Erfgame 3 (CLOSED) - Rules and Discussion

[Exate]

Thoughts?

I don't see much reason for having scouts pop more slowly than archers, unless you're deliberately trying to keep it difficult for sides to gather intelligence.

I don't really support having infantry units get stat boosts based on city level. Popping more of them is already a huge asset; beyond that, in my opinion infantry are already statistically somewhat stronger than they should be relative to knights, warlords, and specials. That's not to say that I necessarily think popping better units is always terrible; I could see cities having a modular upgrade system where you have a certain number of points to use for city benefits based upon level- stronger walls, better tower, tunnels, garrison, etc. and one of the things that you could give your city might be upgrades such as popping slightly stronger versions of a certain unit, tending to give units popped there a certain type of statistical bonus, or popping a certain type of unit faster. But giving it as a blanket bonus based upon city level doesn't seem like a good choice to me.

Disclaimer: Wild tangent and completely new proposed rules follow.

Expanding on that idea slightly and generally consolidating the rules into a more readable form, here's a preliminary/example chart of city attributes and pop rates. Hopefully it displays correctly for all; feel free to modify with your own suggestions. Units figures are "number of units popped per turn". This might need some tweaking- it uses an identical pacing progression for all units as the city levels, and just starts them at different points. We can tweak the pacing as necessary, of course; as things currently stand infantry come in gigantic swarms and everything else doesn't. This may not be as imbalanced as it first appears, however, because if you're popping 32 stabbers per round you're increasing your upkeep by a whopping 960; no side can afford that kind of increase on a sustained basis.

Code: Select all

Level Cost  Income Points Stab Pike Arch Scou Knig Sp-A Sp-B Sp-C Sp-D  Cour Warl Heir Sloo Galy Galn
1     7500  600    6      4    4    2    2    0.25 0.25 0.25 -    -     0.5  -    -    0.5  -    -
2     5000  1200   12     8    8    4    4    0.33 0.33 0.33 0.25 -     1    0.2  -    1    0.33 -
3     15000 3000   30     16   16   8    8    0.5  0.5  0.5  0.33 0.125 2    0.25 0.02 2    0.5  0.25
4     30000 6000   60     24   24   16   16   1    1    1    0.5  0.2   4    0.33 0.04 4    1    0.33
5     50000 10000  100    32   32   24   24   2    2    2    1    0.25  8    0.5  0.08 8    2    0.5

The "points" column is the upgrade points available for city design. Instead of having set walls, towers, available upgrades for the surrounding, and so forth, cities are custom-designed by the one building or upgrading them. Dirtamancy or other effects may provide additional upgrade points, at the GM's discretion. Abilities would be something like this (numbers and ideas could use tweaking):

Garrison - +10 Hits, +2 Stacks/point
Walls - +20 Hits, +4 Stacks/point
Tower - +5 Hits, +1 Stack, +1 Spell Bonus/point
Tunnels - +10 Hits, +2 Stacks/point
Dungeon - +1 to turn captives/2 points
Armory - +1 Loose Materials each turn/2 points
[Upgrade] - +1 [Upgrade] can be built in the city's area of control/2 points (all listed upgrades are available only through the city points system instead of being free to construct)
Trapped [Zone] - [Zone] contains will automatically harm attacking enemies/2 points
Fortified [Zone] - [Zone] contains defenses and fortifications that provide defenders with +1 Combat and +1 Defense/4 points
Improved [Unit Type] - [Unit Type] pops here with random minor stat improvements or specials/5 points
Improved [Stat] - All units popped here have a chance of popping with slightly higher [Stat]/5 points
[Unit Type] Production - [Unit Type] has a build time here as though the city were one level higher than it is (at level 5, extrapolate; one purchase only)/5 points

So you could have, for example, two level 4 cities with completely different features and very different things that will need to be considered when attacking, defending, or controlling them:

City A
Garrison 5, Walls 20, Tower 12, Farm 20
Garrison 50 Hits/10 stacks, Wall 400 Hits/80 stacks, Tower 60 Hits/12 stacks/+12 bonus, 10 Farms for +$1500 bonus income

