S3rgeus's Wheel of Time Mod

[S3rgeus]

5A.1 – Madness – What are the consequences of saidin-induced madness? How do these worsen over time?

At the first level, I think attacking himself and refusing orders (all movement is consumed at the beginning of your turn and he doesn't do anything) seem effective. They affect only that unit directly but can have larger implications.

The second stage adding splash damage around the saidin user makes sense to me as well.

A final stage that eventually leads to complete insanity (turn to Dragonsworn/Shadowspawn) sounds like a good endgame for them.

5A.2 – Trigger of Madness – How often, and by what trigger, do male channelers go mad? Are units created with some madness already present? How many stages should there be?

I like the three stages idea and I think starting sane might be good for balance. I think for triggers we could do both promotions and number of turns - both random. (Not every normal promotion also comes with madness.) I agree with your assessment that if the madness triggers are entirely predictable then players will set it up so they can deal with it at the exact last moment and gain maximum value from the channeler. That's not a bad thing in other systems, but the taint on saidin should be an appreciable drawback!

5A.3 – Disbanding and Gifting – Can civs disband saidin units without consequence? Is there a late limit for this? Should they be able to gift them to other civs and CS's?

Again agreed, I think we should block disbanding and gifting for saidin users except if 'gifting' to the Tower for Gentling or use the late-game "organized" male channeling units. We might consider making the early units (the ones that players need to "deal with") maintenance free to compensate though. You're presumably not supplying them like you would an army, which is what I see maintenance as representing.

5A.4 – Speed of Madness – How long, in game terms, should the maddening process take? Should saidin units be "flash in the pan," mostly useful for defense or close strikes, or should they be of long-term viability?

I think this will change as the game goes on, but I think you're referring mainly to the "deal with" channelers, rather than Asha'men and Freed? I think flash in the pan is the idea - thirty to fifty turns sounds about right.

5B.1 – Difference between Males and Females – How should saidin units be functionally different, in general, from saidar units? What abilities would they have that females don't? Which abilities would they lack?

Splash damage. I mentioned this above, so just reiterating here that I think splash damage makes a lot of sense for the male channelers. They're supposed to be risky though, so I'd say, like nukes, they also do friendly fire. I imagine individual channeler units' attacks only doing incidental splash damage (like 10-ish) but even that can make a huge difference against a grouped up enemy.

I think we can follow the books on Linking - men can only Link into circles with women. (More on my thoughts on Linking when you mention it later.)

I think "training at the Tower" is swapped out for being Gentled there - but I don't know how (or if) we should model the unwillingness of most male channelers to be sent to do that. It seems odd to be able to just march them across the map to Tar Valon and hit the gift button (or something to that effect).

This will relate to the balance question below (5B.2) as well, but I think increased range and melee strength when compared against equivalent female channelers makes sense as well.

I think the male channelers could have access to healing through the standard healing promotion, but nothing global like Aes Sedai have.

5B.2 – Balance – How should saidin units be balanced against saidar units? Should they be overall somewhat stronger, considering the risks associated with using them?

Yes, I'd say we definitely need to offset the risks by making male channelers more powerful.

5C.1 – Acquisition – How should male channelers be created? Are they voluntarily or involuntarily produced? What factors go into determining how often a saidin user is born in a civ?

Spontaneous gets my vote. I think we can use the same Old Blood mechanics and make the birth of saidin users a function of randomness over time (with some cooldown to prevent clusters completely overwhelming a single civ). So every (eligible) turn you've got an X% chance of a male channeler being born in your civ, based on the amount of Old Blood (Spark) your civ has. A cooldown of 10-20 turns where another saidin user can't be born in your civ occurs after each one.

This means that civs whose UAs provide Old Blood (if we do UAs that do that) to offset the fact that their UUs are channelers will also, as an incidental, have more saidin users on average. This makes sense in-universe, but I'm not sure how fair it is.



I'm afraid that's all there's time for today! I'm steadily getting closer to the end of this channeling stuff! I'll have more time to spend on it tomorrow than I did today, so hopefully will get through another few posts then!

 

[S3rgeus]

So, before I continue with the channeling stuff, I've had a chance to play a bit of Beyond Earth and it's interesting seeing concepts we've been mulling over here crop up in that game. (Obvious differences between fantasy WoT and sci-fi aside.) Quests is a big one - Civ:BE has prescribed quests that direct you towards specific in-game goals and give you rewards for completing them, rather like we're planning for Alignment quests.

Ongoing accumulation of Ideology-like concepts is interesting too. Loosely, Purity (keep humanity like it was and terraform new worlds), Supremacy (alter the human condition through technology to create better humans), and Harmony (adapt to alien worlds by changing human physiology) all have "point totals" associated with them that you accrue over the course of the game through your actions.

Civ:BE also uses a radial tech tree (rather than linear like CiV), which plays into the above Ideology-ish stuff (certain techs push you a certain way, but you can skip them if you so wish). The classification of leaf and branch technology nodes on the tree is a bit harder to explain, I'd suggest checking out a screenshot of the tech tree - leaf nodes are the smaller (optional) ones.

And those are my observations from a single game (that I'm about 100 turns into, so a long while to go). Anyway, back to channeling!

5D.1 – The Tower – When should the Black Tower appear, if it does so at all? Is it a CS, a Wonder, or an invisible organization? How does it interact with Civs, if at all?

I'm in favor of the world Wonder approach. I don't think we need to reflect the diplomacy-like system with Tar Valon in the Black Tower, mostly for complexity purposes since the Black Tower will be around only at the very end of the game. I think we should take one of the approaches to Asha'men that you mentioned, where once the Black Tower has been built, anyone can build Asha'men. I'm also tempted to make Asha'men produce-able via hammers - given their aggressive recruitment policy (go and find any man who can channel everywhere they can), more work = more recruits. I'd say they'd still consume Old Blood though. I think a fully upgraded Asha'man is our equivalent of a Giant Death Robot. (This approach, where one civ builds a wonder unlocking building Asha'men for everyone is quite like the Manhattan Project from Civ4. The Asha'man unit would still have a tech prereq in this instance.)

5D.2 – The Tower and the Dragon – How does the Black Tower interact with the Dragon Reborn, if it does so at all? What bearing does this have on the Last Battle?

I think very little, if any. There's a lot of complexity in the Last Battle and particularly the Dragon, I don't think we need to add more, and I don't think this adds much. However, if we decide otherwise later, this is very layerable-onable (technical term). There's a good trade-off that plays well into our Ideologies/Policies where players could send male channelers either to the Black Tower to train or White Tower to be Gentled, and rewarded accordingly. For now, complexity!

5D.3 – Hierarchy – How are we going to include the various ranks the initiates of the Black Tower (Soldiers, Dedicated, Asha'man)? Are they separate units, the names of promotions, re-skins of various units, or do we simply leave them out?

I'm in favor of Promotions that make the Asha'man stronger. The consequence that Asha'man (ranked) units will often be very mad is true, and I think that's an ok balance. It also motivates the players to cleanse saidin.

5E.1 – Mechanics of Gentling – Which units are capable of Gentling? How does Gentling work? Is it more difficult to pull of than simply killing the male channeler?

I'd say only Aes Sedai can Gentle and the Red Sisters have the best chance at it. I think I've got an idea to deal with the weirdness of Gentling friendly channelers. Let's make it somewhat like catching Pokemon (hang on, I'm not crazy). Gentling a male channeler is mostly/never a sure thing - any Aes Sedai can try it, but their probability of success varies depending on their own strength and the strength of the "defending" channeler. So male channelers that are more powerful (higher combat strength because of promotions like the Soldier/Dedicated/Asha'man discussed above) are more difficult to Gentle. Male channelers with higher health are more difficult to Gentle. Powerful Aes Sedai are more likely to be successful (they grow external to the tech tree, but EXP and Ajah will present some differences in raw combat strength). Red Sisters get a large bonus.

If you try to Gentle a male channeler and fail then he turns against you. This adds to the whole "you've got to deal with them" thing. He becomes a Dragonsworn unit then. Maybe he even goes on to become a False Dragon? I remember discussion many moons ago about civs' channelers becoming False Dragons and don't remember what we all decided.

Being more effective against low health male channelers also encourages the player to use them in combat to weaken them - which is something I think we want. It also presents the defending player in this combat scenario an interesting dilemma about helping their foe by getting rid of potentially dangerous male channelers. However, that's probably not much of a choice since if you leave him alone, that channeler is likely to demolish a fair portion of your land/units.

I'd say Gentling is a custom mission available to Aes Sedai that has a range of 1. You can try to Gentle a channeler owned by another civ while you're at war with them. I'm not sure what to do about civs you're at peace with. I think there should be some way to co-operate on that, but maybe the civ that doesn't have any Aes Sedai (because they've been ignoring the Tower or something) can deal with their male channelers the old fashioned way.

5E.2 – Rewards for Gentling – Does a civ reap any rewards for gentling a male channeler? How does this change if the male channeler is friendly or not yet mad? How does this change once saidin has been cleansed?

I think before Saidin is cleansed there should be a bonus (Prestige/Culture/Faith) but that bonus goes away afterwards. Tying into what you say later, I think Ideology/Policy trees that reward you more for Gentling (some for friendly channelers, some for enemies, some for False Dragons) make a lot of sense. Those bonuses wouldn't go away when Saidin was cleansed, so civs that specialize in being "fanatical" about Gentling male channelers don't get all of their rewards taken away.

I also think this could present a great ability for the Black Tower wonder - the Black Tower trained their recruits with swords as well as the Power (right?). The player who builds the Black Tower gets "Asha'man units you control fight as melee units while Shielded or Gentled" where everyone else's are civilians. There's a bit of weirdness (they all trained at the Black Tower, regardless of which civ controls them now) but I think it's a very cool and useful bonus.

5E.3 – Healing of Gentling – Can Gentling be Healed? If so, how does this work?

I think this makes a nice easter egg and it might be quite simple to do. I think we can do the "if healed by same gender the unit is weaker" since we already have most of that information. (Retaining the unit's original combat strength is probably the main overhead allowing this adds.)

5F.1 – Names – What should we call the generic male channelers?

I think "Male Channeler" could work. For the majority of the game, Male Channelers are just that - men who can channel with no formal training or anything to classify them. They're spawning in all different civs from the spontaneous approach you mentioned in 5C.1 (and I liked that idea). "A Male Channeler has been born in your civilization!" the notification says.

5F.2 – Tech Tree and Saidin – Should there be multiple versions of male channeling units, each becoming available at certain points on the tech tree (and rendering the previous "model" obsolete)?Alternatively, should we have them simply grow in strength over the years, but not technically become a new unit?

I think we can have the one "Male Channeler" unit for the majority of the game. That's the unit type that spawns in people's civilizations and that they need to deal with themselves. False Dragons are separate and spawn among the Dragonsworn. Asha'men show up at the end of the game as a late-game unit.

Both the Male Channeler and False Dragon's power will need to be scaled to the players they're currently dealing with. The Male Channeler is the easier one (loop through all units the civilization you're spawning in can build and make him stronger than that by some pre-defined, random-weighted margin). False Dragons will need to do like Barbarians do and take into account the tech progression of civs near them.

5F.3 – Saidin Units – What are the differences between the various saidin units? How do these compare to other units in the game? What eras are they available, and what upgrade-relationships do they have?

I'd say "Male Channelers" are available for the whole game, but through the spontaneous spawn method discussed in 5C.1. They're more powerful than pretty much everything they could fight at the moment they spawn, but become mad relatively quickly. (Just thought of this - we could make some units go mad faster?)

Asha'men are our endgame unit when fully upgraded, but also go mad (though more slowly than generic male channelers).

False Dragons' quest to become the Dragon is enough of a manifestation of their madness and as you mentioned (somewhere) for balancing purposes, they can avoid the mechanical disadvantages of madness. But regardless of the taint on saidin, there are separate, lucrative bonuses for Gentling False Dragons.

I think the Freed either replace Asha'men or possibly the generic channelers - the latter of which could be very interesting.

5G.1 – Cleansing of Saidin – How is saidin cleansed? Are Shadar Logoth and the Choedan Kal involved? Should the cleansing be easy to achieve, or should it be something that is only successfully done in some games?

I'm actually torn here. I'd expected to definitely prefer the global project method, but now I'm not sure. I previously mentioned, specifically in relation to cleansing saidin, that global projects were time-limited rather than production-limited, but that was incorrect. Global projects are in fact production-limited (globally, as you would expect).

In terms of the production-based global project: I think the Choedan Kal wonder(s) could play a role here - applying a multiplier to your production contributions to the project. Shadar Logoth is more difficult to integrate into this approach.

For the "fight Shadowspawn at Shadar Logoth": Shadar Logoth is the venue, so clearly involved (does this destroy the city-state if it succeeds?). We could involve the Choedan Kal simply by virtue of "they must have already been built." Making it part of the Dragon's pre-LB actions could be really cool, and I do very much like the possibility of failing to cleanse it. A drawback to this approach is that being near Shadar Logoth makes it much easier for you to contribute. (Then again, maybe that bonus is good - you've been putting up with Mashadar as a very unfriendly neighbor for the whole game.)

A big drawback to the "fight at Shadar Logoth" is how we keep track of who's contributed what. You can block off other players from reaching the CS with units (even without being at war). You can snipe kills if we measure by "Shadowspawn killed" (which the player will be much better at than the AI). At what proximity are Shadowspawn no longer a part of the event? We don't want slaying Trollocs in the Blight elsewhere to contribute to this, but that means drawing an arbitrary line somewhere that a wandering/fleeing Trolloc might pass, shorting some civ some contribution if they chase it. In summary, it could get a bit meta-gamey.

Related to the Choedan Kal, once the wonders themselves have been built, I can see "Access Keys" being units/things that you can give to channelers to enhance them in some way.

5G.2 – Implications – What do we want the consequences of the cleansing to be? Should male channelers be allowed to become more useful? What about relationships with the Asha'man, and other special units such as the Sharan Freed?

The first obvious thing is no additional madness promotions for existing male channeler units (and none at all for any new ones that are created after the cleansing). If we do have diplomacy with the Black Tower, this would understandably make them grateful.

I don't think it should necessarily negatively impact the contributors' relationships with Tar Valon - that didn't seem to be the case, on the whole. It might reduce your influence with the Red Ajah.

I don't think we need to decrease the male channelers' power particularly, Cleansing Saidin is a lot of work and likely only finished on the eve of the Last Battle, where you'll have plenty of chances for them to get killed by rampaging Shadowspawn.

6 – SOCIAL POLICIES AND IDEOLOGIES

This section is confusing, A and B are mutually exclusive right? Where do I put my answers? Right, so, I remember many eons ago you mentioned that you've only played CiV with BNW? The reason I ask is that in vanilla CiV (without G&K and BNW) there were mutually exclusive social policy trees. (Piety and Rationalism were mutually exclusive, for example.) Switching between the two would cause unrest and lack of productivity for a few turns (you'd lose all the bonuses from the old one, but could switch back later (more unrest) to a fully developed tree). Switching was not often advisable. Given the way the WoT policies interact, I think we can have a couple of channeling policy trees and make them mutually exclusive.

Social Policies[/B] and Ideologies allow us a chance to reflect the societal conditions surrounding channeling that represent a significant part of the flavor of the various nations in the Wheel of Time. While a few of the Ten Nations had Aes Sedai as their Queens, the Tairens outlaw channeling completely, and the Seanchan seek to enslave channelers. While outlining our take on the Social Policies and Ideologies is not the purpose of this document, this section will highlight a few key issues that are important in our conception of channeling in the mod. This is the least-developed of the Sections of this document. Further discussion is needed (as well as some decisions on other channeling mechanics) before it is practical to make clear design proposals.

6A.1 – Policies or Trees – Should we create an entirely new/replacement Policy Tree that concerns itself with channeling, or should there simply be a few channeling-related Policies that exist in the other trees?

I think using a couple of the trees for channeling and making them mutually exclusive is the way to go. This is in addition to the normal governance effects that would normally be a part of social policies (still present in other trees).

6A.2 – Policies – What kinds of Policies should we create? What policies would they replace?

Urk, I think this is a giant discussion. Does this still apply if we go for the complex approach suggested in 6B? Just in case it doesn't, I won't expand on this until we're sure it's going forward!

6B.1 – Contradictions – How do we handle the fact that some social structures from the books would likely contradict one another? Should they be Social Policies or Ideologies?

Mutually exclusive policy trees. I think Ideologies are still a good representation of the different approaches to channeling. Forms of government can fall under social policies to create the distinctions such as Seanchan Empire tyranny vs Tear feudal.

6B.2 – Drawbacks – Should we implement drawbacks to Policy/Ideology choices?

I think having some drawbacks to the Ideologies (loss of Old Blood for some, Tower diplo penalty for others) makes sense, but we should keep to opportunity cost (like base CiV) wherever possible.

6B.3 – Era of Ideologies – If we use Ideologies as the solution, how do we deal with the fact that they appear quite late in the game?

I quite like the idea of the "static effects" parts of the Ideologies unlocking earlier but leaving the actual tenets until later in the game (similar time to base CiV for the tenets). A lot of the effects that our Ideologies will have manifest over time through channelers, so maximizing that over the course of the game is good. (Also, more stuff we can explain early/mid-game is good, since we're going to have to explain at lot at the end!)

Here they are, roughly:

1. Channelers should be allowed to be free and unregulated (positive/tolerant view of channeling)
2. Channelers should be regulated but still a part of society (respectful but suspicious view of channeling)
3. Channelers should be harshly regulated (intolerant of channeling, even if they find it useful)

Those are my words, so I hope I'm not misrepresenting the idea.

I've been thinking on this and I think the second one can be more specific, which resolves a lot of the confusion you mentioned below. The second Ideology is specifically about central authority in Tar Valon (not just structured roles for channelers in society). We're treating the White Tower as a fixture of the world, so I think it makes sense that they're the core this Ideological approach to channeling - particularly since the majority of the Westlands follow this school of thought.

So, to hopefully hopefully these examples clear up the points you mention below, and give us a stronger case for the "Freedom" approach:

The NE Wetlanders from the Westlands are all an example of the second. Even Tear - they still defer to the White Tower, which is the defining characteristic of this Ideology, that the Tower knows best what to do with channelers (in most capacities - it's not all or nothing, in the same way that real world civs who fit into "Order" aren't all the same).

Therefore Sea Folk, Aiel, and Manetheren are examples of the first: their channelers exist outside the authority of the Tower. (I would say Age of Legends civs would all fall into this category as well, seeing as slavery wasn't a thing back then, if I remember correctly.)

That leaves the Seanchan and Shara as the third. Now, there's a fair argument for Shara being in the first Ideology, it really depends on whether or not the Ayyad are actually in charge. If they are, then it's first. Even if the Seanchan are the only example of the third, I think they're fleshed out and prevalent enough to warrant the Ideology existing for players to pursue anyway.

6C.1 – Three Ideologies – What should we call the Ideology System? What should we call each choice? What should the three options represent, and how do they fit into the world of the WoT? Do the tenets all concern channeling?

I think I've outlined what they represent in my paragraphs above.

I don't think all tenets should concern channeling - Ideologies need to provide some other bonuses for balance purposes. I think we can make some of the tenets characteristics of the WoT civilization(s) that inspired each Ideology, though we've got to avoid stepping on the toes of our social policies. In the end, there will always be some contradictions here and I think there are even in base CiV. There is surprisingly little flavor to the Ideologies beyond the known real world entities they represent - the names of the tenets is as far as most players will see (though we can certainly change that!).

What to call the system? Hmmm. Ideologies isn't terrible, but it would be good to move away from the base CiV branding.

Names for each of three. My first reaction for the second is "Authority of the Tower" but Ideologies were single words before. We don't have to keep it that way, but the others seem to lend themselves to single word summaries. In order: "Autonomy," "Authority," and "Oppression"? The last one might be a bit severe?

6C.2 – Static Effects – Are there some global, static effects that are caused by the selection of an Ideology? Are there positive and negative effects? Which effects make sense for which Ideology?

Yes, I think you made a good case for these (both positives and negatives) and unlocking them earlier in the tech tree than the actual tenets of those Ideologies.

For which effects go with which:
Autonomy ("Freedom"):
Higher Old Blood (Spark) makes a lot of sense. An appreciable but not insurmountable penalty to Tower relationships also sounds good. Higher incidence of False Dragons also sounds good -though this will affect other civs nearby regardless of their Ideology choice, right?

Authority ("Regulation"):
Boosted relations with the Tower is obvious here. I think there's a great flavorful combo here with reduced Old Blood (Spark) and increased Aes Sedai gifts. The Old Blood availability would need to be carefully balanced against the frequency of Aes Sedai gifting, but I can see situations where this civ can't produce any non-Aes Sedai channelers or else they might consume all their Old Blood and "waste" a gift opportunity for an Aes Sedai. Elegant, gameplay-justified, and flavorful. I like it.

Oppression ("Intolerance"):
Massive penalty in Tower diplo makes sense here. I'm worried about effects that reduce False Dragon spawn frequency, because I worry they won't crop up often enough in that case, but lowered False Dragon rate is a possibility here. Given the Sharans and Seanchan (our two possible representatives of this Ideology) both have militant channelers, I think a combat bonus to channeling units makes a lot of sense too.

6C.3 – Special Features – Are there any other special changes we should make to Social Policies and Ideologies? Should Ideologies unlock early? Would they be full-featured? Should Social Policies be changed so as to limit a player's choices?

Yes to partially featured Ideologies unlocking early. Yes to reviving mutually exclusive policy trees from vanilla CiV (restricts player choice). I can't think of any other changes we want to make that are directly related to channeling. I'm sure there will be some policies/tenets that affect channeling in ways that depend on our decisions here. It might be worth going through some of those now, but I'm also happy to leave them until we're discussing social policies and Ideologies individually and in more depth.



I'm so close to the end of counterpoint's posts! I can almost taste it! Tomorrow/Wednesday I'll finish this off and then the world's longest parallel quoting conversation can begin!

 

[S3rgeus]

So CiV has been patched! Firaxis have added some new Lua hooks, which is interesting but doesn't make much difference to us since we're already definitely a DLL mod (though it does save me adding some of the ones they added myself).

Interestingly, two new resources have been added, which is pretty awesome. I'll be taking a look at what the source code changes are some time, seeing as they released an SDK update as well. Anywho, on to more channeling!

7A.1 – Stilling and Burning Out – Should Stilling be possible? If so, how does it work, mechanically? Can a channeler Burn Out?

Mechnically not very different from Gentling, but I think it would have to be quite complex and balanced very carefully to avoid upsetting the way channeling works for the majority of units. Too much complexity, I'd say.

7A.2 – Blocks – Should blocks factor into the game at all? If so, is it as a simple flavor-addition to a promotion or other mechanic, or does it have an actual effect on game mechanics?

I agree that this is too specific and doesn't add much. I'm fine leaving it out.

7A.3 – Linking – Should Links be a feature of channeling? Who is permitted to Link? Does it take the form of a passive bonus, a promotion, or a more active ability?

I think Linking adds a lot and can be something that's "unlocked" via a technology. I think it can be an active ability that can only work if the units trying to Link are in close proximity (possibly only adjacent). There's some implementation complexity behind linking units like this and restricting their ability to attack while still allowing the Link to be voluntarily severed. (Don't want to end up with situations where the player can Link two channelers, attack with one, then unlink and attack with the other one as well.) But given Linking became so important to combat and several other large channeling endeavors by the end of the series, I think it's worth including.

I'm thinking it's like this:

Once you've researched the Linking tech your channeling units gain access to a custom mission "Link."

"Link" can be performed without consuming the unit's movement on adjacent/nearby channeling units.

The unit that performed the "Link" mission will be the leader of the Circle (exception below).

