Somnium discussion

[MagisterCultuum]

I'd actually think it rather appropriate for Perpentach to care more about Somnium than the other players. I could see him viewing it as more important that Alignment, religion, and council membership combined.

 

[MaxAstro]

I have to agree with Magister; I'd love to see Perpentach's diplomatic relations almost entirely determined by his opponent's skill at cards, it just seems appropriate to the Clown Prince.

 

[KingOfLands]

Is that background / playmat thing some of the art from Green Ronin's Blue Rose RPG? It looks familiar.

 

[Kael]

Is that background / playmat thing some of the art from Green Ronin's Blue Rose RPG? It looks familiar.

Im not sure. They are from Stephanie Pui-Mun Law's website, but I dont know what they were commisioned for.

 

[thewyrm]

Played my first game as Perpentach and the first civ I encountered were the Luichuirp. Since Beeri defeated me at a game of Somnium I decided not to steal any of his cities and co-exist in peace. . . Poor Ethne was not so fortunate.

Edit: By the way, any plans to release "expansion packs" every now and then? Or perhaps a new unique card with each version release?

 

[MiKa523]

new unique card?

..like an 8 ?

 

[thewyrm]

new unique card?

..like an 8 ?

. . . Sure I guess, but I was thinking more along the lines of the Fool and Death. Still plenty of cards left in the Tarot.

Another idea I thought might be cool is if each leader had their own unique card they could play once a game. Imagine having Perpentach on the ropes until he plays his unique card of the Tarot "Wheel of Fortune." Or "the Magician" for Dain, "the Devil" for Hyborem, etc. Just a thought.

 

[Kael]

. . . Sure I guess, but I was thinking more along the lines of the Fool and Death. Still plenty of cards left in the Tarot.

Another idea I thought might be cool is if each leader had their own unique card they could play once a game. Imagine having Perpentach on the ropes until he plays his unique card of the Tarot "Wheel of Fortune." Or "the Magician" for Dain, "the Devil" for Hyborem, etc. Just a thought.

Gambling House pedia entry talks about local Somnium house rules, but there aren't any plans to include it in the main game.

 

[Blackmantle]

Very nice "minigame" and superb implementation.

2 proposals though: 1. Could you add a view of the discard pile? 2. a list of cards on your bank of one type? (with the first one beeing far more important. Sorry if its allready in but i haven't figured.)

Lest you want to force the players using a sheet of paper if they don't have a razor-sharp memory. Since there is not really a way to prevent a player from doing so and a minigame might be more fun if its not about frying your brain-cells out.
(Not that i have done but playing from memory is hard.)

Sad to see the option of 1 Gold go (if it is ) no more paying the upkeep of my troops early game by: A game of Somnium a turn keeps the bailiff adjourn. (Especially fun if taken from the civ to bash with those units. ).

And i have to third the attitude adjustment for Balseraph leaders / especially Perpy.

 

[xienwolf]

"Semi-Standalone Somnium"


Go into Assets/XML/GlobalDefinesAlt.xml, find the entry for SOMNIUM_BASE_DELAY_TURNS. Change the 30 to 0.

Load up FfH 2033, start a game at Deity with all Leaders in play.

Settle your city and end the turn. Then immediately go into worldbuilder and place a single unit (any unit) next to each AI city (you could do this on turn 0, but it is quicker/easier to find all the Civs once they have cities & Culture)

Save the game somewhere as "Somnium" so that you don't have to set up all those leaders again next time you want to play!

You can now play Somnium against any leader and there is no limit on how many times you play per turn, so you never have to touch the main game of FfH.

 

[xienwolf]

I could definitely see some people starting to write mod-mods for the Mini-game. To add new cards and Leader Abilities I'm not sure if I would prefer leader abilities to be a button you can click anytime, or to be cards which pop up that trigger your Leader Ability (or activate a button which you can then trigger anytime... that may be best)


As for tracking the Discard and Banked cards, I think the best way to implement it would be to have a sidebar set up which has 11 rows and 5 columns. Each Row is another Suit, indicated by an icon at the far left, with the last row being for Fools/Death. Each column is obviously the numbers 3-7. If a player has the card in their bank there is an arrow pointing up or down (at the player with the card) and if the card has been discarded there is an X.


Then you have a readily accessible tracker of all current card locations.

 

[BeefontheBone]

On the grammar note from the earlier page, the event text when you lose a game for gold says "... you loose X gold" - it should be lose.

I'd also like to second the opinions above - I love this minigame, it's nicely paced, very easy to learn but still with some depth and rather attractive.

Any chance of making the background on the top of the Towers cards more distinct from the Demons ones? It could be my monitor, but I find them hard to tell apart (not that it's a big issue, mind).

EDIT: A thought occurs - how about incorporating Somnium into wider gameplay more? For instance, maybe an option on the peace brokering event could be for a game to be played between the warring leaders; the winner could choose to, say, force a ceasefire. Maybe instead of offering to become a vassal when they've nearly been defeated, some leaders could offer to play for mercy instead; if they lose the aggressor can choose to continue the war or vassalise them, if they win then peace is enforced for a certain length of time.
There could also be games for resources with civs you've a trade route to, or for technologies - each player antes a tech and the winner gains the one anted by the loser.

 

[Sto]

And i have to third the attitude adjustment for Balseraph leaders / especially Perpy.

... still can't reproduce that

Sad to see the option of 1 Gold go (if it is ) no more paying the upkeep of my troops early game by: A game of Somnium a turn keeps the bailiff adjourn. (Especially fun if taken from the civ to bash with those units. ).

