Rise From Medieval Kingdoms III, Thread Two

[Ekolite]

I might be interested in a lazy NES, although I can definitely not run one myself. I'd prefer the Ancient era and second the fact that it would allow a more limitted map.

 

[thomas.berubeg]

Definently up for one, but don't really care about the setting.

though I do remember some of the possible ones we discussed before RFMK III:
Renaissance Italy
Holy Roman Empire
Classical Era
Mediterranean.

 

[Frozen In Ice]

For the trade routes, maybe we need to make trade happen automatically between players, unless one player was to close his borders. Anyway, I do like the tech idea that BL mentioned.

Oh and my idea for next LazyNES was Unification of Japan.

 

[choxorn]

Keep the map small. Stretching it out like we did towards the end of RFMK was overly complicated. Europe + Middle East + Northern Africa should be the extent of it imo. Unless you really wanted to change it up and move the whole thing to Asia, North America, South America, etc. Perhaps also move the setting to Greek/Roman times, so that expansion to another continent really isn't feasible.

Would work, Good idea.

Limit the number of NPC's. Chox, towards the end of RFMK I was trying to do you a favor by wiping out as many NPC's as I could in hopes it would keep the game rolling. I found updating the stats for 7, 8 of them at a time took more effort than actually updating the stats for the player nations. And if someone leaves, perhaps send the whole nation into revolt and turn it into a barb state. Keeps things simpler as well.

I agree totally. And come on, all you fought against while I was GMing were the HRE, Reykjavik, and Barbarians.

Although, thomas was planning to sneak attack you IIRC, so that might have gotten a few more people at war.

But really, as soon as I made the East Asia Map and it's 10 NPC's, the work got ridiculous. It became 5 when Vijaya, Korea, and Malacca were conquered, and Charles and D'art took over China and Japan, but it was still too much work, and that was combined with the fact that there were other NPC's out there. My main reason for keeping the Ottomans an NPC was so that they could kill other NPC's- I was planning to have them declare war on the Safavids in the nextb update and soon kill them, and later, whenever the Gibraltar-England war broke out, I'd use them to get rid of Maroc. I think I was also planning to have some of the East Asian civs kill each other as well, although Charles and D'art's East Asian Alliance made this difficult.

For that matter, as soon as the exploration got going, a lot of players started insisting on me getting the maps, and a few made some new NPC's (Louisiana and Valdius Terra). And then some of them, like Charles Li, wrote their orders in a confusing way or in a way that gave me a lot of work.

When we were just in Europe and all but two or three of the nations were player-controlled, that meant much less work, since there was less NPC's to manage. We even like having an NPC or two, it gives us a way to affect the game more directly. And you did some awesome stuff early on- That Holy War over Italy was fun. But once it got to the point where it was just "They expand there, they kill these barbarians", it was not only too much work, but not fun to write about in updates.

Techs: This might take the most planning, but perhaps make a tech tree a la CIV IV. To simplify things, have bonuses not stack. For example, if Bronze Working gave +1 to attack and the next tier of that tree was Iron Working which gave +2 to attack, get rid of the +1 bonus from BW once IW was teched. Then instead of listing every tech they've researched, list only the latest ones they've teched off.

I agree totally. thomas did something like this in his LazyNES (Which I forget the name of), and it seemed to work pretty well.

Trading: Damn, this got nuts by the end of RFMK and was hard to keep track of in BOAE as well. This would have to be revamped as well so the GM can easily keep track of who has what and how many. There were so many phantom trade routes at the end of RFMK that it really wasn't fair. The resources of red rectangles and blue circles were good which kept it simple, just there needs to be a better way to keep tabs on who's trading with who.

I know. When each player had only a few resources, it was easy to keep track of. When everyone had, like, 20, it was impossible to keep track of, and there were ghost trade routes a lot, sometimes even with nations that no longer existed. A fix would be to put in their stats how many resources they have.

