S3rgeus's Wheel of Time Mod

[S3rgeus]

Yeah, I'd worry that it might be too complicated to have it scale based on who's in the game - either it's under the hood and a mystery to players, or it's all transparent and may appear to be a bit complicated and/or unpredictable.

Why again shouldn't we have it work like CSs for the low-level abilities? You've made the case generally speaking, but as far as the minor abilities/perks, what's the harm in making it a flat value? Then, we can have the good one(s) go to whoever has the most with the Ajah (above a certain value, that is). I dunno, just seems the simplest. If you have a more elegant solution, please share it, because it's looking like this has become too complicated for what is a rather small mechanic.

You make good points. I liked the idea that influence and bonuses with an Ajah were also dependent on the actions of other players, rather than just between a given civ and the Tower (more diplomatic that way) - and that the Tower would be less swingy. But it doesn't reduce down well for smaller numbers of players.

I was thinking that it would be a much more conceptual representation to the players, rather than raw numbers that we see in a lot of other places (quite like how the Ajahs' operations are opaque to external parties) - so that they see their % influence with the Ajahs and other players', but no exact figures of what the underlying values are that they need to change to make specific % differences. They can see changes in influence causing the %s to change, but can only make "gestures" in the direction they want to go, not calculate an exactly optimal approach. (Which is inherently different to how we've approached other systems. I think the diplo system is generally the least transparent part of CiV, but it might be telling then that it's one that receives the most criticism.)

So, flat values for bonuses! Do we want to do the simple CS ally/friend switch for each Ajah? I think it would be quite nice if it was a bit more complex than that, because the ally/friend is only really good for quite simple progressive bonuses, whereas the Ajahs give a variety of different things (abilities to units, separate yield bonuses (both science and culture for example)). We have several different "levels" of bonuses for each Ajah, right? So we could have separate flat values for each one, and have a maximum number of players at each level?

Example, Red Ajah has bonuses at 20/50/80/120 influence levels. (Civs can now see raw influence values - no %s like before) The maximum number of concurrent players with each bonus (in the same order) is: 10/5/3/1? So the person with the highest influence (that is > 120) gets the top bonus. The next two (that have > 80) also get the second-from-the-top bonus. (So that's 3 total with the bonus that requires 80 - the guy in first has it in addition to his 120 bonus, and the guys in second and third have it.) And so on? Does that sound good?

Flat values also mean we'll need decaying influence, as you mentioned earlier. Which is of course something we can have modifiers for - Oppression civs lose influence faster? And other similar bonuses/penalties.

Also, do we still want to represent an Ajah's relative power compared to other Ajahs by the sum of its influence then? The numbers will all tend to be closer together now since they decay, so it will be more swingy. I'm not sure how else we could represent it though - without tracking it separately as well and making the Ajahs' relative influence with each other determined by the total amount of influence ever contributed to each Ajah? It seems like we'd be fragmenting the system that way though, and it wouldn't be very clear to the player how that diverged from the current amounts of influence.

This has me thinking a bit more on the whole way the 'chan are different from the Westlands. First off, I was thinking that it could be a part of their UA - independence from tower policy - but then I figured we probably have cooler things to do with their UA, and also that then prevents them from being Pro-Tower if a player so decides.

But, what if this kind of thing was a factor in your Philosophy (i.e. Ideology)? Like, maybe refusal penalties effect Authority Players financially more than the other choices, but it keeps their diplomatic life intact. Maybe Oppression civs have less of an effect, but have huge diplo hits.... Eh... that's probably too weird. One thing could be that Oppression civs could trade with each other with a reduced penalty, or something? I dunno, maybe to complex, but I'm throwing it out there. In any case, trying to figure out a way to capture that big-picture difference between the seanchan and the tarabon example you mentioned.


Yeah, I think the key thing here is that they wouldn't hurt your internal sources of revenue. A Seanchan-type civ could essentially ignore them and use their trade routes as only internal things. I think the CS decay thing is fine, as well - could be Ogier as well (Loial was never eager to anger the Aes Sedai). But your scaling idea is fine - I think we don't want people refusing this most of the time, so refusing two or three should be a big deal, not for the faint of heart.

I don't know about the automatic declaration of war. What I would say is that if you refuse, the Tower starts sending friendly civs Quests to do bad stuff to you. The more you refuse, the more they do it.

We could make the penalties more dependent on the strength of the Tower - refusing Edicts prevents you from trading with Authority civs? Via trade routes or diplomatic trades? That could be seriously disruptive - trading for luxuries is often a major source of happiness. But it's only relevant when civs have chosen Ideologies, and Edicts exist from a much earlier point in the game (when the Tower should arguably be more powerful, not less). But then we could phase in filters to these penalties? For the beginning of the game, they apply to everyone - your trade routes get worse, we cut you off from diplo trading with other civs, your CS relationships degrade faster. Then it starts to scale as Ideologies are adopted? The Tower can only stop you from trading with Authority civs?

I think the automatic war declaration thing is something that would happen by default. A diplo hit is clearly part of what we intend to be the consequences of refusing Edicts, right? So that diplo hit will sometimes send AI civs over the "declare war" threshold (they clearly didn't like the refuser behorehand anyway). I'm just wondering if we should hook that up and make it a visible consequence when it's going to happen? Or doe that make it too predictable - you know the AI won't declare war because it doesn't say so?

Cool! Glad many of these will work. For sure, let's scale their yeilds based on how common they'll be.

I think we want them all relatively equal yield-wise, I meant how we place them should be weighted. The Field of Merrilor will fit on any map, so to avoid it coming up every game, we'd want to try to place the other, more restrictive (in terms of terrain requirements) NWs first.

Eh, I don't think we should have people teleport with them or anything. They don't link up to other places on the map - they link up to other dimensions (which I don't think we want to tackle). I mean, we could have Grolm come out of them or something, but that's kind of cheesy. I think probably they might make the most sense only as flavor. Maybe natural wonders. Maybe one of the Ruins options (rebranding of a culture or tech boost or something).

You're right, I don't think we want to get involved with other dimensions here. The Aelfinn and the Eelfinn are in another dimension as well, right? Did the Portal Stones ever cross over with the Tower of Ghenjei and all of its weirdness?

I think Outlander Levies could be cool.

Awesome sauce.

Yeah, maybe the Golden Age is the majority of the perk. The "tax" is good, too, but that is offset by the fact that the other civs (most of them) get some kind of bonus as well.

Cool, that sounds good.

I hate to stifle what is a pretty neat idea, but I'm tempted to drop it and see if it is needed later.

Yeah, that makes sense to me too. We'll keep it in mind!

Yeah, the tree in general seems like it'll be kinda crazy to build... maybe will be a fun change of pace after all this "high level" stuff.

Yeah definitely, the tree is more like the Aes Sedai quests/Edicts than our other high level designs, because it's also specific gameplay mechanics. Good fun - I like lists of those!

Speaking of which, do we want to finish off the Tower quests now before moving over to work solely on the Science Victory or do we plan to come back to them later? I can come up with some new quests in my next post if we're going to run the two in parallel for a little while.

I think fundamentally how we do this should depend on how we want to gameplay to occur. Two scenarios:

1a) Andor is trying to take the Aiel capital. Andor gets a new sister and easily takes it (assuming the sister is attacked blah blah blah).
1b) Andor is trying to take the Aiel capital. Aiel get a new sister and successful defend and fight back the Andoran forces.
2) Andor is trying to take the Aiel capital (Aielville D.C.). Both civs get a new sister. They kill each other and its as if nothing happened.

Which versions of this is what we're looking for?

I think option 1 (cycling through the civs) is a little more swingy, in the sense that there will potentially be brief windows where one civ might have the upper hand. This could be a neat element, but we should acknowledge that it exists.

Option 2 (everybody at once) is a bit more boring but also more "fair" in that there isn't the possibility of weird opportunism due to when you get your AS.

That said, probably not a big difference, right? Unless we're talking one civ getting one now and the other waiting 30 turns, it shouldn't matter either way, I don't think. I'll will say I do like some degree of randomness to it, so people don't meta it too hard.

I think option 1 because it sounds like it will create fun gameplay scenarios (and sudden upsets). On average, you're right, it works out to about the same thing - it's just in those military situations where the few turns difference is crucial that it can change how things turn out.

Also, where do we want Sister units to appear for a given civ when they receive them? Near/in the capital? Or should the player choose which city they want them at? Closest city owned by the player to the Tower?

Yeah, yeah, this is tough. On the countdown, I could go either way, certainly. I like it being slightly unpredictable, but at the same time, you've made a pretty good case for transparency as a virtue in civ. Would be kinda lame to be 1 turn away from something big happening only being forced into a perpetual war the next turn - without knowing it's coming and planning accordingly.

Yeah, I think the lack of planning possibility makes it difficult to hide the countdown. Visible makes sense then, prevents players from being cut off when they could have done something better!

I don't like the idea of relying on a Neutral civ - I feel like neutral civs won't always even exist (it takes a particularly strong civ, and they won't really want to help somebody else in that regard will they?). I mean, having the neutral civ act as a transition is a fine mechanic - and will happen sometimes, the way civ works - but i don't want to hold it up as any real consistent aspect or strategy.

I will say that the problem I have with (essentially) permanent LB alliances is that it will mess up the WC (more than it already is) and make a diplo victory either nye impossible, or way too easy (if a Shadow civ, for instance, has a bunch of the CSs in their pocket at the start - remember Shadow civs need a second victory type in addition to the LB victory). Also, it takes away a whole aspect of the game - dealing with CSs and stuff - for a long time.

i know all of that already happens in regular CiV, but the difference here is that the LB is quite long, and mandatory. In regular games,f you're going for a diplo victory and can't negotiate with a CS because you are at war, well, you can always sue for peace, etc. Here, even if your civ needs a 10-turn breather to rebuild, there are no peace treaties, and thus no interval where alliances could change. I think this is a problem - sniping is a potential weakness in the diplo system, and this makes it even more powerful (even if it is slightly random).

I think it might be worth creating a slightly new mechanic for the LB allegiance of CSs. Some ideas:

- CSs could choose a side based on their own alignment - which is partially randomly determined, and partially determined by the civ's they've allied with historically. You were right to point out that this could suck if you'd worked really hard and finally nabbed that alliance - only to see the CS go to the other team as soon as the LB starts. Still, I think we could weight the decision in a way that appropriately deals with that.
- connecting to that, there should be a way to undermine and change a CSs alignment - at least partially - and alliances through other means: maybe using spies, Gray sisters, GP, etc. Non-standard diplomatic techniques.
- Maybe the spy-things above could work even if civs don't have alliances - maybe CSs choose sides based on current alliances (as originally envisioned) but there are ways civs can undermine those alliances and change the CS over to the opposing side through hard work and stuff.

thoughts?

I really like the idea of being able to undermine a CS's alignment even while you're on the other side of the Last Battle. (Can Neutral civs "undermine" a CS to become neutral?) But when happens when a CS chooses a different Alignment from its ally, from any of the avenues above?

Depending on the combinations of Alignments involved, they may or may not be at war instantly. Can a CS choose Neutral? If it does and its current ally is a Light civ, do they stay allies? (They're not at war after all.) The default behavior for a Light ally whose CS chooses Shadow would place them at war - (temporarily) lowering the once-ally civ to -60 influence with that CS. Then the civ with the next most influence > 60 would become its ally. But if they ever made peace, the Light civ would get its influence back - depending on the changes in influence of other players since then - potentially becoming its ally again immediately.

You've also got a very good point about Shadow civs - they're also at war with each other. So the only CSes that a Shadow civ can ever negotiate with directly are, strangely, the Neutral civ ones?

The existing approach of CSes always declaring war in line with their ally makes the Last Battle very confusing. We could fudge things a bit - CSes can't be at war with a major civ that they share an Alignment with? (Can they be at war with that civ's allied CSes?)

So many combinations! Argh! I'd say that we definitely want major civs to still be able to influence CSes that have chosen a different side (by whatever mechanic) in the Last Battle.

Cool. No, I'd say they don't consume spark, but I like the idea of a short project (like building a caravan or something) that takes some population and/or freezes growth.

Question: how repeatable is this? Can civs keep doing it from all their cities? How many times? Or is this only in response to a Quest asking for it?

Since it's limited by Spark, I'd say civs can do this whenever they've got Spark, population, and production to spare. They can have a number of active (non-Aes Sedai) Novices/Accepted at maximum equal to their total Spark (not just available Spark). It clearly can't be built in any city with population of 1 and I'd imagine it would be quite like Archeologists, where only larger cities can build them in reasonable amounts of time. (And those cities often have a lot of things to choose from about what to do, unless it's so good that it's ahead of the civ's tech progress.)

That also means most civs will have at least some Novices/Accepted on the go at all times, so Ajah influences in the Tower will always be changing (which is good). A Generic quest that asks for a Novice is similar to the CS quest in base CiV that asks for money - it's an action you can take anyway, but for a short time it's worth more than usual. (And since quests are given by Ajahs, that is a one-off reliable source of influence with that Ajah from the quest, whereas the Novices might give you influence with some random Ajah at a later point.)

That could work. I don't feel any strong feelings about this particular quest. Trusting your wisdom/inclinations here.

Cool, let's go with the Tower requesting a specific work type as a trade and we'll see how it goes.

OK, just wanted to throw out a couple idea's I'd had recently about the Science Victory.

I recall in the past you desired the Science Victory to be more interactive. This was a great reason to consider using the Seals as the science victory, but, of course, those got coopted into the LB victory. Fine.

Another thing that was thrown around was Rand's academies and such. Of course, Academies are likely to be in the game elsewhere - either as a GP improvement or national wonder or something - but nonetheless I find myself drawn to them for this purpose.

Of course, the Science Victory in Civ is absurd - how do you "win" with science" (much in the same way the cultural one is sort of silly). Why space? Why not Gunpowder? Computers? Any other important tech? The thing about the space race is it represents a kind of "way forward," the unknown. A paradigm shift.

There's something about Rand's efforts with the academies in the books that mirrors this, I think. He's trying to create a body of knowledge that can move the world into the 4th age. His legacy being these techs and stuff. That sounds kinda science victory-ish to me.

We've spoken (and debated!) some of the late-game techs (4th age techs, I guess), and whether they should be units and such. I'm thinking the science victory could be wrapped up in these. Also, I think this provides us with an opportunity for some interaction.

First off, according to the wikis, here are the techs being developed at the School of Cairhien:

- Giant Crossbow
- Lightning Jar (lamp, I guess?)
- Glider
- paddlewheel riverboat
- steam engine
- Telescope (crazy this didn't already exist)

So my idea right now has to do with developing these things, call them Innovations, let's say (maybe "Inventions"), and sharing them with some other civs/all other civs. That's the Science Victory.

Also, note that the Civ5 science victory has 7 parts that need to be constructed (4 different types, with 3 SS Bosters). They also come from 4 techs, I think. There are 6 things on the list above, so we could have it be 7, or eliminate some of them. They could be spread from 7 techs, or be only from 4 like in CiV.

Consider:

1) Andor discovers the 4th-age tech Steam Engine. This allows +1 movement on roads (let's say it's too late in the game to bring in actual railroad construction). Andor gets this benefit immediately.
2) Andor now has the option to build a "Showcase Steam Engine Innovation" project in any one of their cities.
3) Upon completion of the project, Andor selects one civ to share the tech with. That civ gets the use of the Steam Engine tech. I don't know if they just get the benefit of the +1 on Roads, or if they get the actual tech itself.
4) When Andor researches Lenses and can build telescopes (Science boost and +1 sight for naval units?), they can do this all again, but they must select a different civ to share with. Thus, to complete a science victory, you must share with your enemies/competitors!
5) The Science victory is achieved when all of these Innovations are successfully showcased by one civ.

How much would this mess things up, being able to "gift" people techs out of order (if they hadn't yet researched the prereqs for Steam Engine, for example). Of course, the alternative is that by Showcasing an innovation, maybe its just a one time science boost for the civ (maybe even for both civs), and not the actual tech. Or maybe the receiving civ gets the tech's bonuses temporarily only? Or maybe, if they're units and such, it just gifts a few units or something. Or builds a railroad, creates a GW, etc. I do like the idea of a litle bit of sacrifice for the SV-seeking civ - hopefully they don't help their enemies get a science victory first!

Also, we could decide that the civ must share the tech with the whole world.

One big question that I haven't resolved is what happens to competitors also competing for a science victory. If you share Telescopes with them, do they still have to research it themselves, even if they already have the bonuses( just to go through the project and the act of sharing it with another civ)? Maybe there are more Innovation options than are required, so civs would be able to choose ones that had already been "taken" by other civs. That's a bit weird though.

In any case, this still has issues, but what I like about it is the flavor, the theme, as also the semi-interactiveness of it all.

Thoughts?

I'm a big fan of the flavor of this idea - it works really well in the WoT-verse, I think. It's also going the right way with interactivity - that should be one of our goals, to make it so that you need to "deal with" other civs to achieve a victory.

There are a few quandaries with giving away techs like this though. How do we deal with very small maps? If there is only one other player, you'll need to give them all to him/her. Also, how do wars interact with this? The Last Battle makes it particularly problematic, where you now have blocks of co-operating civilizations. (Shadow civs have very limited options for who to give techs to - Neutral civs only again.)

Having to share with the whole world is probably better than having to share with X civs. Otherwise the science victory actually gets easier for larger map sizes (inverse of Domination and Diplomacy, making it very unlikely that the largest maps would ever have Domination or Diplomacy wins, because in pursuing them you'd hit the science one first) since you can give the techs to the weakest players.

This also seems to be interacting with other civs primarily conceptually - through menus and trade talks? I think having those interactions take place actually on the map is quite important. My favorite science victory-related CiV story is a race I had against the AI in one game. We were both going for the science victory - both building spaceship parts. I won by the slimmest of margins and then, only because I attacked him a killed a *spaceship part* (the last one he needed) as he was moving it toward his capital. When Firaxis were spicing up the cultural victory for BNW they did a very similar thing - by making Antiquity Sites and Archeologists part of the map and visibly competing between civs (as well as the menu-driven stuff, tourism vs culture, also being a big improvement), it became a lot more interactive.

We don't necessarily want to do another "hunt for all of this stuff" on the map. It might be as simple as adding a "Scientist Envoy" unit that actually "gives" the "Innovation" technology away at a foreign capital (you might have to clear a path for the envoy through a warzone - very cool!).

Is there a way to invert the relationship with the technologies and "demonstrating" innovations - in that you make other civs come to you to get them? There are some cool mechanics in some other games where you can create a prisoner's dilemma for the other players. Anyone who sends an envoy to a civ can participate in a demonstration and receive the innovation tech for their home civ. But if everybody does it, the host civ gets closer to the scientific victory. But if the Sea Folk are the only ones who show up, the Sea Folk get a bonus that no one else does, and the host isn't overly helped by it?

The problem with that approach is that you can't win by virtue of your own success. Other players need to willingly take actions that can potentially make you win. It would also never work in multiplayer - humans would completely metagame around it and avoid causing any wins.

I'm also not sure about the overlapping part of the Innovations - where someone else has already demonstrated Lightning Jars - why is it beneficial for you to do so too? Do the demonstrations have different secondary bonuses for the non-host participants, so that the primary benefits aren't redundant when they reach the Lightning Jars tech themselves? Even then, why would anyone want/participate/be helped by being a non-host participant the second time around?

I do really like the flavor of this idea - there are just a lot of questions about making it interactive, fun, and fair!

 

[counterpoint]

You make good points. I liked the idea that influence and bonuses with an Ajah were also dependent on the actions of other players, rather than just between a given civ and the Tower (more diplomatic that way) - and that the Tower would be less swingy. But it doesn't reduce down well for smaller numbers of players.

I was thinking that it would be a much more conceptual representation to the players, rather than raw numbers that we see in a lot of other places (quite like how the Ajahs' operations are opaque to external parties) - so that they see their % influence with the Ajahs and other players', but no exact figures of what the underlying values are that they need to change to make specific % differences. They can see changes in influence causing the %s to change, but can only make "gestures" in the direction they want to go, not calculate an exactly optimal approach. (Which is inherently different to how we've approached other systems. I think the diplo system is generally the least transparent part of CiV, but it might be telling then that it's one that receives the most criticism.)

So, flat values for bonuses! Do we want to do the simple CS ally/friend switch for each Ajah? I think it would be quite nice if it was a bit more complex than that, because the ally/friend is only really good for quite simple progressive bonuses, whereas the Ajahs give a variety of different things (abilities to units, separate yield bonuses (both science and culture for example)). We have several different "levels" of bonuses for each Ajah, right? So we could have separate flat values for each one, and have a maximum number of players at each level?

Example, Red Ajah has bonuses at 20/50/80/120 influence levels. (Civs can now see raw influence values - no %s like before) The maximum number of concurrent players with each bonus (in the same order) is: 10/5/3/1? So the person with the highest influence (that is > 120) gets the top bonus. The next two (that have > 80) also get the second-from-the-top bonus. (So that's 3 total with the bonus that requires 80 - the guy in first has it in addition to his 120 bonus, and the guys in second and third have it.) And so on? Does that sound good?

OK, I do think this is probably the best way to go. As for the specifics:

- I could see the 4 levels making sense at those intervals. Though I could also see 30/60/90/120. Question 1) are those numbers essentially arbitrary, or is there some specific reason for them? That's more than required in Civ, right? Question 2) are the number-of-player-limits on the lower levels also arbitrary? I'm fine with them (it somewhat approximates the %-based system you previously discussed), but should they perhaps scale by number of players?

- Also, why 4 different levels? I'm fine with it, in theory, but only if the bonuses justify that many levels. Taking the four levels as an example, we could have something like:

at 30 - Yield bonus
at 50 - boost to stats of Sisters of that Ajah
at 80 - increased yield?
at 120 - unlocked secondary abilities for Sisters of that Ajah.

I guess part of the hesitation I have for so many different types of yieldish bonuses is that they sort of infringe on CSs - players might not "need" the CSs like they do in base civ, which I think is somewhat a problem. Also, we have to come up with appropriate rewards for each level.

We should probably figure out exactly what they are.

Also, I suppose your relationship with the WT overall will not in and of itself provide a reward, yes?

Flat values also mean we'll need decaying influence, as you mentioned earlier. Which is of course something we can have modifiers for - Oppression civs lose influence faster? And other similar bonuses/penalties.

Yes to decaying influence. I don't think we need to punish oppressive civs at this level - why don't we just punish/reward civs at the WT-level, which acts as a modifier to all of this, right? Or did we decide it's best to work at the Ajah level?

Also, I dont think the decay should be as fast as it is for CSs. Since we're talking about unlocking abilities and such, it might be extra annoying to have to have them activate and deactivate all the time. Right?

Also, do we still want to represent an Ajah's relative power compared to other Ajahs by the sum of its influence then? The numbers will all tend to be closer together now since they decay, so it will be more swingy. I'm not sure how else we could represent it though - without tracking it separately as well and making the Ajahs' relative influence with each other determined by the total amount of influence ever contributed to each Ajah? It seems like we'd be fragmenting the system that way though, and it wouldn't be very clear to the player how that diverged from the current amounts of influence.

Yes, I think the sum of influence will be best. True, the numbers would be close together for certain Ajahs, but if more than a couple civs jump on the Red bandwagon, for example, the Red will probably be a clear favorite.

I don't think we should do sum-of-all-influence-EVER. Too weird. That said, with slow-ish decay levels, past influence will persist for awhile.

We could make the penalties more dependent on the strength of the Tower - refusing Edicts prevents you from trading with Authority civs? Via trade routes or diplomatic trades? That could be seriously disruptive - trading for luxuries is often a major source of happiness.

Yes. That is the answer, I think. Very cool - a 20-30 turn ban from Authority trade when that happens.

Anything different when an Authority civ breaks the rule? Are they rewarded when they follow them?

But it's only relevant when civs have chosen Ideologies, and Edicts exist from a much earlier point in the game (when the Tower should arguably be more powerful, not less). But then we could phase in filters to these penalties? For the beginning of the game, they apply to everyone - your trade routes get worse, we cut you off from diplo trading with other civs, your CS relationships degrade faster. Then it starts to scale as Ideologies are adopted? The Tower can only stop you from trading with Authority civs?

Yes, I like that idea, too. Have lighter penalties - but universal - early on. Then later, the penalties are massive/prohibitive, but there are work arounds if you have allies who aren't tower-affiliated. It makes sense. The Seanchan and Sharans had millenia to work out their independence of the tower. 500 years ago, the Seanchan might not have been strong enough to stand alone like that.

I think the automatic war declaration thing is something that would happen by default. A diplo hit is clearly part of what we intend to be the consequences of refusing Edicts, right? So that diplo hit will sometimes send AI civs over the "declare war" threshold (they clearly didn't like the refuser behorehand anyway). I'm just wondering if we should hook that up and make it a visible consequence when it's going to happen? Or doe that make it too predictable - you know the AI won't declare war because it doesn't say so?

I don't know if automatic war is the right way to do it. I'd like to think about things like this from the player perspective. Like, what if you are playing an authority civ and an AI breaks an edict? Do you automatically declare war? Or are you encouraged to via some quest? Diplo hits are fine, but I'd like the make the system somewhat tenable for the players too (also in anticipation of possible multiplayer).

I'd prefer Tower-friendly CSs to get kinda mad, and Authority civs to be encouraged/rewarded for going to war, but not a declaration of war. After all, I don't think the Tower itself will necessarily declare war on you if you break an edict.

You're right, I don't think we want to get involved with other dimensions here. The Aelfinn and the Eelfinn are in another dimension as well, right? Did the Portal Stones ever cross over with the Tower of Ghenjei and all of its weirdness?

I don't think the portal stones have/had anything to do with the ToG. Not 100% sure, but pretty sure.

Speaking of which, do we want to finish off the Tower quests now before moving over to work solely on the Science Victory or do we plan to come back to them later? I can come up with some new quests in my next post if we're going to run the two in parallel for a little while.

Yes, for sure. Let's finish up the diplo stuff while we start on Science. Please deliver some more - do you remember how many for each ajah we said we needed? I'm honestly kind of running out of ideas on these.

One I did think of though: should we have one quest that rewards the accumulation of Light Alignment? (or shadow if the Black take over)?

Also, we should probably throw together a diplo summary, right? For future reference. This time around, on this topic, I don't think I'm the guy to do it. I feel pretty solid on this topic, but for some reason some of the specifics haven't internalized as well.

I think option 1 because it sounds like it will create fun gameplay scenarios (and sudden upsets). On average, you're right, it works out to about the same thing - it's just in those military situations where the few turns difference is crucial that it can change how things turn out.

Also, where do we want Sister units to appear for a given civ when they receive them? Near/in the capital? Or should the player choose which city they want them at? Closest city owned by the player to the Tower?

OK, we'll have the Sisters doled out on a rotating basis. Maybe 4-5 turns between each civ? Less on huge maps? I figure a player maybe gets a new sister every 20-30 turns (assuming they have the room)?

As to where they should pop up.... This is tricky. Capital might be the safest. I like the random-city approach, but worry that we'll just piss people off with that. Same goes for the closest-to-Tower, though that one is also less interesting than both of the others.

Well, maybe w do Random City, but the player is given a few turn warning, so they can plan accordingly?

On a similar note, what if you are full, does your turn just pass by, or are you given the option of replacing an existing sister? Probably kind of intrusive to do that, right? I guess if you want to get rid of one, you should disband her.

I really like the idea of being able to undermine a CS's alignment even while you're on the other side of the Last Battle. (Can Neutral civs "undermine" a CS to become neutral?) But when happens when a CS chooses a different Alignment from its ally, from any of the avenues above?

Depending on the combinations of Alignments involved, they may or may not be at war instantly. Can a CS choose Neutral? If it does and its current ally is a Light civ, do they stay allies? (They're not at war after all.) The default behavior for a Light ally whose CS chooses Shadow would place them at war - (temporarily) lowering the once-ally civ to -60 influence with that CS. Then the civ with the next most influence > 60 would become its ally. But if they ever made peace, the Light civ would get its influence back - depending on the changes in influence of other players since then - potentially becoming its ally again immediately.

You've also got a very good point about Shadow civs - they're also at war with each other. So the only CSes that a Shadow civ can ever negotiate with directly are, strangely, the Neutral civ ones?

The existing approach of CSes always declaring war in line with their ally makes the Last Battle very confusing. We could fudge things a bit - CSes can't be at war with a major civ that they share an Alignment with? (Can they be at war with that civ's allied CSes?)

So many combinations! Argh! I'd say that we definitely want major civs to still be able to influence CSes that have chosen a different side (by whatever mechanic) in the Last Battle.

I think all of these issues are making me feel that CS war thing will have to work differently during the LB. I do like the ability to "undermine" somebody's control, but I think we shouldn't have that necessarily require that they are permanently at war with them if they are switched.

One option: Should there be a sort of "waiting period" of neutrality, say, 10 turns, once a civ has been turned? Then anybody can end up the ally of it? Is that worth doing from the underminers perspective? We don't want our CS alliances totally in flux throughout the whole LB, though. That would be a bit annoying and unrealistic - should probably be hard to do in order to prevent that. Then again, what I've just suggested pulls us away from the CS choosing their own Alignment - it's just more of the same CS diplo stuff.

And yes, with that system, I would definitely say a CS is only at war with civs/CSs that are on the "other side." Specifically, Light CSs would be at war with Shadow. Shadows would be at war *only* with Light (maybe with Neutral), not with other Shadows. And NEutrals shoudl probably be at war with the Shadow, for obvious reasons.

The other way to do this is to just let the CSs choose a side and stick with it. One CS says "Hey Guys, I'm Light! Who wants to be my ally?" while others stay neutral and/or go Shadow. In that way, a CS wouldn't be locked to an ally - just a side. So another light civ could become the new Ally, for example. Maybe there's still room for alignment-undermining here, but it should be pretty hard to do. If any Shadow civ was hoping for a diplo victory, they need to do their homework before the LB starts, I think.

