New War System

[Thalia]

Daklore (in a different thread) suggested we convert the war system from being PvP based to be more wargame-like where you build-up your (virtual) army, plan your strategy and then send your (virtual) well-trained army against your opponent's (virtual) brutes and barely-armed farm boys.

I like that idea, but would like more feedback and ideas on doing it.

[Thalia]

And my initial random thought on this... (and consider this a straw man that I expect everyone to poke at)

I'd like every kingdom leader to have a role somehow,  sort of like,

• the Chief Justice (& group) does something to build up kingdom defense & set defense strategy;
• the Champion (& group) does something to build the offense & set attack strategy;
• the Royal Advisor (& group) does something to ... build strategy/battle wisdom?? send spies to get info on the opponent's army??;
• the Mayor (& group) .... ummm.... ??  hire mercs ?? hmm... build the supply line/support logistics;
• and the King, of course, gets to say "Attack Now".. but maybe he/she and the Nobles can also influence what's happening in the other areas

Based on that allocation of responsibilities.... combat is something like... attack strategy (what portion of the attack is directed towards the opponent's army, kingdom, or  supply line) vs defense strategy (what portion of defense is directed towards protecting the kingdom,  army, or supply line).... with both being modified by the strength of the supply line -- Army can't attack and Guard's can't defend on an empty stomach.

If A's supply lines are firm, then A's army can be further from kingdom A making it harder for B's army to directly attack Kingdom A.  If A's supply lines are weak, then A's army is closer to A making it easier for B to directly attack A.  If A's supply line is non-existent, the A's army is effectively at the kingdom gates and when B's army attack's A, A's army, kingdom defense & supply line all take damage based on their average strength.

So kingdom A has built up
* 1000 attackers (idling),
* 500 defenders (split 75% kingdom/25% supply line) ,
* 300 supply clerks. 

Kingdom B has
* 500 attackers (idling),
* 1000 defenders (50% kingdom/50% supply line) and
* 300 supply clerks.   

Kingdom B changes attackers to 100% attacking A's supply line.  B's 500 attackers take out A's 125 defenders, but their attackers are reduced to 400.  The 400 attackers overwhelm the 300 supply clerks.

the numbers are now...

kingdom A
* 1000 attackers (idling),
* 375 defenders (split 75% kingdom/25% supply line) ,
* 0 supply clerks. 

Kingdom B
* 400 attackers (100% supply lines),
* 1000 defenders (50% kingdom/50% supply line) and
* 300 supply clerks.   

Without a supply line, A's army effectively merges with it's guards giving it 1375 defenders if B foolishly choose to attack with it's 400 army units.  If A tries to attack any of B, they would do so without any supply line support and their effectiveness would be diminished.

...

Other technical thoughts...

- do strategy changes happen in real time -- if someone says "attack", does the attack happen now?  Or do strategy changes happen once a day.. so you stage on Friday for changes that will happen on Saturday. 
(I kind of like staging changes that will take effect the next day)

- does resolution of strategy changes happen in the same kingdom order each round?  Or is it a random order? Random seems a bit fairer, but that may be because I always felt behind when I was a second person in a 2 player war game.

---------

Anyway... that's some thoughts to start...

What have you seen or used or heard of that you like? 

What other things should be taken into account or considered?

[Daklore]

Well, I think it should be a bit more complex that that. Give kingdoms areas they can "Conquer and Hold", rather than just straight up "attack the city". Each area they control might contribute "resources" to the kingdom that's in control of them to put toward maintaining their army. On top of that, areas could also be "built up" with, well, buildings, that either alter the defensive capabilities of the army staying there, contribute more resources, etc etc etc. But then again, that could be getting into the realm of complex. There could also be different types of "units" that do different things better, but I think that was implied, with each Kingdom getting their own unique unit, or attribute, or bonus, or something.

Resources could include: Population (which can then be conscripted/recruited into the military), Food (for feeding your general population, and military), iron (for making hurty items), maybe some magic type runies (for spellcasters or, special bonuses, or something) and maybe even horses/animals/whatever that would be needed to "construct" mounted units, such as Cavalry or Gryphon Riders(in Calararian, though, cause they're the air power).

Say for instance, it costs, 1000 silver(cheap, I know, work with me), 7 iron, and 3 food (we're going subjective values, not kgs, or pounds, or ounces.... just, numbers....) to train a simple Soldier. Plus 1 "willing" population. The Chief Justice could then set how much silver the kingdom wants to put toward training Soldiers. When this amount runs out, the kingdom stops training them. The speed at which a soldier can be trained might depend on how many "Barracks" structures you have throughout the kingdom, or perhaps in a specific area. Say you have seven barracks, and that lets your kingdom train 50 units. Every hour (because, well, let's face it, immediatly is dull), your kingdom would then generate upto 50 new units, based on what's available for resources. This includes the iron, food, and silver.

