The Battle for Oddworld(x2)

[BLANDCorporatio]

Greetings y'all and welcome to the New Year!

So I've been trying to put together a few helpful docs, so far there is

The Battle for Oddworld(x2) ruleset

and

The Battle for Oddworld(x2) unit creation spreadsheet (which for some reason Google Docs won't preview).

Coming up, the battle calculator, a rules-diff doc to The Battle for Gobwin Bump games of yore (rules diffs: mostly about fortifications, traps, and of course the various costs; dance-fighting is also not affecting damage output, but rather stack bonus). Also, naturally, a map!

So anyways, check these out, if you have any comments, feel free to speak up!

[Nihila]

It looks good, but I'll look over it again to try to fully understand the rules. I'll be happy to come in, as Risun. How many units can we have?

[BLANDCorporatio]

5 should be a good number.

But wait! I'd first like to see who's up for joining, then form the two opposing sides, and then have you design your units. Talking among allies beforehand being encouraged!

One unit from each player will stay hidden to the other side at first, that seems like a swell idea.

EDIT: ah, forgot about the Commander being limited to Hits. Added that to the document. And while Scout should not be cheaper than 7*Hits (its current cost), I have a mind to increase that. Wait a min ...

... right. I'll place another limit instead. Scouts should have at least 5 Hits. And I'll explain the Batcams as the Bats not actually being scouts (which is consistent with what we saw in-comic, but hey, the comic is not exactly consistent with TBf<> )

EDIT, EDIT:

- all right, added the order-relaying rules (which are the same as previous Battle for <>).
- corrected trap detonation- Sapper units can control detonation too, not just Dirtamancy ones.
- added a certain maneuvering rule for led stacks, because I foresee hexes filled with 1Hit units that are not stacked, and that's just annoying.
- watch out for changes to Shockamancy. Storm might be useful sometimes ...
- and there's something that The Battle of Two Cities had, this ruleset does not explicitly copy, and I'd want it to, but cannot remember what it was. Drat. I'll be trying to remember.

[WaterMonkey314]

Escotia will be in as well, though I may not bring my normal high-move heavy dominated force. I kinda have a feeling that all the formulae will have nerfed them quite a bit.

[LTDave]

The Generics of Generica will make an appearance.

[thetobias]

Ok, I'll be joining too as the Axion Syndicracy, steampunk bitches!
Also: the google docs preview of the spreadsheet. https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0Ag7pBn2-fbf0dE5MbzJBem50Y2dObUFzT0h3VV9reFE&hl=en&output=html

Your mistake, btw, was not checking the "export to google docs format" checkbox.

[BLANDCorporatio]

Ah, ok, I'll fix that.

Right, 4 people so far, I'd be waiting and see if others show up. Schedule of the next few steps would be like this- combat spreadsheet and map, tomorrow. Diff doc, today hopefully.

My guess is that I'd wait for tomorrow and the day after and see who if any shows up, and once that is done, we can start assigning players to sides, unit design, and actual play.

Speaking of the map, how might I host images online, but so that knowing the location of one will not reveal the others? I'd like to send you scout reports as images, but just plonking those in my photobucket account doesn't seem wise Some options are I think Google Docs (which can allow only certain users to see certain docs). Any others?

[WaterMonkey314]

You could make 2 photobuckets.

[BLANDCorporatio]

You could make 2 photobuckets.

Why yes, it just seems inelegant somehow.

One time I was playing this Erf-Sim, GMed by SirShadow. Several players were allocated to the same GM, and not allied players of course, so they should not have known what the others were up to.

SirShadow used to send me images with links that were utter letter-salad. Not even a recognizeable part like docs.google in them, nor tinyurl.

[HerbieRai]

Evil Imaginationland will join the mix

[thetobias]

I think a google wave might work fine. Create a wave with a map in it and invite the allies. E presto! Now you can easily update the map every turn.
http://wave.google.com

[BLANDCorporatio]

Right, did a few check-ups to the rules doc (I forgot to add the bit about Rounding Up for costs, and there was something about Controlled Detonation that needed to be clarified: it's not at any time, something must move in, out, or down to ground that hex for a trap to detonate, and what controlled detonation allows is for a trap to NOT explode when this happens; it's a useful trick to have).

Did one actual change, as in raised the lower Hits cap to 3.

(EDIT: linky for the unit spreadsheet).

And so far, these are differences from previous TBf<> games:

Stats-related:

Spoiler: show

- the Move of a unit is independent of how a unit moves; as in, you may have Move-1 Fliers, and Move-5 Walkers. This means Move Type is something extra needed to specify a unit, and it can be Walker, Hoverer, Flier. Walkers and Hoverers generally get terrain defense bonuses when in Defending stacks, whereas Fliers don't. Walkers need to spend more move to enter certain terrain types, whereas Hoverers and Fliers generally have an easier time getting around.

