Darkness Rising v2.0 - 'Tenebris Unleashed' Campaign

by **ETheBoyce** » Sun Dec 09, 2012 10:48 am

A Foolamancer in charge of scouting is not thematic in any form, a Lookamancer, Thinkamancer, or Findamancer would make a bit of sense but even then not really. Scouts need to report to one of 2 people the Chief Warlord or the King, the people who will actually make decisions based on that information, not some middle management caster. We needed a Chief Diplomat because Tod demonstrated a distinct ability to fail at it in a spectacular fashion. There has been no need for any micromanaging of Scouts, nor does there appear any need to be; instead of adding another thing Marbit will have to keep track of we can continue doing what we've been doing.

I will again state that permanent squads are a Bad Idea. We don;t need to know how many Squads of Archery or Infantry we have, we just need to know how many Archers/Spearman/Warriors we have, their levels, and whether or not they are Garrison units. For deployment instead of worrying about Squads we either guess what a battle will need and send that, or look at what PCs are going and send the proper NPCs to help them/fill in gaps. While roleplaying with NPCs is certainly something to do it should be stressed that they ARE NOT PCs and they will likely die a painful death and they are not unique and special snowflakes (except for my Badass Cumulonimbus of course :-p)

by **Nnelg** » Sun Dec 09, 2012 12:07 pm

ETheBoyce wrote:A Foolamancer in charge of scouting is not thematic in any form

Nemo is modeled off the Illuminati. If spy networks do not fit under that theme, I don't know what does.

ETheBoyce wrote:Scouts need to report to one of 2 people the Chief Warlord or the King,

And they will. But they needed worry about the exact disposition and patrol routes our scouts take. And if at any time one of those two wishes to overrule my orders, they have the full authority to do so.

ETheBoyce wrote:There has been no need for any micromanaging of Scouts, nor does there appear any need to be; instead of adding another thing Marbit will have to keep track of we can continue doing what we've been doing.

Marbit said that scouting is going to change now, too. It almost certainly will not be nearly as complicated as my orders are, but Marbit can always ignore as much of my idle rantings as he wishes, only pulling out the orders that will matter for what he actually keeps track of.

ETheBoyce wrote:We don;t need to know how many Squads of Archery or Infantry we have, we just need to know how many Archers/Spearman/Warriors we have, their levels, and whether or not they are Garrison units.

Are there enough units with Leadership to command all our Units? With the current system, you'd have to count the total number of units, divide by eight, account for partial Squads, make sure leaders are the right type (better to have archers with Leadership leading the archer stacks) and then some, all just to answer this simple question. With my system, you'd only need to skim each squad and check that they have a unit with Leadership.

You're right about what we have now being all we need, but that's no reason why it can't be better.

ETheBoyce wrote:For deployment instead of worrying about Squads we either guess what a battle will need and send that, or look at what PCs are going and send the proper NPCs to help them/fill in gaps.

Exactly. My system will enable us to do that without having to worry about whether or not the units we're sending will be effective as a group. We can set up combos like the double-rank spearmen (front ones tank, rear ones dps) without having to check to make sure we're not breaking the combo each time we allocate units. We don't have to worry about having units with nothing to do. (For instance, what would a couple of Heck Pups do in a company made entirely of infantry? They can't make use of their mobility, because enemy archers could pick them off easily on their own. If we put them in a Squad made up entirely of fast units, then they would always be at their full potential.)

Why do you think the real-life military does things this way?

ETheBoyce wrote:While roleplaying with NPCs is certainly something to do it should be stressed that they ARE NOT PCs and they will likely die a painful death and they are not unique and special snowflakes (except for my Badass Cumulonimbus of course :-p)

Why not? I for one like it when Anyone Can Die. :lol:

It's not nearly as exciting if they can't. (Of course, you don't have to become attached to the NPCs if you don't want to.) Anyways, this is off topic; more RP opportunities was just an extra bonus perk I threw in when I thought of it.

by **ETheBoyce** » Sun Dec 09, 2012 12:58 pm

See here's the thing, vast information network is already covered, it's called Charlescomm and he does it better then you ever could. This is especially true since we HAVE NO SPIES, scouts are not spies, a spy would be something akin to Jillian in Book 1, Imps are nothing like Jillian. Further who said you were in charge of our Scouts? You seemed to have claimed that title all for yourself without any prompting, in which case I'll just go ahead and declare myself Chief Caster, also Chief Beastmaster, and Chief Wine Taster, Look at my titles, aren't they shiny!? Also, could you point me to the general area of where Marbit said he was changing scouting?

You still seem to have some trouble with the rules, there is no inherent advantage to having an Archer Warlord stacked with Archers outside of one more ranged attack, but all of our warlords are melee, and we're going to want our best warlords stacked with our archers, but I digress. Presquadding offers no advantage over an ad-hoc system only adding more needless bookeeping, this is not the real world the same systems do not apply, the military needs to worry about logistics and supplies to a degree that Erfworld doesn't.

by **MarbitChow** » Sun Dec 09, 2012 1:24 pm

ETheBoyce wrote:Also, could you point me to the general area of where Marbit said he was changing scouting?