A Circle's leader can take all normal actions that would be available to them without the Circle, but have a few additional effects:

• Drastically enhanced combat strength (specific modifier likely determined by the number and strength of other channelers in the Circle)
• Modifier to specific channeling activities (like Gentling)
• Cannot move beyond a certain number of hexes from any of the Linked channelers.
• Can perform an "Unlink" mission which frees all other channelers and dissolves the Circle.

"Followers" in a Circle have the following restrictions placed on them:

• Cannot attack
• Cannot perform the "Link" mission
• Cannot move beyond a certain number of hexes from any of the Linked channelers.
• Cannot perform channeling-requiring actions independently (like Gentling)

The movement thing is a big one and actually is something we'll probably need to deal with for Sul'dam and Damane as well (assuming we go with my suggested approach). It's less of a problem for Aes Sedai and Warders because they don't have a "must be within X hexes." There are situations (involving roads) where you have a valid destination for your two units, but can't move them there because you can't make the interim moves (other units in the way) to keep them within a certain number of hexes of each other. This would likely require us to allow the player to move both units with a single motion.

I envision something like the traditional right-click + drag mouse after selecting one of the units. Then the other unit is also represented by another circle (like the circles that say how many turns it will take to reach somewhere) which is at first adjacent to the target hex. Then the player can scroll the mouse wheel up and down to move the secondary unit's position to other vacant (reachable) hexes around the target square for the selected unit. (CiV can also be played with a touch screen - I suppose that's easier if we can detect two points of contact then the player can pick directly, but I'm not sure what level we have access to touch events at.)

As I'm writing that out, I'm aware that that's a very computationally expensive set of pathfinding operations. CiV's pathfinding is already pretty funky (and non-optimal) so I'm not sure how possible the above is, but it's certainly very complicated. It might be better to have a "move group" mode where you specify a destination for each unit in turn and it moves them all at once once you've selected a complete set of valid destinations. Anyway, going back to Linking.

Circles involving both men and women may be gated by a further technology, but men are required to lead these Circles (and we can enforce the limit on Circle size the lore has as well). So regardless of who performs the "Link" mission, leadership of the Circle may transfer to a male channeler who's brought into the circle. (It's important that even if they've gotten the "move after attacking" promotion, a Lead female channeler shouldn't be able to attack, then Link to a male channeler and transfer leadership automatically, allowing the newly Leader-ed male channeler to attack with the Circle's bonuses as well in the same turn.)

This is complicated.

7A.4 – Shields – Should Shields be possible for channeling units? How would they work? What about binding a unit in air?

I think Shields makes sense and certainly aren't as complicated as Linking is. Mechanically, binding with air is also relatively simple. I would imagine binding with air only works on Shielded channelers or non-channeling units, and even then has a chance of failure. I'm not sure if we'd want to do more than "immobilize" the unit (like making it not fight back in combat for example).

For both, I'm going to go with my old favorite "% chance of success based on relative power of the units involved" approach.

7A.5 – Neutralizing the Power – How do stedding and other anti-Power locations work? Are there specific ter'angreal that can be used to accomplish the same?

I'd say any Stedding CS' territory (any hex within its borders) and anywhere within X hexes of the Guardian (wonder) block channeling. Channeling units standing on those hexes are either civilians or become weaker melee combat units, likely varying between unit types of channelers.

Did Stedding block channeling results from entering them as well? Could an Aes Sedai fling a boulder or a fireball into a Stedding? If not, we'd need to block "attacking into" those hexes as well. That would make them noticeably more powerful defensive positions, which could be very cool.

I think there's also room for a "Wells" technology that circumvents these limitations in some restricted way. (Not saying it should unlock "channelers can channel in Stedding" but maybe something along the lines of a single attack - but I'm not sure how/when it would replenish/reset.)

7A.6 – Compulsion and Turning – Should Compulsion be an ability in the mod? Who can use it? How do its mechanics work? What about Turning?

Mmm, Compulsion I had forgotten about (before you mentioned it in Black Ajah abilities). I think Black Ajah Sisters, Dreadlords, and Forsaken should be the only units that can use it. Maybe that's one of the Boons for players who choose the Shadow - their units gain the ability to use Compulsion.

I think we can go with a similar approach to Gentling where the "attacking" channeler has a % chance of the Compulsion working based on the relative power of themselves and their target. If it works, the unit is converted to be controlled by the civ that controls the "compeller." I'd say the newly Compulsion-ed unit has no moves remaining on the turn it switches sides.

7B.1 – Miscellanea and Items – Should the Void, channeler detection, angreal, the Five Powers, Cuendillar, and Power-wrought weapons be a part of the game? Should they feature actual mechanics, or be simple flavor? How should they work?

I think the Void is something we can include just as flavor - in text and descriptions for various aspects of the mod. It's fairly foundational to the units it's associated with and if available as promotions, I'm not sure what the unpromoted units represent.

I think Cuendillar makes a good resource, seeing as one of the primary sources of Cuendillar for the majority of the 3000 years post-Breaking was discovering left over from the Age of Legends. It's also one of the very few, very WoT resources we can add. I see it being like Marble - a luxury resource that has some other unique bonus properties. (We can even have an endgame building that produces Cuendillar to be in line with the flavor.)

Power-Wrought weapons I'm less sure of. I can see it as an endgame technology, but what does it enhance exactly? Power-wrought weapons can be wielded by anyone, not just channelers. I think if we do use this, it's part of our later discussion about what techs go onto the tree.

The Five Powers as flavorful names for channeler promotions (ones that effectively stand in for normal units' counterparts) sounds fine to me.

Channeler detection is a bit strange. It is intended to work on a much smaller scale than CiV hexes. Using a reasonable range, channeler detection will be entirely superseded by the unit's actual line of sight. If we make it more far-reaching, it potentially becomes monstrously powerful (highlighting units/armies well off in the fog of war). CiV does have minor stealth mechanics (submarines and destroyers finding them) but I'm unsure if we'll use that. Unless stealthed movement is somehow integrated into the Dream World?

7B.2 – Traveling – What aspects of Traveling should be included in the game? How do these work, and how are they balanced against other game mechanics?

Traveling! This is a big one. The obvious use is just swap out airports for Traveling (airlifting units to cities with airports) via a "Traveling Grounds" building and be done with it. I certainly think we can use that, whatever we decide about individual units channeling.

Another alternative is that you could construct a "Traveling Grounds" improvement with a worker/channeler (once Traveling has been discovered, which I imagine is a technology). Any channeler can Travel to any Traveling Grounds you (or allied civs?) control whenever they have (full?) movement points, via a custom mission. As you mentioned, they might be able to allow adjacent units to do the same - obviously one per turn is the limitation, since only one unit can occupy the target tile and I'd say Traveling consumes all of a unit's movement.

The other, full whack super true-to-flavor-and-potentially-game-breaking (and not cheap memory wise either) is that every channeling unit can Travel to any location that they have previously ended their turn on. Madness ensues.

A more sane approach to that might be having a separate "Learn this location" mission that takes X turns. After a channeler does that, they can Travel back to that specific hex (or allow other adjacent units to Travel there) at any time. You have to be a bit more strategic about this and put your callback locations in sensible places. (And be wary of overlaps, if you've put two separate channelers' memorized "retreat" locations on the same hex near your capital and they both need to retreat on the same turn, you're out of luck.) This is probably the most accurate and not all that gamebreaking. Managing these locations might be a bit of a chore for the player though.

We could even use all 3 of the above (I'm not including the crazy one), since they don't particularly conflict with each other.

7B.3 – Tel'aran'rhiod – Does the World of Dreams exist in our mod? Is it accessible to Wise Ones, or only Great People? How does it work?

So, one of the drawbacks of submarines (and probably the reason that Firaxis didn't add any land-based stealth units) is that you can find them by "movement scouting". you can't move onto a space with a foreign submarine with another naval unit because you can't both occupy that space - whether you can see them or not.

Now, Firaxis solved that for trade units (caravans and cargo ships) using "map layers". Anybody and everybody can share a hex with any arbitrary number of trade units (that are actually doing the "delivering" part of their trade route) because trade units exist, as I understand it, in a stackable layer of the map, separate from civilians and combat units.

What if Dreamers (I'm not writing the full name of the Dream World out because it's complicated and I'd have to keep copying and pasting it, ruining my quote copying!) could "project" themselves into the Dream World (via a custom mission again). This creates a separate "Projection of Sorilea" (or whatever the unit is, "Project of Wise One") unit that exists in a different, stackable map layer that is invisible to other players. The source channeler is immobilized and the projection lasts for X turns (modifiers based on the unit's proficiency at Dreaming exist - allowing us to make the Wise Ones much better than others at this).

This is effectively free, invisible scouting, and we could permit these projections to move without needing open borders too. No combat for obvious reasons (though do we want some units to be able to "fully enter" this stealthed map layer? Could be interesting).

This may play into "channeler detection" above, but I don't think that it's really in the spirit of the detection we see in the books.

Reflecting the "imperfections" in the Dream World's representation of reality is difficult because of the way CiV handles unit sight and revealing the fog of war. I can investigate whether it's possible to have "patchy sight" that would leave holes that you haven't seen, but even if that works, I'm not sure it would achieve the "partial view" we want. The main reasons players wouldn't "circle" until all of the hexes are filled in would be the time limit on the projection - they might go for a wide view instead, which would give us the "patchiness" we want.

7B.4 – Balefire – How does Balefire work in the mod? Which units can use it? What are the consequences of using it? How can it be countered?

I think I agree that we'll probably come back to Balefire later when we're doing some endgame technological balance. Though it's definitely a property of channeling - it's probably mechanically a lot more related to endgame units and how powerful they should be. My first reaction is to have the Dragon and the Forsaken be the only units that can use it.

7B.5 – Talents – Are there any other Talents that should be included in the game somehow?

The only of those you listed that I think might have a place is Delving, and even then I'm not really sure what it should do.

7B.6 – True Power – Does the True Power exist in any meaningful way in the mod? Who can use it, and how is it different from saidar and saidin?

I think it should, mainly because the True Power is super awesome. I'd say it's basically only available to the Forsaken. The first difference that jumps to mind is that the True Power works in Stedding and near the Guardian. Units that use it could become more powerful as the Shadow gains strength. (Possible positive feedback loop - the Shadow winning makes the Shadow stronger, making them win faster.)

I'm not sure what the other differences should be, but I'm keen to include the True Power in a meaningful way.

7C.1 – False Dragons – How do False Dragons work in the mod? How powerful are they? Does their power scale over time?

I'd say it should take several units to fight the actual False Dragon unit itself, and the commitment of a fair number of units to deal with the whole uprising. I think we should scale the False Dragon's power over time so that they remain a threat throughout the game - probably tailing off into the lead up to the Last Battle.

I'd say False Dragons rising up function much like you've suggested: barbarian invasions led by a powerful channeling unit. The players that defeat the majority shares of the False Dragon's units get Prestige/Culture/Faith bonuses. I'd say defeating a False Dragon should also positively affect your diplo relationship with other civs - but the amount it affects it depends on their Ideologies. (Civs that follow Oppression ("Intolerance") like it more, Autonomy ("Freedom") like it less, but it's still positive for all, because he was a rampaging madman.)

7C.2 – Forces of the Shadow – How powerful are the Samma N'Sei and Dreadlords? How often, and where do they appear? Can player civs control Dreadlords?

I'd say on par with the endgame channeling units that Light civs have access to: fully upgraded Aes Sedai and Asha'men. I'd spawn them mostly in the Blight, possibly a couple (globally) near Waygates explicitly built by civs/that exist on the map (depending on how we do Waygates). At the top end of the most Shadow-y civs that declare for the Shadow, I think they could get to control one or two Dreadlords.

7C.3 – Forsaken – How do the Forsaken manifest themselves in our game? When do they appear, and does Ishamael appear earlier than the rest? Are they specific units, or treated generically? Are they all combat units, or do some function as spies or in some other capacity? Do they Respawn? Do they tie into Shadow Player Boons? Can they access the True Power?

Yes re True Power.

I'm less convinced about the Forsaken each being unique units with their own abilities, styled after their specific roles in the books. Mostly because they will have to be simple variants on existing abilities - otherwise we're doing a lot of AI work for just one unit that might not be important in any given game - and then they're not too exciting. I'm inclined to make the Forsaken super powerful combat units (most powerful in the game - on par with the Dragon) and use their names, much like GPs, just as flavor. (Though I would suggest we have male/female variants.)

Now, flavor wise I think the roles they played in the books can definitely play into the Boons and Alignment quests. Mesaana can demand that your (Shadow-aligned) civ spy on a specific (likely Light-aligned) enemy. Things like that. I think that would be the majority of their role before the Last Battle, because the Shadow civ is necessarily always an AI (cool scenarios aside), adding complex "cool" effects for these units has limited player impact.

We could have Ishamael's early arrival manifest through his tendency to show up first in the flavor for the Alignment quests (for both sides - giving you tasks/helping on the Shadow side, as a guiding force to your enemies for the Light).

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a wrap! I have reached the end! VICTORY! I'm looking forward to hearing the thoughts on things I've said above. I think I'm, on the whole, in agreement with counterpoint on where to go with channeling and am mainly supplying my preference/choices where different approaches are presented, rather than disagreeing with anything major and taking it in a different direction. And another huge thank you, counterpoint, for writing all of this out! All very well thought out and presented in a very respond-able way too.

Now is probably a good time to say that I'm going on holiday from this weekend. I'll be abroad for 3 weeks but I'll have internet access, so I won't completely disappear. Just a note that I might be marginally slower at replying for that time.

 

[ldragogode297]

Power-Wrought weapons I'm less sure of. I can see it as an endgame technology, but what does it enhance exactly? Power-wrought weapons can be wielded by anyone, not just channelers. I think if we do use this, it's part of our later discussion about what techs go onto the tree.

I've read through everything on this here thread, and if I may impart something to say, I personally think that Power-Wrought weapons should be an Aes Sedai/Asha'man promotion ability that gives an ally unit a large, maybe 30% strength boost permanently as an upgrade.

This looks very good, by the way, and you're far more accurate to the source material than any mod I've ever seen. Keep up the good work!

 

[Civitar]

S3rgeus, did you need a skeletal dragon? Or was that vampires?

 

[S3rgeus]

While this isn't a quarter as well thought-out as counterpoint's post, here goes an idea would best suit the Aes Sedai producing problem. Feel free to modify/ignore/implement it as you wish:
Tar Valon serves as a sort of military CS. At around mid-game, all civs known to Tar Valon recieve an Aes Sedai unit to serve as 'counseler'. Civs can accept or reject the gift (perhaps channeler UU civs get a negative value on their UU by accepting, or the 'no channeling' ideology gives happiness for the less channelers or something like that)
Once you have an Aes Sedai unit, Tar Valon will start sending out quests. But real hardcore quests, eg 'capture the false dragon', 'go to war with [x] civ', etc. To aid your efforts, they grant you a new Aes Sedai unit which you later keep if you achieve their mission. Rejecting the mission will still let your original Aes Sedai stay, while accepting but not following through will remove both Aes Sedai, thus making you unable to receive TV quests, and incur the wrath of TV (hostile, perhaps Tar Valon might send a mission to other players to war you)
The more quests you do the more Aes Sedai they gift you but of course that number is limited, perhaps to 7 (1 from each Ajah). Anyway, I just thought of this real quick so feedback appreciated!

A lot of interesting ideas in here. I think we want Tar Valon to have a more regular impact with each civ even if they don't have any Aes Sedai. It's probably worth expanding on what we plan to be the triggering mechanisms for the Aes Sedai distributions discussed in counterpoint's post because I like the general idea of the number of Aes Sedai in a civ fluctuating over time. That represents the agency that the Tower has external to the players, while still giving the civs some time to use these powerful gamepieces.

It might be interesting to have our limit on number of Aes Sedai start below 7 (and possibly stay below 7 for a lot of the game). That way players need to prioritize Ajahs that are most useful to them, particularly if they want to have multiple Sisters from the same Ajah for any reason.

Tar Valon giving quests to attack other major civs is very interesting and something I hadn't thought of. It makes a lot of sense to me as well - something like Tar Valon's efforts against the Seanchan. It's a cool extension of the CS quests that ask you to go after/bully other CSs. I can see the diplo text now. "You valued the Tower's favor over our own and attacked our friend." "You helped the Tower and us fend off a common foe."

I've read through everything on this here thread,

That's a lot of reading! Always glad to see a new fan of the books on here!

and if I may impart something to say, I personally think that Power-Wrought weapons should be an Aes Sedai/Asha'man promotion ability that gives an ally unit a large, maybe 30% strength boost permanently as an upgrade.

Interesting idea. My first questions here are around repeatability for an ability like that then. How often can an Aes Sedai/Asha'man use that ability? Only once? If they can use it multiple times, what's the cooldown? I'm assuming you can't stack the bonuses multiple times on the same unit, because that could make it tremendously powerful. I'm a bit worried that it would be busywork for the player - they need to move these units around giving every unit they can the permanent 30% plus, and when you're producing a lot of units that'll be a chore. Even when not at war, it's a lot of clicking around.

Temporary bonuses are easier to balance and don't create that busywork, but they're not as true to flavor. (Power-wrought weapons, once wrought from the Power, don't become normal again after a certain amount of time, right?)

This looks very good, by the way, and you're far more accurate to the source material than any mod I've ever seen. Keep up the good work!

Thanks, glad you like what you've seen! We're all putting in a lot of work here, so it's always great to hear encouragement from people who will enjoy the final product!

S3rgeus, did you need a skeletal dragon? Or was that vampires?

Awesome work, Civitar! I'm afraid I can't try out the skeletal dragon right now, but more fantasy units is always helpful. The detailed list of the units we're looking for for WoT is back here, if you're doing any more soon. We're particularly looking for a cloaked variant on the vampire swordsman that has no eyes - just pale skin!

 

[counterpoint]

And... it's back to me! The good news is, I think we pretty much are in agreement about the vast majority of things here. Just a few things to sort out, and then we can move on.

my answers are going to include huge, ungainly blobs of quote - this is for easier reference later. I'll also try to summarize things, and mark them in color.. Things that are unresolved I will attempt to mark with another color.

Sure! For example purposes only:

"Rumors abound of a man who can channel claiming to be the Dragon. He yet wields no armies but whispers speak of prophecies from the Karaethon Cycle already completed. Your agents believe he will make himself known in White Harbor, where prophecy indicates he must lay claim to ancient artifact."

To fulfill: control White Harbor and place an artifact in a Great Work slot there within X turns. Reward: +Y Prestige one-time bonus, alignment tilts toward the Light (possibly other stuff)

To overturn: allow the time limit to elapse or raze the city. The controller of White Harbor (razing player controls it when it's destroyed) becomes more Shadow aligned. (Possible direct but secret (not broadcast to all players) Shadow bonuses since this is clearly an end-game prophecy.)

I suppose the only hesitation I have with this is that blocking a prophesy necessarily adds shadow points. It seems to me that, based on the benefits we've described, a shadow civ might desire for the dragon to be born in their civ's borders. Would they then want to be *completing* prophesies?

2C.1 – Acquisition – Should Aes Sedai, "Normal" units, and UU channelers have the same acquisition method, or should they be differentiated?
2C.2 – Acquisition Options – which Acquisition Methods are preferred, and for which kinds of units? Should we combine any Methods? (Note that further discussion will be shown on these points later in the document)

My answer to these two questions is very interlinked.

I think they should be differentiated. It sounds like a lot of complexity, but we're crossing over with several different parts of the game and dealing with its entire length (rather than short bursts of time).

From the Acquisition options, I'm a fan of the "Old Blood" option - where you have a "strategic resource-like" limit on channelers that's determined by some other factor (rather than being placed on the map). I'm still undecided about whether or not Aes Sedai should consume "Old Blood" (or whatever we decide to call it). But I like the idea where Aes Sedai are given to civs by the Tower - rather than ever produced/purchased.

I'd say that (overall) the "normal" and UU channelers should be produce-able via hammers, unless their specific UU characteristics lend them to be used differently, but capped by the "Old Blood" requirement. (Some civs may need boosts to Old Blood to compensate for channeling UUs - we don't want them to be unable to build their UU?)

2C.3 – Strategic Resources (2) – if we choose to adopt Method 2, what should we name this strategic resource? Should it be bound to a particular terrain? Would units consume a variable amount of it?

Pursuing this for completeness even though I prefer option 3. I don't know what we'd call this resource. I would think it should be distributed relatively evenly and unaffected by terrain type, otherwise specific civs (based on their starting biases) will have channeling advantages. (Unless we wanted to encourage that? But it seems a strange connection to make.)

Yes, I'd say more powerful units would consume more, but it wouldn't vary hugely. (Most consume 1, some powerful ones consume 2, the best one/two channelers in the game consume 3.)

2C.4 – Old Blood (3) – if we choose to adopt Method 3, what should we name this "resource?" Would units consume a variable amount of it?

I think "Spark" makes a lot of sense for this one? Having "Spark" as a mineable resource on the map is weird, but as a representation of population (or some other abstraction) it works.

2C.5 – Gifted (4) – if we choose to adopt Method 4, should the units be gifted by the WT "randomly" or at various intervals, or should they be "requested" by the civ? Are these Aes Sedai permanent members of the civ, or are they temporary "loans?"

Mmmm, this one is interesting. Requested is the most complex of these, regular intervals is the simplest. Based on discussions later about Aes Sedai persistence and the complications that brings up (particularly with some Warder systems), my gut reaction is to avoid a "loan" system.

OK, let's go with those choices then. So:

• 
  Normal and UU Channelers (with perhaps a couple exceptions, like the Freed) are produced with hammers. However, They consume a global resource known as Spark. This resources is adjusted by era/tech, population, social policy, wonders, etc.
  [*]Most channeling units will consume 1 Spark. However, some late-game (powerful) channelers will likely consume 2.
  [*]A certain number of Aes Sedai will be gifted by the White Tower to deserving civs. These Aes Sedai will remain with the civ permanently, unless the total Aes Sedai "allocation" a civ receive is lowered for diplomatic reasons (and the WT recalls a Sister).
  [*]Aes Sedai will not consume a civ's Spark.

3A.1 – Combat – What "type" of combat should Aes Sedai engage in – ranged, melee, or siege?
3A.2 – Healing – Should Healing be available to all Aes Sedai, or only those who take a promotion/join the Yellow (see subsection F below)? If so, how should this work?
3A.3 – Gentling – Should Gentling be available to all Aes Sedai, or only those who take a promotion/join the Red (see subsection F below)?

I think ranged - but by making them suitably powerful ranged weapons, they'll be at least moderately effective siege weapons unless we take specific city-attacking measures to prevent it. (More on that when it comes up later on.) Like you've said, it's a bit strange that Aes Sedai would be effective siege weapons - so I'd say we'd avoid any city/siege bonuses in their promotion tree, which, combined with some inherent bonuses, should still make actual siege units the go-to choice for taking cities.

You suggest an approach much later on that I like - all Aes Sedai get the upgraded "medic" promotion, Yellows get the targeted healing action ability.

I think gentling should be available to all of them, but Reds are best at it (get some bonuses to success chance) by a significant margin.

Agreed. All sounds good. So:

• 
  Aes Sedai will be ranged units.
  [*]All Aes Sedai get an upgraded version of the Medic Promotion.
  [*]All Aes Sedai can perform rudimentary Gentling.

3B.1 – History – Should the Three Oaths apply throughout history, or only starting in the mid-game? When would they begin? How do we balance pre-Oath Aes Sedai?

I think it's way too complicated to have the Oaths show up mid-game. We can mitigate this by making the population of active Aes Sedai on the map at the very beginning of the game tiny. (A decent number of players won't have met Tar Valon for the first while anyway. Side note: I think there should be an early technology that causes the civ to meet the Tower, otherwise this all goes crazy when some people are unable to find the Tar Valon CS.)