- Defense has a higher cap of 4 (not 5). It is not capped by Hits.

- Hits has a lower cap of 3. No higher cap.

- A unit's ability to carry other units as riders is governed by its Cargo special. So, it's possible for a unit to not be able to carry anything at all (cheaper units) or up to its own weight in Hits.

Battle-related

Spoiler: show

- Battle damage is rounded DOWN (not to nearest integer).

- Any stack, whether Ranged or not, can do a Hit and Run, provided it has enough Move. If it does so, it will only inflict 75% damage, but will receive 25% of the retaliation (exception: Ranged stacks that Hit and Run a non-Ranged stack escape without any retaliation).

- Stack bonus increases up to 1.7 for 8 units, then decreases by 0.2 for each added unit to the stack (but does not get below 1).

Move-related

Spoiler: show

- a led, Moving stack may choose to "ignore" hostile stacks in a hex provided: the sum of Hits of units in the ignored stacks is at most half the sum of Hits of the Moving stack, AND the hostile stacks were scouted/spotted that turn. "Ignore" means, may move through the hex without attacking, or may skip attacking them and attack another stack in the hex.

Specials-related

Spoiler: show

- Siege raises a unit's Attack cap to 3*Hits.

- Shockamancy units gain the Storm ability- useable only by led stacks, this briefly knocks down flying stacks in a hex (provided the flying units suffer enough shocking damage).

- Dirtamancy is split into two specials: Sapper (plants/spots traps) and Builder (build fortifications).

- Traps do damage that is at most equal to the Attack (not twice Attack) of the Sapper unit that planted them. This damage is affected by the targets' Defense.

- Traps may be control detonated. They normally explode when something moves in, out, or down (from the sky to the ground) a hex; but, if the side that planted the trap has a Dirtamancy unit in the same hex as the trap, or a neighbouring one, it may choose to have the trap not detonate then.

- Fortifications have 4 times the Hits of the unit that built them. They can be destroyed by Siege units, and if targeted, they behave as a unit with 0 Defense (all damage that the Siege units can inflict will affect the fortification).

- Fortifications can only house a limited number of units. For what is typically buildable by the units a side can easily recruit (ie low Hits units), the limit is 8.

- Healomancy abilities can only negate damage in a battle, once per day (ie, cycle of turns, ie it can be used defensively, off turn).

- The Dance-Fighting special may be used by stacks that contain at least one commander, and in which all units have the Dance-Fighting special; it makes the stack bonus stay put at 1.7 for stacks of up to 16 units. Beyond that, the bonus decreases by 0.2 for each new unit added (but never gets below 1).

Costs-related

Spoiler: show

- The cost formula is: Round Up ( Hits*Hits*(Move*Move_Type + 8/(8-Defense) + Attack/(2*Hits)) + Carried_Hits*Carried_Hits*Move*Move_Type + Specials)

- Cost of Ranged, Sapper, Healomancy, Dance-Fighting are Hits*Attack for each.

- Cost of Scout is 7*Hits.

- Cost of Commander is 20 + Hits*(Attack + 1)*2.4.

- Cost of Shockamancy is 3*Hits*Attack.

- Cost of Siege is Hits*Attack*8/3.

- Cost of Builder is Hits*Hits*32/3.

- Cost of Foolamancy is either Hits*Hits*80/3 or 960, whichever is greater.

[WaterMonkey314]

Is it just me, or are units now really expensive compared to before?

My standard Field Gun (30 H, 45 Atk, 3 Def, 2 Move, Ranged) costs a whopping 5265 pts!
My "cheap" Fusilier (4 H, 8 Atk, 4 Def, 1 Move, Ranged) costs 96 pts!
A Foola-ORLY (3H, 1 Atk, 0 Def, 1 Move, Foolamancy) costs 984 pts!

Is this why the speadsheet puts things in terms of 5000 pts rather than 200 or 500?

[Sihoiba]

I'm in for this one.

[BLANDCorporatio]

Several topics to cover:

1. Players:

In order of expressing their desire to join: Nihila, WaterMonkey314, LTDave, thetobias, HerbieRai, Sihoiba.

So that's 6, a nice round even number. If anyone else wishes to join that's cool, but we can start thinking about partitioning players into two alliances. If you all can reach an agreement about who allies with whom, within the next day, that'd be fine. If not, then I'll randomly assign players to teams same time tomorrow (or thereabouts, maybe slightly later in the day than this post was).

2. Combat spreadsheet (and combat management):

I'll shamelessly steal LtDave's spreadsheet for that purpose, since the combat system is mostly the same. A minor change is needed for average level and stack bonuses (particularly for Dance-fighting stacks). A link to this spreadsheet will be made available later in today, but I'll be handling combat.

