Whacky ideas for Improving 4th Age

mepbmlist
#1

It's kind of slow round here at present so I thought I'd present some
of my whackier ideas for pepping up the 4th age scenario now that
Middle Earth Games have the code to play with. Feel free to comment
and / or add your own whacky ideas.

1. New Spell List - Personal Protection

New Mage Spells to shield a character from personal damage /
assasination.

Personal Barrier Difficulty - Easy Order - 225
This prevents 30 points of health damage to a character
for the reaminder of the turn.
Info required: Character Id

Personal Shield Difficulty - Hard Order - 255
This prevents 75 points of health damage to a character
for the reaminder of the turn.
Info required: Character Id

Invulnerability Shield Difficulty - Hard Order - 225
This spell makes the named character impossible to kill
during the remainder of the turn. If they would take any
damage, then that damage is reduced to zero. The character
cannot be assasinated whilst this spell is in effect.
Info required: Character Id

2. Lost List - Thrall

New Mage Spells to befuddle characters. Perhaps this
would be harder to cast against Commanders and Mages. Mages
cannot have more than one character in thrall under spells
from this list at a time. Should they attempt a second one
the first character will escape.

Befuddle Difficulty - Easy Order - 330
If successfully cast this causes named character in the
same hex as the mage to forget one of their two orders
determined at random.
Info required: Character Id

Dominate Difficulty - Medium Order - 330
If successfully cast this causes a named character in the
same hex as the mage to forget both their orders for the
turn.
Info required: Character Id

Mind Control Difficulty - Hard Order - 330
If successfully cast this causes a named character in the
same hex as the mage to not be able to issue any orders
for the next 2-3 turns. The character would act as if they
were kidnapped during this time.
Info required: Character Id

3. Alternative Victory Conditions
I'm not a big fan of the random victory conditions in Fourth
Age. I'd much rather see them replaced with the following.

Nation with Most Battle Victories 250
Nation with 2nd Most Battle Victories 150
Nation with 2nd Most Battle Victories 100
Nation with 4th Most Battle Victories 50

Nation with Most Prolific Spellcasters 250
Nation with 2nd Most Spells Cast 150
Nation with 2nd Most Spells Cast 100
Nation with 4th Most Spells 50

4. Upgrade Poor SNA's

Some SNA's are perceived to be poor value. Currently Middle Earth
Games has just made a number SNA's cheaper to compensate for this,
but instead they could make the SNA's better value i.e.

* Challenge rank bonus chance increased to 50%
* Army morale comes in at 70 on new armies
* Training ranks come in a 60 on new armies for HI
* Fortifications, bridges, roads and War machines at 1/2 cost

5. New SNA's

Create some new exciting SNA's to spice up the game. For example:-

* Increases mage casting chances by 25%
* New unit type - Chariots
* Irrigation - Plains hexes produce 25% extra goods
* Logging - Wood hexes produce 25% extra goods
* Cartographer - Move Map for Free
* Road builders - Access to the build road command

6. Monuments

Create new orders to create a monument. These could be used for
victory purposes at the end of the game as below. Armies of any
size could destroy monuments of another nation in a similar way
to the destroy pop centre order, but there would be no minimum
army size. Monuments could not be build in pop centre hexes and
vice versa. There would be a monument limit (like camps) and
they could only be built in the hex following a successful
battle containing at least 2000 troops.

Nation with Most Monuments 250
Nation with 2nd Most Monuments 150
Nation with 2nd Most Monuments 100
Nation with 4th Most Monuments 50

7. Rumoured Events

You could have events like a fair whereby the location of a fair
is announced in rumours to all nations and nations could send
characters to the fair to directly trade goods (perhaps using a
new order) which they could send from anywhere in their nation to
another specific location. Characters in that hex would be safe
from assasintion that turn. Another such event might be a jousting
tourney where commanders could compete on challenge rank for a
money prize. Another could be mercenaries for hire whereby the
nation bidding the highest got the troops indicated for 5 turns
in the hex of their choice in addition to any troops hired there.

8. Barricades
One of the real disadvantages of being in the plains is that
invading armies can easily walk up and smash your home. What about
allowing nations to build barricades (where there is no pop centre)
as a level 0 fortification requiring 100 timber. This would have
the effect of stopping an army, but any army size could easily
destroy it.

#2

It's kind of slow round here at present so I thought I'd present some
of my whackier ideas for pepping up the 4th age scenario now that
Middle Earth Games have the code to play with. Feel free to comment
and / or add your own whacky ideas.

