
Fourth Age: 10-12

Same era progression as above, the player sees new Threads on turns numbered:

25 (Ancient), 48 (Classical), 71 (Classical), 92 (Medieval), 113 (Medieval), 132 (Renaissance), 151 (Renaissance), 168 (Industrial), 185 (Industrial), 203 (Industrial), 218 (Modern), 233 (Modern), 246 (Atomic), 259 (Atomic), 272 (Atomic), 285 (Atomic), 297 (Information), 309 (Information), 321 (Information), 332 (Fourth), 343 (Fourth)

And then the game ends on turn 350.

This means the player sees 21 unique Threads over the course of a single game. Obviously, as above, any single game is likely to vary significantly, but this represents a sort of average.

We could also do best case vs worst case for each progression (compare how many Threads the player who gets them as fast as possible gets vs as slow as possible) and then we will have a better idea of what the variance might look like between players who are competing in a game.

I can do those numbers next time if that sounds like something we'd like to assess.

counterpoint said:
OK. You make good points, and I think it can work like this in general. Obviously we do need to facilitate the high-tier alignments.

But something I think we want to avoid is your choices in the first half of the game, alignment-wise, being totally meaningless. Assuming you don't care to be Tier 8 Light, say, according to this math it seems you could pretty much behave totally willy-nilly with alignment (picking tons of shadow, or essentially whichever would benefit your situation in that moment, without really worrying about long-term consequences. The happiness opportunity-cost associated with, being, say, Tier 4 Light (instead of Tier 8) might be easy to make up with 3000 years of choosing the +Happiness Threads, regardless of Alignment.

I'd say Tier 8, for example, can probably only be accomplished through impeccable attention to your Alignment (including Heralds and killing shadowspawn and all that). I think the problem above makes that essential.

But beyond that, I'm not sure how to prevent these issues if we go with differences as high as 5x. And I don't know that the Alignment Tier spreads are a good enough reason to allow that - we can always change the spread between them to accommodate the situation we want.

I'm all for scale, but when a single late-game Major is as powerful as *ten* early-game normals (and 40 minors!), it makes the alignment in the first half of the game essentially meaningless. And I don't think that's flavor/user behavior we're trying to promote.

Well, if a player doesn't care about getting to tier 8 Light or Shadow, then yeah, I think they can afford to not care about Alignment in the early game. That's pretty much the upside of not prioritizing Alignment, it allows the player to prioritize other yields that help them in other ways. That seems to be the crux of the system, that the player is trading off the value that specific Threads provide them with choices right now against the value the Alignment of those choices provides them longer term. If they've already decided not to go for heavy Alignment, then they should prioritize based on what yields they want, particularly when the Alignment effects of their decisions aren't as significant (early game).

If we're finding that players are always choosing based on yields in the early game because they can reach whatever Alignment they want with later Threads alone, then that's a problem. And it's also problematic if players never prioritize getting to Alignment tier 8 because it isn't worth their while - taking the yields from the early game Threads is always better in this case. I think that means we should either tone down the Threads or make the bonuses associated with high Alignment tiers beefier. (The latter sounds like a good approach to me, since we want to make the high tiers "exclusive" and difficult to achieve, they should pay off significantly when you get there.)

I think either of these situations represent a balance problem with the rewards for the two competing player incentives: early game Thread rewards vs late game Alignment rewards.

In terms of the significance of early game Threads vs late game, 40x difference between early game minor against late game major does sound too far. Then again, major Alignment isn't available on a lot of Threads, and the player will only see ~3 Threads in the maximum Alignment region for the Fourth Age. (My progression above means they'll see ~5 in the Fourth Age, yours means ~2.)

However, it seems that these numbers actually have a problem with where the tiers are currently set. Tier 8 is at 7100 total points. My progression means a single player will see more Threads and even with 29 of them in the one game, they need to average ~244 Alignment (in the right direction) per Thread to make up that Alignment from Threads alone. Say other sources (DFCs, Shadowspawn kills, Forsaken Quests, are there better ways to generate Light?) generate 1000 points. This means the player would need to average ~210 points per Thread in the right direction.

From some very quick and possibly inaccurate math, I'm seeing 10% of all choices generate Major Alignment for either side right now - so approximately 1/20 Threads has a Major choice for the Alignment the player is aiming for. That means they'll see on average one Major choice of the "correct" Alignment per game (with either mine or your progression). It's impossible to achieve an average of ~210 Alignment (even raw, let alone net) per Thread even with my 5x numbers. This makes me think we should multiply them up:

Beginning: Minor +20, +80-120, +160-240
End: Minor: +80-120, +300-360, +800-900

That's a simple multiply by 2 from my previous numbers. There are some difficulties: it is almost impossible to stay true Neutral in endgame Thread without picking options that generate 0 Alignment. (Or if you want to remain true Neutral, you'd need to basically just alternate Minor +Light then Minor +Shadow, completely ignoring all other rewards.)

So if we pare back the scaling, as you've suggested, we can get to a bit more reasonable:

Beginning: +20, +80-120, +160-240
End: +40-60, +150-180, +400-450

Now Neutral players have some breathing room in the endgame, but still need to stick to Minor changes in most cases.

Reaching Tier 8 is still a challenge and I'm not 100% sure it's actually possible. It will probably depend on how much Alignment the player gets from other sources aside from Threads. It's also worth noting that Threads the player encounters during the Fourth Age are almost guaranteed to occur after the start of the Last Battle, when one of the big Alignment-related payoffs occurs. (It's almost, rather than completely guaranteed, because the LB doesn't trigger immediately on world era becoming Era of the Dragon, and a single thread might occur for the player in that short ramp-up period.) This means with my progression the player sees 25 Threads on average before declaring an Alignment, and with yours they see an average of 19. And there are a not insignificant number of cases where the Last Battle starts before the player even sees all of their Era of the Dragon Threads, for any progression. I'd need to do a bit more math to work out how possible it is to reach tier 8 because it's certainly a closer thing than three paragraphs up, but I won't frontload all of that now!

That was a lot of math, so unfortunately I've run out of time for the evening! I'll go through the rest of our Threads discussion stuff and make the edits to the master threads lists tomorrow.

counterpoint · Apr 28, 2015

S3rgeus said:
Yep, Forsaken Quests up next! I think we still need to define the format of them. Which players they become available to. We discussed before about wanting some objectives to be self-destructive for the player and while yielding a lot of Shadow points, not necessarily paying off directly unless you're very far towards the Shadow already.

Alright. So here's what I'm thinking:

- We have "Generic" forsaken quests and "Personalized" Forsaken quests. The generic ones come from a random forsaken, while the Personalized ones are always attached to a specific Forsaken for flavor reasons. I'm thinking any forsaken can appear in a quest, even if there aren't a unit on a map. However, if they are killed, their quests stop happening.

how many are you thinking we need to create?

- I think we take one of two routes for players' alignment tiers and such:
1) certain quests are Tier locked. Say, certain ones pop up at Shadow Tier 3, 5, and 7, or something. In all cases, Alignment payout is high. For the higher-Tier content, however, there are other rewards as well, or their better (or more "true" rewards). The tasks associated with each tier MAY be harder or easier, but may be comparable.
2) All quests are available once unlocked (Tier 3? Tier 1?), and all offer great alignment payout. ONLY the "true rewards" very - starting from (or probably no reward) at low tiers, and getting significant at higher tiers.

I'm actually tempted to go with option 2. It's simpler for us and easier to understand for the player, I think (providing we flavor it appropriately ("since you are a cowering peon, the Great Lord offers you the following reward:")

- I'm thinking many of them, perhaps all, are self-destructive or at least risky for the questing civ. Declaring war on a civ, for example - not necessarily the same as disbanding a bunch of units, but obviously quite risky.

- Is there a corresponding alignment dump for light players possible? If these are high-payout, are shadowspawn kills enough to make up the difference for light civs?

As far as process, if we want some Personalized quests, I could do some flavor diving, and simply list some key features of each of the forsaken, to help us dream up flavor.

S3rgeus said:
I see what you mean here, but I think two parts of this are at odds. Making the variance smaller makes the Threads occur at more predictable intervals, rather than harder to predict. But it does make the worst-case scenarios for some players receiving more or less Threads than each other less extreme.

possible I was unclear here. I'm talking about making the variance afforded by RANDOMNESS smaller (e.g. 25-30 instead of 20-30) in order to make things somewhat predictable, not the variation between ERAS. We'll, I was eventually talking about both, but here I refer to within an era, the "range."

S3rgeus said:
I see why from a balance perspective we would want to make sure some players have more Thread opportunities than other, but any system that isn't completely fixed will create these situations sometimes. The player also won't be able to tell, unless two human players are coordinating and sharing information about what Threads they receive. I also think that the Thread payouts will generally not be too balance-upsetting, not to the point where one or two more for one player would give them a significant advantage. How the player focuses their cities, where they choose to found cities, who they declare war on, what order they research techs/build buildings, I'd see these as being much bigger contributors to overall yields.

Right, I think we still want to keep it in check. I think I'd like our timing to be such that it's unlikely one civ would have more than two or so more threads than another civ AND if they did, it wouldn't be the end of the world.

S3rgeus said:
This all makes me think that maybe Threads should be generated from some source the player can control the generation of, like False Dragon points? Even if they can't directly see the underlying yield, they can at least learn how to affect it, so Thread incidence becomes a matter of skill rather than always being random. (For new players who don't yet understand the underlying mechanism, the two systems would act quite similarly.)

Actually, I pretty much don't like this idea. I feel like attaching it to some other mechanic will create a feedback loop that is likely hard to balance. With FD poitns - do we really want Oppression civs to have less alignment potential? If Culture, do we really want low-culture players to have less alignment potential? Remember, the point here is to give players the flexibility to color their civ and ultimately choose their side. I definitely prefer we keep this mechanic distinct.

If the slight variations in when they occur is disliked by you, I say let's go to fixed turn counts then - we just need to make sure it can't be meta'd too hard (luckily you can't predict WHICH thread you get).

S3rgeus said:
In terms of how far apart we want them to be at certain stages of the game, we seem to be in the same place for the start of the game. I wonder if every ~25+ turns is fast enough? This actually plays into the Alignment discussion coming up next, because ~25 turns is likely to only cycle around once in the first era before the player progresses on to the next one. If the player only sees a nominal number of Threads in the early game, this is necessarily going to contribute only a small portion to their Alignment, whichever way they choose.

It's worth running through how many Threads a given player will encounter in a single game on average with given variances, and see if we like the feel of those numbers. Hilarious assumptions for ballparking ensue:

The player will spend limited time in the Fourth Age, so we'll divide the length of the game by 8.5 instead of 9.

The scaling of science means the player will spend a roughly equal amount of time in each of those 8.5 eras.

The player will encounter a Thread on the turn that represents the average of the variance for the era that is currently occurring.

The game is 350 turns long.

There is no "initial Thread" on turn 1, the player's first Thread is at the end of the first incidence period, not the start.

The turn the player's next Thread will appear is recalculated when they move between eras by taking the turn their previous Thread occurred on and adding the new era's average Thread rate. If the calculated "next" turn is in the past, the Thread happens immediately (don't know if this will happen yet).

This means the player will spend ~41 turns in each era (so they move to a faster Thread incidence every 41 turns). This means the era changes occur on turns numbered multiples of 41: 41, 82, 123, 164, 205, 246, 287, and 328.

Varying from 20-30 to 5-7:

The player encounters a new Thread on turns: 25 (Ancient), 47 (Classical), 69 (Classical), 87 (Medieval), 105 (Medieval), 123 (era changed to Renaissance and the Thread average coincided on this turn), 138 (Renaissance), 153 (Renaissance), 165 (Industrial), 177 (Industrial), 189 (Industrial), 201 (Industrial), 212 (Modern), 223 (Modern), 234 (Modern), 245 (Modern), 254 (Atomic), 263 (Atomic), 272 (Atomic), 281 (Atomic), 289 (Information), 297 (Information), 305 (Information), 313 (Information), 321 (Information), 328 (Fourth Age - would have happened on 327 but hadn't reach this era yet), 334 (Fourth), 340 (Fourth), 346 (Fourth).

And then the game ends on 350. This has led to the player seeing 29 unique Threads over the course of a single game. Obviously any individual game is extremely likely to vary from that number, but it shows us approximately what kind of incidence the player would see.

To model your suggested variance of 24-26 to 10-12, we can use the following progression:

Ancient: 24-26
Classical: 22-24
Medieval: 20-22
Renaissance: 18-20
Industrial: 16-18
Modern: 14-16
Atomic: 12-14
Information: 11-13
Fourth Age: 10-12

Same era progression as above, the player sees new Threads on turns numbered:

25 (Ancient), 48 (Classical), 71 (Classical), 92 (Medieval), 113 (Medieval), 132 (Renaissance), 151 (Renaissance), 168 (Industrial), 185 (Industrial), 203 (Industrial), 218 (Modern), 233 (Modern), 246 (Atomic), 259 (Atomic), 272 (Atomic), 285 (Atomic), 297 (Information), 309 (Information), 321 (Information), 332 (Fourth), 343 (Fourth)

And then the game ends on turn 350.

This means the player sees 21 unique Threads over the course of a single game. Obviously, as above, any single game is likely to vary significantly, but this represents a sort of average.

We could also do best case vs worst case for each progression (compare how many Threads the player who gets them as fast as possible gets vs as slow as possible) and then we will have a better idea of what the variance might look like between players who are competing in a game.

I can do those numbers next time if that sounds like something we'd like to assess.

ok. WOW! Thanks for crunching those (ballparked) numbers.

Looking over the turn counts, I'm struck by a feeling that there aren't enough of these in the early game. I'd like to think that by the time the TWs happen (end of Classical), you've already had a few opportunities to express your alignment. I think this is important since players will have the potential (maybe even neutral players) to interact with Ishamael once via a super early forsaken quest at this point. I think in some cases, the early game can send a player down a particular alignment path based on the options presented to them, and I think because of that we need to offer more than one of them in the Ancient era.

I'm thinking we should compress this a bit more, and make the variation even less. Perhaps starting at 20 turns and ending at 12 or something. Much less shrinkage. But keep in mind, we're offering way more points for those late-game ones.

Alternatively, we could simply start the cycle sooner - like on turn 10 or something, no matter what.

Alternatively, I'm wondering if we could jsut get rid of this time compression - make it every 15 turns (or 14-16 or something) for the entire game. - we are beefing up the payouts in the endgame after all.

S3rgeus said:
Well, if a player doesn't care about getting to tier 8 Light or Shadow, then yeah, I think they can afford to not care about Alignment in the early game. That's pretty much the upside of not prioritizing Alignment, it allows the player to prioritize other yields that help them in other ways. That seems to be the crux of the system, that the player is trading off the value that specific Threads provide them with choices right now against the value the Alignment of those choices provides them longer term. If they've already decided not to go for heavy Alignment, then they should prioritize based on what yields they want, particularly when the Alignment effects of their decisions aren't as significant (early game).

If we're finding that players are always choosing based on yields in the early game because they can reach whatever Alignment they want with later Threads alone, then that's a problem. And it's also problematic if players never prioritize getting to Alignment tier 8 because it isn't worth their while - taking the yields from the early game Threads is always better in this case. I think that means we should either tone down the Threads or make the bonuses associated with high Alignment tiers beefier. (The latter sounds like a good approach to me, since we want to make the high tiers "exclusive" and difficult to achieve, they should pay off significantly when you get there.)

I think either of these situations represent a balance problem with the rewards for the two competing player incentives: early game Thread rewards vs late game Alignment rewards.

In terms of the significance of early game Threads vs late game, 40x difference between early game minor against late game major does sound too far. Then again, major Alignment isn't available on a lot of Threads, and the player will only see ~3 Threads in the maximum Alignment region for the Fourth Age. (My progression above means they'll see ~5 in the Fourth Age, yours means ~2.)

However, it seems that these numbers actually have a problem with where the tiers are currently set. Tier 8 is at 7100 total points. My progression means a single player will see more Threads and even with 29 of them in the one game, they need to average ~244 Alignment (in the right direction) per Thread to make up that Alignment from Threads alone. Say other sources (DFCs, Shadowspawn kills, Forsaken Quests, are there better ways to generate Light?) generate 1000 points. This means the player would need to average ~210 points per Thread in the right direction.

From some very quick and possibly inaccurate math, I'm seeing 10% of all choices generate Major Alignment for either side right now - so approximately 1/20 Threads has a Major choice for the Alignment the player is aiming for. That means they'll see on average one Major choice of the "correct" Alignment per game (with either mine or your progression). It's impossible to achieve an average of ~210 Alignment (even raw, let alone net) per Thread even with my 5x numbers. This makes me think we should multiply them up:

Beginning: Minor +20, +80-120, +160-240
End: Minor: +80-120, +300-360, +800-900

That's a simple multiply by 2 from my previous numbers. There are some difficulties: it is almost impossible to stay true Neutral in endgame Thread without picking options that generate 0 Alignment. (Or if you want to remain true Neutral, you'd need to basically just alternate Minor +Light then Minor +Shadow, completely ignoring all other rewards.)

So if we pare back the scaling, as you've suggested, we can get to a bit more reasonable:

Beginning: +20, +80-120, +160-240
End: +40-60, +150-180, +400-450

Now Neutral players have some breathing room in the endgame, but still need to stick to Minor changes in most cases.

Reaching Tier 8 is still a challenge and I'm not 100% sure it's actually possible. It will probably depend on how much Alignment the player gets from other sources aside from Threads. It's also worth noting that Threads the player encounters during the Fourth Age are almost guaranteed to occur after the start of the Last Battle, when one of the big Alignment-related payoffs occurs. (It's almost, rather than completely guaranteed, because the LB doesn't trigger immediately on world era becoming Era of the Dragon, and a single thread might occur for the player in that short ramp-up period.) This means with my progression the player sees 25 Threads on average before declaring an Alignment, and with yours they see an average of 19. And there are a not insignificant number of cases where the Last Battle starts before the player even sees all of their Era of the Dragon Threads, for any progression. I'd need to do a bit more math to work out how possible it is to reach tier 8 because it's certainly a closer thing than three paragraphs up, but I won't frontload all of that now!