As for what kind of troops you could have, well, I guess that's open for debate, but perhaps something like three variations of attack, three variations of defense, two all purpose troops, and a few cavalry (which might be used for attack, defense, or simply scouting). I'm throwing out random numbers, believe you me, I haven't thought any of this through at all.

As for what the other ranks would do... well... I'll let you guys bicker about that. Pfft. Building in areas would require silver, of course, available land (each area would have so much "improvement space" meaning, you'd have to pick and choose what you wanted there), some things might include a Fort, civilian housing, farms, barracks, mines, ranches(for mining horses), maybe lumber mills (to build, I dunno.. buildings?), quarries(building more buildings, maybe maintaining defensive walls?). A fort would plain and simple give the defenders a defensive bonus or whatever. ... I suppose that would mean we'd need siege weapons too... anyway, there you go. Blame me >P

Also, battles should be dealt out over a period of time, like, you set them in motion, they march X period of time depending on distance, then they battle and every so often the code checks down who dies, who lives, reinforcements can arrive so long as supply lines haven't been cut, etc etc etc.

[sye]

I absolutely love this idea.. I love anything that adds spice.  This would be the same.. as in people can still kill people.. for rp reasons war like.. BUUUT, now you just added  a reason for leaders / kings/ queens to have to be active or take some kind of penalty from the kingdom they are at war with if they dont resolve it.

I think this would also prompt nations to have... more negotiations to keep the peace and such.  maybe you can plan on having bad factions and stuff involved in this.  But I absolutely freaking love it! 

Maybe the champion of the offense can get detailed reports on strikes, and help deliver sound blows, and the chief, can get detailed reports on defense, and help plan defensive guard, and set up whatever defense we can do.  Have the magic people help with spells buffing the offense and defense.. you could even have moats and stuff, and you could type 'defense' if you hold rank to do so.. in a kingdom and see the level of defense that is up, and what is up.  Like Moat level 1-10.  Walls level 1-10 etc.

You could have the person in charge of truces and initiating peace talks be the mayor, or possibly something of that nature.

Have any active member be able to send a 'clone' based on their level, to the field, that they can send off. Once every X amount of hours, or ticks.  Higher ranks get tick reduction to use, and higher level guards they can send.

Kings and queens of course can have access to all of the commands and get all the reports.

There is a lot you can do with this.. maybe if a kingdoms defense falls below a certain level, it can be 'in the DANGER' area.. and they get their defenses cut, and the amount of armies they can send can be cut too.. and you could even have a treasury aside from coffers, that hold.. some kind of.. token.. or points, and when a kingdom wins, they get more points, when they lose they lose points.. and a kingdom could spend those points for some bonuses, or atleast have it as some bragging rights.

Anyways, whatever happens it sounds great! -Sye

[thaxn]

I do find the whole idea very interesting.  A few things to think about.
I'm not really sure we want to turn our MUD into an old school game of Warcraft played by the kings. 
Kingdom citizens should have some real interaction. 
I assume that if we have 1000 attacking warriors leaving Klevnone and marching on Armengar players aren't actually going to see 1000 NPCs on the road somewhere between the two kingdoms.  I also assume that if you have 500 warriors defending there wouldn't be that many NPCs at the gates. 
But, if a player walked into the kingdom and killed 3 or 4 city guards, then the defenders should drop down by that many.  The basic idea being that no matter how powerful a player you are, you aren't going to be able to take out the whole army, the system won't let you, but if you sneak into a kingdom and find a guard or clerk, killing them will have an impact.  Which gives kingdoms at war another incentive for players to be active, they need to defend against other players.

My other question/comment is in regards to crashes and reboots.  If a kingdom builds a fort, or a wall, or takes possession of an area (which would require some sort of fortification and ongoing cost but might provide resources such as food or mercenaries to hire depending on the strengths of the area), what happens with a crash?  There would have to be a way to ensure that the fortifications and such are kept, I would hate to see someone intentionally crash the mud before declaring war on a well fortified enemy.

