[CR@W] the Bannermen [Complete] - House of Fire (TOFU) Wins!

[t4mcr53s2]

i havent played civilization and have only skimmed the r=ules , but if it costs 3 GP to build a watchtower and recieve 5 to raze it ( though you lose a FP ...) would it be profitabl=e to build and raze and build and raze?

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=i+b ... &FORM=VIRE

[Donelladan]

After I read the FAQ and the all the answers I understood that 1 Lord = 1 Player but it's not clear at all in the rules and description of the game.
Especially since you said 1 clan member can direct everything. So, you should state somewhere that 1 lord = 1 player for all the battle that this lord will have to do.

You spoke about bannerman but you didn't explain how that would work ( or I missed it ).

You said we dunno who we are attacking unless we attack it, but we know the CR@W Clan Name of the Castles / Lord before we attack them right ?
Do we know how many Lord there is in a castle/city/watchtower before we attack it ?
What if I move on a square and there is already 2 lord on this square ?

"Vanquished" Clans
Clans are out of the game (vanquished) when they lose all of their Lords, and original Castle.

If I have no more lords, I can't get anymore GP, so even if I still have my original Castle, unless I can recruit another lord, I am defeated anyway, right ?



Can we build cities anywhere ? i.e, can I build a city on the square direclty next to my castle ?
At the beginning of the game, on the map, is there any neutral city/castle that we can take or it's completely empty except for the other castles belonging to a clan ?
Will you create as many castles as there is clan regardless of who want to participate ?

On the example of a clan's map. What means E1 ?
Will the real map be of a similar size ( speaking of distance between opponent's castle) or bigger ?
Will the castle be regularly placed or they will be a bit more randomly place ? For example all castle on the same horizontal and vertical lines like in your example or not ?

On your turn example :

Turn 15. Bruceswar and Clan A feel Lord 2 may respect their tower, due to the diplomacy they've had. So he moves lower left trying to explore a new area of the map.
Unfortunately for Clan A (S&M), Lord 2 takes the undefended tower and it now becomes Lord 2's Clans possession and updates their map, not Clan A's.
Also unfortunate for Bruceswar, in the rush to explore more of the map he runs into another Lord who has set up an Ambush. Bruceswar becomes engaged.
A new game is started and IcePack sends invite for a new battle to Donelladan and Bruceswar to complete the ambush, on Donelladans map and setting choices.

Was Bruceswar ( or his clan) allowed to conduct diplomacy with the other clan once they saw it from the watchtower ?
In your example they assume the Lord 2's clan won't take the watchtower. I am wondering why they don't engage in diplomacy.


EDIT : additional question :
Can the choice of map be discussed or it is already completely fixed ? Because for example for the battle between two lords, there are some maps I understand why you decided to use them, like the King's court et Feudal map, they make sense with the concept of this game.
But for some other maps, I am really confuse what they are doing here ( all the roman maps for example).

Also it would be better if we had more than one map available for castle and city battle.


EDIT 2: another question
If a Lord is in a city or a castle, and the city/castle is attacked. Can the Lord decide to retreat and abandon the castle/city ?

[IcePack]

Whew I'll grab this a little later but thanks! Great questions

[IcePack]

i havent played civilization and have only skimmed the r=ules , but if it costs 3 GP to build a watchtower and recieve 5 to raze it ( though you lose a FP ...) would it be profitabl=e to build and raze and build and raze?

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=i+b ... &FORM=VIRE

Costs 3 GP to build
Costs 5 GP to raze

There is no earning gold for razing. It would be to deter your enemies or knowing you won't defend the area, and wanting to take away their benefit from it.

[IcePack]

Ok Don - I'll cover some of the easy stuff now while I have a few minutes and get into the more detailed stuff a bit later when I have more time.

