Systems of Gaming?

[depricated]

Well, in the soundbit "Erfworld is not a game" the wall is said to be broken into numerous parts.

I'm working on a hex layout at the moment. I can see breaking a city into 1-19 hexes. Perhaps even, in accordance with the level of the city?

I'm going to illustrate this in little jpgs made with paint. They're nothing fancy. OBSERVE MY MASTERY OF THE ARTS OF MSPAINT


Ok so, this is kind of how I picture a city looking. More specifically, a 'standard size' city. I imagine there are smaller cities(as small as 1 hex, no wall or courtyard) and I imagine there are larger cities(perhaps with multiple garrisons?) This calls into question though, what all constitutes a city. My construct is based on the idea that the garrison is the 'base' of the city. In Gobwin Knob, it's the Tower. I imagine that the courtyard doesn't necessarily have to be symmetric, nor do the walls have to completely surround the city. For an example of a low level city I present "Franse"

I suggest that when a city levels up, the Lord of the city chooses a hex which is adjacent to a city-hex. That hex becomes the new city-hex. Dunno how building will work yet, but I would say that all hexes are automatically "courtyard" until they're built into walls, which should take a number of turns. So in the case of Franse, you can see that only 3 of their courtyards were turned into walls.

What circumstances could form an additional garrison? Maybe an egregiously high cost to build a garrison hex at all?

[Drunut]

Maybe in order to have another garrison you would need both a Large Resource input, a VERY large city level and a certain number of Nobles?

IE:
City Upgrades
Buildings
+1 Garrison
1,000,000 Schmuckers
City level 30
10 Nobles

Such high numbers of course are due to the fact that if 1 Garrison falls, the city can continue with the other garrison. Like an extra life. Also, I would assume that having an extra garrison would increase the unit and resource output of the city, or the Garrison gives all the bonuses of the first Garrison x2

Heres a picture I whipped up in MS paint,

This is a lvl.30 Castle (It occupies 30 Hexes? I really don't know, but for this example it does.) With 2 Garrisons. Garrison 1 is the original City Hex, while Garrison 2 is the new Hex. It WAS a courtyard hex.

Another thing, wouldn't the "Garrison's" be more accurately named "Castles" or "Towers"? I thought the Garrison was just one part of it. Along with the Dungeon.

[Neuronin]

Heya, everybody, first post, glad to be here, where's the liquor, etc.

On the original subject (not to interrupt the ongoing and possibly apocalyptic Erfworld translation), is anyone interested in PbP games around here (assuming they're not banned by some minutiae in the ToS I missed)? I'm kinda in a 3.5/4e/Pathfinder, Star Wars Saga Ed., Mutants and Masterminds place right now...anyone interested?

[malekith]

@Neuronin: would love to mate, but not really got the time to sign up atm.

on to topic:
Sounds like we're making progress! I would love to start work on the thread but i feel i may be away too much of the time to do it regularly (depends what you mean by regular though my average post count would be something like every other day or possibly slower, for useful posts at least ).
I think we're all working off the same sheet with in mind of the cities, which is good. I think that it might be an idea to have a world hex-grid and then each hex would be made of smaller hexes (23 or 37 i think are good numbers personally) for construction purposes. but I'm just speculating really, i need to re-read the comics and make a detailed list of rules - so i'd happily volunteer for that job it'll give me something to do when i get bored during study leave xD

It does depend on whether we're deciding to make this a forum based rule set or project it further than that and make a game-rule set and play it on the forum. It also depends on whether rob or jamie pop in and give us a shakedown about their ideas and any legal stuff, but i have some ideas for implementation that can work easily.

Mal

EDIT:
PS when i said splitting the forum users i had already thought about the nock on effects, but I think I can work it effectively so that there shouldn't be any emnity or confusion - but all the awkward stuf aside it would be far better and easier to have user vs. user (or groups). Generally it would just be good to have a few set sides and let people allocate themselves to a side, then moderate for balance with no user created sides (to start anyway) which is the best way i can see it happening; possibly keeping sides down to between 1-5 players.
But I'm not sure whether it'd be better to have them as characters in the armies (e.g. user x is Stanley Plaid and user y is Parson, or some made up factions) or whether to let them be players and control the whole side as a group - I'd prefer the first option because it adds an RPG element to it (any Tools read that as "like the Erfworld is not a game soundbite") but some people may whine about it not being fair and wanting to be a side leader... hmmmm
EDIT 2: whoops that turned into a bit of a rant lol!

[Drunut]

@Malekith: Is okay.

On Hexes:
If we were to play it out as a game we would need 2 different Hex worlds. The world map hex would be very general and that's were you would control whole platoons and armies to move. (IE: Where you control several large groups of units.) And when there is an engagement involving a leadership unit, we break down a hex into 6 Hexes for battle. Otherwise it's just a statistic (Because they are unled.)

