New Friday Game?

[fraese]

I see Tides of Darkness is on life-support, and there are no other games on Friday. Who would be interested in a new Friday campaign after TOD ends? At what time would you be available? I'm thinking an 18:00-22:00 or 19:00-23:00 CET timeslot.

 

[unmerged(6147)]

I might be interested Fraese. Currently only 3 games per week, heaven knows how I survive the abstinence

 

[unmerged(58575)]

Friday is party day not gaming day

 

[Seen]

Friday is party day not gaming day

Like any respectible man party during the week and play in the weekends

away from this spam which infiltrates every time a friday or saturday game starts I might be intrested but would like maybe original setup mod/region orso

 

[fraese]

As far as setup goes, I've long wanted to try a campaign based around the Holy Roman Empire.

Discussing this with Seen, here's the initial idea:

All player nations would start with three or maybe five (depending on roster size) core provinces in the HRE, none with a COT, all with one port and equal manpower / tax. These core provinces would be off-limits to other player nations in the peace process - no player nation would be allowed to lose a core province to another player nation. All player nations would have all cultures that exist within the HRE (German, Dutch, French, and Italian). There would be no historical leaders, only one eternally living 5-5-5 monarch and a 5-5-5-2 general, all other leaders purchased through the expenditure of prestige points. Essentially, all players would have a roughly equal starting position.

Provinces in Europe but not in the HRE would be off-limits to players. The rest of the world outside of Europe would be on-limits.

The goal of the game would be to hold the title of Holy Roman Emperor for as many sessions as possible; whoever finishes the game with the most sessions as Holy Roman Emperor would be the winner. As in Test of Skill, players would be obligated to try to do their best - if no longer in the race for first, one would try to be 2nd, and so on.

The title of Holy Roman Emperor would be given to whoever holds the most prestige points at the end of a session.

Prestige points would be earned in two main ways:

1. Ranks in stats according to the Daniel power rankings (some points for being first overall in power, and some points inverse to ranking in each category eg. land, economy, as appropriate tbd later)

2. Completion of special objectives - the Holy Roman Emperor will have to declare a special objective, quests, to be attempted by other players. The first to complete the objective will get the prestige associated with it. These will be selected from a definite list of possible objectives that have not yet been completed, and the list will change over time to avoid utterly impossible objectives in the early sessions. The objectives would all be worth the same amount of prestige, and prestige from objectives would be equal to the number of points gained by having the first overall position in the stats power rankings. Basically, completing a special objective should be enough to get any of the top 3-4 players elected HRE for the next session, while the lower ranked players will get a bunch of extra prestige to spend.

The player with the most prestige would be automatically declared HRE. The other players would be permitted to spend any prestige points on a a leader - a general, admiral, explorer or conquistador, with x prestige buying x stats, or possibly on other things like a manufactory, stability boost, or ducats.

Thoughts / comments? I suspect this scenario would work best with a smaller roster, especially since player countries won't be eliminated at all, so tentatively capping it at 6.

 

[unmerged(6147)]

Very interesting Fraese.

Would these quests be secret?

If so, have you ever played Risk with secret missions? Suddenly someone says: I control all of Europe and thus I have won the game because it says so on my special mission card. o Well that is of course more serious than what you suggest since it decides the whole outcome of the game, who the winner is.

If all missions where public I would like this idea better.
If they were public you would be able to guess what your opponent was trying to do and could try to outsmart him. But when his quest is unknown it becomes a lottery.

I will try and invent a few quests that could be public.

1. Their are inbuilt VP-rewards for certain discoveries, such as Cape Horn and Australia (you even get a message when you do it so there can be no doubt about who earned the distinction of being the first). That could be rewarded with prestige.

2. The one who first reaches a certain number of owned provinces (e.g. 20, 50, 100)

3. The one who has zero bad boy points (that would get prestige in RL I believe) at session's end. Or perhaps simply: the one who have the fewest BB points at session's end.

4. The one with the most +100 relations with other nations... or other electors...

6. The one with the highest number of manus (a reward in itself of course)

It could be a good idea to look in the rules section for Thirst for Glory II. The concept of prestige was vital for that game and its predecessor.

Elio had a list of rewards for different things, like the one who first reaches infra 5 (as if that was not a reward in itself).

 

[fraese]

Very interesting Fraese.

Would these quests be secret?

No, I envision a list of quests available for each specific session, and the HRE chooses one before the start of the session for the other players to attempt to win. Whoever succesfully completed this quest would have a large boost towards becoming HRE for the subsequent session. However, other 1 point prestige bonuses could be included for other things. Here is a preliminary idea of how prestige points could be structured:

Overall Rank:

1st - 5
2nd - 3
3rd - 1

Categories (Land, Economic, Naval):

1st - 3
2nd - 2
3rd - 1

300 word AAR + 2 screenies: 1
On-time (not a minute late): 1

Base: 2

Special Objective: 8

With the special objective worth 8, any top 3 ranking nation to complete the special objective will probably become HRE, but the rest will probably not. Adds some strategy to picking the objective for the rank leader - ideally you pick an objective a weaker power is likely to fulfill due to some unique strategic advantage, and thus retain the HRE based on rank alone. There would be a lot of different possibilities for how to use the advantage of picking the special objective, your ideas are good but here are some additional possible objectives for the second session, which could be of a "first to" variety, or a final tally variety, always paired like this:

First to discover Brazil
Know the most provinces in a region at session's end

First to capture Jerusalem
Holds Jerusalem at session's end

First to save 1,000 ducats
Largest treasury at session's end

 

[BurningEGO]

As i said Fraese, i might be interested as well. Should be fun to try such a game. However, about the PP points, i dont really agree that Daniel Power System should be taken into consideration. As shown before in some games, some players got the highest score, and are by far from being the best nation in the game.

