New Game Ideas

[Cecil XIX]

Recently I've been developing ideas about games I could host here at the Throne Room. Since it all comes down to participation, I figured I should just list them all here and see what people think. Keep in mind they're not all mutually exclusive, and some should probably be done before others. A lot of these use the Battleaxe mod, as it's a very simple mod that provides some small campaigns that are ideal for testing new ideas.

Legendary Shogun 2 Succession Game - As it says, a Succession Game with Shogun 2 on the feared Legendary difficulty. Only thing we have to do is check to see if versions with the Hattori and/or Ikko-Ikki are compatible with those without.

Diplomacy (Battleaxe Mod) - In this game, nobody starts with much of an advantage over anybody. For starters, this is the campaign map:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Every player gets one castle, two family members and four each of tier 2 militia and tier 1 archers. The victor is the one who conquers the center castle and holds for ten turns straight while at the same time holding any other settlement. If you want to gain an advantage, odds are it'll have to be by talking to your fellow players! I wouldn't want to do this game without the full eight players, or four if it's the best we can do. Regardless, I think it's necessary to make sure that the players are evenly spread out.

Players vs. Players - Normally, we've only had PvP battles during TW RPGs. But why not have one for it's own sake, without a campaign? Players sign up, and I assign them to a team randomly. Players vote as a whole to choose the mod and how much money each team gets, then teams vote to select their faction and Overall commander. Commander then assigns roles, which will very depending on number of players, and chooses the army and assigns soldiers to his subordinate commanders. Then both teams go at in a unique Org experience! Even number of players preferred, but having a wild card would be interesting as well.

Multi-faction RPG Test (Battleaxe mod) - I've wondered if it would be possible to have an RPG with two different factions, where each one sent in orders that were resolved simultaneously each turn. This would be done in the style of TinCow's Cataclysm during King of the Romans, perhaps the most fun I've ever had on the Org and easily the most unique experience. Six players would be ideal, with more being better but less still being useful. The Battleaxe mod will allow for small campaigns that should be more easily manageable. Since this would be a test game, there would be a review every ten turns or so where we discuss how the game mechanics are working and whether we should end the game.

Mini RPG - A full TW RPG on on of Battleaxe's smaller campaigns, which last either 50 or a hundred turns. This one would be pretty standard, although it could involve multiple player factions if the aforementioned test goes well.

The Hundred Years War - This is an ambitious idea that I wouldn't want to run without more experience that could be provided by the games already listed. I definitely want to try it in the future though, as it's got a lot of potential. England and France, both player factions, duke it out in Lands to Conquer's Hundred Years War campaign. It would need some balancing since England starts in a weaker position, I'm think that England could go by centralized, WotS rules while France goes by V&V rules and has specific victory conditions for vassals to encourage infighting. What will emerge from the chaos: The Kingdom of France or the Angevin Empire?

[phonicsmonkey]

Hi Cecil

I like all of these ideas and would probably participate in all except the succession game (I don't have time to play SP anymore).

As far as which idea to run with now I would suggest definitely recruiting for the Diplomacy hotseat and the PvP battle, I think you'll get some takers there. We have a few hotseats winding up now and some players will be looking for a new challenge.

As for the larger RPG ideas it might be a good idea to wait until we have the TWS2 game up and running (Zim?) and then capitalise on that group of engaged players by starting another RPG.

Thanks for the introduction to the Battleaxe mod too, it looks interesting for smaller hotseat campaigns and I'll take a closer look at it when I have the time.

[Ignoramus]

Hi Cecil, great ideas!

I was thinking of trialling a standard Hotseat/PBM, where each time a faction leader dies, the player playing that faction changes.

Also, I'd love to be part of Multi-Faction RPG. That would be the *ultimate* TW experience. We wouldn't get to fight battles, which would be annoying, but it would speed the process up quite quickly.

[Nightbringer]

I would love to take part in the pvp rpg game.

[Myth]

The Battleaxe mod seems very interesting and akin to something I had wanted to do before. It seems to be optimized for a better AI performance however, and I'm not sure how many of the changes are good for a hotseat game. The purely hotseat games seem very interesting though, that map with the 8 castles for example.

I'm up for the 100 years war game (even though I disliked the style of an RPG game when I tried KotN) because of the factions and time period (ie. I love the 100 years war). However I'd like it if there was a bit less bickering and one player who drew the lot of being King acting as God's chosen, and more of mutual cooperation and leading our assigned armies versus the enemy faction and generals. Like say, everyone starts with a FM and one agent of his choice, and we cooperate, plan and plot on a strategical level (where to move, what chokes to hold, how to cut the enemy off, which settlement to take, etc.) instead of sitting around the forum passing laws, suggesting edicts, voting on stuff that makes no sense (KotN, first thing happened was that one player was given a Nomarchy , which is basically half a kingdom, because it would be easier to "manage" even though the RTW engine is not affected in the slightest).

I was thinking about the latest trend of starting SS games (fought battles). Some start at turn 1, some 100 turns after AI management. But there is some unbalance there for sure, because of the victory conditions. Hence my VCs for Clash of Gods!. Regular VCs favor the larger factions (start with the ERE for example, you already have about 40% of the regions needed to win, which is very different from starting as Scotland or Aragorn). Hence if we use "regular" mods that are on a Grand Campaign scale (not the mini-campaigns of Kingdoms) I think the victory conditions should somehow be improved and made more interesting and varied, and not so much as to promote taking the biggest faction and going for a massive landgrab.

BTW I've been playing SP SS 6.4 with Longer Assimilation included and I woe that I did not make CoG! use that option, it's really befitting a religiously themed game and also slows down player "blitzing" of AI factions.

[phonicsmonkey]

I was thinking about the latest trend of starting SS games (fought battles). Some start at turn 1, some 100 turns after AI management. But there is some unbalance there for sure, because of the victory conditions. Hence my VCs for Clash of Gods!. Regular VCs favor the larger factions (start with the ERE for example, you already have about 40% of the regions needed to win, which is very different from starting as Scotland or Aragorn). Hence if we use "regular" mods that are on a Grand Campaign scale (not the mini-campaigns of Kingdoms) I think the victory conditions should somehow be improved and made more interesting and varied, and not so much as to promote taking the biggest faction and going for a massive landgrab.

To be fair there is only one SS game going on which has standard VCs. I support the move to customized VCs but it is nice to have some games that aren't team matches and are more of a 'sandbox'.