That was a lot of math, so unfortunately I've run out of time for the evening! I'll go through the rest of our Threads discussion stuff and make the edits to the master threads lists tomorrow.

Again, wow! and thanks.

Looking at this, I'm struck that I definitely prefer your last suggestion, at least I think - my pared back scaling, but with your double values ( Beginning: +20, +80-120, +160-240, End: +40-60, +150-180, +400-450)

This makes the stuff in the beginning matter more, but still might allow for Tier 8. On that note, I definitely think we can fudge the specifics of when each tier hits around *this*, not the other way around (this is so much more difficult to modify later, I figure).

This also reinforces my previous notion that the time between threads doesn't need to compress too much as the game progresses. Even if there is the potential for huge payouts in the end (which there should be), these can't be preposterously disruptive if you've had a healthy amount of Threads in the first half of the game.

Sorry to boil down all your math to a pretty simple response!

S3rgeus · Apr 29, 2015

counterpoint said:
Yeah, those details are very essential to balancing all of this. I'm guessing we should make things scale at precisely the same rate (when possible), right? Units costing different amounts to buildings is obviously tricky, but we can probably split the difference and make it work.

Yeah, I think we'll want to look at how the various other BNW systems that generate those yields scale and mimic their progression. That's definitely difficult to do, because it's hard to pin down most of these systems in isolation, but we'll see what we can do!

counterpoint said:
Right. agreed. If it's super minor, it *could* be permanent, but that might be a bad idea (maybe it's a % increase, like some wonders do?)

A % increase is attractive because it doesn't need to scale over the course of the game - it's automatically being scaled by the fact that the underlying city is generating more Food. I'm drawn to adding X Food per turn for Y turns though, because it's quite understandable for the player. And I don't think any of our other Thread bonuses manifest as % changes, which would make this one stand out.

counterpoint said:
Play at Power
OK, we'll do it that way,then.

Done

counterpoint said:
Much better now!

King of All
Done

counterpoint said:
Endless Tides
I like it, BUT I suggest we not use the word "prestige," for the obvious other things it calls up. How about "the honor of sponsoring" instead?

Done

counterpoint said:
Touring Delegation
I like the search actually. Makes the most flavor sense with + GP points

Done

counterpoint said:
Right, but if you add a bunch of GP points to a city, and then those run out (whether they're per turn or a flat bonus), won't the city just sit there, never finishing its build up and never actually producing a GP.

And I see with your second question why we are having this confusion. You're thinking it would be a bonus to GP point creation in a city *forever*? I see. Yeah, that could work. It is way better to have that in a city that's already producing some, though.

For what it's worth, I was assuming we were talking about a GP point dump, which could theoretically produce a GP immediately. The problem, of course, with the +turn ones, is that they're less useful late-game. Not the end of the world, though.

I don't think we want the GP bonus to be permanent. I agree that the GP bonus is better in cities that are already producing that type of GP point, but given the restrictions we already have on a lot of these Threads happening, I don't think we should additionally threshold on them on GP points generation.

If the city was producing 0 GP points for the category the player chose the bonus for, then yes, the Thread bonus would cause it produce some and then run out before generating a GP, sitting idle with that quantity of GP points toward that GP until something about the city changed and it started generating those points. If the player is very concerned about that though, they can reassign their citizens to generate the desired type of GP points. A lot of these Threads are about the player's capital, which is often their prime source of GP points.

I'd say this also part of the player's evaluation of the choice's usefulness to them. In the same way some players will pick Happiness options because they're low on happiness/unhappy, players will prioritize GP points choices if they will affect cities that particularly benefit from that type of GP point.

counterpoint said:
oh. yeah, that's being... a little overly cautious. *If* we do a tower schism scenario, we can just disable this thread. Or, it could still say tar valon...

Plague at the Tower
I've changed this to say Tar Valon, because I agree that's it's overly cautious for our configuration. If possible I'd like to remove the potential inaccuracy via final language, just because it's a player immersion break waiting to happen in a non-main game configuration.

counterpoint said:
Learned Spark
Your choice D works well.

Done

counterpoint said:
Tainted Half
good point about production.

As far as the alignment of the taint, obviously the taint itself is evil. I just don't necessarily think the male channelers are necessarily evil, or that being anti them is necessarily 'good.'

That said, I don't feel strongly as to which of C or D is more shadowy.

Done

counterpoint said:
Ah, the restriction! That makes it all make more sense. I say leave B alone. Obviously if we end up scrapping Channeling govs, we'll have to scrap/change this one.

Tower Demand
Done

counterpoint said:
That's too bad, re: Golden Age points. Is there a way to build one that has flavor that matches that? If not, oh well, I did add a few that had GA points earlier today.

Herbs and Power
I'm still drawing a blank on how to make a Golden Age points-y one out of this general flavor. Shall we change it to more direct about Stilling and make it just Major +Shadow instead?

counterpoint said:
Fair enough.

Witches Abroad
Done

counterpoint said:
A - I see, right. A bit wonky, but ti'll work.
D - sure.

Advisers Unwell
Done

counterpoint said:
looks good.

Ends of Madness
Done

counterpoint said:
good.

Enhanced Power
Done

counterpoint said:
Oh, I wasn't assuming that, especially since making items of power is impossible for the vast majority of channelers for most of the third age.

Maybe just keep it ambiguous, "assisting the musician's guild"

Guild Channelers
Right, very good point. Moving away from "hiring" means that the flavor of C as a Light option doesn't make sense any more. (Helping those who have fallen on hard times.) I'm not sure if we need to change it from hiring though - the flavor of the Thread itself is that the channelers are going to advise luminaries within the guild in question, so they wouldn't be training up like normal folk or anything.

counterpoint said:
Alright. let's axe it.

We can revisit the ogier stump stuff later, obviously. It probably won't take long.

Ogier Warfare
Cool, axed.

counterpoint said:
Forbidden Pleasures
Yeah, I like your thread flavor.

I'd prefer not to add D if C stays Minor +Shadow. Yeah, that same logic, coming back again! We can add D, but I say only if we add something to C.... Minor +Happiness?

We've done a lot of math since discussing this Thread last. Do you still think C being just Minor +Shadow will be a problem? After going through the numbers above, I think Neutral civs will be hard pressed to choose non-Minor options by the latter half of the game, and things like this push them toward choosing.

counterpoint said:
Schism
sounds good.

Done

counterpoint said:
Infiltration of Belief
A - sure, +Shadow. intolerance and all that.

Done

counterpoint said:
Moral Path
Sure, that could be minor +Light.

Yeah, I can see the epic evil Choice D. Though, assuming we get the era scaling under control (see above) - we wouldn't want this to be an easy last-minute-undo-the-previous-200-turns.

Assuming this is still a-ok, done!

counterpoint said:
Prudish Folk
Yeah, do it (concern noted above).

Same here, done

counterpoint said:
Build for the Future
OK, I say:

- Era locked - post consolidation
- Make C minor shadow, forcing people as described by you
- for D:
Choice D: Some of our citizens have grown fat and lazy at home. They should be exiled to foreign territories, where they might prove their worth to the homeland. (-Pop in Capitol, Gain Settler unit, Minor +Shadow)

So both C and D will be Minor +Shadow? Or was this new D supposed to be +Shadow?

S3rgeus · Apr 29, 2015

counterpoint said:
Alright. So here's what I'm thinking:

- We have "Generic" forsaken quests and "Personalized" Forsaken quests. The generic ones come from a random forsaken, while the Personalized ones are always attached to a specific Forsaken for flavor reasons. I'm thinking any forsaken can appear in a quest, even if there aren't a unit on a map. However, if they are killed, their quests stop happening.

how many are you thinking we need to create?

- I think we take one of two routes for players' alignment tiers and such:
1) certain quests are Tier locked. Say, certain ones pop up at Shadow Tier 3, 5, and 7, or something. In all cases, Alignment payout is high. For the higher-Tier content, however, there are other rewards as well, or their better (or more "true" rewards). The tasks associated with each tier MAY be harder or easier, but may be comparable.
2) All quests are available once unlocked (Tier 3? Tier 1?), and all offer great alignment payout. ONLY the "true rewards" very - starting from (or probably no reward) at low tiers, and getting significant at higher tiers.

I'm actually tempted to go with option 2. It's simpler for us and easier to understand for the player, I think (providing we flavor it appropriately ("since you are a cowering peon, the Great Lord offers you the following reward:")

- I'm thinking many of them, perhaps all, are self-destructive or at least risky for the questing civ. Declaring war on a civ, for example - not necessarily the same as disbanding a bunch of units, but obviously quite risky.

- Is there a corresponding alignment dump for light players possible? If these are high-payout, are shadowspawn kills enough to make up the difference for light civs?

As far as process, if we want some Personalized quests, I could do some flavor diving, and simply list some key features of each of the forsaken, to help us dream up flavor.

Just to be sure, since it seems to make sense with the kinds of objectives we're discussing, Forsaken Quests are instanced, time-limited opportunities for a player to do something and then receive the payout from the quest? (Much like Tower quests and normal CS quests.)

Before going into more detail on Forsaken quests though, I think there's more to discuss about Thread incidence rates below, so I'll focus on that for now. A couple more posts and I think we'll be wrapped up enough to do a full dive on Forsaken Quests.

The Light payout question here is very relevant below, because I'm not sure we have enough sources of Light. (Which is the opposite problem to what we had a long time ago, I believe.) I don't think Shadowspawn kills will be enough to offset Forsaken Quests.

counterpoint said:
possible I was unclear here. I'm talking about making the variance afforded by RANDOMNESS smaller (e.g. 25-30 instead of 20-30) in order to make things somewhat predictable, not the variation between ERAS. We'll, I was eventually talking about both, but here I refer to within an era, the "range."

This is what I was talking about too, but I think I see where we got our wires crossed. You were saying that we only need enough variance to make it impossible to predict the exact turn, right? I thought you meant that going from 20-30 to 25-30 made it less predictable.

counterpoint said:
Right, I think we still want to keep it in check. I think I'd like our timing to be such that it's unlikely one civ would have more than two or so more threads than another civ AND if they did, it wouldn't be the end of the world.

Without globally fixing the Thread turns (so everybody sees a new one on a known turn, much like the World Congress sessions), I think we'll always have variations of 2+ across at least two players in a given game. More specifics about this below.

counterpoint said:
Actually, I pretty much don't like this idea. I feel like attaching it to some other mechanic will create a feedback loop that is likely hard to balance. With FD poitns - do we really want Oppression civs to have less alignment potential? If Culture, do we really want low-culture players to have less alignment potential? Remember, the point here is to give players the flexibility to color their civ and ultimately choose their side. I definitely prefer we keep this mechanic distinct.

If the slight variations in when they occur is disliked by you, I say let's go to fixed turn counts then - we just need to make sure it can't be meta'd too hard (luckily you can't predict WHICH thread you get).

I don't think it should be any of the existing mechanics that are tied to playstyles or in-game objectives, because that has a whole host of problems, as you've said. FD points was a systematic example, rather than a direct one, the players can do stuff that make False Dragons appear more or less often, so it's not problematic that some players see more False Dragons than others. For Threads, something the player can control (however they do it, the mechanism can be literally anything we want) would get rid of all of our variance problems (some players seeing more Threads than others), while still maintaining the value of unpredictable incidence rates (players not doing strange things because they know a Thread is coming on turn X), because the rate at which players see Threads was a direct result of some tactic they've adopted that affects that Thread rate. (Note: this tactic does not have to be related to any archetypal CiV thing, like Culture, Philosophy choice, number of cities.) Players who see more Threads are seeing more Threads because they effectively managed the Thread rate system (whatever that is) - there's no player being (dis)advantaged by random chance.

As for what that mechanism could be, I'm not sure.

counterpoint said:
ok. WOW! Thanks for crunching those (ballparked) numbers.

Looking over the turn counts, I'm struck by a feeling that there aren't enough of these in the early game. I'd like to think that by the time the TWs happen (end of Classical), you've already had a few opportunities to express your alignment. I think this is important since players will have the potential (maybe even neutral players) to interact with Ishamael once via a super early forsaken quest at this point. I think in some cases, the early game can send a player down a particular alignment path based on the options presented to them, and I think because of that we need to offer more than one of them in the Ancient era.

I'm thinking we should compress this a bit more, and make the variation even less. Perhaps starting at 20 turns and ending at 12 or something. Much less shrinkage. But keep in mind, we're offering way more points for those late-game ones.

Alternatively, we could simply start the cycle sooner - like on turn 10 or something, no matter what.

Alternatively, I'm wondering if we could jsut get rid of this time compression - make it every 15 turns (or 14-16 or something) for the entire game. - we are beefing up the payouts in the endgame after all.

I'm getting a very similar impression, that there isn't enough presence in the early game. I'm really liking the idea of having a constant variance for the Threads over the course of the game. Is every 14-16 turns frequent enough? This results in each player seeing ~23 Threads per game (much easier math - 350 / 15).

It's also much easier to model best and worst case scenarios with a fixed variance. A Thread every 14-16 turns means an approximate maximum difference of 4 between the number of Threads seen by any two players. 350 / 14 for 25 in the game, 350 / 16 for 21 (it would round to 22, but the game ends before that last 0.125 Thread happens (0.125 = 2 turns in this case)).

I could see a constant rate of 10-12 turns working. That means each player will see an average of ~32 Threads per game. (Maximum difference between two players is then 6, 29 vs 35.)

counterpoint said:
Again, wow! and thanks.

Looking at this, I'm struck that I definitely prefer your last suggestion, at least I think - my pared back scaling, but with your double values ( Beginning: +20, +80-120, +160-240, End: +40-60, +150-180, +400-450)

This makes the stuff in the beginning matter more, but still might allow for Tier 8. On that note, I definitely think we can fudge the specifics of when each tier hits around *this*, not the other way around (this is so much more difficult to modify later, I figure).

This also reinforces my previous notion that the time between threads doesn't need to compress too much as the game progresses. Even if there is the potential for huge payouts in the end (which there should be), these can't be preposterously disruptive if you've had a healthy amount of Threads in the first half of the game.

Sorry to boil down all your math to a pretty simple response!

No problem, re running through the numbers. I think that's the only way we can make an accurate assessment of how much Alignment we want these things to generate and once the numbers are written it, it being easy to choose one approach over another means we've got helpful information!

I'll start with I agree, I like the same set of numbers.

While we can change the thresholds the tiers occur at, I don't think that is necessarily easier to change. Whenever we change the tier thresholds, we need to re-evaluate everything that generates Alignment and make sure it's still creating an amount that represents its intended share of the tier-pie. We'll need to do the math for how much we want the Threads to contribute toward a tier 8 threshold of X regardless of what we choose for X, so it may be easier to change the Threads Alignment output rate and treat the tier values as relatively fixed. Unless we find ourselves having structural problems where it's impossible to fulfill the needs of being able to reach tier 8 while keeping it being difficult and also being able to remain Neutral with some concerted effort, in which case we're demonstrating that the tier thresholds we've chosen make it impossible to create the situation we want.

So it's worth making sure that the numbers we both like here make a tier 8 Alignment possible but difficult. This all depends on the frequency of Threads that we decide on above, so obviously the two discussions are quite closely connected.

So, considering a thread rate of one every 14-16 turns. The best case, for a player trying to reach tier 8, is 25 Threads in the game. (3 of which occur after the Last Battle starts.) So hopefully they're trying to reach tier 8 before then - so they have 22 Threads to do so. Getting to tier 8 with Threads alone would require ~323 Alignment (net) per Thread. That's impossible, but we need to keep in mind that the player has other sources of Alignment.

When starting off our discussion of Forsaken Quests, we're saying that they pay out "significant" Shadow. What portion of getting to tier 8 are we thinking for that? Pulling a number out of the air, let's say the player actively pursuing Forsaken Quests generates 2000 Shadow over the course of the game. Let's say citizens generate a total of 500 Shadow (net) over the course of the game. That means the player needs to generate 4600 from Threads to get to tier 8. That requires an average of ~209 per Thread. That's also pretty much impossible. (Any average above the Normal output range for the endgame won't be achievable due to the scarcity of Major choices.)

I think we'd want to get the required average Alignment per Thread to reach tier 8 down to something like ~120, given the suggested yield output that we both like. Keeping our 2500 Alignment from non-Thread sources number, this would require the player to see ~38 Threads before the Last Battle. That's a Thread every ~8 turns.

I don't think we want the Threads to happen that often. To get up to a 10-12 range being workable (the player must average ~164 Alignment per Thread, assuming 2500 Alignment is gained from other sources), we'd probably want something like this spread:

Beginning: +25, +100-150, +200-300
End: +50-70, +180-220, +450-530

As always, we consider the consequences for Neutral players. Non-minor endgame choices almost always bump Neutral players up a tier in one direction or the other. Looking back at our penalties for choosing against type though, one or two tiers in one direction or the other doesn't affect a Neutral player. And tiers 2 and 3 are much more forgiving - in that the player can afford to accrue more Alignment before they move up because the tier is "wider."

Neutral players realistically only need to stay within 1900 points of 0 (tier 4 threshold) in order to avoid any penalties, as we've got it now. That seems a little forgiving to me? Shall we make the Neutral penalties start at tier 2 instead of 4, so they need to stay within 500 of 0? That seems much more like what we're trying to do - make Neutral a juggling act.

