New Mock-up Turn

General
#1

We’ll be posting the new look turnsheet on the forum for players to look at soon. It’s a DRAFT copy, ie it will look much nicer than you can see at present. I’d like feedback on the following (and anything else you feel it pertinent):

i) Overall feel. Is it what you’d like to receive? What do you like about it, what don’t you like?
ii) Exporting of XMLs. You will be able to export your XML directly into all your team’s turnsheets for that game. (Gunboat clearly not). Would you like to see that? We’ll have a toggle for each nation that you play allowing this option or turning it off. So the choice will be still controlled by the player who owns the nation about being able to give out the information or not to your team-mates. (Note the XML will have all the information that you normally see in your turnsheet).
iii) Full game map - this will be like your old map (which will still be there) but also include all the map data that you have from other turns. It’s not like Palantir but will be an additional page (or pages, we’ve not decided yet) to your nation.
iv) Anything that I’ve missed?

Clint

#2

Initial glance is it looks good, but will try and study in more detail tonight.

tim

#3

hmmmmmmmmm,

while I appreciate the attempt to modernize the turn and maybe even include some additional information, which must be processed with tools ATM, I do think that I get the information better and quicker out of the old format.
those who like eye-candy don’t play mepbm I would say, so don’t try to implement it.
see to it that you don’t split up the info into too many columns where it takes ages to browse through.
I’ll postpone further comments until the project has reached beta status :smiley:

#4

I’m assuming page break’s and “keep section together” formatting will be incorporated.

After that, I’m curious what are the icons next to VC’s and Nation Relations for?

I don’t like splitting up the economic data. Whether my economic summary is Before or After market/production, I’m not a fan of the “General Information” inbetween…

Character and Pop Centre sections are huge! Small fonts galore and empty real estate abound. I certainly appreciate all the extra info tidbits, but I’m really not a fan of the display at all. Trying to do too much for too many makes a mess for, well, me at least. Eager to hear more opinions. I don’t think my reaction is against change, but I don’t see the need to dramatically alter what’s already there, which is pretty clear and concise, IMO. If nothing else, add some extra baubles but please find a way to compress it into a manageable/printable document…!

Brad Brunet

#5

What I liked initially was the first page summarizing your characters, encounters and combat. I also like the full map but it will probably be to small to really make a difference.

I think I like the old pop center report more. Neutral on the characters at this time. I also like the profit if all were sold, that is usually one of the first things I calculate anyway.

tim

#6

Does JOverseer work with xml’s only, or is that archaeic Palantir technology (which I stopped using once Archon’s program appeared…quite a while ago!) only? If “Yes” then great! If “No” then my response is “Don’t bother”.

I’m also not clear on the Game Map. 1) make it Landscape… 2) the file attached wasn’t zooming with any clarity on my machine. 3) Is it just the allegiance nation map displays, and if so, what about those who toggle the “share my xml” to Off…? Otherwise, for those who aren’t already running info programs I don’t expect giving them xml’s will motivate them to do so - it’s really not a lot of effort! But the Game Map is certainly valuable sometimes as a quick reference (marching, moving, confirming enemy pop locations, etc).

Brad

#7

I guess I’m not as impressed as I’m supposed to be.

There is nothing wrong with the current format. And while I do see some nice bits, the new format seems overly cumbersome and drawn out in its descriptors. To me, the more succinct, the better.

On the plus side, the “Your Turn at a Glance” is a nice touch, and the additional verbiage on the characters doesn’t really detract. Regarding the new mapping business, maybe I just don’t understand it all yet, but right now I’d say “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.” And it certainly isn’t broke.

#8

Just one question, can you do something about the character pix, more cleavage or something, Urzy’s pic looks cool, something like that, is fine??? The change looks good, everything laid out nice and neat, like mentioned above, is the world map zoomable, couldn’t see a thing, :slight_smile: Actually feel like I’m getting my monies worth now, :slight_smile:

#9

Possible improvements:

  • in battle reports, actually list if it is HC, LC, HI, LI, AR or MA.
  • Individual Victory Conditions - are these used anymore for any game format that is currently played? If not, eliminate them. They’re just confusing to folks who are new to the game.
  • In Market, show Last turn’s Quantities & Prices for commodities
  • Compact the pop center information and place next to economy section.
  • Under economy section where you have anticipated cost & revenue for pop centers, what about combining them and showing costs on a column basis for port/harbor & fortification and revenue on a column basis for tax & gold production, and a Net Total column – all for each pop center?
  • add “hostages held” to character report
  • in army report, show combat artifacts value next to Characters travelling with army
  • in army report, show total army combat value & constitution value
  • in company report, show nation of each character in company

Kudos:

  • SNAs being on the turn report
  • the pre-computation of sales value of commodities. Does this get computed correctly for Northmen or FA nations with +20% SNA?
  • Pop Centers that might not produce this turn (does this include pops with enemy armies? with enemy emmies?)
  • Costs per character and per army
  • character sheet showing artifact powers (I am always back-referencing this)

Questions:

  • what are the red icons next to all the nations in the Nation Relations section? They all look the same to me
  • Under Anticipated Costs, I don’t know how you get Pop center costs not associated with fortification or port/harbor? You have some at 249, 251, 102 ???
  • what are the little icons to left of Locale on the character report on some characters? Is green horse cavalry only army? yellow is foot soldiers in army?
  • how can i get in the play test for Ministirithstan? :wink:

cheers,
Dave

#10

Or more properly characterize them as “bonus” points to your VP total, not “victory conditions” as they are now called.

#11

Hey,
I like all the new information, the overview sheet, character/pop center breakdown. The new look is cool , how about new pictures to?

I like that you are updating the game. Keep it looking current.

Whit

#12

WAAAAAY too long.

It has some nice features, but the fact that I can’t see all my pop centers (or most of my pop centers, depending on how well I’m doing in a game) on one page is annoying. And some of the info under characters just seems redundant/takes up too much space. I always like to print my turns and 30 pages is excessive (this is also why I like the reduced format). The army info also looks like it’s all over the place.

For the most part, I actually like the current format. I’d add some of the new stuff, but please try and keep it manageable in terms of size/printability…

Marty

#13

Brief 1st impression comments…

  1. Too long
  2. The new information… is this factual, or like most of the reported info, based on programming formulae… like, characters at pop centre…
  3. Like the summary, would add more to this page so you can do more without flicking through
  4. Don’t need the additional world map, unless you envisage uploading all the turns into it… and putting in a note to say which nations have their data included… almost extra for no reason, since any data received from a neutral would need to be added to Palantir or other mapping program making this world map irrelevant
  5. Character layout makes it less “flowy”… too many lines taken up… like the additional artifact and spell info…
  6. If you are expanding the economic info, then showing a list of pop centres and their stores all adding up to the total held would be a nice addition.
  7. If you can include a world map with all teams data, then surely you can include a world economic summary too?
  8. Can we have HC, HI etc rather than “Warg Riders” etc… I guess you’re going for a more descriptive feel to turns, but since the orders are all numbers and letters, it would be good not to have to work it out and convert.
  9. I Like the economic breakdown of cashflow
  10. I like seing my nation bonuses
  11. Rethink the layout to make it flow better, and easier to find information

Regards

Michael

#14

Don’t care for changes. I am recalling seven years ago of Harley’s and others citicism of the game designers’ product. Largely it revealed a misunderstanding and unawareness of the game designers’ concepts and intent.

When will Harley actually demonstrate creativity of its own? I mean the Kinstrife. I am not impressed with the clipping, filing and sanding that has been done by Harley on others’ creativity.

#15

Generally very good. So far the one thing that sticks out that I don`t like is the big red hostage stamp…looks like it should be in a 1930s crime pbm…

How about offering a choice between the old and new formats to keep both the young upstarts and the grumpy old men happy? :wink:

#16

The new look is cool , how about new pictures to?

New pictures - we’ve got some, but art is expensive. If players want to create some that would be fine.

Other feedback, particularly’s Dave but all is very welcome and excellent - please keep it coming. For now I’ll leave answers to questions as that will be clear when we bring out the Beta version if that’s okay? So please feedback more with stuff you want to add to this (or remove) as it will define the look of your game and what you can get out of it.

Clint

#17

In general, I don’t like the added length. There are some positive things that I like, and some suggestions to improve the format.

Positives:

  • The “Your Turn at a Glance” - one place where you can see much of the turn’s happenings.
  • Separating battles, and making it “look” like your characters are doing more in the battle makes it a little more interesting, but honestly most people scan them quickly for character names, what artifacts / spells they can see, and the losses, not the flavor text. If you could do a little more customizing of the aforementioned flavor text, then maybe …
  • I like seeing the Nation SNAs somewhere in the turn.
  • I like seeing the breakdown of army costs per army.
  • The actual order number and codes given to that character under each character is good (instead of a master list at the beginning of the character section). Keeps me from having to look (did I actually mean to move him there?)
  • I like the improved texting of the orders under the character descriptions.
  • I like Dave Holt’s suggestions for artifacts with an army, nations of character in companies, and total army combat / constitution values.