Now, combat orders will be issued to me by PM. I will however place a post in the game thread after that, then use that post's time as the random seed, if the combat involves the two opposing alliances of players.

Yes there will be a few neutral critters on the map, and for combat with those I'll use the time of the PM as a random seed- unless both alliances can see the resulting combat, in which I'll make a dummy post and use that time instead.

3. Critters?

There will be unaligned critters on the map. Some will be hostile from the start, some not- but I'm not adding any rules about turning, taming or diplomacy to this iteration of the game so all they are in the end is battle practice. Critters do not move from where they are. If a place on the map looks interesting, chances are there is something there to guard it.

What does it mean for critters to not be hostile? It means they won't ambush you if you pass through their hex without scouting it, and that you can move around them without being obligated to fight (and you don't need to resort to the maneuver-to-ignore rule to do that) provided your stack has a Commander. Unled stacks just lose it when strangers appear .

4. The map

Designing, will post tomorrow. It's a large-ish map (16*16 hexes).

5. Turn updates

Thanks for the suggestions, serious or not

In the end however, I think I'll say pass to googlewave. It seems to become abandoned, I'm not in the mood to learn to use it in the space of today and tomorrow, and finally I think this game will run through the Erfworld forum and would rather not have you need to sign in to anything else just to view some update.

OTOH, google docs links look like properly mashed up, obfuscated addresses, which for my purpose is enough. As in, I'll upload the images of the map with scout info to my google docs, and share those images to whoever has the links to them- and for my part, I'll just send the links to the players on the side that should be getting those updates. And by my estimation, it's not trivial for the other side to just blunder into images they're not supposed to see. Right?

Is this system all right with you?

6. WaterMonkey314's observation

Is it just me, or are units now really expensive compared to before?

{snip}

Is this why the speadsheet puts things in terms of 5000 pts rather than 200 or 500?

Indeed, yes

This tells me that I may have misplaced the Commander Hits limitation. It's not very likely that units will have more than 10 or 15 (maaaybe 21 Hits for a Keep-builder, but unlikely). Given that, I should have said that the humanoid Hits range is more like 4-6. But in the end, that's merely fluff.

Besides, Jack Snipe has 4 Hits (last time we checked) and friggin' Bogroll had, I think, 8.

[BLANDCorporatio]

Combat spreadsheet linky is here!

A difference from previous versions, you should write the Attack, Level, and Defense values for units in a stack in the corresponding row and it will calculate the sums/averages. In any case, I'll do the battle calcs, so if it's not the most ergonomic thing you've ever seen, it's no worry. For you.

EDIT: I left it unconverted. Conversion messes up the formatting on some cells and kills a lot of "useless" columns. They are not useless, google docs, I might write Attack values there when somebody starts chucking out stacks of tens of units! So anyway. It can be downloaded in all it's Excel-via-OpenOffice glory.

EDIT, EDIT:

so to recap:

Rules Doc
Rules: differences to previous games in The Battle for <> style (like A Battle of Two Cities)
Unit design spreadsheet
Combat spreadsheet (you'll need to download it to look at it, but as I said I'll handle combat calcs)

And a map to come soon, as in tomorrow. When, unless sides have formed, I'll start allocating players to sides myself. Remember, you are encouraged to consult with your allies on unit design, so as to have the best mix of units, no redundancy, but lots of synergies!

Good thing nobody is playing BS Bingo right now

[Sihoiba]

Will we use the message hat system from the battle of two cities in this game?

[BLANDCorporatio]

Some items will make an appearance, yes. The Magic Hats, The Looking Glass from way back when, the Megaphone maybe ...

But minor stuff. No need to rush to add features. Magic Hats you'll get at the start, but other items will be on the map here and there.

[BLANDCorporatio]

Aaand in an unexpected bout of productivity, the map is more or less ready and here's a preview:

Spoiler: show

The beige hexes are roads, yellow browns are hills, volcanoes are lava, the green with spots is marsh etc. Map was built using (free) hexographer. BUT, I'll be using Flash to keep my own bookkeeping, so the map you'll see in the updates I send will have hexes coloured differently.

Now, the two camps are on the opposite corners. Both sides get a Keep and Spawn point at that location.

The black circled squares on the sides of the map are spawn points (and they all have Keeps as well). At the start of the game they are not aligned, you'll have to capture and hold them in order to use them for popping units.

There will be Keeps/Small Fortifications in the central Hill hexes, and in a few other places- the final version of the map that you'll get will have those places marked for everyone to see.

In any case, the map is symmetric when it comes to terrain and features like Fortifications. It will NOT be symmetric when it comes to items or critters.

[Sihoiba]

Nihilia, HerbaiRai shall we form a team?