Since it's limited by Spark, I'd say civs can do this whenever they've got Spark, population, and production to spare. They can have a number of active (non-Aes Sedai) Novices/Accepted at maximum equal to their total Spark (not just available Spark). It clearly can't be built in any city with population of 1 and I'd imagine it would be quite like Archeologists, where only larger cities can build them in reasonable amounts of time. (And those cities often have a lot of things to choose from about what to do, unless it's so good that it's ahead of the civ's tech progress.)

That also means most civs will have at least some Novices/Accepted on the go at all times, so Ajah influences in the Tower will always be changing (which is good). A Generic quest that asks for a Novice is similar to the CS quest in base CiV that asks for money - it's an action you can take anyway, but for a short time it's worth more than usual. (And since quests are given by Ajahs, that is a one-off reliable source of influence with that Ajah from the quest, whereas the Novices might give you influence with some random Ajah at a later point.)

Yes. I like this! I think the Archaeologist comparison is a good one. They're easy to build, but man are they a pain to have to build...

Alright, I'm going to stop before I comment on the Science stuff. Want to think more on all of that.

 

[S3rgeus]

Sorry for the delay, busy week!

OK, I do think this is probably the best way to go. As for the specifics:

- I could see the 4 levels making sense at those intervals. Though I could also see 30/60/90/120. Question 1) are those numbers essentially arbitrary, or is there some specific reason for them? That's more than required in Civ, right? Question 2) are the number-of-player-limits on the lower levels also arbitrary? I'm fine with them (it somewhat approximates the %-based system you previously discussed), but should they perhaps scale by number of players?

Both sets of numbers were arbitrary. 30/60/90/120 makes sense since it's in line with influence levels with CSes in base CiV. But following on from discussion below about what those levels unlock, having only 3 could work as well. (40/80/120?)

The number of player limits, while arbitrary, were generally intended to make it so that the "lowest" unlock was available to everybody in all but the largest games. The next ability could become contested if a single Ajah became particularly important. The next one up is reserved for the select few top supporters. And the last one is just the most influential civ. Now that can easily be rescaled for 3 levels: almost everybody/majority who try/leader?

- Also, why 4 different levels? I'm fine with it, in theory, but only if the bonuses justify that many levels. Taking the four levels as an example, we could have something like:

at 30 - Yield bonus
at 50 - boost to stats of Sisters of that Ajah
at 80 - increased yield?
at 120 - unlocked secondary abilities for Sisters of that Ajah.

I guess part of the hesitation I have for so many different types of yieldish bonuses is that they sort of infringe on CSs - players might not "need" the CSs like they do in base civ, which I think is somewhat a problem. Also, we have to come up with appropriate rewards for each level.

We should probably figure out exactly what they are.

Good point and I've gone back to take a look at where the idea of a "second ability" first cropped up. Very good point about potentially supplanting CS relationships with Ajah yields - I don't think we want the individual Ajahs acting as CS replacements, from a yield necessity point of view. So, having only 3 "levels" of unlocks could make sense with the bonuses you've mentioned:

Bottom level: yield bonus. This would be on the level of the yield bonus you receive from being friends with a CS. So it couldn't replace a CS relationship, but it's certainly helpful.

Middle level: Sister boost. Your Sisters from that Ajah are upgraded in some general way - likely combat strength or changing the effectiveness of their existing ability.

Top level: Extra ability for Sisters of that Ajah.

Now, do we necessarily want the Extra ability to be the top level reward? Probably, there's a certain "cool factor" in seeing one opponent use a specific ability and then knowing that they're important - that they've got the highest influence with the X Ajah. But worth discussing.

Though, we might want to have more unlock levels! There are some more general things we could do at differently spaced thresholds, things like:

• You receive more quests from this Ajah (might be risky - getting ahead gets you farther ahead and leads to an unstoppable incumbent, might be good to make this a relatively low influence threshold?)
• This Ajah is more likely to sway the vote of the Tower in the Compact (likely quite high threshold - it's only useful to diplo players and then only at the end of the game - potentially higher than the extra ability? What do we do about uniqueness of that ability then? What if this is a "general" threshold - it's more of an unlock for the Ajah than the player, this could apply X times where X is the number of civs over Y influence, regardless of how many have reached it?)
• This Ajah is more likely to win the election for Amyrlin (similar concerns to the Compact point above)
• This Ajah is more likely to issue an Edict on the Tower's next Edict cycle (similar again to the above - it seems like these might be good things to unlock for the Ajah when it reaches over a specific aggregate influence level? Solves the uniqueness problem with second abilities mentioned in the Compact point.)

Also, I suppose your relationship with the WT overall will not in and of itself provide a reward, yes?

Nothing explicit like a yield or bonus to specific units, only as a modifier for your influence gains with the Ajahs and as a general steering mechanism for the Tower's diplomatic actions.

Yes to decaying influence. I don't think we need to punish oppressive civs at this level - why don't we just punish/reward civs at the WT-level, which acts as a modifier to all of this, right? Or did we decide it's best to work at the Ajah level?

Good point, yeah, let's reward/punish diplo decisions at the Tower level. I think we could have some actions that affect Ajah-level directly as one-offs? Like choosing Oppression?

Also, I dont think the decay should be as fast as it is for CSs. Since we're talking about unlocking abilities and such, it might be extra annoying to have to have them activate and deactivate all the time. Right?

Yeah, having the decay rate be slower than CSes makes sense to me.

Yes, I think the sum of influence will be best. True, the numbers would be close together for certain Ajahs, but if more than a couple civs jump on the Red bandwagon, for example, the Red will probably be a clear favorite.

I don't think we should do sum-of-all-influence-EVER. Too weird. That said, with slow-ish decay levels, past influence will persist for awhile.

Cool, sounds good!

Yes. That is the answer, I think. Very cool - a 20-30 turn ban from Authority trade when that happens.

Anything different when an Authority civ breaks the rule? Are they rewarded when they follow them?

I think the reward is continuing to receive the bonuses you're getting from the Tower/Ajahs. If we give Edicts goals with feedback and rewards I think that makes them very like quests. We can stick with the Tower "expects" you to follow their word and rewards your other actions, but dislikes you if you disobey their laws.

Yes, I like that idea, too. Have lighter penalties - but universal - early on. Then later, the penalties are massive/prohibitive, but there are work arounds if you have allies who aren't tower-affiliated. It makes sense. The Seanchan and Sharans had millenia to work out their independence of the tower. 500 years ago, the Seanchan might not have been strong enough to stand alone like that.

Sounds good!

I don't know if automatic war is the right way to do it. I'd like to think about things like this from the player perspective. Like, what if you are playing an authority civ and an AI breaks an edict? Do you automatically declare war? Or are you encouraged to via some quest? Diplo hits are fine, but I'd like the make the system somewhat tenable for the players too (also in anticipation of possible multiplayer).

I'd prefer Tower-friendly CSs to get kinda mad, and Authority civs to be encouraged/rewarded for going to war, but not a declaration of war. After all, I don't think the Tower itself will necessarily declare war on you if you break an edict.

I was originally thinking automatic war, but now I'm thinking mainly of UI design for it, and what information is available to the player. Since there's a diplo hit for refusing an Edict, there will be some AI civs that declare war on other civs because of it. (Because they already disliked those other civs or really like the Tower). I wondered if we could present that information to the player when they're choosing whether or not to refuse, but it probably makes the AI too predictable. Definitely wouldn't be automating war declarations for human players.

I don't think the portal stones have/had anything to do with the ToG. Not 100% sure, but pretty sure.

Ok, sounds like their complexity is a bit much. We might have a nod to them with a ruin/NW but no mechanics dedicated to them?

Yes, for sure. Let's finish up the diplo stuff while we start on Science. Please deliver some more - do you remember how many for each ajah we said we needed? I'm honestly kind of running out of ideas on these.

One I did think of though: should we have one quest that rewards the accumulation of Light Alignment? (or shadow if the Black take over)?

6-8 for each Ajah. So let's go for 6 for now (plus one Amyrlin quest) and we'll see if more come up. We've got about 3-5 for each Ajah at the moment, so here are some more!

Ajah Quests
Existing quests are from here.
Blue Ajah
Current quest count: 4 (discounted the Saidin quest)

Committed Beliefs
The Blue Ajah will reward the player whose Alignment changes the most in the next 30 turns. (Difference from where they started. Would we prefer this to be "gain Light" most of the time and become "gain Shadow" if the Tower is Shadow?) Global quest.

Infiltration
The Blue Ajah will reward you for successfully using a spy to cause an uprising in targeted CS. Targeted quest. (Needs a better name?)

Channeling Justice
The Blue Ajah will reward all players if two or more civilizations adopt the Authority Ideology in the next 45 turns, or if, at that time, 50% or more of the world is following the Authority Ideology. Amyrlin Quest

Brown Ajah
Current quest count: 4

Unique Talents
The Brown Ajah will reward you for spawning a GP from one of our new WoT GP types in the next 30 turns. (Viewer, like Min, Wolfbrother, like Perrin, what are the others?) Targeted quest.

Cataloging Formations
The Brown Ajah will reward each player that controls a Natural Wonder (per Natural Wonder) in 30 turns. Global quest.

Heritage Renaissance
The Brown Ajah will reward all players if the aggregate culture per turn output of the entire world exceeds 1000 (arbitrary number, likely has to scale by players) in the next 45 turns. Amyrlin quest

Red Ajah
Current quest count: 3

Tainted Bounty
The Red Ajah will reward any civilization for killing male channeling units for the next 30 turns. Global quest. (Reward is per unit killed.)

Expanded Ranks
The Red Ajah rewards extra influence to civilizations that "own" (?) Accepted who choose the Red Ajah. Global quest.

Punishing Misuse
The Red Ajah will reward civilizations that kill non-Aes Sedai female channeling units for the next 30 turns. Global quest.

Forbidden Gaidin
The Red Ajah will reward you for disbanding the Warder of a Red Sister in the next 30 turns. Targeted quest.

Green Ajah
Current quest count: 3

Marriage Ceremony
The Green Ajah will reward you for moving a Green Sister and her warder (one of them) to the Tower (physically, on the map) to be married within the next 30 turns. Targeted quest.

Power United
The Green Ajah will reward you for Bonding a male channeling unit as a warder to a Sister in the next 30 turns. (Just a Green Sister?) Targeted quest.

Experienced Soldiers
The Green Ajah will reward any civilization for gaining promotions with Green Sister units for the next 30 turns. Global quest.

Loud, Bossy, and Usually Right
The Green Ajah will reward civilizations that use the Dragon to kill Shadowspawn. (Only works if LB enabled? Only viable for Light civs once LB starts?) Global quest.

Yellow Ajah
Current quest count: 2 (ugh)

Back from the Brink
The Yellow Ajah will reward you for healing a unit from less than 10 health back up to full in the next 30 turns. Targeted quest.

Finery and Health
The Yellow Ajah will reward civilizations for building Tailors/buildings-that-make-clothes in cities with more than 10 (arbitrary number) population in the next 30 turns. Global quest.

Helping the Needy
The Yellow Ajah will reward you for establishing a Food trade route in the next 30 turns. Targeted quest.

Healing in Tandem
The Yellow Ajah will reward you for using a Circle of two or more Sisters to Heal a unit in the next 30 turns. Targeted quest.

Population Boom
All civilizations gain influence with the Yellow Ajah if global population exceeds <arbitrary number> (scaled by map size and probably progress through time) in the next 30 turns. Amyrlin quest

Gray Ajah
Current quest count: 6

Influential Commerce
The Gray Ajah will reward civilizations for establishing international trade routes for the next 30 turns. Global quest.

White Ajah
Current quest count: 5

Release of Truth
The White Ajah will reward you for sharing intrigue with another player in the next 30 turns. (Only works against AI?) Targeted quest.

Focused Elsewhere
The White Ajah will reward the player with the lowest Faith output in the next 30 turns. (A bit weird?) Global quest.

Also, we should probably throw together a diplo summary, right? For future reference. This time around, on this topic, I don't think I'm the guy to do it. I feel pretty solid on this topic, but for some reason some of the specifics haven't internalized as well.

No worries, I'll pull together a summary tomorrow.

OK, we'll have the Sisters doled out on a rotating basis. Maybe 4-5 turns between each civ? Less on huge maps? I figure a player maybe gets a new sister every 20-30 turns (assuming they have the room)?

Every 20-30 turns works, we can have the Tower decide on a single "cycle length" between 20 and 30 each time it finishes a loop around all of the players. Then we can give a new Sister out every cycleLength / numPlayers turns. We could randomize the order we go through the players each cycle? That could introduce a lot more individual variance for a civ, they might get two Sisters almost back to back, or they might be almost two full cycles apart (approx 60 turns at absolute worst case).

As to where they should pop up.... This is tricky. Capital might be the safest. I like the random-city approach, but worry that we'll just piss people off with that. Same goes for the closest-to-Tower, though that one is also less interesting than both of the others.

Well, maybe w do Random City, but the player is given a few turn warning, so they can plan accordingly?

Capital is definitely consistent, but will be annoying for players who are conducting campaigns far from home. What if there was a "Tower Embassy" building and Sisters could 'spawn' when given to a civ next to any city that has an Embassy (or the Palace to include the capital)? Random or should the player choose? (They can sell buildings if they don't want Sisters to spawn somewhere anymore.) Does that building have other yield bonuses? (Probably, but not big ones?)

On a similar note, what if you are full, does your turn just pass by, or are you given the option of replacing an existing sister? Probably kind of intrusive to do that, right? I guess if you want to get rid of one, you should disband her.

Yeah, I think if you want to get rid of one, you should disband her. So if you're at your cap then your turn just passes by. Players can see their exact cap on the UI somewhere?

I think all of these issues are making me feel that CS war thing will have to work differently during the LB. I do like the ability to "undermine" somebody's control, but I think we shouldn't have that necessarily require that they are permanently at war with them if they are switched.

One option: Should there be a sort of "waiting period" of neutrality, say, 10 turns, once a civ has been turned? Then anybody can end up the ally of it? Is that worth doing from the underminers perspective? We don't want our CS alliances totally in flux throughout the whole LB, though. That would be a bit annoying and unrealistic - should probably be hard to do in order to prevent that. Then again, what I've just suggested pulls us away from the CS choosing their own Alignment - it's just more of the same CS diplo stuff.

And yes, with that system, I would definitely say a CS is only at war with civs/CSs that are on the "other side." Specifically, Light CSs would be at war with Shadow. Shadows would be at war *only* with Light (maybe with Neutral), not with other Shadows. And NEutrals shoudl probably be at war with the Shadow, for obvious reasons.

The other way to do this is to just let the CSs choose a side and stick with it. One CS says "Hey Guys, I'm Light! Who wants to be my ally?" while others stay neutral and/or go Shadow. In that way, a CS wouldn't be locked to an ally - just a side. So another light civ could become the new Ally, for example. Maybe there's still room for alignment-undermining here, but it should be pretty hard to do. If any Shadow civ was hoping for a diplo victory, they need to do their homework before the LB starts, I think.

I'm liking the simplicity of the CSes choosing a side and then their allies going forward can are from that Alignment. That could be an ability of the Dragon and the Forsaken? "Convert CS" which brings it over to their side but has a significant failure rate? (So Shadow diplo civs would need to be able to either control Forsaken at some point or "request" a CS converted?)

So the CSes choose sides based on their historical allies' alignments? It builds up over time? With this system we could also allow the transition via a Neutral civ, just as an alternative avenue? Doesn't seem like we want to lock CSes into or out of Neutral, only lock out direct "normal" flips from Light to Shadow or vice versa (without some concerted effort via an Alignment-flipping mechanic)?

Also, would Neutral necessarily be the "enemy" of Shadow? The way I see Neutral, they want to side with whichever Alignment is losing (barring local geographical considerations), because they want the Last Battle to go on longer. (Gives them time to win.)

Yes. I like this! I think the Archaeologist comparison is a good one. They're easy to build, but man are they a pain to have to build...

Awesome, exactly!

Also, cool new Edict (a Generic one, or possibly for the Red?) we can have after discussing this:

Recruitment Drive
Each civilization may send two additional Novices to the Tower from now on.

 

[S3rgeus]

Summary of the Tower! Anything unconfirmed is in red.

The White Tower - Structure

• The White Tower acts as an independent diplomatic entity, exerting its influence on all civilizations through a variety of mechanics.
• The Tower votes independently in the Compact.
• The Tower has its own diplomatic assessment of each major civilization, representing how the Tower feels about that player. This is represented through a Tower-level influence metric, where players can lose and gain favor through diplomatic actions. Modifications to overall Tower influence can occur due to:
  • Attacking Aes Sedai units (controlled by any civ)
  • Declaring war on/denouncing the Tower or its allies and enemies. (War/denounce enemies is good, and obvious vice versa, includes DoF/defensive pact in inverse arrangement.)
  • Establishing trade routes with the Tower (small bonus).
• Within the Tower, there are seven Ajahs, each of which can have varying influence over the greater Tower's actions - dependent on their relative influence. Players can have influence with each individual Ajah, representing how much that player has contributed to that Ajah's standing.
• The Tower can issue Edicts, which function much like Compact resolutions (affecting players as an external entity) but can be refused at risk of significant penalties.

The White Tower - Quests

• Each Ajah within the Tower acts as a separate stream of quests. Quests are an opportunity for civilizations to gain influence with the Ajah that proposed them.
• Some quests are available only to a specific player, others to all players that have met the Tower.
• The intended frequency of quests is specified in relative terms to CSes from base CiV - quest activity from the Tower should approximate double to triple the normal quest count from a single CS, when viewed from the perspective of a single major civilization.
• Some quests are Generic and can be proposed by any Ajah, others are only available to specific Ajahs.
• A list of the quests available is here.
• Each Ajah has a single quest that is only available when the current Amyrlin has been raised from that Ajah.
• Every 10 +/- 3 (pure randomness) turns, each Ajah checks its quest count and potentially adds a new quest. If it has noactive global quest, then there is a 50% chance it will give a new one of those. If it gives out a targeted quest, it will choose which player to give the quest to based on whether or not there they already have an active quest with that player. A single Ajah can have no more than 2 active targeted quests with a single major civilization simultaneously and no more than one global quest active at once.

The White Tower - Edicts

• The Tower issues Edicts at an increasing pace as the game goes on - becoming closer together the more turns have elapsed since the beginning of the game.
• Some Edicts are refusable, others are not, mostly influenced by the logical flavor of whether "refusing" the action that Edict represents makes any sense.
• Which Edicts are issued by the Tower is influenced by which Ajahs have the most influence at a given time.
• The Tower issues Edicts as a whole and which Ajah caused an Edict to be issued is not visible to major civilizations (though could be inferred by inspecting the database).
• Edicts that can be refused must be refused immediately or they become binding going forward.
• A list of Edicts available to the Tower and each Ajah can be found here.
• Refusing an Edict subjects the refuser to diplomatic and economic penalties. These come in stages, where each refusal moves the refuser on to the next stage (in addition to the penalties of the one below):
  • The refuser receives a negative diplomatic modifier with all other major civilizations (proportional to their approval of the Tower). Their international trade routes become inversely effective - they receive receiver bonuses for establishing trade routes and their target civilization receives establisher bonuses.
  • The refuser's negative diplomatic modifier is increased. They earn less money from international trade routes and their CS relationships degrade faster.
  • The refuser can no longer establish international trade routes.
• As Ideologies are chosen, the Tower's ability to enforce these penalties changes. Trade with Authority civilizations is inverted/depreciated/restricted (instead of all civilizations).
• Which Ajahs' Edicts are selected is determined by a weighted probability function of the aggregate influence each Ajah has accrued. These probabilities have sensible minimum (5%) and maximum (20%) values, accompanied by a 30% chance of issuing a Generic Edict.

The White Tower - Ajahs

• Each Ajah within the Tower has its own internal goals that align with the flavor of those Ajahs from the books - manifested through their quests, Edicts, and Compact voting patterns.
• Players can only have positive influence with an Ajah where they can have negative overall influence with the Tower.
• Each player's overall Tower influence acts as a modifier on any influence that player would gain with any Ajah.
• Civilizations may lose influence with Ajahs for certain external channeling-antagonistic diplomacy choices. (Such as choosing the Oppression Ideology.)
• An Amyrlin election occurs approximately once per era, at which time three candidates are raised from the three most influential Ajahs and then one is voted in to be the next Amyrlin.
• The Amyrlin can be deposed through the actions of foreign spies. When an Amyrlin is deposed, her Ajah loses influence (so every player loses influence with that Ajah in proportion, so their relative internal influences remain the same, but the Ajah is less influential in the Tower).
• The Amyrlin can also be assassinated by Bloodknives or Grey Men. As well as being the final step in Turning the Tower (see below), after the Amyrlin is assassinated, the Tower cannot issue any Edicts for 30 turns. All players lose influence with all Ajahs when this occurs, weakening the Tower across the board.
• Players can send spies to the Tower, at which time they must choose which Ajah to spy on. Spies function while spying on an Ajah much as they do when spying on City States in base CiV - lowering opposing influence over time and raising your own, with the possibility of a coup allowing you to switch influence with the current top influential civ.
• Each Ajah has three levels of bonuses at 40/80/120 influence points. The number of players that can have each bonus simultaneously is 10/5/1.
• Each influence level, the civilization gains some bonuses, depending on which Ajah they have become influential with. (Tier Zero is the Ajah's default unit ability)
  • Blue Ajah
    • Tier Zero: When teleported through the Ways, a Blue Sister may choose to have herself and her Warder transported to the Waygate closest to the owning player's capital city.
    • Tier One: +2 sight for Blue Sisters
    • Tier Two: Blue Sisters can explore Mythic Sites to discover Seals of the Dark One or the Horn of Valere. This ability has a 30 turn cooldown.
    • Tier Three: Boost to WoT GP point generation rate
  • Red Ajah
    • Tier Zero: Red Sisters have a base 70% success rate when Gentling male channelers, instead of 50%.
    • Tier One: +15% ranged defense for Red Sisters
    • Tier Two: Red Sisters have a 30% chance to Gentle a male channeler when they attack him.
    • Tier Three: A 3 turn Golden Age starts every time the civilization succeeds in Gentling a False Dragon.
  • Green Ajah
    • Tier Zero: Green Sisters may bond an extra Warder.
    • Tier One: +15% melee and ranged combat strength for Green Sisters
    • Tier Two: Male channelers taken as Warders become Channeler Warder units instead of normal Warder units
    • Tier Three: +2 Spark
  • Yellow Ajah
    • Tier Zero: Yellow Sisters can instantly heal a single unit for 50 HP (this consumes their movement).
    • Tier One: Yellow Sisters cause adjacent units to heal an additional +5 health per turn
    • Tier Two: If a unit would die within a 3 hex radius of a Yellow Sister, there is a 20% chance it will remain at 1 health instead
    • Tier Three: The civilization receives +10 global happiness
  • White Ajah
    • Tier Zero: Cities with Governors within 3 hexes of a White Sister produce +2 Science per turn.
    • Tier One: White Sisters get +30% melee and ranged combat strength for 5 turns after you research a technology
    • Tier Two: Stealing a technology from a city within 3 hexes of a White Sister has a 90% failure rate
    • Tier Three: The civilization can establish "science sharing" internal trade routes, in addition to food and production
  • Brown Ajah
    • Tier Zero: Brown Sisters can excavate Antiquity Sites (more slowly than Archaeologists and with a significant cooldown)
    • Tier One: +10% EXP growth for Brown Sisters
    • Tier Two: Theming bonuses provide +1 Prestige in cities within 3 hexes of a Brown Sister.
    • Tier Three: Great Artists, Musicians, and Writers (or their equivalents) are produced 10% faster
  • Gray Ajah
    • Tier Zero: Gray Sisters and their Warders don't need open borders to enter foreign territory.
    • Tier One: +2 movement for Gray Sisters
    • Tier Two: Can sign a treaty between two civs (at foreign city) that make trade routes between them un-plunderable
    • Tier Three: Extra trade route (if someone overtakes a civ and they have 7/6 trade routes (for example) - they don't receive the unit back when their next trade route completes)

The White Tower - Distributing Sisters

• Each major civilization has a "cap" which represents the maximum number of Aes Sedai units they may control simultaneously. This cap varies dependent on civilization size, global influence, some world wonders, and Ideology selection (Authority is positive, Oppression is negative, and Liberation is neutral).
• The Tower can offer a new Sister to a civilization, at which point that civilization picks which Ajah they want a Sister from. (Each Ajah's Sister unit is different, with different abilities, see the Channeling section.)
• The Tower gives out Sisters in cycles, looping through each player before a new cycle starts. A cycle time is defined at the beginning of each new cycle, of between 20 and 30 turns. In that time, the Tower will offer a new Sister to each major civilization that has any spare Aes Sedai capacity.
• Early estimates indicate we expect the Tower's quota of Sisters for each nation to vary between 4 and 7 (influenced by such thing as Philosophy choices, population, etc), not including extraneous one-time bonuses like wonders.

The White Tower - Novices and Accepted

• Each civilization has a certain number of Novices and Accepted slots in the Tower, determined by that civilization's total Spark.
• At any time, a civilization can choose to send 1 Population from one of its cities to the Tower to train as a Novice, removing that Population from the city.
• A new Novice starting in the Tower grants the sponsoring civilization a small bonus to overall Tower Influence.
• After X turns, modified by stuff, a Novice has an X% chance of becoming an Accepted. On failure, she returns to the city she was sent from. On success, she becomes an Accepted.
• When a Novice is raised to Accepted in the Tower, the sponsoring civilization receives a small bonus (larger than the Novice bonus) to overall Tower Influence.
• After X turns an Accepted has an X% chance of becoming an Aes Sedai and choosing an Ajah. If she fails, she returns to the city she was sent from. On success, she becomes an Aes Sedai.
• Each city can have only one sponsored Novice or Accepted currently residing in the Tower.
• When an Accepted becomes a Sister, she chooses one of the 7 Ajahs to join, mostly at random. The sponsoring civilization receives a large bonus of Ajah Influence with the Ajah that the new Aes Sedai joined.
• The number of Novices, Accepted, and Aes Sedai that each civilization has sponsored that are currently resident in the Tower raises that civilization's resting influence with the Tower and each of its Ajahs.

Crossover with the Last Battle

• The Tower may be Turned to the Shadow by concerted effort outlined in previous sections' discussions, particularly Channeling and the Last Battle. If this occurs, several quests and Edicts have their effects/requirements modified.
• The Tower's Edicts only apply to the Alignment that the Tower is aligned with (either Light or Shadow).
• Once the Turning of the Tower mechanic is introduced (in the lead up the Last Battle), Black Ajah Edicts become available, at a percentage chance proportional to the Tower's corruption.
• Civilizations who declare for the opposite side of the Last Battle from the Tower (Shadow if the Tower remains Light, or Light if the Tower is Turned) no longer receive new Sister units.
• The Sister units lost by civilizations at the start of the last battle are lost in ascending order of that civilization's Ajah tiers (so lower tiered Sisters are lost first).
• Civilizations that are not on the same side of the Last Battle as the Tower (including Neutral civilizations) do not receive new Sisters through the usual Sister distribution mechanics.
• When the Last Battle begins, players' Sister quota is adjusted based on theirs and the Tower's choice of side:
  • If the Tower remains Light:
    • Light civilizations lose up to 25% of their Sisters, proportional to the number of Turning objectives completed
    • Shadow civilizations lose 50% of their quota and retain between 25% and 67% of their Sisters (proportional to the number of Turning objectives completed)
    • Neutral civilizations lose 50% of their quota and Sisters
  • If the Tower is Turned to the Shadow:
    • Light civilizations lose 50% of their quota and 50% of their Sisters
    • Shadow civilizations do not lose any quota or Sisters
    • Neutral civilizations lose 50% of their quota and Sisters
• At the beginning of the Last Battle, the Tower declares war on any civilizations that have declared for the opposite side from the Tower.

Turning the Tower

• As players move into the Era of Encroaching Blight, options related to Turning the Tower to the Shadow become available to them.
• During a single game, 6-7 total Turning objectives will be available.
• Players with Shadow alignment over a certain threshold gain access to the Turning objectives. These are a set of tasks that must be completed (often by a Shadow civilization) in order for the Tower to be Turned.
• Players with Light alignment over a corresponding threshold unlock the "Investigate the Black Ajah" spy mission that can be performed by spies at Tar Valon. If the mission succeeds, the Light player gets a one-time glimpse at one of the objectives the Shadow must succeed at to Turn the Tower.
• Multiple Light players can perform the "Investigate the Black Ajah" spy mission (and the same civilization and even same spy can perform it multiple times) but no more than four of the Shadow objectives can ever be known to the Light.
• All Shadow objectives must remain completed - for example, if an objective requires a Shadow player to have more than 50% influence with the Blue Ajah, that objective may be completed and then return to incomplete if a Light player gains sufficient influence with the Blue.
• When all Shadow objectives are completed, the Tower can be Turned by assassinating the Amyrlin.
• The Amyrlin can be assassinated by Grey Men or Bloodknives stationed in Tar Valon.
• When the Last Battle begins, if the Tower remains with the Light, then Shadow civilizations retain a proportion of their Sister units equal to the proportion of Turning objectives that have been completed (up to a maximum of 67%). Their remaining Sisters become Black Ajah Sisters and gain the ability to attack any unit and use Compulsion.
• If the Tower Turns to the Shadow, Light civilizations retain only 50% of their Sister units. Shadow civilizations' Sisters all become Black Ajah.
• If the Tower remains with the Light, Light civilizations lose Sisters in inverse proportion to the number if Turning objectives that were completed, up to a maximum of 25%. In addition, Light civilizations are given additional Sisters in proportion to their Light leaning. (So slightly Light civs will lose some overall, some very high Light civs may gain overall, despite some loss from Turning progress.)
• Any civilization declaring for Neutral loses 50% of its Sister units.
• Shadow objectives include the following tasks. Some of them change appropriately depending on the state of the game.
  • Donate 1000 Gold to the Black.
  • Three raze city challenges, where the selected cities must be razed by any player. The cities are chosen as follows:
    • A high population city in a Light-leaning civilization.
    • A high population city in a Shadow-leaning civilization.
    • A high population city in an otherwise powerful civilization.
  • Pass resolution X in the Compact. (Value of X varies per game.)
  • Achieve greater than 40% influence with up to four Ajahs in the Tower. (This is up to four separate objectives - each can be completed by a separate Shadow player.)
  • Control the <insert World Wonder here>. (Which wonder is chosen varies per game.)
  • Kill X Aes Sedai. (Doesn't matter which player owned them)
  • Control X cities.
  • Capture Stedding X, Y, and Z. (Which Stedding varies per game. This is up to three separate objectives that can be completed by separate players.)
  • Refuse a Tower Edict.
• Black Ajah Sisters have the following abilities, in addition to their normal Ajah abilities:
  • Broken Oaths - They may attack any unit, regardless of affiliation or threat to themselves.
  • Compulsion - A mission that can gain control of an enemy unit on an adjacent tile, based on a probability roll modified by the relative strengths of the units involved. (Compelled Sister units do not gain Black Ajah abilities.)