So, returning from the quick tangent about Neutral penalties, this spread would also make it difficult but not impossible to average the required ~164 Alignment per Thread. In the early game, it's impossible to average that right away, so the player needs to be more committed later, in order to drag up their average. At the same time, it's impossible to get to tier 8 with endgame yield alone - the player needs to have been at least considering it for the entire game, and committed to it for a significant portion of it. A single major choice in their chosen direction is always helpful, particularly in the endgame.

counterpoint · Apr 29, 2015

S3rgeus said:
A % increase is attractive because it doesn't need to scale over the course of the game - it's automatically being scaled by the fact that the underlying city is generating more Food. I'm drawn to adding X Food per turn for Y turns though, because it's quite understandable for the player. And I don't think any of our other Thread bonuses manifest as % changes, which would make this one stand out.

OK. I'm fine with doing X food per turn for Y turns. Or, to make people crazy, do X food per turn for Z turns!

Also, I should note that it feels so good to see do many quotes simply saying "Done" these days.

S3rgeus said:
I don't think we want the GP bonus to be permanent. I agree that the GP bonus is better in cities that are already producing that type of GP point, but given the restrictions we already have on a lot of these Threads happening, I don't think we should additionally threshold on them on GP points generation.

Right. I should say that I think the number of turns the GP points accumulate should be relatively few... or simply a lump sum. Either way. I don't want it to be for a super long time, because then we have to worry about balancing for the game ending and such. I'd rather not worry about that kind of stuff.

S3rgeus said:
If the city was producing 0 GP points for the category the player chose the bonus for, then yes, the Thread bonus would cause it produce some and then run out before generating a GP, sitting idle with that quantity of GP points toward that GP until something about the city changed and it started generating those points. If the player is very concerned about that though, they can reassign their citizens to generate the desired type of GP points. A lot of these Threads are about the player's capital, which is often their prime source of GP points.

I'd say this also part of the player's evaluation of the choice's usefulness to them. In the same way some players will pick Happiness options because they're low on happiness/unhappy, players will prioritize GP points choices if they will affect cities that particularly benefit from that type of GP point.

OK. This all makes sense. You know what? I'm so accustomed to automatic management of my cities that I sort of mentally think of GP points as only coming from wonders and buildings. So I'm thinking that I'd be screwed if I ended up with Half a GArtist in some artless city. But, of course, that's simply not true.

So, this is all fine, but I would like to state that I think it's very important that our UI allows the player to "poke around" before deciding on a thread. Make it like a "Choose production" or social policy thing, where they can simply close the window and come back after they've had a chance to evaluate the empire. This may seem obvious, but I most definitely do NOT want it to be like the "Captured a City" dialogue box, which does not allow that - I hate not being able to assess the hapiness penalties I'd incur, or the strategic value of a city upon capture.

S3rgeus said:
Plague at the Tower
I've changed this to say Tar Valon, because I agree that's it's overly cautious for our configuration. If possible I'd like to remove the potential inaccuracy via final language, just because it's a player immersion break waiting to happen in a non-main game configuration.

fair enough!

S3rgeus said:
Herbs and Power
I'm still drawing a blank on how to make a Golden Age points-y one out of this general flavor. Shall we change it to more direct about Stilling and make it just Major +Shadow instead?

do it!

S3rgeus said:
Guild Channelers
Right, very good point. Moving away from "hiring" means that the flavor of C as a Light option doesn't make sense any more. (Helping those who have fallen on hard times.) I'm not sure if we need to change it from hiring though - the flavor of the Thread itself is that the channelers are going to advise luminaries within the guild in question, so they wouldn't be training up like normal folk or anything.

I think we can leave it where it is, but it does feel silly. Let's just make it not silly in the final text.

S3rgeus said:
We've done a lot of math since discussing this Thread last. Do you still think C being just Minor +Shadow will be a problem? After going through the numbers above, I think Neutral civs will be hard pressed to choose non-Minor options by the latter half of the game, and things like this push them toward choosing.

Forbidden Pleasures
This is fine.

S3rgeus said:
So both C and D will be Minor +Shadow? Or was this new D supposed to be +Shadow?

sorry, wasn't clear. One of them should be M+S, the other +S. Don't care which.

counterpoint · Apr 29, 2015

S3rgeus said:
Just to be sure, since it seems to make sense with the kinds of objectives we're discussing, Forsaken Quests are instanced, time-limited opportunities for a player to do something and then receive the payout from the quest? (Much like Tower quests and normal CS quests.)

Yeah, they're regular ol' quests, I think. That means, of course, that a big deal isn't made when they pop up, right? So i suppose that means we'll need to keep the flavor very minimal. Will it be something as simple as "Graendal will reward you if you pillage your own improvements!" or can we do more than that? Or, will more info at least be available for interested players?

S3rgeus said:
Before going into more detail on Forsaken quests though, I think there's more to discuss about Thread incidence rates below, so I'll focus on that for now. A couple more posts and I think we'll be wrapped up enough to do a full dive on Forsaken Quests.

right. We're close, though.

S3rgeus said:
The Light payout question here is very relevant below, because I'm not sure we have enough sources of Light. (Which is the opposite problem to what we had a long time ago, I believe.) I don't think Shadowspawn kills will be enough to offset Forsaken Quests.

Yes, this is absolutely a big question. According to our discussions and the LB summary, here are things that can net light points:

- Threads
- Darkfriends in cities
- Killing Shadowspawn
- Rewards for gentling FDs, fighting in the TWars, and probably also cleansing saidin

So, obviously there's a deficit to make up, let's say it's 2000 like you say below, for the sake of argument.

1) One option is to weigh the actual payouts of Light yields to be greater than the Shadow yields. I think this is possible, but for it to make sense from a flavor perspective, I think we'd need to proportionally scale back the regular rewards as well to justify it (which is where we were when we first dreamed this up, I think). I'm pretty sure we don't want to do that, and this kind of variation would be a bit confusing from a player experience perspective anyways.

2) We could set things up so that normal citizens pay out Light points at a greater rate than DFCs, proportionally, that is. So a purely neutral city is actually pumping out a net positive Light, and a somewhat Shadow city would probably be the neutral point. This way, over the course of a game, a civ would be overall producing extra light that might accumulate over time to make up our difference (goodness of man, etc.). However, this has some problems. First, we'd end up with some weird Tall vs Wide implications. Second, it's also somewhat unintuitive.
In any case, doing this puts the Forsaken quests not in a position to "push yourself from Tier 6 to 8", but more of "make up for all the light points you've been forced to swallow all game long"

3) Killing SSpawn can be pumped up (currently +5 per kill), and this could work, but that has some negative side effects. One, it means a pacifistic player (Tuatha'an!) or one far from the blight would necessarily be lower light tier than, say, a Sheinar-like civ. Also, Shadow players will also probably be gleefully hacking away at Shadowspawn in self-defense throughout the entire game (up til the LB). Right now they do have to swallow some unwanted Light points, but if we increase the amount, that gets worse.
In any case, doing this once again puts the Forsaken quests in "makeup" mode.

4) These extra things might be our best bet.
A) False Dragons. We're already doling out Light here, right? Perhaps that could be a significant factor. Maybe we give more Light for gentling one (instead of killing one)?
B) We could provide healthy light rewards for the "winners" of the Trolloc Wars. Maybe tier 2 can come with a healthy light bonus also? Reminder, right now it's First: GP, 2nd: 500 faith, 3rd: two workers. Still, this is rather early in the game. We can't give such a huge amount of light to makeup for all the forsaken quests, else we'd end up with civs with huge light alignments in era 3.
C) Cleansing saidin, which we've established as a light goal, can come with some nice Light payouts. I know this might happen in the LB, but it's fine if a civ starts the LB tier 7 and jumps to 8 during the last battle - they still receive the benefits.
D) We've established Stedding as pretty solidly light-aligned. We could tie in light payout to dealings with them. I am iffy on this, though, as it then somewhat limits their dealings with shadow civs. That said, that could be ok, since we've already pretty much decided that, once they decalre for shadow, steddings are off-limits for a civ.
E) Similarly, we could tie in some white-tower dealings into light accumulation. Donating girls to the tower, completing tower quests - these things currently provide influence, but they could also provide light. Same issue as above, but similarly to above, that might be acceptable.
F) Is there some way we could make something about the High King event set generate light? Probably not, right?
G) We've already decided that Alignment provides modifiers to Faith generation. Might Paths somehow tie in to generating light points? Maybe there are optional beliefs or Lineages that generate light points?
H) There are times in civ when you're asked to do nice things. Give gold to a struggling civ. Sign a DoF. liberate a city. These things could generate Light points. That seems logical. That may, in some ways, limit the actions of our shadow civs, but that kind of makes sense - if you're trying to be pure evil, why are you capturing a city and then GIVING IT BACK to its founder?
The flipside could be true, though - razing cities, Declaring war on civs you are friendly with... these things could generate Shadow. This also makes sense, and perhaps this is something we want to do. But if we do it both for light and shadow things, we might end up with a "zero sum" net alignment output on average - which might be fine, it just doesn't help us with the Light deficit.

I think that's all I can think up. I'd prefer not to totally invent new systems to make this work.

Question, does completing Turning the Tower objectives provide Shadow points (or finally turning the tower)?

S3rgeus said:
This is what I was talking about too, but I think I see where we got our wires crossed. You were saying that we only need enough variance to make it impossible to predict the exact turn, right? I thought you meant that going from 20-30 to 25-30 made it less predictable.

Correct. Prediction of the exact turn is the only problem I see. It's not even that big of a problem, since you can't even remotely predict which thread you'll see.

S3rgeus said:
Without globally fixing the Thread turns (so everybody sees a new one on a known turn, much like the World Congress sessions), I think we'll always have variations of 2+ across at least two players in a given game. More specifics about this below.

Right. Do you want this variation, or would you prefer to globally fix them?

S3rgeus said:
I don't think it should be any of the existing mechanics that are tied to playstyles or in-game objectives, because that has a whole host of problems, as you've said. FD points was a systematic example, rather than a direct one, the players can do stuff that make False Dragons appear more or less often, so it's not problematic that some players see more False Dragons than others. For Threads, something the player can control (however they do it, the mechanism can be literally anything we want) would get rid of all of our variance problems (some players seeing more Threads than others), while still maintaining the value of unpredictable incidence rates (players not doing strange things because they know a Thread is coming on turn X), because the rate at which players see Threads was a direct result of some tactic they've adopted that affects that Thread rate. (Note: this tactic does not have to be related to any archetypal CiV thing, like Culture, Philosophy choice, number of cities.) Players who see more Threads are seeing more Threads because they effectively managed the Thread rate system (whatever that is) - there's no player being (dis)advantaged by random chance.

As for what that mechanism could be, I'm not sure.

I see, you're just using FD points as an example of the TYPE of system.

The truth is, I don't think we want to create a new system that's going to be complicated, and I don't think the Flavor really can withstand more crap being dumped on it. That said...

"Pattern" (or whatever we were going to call it) If we ever were going to do this, this would be where we'd do it. It makes perfect sense, from a flavor perspective - the more your civ tugs at the pattern, the more threads you'd be seeing. I wouldn't suggest it be the sole determining factor, but maybe a modifier on top of a base number of turns.

I know Score killed your dog as a child, so Pattern probably shouldn't be that, but maybe there's some other thing that already exists in our game that can be swapped to merge with this. Hmmmm....

Remember Wisdoms (citizens)? They generated Faith and WoT GP points, right? Well, maybe our WoT GP points tie into this. Maybe Wisdoms and things like them generate Pattern also? Maybe building certain things generates pattern? GPs being born?

I don't know, it could be various things, but things that don't necessarily reward only one playstyle (but can be targeted like you say). Don't thin kit would ever be a sole-yield of something, though. More like players just know that if they do want more threads, there are some things they can do to SUBTLY adjust how often they get them.

Thinking about it intuitively, I'd say "big things" would generate this yield.Things that span playstyles:

1) GP generation
2) wonders
3) capturing captials (cities?)
4) various tower related things - amyrlin from your civ, etc.
5) dragon born near you
6) high king-ness

or not. I'm not sure we need to have it be a targeted thing.

S3rgeus said:
I'm getting a very similar impression, that there isn't enough presence in the early game. I'm really liking the idea of having a constant variance for the Threads over the course of the game. Is every 14-16 turns frequent enough? This results in each player seeing ~23 Threads per game (much easier math - 350 / 15).

It's also much easier to model best and worst case scenarios with a fixed variance. A Thread every 14-16 turns means an approximate maximum difference of 4 between the number of Threads seen by any two players. 350 / 14 for 25 in the game, 350 / 16 for 21 (it would round to 22, but the game ends before that last 0.125 Thread happens (0.125 = 2 turns in this case)).

I could see a constant rate of 10-12 turns working. That means each player will see an average of ~32 Threads per game. (Maximum difference between two players is then 6, 29 vs 35.)

Going just on "feel," 14-16 is the right call IMO. 10-12 seems way too often in the early game. (where so many turns are "Next Turn" turns). Also, it has less variance between civs.

S3rgeus said:
No problem, re running through the numbers. I think that's the only way we can make an accurate assessment of how much Alignment we want these things to generate and once the numbers are written it, it being easy to choose one approach over another means we've got helpful information!

I'll start with I agree, I like the same set of numbers.

While we can change the thresholds the tiers occur at, I don't think that is necessarily easier to change. Whenever we change the tier thresholds, we need to re-evaluate everything that generates Alignment and make sure it's still creating an amount that represents its intended share of the tier-pie. We'll need to do the math for how much we want the Threads to contribute toward a tier 8 threshold of X regardless of what we choose for X, so it may be easier to change the Threads Alignment output rate and treat the tier values as relatively fixed. Unless we find ourselves having structural problems where it's impossible to fulfill the needs of being able to reach tier 8 while keeping it being difficult and also being able to remain Neutral with some concerted effort, in which case we're demonstrating that the tier thresholds we've chosen make it impossible to create the situation we want.

So it's worth making sure that the numbers we both like here make a tier 8 Alignment possible but difficult. This all depends on the frequency of Threads that we decide on above, so obviously the two discussions are quite closely connected.

Point taken. Obviously we do want to try to get it right now instead of having to change other stuff.

S3rgeus said:
So, considering a thread rate of one every 14-16 turns. The best case, for a player trying to reach tier 8, is 25 Threads in the game. (3 of which occur after the Last Battle starts.) So hopefully they're trying to reach tier 8 before then - so they have 22 Threads to do so. Getting to tier 8 with Threads alone would require ~323 Alignment (net) per Thread. That's impossible, but we need to keep in mind that the player has other sources of Alignment.

When starting off our discussion of Forsaken Quests, we're saying that they pay out "significant" Shadow. What portion of getting to tier 8 are we thinking for that? Pulling a number out of the air, let's say the player actively pursuing Forsaken Quests generates 2000 Shadow over the course of the game. Let's say citizens generate a total of 500 Shadow (net) over the course of the game. That means the player needs to generate 4600 from Threads to get to tier 8. That requires an average of ~209 per Thread. That's also pretty much impossible. (Any average above the Normal output range for the endgame won't be achievable due to the scarcity of Major choices.)

Right. I agree that such impossible /turn values are... not possible.

In terms of the proportion of Shadow points I'd expect from Forsaken Quests.... I'd say a dedicated Shadoweer could go from Tier 6 to Tier 8 using them. So, 2000 or so does seem fine.

S3rgeus said:
I think we'd want to get the required average Alignment per Thread to reach tier 8 down to something like ~120, given the suggested yield output that we both like. Keeping our 2500 Alignment from non-Thread sources number, this would require the player to see ~38 Threads before the Last Battle. That's a Thread every ~8 turns.

I don't think we want the Threads to happen that often. To get up to a 10-12 range being workable (the player must average ~164 Alignment per Thread, assuming 2500 Alignment is gained from other sources), we'd probably want something like this spread:

Beginning: +25, +100-150, +200-300
End: +50-70, +180-220, +450-530

I don't see a problem in boosting up the amounts given in Threads. If we have to do 10-12 turns, that's fine, but I definitely do prefer 14-16 turns from a playability standpoint.

So maybe we can boost these values even MORE?

In any case, we also might consider boosting up the values you get from DF citizens (and normals, of course). Why not? We do want them to be a relatively minor component of your alignment, but they need to be impactful enough to make Heralding your own cities into Balance is worth doing - and Heralding your opponents is sufficiently destructive to be worth doing as well. So maybe beefing these values up is in order as well?

S3rgeus said:
As always, we consider the consequences for Neutral players. Non-minor endgame choices almost always bump Neutral players up a tier in one direction or the other. Looking back at our penalties for choosing against type though, one or two tiers in one direction or the other doesn't affect a Neutral player. And tiers 2 and 3 are much more forgiving - in that the player can afford to accrue more Alignment before they move up because the tier is "wider."

Neutral players realistically only need to stay within 1900 points of 0 (tier 4 threshold) in order to avoid any penalties, as we've got it now. That seems a little forgiving to me? Shall we make the Neutral penalties start at tier 2 instead of 4, so they need to stay within 500 of 0? That seems much more like what we're trying to do - make Neutral a juggling act.

Right. I think we've been obsessed with the "Neutral" Tier like it actually means much. People can declare neutral from wherever they want. Neutral is just as important as, say, Tier 6 shadow or Tier 2 light. It's just a part of the gradient. I feel totally comfortable with neutral civs aiming to land on pure Neutral, but missing the mark and hitting Tiers 1 or 2 on either side. Totally fine.

I remember old versions of D&D described true neutral as somebody who is actively *supportive* of neutrality and actively campaigning for it. This is quite silly. A neutral civ simply doesn't care. They aren't striving for "balance" or anything druidy like that, they're simply doing what they feel is the best option at all times. Right? Too this end, we don't want to make people obsessively fighting for neutrality. The "monkey" (i.e. random choosing of thread choices) should probably end up relatively neutral, in the end, right?

