Dynamic modded Pantheon Council Game (discussion)

[Twan]

quantum_mechani said:
Some random thoughts:

*I don't think any survival skill is worth more than 1 point.

Yes in fact I've just valued more the survival skills affecting movement because wastesurvival is the most crappy of them. But considering you need a commander and units with the skill they don't worth 2 points either.

*Pillage bonus should be more like 5 for one point, castle and siege 2 for one point, patrol 1 for 1.

Can't see why pillage should worth so much more than patrol. Pillage bonus is available on barbarians and it's rare to see people massing them and pillage often, pillage give more income than patrol but is a one trick poney, when the other is always usefull, for income, to catch spies and/or help blood hunting.

But levels >1 in the 3 abilities are rare, so I think cost may make harder to take them (ie 2pts for level 1, 4 for 2 and 5 for 3).

*Mage upgrades seem too cheap compared to troop ugrades.

My thought was the two best strategy were over-boosting a sacred troop, then making it non capitol only, or boosting low cost troops you can mass since the beginning, the two allowing to spend points each 6 turns with an immediate benefit.

So I've make mages upgrades rather cheap to make boosting magic as viable (especially in a short game), but perhaps too much (4/5 or even 5/7 instead ?).

*Maybe sailing for 2 points?

I forgot several commander abilities (sailing, spy -2 or 3pts ?-, assassin -3 or 4?-, seduce - need to be female assassin and +2pts ?-, increasing leadership -1pt for non mages, 2 or 3 for mages ?-) probably interesting to add.

For sailing it may worth more or less, it's very map dependant, so I'll rather give it a cost once a map is chosen.

--Gods can make 1 change every 6 turns--

Yes it's what I wanted to say, but my phrase wasn't clear : gods may make 3 changes, one the turn they are elected, one 6 turns after, one 12 turns after, then another election takes place.

(eventually things like items or spells cost changes may be considered half or a third of a scale/general bonus change, allowing a god to make several at a time)

-God ...

Good idea to link a little pretenders chassis and positions, but I want diplomacy and electoral campaign to remain important, and it may be hard to balance or too static if one chassis choice can give 3 voices to someone. Also all chassis would have to give such bonuses to one or another position.

So I think simpler to ask each player at the beginning of the game to announce one favorite position for which he'll get +1 voice, with as an obligation to write why his pretender type should have this bonus.

For the number of gods function, I wanted to set it to about half the number of players (make them elected for less time and give more competition), but your ideas are so cool it may change (perhaps 2 gods elected every 6 turns and 8 gods total, so the duration of a god's reign doesn't change).

I'm not sure dynamic modding works for spells (adding spells during a game doesn't work at least) and don't have secondary effect on globals (ie : making easier or harder to dispell them if cost changes).

[quantum_mechani]

Twan said:
Can't see why pillage should worth so much more than patrol. Pillage bonus is available on barbarians and it's rare to see people massing them and pillage often, pillage give more income than patrol but is a one trick poney, when the other is always usefull, for income, to catch spies and/or help blood hunting.

You misunderstand, I was saying pillage bonus should be drastically cheaper- 5 pillage points for one upgrade point.

Good idea to link a little pretenders chassis and positions, but I want diplomacy and electoral campaign to remain important, and it may be hard to balance or too static if one chassis choice can give 3 voices to someone. Also all chassis would have to give such bonuses to one or another position.

The most one chassis could give would be +2 (the +1 not being cumulative). All chassis would hardly need a bonus, pretender choices are so skewed anyway spreading some bonuses around could only improve things.

I'm not sure dynamic modding works for spells (adding spells during a game doesn't work at least) and don't have secondary effect on globals (ie : making easier or harder to dispel them if cost changes).

Base cost of a global has no effect on dispel ease. Still, there could definitely be some funky effects with changing spell stats mid game, it needs testing.

[Kristoffer O]

This sounds way cool!

There was once an idea to include a council of immortals in the first iteration of dom-ppp. It didn't make it into the game, and neither did pantheon ideas. This sounds like a splendid way to actually make something out of a the idea of a pantheon. The changing of scale settings in game is a remarkably good idea!

I also like the functions suggested by QM, but I think there need to be some kind limit on number of functions, unless the game is played with very many players.

Include a number of empty spells "Nation Spell 1" (perhaps one for each nation) to allow for later spellmodding. Or one spell for each divine function ("Fertility Function Spell 1"). Or both.
Perhaps one battle spell and one summon for each function.

[Nikolai]

Guys, my English is not as good as I wish, and may have a handicap in diplomacy, but I would love playing! Early Era? For more fun units...

[Aezeal]

I would be interested too.

[Gregstrom]

I'd be interested.

Also as an idea, it might be worth having a gamesmaster race in an inaccessible province with a number of moddable spells available to them, to allow for any other special effects that might be required later in the game.

[Ironhawk]

Sounds like a fun concept! I do worry that the politics of the voting system might overshadow the actual game, but who knows? Let me know when you start this one...

[Ironhawk]

So, I was looking over the upgrades in more detail. What is the purpose of:

"making holy a non holy capitol only unit (will also double the unit cost)"

Because with only some rare exceptions, all cap-only units are already holy. I guess you could retroactively make upkeep for your top mage be less, at the expense of all future mages costing more? Can't see a place where I would choose to pick this one tho.

Another thing I was wondering: do you need to be holding the VP on the 6th turn? What if I hold the VP for 5/6 turns but lose it on the last one?