3B.2 – Lies – Should the First Oath be worked into the game? How?

If we tie this in at all (mechanically), I think we should do it as part of the diplo victory, rather than the channeling mechanics. Definitely room for it flavor-wise in the descriptive text.

3B.3 – Power-Wrought Weapons – Should the Second Oath be worked into the game? How?

I don't think explicitly as a part of the Aes Sedai mechanics. We can have power wrought weapons through blademasters, ancient artifacts, and as a technology, but I don't think we can reasonably connect it to the Aes Sedai units.

Right. Simple enough!

• 
  The Three Oaths will apply for the entire game.
  [*]A Civ will meet the white tower through some early-game technology.
  [*]The First and Second Oaths will interact with the game mostly through flavor alone (of diplomacy and combat units, respectively)

3B.4 – Darkfriend Killing – In what circumstances does a human opponent become a Darkfriend that is legal for an Aes Sedai to kill?

I think Aes Sedai can always attack units controlled by civilizations that have declared for the Shadow during the Last Battle (and I think any Aes Sedai controlled by Shadow civs become Black Ajah, or some similar explanation that lets Shadow civs keep the ones they have). I understand the rationale of wanting to keep "threatening" a part of that, but given the Aes Sedai combat with the Sharans (right?), I think it's fair (and much more explosive end-of-game-y) to let them have at it at the end.

Definitely agree with regards to the loosening of this rule during the LB. Sounds good.

However, I'm not sure I agree that the Shadow civs keep the Aes Sedai they have. I think, first of all, that'll probably end up meaning that, say a civ is entitled to 8 total aes sedai normally. if that civ declareds for the shadow, they'll still have 8 Aes Sedai, since they'll probably be sure to keep them safe and/or stock up on them for the LB. Thus, the only difference is that they won't get any new Aes Sedai once those are killed (which could be essentially never if that civ has chosen Aes Sedai that they use primarily outside of combat (governors, etc.).

I suggest, instead, that we assume your average Aes Sedai is a "light follower," and that those Aes Sedai flee that particular civ and return to the tower. This assumes that if the civ's Sisters aren't already "outed" as black or otherwise "officially" Black.
Based on the degree the Black ajah has infiltrated the White Tower, a certain amount of Black sisters will come to replace them. If the Black Ajah controls, let's say, 3/8ths of the Sitters, that civ will lose their 8 Aes Sedai, but will gain three black sisters as compensation. Alternatively, instead of sending them new sisters, we could allow the civ to choose 3 of its current sisters (in this particular example) to "initiate into the Black Ajah", so they can keep some of their levelled sisters. In my opinion, this makes the lack of Aes Sedai theoretically much more possible for Shadow Civs, but it also significantly rewards those players to manage to help the Black Ajah take over the tower.

I suppose the exact opposite of this would be true if the Black "takes over" the WT - a light civ would be awarding a proportion of light sisters, perhaps.

I'm not sure how this mechanic interacts with a civ's Sisters turning "officially Black." Perhaps a sister "joining" the Black is kind of a tricky thing to pull off - it would be something a civ would try to do in order to ensure that they do not lose their Aes Sedai in the LB. Perhaps, alternatively, we could ignore the suggestion in the paragraph above, instead making this be the only way a Dark civ can have aes sedai - they must successfully "convert" them before the LB starts.

That said, I am also interested in keeping this from being too complex...

3B.5 – Threatening – Should a Sister be able to attack if somebody else's Warder is attacked? What about another Sister? What if these units are owned by other (non-attacking) civs?
3B.6 – Nearby – what constitutes "nearby forces" (ones fair to attack once the Aes Sedai is threatened)?

This crossed over a bit with the warder section after, but I'd say Aes Sedai are bonded to individual warders. They can attack any unit within 3 tiles (and transferring adjacence with any of those units - so the "I can attack this guy" cascades out beyond the 3 tiles to all connected adjacent units) of the attacking unit that hits their own warder, themselves, or another sister within the observing sister's vision radius (regardless of which civ the defending sister belongs to). Obviously the normal war restrictions still apply, example:

Andor and Tear are at war. An Illianer Aes Sedai sees a Tairen pikeman attack an Andoran Aes Sedai. The Illianer Aes Sedai can attack the Tairen pikeman only if Tear and Illian are at war. The capability is still recorded though - so if Illian sees that and wants to take advantage of it - they can declare war on the spot.

I also think there should be a cooldown on this - the "I can attack this guy" doesn't let that Aes Sedai attack that specific unit for the rest of time. I'd say a single "instance" of being able to attack a set of units lasts only X turns (10?). They're tracked independently - if you're at war with two civs and civ A attacks one of your Aes Sedai on turn 56, then civ B attacks her on turn 59. She can attack the flagged civ A units until turn 66 and flagged civ B until turn 69.

Yes, I like all of this! Would just add that this only applies to military units. I don't think Aes Sedai can ever attack civilians, except for Shadow-side in the LB (they are "darkfriends.")

3B.7 – Garrison – Can Aes Sedai be Garrisoned? Can they attack anybody invading the city?

Urk, maybe? I'm leaning towards no in attacking from within the city but I don't think we should stop players moving Aes Sedai into cities at all - mostly because it would make movement quite annoying. (Having to not use all movement or move off the road)

OK, I agree, though I would clarify that I think it's totally fine for an aes sedai to enter and even attack from a city. They just can't end their turn in the city (which would provide the "garrison" bonus to the city). Right?

3B.8 – Black –
Urk, I think whether or not we notify the player/defender is a small problem. The bigger one is "do we have individual 'outed' Black Ajah Sisters?" I think it might make this simpler if we tie Black Sisters into who their controllers are when alignments are chosen. It seems like a lot of logic for something that will only really happen during a short window towards the end of the game. (Not even the whole LB, just the short time leading up to it and shortly after it starts.)

Yeah, this ties to what I said above. I think I don't think there should be "Black Sisters" technically until the LB begins. Then, as I suggested above, a certain number of your sisters should leave (if you are shadow), and a certain number should replace them (or you would convert yours to Black), unlocking the abilities of the black ajah.

In summary, then (not including anything about Black sisters):

• During the Last Battle, an Aes Sedai can attack any unit of a civ that has declared for the Shadow.
  [*]Aes Sedai are tied to individual Warders.
  [*]If an Aes Sedai, her Warder, or another Sister within the Sister's vision radius is attacked, that Aes Sedai can attack any military units within three tiles of the attacking unit (including adjacent units) belonging to the attacking civ. War restrictions apply.
  [*]There is a cooldown on the "Threat" to a sister's life - the Aes Sedai has 10 turns of "freedom" to attack the unit, assuming the unit only attacks the once.
  [*]Aes Sedai may move through cities freely, but may not end their turn in the city (unless using a special Ajah ability).

 

[counterpoint]

3C.1 – Warder Basics – Are warders unique units? Do they automatically upgrade? Are there different "versions" throughout the tech tree? Alternatively, are they simply "normal" units who are Bonded to the Aes Sedai?
3C.2 – Bonding – How are Warders bonded? Can each Aes Sedai only bond one Warder? Can Warders be released from their bond, and if so, how do we prevent exploits?

In general, I like the flavor of bonding existing units with Aes Sedai. I don't think we can do the different "versions" one - that feels very different from what warders are. I think not having a "warder" unit is also a big loss though. I think we could have Warders be a single unit type but that they grow alongside their Aes Sedai (keeping them relevant throughout history). I'd say an Aes Sedai can bond an existing unit and that unit is replaced with a warder unit. (Do we want correspondence between the unit types there - a Warder who's an archer if they bond a unit that uses a bow?)

I think we can keep it simple on this front. Aes Sedai can bond a single warder at a time (Green Ajah bonus discussed later) using a custom mission available to only Aes Sedai units. I'd say bonding is permanent (which overlaps well with my position on Aes Sedai being owned perpetually by a civ once they're given them).

While I like the idea of bonding a specific unit to an Aes Sedai, and then that unit staying itself, just with some upgrades, I'm willing to admit that it is problematic in that it 1)leaves us with out a unit called "Warder" and 2)would be hard for an opposing civ to know who is a warder and who isn't.

So I agree, let's have an Aes Sedai bond an existing unit, which then converts into a Warder unit. I would say, if we do it that way, let's keep it simple - an archer unit converts to the same unit as a swordsman.

That said, what I'm not quite sure about is whether a civ can use *any* unit to become a Warder outright. Can I take my centuries-old Warrior and convert him, and he'll be just as awesome as my shiny, new Defender of the Stone? In order to balance this, I would suggest we have an upgrade cost associated with becoming a Warder, based on the era the unit comes from. If the unit in question is from the same era the civ is currently in, we could have the upgrade cost be 0. Alternatively, we could have an old warder have worse stats, but I think that's too complex.
The other issue is whether that unit should retain most of its promotions. I would assume yes. By having an "Obsolescence Tax" and letting promotions carry over, this encourages players to use their *best* units as Warders - something that makes great sense in-universe.

3C.3 – Benefits – What combat bonuses should Warder's receive once bonded? How should we represent their shadowspawn-detection skills? Should Warders have improved movement?

I like the idea of "ignore terrain" like scouts - that adds significant mobility without drastically changing the range of the unit. Warders also won't be able to run too far ahead since they'll want to stay within range of their Aes Sedai.

I don't feel as strongly about which bonus the unit should have (March vs Bushido vs defending bonus). I'm leaning towards Bushido.

We can highlight any hex within radius X of the Warder that contains Shadowspawn (while the Warder is selected) - regardless of whether or not it's revealed? (Only needs to be previously explored.) Could be useful for scouting the Blight during the game, and probably during the LB. Not sure how the AI would use this particular ability - I'm not sure if they "cheat" with respect to the fog of war.

OK, I agree with you here. I like ignore terrain, though I wouldn't made the base range of the unit any better than a typical melee unit. I like Bushido as well. Seems more unique than March. I like your suggestion for shadowspawn detection. I'd say the radius extends to something like 2 or three tiles beyond their normal vision. As to the AI.... if they cheat and get this anyways, oh well.

3C.4 – Drawbacks – What should happen to the survivor when a Warder or Aes Sedai is killed? If the Aes Sedai leaves the civ to return to the Tower, what happens to the Warder?

I don't think the Aes Sedai should return to the Tower in the normal course of things, mainly for complexity reasons - both for the player and us. However, I think there's an argument for Aes Sedai returning to the Tower when their Warder dies. It might temper the "Aes Sedai + Warder" wrecking ball strategy if the Aes Sedai gets a combat penalty and returns to the Tower a few turns after her Warder dies. (Not immediately, otherwise aggressors just kill the Warders to get rid of Aes Sedai.) Even if we do that, I don't think we'd persist Aes Sedai at the Tower and have them reappear later.

I think the Warder should suffer a massive combat penalty if his Aes Sedai dies. He shouldn't become entirely useless though - that's dull and annoying for the player. Aes Sedai-less Warders could be sent to the Tower for caretaking in exchange for influence?

I'm in agreement that the Aes Sedai should have a smaller combat penalty when the Warder dies (than the corresponding Warder penalty when the Aes Sedai dies). If we don't have the Aes Sedai return to the Tower, then I'd imagine this wears off after a while. Rebonding a new warder would have a cooldown then as well.

I don't like the idea of Aes Sedai returning to the tower once they lose their warder. Seems too harsh. Instead, I'd suggest a ten-turn period where the Aes Sedai has a moderate combat strength penalty, and cannot bond a new warder. When the period is over, the Aes Sedai can freely bond a new warder. I'd say at this period the penalty goes away, incrementally, over the course of, say, five turns.

As far as the Warders, I think they should have the same combat penalty as the Aes Sedai. However, they all lose the "special abilities" of the Warders - bushido, ignore terrain, and shadow detection. They'd end up probably similar to a normal unit for that era. If the Warder is rebonded, they get their abilities back, and gradually restore their combat strength. Yes, I like the idea of sending them to the tower for influence.

[3C.5 – Male Bonding – Should we include non-Aes Sedai bonding (Asha'man, Wise Ones, etc.)?
I don't think so, mainly for simplicity's sake. Warders will always be an available mechanism to reach the above mechanics, and Asha'man bonding will only become important/possible very late in the game.

agreed.

OK, in summary (and pending any further discussion about the Warder unit.

• An Aes Sedai can bond an existing unit as a Warder. That unit is converted into a Warder unit. Warders upgrade over time, like Aes Sedai.
• A Warder unit has the following abilities: ignore terrain, "bushido," and shadow spawn detection.
• If a Warder is killed, the Aes Sedai suffers a combat strength penalty that wears off over time. The Aes Sedai can only bond a new warder after a certain number of turns.
• If an Aes Sedai is killed, her Warder loses some combat strength and his special abilities. The warder can be "gifted" to the White Tower for influence.

3D.1 – Diplomacy – Should there be significant overlap in the mechanics that enable diplomatic victory, and those that grant Aes Sedai?
3D.2 – Aes Sedai Granting – Should we adopt the system I proposed, wherein non-diplomatic factors determine the amount of Aes Sedai, while diplomacy determines the "quality" of them? What specific recommendations/changes would you make?

I think you've outlined good reasons to keep them separate-but-related. (People can disable the diplomatic victory as well. Lots of fun combinations here!) I like the "Aes Sedai quotas" that scale over the course of the game - 0-1 at the start and up to 5 by the end, scaled by the modifiers you described.

I think we can make that limit explicit to the player, so that they can plan accordingly. (You have 0/1 possible Aes Sedai from the Tower.) This also means we can, as you suggest later, modify this with wonders and eras in a transparent way that players can follow.

Yes, I like that system. Related to what I said in my previous post - I've been thinking on this a bit over the weekend - and I think Aes Sedai shouldn't consume our "Spark" resource that's used for other channelers. In universe, the Aes Sedai you are given don't necessarily come from your civ - they aren't consuming the "Spark" resource generated by your population. Gameplay-wise, I wouldn't want players to be shorted an Aes Sedai because they built a Wilder at the wrong time. Given the differences, I think keeping those "supplies" separate makes sense.

Ok, agreed here. I think you mentioned later some specific ways that Aes Sedai are better through diplomatic means. I don't remember them, but I think I liked them.

3D.3 – Black Ajah – How should things change if the Black Ajah takes control of the Tower?

The first thing is they switch sides in the Last Battle. That should make a big difference to the difficulty for the Light. (The Tower's forces should be of noticeable importance to the Light under normal circumstances.) I say we characterize Aes Sedai controlled by Light civs at this time as "rebels" against the Black Ajah controlled Tower, allowing them to stay on there.

I think the main differences caused by this switch pertain to the Diplomatic Victory, rather than our channeling mechanics. I think the Tower's role in channeling remains quite similar, just inverted in places related to Alignment. This will take place very close to the end of the game if at all, so there's only time for so much to change then.

agreed.

3E.1 – Balance Over Time – Which of the suggestions do you prefer to keep Aes Sedai balanced throughout the tech tree? What specific recommendations do you have?

I think the idea of having Aes Sedai get better at certain technologies (and wonders) makes a lot of sense. Linking and shielding seem like great candidates for techs that unlock new abilities (potentially in more unit types than just Aes Sedai though).

Agreed on the general power curve - that from a relative perspective they're more powerful in the early game.

Great

OK, summarizing:

• Population, social policies, Prestige, etc., determine the amount of Aes Sedai a civilization is gifted.
• Diplomatic factors control the *quality* of those Aes Sedai.
• If the Black Ajah takes over the White Tower, this has mostly diplomatic ramifications, and, of course, determines which side has the benefit of their services and Sisters during the Last Battle.
• Certain technologies increase the power of a civ's Aes Sedai and Warders. Relatively speaking, Aes Sedai will be most powerful in the early game.

3F.1 – Ajah Use – Should specific Aes Sedai be attached to Ajahs? Should this be a promotion, an internal choice, or merely "training?". Can Aes Sedai adopt multiple Ajahs?
3F.2 – Which Ajah – Should all Ajahs be represented? Is it ok if the abilities granted are non-combat related?

3F.4 – Other Channelers – Should non-Aes Sedai be able to train with the Ajahs? Does this have any effect on their abilities?

Right, I've been waiting to get to this section in my replies! I think that an Aes Sedai's Ajah should determine its actual unit type. (So "Red Sister"/"Red Ajah Aes Sedai"/"Red Aes Sedai") This means they'd be locked into their own single Ajah. I think this is more true to the way Ajahs work in WoT and also lets us do things like unique art for each Ajah. Given the differences in abilities and the limited Aes Sedai slots available to players, I think the player should be prompted for which Ajah they want when told they'll be sent one from the Tower. (Like the free GP window)

I think names is a nice touch and very easy to do. We have a lot of names for Tower Aes Sedai of the various Ajahs throughout WoT history (right?) and adding unique names to units is very easy on the technical side.

I think all of the Ajahs should be represented, but it's fine if some have non-combat-only abilities. I'm partial to all Aes Sedai being combat units (possibly of varying strengths by Ajah, but all fairly powerful), but I'll have to reread your post again on this subject, because there were some good reasons to go the other way too.

I think sending non-Aes Sedai channelers to the Tower should be a permanent thing with some valuable rewards (rather like gifting the unit). I'm not sure if UUs should be candidates - but it probably makes sense that they can be.

I understand the appeal of having each Ajah be a separate unit type. This has the added benefit of a player seeing an Aes Sedai wandering around and having a good estimation of its threat level - a Red Sister walking up to your Asha'man means something very different than a Grey one. However, I like the simplicity of just a single Aes Sedai unit type. So, if we go with your suggestion, may I suggest we keep the Sisters' abilities exactly the same in terms of stats, with the sole exception being their unique abilities. I know it could be tempting to tweak them infinitely, so that Greens are better in combat, etc. However, let's resist this - they are identical except for in name and very specific 1 or 2 abilities each has.

Last summary:

• When gifted an Aes Sedai, the civ chooses which Ajah it is from.
  [*]Each Aes Sedai ajah is a unique unit. These units will have flavorful names, drawn from the books.
  [*]All Ajahs will be represented. Each will have one or two special abilities. Some will be combat-related, and some will be non-combat related.
  [*]Other channeling units can be sent to "train" with the White Tower, which will yield rewards, rather like gifting to a CS in CiV.

OK, that's the time I got now. Hope to be back soon!

 

[counterpoint]

3F.3 – Ajah Abilities – For each Ajah, which ability or abilities do you prefer? How should their specific mechanics work? How would you balance them against other Ajahs? Are there any others we should consider?

BLUE AJAH
Become Governor – becomes a Channeling Governor in a city (whatever that means!), assuming this is distinct from options 3 and 4 above.
Discovery – The Blue Sister has a high statistical likelihood of discovering important objects and people – the Horn of Valere, Seals, Darkfriends, etc. Would depend on the mechanics we choose for these things.

My first question here is what is intrigue? We've mentioned it a few times, but is it anything beyond the information given by spies in base CiV? Things that let you see when a civ is plotting against another (only really works on the AI, just a quick MP note) or the approximate progress of one of their cities towards building a world wonder?

I think we're due to come back to the Horn of Valere at some point, but I like the idea that Blue Sisters can discover the Horn much like Hunters of the Horn. That seems like a nice bonus for them - but definitely not the only one they get. As you've said, they're important in the books and should feel that way in the mod too.

I think their key ability should be the channeling governor one. I think that will include some elements of faith and culture generation. If the Blues are the only Ajah with governor access, then that gives them a strong, unique position.

However, it's probably worth discussing something we went over before here: can governors become units again? I think we were leaning towards "no" or "post-release-if-at-all" for that feature, but having Aes Sedai that can become governors may change this. It's a big drawback to this Ajah to permanently lose the unit through their primary ability. This doesn't have to be all or nothing though - we could make Blue Sister governors the only ones that can become units again, while normal GP governors are stuck in their city?

The intrigue I'm referring to is simply that learned from spies. The fact that it is useless in MP makes this absolutely a no-go.

I'm happy with the horn of valere thing being a minor aspect to their power. I don't love the aesthetics of these ladies having two powers, unless it is a part of the diplomatic incentive (below).

I think the issue of the governor-becoming-a-unit thing is the biggest issue here. I do like this option, in theory, but the fact that it will be significantly different from other Governors is problematic... Obviously this is made much more tricky because we don't know exactly how governors work. Are we sure that they exist as previously discussed? What if the Blues were the only governors - maybe you could choose their bonus between a couple options? I do like the idea of there being Blacksmith governors, Blue governors, etc., but it strikes me as potentially kinda complicated, in a field of GP that's already kind of complicated.

I wonder if, perhaps, the solution isn't to have them technically be governors. What if, instead, the blue inside a city's radius could advise the governor or something. This mission would last ten turns or something, and would generate certain amount of prestige/culture per turn, or something. Less than a governor. But then the Blue would reappear, ready to do it again or go fight.

GREEN AJAH
Bond Second Warder – Green Sisters would have the ability to bond a second Warder.
I think second warder is a big one here. It's powerful (but not overpoweringly so), flavorful, and makes the Ajah stand out as very unique. Shadowspawn killer is tempting, but I don't know if we want to add that on top of a second warder - that's already powerful given the system you've outlined in 3B with the third oath. I don't see which other Ajah we'd give that to though. We don't have to have one, I suppose.

Totally agree. Question, though: if one Warder dies, does the Aes Sedai suffer the depression penalty still? Maybe she does, but it starts "healing" immediately?

YELLOW AJAH
Focused Healing – the Yellow Sister "attacks" a single ally and greatly heals that unit.
I think this one stands out well too. We give a "Medic-like" promotion to all Aes Sedai but Yellow Sisters have the targeted healing ability, which is likely to be much more swing-y and powerful in battle. I don't think they need a buff to the passive healing as well as unlocking the targeted one.

I like it.

RED AJAH
Saidin Killer – the Red Sister does bonus Damage against male channelers
Saidin Shield – the Red Sister has enhanced Defensive Strength against male channelers
Enhanced Gentling – The Red Sister has stronger Gentling than other Aes Sedai, doing more damage, or requiring fewer preconditions in order to be successful.

I think enhanced Gentling is the way to go here. Gentling is a potentially globally useful ability that would be concentrated on too few units if only Red Sisters could do it. I think the difference should be fairly drastic between Reds and other Ajahs though - like if normal Aes Sedai can gentle male channelers under 20% HP, Reds can do it under 60% or something to that effect. And since their "primary" ability is only an enhancement, I think it's reasonable to also give them one of the others too. Enhanced damage against male channelers combines well with their main ability, but won't usually allow players to "snipe" male channelers in one turn with it, because it will be unusual for civs to have multiple Red Sisters working in concert. (And if they do - they should have had to do some serious wrangling and be rewarded with some significant power.)

Part of me definitely wants it to be Reds only for simplicity. But based on the gentling mechanics you decide on later, I think you are making the right call here.

As far as the secondary ability, I see the appeal in Saidin Killer. Seems somewhat redundant to enhanced gentling though. I think I might prefer Saidin Shield - that way the Red is likely to survive long enough to actual gentle the male (she would otherwise be a target).

WHITE AJAH
This is harder to choose. I think I agree with the association of the White Ajah with science, and also with the problem that creates with the Browns. I think we can characterize the difference as logical being scientific and historical being cultural. That gives us reasonable associations, but we don't want to trample on the Blue Ajah's position as "exclusive governor" because I think that gives a lot of uniqueness to the Blues.

