Never thought of this before, and as an extreme emissary booster, I’m not even sure I like the idea (considering the current program…) but has anyone ever considered a Max Pop game? The pop limit get’s hit, and it’s primary purpose appears to be emissary training. Well, how about starting a game with the limit hit already? Every nation gets extra pops to start to reflect this. Most are regional, but some are farther away, ie, Mordor DS camps in the Misties right away, the odd funny FP camp in the southern desert, etc.
Don’t like the idea and a few reasons off the top of my head:
It would take to long to train emmys up to go take pops, double, ect…
Well placed camps early in blind hexes are a big part of the middle to late games when you build these up to T/MT for a quick strick force or backup capital.
Camps placed at Artifact sites help the placer ID strong challange guys.
Evils need more camps than the goods to make their economy work.
Goods emmy are normally more dangerious then Evils due to (normally) Evils have lower loyalty pop centers due to higher taxes. This helps to offset (a little granted) some of the agent power of the evils.
Goods need high emmy rank to double enemy agents to be able to last agent assults.
Oh I agree, as I said, “emissary training”. But consider from a “reality” perspective. What kind of medieval world experiences such exponential population growth? 26 turns is a single year in game time! What kinds of changes would make ME more “realistic” in terms of “Here is the world, now play the game.”
Example, “dumbing down” some of the emissary orders? Hards are now Average, etc to maintain this aspect of the game (there are only 4 character classes, can’t simply castrate one…). Randomize the “extra” camp locations, provide for a very small % (say, 2-5 total a game) to be “hidden” as a bonus, or with a tower added, etc, much like character bonuses, etc.
It was simply the “reality” argument that hit me on the head the other day, “In Game” as it plays now, certainly not possible besides a one-off weekend gaming sillines exercise…
Ed: KS: So far the player that have signed up to help out have been very helpful and seem to like what’s been done with the project. But there’s going to need to be a period of testing and balancing - we’re not sure which side has the advantage (if any) etc. Bofa seems to be fine as well as many of the Legend modules we’ve created - it’s just how many players we can create a game for that they will personally enjoy.
Update: KS has had the database done and we’re in the process of creating the Encounters and other bits like that. The print/process routine is nearly done (yep I know you’ve heard that before!) With limited resources this is always going to be a long project but we’re nearly there. Friday consisted of two of us comparing maps (1650 Dbase and KS) and multiplying upto 6 prime numbers to compare and contrast hex features for all the hexes in the game (having already done something similar for other aspects of the game already!). Yum, yum.
Part of the slowness of it all is taking coding from an 80s environment and updating it to a 00s environment (tabulating data rather than it being in the code, speed etc).
Brad: if there’s enough interest in such a game then I’d look at it. 1000 is reasonably close to this now with a very short period of camp creation (3-5 turns sometimes). Like many aspects of the game there are some things that aren’t realistic (Camp to City in a few weeks is clearly one of those) but intended to represent aspects of “game-reality” and add strategic elements but also plain fun. Bit like watching a Bruce Willis or Jackie Chang film sometimes…