Negatives:

  • Why the change from the familiar layout of PC/Armies/Combat/Orders/Character/Map? I see putting the PCs, Economy, and Map together, and Armies and Combat together, and Orders and Characters together.
  • Waaaaay too much empty space in the formatting, and the font size seems too big.
  • Under Nation relations, the red icons seem blurry / confused. I’d suggest changing the color of the Nation to reflect the Hatred status (maybe dark blue at friendly -> light blue -> black -> light red -> blood red at hated).
    Section under Economics “general info” - what are urgent reminders?
  • Characters - each character section is WAY too big, and the heart icon is annoyingly bright, not sure I like the Status section

Suggestions:

  • Try to fit each section within one page/screen (where able)
  • Develop a way that when you click on a link to access another page, you can use a “back” button to get back to where you were. With the turn so huge, is can be difficult to figure out exactly where you were.

Customize the “Your Turn at a Glance”

  • Remove the rings
  • Remove the “this nation is alive”, and “you are a Dark Servant”
  • Change the “Your balance is low” to “Your balance is low at $xyz dollars”

Customize the Maps

  • If possible, add PC names and ownerships (or at least allegiance) to make the maps more useful
  • Remove the full world map, it seems too smal to be effectively useful
  • If you had a link to an online full map that you could scroll around, see initial PC setup for each scenario, but even that’s not needed by many

Change the battle reporting

  • Start the battle with a list of characters / artifacts (and their number), then give the text, the could you show the end result of the army combat - instead of “some losses” could you have “1320 Troll footsoldiers with battle-axes were slain” be shown? Of course, this would require changing the output of the combat generator, and might not be realistic.

VPs

  • Remove the Team victory conditions, unless a unique 4th Age game.
  • Change the individual VPs to “VP bonuses” as someone said, you don’t actually win the game if you get all five (wouldn’t that be an interesting twist to the game)
  • Consider showing an itemization of the VPs (as well as the top three), show the basis for the numbers (PC + gold + armies + characters)

Economics

  • Put the low loyalty PC (and any PC with an army on it) at risk into the PC section as an alert. If you flag PCs to not produce, consider adding a column that subtracts out that PCs production (or list it for quick reference).
  • Consider putting the PC costs section into a tax produced column and a fortification / harbor / port cost column, and a total column. This would eliminate the anticipated revenue section and some redundancy.

Characters

  • Change the base: 20, actual: 20 to columns and only popluate actuals if they are changed? Or bold the actual if it is changed?
  • Add mage artifact ranking/modifier to make an “actual” spell casting chance under the Casting Rank
  • For army commanders, could you show both the basic troops of their army, and the character included in their army (instead of a the green horse and yellow footsoldier icons)
  • Under company commanders, could you show the names / links of characters in their company?

Lastly, I suggest making a link to all the allies, news, and info, instead of packing another 5-6 pages on the end of each turn. Also, that allows the game’s info to be maintained in one place instead of updating each player’s turn sheets.

Thanks for letting us comment,
Mark F.

#18

Good feedback so far, more please.

Clint

#19

I have to assume that a lot of players agree with lots of what’s already here, whether they’ve read/analyzed it completely or not. An overwhelming plea is to fill in the space, compress, etc. Order has also been expressed by a couple people.

I expect many aren’t willing to simply echo what’s already there, so if it’s a preponderance of posts supporting this or that item you’re looking for, I suspect we’ll all end up disppointed with the next version…

So can you, Clint, advise us which areas of concern you have on your list to attend to?

#20

[i]Feedback on turnsheets

How about offering a choice between the old and new formats.

Don’t show accounting information, Toggle on/off

What I liked initially was the first page summarizing your characters, encounters and combat.

I also like the profit if all were sold, that is usually one of the first things I calculate anyway.

In battle reports, actually list if it is HC, LC, HI, LI, AR or MA.

Compact the pop center information and place next to economy section.

Under economy section where you have anticipated cost & revenue for pop centers, what about combining them and showing costs on a column basis for port/harbor & fortification and revenue on a column basis for tax & gold production, and a Net Total column – all for each pop center?

Add “hostages held” to character report

In army report, show combat artifacts value next to Characters travelling with army

In army report, show total army combat value & constitution value

In company report, show nation of each character in company

If map: include a world economic summary too?

Can we have HC, HI etc rather than “Warg Riders” etc…

Like the summary, would add more to this page so you can do more without flicking through

Hold off on the map.[/i]

Not including Mark’s feedback here (waiting on more before I add that to my list of “to do”) but that’s what we’re planning on updating. I’ve not included all the negatives though (ie things that we’re no longer going to do). My aim is get feedback and create a second version (the one we put out was about a year old) and then use that for further feedback. However, ideally I’d like more so that I can update my list and get working on a new version.

So far the feedback has been very useful and we’re going to implement lots of it and remove some of the extraneous guff that we’ve put on the turnsheet. Keep the format basically the same (it might be slightly better to have it in different places).

One idea we’ve got is to have a PDF (for those that share XMLs) of the map as a new attachment - it’s relatively simple to program and should work nicely. As the map is actually the longest job we’ll do that last.

Clint