I also think that a flat bonus to science per turn would be quite boring for the player and they would most often choose one of the other Ajahs for the splashier abilities. (Or if it's not choice based, they'd just be disappointed when they get a White Sister, which is almost worse.) The GS "science burst" ability comes to mind, but then if it doesn't consume the Sister she becomes easily one of the most powerful entities (not just units) in the game. Can we balance a science burst against some massive drawback? Something like:

"Logical Edict": Creates a burst of science (of approximate worth with the Great Scientist analogue's ability) but your civilization suffers -10 (-20? more? less?) global unhappiness. (I'm not sure if global unhappiness is a directly modifiable thing, I may need to invent that for this to work.) The negative effects could last for 10 (20? more?) turns and the ability have an even longer cooldown. We could even make the Sister weaker at combat during the cooldown.

I am nervous about making an actual drawback for one of the Sister abilities. Specifically, I worry that happiness is too unpredictable in its consequences - if luxury resources suddenly change, their unhappiness could easily spiral out of control.

I'd feel better if, instead of an actual penalty, the "drawback" was simply in opportunity cost. For instance, what if the "Logical Edict" served to create a sort of super Research. Production or maybe even Culture was converted into science. True, this is a kind of "penalty," but it feels more like a "purchase" for the player.

In some ways, I very much prefer the science per turn to the Burst. The reason for this is I worry that it could be game breaking for a civ to get its 8 White Ajah sisters and then jump forward 7 techs in one turn... I do know its a bit boring, though. Still open to more thoughts on this one.

GREY AJAH
Unplunderable (and better - higher yields?) trade routes jumps out at me here. What if Grey Sisters can use their "Ignore borders" passive ability to enact a "binding trade agreement" (or something) with a target civ (from next to one of their cities that is connected to the civ's capital, or possibly only next to the capital itself) that means all of your trade routes with that civ are unplunderable and better for a certain number of turns? (Do we include trade routes established by that civ to you as well?)

A side effect of this is that the Grey Ajah becomes useful for the cultural victory. At least if we keep some of base CiV's Tourism mechanics for Prestige, having a trade route with a civ provides a significant (+40%) Tourism modifier with them.

Yeah, I can see how the "Conduct Trade Negotiations" mission could be pretty cool. I do like that it enhances the trade you already have going, instead of actually creating any routes. Unplunderable seems cool, though admittedly I don't know much about the plundering mechanics. Good question, regarding whether the benefits work in reverse (for the other civ)... I'm tempted to say "no" (aside from the unplunderability), as I feel a civ shouldn't benefit so greatly from the labor of another. If we do let it be two-way, we should add something else to compensate for that. I do think the ignore borders is essential, though, in that it also serves to allow the unit to function in espionage. Question - can their warders ignore borders?

BROWN AJAH
Enhanced Archaeologist – The Brown Sister functions as a super-archaeologist, doing digs more quickly, not disappearing once they are complete, and perhaps having a chance to find Hidden Antiquity Sites.
Archaeologist jumps out at me, but a reusable archaeologist would power through a lot of the world's antiquity sites pretty fast. If we separate Seals from normal GWs (in the map placement part - they'll definitely be separate once you find them) then I can see Browns being good for that. That does make their primary ability only useful in relation to the Last Battle though. That may not be a huge problem - I imagine most players will have that enabled most of the time and some mechanics should inevitably tie into it like this.

I also mentioned culture above, though I'm also not sure how we can balance this one with the Sister not being consumed by the mission. (And without stomping on the Blues as Governors idea.)

Yeah, I get your concern. So, what could we do to balance the free-archaelogist thing? Maybe they shouldn't be "better" than normal archaeologists? Maybe they can do a site quickly, but have a cooldown before they can do another? Maybe they simply "supervise excavation" - you need to already have an archaelogist there, but the brown sister makes the dig happen much faster, or something? Or provide culture/science on its completion?

BLACK AJAH
Freedom from the Oaths – The Three Oaths do not apply to the Black Sister – she can kill, lie, etc.
Compulsion – The Black Sister can, after weakening another Unit, take temporary control of that unit.
Create Darkfriend – the Black Sister can capture a military unit or civilian and make them a Darkfriend, which is a unit we may perhaps choose to create for various purposes.
Assassinate Governor – the Black Sister has a chance (like some darkfriend spies or Bloodknives might) to kill a Governor stationed in a city.

The Black Ajah get all the cool abilities. In my previous post I wondered about whether or not having Black Ajah Sisters at all is worth it due to the limited window of time they're available in. However, rereading these abilities, I think they bring a lot to the endgame. If we share some of these abilities with high level Shadowspawn (Dread Lords/Forsaken) then the abilities themselves should be visible in a lot of games, so it would still be worth our adding them in.

My first question here is how we go about revealing Sisters as Black Ajah to a player (the world?) and giving them access to those abilities. How does that interact with the player's Alignment (if at all)? Does using these abilities make the player more Shadow-aligned? At what point in the game do Black Ajah Sisters begin to appear? Are there situations where a player has become Shadow-aligned enough (during the LB only?) to "choose" Black Ajah from the "You have been gifted an Aes Sedai, choose an Ajah" screen? Or are all Shadow civs during the LB given Black Ajah Sisters in place of all other Ajahs? (This reduces the potential disadvantage of having no Aes Sedai on the Shadow side that you've mentioned elsewhere.) OR do all Sisters controlled by Shadow-declaring civs get replaced with Black Ajah ones? Or are the abilities simply layered on top of the existing Ajah in one of the above cases?

Many questions! I'll keep thinking on all of the above.

ah, complicated. In terms of abilities, I do think that those four is maybe too much. I like the "freedom from the oaths," though, if Black sisters are LB only, this is actually kind of useless, since even light side sisters will be able to more-or-less freely attack their enemies. Of the remaining abilities, my favorite is Compulsion.

Aesthetically, I like the idea of the Black abilities simply layering on top of their regular Ajahs. The problem with this is that this makes them "Better" than the regular sisters. On the one hand, I see that as bad. On the other hand, maybe that's how we compensate for the fact that a civ will likely have less of them. that said, if somebody "turns" the tower, civs could have a ton of black sisters.... Having the Black abilities replace the regular abilities may be a simpler thing.

Not sure how to handle this. This warrants more discussion.

OK, to summarize, then:

• Blues - aid in the finding of the Horn of Valere, generate prestige or some other yield by becoming governor or something similar.
• Greens - Capable of bonding a second Warder.
• Yellows - targeted healing power.
• Reds - enhanced gentling chance, as well as some enhancement to combat with male channelers.
• Whites - UNDECIDED something that provides a dump or stream of science
• Grays - ignore borders, create Binding Trade Agreement that is unplunderable and has improved yields.
• Browns - some kind of enhanced archaeologist
• Black - undecided., though Freedom from the oaths and compulsion are most likely a part of it.

3F.4 – Other Channelers – Should non-Aes Sedai be able to train with the Ajahs? Does this have any effect on their abilities?
3G.1 – Persistence – Do Aes Sedai disappear forever if recalled by the Tower? Can they return to that civ, or to any civ? What about their Warders?

H – Novices and Accepted

Has diplomatic ramifications (boosting favor with various Ajahs in the Hall of the Tower)
I think this is more of a "fire and forget" situation. You're sending that channeler to train at the Tower to become an Aes Sedai (hopefully). But once that training is complete, they belong to the Tower, not you. They do have some affection (on average) for their homeland, so that's abstracted by an increase in influence.

Related to what I said above, I think civs should be able to send channelers to train at the Tower, but once they do then they've lost that unit. Akin to gifting units to city states for influence.[/QUOTE]

I think avoiding persistence helps us a lot with complexity of linking it together with all these other systems. (Black Ajah, Warders, Ajah abilities, player Aes Sedai count) Aes Sedai gifting from the Tower is permanent barring the player's actions reducing their "Aes Sedai cap" to lower than the number of Aes Sedai they currently control. (Aes Sedai who disappear this way take their Warder(s) with them. I'd say the player chooses which Aes Sedai to lose.)[/QUOTE]

Great. Agreed on all of the above.

3H.1 – Novices and Accepted – Should Novices and Accepted be included in the game? Should they be units or serve some kind of diplomatic function? How should these mechanics work?
I'll think more on this one and may come back to it, but my first reaction is that if we include Novices and Accepted then it would be as a part of the diplomacy system rather than through the channeling mechanics. Like you've said, Novices are kept within the Tower and having them present on the map is a strange departure from flavor that I don't think adds much. Even Accepted have limited freedom that makes them ill-placed on the map for similar reasons.

There's probably a lot of room for them to play a role in the diplomacy side though. If sending channelers to the Tower is one of a civ's major ways of interacting with the Tower, then Novices and Accepted can factor in in some way there.

Yes, I agree with you. I like this solution. I think we can leave it there for now. We can figure out the specifics when we tackle the diplo victory (which is perhaps next...)

Just singling this out because I think it's a very good point and something we should consider for Grey Ajah Sisters when we're going a bit deeper on diplomacy. I think it's ok to tie one of the Ajah's usefulness to a mechanic like that because some will inevitably be better for specific strategies and they'll end up more focused and useful if we embrace that to a certain extent.

Interesting. very interesting. Not sure what I think about this. It's cool, and of course makes logical sense, but I'd be wary of adding a big, unique mechanic that ends up only rarely used.

Despite the difficulties above with picking out a single ability for each Ajah, is there potential for unlocking an additional ability per Ajah via diplomatic relations with the Tower? This would allow diplomatic players with close relations to the Tower to demonstrate their Aes Sedai powers without having to affect their total of allowable Aes Sedai units.

I've mentioned my position on the crux of this above, but for organizational clarity, I'll summarize: I like the idea of having Aes Sedai quality affected by diplomatic relationship with the Tower, while the number of Aes Sedai a civ can control is determined by other external factors.

Right, I definitely like this in principle. in practice, though, I think it might be tricky. At what point does the ability to unlock? Is there benefit to increasing relations above that point? What if you're just below that point, you get nothing, right? This makes me a little nervous. I think I'd feel better if it were a gradient of sorts. Like if your diplomacy is between X and Y, you get N benefit, while if its between Y and Z, you get N+1 benefit. Unfortunately, we don't want multiple bonus abilities.

This is tricky, and I'm not sure how to handle it.

Summary:

• Any female channeler can be sent to train at the tower. This provides diplomatic benefits.
• Aes Sedai stay with a civilization permanently (unless "recalled" for diplomatic reasons).
• Novices and Accepted will be factors in the diplomatic situation with the tower - civs will send their young women to train in the tower, which will have diplomatic repercussions.
• Aes Sedai may unlock secondary abilities through diplomatic successes with the tower.

OK, that's it for today!

 

[counterpoint]

And we're back!

Quick aside, Civ:BE came out today (and I have it but haven't played it yet). Does this affect our plans in any way? I haven't looked into the modding capabilities of Civ:BE yet. It uses the same game engine as CiV so a lot of the technical knowledge I've gained on CiV is likely transferrable. However, there is likely to be a steep-ish learning curve where I'm not that effective to start with.

Civ:BE may offer some nice fixes for us - terrain graphics updates mid-game comes to mind. I would hope Firaxis have fixed that this time around. The other side of this (that requires me to investigate just a tiny bit) is if Firaxis haven't released the gameplay C++ code for Civ:BE then a mod like ours is basically impossible to do.

My gut reaction is that we'll stay with CiV, but I just wanted to start off that conversation in case anyone had compelling cases to do otherwise.

Now, continuing with the channeling!

C:BE! Ah, haven't played it yet. But I am a notoriously late-adopter (just got to civ5 a few months ago!). I should probably spring for it, though, since we're working on this and all.

As far as what do do here, my instincts tell us to stay with CiV. The reasons for this are as follows:
1) since this is a fantasy setting, the new tilesets and graphics aren't likely to be all that useful to us.
2) you know the code for CiV better
3) the changes I've read about don't seem like they'd be that necessary for us. It sounds like we can do something similar with quests using the CiV code. I don't think the Purity/Supremacy/Harmony thing is that much more in keeping with the WoT universe than CiV's setup is. Lastly, I think a radial tech tree would be a bad idea, essentially because tech progression isn't a super important fabric of the WoT mythos, so going to great lengths to twist it into that kind of setup
4) we've gotten this far with CiV

That said, I do see the one big reason why we theoretically SHOULD change:
1) C:BE is newer, so it might be more likely to attract a user base.

Do you think that final reason is significant enough for us to worry about? I'm very new to the modding community, so I don't know - did people still play compelling CIV mods after CiV came out? I know people still play Morrowind and Oblivion, even after Skyrim has been out for a long time.

If you think we still have an audience, I say stay with CiV. If you like we've just lost our audience, I suppose we need to change, eh?

4A.1 – Specialists – Should Wisdoms be units or should they be a kind of Specialist? If they are a Specialist, what kind of yield would they produce? What kind of Great People would they generate? What kind of building would they be housed in?
I was under the impression that a significant portion of Wisdoms were non-channelers. The effective Wisdoms were channelers, but that most were "faking" it - reading the wind and such. I think Wisdoms make most sense as a Specialist, but your questions do show us that we're not sure what to do with them. We can definitely have buildings like Wisdom's Cottage that would provide Wisdom specialist slots. (Bonuses to food and happiness make sense to me for the building)

What kind of Great People? My gut reaction is our fun WoT guys - but then that's our old trade-off against reliability problem. Given the Wisdom's association with health and wellbeing, I would expect them to generate food themselves - but a Specialist that generates food is weird. They could generate Faith, since I seem to have avoided Faith yields for all of the Aes Sedai Ajahs above.

You may be right that a good portion of wisdoms are non-channelers, but I think this is similar to the Wise One thing. True, they aren't all channelers, but the most visible ones in the series *are*, so we might as well consider them "channelers."

In any case, your concerns are all noted. I do think the trade-off issue doesn't need to be a huge problem. If somebody deems the benefits of the Wisdom and her building to be worthwhile, they'll build it. If not, they won't. If players want the nutty element of the WoT GPs, they'll do it. If not, they won't.

I'd say the "Wisdom Cottage" could offset some of these issues, though, by also serving a separate purpose that is more vital. Like, its a granary or something further down the tech tree.. Somethat that totally justifies its creation - the wisdom's existence being secondary to it.

I think Faith may be our answer. Food seems too risky. Since Faith is perhaps going to be a pretty vital part of our game, relative to CiV, it might be nice to provide players with options to control its generation a bit more.

4B.1 – Technological Progression – Should female channelers evolve in-line with the tech tree? Should there be obsolescence and upgrades, or should units simply improve their functionality over time? How should we handle UU's?
I'm partial to the normal channelers working like Aes Sedai - external to the tech tree and enhanced by technologies throughout the game to keep them competitive with equivalently teched units. I like that this lines up with the Old Blood system (Spark) from earlier on, since I liked that one too. This has a few consequences:

Small civs that don't focus on military will defend themselves with a small army of channelers. They don't need to be upgraded, so they avoid the constant upgrade costs and are powerful units so they can be used to defend small civilizations very effectively. I don't think this is necessarily a problem, just an observation of where they would be useful. This favors the player because we can make better use of small forces to hold off a numerically superior AI attacker.

Ah, interesting. I should clarify though that a "small" civ (population-wise) wouldn't be able to have as many channelers - they'd have a smaller Spark total. If by "small" you mean Tall, though, then yes, you have a point definitely. This is especially true if we have non-wonder buildings that make your channelers better - a wide empire would have to build more of them for the same effect. But to me this is already a factor in CiV - wide empires are harder to defend, first of all. Also, wide empires make some higher-level buildings (National College) etc. harder to build.

We could elect to skew the Spark calculation to reward Wide play, if we viewed that to be a problem. We could also have the Aes Sedai provide fewer Sisters to Tall civs. We can come up with flavorful justifications of this, I think.

Accustomed to the way units work in CiV (this is a problem for Aes Sedai as well), new players may be confused that their "the same" unit is weaker (or stronger) than that same unit being controlled by other civs. This is really just an education thing though - I'm thinking this mod needs its own tutorial.

I don't view this as a problem, really. That already happens in CiV. I attack some other unit, but because it has way more promotions than mine, I die. I think anybody that's very observant about their units relative power versus others of the same unit type is also the same kind of player that will understand the system we've created.

Yes a tutorial, but I highly recommend we do an in-game one, and not a stand alone scenario-type thing. Nobody will play it. If we can have the advisers teach the player what's different, like they do at the start of a CiV game, that's best, IMO.

In terms of Wilder/Kin/UUs, I think having the Wilder and Kin as globally available channeling units makes a lot of sense. Though Kin might be nice as an Altaran UU, I think you've made some good points to the contrary (there by convenience, limited connection to Altaran government/national identity) and the Kin can serve a valuable role as an upgraded channeling unit that isn't the Wilder. I'd be tempted to have the sole upgrade path be Wilder -> Kin. It gives us a good jumping on point for the channeling UUs - Wise Ones, Sul'dam, and Ayyad are the ones I'm thinking of in particular. I think all of those could replace the Kin, so those civs have powerful but limited UUs that they can make use of for longer than usual.

I agree with this.

I do think, in order to spread out the UU's over eras, we could decide that one or to of those (maybe the Ayyad or the Wise Ones) were actually replacements for the Wilders, not the Kin.

Also, is there an upgrade cost when bringing a Wilder up to a Kin or does it happen automatically?

4C.1 – Channeler Abilities – What's so special about channelers, in terms of mechanics? How are they different from other combat units? What kind of gameplay do we want for channeling units?

This is actually a really good point. I think the Medic-like ability would become too generic if we give it to all of these channelers, the Aes Sedai, and normal units can get it through the usual promotion tree. Even if we use the latter, I like Healing as an Aes Sedai-related bonus.

Ranged/melee combat strength disparity is interesting and I think we can do that in addition to a few of the others. It makes them more strategic rather than something you can just throw wholesale at your enemies until they die. (Favoring the player, for our superior tactical know-how.)

I like splash damage, but you mention this again later and I think it makes more sense for male channelers.

In terms of range vs strength, I think we might be limiting too much. I imagine Old Blood supplies being relatively low, so why not go for longer range (3?) and increased strength? If you can only build a few of these units, they should feel special. Or possibly they gain the range at a specific tech. Given how much of a difference Artillery makes vs all previous siege weapons, a range of 3 should make them something special. (Particularly if we don't have any normal siege weapons with a range of 3 - but then we'll make channelers the game's best siege weapons, which we were avoiding earlier.)

OK, I think I am in favor of this, pretty much. Raged/melee combat disparity will help to make sure they don't get too powerful - you need other units protecting them, else they die. I'm fine with them being stronger and having range of 3. You might be right that the range of 3 should probably be a tech unlock, though. We could definitely not have any range-three seige weapons, though I think it's likely that Manetheren's longbowmen will have a range of 3.

Just to clarify, I'd say these general distinctions apply to all saidar users, Aes sedai included (unless some UU presents an exception).

4D.1 – Units – Which units should we use? Which ones should be UU's and which should be available to all civs? How should they be arrayed on the tech tree? What abilities should they each have?
4D.2 – Windfinders – How should we handle Sea Folk Windfinders? Are they stand-alone units, or merely a part of the ships of the Atha'an Miere? Are they tied to specific naval vessels or are they represented by the Sea Folk UA?
4D.3 – Seanchan Units – How should we handle Sul'dam and Damane? Do both units exist or is this merely a part of the Seanchan UA? What happens to a captured unit?
So, my overall opinions here:

Wilder and Kin are "produce-able" channeling units that are made available by technologies on the tech tree. Wilders upgrade to Kin. Abilities discussed above (in my answer to 4C.1).

Wise Ones, Ayyad, and Sul'dam are replacements for the Kin. We can probably come back to all of this part when we're going through. I'm partial to the Wise Ones getting the Medic-like ability, making them and the Aes Sedai the only ones who can do that.

Whenever we sort out the Dream World stuff, I'd say we give the Wise Ones prime pick of the abilities available there.

I'm in agreement that the Wise Ones shouldn't replace Aes Sedai for the Aiel.

I'm partial to associating them with the UA but I don't want to do something generic like Elizabeth's +2 movement for naval units. Making embarked Sea Folk units on par with combat naval vessels would make a serious impact as a UA. Then again, I like the idea of something exotic like being able to found cities in the ocean - but I don't know how viable that is with varying map types. Either of those would prescribe Windfinders as actual units, which would presumably replace the Wilder.

The Windfinder could embark to a fully capable naval vessel and give movement bonuses to all nearby Sea Folk vessels.

I think we can come back to the finer points of this when doing the civ list.

I'm gleefully looking forward to trying this one out. I propose Sul'dam replace the Kin but are melee-ish units, as you suggested. Then any (yes any) (female) channeling unit "killed" by a Sul'dam becomes a Damane unit. Damanes are bonded to individual Sul'dam and must stay near them (within 2/3 hexes). If the Sul'dam dies, the Damane either dies too or goes False Dragon (havoc wreaking on everyone) on us. Damane don't consume Old Blood (why would they - they were born in other civs, drawing from their population) and upgrade independently of the tech tree. All damane units are the same (like you've noted, the Seanchan don't use their previous lives' strengths/abilities).

One thing I should ask is, did you have an opinion on the Daughters of Silence? I know they're kind of obscure, but they'd let us have an Altaran UU... and I'm not sure altaran UU's will be easy to come by. You didn't mention them, and I'm pretty sure they're in my blurb somewhere.

As far as Windfinders go, I do think I like the idea of a windfinder unit that provides movement bonuses to surrounding units, but is that too micromanagey? Would you suggest the Windfinder is a regular old wilder while on land, though? Anyways, can discuss later.

I enjoyed all your thoughts re: Sul'dam. The one thing I might suggest, though, is that, while Damane don't consume Spark, should Sul'dam? Probably should be less than other units, though.

4D.4 – Great Channelers – Should Great Channelers exist in the game, or should they simply be folded into other Great Person types?
Eh, I think there's enough going on without us adding this. Originally I'd thought we'd need this as a way to represent channelers differently, but we have more than enough differentiation above.

Good!

In summary:

• Wisdoms will serve as specialists that will generate yield (possibly Faith) and points towards "unusual" GPs.
  [*]Normal and UU channelers will upgrade over time, mostly through technological progression.
  [*]Wilders will be the generic female channeler. Eventually, it will be replaced by the Kin (or any appropriate UU)
  [*]Female channelers have stronger ranged combat strength than contemporary units. However, they have significantly weaker melee combat strength. At some point in the game, they will be able to be upgraded to have a range of 3.
  [*]Wise Ones, Ayyad, and Sul'dam will be UU replacements of the Kin. Windfinders will either be represented by the Sea Folk UA, or else will be a specific unit.
• Sul'dam will be melee units. Any female channeler they kill will join their civ as a special Damane unit. This Damane will be linked to that Sul'dam unit and must stay within a few hexes of the Sul'dam.

 

[counterpoint]

5A.1 – Madness – What are the consequences of saidin-induced madness? How do these worsen over time?
5A.2 – Trigger of Madness – How often, and by what trigger, do male channelers go mad? Are units created with some madness already present? How many stages should there be?
5A.3 – Disbanding and Gifting – Can civs disband saidin units without consequence? Is there a late limit for this? Should they be able to gift them to other civs and CS's?
5A.4 – Speed of Madness – How long, in game terms, should the maddening process take? Should saidin units be "flash in the pan," mostly useful for defense or close strikes, or should they be of long-term viability?

At the first level, I think attacking himself and refusing orders (all movement is consumed at the beginning of your turn and he doesn't do anything) seem effective. They affect only that unit directly but can have larger implications.

The second stage adding splash damage around the saidin user makes sense to me as well.

A final stage that eventually leads to complete insanity (turn to Dragonsworn/Shadowspawn) sounds like a good endgame for them.

