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View Full Version : The online campaign can work!!!!!!



Obake
11-18-2000, 05:57
Before you read through this whole post, it is a regurgitation of my posts on Magyar's "New Online Scenario" Thread. I put most of it over here so that I would end the usurping of Magyar's thread and also because I believe that this topic is important enough to have it's own thread. I would advise anyone not having read Magy's thread to please do so as there are already some great ideas for the campaign there. Please post anything regarding the campaign here rather than there! Thanks, Obake

I have an interesting idea that combines what Magyar mentions (in his “new online scenario” thread), an online tournament of sorts, and the online campaign we have all been so desperately wanting.
Please bear with me on this, as it just came to me and will need to be worked.
Why not have CA/DT put up a map of all the provinces (similar to the league of honor) and assign all true clans(I would say a minimum of 5 different members) a random province as their home base. The remainder of the provinces would be Ronin (RA would also have a starting province and function as a clan). For competitive clan play they would have to fight across the various provinces of Japan until one clan emerged victorious as Shogun of all Japan. Clans could only fight each other if they had provinces bordering each other on the map. Clans seeking to expand their holdings against the Ronin, would fight for that particular province against any of the online Ronin. Campaign battles would have to be announced in the foyer prior to taking place. Clan Daimyo's (or appointed representative) would have to track the province locations of their members. Clans without generals in a contested province would lose that province. (This is why I suggest a minimum of 5 members in a clan. Rarely would a frontline consist of more than 5 provinces!) In addition, there could be more than one general in a province resulting in 2x2 battles or greater. Provinces not on the front line would not need to be garrisoned, and all battles would be fought with a set koku value, as is the case in Tournament play.

Alliances could be forged between clans, and all the diplomacy that we would like to see can actually happen!
All it would take is for someone (hint hint CA/DT) to step up to the plate and take responsibility for managing the process and updating the map! The best part is we don't have to worry about whether or not someone drops out (clans that die out will simply revert to Ronin), or if someone wants to join in (assuming they have met the minimum size criteria; any new clan can be assigned a Ronin Territory to start out in).

For the first round on this, I'm thinking, no castles, no armor or unit limitations and no koku distribution by Daimyo (think Tournament guys). The only difference would be that there is a map that governs Clan/Ronin holdings and there could potentially be up to 60 clans involved!
Each week could represent a season, in other words, any battles occurring during a particular week would all occur during summer or winter and so on. I envision that there would be a set amount of time, following the announcement that a clan was attacking a province for the owner of that province to have someone show up to defend (24 hours or so would be my guess).

Like I said earlier, this is still very rudimentary, but I don't think there needs to be an issue with troop movement. Battles would be fought online with a set koku amount as they are in tournaments! Clans would have Taisho in various provinces, either defending or attacking that would have to be tracked, but that is about it (Taisho location would only be known to that clan and the Tourney/Campaign admin. Everyone else would have to figure it out themselves! How’s that for fog of war! )

I want to get started on it ASAP. I'm in the process of putting together an E-mail for Richie and ask for his input and the willingness of the CA/DT team to support us in this endeavor. In a worst case scenario, we should set up a campaign Web-site where the map could be displayed, province challenges issued and battle results/log files (if we go that route) posted!

Again, the whole key to this working is to keep it as simple as possible! My guess is that we would also need to have a campaign chat room to keep people updated as well as to ensure that the general online population does not get over-burdened with the clashing of our Katana's!

My main reason for wanting CA/DT to manage this process is to ensure impartiality (and web space). With the number of Clans/Ronin that I anticipate wanting to take part, it is going to require a large investment to manage this. And what better way can anyone think of to get CA/DT to become more involved in supporting this online community?


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Obake http://members.tripod.com/smilecwm/cgi-bin/s/net8/laghost.gif

We are but shadows of our former selves and the sons and daughters of lions have become sheep. I am the ghost of our past.

[This message has been edited by Obake (edited 11-17-2000).]

Magyar Khan
11-18-2000, 07:11
every new idea is a good idea. like usual we need some smart support to make the ideas work

Rob
11-18-2000, 15:30
I see a lot of potential for this idea. In particular I like the idea of how to deal with Ronin provinces. Pure genius! I have been puzzling over that idea for ages now and have never come up with a solution.

Hopefully we can get support from CA/DT for this and see it up and running very soon! I think they will be open to this idea, especially considering that it builds upon the idea of the League of Honour.

leoknite
11-18-2000, 15:52
why did u have to say smart support that counts me out

Anssi Hakkinen
11-18-2000, 20:21
For what it's worth, I think this is a great idea. Probably the closest thing we can get to an online campaign in the foreseeable future (unless the people working on the actual thing have been hiding some breakthrough). Heck, I might finally start out my multiplayer career just for this... (Although any province with me as a defender would fit in the dictionary as an example of an "easy picking" http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif)

Just to get it settled: it wouldn't, then, be possible for the Ronin to expand in this system, so they'd end up playing defensive games only? Or what?

And if the koku amounts are set, who on Earth would even consider attacking river provinces? Would the attacker get more koku?

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"Carai an Mierendaira!" -- "Glory to the Blue Cross!"

Tenchimuyo
11-18-2000, 21:23
hmm..... I think this is a great idea.

The Black Ship
11-18-2000, 22:26
This brings up the rudiments of an ally system, there's nothing to stop human alliances- other than honor http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

You can even have multi-clan battles in a single province- sort of a winner takes all- by having free-for-all games!

This is all simple, yet will make for some fun twists along the way. No incomparable horde, since evryone would gather to deny that clans rightful place in history!

ShaiHulud
11-19-2000, 00:03
Please don't consider this as sand in the gears.
The idea of each week being a season...wouldn't winter seasons see a slow-down of attacks?
Adding a thought. Suppose Ronin could challenge in any area already held? Consider it a revolt, perhaps? Could justification might be made for such? Otherwise, once Ronin provinces are knocked out, there would be only large clans involved.
Would there be a limit to the number of fights per season in a province? Alliances to take a single province could find defenders unable to continue for various reasons after a 2nd or 3rd fight(in a 24 hour period).


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Wind fells blossoms, rain
fells steel,yet bamboo bends and drinks

ShaiHulud
11-19-2000, 00:06
Umm..One more thought..as you'll be using seasons and thus a calender of sorts, suppose guns were not available til the advent of the Portuguese, as in a campaign game?

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Wind fells blossoms, rain
fells steel,yet bamboo bends and drinks

Obake
11-19-2000, 01:02
Leo- You're no getting off that easy my friend! I look to you as the de-facto head of the RA and you will be needed for this to work. Which leads me to Anssi's question.

Anssi, there is a Ronin Alliance that plays online. They do not function as a clan per se but allow online Ronin to have a group of allies that they can rely on. I envision this group to function much as the Chosokabe clan would have in the sp campaign. So, to make a short story long... yes, the ronin will be able to expand.

Your question regarding river province assaults is valid and at present there is no way to compensate online since all koku values are equal. What I see happening is a situation where holding a river province becomes strategically un-tenable and the advancing clan just moves in after a withdrawal.

Ship, you hit the diplomatic model right on the head! That is one of the issues that will make this campaign so much fun! I would like to see alliances announced, but there would also be the opportunity to break alliances at crucial times....say in the middle of a battle (anyone remember Sekigahara?). This will be possible because each clan will determine whether or not allied clan Taisho may move through their provinces!

Shai- Don't worry about throwing sand. For this to work it's going to require some critical thinking and those questions have to be asked! And I'll answer your second post first. For simplicities sake, since there is no infrastructure to worry about, I would prefer to not limit unit types for the first iteration of the campaign. We will be using a seasonal approach, but not really a calender per se. Maybe down the road once we have the framework laid out we can incorporate the arrival of the portugese, the dutch, along with infrastructure, but let's keep this one as simple as possible.

As to your first post, yes i think we would see a slowdown of assaults during winter, just as you would expect in real life and this only adds to the immersion in the campaign. Imagine exeryone expecting no movement or attacks during winter when one clan decides to risk everything on a mid-winter assault on a crucial province! As far as Ronin challenges in held provinces are concerned, I don't unneccesarily want to complicate things. Since there would need to be a Taisho within 1 province of the challenges territory, that would knock out a lot of the smaller clans from play. What I hope to accomplish is to set up a simple system that would allow even a clan with only 4 or 5 members to have a feasible chance to win. I am not too worried about Ronin and smaller clans being knocked out for many reasons. First off, there is the Ronin Alliance being spear-headed by Leo. Secondly, the alliance system of smaller and larger clans will ensure that people will survive in the face of larger clans like, Chaos, Chain, Kenchikuka and Fear.

I would like to see only 1 fight per province per season/week. This will allow time for people to arrange the battle and will also account for timezone differences. It will also eliminate your concern of multiple battles for a province getting to the point where defenders are unable to continue defending.

I think this is shaping up well. Please keep adding your thoughts to this and we should be able to implement it fairly quickly!



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Obake http://members.tripod.com/smilecwm/cgi-bin/s/net8/laghost.gif

We are but shadows of our former selves and the sons and daughters of lions have become sheep. I am the ghost of our past.

Anssi Hakkinen
11-19-2000, 06:53
Thank you for your swift answer, Obake-sama. However, there's always that inevitable rebound: http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif
Quote Your question regarding river province assaults is valid and at present there is no way to compensate online since all koku values are equal.[/QUOTE]I know, but for once this need not *necessarily* be a problem.

The crucial difference between this campaign project and regular MP gaming is that there is a neutral controller present; namely, the campaign administrator. Admittedly, he would have to work hard as is (maybe multiple people in that position?), but if he was to find time, he could act as sort of a "referee" in the games. This would prevent monk-rushing, escapers, campers and a host of other problems, but it would also allow more wide-spread use of "honor agreements."

Using the case at hand as an example, it could be agreed that the person attacking a river province is at a serious disadvantage, and therefore can be allowed more koku. The amounts are agreed upon (I don't know how exactly, but the koku amounts haven't been set to stone yet in general either, yes?), the game is played, and both parties then send their logfiles to the admin. He determines if the defender really used less koku like he was supposed to, and if so, declares the match valid.

I understand that this is a complicated issue, perhaps too much so to be implemented in the first go-around, but perhaps in future refinements?

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"Carai an Mierendaira!" -- "Glory to the Blue Cross!"

The Black Ship
11-19-2000, 07:22
Well if there is to be a third party monitor why not arrange to have them in the game, sucking up a pre-determined amount of the defenders koku. They can then rout their army at start-up, and voila! instant attacker advantage!

Rob
11-19-2000, 08:24
Problem with that is that you would need lots of monitors when there are lots of battles going on. Also the monitor takes up half the koku for a team, which could be too much.

There definitely needs to be a strong 'moderator' in control of things, much like we have here at the Sword Dojo. The moderator has the final say on resolving any disputes and enforcing any rules.

The issue which I see as a problem is alliances. I'm as excited as anyone by the possibility of forming an alliance with a human player or clan, but I can see many problems with this. I shudder to think of the arguments that could ensue from a broken alliance. Some members of the Shogun community are less... grown-up than others, and I've seen people get pretty worked up over defeats in competitive games. Put that into a campaign and we would have real problems unless it is controlled.

I think there would have to be a form of 'official' alliance, whereby both clan Daimyos agree and notify the moderator of the alliance. If the alliance is subsequently broken, that information can be posted on the web by the moderator. The worst case scenario would be accusations over whether or not an alliance really was an alliance etc. so by having the clan Daimyos 'sign' the alliance in the presence of the moderator it would make the alliance official, and nobody could argue that they didn't know about it.

The Black Ship
11-19-2000, 08:31
Good points Rob,

Doesn't stop the proverbial "stab-in-the-back" but let's everyone know it happened!

Back to the bridge thingy (highly technical term that http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif), simply increase the number of players. For a 4v4 game the moderators cut is only 25%- seems fair enuff http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif Don't have enuff members in your clan then... I don't know? http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/confused.gif

Rob
11-19-2000, 08:44
If there was some official list of alliances and alliance history then clans could make judgements on whether other clans would make good allies.

One idea that I have always wanted to see in a game (I first thought of it in the context of Civilization II) is a 'History Book', compiled during the game. It would include all major events that occurred during the game (battles, alliances etc.). This would provide a history of the campaign once it is over, allowing the players to look back over their achievements. Presumably this would be managed by the moderator (looks like we'll need a few moderators) and would include submissions from the players such as battle reports.

This would be an ongoing process during the campaign, so people would be able to read it to get information about what has been happening.

This is probably not an important idea, certainly not essential to the campaign, but it's one of my pet game design ideas and I couldn't avoid mentioning it http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

Zen Blade
11-19-2000, 09:39
Obake, great idea man and I hope you succeed so that we can all enjoy the fruits of your labor. I personally will not be able to help for the foreseeable future.

However, I have a few suggestions on how to make it simple and to iron out potential problems before attempting to go "big" with it.

My main suggestion would be to first do a simple multiplayer "game" consisting of a few strings of battles on a few map types (mainly the flatter maps since it is a test). The ideal number of ppl for trials would perhaps be 3-5 ppl. Enough to get several ppl fighting at once, but not so many that it gets hard to keep in contact with everyone.

As for the actual "game"... have each person have a single starting province and each of those provinces bordered by neutral provinces with the overall map being a circle. (an outer ring of home territories and neutrals every other "province" with a single neutral territory in the middle.) This simple map will allow for a rather quick solution with everyone being able to keep track of things, and noone but a GM or two (overseers) and the players being needed.
-all moves would be simultaneous and the koku incomes would be a set value with all home provinces being equal and all starting neutral territories being equal in value.
--the most important part of this trial "game" would be to see how feasible it is to keep track of battle losses and gains in troop honor and such, since DT/CA will probably not give much support (unless it is something they run and do).

-I have thought about this a couple of times since the original idea by... Erado (I think) and some of the former RSG members wanted to do a multiplayer campaign. I have more ideas about how to do a simple trial game and such. If you are curious about them, I am more than willing to write them out.

-Zen Blade

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Zen Blade Asai
Red Devil

ShaiHulud
11-19-2000, 09:50
I suppose it's obvious that Obake's campaign
plan would eliminate camping? Being goal oriented (province being the prize) one either takes it or one doesn't.
On alliances..perhaps they should be publicly posted? Then, if someone back-stabs,a post exposing that would make their unreliability public, as well. Likewise, ending of alliances should be posted.
Perhaps trading/granting of provinces for support could be an option?

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Wind fells blossoms, rain
fells steel,yet bamboo bends and drinks

Rob
11-19-2000, 11:32
Trading of provinces sounds like it's getting a bit complicated... but I suppose if two clans can agree to it then why not? I think the moderator needs to be involved or at least informed of these agreements in order to settle disputes which may arise.