Q: We don't know who we are attacking, but we do know the CR@W castle / lord names before we attack right?
A: That's correct, you will be informed of the names of the Castles / Lords you see on the map

Q: Do we know how many Lords are in a Castle / City / Watchtower before we attack?
A: Yes, Castles / Lords will have a legend on them for you and in a corner of the map I'll detail who is what (but not what castle or clan they are associated with).
L1 = Lord Mister
L2 = Lord Bulton
L3 = Lord Park
C1 = Castle Anthrax etc etc

Q: Can cities be built anywhere, for example next to Castle.
A: Yes, any legal space that does not have a structure already built, or sea. Space must be unoccupied by enemies troops when built.

Q: Will you create as many Castles as there are Clans regardless of who can participate?
A: Yes, there will be 29 Castles on the master map. I'll make efforts to spread out expected inactive clans throughout the map so that it's fairly equal (with benefits for low to mid ranked clans over high on placement).

Q: Are there any neutral or unfilled cities on the map not associated with any clan?
A: No, all Castles will be associated with a Clan. No empty neutral castles will be placed.

Q: What does E1 mean on your example turns map?
A: E1, E2, E,3 etc signifies an ongoing engagement (battle).

Q: Will Castles be regularly placed on a grid or on same horizontal / vertical lines like in your sample or a bit more random?
A: The Castles are not on a regular placement. It follows what you would expect a regular map to look like, the grid type look was just for the example to not give away the real map.

Q: Will the real map be of similar size (speaking of distance between opponents Castles), or bigger.
A: I would say it's approx similar size, some locations might be a little tighter even. This is due to one movement taking 2 days (1 day for move, 1 day for update) so having an extremely large map would take years to complete. This also encourages diplomacy and the threat of battle.

Q: Was bruceswar (or his clan) allowed to conduct Diplomacy w/ the other Lord/Clan once they saw it from the watchtower? Why didn't they?
A: Yes, you are allowed to engage in diplomacy anytime you wish when you:
1) see a new Lord / Castle
2) anytime you wish once you've established communication w an opposing Clan / Castle (regardless of distance on the map)
- in the example bruceswar did not engage in diplomacy because I was merely trying to show some of the basic functions of the map / turns, but they could have engaged in diplomacy.

Q: Can map selections be discussed or are they locked / fixed? I understand some of the map selections (Feudal, etc) but don't understand others (Roman ones).
A: Yes these can be discussed. My goal was 25 maps or so, with focus being on medival themed maps. I also looked for a variety of map types so they weren't all conquer style (example: feudal) but had different options for clan strengths & weaknesses. During the Middle Ages, Rome & the Papacy was a large influence which is why I included some of those.

Q: What about expanding map selections for castles & cities?
A: I'm less inclined to change this, which was selected for multiple purposes. But as with anything if you have some suggestions I can consider it before we start.

[Donelladan]

Thx for the answer, it's becoming quite clear ! Hoping we'll have a lot of participation.

Also, a condition of the temporary replacement would be that it couldn't be another Lord already within the game actively, and couldn't be permanently replaced with a Lord who has previously been executed.

Following on this, can a newly recruited lord be the same player than a Lord who has previously been executed ?
I think it should be allowed. Assuming the game goes on quite long, we could end up with lot of recruitment / execution of lords and have to allow it anyway.

[IcePack]

Thx for the answer, it's becoming quite clear ! Hoping we'll have a lot of participation.

Also, a condition of the temporary replacement would be that it couldn't be another Lord already within the game actively, and couldn't be permanently replaced with a Lord who has previously been executed.

Following on this, can a newly recruited lord be the same player than a Lord who has previously been executed ?
I think it should be allowed. Assuming the game goes on quite long, we could end up with lot of recruitment / execution of lords and have to allow it anyway.

Actually to clarify, the intent is 15 Lords max. Meaning, if you have 10 Lords executed the max you have is now 5 (and unable to recruit more).

This was to balance the game to clans who have small rosters vs those who have many availaible players and as another control of how long the game will run potentially.

This may need to get changed, but that's the intent right now. Unfortunately with zero experience to "build" from except a few play tests, we will learn a lot from this game how the overall world balance handles everything like Max lords etc.