 

[counterpoint]

Alright. Trying to get some thoughts in before you write up a summary.

Going to try to respond to your science post later today too.

Both sets of numbers were arbitrary. 30/60/90/120 makes sense since it's in line with influence levels with CSes in base CiV. But following on from discussion below about what those levels unlock, having only 3 could work as well. (40/80/120?)

The number of player limits, while arbitrary, were generally intended to make it so that the "lowest" unlock was available to everybody in all but the largest games. The next ability could become contested if a single Ajah became particularly important. The next one up is reserved for the select few top supporters. And the last one is just the most influential civ. Now that can easily be rescaled for 3 levels: almost everybody/majority who try/leader?

Yeah, that seems to make sense from a game design perspective. I was just wondering if there was something technical behind it.

Good point and I've gone back to take a look at where the idea of a "second ability" first cropped up. Very good point about potentially supplanting CS relationships with Ajah yields - I don't think we want the individual Ajahs acting as CS replacements, from a yield necessity point of view. So, having only 3 "levels" of unlocks could make sense with the bonuses you've mentioned:

Bottom level: yield bonus. This would be on the level of the yield bonus you receive from being friends with a CS. So it couldn't replace a CS relationship, but it's certainly helpful.

Middle level: Sister boost. Your Sisters from that Ajah are upgraded in some general way - likely combat strength or changing the effectiveness of their existing ability.

Top level: Extra ability for Sisters of that Ajah.

Now, do we necessarily want the Extra ability to be the top level reward? Probably, there's a certain "cool factor" in seeing one opponent use a specific ability and then knowing that they're important - that they've got the highest influence with the X Ajah. But worth discussing.

I should say first, regarding the "second ability" for sisters: I was never 100% sold that we needed to do this. I mean, it certainly befits the whole diplo with tower=quality of Sisters angle, but I do worry that it might make the sisters a bit complicated and/or unintuitive. Like, people don't love the first ability of the Grays (let's say, for example), so they never advance that Ajah, and then never learn anything about the Secondary Gray ability - which maybe they'd totally love. I mean, it's kind of cool to have an ability to unlock, but there is something a little un-civ-y, and it feels somewhat opaque from a player perspective. Well... unless the ability would be there from the start, "greyed out" (no pun intended). What do you think? In any case, I am ok with this, but I also think the stat boost could replace it (maybe a different stat than the first) or something.

I'm still having second thoughts about the Yield bonus! I mean, it seems like it'd be pretty easy to fulfill some of these Ajah quests, so it seems reasonable that (at least Authority) civs will be at the first level with potentially ALL the civs. I think this might be too many yield bonuses. I mean, we can work that into the balance of the entire game, but it seems like we might need to retweak the CS yields to make this work - CSs still feel kinda trivialized. Maybe the Ajah yield bonus is really quite small...?

As far as those bonuses, I'm also having trouble figuring out what they would all be:

Blue: Faith
Red: ??
Green: ??
Yellow: Food (how do we do that globally without it being too big, like +1 to all cities?)? Happiness?
Gray: gold?
White: science
Brown: culture?

thoughts?

In terms of this progression, though (assuming a three level scheme), I think what you have here looks good. I like the idea of the top one being the second ability, but depending on its strength, I could also see it being the second or even first one - with the stat boost being more significant as an advantage, potentially. Weirdly, we could even have the yield be the best/top one - make it substantial and thus a coveted/rare thing, and not something likely to undermine CSs.

Yeah 40/80/120 sounds good.

Though, we might want to have more unlock levels! There are some more general things we could do at differently spaced thresholds, things like:

• You receive more quests from this Ajah (might be risky - getting ahead gets you farther ahead and leads to an unstoppable incumbent, might be good to make this a relatively low influence threshold?)
• This Ajah is more likely to sway the vote of the Tower in the Compact (likely quite high threshold - it's only useful to diplo players and then only at the end of the game - potentially higher than the extra ability? What do we do about uniqueness of that ability then? What if this is a "general" threshold - it's more of an unlock for the Ajah than the player, this could apply X times where X is the number of civs over Y influence, regardless of how many have reached it?)
• This Ajah is more likely to win the election for Amyrlin (similar concerns to the Compact point above)
• This Ajah is more likely to issue an Edict on the Tower's next Edict cycle (similar again to the above - it seems like these might be good things to unlock for the Ajah when it reaches over a specific aggregate influence level? Solves the uniqueness problem with second abilities mentioned in the Compact point.)

Hmmmm, Don't love the idea of the more-quests one. That seems like it would start an avalanche.

As far as the other things.... to me, those seem like things that should work under the hood, rather than being "Rewards" for player activity. They seem like natural by-products of (usually multiple) civs spending time hanging out with the various Ajahs. I think only a few kinds of players (diplo minded authority players) would actively seek this kind of bonus, which makes it kind of no-mans land for other civs. Definitely wouldn't want civs to have to slog through rewards they dont want to get the ones they do.

That said, these can exist at certain points invisibly, I think. Maybe, for example, each civ above Threshold X increases the chances of an Amyrlin being elected to that Ajah.

Oh, I should say now before I forget, I was thinking that the whole "tower politics" thing should probably only be "checked" at certain intervals. I don't know how much info on this the players should have anyways, but I don't want a thing where every turn the world gets notified that "The Green Ajah has seized power" and then the next turn "the Red Ajah...". I do think the Ajahs themselves should "swing" by the turn, when appropriate, but I think the tower-wide balance of power should probably only be "checked" (and told to the players, IF they are told at all) at points when it matters - amyrlin elections, new edicts, etc. Right?

Another thought on that note - what about "tower intrigue"? Learning the power structures of the tower, how votes are going - do civ's get access to this by having a certain Tower influence level? Influence with Ajahs (if so, then what is the difference between Green intrigue and Blue? Or is this through spies? Or.... doesn't exist at all?

Nothing explicit like a yield or bonus to specific units, only as a modifier for your influence gains with the Ajahs and as a general steering mechanism for the Tower's diplomatic actions.

good.

Good point, yeah, let's reward/punish diplo decisions at the Tower level. I think we could have some actions that affect Ajah-level directly as one-offs? Like choosing Oppression?

I suppose you could do a one-time hit at those instances. But, I guess I think of it this way - we should only have one-off or continuous Ajah hits/bonuses if the action in question only apply to one or a few ajahs. If presumably all Ajahs would be of like-mind on a decision, it should be a Tower boost, right. In any case, it should feel consistent and should make sense to the player. So, brainstorming for examples:

- Choosing some kinds of social policies that are anti-saidin (fear?) might boost with Red. Choosing ones that favor saiding would hurt with Red.
- Choosing oppression, however, affects ALL ajahs so makes sense as a Tower-wide thing, right?
- killing shadowspawn makes sense for Green... but that's something the whole Tower would like, so I don't think it's necessary.
- Declaring war on a civ should probably hurt the tower as a whole, right?
But.... maybe DoF's make sense as a Gray boost?
- maybe building certain national wonders (academy etc.) boosts influence with certain Ajahs (white, for ex.)

I guess now that I'm running through a couple of these, it's starting to feel like the Red is the only one with any obvious examples... maybe that's ok, and the Red is the only one that is so opinionated. I think I'd prefer if its very predictable, if anything like this happens at all... maybe not worth it?

I think the reward is continuing to receive the bonuses you're getting from the Tower/Ajahs. If we give Edicts goals with feedback and rewards I think that makes them very like quests. We can stick with the Tower "expects" you to follow their word and rewards your other actions, but dislikes you if you disobey their laws.

Right. I think that's the way it should work and feel.

I was originally thinking automatic war, but now I'm thinking mainly of UI design for it, and what information is available to the player. Since there's a diplo hit for refusing an Edict, there will be some AI civs that declare war on other civs because of it. (Because they already disliked those other civs or really like the Tower). I wondered if we could present that information to the player when they're choosing whether or not to refuse, but it probably makes the AI too predictable. Definitely wouldn't be automating war declarations for human players.

Ah, right, so not *actually* automatic war, but *effectively* automatic war with certain civs at certain times. That makes sense, certainly. I still like Ajah/Generic quests popping up encouraging/rewarding civs for declaring war against repeat offenders.

As far as the player-info, I'd say "no" to telling them who would declare war on them - it's not automatic, remember? That said, I could see something like what you see in the WC: "Elayne would be angry if you ignored this edict" or even "Fortuona would be pleased if you ignored this edict (but she wouldn't tell you in a constructive way, would she?)".

Ok, sounds like their complexity is a bit much. We might have a nod to them with a ruin/NW but no mechanics dedicated to them?

Yeah, I feel like the portal stones was something RJ was playing around with in tGH - maybe trying to *not* be so LotR in his second book - and then maybe decided he wasn't that into the idea. They pop up in that book pretty prominently and then essentially disappear for the rest of the series (despite potentially being something that would be very important).

6-8 for each Ajah. So let's go for 6 for now (plus one Amyrlin quest) and we'll see if more come up. We've got about 3-5 for each Ajah at the moment, so here are some more!

Ajah Quests
Existing quests are from here.
Blue Ajah
Current quest count: 4 (discounted the Saidin quest)

Committed Beliefs
The Blue Ajah will reward the player whose Alignment changes the most in the next 30 turns. (Difference from where they started. Would we prefer this to be "gain Light" most of the time and become "gain Shadow" if the Tower is Shadow?) Global quest.

Infiltration
The Blue Ajah will reward you for successfully using a spy to cause an uprising in targeted CS. Targeted quest. (Needs a better name?)

Channeling Justice
The Blue Ajah will reward all players if two or more civilizations adopt the Authority Ideology in the next 45 turns, or if, at that time, 50% or more of the world is following the Authority Ideology. Amyrlin Quest

Re: "Committed beliefs".... I think we wouldn't phrase it "the player whose alignment changes.." would the (non-Shadow) blue really reward people who gain alot of Shadow? Shouldn't it just say "Light"? In terms of whether it makes sense as gaining shadow once the WT flips... Sure, I guess. I could also see the quest just disappearing at that point, though. Only exists when the LB is active, right? If it is disabled, do we need a replacement, or should we just run with 5 for the Blue at that point?

I think "Infiltration" isn't how the Blue would describe it... they'd be acting like it was a good thing, right. "Restoring Order." "Removing Corruption"?

"Channeling Justice" is cool, but I wonder if it's too limiting in its effective window. There would have to be a Blue Amyrlin right at the time when all the civs are adopting Philosophies (not Ideologies, right?)... This seems likely unlikely, right? Unless the expectation is that people will *change* for this purpose. Although, then again, maybe your point is more the 50% thing at the end.

Brown Ajah
Current quest count: 4

Unique Talents
The Brown Ajah will reward you for spawning a GP from one of our new WoT GP types in the next 30 turns. (Viewer, like Min, Wolfbrother, like Perrin, what are the others?) Targeted quest.

Cataloging Formations
The Brown Ajah will reward each player that controls a Natural Wonder (per Natural Wonder) in 30 turns. Global quest.

Heritage Renaissance
The Brown Ajah will reward all players if the aggregate culture per turn output of the entire world exceeds 1000 (arbitrary number, likely has to scale by players) in the next 45 turns. Amyrlin quest

all are cool. As far as the WoT GP types. Yeah, there are probably a couple more. Looking forward to tackling that soon.

Red Ajah
Current quest count: 3

Tainted Bounty
The Red Ajah will reward any civilization for killing male channeling units for the next 30 turns. Global quest. (Reward is per unit killed.)

Expanded Ranks
The Red Ajah rewards extra influence to civilizations that "own" (?) Accepted who choose the Red Ajah. Global quest.

Punishing Misuse
The Red Ajah will reward civilizations that kill non-Aes Sedai female channeling units for the next 30 turns. Global quest.

Forbidden Gaidin
The Red Ajah will reward you for disbanding the Warder of a Red Sister in the next 30 turns. Targeted quest.

Tainted bounty is cool.

The Problem I see with "expanded ranks" is that the player essentially has no control over it, right? Is there a way a player can steer their Novices/Accepted? Also, Accepted don't choose an Ajah, do they?

I think the Punishing Misuse thing is a bit more hardcore than they'd be. Killing wilders? Maybe.... disbanding friendly non-aes Sedai units? (though that would be easy to spam-build and abuse, right?) Donating them to the Ajah? I dunno, this seems a bit evil.

Forbidden Gaidin is good. I suppose there's nothing currently preventing Reds from having Warders is there? Part of me thinks there should be, though.

Maybe we could replace one of the iffy ones with one that rewards players who produce the fewest male channelers in a certain window?

Green Ajah
Current quest count: 3

Marriage Ceremony
The Green Ajah will reward you for moving a Green Sister and her warder (one of them) to the Tower (physically, on the map) to be married within the next 30 turns. Targeted quest.

Power United
The Green Ajah will reward you for Bonding a male channeling unit as a warder to a Sister in the next 30 turns. (Just a Green Sister?) Targeted quest.

Experienced Soldiers
The Green Ajah will reward any civilization for gaining promotions with Green Sister units for the next 30 turns. Global quest.

Loud, Bossy, and Usually Right
The Green Ajah will reward civilizations that use the Dragon to kill Shadowspawn. (Only works if LB enabled? Only viable for Light civs once LB starts?) Global quest.

Marriage Ceremony - so random and pointless. Nice. Shouldn't be much influence, though, right? This seems really easy.

Power United - this sounds great. The problem is that, of course, this Warder is no longer a channeler (becomes a Warder unit) - does that suck to much for the player? Or is it fine?

L,B, & UR - interesting. Yeah, this would probably be LB only. I think it only makes sense for Light civs, right? Definitely a limited window for this quest.

Yellow Ajah
Current quest count: 2 (ugh)

Back from the Brink
The Yellow Ajah will reward you for healing a unit from less than 10 health back up to full in the next 30 turns. Targeted quest.

Finery and Health
The Yellow Ajah will reward civilizations for building Tailors/buildings-that-make-clothes in cities with more than 10 (arbitrary number) population in the next 30 turns. Global quest.

Helping the Needy
The Yellow Ajah will reward you for establishing a Food trade route in the next 30 turns. Targeted quest.

Healing in Tandem
The Yellow Ajah will reward you for using a Circle of two or more Sisters to Heal a unit in the next 30 turns. Targeted quest.

Population Boom
All civilizations gain influence with the Yellow Ajah if global population exceeds <arbitrary number> (scaled by map size and probably progress through time) in the next 30 turns. Amyrlin quest

All these are great. I'd say maybe the Population Boom should definitely scale by era.)

Gray Ajah
Current quest count: 6

Influential Commerce
The Gray Ajah will reward civilizations for establishing international trade routes for the next 30 turns. Global quest.

Sure. simple enough!

White Ajah
Current quest count: 5

Release of Truth
The White Ajah will reward you for sharing intrigue with another player in the next 30 turns. (Only works against AI?) Targeted quest.

Focused Elsewhere
The White Ajah will reward the player with the lowest Faith output in the next 30 turns. (A bit weird?) Global quest.

Release of Truth... Right, only on AI. I guess that's ok go - there are always AI. I do wonder whether this makes sense as a White quest though...... seems more like a Blue or a Gray one (especially blue, I guess) to me. I think the White just kinda... doesnt care about politics, do they?

Maybe reward for setting up a Research Agreement? Does that one already exist?

Focused Elsewhere - super weird! But not necessarily a bad thing. Very white ajah. Could also see it being culture, but faith is best, IMO.

Every 20-30 turns works, we can have the Tower decide on a single "cycle length" between 20 and 30 each time it finishes a loop around all of the players. Then we can give a new Sister out every cycleLength / numPlayers turns. We could randomize the order we go through the players each cycle? That could introduce a lot more individual variance for a civ, they might get two Sisters almost back to back, or they might be almost two full cycles apart (approx 60 turns at absolute worst case).

Yeah, that seems cool. Random and unpredictable! Makes disbanding your sisters beforehand really risky though!

Capital is definitely consistent, but will be annoying for players who are conducting campaigns far from home. What if there was a "Tower Embassy" building and Sisters could 'spawn' when given to a civ next to any city that has an Embassy (or the Palace to include the capital)? Random or should the player choose? (They can sell buildings if they don't want Sisters to spawn somewhere anymore.) Does that building have other yield bonuses? (Probably, but not big ones?)

I like the Tower embassy building idea, although maybe it could be any channeler/faith related building (the Embassy sounds like a good National wonder to me). Random, I'd say, right? I'd say it should have a minor bonus otherwise.

Yeah, I think if you want to get rid of one, you should disband her. So if you're at your cap then your turn just passes by. Players can see their exact cap on the UI somewhere?

Yeah, up at the top by the other yields, I think.

I'm liking the simplicity of the CSes choosing a side and then their allies going forward can are from that Alignment. That could be an ability of the Dragon and the Forsaken? "Convert CS" which brings it over to their side but has a significant failure rate? (So Shadow diplo civs would need to be able to either control Forsaken at some point or "request" a CS converted?)

So the CSes choose sides based on their historical allies' alignments? It builds up over time? With this system we could also allow the transition via a Neutral civ, just as an alternative avenue? Doesn't seem like we want to lock CSes into or out of Neutral, only lock out direct "normal" flips from Light to Shadow or vice versa (without some concerted effort via an Alignment-flipping mechanic)?

Also, would Neutral necessarily be the "enemy" of Shadow? The way I see Neutral, they want to side with whichever Alignment is losing (barring local geographical considerations), because they want the Last Battle to go on longer. (Gives them time to win.)

Agree with all of this. Forsaken/Dragon can definitely do this. I think the Forsaken might just kidn of do it on their own accord, though.. Interesting. Are there other spy-like units that can do this (for either side) as well, or is it only these heavy hitters? I suppose there has to be a way for a Shadow civ trying to win via diplo to do it in a more targeted fashion, yes?

I think yes, based on historical alliances - maybe weighted based on how recent they are, right? I do think the Neutral CSs shoudl not be locked, though - should be able to move into other Alignments from there.

I guess you're right - NEutral shouldn't be enemy of the shadow - otherwise, they could never flip them!

Also, cool new Edict (a Generic one, or possibly for the Red?) we can have after discussing this:

Recruitment Drive
Each civilization may send two additional Novices to the Tower from now on.

Like it! Generic, I think!

OK, hopefully back for science later!

 

[counterpoint]

ah! you beat me to it. OK, back later. Can't read it now.

 

[counterpoint]

Awesome. Thanks for writing this up!

World Congress

• Rebranded and better than ever, the World Congress is now becoming the Compact of Nations. It fulfills a similar role to the World Congress in base CiV - a late game avenue for diplomatic proposals that require major civilizations to vote on their outcomes
• A list of resolutions available to the Compact can be found here, here, and here.

Question about those "heres" and the list of resolutions. I assume some of those proposed resolutions involved some comment and subsequent tweaking. Do those linked-to- posts reflect any tweaking, or do we need to collate a new "final" list here? Or, do you think we won't need that.

The White Tower - Structure

• The White Tower acts as an independent diplomatic entity, exerting its influence on all civilizations through a variety of mechanics.
• The Tower votes independently in the Compact.
• The Tower has its own diplomatic assessment of each major civilization, representing how the Tower feels about that player. This is represented through a Tower-level influence metric, where players can lose and gain favor through diplomatic actions.
• Within the Tower, there are seven Ajahs, each of which can have varying influence over the greater Tower's actions - dependent on their relative influence. Players can have influence with each individual Ajah, representing how much that player has contributed to that Ajah's standing.
• The Tower can issue Edicts, which function much like Compact resolutions (affecting players as an external entity) but can be refused at risk of significant penalties.

great

The White Tower - Quests

• Each Ajah within the Tower acts as a separate stream of quests. Quests are an opportunity for civilizations to gain influence with the Ajah that proposed them.
• Some quests are available only to a specific player, others to all players that have met the Tower.
• The intended frequency of quests is specified in relative terms to CSes from base CiV - quest activity from the Tower should approximate double to triple the normal quest count from a single CS, when viewed from the perspective of a single major civilization.
• Some quests are Generic and can be proposed by any Ajah, others are only available to specific Ajahs.
• Lists of the quests available are here and here.
• Each Ajah has a single quest that is only available when the current Amyrlin has been raised from that Ajah.

Good, good.

Same question, this time regarding any tweaks to those quests and the necessity or lack thereof of an authoritative quest-list (for instance, considering the couple of comments I have in the post above).

Are we settled on the actual pace (in turns) and manner (i.e. randomness) of how quests are given, and the logic of who gives each quest? If we are, we could specify it here.

The White Tower - Edicts

• The Tower issues Edicts at an increasing pace as the game goes on - becoming closer together the more turns have elapsed since the beginning of the game.
• Some Edicts are refusable, others are not, mostly influenced by the logical flavor of whether "refusing" the action that Edict represents makes any sense.
• Which Edicts are issued by the Tower is influenced by which Ajahs have the most influence at a given time.
• The Tower issues Edicts as a whole and which Ajah caused an Edict to be issued is not visible to major civilizations (though could be inferred by inspecting the database).
• Edicts that can be refused must be refused immediately or they become binding going forward.
• A list of Edicts available to the Tower and each Ajah can be found here, here, and here.
• Refusing an Edict subjects the refuser to diplomatic and economic penalties. These come in stages, where each refusal moves the refuser on to the next stage (in addition to the penalties of the one below):
  • The refuser receives a negative diplomatic modifier with all other major civilizations (proportional to their approval of the Tower). Their international trade routes become inversely effective - they receive receiver bonuses for establishing trade routes and their target civilization receives establisher bonuses.
  • The refuser's negative diplomatic modifier is increased. They earn less money from international trade routes and their CS relationships degrade faster.
  • The refuser can no longer establish international trade routes.
• As Ideologies are chosen, the Tower's ability to enforce these refusal penalties becomes constricted to Authority civilizations.

Same question as above, this time regarding the edicts list.

Are we settled on the way in which the Tower decides which Ajah can present an Edict?

Also, are we settled on how the Philosophy constraint (to Authority) works with other Philosophies? I was under the impression that violators (non-Authority) couldn't trade with authority civs, etc.

The White Tower - Ajahs

• Each Ajah within the Tower has its own internal goals that align with the flavor of those Ajahs from the books - manifested through their quests, Edicts, and Compact voting patterns.
• Players can only have positive influence with an Ajah where they can have negative overall influence with the Tower.
• Each player's overall Tower influence acts as a modifier on any influence that player would gain with any Ajah.
• An Amyrlin election occurs approximately once per era, at which time three candidates are raised from the three most influential Ajahs and then one is voted in to be the next Amyrlin.
• Novices and Accepted can exist within the Tower, sponsored by individual major civilizations. When starting off as a Novice or being raised to Accepted, the sponsor civilization gains influence with the Tower overall. When an Accepted is raised to full Sisterhood and chooses an Ajah, the sponsor civilization gains influence with that Ajah - but which Ajah an Accepted chooses cannot be influenced by the sponsor. Detailed progression is outlined here.

This mostly looks good, but I'm pretty sure Accepted don't choose Ajahs - that happens when/if that Accepted advances to Sisterhood. Right?

Should we be saying anything here about the Ajah bonuses and such? Influence Levels. How one gains influence, etc.

The White Tower - Distributing Sisters

• Each major civilization has a "cap" which represents the maximum number of Aes Sedai units they may control simultaneously. This cap varies dependent on civilization size, global influence, other factors?
• The Tower can offer a new Sister to a civilization, at which point that civilization picks which Ajah they want a Sister from. (Each Ajah's Sister unit is different, with different abilities, see the Channeling section.)
• The Tower gives out Sisters in cycles, looping through each player before a new cycle starts. A cycle time is defined at the beginning of each new cycle, of between 20 and 30 turns. In that time, the Tower will offer a new Sister to each major civilization that has any spare Aes Sedai capacity.

Regarding the Aes Sedai Quota - we need a name for it, right - I think Ideology should certainly play a role. I would imagine choosing Authority gives you a bonus sister or two. Oppression gives you a penalty. Maybe Liberation is neutral in that regards. Aside from that, I imagine there could be wonders and stuff that could affect this number - potentially, though, such things are already factored into our Spark calculation, so it's possible that the Aes Sedai cap could be a function of Spark.

The Ogier

• The Ogier are represented by a subset of the CSes present on each map - Stedding.
• They, like the Tower, vote independently in the Compact, but have a smaller portion of votes.
• Ogier CS relationships behave like base CiV CS relationships - a single ally > 60 influence and any number of friends > 30 influence.
• The bonuses provided by being friends/allies with a Stedding are dependent on the result of the latest Stump.
• A Stump occurs every era and its results are influenced by the civilizations allied with Stedding, or predefined flavors when allies are not present. (Open question: how are those results influenced?)
• Channeling does not work on hexes owned by Stedding CSes (neither while standing on those tiles nor aiming into them from outside.
• Stedding do not declare war alongside their allies like normal CSes.
• Aggression against any individual Stedding will result in significant military and diplomatic consequences, as outlined here

I was still under the impression that maybe unlimited (or maybe just multiple) civs could be allied with a given stedding. I don't know. Maybe we never really delved into that (got sidetracked by the war thing, I think). Would that make it too hard to figure out who the Stump would vote for?

As far as how the results are influenced... I guess it simply depends on the kinds of things the Steddings are doing. Obviously, in the Compact they will vote in the best interest of themselves and their allies (likely to be a bunch of civs, since each stedding could have different civ allies, yet they vote as a block in the Compact) but what exactly is the Stump doing? What kinds of things does it decide?

High King

• Approximately around the end of the fourth era, a single major civilization is elected High King.
• Who is elected High King is dependent upon a series of requirements, and the first civilization to complete any of them becomes High King. These are enumerated here.
• The High Kingship lasts for 25 turns - during which time the High King civilization is in a Golden Age.
• The High King civilization may choose a "tax" to impose on the other Provinces of their kingdom. (Examples include a gold tax - a fraction of all GPT generated by all civilizations is sent to the High King instead. Similar choices exist for Food, Production, Science, Culture, Tourism.)
• The High King may choose to change this tax to a different one at the halfway point of their reign.
• The High King civilization has a selection of bonuses that must be bestowed upon the different Provinces of the kingdom. Bonuses are divided up into four categories:
  • Powerful
  • Significant
  • Meager
  • Nothing
• Based on the number of major civilizations still alive in the game, a different number of bonuses will be available, so that one player will always receive no bonus.
• When the High Kingship ends, war and turmoil engulf the land, diplomatic relationships become strained. (Do we have more specifics for what happens here?)

First off, isn't it also the case that for those 25 turns, there is a mandatory peace treaty?

I think we didn't really say much on the aftermath, but I think we found the idea of a mandatory war kind of fun. Like, everybody is at war with everybody for a minimum of 10 turns, and peace can be reestablished after that. Kind of neat - see who tries to take advantage and who doesn't.

That said, it also wcould be problematic. How would the AI react to that? Would it always go in full on as if it were a "real" war?

Also, how could we make this not shatter everybody's economy - it'd kill all trade routes, right? I mean, a little strain is ok, but not a total collapse, right?

Suggestions?

Maybe all CSs declare war?

I think a key thing, though, is that the long-term diplo impact on whatever we do should be nil, unless a civ actually does something "bad" during this time. Ideally, DoF civs should be heading back towards a DoF after the chaos ends, providing neither does anything terrible in the interim. Is this possible?

Crossover with the Last Battle

• The Last Battle's permanent war modifies several diplomatic entities significantly.
• The Compact of Nations remains in effect throughout the Last Battle and votes go on as normal, though AI civilizations may act in favor of their alignment over themselves.
• The Tower may be Turned to the Shadow by concerted effort outlined in previous sections' discussions, particularly Channeling and the Last Battle. If this occurs, several quests and Edicts have their effects/requirements modified.
• The Tower's Edicts only apply to the Alignment that the Tower is aligned with (either Light or Shadow).
• City-states cannot declare war with other major or minor civilizations that share an Alignment with them.
• City-states choose an Alignment when the Last Battle commences, based on the Alignment-over-time they have accrued from their past allies and some initial flavoring that varies per city-state. (Their choice may place them at odds with their current ally.)
• City-states' alignment can be undermined from the opposing side of the Last Battle (using the Forsaken/the Dragon?) in order to flip their allegiance. Alternatively, city-states could switch sides by allying with a Neutral civilization between two separate Light/Shadow allies.

Shouldn't CS's be able to "declare war with other major or minor civilizations that share an Alignment with them"? I know we said it shouldn't be automatic war, but if, say, a Shadow civ ATTACKS a CS (maybe they want to puppet it?), the CS would be at war, right?

Hopefully we're figure out the forsaken/dragon thing (discussed in my earlier response.

 

[counterpoint]

OK, finally getting a chance to respond to the Science stuff!

I'm a big fan of the flavor of this idea - it works really well in the WoT-verse, I think. It's also going the right way with interactivity - that should be one of our goals, to make it so that you need to "deal with" other civs to achieve a victory.