To your point, though, yeah, I think neutral penalties should probably start "earlier." Tier 2 probably works well. Check the LB summary - how do you want me to change things?

S3rgeus said:
So, returning from the quick tangent about Neutral penalties, this spread would also make it difficult but not impossible to average the required ~164 Alignment per Thread. In the early game, it's impossible to average that right away, so the player needs to be more committed later, in order to drag up their average. At the same time, it's impossible to get to tier 8 with endgame yield alone - the player needs to have been at least considering it for the entire game, and committed to it for a significant portion of it. A single major choice in their chosen direction is always helpful, particularly in the endgame.

ok, so what's your final thought on how we should proceed? I'm thinking:

1) Threads every 14-16 turns
2) Beef up thread yields somewhat
3) Beef up citizen yields as well
4) explore some of the light generation options discussed above
5) explore "pattern" or other weird way to target thread frequency that is intuitive and non-intrusive

S3rgeus · May 1, 2015

counterpoint said:
OK. I'm fine with doing X food per turn for Y turns. Or, to make people crazy, do X food per turn for Z turns!

Also, I should note that it feels so good to see do many quotes simply saying "Done" these days.

Z turns? Madness!

counterpoint said:
Right. I should say that I think the number of turns the GP points accumulate should be relatively few... or simply a lump sum. Either way. I don't want it to be for a super long time, because then we have to worry about balancing for the game ending and such. I'd rather not worry about that kind of stuff.

True, GP point dumps are good for that. I've never seen GP point dumps in BNW though - only free GPs. That makes me think we should stick to GP points, but yeah, a short number of turns should make that work for the endgame too.

counterpoint said:
OK. This all makes sense. You know what? I'm so accustomed to automatic management of my cities that I sort of mentally think of GP points as only coming from wonders and buildings. So I'm thinking that I'd be screwed if I ended up with Half a GArtist in some artless city. But, of course, that's simply not true.

So, this is all fine, but I would like to state that I think it's very important that our UI allows the player to "poke around" before deciding on a thread. Make it like a "Choose production" or social policy thing, where they can simply close the window and come back after they've had a chance to evaluate the empire. This may seem obvious, but I most definitely do NOT want it to be like the "Captured a City" dialogue box, which does not allow that - I hate not being able to assess the hapiness penalties I'd incur, or the strategic value of a city upon capture.

Totally agree, I was thinking it would be much like the "choose which technology to research" or "choose production" in terms of state - you can do whatever you want, bring it up again, close it down, etc. just not end your turn until you make a decision.

counterpoint said:
do it!

Herbs and Power
Done!

counterpoint said:
Forbidden Pleasures
This is fine.

Done

counterpoint said:
sorry, wasn't clear. One of them should be M+S, the other +S. Don't care which.

Build for the Future
Done

counterpoint said:
Yeah, they're regular ol' quests, I think. That means, of course, that a big deal isn't made when they pop up, right? So i suppose that means we'll need to keep the flavor very minimal. Will it be something as simple as "Graendal will reward you if you pillage your own improvements!" or can we do more than that? Or, will more info at least be available for interested players?

I think we have a block of flavor text that describes the task in-universe and then a few bullets with the actual in-game actions required below that, all on a small popup that's available through a notification when the quest is first given to the player. They can then access any Forsaken Quests they have via a menu up in the top right to see the same summaries.

counterpoint said:
right. We're close, though.

Close!

counterpoint said:
Yes, this is absolutely a big question. According to our discussions and the LB summary, here are things that can net light points:

- Threads
- Darkfriends in cities
- Killing Shadowspawn
- Rewards for gentling FDs, fighting in the TWars, and probably also cleansing saidin

So, obviously there's a deficit to make up, let's say it's 2000 like you say below, for the sake of argument.

1) One option is to weigh the actual payouts of Light yields to be greater than the Shadow yields. I think this is possible, but for it to make sense from a flavor perspective, I think we'd need to proportionally scale back the regular rewards as well to justify it (which is where we were when we first dreamed this up, I think). I'm pretty sure we don't want to do that, and this kind of variation would be a bit confusing from a player experience perspective anyways.

Originally we were thinking that Light choices would pay out less but give more Light than corresponding Shadow choices give Shadow. We don't necessarily need to do it that way though. We could make the Light choices give more Light than Shadow choices give Shadow, without a disparity between the other non-Alignment rewards. Alignment is only useful in its ability to grant the player other rewards, and if there are fewer sources of Light in the game, then a thread that gives you more Light than Shadow isn't rewarding Light players more than Shadow players, because Light players need to get almost all of their Alignment from these Threads, whereas Shadow players have other sources.

However, I don't really like this idea - it's a bit confusing for players and may create the illusion of an imbalance. Just figured it was worth bringing up.

counterpoint said:
2) We could set things up so that normal citizens pay out Light points at a greater rate than DFCs, proportionally, that is. So a purely neutral city is actually pumping out a net positive Light, and a somewhat Shadow city would probably be the neutral point. This way, over the course of a game, a civ would be overall producing extra light that might accumulate over time to make up our difference (goodness of man, etc.). However, this has some problems. First, we'd end up with some weird Tall vs Wide implications. Second, it's also somewhat unintuitive.
In any case, doing this puts the Forsaken quests not in a position to "push yourself from Tier 6 to 8", but more of "make up for all the light points you've been forced to swallow all game long"

I'm not a fan of this approach either. My thoughts are pretty much the same as yours.

counterpoint said:
3) Killing SSpawn can be pumped up (currently +5 per kill), and this could work, but that has some negative side effects. One, it means a pacifistic player (Tuatha'an!) or one far from the blight would necessarily be lower light tier than, say, a Sheinar-like civ. Also, Shadow players will also probably be gleefully hacking away at Shadowspawn in self-defense throughout the entire game (up til the LB). Right now they do have to swallow some unwanted Light points, but if we increase the amount, that gets worse.
In any case, doing this once again puts the Forsaken quests in "makeup" mode.

Agreed on all points again - being warlike is a bizarre prerequisite for being a Light civ, and the difficulty it creates for Shadow civs compounds that.

Quoting out of order because this section ends up being relevant to the one before it:

counterpoint said:
Question, does completing Turning the Tower objectives provide Shadow points (or finally turning the tower)?

Yes, definitely! I had forgotten about this, but we discussed this before as paying out a healthy amount of Alignment too. We could say this provides, ballpark, 500-1000 points for a dedicated Shadow civ? The Turning objectives are calibrated so that one player could almost never complete them all, so that seems reasonable to me? That means we've got 3000-3500 non-Thread sources of Alignment (or at least Shadow).

This means Threads need to fill in the remaining 3600-4100. Say we go with every 14-16 turns for our rate (more on this below), that means players need to average ~205 to ~230 Alignment per Thread (they see ~20 Threads before the Last Battle). This seems quite achievable with some of the scaling I'll discuss in more detail below. It also gives us an amount to shoot for for Light Alignment - generate 3000-3500 from non-Thread sources.

counterpoint said:
4) These extra things might be our best bet.
A) False Dragons. We're already doling out Light here, right? Perhaps that could be a significant factor. Maybe we give more Light for gentling one (instead of killing one)?

I think this was originally part of our plan for False Dragons, but it seems like we forgot about it! Yes, this seems like a very good idea. Gentling providing the Light bonus is also awesome because Shadow-aiming civs can just go for the kill. I think we can straight up just add the Light bonus on top of the Gentling bonus we've already discussed. I don't thinkwe need to make killing the False Dragon generate Light, though we could. I'm going to do some math below on a Gentling-based system, but we can have kills worth some amount of Light too if there's a good reason to include that.

Looking back at the Misc summary, this is the total yield payout of a False Dragon for each era:

After Breaking: 200
Nations: 300
Freedom: 400
Consolidation: 600
New Beginnings: 800
Encroaching Blight: 1000
the Dragon: 1200
Fourth Age: 1500

You may notice something. There are only 8 entries in this list, but we have 9 eras. Proposed new progression:

After Breaking: 200
Nations: 300
Freedom: 400
Consolidation: 500
New Beginnings: 700
Stability: 900
Encroaching Blight: 1100
the Dragon: 1300
Fourth Age: 1500

Assuming that's ok, I'm going to do some math to work out how much Light we can/should give out for Gentling FDs.

The Gentling bonus is equal to 50-75% of the era's bonus (range between 50-75 decided by the proportion of the False Dragon's remaining health). This has a great flavor intersection with Gentling rewarding the player with Light Alignment - it's more humane to Gentle a channeler when he is healthy than beating him to a pulp first.

We could make the Light payout equal to 50% of the Gentling bonus? This has an absolute maximum of generating 563 (562.5 rounded up) Light from Gentling a single False Dragon by Gentling a full health False Dragon during the Fourth Age. The last era before the Last Battle (Encroaching Blight) has an absolute maximum of 413 (412.5 rounded up) per False Dragon Gentled. (Minimum for these two circumstances is 375 and 275 respectively.)

Ballparking, how many False Dragons do we expect a single player to encounter in each game? And presumably (due to foreign competition and combat randomness) they will be unable to Gentle all False Dragons they encounter. If we wanted False Dragons to provide ~2000 Light for a very focused Light civ (so this would be the flipside of the Forsaken Quests for Shadow), a few assumptions:

A False Dragon is Gentled at 50% health on average (player gets 62.5% of total yield payout for a Gentling bonus, 50% of this means 31.75% of total yield payout is given out as Light)
The False Dragon rate remains constant throughout the game (this might not be true?)
A False Dragon appears within range of a civ approximately every 30 turns.

Plus the same game and era length assumptions as the other Alignment stuff.

FDs appear in range on turns 30, 60, 90, 120, 150, 180, 210, 240, 270, 300, and 330.

This means the player has 11 opportunities to interact with a False Dragon (10 before the Last Battle). We'll use the 10 going forward. This guy's being really careful, so he Gentles the False Dragon in 50% of those cases. The other 50% are killed by other players. (This is any FD the player is aware of, not necessarily spawned by them.)

How much Alignment that generates depends completely on which False Dragons the player successfully Gentles. This is truly unpredictable - it's based on a whole host of factors about the map, military composition, unit placement, player and AI decisions, all sorts of craziness. Worst case (succeeds on the first five, which are worth the least): 64 + 95 + 127 + 127 + 159 = 572. Best case (succeeds at the last five, which are worth the most): 222 + 286 + 286 + 349 + 413 = 1556.

Absolute super-duper-crazy-best-case (player Gentles all False Dragons they are ever aware of at full health) - 37.5% of total yield payout is given as Light each time, resulting in: 75 + 113 + 150 + 150 + 188 + 263 + 338 + 338 + 413 + 488 = 2516. If the player is able to do this, then they deserve to be the Lightest person ever, because that would be crazy difficult.

In terms of player isolation (they're by themselves on a continent, so they don't have to compete for FDs) - this is balanced out by the fact that they don't see nearly as many, because there are none spawned by foreign civs. For players who are way crowded together, they see lots of them, but there is a lot more competition for killing them, so they very unlikely to even approach the theoretical maximum.

By making killing False Dragons not produce Light we also create an interesting race between the two sides for them. Shadow prioritize killing because it gives them stuff and deprives potential uber-Light foes Light points. Light prioritizes Gentling quickly because it gets them more Light. Both are also driven by the immediacy of "that False Dragon will take my city if I don't get rid of him now."

I think the upshot of all of this is that, with the system proposed above, FDs would tend to give out somewhere around ~1000 Light per game to a player who was focused on Gentling them, though there is significant room to receive more or less than that in extreme circumstances.

What do you think?

counterpoint said:
B) We could provide healthy light rewards for the "winners" of the Trolloc Wars. Maybe tier 2 can come with a healthy light bonus also? Reminder, right now it's First: GP, 2nd: 500 faith, 3rd: two workers. Still, this is rather early in the game. We can't give such a huge amount of light to makeup for all the forsaken quests, else we'd end up with civs with huge light alignments in era 3.

Right, this sounds good. For the reasons you state, I don't think we can afford to give out more than 500 to any one civ at this point (500 would push them from about Neutral to Light tier 2 - which seems like an acceptable change for the single "Champion of the Trolloc Wars"). So we could have +200 Light at 2nd and +300 at first? (The guy in first gets all 2nd and 3rd bonuses, right?) Given that this can only ever happen to 1 or 2 players, I don't think we want to calibrate things so that it's the only way to reach Light tier 8.

counterpoint said:
C) Cleansing saidin, which we've established as a light goal, can come with some nice Light payouts. I know this might happen in the LB, but it's fine if a civ starts the LB tier 7 and jumps to 8 during the last battle - they still receive the benefits.

Totally with you on this one. As it's such a late-game thing, I think we could give ~1000 Light to the highest contributor as a big chunk of a boost, and some other significant amounts to lesser contributors.

Also related to this - Gentling False Dragons should probably stop generating Light after Saidin has been Cleansed? Or maybe just scaled back? (It's still Light-ish to humanely save your people from a marauding male channeler, whether or not he's going to go mad, just not quite as much so anymore without the madness on top of it.)

I believe we also discussed Gentling normal male channelers producing Light. This would necessarily be a smaller amount than a single FD generates, since players see more male channelers (right?) and don't have to compete for Gentling them nearly as much. However, I'm not sure if we want to do that at all, because Shadow civs will need to Gentle their male channelers too, and we don't want them to be fighting mandatory Light (beyond citizens).

counterpoint said:
D) We've established Stedding as pretty solidly light-aligned. We could tie in light payout to dealings with them. I am iffy on this, though, as it then somewhat limits their dealings with shadow civs. That said, that could be ok, since we've already pretty much decided that, once they decalre for shadow, steddings are off-limits for a civ.

I can see this working (and have some quick notes about it below in the Tower section too). How would these manifest? Is completing any Stedding quest also worth some Light, in addition to the yield that quest would normally pay out? I'm thinking this probably wouldn't be a major contributor of Light - have it only give out relatively small amounts compared to Gentling FDs or Cleansing Saidin. That way some Shadow civs can still deal with Stedding for the duration of the game without completely pulling themselves Light.

Somewhere in the region of ~500 Light points during a game, if a player is really trying? It would be great if the Light rewarded by Stedding could be somehow optional in the way you interact with them. (The same way Gentling is an optional way of interacting with False Dragons that achieves the same goal as the non-optional method, killing them.)

counterpoint said:
E) Similarly, we could tie in some white-tower dealings into light accumulation. Donating girls to the tower, completing tower quests - these things currently provide influence, but they could also provide light. Same issue as above, but similarly to above, that might be acceptable.

I think the issue of forcing Light yield on Shadow civs is more pronounced with the Tower than the Ogier (Shadow civs can just deal with non-Stedding CSes to avoid the Ogier Light, but there's only one Tower and it does a lot of powerful and important things). This makes me think we could leave this off.

counterpoint said:
F) Is there some way we could make something about the High King event set generate light? Probably not, right?

I don't think so.

counterpoint said:
G) We've already decided that Alignment provides modifiers to Faith generation. Might Paths somehow tie in to generating light points? Maybe there are optional beliefs or Lineages that generate light points?

Totally, this one is a great idea! They are Paths to the Light after all.

counterpoint said:
H) There are times in civ when you're asked to do nice things. Give gold to a struggling civ. Sign a DoF. liberate a city. These things could generate Light points. That seems logical. That may, in some ways, limit the actions of our shadow civs, but that kind of makes sense - if you're trying to be pure evil, why are you capturing a city and then GIVING IT BACK to its founder?
The flipside could be true, though - razing cities, Declaring war on civs you are friendly with... these things could generate Shadow. This also makes sense, and perhaps this is something we want to do. But if we do it both for light and shadow things, we might end up with a "zero sum" net alignment output on average - which might be fine, it just doesn't help us with the Light deficit.

I think this makes a lot of flavorful and mechanical sense, but I'm not sure if we need it. I think we should note this down, but not necessarily work towards putting it into the mod in our first pass. It's occurred to me while doing much of the numbers above that we've got a house of cards (great TV) of estimates, and the real results will likely diverge in ways we don't yet expect. While we know we're ballparking, it would be good to get a feel for how this all actually plays before we add more layers like this that touch a lot of other parts of the game.

counterpoint said:
I think that's all I can think up. I'd prefer not to totally invent new systems to make this work.

These were awesome, thanks! And I totally agree, the Light generation should be hanging off other systems that make sense for it, rather than existing in isolation in its own separate system.

In summary, the sources we've got and their approximate Light yields:

Gentling False Dragons: ~1000
Stedding: ~500
Citizens: ~500 (I'm figuring citizens pretty much help you about ~500 whichever way you go, because of the progressions)
Cleansing Saidin: ~500 (Only one guy gets ~1000, most get less, if the Cleansing even happens)
Paths: ~500 (there's probably room for this to vary, this is just a guess on my part)
Trolloc Wars: ~200 (only one guy gets the 500)

That totals ~3200, which I think is pretty awesome, since our target was 3000-3500.

counterpoint said:
Right. Do you want this variation, or would you prefer to globally fix them?

Let's go with variation. As you've suggested, a range of 2 sounds sensible.

counterpoint said:
I see, you're just using FD points as an example of the TYPE of system.

The truth is, I don't think we want to create a new system that's going to be complicated, and I don't think the Flavor really can withstand more crap being dumped on it. That said...

"Pattern" (or whatever we were going to call it) If we ever were going to do this, this would be where we'd do it. It makes perfect sense, from a flavor perspective - the more your civ tugs at the pattern, the more threads you'd be seeing. I wouldn't suggest it be the sole determining factor, but maybe a modifier on top of a base number of turns.

I know Score killed your dog as a child, so Pattern probably shouldn't be that, but maybe there's some other thing that already exists in our game that can be swapped to merge with this. Hmmmm....