But if players are limited in the HRE, perhaps all neighbouring AI countries (outside the HRE) should be deleted? The chances for being dowed by an AI is slim, but who knows? Maybe, do like i said, and create a huge AI country composed of TPs (and with -200 relations with everyone), so that dows from outsiders could be prevented? Perhaps it sounds dumb, but it would save trouble... Of course, that nation would be offlimits.

 

[unmerged(6147)]

If I were HRE and had to set the quest for the other players I would select one that they would all fail in.

And then I guess I would still be HRE... or not. Perhaps there would always be a new HRE each session. But anyhow, the next time I can compete to be HRE my oppos would be worse off if they got zero quest-points when I was HRE, would they not?

 

[unmerged(6147)]

As shown before in some games, some players got the highest score, and are by far from being the best nation in the game.

Could you pls give an example?

 

[fraese]

If I were HRE and had to set the quest for the other players I would select one that they would all fail in.

And then I guess I would still be HRE... or not. Perhaps there would always be a new HRE each session. But anyhow, the next time I can compete to be HRE my oppos would be worse off if they got zero quest-points when I was HRE, would they not?

Perhaps it could be structured such that if the "first to" type objective isn't completed, the reward defaults to a relative success objective:

EG: Discover the Cape of Good Hope
defaults to whoever gets closest

EG: Control Jerusalem First or at the end of the session
defaults to whoever has the most warscore against the AI controlling Jerusalem

etc.

 

[Gamlasemlan]

This sounds very interesting to me. And Friday is a perfect day for me to play on. If you want me in you can count me in.

 

[unmerged(38063)]

Setup sounds really fun, I suppose the mod used would be WATK? If so that could be very fun.

Idea about other European nations, it would be best if other European countries were passive, by what means I do not know.

What about CoTs? Would there be CoTs in HRE? If so how many, because if we have 1-2 CoTs their owners would be much stronger early on than other nations.

 

[unmerged(6147)]

Perhaps it could be structured such that if the "first to" type objective isn't completed, the reward defaults to a relative success objective:

EG: Discover the Cape of Good Hope
defaults to whoever gets closest

EG: Control Jerusalem First or at the end of the session
defaults to whoever has the most warscore against the AI controlling Jerusalem

etc.

Yep, that is the obvious solution to this problem.

Shit, I should never have told about this devious strategy

 

[unmerged(6147)]

And yes. I much prefer to play with say 8 reliable players rather than say 8 reliable and 4 either unreliable or newbies we do not know anything about. I say no unreliable guys and at most one unknown.

 

[BurningEGO]

Daniel, the only example i can think of, is one game you subbed in as well... The one where you subbed as Bradenburg (Who was being played by Bodvar), where i had highest score thanks to my 1000 galleys... If you think i was the most powerful country because of all these galleys...

 

[unmerged(32886)]

... And yes. I much prefer to play with say 8 reliable players rather than say 8 reliable and 4 either unreliable or newbies we do not know anything about. I say no unreliable guys and at most one unknown.

Totally true. Although I don't know if it's a good thing when I agree with someone 99% of the time while being half the age

... where i had highest score thanks to my 1000 galleys... If you think i was the most powerful country because of all these galleys...

Boring, boring and boring...

 

[Gamlasemlan]

Totally true. Although I don't know if it's a good thing when I agree with someone 99% of the time while being half the age

You mean that you're really that old so that you're half Daniels age? Beacause that's old.

 

[unmerged(6147)]

Daniel, the only example i can think of, is one game you subbed in as well... The one where you subbed as Bradenburg (Who was being played by Bodvar), where i had highest score thanks to my 1000 galleys... If you think i was the most powerful country because of all these galleys...

1000 galleys early on is pretty impressive... However, the formulas recently were changed. Do you have a link to the save in question and we could study the numbers, how they look now?

BTW, the present system primarily aims at having accurate numbers at the end of the game, in 1819, although much work has been put in to make the power points comparable and accurate for all years. It will be interesting to see how it turns out when we end. I will go over the formulas once again when we have ended Test of Skill.

 

[unmerged(49182)]

Having played a game with quests I think it makes the game more interesting and its a great idea. You could perhaps consider adding quests specially designed for different nations, not just the one who first discoveres Australia or reaches infra 5, like in Kingdom Stage. Just a thought though.

I wont join the game though, Fridays dont suit me that well although Ill follow the thread as it sounds interesting.