Gregoshi
11-19-2000, 11:51
Regarding the river provinces: could one of those individuals talented in map creation recreate the river provinces and replace the bridge(s) with a wider "land bridge"? This would still allow the river provinces to have restricting terrain but not as drastic as the bridges are.

Gregoshi

[This message has been edited by Gregoshi (edited 11-19-2000).]

Rob
11-19-2000, 13:32
I'll look into it, but I'm not sure if it is necessarily a good idea. I imagine some players may object to it. After all, there is an art to attacking and defending bridges. A possible solution would be to give the attacker more koku than the defender.

If you start saying that 'unfair' maps should be edited to make them 'fair', you will end up with complaints from anyone who has to attack a difficult province. Why not flatten the hills in Kaga and Mino?

IMO there should be some strategic method of removing the defenders advantage, for example attacking with two armies.

Also, remember that everyone has equal advantages/disadvantages. If it's difficult for you to attack river provinces, it's difficult for everyone else. This is where clan structures could be useful. For example a clan might have a member who is particularly good at attacking/defending certain map types, so the Daimyo of the clan could use him for a specific task, which should lessen the chances of people fighting map types that they are not good at.

Methabaron
11-19-2000, 13:37
Hey Obake,

I wish you the best of lucks and I hope everything works with your idea.

I am currently playing with some friends a multiplaye campaign we organized. If you let me I will share with you some advice and some of the lessons learned :

- Keep things simple. It is up to you to decide how you want to complicate things. You have to balance fun with complexity.

- Start right away. You will correct on the fly. Posts, ideas and discussions on how to organize a campaign can last forever !!, don’t wait that much. Create a set of rules and publish it in the Campaign website. Also have a forum ready to have suggestions on the rules. Upgrade rules when necessary by vote at the forum. In my campaign we are constantly adding new rules or modifying old ones to improve. All changes we do them by vote; set a deadline and off you go.

- Economy. According to your post you suggest that there will be no economy system, the players will declare combats to nearby enemy province and battles will be fought with same koku.

The downside of this is that an attacker that loses a battle will have lost nothing since he/she still has the province he/she attacked from !!!, also I think you would like to have the possibility of combined attacks where more than one province attack at the same time (alliances)

In this case I am afraid you will have to complex things a little bit. In my campaign we have a pretty basic economy system that works very well, like so: every clan starts with a fix amount of koku at start (let’s say 20,000 koku) and it can be distributed among all the clan’s provinces (if more than 1) as the clan see fit. Every week (regardless of season), every clan will receive a set amount of koku per province owned (let’s say 500 koku) and the clan will distribute these at its convenience.
This way you will have an economy based on army-koku.

- Combat/movement orders. With an army-koku system you need a movement system too. You have to allow clans to move their koku freely among their provinces. Any clan should be able to move any amount of koku to any province at any given time. Combats will have to be resolved within 24 hours of the announcement at the campaign website (or any other deadline you want). This make all order submissions to be played in real time so the players have very good motivation to issue orders fast !!!, to avoid the enemy to attack first. This will help to get the campaign alive making players be on their toes and the more active clans will have the advantage. An attacker not showing up before 24 hours will make the attack be cancelled. A defender not showing up will loose the army and the province.

- Combats. The battles will be resolved with each side using only up to the koku aavailable for each. That is if attacker A uses 10,000 koku in the attack and defender B has only 5,000 koku, that’s the amounts each will use. The online battle will be hosted by defender and the koku selected will be the higher of both sides, in this case 10,000. The defender in this case will honourably select units only to his limit of 5000. If more than one player attack at the same time (allies) then each will use only the koku they bring to battle and the total number of attacking units will be of 16 !!!, so the attackers will have to agree beforehand in the number of units each is going to use. Lets say, if attacker A insist in using 6 units, attacker B could only use up to 10. It is up to the attackers to decide how much units each will use. Losses will be calculated according to the men lost, i.e., an army of 3000 koku is composed of 960 men (16 units x 60, for exemple); if 320 men of that army die (results table) then the koku losses are 320/960*3000 = 1000 koku. And so the army remaining is 2000 koku. To make sure players are honourable, the .log files could be svaed and sent to the admin if necessary, also you can take screen shots to prove it. This system is currently working fine in my campaign and nobody has tried to cheat yet, specially because the log file and screen shots are good prove. A victorious remaining army will stay in the conquered province until a movement order is issued. A defender defeated will retreat remaining forces to a nearby province of the sam clan if available, if not it will be destroyed.

-Diplomacy We have currently to kind of alliances: officials and unofficials. Official alliances are published in the campaign site and can only be broken if a sum of let's say 5000 koku is "paid" to the "emperor". An official allaince last for 2 weeks (real time), at that point it will have to be renewed or it will be no longer valid. An unofficial allaince is of course never published and it is just the result of players dealing backstage on their own... of course they can be broken as players see fit. the advantages and disadvantages of both types of alliances are obvious.

- Admin. To keep track of movement and combat order submission you need someone to process al the orders and update the campaign website map and publish all orders once every day at least; this is one the toughest parts. The admin will have to keep good track of date/time of submissions because that will be the leading guide for the game line. In case of conflicts, first orders received will be played first. The best solution probably is to set up a forum for clan order submissions where clans submit their movement and attack orders. The order of events will be then the one shown in that "submission" forum.

In my campaign we played with turns, not real time. But I think for the campaign you want, real time is probably the best solution: first order posted goes first. Once a battle is solved and the results obtained, the new army-koku values and the new army-koku locations will have to be posted by the players. The admin will only have to update the campaign site game map according to these posts as often as possible (once a day will be ideal).

- Miscellaneous. As you have prolly noticed there are no castles, no ninja, no gheisa, no priests no shinobi, no nothing. This is purely a strategic/tactical campaign with a basic economy/army sistem.

All these are just ideas that are currently working just fine in my campaign. Feel free to take some of them, correct or adapt to your needs or own ideas. Good luck !!

Metha


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"...Violence is the last resort of the incompetent..."

[This message has been edited by Methabaron (edited 11-19-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Methabaron (edited 11-19-2000).]

Rob
11-19-2000, 13:56
I agree with all you just said Methabaron! http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

I think you've got the right idea by suggesting that it's better to start and tweak things later than wait for a 'perfect' solution. IMO that is what has killed off earlier attempts at an online campaign.

The basics of how an online campaign would work have been covered in this thread, and I personally see no reason not to start fairly soon. In fact it might be worth setting a date for it to begin, and we can start then with the rules as they are and modify them as time goes by.

Magyar Khan
11-19-2000, 21:57
Good point metha, let we start now

Eradosan is making an online campaign and although i tried to convince him of the points to make the campaign simple for his own sake he still need at least 1 month to complete it.

I like to start now......

Obake
11-20-2000, 00:10
OK, First off I want to thank EVERYONE for their input and ideas. If I took the time to list everyone's names you'd be bored with me before I got to the meat of this post.

Secondly, I just came up with the idea guys! I don't want to get roped into running this thing, I'd rather play! That is why I have E-mailed CA/DT asking for their help in putting up a campaign site and managing the campaign itself. Besides, who else could remain impartial here. I don't want to run the risk of being accused of playing favorites since I would have access to more information than my clan would normally be entitled to.

Now for the fun stuff.....as I see it, the biggest stumbling block is the koku values for battles. I think Metha may be on to something with the voluntary koku limitations and relying on peoples honor to play according to the rules.

As far as alliances go, formal alliances should be posted and last until they are broken. All back-room dealing is just that! I also like the idea of stronger clans being able to give provinces to "vassal" clans (I know some of you won't like that term, but it's closest to reality). Those type of hand-outs would also have to be posted on the web-site to avoid any mis-understanding.

I really don't want campaign monitors/admins to have to watch over every battle. I think it would be enough to have one person from each side in a battle send their log in to verify the results and that everyone used only the koku they were allotted. Which brings me to provinces. Some ARE going to be more difficult to attack. How many times in sp campaigns do you avoid attacking a river province, or Kaga? The same should apply here. I don't want to see automatic limitations on defenders just because they are in a very defensible province. I believe that if we use the self-imposed koku limits, this will alleviate those concerns.

Metha has some wonderful ideas, and Zen Blade I would truly like to see yours as well. My biggest concern Metha is building in an economic structure. If my idea flies, there is the potential of 60 clans playing and there is no admin on earth who would be capable of tracking those economics without having to quit their job, divorce their wife, and/or kill their children.

I also like the fix-it-on-the-fly attitude and voting on changes during the game. I guess that would be up to CA/DT or whoever ends up running the campaign, but I like your keep it simple idea the best which is why I envision there being no economics at all and having the campaign rely strictly on strategic/tactical/diplomatic concerns.

I say we need to hear back from CA/DT before we do anything on this. As exciting as the prospect is, let's all be patient and if we do end up having to run it ourselves, let's make sure we do it right the first time! Remember, this is for the community!



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Obake http://members.tripod.com/smilecwm/cgi-bin/s/net8/laghost.gif

We are but shadows of our former selves and the sons and daughters of lions have become sheep. I am the ghost of our past.

Widda
11-20-2000, 05:46
Here is an idea, for bridge hexes especially, if you are able to attack a province from two sides, then the battle could be set up as a 2x1 or more with troops on both sides of the bridge. This will make it easier for some of the harder provinces to be conqured but requires clans to have multiple Taishos.

Q. If you have three armies in a province, is it feisable to leave 2 to defend an attacker and send one to conter attack the enemy province?

Or am I just throwing more spanners into the works... Widda.

Obake
11-20-2000, 22:05
Being able to attack both sides of the bridge province simultaneously is a good thought Widda, but the deployment zones for the maps do not allow for it. Unless you were thinking of having an attacker as part of the initial defending force, which could work but seems a tad unfair to me.

As far as having 3 generals in a territory and using one to counter-attack....... my thought had been that each clan would send to the campaign adminstrator their "move" for that particular season. All "moves would then be resolved at the same time. In that situation, there would be no "counter-attacking" per se since all attacks would happen at the same time.

Just to let everyone know, I have not yet heard back from CA/DT on their willingness to host the map/administer the campaign. I will keep everyone up to date as much as I am able.



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Obake http://members.tripod.com/smilecwm/cgi-bin/s/net8/laghost.gif

We are but shadows of our former selves and the sons and daughters of lions have become sheep. I am the ghost of our past.

Erado San
11-20-2000, 22:48
Hi guys,

Magyar already mentioned my name, and others know I have been working on a MP Campaign game.

I will continue working on a full MP Campaign Game. Keeping it simple, as Magyar suggested, will not result in an enjoyable game. How much time I need? Can't tell. Too many things keep interfering.

But, This idea, combined with Magyar's thread, has potential to be fun. I have printed them, will read them thoroughly, and if I think it's possible I will see if I can organize something. Expect my comments and ideas tomorrow.

Obake
11-21-2000, 02:07
THANK YOU ERADO-SAN! http://cgi.tripod.com/smilecwm/cgi-bin/s/net/boldblue.gif

I can't think of anyone else who is MORE qualified to jump in here and offer their suggestions (subliminal message:"Take Over").

For those of you who DON'T know, Erado has been working (since the initial release of the game) on developing an online version of the SP Campaign game. I believe that there is NO-ONE outside of the developers themselves who is more familiar with the inner workings of this game and there is ABSOLUTELY no-one who is more capable when it comes to technical support for the game! I for one am looking forward to Erado letting us know his thoughts!


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Obake http://members.tripod.com/smilecwm/cgi-bin/s/net8/laghost.gif

We are but shadows of our former selves and the sons and daughters of lions have become sheep. I am the ghost of our past.

Vanya
11-21-2000, 02:46
I like what I hear! I agree that the best way to deal with river provinces is to have 2 taisho's from the attacking army gang up and go with numerical strength by combining their forces (ie, 2v1 or 3v1). But, I am wondering, how would the army movements be made? Does the clan Daimyo declare the moves of his armies/taishos at the beginning of the season/week? And, does the clan daimyo determine which of his taishos will take place in the battle?

Is the unit being moved an 'army' or a 'taisho'? If you use the later as a standard grouping of whatever 16 units a predefined constant koku value can buy, it really simplifies things. Of course, clans with more taishos will be able to command larger armies by combining taishos in attacks. But, by limiting or distributing players evenly throughout the available clans, this could be minimized. It does assure that no one clan will develop an overnight dominance.

Also, must all clans have their moves submitted before the battles are enacted? If 3 clans attack a single province, I think it would be cool to have a large battle with all parties involved at once. That means a max of 8 armies/taishos could be attacking a province at once.

Lastly, if a province is conquered, do the taishos assigned to that province become vassals of the conquering Daimyo?

Obake
11-21-2000, 03:50
Vanya, as you say 2x1 or 3x1 in River provinces is the way to go. As I mentioned earlier though, that will require a level of trust in people only choosing armies based on the koku value they are allowed! This can of course be easily verified by the campaign administrator by checking the log files of the battle.

As far as Army movement goes, I envisioned Clan Daimyo to plan out their moves in advance, submit them to the administrator and all moves would occur simultaneously. Clan Taisho would essentially become similar to the Army stacks in the SP campaign. This would prevent a clan from always having their strongest general fight every fight across multiple provinces!

I think I understand what you mean about battle groupings, but what I thought would be most simple would be to handle everything just as we do online now in order to keep it as simple as possible. Along those lines, every battle would be fought with x amount of koku per Taisho (determined at the start of the campaign).

I see no reason whatsoever to restrict or distribute players outside of their clans and new Taisho can be added as clans that have room recruit additional people(The only two clans I know of that are currently full are Chain and Fear). The independant alliance system will provide the needed balance to prevent someone from becoming too strong. If one clan starts to become too powerful, rest assured that there will be quite a few smaller clans who will band together to ensure that that clan does not dominate.

With all clans submitting their moves before battles are enacted the multi-clan battles you suggest will become very likely given the strategic value of certain provinces.

I do not believe that defeated Taisho should become vassals of the victors though. I believe that defeated Taisho escape back to their lines. The only exception to this would be Taisho who are cut off (no retreat). In the SP game, these Taisho commit Seppuku. I think the most simple solution for our campaign would be to knock them out of the campaign for a set period of time (to represent their working their way back to friendly territory, hiding etc).


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Obake http://members.tripod.com/smilecwm/cgi-bin/s/net8/laghost.gif

We are but shadows of our former selves and the sons and daughters of lions have become sheep. I am the ghost of our past.

Erado San
11-21-2000, 04:24
Ok,

Done some thinking. This can definitely be done. There are some issues the need to be dealt with, but nothing very difficult.