Remember Wisdoms (citizens)? They generated Faith and WoT GP points, right? Well, maybe our WoT GP points tie into this. Maybe Wisdoms and things like them generate Pattern also? Maybe building certain things generates pattern? GPs being born?

I don't know, it could be various things, but things that don't necessarily reward only one playstyle (but can be targeted like you say). Don't thin kit would ever be a sole-yield of something, though. More like players just know that if they do want more threads, there are some things they can do to SUBTLY adjust how often they get them.

Thinking about it intuitively, I'd say "big things" would generate this yield.Things that span playstyles:

1) GP generation
2) wonders
3) capturing captials (cities?)
4) various tower related things - amyrlin from your civ, etc.
5) dragon born near you
6) high king-ness

or not. I'm not sure we need to have it be a targeted thing.

You know, this and the other stuff we've been discussing in this post about how often Threads occur makes me think, yeah, we don't need to do any of this. I think I agree with your sentiment that this doesn't need to be targeted - it can just have a fixed variance. (Basically, I'm imagining trying to balance this and not even seeing where to start, because its complexity actually stacks with everything we've been calculating thus far.) Phew!

counterpoint said:
Going just on "feel," 14-16 is the right call IMO. 10-12 seems way too often in the early game. (where so many turns are "Next Turn" turns). Also, it has less variance between civs.

Sounds good, taken this into account elsewhere - I've lost track of where exactly by this point!

counterpoint said:
Right. I agree that such impossible /turn values are... not possible.

In terms of the proportion of Shadow points I'd expect from Forsaken Quests.... I'd say a dedicated Shadoweer could go from Tier 6 to Tier 8 using them. So, 2000 or so does seem fine.

Awesome, this was taken into consideration above.

counterpoint said:
I don't see a problem in boosting up the amounts given in Threads. If we have to do 10-12 turns, that's fine, but I definitely do prefer 14-16 turns from a playability standpoint.

So maybe we can boost these values even MORE?

MOAR!

To get us to a point where 14-16 turns between each Thread works: the player encounters 20 threads before the Last Battle and needs to earn 3600-4100 Alignment from Threads. That's ~180 - ~205 per Thread. Clearly our work above on finding other sources of Alignment (we've increased non-Thread Alignment sources for each side by about 1000 since I did my second set of numbers) has paid off in making this more reasonable. I think we only need a slight elevation:

Previous numbers:

Beginning: +25, +100-150, +200-300
End: +50-70, +180-220, +450-530

My new suggestion:

Beginning: +30, +120-160, +240-350
End: +60-80, +200-240, +500-580

counterpoint said:
In any case, we also might consider boosting up the values you get from DF citizens (and normals, of course). Why not? We do want them to be a relatively minor component of your alignment, but they need to be impactful enough to make Heralding your own cities into Balance is worth doing - and Heralding your opponents is sufficiently destructive to be worth doing as well. So maybe beefing these values up is in order as well?

I'm not sure we need to do this. Based on the numbers above, both Threads and non-Threads sources have become quite reasonable from our estimates. Also related to the house of cards (still great TV) mentioned above, given that the DFC values we've got should give us reasonable numbers for our other calculations above and how complicated the DFC stuff was to nail down. I think we can leave these where they are until we can actually try them out and see if the real math does stuff we don't want it to.

counterpoint said:
Right. I think we've been obsessed with the "Neutral" Tier like it actually means much. People can declare neutral from wherever they want. Neutral is just as important as, say, Tier 6 shadow or Tier 2 light. It's just a part of the gradient. I feel totally comfortable with neutral civs aiming to land on pure Neutral, but missing the mark and hitting Tiers 1 or 2 on either side. Totally fine.

I remember old versions of D&D described true neutral as somebody who is actively *supportive* of neutrality and actively campaigning for it. This is quite silly. A neutral civ simply doesn't care. They aren't striving for "balance" or anything druidy like that, they're simply doing what they feel is the best option at all times. Right? Too this end, we don't want to make people obsessively fighting for neutrality. The "monkey" (i.e. random choosing of thread choices) should probably end up relatively neutral, in the end, right?

Agreed, we've been focused on the Neutral tier as the representation of Neutrality, but actually Neutral is -2 < tier < 2, pretty much (which is a total range of 1000). It is still worth considering the Neutral tier itself in these cases though, because it's the narrowest tier, so it tells us when our minimum changes from single choices are getting too high when it becomes impossible to remain within that tier.

counterpoint said:
To your point, though, yeah, I think neutral penalties should probably start "earlier." Tier 2 probably works well. Check the LB summary - how do you want me to change things?

Shadow and Light Tier 1, and Neutral Tier: Nothing
Shadow and Light Tier 2-3: -10 Happiness
Shadow and Light Tier 4-6: -20 Happiness, one rebellion
Shadow and Light Tier 7-8: -40 Happiness, two rebellions

I think that's relatively consistent with the way the penalties are set up for the Light and Shadow sides already.

Given the math of what we've seen for how difficult it is to get to the end tiers though, I think we could be more aggressive with our penalties for the later tiers in all cases (except maybe the 3 city rebellion, that's pretty destructive already).

counterpoint said:
ok, so what's your final thought on how we should proceed? I'm thinking:

1) Threads every 14-16 turns
2) Beef up thread yields somewhat
3) Beef up citizen yields as well
4) explore some of the light generation options discussed above
5) explore "pattern" or other weird way to target thread frequency that is intuitive and non-intrusive

Cool I think all of these steps are covered above, even if not in this order!

counterpoint · May 2, 2015

S3rgeus said:
True, GP point dumps are good for that. I've never seen GP point dumps in BNW though - only free GPs. That makes me think we should stick to GP points, but yeah, a short number of turns should make that work for the endgame too.

agreed.

S3rgeus said:
Totally agree, I was thinking it would be much like the "choose which technology to research" or "choose production" in terms of state - you can do whatever you want, bring it up again, close it down, etc. just not end your turn until you make a decision.

great.

S3rgeus said:
I think we have a block of flavor text that describes the task in-universe and then a few bullets with the actual in-game actions required below that, all on a small popup that's available through a notification when the quest is first given to the player. They can then access any Forsaken Quests they have via a menu up in the top right to see the same summaries.

ok, that sounds good. Will need to be compact, in any case.

S3rgeus said:
Originally we were thinking that Light choices would pay out less but give more Light than corresponding Shadow choices give Shadow. We don't necessarily need to do it that way though. We could make the Light choices give more Light than Shadow choices give Shadow, without a disparity between the other non-Alignment rewards. Alignment is only useful in its ability to grant the player other rewards, and if there are fewer sources of Light in the game, then a thread that gives you more Light than Shadow isn't rewarding Light players more than Shadow players, because Light players need to get almost all of their Alignment from these Threads, whereas Shadow players have other sources.

However, I don't really like this idea - it's a bit confusing for players and may create the illusion of an imbalance. Just figured it was worth bringing up.

OK. Understood. I think it's an option, should we need to use it. Also, I think it is an option to make the Light rewards *slightly* lower, almost ceremonially. Like, 45 gold instead of 50.

S3rgeus said:
I'm not a fan of this approach either. My thoughts are pretty much the same as yours.

cool. Our thoughts should hang out, though. Maybe grab a pint.

S3rgeus said:
Agreed on all points again - being warlike is a bizarre prerequisite for being a Light civ, and the difficulty it creates for Shadow civs compounds that.

good.

S3rgeus said:
Quoting out of order because this section ends up being relevant to the one before it:

Yes, definitely! I had forgotten about this, but we discussed this before as paying out a healthy amount of Alignment too. We could say this provides, ballpark, 500-1000 points for a dedicated Shadow civ? The Turning objectives are calibrated so that one player could almost never complete them all, so that seems reasonable to me? That means we've got 3000-3500 non-Thread sources of Alignment (or at least Shadow).

This means Threads need to fill in the remaining 3600-4100. Say we go with every 14-16 turns for our rate (more on this below), that means players need to average ~205 to ~230 Alignment per Thread (they see ~20 Threads before the Last Battle). This seems quite achievable with some of the scaling I'll discuss in more detail below. It also gives us an amount to shoot for for Light Alignment - generate 3000-3500 from non-Thread sources.

OK, cool. That all sounds quite reasonable. I should probably put these ballparks in the LB summary, right?

S3rgeus said:
I think this was originally part of our plan for False Dragons, but it seems like we forgot about it! Yes, this seems like a very good idea. Gentling providing the Light bonus is also awesome because Shadow-aiming civs can just go for the kill. I think we can straight up just add the Light bonus on top of the Gentling bonus we've already discussed. I don't thinkwe need to make killing the False Dragon generate Light, though we could. I'm going to do some math below on a Gentling-based system, but we can have kills worth some amount of Light too if there's a good reason to include that.

I think I'm basically fine with Gentling being the only way to get Light from FDs. It makes sense. The one issue I'll mention is that this would create a weird relationship that might make it hard for non-channeling (e.g. Oppression) or no-male-using or isolated civs to gain Light, seeing that they'd be far from many instances of FDs. Oh well, though.

Perhaps more significantly, though, oppression civs have no aes sedai (or very few) - they can't gentle.

S3rgeus said:
Looking back at the Misc summary, this is the total yield payout of a False Dragon for each era:

--stuff--

Assuming that's ok, I'm going to do some math to work out how much Light we can/should give out for Gentling FDs.

Weird how we totally forgot about that era. Well, we hadn't named it yet. Names have Power

S3rgeus said:
The Gentling bonus is equal to 50-75% of the era's bonus (range between 50-75 decided by the proportion of the False Dragon's remaining health). This has a great flavor intersection with Gentling rewarding the player with Light Alignment - it's more humane to Gentle a channeler when he is healthy than beating him to a pulp first.

We could make the Light payout equal to 50% of the Gentling bonus? This has an absolute maximum of generating 563 (562.5 rounded up) Light from Gentling a single False Dragon by Gentling a full health False Dragon during the Fourth Age. The last era before the Last Battle (Encroaching Blight) has an absolute maximum of 413 (412.5 rounded up) per False Dragon Gentled. (Minimum for these two circumstances is 375 and 275 respectively.)

taken out of context, this seems *really* high. Looking down at your proposed late-game Major +Light yield, it seems roughly equivalent! That's probably too high. That said, you aren't done....

S3rgeus said:
Ballparking, how many False Dragons do we expect a single player to encounter in each game? And presumably (due to foreign competition and combat randomness) they will be unable to Gentle all False Dragons they encounter. If we wanted False Dragons to provide ~2000 Light for a very focused Light civ (so this would be the flipside of the Forsaken Quests for Shadow), a few assumptions:

Again, just a first impression, but I think 2000 might be a little high. Seems to me like FD hunting shouldn't be sooo high priority for light civs. Just first impression, though.

S3rgeus said:
A False Dragon is Gentled at 50% health on average (player gets 62.5% of total yield payout for a Gentling bonus, 50% of this means 31.75% of total yield payout is given out as Light)

The False Dragon rate remains constant throughout the game (this might not be true?)

As for the FD rate throughout the game. I suppose it could be constant, though I can imagine it ramping up towards the end. Also, I can imagine it being slower at the beginning

S3rgeus said:

[*]A False Dragon appears within range of a civ approximately every 30 turns.

Click to expand...

S3rgeus said:
Plus the same game and era length assumptions as the other Alignment stuff.

FDs appear in range on turns 30, 60, 90, 120, 150, 180, 210, 240, 270, 300, and 330.

Hmmm.... I think this is too many, if this is per civ (which I think it isn't). So if we're talking about a continent with three civs on it, there will be a FD to deal with, what, every TEN turns (assuming they are spread out, which they might not be!)? That's way, way too often, IMO. But I don't think that's what you are saying.

If it's not 30 turns per civ, I don't see how it'd be spaced closed to that separately. Presuming it's that three-civ continent, there's no way one would get one on turn 30, one on 60, and one on 90. It'd be more like 25, 30, and 35, right?

whatever we decide, I think FDs are supposed to feel "special." All of the Third Age seems to have only had 7 that we've heard of. There's probably more then that, but I'm not sure it's much more. They're really famous.

S3rgeus said:
This means the player has 11 opportunities to interact with a False Dragon (10 before the Last Battle). We'll use the 10 going forward. This guy's being really careful, so he Gentles the False Dragon in 50% of those cases. The other 50% are killed by other players. (This is any FD the player is aware of, not necessarily spawned by them.)

How much Alignment that generates depends completely on which False Dragons the player successfully Gentles. This is truly unpredictable - it's based on a whole host of factors about the map, military composition, unit placement, player and AI decisions, all sorts of craziness. Worst case (succeeds on the first five, which are worth the least): 64 + 95 + 127 + 127 + 159 = 572. Best case (succeeds at the last five, which are worth the most): 222 + 286 + 286 + 349 + 413 = 1556.

Absolute super-duper-crazy-best-case (player Gentles all False Dragons they are ever aware of at full health) - 37.5% of total yield payout is given as Light each time, resulting in: 75 + 113 + 150 + 150 + 188 + 263 + 338 + 338 + 413 + 488 = 2516. If the player is able to do this, then they deserve to be the Lightest person ever, because that would be crazy difficult.

I don't know that I agree with this assumption, that they deserve to be super light because it's difficult. It's also difficult to build 50 cities, but that shouldn't contribute to your "brightness".

I'm also concerned that by making the light yields this potentially high, we're essentially eliminating the benefit of Red sisters for shadow-leaning civs, which is something absolutely NOT supported by the Lore! Shadow Authority civs should totally be possible (in best position to turn the tower, after all), Those civs should be encouraged to use Red Sisters, because of course they should be (as would be the case for all sister types). By making Gentling such a light fest, we're making that pretty stupid to do. These payouts are comparable to Major level alignment yields, which doesn't make sense for the flavor.

Also, there's the fact that you get more *normal rewards* for gentling an FD. So the more lucrative option is actually the Lightest. Shadow civs seem like they'd want to be gentling, with that in mind.

So yeah, I'm starting to think it isn't a good idea to make the FD defeating light yield very high. Not very high at all. Also, all this is making me wonder why it's necessary to make this gentling-based and not just kill based. True, it's more light to gentle, but doing so also has some weird implications on other parts of the game.

Totally for having it produce some light, and maybe even only when gentled, but this big of a proportion seems like a pretty bad road to go down.

S3rgeus said:
In terms of player isolation (they're by themselves on a continent, so they don't have to compete for FDs) - this is balanced out by the fact that they don't see nearly as many, because there are none spawned by foreign civs. For players who are way crowded together, they see lots of them, but there is a lot more competition for killing them, so they very unlikely to even approach the theoretical maximum.

Yeah, still, this is bringing up another good reason to be cautious of this - the extreme variability potential this has. None of the other alignment sources have such a huge degree of variability in the kinds of opportunities somebody would have. True, a crowded continent with its million FDs would be balanced by the competition, but what if its a three pacifist civs? Shoudl the one militant civ really be getting 4000 light points?

S3rgeus said:
By making killing False Dragons not produce Light we also create an interesting race between the two sides for them. Shadow prioritize killing because it gives them stuff and deprives potential uber-Light foes Light points. Light prioritizes Gentling quickly because it gets them more Light. Both are also driven by the immediacy of "that False Dragon will take my city if I don't get rid of him now."

Right, this is present. I can say that this certainly is interesting. But I'm not sure it's necessarily *good* though. The way this is as proposed, civs would very much be telegraphing their intended alignment through what they do with a FD!

S3rgeus said:
I think the upshot of all of this is that, with the system proposed above, FDs would tend to give out somewhere around ~1000 Light per game to a player who was focused on Gentling them, though there is significant room to receive more or less than that in extreme circumstances.

What do you think?

Right. I think 1000 as a mathematical proportion could be fine, but I don't love the fact that that's merely a mean/median, and that the outliers could be very very different from that. I also don't love all the complications it brings up (discussed above). Lastly, I thin kit bears mentioning that this is the one alignment source that interacts hugely with other aspects of playstyle. Like, causes somebody's whole strategy (in dealing with FDs) to change. Our other sources, like Threads or forsaken quests, sort of stand alone. Turning the Tower doesn't stand alone, but that is obviously directly shadow/lb related. And killing shadowspawn of course doesn't stand alone - but that's why we have the yield so low!

So, sorry to report that I'm not on board. I was hoping you'd convince me, but as I kept reading I sort of found the opposite was true. Which is VERY rare, I might add.

S3rgeus said:
Right, this sounds good. For the reasons you state, I don't think we can afford to give out more than 500 to any one civ at this point (500 would push them from about Neutral to Light tier 2 - which seems like an acceptable change for the single "Champion of the Trolloc Wars"). So we could have +200 Light at 2nd and +300 at first? (The guy in first gets all 2nd and 3rd bonuses, right?) Given that this can only ever happen to 1 or 2 players, I don't think we want to calibrate things so that it's the only way to reach Light tier 8.

Aren't these rewards going to work like the World's Fair and stuff? Where First place goes to one civ, but second can have multiple? Or did we decide it should be capped at a few civs?

In any case, I don't think it should scale by level of reward. I say one of the rewards (level two? if that's available to a bunch of players) has light, and the others don't. I think 200 sounds good. It's around a Major +Light for that era, isn't it? I want this reward to be attainable to several players, but super high such that shadow players are screwed if they get it.

S3rgeus said:
Totally with you on this one. As it's such a late-game thing, I think we could give ~1000 Light to the highest contributor as a big chunk of a boost, and some other significant amounts to lesser contributors.

that seems pretty high to me. But then again, it is late game. I still wonder if having the amount of light you receive vary by which reward you get is necessary.

S3rgeus said:
Also related to this - Gentling False Dragons should probably stop generating Light after Saidin has been Cleansed? Or maybe just scaled back? (It's still Light-ish to humanely save your people from a marauding male channeler, whether or not he's going to go mad, just not quite as much so anymore without the madness on top of it.)