To answer the question, no. Newly recruited Lords can't be ones who were previously executed (must be a new player to the game). I suppose an exception maybe needed if a clan has less than 15 players, but the intent here is it will be difficult enough for some clans (especially lower ones) to possibly earn victories over say, Josko. It will all but certainly favor the strong clans if a clan is able to "resurrect" Josko for every new Lord slot once he's dead over and over.

I tried to make it balanced were every clan has a chance, while battle skill and diplomacy will be equally important to a clans victory. If a clans greatest general dies in a blaze of glory trying to take a Castle, it doesn't make sense that he comes back later. (Again, maybe this will have to change but from the expected results I think we don't need to impliment this).

[IcePack]

How do we deal with planned absences? Can a different player take over a "Lord" name for, say, 3 months, then switch back?

I suppose we could come up w some rules for it. Though 3 months does seem excessive.

I'd envision something like:
- free: changing of a Lord from player A to player B for a duration of no longer then a month. (Lord designation stays the same)
- X gold: changing of a Lord permanently if needed for more then 1 month

I use the 1 month as a guideline from the sites general sitting guidelines. Sitting for over a month needs replacement.

Also, a condition of the temporary replacement would be that it couldn't be another Lord already within the game actively, and couldn't be permanently replaced with a Lord who has previously been executed.

Cost of gold TBD.

Hmmmm.... I do not like having the possibility of a clan being penalized because a player wants to take the summer off, for instance. How about this:

A player with a planned absence of more than 1 month, sends you a PM stating this, with the dates of the planned absence, and also tells you what player should be the replacement.

There is no penalty for this, but the replacement player has to be fresh to the game, as you said.

During this planned absence, the "absent" player should not be playing any other CC games, including speeders. The absence is a true absence from actively playing games on CC.

When the player returns to CC, ready to play active games again, the player can send you a PM, letting you know either of two things: the player wants back into the CR@W game, or, that the substitution should be permanent.

Well, the reason I'm hesitant for this is that it literally is max 1 game per Lord @ a time. You might consistently have 1 game, but it's still max 1 game. (You can't ever get a heavy game load of 5+).

The reason for the cost is because it affects other aspects of the game. If it was a simple swap, it might not be that bad. But with the anonymous play, clans can trade or sell Intel on other clans (lord mister = bruceswar) for example. So other clans battle plans, intels, diplomacy and game notes all are affected by this swapping of players. They may even pay gold to another clan for some of this information, then the guy gets swapped and now that is basically wasted diplomacy & gold on their part.

Ideally, the players involved with the game are people who can commit to 1 game with breaks not to exceed 1 month. The cost of GP to the clan isn't meant as a punishment or penalty, but more of a control to help ensure this type of thing is minimized so the impacts to the other clans are also minimal.

Perhaps we can give each clan 1 "free" 1+ month permanent replacement for a legitimate issue that may come up without cost, but the more that this occurs the more impacts it has to the diplomacy and Intel on the game and the more I would like to see that minimized with a game impact (of costing gold). That way if it's necessary we will accommodate but keeps the impact to other clans and players at a miminum.

[IcePack]

Q: If my clan misses the start date, can we still participate?
A: Yes! You can submit your anonymous names at any point. If you haven't submitted and someone attacks your Castle, you will be contacted in an effort to get you to defend your Realm.

[IcePack]

Should we wait until end of Jan / early feb to allow for more Q&A development and more clans on board? Allows more time for people to get familiar with the concept and get a strategy / group together.

[Donelladan]

Should we wait until end of Jan / early feb to allow for more Q&A development and more clans on board? Allows more time for people to get familiar with the concept and get a strategy / group together.

I tihnk that'd be a good idea. Obviously not everyone is aware of that, and we all need a bit of time to talk it within our own clan.

[IcePack]

Thanks, I extended to Jan 29th start

[EBConquer]

Excellent, excellent work, Icepack. This is really something!

Postponing the date as far as possible so clans can get their heads wrapped around it is probably a good idea. lol

[rockfist]

Will you post the total size of the world...ie 20x20 or 200x200, or is that something we will have to guess at?