I think I can put it together pretty soon, but I need the originators (Obake and Magyar) of these ideas to help out. After all, they are your ideas initially, so you should make the decisions on the implementation as well.

Obake, please send ma a mail, because I don't have your mail address I think. You and Magyar Can then expect mail pretty soon.

Again, tomorrow I'll post some more ideas here. We'll keep it simple, but it will be fun.

There is no strategy element in here. Let's keep it that way, or come up with a very simple implementation of it.

There should not be a calendar. But I have a few other ideas to keep the musks and the monk rushers out, or at least minimize their exaggerated influence.

Have fun guys!

Erado San
11-21-2000, 17:17
Hi Guys,

Here are my comments and ideas.

First, Organization:

Admins should be Obake and Magyar, since one way or another they started this whole idea. I will join as admin only for the creation of the technical bits, website and neccessary programs. The three of us will be referees when needed, and our decisions are never open for debate. I can run this in a way that will even allow Obake and Magyar to play, but since I will always have access to all game data and situations that would be open for accusations of cheating, so I won't play. DAMN DAMN DAMN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The amount of work that needs to be done is not very much. I already have a website ready to host campaigns like this. There will be a database that holds the current game situation. Since every player in this campaign only has control over one army, the movement section can easily be controlled by a simple form. You just enter the province where you want your army to be in the next round and that's it. Then, after all movements have been entered, or when the deadline for the movement phase has expired, the new situation will be generated by a simple program. Players then log on to the site with their password and get the details of the battle they will fight, if there is one. Battle resolution and survivors will ba calculated from the logfiles. I already have a program that extracts the necessary data from the battle logfiles. The text based data can then be entered into a simple form again. To avoid fraud I will make the data unreadable. When all battle resolutions are entered, or when the deadline expires. A program will calculate the new current game situation, and the new round can start. Maybe I can come up with a simple automatic calculatio for battle results when the players in the battle don't enter battle results. Since players can manipulate the battle logs too easily (it's text based, remember?) Both players need to submit their battle results. If the two different entries are not the same, we could check the battle on EA's database, if battles are fought competitive. For that we can create one clan on EA Play, of which only the campaign admin's have the password. That way we can check the battle if the entered battle results are different, anc kick out players who try to cheat on this. This is just an idea, but it might be nice.

This way, most of the campaign will run automated, with very little actions for the admins.


Second, Who Can Join?

Clans: Any recognized clan with at least 5 active members can join as a clan. Players who join will have to realize that they will have to be able regularly during the week, and for many weeks to come. A clan can and should have backup players to fill open spots when a player gets sick, goes on holidays or wants to leave the campaign.

Ronin: In the above thread Ronin are considered to be stationary, if I read it correctly. Single players, who want to join the campaign, will have to be aware that they will be stationary, and will probably be kicked out of the campaign as quickly as possible, since the Clans will probably have a go at them from round one because they want to expand. A prize should go to the Ronin that holds out the longest.


Third: The Campaign Map

Still have to do some thinking here. One thing that needs to be decided is if we use a fog of war or not. That is, do all players get to see the complete map or only the area that their Clan controls, plus possibly the bordering provinces. On the Map they will only see the name of the player who is in a certain province, and perhaps, if we want, the current koku value of the army that player controls. A castle will be shown in the Starting Province of the Clans, Ronin controlled provinces will be recognized by the colour of the border.


Fourth: Amy Sizes and General unit

All Players, Clan or Ronin, start with equally sized armies. In the starting army only Yari Ashigari, Yari Samurai and Samurai Archers can be used (see below). The General will have a fixed unit of Heavy Cavalry (or any other type we decide upon) with a starting honour of 3. In later battles the honour of the HC unit will be modified by the amount of battles the player has lost or won. This unit is for free, and the amount of koku needed for this unit will be calculated by the programs and added to the calue of the army. A player must always use this unit, that is, he can not forfeit it and use the koku for this unit to buy other units when starting a battle.


Fifth: Strategy

These are only ideas, so kick them out if you like.
In the above thread there is no strategy element at all. Ok, I don't mind. But a very simple strategy can be implemented, with the added benefit that monk rushes will be non existent and the argument over 'musketeers are too strong / musketeers are too weak' can be avoided.

Here are the ideas:

All units are limited to a maximum number of 2 or 3 each, except Yari Ashigari, Yari Samurai and Samurai archers.
At the beginning of the campaign all clans and Ronin have in their starting province 1 Castle, 1 Spear Dojo and 1 Archer Dojo. This means that for round 1 they only can use Yari Ashigari, Yari Samurai and Samurai Archers (ok, start complaining now!!!)
Per province controlled a clan or Ronin gets a fixed amount of koku, which can be used to build extra facilities. If a Clan/Ronin build a Sword Dojo they can from that moment also use No Dachi in battle (limited to 2 or 3, see above). I a Clan decides to buils a Horse Dojo, they can from that moment use Yari Cavalry and Cavalry archers in battle.The money spent this way should be decided by the Clan Daimyo. All koku values of the different facilities will have to be decided of course. Since Ronin can't expand, they should maybe get more koku for the one province they control.
Diplomacy: Any alliances can be set up. We can leave this open completely, or impose penalties (koku) for breaking alliances. My choice would be to leave it open, but it's open for debate.
Demolition Teams. One problem that will always influence these campaigns is the fact that some players are just too damn good (the bas#%$@&). Will a campaign be fun for long after round 4 when Magyar or FearSangsara have won 4 battles and can put an army in the field of twive the value of their opponents? I bet the opponents won't like it, nor will Magyar or FearSangsara themselves. But, I don't want to penalize them just because they are good. One thing Magyar and I have come up with earlier is to have some sort of demolition unit around. Here are my suggestions: Quote

The demolition unit is represented by a Ninja symbol, but enemy ninja's will not show up on the campaign map.
A Clan can train a demolition team by spending koku just as they woulf for extra facilities. Their starting position is in the starting province of a clan.
The demolition unit is moved around by the Clan Daimyo
When a demolition team is in a province with an enemy army, they can attempt subversive actions. Chances of success, failure or capture depend on the size of the enemy army. If the unit is captured, the unit is destroyed. If the acion fails, nothing happens. I f the action is successful, the enemy army loses a certain amount of koku.
When a demolition unit is in the starting province of a Clan, it can destroy extra facilities that Clan has built. Chaances of success, failure or capture similar to the above. But, after success, the demolition unit is disbanded.
[/list][/QUOTE]
This strategy system requires some more thought, and some extra work, but it is not that hard to implement. The demolition team can be used to target Clans or Players that are becoming too strong and should provide a means to check their progress.

Ok, that concludes my ideas. Think about them. One note: we should either use a simple method like this or don't use it at all. We all agree that this should all be realized as soon as possible, and I want to start working on it within a week. Deadline will be monday next week. After that I will need a few weeks at the most to finish this off, and we could be playing within a month. Next week on tuesday there will be a site ready that will have registration details for Clans and Ronin players, so that we will have a basic idea of how many people want to be in this.

Last, my compliments to everybody that has contributed so far. It's excellent. It may not result in the Campaign type that I would have liked, but who cares? I probably will continue on that as soon as we have this baby up and running, and even though this will be far from perfect, it will be a hell of a lot of fun.

See ya guys.

Erado San

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Need my help? Visit Erado San's Shogun Tech Dojo (http://members.tripod.lycos.nl/Erado/)

Methabaron
11-21-2000, 18:20
Erado,

Quote It may not result in the Campaign type that I would have liked, but who cares?[/QUOTE]

LOL http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif about time you realized that !!!!

Good luck with this MP Campaign you want to launch !!, wish you the best of lucks.

You already had my input in this same thread. I humbly consider your proposal a bit too complex. I would lean more towards Obake's approach or... mine, which is not far from Obake's. But I know you work hard so I am confident you will pull it out.

I'm in !!! (as Ronin since I'm in no clan)

Metha

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"...Violence is the last resort of the incompetent..."

Erado San
11-21-2000, 19:50
Complex? I think your proposals are more complex than mine. There are hardly any choices to be made by the players, only on what to build and what to destroy with the demolition teams. Everything else is handled by the program.

But, as I said, this is not my game. You guys decide, I build to order.

Methabaron
11-21-2000, 19:54
Erado,

the rules I sent you were just the feedback to your reader !!, lol

the campaign im playing with some fellow Spaniards is pretty basic I tell you, it is based in a similar sistem as my suggestions in this post and Obake's proposal: no buildings, no loyalty or strategical units, no nothing just a pretty basic economy system

But as I said before, I would suggest you to start right away (I saw you set a deadline, good). You will correct on the fly. Still need some input?, fine... but this thread could go for ever... better to tell me to shut up http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif

Metha

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"...Violence is the last resort of the incompetent..."

[This message has been edited by Methabaron (edited 11-21-2000).]

Obake
11-21-2000, 22:32
OK Everyone,

Here is a quick update on the status of the campaign game. For better or for worse, CA/DT is not going to be running/hosting the campaign (see The Shogun's thread on this forum). They will however support our efforts in any way they can!

Erado-san has agreed to administer/automate the campaign process so we have the infrastructure pretty much in place. All we need now it to finish putting the finishing touches on and we are ready to go. Anyone who has an idea about the campaign, no matter how brilliant or stupid you think it is, post it on this thread.

The campaign is going to be implemented and run by the COMMUNITY which means that we need EVERYONE'S ideas. Sure your idea may not get used, but then again it may and who do you think you are to deny the community your skills and talents!

This is the time for us to pull together and show everybody out there that we can do anything we set our minds on, with or without help!

So speak up with your campaign ideas!


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Obake http://members.tripod.com/smilecwm/cgi-bin/s/net8/laghost.gif

We are but shadows of our former selves and the sons and daughters of lions have become sheep. I am the ghost of our past.

DragonCat
11-21-2000, 22:42
I liked the idea of a neutral party on the side of the defender that routs their army taking some of the koku with them. This doesn't necessarily have to be half. You could arrange a 3x2 battle of 9000 koku for instance. Each attacker (the two) would have 4500 koku. Each defender would have 3000 koku. Route one of these and defender is left with 6000 and attackers with 9000 overall. This would now be an more equal attack. I leave it to you all to come up with other combinations now that you have the basic idea. We could start testing these combinations online to see what presents a resonable distribution.



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DragonCat
"On the prowl . . . ."

Ai-jin
11-21-2000, 22:57
I dont have any ideas to put forth on the table so to speak.
I am been reading this campaign threads for quite some time and have been so excited over it all. What everyone has said and posted has gone thru my head, therefore that is why you havent heard any ideas from me. It seems that we all are thinking on the same lines.
I would just like to say to everyone...
THANK YOU for all your hard work and time. This is exactly what our community needs. And your efforts have not gone unnoticed.

Thank you again, great work, great efforts...
great people.



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Clan "No Fear At All"
"The rivers will flow with blood from thy enemy"

Ai-jin
11-21-2000, 23:13
One suggestion.. I am not sure if this has been stated or suggested.. but if it has forgive me...
When the rules all finalized, I think it would be very important to email all the daimyos in each clan a word documented form containing the rules. Thoughts and rules on this thread or any other can get spread out and missed. I beieve that if you email the clans, then the clans should have no excuse that they didnt "read" that rule.

Thank you.



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http://content.communities.msn.com/isapi/fetch.dll?action=view_photo&ID_Community=PersonalBEETribe&ID_Topic=1&ID_Message=14
Clan "No Fear At All"
"The rivers will flow with blood from thy enemy"

DragonCat
11-21-2000, 23:26
First, sorry for repeating what others had said about Koku. I also like Methabaron's ideas on koku.

Second, let the Ronin be played by someone from an enemy clan. This would ensure that the Ronin don't roll over for a friend. Many games incorporate the principle that unplayed positions be played by one of your live opponents as they will keep the battle honest. I propose something like that here.

Third, I don't care how much information he has access to, if Erado is making this happen then he plays. Besides, I've seen him on the battlefield and it will be no problem http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif And I suspect that NOONE will have a problem with his, Erado. So consider yourself in.

Fourth, I wholly support anything that will move this along - ie - changes on the fly, people honorably selecting less koku in battles or the appropriate amount of koku, base on how the model works out, etc. due to the nature of this being team play, I think we can count on the teams keeping their members honarable. Besides, it is in the very nature of the entire game. We should certainly be on the lookout for error or even dishonesty, but overall I think we can trust one another (current US election for president aside)



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DragonCat
"On the prowl . . . ."

Vanya
11-22-2000, 00:44
I noticed that both Magyar Khan and I are working on or have written log file readers. These tools could be used by the admininstrators to verify adherence to koku values, identify cheaters etc. IE, if you use a rule that the defender must spend x koku less or y% less than the attacker, these tools could assist the admins in verifying that completed games did not involve koku cheating or rule violations.

Anjin Hiratomoe
11-22-2000, 01:03
This thread is really intersting so here is an idea that might help. Feel free to disregard or kick out anything you don't like since I am a newbie.

1) I think that maybe you could give each clan an amount of koku extra that they could distribute throught their provinces thus maybe making some armies bigger.

2) Don't give every battle an amount of koku that would allow for a max sized army, thus allowing the extra koku rule to help.

3) Let each clan decided how it will rule it's empire. So that some clans might allow thier generals more freedom than others, and some clans might have the Diamyo make all the decisions.

4) Allow Assasinations. you might be able to base them on honor, battles won, rank in clan, and age (in terms of how long in the online game. The General that survives the longest has a better chance of surviving longer. However take large amounts of koku away from a clan for ninjas

5) "more koku" in battles determine how much koku is avaliblee to each player based on distance from thier capital province, how many battles they have fought in the seasons since the harvest.
5.5) Also instead of restricting armies by amount of koku give them a unit limit and they can use the extra koku for honor. they could not go past 2 honor unless they had had that unit type in previous battles. and not go past 4 honor unless that unit type has been avalible for more than a couple seasons/weeks.

that's it for now, hope this helps you some I would love to see this happen.

Obake
11-22-2000, 01:52
E-mail has been flying fast and furious to try and put this thing together so that we can start the new year off with the conquest of Japan!

Just to keep you all up-to-date on what we are looking at, there are several things going on that I will try to summarize.

First off, we intend to put up a Campaign Web site! This will be the central point for all things campaign related including the posting of rules, listing of who's doing what to whom and how to contact that general you really want to turn traitor during the next battle! This web-site should take care of most of your concerns Ai-jin.

Vanya, the types of tools you mention will be implemented to ensure that no-one is cheating especially if the decision is made to go with voluntary koku limits (which is very attractive even though it has the potential to become a logistical nightmare).