Shouldn't FDs pretty much stop appearing once saidin has been cleansed? If there's still one hanging out, he should probably provide whatever rewards are normallydue. But beyond that, I don't see why they'd still be popping up.

S3rgeus said:
I believe we also discussed Gentling normal male channelers producing Light. This would necessarily be a smaller amount than a single FD generates, since players see more male channelers (right?) and don't have to compete for Gentling them nearly as much. However, I'm not sure if we want to do that at all, because Shadow civs will need to Gentle their male channelers too, and we don't want them to be fighting mandatory Light (beyond citizens).

I think gentling male channelers could provide some light, but it would have to be essentially incidental, only present for thematic/flavor purposes. Like 5 of something.

As far as frequency, yes, they should happen much much more often than FDs. But here's where I think we have FDs way too frequent. I figure males would only pop up every 20-30 turns or so. Right? I mean, definitely more infrequently than women could be produced. And they *do* consume spark. So that means FDs should be rarer, much rarer.

S3rgeus said:
I can see this working (and have some quick notes about it below in the Tower section too). How would these manifest? Is completing any Stedding quest also worth some Light, in addition to the yield that quest would normally pay out? I'm thinking this probably wouldn't be a major contributor of Light - have it only give out relatively small amounts compared to Gentling FDs or Cleansing Saidin. That way some Shadow civs can still deal with Stedding for the duration of the game without completely pulling themselves Light.

Somewhere in the region of ~500 Light points during a game, if a player is really trying? It would be great if the Light rewarded by Stedding could be somehow optional in the way you interact with them. (The same way Gentling is an optional way of interacting with False Dragons that achieves the same goal as the non-optional method, killing them.)

OK, S3rgeus of earlier today, you need to stop using FD gentling as a point of comparison, because counterpoint of right now isn't liking that idea so much!

But yes, relatively small amount of light yield for steddings. I'm wondering if, actually, there should simply be some stedding quests that are essentially "light quests," in that they only (or mostly) provide light as a payout. So, an optional way to get the yield. Perhaps like a smaller, but throughout-the-game analogue to the forsaken quests.

S3rgeus said:
I think the issue of forcing Light yield on Shadow civs is more pronounced with the Tower than the Ogier (Shadow civs can just deal with non-Stedding CSes to avoid the Ogier Light, but there's only one Tower and it does a lot of powerful and important things). This makes me think we could leave this off.

Yeah, I can get behind this.

S3rgeus said:
I don't think so.

S3rgeus said:
Totally, this one is a great idea! They are Paths to the Light after all.

Cool. Let's do that. Like a belief that makes Shrines produce light. Or makes more light generated on sspawn kills, etc

S3rgeus said:
I think this makes a lot of flavorful and mechanical sense, but I'm not sure if we need it. I think we should note this down, but not necessarily work towards putting it into the mod in our first pass. It's occurred to me while doing much of the numbers above that we've got a house of cards (great TV) of estimates, and the real results will likely diverge in ways we don't yet expect. While we know we're ballparking, it would be good to get a feel for how this all actually plays before we add more layers like this that touch a lot of other parts of the game.

Yeah, I can see how this one would help things to spiral out of control. I do like the idea, though.

However, in my further consideration of all of this stuff in the above responses, I'm also somewhat nervous about how we'd be tying alignment to playstyle a bit too much with some of these. Gifting gold and al lthat is fine, but declaring war and stuff... that would make warmonger = shadow, which makes sense, but might be biting off more than we can chew.

A potential solution would be to simply make the light / shadow yields be pretty small, but then it'd feel sort of silly ("Can I have 3000 gold? OK, here's +30 Light).

I'm happy tabling it and/or ignoring it. But I'd also be ok with choosing one or two "extreme" cases (gifting gold, declaring war on a friend or a stedding or something, liberating a city) and giving some moderately small alignment yield, if only because of the powerful flavor I think it provides - not so much that it would affect playstyle though

S3rgeus said:
These were awesome, thanks! And I totally agree, the Light generation should be hanging off other systems that make sense for it, rather than existing in isolation in its own separate system.

In summary, the sources we've got and their approximate Light yields:

Gentling False Dragons: ~1000
Stedding: ~500
Citizens: ~500 (I'm figuring citizens pretty much help you about ~500 whichever way you go, because of the progressions)
Cleansing Saidin: ~500 (Only one guy gets ~1000, most get less, if the Cleansing even happens)
Paths: ~500 (there's probably room for this to vary, this is just a guess on my part)
Trolloc Wars: ~200 (only one guy gets the 500)

That totals ~3200, which I think is pretty awesome, since our target was 3000-3500.

I love how close this all is, and hate how I've sort of torn some of them apart. Specific comments:

Gentling FDs. - issues with this have been stated in rant form above. But I should clarify that the value of 1000 itself, I don't have a huge problem with. It's more the variability of it, and the weird implications it has, that I find issue with.
Stedding - I think this is fine.
Citizens - I think this actually MIGHT be too low. Again, though, there's a huge range, here. But heralds should feel like a worthy mechanic. If you ignore your cities alignments throughout the whole game, and just let them get converted and such, you should lose more than a late-game thread's worth of alignment, I'd say. Wouldn't a civ with, say, 5 20-pop cities, that was super light, be producing like 50-75 light points per TURN. So, yeah, what do we do about that, then? (cuz that's obviously way too high). oy.
Cleansing saidin - yeah, around 500 sounds good.
Paths - I think this is the kind of thing where the vast majority of the time, this amount is zero. This is only if you specifically choose beliefs that go for this. Probably not very often. But when you do, maybe 500 or so (maybe more if you choose all of them) is reasonable.
TW - thoughts stated above.

S3rgeus said:
Let's go with variation. As you've suggested, a range of 2 sounds sensible.

ok, variation it is. Though, I'll note that 14-16 seems to be a range of three, yes?

S3rgeus said:
You know, this and the other stuff we've been discussing in this post about how often Threads occur makes me think, yeah, we don't need to do any of this. I think I agree with your sentiment that this doesn't need to be targeted - it can just have a fixed variance. (Basically, I'm imagining trying to balance this and not even seeing where to start, because its complexity actually stacks with everything we've been calculating thus far.) Phew!

ok. good. I agree. There's something magical about having this "pull on the pattern" thing control such things, but it's for really really low gameplay payoff, and for a lot of mechanics and work.

S3rgeus said:
Sounds good, taken this into account elsewhere - I've lost track of where exactly by this point!

lol. Yeah, sounds familiar.

S3rgeus said:
To get us to a point where 14-16 turns between each Thread works: the player encounters 20 threads before the Last Battle and needs to earn 3600-4100 Alignment from Threads. That's ~180 - ~205 per Thread. Clearly our work above on finding other sources of Alignment (we've increased non-Thread Alignment sources for each side by about 1000 since I did my second set of numbers) has paid off in making this more reasonable. I think we only need a slight elevation:

Previous numbers:

Beginning: +25, +100-150, +200-300
End: +50-70, +180-220, +450-530

My new suggestion:

Beginning: +30, +120-160, +240-350
End: +60-80, +200-240, +500-580

I think I like these! That's a lot of alignment in the end, but I really like how the Major of the early game is roughly equivalent to the NORMAL of the late game, not the minor, or anything like that.

S3rgeus said:
I'm not sure we need to do this. Based on the numbers above, both Threads and non-Threads sources have become quite reasonable from our estimates. Also related to the house of cards (still great TV) mentioned above, given that the DFC values we've got should give us reasonable numbers for our other calculations above and how complicated the DFC stuff was to nail down. I think we can leave these where they are until we can actually try them out and see if the real math does stuff we don't want it to.

OK, I am now equally scared of DFCs producing way too much alignment as I am them producing not enough, so I'm currently rolled into the fetal position until more information is received...

S3rgeus said:
Agreed, we've been focused on the Neutral tier as the representation of Neutrality, but actually Neutral is -2 < tier < 2, pretty much (which is a total range of 1000). It is still worth considering the Neutral tier itself in these cases though, because it's the narrowest tier, so it tells us when our minimum changes from single choices are getting too high when it becomes impossible to remain within that tier.

Right. I should ask, on average, consider a 10 civ game - how many are you expecting to choose neutral?

S3rgeus said:
Shadow and Light Tier 1, and Neutral Tier: Nothing

Shadow and Light Tier 2-3: -10 Happiness

Shadow and Light Tier 4-6: -20 Happiness, one rebellion

Shadow and Light Tier 7-8: -40 Happiness, two rebellions

I think that's relatively consistent with the way the penalties are set up for the Light and Shadow sides already.

ok, inputed. Assuming we might change some of the ones for late-tier penalties, this is probably fine. If we don't (for light and shadow paths), the 7-8 penalty might be too much.

S3rgeus said:
Given the math of what we've seen for how difficult it is to get to the end tiers though, I think we could be more aggressive with our penalties for the later tiers in all cases (except maybe the 3 city rebellion, that's pretty destructive already).

Yeah, you might be right. What are you thinking, then?

Also, though - better bonuses?

Whew!

S3rgeus · May 3, 2015

counterpoint said:
OK, cool. That all sounds quite reasonable. I should probably put these ballparks in the LB summary, right?

Yeah, having these written down separately from the discussion as numbers for us to work towards sounds good.

counterpoint said:
I think I'm basically fine with Gentling being the only way to get Light from FDs. It makes sense. The one issue I'll mention is that this would create a weird relationship that might make it hard for non-channeling (e.g. Oppression) or no-male-using or isolated civs to gain Light, seeing that they'd be far from many instances of FDs. Oh well, though.

Perhaps more significantly, though, oppression civs have no aes sedai (or very few) - they can't gentle.

I don't think Oppression civs will have no Aes Sedai - they'll just have less. As we discussed before about Oppression + Light being difficult, they'll just need to put a higher priority on things that do generate Light if they want to go full on top-tier Light.

In terms of numbers, I would expect an Oppression civ to have ~4 Aes Sedai, where an Authority civ might have ~9? Have we discussed Aes Sedai quota numbers in detail before? Anyway, this represents why the top-end of the theoretical Light payout is not representative of what 95% of players will see in each game, because they'll only have this handful of units that can Gentle the FD. A player who is committed to top end Light would have to manage those Aes Sedai to prioritize Light generation. A player who didn't particularly care about tier 8 could ignore FD Light altogether - all the other sources are enough to get them to tier 5-7 if they choose/act appropriately.

counterpoint said:
Weird how we totally forgot about that era. Well, we hadn't named it yet. Names have Power

Edited into the misc summary

counterpoint said:
taken out of context, this seems *really* high. Looking down at your proposed late-game Major +Light yield, it seems roughly equivalent! That's probably too high. That said, you aren't done....

I see what you mean here, but frequency is a big thing. The player has no competition on Threads. They just choose whichever one they want. Gentling an FD requires the player to find and subdue a unit on the map, which other players are also trying to do, which is much harder than receiving a Thread. Add onto that that Threads are appearing on average twice as fast as FDs, most cases result in a lot more Light from Threads than FDs. Threads are also a much more reliable source.

counterpoint said:
Again, just a first impression, but I think 2000 might be a little high. Seems to me like FD hunting shouldn't be sooo high priority for light civs. Just first impression, though.

Agreed, 2000 is too high, I should've gone back and changed this section after doing all the math later!

counterpoint said:
As for the FD rate throughout the game. I suppose it could be constant, though I can imagine it ramping up towards the end. Also, I can imagine it being slower at the beginning

Thinking more about this, this will vary depending on players' choices mostly. Civs can do things that makes FDs appear more or less often, so depending on how many choose each way, worldwide incidence will vary. As long as each path is balanced (meaning: it's not always better to go with the actions that also lower FD rates in addition to whatever else they do, and the proportion to which you can increase or decrease your FD rate is symmetrical, and the benefits of that symmetry line up), the average case is a uniform worldwide FD rate.

counterpoint said:
Hmmm.... I think this is too many, if this is per civ (which I think it isn't). So if we're talking about a continent with three civs on it, there will be a FD to deal with, what, every TEN turns (assuming they are spread out, which they might not be!)? That's way, way too often, IMO. But I don't think that's what you are saying.

If it's not 30 turns per civ, I don't see how it'd be spaced closed to that separately. Presuming it's that three-civ continent, there's no way one would get one on turn 30, one on 60, and one on 90. It'd be more like 25, 30, and 35, right?

whatever we decide, I think FDs are supposed to feel "special." All of the Third Age seems to have only had 7 that we've heard of. There's probably more then that, but I'm not sure it's much more. They're really famous.

To clarify, this represents all False Dragons that a civ is aware of, not that are generated specifically by that civ. (So this includes False Dragons spawned by neighbors/in areas they can see.)

In terms of making sure players see the right number of them over the course of the game, this progression does a good job of that. Because of time compression, the Third Age is eras 5-8. This progression means that an average of 5 False Dragons will be visible to each player during that time. (Each player will not see a completely non-intersecting set of 6, there will be overlap between different players.) How many there are globally will obviously vary with player count, but this seems like a reasonable approximation of the canonical history.

EDIT: As you've pointed out offline, the Third Age is in fact eras 1-8! (I was thinking New Era.) This means that a single player would be aware of 10 FDs over the course of a single game. The same as mentioned in the struckthrough section above applies - that that set of 10 will overlap between players. It does mean that we'll have more FDs than the canonical 7 in most cases. We could explain this by some FDs not being notable - they were stamped out in ancient times and no one in the books eras remarks of them anymore - it's only the supremely successful ones who were remembered. If we do decide we want to decrease the FD rate, I think we'll need to bump up all of the yields and stuff. There's a point where that becomes unstable because dealing with a single FD becomes too swing-y, but we'd need to do more estimates on that.

About waves vs every 30 turns (25, 30, 35), this is basically just an abstraction for the purposes of doing the math. From our discussions about FD generation earlier, we're intending to calibrate the FD generation in general to avoid "waves" like this, where they all appear in quick succession. At the start of the game the players won't have made as many decisions that change the FD rate, so the first few are likely to come in a wave, but I think it will diverge after that. It doesn't change the numbers much for these estimates. The variance based on which players are able to reach which FDs in time will have a lot bigger effect on any individual player.

counterpoint said:
I don't know that I agree with this assumption, that they deserve to be super light because it's difficult. It's also difficult to build 50 cities, but that shouldn't contribute to your "brightness".

It's not that the difficulty means they should get Light. It's based on the assumption that this action they're performing is a Light action. It is extremely difficult to perform this Light action in such a way that it yields ~2500 Light, so it makes sense for the Light payout to be large in that situation.

counterpoint said:
I'm also concerned that by making the light yields this potentially high, we're essentially eliminating the benefit of Red sisters for shadow-leaning civs, which is something absolutely NOT supported by the Lore! Shadow Authority civs should totally be possible (in best position to turn the tower, after all), Those civs should be encouraged to use Red Sisters, because of course they should be (as would be the case for all sister types). By making Gentling such a light fest, we're making that pretty stupid to do. These payouts are comparable to Major level alignment yields, which doesn't make sense for the flavor.

-snip-

Totally for having it produce some light, and maybe even only when gentled, but this big of a proportion seems like a pretty bad road to go down.

This doesn't eliminate the bonus of Reds for non-Light civs, because Reds are still useful for Gentling other male channelers, which will crop up a lot more often. It does make them less useful and I see your point about this, how the Red is characterized as the most Shadow-corrupted Ajah in the books. However, I think that's an artifact of the very short time slice the books represent - that the Red Ajah has fallen somewhat from what they once were. I seem to remember Sisters commenting on the fact that the Red Ajah used not to hate men, but rather be about protecting the world from the danger of the madness? That's the Red Ajah that the civs will be dealing with for the majority of the game, which doesn't have any of the associations with the Shadow. The Red Ajah from the books is a shortly pre-LB Tower with several Turning objectives already completed, on the cusp of flipping the Tower to the Shadow.

In terms of Gentling vs killing, killing False Dragons generating Light is very problematic. This is one of the main reasons why Gentling is such a good mechanical fit for a major source of Light Alignment: it's an optional mechanism by which the player can achieve a goal they want to achieve. (And it's actually harder than the alternative, which is great.)

Getting rid of False Dragons (somehow) is something every player is going to need to do. We have a system in place that lets every player benefit from doing so as well. And False Dragons are also threatening - they'll kill your units and capture your cities if you don't get rid of them, so no player can ever ignore them for the whole game. If kills generate Light, then every Shadow civ will also need to offset a bunch of Light points they'll necessarily get from fighting False Dragons. (And there's some flavor strangeness for getting Light for killing people, when there's a nonlethal in-universe alternative mechanically available.)

I agree with what you've said about Shadow civs wanting to Gentle FDs because that generates normal yield bonuses too. This makes me think of two things:

What if we axed the non-Light portion of the Gentling bonus?
What if killing FDs generated Shadow?

Both of these exacerbate the telegraphing Alignment problem you bring up later (addressed in more detail there). They also present their own additional problems. In fact, I don't even like these ideas, but I'll leave them here in case they inspire any new avenues to approach this problem!

I think some Shadow civs would be fine eating the Light points from a few Gentled FDs, as long as they're not aiming for tier 8. They should still be able to remain comfortably south of 0. In general, I think the playstyles required to reach the very highest Alignment tiers either way are necessarily directed - the player needs to go out of their way to maximize their Alignment in that direction in order to reach tier 8. Other players can afford to be a lot less Alignment optimal - as long as they're generally moving in the right direction, they can afford to do whatever gives them the best non-Alignment bonuses.

counterpoint said:
Yeah, still, this is bringing up another good reason to be cautious of this - the extreme variability potential this has. None of the other alignment sources have such a huge degree of variability in the kinds of opportunities somebody would have. True, a crowded continent with its million FDs would be balanced by the competition, but what if its a three pacifist civs? Shoudl the one militant civ really be getting 4000 light points?