[IcePack]

Will you post the total size of the world...ie 20x20 or 200x200, or is that something we will have to guess at?

When clans receive a link to their private map view, they will have a rough idea of the map frame.

[catnipdreams]

The reason for the cost is because it affects other aspects of the game. If it was a simple swap, it might not be that bad. But with the anonymous play, clans can trade or sell Intel on other clans (lord mister = bruceswar) for example. So other clans battle plans, intels, diplomacy and game notes all are affected by this swapping of players. They may even pay gold to another clan for some of this information, then the guy gets swapped and now that is basically wasted diplomacy & gold on their part.

OK, that makes sense. Changing out a player has more impact than I realized.

When the actual games are played, how do you prevent it being obvious who a Lord is? Are the Lord names actually used as the player names in the games? That would be SO awesome!

[IcePack]

Spoiler

Start Up

What do we need to do in order to start / participate?

1. You'll need to send IcePack a PM detailing some of the following information:
Remember, do should not post this information in PUBLIC. PM it to IcePack. The purpose is to hide your clan and provide a layer of anonymity!

1. Clan Name:
   (Example: FALL)
2. CR@W Clan Name:
   (Example: House Stark) [This is what you will show up on the tables as for anonymity purposes]
3. Starting Player Names & CR@W Names (3 required):
   (Example: IcePack = Lord Sleepy, GoranZ = Lord Grumpy, rcfritz = Lord Bashful) [This is what you will show up when other clans / players see you on the map, for anonymity purposes]
4. CR@W Castle Name:
   (Example: Castle Anthrax) [This is what clans / players will see when they find your starting Castle, so not as to give away your clan name]
5. Optional: A House / Clan Motto:
   (Examples: In God We Trust; Unity Makes Strength; We Stand Together)

Note:
If your clan does NOT supply this information, efforts will be made to name Castles etc to still hide what Clan is located where.
Your clan can "start" participating at any time, as long as the Castle has not been taken.
Before any Castle is defeated, efforts will be made to contact the clan in order to get a defense ready.
Your clan will still collect its gold, until the clan participates or is vanquished.

Once a clan sends me their start up info, I'll send them their private map link so they can see their starting view.

[IcePack]

Two clans have handed in their official start ups.
Two maps sent out!

[nvanputten]

Empire Management Rules

Winning

Economic Victory: If your Clan acquires XXXXX gold (GP), you will earn an economic victory.

If losing a castle deprives a clan of all of their gold, how will anyone accumulate enough to score an economic victory? It seems like the structure incentivizes teams to spend (almost) all of their gold every turn, especially since castles don't seem too hard to capture. Other than the possibility of having multiple lords in a castle (and thereby increasing the number of wins required to capture it) there don't seem to be many advantages to the defender.

Perhaps consider spreading the gold out among the Clan's various castles/cities? That way, for example, with 2 castles and 3 cities a clan that loses a castle would only lose 1/5 of its gold reserve.

Nic

[Jurasu]

Hey IcePack. Great work on this. Looks like a lot of attention and time went into it already.

The history buff in me is coming out a bit for some suggestions on some of the gameplay. The major one that stands out to me is sieging a castle historically was supposed to be hard. There's a reason that 9 times out of 10, the besieging army would attempt to starve out the defenders rather than attempt to directly assault the castle. The walls themselves were considered a force multiplier, and the castle usually had multiple layers of defense that the attackers had to systematically assault and overcome, often at a high cost. The defender normally had the advantage in this case.

I really like the choice of the Siege! map for these battles. Thematically, it fits perfectly. However, the map itself is fairly neutral, and I don't see game knowledge or choice of settings really favoring the map either way. It seems more like map drop could easily decide the outcome from the start, so there's not really any sort of defender's advantage. A lord could easily lose his castle due to a bad drop and bad luck, regardless of skill or choice of map rules.

What I'd propose for this is having a 2-part battle. Use the Castle Lands map as the first battle. Historically, there were often skirmishes outside the walls, often with further fortifications that extended outside the walls that attacks would have to move through first. If the attacker one, they then pursuing the defenders who are retreating to the inner keep and play the second battle out on the Siege! map. Both maps are pretty neutral, no real advantage to either side, but the fact that the attacker would have to win 2 battles in a row but the defender only needs to win 1 would give an advantage to the defender.