Anjin, just becuase you are a newbie doesn't mean that what you have to say wo't be taken seriously. If it's been said before, we may give you a hard time about it, but you will NEVER be dismissed out of hand! Some of your suggestions have been and are continuing to be discussed (check out the rest of the thread). The one suggestion you made that I don't like though is the one on assassination. My reason is that the campaign is here for everyone to enjoy and if someone gets booted out, it should be because of battle, rather than someone getting a lucky assassination attempt. Think about it this way, suppose you were the most successful general in the campaign and all of a sudden you were out because someone else assassinated you. Not to satisfying is it?

Cat, we're looking into the most effective and fair way to implement a variable koku system including the neutral party routing approach. The problem with this would be the number of admins required to join battles, then route off, and then wait for the battle to be finished and then start again. What I believe to be a better approach is to use the honor system and send in the logfiles. Erado has written a program that will extract the required data to ensure that there was no cheating and that battles were on the up and up. Vanya and Magyar also have similar programs.

What I see as the two big sticking points at this time are the economics of the game (as it relates to troop building) and how to reward generals who are victorious. What follows is a suggestion I made on how this might be implemented and I would appreciate everyones thoughts on it:

I would also like to incorporate a koku reward system for successful Taisho. The way I see this happening, is that as you (Erado) suggest, all players start with equal sized armies (koku value and total number of units). As they win or lose, they gain or lose a pre-determined number of points that equate to koku for use in army creation and/or an increase in the total number of units available to them. This could work similar to the impact of generals gaining honor in the SP campaign.

For sake of argument, say intially a player has a total of 2000 koku that can be used to build an initial army of a maximum 8 units. The initial pool of troop types would be spread out across YA, YS and CA (again as Erado suggests). To continue the argument, let's suppose a general wins his first 2 battles (both 1x1). He will have gained 2 full points (one point per battle, MP victories would count as a half point). At this point he can choose to purchase an increase in the number of units he can utilize (from 8 to 9 at a cost of 1 point per unit) and/or he can use those points to increase the amount of koku he has to distribute among his troops (say 250 koku per point).

I envision certain set achievement levels that must be reached for Taisho to "purchase" (similar to generals having to win "x" number of battles to go up in honor). If a general loses battles I believe that any losses should come strictly from koku (say a loss of 500 koku for every 5 losses; cumulative). In this way no-one will lose units (although they may not be able to afford what they have earned).

In this way, successful generals can not only increase the size of their army but also the quality of their troops depending on how they use their points. Coupled with a low starting koku amount and a maximum limit of two units per specialty troop type(ie 2Warrior Monks, 2No-Dachi) we should see some very interesting battles!

One last item, I have also expressed to Erado that he WILL be playing in the campaign regardless of the level of information he has access to! I will personally shoot anyone who questions his honesty and there is NO-ONE who has done more for this community that he!

Keep it coming folks! We've almost reached the Holy Grail of Shogun!



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Obake http://members.tripod.com/smilecwm/cgi-bin/s/net8/laghost.gif

We are but shadows of our former selves and the sons and daughters of lions have become sheep. I am the ghost of our past.

Vanya
11-22-2000, 02:08
I think you need to put a lower cap on the effects of losing on the taisho's purchasing power or some generals with losing records will cease to be of any use to their Daimyo and will not get any chances to redeem themselves since other taishos will be selected. Since this is a game for us to enjoy, I would think that if the starting koku base was 2000, that losing 'points' can be assessed until their purchasing power drops to say 1000. Beyond that, the lackluster general will stay at 1000 koku even if he keeps losing. This will allow them at least to be good garrison taishos (*cof* *cof*) or keep-the-peace forces and potentially still play (although not likely in major battles for obvious reasons). Otherwise, we could see losing generals have negative koku for purchasing armies, and what would that be like?!?

Do you think you need to cap the upper limit as well to keep a fight between a taisho with 1000 koku to spend and one with 99999?

But, I think the base koku + koku bonus system you described will be a good means of rewarding victory in battle.

I like the 2 unit limitation, but dont think it should apply to yari ashigaru. Otherwise, you might find it challenging to find a full 16 unit force. This will promote a wider use of these hapless peasants in the battles, making them a tad more interesting... don't you think? Perhaps I am misunderstanding something here... what are the 'specialized' units vs 'regular' ones?

Obake
11-22-2000, 02:51
Vanya,

Good idea about the bottom end cap for "unsuccessful" Taisho. 1000 koku is a good number as well. I wouldn't be too worried about a Daimyo not using them anymore though. Honor/Koku could always be built back up through MP victories with the more successful Taisho of a Clan! In addition to that, they could be put in a very defensible province where they could garrison against attackers.

I don't think we need to set an absolute cap on the upper end. We can create a virtual cap by increasing the number of victories to move up to the next level. I would see a realistic cap of somewhere in the neighborhood of 8-10k koku with a full 16 units! That would still allow for substantial armies while maintaining a good degree of realism.

The two unit limitation would only apply to specialty units. Units that would be exempt from that limit would be those mentioned by Erado in his post; Yari Ashigaru, Yari Samurai and Samurai Archers. All others would be subject to the limitation.


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Obake http://members.tripod.com/smilecwm/cgi-bin/s/net8/laghost.gif

We are but shadows of our former selves and the sons and daughters of lions have become sheep. I am the ghost of our past.

Link Shumeisan
11-22-2000, 04:54
What a nice a promising topic http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

1. I like the koku reward for successful Taishos, but I don't really see the needs of an bottom end cap for "unsuccessful" Taisho if like Methabaron suggested you allow clans to move their kokus freely among their provinces and consequently among their Taishos.
2. I would like to be able to spend a fixed amount of kokus to see the army that are is the neighbouring provinces of a Clan land, or of the koku value of the army in these province.

4. I like the Erado's Demolitons teams
4bis Erado has to play if he wants to !

5. We need to have the structure of a round of play like :
5.1. moves(repartions of the Taishos among the provinces and repartition of the kokus among the Taishos/ province attacked)
5.2. my point 2 http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif/Demolition teams results...
5.3. battles


5. I have not read how you are planning to deal with attacks from more than one clan on the same province (it was a point in Erado's campaign reader). The only simple way I see to deal with that is to play the battles in the order of the posts made to a campaign forum.

6. I like this topic http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

Widda
11-22-2000, 06:43
Erado san

Just a couple of small points.

Firstly I agree with the Daimyo/Taisho unit and suggest a HC unit as in SP campaign with the units honor if during a battle the unit gains or loses honor it is maintained.

With the construction of buildings are armories accessable to all clans regardless of the provinces they own or are HC and NG only for those with iron deposites. Are the buildings province specific or clan wide, thus if one province has iron then clan has access to HC and NG in all provinces( shipping to neighbours ). Perhaps trade with neighbours, gold mines produce more gold, buying iron from the next clan.

With regards to guns are we going to follow the time periods and the construction of Christian buildings, and religious conversion, ie no monks for those with guns, type rules, until the Dutch arrive?

As with the fog of war, our shinobi will be out scouring the lands and talk/trade between Daimyos will allow information to be passed on troop concentrations and which clan holds what provinces, also travelers will impart some info about neighbours, so information about who owns what is valid but koku values are skeptical, guesses and the visible info should some way reflect this. Thus I think broad general info should be visible and perhaps the occasional tidbit of special info ( if for example a huge battle takes place in a province with incredible results, news will travel ). As information gets sketchier the further it travels we should keep it as simple as posible..

Ref my last post with river provinces, yes I did mean the attacker from the other side deploy with the defender and then turn on them as in a free for all. Whoever said war was fair, my friend? Widda.

[This message has been edited by Widda (edited 11-22-2000).]

Rob
11-22-2000, 07:15
Ooooaaarrghhh.....

*lies on the floor making delirious groaning noises*

Oh my god, this thread just gets better and better.

If you need anything at all to help make this a reality then I am your humble servant http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif . If you need any help with the campaign web site I can help (I can even do a pretty good impression of the STW interface, check out the beta version of my web site at http://www.btinternet.com/~rjknight ). I can also do stuff like ASP scripts which would be needed to store campaign data on the web server. Of course if you already have someone to do that that's ok, but I'm here if you're desperate http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

Good luck!

Zen Blade
11-22-2000, 07:46
Obake, did you ever get my e-mail??
btw, what is your e-mail?? I just used the one on your name.

-Zen Blade

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Zen Blade Asai
Red Devil

Obake
11-22-2000, 11:19
ZB,

I did get your E-mail and responded to it. Check your account and if necessary, I can re-send it!

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Obake http://members.tripod.com/smilecwm/cgi-bin/s/net8/laghost.gif

We are but shadows of our former selves and the sons and daughters of lions have become sheep. I am the ghost of our past.

Zen Blade
11-22-2000, 13:16
Obake, which e-mail did you send it to?
did you send it to my ucsd.edu address???

-Zen Blade

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Zen Blade Asai
Red Devil
Last of the RSG

Erado San
11-22-2000, 19:42
Hi guys,

Thanks for your confidence in my integrity to allow me to play too. But, at some stages some hard ruling may be needed, so I don't know yet.

I have done some more thinking, and I'm very positive that we've got a very good thing going here. But, of course there are some things that will still present a problem. I'll discuss some topics now, no doubt some more issues will crop up.


1. Site hosting

I have 2 sites that we can use for hosting the campaign. Rob, your offer to help out on the web design is much appreciated. Will you contact me through mail please (erado_san@hotmail.com)?


2. Simultaneous movement.

This problem also exists in the old ideas I have for the campaign. People who have read the reader will recognize it. We definitely need to make decisions on how to resolve movement and battle in these situations:

Let’s take the island with Iyo, Tosa, Awa and Sanuki as an example. I won't include the picture here, because that will make viewing this page horrible. There's one on my site.

Case 1:
Player A controls Iyo and attacks Tosa, Player B controls Tosa and attacks Iyo. You see the problem. There are several options to solve this:
- They swap provinces, no battle is done.
- They battle on the province/map of the smallest army. If army size is equal, random province is chosen. Defender will be the army controlling the province where battle takes place.

I would prefer the second option.

Case 2:
Player A controls Tosa and attacks Iyo, Player B controls Iyo.and defends, Player C controls Awa and attacks Tosa. This can get nasty.
From the first look there will be a battle on Iyo between Player A and B. Player C attacks Tosa, and since that province is now empty he takes it without resistance. Now, suppose Player A is defeated on Iyo, the province that he came from is occupied by player C and so he cannot retreat and is eliminated.

Case 3:
Player A controls Tosa and defends, Player B controls Iyo and attacks Tosa, Player C controls Awa and attacks Tosa, Player D controls Sanuki and attacks Awa. Woof, this is even nastier.
Ok, since Awa is empty, player D takes it without resistance.
Player B and C team up against Player A. Player A is defeated. Now we have to decide who gets Tosa. Suppose we say that the largest army gets Tosa, and Player B has the largest army. That means player C has to retreat into... into... damn, Awa, but that has been taken. So he cannot retreat, while he won the battle.

Want me to continue? I guess not.

This is difficult to solve. Any game that has simultaneous movement has these problems, and from the board games I have played I know that there is no solution that everybody will be happy with. One thing we can decide is to decide that all movement wher battle actually takes place should be resolved first. So, in case 3, first the battle in Tosa is resolved. Player A is defeated and eliminated, Plyer B gets Tosa, and Player C retreats into Awa. Then in all honesty I think another round of battle is needed between player B and player D, which will take lace in Awa, with player C as the defender. But, as he has just done battle, what will his army size be? Check below for more problems regarding army sizes.
Besides, I was hoping we could avoid having more than one round of battle per turn, but I don't see how we can avoid it here.

So, wadda ya think?


3. Army sizes.

Problem here too.
In the threads this was suggested (I think, but more system have been introduced which I have not fully thought through as well):
Player A and B do battle. After the battle their army sizes are recalculated. Both get 5000 + survivers in koku. This is nice, but it sucks too.I am player C, and for some reason I cannot attack a neighbouring province. So my army doesn't grow. While the army of a player who gets defeated does grow. DAMN DAMN DAMN (insert ugly word of choice here).
Remember, All Ronin who are stationary can't choose to attack. This is not fair.

I have a proposal that I have not thought through yet, but it might be a good starting point.
All armies start at 5000 (or 3000 or whatever). Each year each army grows with 4000 koku, so that's 1000 koku each season. After a battle, all armies in the battle get 2000 (or whatever) + their survivors in koku. These numbers need to be though out carefully, otherwise an army that decides to do nothing for the first round will grow to 6000, while both armies that did battle might be less than that, which would lead to a situation where doing nothing will be very beneficiary (ultimate camping ahead!!!)

Have Fun!

Erado San


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Need my help? Visit Erado San's Shogun Tech Dojo (http://members.tripod.lycos.nl/Erado/)

Link Shumeisan
11-22-2000, 21:26
Point 2 : I’am thinking to ite J
Point 3 : Army size
Why not use the Methabaron proposal ?
Quote
every clan starts with a fix amount of koku at start (let’s say 20,000 koku) and it can be distributed among all the clan’s provinces (if more than 1) as the clan see fit. Every week (regardless of season), every clan will receive a set amount of koku per province owned (let’s say 500 koku) and the clan will distribute these at its convenience.
[/QUOTE]
This system also prevent the camping as if you don’t attack you will not have more provinces and more kokus. Rewarding victorious general by kokus as it was suggested in previous posts will also prevent camping. But I think that a little camping could be a valid strategy at the beginning of the campaign depending where you start on the map.
The only change I think to in this system is that every province should not have the same values because if a Clan begins in a hilly part of Japan and earn the same amount of koku for his hilly provinces as the Clan that only have flat provinces, it will be hard to beat as at the beginning every Clan has the same amount of koku.
BTW will we use the current Map of Japan for the campaign ?
Another point, I don’t see why Ronin should stay stationary.

Erado San
11-22-2000, 21:52
Using Metha's proposal would mean an extra phase, before movement.

Each player can only control one army. Moving Ronin would very soon attack a province, be defeated, only to find their starting province taken over by another player and then the Ronin is eliminated because ha cannot retreat.

Remember, this will primarily be a Clan Campaign, although it can also be turned into a game for individual players (am looking into that). The Ronin are included to take control over provinces that are not controlled by clan at the beginning of the game. At least, that's how I interprete what I read so far.

DragonCat
11-22-2000, 23:56
A couple of thoughts in answer to Erado's post.

1) You ARE playing. We can appoint a tribunal to cover any situation you deem you can't rule on because of conflict of interest. It is only a game. We can work that out.

2) Why start armies out at so high a koku value? You don't in the SP game. You start with ONE unit per province! In this I agree with the plan you get x amount of koku and y provinces to start. X should be enough koku to for ONE unit per province and enough to buy a couple of more units. There should be a fixed income per province - more for provinces where terrain does not help defender, less for provinces that does. Lets pick a number based on an educated guess and see what happens.