1. New Spell List - Personal Protection

New Mage Spells to shield a character from personal damage /
assasination.

I think these should be rethought -- if they do exist, then it
becomes impossible ever to eliminate a high-ranking mage from
the game (he casts Invulnerability Shield and can't be killed
even from loss of health, so he casts a second hard spell.) At
the very least, they shouldn't work against spell drain or
army combat damage, and probably not against encounters or
challenges either.

Some kind of protection against curses or assassination would be
worthwhile, but it should never be a sure thing.

2. Lost List - Thrall

New Mage Spells to befuddle characters. Perhaps this
would be harder to cast against Commanders and Mages. Mages
cannot have more than one character in thrall under spells
from this list at a time. Should they attempt a second one
the first character will escape.

This is already pretty much taken care of the doubling rules,
I think. Probably too powerful, IMO.

4. Upgrade Poor SNA's

Some SNA's are perceived to be poor value. Currently Middle Earth
Games has just made a number SNA's cheaper to compensate for this,
but instead they could make the SNA's better value i.e.

* Challenge rank bonus chance increased to 50%
* Army morale comes in at 70 on new armies
* Training ranks come in a 60 on new armies for HI
* Fortifications, bridges, roads and War machines at 1/2 cost

These are all possibly interesting. I don't know about challenge
bonuses, though -- in my experience most characters are eliminated
by assassination rather than by challenges.

5. New SNA's

Create some new exciting SNA's to spice up the game. For example:-

* Increases mage casting chances by 25%

Too powerful.

* New unit type - Chariots

How, in game terms, does this differ from HC (which I notice that
some nations already have listed as their description for HC!)

* Irrigation - Plains hexes produce 25% extra goods
* Logging - Wood hexes produce 25% extra goods

Enh. Just plant more camps. Or take the +20% buy/sell SNA.

* Cartographer - Move Map for Free

Probably too powerful. (Move Map should be free if you're shifting
the map to center on a new capital, maybe.)

* Road builders - Access to the build road command

I can see this one being useful.

7. Rumoured Events

You could have events like a fair whereby the location of a fair
is announced in rumours to all nations and nations could send
characters to the fair to directly trade goods (perhaps using a
new order) which they could send from anywhere in their nation to
another specific location. Characters in that hex would be safe
from assasintion that turn. Another such event might be a jousting
tourney where commanders could compete on challenge rank for a
money prize. Another could be mercenaries for hire whereby the
nation bidding the highest got the troops indicated for 5 turns
in the hex of their choice in addition to any troops hired there.

This starts getting interestingly difficult in terms of coding,
but I suppose having additional encounters or something would be
fun.

8. Barricades
One of the real disadvantages of being in the plains is that
invading armies can easily walk up and smash your home. What about
allowing nations to build barricades (where there is no pop centre)
as a level 0 fortification requiring 100 timber. This would have
the effect of stopping an army, but any army size could easily
destroy it.

Barbed wire doesn't exist in Middle-earth -- and what we really need
is something to slow down agents, not something to make army movement
more difficult. It's already pretty cheap to build a tower if
you really must have something in the way of enemy armies.

Tony Z

···

On Wed, Mar 16, 2005 at 04:52:50PM -0000, Gavin Kenny wrote:

--
Reputation is a side effect of conduct; the notion that it can be
created as a direct effect of promotion is one of those unfortunate
ills of thought plaguing the 20th century.
-- Graydon Saunders

#3

Gents: I like some of these ideas. Though:

* Logging - Wood hexes produce 25% extra goods

Wouldn't this one cause the Ents to join the other
side?

Jonathan

···

--- Gavin Kenny <Gavken@btinternet.com> wrote:

It's kind of slow round here at present so I thought
I'd present some
of my whackier ideas for pepping up the 4th age
scenario now that
Middle Earth Games have the code to play with. Feel
free to comment
and / or add your own whacky ideas.

1. New Spell List - Personal Protection

New Mage Spells to shield a character from personal
damage /
assasination.

