> > 3) To harp some more on the faction tree note the real hardship of
> > the death of a particular noble can be how bad it screws up your
> > faction with the loyalty oaths/etc.
>
> Yes. I'm very, very close to removing faction trees.
>
I don't see the need to remove faction trees. I do agree that maybe what
needs to go is the chance that a noble might leave your faction just
because his immediate superior died.
> One player has written a program to read his turn report, constructing
> the hierarchy for every units he sees, so he knows what units belong
> to what players.
>
> Unfortunately, while interesting, I don't think arbitrarily complicating
> a report such that you need a program to untangle it for you makes for good
> game atmosphere. A slightly strained analogy would be if I arbitrarily
> encrypted some sections of the report. Those with caesar or Crypt Breaker's
> Workbench handy could decode them; others would miss out on the info. Yuk.
>
I don't think that this is a good analogy. Just because one player has
written a program to see faction trees easily, does not mean that
everyone can't do the same thing. The information is not hidden. If you
want to put in the time, it can be done by hand.
> I like the concept of known units vs. masked units. We can still have
> this with flat hierarchies.
>
> Also, having all unmasked units showing their player will make setting
> attitudes and permissions much simpler for players.
I agree that we need to be able to mask units. I also think that it
needs to be able to be easily done. Just because you see me on the
street, and I have my first name blazed across my jersey, that doesn't
mean that you know who my father is. Its not like I make all my units
wear the same outfit. If this were the case, I would buy all my nobles
the outfits of some other faction.
While everyone should be able to mask their lord, it still should be easy
to find out who their lord is. This could be done with stealth or
magic and probably shouldn't take more than a day, unless the noble has
been trained how to mask their lord.
>
> --
> Rich Skrenta <skrenta@rt.com>
>
Bill