3) Why should Ronin provinces start with only one unit. they don't in the sp game. Allow for them to grow as well at a fixed cost - for fixed units based on formula. For example they try to maintain a balance of forces between melee, range and cavalry and will allocate funds for new units to approach that balance, meeting melee first, range second and cavalry third. Example. they start with a YA. they want to have a mix that is 3m, 2r, and 1c. their next purchase would be a melee unit. Next after that a range unit, then another melee, then another range and finally the cav unit.

4) Why shouldn't the ronin attack? We could have random attacks based on a rule set. IE, they must have a 2:1 advantage, and not leave themselves exposed.

5) Ronin can be played by opposing clan members. Say X clan wants to attack a ronin. or the ronin have been determined to attack X clan. then a member from any other clan in the game could play the ronin. someone not already allocated to a battle this turn, randomly chosen by the admin form the list of available people.

6) As to the multi-battles that could occur because of movement. This is VERY tough. The computer doesn't make as many moves as we do AND it sees the moves we make and adjusts in the single player game http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif
In looking at this the best models I have are from Diplomacy. There moves can only succeed based on the size of the force moving. I would suggest something comparable here. this means larger forces always win the movement. You could also have rules about units turning to face attackers instead of moving, unless they are moving to attack.

Examples: Army of 200 moves from Province 1 to Prov. 2. Army of 500 is moving from Prov. 2 to Prov 1. The larger force (500) would suceed and the smaller force would fail. Battle occurs in Prov 1

Army A is moving from Prov. 1 to Prov. 3 (which is empty). Army B is moving from Prov. 2 to Prov. 1. Army A doesn't move and meets attacker in Prov. 1 for battle.

I don't have all the answers here, but maybe this gives us a path to an answer.

7) Criteria for battle. Maybe there is certain criteria for a battle as well. If force is more than x times bigger then smaller force automatically withdraws. Ramdom draw for battle order in case of multiple battles, retreats, etc. Battle order based on receipt of moves date/time. Point is, pick your poison, let's play and adapt if its not working. Believe me, you will have MANY more solutions after you start using it. You will have "recommendations" (also known as "complaints") coming in from all angles http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif . But as long as you make a rule - no complaints with out a recommendation for reform, then this will be a postive force for change.

Ok I'll stop for now. Luckily it was a slow work day ;-)

Keep up the good work!

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DragonCat
"On the prowl . . . ."

Link Shumeisan
11-23-2000, 00:13
Erado,
1. I don't really see the need of an extra phase before movement if movement is a repartition of kokus (and taishos) amongst all the provinces a clan own and perhaps do you means that its imply a movement (koku repartition) and an attack phase (movement in an ennemy province).
2. Or perhaps you mean that each Taisho has only one army, this koku value of this army is increased each year by a amount proportionnal to the amount of province a clan hold and when a Taisho move he moves all his army (2 moves like in sp campaign ?) and if he moves in an ennemy province it's an attack.

The main problem I see in case 2 is that when you have more border province than your Taisho number you will have to leave some province without army.

Still thinking on the point 2 of your former post.
For the case 1 I think the second solution is the good ones. And I wonder if koku values of armies could not be used to give an order of battles, but I still thinking on that.

ShadowKill
11-23-2000, 01:09
man you guys sure do write alot

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Fear not the sword to your front, but the blade at your back.

Obake
11-23-2000, 01:42
I'm going to add my koku to this yet again, but first, Yes ZB is was to the UCSD address!

Now...

Let's talk movement!

Erado offers up some very real issues that need to be discussed. This is one area where simple is going to work best. For starters, the examples Erado gives assume that there will only be 1 Taisho in a given province. Given the size of some of the clans we have and the rate of growth among some of the newer clans, I don't believe that that assumption will hold. This eliminates much of the issue altogether, but for sake of argument, let's accept the assumption. Let's take a look at the examples and how I believe we can work around them.

Quote Case 1:
Player A controls Iyo and attacks Tosa, Player B controls Tosa and attacks Iyo. You see the problem. There are several options to solve this:
- They swap provinces, no battle is done.
- They battle on the province/map of the smallest army. If army size is equal, random province is chosen. Defender will be the army controlling the province where battle takes place.[/QUOTE]

Province swapping is an option that I don't believe anyone would be happy with. Battling on the province of the smaller army could work. But in the interest of simplicity, why not have the two armies meet in a field battle on one of the non-standard battlefields (Magyarorsag, Tami Kotchi, Sekigahara or some maps that we could have created specifically for the campaign). In this case the battle takes place, but no province is at risk.

Quote Case 2:
Player A controls Tosa and attacks Iyo, Player B controls Iyo.and defends, Player C controls Awa and attacks Tosa. This can get nasty.
From the first look there will be a battle on Iyo between Player A and B. Player C attacks Tosa, and since that province is now empty he takes it without resistance. Now, suppose Player A is defeated on Iyo, the province that he came from is occupied by player C and so he cannot retreat and is eliminated.[/QUOTE]

I will again refer back to the assertion I made regarding the number of Taisho in a given province. I find it hard to believe that a clan would send a single Taisho into an enemy province with a second enemy on another border leaving no defense for that province. Be that as it may, let's address this example.

What I could see happening would be a series of announcements once movement had taken place where clans could abort provincial assaults in the same way that you have the option to call off an attack in the SP campaign. As it would apply to this example, the Taisho in Tosa would have the option of continuing his attack on Iyo (and facing the consequences) or calling it off to face the attack from Awa. The attack from Awa may have been a feint to protect Iyo and that Taisho may also elect to withdraw from the attack mission accomplished, who knows? There is sufficient historical evidence to warrant consideration of this option although I am not sure how much it would complicate things.

Quote Case 3:
Player A controls Tosa and defends, Player B controls Iyo and attacks Tosa, Player C controls Awa and attacks Tosa, Player D controls Sanuki and attacks Awa. Woof, this is even nastier.
Ok, since Awa is empty, player D takes it without resistance.
Player B and C team up against Player A. Player A is defeated. Now we have to decide who gets Tosa. Suppose we say that the largest army gets Tosa, and Player B has the largest army. That means player C has to retreat into... into... damn, Awa, but that has been taken. So he cannot retreat, while he won the battle.[/QUOTE]

Assuming Taisho have the ability to call off attacks, Player C could choose to withdraw and defend Awa against the attack of Player D. Should Player C choose to continue the attack in Tosa and NOT be allied with Player B, a 3-way free for all would occur with the victor being the person who controls the province. Should Players B and C be allies, and defeat Player A, they will be responsible for notifying the Admins as to ownership of the province.

Anyway, those are my thoughts regarding movement. What do the rest of you think?

I also put up a post yesterday about an idea I had regarding rewarding successful generals and at the same time accounting for the whole economic side of the campaign. I have given some additional thought to this model and want to put it up here for everyone's review and commentary. I have also included a couple of examples to give a better idea of what I am talking about.

Essentially the Taisho reward system works similar to the way generals gain honor in the SP campaign. For every battle won, a general would gain points (full point for 1x1 victory, 1/2 point for 2x2 or greater). At pre-determined victory levels (ie. 2 victories for level 1, 5 victories for level 2 and so on) generals would be able to exchange points for increases in koku available for army selection and/or increases in the total number of units available.

As generals lose battles, they would suffer a loss of koku for Army selection (representing an unwillingness to serve under a dis-honored Taisho). There would be a bottom cap to the koku loss however. (Thanks to Vanya for that suggestion)

Let me give you a couple of examples of what I am talking about. Let's assume that starting Army levels are 2000 koku and a maximum of 8 units. We will also assume a limit of 2 per specialty troop type (WM, ND, Guns and Cav). There are NO limits on Yari troops or on Archers. Specialty troops under this proposal would not be available until a general had achieved at least Rank 1.

Elmark goes into battle and loses 5 battles in a row (for each battle he had 2000 koku and up to 8 units). He has now hit a trigger point and loses 500 koku from his initial 2000 for future troop selection. Let's continue the example and say that he goes on to lose his NEXT 5 battles. Elmark has now hit a second trigger and loses an additional 500 koku. He will now have only 1000 koku to select troops with! This is also the lowest he can go, and regardless of how many additional battles he loses, he will always have 1000 koku available for troop selection and will probably be relegated to provincial garrison duty!

Let's take a look at our second Taisho, Erado-san. Erado wins his first two battles. Both were 1x1's and he has gained 2 points for those victories. At two wins, he has hit the first trigger point and is now a level 1 Taisho. As reward for his accomplishments he may exchange his points for an increase in koku and/or troop limits. For this example, let's say that Erado chooses to use 1 of his points to increase his available koku by 250 to 2250 and the other point to increase his maximum number of units from 8 to 9. Being a level 1 Taisho, Erado now has the option of including specialty troops in his army.

Erado goes on to win his next 5 battles (4 of which were multi-player), triggering his jump to a level 2 Taisho and allowing him to spend 3 additional points(1 full point for his 1x1 victory and 1/2 point for each MP victory). This time he chooses to spend 2 points to increase available koku by 500 to 2750 and the third point to increase his troop count from 9 to 10. Then Erado loses 5 in a row. He remains a level 2 Taisho, but having hit the loss trigger, he loses 500 koku for troop selection leaving him with 2250 koku and a maximum of 10 units.

Using this type of a reward system for generals will eliminate the need to assign koku for clan distribution to build infrastructure for specialty troop types and simplify the campaign process since all that would need to be tracked would be Taisho levels and how they choose to spend their points.

Another option that could be included in this would be to reserve certain specialty troops for certain level Taisho. For example, Level-1 Taisho would gain the use of Naginata. Level-2 generals would get the addition of No-Dachi, level-3 would get Cav, Level-4 guns and level-5 Warrior Monks.

Let's hear back folk!


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Obake http://members.tripod.com/smilecwm/cgi-bin/s/net8/laghost.gif

We are but shadows of our former selves and the sons and daughters of lions have become sheep. I am the ghost of our past.

[This message has been edited by Obake (edited 11-22-2000).]

Rob
11-23-2000, 02:02
Hmmmm....

I don't really want to criticize when I can't come up with a better idea myself, but surely restricting access to superior troops to those already in an advantageous position will lead to a situation whereby the strong get stronger and the weak get weaker? The last thing a guy who has lost 5 straight battles needs is 25% of his koku taking away. In that situation he will either need to make a bigger comeback than Charlie's Angels or have a very patient Daimyo!

Obviously in any war there are winners and losers and in reality the losers suffer. I fear that this may encourage camping ("if I lose one more battle I will lose 500 koku, better to stay on this hill") or that it will mean a slow and torturous (sp?) death for some players/clans who, after falling behind, will never have the chance to recover and will have to sit there until they are eliminated by someone with twice as much koku and Warrior Monks to boot.

I like the koku increase idea in principle, but if there are too many factors that skew the game in favour of those who win the most battles then it is feasible to imagine that a group of players (possibly from the same clan) could become 'super-Taishos' early on in the game and would then have an advantage in every battle they fought. And of course, the rest of the players would be at a disadvantage. By creating this kind of imbalance you create a set of players for whom there is no hope of victory and therefore no point in playing. This must be avoided if the campaign is to remain fun for all.

Vanya
11-23-2000, 02:31
The imbalance threat is a good point. You can still use the reward system if the bonuses are a small percentage of the base koku amount. You could base the percentage off the honor level too. If a taisho was honor 1, give him a 1% koku bonus. If he is honor 9, give him a 9% koku bonus. This is just an example, but it illustrates that you can limit the bonus in such a way that does not allow super taishos to come about. 9% extra koku will not a super taisho make. It will give them a marginal advantage though to reward their leadership and skill on the battlefield though. This also simplifies things because you only need to track the trigger points for the change in honor. If you use the same triggers as the campaign, you would use the net victories the general has vs the 2^h scale.

Also, an extreme simplification would be to have each clan 'take their turn' with moves so that moves do not happen all at once. This eliminates some of the problematic cases Erado points out since once a clan is done with their moves, the battles would be enacted before the next clan made their moves. The difficulties would be determining the turn order and periods of inactivity would be extended for everybody. The latter can be reduced by keeping the number of 'clans' playing the campaing to a fairly small number (like 7-10).

Vanya
11-23-2000, 02:34
He he... the old board game was turn-based anyway, which makes this a viable alternative I think.

Rob
11-23-2000, 02:55
The problem is, I do also want to be able to field an army that includes expensive units such as monks and Heavy Cav. And the only way to do this is to give more koku to the Taishos.

I think this addresses a more fundamental question: how long do we expect the campaign to last? In particular, do we expect it to go on forever, or at least for as long as people want to keep playing, or do we expect it to run for a limited time, with new campaigns being started once the old one is finished?

If we expect the campaign to last forever, then a mechanism is needed to balance the game (beyond alliances). Giving rewards to those already in posession of the most territory simply makes it easier for them to win outright, thus finishing the campaign. How often do you reach a point in a single-player campaign where you know who the winner is going to be? Do you actually play on until the end? Well I don't, at least not always and from what I have heard, not that many players do. Once the result becomes a foregone conclusion, interest dwindles rapidly.

My problem is that, on the one hand, I quite like the idea of one-sided battles, where one player has the quite clear advantage. After all, it makes sense that the most powerful Taishos should have the best armies; if you were trying to depict Takeda Shingen's armies, it would likely feature lots of Heavy Cav, not Yari Ashigaru (historical inaccuracies aside). I like the idea of bringing the glorious might of my superior armies to bear on my helpless foes, or defending bravely against the onslaught of the enemy hordes for that matter. It certainly would make a welcome change from the rigid balance of most competitive games.

But if every game becomes one-sided then those who are on the receiving end more often that not will become disillusioned. I suppose it is survival of the fittest and all that, but surely the little guy deserves to have as much fun out of what is, after all, only a game?

Obake
11-23-2000, 03:52
Rob and Vanya,

You both make very good points that I want to address and maybe provoke some more discussion on the topic of Taisho's in the campaign.

Rob, you point out some of the concerns that losing generals would have along with the issues of creating "Super-Taisho's". Both are valid but there are a couple of additional factors to take in to account. What I gave for koku loss is a worst case scenario. Anyone who loses 5 straight (let alone 10) is going to be in serious trouble anyway. 500 koku is just an arbitrary number that I chose for the example. It could just as easily be 200 or some other number that would not be as devastating. My main point was that Taisho who continue to lose should be impacted in some way, and that there has to be a limit to that impact. With regard to creating "super-Taisho" this can be easily remedied by the way the level triggers are set. For example, reaching level 1 could take 5 wins as opposed to 2, level two could take 15 and so on with each increase in level requiring significantly more victories as in the SP campaign! This should eliminate most of the concern there. We may also want to consider a set growth model for each level (such as 1 additional unit and 250 additional koku for each level reached). In principal, we are in agreement that there has to be a way for successful Daimyo to be rewarded, without the risk of creating a host of super generals.