I agree here that this FD generation is the most variable source of Alignment we've discussed so far in our estimates. I'm not 100% sure it will end up actually being the most variable though. The FDs are discrete and our absolute best and worst cases can be measured more easily, which means I've done that and produced some extreme values at either end. I imagine DFCs would have a seriously massive variance too - it's just so complicated to work out and so full of assumptions about city size and player actions that we haven't done it yet.

In terms of pacifist civs, I don't think that would necessarily cause an unusually high Light payout for the one warmonger. False Dragons will spawn near-ish to the civ that spawned them and are going to be an immediate threat. Given the way we've set up WoTMod, I think even pacifist civs will have a more competent standing army than similar players in BNW. They will most likely need to deal with the False Dragon before the warmonger reaches them.

The 2500 number that I calculated is also a theoretical maximum. It is almost impossible for a player to actually do that. There exist game states where it occurs naturally, but they are so astronomically unlikely that it's not a balance situation we need to address - there are a variety of other changes that will cause much bigger and more immediate problems. FDs are spawning around other players, in the fog between major civs, and a single player would need to have enough units that they could isolate and Gentle all of those FDs (killing their cronies, Gentling the FD) without ever damaging any of the FDs. The logistical nightmare of being able to find all of them before anyone else is an impossible task unto itself. But then they also need to succeed at Gentling them all at full health without damaging the FD unit (and without anyone else damaging them).

counterpoint said:
Right, this is present. I can say that this certainly is interesting. But I'm not sure it's necessarily *good* though. The way this is as proposed, civs would very much be telegraphing their intended alignment through what they do with a FD!

There wouldn't be too much telegraphing, because it's difficult to tell what exactly the other player has done. You only gain any information about this if you're also actively attacking the same False Dragon as another player up close. (Otherwise this all happens off in the fog and you're none the wiser what the player did.) It's almost like Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle in this way - by observing (and therefore participating in) the situation, you affect its outcome. The player is under a lot more pressure to deal with the FD fast, because otherwise you'll get a bigger share of the bonus. If they were the only person attacking this FD and were trying to Gentle it (and had however many units they needed to do this) they'd likely surround the FD and keep trying to Gentle him until it worked. (Or they ran low on units and had to kill him before he escaped the corral and started blowing stuff up again.) With another player involved, there's a lot more incentive to kill the FD if you have a chance, to deprive the other player of the yield payouts. (I try to Gentle him, fail, and then kill him before you can kill him. Or my Aes Sedai are far away and normally I would've corralled him in and waited for them to get here, but you'll kill him first if I do that, so I should kill him now.)

The only information foreign players really get is if they do see another civ Gentle a False Dragon, that civ is less likely to be a Shadow civ. They still might be, the yield payouts are significant, but probably not the Shadow-iest of the bunch. But then again, that player might already have all the Shadow they need to get to whatever tier ability they want during the LB, and might have realized they could absorb the Light payout from this particular FD and get some nice additional yields to help their eventual normal victory. Here it's worth remembering that most players won't be prioritizing as-Shadow-as-possible or as-Light-as-possible, so the information the player has gleaned here is unlikely to help them with the question of "will I have to fight this guy during the Last Battle?"

counterpoint said:
Right. I think 1000 as a mathematical proportion could be fine, but I don't love the fact that that's merely a mean/median, and that the outliers could be very very different from that. I also don't love all the complications it brings up (discussed above). Lastly, I thin kit bears mentioning that this is the one alignment source that interacts hugely with other aspects of playstyle. Like, causes somebody's whole strategy (in dealing with FDs) to change. Our other sources, like Threads or forsaken quests, sort of stand alone. Turning the Tower doesn't stand alone, but that is obviously directly shadow/lb related. And killing shadowspawn of course doesn't stand alone - but that's why we have the yield so low!

So, sorry to report that I'm not on board. I was hoping you'd convince me, but as I kept reading I sort of found the opposite was true. Which is VERY rare, I might add.

All of our estimations are definitely averages, I don't think any of these can be pre-calculated by us to significant accuracy. As I mentioned above, I think even the ones that we've called relatively constant will have huge variances in practice. Stedding may vary a ton due to map layout (all the Stedding happened to be put together). Cleansing Saidin will technically produce infinitely more Alignment in some games, since in others it won't happen at all.

In terms of making Light generation stand alone, yeah, anything we do which hooks into existing systems in order to generate Light will necessarily affect player behavior. I'm not sure that's necessarily bad though. We've already discussed the alternative to this, which would be to have another standalone system, much like Forsaken Quests, which generates Light. Neither of us much liked that one and there doesn't seem to be much inspiring flavor to source such a system from.

A paradigm shifting alternative would be this: we haven't discussed Forsaken Quests yet. What if we axed them? What if we recalibrated threads again so that they could make up most of the Alignment we need?

Seeing below that we've just arrived at a place where we both like the Thread yields, this seems a shame. It's an option, but I'm not sure if we want to do this either, and it will present new challenges as we try to scale Threads up. (We're approaching the ceiling of players being able to maintain relative Neutrality with the yields we have now.)

counterpoint said:
Aren't these rewards going to work like the World's Fair and stuff? Where First place goes to one civ, but second can have multiple? Or did we decide it should be capped at a few civs?

In any case, I don't think it should scale by level of reward. I say one of the rewards (level two? if that's available to a bunch of players) has light, and the others don't. I think 200 sounds good. It's around a Major +Light for that era, isn't it? I want this reward to be attainable to several players, but super high such that shadow players are screwed if they get it.

Yes, re world-fair-ness of the payouts, a couple of players can share second. This makes me think that ramping up the Light for the first one is even more appropriate. Being the supreme champion of the Trolloc Wars, slayer of Shadowspawn and such, is a very Light-driven goal. And only one player will have it in an entire game. It seems that if a player was trying to go Shadow, they'd have that in mind and let at least one other player kill more Shadowspawn than them.

200 sounds good for the second place guys, but comparing it to the Major Light bonus from that time makes it seem like it's contributing more than it is. Two normal choices outweigh 200 Light (even if both of those choices are made in the first era, where the payout is lowest). And the player sees two of those choices almost every 30 turns. (They may get unlucky and hit a thread with no +Light, only Minor +Light, on one.) The Trolloc Wars only happens once per game ever. 200 Light is also less than half way to tier 2. This seems appropriate for such an early part of the game, but I don't think we should shy away from larger numbers for one-shot payoffs like this, because otherwise they're relatively insignificant next to the ongoing sources.

counterpoint said:
that seems pretty high to me. But then again, it is late game. I still wonder if having the amount of light you receive vary by which reward you get is necessary.

Related to the above, I think for the top contributor ~1000 makes a lot of sense. I could even see us going higher, because again this is a one-shot per game opportunity, and in this case it's even possible for it to never happen. Add onto that that it's a lategame thing, where bigger changes in Alignment are needed to make a difference, since players have accrued potentially thousands of points over the game leading up to this.

counterpoint said:
Shouldn't FDs pretty much stop appearing once saidin has been cleansed? If there's still one hanging out, he should probably provide whatever rewards are normallydue. But beyond that, I don't see why they'd still be popping up.

Yeah, quite possibly. That sounds sensible to me. I've edited this into the misc summary.

counterpoint said:
I think gentling male channelers could provide some light, but it would have to be essentially incidental, only present for thematic/flavor purposes. Like 5 of something.

As far as frequency, yes, they should happen much much more often than FDs. But here's where I think we have FDs way too frequent. I figure males would only pop up every 20-30 turns or so. Right? I mean, definitely more infrequently than women could be produced. And they *do* consume spark. So that means FDs should be rarer, much rarer.

Hmm, the problem here is that FDs are "shared" between civs. Someone generates one and now he's out in the wild for anyone to deal with. Male channelers are much more internal - you don't need to deal with foreign players' male channelers unless they are currently attacking you.

I think part of the problem here is how I've presented FD incidence. Every 30 turns is only a player knowing "there's an FD somewhere". I would imagine in 75% of those cases, they could choose to completely ignore that information and the only loss would be not gaining the bonus from fighting him. This is because the FD is physically off somewhere else on the map, fighting some other people that the player has met. It's only in the remaining 25% of FD cases where the FD spawns near to the player's borders that they need to deal with them in the same capacity as the male channelers that are always spawning every 20-30 turns for them to deal with.

counterpoint said:
OK, S3rgeus of earlier today, you need to stop using FD gentling as a point of comparison, because counterpoint of right now isn't liking that idea so much!

But yes, relatively small amount of light yield for steddings. I'm wondering if, actually, there should simply be some stedding quests that are essentially "light quests," in that they only (or mostly) provide light as a payout. So, an optional way to get the yield. Perhaps like a smaller, but throughout-the-game analogue to the forsaken quests.

I think we should decide on the FD stuff before continuing with this. As you've said, I used FD generation as a reference a lot in all of these subsequent sections, and that's mainly because they all contribute to a common non-Threads pool of Alignment. How much Light we need Stedding/Paths/DFCs to produce over the course of the game changes depending on what we decide about FD generation.

counterpoint said:
Cool. Let's do that. Like a belief that makes Shrines produce light. Or makes more light generated on sspawn kills, etc

Yep, all sounds reasonable!

counterpoint said:
Yeah, I can see how this one would help things to spiral out of control. I do like the idea, though.

However, in my further consideration of all of this stuff in the above responses, I'm also somewhat nervous about how we'd be tying alignment to playstyle a bit too much with some of these. Gifting gold and al lthat is fine, but declaring war and stuff... that would make warmonger = shadow, which makes sense, but might be biting off more than we can chew.

A potential solution would be to simply make the light / shadow yields be pretty small, but then it'd feel sort of silly ("Can I have 3000 gold? OK, here's +30 Light).

I'm happy tabling it and/or ignoring it. But I'd also be ok with choosing one or two "extreme" cases (gifting gold, declaring war on a friend or a stedding or something, liberating a city) and giving some moderately small alignment yield, if only because of the powerful flavor I think it provides - not so much that it would affect playstyle though

Right, I see what you mean about tying Alignment to play style. Nominal amounts for those extreme circumstances could be fun, as you've said, because it provides a nice flavor link. And in the grand scheme of things the amounts don't affect the players that much. I would wonder if some players would find this immersion-breaking though. "Is this a bug? That 30 Light will never matter, I've already got 5000."

counterpoint said:
I love how close this all is, and hate how I've sort of torn some of them apart. Specific comments:

Gentling FDs. - issues with this have been stated in rant form above. But I should clarify that the value of 1000 itself, I don't have a huge problem with. It's more the variability of it, and the weird implications it has, that I find issue with.

Comments on this one above.

counterpoint said:
Stedding - I think this is fine.

Cool

counterpoint said:
Citizens - I think this actually MIGHT be too low. Again, though, there's a huge range, here. But heralds should feel like a worthy mechanic. If you ignore your cities alignments throughout the whole game, and just let them get converted and such, you should lose more than a late-game thread's worth of alignment, I'd say. Wouldn't a civ with, say, 5 20-pop cities, that was super light, be producing like 50-75 light points per TURN. So, yeah, what do we do about that, then? (cuz that's obviously way too high). oy.

As I've mentioned above, I think Citizens have the potentially to be hugely variable and it's really difficult for us to estimate exactly how much so right now. All of these kinds of things are beginning to feel like things we should be calibrating via playtesting rather than calculating up front, because our estimates will inevitably be wrong - they're only good for ballparking. I think what we want to agree at this stage is the general proportions of Alignment we want each source to contribute. That's of course only possible if we have these numbers to start with, but smaller calibrations don't mean as much at this stage.

In terms of making Citizens a worthwhile source, I was figuring ~500 net in the right direction would be the result of the player effectively managing their people via Heralds. If they just leave it alone, then depending on their neighboring civs, that might not make too much of a difference, or the Citizens might end up actually pulling them in the wrong direction, or they may end up not contributing "enough". (That's a theoretical "enough" to reach tier 8 - a civ who ignores Heralds presumably doesn't care too much about being super high Alignment.)

counterpoint said:
Cleansing saidin - yeah, around 500 sounds good.

This is a representation of an overall average of 500 per player. It takes into account a high end of ~1000+ for the top contributor and less amounts for the others who don't help as much. Also shifted down a bit due to the chance of Cleansing Saidin never happening in a given game.

counterpoint said:
Paths - I think this is the kind of thing where the vast majority of the time, this amount is zero. This is only if you specifically choose beliefs that go for this. Probably not very often. But when you do, maybe 500 or so (maybe more if you choose all of them) is reasonable.

I agree that unless you pick a Path that provides Light, this will be 0 for your Path. You never know though, some sanctimonious foreigner might spread a Path with a Light-generating Follower belief into your lands. Then you'll have to kill him. (Though capturing his cities means you need to get rid of his religion as you go, otherwise they keep making Light.)

counterpoint said:
ok, variation it is. Though, I'll note that 14-16 seems to be a range of three, yes?

Yep, that's fine!

counterpoint said:
I think I like these! That's a lot of alignment in the end, but I really like how the Major of the early game is roughly equivalent to the NORMAL of the late game, not the minor, or anything like that.

Phew, these sound good then! Just the FD bonanza to finish off now!

counterpoint said:
OK, I am now equally scared of DFCs producing way too much alignment as I am them producing not enough, so I'm currently rolled into the fetal position until more information is received...

I may have just made that worse. I'm not sure. I think Citizen Alignment production will need to be tweaked in game, because it's such a complex series of dominoes that leads to the overall yield that we'll need to see what actually happens and calibrate the values based on that.

S3rgeus · May 3, 2015

counterpoint said:
Right. I should ask, on average, consider a 10 civ game - how many are you expecting to choose neutral?

Maybe one or two? I'd expect them to be big players who think they can stand alone and win the game on their own.

counterpoint said:
ok, inputed. Assuming we might change some of the ones for late-tier penalties, this is probably fine. If we don't (for light and shadow paths), the 7-8 penalty might be too much.

I think the Light tier 8 choosing Shadow is the only one that needs to be beefed up to make the Summary consistent as it is now. (Shadow tier 8 choosing Light has 3 rebellions, which is more severe than the Neutral one, which makes sense. Shadow tier 8 choosing Neutral is less of a shock than Shadow tier 8 choosing Light.) shall we make the Light tier 5-6 choosing Shadow penalty into: -30 Happiness, one rebellion, Forsaken appears. Then Tier 7-8 into: -40 Happiness, two rebellions, Forsaken appears.

counterpoint said:
Yeah, you might be right. What are you thinking, then?

Maybe rebels and the like to occupy the rebelled cities? and also spawning in some other places? Temporary interruption of research, like the "Anarchy" when switching Ideologies.

counterpoint said:
Also, though - better bonuses?

Possibly. I like the Shadow bonuses - being able to produce Shadowspawn. That's very noticeably to the player, is very flavorful, and provides them value. I think all of the Light-aligned side stuff provides that kind of thing too (one sided trade routes, common projects), but it's available to all the civs on the Light side. It would be nice if there was something scalable like that for the Light tiers, beyond happiness and Aes Sedai quota?

S3rgeus · May 4, 2015

So it's a bank holiday today and since I'm up to date on replying to this topic, that means implementation! I mentioned before that I've been considering how the technical design of the Threads system might work and now I've gone in and put it together!

Usual disclaimer, all text, UI, and numbers are WIP, the objective isn't polish yet, it's just functional!

So, I started a new game:

Spoiler :

You'll see up at the top that I've modified the Alignment section of the TopPanel (since we saw this last time) to show the player the underlying numbers, like other yields. I've also made it so that the Alignment section is colored depending on if you're leaning Light or Shadow. The white for Light is a bit hard to tell apart from the default beige in the screenshot, but Shadow is more different, as you'll see in a moment. I made this change now so that Alignment changing is an immediately visible thing, making it easier for me to track Threads changing the state of the game.

Speaking of which, a quick trip to FireTuner and voila:

Spoiler :

Look at that! A new Thread is available! (With a completely legit icon, where did that come from?) I wonder what happens if I click this new notification?

Spoiler :

Boom! I see this shiny new window, of course! (My mouse is hovering over option B, that's why it's highlighted.) And you can of course close the window without choosing and look around at the rest of the game - the notification will stick around (preventing you from ending your turn) until you've made a choice! I'm going to pick option C, because it has the most interesting results and then:

Spoiler :

Tada! I have received 143 Shadow and 12 Faith. Exactly as planned!

If you compare this Thread against the version in the master list, you'll notice part of the payouts for options A and B are missing. That's because Threads don't support Happiness or city-specific yields (like Food or Production) yet, so I left those bonuses off to test the general system. The next step is adding support for all the different types of bonuses we've described in the master list!

Anyone who's interested in the step-by-step of how this came into being can see the commit history on the Github repository. Relevant to this change were creating the Threads DB tables, loading those tables from the DLL, adding support for custom "is expired" logic to custom notifications, and then finally creating a new UI window and hooking everything up to display and give out the rewards. Plus a few bug fix and merge commits sprinkled in between.

And that's where we are for now!

counterpoint · May 4, 2015

S3rgeus said:
I don't think Oppression civs will have no Aes Sedai - they'll just have less. As we discussed before about Oppression + Light being difficult, they'll just need to put a higher priority on things that do generate Light if they want to go full on top-tier Light.

In terms of numbers, I would expect an Oppression civ to have ~4 Aes Sedai, where an Authority civ might have ~9? Have we discussed Aes Sedai quota numbers in detail before? Anyway, this represents why the top-end of the theoretical Light payout is not representative of what 95% of players will see in each game, because they'll only have this handful of units that can Gentle the FD. A player who is committed to top end Light would have to manage those Aes Sedai to prioritize Light generation. A player who didn't particularly care about tier 8 could ignore FD Light altogether - all the other sources are enough to get them to tier 5-7 if they choose/act appropriately.

ok, first of all, I'm realizing that I was associating gentling with ONLY the reds. They're simply the best at it. It does somewhat telegraph Lightness to have a lot of reds, but not nearly as much as I was stupidly thinking.