[Thalia]

re: crashes & reboots -- yes, everything would be saved.  

re: NPCs vs. number of attackers/defenders -- Yeah, we would not be able to support having 1000 defenders wandering around each kingdom.  That simply takes too many cpu cycles & too much memory.  But... we could do something to have the number and relative strength of the wandering NPCs some how represent the number of defenders/attackers a kingdom has.  For example, A Guard = 10 defenders, Well-trained guards = 50 defenders, Elite Guards = 100 defenders ... so a kingdom with 680 defenders might have 6 Elite guards, 1 well-trained guard and 3 guards running around.

re: players directly impacting resources (player killing an NPC guard & there by decreasing defense strength) -- could do that.  I suppose then we should also be able sabotage things (supply lines, mining operations, et al) , too.

re: turning the MUD into a wargame -- definitely a concern.  If we set this up too much like a wargame, do we drive people away?  Do we discourage people from wanting to be kingdom & group leaders -- because now, in addition to a strong character, some RP & diplomatic skills plus time in game, they need to have/develop tactical & strategic skills?

re: resource building & land acquisition (& mining/crafting et al) -- this is something we had/have planned for Ashes.  And honestly, it's something I'd rather have integrated from the start of a game than retrofit into a game.  Not saying no way, just saying it adds a level of complexity to the project and increases-time-to-completion.... and I worry about whether we get sufficient benefit for the cost.

Other questions from thinking about cost/benefit .....
- Would this have broad appeal to the player base?  Or would it appeal to a small portion?  
- Would it help differentiate us form the competition?
- Would it help bring new people to the game? Or would the people who want to RP turn away because of the wargame aspect and the people who want to wargame turn away because of the RP aspect?  What could we do to mitigate either or both problems?

And other questions...

- What happens to strategy setting when the key person isn't available -- sometimes unexpectedly unavailable? (leaves the game, loses internet access, has a computer crash, goes on vacation, goes away on business, gets grounded for bad grades, loses power for an indefinite period of time due to weather & other acts of god/nature)

- How can we mitigate the fact that players have multiple characters that may have significant roles in multiple, warring kingdoms?  (For example, if they are king in one and Royal Advisor in another, which gives them insight into tactical & strategic positions of multiple kingdoms.)

- Would there an expectation that kingdoms are always at or building towards war?  Will leaders & citizens always need to poking at strategy or resource building?  Is this a realistic expectation?

- Do we need to include a "diplomatic agreement" feature that allows a kingdom to agree to lend support to another kingdom?  (for example:  If anyone attacks Murkwood, Calararian will come to it's aid.  If Klevnone or Armengar attack Murkwood, Mesilena will come to it's aid.  If Armengar makes the first attack against Klevnone, Mesilena will provide supply line support.)

- Would it be better to build a "lite" version that can be played in a single afternoon (weekend) by anyone present?  (so if only Calararian and Murkwood show up, there would be war between them, but if there were rules & citizens from all kingdoms then all kingdoms could participate?)

- How about we adjust the festivals to be one each quarter, build resources between festivals and have "friendly" wars during the festivals?

[thaxn]

I've been giving this quite a bit of thought this weekend and came up with a few ideas.

First let me say I love the idea of "Friendly wars" during festivals, but I think we should make the festival last a week if we are doing this, rather than just a weekend (mostly because I can't be around much on weekends these days, but I think it could take a while to resolve a war) and faction losses for killing kingdom peasants and guards should be suspended during this time since it is just a "Friendly war".
My first thought is that nothing should be instantanous.  An army traveling between Klevnone and Murkwood should take much longer to arrive than one between Klevnone and Lapis, maybe 1 game hour per room (so it would take just under an hour of real time to travel from Klevnone to Lapis, 14 rooms, but take over 5 hours to go from Murkwood to Klevnone, I think I counted 86 rooms).  This would give kingdoms some notice, via roleplay note, that an army has left the gates of their kingdom and appears to be heading generally west (or north or whatever), when the army is at the halfway point, or is clearly headed to a specific kingdom another roleplay note could be posted saying which kingdom is under attack.  This also gives the defending kingdom a chance to defend, and gives other kingdoms a chance to intervene or take advantage.

My second thought is that the armies should always be building and maintaining, and here's how I see that going between wars, the more I think about it the more complex it gets, but I think this might work.
First assume that all NPC guards have levels of 1 to 5, it doesn't have to follow PC levels, that would be too complex at this point.
All members of the army have an upkeep cost, in the area of 10 silver per guard per day, this is to reflect the reality of the costs of keeping a large standing army, and to discourage disgustingly huge armies of 100,000 warriors or so.

Kings and Queens have full control over the coffers and can buy as many guards (levels 1-3) as the coffers and available peasantry allow (more on that later).