Somnium shouldn't be used for that i think ... especially if you begin to loose

2 proposals though: 1. Could you add a view of the discard pile? 2. a list of cards on your bank of one type? (with the first one beeing far more important. Sorry if its allready in but i haven't figured.)

Lest you want to force the players using a sheet of paper if they don't have a razor-sharp memory. Since there is not really a way to prevent a player from doing so and a minigame might be more fun if its not about frying your brain-cells out.
(Not that i have done but playing from memory is hard.)

As for tracking the Discard and Banked cards, I think the best way to implement it would be to have a sidebar set up which has 11 rows and 5 columns. Each Row is another Suit, indicated by an icon at the far left, with the last row being for Fools/Death. Each column is obviously the numbers 3-7. If a player has the card in their bank there is an arrow pointing up or down (at the player with the card) and if the card has been discarded there is an X.


Then you have a readily accessible tracker of all current card locations.

The memory is a part of the game. I was thinking about adding something like that, but this is better this way. And making work your (graphical) memory is always a good thing ... I will perhaps make a mini-game that makes work your mental calculation

"Semi-Standalone Somnium"
...

There is a link in the first post that allow you to play for nothing instead for 1 gold, if you want also.

Any chance of making the background on the top of the Towers cards more distinct from the Demons ones? It could be my monitor, but I find them hard to tell apart (not that it's a big issue, mind)...

For me, the difference is not confusing (brown and black) ... should be your monitor.
For the incorporation of Somnium in the game. It's specified that this is a mini-game and will never be required in the game. So, I don't think such an event is planned.

Tcho !

 

[MagisterCultuum]

On the grammar note from the earlier page, the event text when you lose a game for gold says "... you loose X gold" - it should be lose.

I'd also like to second the opinions above - I love this minigame, it's nicely paced, very easy to learn but still with some depth and rather attractive.

Any chance of making the background on the top of the Towers cards more distinct from the Demons ones? It could be my monitor, but I find them hard to tell apart (not that it's a big issue, mind).

EDIT: A thought occurs - how about incorporating Somnium into wider gameplay more? For instance, maybe an option on the peace brokering event could be for a game to be played between the warring leaders; the winner could choose to, say, force a ceasefire. Maybe instead of offering to become a vassal when they've nearly been defeated, some leaders could offer to play for mercy instead; if they lose the aggressor can choose to continue the war or vassalise them, if they win then peace is enforced for a certain length of time.
There could also be games for resources with civs you've a trade route to, or for technologies - each player antes a tech and the winner gains the one anted by the loser.

That sounds like my earlier idea of allowing you gamble over any diplomatic agreement. I was thinking it would basically be that you reach an agreement that would normally be acceptable, but instead of each leader giving up something to the other side only thr loser of the game gives up what he had offered.

 

[Kael]

The memory is a part of the game. I was thinking about adding something like that, but this is better this way. And making work your (graphical) memory is always a good thing ... I will perhaps make a mini-game that makes work your mental calculation

Yeah, I agree with Sto 100%. There are lots of games where a perfect memory of what has been played would be benificial but the data is intentionally hidden.

There is no right or wrong answer to this. We hide what has been played because we don't want the choice on the next card to be purely mathemadical. We want the player to wonder, in fact the question of what card is next is what Somnium is based on.

Lets say he pulls the 7 of Swords as his first card and has the 3 of swords in his bank and the 6 of swords showing in his opponents. We want the player wondering if hes seen the 4 and 5 go by. If he feels like hes seen a lot of swords cards so far he may go for another card. If he doesnt remember seeing any swords cards yet he may stop and not risk it. Likewise a game without any demons being played until late in the game may get a player to end his turn as soon as he turns one up. Its intuitive, its a feeling not a fact, its playing poker against the deck.

It we displayed the data the game loses its magic, it becomes a spreadsheet. You pull a swords card, see that all the rest are out and you automatically go for the next card. You pull a demons card and see that 4 of the 8 remaining cards are demons and you pull out. That isn't the game we want.

It is true that players can track all the played cards on a piece of player. But we dont design the game based on whats possible, only on the way we think it should be played.

 

[MiKa523]

... still can't reproduce that

I'm sorry for the confusion, but it might be possible that I just played perpentach before, although I don't remember at all playing him and there was no delay of 20 turns either like with other civs I played against.
I played him again though and this time I only got one diplomacy point for the win.

I agree with other posters that it would be nice to have civ specific caps on the max. positive/negative diplomacy points for winning/loosing the game multiple times.

In my current game it saved my ass btw, because I played a cardgame against the Grigori once and was aiming for them to change from cautious to pleased, when I win, and they did after I won and I could bribe them into war with my enemy, which wasn't possible before.
..so who needs the spell "Trust" anymore, if you got good cardskills

 

[MaxAstro]

While I agree with most of what Kael says, I would like to see the lower-value cards you and the AI have banked be visible in some way, for two reasons: One, this is information you really should have ready access to (especially your own bank), and two, the computer WILL use this information against you when using the Fool (i.e., if you only have the 7 of Cups, but have the 6 and 7 of Angels, and the computer has neither Cups nor Angels, it will take the Cups from you).

 

[Zechnophobe]

I don't think that correct. When a fool takes a card from you, it doesn't leave behind the next highest, does it?

 

[BeefontheBone]

Yep. If there are still fools out it might be worth banking a hand full of 6s just to limit the damage from your 7s getting stolen.

 

[rusty217]

Somnium can't be played against other players only against AIs in hotseat games.