Vanya's idea of a % koku increase has merit, but would require much higher initial koku limits to be effective. Even at 5k koku to start, reaching level 1 would only give a general and additional 50 koku. In most cases that is not even enough to raise the honor of an Ashi unit by 1.

Vanya, you yourself also state the problem with taking turns in the campaign and why we need to find a workable solution to simultaneous movement Quote The difficulties would be determining the turn order and periods of inactivity would be extended for everybody.[/QUOTE] Your workaround for this would be to Quote keeping the number of 'clans' playing the campaing to a fairly small number (like 7-10).[/QUOTE] For my part, I wanted to create a campaign where everyone who wanted to could participate and I strongly believe that this can happen, just not with alternating turns.

Rob, you are the first to ask the question; "how long is this going to last?" Truth is...I have no idea!
Quote If we expect the campaign to last forever, then a mechanism is needed to balance the game (beyond alliances). Giving rewards to those already in posession of the most territory simply makes it easier for them to win outright, thus finishing the campaign. How often do you reach a point in a single-player campaign where you know who the winner is going to be? Do you actually play on until the end? Well I don't, at least not always and from what I have heard, not that many players do. Once the result becomes a foregone conclusion, interest dwindles rapidly.[/QUOTE]
I'm not so sure that alliances can't be the be-all end-all balancing factor! We definitely have the opportunity for Allied victory in this campaign, and we also have the potential for clans to ally to ensure that the dominant clan on the map at any given time gets put back in their place! The constant ebb and flow of alliances will more accurately mirror life than any AI ever could!

One of the keys to bear in mind is that under my suggestion, rewards are NOT given for territory possession, but for skill in battle. My whole vision for this has been to create, in effect, a semi-tournament that would incorporate both individual achievement and clan achievement using the campaign as the framework. This is why I keep pushing for the most simple way to get this to work.

Quote My problem is that, on the one hand, I quite like the idea of one-sided battles, where one player has the quite clear advantage. After all, it makes sense that the most powerful Taishos should have the best armies[/QUOTE] I agree whole-heartedly with you there Rob. And name one player who isn't going to try and put together a group of generals to go Taisho hunting (and Magyar thought he had it rough now! Just imagine having 4 generals trying to get you cornered all alone to beat you down)!

Quote But if every game becomes one-sided then those who are on the receiving end more often that not will become disillusioned. I suppose it is survival of the fittest and all that, but surely the little guy deserves to have as much fun out of what is, after all, only a game?[/QUOTE] This is exactly what the alliance system should take care of. How many smaller clans do you think would ally themselves as 'vassal' clans to the larger clans for mutual protection and agression rather than trying to "go it alone"? If you were a smaller clan (let's say NoFear), how would you feel knowing that you could go after another clan full bore, with Chain or Chaos there to back you up if you get in over your head? (Ai-jin, Nebu? any thoughts on this?)

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I am the ghost of your fears.
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Gregoshi
11-23-2000, 04:32
One small suggestion regarding the movement issues: all moves will be emailed to an administrator(s), so use the order in which the movement orders were received as the "initiative" for who attacks whom and where. Let real life initiative rule.

Example: Player A in Iyo wants to attack Player B in Tosa and vis versa. If Player A submits his orders first, then Player A attacks Player B in Tosa. If Player B submits his orders first, then Player B attacks Player A in Iyo.

I like the idea of being able to call off the attack like in SP. Question: will a called off attack have any impact like in SP?

As for complicating things by adding a Player C in Awa attacking Player A in Iyo, this is where diplomacy comes in - Player A grovels to Player C to call off his attack on Iyo. If Player C agrees to call off the attack then Player A's attack on Tosa can continue. If Player C decides to continue his attack, the Player A has some serious thinking to do.

Gregoshi

[This message has been edited by Gregoshi (edited 11-22-2000).]

Vanya
11-23-2000, 04:48
What do you think about this for resolving simulaneous moves into a single province(s):

When a case arises where there are potentially conflicting moves that would have been nonexistent in a turn-based model, you can determine the order of the moves in question by the computing the total strength of the clans involved based on total koku; The move order would be in clan strength in descending order. Thus, the stronger clans get to enact their battles first, with their outcomes being the basis upon which the subsequent battles are enacted. Alternatively, the taisho honor of the involved armies could be used. This would be an additional reward to good generals beyond the koku bonus discussed earlier.

Also, if this is an ongoing event with no defined end, then there needs to be a means by which new players can be introduced to the campaign. For example, new players could petition to become revolutionaries and spring up as ronins in provinces that are 1) undefended or 2) garrisioned by a pathetic general. If victorious, they could seek to join a clan other than the one they took the province from. The likelihood of the uprising could be computed using a random number from whatever admin utilities exist. Also, ronins could band together to form 'new' clans that challenge existing orders. This will work if there is a central record-keeping/admin site/utility/moderator only. Without the infusion of new players, prolonged campaigns will burn out (or fade away).


Hmmm...

Vanya
11-23-2000, 04:51
Perhaps the diplomacy Gregoshi talks about will reduce the likelihood of this happening if such negotiations happen BEFORE the turn is complete. Thus, player A could negotiate with player C to not attack the province held by B so he (A) can take it.

...?

The Black Ship
11-23-2000, 04:56
Please accept my apology for such a short post http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif

The idea of a Super Daimyo isn't a bad thing. If one clan gets control of a large section of Japan then surely the remaining clans would be wise enough to unite against the behemoth (ooh..good word). It will just require a united effort on the "weaker clans" side to whittle down the "Horde".

That's one of the reasons I believe diplomacy will be key for success in the campaign, and serious consideration given to alliance concepts, such as: combined armies, passage thru allied territory, etc..

Wow, guess this wasn't so short a post after all http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif

Ai-jin
11-23-2000, 05:08
My thoughts on this campaign alliences...

I, myself (and I cant speak for Nebu) dont think alliences should be part of this game.
yes being backed up by a good high quality clan would be nice when needed. But that allience can easily be broken too and then all hell breaks loose. It could also lead to favorite "buddy" clans getting together to dominate the game and and get rid of the clans they dont like so they have it all to themselves. (unsportsman like conduct).
Myself invisioned this to be a kind of ladder league tourny play where each clan strives to compete and become shogun with no help from anyone else. (and if NoFear's small clan gets killed quickly... so be it. We could always have a go at it the next time.)
Now that may not fly with the rest of community so whatever the campaign admins believe is best is fine with me.
I have been looking for a league of competition sense joining STW.
Therefore.. my vote: no alliences, this should be clan vs clan and may the best clan win.
Thank you for asking for my input. But it does not reflect the input of clan No Fear... Nebu, what do you invision?


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"The rivers will flow with blood from thy enemy"

Rob
11-23-2000, 05:22
I see where you are coming from; inter-clan rivalries can get a bit strong sometimes and if one clan feels they have been betrayed by another, particularly if it leads to the eventual elimination of the clan, then I could well imagine that the arguments could last for a long time.

I think the moderators need to play a role here. It should be made very clear that alliances can be broken, so that alliance-breaking is an accepted part of the game. I would personally like to see 'treaties' agreed between the two clans, whereby each clan offers to pay a certain amount as punishment for breaking the alliance. This could be koku, or territory exchange or some mixture of the two. The Daimyos would 'sign' the treaty and submit it to the moderator who could then enforce the treaty. Of course there is no need for punishments if neither side want it; it would be purely up to the Daimyos to strike what they think is a good agreement.

If an official alliance is broken, this news could be posted on the web site. Then all could see which clans do not keep their word. Of course, it could still be possible for clans, or even individual Taishos to negotiate unnofficial agreements, for example to coordinate attacks in the next turn, without having the requirement of a binding agreement. And if these agreements are broken, nobody can claim unfairness, since they are unofficial agreements. I imagine each clan would have its own rules on such agreements. For example, the clan Daimyo might stipulate that no such agreements are to be negotiated and any Taisho attempting to negotiate without the authority of his Daimyo could be punished.

Face it, alliances, agreements, conspiracies, call them what you will, they will happen. Better to have it out in the open than hidden. A secret alliance is much more dangerous and would cause more trouble than a publicly-declared one.

Obake
11-23-2000, 05:36
I, unlike Ship, am going to actually try and keep this short!

Gregoshi, If the website ends up working the way we want it to, Daimyo and Ronin will be entering moves into an online form. I would imagine that those could be date/timestamped if we go that route and no I don't think we would build in repercussions for calling off an attack. The key here is to keep it simple!

Vanya, another good idea for a potential workaround to simultaneous movement. I especially like the benefit based on Taisho level.

The one thing that we all have to remember about movement though, is that the examples we are working with here use only 1 Taisho per province. With Clan's in the community consisting of up to and in some cases more than 20 members, it is highly unlikely that a front-line province would be left undefended! These issues we keep raising here are based on the assumption that a province would be left with no defense.

The constant influx of new players/Clans is something that should be allowed for Vanya and is something I mention in one of my earlier posts! Thanks for bringing it back up. This is not meant to be a closed system folks!

Ship, I agree that the Super-Taisho is a viable concept, but they are going to have to earn the title! I figure they would need to win roughly 50-60 battles to be a level 7+ Taisho and be accoreded all of the bonuses that would go along with that! I am also completely in favor of combined armies and territorial passage rights, but I believe those should be worked out between the clans rather than having hard and fast rules governing them!

Ai-jin with the number of clans that I anticipate (I'm expecting 15-20) the odds of one clan getting knocked out by others is very real. However, alliances are one of the critical features of the campaign, both SP and online. I can also appreciate your willingness to "go it alone" but the reality is that NFAA with 8 members could not stand up to any of the current powerhouse clans (15-20 members) through sheer weight in numbers. However, through adroit use of the alliance system, NFAA could emerge at the head of an alliance that WOULD dominate! Better to win through co-operation than die through isolation don't you think?

Ooops, this post turned out to be longer than Ship's, but relatively shorter than some of my more recent posts, so HA HA!

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Obake
11-23-2000, 05:43
Here we go again! I missed Rob's post as I was writing mine at the same time...

Rob....ABSOLUTELY!

I anticipate that all Formal alliances will be posted on the campaign Web site, as will all broken/terminated alliances! There is simply no way that we can monitor all the back-room deals so we just have to make sure to constantly remind everyone that this is just a game in order to avoid starting real wars within the community. Healthy competition is great, as long as it's kept in perspective!

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Widda
11-23-2000, 05:59
With regard to super taishos. I agree that there should be a bonus to koku. As in the SP campaign the higher honor gen gives honor bonuses to all troops in army. That my be a bit drastic here but some return for exemplary performance is needed. I disagree with the better taishos getting access to special troops however as this just helps create the unbeatable armies. Anyone should be able to produce any kind of troops, if they have the necessary infrastructure.

Did anyone read my last post, and thus does anyone have any ideas on the religios problem proposed there with regard to gun units and monk units and the conversion to Christianity, the passage of time and the general flow of the campaign ( time ). Widda.

Ai-jin
11-23-2000, 06:17
Okay I guess I am confussed... I thought it was clans of 5 members each. So you are saying that a clan with 20 people have 20 provinces to start (1/3rd of japan).... and a clan of 5 people have 5 provinces to start. If so, then the smaller clan will probably never become successful in completing the game even if he has alliences.. because when it come down to the nit and grit of it, the bigger clan could say the heck with the allience and then I could be facing an onslaught of enemies and get wiped out anyway.
Sorry but now I am confused. Question, can other clans or members of clans that are allied move within eachothers provinces without declaring war?? If so, then say for example I was moving a big force of my troops thru an allied province to help out and he decided to break the allience while i was moving thru his provinces.. I am surrounded and trapped by him, majorly outnumbered and most of my forces would be slaughtered.
Sorry but I dont see this campaign as "simple" as it was intended to be.
Either that or I need to move down to the minor leagues.

I need a beer or two or three or.......

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"The rivers will flow with blood from thy enemy"

Magyar Khan
11-23-2000, 07:05
just some suggestions

we could work with 3 classes of clans
large clans like fears and links will get 7 territory to start with
small clans like ..... will get 4 territory
and ronins will get 1 territory

balancing could be done by letting random events which occur.
example: if 2 ronins want to join when the game already started, the gamesystem should be able to free up 2 provinces. the 2 provinces which are not one of the clans starting provinces and which are the least defended. many more balancing in this way can be done. Punish those who are big and moving outside the initial clan territory.

Or simply punish with taxes, taxes which slightly increase when the income increase (effect of bureaucracy).

hmm we all want the same thing. moving armies with a purpose, conquer land, where u pay for mistakes elsewhere in your realm and so on.

PSYCHO
11-23-2000, 10:40
Sheer Genius Obake !

Imagine...your at work...an email arrives ...."URGENT: My Lord the Clan Fearfulways has invaded your land ... You have until 10am 23/../00 to gather your forces !"
You go home that night and get online. You send a messenger "Why fight friend and expend our energy on each other, the Links are at our door !?"
Your Messenger is sent back headless !!
By 10am 23/../00 you fail to muster a force to defend your land. The Fears march truimphantly in, unimpeded.

http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

My 2 bobs:

There is a LOCAL time kept on the web site /map. All challenges etc go by this "local" time to avoid time zone confusion.
Everyone starts with a standard army of say 3000 koku.
You get Koku from victories as stated before.
You get additional koku as a bonus for land held. This is only small amounts. All provinces have equal value.
Each Clan starts with only one province.
If a Clan has only one province and is attacked in that province additional koku is alloted as a local population Frenzy / support bonus (say +10,000).
Koku from land is allocated by Clan Leaders or is averaged out amongst Ronin (playrs in clans with

Zen Blade
11-23-2000, 10:41
Kahn, I like your last idea...
however, giving larger clans more territories to start with is not a good idea.

The fears (an example) are going to be better organized than a group of ronins.... giving them more provinces to start with means more money, men, etc... to start with, this might be ok if we were in central Europe or something.
But with the nature of Japan, this will give the larger clans a good strategic start from which to expand and mean the quick elimination of surrounding provinces.

I would personally favor a more level start. Ronin's getting one or so territories (maybe a block of Ronin-delegated territories or something, and a few more provinces to clans, but not much more. and when these clans are placed, they should be in such a position as to negate each others power over nearby ronin lands...

sorrry if I missed or said something that has been said, I haven't been keeping up with this huge post.

btw, Obake, please send msg again. Never got it.

also, you guys appear to want to put a lot of effort into this, Good Luck. I can't wait to see it in action.