To better balance this in the case where there are multiple lords defending the castle, there would need to be only one victory from any attacker on the Castle Lands map and then each subsequent battle would be on Siege! So if there are 3 lords, the attacker would have to win once on Castle Lands and then 3 times on Siege! to successfully take the castle. Defenders would fight but ultimately abandon outer defenses during sieges which were then either occupied by the attackers or destroyed and made unusable. To keep this from making defending overpowered, if the defender lost on Castle Lands but managed to win on Siege!, there should be a number of turns required for defenders to re-establish defenses outside the castle, and re-instate the Castle Lands map in any future defenses of that castle. This way, if one lord were to successfully attack and win on Castle Lands, but fail to completely conquer the castle, a second lord waiting to besiege the castle would not have to fight on Castle Lands the next turn.

Also, I have a quick question for clarification on battle outcomes. You state the results if the attacker wins attacking a city or castle. They capture the defending lord and decide what to do with him/her. What happens should the defender win. Do they capture the attacking lord in question? Or does the attacking lord retreat with their tail between their legs?

[IcePack]

Unanswered Questions

Collecting Questions and answering them below, just trying to keep myself organized here while they come out.

Editing: (need to update)

After I read the FAQ and the all the answers I understood that 1 Lord = 1 Player but it's not clear at all in the rules and description of the game.
Especially since you said 1 clan member can direct everything. So, you should state somewhere that 1 lord = 1 player for all the battle that this lord will have to do.

You spoke about bannerman but you didn't explain how that would work ( or I missed it ).

What if I move on a square and there is already 2 lord on this square ?

If I have no more lords, I can't get anymore GP, so even if I still have my original Castle, unless I can recruit another lord, I am defeated anyway, right ?

If a Lord is in a city or a castle, and the city/castle is attacked. Can the Lord decide to retreat and abandon the castle/city ?

When the actual games are played, how do you prevent it being obvious who a Lord is? Are the Lord names actually used as the player names in the games? That would be SO awesome!

f losing a castle deprives a clan of all of their gold, how will anyone accumulate enough to score an economic victory? It seems like the structure incentivizes teams to spend (almost) all of their gold every turn, especially since castles don't seem too hard to capture. Other than the possibility of having multiple lords in a castle (and thereby increasing the number of wins required to capture it) there don't seem to be many advantages to the defender.

Perhaps consider spreading the gold out among the Clan's various castles/cities? That way, for example, with 2 castles and 3 cities a clan that loses a castle would only lose 1/5 of its gold reserve.

The history buff in me is coming out a bit for some suggestions on some of the gameplay. The major one that stands out to me is sieging a castle historically was supposed to be hard. There's a reason that 9 times out of 10, the besieging army would attempt to starve out the defenders rather than attempt to directly assault the castle. The walls themselves were considered a force multiplier, and the castle usually had multiple layers of defense that the attackers had to systematically assault and overcome, often at a high cost. The defender normally had the advantage in this case.

I really like the choice of the Siege! map for these battles. Thematically, it fits perfectly. However, the map itself is fairly neutral, and I don't see game knowledge or choice of settings really favoring the map either way. It seems more like map drop could easily decide the outcome from the start, so there's not really any sort of defender's advantage. A lord could easily lose his castle due to a bad drop and bad luck, regardless of skill or choice of map rules.

What I'd propose for this is having a 2-part battle. Use the Castle Lands map as the first battle. Historically, there were often skirmishes outside the walls, often with further fortifications that extended outside the walls that attacks would have to move through first. If the attacker one, they then pursuing the defenders who are retreating to the inner keep and play the second battle out on the Siege! map. Both maps are pretty neutral, no real advantage to either side, but the fact that the attacker would have to win 2 battles in a row but the defender only needs to win 1 would give an advantage to the defender.