Since the turn summaries are allowing scouts to be assigned tasks, I mentioned that scouting was becoming more complicated than "pop X scouts, get Y turns advanced notice". Now scouts can be spent getting info on cities, or foraging, or positioned along routes to try to get advanced notice, or scouting a general area looking for cool stuff. That's about it, though. I'm going to ignore any orders that get more detailed, such as patrol routes and such.

by **MarbitChow** » Sun Dec 09, 2012 1:28 pm

Tenebris Turn 10 Results (revised)

Karma : -10

Starting Treasury: 8200

Spoiler: show

Final Treasury: 1460

City Details

Spoiler: show

Actions Taken

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Results

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by **MarbitChow** » Sun Dec 09, 2012 1:29 pm

Tenebris Turn 11 Results (revised)

Karma : -10

Starting Treasury: 1460

Spoiler: show

Final Treasury: 4170

City Details

Spoiler: show

Actions Taken

Spoiler: show

Results

Spoiler: show

by **MarbitChow** » Sun Dec 09, 2012 1:29 pm

Tenebris Turn 12 Results (revised)

Karma : -10

Starting Treasury: 4170

Spoiler: show

Final Treasury: 6265

City Details

Spoiler: show

Actions Taken

Spoiler: show

Results

Spoiler: show

by **MarbitChow** » Sun Dec 09, 2012 1:30 pm

Tenebris Turn 13 Results

Note: Treasury / Upkeep may be incorrect. I need to review and simplify it if it's going to be used from turn-to-turn, although it should have an impact on the next few scenarios.

Karma : -10

Starting Treasury: 4170

Spoiler: show

Final Treasury: 8565

City Details

Spoiler: show

Actions Taken

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Results

Spoiler: show

by **Nnelg** » Sun Dec 09, 2012 1:57 pm

More long-winded argument:

Spoiler: show

Oh, the turn reports are up.

MarbitChow wrote:I'm going to ignore any orders that get more detailed, such as patrol routes and such.

I figured as much, but I still wanted it to be on the record in case it matters. Oh, and next time, could we at least tell one of the imps to not try to cross the wall (and subsequently get killed)? :lol:

EDIT:
Oh, btw the Tolkien geek in me urges myself to tell you that the writing on the wall is nonsense. Pretty much all consonants; no vowels save for that one curl on the far left (which is supposed to be a combining diacritic, but lacks even a surrogate carrier).

I mean, if there were no vowels at all, I'd have just assumed it was Quenya and the vowels had been left out... (They did actually do that!) :lol:

by **MarbitChow** » Sun Dec 09, 2012 3:16 pm

Nnelg wrote:EDIT: Oh, btw the Tolkien geek in me urges myself to tell you that the writing on the wall is nonsense. Pretty much all consonants; no vowels save for that one curl on the far left (which is supposed to be a combining diacritic, but lacks even a surrogate carrier). I mean, if there were no vowels at all, I'd have just assumed it was Quenya and the vowels had been left out... (They did actually do that!)

The IC argument is that those are obviously military codes in Elvish that you wouldn't understand. OOC, I just grabbed the font here and type "Just a house". 8-)

by **MarbitChow** » Sun Dec 09, 2012 3:21 pm

Nnelg wrote:I figured as much, but I still wanted it to be on the record in case it matters. Oh, and next time, could we at least tell one of the imps to not try to cross the wall (and subsequently get killed)?

You can't get any real intelligence unless you go into the city, unless you *just* want to know what level the city is, which you get whether they go in or not.

The image for Logan Run is not really a 'snapshot'; it's a mental picture based on what the scouts accumulated, having gone through the city completely.

by **Nnelg** » Sun Dec 09, 2012 3:33 pm

MarbitChow wrote:I just grabbed the font here and type "Just a house".

Well, what you got was "urdgm c jhrdgf". :lol:

MarbitChow wrote:You can't get any real intelligence unless you go into the city, unless you *just* want to know what level the city is, which you get whether they go in or not.

Right. But next time, at least one imp needs to stay back so that there's someone to watch the path if all the infiltrators get killed!

by **MarbitChow** » Sun Dec 09, 2012 3:45 pm

Nnelg wrote:Right. But next time, at least one imp needs to stay back so that there's someone to watch the path if all the infiltrators get killed!

Note that there were 7 imps originally assigned to Logan Run / Rainbow Springs / Scarlet Hills. 2 Imps are attempting to scout each city. The remaining Imp is watching the Rainbow Springs path, on the assumption that it's the most likely avenue of attack.

by **Nnelg** » Sun Dec 09, 2012 4:18 pm

Ah, well then that makes more sense. Well then, when those two imps assigned to Scarlet Hills reach their destination, only one should try to infiltrate. (For now...)

Anyways, we need deeper penetration of the enemy's lines. Right now, all we have is the bare minimum amount necessary to support an operation. We should be trying to get an imp onto every path north or west of Longoria. (No need to infiltrate the cities yet, we're only concerned about moving armies.)