So you would move 8 Stacks of Dwagons with a Warlord into a hex, and let's say that a dwagon stack contains 2 Dwagons. So that's 16 Individual Dwagons and the Leadership in one Hex. An enemy with Leadership would Engage the Hex with our 8 Stacks of Dwagons. That's when battle commences. That one Hex is broken down into Seven hexes with 16 Dwagons that we control by stack (So you move them in Pairs) and your Leadership that you can control individually. The enemies forces (Let's say 16 Gwiffons with Leadership) also control their units by stack number (Let's say its also 2) with Leadership contolled individuallly. All creatures get a bonus from their respective Leader, but the Dwagons (Or Gwiffons) in the Sub-hex of their warlord get an added bonus Transylvito style.

It would not cost movement to move in Sub-hexes. So there is no penalty when moving in Cities (which are made of Sub Hexes) and in battle (Which depending, could be made up of 1+ groups of Sub-hexes)

Also, sorry if this sounds long-winded. I can Clarify as needed. Also, can anyone tell me how to make links not say the exact URL but just words? (So you click on the word p.113 instead of the long URL)

[malekith]

that sounds kool, was kind of what i was thinking o i believe just with nicer numbers and a bit more completeness I like it.
I think 6 is a good number of sub-hexes then when citys go over that number they just expand onto an adjacent hex.
as for the text as links im fairly sure that they haven't got it set up on this board, but i may be mistaken.
usually its written:
[url="www.something.com]TEXT HERE[/url]

anyone have any ideas about whether we make it a full-on game system or just something for these forums (either way i think we need a separate forum category for it something like 'THE Game')

Mal

[Drunut]

I know six is a good number, but I chose seven because a "set" of Hexes is seven.
Like so:


Which would Make it easier to put ones mind around.than a Non-symmetrical Sub-grid. If it helps to think of it as just zooming into a grid, and cutting some corners off, then be my guest. There are six side sub-hexes and one middle sub-hex which makes 7.

[malekith]

oops! seven is what i meant, i counted em out earlier just typed 6 by accidents xD

Mal

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

I'd honestly go with one more layer, so you can do the following:

Layer 1: The Wall. Has a set amount of hits based on City level, and only units of a level higher than the wall can enter the city (since when GK is knocked down to a level 1 city, things start easily breaking past the walls).

Layer 2: The Courtyard.

Layer 3 (Center Hex): The Garrison

[JohnnyEgregious]

I'm not really schooled as a wargamer, but couldn't the city just be a single, complicated hex?

I don't remember anything about city building, or how a city levels up for that matter, but if cities get as large as the lvl. 30 one, or even the three layer idea, then that would be quite a few hexes that the defenders can move through for free. I'm not sure if that's the kind of home field advantage cities usually get, but it seems like a big advantage.

As for the walls, each side of the hex could be a wall, 6 walls if it's out on a plain, 3 if it's up against a mountain or something. High level units would be able to enter the city from any side, but lower lvl units going through a breach would have to enter from that specific side.

I guess it really depends on whether this game will be focused more on the actual warfare, with battlefields and such, with cities being geographically simple and self-contained, or if there's actually going to be a focus on the capture and construction of cities. OR if we just made cities simple for now and figure out the combat, we could add city building in an "expansion".

What I'm really interested in is how to address the issue of casters, since they seem complicated as all get out.

[Drunut]

Hmm, Magic is very confusing yet also very organized (For a list of Casting info see this chart on magic)

I would like a speculation on what determines what casters pop where, and when.

[Alcazabedabra]

If I read the comic right, there are a limited number of capital sites in Erfworld. Each one must be very unique. Look, for instance, at the Transylvito capitol. Possibly inaccessible to anything but flying units!

Compare that to Gobwin Knob, or Charlescomm's mountaintop fortress. The defensive advantages of the other capitals must be profound! Normal cities might each be a cookie-cutter seven-hex on open ground, but capitals get some special treatment.

Gobwin Knob doesn't really fit well in a hex grid. It's layout is probably quite a bit different. Also, the garrison inside the inner wall counts as only three spaces(tower, courtyard and dungeon), in which units can move freely without spending movement points. There's probably a hex grid outside the garrison, up to the circular wall around the city...

Anyway, in an Erfworld game, I would try not to confine myself to a universal hex grid. Cities, and especially capitols, will have spaces shaped a little differently.

There are a lot of other interesting questions, though. How many units (or stacks?) can occupy the same hex? What are the attack and movement rules inside a single hex? Figure out those basics, and then apply them to oddly-shaped city spaces.

[malekith]

yeah, i think we need to put speculation on hold for a minute I think and sort out what we're aiming to achieve and then form some kind of structure for us to tackle it.
so any volunteers? I've got school for the next 2 weeks then i'll be on study leave so I'd happily take up some form of responsibility for this then!

Mal

[Drunut]

Yeah, I can relate to Mal on this. Schools over for me in a month or so, then I can try to work on the basic system more. Though I would think that as to the number of units that can be in a stack, I don't think theres any limit (see Parson plan with the wounded Dwagons)but most stop at 8 because that's when the bonus stops.

As for battle, as long as there is no leadership in the stack, the battle is automatic (meaning, entirely based on statistics.)