There are a few quandaries with giving away techs like this though. How do we deal with very small maps? If there is only one other player, you'll need to give them all to him/her. Also, how do wars interact with this? The Last Battle makes it particularly problematic, where you now have blocks of co-operating civilizations. (Shadow civs have very limited options for who to give techs to - Neutral civs only again.)

Having to share with the whole world is probably better than having to share with X civs. Otherwise the science victory actually gets easier for larger map sizes (inverse of Domination and Diplomacy, making it very unlikely that the largest maps would ever have Domination or Diplomacy wins, because in pursuing them you'd hit the science one first) since you can give the techs to the weakest players.

This also seems to be interacting with other civs primarily conceptually - through menus and trade talks? I think having those interactions take place actually on the map is quite important. My favorite science victory-related CiV story is a race I had against the AI in one game. We were both going for the science victory - both building spaceship parts. I won by the slimmest of margins and then, only because I attacked him a killed a *spaceship part* (the last one he needed) as he was moving it toward his capital. When Firaxis were spicing up the cultural victory for BNW they did a very similar thing - by making Antiquity Sites and Archeologists part of the map and visibly competing between civs (as well as the menu-driven stuff, tourism vs culture, also being a big improvement), it became a lot more interactive.

We don't necessarily want to do another "hunt for all of this stuff" on the map. It might be as simple as adding a "Scientist Envoy" unit that actually "gives" the "Innovation" technology away at a foreign capital (you might have to clear a path for the envoy through a warzone - very cool!).

Is there a way to invert the relationship with the technologies and "demonstrating" innovations - in that you make other civs come to you to get them? There are some cool mechanics in some other games where you can create a prisoner's dilemma for the other players. Anyone who sends an envoy to a civ can participate in a demonstration and receive the innovation tech for their home civ. But if everybody does it, the host civ gets closer to the scientific victory. But if the Sea Folk are the only ones who show up, the Sea Folk get a bonus that no one else does, and the host isn't overly helped by it?

The problem with that approach is that you can't win by virtue of your own success. Other players need to willingly take actions that can potentially make you win. It would also never work in multiplayer - humans would completely metagame around it and avoid causing any wins.

I'm also not sure about the overlapping part of the Innovations - where someone else has already demonstrated Lightning Jars - why is it beneficial for you to do so too? Do the demonstrations have different secondary bonuses for the non-host participants, so that the primary benefits aren't redundant when they reach the Lightning Jars tech themselves? Even then, why would anyone want/participate/be helped by being a non-host participant the second time around?

I do really like the flavor of this idea - there are just a lot of questions about making it interactive, fun, and fair!

OK, all good points, and you've given me a lot to stew over. Before I respond fully, I wanted to check to make sure I'm hearing and addressing all the issues. This is what you brought up (that I'm hopefully addressing):

- Dealing with small numbers of civs/maps
- Dealing with civs at war
- Sharing with one civ vs sharing with the whole world
- related, easiness of simply sharing with the weakest civs
- lack of any meaningful interaction - possibility of Scientist Envoy
- possibility of civs voluntarily coming to "get" your innovation.
- problem with overlap of techs and repeatability of Innovation sharing.

OK, so here are my evolved thoughts. I'm presenting this as a proposal, but putting in discussion and stuff in-line. So, it's not really a proposal at all, I guess.

1)As presented before, there is a set of Innovations (7, 8?) that must be Showcased. Each one has a late-game tech associated with it (maybe some of them are found on the same tech). It's certainly likely that these techs will also serve different functions as well (units, buildings, etc.) Each Innovation can only be Showcased once by a particular civ.

2) In order to Showcase an Innovation, the civ must produce a non-rushable Envoy unit. (called an Envoy, an Academic, Scholar?). This unit is non-combat, but it is not technically speaking a civilian. The Showcase unit can be rebuilt if it is destroyed.

I definitely like the idea of the Envoy. You're absolutely right that was I had before was merely the *illusion* of interactivity.

I thought a lot on the notion that other civs could come to get them. I think it would cause a major logjam - the prisoner's dilemma notion you speak of is compelling, but honestly I just don't think it would happen. Close to the end of the game, I'd imagine nobody would be eager to give anybody an advantage. Also, it does take too much out of the hands of the Science Player, IMO. If the AIs are suckers for it, but humans aren't... that's a problem - a Player should be able to LOSE to an AI getting a Science win, right?

The unit can't attack or anything, but I note that it is not a civilian simply to suggest that it not be a one-hit kill. I don't know how strong it is - not strong, probably -but it can probably survive a couple hits.

3)Each Envoy unit is either A)[/B ]unique to a particular Innovation (e.g., build a "Steam Power Envoy) or B)generic, allowing the Civ to select which Innovation to Showcase once it has been brought to the proper location.

This depends mostly on the aesthetic we're looking for. I think having a single unit, with choices, is a little more elegant, but it's also perhaps more confusing and difficult to implement - how many could a civ have active or under-construction at a particular time? Having a specific unit is easier to control - no backup units allowed! - but also means we could have a rather long list of Envoys on the Production screen. I think that's probably OK, though.

In any case, the civ is certainly limited in the number they can build - essentially, one at a time of each type (whether it's actually a unique unit or not) unless it gets destroyed.

4)The envoy must be brought into another civ's A)territory or B) city (adjacent tile, like a Missionary), and must perform the Showcase mission. Envoys can move freely within any civ's borders.

It seems to me that this is an essential component, regardless of whether the eventual bonus/yield is global or civ specific. To me, this is where the interactivity comes in.

Presumably, unless you're sending into territory adjacent to your own, you'd need to escort your Envoy unit. Even your allies (not multiplayer team members) would have every reason to kill your ally.

As far as territory vs city.... if we think City isn't too impossible, I prefer that. Territory seems kinda cheap - suddnetly an envoy is in their view and then BAM it showcases - Gr Musician style. Is getting to a city too hard, though? I do think it should be ANY city, though - making it the capital seems way too challenging.

Obviously an escort would be unable to enter borders without an open borders agreement or a war declaration. Thus, the non-civilian status of the Envoy.

I think war doesn't have to change this at all, really - nor would the last battle. You still have to get a unit close to the city safely.

5)The Showcasing civ can only send an Envoy to a civ that, roughly speaking, hasn't received an Envoy from the Showcasing civ before. In some map sizes, a civ may Showcase to the same civ multiple times.

Here is where I try to tackle the balance issues you wisely brought up.

I think that, roughly speaking, you have to share to everybody - note, this doesn't address who is actually receiving the BONUS, just who receives the showcase. This is to present a civ from simply storming a single weak neighbor. This forces the civ out into the world, defending their units and scouting for good cities to surprise-Showcase.

Of course, the two main issues here are small maps and big maps. My suggestion is that the amount of Showcases you can do with a single civ (and thus, the number of different civs you must interact with) should be a function of how many civs are on that map. I'm thinking that (assuming there are 8 Showcases, to make the math elegant, each civ can receive your showcase a number of times equal to 16 / Total # of civs (round up or down? see 12 civs below)

So:

Duel Map (2 civs) - 8 possible shares (only need to share with one civ)
4 civs - 4 possible shares per civ (only need to share with 2 civs, can ignore one enemy)
8 civs - 2 possible shares per civ (need to share with 4 civs, can ignore three enemies)
12 civs - 1 or 2? shares per civ (need to share with either 8 or 4 civs, so could ignore either 3 or 7 enemies). My hunch says 1.
16 civs - 1 share per civ (need to share with 8 civs, so can ignore 7 enemies).

Any of these values could of course be adjusted arithmetically for balancing purposes, or, alternatively, we could allow only a certain number of civs to be Showcased a second time. For example, in an 8 civ game (only need to share with 4 distinct civs according to the above), maybe we could make it so only 2 of the civs could be Showcased a second time - forcing the civ to share with a minimum of 6 different civs - only letting them ignore 1 enemy. Or, it could be 3, which would allow them to ignore two enemies. Thoughts?

Should the Total # of civs be based on the map creation and the game start (probably not), or based on who'se currently left (probably best) -like if Cairhien is trying to win Science in a formerly 16-civ game, but the Seanchan have eliminated all other civs, Cairhien can Showcase to Seanchan 8 times, right?

Also, should we allow people to Showcase to the same civ consecutively, or (not counting Duel maps) should they have to Showcase to a second civ before they do the first again. Essentially, this would prevent the "sneak attack", since a civ might be ready and expecting the second Envoy.

The idea here, again, is to make the player find new places to find their victory. They couldn't really turtle. That said, by allowing them flexibility as to who exactly they want to share with. It's not so simple that every civ will immediately declare war on the civ - nobody knows exactly where they'll send the Envoy.

Obviously, a Duel map would be quite hard, but I can't see a way around that. And I do like that this makes victory on a huge map a little less easy than the CiV science victory, which, as you note, doesn't "scale up" as well as diplo and dom do.

6)Upon completion of the Showcase, A) the receiving civ, or B) all civs receive a certain bonus.

Whether the bonus is global or specific should depend entirely on the nature of the bonus, as well as the parameters we defined above (how many civs, etc.).

Certainly it makes intuitive sense that it should be civ-specific, but you are correct in that this would encourage a Civ to merely target the weakest civs. That said, if they are forced to interact with a large number of civs (see above), then this ideally shouldn't be much of a problem.

A global bonus is compelling for its elegance, especially if the bonuses are yield based or something like that. It's certainly the most pain-free, and there's no problem with figuring out who's received which bonuses, etc. - everybody would receive all the bonuses.

One nice thing about making them civ specific is that - coupled with the limited number of times you can give a bonus to a civ - is that it does present some strategic possibility. You might want to give a certain civ the science boost Bonus, and another the gold boost, etc.

With a global bonus, the Showcasing civ receives the bonus as well, right? Does the Showcasing civ receive anything if its a localized bonus (aside from inching towards a science victory)?

Lastly, if we go with Local bonuses, can one civ receive the same Showcase from different civs at different times, or is that Showcase "locked" for that civ once they've received it. My hunch is "no" - that could theoretically make a science victory impossible under certain situations, right?

7)The bonuses received by the civ(s) should be thematically appropriate for the Innovation, likely either A)a science dump, B)some appropriate yield, or minor ability or C)whatever ability originally conferred by that tech. (production of a unit, etc.). Options B and C should be for a limited number of turns.

I am partial to B, the thematically appropriate yield or minor ability. Science dump seems rather bland - and somewhat lame, as winning a Science victory helps others win their science victory - and The tech-based ability has lots of problems, as previously discussed in this thread.

I'm thinking these abilities/yields would last for a certain amount of turns (20?), and could potentially be stackable as local bonuses (multiple civs Showcasing the same Innovation to one civ) and would by necessity be stackable if we chose global bonuses. Thoughts?

Based on the list I threw out before, I could see these kinds of yields/bonuses.

- Giant Crossbow - weird... maybe +1 range for ranged units for awhile? +X% damage from ranged units? Granting the construction of a G. Crossbow unit for awhile?
- Lightning Jar - production bonus, probably
- Glider - hmmm.... extend sight range of territory/units? Reveal map? Provide glider unit for awhile?
- Paddlewheel riverboat - +gold/range of trade routes along rivers? All trade routes?
- Steam Engine - + production? +gold of trade routes? faster movement on roads?
- telescope - +science

Note, I'd figure that these bonuses would not be the same as the bonuses you'd get from researching the tech itself (e.g., an actual steam-powered unit)

8)The science victory is completed when all Innovations have been Showcased by a single civ.

OK, new thoughts on these... new thoughts?

 

[S3rgeus]

I should say first, regarding the "second ability" for sisters: I was never 100% sold that we needed to do this. I mean, it certainly befits the whole diplo with tower=quality of Sisters angle, but I do worry that it might make the sisters a bit complicated and/or unintuitive. Like, people don't love the first ability of the Grays (let's say, for example), so they never advance that Ajah, and then never learn anything about the Secondary Gray ability - which maybe they'd totally love. I mean, it's kind of cool to have an ability to unlock, but there is something a little un-civ-y, and it feels somewhat opaque from a player perspective. Well... unless the ability would be there from the start, "greyed out" (no pun intended). What do you think? In any case, I am ok with this, but I also think the stat boost could replace it (maybe a different stat than the first) or something.

Yeah, we can have it greyed out or represented on the Tower UI (display the threshold), and have it as part of the tutorial. (Or all of the above.) We definitely don't want players to miss that it's possible to unlock another ability this way. Greyed out probably makes the most sense because then we can describe the ability in place as well, whereas that would be more difficult embedded in the Tower UI. (The tutorial should mention the extra abilities as well, I'd imagine.)

I'm still having second thoughts about the Yield bonus! I mean, it seems like it'd be pretty easy to fulfill some of these Ajah quests, so it seems reasonable that (at least Authority) civs will be at the first level with potentially ALL the civs. I think this might be too many yield bonuses. I mean, we can work that into the balance of the entire game, but it seems like we might need to retweak the CS yields to make this work - CSs still feel kinda trivialized. Maybe the Ajah yield bonus is really quite small...?

I'd say the bonus is definitely small, if we go with a friend-level CS bonus then that should be fine. You never aim to be friends with a CS, you aim to be allies, but the friends bonuses are incrementally helpful when you get them as a part of doing other things, or in aggregate if you're friends with a lot of CSes. (So maritime CS is +1 food in capital, Cultural is +4 culture, Religious is +4 faith, Mercantile is like +3-5 happiness (dependent on very opaque magic happiness restrictions in base CiV - took me forever to get a sensible grasp on that), military is one unit per ten gajillion years. The Ajahs could be on a similar level.)

As far as those bonuses, I'm also having trouble figuring out what they would all be:

Blue: Faith
Red: ??
Green: ??
Yellow: Food (how do we do that globally without it being too big, like +1 to all cities?)? Happiness?
Gray: gold?
White: science
Brown: culture?

thoughts?

I've been reading around about the Ajahs as we've been doing this (mostly for inspiration for quests/edicts) and one interesting thing came up about the Red Ajah. Their purpose may not initially have been focused as solely on finding and Gentling male channelers as it is in the Third Age, but could also have been about tracking down misuse of the One Power and actively recruiting new Sisters for the Tower. (Plays well with the fact that the Red Ajah is the largest Ajah in terms of numbers.) So their yield could be Spark? That's super powerful though, +1 is the most we could ever offer and that's a lot.

There's also the great counter-argument that the books hint that the Reds' quest to Gentle male channelers is breeding channeling out of the Westlands population.

The Blue Ajah could alternatively produce Alignment? Appropriate alignment for the Tower, which will be Light 90% of the time.

I'd say the Greens could do happiness or some kind of military bonus?

I'm happy with Browns having culture.

Grey could be gold directly or it could be an additional trade route slot? An additional vote in the Compact? Neither of those are yields, but then CSes aren't all yields either (Military obviously isn't yield, and Mercantile's ally bonus is actually access to its luxuries, not happiness, as of a patch sometime in 2013).

In terms of this progression, though (assuming a three level scheme), I think what you have here looks good. I like the idea of the top one being the second ability, but depending on its strength, I could also see it being the second or even first one - with the stat boost being more significant as an advantage, potentially. Weirdly, we could even have the yield be the best/top one - make it substantial and thus a coveted/rare thing, and not something likely to undermine CSs.

Totally see what you mean here, particularly after going through some of the potential yield (and other) bonuses above. If it lets us do more powerful, interesting things (like extra trade routes/votes/Spark) then maybe the "yield" bonus should be at the top? Or do we want a fourth level that contains those kinds of bonuses, separate from a smaller yields level?

Hmmmm, Don't love the idea of the more-quests one. That seems like it would start an avalanche.

As far as the other things.... to me, those seem like things that should work under the hood, rather than being "Rewards" for player activity. They seem like natural by-products of (usually multiple) civs spending time hanging out with the various Ajahs. I think only a few kinds of players (diplo minded authority players) would actively seek this kind of bonus, which makes it kind of no-mans land for other civs. Definitely wouldn't want civs to have to slog through rewards they dont want to get the ones they do.

That said, these can exist at certain points invisibly, I think. Maybe, for example, each civ above Threshold X increases the chances of an Amyrlin being elected to that Ajah.

Cool, these going on behind the scenes sounds good to me. (Bar the more quests one, agreed on the avalanche.)

Oh, I should say now before I forget, I was thinking that the whole "tower politics" thing should probably only be "checked" at certain intervals. I don't know how much info on this the players should have anyways, but I don't want a thing where every turn the world gets notified that "The Green Ajah has seized power" and then the next turn "the Red Ajah...". I do think the Ajahs themselves should "swing" by the turn, when appropriate, but I think the tower-wide balance of power should probably only be "checked" (and told to the players, IF they are told at all) at points when it matters - amyrlin elections, new edicts, etc. Right?

Totally, I wouldn't expect the players ever get notified about internal changes like majority Ajah within the Tower. They can check through the Tower UI every turn if they want, but can happily ignore it and only get quest, edict, and Amyrlin notifications.

Another thought on that note - what about "tower intrigue"? Learning the power structures of the tower, how votes are going - do civ's get access to this by having a certain Tower influence level? Influence with Ajahs (if so, then what is the difference between Green intrigue and Blue? Or is this through spies? Or.... doesn't exist at all?

Does it exist? Seems a shame to not have any way to interact with the Tower via spies. At the same time, it sounds complicated. On the other hand, all of the information people could be digging has to already exist for the other Tower systems. I'm not sure.

I suppose you could do a one-time hit at those instances. But, I guess I think of it this way - we should only have one-off or continuous Ajah hits/bonuses if the action in question only apply to one or a few ajahs. If presumably all Ajahs would be of like-mind on a decision, it should be a Tower boost, right. In any case, it should feel consistent and should make sense to the player. So, brainstorming for examples:

- Choosing some kinds of social policies that are anti-saidin (fear?) might boost with Red. Choosing ones that favor saiding would hurt with Red.
- Choosing oppression, however, affects ALL ajahs so makes sense as a Tower-wide thing, right?
- killing shadowspawn makes sense for Green... but that's something the whole Tower would like, so I don't think it's necessary.
- Declaring war on a civ should probably hurt the tower as a whole, right?
But.... maybe DoF's make sense as a Gray boost?
- maybe building certain national wonders (academy etc.) boosts influence with certain Ajahs (white, for ex.)

I guess now that I'm running through a couple of these, it's starting to feel like the Red is the only one with any obvious examples... maybe that's ok, and the Red is the only one that is so opinionated. I think I'd prefer if its very predictable, if anything like this happens at all... maybe not worth it?

I was thinking more along the lines of civilizations doing things that the Tower in general and all Aes Sedai would vehemently disapprove of (like choosing a Seanchan-like Ideology or declaring war on the Tower). While we do modify their overall Tower influence, which makes it more difficult for them to keep up their relationships going forward, it seems strange to me that the Ajahs themselves wouldn't react to that as well. No matter how much the Green Ajah likes you, they will disapprove of you keeping channelers as damane.

Ah, right, so not *actually* automatic war, but *effectively* automatic war with certain civs at certain times. That makes sense, certainly. I still like Ajah/Generic quests popping up encouraging/rewarding civs for declaring war against repeat offenders.

As far as the player-info, I'd say "no" to telling them who would declare war on them - it's not automatic, remember? That said, I could see something like what you see in the WC: "Elayne would be angry if you ignored this edict" or even "Fortuona would be pleased if you ignored this edict (but she wouldn't tell you in a constructive way, would she?)".

Good idea - diplo feedback like the WC resolutions proposal popup makes a lot of sense!

Re: "Committed beliefs".... I think we wouldn't phrase it "the player whose alignment changes.." would the (non-Shadow) blue really reward people who gain alot of Shadow? Shouldn't it just say "Light"? In terms of whether it makes sense as gaining shadow once the WT flips... Sure, I guess. I could also see the quest just disappearing at that point, though. Only exists when the LB is active, right? If it is disabled, do we need a replacement, or should we just run with 5 for the Blue at that point?

I went with 'changes' rather than 'gain Light' as the primary for gameplay reasons, despite the flavor weirdness. It seems like the Tower is quite Light-leaning, which makes sense in universe, but Shadow players do need to be able to interact with the Tower for the Turning mechanic. I wasn't sure if we wanted another quest that Shadow players either need to ignore or work against themselves. But 'gain Light' definitely makes the most flavorful sense.

I think "Infiltration" isn't how the Blue would describe it... they'd be acting like it was a good thing, right. "Restoring Order." "Removing Corruption"?

Restoring Order all the way!

"Channeling Justice" is cool, but I wonder if it's too limiting in its effective window. There would have to be a Blue Amyrlin right at the time when all the civs are adopting Philosophies (not Ideologies, right?)... This seems likely unlikely, right? Unless the expectation is that people will *change* for this purpose. Although, then again, maybe your point is more the 50% thing at the end.

Yeah, the 50% at the end is intended to make it applicable any time from just-before-Ideology-adoptions to the end of the game. (It's more predictable when everyone has chosen already, but there is room for sudden upsets in close matches when civs are eliminated.)

The Problem I see with "expanded ranks" is that the player essentially has no control over it, right? Is there a way a player can steer their Novices/Accepted? Also, Accepted don't choose an Ajah, do they?

Totally agree, that was my main gripe with this quest too. I don't think players can steer their Novices/Accepted. Accepted choose which Ajah they're going to join when they're being promoted to full Sisterhood, right? (The only full Aes Sedai without an Ajah is the Amyrlin, so the Accepted choose first/at the same time as being raised.)

I think the Punishing Misuse thing is a bit more hardcore than they'd be. Killing wilders? Maybe.... disbanding friendly non-aes Sedai units? (though that would be easy to spam-build and abuse, right?) Donating them to the Ajah? I dunno, this seems a bit evil.

Disbanding sounds much better! Agreed, killing them is a bit evil. Also lines up with the White Ajah's similar quest for disbanding Path spreader units.

Forbidden Gaidin is good. I suppose there's nothing currently preventing Reds from having Warders is there? Part of me thinks there should be, though.

I've been considering that but I think it's too big of a disadvantage for the Red Sisters. We'd need to seriously pump up their ability for it to offset the loss of the Warder capability. I feel like this quest (kind of like the Tower Schism one) nods towards the flavor of the books, but steers clear of the direct translation for gameplay reasons.

Maybe we could replace one of the iffy ones with one that rewards players who produce the fewest male channelers in a certain window?

This could be a good replacement for the 'Expanded Ranks' quest?

"Stifle the Madness"?

Marriage Ceremony - so random and pointless. Nice. Shouldn't be much influence, though, right? This seems really easy.

I liked that one too! It might be easy or it might be quite hard. You might be on a large map with several very angry civilizations between you and the Tower.

Power United - this sounds great. The problem is that, of course, this Warder is no longer a channeler (becomes a Warder unit) - does that suck to much for the player? Or is it fine?

We could have a special case for channeling warders in general? "Channeling Warder" unit type? Seems like an awesome combo.

L,B, & UR - interesting. Yeah, this would probably be LB only. I think it only makes sense for Light civs, right? Definitely a limited window for this quest.

Yeah, could we expand it? It's quite cool as it is, but not particularly available. We'd obviously adjust the quest selection AI so it would only give this quest when it was possible.

Release of Truth... Right, only on AI. I guess that's ok go - there are always AI. I do wonder whether this makes sense as a White quest though...... seems more like a Blue or a Gray one (especially blue, I guess) to me. I think the White just kinda... doesnt care about politics, do they?

One of the other things the White Ajah has that we haven't touched on is their disbelief in the utility of lies. I figured telling other civilizations about the secret plots of others could be seen as foiling lies?

Maybe reward for setting up a Research Agreement? Does that one already exist?

There's already a "most research agreements in the next X turns" one.

Focused Elsewhere - super weird! But not necessarily a bad thing. Very white ajah. Could also see it being culture, but faith is best, IMO.

Culture might be a good idea though. Though low Faith output is easier for Shadow civs, and just above I was talking about Shadow civs needing ways to interact with the Tower. And there are several prominent Black Ajah Sisters from the White. Yeah, Faith is good.

I like the Tower embassy building idea, although maybe it could be any channeler/faith related building (the Embassy sounds like a good National wonder to me). Random, I'd say, right? I'd say it should have a minor bonus otherwise.

I was thinking this would be a building that doesn't have other significant bonuses, because otherwise you'll want to build it everywhere, which defeats its purpose. (We wouldn't want other buildings with this one as a prereq, for example, or be part of the primary avenue for generating Spark/Faith.) Random sounds good.

Yeah, up at the top by the other yields, I think.

Cool, like the Trade Route limit!

Agree with all of this. Forsaken/Dragon can definitely do this. I think the Forsaken might just kidn of do it on their own accord, though.. Interesting. Are there other spy-like units that can do this (for either side) as well, or is it only these heavy hitters? I suppose there has to be a way for a Shadow civ trying to win via diplo to do it in a more targeted fashion, yes?

Definitely, the Shadow civs need to be able to purposefully work towards "corrupting" a Light CS. Given the way control of the Dragon rotates through Light players (so they will always have a chance to use him to do that) and the way corruption in WoT flavor seems so much easier than purification, what if Shadow spies can Turn CSes (slowly compared to Forsaken/Dragon, but will need to be fast enough to make a difference in the Last-Battle-has-started-already timescale) but Light spies can't Turn Shadow CSes? Completely on board with the Forsaken Turning CSes of their own accord as well.

I think yes, based on historical alliances - maybe weighted based on how recent they are, right? I do think the Neutral CSs shoudl not be locked, though - should be able to move into other Alignments from there.

Yeah, historical alliances but weighted on recency (and the "extent" of the allies' Alignment - very Shadow players corrupt the CS more quickly, for example).

Quick note, I've also edited in a list of actions that civilizations can take that affects their overall Tower influence. Let me know if anything is missing or extra.

Question about those "heres" and the list of resolutions. I assume some of those proposed resolutions involved some comment and subsequent tweaking. Do those linked-to- posts reflect any tweaking, or do we need to collate a new "final" list here? Or, do you think we won't need that.

You make good points. Those are the unedited proposal source lists in all cases, and we discuss/rename them in later posts. A definitive list is probably in order for all Edicts, Quests, and Resolutions. Watch this space!

Are we settled on the actual pace (in turns) and manner (i.e. randomness) of how quests are given, and the logic of who gives each quest? If we are, we could specify it here.

Good point - I've edited that in. I don't think we discussed the exact numbers before, so feel free to question how I got them or if you think there are better distributions!

Are we settled on the way in which the Tower decides which Ajah can present an Edict?

I've edited this in, but I don't think we discussed exact numbers before? I added some anyway. I chose them based on a few simple comparisons. I figure 30% chance of a Generic Edict seems fair. That leaves 70% to be distributed between the 7 Ajahs (not a coincidence at all), so they can fluctuate between a 5-15% range. Do we want to make that swingier? Higher maximum? Higher minimum?

Also, are we settled on how the Philosophy constraint (to Authority) works with other Philosophies? I was under the impression that violators (non-Authority) couldn't trade with authority civs, etc.

Sorry, that's what I meant. I've edited it so that it's clearer.

This mostly looks good, but I'm pretty sure Accepted don't choose Ajahs - that happens when/if that Accepted advances to Sisterhood. Right?

That's what it says: "When an Accepted is raised to full Sisterhood and chooses an Ajah"?

Should we be saying anything here about the Ajah bonuses and such? Influence Levels. How one gains influence, etc.

Edited in! Pending a compiled list of all bonuses, I'll get onto that in my next post tomorrow.

Regarding the Aes Sedai Quota - we need a name for it, right - I think Ideology should certainly play a role. I would imagine choosing Authority gives you a bonus sister or two. Oppression gives you a penalty. Maybe Liberation is neutral in that regards. Aside from that, I imagine there could be wonders and stuff that could affect this number - potentially, though, such things are already factored into our Spark calculation, so it's possible that the Aes Sedai cap could be a function of Spark.

I'm not sure if we want to link Aes Sedai quota to Spark, because that could have some weird secondary effects. (Not everything that boosts channeler breeding rate will necessarily be reflected by Aes Sedai interest.) I think it should primarily be a "worthiness" evaluation from the Tower. I can totally see Authority gives you + quota and Oppression gives -. Wonders also sounds awesome. I've edited those in.

I was still under the impression that maybe unlimited (or maybe just multiple) civs could be allied with a given stedding. I don't know. Maybe we never really delved into that (got sidetracked by the war thing, I think). Would that make it too hard to figure out who the Stump would vote for?

Yeah, I think we got sidetracked from some of the details of Stedding. I don't think it makes it more difficult to see who the Ogier would vote for (Stump and Compact are separate, right?) if each Stedding can have multiple allies - it's still basically "whoever is allied with the most Stedding" and ties are still possible. (Choose randomly in the event of a tie? Based on pre-chosen flavor? The result of the previous Stump?)

As far as how the results are influenced... I guess it simply depends on the kinds of things the Steddings are doing. Obviously, in the Compact they will vote in the best interest of themselves and their allies (likely to be a bunch of civs, since each stedding could have different civ allies, yet they vote as a block in the Compact) but what exactly is the Stump doing? What kinds of things does it decide?

Indeed, I'm not sure. In the books, the Great Stump is called to consider leaving the reality/dimension of the Westlands to escape the Last Battle. I don't think that's the kind of thing we want them to be doing? But that was the only Great Stump in the last millennium in the books.

The things they decide need to translate into yields for the Stedding until the next Stump. Perhaps they're just deciding on an "Age of X" for the Ogier? "Age of Building" gives production bonuses, "Age of Singing" gives culture, and so on?

First off, isn't it also the case that for those 25 turns, there is a mandatory peace treaty?

Mandatory peace! Edited in.

I think we didn't really say much on the aftermath, but I think we found the idea of a mandatory war kind of fun. Like, everybody is at war with everybody for a minimum of 10 turns, and peace can be reestablished after that. Kind of neat - see who tries to take advantage and who doesn't.