And everything got too complicated. I completely forgot all the techs and project abilities everyone had regularly, and made up numbers sometimes when I forgot (not that it ever mattered, since everyone was crushing their enemies by that point...). I also forgot how to calculate stability, so I just added or subtracted two or three every turn (forgetting to take into account that other nearby civs affect stability after about update 30), and nobody's ever got really low after the beginning. At the beginning, they got low, cause I remembered that nearby nations affect stability. I think Carthage's hit 8 at one point since they bordered or were near about 10 other nations.

And, like earlier said, I forgot projects a lot. I think Gates of Gibraltar had absolutely no effect at the end because of my forgetfulness (Although, for that matter, everyone had a way of getting to everyone else that didn't involve going through the gates, so it wouldn't have had any effect regardless).

 

[Backwards Logic]

Although, thomas was planning to sneak attack you IIRC, so that might have gotten a few more people at war.

See, now that's funny, since I, Russia, and Argos were in preliminary talks about wiping out Gibraltar and Maroc in one shot. If I recall we were discussing to do it not this turn but the following.

I agree totally. And come on, all you fought against while I was GMing were the HRE, Reykjavik, and Barbarians.

Not 100% true. I had my eyes set on the Native American Empire as well as Louisiana once the former fell. There was a method to my madness. Now, had you expanded me a little better in North America I think all of that would have been sped up a bit...

 

[thomas.berubeg]

Bl... you were done. Bris and me, and a few others were planning on chopping you up into little bits. (we had a couple projects lined up to weaken you, but I don't remember it all)

 

[Stuck in Pi]

Yes Thomas, I'm sure you would've done amazingly against a total of 867 GPT, 4226 Banked Gold, 2645 army, and 515 navy.

You and Bris had:
301 GPT, 1226 banked gold, 970+ army, and 450+ navy.

I have more army than both of you, Argos has more GPT and banked gold than both of you, and England has more navy than both of you. Tell me how that would work exactly...

 

[D'Artagnan59]

Goddamn Bris and Thomas.

Well, at least I was on my way to a good start as the Mings. (Ming Africa... Crazy crap)

 

[thomas.berubeg]

Umm... magic? and the Maya were on my side, and I'm pretty sure I could have gotten some others who wanted a nice little peice of Europe.

but, like i said, it's been so long... I don't really remember.

 

[choxorn]

I would have set the Ottomans against you too, to get rid of another NPC as they would want North Africa. No, you wouldn't have stood a chance.

BTW, I still have the Microsoft Word Document that had Project Info. GCI-MD stole gold, and GCI-ID was spend gold, get info.

Not that it would have been useful against anyone but England- Argos had a project that makes them more resistant to Espionage, and Russia had an even better Espionage Project.

Anyway, BL, I could have made you do better against the Native American barbarians, I was just trying to slow down expansion in the New World. It was Leeky's Idea.

 

[choxorn]

Sorry for the double post, but we should probably make a "Lazy NES Discussion Thread" Or something so we can talk about possible changes to the next game- and really, talk about any game. The Original Discussion Thread we had was deleted when the Database Overloaded.

Anyway, one thing for discussion: Should we call the next one RfMK 4, RfMK 5, Or something else entirely?

 

[Ekolite]

Why not make a discussion group for it?

 

[Ekolite]

I would suggest that regions be added to the map to allow for land to provide income. Controlling a whole region provides x gold, controlling a city provides y gold, controlling an incomplete region provides no gold. That way, it is easy for the GM to work out how much money a player should get each turn from their land. It also gives the players an incentive to capture land, and an incentive to fight for complete control over a region. Some Regions could be more profitable then others due to resources, or projects, or improvements(?), this makes some regions more attractive targets then others. Each region could support one city, or one fort, or something.

Regions are a great way to standardise things and makes running the game a lot easier for the GM.

 

[choxorn]

So, guys, should I make a "Lazy-NES Discussion Thread"?

 

[thomas.berubeg]

please do. though we need someone who is willing to put the effort into GMing.

 

[choxorn]

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