City B
Garrison 5, Walls 5, Tower 20, Fortified Tower 10, Improved Archers 15, Archer Production 5
Garrison 50 Hits/10 stacks, Wall 100 Hits/20 stacks, Tower 100 Hits/20 stacks/+20 bonus/+5 Combat and +5 Defense to all defenders, three random chances at popping slightly stronger Archers, Archers pop at level 5 city rate

The system as written here could obviously use some polishing, but I'd say that it resembles Erfworld quite a bit more than the largely identical cities we have right now.

[0beron]

My initial thoughts Exate are that I like it, but it could use some tweaking.

1) I think this creates TOO much variation between cities. Cities do have some differences, but the most drastic differences are in capitals. Capitals should have more points than other cities and/or some "city specials" should only be available for capitals. I actually think the rules as they are now suit normal cities, and capitals should be designed using your proposed method. (maybe we give normal cities a very small number of points for minor customization)

2) I like the idea of upgrades "popping" with the city, but I don't think they should all be like that. Resource points and docks are something pretty clearly tied to the city, whereas roads, lookout towers, and fortresses should be constructed independently as the existing rules say.

3) The defensive aspects of cities need reworking in general. Now that you point it out, I don't think the existing rules fit our now much-expanded knowledge of cities...though I think your suggestion goes the wrong direction too.

Here's what I'm thinking might be a nice "happy medium"

• We know each area of the city has what you could call "hit points" and presumably "defense" or "hardness". We also know the city as a whole has Air Defenses, linked to the tower. These can be governed by "Structural Points" which all cities get as they level. This is similar to the Wall stats of the current rules, but covers the whole city.
• Capitals can be customized more than normal cities, so they get a pool of "Flavor Points" as they level. They can spend those points to buy more Structural Points (example, 1 Flavor Point gets you 10 extra Structural Points), or to buy the special aspects you listed like increased popping, or better spellcasting from the tower.

EDIT: It just occurred to me when it comes to the "Structural Aspects", regardless of how we do it, we're going to have to calibrate our numbers. I don't have the time to do this right now, but it occurs to me that we could use the Purple's assault of Jenga Tower to approximate how strong a level 5 Tower is, and then extrapolate other levels and city parts from there. Because I think we know how many were in Sylvia's stack, we know her leadership bonus, and we should be able to count approximately how many times they fired before the tower was destroyed. So taking that info, and creating D-specials that mimic a Purple's stats, we can figure out how strong buildings should be in our rules.

[0beron]

Using our rules, I have figured on the below stats to approximate a Purple Dwagon. Erfworld Dwagons have an average of 56 move, but our numbers seem lower than for that to be realistic, and we know that they are able to carry 2 units.
Purple Dwagon
19/8(14)/8/35/Sonic Breath, Siege, Mount, Flying, Ranged
I looked up Sylvia and she's a level 6, so that's her leadership bonus. I will read through all the pages to try and figure out the size of the stack, and how many times they hit the tower.

Unfortunately, reading through the comic I can't tell how many shots Sylvia got off. She got off one shot that knocked out Trem, and then we know she was going in volleys, so every dwagon only attacks once per "round", but we don't know how many volleys she got off. Given the size of the Atrium, and the fact that Artemis advanced 12 steps per volley, I'd estimate Slyvia got off about a dozen volleys. After Artemis caused the "Three Quiet" pause, the Tower fell on the next volley. So we can estimate that each of the 6 Dwagons hit the tower 14 before it fell.
So using our rules and combat numbers, and assuming the stack bonus is in fact 8 (Sylvia, Archer, and the 6 Dwagons) then the Tower soaked up about 300 points of damage before falling.

[Kaed]

First of all, Exate. I love your idea, but I have to agree that every city being different causes too much random variation. I think I will go with this system, BUT I think it will make more sense given what we've seen in the comic if said customization is based on the SIDE rather than the indivitual city.