-Zen Blade



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Zen Blade Asai
Red Devil
Last of the RSG

The Black Ship
11-23-2000, 13:03
Yo Zen...

What if the larger clans territories are separated, ala Imagawa and Takeda. Make them fight on multiple fronts from the start!

Obake
11-23-2000, 13:48
One quick issue before I dive in. i will be out of the loop for the next couple of days (Thanksgiving holiday here in the US and we have family in form out of town. Once again real life interferes with my gaming http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif )

One thing I want to make very clear, nothing I say here is in any way set in stone. These ideas I throw out are just my thoughts as I considered how to get this campaign to work. If I appear to dismiss or argue against a point any of you make, I only do this to show how it differs from my ideas.

This is by no means MY campaign, it is ours and everyones thoughts have been and will continue to be implemented as we bring this project to fruition.

Widda, sorry mate but I apparantly missed your post. I had not given any thought to including Christianity in the campaign. As we all know, it functions poorly at best in the SP campaign, implementing it in the online campaign would raise a whole host of additional issues that could make the whole project untenable.

Regarding clans- My initial idea had been that each clan would control a single province to begin with. As I continued to think about this aspect of the campaign, the idea I came up with was to give each Clan 1 province for every 4 Taisho that would be active in the campaign. Using Fear as an example, with 16 active members, they would start with 4 provinces. Smaller clans would get 1 or 2. My belief is that a clan MUST have a minimum of 4 individual members to truly be considered a clan for Campaign purposes. This may seem unfair at first, but consider Sengoku Japan, there were many clans of varying degrees of strength and they controlled varying amounts of territory.

Why 4 you may ask. My rationale is that in MP combat, a maximum of 4 Taisho are allowed per side. Following up on this, I felt that each province should begin with a "full complement" of Taisho. Should a clan choose to spread themselves more thinly than that, they will have that option through conquest! What Magyar suggests is not that far off from what I had thought would work regarding the initial distribution of territory.

My belief regarding Ronin was that any remaining open territories would be considered Ronin. Individuals who want to participate in the campaign would be assigned to one of these provinces and could then move around as they chose.

New clans wishing to participate after the campaign had started would be assigned one of the Ronin provinces and any Ronin currently there moved to an adjacent province. Should there be no open provinces, a battle could be fought between the Ronin currently in that territory, and the clan wishing to join, for control of the province. This could easily represent the rise of new clans that was not altogether uncommon during the Sengoku period as families gained or lost prestige due to the constant fighting.

By implementing this type of format, I believe that it would also increase the amount of diplomacy in the game as smaller clans ally to compete with the larger clans and so on.

Ai-jin, movement through an ally's territory would be entirely dependent on how the clans would structure the alliance. I prefer that clans can negotiate treaties as they see fit.

Any treaties would have to be submitted to the campaign administrators where the alliance would be made publicly known. The details would of course be held confidential and not subject to public review. The reason for submitting the treaty terms is that the administrators MUST act as the final arbiters of any disputes regarding treaties in order to maintain control of the campaign.

I would not worry about having a treaty broken while passing through an allied territory. Should what you contemplate occur and disaster befall your army, that does not mean that you no longer have an army, merely that you lost that particular battle.

My basic thought for this campaign was to focus on the tactical aspects. Given the online battles that are available, this also seemed to me to be the easiest way to implement a simple campaign. There have been many good ideas regarding the building of infrastructure, taxation, and koku distribution. My hope for the campaign has been that we would eliminate as much of that part of the SP campaign as possible and focus as much as possible on tactical control over provinces with the ultimate goal of strategic control of Japan.

Psycho- glad you finally made it over here! Thank you for the compliment as well. Amusing as the first part of your post is, it raises another important issue, the week by week timing of the campaign.

I have given some serious thought to this and here are my preliminary ideas: Assuming that the campaign week begins on a Tuesday, I see all movement/assaults for that particular week/season being submitted by the Daimyo to the campaign web site no later than Wednesday evening(and would consist of Daimyo indicating which Taisho would be attacking/moving to what province).

The campaign admins would then have a day to tabulate the information and post who would be fighting who and in what province. All battles would then be resolved at a mutually convenient time arranged by the contenders and battle results (logfiles) would be returned to the campaign admins by no later than Sunday night.

Those results would then be verified (Erado has a program already written for this) and the changes in territory ownership posted on the campaign map and battle results posted by Monday evening (representing word spreading throughout the land). Clan's would then begin the next week/season based on the updated map.

Your ideas on movement are in close accord with what I thought. Individual clan members would be in specific provinces and could only move into 1 adjacent province per season/week. This would require Clan Daimyo to play close attention to who goes where as well as paying attention to which enemy are in what provinces based on the campaign web site.

Since my focus for the campaign is on the tactical side, I don't really like the idea of a Taisho being eliminated for a season if killed in battle, although I should give more thought to that. Actually, that would be an interesting twist and could work!

What I had considered was Taisho that were defeated and cut off from lines of retreat. In the SP campaign, those Taisho commit Seppuku. What I had considered as an alternative was that that Taisho would be eliminated from the campaign for a period of a season. To my mind, this would represent a Taisho hiding out and sneaking his way across the landscape in an effort to return to his clan. The Taisho would of course show up in the province closest to the scene of his defeat.

I hope I've given all of you enough to chew on for a couple of days and I look forward to hearing your thoughts when I return. Remember, try and keep the campaign as simple as possible and try to focus on it as a tactical campaign rather than a strategic one!

For those of you here in the states....Happy Thanksgiving!


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Methabaron
11-23-2000, 14:18
Erado,

If you give some 2-3 days I will send you a translation of my Campaign rules in English.

This rules deal with a turn based, simultaneous orders, koku/army game. We are constantly upgrading the rules to improve them. We do that by vote at our forum.

The way we handle simultaneous orders is by the the koku's involved. The attack orders submitted with the highest koku are played first. We also have rules for retreat and other stuff.

Use it as a reference.

Also, our site (Celtibero's site) is in Spanish but you may want to take a look, we have a map which we actualize every turn and so forth.
http://members.es.tripod.de/laertes2000/shogun/index.html

Anyone else interested please let me know and will send our rules too.

Metha


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"...Violence is the last resort of the incompetent..."

Erado San
11-23-2000, 16:29
Hell this thread is moving faster than a virgin in a frat house.

Anyway, it's also the best damn discussion on the subject I've ever seen.

Some quick points here.

This whole discussion will result in a campaign game with a starting set of rules. All players joining the campaign will have to agree to that or not join. Then, as the game progresses we will find flaws. Definitely. The rules will therefore have to be updated on the fly. This will be decided by a combination of voting and a pre arranged committee of referees making decisions. Rule changes will be announced on a fixed day, and will be in place not the next round but the round after, so everybody will have time to adjust to them. After decision on rules changes they are no longer open for debate.

Rob, your concern over the strong getting stronger and the weak getting weaker is very much on my mind with any bonus sytem that will be included. I would like to reminfeverybody to an idea I suggested some 345.432 posts ago, which deals with targeting strong clans/taisho:
Quote
Demolition Teams. One problem that will always influence these campaigns is the fact that some players are just too damn good (the bas#%$@&). Will a campaign be fun for long after round 4 when Magyar or FearSangsara have won 4 battles and can put an army in the field of twive the value of their opponents? I bet the opponents won't like it, nor will Magyar or FearSangsara themselves. But, I don't want to penalize them just because they are good. One thing Magyar and I have come up with earlier is to have some sort of demolition unit around. Here are my suggestions:


The demolition unit is represented by a Ninja symbol, but enemy ninja's will not show up on the campaign map.
A Clan can train a demolition team by spending koku just as they woulf for extra facilities. Their starting position is in the starting province of a clan.
The demolition unit is moved around by the Clan Daimyo
When a demolition team is in a province with an enemy army, they can attempt subversive actions. Chances of success, failure or capture depend on the size of the enemy army. If the unit is captured, the unit is destroyed. If the acion fails, nothing happens. I f the action is successful, the enemy army loses a certain amount of koku.[/list][/QUOTE]

But, the systems that have been suggested before to reward victorious taisho are all good, even though they are in favour of succesful taisho too much. That's why I can now say that in the end we'll probably be using something of a compromize between them. Think along the lines of fixed amounts of koku for each player/clan/province and experience points for victorious AND DEFEATED taisho giving them benefits. Yes, defeated Taisho gain experience too. This will result in less EP of course, but they will make progress even when losing. Combine this with demolition Ninja and I think you get a pretty balanced starting point for this campaign.

Opinions please.

in the next post I will address one major issue that has not been addressed in enough detail: The Human Factor.

Who can join? Which Clan, how many members? WHich Ronin?
What to do when people get sick/go on holidays/leave the game?
Do all clans have a fixed number of Armies/Taisho or can this change during the course of the game, or can it even vary at the beginning of a game?
[/list]

That's it for now.

[This message has been edited by Erado San (edited 11-23-2000).]

Rob
11-23-2000, 20:50
There is something I am confused about. If a clan has 20 Taishos, each with an army worth 2000 koku, surely that clan has a huge advantage over a clan with 10 Taishos?

Or have I missed something?

The Black Ship
11-23-2000, 20:53
Exactly how would these dmolition teams be captured? Are we then to assume shinobis?

If we start incorporating strategic units will we then have to account for the port-to-port cheat?

Sorry to ask such a specific detail, but from my experience it's the small details that snowball out of control!

Erado San
11-23-2000, 21:28
Rob,

Of course. At starting point each clan will have the same strength. If they have more Taisho's (if that will be the case anyway), then each Taisho will have a smaller army. ANd since each Taisho gets a HC unit for free, they will be penalized too. And since I think that Extra Taisho's bring more advantages, I think we may even have to impose an extra penalty. This will have to be balanced and I can not be more specific now. But it will definitely be considered.

Ship,

Definitely no Shinobi's. I think just based on calculation. Then, of course a message to the controller of the team and to the victim. Also some careful balancing thinking is needed here.
And no, I don't think we'll be using the port to port assault option.

PSYCHO
11-23-2000, 21:40
Cheers Obake ...you know that curiousity would draw me over here eventually.

Re: the Invincible horde of Mongels http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

If all benefits are removed on death ... the door is open to all sorts of possibilities. These excellent players may fall prey to a gang-up / a third party offering his/her daimyo a bribe to betray and expose them / ninja etc etc ...or they could just lose occasionally http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

Happy thankgiving

Cheers
PSYCHO

Magyar Khan
11-24-2000, 02:15
and even they might get to fat for the horses to carry the weight. all caused by eating too much ears.

celtiberoijontychi
11-24-2000, 10:35
1.-No taishos at all. Koku/army system. Anyone may fight the actual battles if authorized by the Clan, wich doesn't need to be an "official" registered Clan. Many small Clans could register as one for Campaign purposes (multi-timezone clans?). Anyone should be allowed to register at his own risk. He/she must then see if he can cope with the whole fighting. If not, well, he'll die soon.

2.- No reward for victory. The lands conquered are already enough of a reward: More koku=larger armies.

3.- On alliances: since we all have emails, I see no way how the admin could PREVENT people from making alliances. There will be alliances one way or another. In a war, things happen that one doesn't like...and that's war. Do we want a Total War or not?

4.- KEEP IT SIMPLE. Strategic units, different dojos and all the fantastic ideas can wait. For the first, buildings and stuff as suggested by Methabaron.

5.- START AS SOON AS POSSIBLE AS SIMPLE AS POSSIBLE.
Problems are solved by playing, not by posting.
Ever heard of democracy? Rule modifications and comlexity increases should be simply submitted to vote, tested and eventually dismissed or accepted.
The important thing is to START RIGHT NOW. We just need some rules, a map, a site and a coouple of clans.
The game will develop from itself, there's also no way to prevent, and that's the fun of a MP Campaign.

Just my 2 Koku

And, of course, thanks a lot to our ADMIN team. People like you are the real engine of the game.

------------------
Long live Celtiberos
Glory and Honour to Clan Celtiberos

Erado San
11-24-2000, 17:03
1. No Taisho's at all.
Don't agree. I of one or two clans have a player of the calibre of Magyar Khan in their ranks, and he is free to take on any battle he wants, then A) other clans can hardly plot to take his army on with 2 or even more armies at once, and B) Can he then also take on two or 3 battles in one round?
2. No reward for victory.
Valid point, if we use an economic as proposed before. I am thinking of economics and victory points. Koku comes from provinces controlled, while winning battles will increase experience and honour (see the above discussions on Victory points started by Obake). I think to use both will make for interesting results.
Alliances.
I have a compromise in mind, which also results from the above discussion. Just suppose there can be formal alliances between clans that will be announced as news throughout the lands, which only the Daimyo's can break, temporary alliances between players resulting from the fact that they invade one province both at the same time, and informal alliances that are arranged through mail, ICQ and/or chat.
4. Keep it simple.
I will keep it as simple as I can. The only strategic unit I have in mind is the Ninja with the demolition job, which is not that difficult. The idea I posted above with buildings I have dropped.
5. Start as soon as possible.
Well, like it or not, everybody. There is a deadline for ideas to be included in the firt attempts. I will read and evaluate this thread until coming monday, GMT 7:00 am. After that, anything submitted here will be largely ignored for the time being, unless it's such a hell of an idea we just can't ignore it.
On wednesday I will put the initial set of rules up on my site. Then there will probably be a number of polls set up on my site as well. I will start building the campaign site and the necessary scripts/forms/programs. Also a promotion will start and all the clans and players will be informed on the different forums. Perhaps I will also put up a registration form, just to find out how many people want to be in it. Mind you, this might be anything between 10 and 100 players in all.[/list]

And finally, Celtiberos, I have not thankend you yet for sending me the english translation. I am very grateful for that. This campaign will turn out differently than yours, but some elements will be quite similar. And compliments for the excellent ideas you have.

[This message has been edited by Erado San (edited 11-24-2000).]

Magyar Khan
11-24-2000, 19:28
the following can be a solution

each territory will give u just 100-300 koku each clan start each round with 10000 koku PLUs the koku from the territories
all armies may consist of all farmer-units u want and heavy cav.
each territory will allow u to field a (or more)certain special unit(s) like monks, nodachi horsearchers and so on.

so if a clan have 2 monk territories, 2 yaricav and 3 nodocahi they may field 2m, 2yc and 2 noda each combat.


example: the clan who holds totomi may field an horsearcher unit, he who holds a castle map may field 1 naginate and 1 samuarchers, he who holds nagishima may field 1 monk unit every battle.

in this way larger clan will have just a small koku bonus, but they have more borders with enemies. But they may field more special units.