To better balance this in the case where there are multiple lords defending the castle, there would need to be only one victory from any attacker on the Castle Lands map and then each subsequent battle would be on Siege! So if there are 3 lords, the attacker would have to win once on Castle Lands and then 3 times on Siege! to successfully take the castle. Defenders would fight but ultimately abandon outer defenses during sieges which were then either occupied by the attackers or destroyed and made unusable. To keep this from making defending overpowered, if the defender lost on Castle Lands but managed to win on Siege!, there should be a number of turns required for defenders to re-establish defenses outside the castle, and re-instate the Castle Lands map in any future defenses of that castle. This way, if one lord were to successfully attack and win on Castle Lands, but fail to completely conquer the castle, a second lord waiting to besiege the castle would not have to fight on Castle Lands the next turn.

Also, I have a quick question for clarification on battle outcomes. You state the results if the attacker wins attacking a city or castle. They capture the defending lord and decide what to do with him/her. What happens should the defender win. Do they capture the attacking lord in question? Or does the attacking lord retreat with their tail between their legs?

[hjelp]

Lot of info to catch up

Questions:

1.On the board (not Castles, Cities, Watchtowers), is it allowed to have more than one Lord on the same square?
2. Ambushes are by default first battle ? I mean if an advancing Lord (diagonal) ends in a by a Lord occupied square and at the same time the advancing Lord will be visible for other Lords?
3. If one Lord became visible for more than one Lord, time stamp (pm IcePack) will decide which one to attack first?

(sorry if I missed info already given)

[Donelladan]

Q: We don't know who we are attacking, but we do know the CR@W castle / lord names before we attack right?
A: That's correct, you will be informed of the names of the Castles / Lords you see on the map

My question was, do we know to which CR@W clan the castle/lord belong ?
I ask because it isn't clear to me here with your answer.
For example, there is Lord Sleepy who belong to House Stark.
On the map I will know it is " Lord Sleepy". Or I will know it is "Lord Sleepy from House Stark" ?
I guess the 2nd, but I just want to be sure

[IcePack]

Going to try catching up on a lot of these questions here before bed

I was thinking about it, and perhaps you want to set it to each player can emulate 2 lords, and limit it to 16 lords. This way each player can play someone in defense and still see some action in offense.

Hey mate,
Thanks for the suggestion The issue w/ that is then 8 people can play the whole thing, and its supposed to involve an entire clan (min 10+) for the competition. It also puts more emphasis on the "top" players getting reused. One of the key focuses on this was how to limit some of the top clans ability to dominate and equalizing the chances of all clans to win. (this has been a major complaint in the past, that everything just is handed to top clans).
By minimizing how many people need to be involved, and allowing two joskos for example, it allows high level clans to just max out their best players and dominate.

This event is kinda an experiment, how many people will get involved, how much time will it take for me to manage the entire event, etc.
In the future if this goes well, we can look at expanding it, allowing lords to emulate more then one lord, etc.

The last reason it was designed the way it was, some clans might have some users who can be more active and others who dont want "as much action". Those players, can play defensive and still participate while others who want to be very active can take on the action in offense.
Hope that helps explain the thought process behind it, and if we do a second edition (if its popular we probably will, but right now even with all the questions only 2 clans have submitted names), then a lot will probably change from this first one.

Similar to how the clan league evolved over time once people realized what it was like.
Thanks,
IcePack

[IcePack]

Q: We don't know who we are attacking, but we do know the CR@W castle / lord names before we attack right?
A: That's correct, you will be informed of the names of the Castles / Lords you see on the map

My question was, do we know to which CR@W clan the castle/lord belong ?
I ask because it isn't clear to me here with your answer.
For example, there is Lord Sleepy who belong to House Stark.
On the map I will know it is " Lord Sleepy". Or I will know it is "Lord Sleepy from House Stark" ?
I guess the 2nd, but I just want to be sure

Correct, you will see "Lord Sleepy of House Stark" when you see Lords. So when you meet "Lord Sneezy from House Stark" you wont know who it is, but you will know they are from the same clan or something else.