For example. Jetstone favored the look Spacerock. Which had a massive emphasis on walls, making them have sweeping halls running through them.

For expediency's sake (I'm sure you all wish less delays), the focus of your cities will be determined each time you level your capital the first time and spend 'points' available on it. All cities thereafter built by the side are locked into that design.

Exceptions:

A warlord of courtier during construction or upgrade lets 10% of the spent points be used according to their whim.

Dirtamancers are able to override the capital design a bit more, liberating 10% per level instead.

Finally, a dirtamancer linked with a thinkamancer can do total redesign.

[0beron]

Agreed on the less delays bit :p If you are ready Kaed I think we can begin even without the city rules finalized, since we're not going to be having city battles for some time, and we won't be able to upgrade for several turns. I can draft up rules for the cities in the meantime if you would like.

[0beron]

Alrighty, here is my idea on the city rules. It's based on the defensive stats from the existing rules, Exate's ideas, and some of my own flavor. Comments/problems, suggestions welcome

All of a side’s cities (with the exception of the capital, discussed later) are built based on a template theme. The template of stats that you design applies to every city you build.

Stats are: (Hits/Hardness/Combat/Stacks)
Hits: self explanatory. A zone with no hits does not exist. (1 point buys 1.5 Hits)
Hardness: Determines how hard it is to hurt the structure. Hardness/(100+Hardness) percent of the damage dealt to it is ignored. (1 point buys 2 Hardness) *note, some Hardness can be bypassed at GM discretion.
Combat: The zone’s ability to damage attacking units. By default, only the Tower has Combat, in the form of Air Defenses. Trapped zones gain a Combat stat. (1 point guys 1 Combat)
Stacks: The number of stacks that can defend this zone. Zones without this stat are unlimited in capacity (1 point buys 1 Stack)
Spell-Boost: Towers provide casters with a bonus to their combat equal to the city’s level. This bonus can be increased with Flavor Points.
1 Flavor Point buys 10 Structural Points, other uses covered later.

City Base Stats:
Level 1: Structural Points: 0 Flavor Points: 4
Level 2 Structure Points: 60 Flavor Points: +4

• Outer Wall: 75/25/-/3
• Inner Wall: 50/10/-/1
• Tunnels: 25/0/-/-
• Dungeon: 50/10/-/-
• Tower: 50/10/20/-/Spell-boost

Level 3: Structural Points: +150 Flavor Points: +8
Level 4: Structural Points: +300 Flavor Points: +16
Level 5: Structural Points: +300 Flavor Points: +32

Capital:
Your capital has its own design that can be different from the rest of your side’s template. You also have the ability to apply even more customization by manipulating your points more. When your capital reaches level 2, you can subtract points from the base states provided for a level 2 city. For example, a side could decide they don’t want the Capital to have a tunnel zone at all, and thus gain 16 extra Structural Points. A capital’s design can also convert Structural Points into Flavor Points (at the same ratio of other cities)

Flavor Points:
These are used to add extra customization to your cities. They can be used to enhance the structure, or imbue the city with abilities. Below are a list of existing “Flavors”, and others may be approved by the GM.
General:
Dungeon: Bonus to turning captives/2 points
Storeroom: +1 Loose Materials each turn/2 points
[Resource Point]: 1 mine/lumber camp/farm built within city zone of control. 1 point each
Trapped [Zone]: The selected zone gains a combat score of 10/point
Fortified [Zone]: The selected zone grants allied units +1 Defense & Combat/2 points
Improved [Unit]: [Units] popped here gain a minor bonus to a chosen stat, or the chance of popping with a chosen special. 4 points
Improved [Stat]: All units popping here have a +1 to [stat]. 4 points
[Unit] Production: [Units] pop here as if the city were 1 level higher. 4 points
Spell-Boost+: Increase the Tower’s spell-boost by 1/point

Capital Only:
Throne Room (Royal sides only): The side can pop Royal/Noble units (knights, Warlords, Courtiers, and Casters), which have slightly better stats than average. The chance to pop such a unit is random. 5 points.
Portal: At level 3 and above, if the side has a Caster, the capital may have a portal to the Magic Kingdom. 4 points.
Library: Your Chief Warlord’s leadership score increases by 1. 4 points

[The Colonel]

So do we use Oberon's idea?