That said, it also wcould be problematic. How would the AI react to that? Would it always go in full on as if it were a "real" war?

Also, how could we make this not shatter everybody's economy - it'd kill all trade routes, right? I mean, a little strain is ok, but not a total collapse, right?

Suggestions?

Maybe all CSs declare war?

The AI would definitely go all in on wars it had the resources for. I don't think we want unique combat AI for the high King post-war - they should make the same military assessments they do normally, but they're just plunged into the start of it, instead of "choosing" it.

We could do random wars, instead of global? "A skirmish along your border with Andor was taken as an act of war by their leader!" "The Aiel have finally decided to enact their vengeance on the Cairhienin!" "Aemon al Thorin's foolish dream of High Kingship has crumbled, and Shara and Shienar have seized the moment to attack." We can pull in even human players automatically with that kind of flavor?

Agreed that another consequence of global war is economic meltdown, which we'd like to avoid! CSes all declaring war against each other could be fun, but probably not that effective. They don't range far with units and don't tend to conquer cities very often. CSes against major civs is inviting a sudden capture of several CSes by the larger players.

I think a key thing, though, is that the long-term diplo impact on whatever we do should be nil, unless a civ actually does something "bad" during this time. Ideally, DoF civs should be heading back towards a DoF after the chaos ends, providing neither does anything terrible in the interim. Is this possible?

Possible, but maybe a bit weird. I think that the High Kingship should genuinely shake up diplomatic relationships - break alliances and forge new ones. You might find a new ally fighting against a common foe - who used to be your friend! I think that's ok.

Shouldn't CS's be able to "declare war with other major or minor civilizations that share an Alignment with them"? I know we said it shouldn't be automatic war, but if, say, a Shadow civ ATTACKS a CS (maybe they want to puppet it?), the CS would be at war, right?

Hmmm, this is a good point, but where do we draw that line? Can Shadow civs declare war on individual Shadow CSes? (Light civs vs Light CSes?) If they're "technically" at war all the time, then they have to do all of the normal attack-each-others'-units and no-negotiating-with-at-war-civs, I'd say. If they can declare war on individual CSes then that could work - that's an explicit action from the civ that they're not going to negotiate with that CS.

Hopefully we're figure out the forsaken/dragon thing (discussed in my earlier response.

I think one more post and we'll have it!

I'm going to have to come back to the science stuff tomorrow, I'm afraid! Stand by for master lists of Edicts/Quests/Resolutions. As with the summary, red stuff needs attention. (I've also edited the summary to link forward to these new posts.)

 

[S3rgeus]

Now that I put all of these in the same place, man, we made a lot of Edicts! Awesome!

Edicts with an (R) next to their name can be refused by appropriate civilizations involved. Edicts marked with (No Shadow) cannot be issued after the Tower is Turned.

Generic Edicts
These are likely to be proposed by any Ajah and are a reflection of the Tower's general disposition. This section is where the Tower has the most overlap with the WC, but the majority of resolutions have stayed with the Compact.

Enemy of the Tower (R)
Analogous to Embargo Player in the WC, the Tower picks out a player that is acting against their interests, calling for other players to embargo (cut off all trade routes) with them. Note that unlike the WC resolution, this is refusable, so the AI is likely to refuse only if they are very staunch allies of the target civilization.

Channeler Recruitment (R)
Any civs with non-Aes-Sedai female channelers must give one/two of them to the Tower when this Edict is issued. (This is separate from a quest which asks for channelers because it is being forced on the players. It also applies to potentially active female channeling units, whereas sending units the Tower of your own volition is unlikely to involve units you want to use elsewhere.)

Bowl of Winds
Initiates a global project to find and harness the Bowl of Winds. (Loosely analogous to the World's Fair in the WC.) The highest contributor receives two Aes Sedai from the Tower and +100% culture for 30 turns. Second receive a single Aes Sedai and +50% culture per turn. Third receive +25% culture and +10% Prestige for 30 turns. (Second and third positions can be shared between several civs whose contributions were close in value.)

Completing the Bowl of Winds global project unlocks two additional Edicts that the Tower may issue:
Power-Wrought Surplus
Farms on continent X produce an additional +1 Food per turn for 40 turns.
Power-Wrought Drought
Farms on continent X produce 1 less Food per turn than normal.

Black Tower Denunciation (R)
Civilizations cannot train Asha'man units for 30 turns. (Gated by any civ researching the tech that allows the Black Tower wonder to be built and Asha'man unit to be trained.)

Free City (R)
Demands the return of a captured city to its founding civilization

Restock the Collections (R)
All strategic resources provide one less yield for 20 turns.

Ban Strategic Resource (R)
All Civilizations are reduced to zero stock of a given Strategic Resource for 20 turns.

Recalled to the Tower
Targeted Aes Sedai immediately returns to the Tower. (Removes it from control of a major civ.)

Chart the Skies
Center the minimap for all players.

Tribute to the Tower (R)
Civilizations must pay X gold per turn to the Tower for 15 turns (where X is higher for civs Tar Valon likes less).

Traveling Monopoly
+2 Maintenance cost on Traveling Grounds for 30 turns.

Recruitment Drive
Each civilization may send two additional Novices to the Tower from now on.

Recruit the Newcomers
Accepted that gain the Shawl in the next 30 turns join the <insert Ajah> Ajah. (Determined by weighted randomness based on Ajah influence.)

Infiltrate the Shadow (No Shadow)
Civilizations receive Culture of equal amount in addition to Faith when expending Heralds for the next 30 turns.

Reflections in Tel'aran'rhiod
Glimmers are created at double their normal rate for the next 30 turns.

Sisters and Dreamers Available only after <promotion> is unlocked
Projections of Aes Sedai deal double "passive damage" to other projections in Tel'aran'rhiod for the next 30 turns.

Gifted Dreamwalkers
Projections of Aes Sedai last 5 extra turns in Tel'aran'rhiod for the next 30 turns.

Available Only After World Era Reaches Era of the Dragon

Shepherd of the Dragon (No Shadow)
Cities the Dragon-spy is located in produce +50 Light and +50 Faith per turn.

Treat with the Dragon (No Shadow)
For the next 30 turns, civilizations get a 50% bonus to influence boosts with the Tower and its Ajahs while that civilization controls the Dragon.

Curing the Madness (No Shadow)
All saidin units lose a single madness tier.

Dragonsworn Denunciation (No Shadow)
For the next 30 turns, civilizations suffer a -10 penalty to Happiness when they control the Dragon.

Condemn Balefire (No Shadow)
Using the Dragon's balefire ability in the next 30 turns costs the controlling civilization one Aes Sedai quota.

Uplift the Dragon's Homeland
The civilization that the dragon was born in produces an extra 25% Culture for the next 30 turns and receives a free (no quota consumption) Aes Sedai immediately.

A Cure for Gentling
A single Gentled male channeler controlled by each civilization (if they have any) is restored to his former strength as a channeling unit.

Ajah Specific Edicts
These Edicts are made by the Tower when the noted Ajah is in a definite majority, has a significant portion of overall Tower influence (even if not the greatest - this is a function of weighted probability), or when the Amyrlin has been raised from their Ajah. They reflect the overall objectives of the Ajah concerned.

Blue Ajah
Shepherd of the Dragon
The Dragon Reborn may take actions more frequently for 30 turns. (Every 5 turns instead of every 10.)

Eyes and Ears
Civilizations allied with the Tower (positive overall influence) have active vision (no fog, can see units in real time) for 2 hexes around the capital cities of civilizations aligned against the Tower (negative overall influence) for 30 turns.

Tracing the Old Blood
Civilizations that have adopted the "Acceptance" Social Policy Tree get +2 Spark for 30 turns.

The Way to Tarmon Gai'don
All alterations to Alignment over the next 30 turns will have twice the effect.

Trusted Rulers
Capital cities receive +2 Faith for each governor used within the Civilization over the next 30 turns.

Ta'veren Guidance
+4 Faith per turn from GP tile improvements for 30 turns.

A Helping Hand
City state rebellions are 30% more likely to be successful for 30 turns. (Spying and eyes and ears.)

Proper Leadership
Governors produce +3 local Happiness for the next 30 turns.

Through Greatness
Each time a Great Person is expended in the next 30 turns, its controller receives +100 Faith.

White Ajah
Logical Focus (R)
Civilizations gain science at the expense of Culture. Every civ's cultural output is decreased by 10% and their science is boosted by 10%.

Notable Study
Trade routes with the Tower produce +3 science per turn for their founder for 45 turns.

Triumph of Rationality (R)
All Founder and Follower beliefs are half as effective for 20 turns.

Logical Paradigm (R)
All Lineage [former Pantheon] bonuses are suspended for 20 turns

Distributed Debate
Academies (or some earlier research building) produce an additional +2 science per turn for the next 30 turns.

Scholar's Birthright
Great Scientists (Great Scholar? or whatever we call our equivalent) points are accumulated 30% faster for the next 30 turns.

Veritable Distraction
Buildings that produce Science also produce +2 Great Scientist(/Scholar/whatever) points for the next 20 turns.

Sister's Keeper (pun-tastic name)
Civilizations with influence points with the Ajah the Amyrlin was raised from also receive an additional (their influence) / 10 Science per turn.

Exposing Lies
Police Stations (obviously we will rename these) can be built 30% faster for the next 30 turns.

Brown Ajah
Heritage Catalog
Antiquity Sites produce +4 culture per turn for 20 turns.

Heritage Discovery
Reveal all Antiquity Sites within 10 hexes of the hex at co-ordinate X,Y.

Traded Relics
Trade routes with the Tower produce +8 Culture per turn for 45 turns.

History in the Making
All Wonders constructed within 30 turns provide a one-time yield of +150 Prestige

Scholastic Fellowship
Civilizations receive a one-time yield of +500 Prestige when signing a Research Agreement within the next 30 turns.

Philosophical Exchange
Missionaries can spread a Path one extra time for the next 30 turns

Prized Collections
Theming bonuses are 50% larger for 30 turns.

Chronicles of History
+3 Science per turn from World Wonders. (research/knowledge about the wonders being cataloged)

Keepers of Stories
Inns (or some other building) produce +2 Happiness for 30 turns.

Red Ajah
A Healthy Fear (R)
Civilizations that have adopted the "Fear" channelers Social Policy tree get +5% science per turn for 30 turns. Those that have adopted the "Acceptance" tree get -5% science per turn for 30 turns.

Tower Inquisition
Targeted non-False-Dragon male channeler unit is immediately Gentled by agents of the Tower.

Search for the False Dragon
All Dragonsworn camps within 10 hexes of a Civilization's territory are revealed to that Civilization for 20 turns.

Cleansing the Populace (R)
All Saidin units consume one extra Spark for 30 turns.

Captive Dragon
The Dragon can take no actions for 15 turns.

Sister's Assistance
Units controlled by targeted player have +50% combat strength against male channelers and Dragonsworn for 30 turns.

Gentle Instruction
Gentling has a 20% higher success rate for the next 15 turns.

Unnecessary Distraction (R)
Warders have -20% combat strength for the next 30 turns. (Refusing means Warder units you control are unaffected.)

Wilders to Heel (R)
Non-Aes-Sedai female channeling units have -10% ranged combat strength for 30 turns.

Green Ajah
Battle Ajah Training
All Aes Sedai units have +25 ranged combat strength for 20 turns.

Righteous War
Targeted civilization that is at war with one of the Tower's enemies receives an extra Aes Sedai unit (just a Green or of any Ajah?).

Shadow Tracking
All units receive +1 Sight and +1 movement while in the Blight for 30 turns.

Shadow's Bane
Shadowspawn suffer -1 to movement while within a Civilization's territory for 30 turns.

Gift of the Gaidin
Warders gain an additional attack per turn for 20 turns

Tireless Warriors
All Aes Sedai units have +2 movement for 20 turns.

Color-Changing Cloak
Warders are invisible to foreign players unless they have an adjacent unit for 45 turns.

Sister's Wrath
Destroy targeted non-Forsaken Shadowspawn.

Learning from Men
Aes Sedai units deal splash damage like Saidin units for the next 30 turns.

Yellow Ajah
Itinerant Healers
All units within 30 hexes of the Tower (that are owned by civs the Tower is not at war with and has positive disposition towards) heal 10 HP per turn every turn, even if they took an action.

Healer's Bounty
All capitals generate +5 Food per turn for 30 turns.

Vision of Health
Each city gains +1 Faith for each 5 Food surplus for 30 turns

Herbalist Training
Wisdom Specialists produce +1 Faith and +1 Food for 30 turns.

Hearty People
Granaries (replace with our equivalent) produce +2 happiness for 30 turns.

Healing Discovery
All Sisters' "Medic-like" promotion (swap in our name for it) causes double-rate recovery for 30 turns.

Far and Wide
Aes Sedai's "Medic-like" promotion has +1 range for 30 turns.

Search for the Old Blood
Civilizations have +2 Spark for the next 30 turns.

Traveling Provisions
Food Trade routes provide an additional +10 Food per turn for 30 turns.

Grey Ajah
Bonds of Trade
Trade routes with the Tower produce an additional +10 Gold per turn for 45 turns. (Approx. 1.5 trade route lifetimes.)

Mediated Treaty (R)
Forces peace between civilization X and civilization Y. (War continues if either player refuses.)

Land Brokerage (R)
Targeted tile's ownership is transferred from its current civilization to a neighbor.

Bonds of Peace
Each Declaration of Friendship results in +5 Global Happiness for 30 turns.

Global Cooperation
Each international trade route provides +1 Local Happiness in its city of origin for 45 turns.

Disputed Route (R)
Targeted trade route is discontinued - its establisher regains their trade unit. A new trade route between its participants cannot be established for 5 turns. (Tower can use this to discourage trade with their enemies.)

Land Tax (R)
+2 Maintenance on plantations.

Alliance in Truth (R)
Declarations of Friendship also act as Defensive Pacts for the next 30 turns. (Each player must choose up front if they wish to refuse for the duration - regardless of whether or not war does end up happening in that time. Existing DoFs are included.)

Bonds of Trust
Civilizations may trade lump sum gold gifts without Declarations of Friendship for 30 turns. (Might be unbalancing on higher difficulties, not 100% clear on whether a player can make effective use of this in a small window of time.)

Black Ajah

Shadow and Truth
Path to the Light beliefs provide no yields for 30 turns.

Traveling Mishap
All units adjacent to targeted Traveling Ground (or any Traveling ground? maybe all units adjacent to a Traveling Ground in a target civilization? maybe all three options are separate instances of this same Edict?) immediately Travels to another random Traveling Ground that can be reached from there.

 

[S3rgeus]

Tower Quests
Quests come in two forms:

Targeted: The quest is given to a single player by a single Ajah and that instance of the quest is only visible to that player. Multiple instances of the same quest may be given to different players by the same Ajah (or multiple different Ajahs may give the same player separate instances of the same quest). This is analogous to the "CS wants your religion" quest in base CiV.

Global: Global quests are visible to all players that have met the Tower. A single Ajah can only have a single instance of a global quest running at once, and that same instance is participated in by all players. These are sometimes competitive objectives that reward the player completing a specific objective before all other players. This is analogous to the "research the most techs in 30 turns" CS quest in base CiV. Sometimes these are incremental rewards for actions that are universally available to all players, limited by a time frame in which those rewards take place.

Further, Amyrlin Quests require the current Amyrlin to have been raised from that Ajah in order for the Ajah to propose the marked quest. Amyrlin quests are often massive global objectives that help the Ajah more than the players. (Giving all players influence with an Ajah gives no player a relative advantage over another, but does make that Ajah drastically more influential within the Tower.)

Common Quests
Common Quests may be given by any Ajah - they are equally applicable to any Ajah, regardless of its philosophies, strengths, and weaknesses. By completing the quest's objective, you gain influence with whichever single Ajah distributed the quest.

Recruit a Novice
The Ajah requests that the player send them a non-Aes Sedai female channeling unit to become a Sister. Targeted quest.

Assist the Tower
Gain influence with the proposing Ajah in exchange for declaring war against a civilization currently at war with the Tower. Targeted Quest.

Recall Sisters
Players may return Sister units from the proposing Ajah to the Tower in exchange for influence with that Ajah for 30 turns. Global quest.

Center of the World
The proposing Ajah will reward you for connecting a road from the Tower to your capital. Targeted quest.

Free from Tyranny
The proposing Ajah will reward you for liberating a city originally owned by a player that has chosen the Authority Ideology. (Worth a lot of influence, since it's quite difficult to do.) Targeted quest.

Channeling Dogma
The proposing Ajah will reward the player that captures targeted city owned by a civilization following the Oppression Ideology. Global quest. (Or should this be any city owned by an Oppression civ and be a targeted quest? That way we could give it mainly to civs following Authority.)

Integrate the Kin
The Ajah that proposed this quest will reward you for gifting Wilder or Kin units to the Tower in the next 30 turns. Targeted quest.

Tower Schism
A single global instance of this quest exists at once but is associated with two Ajahs. Players may return Sisters to either Ajah in exchange for influence with that Ajah. Other quests completed for either Ajah give you bonus influence, but costs you influence with the other Ajah. Lasts for 40 turns. Global quest.

Blue Ajah

Ta'veren Watchers
The civilization that produces the most Great People in the next 30 turns will win this quest (ties are allowed). Global quest.

Seals Unbroken
The Blue Ajah will reward the player that keeps a Seal of the Dark One safe in their capital for the highest number of turns out of the next 30. (Having multiple Seals counts multiple times - if you've got two in your capital, you get two "keep safe turns" every turn.) Global quest. (Only enabled when Last Battle is enabled.)

Hold back the Shadow
The Blue Ajah will reward the player that generates the most faith in the next 30 turns. Global quest.

Telamon's Legacy
The Blue Ajah will reward the civilization that controls the Dragonmount Natural Wonder tile in 30 turns. Global quest.

Committed Beliefs
The Blue Ajah will reward the player whose Alignment changes the most in the next 30 turns. (Difference from where they started.) Global quest.

Restoring Order
The Blue Ajah will reward you for successfully using a spy to cause an uprising in targeted CS. Targeted quest.

Channeling Justice
The Blue Ajah will reward all players if two or more civilizations adopt the Authority Ideology in the next 45 turns, or if, at that time, 50% or more of the world is following the Authority Ideology. Amyrlin Quest

Brown Ajah

Study an Artifact
The Brown Ajah requests a specific type of Great Work (possibly a specific civilization origin, or specific subtype like artefact, artwork, music, or writing) in exchange for a Great Work from the Tower (and influence).

Gatherers of Relics
The Brown Ajah will reward the player that excavates the most Antiquity Sites in the next 30 turns (ties are allowed). Global quest.

Intriguing Specimen
The Brown Ajah will reward the player that excavates targeted Antiquity Site in the next 30 turns. Global quest.

Scrollwork Shelving
The Brown Ajah will reward you for building an inn/library/building-that-stores-books in the next 30 turns. Targeted quest.

Unique Talents
The Brown Ajah will reward you for spawning a GP from one of our new WoT GP types in the next 30 turns. (Viewer, like Min, Wolfbrother, like Perrin, etc.) Targeted quest.

Cataloging Formations
The Brown Ajah will reward each player that controls a Natural Wonder (per Natural Wonder) in 30 turns. Global quest.

Heritage Renaissance
The Brown Ajah will reward all players if the aggregate culture per turn output of the entire world exceeds 1000 (number calibration pending playtesting) in the next 45 turns. Amyrlin quest

Red Ajah

Gentle an Offering
The Red Ajah will reward you if you send them a male channeler to Gentle in the next 30 turns. Targeted quest.

Plague Upon the Land
The Red Ajah will reward any civilization that destroys targeted Dragonsworn encampment (encampment may be far from the Tower). Global quest.

Tainted Bounty
The Red Ajah will reward any civilization for killing male channeling units for the next 30 turns. Global quest. (Reward is +15 per unit killed.)

Stifle the Madness
The Red Ajah will reward the civilization that produces the fewest male channeling units in the next 30 turns. Global quest.

Punishing Misuse
The Red Ajah will reward civilizations that disband non-Aes Sedai female channeling units for the next 30 turns. Global quest.

Forbidden Gaidin
The Red Ajah will reward you for disbanding the Warder of a Red Sister in the next 30 turns. Targeted quest.

Quell the Uprisings
All civilizations gain favor with the Red Ajah if three or more False Dragons are killed in the next 45 turns. Amyrlin quest.

Green Ajah

Recruit a Warder
The Green Ajah requests a powerful warrior from you, who will act as a Warder for one of its Sisters. (Send the Tower a male unit with 3 or more promotions.) Targeted quest.

Blighted Foe
The Green Ajah will reward players for killing Shadowspawn for the next 30 turns. (+5 influence per unit) Global quest.

Marriage Ceremony
The Green Ajah will reward you for moving a Green Sister and her warder (one of them) to the Tower (physically, on the map) to be married within the next 30 turns. Targeted quest.

Power United
The Green Ajah will reward you for Bonding a male channeling unit as a warder to a Sister in the next 30 turns. Targeted quest.

Experienced Soldiers
The Green Ajah will reward any civilization for gaining promotions with Green Sister units for the next 30 turns. Global quest.

Loud, Bossy, and Usually Right
The Green Ajah will reward civilizations that use the Dragon to kill Shadowspawn. (Only works if LB enabled. Only viable for Light civs once LB starts) Global quest.

Battle Ajah
All civilizations gain favor with the Green Ajah if Green Sister units kill a global total of 100 (arbitrary number) Shadowspawn units in the next 45 turns. Amyrlin quest.

Yellow Ajah

Respect for Injury
The Yellow Ajah rewards any civilizations that fortify their units to heal during the next 30 turns. (+1 per unit per turn) Global quest.

Combat the Plague
The Yellow Ajah will reward you for building a Wisdom's Cottage/health-related-building in the next 30 turns. Targeted quest.

Back from the Brink
The Yellow Ajah will reward you for healing a unit from less than 10 health back up to full in the next 30 turns. Targeted quest.

Finery and Health
The Yellow Ajah will reward civilizations for building Tailors/buildings-that-make-clothes in cities with more than 10 population in the next 30 turns. Global quest.

Helping the Needy
The Yellow Ajah will reward you for establishing a Food trade route in the next 30 turns. Targeted quest.

Healing in Tandem
The Yellow Ajah will reward you for using a Circle of two or more Sisters to Heal a unit in the next 30 turns. Targeted quest.

Population Boom
All civilizations gain influence with the Yellow Ajah if global population exceeds <arbitrary number> (scaled by map size and probably progress through time, actual number pending playtesting) in the next 30 turns. Amyrlin quest

Gray Ajah

Entreaty for Peace
The Gray Ajah will reward you for making peace with civilization X (who you are currently at war with) in the next 5 turns. Targeted quest.

Diplomatic Consequences
The Gray Ajah will reward you for denouncing civilization X (who the Tower doesn't like) in the next 10 turns. Targeted quest.

Trade
The Gray Ajah will reward you for establishing a trade route with the Tower in the next 30 turns. Targeted quest.

National Accords
The Gray Ajah will reward the player that signs the most declarations of friendship/accords in the next 45 turns. Global quest.

Influential Commerce
The Gray Ajah will reward civilizations for establishing international trade routes for the next 30 turns. Global quest.

Our Wishes
The Gray Ajah will reward you for voting in tandem with the Tower on the next Compact resolution. Targeted quest.

Global Armistice
Every civilization is rewarded by the Gray Ajah if there is any single turn in the next 30 turns where there are no active wars. Amyrlin quest.

White Ajah

Research Fellowship
The White Ajah rewards any player that puts more than half of their cities into a science focus for at least 25 of the next 30 turns. Global quest.

Unnecessary Beliefs
The White Ajah will reward any player that disbands a missionary (substitute in whatever we call the Path-spreading unit) for the next 20 turns.

Honor the Luminaries
The White Ajah will reward the player that researches the most technologies in the next 30 turns. Global quest.

Hour of Progress
The White Ajah will reward you for progressing into a new era in the next 30 turns. Targeted quest.

Release of Truth
The White Ajah will reward you for sharing intrigue with another player in the next 30 turns. Targeted quest.

Focused Elsewhere
The White Ajah will reward the player with the lowest Faith output in the next 30 turns. Global quest.

Shared Intelligence
All civilizations gain favor with the White Ajah if 5 or more Research Agreements are signed in the next 45 turns. Amyrlin quest.

 

[S3rgeus]

Compared to the Edicts and Quests lists I've just finished up, the Compact needs some love. Do we have any more ideas for additional resolutions we could add? Some resolutions are also pending discussion that we didn't finish up earlier in the thread (I've highlighted those in red).

Any prerequisite for the resolution being proposed are noted in blue.

Compact of Nations Resolutions
These resolutions are proposed and voted on a similar format to the World Congress in base CiV. The Tower has significant voting power in the Compact and will act according to its own wishes. The Ogier also vote in a block, but have a smaller portion of votes available than the Tower.

Shun Stedding
Players can no longer establish trade routes or receive Stonemasons from Stedding.

Shun Tar Valon
Players can no longer establish trade routes or send channelers to Tar Valon. (The Tower will obviously vote against this.)

Shun other City States
Players can no longer establish trade routes with city states that are not Stedding or Tar Valon.

Shun Civilization
Same as base Embargo Civilization CiV, I think this is still appropriate.

Ban Resource
Also very similar to base CiV, bans the use of a specific Resource.

Army Tax
Very similar to base CiV, though we could exclude channeling units?

Dangers of Saidin
No civilizations may train Asha'man units, but existing Asha'man units remain in play. (Analogous to Nuclear Non-Proliferation.)

Artifacts of Legend
Renamed Cultural Heritage Sites (world wonders produce +3 Culture).

Academies of the Dragon
Renamed Scholars in Residence (civs research techs 20% faster if they have already been researched by someone else).

Wonders of the Pattern
Natural Wonders produce +10 Prestige per turn. (Because I've always been really unimpressed with Natural Heritage Site's +5 Culture per turn.)

Cultural Initiative
Analogous to Arts Funding from base CiV.

Academic Initiative
Analogous to Science Funding from base CiV.

Path of the Dragon
Designate one Path to the Light as the true and righteous Path and way to serve the Creator. (Analogous to World Religion.)

Channeling Decree
Analogous to World Ideology, but choosing between our new channeling Ideologies. Same bonuses for civilizations following that Ideology. The Tower will vote for Authority.

Reverence for Ta'veren
Standing in for Historical Monuments (GP improvements produce +4 culture). I think we can do more with GPs here though. We could give extra abilities to our cool new WoT GPs like Wolfbrother/Min/Slayer?

Revel in the Feast of Lights
Standing in for International Games, this is the "happiness" global project. Holidays seem to be the biggest thing that bring together the Westlands in WoT (and even those are relatively fragmented).

Catalog of Ter'Angreal
Mechanical replacement for the International Space Station with another global "science project".

Exile Channelers
No channeling units may be trained by civilizations. No Aes Sedai can be controlled by any civilization other than Tar Valon. All existing channeling units are disbanded (excepting Tar Valon's). Male channelers (and False Dragons) continue to spawn independently. Dreadlords and Forsaken are unaffected.

Breeding the Spark
All civilizations get +6 Spark. (This is effectively a global version of the Sharan breeding program. The Tower would probably vote against this as well, actually. Number was chosen so that it made up two 3-Spark-costing Asha'man units. Nonbos with Dangers of Saidin.)

Find the Seals (World Era reaches Era of Encroaching Blight)
Every civilization receives two Hunters of the Horn.

Seat of Stewardship (World era reaches the Era of the Dragon)
A nominated Light-declared civilization is elected as the Dragon's Steward. The nominated civilization controls the Dragon for double the usual amount of time when it is their turn to do so.

Denounce the *Side* (World era reaches the Era of the Dragon)
*Side* can be any of: Light, Shadow, and Bystanders. Each one, the side being denounced has -10 Happiness (civ-wide penalty), and others have +20 Happiness.

 

[counterpoint]

Yeah, we can have it greyed out or represented on the Tower UI (display the threshold), and have it as part of the tutorial. (Or all of the above.) We definitely don't want players to miss that it's possible to unlock another ability this way. Greyed out probably makes the most sense because then we can describe the ability in place as well, whereas that would be more difficult embedded in the Tower UI. (The tutorial should mention the extra abilities as well, I'd imagine.)

I like grayed out plus tutorial... plus Tower UI when highlighted?

I'd say the bonus is definitely small, if we go with a friend-level CS bonus then that should be fine. You never aim to be friends with a CS, you aim to be allies, but the friends bonuses are incrementally helpful when you get them as a part of doing other things, or in aggregate if you're friends with a lot of CSes. (So maritime CS is +1 food in capital, Cultural is +4 culture, Religious is +4 faith, Mercantile is like +3-5 happiness (dependent on very opaque magic happiness restrictions in base CiV - took me forever to get a sensible grasp on that), military is one unit per ten gajillion years. The Ajahs could be on a similar level.)

OK, friends-level bonus is fine.

I've been reading around about the Ajahs as we've been doing this (mostly for inspiration for quests/edicts) and one interesting thing came up about the Red Ajah. Their purpose may not initially have been focused as solely on finding and Gentling male channelers as it is in the Third Age, but could also have been about tracking down misuse of the One Power and actively recruiting new Sisters for the Tower. (Plays well with the fact that the Red Ajah is the largest Ajah in terms of numbers.) So their yield could be Spark? That's super powerful though, +1 is the most we could ever offer and that's a lot.

There's also the great counter-argument that the books hint that the Reds' quest to Gentle male channelers is breeding channeling out of the Westlands population.

The Blue Ajah could alternatively produce Alignment? Appropriate alignment for the Tower, which will be Light 90% of the time.

I'd say the Greens could do happiness or some kind of military bonus?

I'm happy with Browns having culture.

Grey could be gold directly or it could be an additional trade route slot? An additional vote in the Compact? Neither of those are yields, but then CSes aren't all yields either (Military obviously isn't yield, and Mercantile's ally bonus is actually access to its luxuries, not happiness, as of a patch sometime in 2013).