I like the three stages idea and I think starting sane might be good for balance. I think for triggers we could do both promotions and number of turns - both random. (Not every normal promotion also comes with madness.) I agree with your assessment that if the madness triggers are entirely predictable then players will set it up so they can deal with it at the exact last moment and gain maximum value from the channeler. That's not a bad thing in other systems, but the taint on saidin should be an appreciable drawback!

Again agreed, I think we should block disbanding and gifting for saidin users except if 'gifting' to the Tower for Gentling or use the late-game "organized" male channeling units. We might consider making the early units (the ones that players need to "deal with") maintenance free to compensate though. You're presumably not supplying them like you would an army, which is what I see maintenance as representing.

I think this will change as the game goes on, but I think you're referring mainly to the "deal with" channelers, rather than Asha'men and Freed? I think flash in the pan is the idea - thirty to fifty turns sounds about right.

What I'll say about the starting sane plus having three stages of insanity is that I really want to make sure people progress to "insanity" relatively quickly. Remember that nobody in the books ever used them in battle, all throughout the 3rd age.

I think I'd prefer that every time you use them, there's an automatic risk. Civ being attacked, and a saidin user was just born? Sure, go ahead and use him, but beware...

You mention that you think it would be good for balance to start out sane, but I don't think you elaborated as to why.

Thus, I do think if we use a three-phase model, they should start off semi insane. Think how fast it progressed for Rand - he was hearing Lews Therin, what, 6 months after he manifested chanelling ability? Either that, or they should move through the insanity very fast - at least *potentially* very fast, with a huge randomness element. I guess I worry that if the unit starts sane, goes to a lukewarm insanity phase, and then a more insane phase, and then finally a super-insane phase... Truthfully this is THREE stages, and I think that's too much "warning." Nobody will really ever let them "live" long enough to possibly go rogue, which I think takes away some of the thrill of them, yes?

I agree on your points about disbanding and gifting. I like the idea of the base-level saidin units being maintenance free, especially since they aren't voluntarily built. When does this change?

To me, 30-50 turns seems way too long. Again, that means a civ can get, reliably, super solid use of the unit for 20-25 turns, aka an entire invasion. This will encourage rampant short term use of saidin units, which is not mythos-friendly.

I'd prefer something like 10-50 turns. You could get really unlucky, or you could get really lucky. You could have one unit that progresses to full rogue in 12 turns. But you could also have one that progresses to level 2 in 4 turns, and then sits there for 40 more turns. Or you could have one that never goes mad at all for 30 turns, then suddenly goes up one stage per tern until full madness. Of course, those last few would be bad for balance purposes. But you get the idea.

5B.1 – Difference between Males and Females – How should saidin units be functionally different, in general, from saidar units? What abilities would they have that females don't? Which abilities would they lack?
5B.2 – Balance – How should saidin units be balanced against saidar units? Should they be overall somewhat stronger, considering the risks associated with using them?

Splash damage. I mentioned this above, so just reiterating here that I think splash damage makes a lot of sense for the male channelers. They're supposed to be risky though, so I'd say, like nukes, they also do friendly fire. I imagine individual channeler units' attacks only doing incidental splash damage (like 10-ish) but even that can make a huge difference against a grouped up enemy.

I think we can follow the books on Linking - men can only Link into circles with women. (More on my thoughts on Linking when you mention it later.)

I think "training at the Tower" is swapped out for being Gentled there - but I don't know how (or if) we should model the unwillingness of most male channelers to be sent to do that. It seems odd to be able to just march them across the map to Tar Valon and hit the gift button (or something to that effect).

This will relate to the balance question below (5B.2) as well, but I think increased range and melee strength when compared against equivalent female channelers makes sense as well.

I think the male channelers could have access to healing through the standard healing promotion, but nothing global like Aes Sedai have.

Spontaneous gets my vote. I think we can use the same Old Blood mechanics and make the birth of saidin users a function of randomness over time (with some cooldown to prevent clusters completely overwhelming a single civ). So every (eligible) turn you've got an X% chance of a male channeler being born in your civ, based on the amount of Old Blood (Spark) your civ has. A cooldown of 10-20 turns where another saidin user can't be born in your civ occurs after each one.

This means that civs whose UAs provide Old Blood (if we do UAs that do that) to offset the fact that their UUs are channelers will also, as an incidental, have more saidin users on average. This makes sense in-universe, but I'm not sure how fair it is.

For sure, Splash damage will be awesome.

Good point on the "resistance" of a male channeler. I think any male channeler should have a certain % chance of immediately going rogue when you attempt to gentle him, whether by yourself or with the Tower. think you may have suggested something just like this in your later points on Gentling. This % chance could increase the more experience the unit has, the more mad he is, and based on social policy. It could be decreased by having him shielded, and through other social policies. This would serve as another risk to using them for long.

Additionally, I'd say maybe you don't have to literally march him to the Tower. I like the idea of that in theory, but what about people who are continents away from the tower?

I think it's totally fair that the more Spark you have, the more saidin users you get. If we give a civ a UA that does this, we should make sure it really makes sense to have that feature. If not, we can always fudge the numbers for that one civ so it doesn't happen.

In summary

• Saidin users will start out sane, and progress through three levels of madness. 1) ignoring some orders and/or attacking himself, 2) attacking those around him, and 3) turning into a barbarian unit. (still in discussion)
  [*]Saidin users will proceed through the levels of madness unpredictably, triggered by promotions and the simple passage of turns. (how fast is still under discussion)
  [*]Saidin users cannot be disbanded as normal. They can be "gifted" to the White Tower for gentling. Early saidin units will be maintenance-free.
  [*]Male channelers will deal splash damage, including friendly-fire.
  [*]Male channelers may resist being gentled or sent to the White Tower
  [*]Male channelers will be born spontaneously, based on the amount of Spark you have in your civ. There will be a brief cooldown to prevent too many from being born at the same time.

 

[counterpoint]

5D.1 – The Tower – When should the Black Tower appear, if it does so at all? Is it a CS, a Wonder, or an invisible organization? How does it interact with Civs, if at all?
5D.2 – The Tower and the Dragon – How does the Black Tower interact with the Dragon Reborn, if it does so at all? What bearing does this have on the Last Battle?
5D.3 – Hierarchy – How are we going to include the various ranks the initiates of the Black Tower (Soldiers, Dedicated, Asha'man)? Are they separate units, the names of promotions, re-skins of various units, or do we simply leave them out?

I'm in favor of the world Wonder approach. I don't think we need to reflect the diplomacy-like system with Tar Valon in the Black Tower, mostly for complexity purposes since the Black Tower will be around only at the very end of the game. I think we should take one of the approaches to Asha'men that you mentioned, where once the Black Tower has been built, anyone can build Asha'men. I'm also tempted to make Asha'men produce-able via hammers - given their aggressive recruitment policy (go and find any man who can channel everywhere they can), more work = more recruits. I'd say they'd still consume Old Blood though. I think a fully upgraded Asha'man is our equivalent of a Giant Death Robot. (This approach, where one civ builds a wonder unlocking building Asha'men for everyone is quite like the Manhattan Project from Civ4. The Asha'man unit would still have a tech prereq in this instance.)

I think very little, if any. There's a lot of complexity in the Last Battle and particularly the Dragon, I don't think we need to add more, and I don't think this adds much. However, if we decide otherwise later, this is very layerable-onable (technical term). There's a good trade-off that plays well into our Ideologies/Policies where players could send male channelers either to the Black Tower to train or White Tower to be Gentled, and rewarded accordingly. For now, complexity!

I'm in favor of Promotions that make the Asha'man stronger. The consequence that Asha'man (ranked) units will often be very mad is true, and I think that's an ok balance. It also motivates the players to cleanse saidin.

OK. sounds good. A Wonder it is, then. I think I can get behind the hammer-production of Asha'man. Let them be comparable to female channelers at that point.

5E.1 – Mechanics of Gentling – Which units are capable of Gentling? How does Gentling work? Is it more difficult to pull of than simply killing the male channeler?
5E.2 – Rewards for Gentling – Does a civ reap any rewards for gentling a male channeler? How does this change if the male channeler is friendly or not yet mad? How does this change once saidin has been cleansed?
5E.3 – Healing of Gentling – Can Gentling be Healed? If so, how does this work?

I'd say only Aes Sedai can Gentle and the Red Sisters have the best chance at it. I think I've got an idea to deal with the weirdness of Gentling friendly channelers. Let's make it somewhat like catching Pokemon (hang on, I'm not crazy). Gentling a male channeler is mostly/never a sure thing - any Aes Sedai can try it, but their probability of success varies depending on their own strength and the strength of the "defending" channeler. So male channelers that are more powerful (higher combat strength because of promotions like the Soldier/Dedicated/Asha'man discussed above) are more difficult to Gentle. Male channelers with higher health are more difficult to Gentle. Powerful Aes Sedai are more likely to be successful (they grow external to the tech tree, but EXP and Ajah will present some differences in raw combat strength). Red Sisters get a large bonus.

If you try to Gentle a male channeler and fail then he turns against you. This adds to the whole "you've got to deal with them" thing. He becomes a Dragonsworn unit then. Maybe he even goes on to become a False Dragon? I remember discussion many moons ago about civs' channelers becoming False Dragons and don't remember what we all decided.

Being more effective against low health male channelers also encourages the player to use them in combat to weaken them - which is something I think we want. It also presents the defending player in this combat scenario an interesting dilemma about helping their foe by getting rid of potentially dangerous male channelers. However, that's probably not much of a choice since if you leave him alone, that channeler is likely to demolish a fair portion of your land/units.

I'd say Gentling is a custom mission available to Aes Sedai that has a range of 1. You can try to Gentle a channeler owned by another civ while you're at war with them. I'm not sure what to do about civs you're at peace with. I think there should be some way to co-operate on that, but maybe the civ that doesn't have any Aes Sedai (because they've been ignoring the Tower or something) can deal with their male channelers the old fashioned way.

I think before Saidin is cleansed there should be a bonus (Prestige/Culture/Faith) but that bonus goes away afterwards. Tying into what you say later, I think Ideology/Policy trees that reward you more for Gentling (some for friendly channelers, some for enemies, some for False Dragons) make a lot of sense. Those bonuses wouldn't go away when Saidin was cleansed, so civs that specialize in being "fanatical" about Gentling male channelers don't get all of their rewards taken away.

I also think this could present a great ability for the Black Tower wonder - the Black Tower trained their recruits with swords as well as the Power (right?). The player who builds the Black Tower gets "Asha'man units you control fight as melee units while Shielded or Gentled" where everyone else's are civilians. There's a bit of weirdness (they all trained at the Black Tower, regardless of which civ controls them now) but I think it's a very cool and useful bonus.

I think this makes a nice easter egg and it might be quite simple to do. I think we can do the "if healed by same gender the unit is weaker" since we already have most of that information. (Retaining the unit's original combat strength is probably the main overhead allowing this adds.)

Aha! There you go. I knew you'd mentioned the chance-of failure thing, for gentling. So, yes, I like this, and think it should apply to your neutralizing of your own channelers through the Tower as well. In any case,I agree with your thoughts on this.

As far as gentling non-wartime opponent channellers... I dont know, but I think this would maybe be considered an act of war, yes? Although, on the other hand, you put yourself at risk allowing a male channeler to walk in your borders... So on second thought, I think it should be fair game to do so. Is that a weird meta way to passive-aggresively hurt an opponent? Just send a bunch of them right by their cities and wait?

Prestige/Faith/Culture seem like good rewards for gentling. Not sure which at this point. As far as your idea for the melee-unit-ness of Asha'man built by the black tower owner. That definitely seems cool, but it also seems to kind of be situationally useful. We can tackle that later, though.

So would healing of gentling be a late-game tech, then? Maybe even a future-tech? Then a yellow-ajah Aes Sedai "heals" a gentled unit, and it goes back? How can a male unit heal one?

Also, what does a gentled unit turn into? A worker? (not counting the aforementioned asha'man melee unit thing)?

5F.1 – Names – What should we call the generic male channelers?
5F.2 – Tech Tree and Saidin – 5F.3 – Saidin Units – Should there be multiple versions of male channeling units, each becoming available at certain points on the tech tree (and rendering the previous "model" obsolete)?Alternatively, should we have them simply grow in strength over the years, but not technically become a new unit?

I think "Male Channeler" could work. For the majority of the game, Male Channelers are just that - men who can channel with no formal training or anything to classify them. They're spawning in all different civs from the spontaneous approach you mentioned in 5C.1 (and I liked that idea). "A Male Channeler has been born in your civilization!" the notification says.

I think we can have the one "Male Channeler" unit for the majority of the game. That's the unit type that spawns in people's civilizations and that they need to deal with themselves. False Dragons are separate and spawn among the Dragonsworn. Asha'men show up at the end of the game as a late-game unit.

Both the Male Channeler and False Dragon's power will need to be scaled to the players they're currently dealing with. The Male Channeler is the easier one (loop through all units the civilization you're spawning in can build and make him stronger than that by some pre-defined, random-weighted margin). False Dragons will need to do like Barbarians do and take into account the tech progression of civs near them.

I'd say "Male Channelers" are available for the whole game, but through the spontaneous spawn method discussed in 5C.1. They're more powerful than pretty much everything they could fight at the moment they spawn, but become mad relatively quickly. (Just thought of this - we could make some units go mad faster?)

Asha'men are our endgame unit when fully upgraded, but also go mad (though more slowly than generic male channelers).

False Dragons' quest to become the Dragon is enough of a manifestation of their madness and as you mentioned (somewhere) for balancing purposes, they can avoid the mechanical disadvantages of madness. But regardless of the taint on saidin, there are separate, lucrative bonuses for Gentling False Dragons.

I think the Freed either replace Asha'men or possibly the generic channelers - the latter of which could be very interesting.

I can be fine with "Male Channeler," though it does seem so bland. I might prefer "Male Wilder" or something like that. So it feels a bit more like a specific unit.

I agree with your notes on scale.

I don't really think any saidin units should necessarily go mad faster or slower than others. Saidin doesn't discriminate, I think. Of course, we can change this if balance requires it. I don't see a reason for asha'man specifically to madden more slowly. That said, for balancing reasons I could see the maddening process slow over time, though not necessarily because of unit differences. Please convince me otherwise.

5G.1 – Cleansing of Saidin – How is saidin cleansed? Are Shadar Logoth and the Choedan Kal involved? Should the cleansing be easy to achieve, or should it be something that is only successfully done in some games?
5G.2 – Implications – What do we want the consequences of the cleansing to be? Should male channelers be allowed to become more useful? What about relationships with the Asha'man, and other special units such as the Sharan Freed?

I'm actually torn here. I'd expected to definitely prefer the global project method, but now I'm not sure. I previously mentioned, specifically in relation to cleansing saidin, that global projects were time-limited rather than production-limited, but that was incorrect. Global projects are in fact production-limited (globally, as you would expect).

In terms of the production-based global project: I think the Choedan Kal wonder(s) could play a role here - applying a multiplier to your production contributions to the project. Shadar Logoth is more difficult to integrate into this approach.

For the "fight Shadowspawn at Shadar Logoth": Shadar Logoth is the venue, so clearly involved (does this destroy the city-state if it succeeds?). We could involve the Choedan Kal simply by virtue of "they must have already been built." Making it part of the Dragon's pre-LB actions could be really cool, and I do very much like the possibility of failing to cleanse it. A drawback to this approach is that being near Shadar Logoth makes it much easier for you to contribute. (Then again, maybe that bonus is good - you've been putting up with Mashadar as a very unfriendly neighbor for the whole game.)

A big drawback to the "fight at Shadar Logoth" is how we keep track of who's contributed what. You can block off other players from reaching the CS with units (even without being at war). You can snipe kills if we measure by "Shadowspawn killed" (which the player will be much better at than the AI). At what proximity are Shadowspawn no longer a part of the event? We don't want slaying Trollocs in the Blight elsewhere to contribute to this, but that means drawing an arbitrary line somewhere that a wandering/fleeing Trolloc might pass, shorting some civ some contribution if they chase it. In summary, it could get a bit meta-gamey.

Related to the Choedan Kal, once the wonders themselves have been built, I can see "Access Keys" being units/things that you can give to channelers to enhance them in some way.

The first obvious thing is no additional madness promotions for existing male channeler units (and none at all for any new ones that are created after the cleansing). If we do have diplomacy with the Black Tower, this would understandably make them grateful.

I don't think it should necessarily negatively impact the contributors' relationships with Tar Valon - that didn't seem to be the case, on the whole. It might reduce your influence with the Red Ajah.

I don't think we need to decrease the male channelers' power particularly, Cleansing Saidin is a lot of work and likely only finished on the eve of the Last Battle, where you'll have plenty of chances for them to get killed by rampaging Shadowspawn.

Alright, well this just got really complicated!

In fact, I am kind of thinking its too complicated. What with the Choeden Kal, Shadar Logoth, etc. I guess what I worry about is how this is in such close proximity to the LB, so it'd be a bit of a distraction, or needless complication.

I'm not sure where that would leave us, though, since I also don't like the idea of the cleansing being too easy (since it totally advantages power-using civs, big time).

Weird idea? What if was an abstraction represented by competing global projects. Like, "Cleanse" Saidin is proposed in the "world congress." If passed, you can "build" something that "supports" the cleansing (some epic battle), but you can also build one that opposes its cleansing. Having built the choedan kal, having good "relations" with Shadar Logoth, might make a difference in your production. Saidin is cleansed if that side wins (maybe by a certain margin). I know this is somewhat boring, but at the same time, it allows us the opportunity to keep this event in the background, while still being able to paint it with flavor.

Otherwise, I honestly am struggling with figuring out how to deal with this part of the game!

OK, to summarize this section:

• The Black Tower will be a Wonder. Building it unlocks the construction of Asha'man for all civs that have the required tech. The civ that builds it receives some additional bonus.
  [*]Asha'man will be produced with Hammers, and consume Spark. Soldier, Dedicated, and Asha'man may be the names of promotions for the Asha'man units.
  [*]Gentling is only performed by Aes Sedai. It has a range of one. Its success is based on HP, experience, being shielded, etc.
  [*]Before Saidin is cleansed, gentling a unit provides a bonus of some yield.
  [*]Gentling may be able to be healed.
  [*]The spontaneously-created saidin users created throughout most of the game will be called "Male Channeler" (still in discussion). The power of this unit (and False Dragons) will be scaled to the contemporary units of the civs of the civilization he is born into.
  [*]Saidin will be able to be cleansed. The specific mechanism of this is still under discussion.

Gonna have to move on to the Social Policies tomorrow!

 

[counterpoint]

This section is confusing, A and B are mutually exclusive right? Where do I put my answers? Right, so, I remember many eons ago you mentioned that you've only played CiV with BNW? The reason I ask is that in vanilla CiV (without G&K and BNW) there were mutually exclusive social policy trees. (Piety and Rationalism were mutually exclusive, for example.) Switching between the two would cause unrest and lack of productivity for a few turns (you'd lose all the bonuses from the old one, but could switch back later (more unrest) to a fully developed tree). Switching was not often advisable. Given the way the WoT policies interact, I think we can have a couple of channeling policy trees and make them mutually exclusive.

first of all, yes this is confusing.... I'll have you know this part was a pain in the arse to write..

But dang, I had no idea that policies were mutually exclusive before. Well, then, clearly we *can* do that at least.

So, I'm totally fine with this. Though I'll say, much through this section of your response, I found myself confused. Do you intend that we would have mutually exclusive policy trees and mutually exclusive ideologies? If so, what are the different policy trees, if not the "autonomy, oppression," etc.?

6A.1 – Policies or Trees – Should we create an entirely new/replacement Policy Tree that concerns itself with channeling, or should there simply be a few channeling-related Policies that exist in the other trees?
6A.2 – Policies – What kinds of Policies should we create? What policies would they replace?
6B.1 – Contradictions – How do we handle the fact that some social structures from the books would likely contradict one another? Should they be Social Policies or Ideologies?
[/B]
I think using a couple of the trees for channeling and making them mutually exclusive is the way to go. This is in addition to the normal governance effects that would normally be a part of social policies (still present in other trees).

Urk, I think this is a giant discussion. Does this still apply if we go for the complex approach suggested in 6B? Just in case it doesn't, I won't expand on this until we're sure it's going forward!

Mutually exclusive policy trees. I think Ideologies are still a good representation of the different approaches to channeling. Forms of government can fall under social policies to create the distinctions such as Seanchan Empire tyranny vs Tear feudal.

Right. So this is where I get confused. What kinds of contradictory social policies would there be? I'm down with this in theory, but I wouldn't want them to be totally redundant. Wouldn't we have tons of trees, as well? Care you flesh out an example for me (of trees and ideologies, not specific policies)? I'm on board with the ideologies, for sure, but still confused about the policy trees.

6B.2 – Drawbacks – Should we implement drawbacks to Policy/Ideology choices?
6B.3 – Era of Ideologies – If we use Ideologies as the solution, how do we deal with the fact that they appear quite late in the game?

I think having some drawbacks to the Ideologies (loss of Old Blood for some, Tower diplo penalty for others) makes sense, but we should keep to opportunity cost (like base CiV) wherever possible.

I quite like the idea of the "static effects" parts of the Ideologies unlocking earlier but leaving the actual tenets until later in the game (similar time to base CiV for the tenets). A lot of the effects that our Ideologies will have manifest over time through channelers, so maximizing that over the course of the game is good. (Also, more stuff we can explain early/mid-game is good, since we're going to have to explain at lot at the end!)

OK, right. Opportunity cost, for the most part. I think this is less an issue if there are entire trees of bonuses.

As far as "static effects," I think for me this kind of thing may be unnecessary if we *also* have semi-redundant social policy trees. True that the ideologies won't unlock til later, but there would be similar-enough things going on in the earlier parts of the game.

1. Channelers should be allowed to be free and unregulated (positive/tolerant view of channeling)
2. Channelers should be regulated but still a part of society (respectful but suspicious view of channeling)
3. Channelers should be harshly regulated (intolerant of channeling, even if they find it useful)

I've been thinking on this and I think the second one can be more specific, which resolves a lot of the confusion you mentioned below. The second Ideology is specifically about central authority in Tar Valon (not just structured roles for channelers in society). We're treating the White Tower as a fixture of the world, so I think it makes sense that they're the core this Ideological approach to channeling - particularly since the majority of the Westlands follow this school of thought.

So, to hopefully hopefully these examples clear up the points you mention below, and give us a stronger case for the "Freedom" approach:

The NE Wetlanders from the Westlands are all an example of the second. Even Tear - they still defer to the White Tower, which is the defining characteristic of this Ideology, that the Tower knows best what to do with channelers (in most capacities - it's not all or nothing, in the same way that real world civs who fit into "Order" aren't all the same).

Therefore Sea Folk, Aiel, and Manetheren are examples of the first: their channelers exist outside the authority of the Tower. (I would say Age of Legends civs would all fall into this category as well, seeing as slavery wasn't a thing back then, if I remember correctly.)

That leaves the Seanchan and Shara as the third. Now, there's a fair argument for Shara being in the first Ideology, it really depends on whether or not the Ayyad are actually in charge. If they are, then it's first. Even if the Seanchan are the only example of the third, I think they're fleshed out and prevalent enough to warrant the Ideology existing for players to pursue anyway.

I like your new interpretation of the regulation one. We were kind bending over backwards to avoid specific reference to the tower (going with "structure" instead), but that's not necessary, since by design we've put the tower in each game as a central authority.

6C.1 – Three Ideologies – What should we call the Ideology System? What should we call each choice? What should the three options represent, and how do they fit into the world of the WoT? Do the tenets all concern channeling?
I think I've outlined what they represent in my paragraphs above.