Mayor/Majordomo/Overlord is responsible for the kingdom coffers, and as such has the ability to set the maximum sustainable size of the standing army.  For example, the mayor can set the maximum size at 1,000, because he/she believes that the coffers can only sustain a draw of 10,000 silver per day.  This can be overridden by the king or queen.  The mayor is also responsible for keeping a staff of supply clerks adequate to keep the army fed and housed, such as 1 supply clerk for every 30 warriors.  Upkeep cost on supply clerks would be 5 silver per day, as opposed to 10 silver per day for the warriors.

Champions and Chief Justices would have similar abilities in non-war times.  They can recruit guards (level 1 and 2 only) up to the maximum set by the Mayor/Majordomo.  They are also responsible for the training of these guards.  Each day, they can each train their army, the cost of the training would be equal to a day

[thaxn]

I had another thought while I wrote the last post.  In our current war system, it

[sye]

I dont have a whole bunch of time to write out a ton, but I did want to suggest something that would 'alleviate Thalias concearns' as, we wont hurt people who want to roleplay and we wont hurt people who want to war..

Firstly the war system shouldn't give anyone a noticable or huge bonus that other players can't get/do.  And, it shouldn't hinder anyone too much either.. like if someone doesnt want to participate for whatever reason it shouldn't hinder the whole kingdom, or the system, or that player.  I think that would avoid complications.

Secondly, I think that just having this in addition to what we already have, as long as it wasn't overwhelmingly pushy and "YOU NEED TO DO THIS 24/7" we will be fine.. people can roleplay stuff better, and have more material, most importantly..

IT WILL GIVE PEOPLE SOMETHING TO DO WHILE THEY QUEST!!! (I know this issue has been brought up a lot, about people just 'quest botting' and not really doing much with the game) which is fine, but what if you wanted them to be able to enjoy the game some other than just spamming spells practicing abilities and questing forever.  (so they don't fizzle out before they get full customs)

I love the fact that the numbers could represent the amount of guards and npcs in the kingdoms.   
I think as long as it focuses mainly on cosmetic stuff, and things to improve the whole realm, other than just 'buffing up kings/queens' to make them stronger.. it would go a long way.   

I have no clue what spurred all this interest, but I love it.  I am always really happy to see anything added to the game that gives people more options to do things.
It's like a game room, the muds..  And the game room with the most games, and coolest reward system, "you know those tickets you turn in for stuff"  Wins out over the competition.
So if we add in more games, and more rewards, that makes us better.  *I mean as long as its not a broken trashy game, and it's not OP rewards and stuff*

My two cents!
-Sye (i'll read more and add more later.  Been busy trying to juggle getting my second job set up... Sorry!)

PS we really need to push more players to post, or have a vote.. in game, to make sure that everyone would be up for all this, I dont see why anyone wouldn't.  But We already know that Thaxn, Daklore, and I like the game and are interested in adding more stuff for people.. and ideas.. But what we need is to see other players input, even if its just a 'that would be cool' or 'maybe if you did this too' or something. 

[Chalgyr]

I've got quite a few thoughts on this, but am mostly curious in hearing what you guys have to say on the matter first - aside from overall I am liking the general idea quite a bit. 

- One point I wanted to call out was the idea of territory acquisition - I love the notion and as Thalia said, we had talked about it for Ashes because we were looking at strategically laying those things out.  I would have to take a long hard look at how things are laid out.  It's one thing to make areas based on level and spreading them around somewhat basely loosed on things like climate, but this would be pretty involved.

- I definitely think we need to account for people with multiple character.  Not that I actively play my chars now really, but there's a potential conflict of interest when say, I had Rylee high ranking in Mesilena, and Wolfryc as king of Klevnone.  We'd have to either once again reinforce the rule that you can't have a single player running multiple lead positions in kingdoms at the same time (or if we eventually swing this system to religions in some way too, an entirely different topic - yet there are some similarities - though I'd prefer to hammer out kingdoms first as that's always been my focus here) - or mitigate just what the roles are for people in those non-ruler ranks.

- how 'optional' do we make this?  What are the results of these wars?  Will someone who is serene and in tolin be affected by an invading armengar and if so, do we consider that 'okay'? 

- balance - do we penalize the kingdoms with fewer active players?  What's to keep people from piling into 1 or 2 kingdoms?

- objectives by kingdom or this question: - Would there an expectation that kingdoms are always at or building towards war?  Will leaders & citizens always need to poking at strategy or resource building?  Is this a realistic expectation?  -----   Maybe there's goals each kingdom has as well?  For example, a non-militant kingdom like Murkwood might be more interested in harvesting resources than having a well-trained army (yes, I'm mentally factoring in things like training or equipping troops to alter their values - something 'anyone' can do to contribute maybe.  Sorry Thal!), while Klevnone may be focused on having a very attack-heavy warrior goal, where as maybe Calararian tries to reach some sort of a research goal while Mesilena has some goal of building defensively and maybe Armengar has some goal of seeing magic people/artifacts/whatever destroyed/razed...)