In terms of that number of Aes Sedai, I think that could work. But it also might be a little high (9 for authority), just considering how powerful they are. In CiV, that's an entire army. I could imagine it peaking at 6 or 7, not counting any special bonuses from wonders or whatever.

S3rgeus said:
I see what you mean here, but frequency is a big thing. The player has no competition on Threads. They just choose whichever one they want. Gentling an FD requires the player to find and subdue a unit on the map, which other players are also trying to do, which is much harder than receiving a Thread. Add onto that that Threads are appearing on average twice as fast as FDs, most cases result in a lot more Light from Threads than FDs. Threads are also a much more reliable source.

After reading through all of this post and thinking about it, I'm thinking my main issue still remains the amount of light given here. I don't think it should be equivalent to a Major +Light. It just has a lot of consequences, IMO. I'm thinking more like +Light levels, or perhaps a bit more than that.

S3rgeus said:
Thinking more about this, this will vary depending on players' choices mostly. Civs can do things that makes FDs appear more or less often, so depending on how many choose each way, worldwide incidence will vary. As long as each path is balanced (meaning: it's not always better to go with the actions that also lower FD rates in addition to whatever else they do, and the proportion to which you can increase or decrease your FD rate is symmetrical, and the benefits of that symmetry line up), the average case is a uniform worldwide FD rate.

agreed. It might not be necessary to change it by era directly.

S3rgeus said:
To clarify, this represents all False Dragons that a civ is aware of, not that are generated specifically by that civ. (So this includes False Dragons spawned by neighbors/in areas they can see.)

EDIT: As you've pointed out offline, the Third Age is in fact eras 1-8! (I was thinking New Era.) This means that a single player would be aware of 10 FDs over the course of a single game. The same as mentioned in the struckthrough section above applies - that that set of 10 will overlap between players. It does mean that we'll have more FDs than the canonical 7 in most cases. We could explain this by some FDs not being notable - they were stamped out in ancient times and no one in the books eras remarks of them anymore - it's only the supremely successful ones who were remembered. If we do decide we want to decrease the FD rate, I think we'll need to bump up all of the yields and stuff. There's a point where that becomes unstable because dealing with a single FD becomes too swing-y, but we'd need to do more estimates on that.

OK, based on your clarification for what "aware of" means, I think I am now fine with this.

S3rgeus said:
About waves vs every 30 turns (25, 30, 35), this is basically just an abstraction for the purposes of doing the math. From our discussions about FD generation earlier, we're intending to calibrate the FD generation in general to avoid "waves" like this, where they all appear in quick succession. At the start of the game the players won't have made as many decisions that change the FD rate, so the first few are likely to come in a wave, but I think it will diverge after that. It doesn't change the numbers much for these estimates. The variance based on which players are able to reach which FDs in time will have a lot bigger effect on any individual player.

We may find that that "wave" aspect in the early game is both flavorfully offputing or, worse, very harmful to our civs. We might introduce a "base" value that is quite randomized at the start of the game in order to offset this. We definitely do NOT want a FD appearing near every civ on turn 30 (!) so we'll have to delay that first one anyways - might make sense to add some sort of randomizer on this first batch, so they don't all come at once.

S3rgeus said:
It's not that the difficulty means they should get Light. It's based on the assumption that this action they're performing is a Light action. It is extremely difficult to perform this Light action in such a way that it yields ~2500 Light, so it makes sense for the Light payout to be large in that situation.

Right, that of course makes sense on some level, but it doesn't necessarily follow, logically, IMO, that a difficult to do action that is light is also necessarily very highly light. True, it is a light action, but only somewhat - gentling is a somewhat "mean" act on some level, especially as it is portrayed in-universe. It's not like it's somehow hugely charitable or anything - the player is still getting some nice Yields for doing it.

Yes, it's difficult, but it's not difficult because its so morally good or anything. Think of it this way: if we had "gentle him" as a thread option, i can't imagine that option ever yielding Major +Light.

so yeah, i come back to simply thinking our yield payout (of alignment) is too high. And that causes most of the other issues I have with it mechanically and flavorfully.

S3rgeus said:
This doesn't eliminate the bonus of Reds for non-Light civs, because Reds are still useful for Gentling other male channelers, which will crop up a lot more often. It does make them less useful and I see your point about this, how the Red is characterized as the most Shadow-corrupted Ajah in the books. However, I think that's an artifact of the very short time slice the books represent - that the Red Ajah has fallen somewhat from what they once were. I seem to remember Sisters commenting on the fact that the Red Ajah used not to hate men, but rather be about protecting the world from the danger of the madness? That's the Red Ajah that the civs will be dealing with for the majority of the game, which doesn't have any of the associations with the Shadow. The Red Ajah from the books is a shortly pre-LB Tower with several Turning objectives already completed, on the cusp of flipping the Tower to the Shadow.

This is logical. Gotcha.

S3rgeus said:
TEXT

I agree with what you've said about Shadow civs wanting to Gentle FDs because that generates normal yield bonuses too. This makes me think of two things:

What if we axed the non-Light portion of the Gentling bonus?
What if killing FDs generated Shadow?

Both of these exacerbate the telegraphing Alignment problem you bring up later (addressed in more detail there). They also present their own additional problems. In fact, I don't even like these ideas, but I'll leave them here in case they inspire any new avenues to approach this problem!

I think some Shadow civs would be fine eating the Light points from a few Gentled FDs, as long as they're not aiming for tier 8. They should still be able to remain comfortably south of 0. In general, I think the playstyles required to reach the very highest Alignment tiers either way are necessarily directed - the player needs to go out of their way to maximize their Alignment in that direction in order to reach tier 8. Other players can afford to be a lot less Alignment optimal - as long as they're generally moving in the right direction, they can afford to do whatever gives them the best non-Alignment bonuses.

I agree that I don't think either of these options are the best idea.

I am fine with a shadow civ "eating" some Light in order to gentle in some cases. However, I'm ok with this, again, if the bonus does not approximate a Major+Light action. A single one of those can have huge impact on your alignment, and still gentling is not a Light action of such high morale righteousness, I feel like that will feel sort of unfair to shadow players who want to do some gentling.

In your above example of the Reds in the books being from a partially-turned tower. OK, so that's the situation a game ends up in, a kind of evil red ajah. Still, from what you're suggesting, that means gentling logain and all the asha'man would give all those darkfriend Reds Major+Light. I don't find that palatable.

S3rgeus said:
COMMENTS ON VARIABILITY

OK. You make good points here. I see that the variability may be high in some cases, but likely will sort of regress to the mean.

S3rgeus said:
There wouldn't be too much telegraphing, because it's difficult to tell what exactly the other player has done. You only gain any information about this if you're also actively attacking the same False Dragon as another player up close. (Otherwise this all happens off in the fog and you're none the wiser what the player did.) It's almost like Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle in this way - by observing (and therefore participating in) the situation, you affect its outcome. The player is under a lot more pressure to deal with the FD fast, because otherwise you'll get a bigger share of the bonus. If they were the only person attacking this FD and were trying to Gentle it (and had however many units they needed to do this) they'd likely surround the FD and keep trying to Gentle him until it worked. (Or they ran low on units and had to kill him before he escaped the corral and started blowing stuff up again.) With another player involved, there's a lot more incentive to kill the FD if you have a chance, to deprive the other player of the yield payouts. (I try to Gentle him, fail, and then kill him before you can kill him. Or my Aes Sedai are far away and normally I would've corralled him in and waited for them to get here, but you'll kill him first if I do that, so I should kill him now.)

So here is one issue with this: isn't gentling a FD a globally important event? They paraded Logain through the streets. It seems logical that a player would get a notification saying "Mazrim Taim has been Gentled." Or, would you suggest it just say "Mazrim Taim has been Defeated by an unmet civilization" for game balance purposes?

Also, is it possible for the Tower to gentle them? Would it be the tower's forces doing it themselves, or through some player agency?

S3rgeus said:
A paradigm shifting alternative would be this: we haven't discussed Forsaken Quests yet. What if we axed them? What if we recalibrated threads again so that they could make up most of the Alignment we need?

Seeing below that we've just arrived at a place where we both like the Thread yields, this seems a shame. It's an option, but I'm not sure if we want to do this either, and it will present new challenges as we try to scale Threads up. (We're approaching the ceiling of players being able to maintain relative Neutrality with the yields we have now.)

Yeah, that's a shame. I'm thinking we should keep the Forsaken Quests around. I'll say a bit more at the bottom of this point about what I suggest, overall.

S3rgeus said:
Yes, re world-fair-ness of the payouts, a couple of players can share second. This makes me think that ramping up the Light for the first one is even more appropriate. Being the supreme champion of the Trolloc Wars, slayer of Shadowspawn and such, is a very Light-driven goal. And only one player will have it in an entire game. It seems that if a player was trying to go Shadow, they'd have that in mind and let at least one other player kill more Shadowspawn than them.

200 sounds good for the second place guys, but comparing it to the Major Light bonus from that time makes it seem like it's contributing more than it is. Two normal choices outweigh 200 Light (even if both of those choices are made in the first era, where the payout is lowest). And the player sees two of those choices almost every 30 turns. (They may get unlucky and hit a thread with no +Light, only Minor +Light, on one.) The Trolloc Wars only happens once per game ever. 200 Light is also less than half way to tier 2. This seems appropriate for such an early part of the game, but I don't think we should shy away from larger numbers for one-shot payoffs like this, because otherwise they're relatively insignificant next to the ongoing sources.

OK, I can dig. I can see the 500 total for the top performer, if you feel like that's a good value. That would be jumping what, three tiers in the early game? Does that feel right? I could also see it being something like 150 for second place and another 150 - 250 for the top performer.

S3rgeus said:
Related to the above, I think for the top contributor ~1000 makes a lot of sense. I could even see us going higher, because again this is a one-shot per game opportunity, and in this case it's even possible for it to never happen. Add onto that that it's a lategame thing, where bigger changes in Alignment are needed to make a difference, since players have accrued potentially thousands of points over the game leading up to this.

honestly, this one is hard to judge, since exactly how the late game looks is still sort of a mystery. 1000 feels like a lot, but your points are valid.

I guess part of my issue is that the "winner" could have only narrowly won over competitors, so it feels a little odd for there to be such a humungous difference between the top and 2nd place.

Maybe 1000 is the total yield for the top guy? So, maybe, 600 for 1st place, and the other 400 for the 2nd place? Or 500/500? That way, there isn't such a cliff between the two.

S3rgeus said:
Hmm, the problem here is that FDs are "shared" between civs. Someone generates one and now he's out in the wild for anyone to deal with. Male channelers are much more internal - you don't need to deal with foreign players' male channelers unless they are currently attacking you.

I think part of the problem here is how I've presented FD incidence. Every 30 turns is only a player knowing "there's an FD somewhere". I would imagine in 75% of those cases, they could choose to completely ignore that information and the only loss would be not gaining the bonus from fighting him. This is because the FD is physically off somewhere else on the map, fighting some other people that the player has met. It's only in the remaining 25% of FD cases where the FD spawns near to the player's borders that they need to deal with them in the same capacity as the male channelers that are always spawning every 20-30 turns for them to deal with.

as stated above, this view of FD incidence is much better sounding!

Question: civs have the ability to vary the incidence of both FDs and male channelers, through often simultaneous means. Who will vary more? I imagine it won't be the same.

Take a super liberation civ compared to a super oppression civ. Will the lib civ have a crazy high MC spawn rate AND FD rate, or will one only be moderately high? similarly, will the opp civ have essentially non-existent for both, or will their FDs still pop up often enough?

One thing to consider is both Flavor and Spark - having TONS of male channeler births doesn't really help most civs, unless they're dying, since you'll "fill up." But on the other hand, no matter what they did, civs like the Seanchan appeared to never squash their MC birth...

S3rgeus said:
I think we should decide on the FD stuff before continuing with this. As you've said, I used FD generation as a reference a lot in all of these subsequent sections, and that's mainly because they all contribute to a common non-Threads pool of Alignment. How much Light we need Stedding/Paths/DFCs to produce over the course of the game changes depending on what we decide about FD generation.

ok, will adress the overall scope of all this below.

S3rgeus said:
Right, I see what you mean about tying Alignment to play style. Nominal amounts for those extreme circumstances could be fun, as you've said, because it provides a nice flavor link. And in the grand scheme of things the amounts don't affect the players that much. I would wonder if some players would find this immersion-breaking though. "Is this a bug? That 30 Light will never matter, I've already got 5000."

Yeah, I can see how that would be be weird. Leave it alone, then?

S3rgeus said:
As I've mentioned above, I think Citizens have the potentially to be hugely variable and it's really difficult for us to estimate exactly how much so right now. All of these kinds of things are beginning to feel like things we should be calibrating via playtesting rather than calculating up front, because our estimates will inevitably be wrong - they're only good for ballparking. I think what we want to agree at this stage is the general proportions of Alignment we want each source to contribute. That's of course only possible if we have these numbers to start with, but smaller calibrations don't mean as much at this stage.

In terms of making Citizens a worthwhile source, I was figuring ~500 net in the right direction would be the result of the player effectively managing their people via Heralds. If they just leave it alone, then depending on their neighboring civs, that might not make too much of a difference, or the Citizens might end up actually pulling them in the wrong direction, or they may end up not contributing "enough". (That's a theoretical "enough" to reach tier 8 - a civ who ignores Heralds presumably doesn't care too much about being super high Alignment.)

Yeah, I think as far as citizens, we probably need to just let it roll for now and see what the heck happens in an actual game. Their alignment production, as well as the spreads of citizen types in a given Tier, should be tweakable later.

S3rgeus said:
This is a representation of an overall average of 500 per player. It takes into account a high end of ~1000+ for the top contributor and less amounts for the others who don't help as much. Also shifted down a bit due to the chance of Cleansing Saidin never happening in a given game.

comments on this are above.

S3rgeus said:
I agree that unless you pick a Path that provides Light, this will be 0 for your Path. You never know though, some sanctimonious foreigner might spread a Path with a Light-generating Follower belief into your lands. Then you'll have to kill him. (Though capturing his cities means you need to get rid of his religion as you go, otherwise they keep making Light.)

ok: problem with this: EPIC TELEGRAPH.

Religions are public, so you'd see almost immediately that a given path that has been created is from a civ intending to be light.

Unless, we made the belief somehow generic, like "Alignment creation doubled in this city" or something, so it could help create shadow OR light?

S3rgeus said:
Maybe one or two? I'd expect them to be big players who think they can stand alone and win the game on their own.

Right, well I think also 0 may end up common as well common. really curious how often the AI will go neutral.

S3rgeus said:
I think the Light tier 8 choosing Shadow is the only one that needs to be beefed up to make the Summary consistent as it is now. (Shadow tier 8 choosing Light has 3 rebellions, which is more severe than the Neutral one, which makes sense. Shadow tier 8 choosing Neutral is less of a shock than Shadow tier 8 choosing Light.) shall we make the Light tier 5-6 choosing Shadow penalty into: -30 Happiness, one rebellion, Forsaken appears. Then Tier 7-8 into: -40 Happiness, two rebellions, Forsaken appears.

Maybe rebels and the like to occupy the rebelled cities? and also spawning in some other places? Temporary interruption of research, like the "Anarchy" when switching Ideologies.

I'm actually not in a multi-window environment such that I can comment on this right now. Will examine this later - please preserve this quoteblock!

Interesting... I've never switched ideologies... no idea what the anarchy is like.

S3rgeus said:
Possibly. I like the Shadow bonuses - being able to produce Shadowspawn. That's very noticeably to the player, is very flavorful, and provides them value. I think all of the Light-aligned side stuff provides that kind of thing too (one sided trade routes, common projects), but it's available to all the civs on the Light side. It would be nice if there was something scalable like that for the Light tiers, beyond happiness and Aes Sedai quota?

hmm, I can't think what else it could/would be. GP creation boosts or something? a Light-only GP type? a "Legion of the Dragon" unit that only light people can use?

OK, so some general thoughts are in order.

First off, I'm becoming somewhat convinced that tier 8 does not need to be, and perhaps *?should* not be, a regular occurrence. we've been discussing the alignment in a way that suggests a player will decide they want to be a certain alignment, and then they execute that and achieve the goal. I am thinking the highest tiers, perhaps 7 and certainly 8, are not a guarantee. Perhaps you can't always make it happen.

for example, perhaps in order to realistically reach Tier 8 shadow, you have to Turn the Tower. Perhaps in order to realistically reach Tier 8 light, you must cleanse saidin. Maybe you can make it happen without such things, but it will be perhaps extremely difficult. Even with these things, you'd have to be diligent for the entire game.

What do you think?

So, as far as the proportions of various yields, and the problems it has created.... essentially, the only thing I'm hung up on is FDs. Proposal:

Cut the proportion of light yield caused by FDs in half. The simplest thing to do, IMO, is simply cut the yield payout to approximate a Normal +Light, or perhaps slightly higher. I think this is best for both flavor and mechanical reasons.

As far as the remainder of light points, I'm happy making those up with stedding, top-performer-bonuses and such. I think this is worth it

Again, I feel we should be under no obligation to make Tier 8 something that happens in every game. It should be special, occurring in a game that has a real push on alignment.

what do you think?

S3rgeus's Wheel of Time Mod

Emperor

King

King

Emperor

Emperor

Emperor

King

King

Emperor

King

Emperor

Emperor

King

King

Emperor

King

Emperor

Emperor

Emperor

Attachments

King

Similar threads