Oh, and Marbit, how would you feel about some tactical sabotage? For instance, what if we had our imps try to steal the gate's bar the day before the attack? Or jam rocks in ranged siege weapons' mechanisms? Or even just lower enemy morale by worsening their living conditions in any way possible?

by **BLANDCorporatio** » Sun Dec 09, 2012 4:30 pm

Illuminati or not, currently Tenebris has nothing that even approaches a spy network. So trying to hog a non-existent position is an amusing exercise in futility.

Semipermanent Squads are still a bad idea, and are not the solution to the recent hitch encountered at turns 10-13.

The real problem in this game is two-fold. One, it's getting too big as (almost) no player wishes to take on him/herself the responsibility of confirming pop orders that will doom the side and thus harm the other players' enjoyment (I know I wouldn't want to be in Swodaems' shoes). Two, there's one player- Nnelg- who'd be very happy to play alone.

I'm sorry, but either you kick us others out or get used to the idea that decisions will be a bit slow. Either option is plausible as I'm fairly sure most of the players listed with PCs in this game feel fairly uninvolved in it by now.

by **MarbitChow** » Sun Dec 09, 2012 4:41 pm

Nnelg wrote:Oh, and Marbit, how would you feel about some tactical sabotage? For instance, what if we had our imps try to steal the gate's bar the day before the attack? Or jam rocks in ranged siege weapons' mechanisms? Or even just lower enemy morale by worsening their living conditions in any way possible?

One, anything I can't do to you guys, you can't do to the enemy. Players don't 'lose morale', so it's not a stat. Two, it's completely counter to the source. Everything gets fixed every day. Gate bars would pop fresh in the morning. Siege structures would pop clean as new. Hell, even their laundry auto-cleans itself. There's not much you can do to an Erfworld unit that's persistent from turn to turn without magical intervention.

BLANDCorporatio wrote:Either option is plausible as I'm fairly sure most of the players listed with PCs in this game feel fairly uninvolved in it by now.

Yeah, I've been considering scrapping the whole "you're completely in control of your destiny" thing for a few weeks now. I'm not sure what the sweet spot is, though - if I start giving orders from Creperum that end up getting players killed, that's not much fun, either. That's why I was looking for player feedback earlier, to find out what kind of game most people want to play - one in which you've really got control of your own destiny, or one in which you've really just got control of what you do on the battlefield. I thought I could create a world where both types of players could live, but that's looking less and less likely.

by **ETheBoyce** » Sun Dec 09, 2012 4:54 pm

I, for one, welcome our cruel and sadistic overlord...king...whatever

by **Nnelg** » Sun Dec 09, 2012 5:01 pm

MarbitChow wrote:Everything gets fixed every day.

Fair enough. (It was worth a shot...)

MarbitChow wrote:Yeah, I've been considering scrapping the whole "you're completely in control of your destiny" thing for a few weeks now. I'm not sure what the sweet spot is, though - if I start giving orders from Creperum that end up getting players killed, that's not much fun, either. That's why I was looking for player feedback earlier, to find out what kind of game most people want to play - one in which you've really got control of your own destiny, or one in which you've really just got control of what you do on the battlefield. I thought I could create a world where both types of players could live, but that's looking less and less likely.

Well, I think it's just a matter of player involvement. For instance, at the moment Swodaems is currently inactive, and nobody wants to take on his role as lynchpin of the group (except me, but I've got no authority). If anyone else here were to take charge, then we could get the down-time over with quickly, and get back to the battles.

In fact, for the interest of cooperation I'll drop the subject of squad assignments for now (really, I don't understand why that's such a hot-button issue).

Anyways...
It seems that Logan's Run has no ranged siege weapons at all. This is good for us; I realized that ranged siege is more or less essential when I was reading through the new rules. If a city doesn't have them, Covered Rams and Assault Towers can breach the wall without affording enemy archers a single shot.

This is what we should do: if we pop a couple Covered Rams in Dis City on Turn 14, two Naughty Kitties (or maybe even the Bad Ass) will be able to tow them to the battle by Turn 17. Then we set those rams against the wall, and rip a hole in it. Then we unleash the rest of our forces, whom will just steamroll through the city.

We won't even need all of our forces to do this, so perhaps we should send some of our forces on a secondary mission. So then, anyone who wants to go mercenary or hunt randoms should speak up now: there's nobody short of Tod whom we can't spare. (And maybe even him!)

by **BLANDCorporatio** » Sun Dec 09, 2012 5:04 pm

Nnelg wrote:In fact, for the interest of cooperation I'll drop the subject of squad assignments for now (really, I don't understand why that's such a hot-button issue).

You're either too young to have been, or too old to remember having been, the "new guy on the team".

by **Nnelg** » Sun Dec 09, 2012 5:06 pm

BLANDCorporatio wrote:You're either too young to have been, or too old to remember having been, the "new guy on the team".

I'm afraid that in my case it's that I'm too antisocial to understand what my mistakes were, so that I could learn from them. :oops:

Darkness Rising v2.0 - 'Tenebris Unleashed' Campaign

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