[0beron]

Kaed has logged on since I posted that, but hasn't replied, so I imagine there's SOMETHING he doesn't like about it but was too busy to write a post about what. I hope we do get to start soon though.

Oh I should add a few notes to my proposed city rule:

• Kaed's idea that commanders and certain casters can make minor "tweaks" to a city when they build/upgrade it would still fit in with my rules.
• A side can decide on a city-by-city basis that they don't want dungeon/tunnel zones, but only a Capital can gain "bonus" points by doing so (in a normal city, those points just get wasted).
• The Resource Point "Flavor" just governs how many resource points the city pops with it. They will change type based on the surrounding terrain (ex. a city built on the plains with no mountains obviously can't pop Mines around it.)

[Exate]

Cities do have some differences, but the most drastic differences are in capitals. Capitals should have more points than other cities and/or some "city specials" should only be available for capitals. I actually think the rules as they are now suit normal cities, and capitals should be designed using your proposed method. (maybe we give normal cities a very small number of points for minor customization)

I don't know that I agree. We haven't really seen many normal cities- there's mention of them in text updates, but I'm reasonably certain that literally every city we've seen illustrated in comic updates has been a capital. We don't have a baseline of normal cities to compare to; none of them have detailed descriptions, but the fact that those descriptions are missing doesn't mean they aren't worthy of them. That said, I agree that capitals having additional points and/or unique upgrades available is reasonable.

2) I like the idea of upgrades "popping" with the city, but I don't think they should all be like that. Resource points and docks are something pretty clearly tied to the city, whereas roads, lookout towers, and fortresses should be constructed independently as the existing rules say.

Roads, lookout towers, and fortresses... well, this is just my impression, but my understanding is that causing large-scale alterations to the terrain or hexes that they are in is something Erfworlders simply don't do, except through magic (either natural magics, like upgrading cities, or manually through something like dirtamancy). While there's no reason that we can't say there's some kind of natural magic that allows any commander to sit around a couple turns and cause a lookout tower to pop, I don't think we have any evidence for it. A dirtamancer could certainly build a building in the middle of nowhere if he wanted, though.

One consideration, though, is that terrain types seem largely immutable in Erfworld. It's not like Civilization games, where you gradually cover the entire map in improvements to make it more productive- what you see is what you get, and it's not changing. Like so many other things, I suspect that terrain types reset each turn, destroying any changes that have been made to them unless those changes are being actively maintained by some form of magic, natural or otherwise. That's a personal interpretation of what we've seen in the comic so far with no hard evidence for it, but I think it fits the Erfworld flavor that we know better than people being able to build all over the place, and most of what we're working on here is ultimately speculation anyway.

So in short, I think roads are just another form of terrain and we shouldn't be able to build them at all, and lookout towers and fortresses are things which either don't exist, naturally exist and can be found/claimed in the wild but not built, or something which can be built through direct application of magic but would have a limited lifespan. Random warlords should not be constructing them.

other stuff

I'm not sure how balanced or sensible any of that is, but then I wasn't sure how balanced or sensible my suggestion was either.

I think I will go with this system, BUT I think it will make more sense given what we've seen in the comic if said customization is based on the SIDE rather than the indivitual city.

I'm not sure that this is in line with how the comic sets things up- the most dramatic example is probably Faq, which has a fantastically unique capital design and other cities that are dumpy and boring except for their farms- completely different aesthetics from the capital.

Farms are kind of an issue, really. The fact that some cities are said to be valuable specifically because of their farms or what have you implies to me that farms, mines, and such are entirely independent of side style and instead linked to the city sites, or perhaps not linked to the cities at all and instead just scattered about the terrain for anyone to find and exploit. In support of that theory, we know that there are income-producing locations out in the middle of nowhere, far from cities- gobwins and marbits and such have been noted as using them to sustain large tribes in the wild. Maybe there's a "claim" function that sides can use, which then links the farm to the nearest city controlled by that side and sends its income there.