[Alcazabedabra]

Hey, I'm all into it if we're going to design an ErfWorld-based game. I'd love to even make a top-down computer game based on the Erfworld mechanics. I'd love to work out the basics with you guys. Maybe I can help a bit.

I like the hexes-inside-hexes idea, but I'd make it a 19-hex grid. That way, you can move three stacks at a time into an enemy hex. I think the idea in Erfworld is that you can have multiple unit stacks in a hex.

http://www.erfworld.com/book-1-archive/?px=%2F113.jpg

There's a distinction between 'stacked' units and units sharing a hex. Since Transylvito had over a hundred bats and eleven warlords at the mountain pass near Faq, and Ceasar had his own 'personal' stack, presumably the other warlords led stacks as well.

So! The question of how many units can be crammed into a hex becomes a little more interesting. If you stack higher than 8, I suppose there's no limit, is there? Should we assign an artifical limit to the number of units stackable? 24, maybe?

[Drunut]

No, I would go with a top number that is a little lower like 16(a multiple of 8?) STACKS per hex. But I would say that a stack has no limit for how many units are in it, and the stack bonus ends at 8 units per stack. So you could have 80 bats in one stack, and have room for 15 other stacks. OR you could have 10 stacks of 8 bats; which would use up more stack slots/hex but you get the added bonus of their stacking without losing too much power.(they all attack at the same time if they dont have leadership with them)

As to Stacks, maybe a "stack" is just a term for "Platoon". Maybe a "stack" of Marbits is a Marbit, I wouldn't say leader or commander, who was a group of marbits under his/her command.

So a stack in a hex would be A Marbit Oct (leader of an 8-man platoon) with 7 other Marbits in his stack. Or with Ceaser, HE leads the stack, and has a group of Bats in his stack (or under his direct command)

Do I need to clarify?

[blackcitadel9]

I'm absolutely useless at coming up with anything. It's usually just overpowered, underpowered or just plain pointless. So I'll steer clear of the Erfworld - The Game discussions. If you get up to a "testing stage" though, bug me then. I'll help playtest.

If anyone does want to play a game. I'm up for D&D 3.5/D&D 4th ed/Star Wars Saga Ed/Paranoia/Exalted/Scion and some others...but I forget what books I own...*scratches head*...also, I've never played on a forum. So someone might want to PM me informational stuffs.

Anyway - sorry for the interruption, continue with your Homebrewmancy.

[malekith]

really liking what's going on here.
I'd like to create a ruleset for a TT RPG/Wargame that we can play on the forums as well, if anyone can code it into a PC game then that's great!
But again that depends on whether Jamie and Rob pop in and either stop us cos they were gonna do it or give us their blessing or whatever
I think what Drunut said about the stacks fits and may need a bit of refining/defining when we get to writing it down officially.

Mal

[Alcazabedabra]

No, I would go with a top number that is a little lower like 16(a multiple of 8?) STACKS per hex. But I would say that a stack has no limit for how many units are in it, and the stack bonus ends at 8 units per stack. So you could have 80 bats in one stack, and have room for 15 other stacks. OR you could have 10 stacks of 8 bats; which would use up more stack slots/hex but you get the added bonus of their stacking without losing too much power.(they all attack at the same time if they dont have leadership with them)

Actually, if you want to limit the number of stacks to a hex, I'd go with 8. For the purpose of a game, I think I would cap stack size at 24, too. 192 units allowed, per hex, per side. That's hefty. I think it's better to *have* a limit, than not have one. Otherwise, I'll have to set stack size to a long integer.

'Cause you KNOW someone's gonna try cramming 14,000 basic infantry into a single stack... sometime...

As to Stacks, maybe a "stack" is just a term for "Platoon". Maybe a "stack" of Marbits is a Marbit, I wouldn't say leader or commander, who was a group of marbits under his/her command.

So a stack in a hex would be A Marbit Oct (leader of an 8-man platoon) with 7 other Marbits in his stack. Or with Ceaser, HE leads the stack, and has a group of Bats in his stack (or under his direct command)

Do I need to clarify?

I'd say the highest-level unit in the stack would be the 'stack leader', leadership-capable or no. Any unit with leadership capability - commander, warlord, chief warlord, sovreign - would automatically be sorted to the top of the stack. Sort first by rank, then by leadership bonus, then by level.

[Drunut]

I do wonder if Jamie and Rob would pop in here. To clarify things and such.

Ok, I like the idea of 8s/h and 24u/s. But what would be the case with Large & heavy units and siege units? It wouldn't make sense to be able to fit more than a few in a hex. I would think that a single siege unit takes up a stack slot, but I don't know about heavy units. It just seems like it would be weird to have more than 192 Dwagons in a single hex.

Also, in regards to the 14,000, you do HAVE to pay the upkeep to those guys and even at 50 schmuckers a pop thats 70,000 Schmuckers per turn. For one stack. That doesn't include the severe movement penalty of such a large group. The larger the group the slower it goes. But yeah, if you give leeway to a player expect it to be abused.

Also, love Alcaz's idea on stack heads. One of these days I might write all this stuff down.