Personal Barrier Difficulty - Easy Order - 225
This prevents 30 points of health damage to a
character
for the reaminder of the turn.
Info required: Character Id

Personal Shield Difficulty - Hard Order - 255
This prevents 75 points of health damage to a
character
for the reaminder of the turn.
Info required: Character Id

Invulnerability Shield Difficulty - Hard Order -
225
This spell makes the named character impossible to
kill
during the remainder of the turn. If they would take
any
damage, then that damage is reduced to zero. The
character
cannot be assasinated whilst this spell is in
effect.
Info required: Character Id

2. Lost List - Thrall

New Mage Spells to befuddle characters. Perhaps this
would be harder to cast against Commanders and
Mages. Mages
cannot have more than one character in thrall under
spells
from this list at a time. Should they attempt a
second one
the first character will escape.

Befuddle Difficulty - Easy Order - 330
If successfully cast this causes named character in
the
same hex as the mage to forget one of their two
orders
determined at random.
Info required: Character Id

Dominate Difficulty - Medium Order - 330
If successfully cast this causes a named character
in the
same hex as the mage to forget both their orders for
the
turn.
Info required: Character Id

Mind Control Difficulty - Hard Order - 330
If successfully cast this causes a named character
in the
same hex as the mage to not be able to issue any
orders
for the next 2-3 turns. The character would act as
if they
were kidnapped during this time.
Info required: Character Id

3. Alternative Victory Conditions
I'm not a big fan of the random victory conditions
in Fourth
Age. I'd much rather see them replaced with the
following.

Nation with Most Battle Victories 250
Nation with 2nd Most Battle Victories 150
Nation with 2nd Most Battle Victories 100
Nation with 4th Most Battle Victories 50

Nation with Most Prolific Spellcasters 250
Nation with 2nd Most Spells Cast 150
Nation with 2nd Most Spells Cast 100
Nation with 4th Most Spells 50

4. Upgrade Poor SNA's

Some SNA's are perceived to be poor value. Currently
Middle Earth
Games has just made a number SNA's cheaper to
compensate for this,
but instead they could make the SNA's better value
i.e.

* Challenge rank bonus chance increased to 50%
* Army morale comes in at 70 on new armies
* Training ranks come in a 60 on new armies for HI
* Fortifications, bridges, roads and War machines at
1/2 cost

5. New SNA's

Create some new exciting SNA's to spice up the game.
For example:-

* Increases mage casting chances by 25%
* New unit type - Chariots
* Irrigation - Plains hexes produce 25% extra goods
* Logging - Wood hexes produce 25% extra goods
* Cartographer - Move Map for Free
* Road builders - Access to the build road command

6. Monuments

Create new orders to create a monument. These could
be used for
victory purposes at the end of the game as below.
Armies of any
size could destroy monuments of another nation in a
similar way
to the destroy pop centre order, but there would be
no minimum
army size. Monuments could not be build in pop
centre hexes and
vice versa. There would be a monument limit (like
camps) and
they could only be built in the hex following a
successful
battle containing at least 2000 troops.

Nation with Most Monuments 250
Nation with 2nd Most Monuments 150
Nation with 2nd Most Monuments 100
Nation with 4th Most Monuments 50

7. Rumoured Events

You could have events like a fair whereby the
location of a fair
is announced in rumours to all nations and nations
could send
characters to the fair to directly trade goods
(perhaps using a
new order) which they could send from anywhere in
their nation to
another specific location. Characters in that hex
would be safe
from assasintion that turn. Another such event might
be a jousting
tourney where commanders could compete on challenge
rank for a
money prize. Another could be mercenaries for hire
whereby the
nation bidding the highest got the troops indicated
for 5 turns
in the hex of their choice in addition to any troops
hired there.

8. Barricades
One of the real disadvantages of being in the plains
is that
invading armies can easily walk up and smash your
home. What about
allowing nations to build barricades (where there is
no pop centre)
as a level 0 fortification requiring 100 timber.
This would have
the effect of stopping an army, but any army size
could easily
destroy it.

Jonathan Shushan
"We have the enemy precisely where we want him. Victory is certain."
General Cornwallis
Yorktown, Virginia- 1781

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#4

> 1. New Spell List - Personal Protection
>
> New Mage Spells to shield a character from personal damage /
> assasination.
I think these should be rethought -- if they do exist, then it
becomes impossible ever to eliminate a high-ranking mage from
the game (he casts Invulnerability Shield and can't be killed
even from loss of health, so he casts a second hard spell.) At
the very least, they shouldn't work against spell drain or
army combat damage, and probably not against encounters or
challenges either.

Some kind of protection against curses or assassination would be
worthwhile, but it should never be a sure thing.

The spell will not work against challenges as it occurs after this
command. I take your point about multiple spell casts though.