Letting people purchase upgrades on a per-city basis was my way to try and get around this, giving a situation where only some people would go for income upgrades and others would pursue other attributes, which fits what we know better than everyone rampantly building income buildings around every city they can to boost income as much as possible. Not a perfect solution, though, I know.

Hardness: Determines how hard it is to hurt the structure. Hardness/(100+Hardness) percent of the damage dealt to it is ignored. (1 point buys 2 Hardness) *note, some Hardness can be bypassed at GM discretion.

I'm not sure this is a necessary stat; it's easier to just say that a wall is a wall is a wall, or perhaps just make this statistic a straight function of city level.

Combat: The zone’s ability to damage attacking units. By default, only the Tower has Combat, in the form of Air Defenses. Trapped zones gain a Combat stat. (1 point guys 1 Combat)

Air defenses are actually fired between zones, by my understanding- from the tower into the airspace. This should probably be clarified. Also, my understanding is that "air defenses" generally refer to consumable spells that have been stored in the tower by casters for use later, rather than offensive power inherent in the tower itself. There's just a standard special ability on the zone that lets it store juice for use by a caster to blast things later. It's possible that the juice pool gradually fills independent of any caster input, but I'm pretty sure a caster is needed to fire 'em off.

Basically, I'm not sure that the Combat stat as presented here is what the tower zone actually has by default; either the mechanic here needs tweaking or the tower's mechanics should be represented separately.

Spell-Boost: Towers provide casters with a bonus to their combat equal to the city’s level. This bonus can be increased with Flavor Points.

As I noted, we don't really have any idea of what a "caster bonus" consists of since the casters don't use hard numbers most of the time anyway, so this is mostly a "GM, use this number to eyeball things" stat. We will need an actual system to use it if we want it to be something more than that.

[*]Dungeon: 50/10/-/-

I don't think the dungeon is actually a zone; it always struck me as a specific part of either the garrison or tunnels zone.

[Resource Point]: 1 mine/lumber camp/farm built within city zone of control. 1 point each

Be wary of making it too easy to gain income. 1 point per income location makes them spammable by every city; the choice to gain income should be a primary expenditure, not an add-on using whatever leftover points remain from buying something more important.

Fortified [Zone]: The selected zone grants allied units +1 Defense & Combat/2 points

Been thinking on this, and I'm not sure how balanced it is. Stacking these bonuses up could easily make a city a very, very tough nut to crack. We'll need to consider how important city defensive bonuses are meant to be. Stacking a bunch of points on garrison bonuses from this could easily turn city battles into a siege situation where the attacker can't break through the defender's final lines because all their units are getting +10/+10 to their stats, but the defender can't break out because as soon as they lose the bonus they get slaughtered. I'm not sure if that's desirable.

Improved [Unit]: [Units] popped here gain a minor bonus to a chosen stat, or the chance of popping with a chosen special. 4 points
Improved [Stat]: All units popping here have a +1 to [stat]. 4 points

I believe that all stat and special bonuses from city specialties should be random in whether they occur or not, preferably with a relatively low probability (or perhaps a probability proportionate to the time that it takes to pop the unit). Honestly, to reflect that ambiguous nature of Erfworld's rules to the denizens within it, I sort of wish that all units rather than only warlords popped with slightly random stats/chances of specials so that we could mask the existence of this upgrade from an in-game perspective. It would also be nice if we could make them boost hidden stats- maybe a city pops better knights not because those knights have extra Hits, but because they have superior intuition, greater loyalty, or other improvements which are similarly undetectable from a glance at their stat card.

[0beron]

I'm not sure [Hardness] is a necessary stat; it's easier to just say that a wall is a wall is a wall, or perhaps just make this statistic a straight function of city level.

Good point, could go any way, and my idea creates some complication where we may not need it. I think it's a good stat, but Kaed will have to weigh in on whether he feels it's needless detail that will cost him time.