While I can certainly buy into that interpretation of the Reds, I absolutely don't think Spark is a good idea. Way too strong, and also perhaps not the right kind of yield/bonus for the ajahs. Seems like when you want more spark, you aren't going to the Aes Sedai looking for it.

I really don't know what else to get from them though. Happiness doesn't really make sense. Faith... doesn't really make sense, but I think could be justified somehow - though we seem to previously be associating Faith with the blue (the nemesis of the red). Food... doesn't really make sense. Unit maybe? Still, that feels very Green.

What if it was something weird, like 10% slower madness accumulation for saidin units? 5%? Or 5% slower MAle channeler rate (though this would be at odds with people who accidentally become friends with them). 5% combat bonus against male channelers?

I think the Blues as Alignment could work, but I don't like that it limits who would want to be (figuratively) in bed with the blues. If you don't like faith, what about +1 WoT GP Generation in the Capital? Is that a lot? I have no idea what the values in GP generation really mean. I don't have a problem with Faith, though.

Should we just make the Greens do another unit-gift (like a militaristic CS)? Maybe there's a way to differentiate it somehow - it always pops up near shadowspawn (if available?)

Hmm.... I'm kinda tempted to just keep the Grays simple. Trade Routes and votes are something I think we'd best reserve for bigger things later.

OK, so, how about you make some decisions between:

Blue - Faith, WoT GP, or Happiness
Red: -% Madness, -% Male channelers, +% combat against male channelers, or Faith
Green: Units or Happiness
Yellow - Food or Happiness
Gray - Gold, or bonus to trade routes, etc.
White - Science
Brown - Culture

Totally see what you mean here, particularly after going through some of the potential yield (and other) bonuses above. If it lets us do more powerful, interesting things (like extra trade routes/votes/Spark) then maybe the "yield" bonus should be at the top? Or do we want a fourth level that contains those kinds of bonuses, separate from a smaller yields level?

I could definitely get on board with it being a greater bonus, at the top. If so, that definitely lets us differentiate them from CS bonuses. I'd say, something like:

Blue - WoT GP type production bonus in the capital, OR random (rare) WoT GP gift
Red - +1 Spark (still a little weird IMO, both in mechanics and flavor), OR combat bonuses against male channelers OR decreased madness rate
Green - Unit gift or bonus against shadowspawn
Yellow - Happiness (probably significant)
Gray - extra trade route
White - science or periodic Great Scientist gift
Brown - periodic (uncommon) artifact gift?

Of those, one weird thing is what happens to your Gray trade route if you cease to be their "ally"? Does it disappear immediately?

Anyways, as to whether I like the yields being early or at the top of the influence spectrum... I'm not sure, but honestly making them at the top seems kind of cool. That way we can justify their differentiation from the CS ones. Because of that, I definitely don't want to go to four levels - let's avoid having the piddly bonuses at all.

As far as the first and second levels, I am torn between whether the stat boost or the ability should come first. The ability probably intuitively makes sense as the second one, though I could understand the stat boost being there too.

Does it exist? Seems a shame to not have any way to interact with the Tower via spies. At the same time, it sounds complicated. On the other hand, all of the information people could be digging has to already exist for the other Tower systems. I'm not sure.

I'm tempted to say it does in fact exist. I think a spy in the tower might be the most elegant way to do it, though (instead of Ajah's giving you info).

I was thinking more along the lines of civilizations doing things that the Tower in general and all Aes Sedai would vehemently disapprove of (like choosing a Seanchan-like Ideology or declaring war on the Tower). While we do modify their overall Tower influence, which makes it more difficult for them to keep up their relationships going forward, it seems strange to me that the Ajahs themselves wouldn't react to that as well. No matter how much the Green Ajah likes you, they will disapprove of you keeping channelers as damane.

You make a good point. I'm convinced. I guess I still don't see much of a purpose to differentiating between the Ajahs though - aside from a few Red situations, right?

I went with 'changes' rather than 'gain Light' as the primary for gameplay reasons, despite the flavor weirdness. It seems like the Tower is quite Light-leaning, which makes sense in universe, but Shadow players do need to be able to interact with the Tower for the Turning mechanic. I wasn't sure if we wanted another quest that Shadow players either need to ignore or work against themselves. But 'gain Light' definitely makes the most flavorful sense.

I'm not sure there's a way to justify it being "changes".. unless the tower has turned... But, maybe that doesn't matter? In any case, it would serve the purpose of encouraging players to choose a side, which is probably best.

Yeah, the 50% at the end is intended to make it applicable any time from just-before-Ideology-adoptions to the end of the game. (It's more predictable when everyone has chosen already, but there is room for sudden upsets in close matches when civs are eliminated.)

OK, this is fine then.

Totally agree, that was my main gripe with this quest too. I don't think players can steer their Novices/Accepted. Accepted choose which Ajah they're going to join when they're being promoted to full Sisterhood, right? (The only full Aes Sedai without an Ajah is the Amyrlin, so the Accepted choose first/at the same time as being raised.)

Right, an accepted choosing an ajah only when ceasing to be an Accepted.

I say nix Expanded Ranks. Let's replace it with Stifle the Madness, which rewards a lack of production of male channelers.

Disbanding sounds much better! Agreed, killing them is a bit evil. Also lines up with the White Ajah's similar quest for disbanding Path spreader units.

good

I've been considering that but I think it's too big of a disadvantage for the Red Sisters. We'd need to seriously pump up their ability for it to offset the loss of the Warder capability. I feel like this quest (kind of like the Tower Schism one) nods towards the flavor of the books, but steers clear of the direct translation for gameplay reasons.

I think that's probably the best idea from a gameplay perspective, though we could do an either-or-thing: Reds get a combat bonus against male channelers IF they have no warder?

But yes, this is a good quest.

We could have a special case for channeling warders in general? "Channeling Warder" unit type? Seems like an awesome combo.

It WOULD be awesome, but a can of worms, I think. Remember the whole deal with Pevara and Guy-who-starts-with-an-A, the Asha'man? They were telepathic. I think I remember deciding that this was a mechanic not worth introducing into the game.

Besides, I can't help but feel like it would be too awesome - even without telepathy - and people would ALWAYS choose male channeler warders, which is clearly out of flavor.

What if it is something like this, instead:

Elite Bonds
The Green Ajah will reward players who turn a military unit with at least 3 promotions into a Warder.

Should it be more promotions?

Yeah, could we expand it? It's quite cool as it is, but not particularly available. We'd obviously adjust the quest selection AI so it would only give this quest when it was possible.

Not sure how we'd expand it. Maybe it's fine how it it? If you have an idea for another, though, I'd say maybe switch it out.

One of the other things the White Ajah has that we haven't touched on is their disbelief in the utility of lies. I figured telling other civilizations about the secret plots of others could be seen as foiling lies?

OK, a little weird, but I can accept that. Is keeping a diplomatic promise a similar idea, though? Like they'll reward somebody who fulfills a non-expansion/espionage/religion promise? Maybe that feels pretty Gray also, though.

Culture might be a good idea though. Though low Faith output is easier for Shadow civs, and just above I was talking about Shadow civs needing ways to interact with the Tower. And there are several prominent Black Ajah Sisters from the White. Yeah, Faith is good.

I'm fine with whichever you feel is good here.

I was thinking this would be a building that doesn't have other significant bonuses, because otherwise you'll want to build it everywhere, which defeats its purpose. (We wouldn't want other buildings with this one as a prereq, for example, or be part of the primary avenue for generating Spark/Faith.) Random sounds good.

Yeah, I'd say that *no* yield is a bit weird though - would anybody do it? MAybe the word Tower Embassy is too lofty sounding, in that case - people would expect it to do something.

Maybe this is all fine if it does something else - not a yield, though. Like, the Tower embassy is where Aes Sedai, but also where X or Y happen?

Definitely, the Shadow civs need to be able to purposefully work towards "corrupting" a Light CS. Given the way control of the Dragon rotates through Light players (so they will always have a chance to use him to do that) and the way corruption in WoT flavor seems so much easier than purification, what if Shadow spies can Turn CSes (slowly compared to Forsaken/Dragon, but will need to be fast enough to make a difference in the Last-Battle-has-started-already timescale) but Light spies can't Turn Shadow CSes? Completely on board with the Forsaken Turning CSes of their own accord as well.

I think it might just make sense to work this mechanic in via a Shadow-only unit. How about the Gray Man? Send the Gray man (an spy you have only 1 of) to a CS and he has a chance of turning it for you.

Additionally, we could consider, in lieu of the Dragon's involvement, the Forsaken could periodically "drop by" and assist the various Shadow civs. Or maybe, flavorfully, each civ has one or two Forsaken that serve as its Patron, and will do stuff randomly for them, give quests, etc.

Yeah, historical alliances but weighted on recency (and the "extent" of the allies' Alignment - very Shadow players corrupt the CS more quickly, for example).

Quick note, I've also edited in a list of actions that civilizations can take that affects their overall Tower influence. Let me know if anything is missing or extra.

looks good. Also, though, providing Novices to the tower, and then those novices advancing to Accepted, would raise tower influence overall.

Good point - I've edited that in. I don't think we discussed the exact numbers before, so feel free to question how I got them or if you think there are better distributions!

look good to me!

I've edited this in, but I don't think we discussed exact numbers before? I added some anyway. I chose them based on a few simple comparisons. I figure 30% chance of a Generic Edict seems fair. That leaves 70% to be distributed between the 7 Ajahs (not a coincidence at all), so they can fluctuate between a 5-15% range. Do we want to make that swingier? Higher maximum? Higher minimum?

I'm fine with these numbers, overall, though I do think there should be a higher maximum. If one Ajah had so much player-support that everybody would be forced to the minimum, that would yield up to a 40% chance, yes (100-(5x6)-30)? That's too high, but a maximum of 20 or 25 does seem appropriate. Maybe let's just go with 20.

Sorry, that's what I meant. I've edited it so that it's clearer.

hmmm... I'm thinking it could work something like this:

pre-Ideology:
disobediance = inversion of trade (plus others on second offense)

Post-Ideology:
for Authority: same
for Oppression: NO trade with Authority (or their allied CSs), NO penalty with Oppression (or Liberation?). But then edicts do still apply, there's just a different penalty to violating them. Second offense penalty would probably still exist.
For Liberation: ??

are we still calling them ideologies, or are we changing to Philosophies though?

That's what it says: "When an Accepted is raised to full Sisterhood and chooses an Ajah"?

yeah sorry, that's me being dumb.

I'm not sure if we want to link Aes Sedai quota to Spark, because that could have some weird secondary effects. (Not everything that boosts channeler breeding rate will necessarily be reflected by Aes Sedai interest.) I think it should primarily be a "worthiness" evaluation from the Tower. I can totally see Authority gives you + quota and Oppression gives -. Wonders also sounds awesome. I've edited those in.

you're totally right. Spark should remain separate.

Yeah, I think we got sidetracked from some of the details of Stedding. I don't think it makes it more difficult to see who the Ogier would vote for (Stump and Compact are separate, right?) if each Stedding can have multiple allies - it's still basically "whoever is allied with the most Stedding" and ties are still possible. (Choose randomly in the event of a tie? Based on pre-chosen flavor? The result of the previous Stump?)

Right, the Stump is an Ogier-only thing. The Ogier also vote as a clump in the Compact. But yeah, this makes sense.

Indeed, I'm not sure. In the books, the Great Stump is called to consider leaving the reality/dimension of the Westlands to escape the Last Battle. I don't think that's the kind of thing we want them to be doing? But that was the only Great Stump in the last millennium in the books.

The things they decide need to translate into yields for the Stedding until the next Stump. Perhaps they're just deciding on an "Age of X" for the Ogier? "Age of Building" gives production bonuses, "Age of Singing" gives culture, and so on?

Wait, was it really a leave-the-dimension thing? How would they do that? So it's like the Tolkien elves thing? Wow, the wiki says so.

Wow... delving into that article... the Book of Translation. Cool. Did you remember this from the books. Didn't know the Ogier are from a different world.

I think the "Age of X" thing is great. I'd say the Stump convenes when a World Era Begins (and when the LB begins, I guess), at declares the Age. This would effect the yields/bonuses provided by the Stedding, but also would significantly impact the way the Ogier vote during the Compact. During an Age of Signing, for example, their more likely to support cultural resolutions - maybe this would be weigh in their decision comparable to a few Civ's (or one civ with a lot of allied stedding).

Question is, how then is the Age determined? Is this done randomly? Or is the Stump doing it logically? I could go either way. I could imagine the War one being more likely to be chosen during the LB and/or Trolloc Wars.

Lastly, we COULD theoretically have the Stumps determine if they should open the Book of Translation and leave this world. Crazy, but we could have it potentially happen during the Trolloc Wars and at the start of the LB - all the stedding would vanish! I think this would have a chance of happening if X number of stedding had been conquered - maybe 50% or 75%. Would be kind of cool, and a rare easter egg, I guess. Would it be too much, though?

Anyways, some Ages I can think of are below.

Age of Singing - periodically provides culture dump or periodically gifts Great Stories (culture bias in Compact)
Age of Building - gifts Stone masons or periodically gifts Great Crafts (economic bias in Compact)
Age of Trees - gifts Sung Wood luxury resource (maybe extra copies of it?) (embargo-ey in Compact)
Age of Learning - periodically gifts dumps of science or periodic Great Prophecy (science bias in compact)
Age of War - periodically gifts Ogier warrior units. (aggressive bias in Compact)
Age of Peace - periodically provides Faith dump (defensive bias in Compact)
Age of Longing = less quests provided, no gifting (inaction in the Compact)

I suppose we should hammer out how Ogier bonuses really work. Maybe the top-level bonus is fixed already, and the Age determines the mid level Friends bonus?

Also, are there Stedding quests? How are they different from CS quests?

And... what about CS quests (like for the NORMAL CSs)? Are they different from in CiV?

Do we still have the various CS types (militaristic, etc.)?

Ha! Just threw a lot of stuff out htere!

The AI would definitely go all in on wars it had the resources for. I don't think we want unique combat AI for the high King post-war - they should make the same military assessments they do normally, but they're just plunged into the start of it, instead of "choosing" it.

We could do random wars, instead of global? "A skirmish along your border with Andor was taken as an act of war by their leader!" "The Aiel have finally decided to enact their vengeance on the Cairhienin!" "Aemon al Thorin's foolish dream of High Kingship has crumbled, and Shara and Shienar have seized the moment to attack." We can pull in even human players automatically with that kind of flavor?

Agreed that another consequence of global war is economic meltdown, which we'd like to avoid! CSes all declaring war against each other could be fun, but probably not that effective. They don't range far with units and don't tend to conquer cities very often. CSes against major civs is inviting a sudden capture of several CSes by the larger players.

random wars sounds great, though I suppose it might suck a bit too. What % of the world would it be? Also, these would be blameless, right? Like, no warmongering penalty (unless you take a city), right?

And yeah, let's keep the CSs out of it - except for alliance-induced war, or course.

Possible, but maybe a bit weird. I think that the High Kingship should genuinely shake up diplomatic relationships - break alliances and forge new ones. You might find a new ally fighting against a common foe - who used to be your friend! I think that's ok.

Yeah, you're right.

Hmmm, this is a good point, but where do we draw that line? Can Shadow civs declare war on individual Shadow CSes? (Light civs vs Light CSes?) If they're "technically" at war all the time, then they have to do all of the normal attack-each-others'-units and no-negotiating-with-at-war-civs, I'd say. If they can declare war on individual CSes then that could work - that's an explicit action from the civ that they're not going to negotiate with that CS.

OK, this may actually open up a can of worms regarding our previous conception of the LB.

First off, on CSs, I'd say yes, you can declare war on them individually if you are shadow or neutral. I think you CANNOT as Light.... right? I mean, maybe we should talk about this for a second. What would happen if you did? Can you declare war on another Light civ? Would that make you Shadow? I don't like that idea - it invites betrayal in every game!

I'm tempted to make declaring war impossible on light civs, but theoretically possible with Light CSs - but why woudl somebody do it? Would it turn the CS to Neutral? to Shadow?

Also, big issue here. You know how you said the AI intereprets being "at War" as being at War full on, regardless of what kind of war it is. To me, this poses a problem for the Shadow civs in the LB. You and I have been talking about permanent war with all Shadow civs, and the cool backstabbing that would create... But It seems that, in reality, what would happen is the Shadows would potentially fight each other just as much as they were to fight the light.

Would the AI be able to prioritize the Light civs as their enemies? "OK, I'm working with these other Shadow civs to kill the light civs, but I might backstab you at any moment!", instead of "I hate you just as much as I hate the Light." Because if we can't, I don't think it would work, not for the AI.

If that's the case - maybe just have them technically at peace, but war is an option? Any suggestions here?

 

[counterpoint]

Now that I put all of these in the same place, man, we made a lot of Edicts! Awesome! They're not quite balanced by Ajah yet though (Yellow has less than others). Do we care?

Awesome summary! Yes, we have a lot of Edicts!

Should we indicate an (R) next to ones that are refusable? Or is it obvious?

I think the Black Ajah ones could still be there. They're not that exciting, though, so maybe not worth having them there for the rare chance they happen.

That said, maybe it makes sense pre-LB to have them there. Once the "turn the tower mechanic" opens up (i.e. Age of the Dragon) - maybe it's possible for these to pop up? Might be cool.

regarding the Ajah imbalance... hmmm... There are this many for each Ajah, currently:

Blue - 6
White - 4
Brown - 9!
Red - 6
Green - 8
Yellow - 4
Gray - 7

That's a lot for the Brown and the Gray! It's 44, which comes down to 6.2 per Ajah (if they were divided appropriately)

Honestly, it's probably fine, but I do think 4 for the White and the Yellow is too little. I'd say we have a few options:

- add more for the white and the yellow - obviously not so easy. plus, we have so many
- eliminate a few from the brown, green, and gray - maybe get them down to 6, maybe 7, max. Maybe this is the smartest thing, though it would be a shame.
- steal a few from the other Ajahs to make work in the White and Yellow.

Some "theft" possibilities:

"Scholastic Fellowship" stolen from Brown, put into White.

"Keepers of Stories" taken from Brown, renamed "Comfort in Knowledge" and put in White (with science building instead of Inns). This could also be taken as is and put in the Yellow.

Take "Sister Nimble" from the Green, name is Tireless Helpers and put it in the Yellow.

Take "Color-Changing Cloak" and put it in the Yellow - not so weird, right?

If we did those, by my count, we'd have:

Blue - 6
White - 6
Brown - 7
Red - 6
Green - 6
Yellow - 6
Gray - 7
Black - 2

We could then choose to nuke one Brown one and one Gray one and end up with an even 6. If we did that, I'd maybe vote for Land Tax for the Gray and either Heritage Catalog or Discovery for the Brown.

Thoughts?

 

[counterpoint]

Compared to the Edicts and Quests lists I've just finished up, the Compact needs some love. Do we have any more ideas for additional resolutions we could add? Some resolutions are also pending discussion that we didn't finish up earlier in the thread (I've highlighted those in red).

Right. We might need to think of more. I'm about out of time for today, though. For now, I'll address the red ones - but yes, we might want to think of a few more of these.

For "Embargo Targeted Civilization", how about we use the word Shun instead? Reject? Scorn?

Arts Funding would be improving the spawn rates of (likely) Gleemen/bards, Dreamers/prophets, and Craftsmen/artisans, or whatever the GW creators are. So why not call it something like Cultural Exchange? Maybe Cultural Focus, Cultural Initiative?

Sciences Funding would raise the spawn rates of whoever those GPs are... Builders? Scholars? Technical Focus? Technical Initiative? Academic Exchange? Technical Exchange?

The "Revel for Holiday" one... I think we'll maybe have to wait to see what doesn't get used up for the Customs. Tentatively, I'd suggest "Revel for the Feats of Lights"?

I think the Ter'angreal thing could work, though maybe let's limit "Making" them to some late-game tech or channeling-related thing (buff to stats, etc.). So, with that in mind, I'd maybe suggest something like Catalog of Ter'Angreal or Ter'Angreal Research Initiative. What say you?

 

[S3rgeus]

I was originally planning to respond to the new science victory proposal tonight! But I think it makes sense to close off the diplomacy stuff first. (Though we've got a lot new wrinkles to discuss below!)

Also, I am compelled the share something funny, I read the following Edict name out of context yesterday: Traveling Monopoly. Now all I can think about is the board game running around on legs.

I like grayed out plus tutorial... plus Tower UI when highlighted?

We can do that in the tooltip over the Ajah's influence. Taking a cue from CSes' tooltips, we'd probably show "You need X more influence to receive Y bonus from this Ajah" - so it would only explicitly tell you about the next level up there. It's a constantly available window, so I don't think we want to drown repeat players in text for things they already know.

While I can certainly buy into that interpretation of the Reds, I absolutely don't think Spark is a good idea. Way too strong, and also perhaps not the right kind of yield/bonus for the ajahs. Seems like when you want more spark, you aren't going to the Aes Sedai looking for it.

I really don't know what else to get from them though. Happiness doesn't really make sense. Faith... doesn't really make sense, but I think could be justified somehow - though we seem to previously be associating Faith with the blue (the nemesis of the red). Food... doesn't really make sense. Unit maybe? Still, that feels very Green.

What if it was something weird, like 10% slower madness accumulation for saidin units? 5%? Or 5% slower MAle channeler rate (though this would be at odds with people who accidentally become friends with them). 5% combat bonus against male channelers?

I think the Blues as Alignment could work, but I don't like that it limits who would want to be (figuratively) in bed with the blues. If you don't like faith, what about +1 WoT GP Generation in the Capital? Is that a lot? I have no idea what the values in GP generation really mean. I don't have a problem with Faith, though.

Should we just make the Greens do another unit-gift (like a militaristic CS)? Maybe there's a way to differentiate it somehow - it always pops up near shadowspawn (if available?)

Hmm.... I'm kinda tempted to just keep the Grays simple. Trade Routes and votes are something I think we'd best reserve for bigger things later.

OK, so, how about you make some decisions between:

Blue - Faith, WoT GP, or Happiness
Red: -% Madness, -% Male channelers, +% combat against male channelers, or Faith
Green: Units or Happiness
Yellow - Food or Happiness
Gray - Gold, or bonus to trade routes, etc.
White - Science
Brown - Culture

I could definitely get on board with it being a greater bonus, at the top. If so, that definitely lets us differentiate them from CS bonuses. I'd say, something like:

Blue - WoT GP type production bonus in the capital, OR random (rare) WoT GP gift
Red - +1 Spark (still a little weird IMO, both in mechanics and flavor), OR combat bonuses against male channelers OR decreased madness rate
Green - Unit gift or bonus against shadowspawn
Yellow - Happiness (probably significant)
Gray - extra trade route
White - science or periodic Great Scientist gift
Brown - periodic (uncommon) artifact gift?

Awesome, I like the idea of significant non-yield bonuses too. So, for the White Ajah, what about "You can demonstrate an Innovation at Tar Valon"? I know that system isn't firmed up yet, but I'm generally a fan and I think it's good if some other components of the game refer to it too!

I'm happy with WoT GP rate boost for Blue, Happiness for Yellow, and trade route for Gray.

Less sure about Red, Green, and Brown. I love the +1 Spark bonus, but you're right that it's weird for Red. Can we give it to Green instead? That makes sense, right?

A global combat bonus fighting male channelers makes sense for the Red Ajah, but I worry it's not very splashy. Might make a big difference though?

Brown I'm a bit the other way - free Great Works is really powerful! My main concern is that we'd need to make the gifts so infrequent that it's not efficient to remain the Brown Ajah's ally for long periods of time. (That you might be better of letting it lapse for the duration of the gift cooldown.) Then again, it's definitely splashy and cool and people do get a lot of free GPs toward the end of the game - and they can become GWs or do other stuff, which is even more flexible. Maybe GW gifts work then!

I've edited some of these into the summary, left the still open ones for more discussion. (Though feel free to discuss any of them.)

Of those, one weird thing is what happens to your Gray trade route if you cease to be their "ally"? Does it disappear immediately?

We can either have it happen immediately (but then how do we choose which trade route?) or whenever the player's next trade route expires, they just don't get the unit back. (Their limit displays a red 7/6 until then.) Sound good?

Anyways, as to whether I like the yields being early or at the top of the influence spectrum... I'm not sure, but honestly making them at the top seems kind of cool. That way we can justify their differentiation from the CS ones. Because of that, I definitely don't want to go to four levels - let's avoid having the piddly bonuses at all.

As far as the first and second levels, I am torn between whether the stat boost or the ability should come first. The ability probably intuitively makes sense as the second one, though I could understand the stat boost being there too.

Decision time then - let's go for combat bonus at the bottom level, second ability at the second level, and the bonuses above at the third! I've edited this into the summary.

I'm tempted to say it does in fact exist. I think a spy in the tower might be the most elegant way to do it, though (instead of Ajah's giving you info).

Cool, so what information is unlocked exactly? The Ajahs that put forward candidates for Amyrlin? The growth (or lack) of the Black Ajah within the Tower?

I think the players can already see the breakdown of which civs have which influence with which Ajahs (without any spies) and therefore which Ajahs are the most influential.

You make a good point. I'm convinced. I guess I still don't see much of a purpose to differentiating between the Ajahs though - aside from a few Red situations, right?

Yes, I think this is a blanket "affects whoever you have influence with" situation. I've edited this into the summary.

I'm not sure there's a way to justify it being "changes".. unless the tower has turned... But, maybe that doesn't matter? In any case, it would serve the purpose of encouraging players to choose a side, which is probably best.

Exactly, I was thinking the same way - that it encourages players to commit to a side. But it is weird that gaining Shadow can help you. It could be characterized as appearing righteous in order to get into the Light's good graces? All building up to an epic betrayal? (Like the Children of the Light?) Makes marginally more sense. It definitely makes mechanical sense. I'm happy to go either way with this. It's very easy to switch between the two anyway, if we decide later we want to (dis)allow Shadow contribution to help with this quest. (Just do a positive difference instead of an absolute one.)

I say nix Expanded Ranks. Let's replace it with Stifle the Madness, which rewards a lack of production of male channelers.

Already done!

I think that's probably the best idea from a gameplay perspective, though we could do an either-or-thing: Reds get a combat bonus against male channelers IF they have no warder?

Interesting, we could do that. Could that be the Red Ajah's second ability?

It WOULD be awesome, but a can of worms, I think. Remember the whole deal with Pevara and Guy-who-starts-with-an-A, the Asha'man? They were telepathic. I think I remember deciding that this was a mechanic not worth introducing into the game.

Besides, I can't help but feel like it would be too awesome - even without telepathy - and people would ALWAYS choose male channeler warders, which is clearly out of flavor.

What if it is something like this, instead:

Elite Bonds
The Green Ajah will reward players who turn a military unit with at least 3 promotions into a Warder.

Should it be more promotions?

I definitely don't think we'd want to model the telepathy part. I don't think players would be able to always choose male channeler warders though - I don't think they'd have enough male channelers? And what if only Asha'men work? So you couldn't use generic Male Channeler units, False Dragons (somehow), or anything else like that? A civ won't have enough Spark to have all Asha'man warders, but they might have one or two by the end of the game? Could this be the Green's second ability? "Bond a male channeling Warder and he retains his powers"? (We might not need the Asha'man restriction if we go with that?)

I've suggested two "second abilities" in this post and I know we did discuss some extra abilities before. Just noting that in case I'm stomping over old ideas.

Not sure how we'd expand it. Maybe it's fine how it it? If you have an idea for another, though, I'd say maybe switch it out.

Can't think of a way to expand it, so let's leave it in for now.

OK, a little weird, but I can accept that. Is keeping a diplomatic promise a similar idea, though? Like they'll reward somebody who fulfills a non-expansion/espionage/religion promise? Maybe that feels pretty Gray also, though.

I think keeping a diplomatic promise is quite different and definitely more Gray, like you say. The White quest is more about secrets = lying, so exposing secrets is defying that.

I'm fine with whichever you feel is good here.

Faith! Quest list is up to date.

Yeah, I'd say that *no* yield is a bit weird though - would anybody do it? MAybe the word Tower Embassy is too lofty sounding, in that case - people would expect it to do something.

Maybe this is all fine if it does something else - not a yield, though. Like, the Tower embassy is where Aes Sedai, but also where X or Y happen?

Yeah, we could definitely call the building something different. I'd say a small yield, or, like you've said, no one will build it, but not a significant enough yield to make it worth building the building just for the yield.

Do you mean like some other external effect? A non-yield-related bonus/action?

I think it might just make sense to work this mechanic in via a Shadow-only unit. How about the Gray Man? Send the Gray man (an spy you have only 1 of) to a CS and he has a chance of turning it for you.

Yeah, that sounds really cool. When you declare for the Shadow, one of your spies becomes a Gray Man and gains the ability to corrupt opposing CSes.

Additionally, we could consider, in lieu of the Dragon's involvement, the Forsaken could periodically "drop by" and assist the various Shadow civs. Or maybe, flavorfully, each civ has one or two Forsaken that serve as its Patron, and will do stuff randomly for them, give quests, etc.

Sounds cool, but complicated. We discussed how to weight the Dragon and his abilities for a long time and I think we'd need to do a similar thing with the Forsaken if we were to give players control over them. We have Shadow-quests that mention Forsaken - I think they could stay a Shadow-civ controlled end-game units for now?

looks good. Also, though, providing Novices to the tower, and then those novices advancing to Accepted, would raise tower influence overall.

Very true, edited into the summary!

I'm fine with these numbers, overall, though I do think there should be a higher maximum. If one Ajah had so much player-support that everybody would be forced to the minimum, that would yield up to a 40% chance, yes (100-(5x6)-30)? That's too high, but a maximum of 20 or 25 does seem appropriate. Maybe let's just go with 20.