> 2. Lost List - Thrall
>
> New Mage Spells to befuddle characters. Perhaps this
> would be harder to cast against Commanders and Mages. Mages
> cannot have more than one character in thrall under spells
> from this list at a time. Should they attempt a second one
> the first character will escape.

This is already pretty much taken care of the doubling rules,
I think. Probably too powerful, IMO.

Not really - it's more like limited kidnap.

> 4. Upgrade Poor SNA's
>
> Some SNA's are perceived to be poor value. Currently Middle Earth
> Games has just made a number SNA's cheaper to compensate for this,
> but instead they could make the SNA's better value i.e.
>
> * Challenge rank bonus chance increased to 50%
> * Army morale comes in at 70 on new armies
> * Training ranks come in a 60 on new armies for HI
> * Fortifications, bridges, roads and War machines at 1/2 cost

These are all possibly interesting. I don't know about challenge
bonuses, though -- in my experience most characters are eliminated
by assassination rather than by challenges.

True, but if you take the bonus challenge SNA you at least want to
get something for your money.

> * Irrigation - Plains hexes produce 25% extra goods
> * Logging - Wood hexes produce 25% extra goods

Enh. Just plant more camps. Or take the +20% buy/sell SNA.

You can't if the camp limit is reached - which it does quickly in 4th
age. Also this could combine with +20% sell/buy.

> * Cartographer - Move Map for Free
Probably too powerful. (Move Map should be free if you're shifting
the map to center on a new capital, maybe.)

More so than hiring free armies at 5,000 gold a time ?

> 8. Barricades
Barbed wire doesn't exist in Middle-earth -- and what we really need
is something to slow down agents, not something to make army movement
more difficult. It's already pretty cheap to build a tower if
you really must have something in the way of enemy armies.

The idea is to protect large plains areas and make more places viable
to place. And they dont need to be barbed wire, they can easily be
old masonary.

#5

--- In mepbmlist@yahoogroups.com, Jonathan Shushan <jshushan@y...>
wrote:

Gents: I like some of these ideas. Though:

* Logging - Wood hexes produce 25% extra goods

Wouldn't this one cause the Ents to join the other
side?

Jonathan
--- Gavin Kenny <Gavken@b...> wrote:

It doesn't seem to bother them when the Elves sacrifice the trees in
1650. I say the Ents have double standards.

Gavin

#6

> > 2. Lost List - Thrall
> >
> > New Mage Spells to befuddle characters. Perhaps this
> > would be harder to cast against Commanders and Mages. Mages
> > cannot have more than one character in thrall under spells
> > from this list at a time. Should they attempt a second one
> > the first character will escape.
>
> This is already pretty much taken care of the doubling rules,
> I think. Probably too powerful, IMO.

Not really - it's more like limited kidnap.

People are already complaining that agents are too powerful.
What does this _add_ to the game experience?

> > 8. Barricades
> Barbed wire doesn't exist in Middle-earth -- and what we really need
>is something to slow down agents, not something to make army movement
> more difficult. It's already pretty cheap to build a tower if
> you really must have something in the way of enemy armies.

The idea is to protect large plains areas and make more places viable
to place. And they dont need to be barbed wire, they can easily be
old masonary.

None of the ME nations should be able to do this sort of huge
construction -- the Great Wall of China took an empire decades
to construct. Small warring states can fortify their own areas,
but they shouldn't be able to rapidly fortify huge chunks of land
well away from sources of stone and wood. It just feels completely
wrong.

Tony Z

···

On Wed, Mar 16, 2005 at 11:02:32PM -0000, Gavin Kenny wrote:

--
Reputation is a side effect of conduct; the notion that it can be
created as a direct effect of promotion is one of those unfortunate
ills of thought plaguing the 20th century.
-- Graydon Saunders

#7

Perhaps he is thinking of Offa's dike along the Mercia/Welsh border. It was more of a boundry than barrier, I think.
Ed

···

> > > 8. Barricades

> The idea is to protect large plains areas and make more places viable
> to place. And they dont need to be barbed wire, they can easily be
> old masonary.

None of the ME nations should be able to do this sort of huge
construction -- the Great Wall of China took an empire decades
to construct. Small warring states can fortify their own areas,
but they shouldn't be able to rapidly fortify huge chunks of land
well away from sources of stone and wood. It just feels completely
wrong.

Tony Z

#8

Perhaps he is thinking of Offa's dike along the Mercia/Welsh border. It was
more of a boundry than barrier, I think.

