Single-Castle Game: OneFort (Started!)

[statttis]

I'll join as C'tis.

What about indy strenght?

[veto]

May be indy 9?)

I wonder if we should use better independents or just have a house rule that says "no indy troops or mages" or something like that.

The reason I ask is because I think BI-mod was designed to improve the AI's recruiting behavior rather than balance the game. In fact, it may be unbalanced, but I'm not sure.

Thoughts?

Also, what about mercs?

[Belac]

I wanted Better Independents to prevent the wars between players to devolve into loads of indies recruited outside of forts. The game already has 2 not-really-enforceable house rules, and I hesitate to add too many.

Indies could be set high, but remember that our ability to recruit expansion parties is very limited. I wouldn't go higher than 7.

No problem with mercs, I think.

[Valerius]

This game idea is interesting. I like that it avoids the mad castling that typifies the late game. Please sign me up as Eriu.

But Grijalva is correct that this makes indie mage sites even more powerful a factor in this game than they normally are. If you want to emphasize national units how about modding out sites that allow recruitment of commanders/troops?

[Belac]

That is a good point. It's partially counterbalanced by the fact that any such site would be vulnerable to conquest (if other players' scouts see a lab in your territory, that province would become a target since you couldn't fortify it). More to the point, I don't know how to make that mod. But if another player wanted to, I'd be willing to use it.

Also, if we are going with one of the maps with fixed starts (I like wraparound maps, so Bering is my personal choice), someone also should mod those out. I don't know how to do that, but I would be grateful if someone would.

[Valerius]

Originally Posted by Belac

That is a good point. It's partially counterbalanced by the fact that any such site would be vulnerable to conquest (if other players' scouts see a lab in your territory, that province would become a target since you couldn't fortify it).

Absolutely, that's one of the nice things about these settings. I was thinking more in terms of the character of one's nation. Since you can only recruit one of your national mages per turn, if you find a couple of good indie mage sites it takes away from the flavor of your nation. It also should be noted that this potentially provides a huge research boost to nation's lucky enough to find good sites.

Originally Posted by Belac

More to the point, I don't know how to make that mod. But if another player wanted to, I'd be willing to use it.

No problem. There's actually already such a mod on the llamaserver. I can compare it to Edi's current database to make sure we're not missing any sites and, if needed, upload a new version.

Originally Posted by Belac

Also, if we are going with one of the maps with fixed starts (I like wraparound maps, so Bering is my personal choice), someone also should mod those out. I don't know how to do that, but I would be grateful if someone would.

I'm not a fan of wraparound maps myself but my main concern with Bering is that it's a lot of water considering there's no water nations. It does give an advantage to some nations (including my own). Frozen Lama and I are currently in a game on Threelake and I really like the map. Still has maybe a little more water provinces than would be ideal but not as bad.

[Belac]

Although I agree about the flavor thing, I think the balance is more important (as you can always lab up in tribal provinces, unless BI takes those away).

As to maps, I see your point about Bering. Threelake looks much better, though. I would switch my preference to that.

So current mods are: CBM 1.6, Better Independents 2.1, No Mage Sites 0.1
Current favored map: Threelake

Anything else we should do?

[Valerius]

Ok, I took a look at BI and Grijalva is right: aside from commanders there are a lot of units that are recruitable. In fact, since the intent is to help the AI, most good units are still recruitable. It sounds like what you had in mind for this game is no indie troops or mages at all - only indie commanders to ferry troops. Does that sound right? If so, we'll need to modify this.