20 it is! Though I could see 25? I'll edit 20 into the summary, but let me know if we should bump up to 25.

hmmm... I'm thinking it could work something like this:

pre-Ideology:
disobediance = inversion of trade (plus others on second offense)

Post-Ideology:
for Authority: same
for Oppression: NO trade with Authority (or their allied CSs), NO penalty with Oppression (or Liberation?). But then edicts do still apply, there's just a different penalty to violating them. Second offense penalty would probably still exist.
For Liberation: ??

are we still calling them ideologies, or are we changing to Philosophies though?

Good idea, this representation shows Authority civs as being more influenced by the Tower, which makes sense. (They have the same ratcheting up mechanisms as pre-Ideology.) Do Oppression civs lose influence with CSes allied to Authority civs?

Liberation is an interesting middle ground here. I think they would generally be more diplomatically aligned with the Tower than Oppression civs are, but Liberation and the Tower aren't great friends. The Tower thinks Liberation civs are a risk, that the Tower will be blamed for their faults. Liberation civs think that the Tower is too restrictive in its doctrine.

Can we mechanicalize (technical term) that flavor? I feel like we want to do more than just the same "no trade with Authority" for Liberation as Oppression.

Wait, was it really a leave-the-dimension thing? How would they do that? So it's like the Tolkien elves thing? Wow, the wiki says so.

Wow... delving into that article... the Book of Translation. Cool. Did you remember this from the books. Didn't know the Ogier are from a different world.

I didn't remember it either - I looked up the Stump when I realized I didn't remember what they were arguing about. (I remembered that one choice was fight in the Last Battle, but didn't remember the alternative.) Very elvish.

I think the "Age of X" thing is great. I'd say the Stump convenes when a World Era Begins (and when the LB begins, I guess), at declares the Age. This would effect the yields/bonuses provided by the Stedding, but also would significantly impact the way the Ogier vote during the Compact. During an Age of Signing, for example, their more likely to support cultural resolutions - maybe this would be weigh in their decision comparable to a few Civ's (or one civ with a lot of allied stedding).

Question is, how then is the Age determined? Is this done randomly? Or is the Stump doing it logically? I could go either way. I could imagine the War one being more likely to be chosen during the LB and/or Trolloc Wars.

I think it has to be something that civilizations can influence in some way, otherwise Stedding are too unreliable as allies. We touched on this when the idea of variable Stedding yields (based on Stump) popped up first, but didn't go into much detail. One of the bonuses of a influence-able system is that it draws even non-diplo-victory players into the Stump metagame in order to preserve the yields that they've come to rely on.

Given the complexity presented by the Tower, Compact, and their interactions with the Last Battle, (particularly CSes), I think it makes sense to keep the Stump quite simple mechanically. Not quite "pay the Stedding and they will vote for what you want" but something with quite a direct translation from "I want this yield" to "I must take this action". Maybe the civilizations with Stedding allies are polled for their preference for the next Age? (This works with either one-to-one Stedding-civilization ally relationships, or one-to-many Stedding-civilization relationships, there are just more votes in the latter case and that Stedding votes depending on the majority of requests received.) The Stump could be "announced" on World Era change and then actually take place (voting and such) 10 turns later? Or 5?

Then the Age with a simple majority (or, in the event of a tie, random choice between tied options) "wins" the Stump?

Lastly, we COULD theoretically have the Stumps determine if they should open the Book of Translation and leave this world. Crazy, but we could have it potentially happen during the Trolloc Wars and at the start of the LB - all the stedding would vanish! I think this would have a chance of happening if X number of stedding had been conquered - maybe 50% or 75%. Would be kind of cool, and a rare easter egg, I guess. Would it be too much, though?

Very cool, but very difficult. We run into the same difficulties with removing players/capital cities (non-razeable capitals) that we've encountered elsewhere.

Anyways, some Ages I can think of are below.

Age of Singing - periodically provides culture dump or periodically gifts Great Stories (culture bias in Compact)
Age of Building - gifts Stone masons or periodically gifts Great Crafts (economic bias in Compact)
Age of Trees - gifts Sung Wood luxury resource (maybe extra copies of it?) (embargo-ey in Compact)
Age of Learning - periodically gifts dumps of science or periodic Great Prophecy (science bias in compact)
Age of War - periodically gifts Ogier warrior units. (aggressive bias in Compact)
Age of Peace - periodically provides Faith dump (defensive bias in Compact)
Age of Longing = less quests provided, no gifting (inaction in the Compact)

I suppose we should hammer out how Ogier bonuses really work. Maybe the top-level bonus is fixed already, and the Age determines the mid level Friends bonus?

I think the structure of the bonuses depends a lot on whether each Stedding can have multiple allies. If they can only have one ally, we can make the bonus more powerful, right?

I think we could have the current Age determine both bonuses. We could mimic the CS-style bonuses, a small one at friends and a significant one at ally, both contributing toward the same play style. I like the Ages you've suggested!

Also, are there Stedding quests? How are they different from CS quests?

Flavor says yes.

But I have no idea (right now) what we could have as additional Stedding quests. I think Stedding have access to the normal CS quests, but possibly one or two unique Stedding ones as well? "We want you to choose 'Peace' as your preference for the next Stump"?

And... what about CS quests (like for the NORMAL CSs)? Are they different from in CiV?

Again, flavor says yes, they should be different. It will also be really underwhelming for the player if those quests remain the same. At the same time, those quests did clearly fulfill specific purposes. Shall we start with direct reflavoring (text changes that WoT-ify the context of the quests) and add/swap out normal CS quests later if we feel we need to? Is that going to feel cheap from the player's perspective?

Do we still have the various CS types (militaristic, etc.)?

We still need their yield bonuses, so I think we keep the same ones. Do we rename them?

Ha! Just threw a lot of stuff out htere!

Enough new quests! *shakes fist*

random wars sounds great, though I suppose it might suck a bit too. What % of the world would it be? Also, these would be blameless, right? Like, no warmongering penalty (unless you take a city), right?

And yeah, let's keep the CSs out of it - except for alliance-induced war, or course.

Cool, random wars it is! I've edited this into the High King section of the summary.

OK, this may actually open up a can of worms regarding our previous conception of the LB.

First off, on CSs, I'd say yes, you can declare war on them individually if you are shadow or neutral. I think you CANNOT as Light.... right? I mean, maybe we should talk about this for a second. What would happen if you did? Can you declare war on another Light civ? Would that make you Shadow? I don't like that idea - it invites betrayal in every game!

I'm tempted to make declaring war impossible on light civs, but theoretically possible with Light CSs - but why woudl somebody do it? Would it turn the CS to Neutral? to Shadow?

I don't know why I brought up the Light vs Light CS - I think we said that there can be no intra-Light wars once the Last Battle starts? That solves our Light civil war problem (*poof* it is gone!). I don't think we ever need to allow Light civs to declare war on other Light allies' CSes, under the same restriction that they can't declare war on the major civ. (And that would suck - you couldn't defend your CS allies from other Light players.) What if a Light civ is at war with a Neutral civ and one of that Neutral civ's allied CSes is bought out by a second Light civ? I'm thinking insta-peace? (Even faster than instant peace, because it takes less time to say.)

Also, big issue here. You know how you said the AI intereprets being "at War" as being at War full on, regardless of what kind of war it is. To me, this poses a problem for the Shadow civs in the LB. You and I have been talking about permanent war with all Shadow civs, and the cool backstabbing that would create... But It seems that, in reality, what would happen is the Shadows would potentially fight each other just as much as they were to fight the light.

Would the AI be able to prioritize the Light civs as their enemies? "OK, I'm working with these other Shadow civs to kill the light civs, but I might backstab you at any moment!", instead of "I hate you just as much as I hate the Light." Because if we can't, I don't think it would work, not for the AI.

If that's the case - maybe just have them technically at peace, but war is an option? Any suggestions here?

Ah, I think we'll definitely have Last-Battle-specific AI for Shadow civs in terms of considering their other Shadow "allies" that they're at war with. One of the main concerns is negotiation with CSes (the whole locked into -60, no diplo options UI for CSes you're at war with) - we want the Shadow players to still be able to win a diplo victory (this is our end objective here, within the constraints of the existing Last Battle).

So, I'm thinking that the major civs on the Shadow side are at war with each other, but none of the Shadow-allied CSes are (by default). Shadow-allied Cses are at war with all Light civs and Light-allied CSes. Shadow-allied CSes can be explicitly declared war on by: Neutral civs and Shadow civs. Shadow-allied Cses declare war on Neutral civs with the normal "with my ally" rules. (And Neutral-allied Cses follow the normal rules in all cases.)

This means that a mindful Shadow civ that is trying to win the diplomatic victory only loses access to: Light-allied CSes (unless they use Gray Men/Forsaken Turning to grab a couple of those). This seems acceptable.

Warmongering Shadow civs can declare war on anyone they want. They can capture any CS in the world. They are already at war with the Light ones. They can declare on the Neutral and Shadow ones (if they want).

Many words to describe the above, but I don't think it's actually too complicated - it's just enumerating the consequences of "Shadow major civs are at war with each other by default, but their CS allies are not". I think the most succinct description of the whole process is: "Shadow civs declaring war on each other at the start of the Last Battle does not cause their City-State allies to declare war on other Shadow civs." (All other CS-related war mechanics remain the same.)

In terms of the AI, we basically need to make it do that. We need to encode it with some knowledge that it's dancing a dagger's edge of working with and against *other* Shadow civs if it's playing Shadow. My previous comment was partially inaccurate (we should have some unique logic where the Alignment shenanigans are concerned) and otherwise concerned with the "locked into -60 and can't negotiate" UI state when you're at war with a CS.

Awesome summary! Yes, we have a lot of Edicts!

Should we indicate an (R) next to ones that are refusable? Or is it obvious?

Added into the Edict list, though I've highlighted a few in red that are debatably refusable!

I think the Black Ajah ones could still be there. They're not that exciting, though, so maybe not worth having them there for the rare chance they happen.

That said, maybe it makes sense pre-LB to have them there. Once the "turn the tower mechanic" opens up (i.e. Age of the Dragon) - maybe it's possible for these to pop up? Might be cool.

While we're on the topic, does Turning the Tower go into this summary or was it in the Channeling one? Did we decide anything else while discussing diplo that affects that?

Sounds good to make it possible for them to pop up once the Alignments become a factor in the Tower! Edited into the summary.

regarding the Ajah imbalance... hmmm... There are this many for each Ajah, currently:

Blue - 6
White - 4
Brown - 9!
Red - 6
Green - 8
Yellow - 4
Gray - 7

That's a lot for the Brown and the Gray! It's 44, which comes down to 6.2 per Ajah (if they were divided appropriately)

Honestly, it's probably fine, but I do think 4 for the White and the Yellow is too little. I'd say we have a few options:

- add more for the white and the yellow - obviously not so easy. plus, we have so many
- eliminate a few from the brown, green, and gray - maybe get them down to 6, maybe 7, max. Maybe this is the smartest thing, though it would be a shame.
- steal a few from the other Ajahs to make work in the White and Yellow.

Some "theft" possibilities:

"Scholastic Fellowship" stolen from Brown, put into White.

"Keepers of Stories" taken from Brown, renamed "Comfort in Knowledge" and put in White (with science building instead of Inns). This could also be taken as is and put in the Yellow.

Take "Sister Nimble" from the Green, name is Tireless Helpers and put it in the Yellow.

Take "Color-Changing Cloak" and put it in the Yellow - not so weird, right?

If we did those, by my count, we'd have:

Blue - 6
White - 6
Brown - 7
Red - 6
Green - 6
Yellow - 6
Gray - 7
Black - 2

We could then choose to nuke one Brown one and one Gray one and end up with an even 6. If we did that, I'd maybe vote for Land Tax for the Gray and either Heritage Catalog or Discovery for the Brown.

Thoughts?

Nooooooooo! (I love that that website exists.)

We can come up with more! I would rather add Yellow and White Edicts than remove existing ones though. The more room we have to ramp up the Edict-issuing-speed, the better, I think. Given the way Edicts are issued from a common pool (one Edict issued by the whole Tower at a time), I don't think exact equality in terms of numbers for each Ajah is necessary, but we don't want Yellow and White to lag behind in variety so significantly. Two more per Ajah brings them up to 6?

(Before I move on, I should mention I've altered the Edict list so Tireless Helpers is the name of that Green Edict!)

So, with that in mind:

Return of the Edicts

Yellow Ajah

Hearty People
Granaries (replace with our equivalent) produce +2 happiness for 30 turns.

Healing Discovery
Yellow Sisters' healing ability heals double the usual amount of health for 30 turns. (Alternatively: All Sisters' "Medic-like" promotion causes double-rate recovery for 30 turns. Or we could use both as two separate quests?)

White Ajah
It occurred to me when marking up the refusability of Edicts that the majority of the White Ajah Edicts were "negative" Edicts that made something else "not work" as it would in isolation. So we can fix that!

Distributed Debate
Academies (or some earlier research building) produce an additional +2 science per turn for the next 30 turns.

Scholar's Birthright
Great Scientists (Great Scholar? or whatever we call our equivalent) points are accumulated 30% faster for the next 30 turns.


What do you think of those? I might even be able to get them all up to 9 at a stretch? (Do we want more Black Edicts?) I'll edit the above into the master list (with any changes we discuss from here on) if you like the idea of adding more.

 

[S3rgeus]

For "Embargo Targeted Civilization", how about we use the word Shun instead? Reject? Scorn?

Shun - let's do it! Edited in.

Arts Funding would be improving the spawn rates of (likely) Gleemen/bards, Dreamers/prophets, and Craftsmen/artisans, or whatever the GW creators are. So why not call it something like Cultural Exchange? Maybe Cultural Focus, Cultural Initiative?

I like Cultural Initiative! Also works well with the science one below:

Sciences Funding would raise the spawn rates of whoever those GPs are... Builders? Scholars? Technical Focus? Technical Initiative? Academic Exchange? Technical Exchange?

Academic Initiative? I'll edit both of those in. Feel free to say if you'd still like to change them though!

The "Revel for Holiday" one... I think we'll maybe have to wait to see what doesn't get used up for the Customs. Tentatively, I'd suggest "Revel for the Feats of Lights"?

Works for me, we can change it if we want to use the Feast of Lights in the Customs!

I think the Ter'angreal thing could work, though maybe let's limit "Making" them to some late-game tech or channeling-related thing (buff to stats, etc.). So, with that in mind, I'd maybe suggest something like Catalog of Ter'Angreal or Ter'Angreal Research Initiative. What say you?

Catalog of Ter'angreal sounds good. Doesn't break the flavor of Ter'angreal being mysterious and not well understood. It's possible we might want to evoke a bit more of Elayne's discoveries from later in the books though? The actual making of Ter'angreal. It never became a large-scale process in the books, but likely would have done shortly afterwards? "Fashioning Ter'Angreal"? "Forging Ter'Angreal"? The project could be "Forge Ter'Angreal" then? (Though they weren't really "forged"?)

That's all for tonight! Still have a note to come back to the science proposal (looks good!) but still a lot of diplo discussion here (more than I expected!).

 

[counterpoint]

I was originally planning to respond to the new science victory proposal tonight! But I think it makes sense to close off the diplomacy stuff first. (Though we've got a lot new wrinkles to discuss below!)

Also, I am compelled the share something funny, I read the following Edict name out of context yesterday: Traveling Monopoly. Now all I can think about is the board game running around on legs.

yeah, either that or a mini-version of the board game you can fit in your pocket...

Awesome, I like the idea of significant non-yield bonuses too. So, for the White Ajah, what about "You can demonstrate an Innovation at Tar Valon"? I know that system isn't firmed up yet, but I'm generally a fan and I think it's good if some other components of the game refer to it too!

A cool idea, in theory. Problem, though, is that it would only apply to the very-late game, which I find problematic. Also, would only apply to a scientific victory-pursuit.

I'm happy with WoT GP rate boost for Blue, Happiness for Yellow, and trade route for Gray.

great. done deal, then.

Less sure about Red, Green, and Brown. I love the +1 Spark bonus, but you're right that it's weird for Red. Can we give it to Green instead? That makes sense, right?

A global combat bonus fighting male channelers makes sense for the Red Ajah, but I worry it's not very splashy. Might make a big difference though?

Brown I'm a bit the other way - free Great Works is really powerful! My main concern is that we'd need to make the gifts so infrequent that it's not efficient to remain the Brown Ajah's ally for long periods of time. (That you might be better of letting it lapse for the duration of the gift cooldown.) Then again, it's definitely splashy and cool and people do get a lot of free GPs toward the end of the game - and they can become GWs or do other stuff, which is even more flexible. Maybe GW gifts work then!

I've edited some of these into the summary, left the still open ones for more discussion. (Though feel free to discuss any of them.)

hmmm.... if the Spark bonus makes sense flavorwise, it'd be with the Blue. But from a gameplay perspective (spark=units=military), yes, let's go with Green.

You're right that the red one is kind of boring. Maybe the slower-madness thing is better (though flavorfully quesitonable). I don't know, maybe a combat bonus is fine. Tough call.

Re: browns... I guess we'd have to playtest it. Maybe the interval is somewhat random? Would it be better if it was like a +1 to theming bonuses or something?

We can either have it happen immediately (but then how do we choose which trade route?) or whenever the player's next trade route expires, they just don't get the unit back. (Their limit displays a red 7/6 until then.) Sound good?

right. definitely have it be the next trade route expiration. 7/6 indeed.

Decision time then - let's go for combat bonus at the bottom level, second ability at the second level, and the bonuses above at the third! I've edited this into the summary.

Right, though I'm not 100% it would be a combat bonus. Some might get sight, movement, etc. - varied by Ajah.

Cool, so what information is unlocked exactly? The Ajahs that put forward candidates for Amyrlin? The growth (or lack) of the Black Ajah within the Tower?

I think the players can already see the breakdown of which civs have which influence with which Ajahs (without any spies) and therefore which Ajahs are the most influential.

Right, it's that stuff you mentioned. But also, you should be able to disrupt influence of other civs, right - just like a CS. Right?

Exactly, I was thinking the same way - that it encourages players to commit to a side. But it is weird that gaining Shadow can help you. It could be characterized as appearing righteous in order to get into the Light's good graces? All building up to an epic betrayal? (Like the Children of the Light?) Makes marginally more sense. It definitely makes mechanical sense. I'm happy to go either way with this. It's very easy to switch between the two anyway, if we decide later we want to (dis)allow Shadow contribution to help with this quest. (Just do a positive difference instead of an absolute one.)

Bah... I dunno. Let's just do it as "change" for now. Why not?

Interesting, we could do that. Could that be the Red Ajah's second ability?

right. interesting. maybe a little underwhelming as a second, but kind of cool to strip away your warder and become cooler/better.

I definitely don't think we'd want to model the telepathy part. I don't think players would be able to always choose male channeler warders though - I don't think they'd have enough male channelers? And what if only Asha'men work? So you couldn't use generic Male Channeler units, False Dragons (somehow), or anything else like that? A civ won't have enough Spark to have all Asha'man warders, but they might have one or two by the end of the game? Could this be the Green's second ability? "Bond a male channeling Warder and he retains his powers"? (We might not need the Asha'man restriction if we go with that?)

I've suggested two "second abilities" in this post and I know we did discuss some extra abilities before. Just noting that in case I'm stomping over old ideas.

darn it, I really should look up our previous 2nd abilities. I'm actually kind of not able to do so right now though, not simply. Will have to tackle that later, I guess.

I can see the appeal of the Asha'man thing, but I don't know, the thing from aMoL is pretty strong. I feel like people would expect the telepathy... oh wait... maybe nevermind. The telepathy was only when HE also bonds HER, right? So maybe that's not a problem.

That said, I am concerned with game balance. That could be very, very lethal, especially since Greens have two warders.... I dunno, we should see was the previous 2nd ability was I guess.

I think keeping a diplomatic promise is quite different and definitely more Gray, like you say. The White quest is more about secrets = lying, so exposing secrets is defying that.

ok. got it.

Yeah, we could definitely call the building something different. I'd say a small yield, or, like you've said, no one will build it, but not a significant enough yield to make it worth building the building just for the yield.

Do you mean like some other external effect? A non-yield-related bonus/action?

hmmm... what I'm referring to, really, is that maybe it could serve some location-centered role in Diplomacy with the Tower. definitely starting to sour on this idea.... seems a little overly precious for something of somewhat questionable use.

Maybe let's just make it a real deal National Wonder, that does good things, OR, we have the new Aes Sedai automatically deposited in either 1) the Capital, or 2) your city closest to the tower.

Sounds cool, but complicated. We discussed how to weight the Dragon and his abilities for a long time and I think we'd need to do a similar thing with the Forsaken if we were to give players control over them. We have Shadow-quests that mention Forsaken - I think they could stay a Shadow-civ controlled end-game units for now?

Yeah, let's not make the forsaken more than flavorful "events" that happen for shadow players, and shadow-civ units.

20 it is! Though I could see 25? I'll edit 20 into the summary, but let me know if we should bump up to 25.

Hard to decide which is best just with abstract values. Maybe start with 20 and see how it goes?

Good idea, this representation shows Authority civs as being more influenced by the Tower, which makes sense. (They have the same ratcheting up mechanisms as pre-Ideology.) Do Oppression civs lose influence with CSes allied to Authority civs?

Nah, I'd say unless we have Ideologies (so we aren't calling them philosophies, are we?) for CSs, let's leave them out of it.

Liberation is an interesting middle ground here. I think they would generally be more diplomatically aligned with the Tower than Oppression civs are, but Liberation and the Tower aren't great friends. The Tower thinks Liberation civs are a risk, that the Tower will be blamed for their faults. Liberation civs think that the Tower is too restrictive in its doctrine.

Can we mechanicalize (technical term) that flavor? I feel like we want to do more than just the same "no trade with Authority" for Liberation as Oppression.

Yeah, this is tricky. What's the middle ground here? I'd be tempted to treat them closer to Authority than to Oppression, but I can't figure out mechanically what the difference would be in terms of penalties, though. gosh, i can't think what it would be.

I think it has to be something that civilizations can influence in some way, otherwise Stedding are too unreliable as allies. We touched on this when the idea of variable Stedding yields (based on Stump) popped up first, but didn't go into much detail. One of the bonuses of a influence-able system is that it draws even non-diplo-victory players into the Stump metagame in order to preserve the yields that they've come to rely on.

Given the complexity presented by the Tower, Compact, and their interactions with the Last Battle, (particularly CSes), I think it makes sense to keep the Stump quite simple mechanically. Not quite "pay the Stedding and they will vote for what you want" but something with quite a direct translation from "I want this yield" to "I must take this action". Maybe the civilizations with Stedding allies are polled for their preference for the next Age? (This works with either one-to-one Stedding-civilization ally relationships, or one-to-many Stedding-civilization relationships, there are just more votes in the latter case and that Stedding votes depending on the majority of requests received.) The Stump could be "announced" on World Era change and then actually take place (voting and such) 10 turns later? Or 5?

definitely agree in principle to keep this simple. I think the polling idea is cool, though it is a little weird that it is solel up to the Civs... Any way to provide votes for the "Stedding AI"? I dunno.

In any case, Maybe allies get 2 votes (counted for that stedding) and Friends get 1. I do like the idea of a stedding having multiple allies, by the way (remember, they don't go to war). In any case, it'd end up a highly complex vote, but from a civ perspective, it's very simple.

Yes, announce it at the WE change, and do it.. eh... 5 turns later.

Then the Age with a simple majority (or, in the event of a tie, random choice between tied options) "wins" the Stump?

yep!

Very cool, but very difficult. We run into the same difficulties with removing players/capital cities (non-razeable capitals) that we've encountered elsewhere.

alright, let's leave out the cataclysm then.

I think the structure of the bonuses depends a lot on whether each Stedding can have multiple allies. If they can only have one ally, we can make the bonus more powerful, right?

I think we could have the current Age determine both bonuses. We could mimic the CS-style bonuses, a small one at friends and a significant one at ally, both contributing toward the same play style. I like the Ages you've suggested!

cool. I do think multiple allies is cool, though - more differentation for stedding, right?

Flavor says yes.

But I have no idea (right now) what we could have as additional Stedding quests. I think Stedding have access to the normal CS quests, but possibly one or two unique Stedding ones as well? "We want you to choose 'Peace' as your preference for the next Stump"?

Normal CS quests sound good to me. The different CS types (Mercantile, etc.) have a certain number of unique quests, right? Maybe there should be that number for Stedding. Maybe it's a bunch of touchy-feely stuff:

Tree Friends
Stedding Shangtai will reward you if you do not remove forest or jungle in the next 30 turns.

Peaceful Coexistance
Stedding Tsofu will reward you if you remain at peace with all civilizations for 30 turns.

Ogier Speed
Stedding Shangtai will reward the player with the most no-action turns over the next 30 turns.

A Good Book
Stedding Tsofu will reward the player who spends the most turns producing Research in their cities.

Again, flavor says yes, they should be different. It will also be really underwhelming for the player if those quests remain the same. At the same time, those quests did clearly fulfill specific purposes. Shall we start with direct reflavoring (text changes that WoT-ify the context of the quests) and add/swap out normal CS quests later if we feel we need to? Is that going to feel cheap from the player's perspective?

I'd say we shoudl mostly flavor them differently. Add a couple more that are more specific to our mechanics. I think that should be enough.

We still need their yield bonuses, so I think we keep the same ones. Do we rename them?

probably need to rename them, if only because of the whole "Religious" thing not making sense in this series. Ideas?

I don't know why I brought up the Light vs Light CS - I think we said that there can be no intra-Light wars once the Last Battle starts? That solves our Light civil war problem (*poof* it is gone!). I don't think we ever need to allow Light civs to declare war on other Light allies' CSes, under the same restriction that they can't declare war on the major civ. (And that would suck - you couldn't defend your CS allies from other Light players.) What if a Light civ is at war with a Neutral civ and one of that Neutral civ's allied CSes is bought out by a second Light civ? I'm thinking insta-peace? (Even faster than instant peace, because it takes less time to say.)

that all sounds great. If a Light civ is at war with a neutral and....... yeah, I guess it would stop the war, wouldn't it?

Ah, I think we'll definitely have Last-Battle-specific AI for Shadow civs in terms of considering their other Shadow "allies" that they're at war with. One of the main concerns is negotiation with CSes (the whole locked into -60, no diplo options UI for CSes you're at war with) - we want the Shadow players to still be able to win a diplo victory (this is our end objective here, within the constraints of the existing Last Battle).

So, I'm thinking that the major civs on the Shadow side are at war with each other, but none of the Shadow-allied CSes are (by default). Shadow-allied Cses are at war with all Light civs and Light-allied CSes. Shadow-allied CSes can be explicitly declared war on by: Neutral civs and Shadow civs. Shadow-allied Cses declare war on Neutral civs with the normal "with my ally" rules. (And Neutral-allied Cses follow the normal rules in all cases.)

This means that a mindful Shadow civ that is trying to win the diplomatic victory only loses access to: Light-allied CSes (unless they use Gray Men/Forsaken Turning to grab a couple of those). This seems acceptable.

Warmongering Shadow civs can declare war on anyone they want. They can capture any CS in the world. They are already at war with the Light ones. They can declare on the Neutral and Shadow ones (if they want).

Many words to describe the above, but I don't think it's actually too complicated - it's just enumerating the consequences of "Shadow major civs are at war with each other by default, but their CS allies are not". I think the most succinct description of the whole process is: "Shadow civs declaring war on each other at the start of the Last Battle does not cause their City-State allies to declare war on other Shadow civs." (All other CS-related war mechanics remain the same.)

In terms of the AI, we basically need to make it do that. We need to encode it with some knowledge that it's dancing a dagger's edge of working with and against *other* Shadow civs if it's playing Shadow. My previous comment was partially inaccurate (we should have some unique logic where the Alignment shenanigans are concerned) and otherwise concerned with the "locked into -60 and can't negotiate" UI state when you're at war with a CS.

whew! That was a lot... but it all makes perfect sense. I think that's the appropriate way to deal with the CSs during the LB.

Will the AI properly deal with the other *civs* though, in the LB? Meaning, will the Shadow civs be able to recognize that they aren't *really* at war with the other shadow civs?

Also, how do we keep the world economy afloat during the LB? Again, especially if the shadow civs are essentially at war with everybody? Seems like a big issue...

Added into the Edict list, though I've highlighted a few in red that are debatably refusable!

Of the white ajah ones, I'd say Logical Paradigm should be (R)... the other two don't seem as big a deal. It can't hurt, though?

Of the Reds, "Cleansing the Populace" should be (R)... other one, eh, not a big deal

While we're on the topic, does Turning the Tower go into this summary or was it in the Channeling one? Did we decide anything else while discussing diplo that affects that?

Sounds good to make it possible for them to pop up once the Alignments become a factor in the Tower! Edited into the summary.

gosh, i don't remember. As said before, I don't have the ability to look through old ones right now... let's check that out though.

Nooooooooo! (I love that that website exists.)

wow. awesome!

We can come up with more! I would rather add Yellow and White Edicts than remove existing ones though. The more room we have to ramp up the Edict-issuing-speed, the better, I think. Given the way Edicts are issued from a common pool (one Edict issued by the whole Tower at a time), I don't think exact equality in terms of numbers for each Ajah is necessary, but we don't want Yellow and White to lag behind in variety so significantly. Two more per Ajah brings them up to 6?

(Before I move on, I should mention I've altered the Edict list so Tireless Helpers is the name of that Green Edict!)

Nice. Though, I don't like Tireless Helpers if it isn't yellow. Have it be "Tireless Warriors" or something instead.

So, with that in mind:

Return of the Edicts

Yellow Ajah

Hearty People
Granaries (replace with our equivalent) produce +2 happiness for 30 turns.

Healing Discovery
Yellow Sisters' healing ability heals double the usual amount of health for 30 turns. (Alternatively: All Sisters' "Medic-like" promotion causes double-rate recovery for 30 turns. Or we could use both as two separate quests?)

I'd say either/or, but not both. I think regular Medic-style might be more effective overall.