Air defenses are actually fired between zones, by my understanding- from the tower into the airspace. This should probably be clarified...[other stuff]...Basically, I'm not sure that the Combat stat as presented here is what the tower zone actually has by default; either the mechanic here needs tweaking or the tower's mechanics should be represented separately.

You're definitely right that I didn't clarify that well in terms of the cross-zone aspect. I was thinking it would be simpler to represent the air defenses this way....but the more I look back at it I realize it's better handled as part of Spell-boost than as a stat of its own.

[With Spell-Bonus]...we don't really have any idea of what a "caster bonus" consists of since the casters don't use hard numbers most of the time anyway, so this is mostly a "GM, use this number to eyeball things" stat. We will need an actual system to use it if we want it to be something more than that.

As I mention above, the relative power of air defenses should be rolled into this, but I think it works well as-is too. If caster spend juice on pure offensive power while in the Tower, they get a bonus to the damage. Kaed just needs to decide how much juice they spend. (probably like 2 per shot)

I don't think the dungeon is actually a zone; it always struck me as a specific part of either the garrison or tunnels zone.

Yeah it definitely is a zone. It is the part of the Garrison that is bordered by the Tunnels.

Be wary of making it too easy to gain income. 1 point per income location makes them spammable by every city; the choice to gain income should be a primary expenditure, not an add-on using whatever leftover points remain from buying something more important.

I should specify that the normal limit of 3 upgrades/city level still stands. I never wrote it down, but I figured that would stay in place.

[Issues about Fortified Zone]

Also should have written this down, I intended this Flavor to be purchasable only once per zone.

[Stuff about unit stat bonus should be random]

On the one hand I totally agree...but on the "ease of gameplay" hand, having this be random will make combat and gameplay very hard. You'll have to keep track of units as individuals rather than stacks, and you will have units that should otherwise be identical having different stats. I'm thinking maybe the cost of these flavors should be raised...but having it be random will create a headache for us.

The same argument goes for your objection to all a side's cities besides the capital be mostly the same. While it may be more accurate to treat cities as individuals, it will create extra complication in gameplay. I think the "template" makes more sense, with allowing Command units the ability to reallocate Flavor Points to a certain degree. So for example, 1 city on a side may produce better Marbits, and another produces better Dwagons. But otherwise they have the same stats and Structure. It may not be 100% true to Erfworld, but I feel it's close as we can feasibly get.

[Exate]

I don't think the dungeon is actually a zone; it always struck me as a specific part of either the garrison or tunnels zone.

Yeah it definitely is a zone. It is the part of the Garrison that is bordered by the Tunnels.

If it's part of the garrison, then by my understanding of the rules it's explicitly not a zone; it's merely a specific part of the garrison zone. Zones are independent from one another, yes?

Be wary of making it too easy to gain income. 1 point per income location makes them spammable by every city; the choice to gain income should be a primary expenditure, not an add-on using whatever leftover points remain from buying something more important.

I should specify that the normal limit of 3 upgrades/city level still stands. I never wrote it down, but I figured that would stay in place.

If we make income sources cheap but with a low cap, then instead of being a purchasable flavor option they effectively become a near-mandatory tax- as does anything that's both cheap and good enough that you'd be crazy not to buy it. I am much more inclined to lose the cap and make income boosters more expensive so that there's a solid reason to buy other things instead.

[Issues about Fortified Zone]

Also should have written this down, I intended this Flavor to be purchasable only once per zone.

There have to be limits, but I like these things to be stackable when possible. Arbitrary limits limit creativity unnecessarily; better to build the system so that extreme options are expensive but possible and require a great deal of specialization.

[Stuff about unit stat bonus should be random]

On the one hand I totally agree...but on the "ease of gameplay" hand, having this be random will make combat and gameplay very hard. You'll have to keep track of units as individuals rather than stacks, and you will have units that should otherwise be identical having different stats. I'm thinking maybe the cost of these flavors should be raised...but having it be random will create a headache for us.