I don't think all tenets should concern channeling - Ideologies need to provide some other bonuses for balance purposes. I think we can make some of the tenets characteristics of the WoT civilization(s) that inspired each Ideology, though we've got to avoid stepping on the toes of our social policies. In the end, there will always be some contradictions here and I think there are even in base CiV. There is surprisingly little flavor to the Ideologies beyond the known real world entities they represent - the names of the tenets is as far as most players will see (though we can certainly change that!).

What to call the system? Hmmm. Ideologies isn't terrible, but it would be good to move away from the base CiV branding.

Names for each of three. My first reaction for the second is "Authority of the Tower" but Ideologies were single words before. We don't have to keep it that way, but the others seem to lend themselves to single word summaries. In order: "Autonomy," "Authority," and "Oppression"? The last one might be a bit severe?

agreed on your points on tenets.

re: name. Maybe "Philosophies." "Philosophies of the Power". "Tolerance." I don't know

I do think I like "Autonomy, "Authority," and "Oppression." Though we could also call the middle one "Deference" or "Regulation" or something, and the final one "Intolerance." or something. And as I think about it, autonomy might be kind of a misleading term. The tower is, essentially the definition of "autonomous." "Unregulated" or something... I mean, I'm fine with autonomy, but it might be somewhat misleading.

6C.2 – Static Effects – Are there some global, static effects that are caused by the selection of an Ideology? Are there positive and negative effects? Which effects make sense for which Ideology?
6C.3 – Special Features – Are there any other special changes we should make to Social Policies and Ideologies? Should Ideologies unlock early? Would they be full-featured? Should Social Policies be changed so as to limit a player's choices?

Yes, I think you made a good case for these (both positives and negatives) and unlocking them earlier in the tech tree than the actual tenets of those Ideologies.

For which effects go with which:
Autonomy ("Freedom"):
Higher Old Blood (Spark) makes a lot of sense. An appreciable but not insurmountable penalty to Tower relationships also sounds good. Higher incidence of False Dragons also sounds good -though this will affect other civs nearby regardless of their Ideology choice, right?

Authority ("Regulation"):
Boosted relations with the Tower is obvious here. I think there's a great flavorful combo here with reduced Old Blood (Spark) and increased Aes Sedai gifts. The Old Blood availability would need to be carefully balanced against the frequency of Aes Sedai gifting, but I can see situations where this civ can't produce any non-Aes Sedai channelers or else they might consume all their Old Blood and "waste" a gift opportunity for an Aes Sedai. Elegant, gameplay-justified, and flavorful. I like it.

Oppression ("Intolerance"):
Massive penalty in Tower diplo makes sense here. I'm worried about effects that reduce False Dragon spawn frequency, because I worry they won't crop up often enough in that case, but lowered False Dragon rate is a possibility here. Given the Sharans and Seanchan (our two possible representatives of this Ideology) both have militant channelers, I think a combat bonus to channeling units makes a lot of sense too.

Yes to partially featured Ideologies unlocking early. Yes to reviving mutually exclusive policy trees from vanilla CiV (restricts player choice). I can't think of any other changes we want to make that are directly related to channeling. I'm sure there will be some policies/tenets that affect channeling in ways that depend on our decisions here. It might be worth going through some of those now, but I'm also happy to leave them until we're discussing social policies and Ideologies individually and in more depth.

I like your suggestions re: the effects to go with each. I should mention, though, that I think things that effect False Dragon spawn rate might also effect random madmen as well (like, mini false dragons/barbarians). Maybe it even effects the rate at which your channelers go mad? So we don't need to worry about the spawn frequence of true false dragons so much (they will be rare, regardless) - more about the random uprisings by madmen, etc.

I should also say that I am confused by something you said in the "Authority" blurb. You speak of them "wast[ing]" a gift opportunity by consuming their old-blood. But didn't we decide we prefer Spark to not figure into Aes Sedai at all? So you could get Aes Sedai regardless of how much Spark you have. yes?

A summary is really hard for this section, since I'm still kinda confused. For now:
There will be mutually-exclusive social policies that will help reflect the various systems in the WoT world
There will be three ideologies, each representing a different view on channeling. These ideologies may be unlocked early in the game, and might come with some automatic static effects -but tenets will not be specifically available til the later parts of the game.
the first ideology represents autonomy/freedom for channelers, the second is deference to the tower, and the third is oppression of those channelers.
Ideologies will include many tenets that have little or nothing to do with channeling.
Each ideology will affect a civ's amount of Spark, incidence of False Dragons, and relations with the Tower.

Alright!

 

[counterpoint]

ohmygodohmygodohmygod almost done!

So CiV has been patched! Firaxis have added some new Lua hooks, which is interesting but doesn't make much difference to us since we're already definitely a DLL mod (though it does save me adding some of the ones they added myself).

Interestingly, two new resources have been added, which is pretty awesome. I'll be taking a look at what the source code changes are some time, seeing as they released an SDK update as well. Anywho, on to more channeling!

Nice. Final patch, you think? I'm curious about new resources. Are they bonus or luxury? googling hasn't yielded that info yet, and I haven't played yet this week.

7A.1 – Stilling and Burning Out – Should Stilling be possible? If so, how does it work, mechanically? Can a channeler Burn Out?
7A.2 – Blocks – Should blocks factor into the game at all? If so, is it as a simple flavor-addition to a promotion or other mechanic, or does it have an actual effect on game mechanics?

Mechnically not very different from Gentling, but I think it would have to be quite complex and balanced very carefully to avoid upsetting the way channeling works for the majority of units. Too much complexity, I'd say.

I agree that this is too specific and doesn't add much. I'm fine leaving it out.

Both cut. "don't let the door hit you on the way out, game mechanics!"

7A.3 – Linking – Should Links be a feature of channeling? Who is permitted to Link? Does it take the form of a passive bonus, a promotion, or a more active ability?
I think Linking adds a lot and can be something that's "unlocked" via a technology. I think it can be an active ability that can only work if the units trying to Link are in close proximity (possibly only adjacent). There's some implementation complexity behind linking units like this and restricting their ability to attack while still allowing the Link to be voluntarily severed. (Don't want to end up with situations where the player can Link two channelers, attack with one, then unlink and attack with the other one as well.) But given Linking became so important to combat and several other large channeling endeavors by the end of the series, I think it's worth including.

I'm thinking it's like this:

Once you've researched the Linking tech your channeling units gain access to a custom mission "Link."

"Link" can be performed without consuming the unit's movement on adjacent/nearby channeling units.

The unit that performed the "Link" mission will be the leader of the Circle (exception below).

A Circle's leader can take all normal actions that would be available to them without the Circle, but have a few additional effects:

• Drastically enhanced combat strength (specific modifier likely determined by the number and strength of other channelers in the Circle)
• Modifier to specific channeling activities (like Gentling)
• Cannot move beyond a certain number of hexes from any of the Linked channelers.
• Can perform an "Unlink" mission which frees all other channelers and dissolves the Circle.

"Followers" in a Circle have the following restrictions placed on them:

• Cannot attack
• Cannot perform the "Link" mission
• Cannot move beyond a certain number of hexes from any of the Linked channelers.
• Cannot perform channeling-requiring actions independently (like Gentling)

The movement thing is a big one and actually is something we'll probably need to deal with for Sul'dam and Damane as well (assuming we go with my suggested approach). It's less of a problem for Aes Sedai and Warders because they don't have a "must be within X hexes." There are situations (involving roads) where you have a valid destination for your two units, but can't move them there because you can't make the interim moves (other units in the way) to keep them within a certain number of hexes of each other. This would likely require us to allow the player to move both units with a single motion.

I envision something like the traditional right-click + drag mouse after selecting one of the units. Then the other unit is also represented by another circle (like the circles that say how many turns it will take to reach somewhere) which is at first adjacent to the target hex. Then the player can scroll the mouse wheel up and down to move the secondary unit's position to other vacant (reachable) hexes around the target square for the selected unit. (CiV can also be played with a touch screen - I suppose that's easier if we can detect two points of contact then the player can pick directly, but I'm not sure what level we have access to touch events at.)

As I'm writing that out, I'm aware that that's a very computationally expensive set of pathfinding operations. CiV's pathfinding is already pretty funky (and non-optimal) so I'm not sure how possible the above is, but it's certainly very complicated. It might be better to have a "move group" mode where you specify a destination for each unit in turn and it moves them all at once once you've selected a complete set of valid destinations. Anyway, going back to Linking.

Circles involving both men and women may be gated by a further technology, but men are required to lead these Circles (and we can enforce the limit on Circle size the lore has as well). So regardless of who performs the "Link" mission, leadership of the Circle may transfer to a male channeler who's brought into the circle. (It's important that even if they've gotten the "move after attacking" promotion, a Lead female channeler shouldn't be able to attack, then Link to a male channeler and transfer leadership automatically, allowing the newly Leader-ed male channeler to attack with the Circle's bonuses as well in the same turn.)

This is complicated.

I think I actually just read this:

Hey guys, I know we're almost done and stuff. So, yeah, let's make things crazy for a bit!

so, yes, it is complicated! Honestly, though, it seems to me that 90% of its complexity stems from movement. And to me, that movement feels kinda unintuitive from a player perspective. Note that I don't think this is an issue with suldam - I think it makes intuitive sense to the player that they must stay close to each other. With long linking chains, and moving whole groups of units around... ugh.

So, what I propose is this: movement not be a part of it. I explain.
1) linked units must be adjacent to each other. Not two tiles away. Adjacent.
2) a "follower" can have moved that turn, but must not have performed a mission.
3) the leader clicks "link" and then clicks which units she/he wants to link with. A unit who has already acted is impossible to link with (and if that unit is a vital segment of a long chain, the segment is broken).
4) Then they do some action (enhanced, as you said). This burns any remaining action points for the leader and the followers. It probably also burns all their movement points - we don't want people to be able to snipe and scatter, IMO.
5) If they choose to move next turn, the link is broken. It could of course be easily re-established at the end of that turn.

This is different only slightly from what you proposed, but I think that difference is key. We don't maintain any long-term links. No movement is necessary. You move into circle-formation, Link, act, and then break up. No crazy pathfinding.

Also, we could have the game automatically link everybody adjacent to you (or in a chain), to make it faster for the player, but this has the drawback of automatically consuming the action of some random unit you maybe preferred to do something else.

Note that this also means, since people wouldn't stay linked, they won't get enhanced defensive bonuses. This is, IMO, absolutely not a bad thing.

From a player perspective, this is all pretty intuitive. The only wonky thing is having to move all your units in place without acting.

7A.4 – Shields – Should Shields be possible for channeling units? How would they work? What about binding a unit in air?

I think Shields makes sense and certainly aren't as complicated as Linking is. Mechanically, binding with air is also relatively simple. I would imagine binding with air only works on Shielded channelers or non-channeling units, and even then has a chance of failure. I'm not sure if we'd want to do more than "immobilize" the unit (like making it not fight back in combat for example).

For both, I'm going to go with my old favorite "% chance of success based on relative power of the units involved" approach.

I'm fine with this, but the one thing I am concerned about is: how many different missions do we want one channeler to have? Seems a bit excessive for them all to have attack, gentle, shield, link, etc. Not to mention UU-specific ones (world of dreams, etc.).

Maybe we break the mythos and give shields to only one special kind of UU or something?

B]7A.5 – Neutralizing the Power[/B] – How do stedding and other anti-Power locations work? Are there specific ter'angreal that can be used to accomplish the same?

I'd say any Stedding CS' territory (any hex within its borders) and anywhere within X hexes of the Guardian (wonder) block channeling. Channeling units standing on those hexes are either civilians or become weaker melee combat units, likely varying between unit types of channelers.

Did Stedding block channeling results from entering them as well? Could an Aes Sedai fling a boulder or a fireball into a Stedding? If not, we'd need to block "attacking into" those hexes as well. That would make them noticeably more powerful defensive positions, which could be very cool.

I think there's also room for a "Wells" technology that circumvents these limitations in some restricted way. (Not saying it should unlock "channelers can channel in Stedding" but maybe something along the lines of a single attack - but I'm not sure how/when it would replenish/reset.)

I think you can't fire into a stedding. I don't think the books have that as a rule, but I think it makes sense for us. Think about it, if Aes Sedai have ranges of 3, in real-life terms thats a range of hundreds of miles.... *that* kind of "firing into a stedding" is most definitely not in the books.

"meh" on Wells. If he have collectable ter'angreal, sure. If not, no. Maybe a cool expansion feature. or scenario. I mean, can certainly be a tech you research that does something, but not a literally "well" your unit carries around, Cadsuane style. (besides, doesn't everybody hate cadsuane anyways)?

7A.6 – Compulsion and Turning – Should Compulsion be an ability in the mod? Who can use it? How do its mechanics work? What about Turning?
Mmm, Compulsion I had forgotten about (before you mentioned it in Black Ajah abilities). I think Black Ajah Sisters, Dreadlords, and Forsaken should be the only units that can use it. Maybe that's one of the Boons for players who choose the Shadow - their units gain the ability to use Compulsion.

I think we can go with a similar approach to Gentling where the "attacking" channeler has a % chance of the Compulsion working based on the relative power of themselves and their target. If it works, the unit is converted to be controlled by the civ that controls the "compeller." I'd say the newly Compulsion-ed unit has no moves remaining on the turn it switches sides.

OK, I'm with you mechanically, though I ask - are you properly differentiating between compulsion and turning? Earlier in your stuff on the Black ajah, i had the same confusion. You're speaking of compulsion as if is a full on side-switch... I think that's turning.

Which do we want?

7B.1 – Miscellanea and Items – Should the Void, channeler detection, angreal, the Five Powers, Cuendillar, and Power-wrought weapons be a part of the game? Should they feature actual mechanics, or be simple flavor? How should they work?

I think the Void is something we can include just as flavor - in text and descriptions for various aspects of the mod. It's fairly foundational to the units it's associated with and if available as promotions, I'm not sure what the unpromoted units represent.

I think Cuendillar makes a good resource, seeing as one of the primary sources of Cuendillar for the majority of the 3000 years post-Breaking was discovering left over from the Age of Legends. It's also one of the very few, very WoT resources we can add. I see it being like Marble - a luxury resource that has some other unique bonus properties. (We can even have an endgame building that produces Cuendillar to be in line with the flavor.)

Power-Wrought weapons I'm less sure of. I can see it as an endgame technology, but what does it enhance exactly? Power-wrought weapons can be wielded by anyone, not just channelers. I think if we do use this, it's part of our later discussion about what techs go onto the tree.

The Five Powers as flavorful names for channeler promotions (ones that effectively stand in for normal units' counterparts) sounds fine to me.

Channeler detection is a bit strange. It is intended to work on a much smaller scale than CiV hexes. Using a reasonable range, channeler detection will be entirely superseded by the unit's actual line of sight. If we make it more far-reaching, it potentially becomes monstrously powerful (highlighting units/armies well off in the fog of war). CiV does have minor stealth mechanics (submarines and destroyers finding them) but I'm unsure if we'll use that. Unless stealthed movement is somehow integrated into the Dream World?

Agreed on all points! I like cuendillar as a luxury resource.

7B.2 – Traveling – What aspects of Traveling should be included in the game? How do these work, and how are they balanced against other game mechanics?
Traveling! This is a big one. The obvious use is just swap out airports for Traveling (airlifting units to cities with airports) via a "Traveling Grounds" building and be done with it. I certainly think we can use that, whatever we decide about individual units channeling.

Another alternative is that you could construct a "Traveling Grounds" improvement with a worker/channeler (once Traveling has been discovered, which I imagine is a technology). Any channeler can Travel to any Traveling Grounds you (or allied civs?) control whenever they have (full?) movement points, via a custom mission. As you mentioned, they might be able to allow adjacent units to do the same - obviously one per turn is the limitation, since only one unit can occupy the target tile and I'd say Traveling consumes all of a unit's movement.

The other, full whack super true-to-flavor-and-potentially-game-breaking (and not cheap memory wise either) is that every channeling unit can Travel to any location that they have previously ended their turn on. Madness ensues.

A more sane approach to that might be having a separate "Learn this location" mission that takes X turns. After a channeler does that, they can Travel back to that specific hex (or allow other adjacent units to Travel there) at any time. You have to be a bit more strategic about this and put your callback locations in sensible places. (And be wary of overlaps, if you've put two separate channelers' memorized "retreat" locations on the same hex near your capital and they both need to retreat on the same turn, you're out of luck.) This is probably the most accurate and not all that gamebreaking. Managing these locations might be a bit of a chore for the player though.

We could even use all 3 of the above (I'm not including the crazy one), since they don't particularly conflict with each other.

Ah! This could be rather complex. I suggest we make it not complex. I'd say we go with the improvement-method. The problem with the city airlift method is that its looking like maybe Aes Sedai can't end their turns in cities....
Are we looking at a situation where people will just have tons of these all over? Or do they need to be close to a city, forcing a player to not have a farm or something. Maybe that's ok.

I think the "Learn this location" thing is a cool idea but, honestly, it seems like it would be a bit of a hassle for the player.....

Should traveling be allowed for anybody (channeler) after a certain tech, or only certain channelers? Or do they need to grab a Traveling promotion? So only "elite" channelers can do it.

Other ideas?

Also, you didn't address how this all links up to the Ways and not making them useless. The ways, for what its worth, would be in cities.

7B.3 – Tel'aran'rhiod – Does the World of Dreams exist in our mod? Is it accessible to Wise Ones, or only Great People? How does it work?
So, one of the drawbacks of submarines (and probably the reason that Firaxis didn't add any land-based stealth units) is that you can find them by "movement scouting". you can't move onto a space with a foreign submarine with another naval unit because you can't both occupy that space - whether you can see them or not.

Now, Firaxis solved that for trade units (caravans and cargo ships) using "map layers". Anybody and everybody can share a hex with any arbitrary number of trade units (that are actually doing the "delivering" part of their trade route) because trade units exist, as I understand it, in a stackable layer of the map, separate from civilians and combat units.

What if Dreamers (I'm not writing the full name of the Dream World out because it's complicated and I'd have to keep copying and pasting it, ruining my quote copying!) could "project" themselves into the Dream World (via a custom mission again). This creates a separate "Projection of Sorilea" (or whatever the unit is, "Project of Wise One") unit that exists in a different, stackable map layer that is invisible to other players. The source channeler is immobilized and the projection lasts for X turns (modifiers based on the unit's proficiency at Dreaming exist - allowing us to make the Wise Ones much better than others at this).

This is effectively free, invisible scouting, and we could permit these projections to move without needing open borders too. No combat for obvious reasons (though do we want some units to be able to "fully enter" this stealthed map layer? Could be interesting).

This may play into "channeler detection" above, but I don't think that it's really in the spirit of the detection we see in the books.

Reflecting the "imperfections" in the Dream World's representation of reality is difficult because of the way CiV handles unit sight and revealing the fog of war. I can investigate whether it's possible to have "patchy sight" that would leave holes that you haven't seen, but even if that works, I'm not sure it would achieve the "partial view" we want. The main reasons players wouldn't "circle" until all of the hexes are filled in would be the time limit on the projection - they might go for a wide view instead, which would give us the "patchiness" we want.

ah, good point re: subs....

eh.. maybe its because we're so far into this part of the thread, but I'm kinda feeling like we shouldn't make this too overly complex, especially since it'll only be a mechanic for a few GP and Wise Ones.

I do like the invisible-walking around like you've described (hopefully the map layer thing works out). I think we should do some things to make it work well, though(most you already mentioned):

1) it is only for a limited time
2) there is a cooldown after doing it
3) it leaves some patches/fog of war
4) the unit is immobilized and helpless while doing it
5) the unit can't "teleport." They must go to an actual spot, and then walk from there (no intercontinental spying).

I think if we give this as an ability for GP, it should be quite good (few patches, long time, etc.), and should consume them, but if it is a renewable wise one ability, it should be much weaker, for obvious reasons.

Can other dreamers spot them? What if you attacked somebody in the world of dreams? They're sent back? killed? I don't think its' worth having the enter-in-full mechanic, though, but we could have forsaken wandering around tel'aran'rhiod and such.

7B.4 – Balefire – How does Balefire work in the mod? Which units can use it? What are the consequences of using it? How can it be countered?
7B.5 – Talents – Are there any other Talents that should be included in the game somehow?
7B.6 – True Power – Does the True Power exist in any meaningful way in the mod? Who can use it, and how is it different from saidar and saidin?

I think I agree that we'll probably come back to Balefire later when we're doing some endgame technological balance. Though it's definitely a property of channeling - it's probably mechanically a lot more related to endgame units and how powerful they should be. My first reaction is to have the Dragon and the Forsaken be the only units that can use it.

The only of those you listed that I think might have a place is Delving, and even then I'm not really sure what it should do.

I think it should, mainly because the True Power is super awesome. I'd say it's basically only available to the Forsaken. The first difference that jumps to mind is that the True Power works in Stedding and near the Guardian. Units that use it could become more powerful as the Shadow gains strength. (Possible positive feedback loop - the Shadow winning makes the Shadow stronger, making them win faster.)

I'm not sure what the other differences should be, but I'm keen to include the True Power in a meaningful way.

agreed!

7C.1 – False Dragons – How do False Dragons work in the mod? How powerful are they? Does their power scale over time?
7C.2 – Forces of the Shadow – How powerful are the Samma N'Sei and Dreadlords? How often, and where do they appear? Can player civs control Dreadlords?
7C.3 – Forsaken – How do the Forsaken manifest themselves in our game? When do they appear, and does Ishamael appear earlier than the rest? Are they specific units, or treated generically? Are they all combat units, or do some function as spies or in some other capacity? Do they Respawn? Do they tie into Shadow Player Boons? Can they access the True Power?

I'd say it should take several units to fight the actual False Dragon unit itself, and the commitment of a fair number of units to deal with the whole uprising. I think we should scale the False Dragon's power over time so that they remain a threat throughout the game - probably tailing off into the lead up to the Last Battle.

I'd say False Dragons rising up function much like you've suggested: barbarian invasions led by a powerful channeling unit. The players that defeat the majority shares of the False Dragon's units get Prestige/Culture/Faith bonuses. I'd say defeating a False Dragon should also positively affect your diplo relationship with other civs - but the amount it affects it depends on their Ideologies. (Civs that follow Oppression ("Intolerance") like it more, Autonomy ("Freedom") like it less, but it's still positive for all, because he was a rampaging madman.)

I'd say on par with the endgame channeling units that Light civs have access to: fully upgraded Aes Sedai and Asha'men. I'd spawn them mostly in the Blight, possibly a couple (globally) near Waygates explicitly built by civs/that exist on the map (depending on how we do Waygates). At the top end of the most Shadow-y civs that declare for the Shadow, I think they could get to control one or two Dreadlords.

Yes re True Power.

I'm less convinced about the Forsaken each being unique units with their own abilities, styled after their specific roles in the books. Mostly because they will have to be simple variants on existing abilities - otherwise we're doing a lot of AI work for just one unit that might not be important in any given game - and then they're not too exciting. I'm inclined to make the Forsaken super powerful combat units (most powerful in the game - on par with the Dragon) and use their names, much like GPs, just as flavor. (Though I would suggest we have male/female variants.)

Now, flavor wise I think the roles they played in the books can definitely play into the Boons and Alignment quests. Mesaana can demand that your (Shadow-aligned) civ spy on a specific (likely Light-aligned) enemy. Things like that. I think that would be the majority of their role before the Last Battle, because the Shadow civ is necessarily always an AI (cool scenarios aside), adding complex "cool" effects for these units has limited player impact.

We could have Ishamael's early arrival manifest through his tendency to show up first in the flavor for the Alignment quests (for both sides - giving you tasks/helping on the Shadow side, as a guiding force to your enemies for the Light).