White Ajah
It occurred to me when marking up the refusability of Edicts that the majority of the White Ajah Edicts were "negative" Edicts that made something else "not work" as it would in isolation. So we can fix that!

Distributed Debate
Academies (or some earlier research building) produce an additional +2 science per turn for the next 30 turns.

Scholar's Birthright
Great Scientists (Great Scholar? or whatever we call our equivalent) points are accumulated 30% faster for the next 30 turns.

What do you think of those? I might even be able to get them all up to 9 at a stretch? (Do we want more Black Edicts?) I'll edit the above into the master list (with any changes we discuss from here on) if you like the idea of adding more.[/QUOTE]

all these look great! If you want them all up to nine, that sounds good to me. Where we at now?

Catalog of Ter'angreal sounds good. Doesn't break the flavor of Ter'angreal being mysterious and not well understood. It's possible we might want to evoke a bit more of Elayne's discoveries from later in the books though? The actual making of Ter'angreal. It never became a large-scale process in the books, but likely would have done shortly afterwards? "Fashioning Ter'Angreal"? "Forging Ter'Angreal"? The project could be "Forge Ter'Angreal" then? (Though they weren't really "forged"?)

That's all for tonight! Still have a note to come back to the science proposal (looks good!) but still a lot of diplo discussion here (more than I expected!).

I'd say the ter'angreal making should be a "4th age" tech, probably one that upgrades all your channelers.

whew! two posts in one day!

 

[S3rgeus]

There are a few big ticket items in this post that need more writing done, so I'm marking them in blue as something for me to come back to and do a more thorough write up this weekend when I have more time for a long post!

A cool idea, in theory. Problem, though, is that it would only apply to the very-late game, which I find problematic. Also, would only apply to a scientific victory-pursuit.

Yeah, it doesn't help you progress towards the Science Victory, it just helps you finish off the last bit - you've already done the bulk of the work.

hmmm.... if the Spark bonus makes sense flavorwise, it'd be with the Blue. But from a gameplay perspective (spark=units=military), yes, let's go with Green.

Done!

You're right that the red one is kind of boring. Maybe the slower-madness thing is better (though flavorfully quesitonable). I don't know, maybe a combat bonus is fine. Tough call.

Yeah, slower madness is flavorfully questionable, since madness rate isn't really influence-able in the WoT-verse. Originally you mentioned -% male channelers - we could have a reduction in natural Male Channeler spawn rate? That makes flavorful sense. We could even combine that with the Warderless bonus, since reduced Male Channeler spawn rate isn't a huge benefit by itself?

Re: browns... I guess we'd have to playtest it. Maybe the interval is somewhat random? Would it be better if it was like a +1 to theming bonuses or something?

+1 theming bonus would definitely be safer, but let's try splashy and awesome first - see if it's unbalancing!

right. definitely have it be the next trade route expiration. 7/6 indeed.

Sounds good!

Right, though I'm not 100% it would be a combat bonus. Some might get sight, movement, etc. - varied by Ajah.

Cool, do we want to enumerate those bonuses now as well?

Right, it's that stuff you mentioned. But also, you should be able to disrupt influence of other civs, right - just like a CS. Right?

Sure, we can do that. I assume the player can only have one spy at the Tower at a time (like other cities) so a single spy can choose which Ajah they'd like to try to overturn. Do we want to do the same influence-swap rebellions as normal CSes, just isolated to single Ajahs?

Bah... I dunno. Let's just do it as "change" for now. Why not?

Change it is! We can always revisit it if we decide it's too strange (or enough players complain).

right. interesting. maybe a little underwhelming as a second, but kind of cool to strip away your warder and become cooler/better.

If the bonus is significant, I don't think it will be underwhelming. Especially since a lot of our Red Ajah flavor is to do with male channelers, it's nice to focus on some of the other aspects on the Ajah that we see in the books.

darn it, I really should look up our previous 2nd abilities. I'm actually kind of not able to do so right now though, not simply. Will have to tackle that later, I guess.

I can see the appeal of the Asha'man thing, but I don't know, the thing from aMoL is pretty strong. I feel like people would expect the telepathy... oh wait... maybe nevermind. The telepathy was only when HE also bonds HER, right? So maybe that's not a problem.

That said, I am concerned with game balance. That could be very, very lethal, especially since Greens have two warders.... I dunno, we should see was the previous 2nd ability was I guess.

I just did a bit of reading about the telepathy thing - that seems to be unique to a male-female channeler pair who have both bonded each other. Neither the male -> female nor female -> male bond bestows telepathy on its own. Even then, I don't think we can model telepathy in CiV - all units (owned by a given player) can act with perfect information about each others' capabilities and sight because they're controlled by a single guiding intelligence (the player).

In terms of previous "second abilities" - I think we primarily discussed some of the alternative bonuses proposed in your initial channeling proposal, specifically this post.

I think some of these new ideas hold up next to those though. Game balance is certainly a concern here with male-channeler-warders, but in comparison to the Giant Death Robot in base CiV, they're much harder to create and the GDR is far and away the best unit out there. If channeling warders are restricted to Asha'man units bonded by Green Sisters (controlled by a civ that has their "second ability"), then I think it will be quite safe, but something very cool to work towards.

hmmm... what I'm referring to, really, is that maybe it could serve some location-centered role in Diplomacy with the Tower. definitely starting to sour on this idea.... seems a little overly precious for something of somewhat questionable use.

Maybe let's just make it a real deal National Wonder, that does good things, OR, we have the new Aes Sedai automatically deposited in either 1) the Capital, or 2) your city closest to the tower.

National Wonders can only be built once per player though - so you'd never be able to move your "rally point" for Sisters, which seems quite strange. No one location will be useful as a spawn point for the duration of the game. Having a Tower Embassy as a National Wonder is cool with me - something that gives good bonuses. (What's its prerequisite building though?) National Wonders are also much easier for Tall civs to build (intentionally), but controlling Sister spawn points is most useful for Wide.

Having a building (doesn't have to be the Embassy) that can control or at least constrain the Sister's spawn point seems like a really elegant solution. It's a utility building, which is something a lot of other 4X games do very well, but CiV is mostly "try to build all buildings in every city". There's definitely merit in keeping to CiV's design patterns, but I don't know if doing so adds much in this case. Endless Space is quite good at this - planets are rough equivalents of cities, and most buildings are only useful on some planet types, so it encourages the player to think more about their building choices.

Yeah, let's not make the forsaken more than flavorful "events" that happen for shadow players, and shadow-civ units.

Cool, sounds good!

Hard to decide which is best just with abstract values. Maybe start with 20 and see how it goes?

Sounds good.

Nah, I'd say unless we have Ideologies (so we aren't calling them philosophies, are we?) for CSs, let's leave them out of it.

Sorry, I forgot to respond to that question last time! Philosophies sounds more WoT-ish, so I'm good with that. Also cool with leaving CSes out of Philosophical limitations.

Yeah, this is tricky. What's the middle ground here? I'd be tempted to treat them closer to Authority than to Oppression, but I can't figure out mechanically what the difference would be in terms of penalties, though. gosh, i can't think what it would be.

The simplest solution is to give them the same ramping penalties as Authority, but make them less severe? Likewise we could have Oppression civs' first "refusal penalty" be "no trade with Authority civs and penalty in yields from trade with Liberation civs"?

definitely agree in principle to keep this simple. I think the polling idea is cool, though it is a little weird that it is solel up to the Civs... Any way to provide votes for the "Stedding AI"? I dunno.

In any case, Maybe allies get 2 votes (counted for that stedding) and Friends get 1. I do like the idea of a stedding having multiple allies, by the way (remember, they don't go to war). In any case, it'd end up a highly complex vote, but from a civ perspective, it's very simple.

Yes, announce it at the WE change, and do it.. eh... 5 turns later.

Yeah, we can have the Stedding itself cast votes to decide its own voting (in addition to the players). Stedding itself casts 2 votes and wins ties? That way it can overrule a single ally, but any two players (where one is an ally) or any three players voting in tandem can swing the vote. Since Stedding can have multiple allies (I've quoted that part next) the players will likely-but-not-always decide, and the Stedding itself has serious pull. Each Stedding can have some predefined flavors for the Ages it prefers, and can be modified by the current state of the game. (Stedding under threat of conquest are more likely to pick War and so on.)

WE + 5 sounds good to me!

I've edited all of this into the summary, but can edit again if there are any more changes.

cool. I do think multiple allies is cool, though - more differentation for stedding, right?

Yeah, the differentiation is good here. I've edited that into the summary!

Normal CS quests sound good to me. The different CS types (Mercantile, etc.) have a certain number of unique quests, right? Maybe there should be that number for Stedding. Maybe it's a bunch of touchy-feely stuff:

Tree Friends
Stedding Shangtai will reward you if you do not remove forest or jungle in the next 30 turns.

Peaceful Coexistance
Stedding Tsofu will reward you if you remain at peace with all civilizations for 30 turns.

Ogier Speed
Stedding Shangtai will reward the player with the most no-action turns over the next 30 turns.

A Good Book
Stedding Tsofu will reward the player who spends the most turns producing Research in their cities.

CSes in base CiV all have the same pool of quests to pull from, except the worldwide-yield-contest ones, which are usually (always?) proposed by their appropriate CS type.

I like 3/4 of these - question about the Ogier Speed one though - what's a no action turn? Even on turns where the player doesn't do anything (doesn't have to interact with the UI beyond "End Turn"), tons of automated progress/unit actions take place every turn.

We could also have one that rewards players for proposing/voting for the "No Resolution" resolution in the Compact? Careful Consideration?

We could include (disallow) building Lumber Mills (or whatever we call our equivalent) in Tree Friend - since that's the main use of Forests in the late game?

I'd say we shoudl mostly flavor them differently. Add a couple more that are more specific to our mechanics. I think that should be enough.

Awesome, that sounds good. Shall we make some of those now or wait until all other systems are pinned down? If we go for now, I'll come back to this over the weekend for some initial ideas of additional quests we might add to CSes in general.

probably need to rename them, if only because of the whole "Religious" thing not making sense in this series. Ideas?

Cool, I think we want to keep with the convention of a single, descriptive word for the names of the types - one that reads well in "X City-State" like "Religious City-State" makes grammatical sense. Some initial ideas:

Maritime: Festivial (this is not a word - going for relationship to Festivals, and Festive means something else to people), Bountiful
Cultural: Historical, Chronicled, maybe this one doesn't need to change?, Influential
Militaristic: Borderlander (I like this one, very in-universe, if a bit specific), Aggressive, Militant
Religious: Devout, something to do with the Creator?, Righteous, Inspired
Mercantile: Monetary, Luxurious (pun!), Influential

that all sounds great. If a Light civ is at war with a neutral and....... yeah, I guess it would stop the war, wouldn't it?

Sounds good!

whew! That was a lot... but it all makes perfect sense. I think that's the appropriate way to deal with the CSs during the LB.

Cool, I've edited that into the summary!

Will the AI properly deal with the other *civs* though, in the LB? Meaning, will the Shadow civs be able to recognize that they aren't *really* at war with the other shadow civs?

Yeah, we basically need to add that logic ourselves. We have full source code for the AI, it's just really complicated. AI improvements are part of what we want to do anyway though - there are some crazy stupid things the AI does that I'd quite like to see removed. It would also be really cool if it actually got smarter/dumber at different difficulty levels, instead of just scaling via bonuses.

Also, how do we keep the world economy afloat during the LB? Again, especially if the shadow civs are essentially at war with everybody? Seems like a big issue...

Partially I think that's a consideration of choosing Shadow - can I afford to do so? Even then, you can trade with Shadow CSes since you're not at war with them. You can trade with Neutral players and Neutral CSes. CS trade routes don't yield as much (usually) but players should be able to break even with them. Players will also be losing a lot of units, which is where a lot of outgoing gold goes. (Though hopefully they're making more too.)

Trade routes become a lot riskier - there are a lot more people trying to plunder them than usual, but I think that's part of the atmosphere of the whole thing. And some players may just build up a gold stockpile and run through the whole Last Battle on a massive deficit - we said approximately 50 turns, right? So with some strategic selling of buildings in unneeded/about-to-be-captured places, you could finance a much larger army than normal, since you know the game will end when the Last Battle finishes up.

Of the white ajah ones, I'd say Logical Paradigm should be (R)... the other two don't seem as big a deal. It can't hurt, though?

Of the Reds, "Cleansing the Populace" should be (R)... other one, eh, not a big deal

I've left them all marked as refusable then!

gosh, i don't remember. As said before, I don't have the ability to look through old ones right now... let's check that out though.

The channeling summary is here. We touched on the Black Tower and its consequences in the Last Battle, and I believe we discussed how to Turn the Tower, but it wasn't a part of that summary. I'll need to read a lot more posts to get our full thoughts together on this again (and we'll probably want to discuss it a bit more) so I'll come back to this this weekend!

Nice. Though, I don't like Tireless Helpers if it isn't yellow. Have it be "Tireless Warriors" or something instead.

Edited in!

I'd say either/or, but not both. I think regular Medic-style might be more effective overall.

Cool, I agree - I've edited in the Medic-style promotion buff.

all these look great! If you want them all up to nine, that sounds good to me. Where we at now?

We're at:

Blue - 6
White - 6
Brown - 9
Red - 6
Green - 8
Yellow - 6
Gray - 7

I'll come back to making more of these at the weekend when I have more time to write out a long post! I'll reply to the science proposal then as well!

I'd say the ter'angreal making should be a "4th age" tech, probably one that upgrades all your channelers.

Cool, something that's on the lines of where the Hubble Telescope is in base CiV? I've updated the Compact Resolution to be Catalog of Ter'angreal.

whew! two posts in one day!

 

[counterpoint]

Wow, looks like good old 'lomacy is about wrapped up!

Yeah, it doesn't help you progress towards the Science Victory, it just helps you finish off the last bit - you've already done the bulk of the work.

do we think that's a problem, though? The other perks seem to be at least a little more universal.

Yeah, slower madness is flavorfully questionable, since madness rate isn't really influence-able in the WoT-verse. Originally you mentioned -% male channelers - we could have a reduction in natural Male Channeler spawn rate? That makes flavorful sense. We could even combine that with the Warderless bonus, since reduced Male Channeler spawn rate isn't a huge benefit by itself?

right, I'm almost ready to go with this one... but, the potential issue here is that some civs will definitely *not* want that to happen, based on their playstyle (wanting more male channelers to spawn, especially post-cleansing). Of course, they could avoid making nice with the red, but, sometimes accidents happen in civ (I didn't *mean* to generate more culture than everybody else!).

Cool, do we want to enumerate those bonuses now as well?

Enumerate? But it's Thursday - that's a Wednesday word if I ever heard one...

Maybe something like these:

Blue: +X% melee combat strength (kinda random, I know), OR +1 or +2 sight
Red: +X% Ranged defense (aka, protect against the channelers)
Green: +X% ranged combat strength
Yellow: increased healing rate, OR slight splash damage on targeted heals
Brown: +10% experience earned (is this possible?) or Culture on Kill (though that's more of a 2nd ability) or ???
White: +1 or +2 sight or Science on kill? (though that's more of a 2nd ability)
Gray: +1 or +2 movement

Sure, we can do that. I assume the player can only have one spy at the Tower at a time (like other cities) so a single spy can choose which Ajah they'd like to try to overturn. Do we want to do the same influence-swap rebellions as normal CSes, just isolated to single Ajahs?

I suppose it can work just like the CSs - though I must confess, I don't know exactly how that mechanic works? Is it actually a swap? So, you should ideally send a spy to a CS you have LOW influence over?

I just did a bit of reading about the telepathy thing - that seems to be unique to a male-female channeler pair who have both bonded each other. Neither the male -> female nor female -> male bond bestows telepathy on its own. Even then, I don't think we can model telepathy in CiV - all units (owned by a given player) can act with perfect information about each others' capabilities and sight because they're controlled by a single guiding intelligence (the player).

In terms of previous "second abilities" - I think we primarily discussed some of the alternative bonuses proposed in your initial channeling proposal, specifically this post.

I think some of these new ideas hold up next to those though. Game balance is certainly a concern here with male-channeler-warders, but in comparison to the Giant Death Robot in base CiV, they're much harder to create and the GDR is far and away the best unit out there. If channeling warders are restricted to Asha'man units bonded by Green Sisters (controlled by a civ that has their "second ability"), then I think it will be quite safe, but something very cool to work towards.

Yeah, I misspoke here. I meant to say that Androl (is that his name) had bonded Pevara in ADDITION to her bond of him.

anyways, we can try it, and watch the balance for how awesome it is. Of course, the "channeling warder" will be its own unit (not actually an Asha'man), right? So, he can be as strong or as weak as we'd like.

National Wonders can only be built once per player though - so you'd never be able to move your "rally point" for Sisters, which seems quite strange. No one location will be useful as a spawn point for the duration of the game. Having a Tower Embassy as a National Wonder is cool with me - something that gives good bonuses. (What's its prerequisite building though?) National Wonders are also much easier for Tall civs to build (intentionally), but controlling Sister spawn points is most useful for Wide.

Re: the Tower Embassy, I think it's prereq buildings would be... one of the buildings we create that'll be channeling-related... not sure what those will be. Wisdom's hut, etc.... Depository?

Having a building (doesn't have to be the Embassy) that can control or at least constrain the Sister's spawn point seems like a really elegant solution. It's a utility building, which is something a lot of other 4X games do very well, but CiV is mostly "try to build all buildings in every city". There's definitely merit in keeping to CiV's design patterns, but I don't know if doing so adds much in this case. Endless Space is quite good at this - planets are rough equivalents of cities, and most buildings are only useful on some planet types, so it encourages the player to think more about their building choices.

for sure, this could work, though the preference would be to be consistent with Civ's design aesthetic. What about a Channeling governor? Like, they might spawn in any city that is governed by a channeler?

The simplest solution is to give them the same ramping penalties as Authority, but make them less severe? Likewise we could have Oppression civs' first "refusal penalty" be "no trade with Authority civs and penalty in yields from trade with Liberation civs"?

Well, the problem (IMO) of them being "less severe" is that I'm not sure the Oppression penalty is technically less severe. True, they can't limit your trade with 2/3 of the world, but trade with Authority is 100% blocked. In many situations, that would be as if nothing bad had happened at all, but in others, it would be crippling (suddenly losing all your trade routes, etc.). So, while it's certainly likely to be less severe, that's not necessarily true. It would be nice if the Liberation one had that duality too - perhaps less severe broadly, but in certain situations, it could be even worse. Certainly, the Tower won't trade with you, right (while Authority civs could still trade with the WT, even when they've refused)?

Yeah, we can have the Stedding itself cast votes to decide its own voting (in addition to the players). Stedding itself casts 2 votes and wins ties? That way it can overrule a single ally, but any two players (where one is an ally) or any three players voting in tandem can swing the vote. Since Stedding can have multiple allies (I've quoted that part next) the players will likely-but-not-always decide, and the Stedding itself has serious pull. Each Stedding can have some predefined flavors for the Ages it prefers, and can be modified by the current state of the game. (Stedding under threat of conquest are more likely to pick War and so on.)

WE + 5 sounds good to me!

I've edited all of this into the summary, but can edit again if there are any more changes.

all looks great!

CSes in base CiV all have the same pool of quests to pull from, except the worldwide-yield-contest ones, which are usually (always?) proposed by their appropriate CS type.

I like 3/4 of these - question about the Ogier Speed one though - what's a no action turn? Even on turns where the player doesn't do anything (doesn't have to interact with the UI beyond "End Turn"), tons of automated progress/unit actions take place every turn.

We could also have one that rewards players for proposing/voting for the "No Resolution" resolution in the Compact? Careful Consideration?

I like the careful consideration one! The concept behind Ogier Speed was similar. I guess, I would define "no action" as not moving any units, attacking, etc. - healing and all that is fine. The question of course is what of workers. But the "Next Turn" turns are what I'm thinking of.

We could include (disallow) building Lumber Mills (or whatever we call our equivalent) in Tree Friend - since that's the main use of Forests in the late game?

Yes, exactly.

Awesome, that sounds good. Shall we make some of those now or wait until all other systems are pinned down? If we go for now, I'll come back to this over the weekend for some initial ideas of additional quests we might add to CSes in general.

For sure, let's grab some now, if you have ideas. I'm honestly not sure where the "need" is at this point, so I'm curious where you're at with it.

Cool, I think we want to keep with the convention of a single, descriptive word for the names of the types - one that reads well in "X City-State" like "Religious City-State" makes grammatical sense. Some initial ideas:

Maritime: Festivial (this is not a word - going for relationship to Festivals, and Festive means something else to people), Bountiful
Cultural: Historical, Chronicled, maybe this one doesn't need to change?, Influential
Militaristic: Borderlander (I like this one, very in-universe, if a bit specific), Aggressive, Militant
Religious: Devout, something to do with the Creator?, Righteous, Inspired
Mercantile: Monetary, Luxurious (pun!), Influential

I wish there was a way to give the Tuatha'an a CS.

Maritime - celebratory, ritualistic, ceremonial, or going in a different direction - Agrarian, Agricultural
Cultural - Learned, Scholarly, Intellectual, refined?
Militaristic - like the idea of Borderlander... but do they have to be on the Border? Otherwise, Militant, Warlike, Defensive, Martial,
Religious - Enlightened? Since Paths aren't strictly religious, I kinda like this angle. Inspired could work too.
Mercantile - I'd say maybe Wealthy, Prosperous, or something? Or also ritualisitc and ceremonial

Yeah, we basically need to add that logic ourselves. We have full source code for the AI, it's just really complicated. AI improvements are part of what we want to do anyway though - there are some crazy stupid things the AI does that I'd quite like to see removed. It would also be really cool if it actually got smarter/dumber at different difficulty levels, instead of just scaling via bonuses.

Well, then, I guess I'm just crossing my fingers that you know how to do that!

Partially I think that's a consideration of choosing Shadow - can I afford to do so? Even then, you can trade with Shadow CSes since you're not at war with them. You can trade with Neutral players and Neutral CSes. CS trade routes don't yield as much (usually) but players should be able to break even with them. Players will also be losing a lot of units, which is where a lot of outgoing gold goes. (Though hopefully they're making more too.)

Trade routes become a lot riskier - there are a lot more people trying to plunder them than usual, but I think that's part of the atmosphere of the whole thing. And some players may just build up a gold stockpile and run through the whole Last Battle on a massive deficit - we said approximately 50 turns, right? So with some strategic selling of buildings in unneeded/about-to-be-captured places, you could finance a much larger army than normal, since you know the game will end when the Last Battle finishes up.

Right. This all makes sense. I do wonder if, as the LB dawns, we should give every civ an opportunity to reassign their trade route destinations. Otherwise, the timing could really hurt some civs (especially if a partner goes a different direction than you expected). And it's kind of boring if everybody turtles with CSs for the last whole part of the game to prevent this. Thoughts?

The channeling summary is here. We touched on the Black Tower and its consequences in the Last Battle, and I believe we discussed how to Turn the Tower, but it wasn't a part of that summary. I'll need to read a lot more posts to get our full thoughts together on this again (and we'll probably want to discuss it a bit more) so I'll come back to this this weekend!

Yeah, I think most of the Black stuff was discussed more recently than the Chanelling stuff. It looks like this is the largest discussion:

I think the Black Ajah should be tracked separately from the influences of the other Ajahs. Seeing as the other Ajahs are all, in theory, sided with the Light, I think it makes sense to have a separate adversarial system there.

I'll also make a note about influence within the Tower, for the 'normal' Ajahs being "relative". Knowing the Grey Ajah has 10 influence (total) doesn't actually tell you how influential they are - it depends on how much influence the others have. If every other Ajah has only 2, then the Grey and their 10 have a significant share of the total influence. If the others have 100 each however, then the Greys have a only a very small fraction of influence within the Tower.

So, tracking the progress of the Black Ajah. I think the Black Ajah shouldn't "exist" as far as the players are concerned until the later parts of the game (say until the final two eras). But I would suggest that they start to manifest in some ways before the Last Battle starts. Seeing as alignment is inherently a Last Battle victory condition thing, I'm thinking the Black Ajah only exist when the Last Battle victory condition is enabled?

I'd say the Black Ajah can give out quests as well, but not in the same way as normal Ajahs. Normal Ajahs (mostly) announce their quests as goals that players can complete at their leisure. Every player knows what (the majority of) all normal Ajah quests are at any given time. But the Black Ajah can give quests out in secret and to specific players. (Likely selected based on their already leaning Shadow.) They can give more targeted quests. Some examples of Black Ajah quests:

• capture this player's capital
• declare war on this player
• capture this CS
• kill this unit (likely a GP?)
• build a city near the Blight/near Thakan'dar (defend the Shadow in the coming battle)
• find/break a Seal

Any more suggestions for Black Ajah quests?

So when would the Black quests start popping up? The era before Dragon? Two eras before?

Is there any "struggle" going on, even under the covers, before those final eras before the LB?

I think most of those quests sound cool. Just to be clear, though, these are BA-specific? i.e., *not* the same as ones given from the Forsaken, etc.? Or should there be overlap there?

I kinda like the idea of the quests being kind of random, from a player perspective, but having some significant consequences. Like:

Pillage a civ's improvements
Pillage your *own* improvements
Let your own city starve
Demand tribute of a CS
give away a resource to another civ for no compensation
Disband a unit.

Stuff that seems sorta bad to do, without any obvious benefit, but it (somehow, in theory) benefits the Black Ajah/Forsaken.

Maybe the "bad for you" ones are the kinds of things not from the Black, but from the Chosen? I dunno, to me it just seems kinda flavorful - you're doing this crappy thing, and you *think* you'll get rewarded later. Also, it might be a way that attentive civs could tell who's going Shadow.

So, this brings up the question of how we're evaluating the success of the Black Ajah. A simple way would be for their quests to generate influence (secretly) for the Black. We can compare this influence against the aggregate influence of all non-Black Ajahs. This would mean Black Ajah quests would need to generate a lot of influence to compensate for the other Ajahs' majority and six era head start. This method is relatively simple, but I don't think it's that fun.

What if there are quest lines on both sides (provided by the Black to specific players and some targeted/some global from the normal Ajahs) that center around the Amyrlin? The Black Ajah takes over the Tower by having a Black Sister elected as Amyrlin. I would think the Shadow quest line leads to the Black Ajah taking over the Tower. The normal ones lead to a Light side Tower. And if neither side is completed, then we've also got a Light side Tower (since that's how the Tower leans by default anyway).

Questions that lead on from this are how Amyrlin elections work - which is a more general question than specifically dealing with the Black Ajah, though worth considering in the context of how it would change around the start of the Last Battle when one side might flip the Tower to the Shadow.

Jumping back to measuring the Black Ajah against the others, a separate or possibly fuse-able approach is one where the Black Ajah's influence is somehow a proportion of the existing normal Ajahs' influences. Now this is more flavorful - the Black Ajah doesn't exist as a separate independent entity, it's made up of Sisters from all of the other Ajahs that work for the Shadow. I don't have as many concrete ideas about this approach. The influence provided by players who are Shadow-aligned could be treated as Black Ajah influence, but I worry that would make turning the Tower quite easy. Even in a majority Shadow players game, it should require a concerted effort from a few players to pull it off.

No, I don't think the BA can be measured "directly" against the others. It gives the others too big a head start, but alternatively might seem kind of cheap if it does happen - Green has been in charge for 4000 years and then suddenly, POOF, Black!

This is tricky, though. Quests make sense, but we have to make the Black taking over *very* challenging - probably relying on something like half (or more) of the attention paid to the tower being pro-Black (whether through one dominant civ, or several others). It shouldn't be very common, IMO.

One way to deal with this is to have the quests be 1) somewhat counterproductive (gain you enemies, waste your resources, etc.) and 2) the rewards not be so great in the short term - Turning the tower is the very definition of the "long con."

Hmmm... you're right to be suspicious of Shadow-players-equals-shadow-tower. I don't think shadow-leaning players automatically turn the tower Shadow. Remember, we like the idea of most of a civ's Aes Sedai *leaving* when the LB starts if they declare for the shadow.

I do kind of like the idea of each Ajah having a proportion of Shadow influence, though. Like, the Red is at 30%, the Blue at 90%, etc. The tower turns (or a black amyrlin is elected) when the majority of the Ajah's (i.e 4/7) or the majority of the total "power" (i.e., one dominant Ajah) goes Black. The question then remains as to how exaclty an individual Ajah goes Black... Hmmm... this is tricky.

I think the books show this kind of thing happening, when the Black almost took over. The Red (who, despite Elaida not being a DF, had a fair number of DFs in their ranks) led a coup for their own political reasons, but part of the reason they were success was through a kind of alliance with the White, who we could consider to be heavily Black, since one of their prominent members (Alvarin) got selected as Keeper.

I do think player's Alignment could have *some* effect. Of course, Alignment lowers the favor of the WT, right? But, pre-LB, if a Shadow-leaning player, who still has *some* AS allocation, repeatedly does quests for, and selects, the White Ajah, should not the White be skewed Shadow, somewhat?

Also, it does make intuitive sense that the stronger the Shadow becomes, the stronger the Black presence would be. So, by doing a lot of quests for the Chosen (i.e., not just the Black Ajah), the influence of the Black in the WT should increase, at least somewhat. So, intuitively it does appear to be the case that a game full of shadow players (who are presumably hanging out with the Chosen alot) would produce a more Blackish Tower - perhaps not enough to turn the Tower, though.

updated thoughts?

We're at:

Blue - 6
White - 6
Brown - 9
Red - 6
Green - 8
Yellow - 6
Gray - 7

I'll come back to making more of these at the weekend when I have more time to write out a long post! I'll reply to the science proposal then as well!

please do! I'm running out of ideas - I'm also worried we're going to use up all the cool mechanics we could use on social policies and tenets...

Cool, something that's on the lines of where the Hubble Telescope is in base CiV? I've updated the Compact Resolution to be Catalog of Ter'angreal.

Right... though I don't think this one would reveal the map.