I think this is simple and will balance those large clans...

Erado San
11-24-2000, 20:41
Interesting idea, Magyar.

This makes the type of units a clan can hold subject to the territories it holds. We may have to rethink the provinces each clan controls at the start and which provinces hold which benefits. Means clans will have to think harder about defense also.

Thinking along this line, I would suggest giving the clans equal starting conditions and giving the interesting provinces to Ronin players.

The Black Ship
11-24-2000, 20:56
Just don't let the Kaga's and Kii have all the monks at the start of the game like the SP game does! That could lead to the Ronin provinces having a Huge tactical advantage at start up! Just ask the Uesugi http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif

ShaiHulud
11-25-2000, 01:03
Black Ship...May be an advantage but are
Ronin allowed to expand at all? I may have missed a post but I thought Ronin were limited to their start provinces and only clans were allowed to expand. That would be pretty much like a Campaign game where Ronin rarely attack a garrisoned province, regardless of the size of the garrison. I kinda like the idea of Kaga as a bone in the throat of expansionists clans. Some good Ronin might hold a long time there!

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Wind fells blossoms, rain
fells steel,yet bamboo bends and drinks

ShaiHulud
11-25-2000, 03:00
On deciding movement....Suggestions to allow
calling off attacks imply the need for 1. Orders to be sent in, 2. Orders to be interpreted, 3. Moderators then must advise those who sent the orders, 4. NEW orders then must be sent in (cancelling attacks).
In a one week time frame this seems too cumbersome. So, I have a suggestion that allows for only ONE set of orders followed by
interpretations that require no further communication with the Clans, save to announce where the battles will be held....
(ASSUMING that multiple Taishos is the method to be used)Example one:
Clan Snake assigns a Taisho in Province A to attack Province B, held by Clan Turtle. Clan Turtle assigns Taisho in Province B to attack Province C. Meanwhile Clan Sakura assigns an attack into Province A.
Solution: Sakura holds Snake in place resulting in battle in Province A. Turtle attacks Province C.
Example2: Snake attacks Turtle in B. Turtle attacks Snake in A. A is Highland, B is Lowland. Solution: Battle occurs in Province A.(Priority is given to attack FROM Lowland over River over Highland)
Example3: Snake assigns Taisho 1 to attack Turtle in Province B. Snake Taisho 2 stays in Province A. Turtle assigns Taisho in B To attack elsewhere. Sakura attacks Province A.
Solution: Battle occurs in Province A between Sakura and Snake Taisho2 and battle occurs in Province B between Snake Taisho1 and Turtle. Likewise, if Turtle assigned Turtle Taisho2 to hold Province B then Turtle Taisho1 could continue his attack elsewhere.
Thus, attacks on provinces with only one Taisho always hold that Taisho in place to defend. Attacks against provinces with a Taisho assigned to hold frees all others within that province to move. The use of terrain as a determinant of precedence eliminates the need to consult for NEW orders from Clans. Also, No province is ever left undefended if there was a army within at the beginning of that turn.
The possibilities for alliance and joint attacks are limitless and may well encourage powerful clans to conclude agreements with smaller clans.
This seems to offer a use for Taisho who may have lost a few and are now considered less than optimum for attack. Small armies can be used to hold much larger armies in place (tho they risk battle to do so).
I realize that I may not have found all the possible variations and invite all to pick this to pieces..hehe.

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Wind fells blossoms, rain
fells steel,yet bamboo bends and drinks

ShaiHulud
11-25-2000, 05:12
Hmm, So what happens if an attack occurs from Lowland to Lowland, etc? We can always fall back to the "largest army gets priority" suggestion. Like-sized armies can fight on a neutral battlefield and retire to their previous provinces without a loss of province for the loser. Sized-based decisions will figure heavily when one 'invest' those points garnered from victories.
A last thought...Might not even the loser gain a fraction of a point? Thus a loser of 4 battles would get one point and thus offset
some of the degrading of his koku allotment.
This would help a bit to reduce the advantage of the soon-to-be Super Taisho.

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Wind fells blossoms, rain
fells steel,yet bamboo bends and drinks

Widda
11-25-2000, 17:34
If we were able to equip the units with improved armor and or weapons in online games it would help out immensely with the online, LAN campaign we are driving at here... Note this post is for the developers... Widda.

Rob
11-25-2000, 17:40
My personal suggestion for how to do this would be for a fixed-cost unit upgrade. So when you are buying your army you could pay, say, 100 koku to give a unit improved armour. Simple but effective.

Methabaron
11-25-2000, 17:53
Sequence of events can be decided by several factors.

But the one I am using in the campaign we have arranged at Celtibero's site is the Highest Kokus do their battle first. This adds another strategical dimension to the game where deciding into where to place your koku and how much to invest into attacks (without at the same time debilitating your frontiers) to keep the initiative become critical.

In our Campaign, any province that launches an attack but it is itself attacked before (due to koku prioroties) will have its attack cancelled; so as you can see Taishos will have to think a game of deception before submitting attack and movement orders in order to keep the initiative or strategically give it to the enemy to make him concentrate forces where he less needs it. It's good fun.

another factor learned from our Campaign is that also putting too much koku into a battle could be disastrous because since the units are capped at 16 a 20,000 koku army loosing 8 units will loose 10,000 koku while a 5,000 army loosing 8 units out of 16 will loose only 2,500 koku !!!. This is perfect to avoid Hordes and it has worked fine so far in our campaign.

I have already sent our Campaign rules to Erado and Widda, again, anyone else interested let me know and will send our rules.

Metha

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"...Violence is the last resort of the incompetent..."

Rob
11-25-2000, 19:55
Quote Originally posted by Methabaron:

In our Campaign, any province that launches an attack but it is itself attacked before (due to koku prioroties) will have its attack cancelled;
[/QUOTE]

The problem with this is that a clan fearing an attack from Totomi could then attack Totomi, then call off the attack, purely to prevent the aforementioned enemy attack.

This can be used against the AI in the SP campaign quite effectively at times. Of course in the SP campaign there is no penalty for calling off a planned attack. Such a penalty could be used to stop this kind of behaviour.

Methabaron
11-25-2000, 21:54
Quote The problem with this is that a clan fearing an attack from Totomi could then attack Totomi, then call off the attack, purely to prevent the aforementioned enemy attack.[/QUOTE]

Rob, this is also taken into account in our rules. In your exenple first you need your army to be bigger than the one in Totomi (remember, higher kokus attack first, combined or not) else Totomi will attack first and there will be nothing you can do about it; and then we have stated in our campaign a penalty of 20% loss of the koku of the army that called off the atatck http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif. not only that, that penalty will also apply to any army starting an online battle and issuing the withdraw order right away. In this later case the 20% penalty will still apply unless the losses sustained by the army withdrawing are already higher than 20% !!

There should be always a chance for an attacker to call off attacks if when all attacks submitted and published he thinks his atatck is not attractive anymore. Nevertheless, there is a 20% army value penalty for such a decission to avoid among other things exactly what you suggested !!, any more questions??, I think you need to see my full rules to find out more possible answers.

http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif

Metha


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"...Violence is the last resort of the incompetent..."

[This message has been edited by Methabaron (edited 11-25-2000).]

Widda
11-27-2000, 06:38
After ex amount of koku is relegated to troop concentration, is there going to be a on going supply/maintenance fee to keep these troops in the field, to stop hording of immense armies. Say a quarter of the total army koku value each year to feed and equip the troops... Widda.

Erado San
11-27-2000, 17:46
Ok,

Like i said, the deadline has passed and all above ideas and suggestions will be taken into consideration.

I will start and build a rules system from all this. I will present this as soon as possible. There may also be some polls then about which features you like and which you don't like. The result of the polls will then be included in the final version.

But, that doesn't mean you can now sit back and relax until I have finished. One issue has not been dealt with (surprise, surprise). If that issue doesn't get proper attention, then this whole thing still won't work.

The Human Factor.

Well, it's not that much of a problem as it was before. I mean, we probably won't have to worry about one player having to participate in more than one battle. But one thing:

How do we get the players together that live all over the world in different timezones?

Give us some ideas to work with. It's about the only troublesome issue in this whole thing.

See Ya.

Magyar Khan
11-28-2000, 00:53
Human factor?
If we fight with clans like we have now all clans have members living around the world. Maybe a clan cant field the best player but that would be their problem.

So how do we decide when to play a battle. Maybe the smallest clan (size or koku) may decide what time the battle takes place.
Maybe the clan should be able to spent some INITIATIVE-KOKU each round. The clan with the highest donated money (money spent on spies and logistics) may decide all initiative-dependent rules (maybe even like moving). Just like in the boardgame where u can BUY SWORDS! to gain initiative.

Rob
11-28-2000, 01:16
The human factor is not too much of a problem for 1v1 battles, but what about 4v4s (which are possible under the current rules)?

That requires 8 players to be able to be online at the same time. The question really is 'what do we do if not all of the players show up?'. Does the clan whose members don't show lose? Or do they get a second chance?

If the battle is declared a draw then a clan could simply not turn up in order to avoid fighting a difficult battle. I suppose the best way to handle this would be the admin's discretion. The admin should attempt to contact the clan Daimyos and arrange the battle time. If this is not met then the admin could award victory to the side that showed up.

Erado San
11-28-2000, 05:36
Quite right, Rob.

Perhaps all of you now understand why I am reluctant to also join as a player.

This problem will be worse when we keep a player attached to an army/ammount of Koku. It will be lessened when we only track amounts of money on the map, and then let the clans decide who will fight which battle.

There's pro's and con's in both systems.

Rob
11-28-2000, 06:09
Having thought about it, I think that there should be penalties for clans that fail to keep their battle schedule. Although it may be harsh and painful at first, it is important to make sure that players keep their commitments. If they are unwilling or unable to do so then they should not continue in the campaign. Of course their clan would have the opportunity of replacing them if possible.

The human factor is difficult to judge and I doubt we'll know how it will turn out until we start, but by planning for situations where things go wrong we should avoid major problems.

Magyar Khan
11-28-2000, 08:21
sadly the computer AI cant participate in multiplay otherwise that could be a solution.

maybe turns should be processed on tuesday so all clans can do the battles in the weekend. And all problems about this subject can lead to 1 solution.....

just stick with the die hard clans and players. and not some enthousiastic (for a few weeks) newbie.

Methabaron
11-28-2000, 15:28
Human factor...

Some ideas:

All battles should have a deadline once official and both parties should agree a time to meet. Also the number of taishos involved and the koku amount each will lead should be clarified before the battle.

If any of the taishos has a change in plans and realizes that will not be able to make he should delegate in another taisho of the same clan.

At the time of the battle if someone is missing, that general wont play and his koku part, if it has been agreed before, wont take part in that battle. In a 1v1 and one of the sides is missing, the other side gets the win and the missing side also loses some koku (penalty to be decided)

The fact that we are playing this ONLINE makes unavoidable having people from all over the world. And unavoidably there will be some instances where some taishos will not be able to show up. This is the price to pay for playing it online.

For movement and attack order submissions there should also be some deadlines. Once passed the deadline no more orders for that part of the turn will be accepted.

Is it just me who see things much less complicated than they appear to be?...

The real problem is not with people showing up for battles or submit orders in time, the real problem is to get people motivated after they start loosing in the campaign and keep them playing. In my experience in our Campaign at Celtibero's site, the loosing sides (I was attacked by 2 other clans and my fate seemed sealed) normally find that the other clans ally with them to stop the winning clans threat and things tend to balnce somehow. At the end of the day I found myself lasting much more than expected and although I am still not as powerfull as those that attacked me initially I see that things could change. As long as there is hope people will stay playing.

Metha

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"...Violence is the last resort of the incompetent..."

Erado San
11-28-2000, 17:33
Hi everybody,

Metha,
Quote Is it just me who see things much less complicated than they appear to be?...[/QUOTE]
At this moment it is my job to see things more complicated than perhaps they are. While creating the draft set of rules and the initial code to process the game, I must try and foresee every possible problem, or we create situations where players could lose interest just because we failed to see something that could create unneccessary problems. If there is a limited number of players of less than 10, it is not hard to keep track of them and situations where one player is not available will not occur too often.

With this campaign I can not yet tell how many players will be in there. I don't know how big this problem is going to be. It may be I'm looking for trouble, and all will sort itself in the end. But I'm not counting on that. I would like to think about it now and try and come up with solutions in advance, just in case it will prove to be a big problem after all.

Magyar, I agree this is more suited for the die hard clans. But, who is to judge which people / clans are in and which are not? Does this also mean you want to scratch the idea to include non-clan players as stationary Ronin? Then I suggest that the die hard non clan players unite in 'The definitely NO Clan' Clan. Even those that refuse to join the Ronin Alliance, a clan which also is not a clan.

Methabaron
11-28-2000, 18:40
Sigh...

I was afraid of it and it is turning a bit true... let's stop talking and let's play !!!!

Let's not be sooooooo afraid of failure or fearing that people will lose interests, let's start the "darn" thing and we will see if it is feasible or not!!... there are already examples of other groups doing MP Campaign succeeding !!!, me and Celtiberos are already having some good fun !!! and if something does not work we change it.

You can plan as much as you want, you can work your butt off as much as you want (which you are currently are, and that's very much ok), but it is not just worth it if you take it so seriously and contemplate like 5456 possible contingencies and try to anticipate every single possible failure mode...

come on... it';s just for fun, nobody is going to fire you http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif dont worry so much.

Metha

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"...Violence is the last resort of the incompetent..."

Erado San
11-28-2000, 18:57
Agreed on most points, Metha.

Like I said, deadline is closed. No new ideas will be included. This is the only subject I have some loose ends on, so don't worry.

I am already working on the draft set of rules and the necessary code. Nothing there seems to take more than 2 to 3 weeks to complete. Then some playtesting somewhere along the way... Well, we could launch probably some time around christmas.

In fact, we should also consider the online tournaments that others are organizing. We should not get in their way.

I think we should launch it early in January. Too many people will have too many obligations from christmas til new years day anyway.

Magyar Khan
11-29-2000, 02:19
and meanwhile i can make an full-automatic scenario-option in trhe logfilereader.... i am already thinking of something.

People want to think along with me?

Methabaron
11-29-2000, 12:07
Sounds good Erado. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

Magy, I... am.... thinking... hard... yesss!!!!, finally !!!!!

Metha

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"...Violence is the last resort of the incompetent..."

Magyar Khan
11-30-2000, 01:00
violence it the second resort for the real competent mongol
--------------------------------------------

and with what did u came up?

Erado San
11-30-2000, 06:31
A headache?

Tenchimuyo
11-30-2000, 06:51
My God this is one hell of a long thread! http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/eek.gif