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a wrap! I have reached the end! VICTORY! I'm looking forward to hearing the thoughts on things I've said above. I think I'm, on the whole, in agreement with counterpoint on where to go with channeling and am mainly supplying my preference/choices where different approaches are presented, rather than disagreeing with anything major and taking it in a different direction. And another huge thank you, counterpoint, for writing all of this out! All very well thought out and presented in a very respond-able way too.

OK, so re: False Dragons. Totally on board. Same with dreadlords.

Yeah, I think I got overzealous when exploring the Forsaken. I'd say generic combat units. But, *yes*, they should have lots of cool Boon flavor text. Also, we could choose to name them based on their situation. If one shows up in the Trolloc Wars, he should be Ishamael. If one is rolling around the world of dreams, she should probably be Moghedian, etc.

Summary is a bit difficult to do here. I'll try.

• Linking will be possible (details TBD), and will increase a units abilities in various areas.
• Shields and other bindings may be implemented as a skill for channelers that will restrict an opponent's movement.
• Compulsion or Turning will be implemented as Black Ajah/Forsaken abilities, which will have a % chance of success.
• The Void, Power-Wrought Weapons, and The Five Powers will be implemented as technologies and/or promotions. Cuendillar will be a resource.
• Traveling will be a feature of some/all channelers (details TBD)
• The World of Dreams will exist as an aspect of Wise Ones or GP powers. Units will be able to essentially scout while invisible.
• Balefire will be available as a "nuke" to the Dragon and the Forsaken
• The True Power will be available to the Forsaken, and may have some differences in functionality to the One Power.
• False Dragons will serve as barbarian "leaders." They will get more powerful over time. Fending off False Dragon uprisings will provide rewards for the players, partially determined by that players Ideology and social policies.
• Shadow Players may be able to control a few Dreadlords.
• The Forsaken will be "generic" (though differentiated between males and females) combat units. The individual identities of each Chosen will be mostly rendered via flavor text throughout the Alignment-quests.

Well, well well! Done! Man, that was a lot of annoying copy-pasting of quotes. Still, I think it was worth it.

I await your feedback. Quick "next step" post will shortly follow.

 

[counterpoint]

So, I'm looking forward to your responses to my above responses to your response to my posts....
Once we settle that, I might repost an updated set of blue summaries so we have it all in one cohesive place.

Otherwise, what's next? It seems to me the next things are:

Diplo victory
science victory
culture victory

It sounds like we already have a lot of that stuff well along the way, so i hope it won't be too big of a deal. In any case, these will let us know what the big picture goals of the game are.

Then, I think we can go to the "next level" things, like GP, beliefs, policies, etc., right?

When do we do units, civ abilities, wonders, etc? After that, then?

Anyways, out for now!

 

[S3rgeus]

Woah, I let us fall off the front page, not cool! Sorry for the delay! I'll make up by responding to everything at once!

I suppose the only hesitation I have with this is that blocking a prophesy necessarily adds shadow points. It seems to me that, based on the benefits we've described, a shadow civ might desire for the dragon to be born in their civ's borders. Would they then want to be *completing* prophesies?

Blocking a prophecy doesn't necessarily have to add shadow points, if there's a prophecy that says a city will be razed in the name of the Great Lord - then blocking that earns Light points. I'd imagine there are separate prophecies to determines where the Dragon is born from those that make him more powerful. That way Shadow civs could interact with the prophecies strategically.

Definitely agree with regards to the loosening of this rule during the LB. Sounds good.

However, I'm not sure I agree that the Shadow civs keep the Aes Sedai they have. I think, first of all, that'll probably end up meaning that, say a civ is entitled to 8 total aes sedai normally. if that civ declareds for the shadow, they'll still have 8 Aes Sedai, since they'll probably be sure to keep them safe and/or stock up on them for the LB. Thus, the only difference is that they won't get any new Aes Sedai once those are killed (which could be essentially never if that civ has chosen Aes Sedai that they use primarily outside of combat (governors, etc.).

I suggest, instead, that we assume your average Aes Sedai is a "light follower," and that those Aes Sedai flee that particular civ and return to the tower. This assumes that if the civ's Sisters aren't already "outed" as black or otherwise "officially" Black.
Based on the degree the Black ajah has infiltrated the White Tower, a certain amount of Black sisters will come to replace them. If the Black Ajah controls, let's say, 3/8ths of the Sitters, that civ will lose their 8 Aes Sedai, but will gain three black sisters as compensation. Alternatively, instead of sending them new sisters, we could allow the civ to choose 3 of its current sisters (in this particular example) to "initiate into the Black Ajah", so they can keep some of their levelled sisters. In my opinion, this makes the lack of Aes Sedai theoretically much more possible for Shadow Civs, but it also significantly rewards those players to manage to help the Black Ajah take over the tower.

I suppose the exact opposite of this would be true if the Black "takes over" the WT - a light civ would be awarding a proportion of light sisters, perhaps.

I'm not sure how this mechanic interacts with a civ's Sisters turning "officially Black." Perhaps a sister "joining" the Black is kind of a tricky thing to pull off - it would be something a civ would try to do in order to ensure that they do not lose their Aes Sedai in the LB. Perhaps, alternatively, we could ignore the suggestion in the paragraph above, instead making this be the only way a Dark civ can have aes sedai - they must successfully "convert" them before the LB starts.

That said, I am also interested in keeping this from being too complex...

Cool, that sounds really good to me. (The Aes Sedai leave and are replaced by X% proportion of Black Sisters for the Shadow civs, or X% proportion leave if the Tower switches sides.)

I think having a manual Turning mechanic might be too complex, particularly since Alignments are only really locked in at the very end of the game, so the mechanics won't be available for very long.

OK, I agree, though I would clarify that I think it's totally fine for an aes sedai to enter and even attack from a city. They just can't end their turn in the city (which would provide the "garrison" bonus to the city). Right?

That would mean all Aes Sedai have the move after attacking promotion? Attacking still consumes a move, so if the Aes Sedai moved into the city first then attacked, they might be out of moves to leave. Or do you mean we just block the "Alert," "Fortify," and "Wait a turn" missions for Aes Sedai in cities? That would prevent long term garrisons, but they'd be able to stay within the city when it counted - when they're defending from an oncoming army.

We can straight up prevent the Aes Sedai from providing the garrison bonus to city strength in all circumstances - if that's what you intended? That seems easier to follow (for the player) that blocking certain missions.

While I like the idea of bonding a specific unit to an Aes Sedai, and then that unit staying itself, just with some upgrades, I'm willing to admit that it is problematic in that it 1)leaves us with out a unit called "Warder" and 2)would be hard for an opposing civ to know who is a warder and who isn't.

So I agree, let's have an Aes Sedai bond an existing unit, which then converts into a Warder unit. I would say, if we do it that way, let's keep it simple - an archer unit converts to the same unit as a swordsman.

Yes, that sounds good - all units that become Warders become the "Warder" unit. Aes Sedai are the ranged half of their combat presence, so the Warder being only melee balances that.

That said, what I'm not quite sure about is whether a civ can use *any* unit to become a Warder outright. Can I take my centuries-old Warrior and convert him, and he'll be just as awesome as my shiny, new Defender of the Stone? In order to balance this, I would suggest we have an upgrade cost associated with becoming a Warder, based on the era the unit comes from. If the unit in question is from the same era the civ is currently in, we could have the upgrade cost be 0. Alternatively, we could have an old warder have worse stats, but I think that's too complex.
The other issue is whether that unit should retain most of its promotions. I would assume yes. By having an "Obsolescence Tax" and letting promotions carry over, this encourages players to use their *best* units as Warders - something that makes great sense in-universe.

Sounds good! A cost for upgrading into a Warder (much like the actual stacked upgrade cost to make the unit "modern" for where the civ is in the tree). We can carry promotions over as well - though there are probably some we'll leave behind and some we'll bring. (+1 range on a melee unit doesn't work, for example.) So March and Logistics are powerful for Warders.

I don't like the idea of Aes Sedai returning to the tower once they lose their warder. Seems too harsh. Instead, I'd suggest a ten-turn period where the Aes Sedai has a moderate combat strength penalty, and cannot bond a new warder. When the period is over, the Aes Sedai can freely bond a new warder. I'd say at this period the penalty goes away, incrementally, over the course of, say, five turns.

As far as the Warders, I think they should have the same combat penalty as the Aes Sedai. However, they all lose the "special abilities" of the Warders - bushido, ignore terrain, and shadow detection. They'd end up probably similar to a normal unit for that era. If the Warder is rebonded, they get their abilities back, and gradually restore their combat strength. Yes, I like the idea of sending them to the tower for influence.

Agreed, your proposal in dark red sounds good!

I understand the appeal of having each Ajah be a separate unit type. This has the added benefit of a player seeing an Aes Sedai wandering around and having a good estimation of its threat level - a Red Sister walking up to your Asha'man means something very different than a Grey one. However, I like the simplicity of just a single Aes Sedai unit type. So, if we go with your suggestion, may I suggest we keep the Sisters' abilities exactly the same in terms of stats, with the sole exception being their unique abilities. I know it could be tempting to tweak them infinitely, so that Greens are better in combat, etc. However, let's resist this - they are identical except for in name and very specific 1 or 2 abilities each has.

I think small tweaks in base combat strength could still be appropriate. The difference it causes is likely smaller than the changes caused by the technological "enhancements" the Aes Sedai receive over the course of the game.

The intrigue I'm referring to is simply that learned from spies. The fact that it is useless in MP makes this absolutely a no-go.

I'm happy with the horn of valere thing being a minor aspect to their power. I don't love the aesthetics of these ladies having two powers, unless it is a part of the diplomatic incentive (below).

I think the issue of the governor-becoming-a-unit thing is the biggest issue here. I do like this option, in theory, but the fact that it will be significantly different from other Governors is problematic... Obviously this is made much more tricky because we don't know exactly how governors work. Are we sure that they exist as previously discussed? What if the Blues were the only governors - maybe you could choose their bonus between a couple options? I do like the idea of there being Blacksmith governors, Blue governors, etc., but it strikes me as potentially kinda complicated, in a field of GP that's already kind of complicated.

Interesting - I don't remember if in our discussions of GP types we have a Great Leader type unit? It would seem that excluding them from being a Governor would be strange, since they're the purposefully built Governor GP.

Aside from that, I don't think a direct mapping between GP type and Governor type is too complicated. (Great Engineer -> Blacksmith Governor, Great Merchant -> Guildmaster Governor, etc.)

I wonder if, perhaps, the solution isn't to have them technically be governors. What if, instead, the blue inside a city's radius could advise the governor or something. This mission would last ten turns or something, and would generate certain amount of prestige/culture per turn, or something. Less than a governor. But then the Blue would reappear, ready to do it again or go fight.

The only worry I have here is that it's not very impressive for an Aes Sedai unique ability. We could try both? Turning any unit into a Governor via a mission is just an alternate configuration of the GP into a mission - so that requires little to no effort to put in (provided we're doing the GP into Governor approach). We could start it off with a cooldown - the Blue Sister can only become or stop being a Governor every X turns - and see if it becomes too abusable?

Totally agree. Question, though: if one Warder dies, does the Aes Sedai suffer the depression penalty still? Maybe she does, but it starts "healing" immediately?

I think so, but to a lesser extent. Starting the healing process for it immediately also sounds good. This has the appropriate mechanical effect of making the Green Ajah best suited to combat, because they're not hamstrung by the loss of a single Warder.

Part of me definitely wants it to be Reds only for simplicity. But based on the gentling mechanics you decide on later, I think you are making the right call here.

As far as the secondary ability, I see the appeal in Saidin Killer. Seems somewhat redundant to enhanced gentling though. I think I might prefer Saidin Shield - that way the Red is likely to survive long enough to actual gentle the male (she would otherwise be a target).

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Saidin Shield it is!

I am nervous about making an actual drawback for one of the Sister abilities. Specifically, I worry that happiness is too unpredictable in its consequences - if luxury resources suddenly change, their unhappiness could easily spiral out of control.

I'd feel better if, instead of an actual penalty, the "drawback" was simply in opportunity cost. For instance, what if the "Logical Edict" served to create a sort of super Research. Production or maybe even Culture was converted into science. True, this is a kind of "penalty," but it feels more like a "purchase" for the player.

In some ways, I very much prefer the science per turn to the Burst. The reason for this is I worry that it could be game breaking for a civ to get its 8 White Ajah sisters and then jump forward 7 techs in one turn... I do know its a bit boring, though. Still open to more thoughts on this one.

Agreed, stacking that with Great Scientists could be crazy. Doing this same thing with Great Scientists (referred to as "bulbing" as far as I know) is a strategy I believe a lot of players use for higher difficulties, so it's clearly powerful.

My difficulty with science per turn is the same as for the Blues above - it's not that splashy for a special ability that's unique to this Ajah. (Though in this case, it provides serious incremental advantage, since generating more science at the cost of a single unit is very effective.)

Converting Culture into Science for X turns sounds very interesting. That's a big opportunity cost in some games because it makes you more vulnerable to Prestige, but you might be in a position where the Science advantage is more useful. I think I like this approach!

Yeah, I can see how the "Conduct Trade Negotiations" mission could be pretty cool. I do like that it enhances the trade you already have going, instead of actually creating any routes. Unplunderable seems cool, though admittedly I don't know much about the plundering mechanics. Good question, regarding whether the benefits work in reverse (for the other civ)... I'm tempted to say "no" (aside from the unplunderability), as I feel a civ shouldn't benefit so greatly from the labor of another. If we do let it be two-way, we should add something else to compensate for that. I do think the ignore borders is essential, though, in that it also serves to allow the unit to function in espionage. Question - can their warders ignore borders?

Yes, I'd say their Warders can ignore borders too. They always travel with them, and otherwise you open up chances to snipe kill the Aes Sedai separated from her Warder.

Follow up question here - do Grey Sisters and their Warders get "thrown out" of a civ when it declares war with their controller or do they maintain their position? I'm leaning towards throwing out, but that might separate the Aes Sedai and her Warder right as a war starts, which is bad. Then again, if you're establishing a trade mission with a civ that declares war on you, you're doing something wrong.

Yeah, I get your concern. So, what could we do to balance the free-archaelogist thing? Maybe they shouldn't be "better" than normal archaeologists? Maybe they can do a site quickly, but have a cooldown before they can do another? Maybe they simply "supervise excavation" - you need to already have an archaelogist there, but the brown sister makes the dig happen much faster, or something? Or provide culture/science on its completion?

I think even if they dig up sites slower than Archeologists, being repeatable makes them very valuable. How about that? Actually finding a city to build archeologists is always one of my big problems when doing culture victories. This would reduce the need significantly. I think a cooldown still makes sense as well.

ah, complicated. In terms of abilities, I do think that those four is maybe too much. I like the "freedom from the oaths," though, if Black sisters are LB only, this is actually kind of useless, since even light side sisters will be able to more-or-less freely attack their enemies. Of the remaining abilities, my favorite is Compulsion.

Aesthetically, I like the idea of the Black abilities simply layering on top of their regular Ajahs. The problem with this is that this makes them "Better" than the regular sisters. On the one hand, I see that as bad. On the other hand, maybe that's how we compensate for the fact that a civ will likely have less of them. that said, if somebody "turns" the tower, civs could have a ton of black sisters.... Having the Black abilities replace the regular abilities may be a simpler thing.

Black Sisters having only the Black Ajah abilities is certainly easier. I think that could also allow us to use more of these abilities. As long as we're always doing "substitutions" of Black Sisters in place of other Ajah Sisters (rather than Turning of individual units) we won't have a problem with those abilities changing. (Otherwise what do we do with the Green's second Warder? The Blue who's still a Governor right now?)

And I think things like Compulsion can be shared with the Forsaken, Assassinate with Grey Men. The Black Ajah's unique ability in that case is the "Create Darkfriend" one. Their primary role then is accessible (for Shadow civs) users of the first two (Compulsion, Assassinate) abilities. We don't want something powerful and cool (and complex to do) like Compulsion to be reserved for the Forsaken, who the player hardly ever controls. At the same time, it's a cool ability to give the Dark One's Chosen.

Right, I definitely like this in principle. in practice, though, I think it might be tricky. At what point does the ability to unlock? Is there benefit to increasing relations above that point? What if you're just below that point, you get nothing, right? This makes me a little nervous. I think I'd feel better if it were a gradient of sorts. Like if your diplomacy is between X and Y, you get N benefit, while if its between Y and Z, you get N+1 benefit. Unfortunately, we don't want multiple bonus abilities.

This is tricky, and I'm not sure how to handle it.

I think the new ability will just be one of many "grades" of influence with each Ajah. There are static bonuses to both higher and lower "grades." The extra ability is just a particularly powerful one. I can see players wanting to balance their influence with the Tower so that they get the extra abilities for multiple relevant Ajahs. That gives players that aren't going for the diplo victory some good incentives to invest partially in it - influence with one Ajah you have multiple Sisters from could make your units significantly better. But the player going for the diplo victory is likely to have much more influence to throw around - they'd get a lot of the extra abilities, whereas players concentrating elsewhere might only get one or two.

C:BE! Ah, haven't played it yet. But I am a notoriously late-adopter (just got to civ5 a few months ago!). I should probably spring for it, though, since we're working on this and all.

As far as what do do here, my instincts tell us to stay with CiV. The reasons for this are as follows:
1) since this is a fantasy setting, the new tilesets and graphics aren't likely to be all that useful to us.
2) you know the code for CiV better
3) the changes I've read about don't seem like they'd be that necessary for us. It sounds like we can do something similar with quests using the CiV code. I don't think the Purity/Supremacy/Harmony thing is that much more in keeping with the WoT universe than CiV's setup is. Lastly, I think a radial tech tree would be a bad idea, essentially because tech progression isn't a super important fabric of the WoT mythos, so going to great lengths to twist it into that kind of setup
4) we've gotten this far with CiV

That said, I do see the one big reason why we theoretically SHOULD change:
1) C:BE is newer, so it might be more likely to attract a user base.

Do you think that final reason is significant enough for us to worry about? I'm very new to the modding community, so I don't know - did people still play compelling CIV mods after CiV came out? I know people still play Morrowind and Oblivion, even after Skyrim has been out for a long time.

If you think we still have an audience, I say stay with CiV. If you like we've just lost our audience, I suppose we need to change, eh?

Civ4 modding definitely stayed active long after Civ4 stopped being officially patched/supported. Even after CiV came out, a lot of people prefer Civ4 mods. (Which is a complaint we see a lot on the Civ5 C&C - CiV was very divisive.) It doesn't look like Civ:BE will be significantly different from CiV in that respect. An actual Civ6 would probably present us with a deeper quandary.

Another positive in Civ:BE's favor though, is it might have some bug fixes that are relevant for us. (Feature graphics jumps to mind.) That would require some investigation though. I haven't had a chance to play any more since I posted about it last.

Also, Civ:BE is built on the same engine as CiV and from what I've seen in the nascent discussions on C&C, it looks like it uses the same kinds of file formats. So it should be possible to port things from one game to the other. (If, for instance, some of those aliens models become useful to us in some way - they're basically massive monsters anyway.)

But yes, I think sticking with CiV is the way to go for now.

You may be right that a good portion of wisdoms are non-channelers, but I think this is similar to the Wise One thing. True, they aren't all channelers, but the most visible ones in the series *are*, so we might as well consider them "channelers."

In any case, your concerns are all noted. I do think the trade-off issue doesn't need to be a huge problem. If somebody deems the benefits of the Wisdom and her building to be worthwhile, they'll build it. If not, they won't. If players want the nutty element of the WoT GPs, they'll do it. If not, they won't.

I'd say the "Wisdom Cottage" could offset some of these issues, though, by also serving a separate purpose that is more vital. Like, its a granary or something further down the tech tree.. Somethat that totally justifies its creation - the wisdom's existence being secondary to it.

I think Faith may be our answer. Food seems too risky. Since Faith is perhaps going to be a pretty vital part of our game, relative to CiV, it might be nice to provide players with options to control its generation a bit more.

Yeah, that sounds good. Having the Wisdom be a part of a building that has an otherwise stable use (like a Granary). And additional Faith generation sounds good!

Ah, interesting. I should clarify though that a "small" civ (population-wise) wouldn't be able to have as many channelers - they'd have a smaller Spark total. If by "small" you mean Tall, though, then yes, you have a point definitely. This is especially true if we have non-wonder buildings that make your channelers better - a wide empire would have to build more of them for the same effect. But to me this is already a factor in CiV - wide empires are harder to defend, first of all. Also, wide empires make some higher-level buildings (National College) etc. harder to build.

We could elect to skew the Spark calculation to reward Wide play, if we viewed that to be a problem. We could also have the Aes Sedai provide fewer Sisters to Tall civs. We can come up with flavorful justifications of this, I think.

Yes, I meant small as in land area - so a Tall civ. Your suggestions in dark red both make a lot of sense and are things we can apply if and when Tall vs Wide becomes a problem with Spark distribution! Sounds good!

I don't view this as a problem, really. That already happens in CiV. I attack some other unit, but because it has way more promotions than mine, I die. I think anybody that's very observant about their units relative power versus others of the same unit type is also the same kind of player that will understand the system we've created.

Yes a tutorial, but I highly recommend we do an in-game one, and not a stand alone scenario-type thing. Nobody will play it. If we can have the advisers teach the player what's different, like they do at the start of a CiV game, that's best, IMO.

Yeah, definitely an in-game tutorial. We should be able to hook into the existing tutorial system. Like you said, there are options for "New to Civilization," "New to Civ V" and we should be able to add "New to WoTMod."

I agree with this.

I do think, in order to spread out the UU's over eras, we could decide that one or to of those (maybe the Ayyad or the Wise Ones) were actually replacements for the Wilders, not the Kin.

If our primary concern is spreading out, the UU doesn't need to have the same prerequisite technology as the unit it replaces. (It can become available earlier or later.) I think Wilders are very early on the tree, which would be my main concern with giving those civs powerful channeling units at that stage.

Also, is there an upgrade cost when bringing a Wilder up to a Kin or does it happen automatically?

I'd say an upgrade cost, much like normal units.

OK, I think I am in favor of this, pretty much. Raged/melee combat disparity will help to make sure they don't get too powerful - you need other units protecting them, else they die. I'm fine with them being stronger and having range of 3. You might be right that the range of 3 should probably be a tech unlock, though. We could definitely not have any range-three seige weapons, though I think it's likely that Manetheren's longbowmen will have a range of 3.

Just to clarify, I'd say these general distinctions apply to all saidar users, Aes sedai included (unless some UU presents an exception).

Yeah, all saidar users sounds appropriate.

One thing I should ask is, did you have an opinion on the Daughters of Silence? I know they're kind of obscure, but they'd let us have an Altaran UU... and I'm not sure altaran UU's will be easy to come by. You didn't mention them, and I'm pretty sure they're in my blurb somewhere.

Woops, I think I skipped over them. Yeah, they sound like a pretty good candidate for an Altaran UU. (Understandably, we're not discussing UBs much when talking about channeling, but we'll need a fair few of these as well.) I honestly don't remember them from the books, but Altara doesn't have a huge amount of content to go on, so if they're from there, that works!

As far as Windfinders go, I do think I like the idea of a windfinder unit that provides movement bonuses to surrounding units, but is that too micromanagey? Would you suggest the Windfinder is a regular old wilder while on land, though? Anyways, can discuss later.

It's a bit micro-managey, partially because of movement ranges for naval units. Naval units can move like 8-10 hexes, but I wouldn't imagine the movement bonus extends that far? Then when do they lose the bonus? How do they move their full boosted distance while still being cautious and revealing fog of war before they sail into the distance?

Yeah, we can probably come back to this!

I enjoyed all your thoughts re: Sul'dam. The one thing I might suggest, though, is that, while Damane don't consume Spark, should Sul'dam? Probably should be less than other units, though.