It's mirrored by some of the works in the Barrow-downs, I think.
Which are marked by towers on the game map. Which suggests
that the way to fortify an area is, well, to fortify an area.
It _isn't_ easy to do that sort of thing, and shouldn't be.

Tony Z

···

On Thu, Mar 17, 2005 at 12:08:59AM +0000, Ovatha Easterling wrote:

Ed

> > > > 8. Barricades
>
> > The idea is to protect large plains areas and make more places viable
> > to place. And they dont need to be barbed wire, they can easily be
> > old masonary.
>
>None of the ME nations should be able to do this sort of huge
>construction -- the Great Wall of China took an empire decades
>to construct. Small warring states can fortify their own areas,
>but they shouldn't be able to rapidly fortify huge chunks of land
>well away from sources of stone and wood. It just feels completely
>wrong.
>
>
>Tony Z

Middle Earth PBM - hit reply to send to everyone
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--
Reputation is a side effect of conduct; the notion that it can be
created as a direct effect of promotion is one of those unfortunate
ills of thought plaguing the 20th century.
-- Graydon Saunders

#9

> Perhaps he is thinking of Offa's dike along the Mercia/Welsh

border. It was

> more of a boundry than barrier, I think.

It's mirrored by some of the works in the Barrow-downs, I think.
Which are marked by towers on the game map. Which suggests
that the way to fortify an area is, well, to fortify an area.
It _isn't_ easy to do that sort of thing, and shouldn't be.

It was actually fairly easy to do. The Romans used to build temporary
marching camps with defenses as they went. The problem is that armies
are not just men, they are also all the supply chains and camp
followers that use wagons and the like. As a result a barrier of any
sort will either stop an army in its tracks or force the men to march
on without their food supplies - not good for morale! Obviously the
scales involved in Middle Earth hexes are somewhat larger and may
take a bit more time.

Gavin

···

--- In mepbmlist@yahoogroups.com, Tony Zbaraschuk <tonyz@e...> wrote:

On Thu, Mar 17, 2005 at 12:08:59AM +0000, Ovatha Easterling wrote:

#10

Defenses for Mages - and it makes agents attacking Mages more risky.
Emmisaries can double agents, Mages get this defence. It may be that
only the easy and average spells are suficient to achieve this
however.

Gavin

···

--- In mepbmlist@yahoogroups.com, Tony Zbaraschuk <tonyz@e...> wrote:

On Wed, Mar 16, 2005 at 11:02:32PM -0000, Gavin Kenny wrote:
> > > 2. Lost List - Thrall
> > >
> > > New Mage Spells to befuddle characters. Perhaps this
> > > would be harder to cast against Commanders and Mages. Mages
> > > cannot have more than one character in thrall under spells
> > > from this list at a time. Should they attempt a second one
> > > the first character will escape.
> >
> > This is already pretty much taken care of the doubling rules,
> > I think. Probably too powerful, IMO.
>
> Not really - it's more like limited kidnap.

People are already complaining that agents are too powerful.
What does this _add_ to the game experience?

#11

Hmm, makes mages more useful.

russ

···

----- Original Message -----
  From: Gavin Kenny
  To: mepbmlist@yahoogroups.com
  Sent: Thursday, March 17, 2005 3:56 AM
  Subject: [mepbmlist] Re: Whacky ideas for Improving 4th Age

  --- In mepbmlist@yahoogroups.com, Tony Zbaraschuk <tonyz@e...> wrote:
  > On Wed, Mar 16, 2005 at 11:02:32PM -0000, Gavin Kenny wrote:
  > > > > 2. Lost List - Thrall
  > > > >
  > > > > New Mage Spells to befuddle characters. Perhaps this
  > > > > would be harder to cast against Commanders and Mages. Mages
  > > > > cannot have more than one character in thrall under spells
  > > > > from this list at a time. Should they attempt a second one
  > > > > the first character will escape.
  > > >
  > > > This is already pretty much taken care of the doubling rules,
  > > > I think. Probably too powerful, IMO.
  > >
  > > Not really - it's more like limited kidnap.
  >
  > People are already complaining that agents are too powerful.
  > What does this _add_ to the game experience?

  Defenses for Mages - and it makes agents attacking Mages more risky.
  Emmisaries can double agents, Mages get this defence. It may be that
  only the easy and average spells are suficient to achieve this
  however.

  Gavin

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