Lastly, the question of appeal - it's a fair quesiton.  The people involved in this convo are the same 3 die-hard players we tend to hear the most out of anyway.  thalia tried to direct people to this post on the MUD, but maybe an additional note and/or poll on the mud once we have just a bit more of a foundation down for this so people can weigh in on it?

- Chal

[Daklore]

Solution: Make Scattered Ashes >P

But yeah, seriously, we only ever seem to hear from the Daklore, Thaxn, or Sye crowd... soooo... yeah. Also, Lapis has guns, factor that into your armies. Lapis. Has. Guns. And lots of explosives.

[Chalgyr]

Solution: Make Scattered Ashes >P

But yeah, seriously, we only ever seem to hear from the Daklore, Thaxn, or Sye crowd... soooo... yeah. Also, Lapis has guns, factor that into your armies. Lapis. Has. Guns. And lots of explosives.

Okay, we can factor that in.  Can we also factor in backfires and self-induced explosions?  highest damage output mitigated by the highest self-inflicted casualty rate...

[Daklore]

Okay, we can factor that in.  Can we also factor in backfires and self-induced explosions?  highest damage output mitigated by the highest self-inflicted casualty rate...

Sorry, but we don't use suicide bombers. We launch cattle from cattlepults with explosives attached to them. That light in mid-air because of magic.

As for the guns, they're still primitive(by today's real life standards), so some of 'em might not work right.

[Nevaeh]

OK- so i'm a little behind the times on this post- however here is my very short 2 cents.


I love this idea!  I don't think it will make people run away- It will make people involved in the kingdoms.
1.) We have had ranks and stuff forever- and to be honest they don't really do much but give you a bonus... So actually having a job to do and have to rp that job is an amazing bonus to me! It gives meaning to the title now! and people will actually start interacting as leaders/followers!  Also makes for more rp negotiations and helps lead rp to those who do not currently rp.
2.) I think it will make people more active because there is more interesting things going on- and more things to do besides xp and quest. (not that we all hate that or anything)
3.) As for this being "forced" on people... To be honest... I think either way it would be ok- Who can be in a kingdom that is in war.. and just be La de da about the whole thing?  It think that's been an issue with this game from the get go. I understand its not rp enforced.. but at the same time i think it would make people more apt to interact instead of being so cliquish.
4.)  I think this needs to be an ongoing thing- not just a festival time game.  I think it benefits the reasons for rankings and the reasons for having separate kingdoms
5.) Balance-  the larger populated kingdoms are obviously going to have an advantage.. but at the same time- that makes it more realistic.  You can't have a war between china and Hawaii (not that its a country but work with me) and expect Hawaii to win.  Though... if Hawaii was strong in the small amount that it had- it could hold its own.. you never know.
6.) As for the expectation of kingdoms always working towards war...  Isn't that kind of how it works in the real world? You not always necessarily pulling your troops and getting them lined up- but you are always making sure you're ready for that day..
7.)   As for people and the lack of playing (me for instance)  I think this would make us want to force the time into our schedule to play.. or if our power/internet goes out and we are unable to play... then the king should have the right to step in and do our job.. or give some controls to the next rank below us.. or perhaps give some of the nobles a back up option for people that are missing...   
8.) i also think.. we should not allow the king to have full access to everything at all times... The only reason i say this is because we don't want the same players being the only ones active. We don't want sye and enthor running around doing everything... we want everyone to be active. So I think they should have access to the controls but only be able to utilize them when someone is completely inactive.
9.) Lastly for today...   i think the roles of the kingdom ranks should be different between the different kingdoms... Mayor of Klevnone and Mayor of Murkwood wouldn't have the same abilites. murkwood is more peaceful where klevnone is not so much. So Mayor in murkwood would be about peace treaties etc.. where klevnone would be more about overlooking the entire process... Idk on that one just thought i'd throw it in here.


Anyways that my thoughts for the moment. Sorry they are a little late- been busy with the new life... but this gets me excited about kotl all over again!!!!

[Chalgyr]

Anyways that my thoughts for the moment. Sorry they are a little late- been busy with the new life... but this gets me excited about kotl all over again!!!!

No, don't be sorry at all - glad you posted your thoughts on it.  If you see others on the MUD, haul them over to this post too.  It looks like players are in favor of something new - so now we need feedback on what they'd like to see, just like you gave.  Thanks!