In theory, yes, but I'm not sure how we'd consume less. Do we want them to actually consume 0.5 Spark? Or do we skew all other channelers and calculations up so Sul'dam consume 1 and the rest of the channelers consume 2? Seeing as the Seanchan won't be building many channeling units, would it make sense to just have them consume 1? Not consuming any is probably dangerous - then the Seanchan can heedlessly produce and capture channelers throughout history.

 

[S3rgeus]

What I'll say about the starting sane plus having three stages of insanity is that I really want to make sure people progress to "insanity" relatively quickly. Remember that nobody in the books ever used them in battle, all throughout the 3rd age.

I think I'd prefer that every time you use them, there's an automatic risk. Civ being attacked, and a saidin user was just born? Sure, go ahead and use him, but beware...

You mention that you think it would be good for balance to start out sane, but I don't think you elaborated as to why.

Thus, I do think if we use a three-phase model, they should start off semi insane. Think how fast it progressed for Rand - he was hearing Lews Therin, what, 6 months after he manifested chanelling ability? Either that, or they should move through the insanity very fast - at least *potentially* very fast, with a huge randomness element. I guess I worry that if the unit starts sane, goes to a lukewarm insanity phase, and then a more insane phase, and then finally a super-insane phase... Truthfully this is THREE stages, and I think that's too much "warning." Nobody will really ever let them "live" long enough to possibly go rogue, which I think takes away some of the thrill of them, yes?

Ok, I see what you mean here. I am convinced! Let's start with some madness for the male channeler units when they first appear. Tying into something you mentioned later about the speed of going mad - I think the Asha'men becoming mad more slowly makes some sense. They're part of an organized society that recognizes and educates them about the madness, so they are more aware of its manifestations than a channeler who's off by himself in the wilderness.

At the same time, saidin is the determining factor for most individuals - so I'd say the variance you suggest below (10-50 turns) will eclipse the variance by unit types in almost all cases.

I agree on your points about disbanding and gifting. I like the idea of the base-level saidin units being maintenance free, especially since they aren't voluntarily built. When does this change?

I think the only time we might change this is on the cleansing of saidin. As long as there is increasing madness, the ability to disband/gift at the drop of a hat will be very meta-gamey.

To me, 30-50 turns seems way too long. Again, that means a civ can get, reliably, super solid use of the unit for 20-25 turns, aka an entire invasion. This will encourage rampant short term use of saidin units, which is not mythos-friendly.

I'd prefer something like 10-50 turns. You could get really unlucky, or you could get really lucky. You could have one unit that progresses to full rogue in 12 turns. But you could also have one that progresses to level 2 in 4 turns, and then sits there for 40 more turns. Or you could have one that never goes mad at all for 30 turns, then suddenly goes up one stage per tern until full madness. Of course, those last few would be bad for balance purposes. But you get the idea.

That sounds good! More variance and unpredictability is good in this case - we want it to be risky.

For sure, Splash damage will be awesome.

Good point on the "resistance" of a male channeler. I think any male channeler should have a certain % chance of immediately going rogue when you attempt to gentle him, whether by yourself or with the Tower. think you may have suggested something just like this in your later points on Gentling. This % chance could increase the more experience the unit has, the more mad he is, and based on social policy. It could be decreased by having him shielded, and through other social policies. This would serve as another risk to using them for long.

Definitely, completely agree!

Additionally, I'd say maybe you don't have to literally march him to the Tower. I like the idea of that in theory, but what about people who are continents away from the tower?

You're right, that could make giving channelers to the Tower much more difficult for some civs than others. It can probably work like the "gift units for a war" for CSes in base CiV then? You can select your unit from anywhere on the map to give to them. It would presumably have the same X% chance of failure (dependent on relationship with the Tower?) and the channeler turning against you as attempting to Gentle them? Otherwise it's a free way to get rid of male channelers, which I think we want to avoid.

I think it's totally fair that the more Spark you have, the more saidin users you get. If we give a civ a UA that does this, we should make sure it really makes sense to have that feature. If not, we can always fudge the numbers for that one civ so it doesn't happen.

Sounds good!

Aha! There you go. I knew you'd mentioned the chance-of failure thing, for gentling. So, yes, I like this, and think it should apply to your neutralizing of your own channelers through the Tower as well. In any case,I agree with your thoughts on this.

As far as gentling non-wartime opponent channellers... I dont know, but I think this would maybe be considered an act of war, yes? Although, on the other hand, you put yourself at risk allowing a male channeler to walk in your borders... So on second thought, I think it should be fair game to do so. Is that a weird meta way to passive-aggresively hurt an opponent? Just send a bunch of them right by their cities and wait?

You're right that it's a weird way of attacking someone without being at war with them. Allowing peacetime Gentling has a similar inverse effect though - you can attempt to Gentle channelers in "allied" territory under the assumption that some of them will fail and go rogue, attacking stuff nearby (which is mostly your friend that you secretly hate).

How about you can only Gentle male channelers in peacetime if they're in your territory?

Prestige/Faith/Culture seem like good rewards for gentling. Not sure which at this point. As far as your idea for the melee-unit-ness of Asha'man built by the black tower owner. That definitely seems cool, but it also seems to kind of be situationally useful. We can tackle that later, though.

So would healing of gentling be a late-game tech, then? Maybe even a future-tech? Then a yellow-ajah Aes Sedai "heals" a gentled unit, and it goes back? How can a male unit heal one?

Yes, I think a late game tech unlocks the ability. I think, for simplicity's sake, we can give it to all Aes Sedai and all Asha'man (controlled by the civ that has researched the technology). That way you can have the different genders.

Also, what does a gentled unit turn into? A worker?

(not counting the aforementioned asha'man melee unit thing)?

I'm tempted to say just a civilian unit that does nothing. That seems most flavorfully appropriate given the Gentled men's behavior in the books? Male channelers are already maintenance free - so that can stay the same. They're really only taking up a hex in the civilian layer.

I can be fine with "Male Channeler," though it does seem so bland. I might prefer "Male Wilder" or something like that. So it feels a bit more like a specific unit.

Is Male Wilder something that anyone says in the books though? Male channeler is quite bland, but as you mentioned originally, it is the term used in the books.

I agree with your notes on scale.

I don't really think any saidin units should necessarily go mad faster or slower than others. Saidin doesn't discriminate, I think. Of course, we can change this if balance requires it. I don't see a reason for asha'man specifically to madden more slowly. That said, for balancing reasons I could see the maddening process slow over time, though not necessarily because of unit differences. Please convince me otherwise.

I ended up outlining this above, but I was thinking Asha'men would go mad more slowly (or possibly more consistently?) because they're trained in an environment that is aware of the madness and "educates" them about it, to a certain extent. They know that they will go mad, so they recognize the early signs and try to work against them. Other male channelers don't have the luxury of that forknowledge (they just know madness awaits, not how far or in what form).

Alright, well this just got really complicated!

In fact, I am kind of thinking its too complicated. What with the Choeden Kal, Shadar Logoth, etc. I guess what I worry about is how this is in such close proximity to the LB, so it'd be a bit of a distraction, or needless complication.

I'm not sure where that would leave us, though, since I also don't like the idea of the cleansing being too easy (since it totally advantages power-using civs, big time).

Weird idea? What if was an abstraction represented by competing global projects. Like, "Cleanse" Saidin is proposed in the "world congress." If passed, you can "build" something that "supports" the cleansing (some epic battle), but you can also build one that opposes its cleansing. Having built the choedan kal, having good "relations" with Shadar Logoth, might make a difference in your production. Saidin is cleansed if that side wins (maybe by a certain margin). I know this is somewhat boring, but at the same time, it allows us the opportunity to keep this event in the background, while still being able to paint it with flavor.

Otherwise, I honestly am struggling with figuring out how to deal with this part of the game!

I definitely see what you mean here. A slight variant on your sugegstion, I'm not sure if we want to gate the cleansing of saidin on a diplomatic event. What if we made it an ongoing struggle? Once you research a certain tech, you can contribute to either side of the attempts to cleanse saidin. (It occurs to me that it's basically the Shadow working to stop the Cleansing?) Each "side" is a global production bucket that civs can pour hammers into. If one gets a certain amount ahead of the other, then that side "wins" their event occurs. (Either saidin is permanently tainted, or Cleansed, depending on who won.)

This is a bit different from the reality, but I don't think we can model the books' specific events regarding Shadar Logoth. (What if someone has already captured Shadar Logoth?)

A one way global project that Cleanses saidin is certainly the easiest, but like you've mentioned, it's an attractive proposal to allow the Cleansing to fail in some games.

first of all, yes this is confusing.... I'll have you know this part was a pain in the arse to write..

But dang, I had no idea that policies were mutually exclusive before. Well, then, clearly we *can* do that at least.

So, I'm totally fine with this. Though I'll say, much through this section of your response, I found myself confused. Do you intend that we would have mutually exclusive policy trees and mutually exclusive ideologies? If so, what are the different policy trees, if not the "autonomy, oppression," etc.?

Right. So this is where I get confused. What kinds of contradictory social policies would there be? I'm down with this in theory, but I wouldn't want them to be totally redundant. Wouldn't we have tons of trees, as well? Care you flesh out an example for me (of trees and ideologies, not specific policies)? I'm on board with the ideologies, for sure, but still confused about the policy trees.

I think we can do both - mutually exclusive policy trees and ideologies. In this case, I think the Ideologies represent the government's outlook on channelers. The policies represent the people's. Now, you can create some weird combinations. ("We love channelers but our government forces them into slavery"?) I would imagine the policy trees and ideologies that "go together" would be complementary, whereas the opposing ones would "run past each other" so their benefits were less useful.

That leaves us with the same Ideology breakdown as before. Policies we might have two trees (the majority of the other policy trees are actual governmental policy stuff, much like base CiV) concerned with channeling: fear and acceptance.

So, Tear has followed the Fear policy tree, but adopted the Authority Ideology.

Seanchan are Fear and Oppression. (Their everyday citizens do seem to be largely afraid of channelers who are able to act independently.)

Manetheren, Aiel, and Sea Folk are Acceptance and Autonomy (more on names in a moment).

The other Westlands nations are likely borderline Fear/Acceptance tied with Authority. (Andor leans more Acceptance.)

This gives us an interesting possible resolution for our Shara quandary: Acceptance and Oppression. (Channelers are a thing that happens, they are a part of the natural order of things. But they must be contained and managed accordingly.)

We haven't discussed much about social policies before this - I'm not sure how much content we have for filling out the trees? Is there too much overlap in the above? I think there's definitely a distinction between the policies and ideologies, but it's subtle-ish.

OK, right. Opportunity cost, for the most part. I think this is less an issue if there are entire trees of bonuses.

As far as "static effects," I think for me this kind of thing may be unnecessary if we *also* have semi-redundant social policy trees. True that the ideologies won't unlock til later, but there would be similar-enough things going on in the earlier parts of the game.

Does the above change your opinion on this? I think the ideologies' static effects unlocking early still has value in that system.

agreed on your points on tenets.

re: name. Maybe "Philosophies." "Philosophies of the Power". "Tolerance." I don't know

I do think I like "Autonomy, "Authority," and "Oppression." Though we could also call the middle one "Deference" or "Regulation" or something, and the final one "Intolerance." or something. And as I think about it, autonomy might be kind of a misleading term. The tower is, essentially the definition of "autonomous." "Unregulated" or something... I mean, I'm fine with autonomy, but it might be somewhat misleading.

"Philosophies" sounds good! Despite wordiness in WoT itself, I think having a single word name for something like this is good.

As much as I like Autonomy, I think you're right. The White Tower goes out of their way, in the books, to have their Aes Sedai described (internally anyway) as autonomous, which will be confusing. I'm not sure if Unregulated sounds too legality-based compared to the others. I don't know what to suggest in its place though.

I think Authority works well for the second. Intolerance is certainly less "loaded" than Oppression as a name, and makes it less aggressive.

I like your suggestions re: the effects to go with each. I should mention, though, that I think things that effect False Dragon spawn rate might also effect random madmen as well (like, mini false dragons/barbarians). Maybe it even effects the rate at which your channelers go mad? So we don't need to worry about the spawn frequence of true false dragons so much (they will be rare, regardless) - more about the random uprisings by madmen, etc.

That sounds good for affecting normal male channeler birth rates and madness rates. I think madness rates will only ever be skewed slightly though - we want to keep the overall unpredictability.

I should also say that I am confused by something you said in the "Authority" blurb. You speak of them "wast[ing]" a gift opportunity by consuming their old-blood. But didn't we decide we prefer Spark to not figure into Aes Sedai at all? So you could get Aes Sedai regardless of how much Spark you have. yes?

Oops. Yes. Well, it would have been a nice synergy. Might it make sense for Aes Sedai to consume Spark then? It might be too complex - you have two limiting factors competing to restrain your access to these unit types. But it does create a nice synergy between gameplay and flavor.

Nice. Final patch, you think? I'm curious about new resources. Are they bonus or luxury? googling hasn't yielded that info yet, and I haven't played yet this week.

Probably the last one, which is a shame. I was hoping they might patch in MP mod support at the end once they stop supporting the game. Bison is bonus, Cocoa is luxury.

I think I actually just read this:

so, yes, it is complicated! Honestly, though, it seems to me that 90% of its complexity stems from movement. And to me, that movement feels kinda unintuitive from a player perspective. Note that I don't think this is an issue with suldam - I think it makes intuitive sense to the player that they must stay close to each other. With long linking chains, and moving whole groups of units around... ugh.

So, what I propose is this: movement not be a part of it. I explain.
1) linked units must be adjacent to each other. Not two tiles away. Adjacent.
2) a "follower" can have moved that turn, but must not have performed a mission.
3) the leader clicks "link" and then clicks which units she/he wants to link with. A unit who has already acted is impossible to link with (and if that unit is a vital segment of a long chain, the segment is broken).
4) Then they do some action (enhanced, as you said). This burns any remaining action points for the leader and the followers. It probably also burns all their movement points - we don't want people to be able to snipe and scatter, IMO.
5) If they choose to move next turn, the link is broken. It could of course be easily re-established at the end of that turn.

This is different only slightly from what you proposed, but I think that difference is key. We don't maintain any long-term links. No movement is necessary. You move into circle-formation, Link, act, and then break up. No crazy pathfinding.

Also, we could have the game automatically link everybody adjacent to you (or in a chain), to make it faster for the player, but this has the drawback of automatically consuming the action of some random unit you maybe preferred to do something else.

Note that this also means, since people wouldn't stay linked, they won't get enhanced defensive bonuses. This is, IMO, absolutely not a bad thing.

From a player perspective, this is all pretty intuitive. The only wonky thing is having to move all your units in place without acting.

Yes, completely agree! Let's avoid all the insanity! Your solution is elegant and maintains all of the features we want from Linking, I think.

What do we do with sul'dam though? Because that is a long term link? We can probably come back to that when we're discussing the Seanchan in more depth though.

I'm fine with this, but the one thing I am concerned about is: how many different missions do we want one channeler to have? Seems a bit excessive for them all to have attack, gentle, shield, link, etc. Not to mention UU-specific ones (world of dreams, etc.).

Maybe we break the mythos and give shields to only one special kind of UU or something?

I think they'll have quite a few, but like you mentioned earlier in outlining the channeling process, it's important to make channeling units different from being just powerful ranged units. That's why it makes mechanical sense for us to have restrictions like Tower gifting and Spark on the production of channeling units.

So these missions are our primary source of differentiation. I think having a lot of options with channeling units is what makes them powerful (aside from obvious combat strength). So I don't think it's too much to having Shielding available across the board. But I do think it should be gated by a technology that's towards the middle of the tree. That way new players who receive a channeler get introduced to these new capabilities gradually.

I think you can't fire into a stedding. I don't think the books have that as a rule, but I think it makes sense for us. Think about it, if Aes Sedai have ranges of 3, in real-life terms thats a range of hundreds of miles.... *that* kind of "firing into a stedding" is most definitely not in the books.

Sounds good and makes these zones of non-channeling more effective!

"meh" on Wells. If he have collectable ter'angreal, sure. If not, no. Maybe a cool expansion feature. or scenario. I mean, can certainly be a tech you research that does something, but not a literally "well" your unit carries around, Cadsuane style. (besides, doesn't everybody hate cadsuane anyways)?

Everyone doesn't hate Cadsuane! Or at least I don't? She was annoying at many times, but essential. Anyway, wells we may not get to, but I do think it gives us a good technology, which we might be a bit short on.

OK, I'm with you mechanically, though I ask - are you properly differentiating between compulsion and turning? Earlier in your stuff on the Black ajah, i had the same confusion. You're speaking of compulsion as if is a full on side-switch... I think that's turning.

Yes, I think I remember you mentioning this in your first posts as well. I didn't really address this. I'm not sure if the distinction is useful for us since "partial control" is very difficult to model in CiV. I'd be inclined to leave out Turning (or make it only flavor as a part of the Last Battle) and use Compulsion as a way of "taking control" of units.

Ah! This could be rather complex. I suggest we make it not complex. I'd say we go with the improvement-method. The problem with the city airlift method is that its looking like maybe Aes Sedai can't end their turns in cities....
Are we looking at a situation where people will just have tons of these all over? Or do they need to be close to a city, forcing a player to not have a farm or something. Maybe that's ok.

I think the "Learn this location" thing is a cool idea but, honestly, it seems like it would be a bit of a hassle for the player.....

Should traveling be allowed for anybody (channeler) after a certain tech, or only certain channelers? Or do they need to grab a Traveling promotion? So only "elite" channelers can do it.

Airlifting lets you drop the unit next to the city as well as into it directly. I think the ending turn restriction on Aes Sedai is a bit specific and difficult to make it intuitive for the player though (discussed in more detail above). In this instance, cities are acting like more effective Traveling Grounds, which I think makes sense.

Agreed that "learning this location" will become very busywork-ish for players and we can avoid it. I think I like the Improvement idea too. I'd say they follow the usual rules for improvements - one per tile (so it can't be shared with a farm/plantation/fort/trading post) and only within the player's territory. I'd say there's room for a diplo deal that allows travel to Traveling Grounds between civs specific, but only very close allies ever do this. (Requires DoF like lump sum gifts of gold.)

I'd say let's try out all channelers a civ controls gaining the ability when a "Traveling" tech is researched and if that becomes too overwhelming, we can switch to gating the ability on a promotion as well.

Also, you didn't address how this all links up to the Ways and not making them useless. The ways, for what its worth, would be in cities.

I think flavor-wise the Ways are completely superseded by Traveling. I'm not sure if we want to do the same thing mechanically? It's difficult to do long-distance automatic travel in the early game without breaking the balance of things then though. Any discouraging factor like losing some units (makes sense with Machin Shin) likely makes normal movement a better idea in all but the most dire circumstances. (Maybe what we want, but it's very rare?)

I'm still undecided about what we can do with the Ways overall. That becomes even more of a problem when compared to the effectiveness of Traveling.

ah, good point re: subs....

eh.. maybe its because we're so far into this part of the thread, but I'm kinda feeling like we shouldn't make this too overly complex, especially since it'll only be a mechanic for a few GP and Wise Ones.

I do like the invisible-walking around like you've described (hopefully the map layer thing works out). I think we should do some things to make it work well, though(most you already mentioned):

1) it is only for a limited time
2) there is a cooldown after doing it
3) it leaves some patches/fog of war
4) the unit is immobilized and helpless while doing it
5) the unit can't "teleport." They must go to an actual spot, and then walk from there (no intercontinental spying).

I think if we give this as an ability for GP, it should be quite good (few patches, long time, etc.), and should consume them, but if it is a renewable wise one ability, it should be much weaker, for obvious reasons.

Can other dreamers spot them? What if you attacked somebody in the world of dreams? They're sent back? killed? I don't think its' worth having the enter-in-full mechanic, though, but we could have forsaken wandering around tel'aran'rhiod and such.

I agree on the numbered points.

Yes, I think it makes sense that other Dreamers can spot them. I'd say if a Dreamer unit is killed then the host is as well. (That was how it worked in the books, right?) We can make the Wise Ones have very powerful projections then, so they can easily kill other Dreamers - making them the most powerful Dream World units.

Yeah, I think I got overzealous when exploring the Forsaken. I'd say generic combat units. But, *yes*, they should have lots of cool Boon flavor text. Also, we could choose to name them based on their situation. If one shows up in the Trolloc Wars, he should be Ishamael. If one is rolling around the world of dreams, she should probably be Moghedian, etc.

Totally, appropriate Forsaken choices for the flavor we're using them for is the way to go!

And done!

So, I'm looking forward to your responses to my above responses to your response to my posts....
Once we settle that, I might repost an updated set of blue summaries so we have it all in one cohesive place.

Otherwise, what's next? It seems to me the next things are:

Diplo victory
science victory
culture victory

It sounds like we already have a lot of that stuff well along the way, so i hope it won't be too big of a deal. In any case, these will let us know what the big picture goals of the game are.

Then, I think we can go to the "next level" things, like GP, beliefs, policies, etc., right?

When do we do units, civ abilities, wonders, etc? After that, then?

Anyways, out for now!

Yeah, those three victory types seem like good next steps. I think, given its overlap with what we're discussing now, the diplo victory makes a good immediate next step. As you've said, none of these are completely undiscussed, where channeling was a lot more undecided.

Totally, once we've nailed down all of the victory types then we can get on to more specifics like GPs, beliefs, and policies. We might want to start that phase with techs, since they inform so much of the other parts of the discussion? Then again, techs need a lot of information about the things they are unlocking. Worth discussing either way - possibly on both sides. Create initial tree idea and a general structure, then move on. Once the things being unlocked are mostly fleshed out, we revisit and finalize the tree.

I think units and wonders tie into the tech tree a lot, and provide a lot of the structure for the main strategies in the game. (Going for specific techs because they unlock certain wonders with powerful, relevant abilities to the victory type you're going for.)

I think we can leave civ uniques for last unless they come up as being significantly relevant to another mechanic we're discussing. The uniques serve to add play-style variants and differences between the civs, and you can only really differentiate when the underlying framework of what everyone has available is mostly set. That's how I see it anyway.

For now, there's probably still a bit more discussion left on channeling before we move on!

 

[Civitar]

So I'm getting curious, when will the mod you guys have spent so much time discussing and planning for actually be playable (as a beta of course)? I'd love to try and give some feedback...

 

[S3rgeus]

So I'm getting curious, when will the mod you guys have spent so much time discussing and planning for actually be playable (as a beta of course)? I'd love to try and give some feedback...

Glad to hear you'd like to try it out and help us! Thanks for that, more playtesters will definitely make the mod better.

In terms of when that will be possible, there's so much left to do that I don't think we could give an accurate time estimate. I've been holding off on additional implementation while we firm up the design with all of our discussions here, because a lot of foundational things are changing that affect the whole mod.

So, my answer isn't tremendously helpful! The gist is that I don't really know, but when we're at a stage that we can make semi-accurate estimates for alpha/beta releases, then we'll be public about it.

 

[counterpoint]

Just dropping by for an update and shameless/shameful plug.

This week has been and will continue to be pretty busy - going to try to give a good response in the next few days, though. Hopefully before the weekend, but I'm not sure of that.

Also, I may have mentioned earlier that I'm a musician. My band just released our first album today (part of what I've been so busy about), and I figured I'd share it here because you guys are hearing so much of my blah blah blah anyways. We just released our first music video as well. Please consider buying the album, but at the very least, please share our music (and "like" us, etc.) with friends. If it helps, the band's full of gamers, one of whom I play CiV with online all the time (and who loves WoT), and another who was ranked #2 globally in Diablo 2 back in the day...

Anyways...

Music Video
Our Website
Facebook
Some Stuff on Soundcloud

Hope you like it!

Back later for some more WotMod!