The same argument goes for your objection to all a side's cities besides the capital be mostly the same. While it may be more accurate to treat cities as individuals, it will create extra complication in gameplay. I think the "template" makes more sense, with allowing Command units the ability to reallocate Flavor Points to a certain degree. So for example, 1 city on a side may produce better Marbits, and another produces better Dwagons. But otherwise they have the same stats and Structure. It may not be 100% true to Erfworld, but I feel it's close as we can feasibly get.

Yes, I know it's a logistical nightmare to make things random. However, we're already tracking unit experience, which means that units are being tracked individually on some level anyway; if they're already being tracked for one reason I don't see that much reason not to track them for a second. Besides, we'll already have differences between otherwise identical units when a side pops the same unit at two different locations only one of which has the upgrade, anyway.

On city uniqueness being limited for the same reason, I'm inclined to say that a city is a major enough feature of the game that it's worth the effort to treat each one individually... but that's just me. I'd keep a tracking spreadsheet somewhere and call it done.

I can see your point, though. Ultimately the decision lies with the GMs since the work falls upon their shoulders.

[0beron]

If [the Dungeon is] part of the garrison, then by my understanding of the rules it's explicitly not a zone; it's merely a specific part of the garrison zone. Zones are independent from one another, yes?

Ah ok I think I see your mistake now. Garrison isn't a "zone" persay, it's a group of city zones, comprised of the Inner Courtyard/Inner Walls, Tower, and Dungeon. Each has different rules of engagement, and when a army is invading they need to capture all three to take the city.
Some cities lack a Tower (level 1) and/or Dungeon (city builder's choice), and thus may only have the Inner Courtyard to make up their Garrison.

On the topic of resource points I see what you're saying and I think the solution is actually to reduce the scaling/amount of Flavor Points available. Right now, every level gained doubles your Flavor points...I'm thinking a 1.5 factor will be better. This will make it harder to get your max amount of resource points AND still have other Flavors. (example, a level 1 city that maxes out on resource points only has one Flavor Point for other things....I'd call that a pretty fair limit, so we should try and maintain similar ratios)

As for unit experience, I didn't know we were gonna be tracking leveling for infantry! That def adds some complication...yeah, I'll definitely leave it to GM discretion how much they want to involve detail.

[Nihila]

So, question--What's the function of a Tunnel zone's hits score? Or a Dungeon zone's? For destroying them? What would destroying them do? Tunnels and Dungeons we've seen being taken, not destroyed (exceptions are Sizemore's traps and the Volcano Uncroaking). Wouldn't it make more sense to have Tunnels just limit the number of stacks coming through, or costing extra move to explore (Marbit scouting in Book 1, for example)?

Also, I somewhat prefer having base stats to work off of, like 0beron provides, but beyond that I think either system for cities is fine--of course, the complexity could become an issue for the GM's, neither of whom have appeared for a bit. In the end, whatever they think they can work with on both small and large scale is what we should go with.

[0beron]

Well destroying the Tunnels would close them and block units from passing through. Same for the Dungeon, and destroying the Portal if that's where you decide to put it. Also, it would presumably weaken or cause damage to the zones above them (Outer Walls, and Courtyard/Tower, respectively). But we don't have much basis from the comic to determine HOW MUCH that secondary damage would be....

Edit: And just for completeness. Even if they're rarely damaged, it's kinda nice to know how much damage they can take before you lose them, especially if you have a Dirtamancer or other trap-laying caster. But that's just me haha.

[The Colonel]

Crap, I know you're up to something. Kaed, you there? You alive?

[Kaed]

others may be subject to the GM

I prefer Titan.

Yeah I like your rules Oberon. I may play with them I little, like for instance I think I'll raise the loose materials cost to 4 and extra resource node to probably 4 too.

And about the towers... The base one is a squat structure that barely rises above the rest of the city. Since the spell boost is going to be determined by its hits I think, specifically +1 per 50 hits, the means your tower would give you a meager +1 boost bonus. (and as a general flavor guideline, this also reflects its height. Every 2 hits is one foot. Base tower is therefore 25 feet high. More powerful towers are taller and more imposing. Signamancy!)

One other thing I think I would like to add... A level 5 city has been dictated to have a large boost in one section of it's city. So... I think I'll simulate this by lowering the structural points you get at 4 and 5 to 200 but also granting 200 special points that you can only use in one area for level 5.

[0beron]

Thanks Kaed, and all of what you just said sounds like good ideas that simplify things!

On your comment about Resource Points though, I just want to clarify that I was intending those to pop WITH the city, so you have no way for Warlords to build them by themselves. So the Flavor Point thing dealing with them isn't about buying an extra "slot", it's just building one of your 3-upgrade limit. So given that in the existing rules, a level 1 city is restricted to 3 total upgrades, and in my rules level 1 cities only get 4 points, raising the resource point cost to 4 means a level 1 can ONLY have 1 resource point, as apposed to the 3 that were possible in the old rules. Just wanted to clarify that in case there was a misunderstanding.

I was considering slightly reducing the Flavor Points scaling to address Exate's comment that Resource Points had almost become a mandatory thing since their cost was so low compared to the total points available.
Level 1: 4
Level 2: 8
Level 3: 14
Level 4: 22
Level 5: 32
With the above being the total Flavor Points at each level, Resource Points could still cost only 1 Flavor Point, but still take up a big chunk of a city's available points.
Just an alternative for you to consider as you're finalizing my idea for the cities.

[Kaed]

Yeah... except that the whole warlords/courtiers building the points is kind of an important part of the game setup. If you're going to use that as a sort of 'free buy' for resource points I think it'd be like... 1 point for a farm, 2 for a mill, 4 for a mine?

[0beron]

Yeah I thought about that, and figured that Warfs and Resource Points points were tied to the city. Roads, lookout towers, fortresses, ect. are all constructed by command units. But the city would still be restricted to only 3 upgrades in it's zone of control per level (regardless of whether they pop with the city or get built after the fact.) And come to think of it, it actually makes sense for Lookout Towers and Roads to be buildable beyond a city zone of control (as long as it's not in someone ELSE'S zone)
In the comic, Exate is right that almost nothing seems to be built by Erfians, it is already there...but since we're playing a game we need the ability to construct roads and the like ourselves.
Whichever way the Titan prefers is what we'll do, but if we go with it as I'm suggesting, I think Mill and Farm should both be 1 point and Mines be 2, since they're twice the income of the others.

[Kaed]

Yeah I thought about that, and figured that Warfs and Resource Points points were tied to the city. Roads, lookout towers, fortresses, ect. are all constructed by command units. But the city would still be restricted to only 3 upgrades in it's zone of control per level (regardless of whether they pop with the city or get built after the fact.) And come to think of it, it actually makes sense for Lookout Towers and Roads to be buildable beyond a city zone of control (as long as it's not in someone ELSE'S zone)
In the comic, Exate is right that almost nothing seems to be built by Erfians, it is already there...but since we're playing a game we need the ability to construct roads and the like ourselves.
Whichever way the Titan prefers is what we'll do, but if we go with it as I'm suggesting, I think Mill and Farm should both be 1 point and Mines be 2, since they're twice the income of the others.

Nothing is 'built' by erfworlders but it still appears due to their actions. The construction of roads and resources is... natural dirtamancy I guess? Basically the warlord is just sort of chilling and standing around for the required turns, and the stuff is building around them. Obviously a real Dirtamancer can do things much, much faster. The same way that constructing/upgrading a city is natural Moneymancy. Debit your treasury, instant city upgrade. As a small note, in the unlikely event that something forces the constructing warlord to LEAVE the hex (emergency of some kind or sudden attack... or they are no longer in the hex because they are croaked), this timer is reset.

Going to stick to 1, 2, 4 with the resource nodes though. Farms produce 150 a turn, mills are like 350 I believe, and Mines are 500 + chance of double for a few turns. The costs are really quite reasonable.