>From b.liddicott@ic.ac.uk Fri Mar 18 14:36:37 1994
Message-Id: <9403181919.AA00738@cscmgb.cc.ic.ac.uk>
Subject: Suggestions for olympia
To: skrenta@shadow.com (Rich Skrenta)
Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 19:19:18 +0000 (gmt)
From: Ben Liddicott <b.liddicott@ic.ac.uk>
Reply-To: b.liddicott@ic.ac.uk (Ben Liddicott)
X-Spook: weathermen code they hippie the
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Hi, I've been playing in your excellent game for ages now, and I
think it is teh best PBEM or PBM I've ever been in.
Here is an extract from my report and the idea it suggested to me:
2: Pillaging yielded 100 gold.
3: > terrorise 7912 50
3: (assuming you meant 'terrorize')
3: NPC's cannot swear to player factions.
Prisoners: Crowd [7912], health 100
Now, my question is, why not? I think it would be cool to
have orcs as nobles in your faction. I understand there is a
problem in that to maintain the playability of the game for small
players, (and I only being a medium sized one myself) ther has to
be some restriction on the number of nobles a faction can own.
I think that is very neccesary to prevent the large players gaining
total control.
My idea is to allow terrorising or bribing of NPC's, but prevent
the possibility of runaway faction size by either 1) limiting their
loyalty, so that ex-NPC's always have a non-zero probability of
deserting or 2) requiring a noble point to do so.
If 2, then capturing and terrorising NPC nobles would not hold any
advantages over FORMing them, except that they could be orcs, cyclopses
or even dragons (if you managed to catch one).
Another idea, and the one that appeals to me most, is for all non-oath-2
nobles to have a non-zero probability of deserting their lord, dependant
on some memory of how they were treated in the past. I suggest the
following formula:
At the end of every turn:
desertprob*=0.9 [or some other number]
a character will tend to become increasingly loyal to his master.
whenever a character is terrorised unsuccesfully by a captor:
desertprob*=(1-severity/100) [or some other number]
so his loyalty increases.
whenever a character is successfully converted by terror:
desertprob=(1-desertprob)*(severity/100)
so the more loyal he was to his old master, the less loyal
he will be to his new master
whenever a character is tortured by his own master:
desertprob*=(severity/100)
The more he is tortured, the more likely he is to desert
whenever a character is bribed unsucessfully:
desertprob=1-(pow(2,-amount/halfamount))*(1-desertprob)
the character becomes aware of the advantages of being independant
where halfamount is the bribe that will halve the loyalty of
the character.
whenever a character is sucessfully bribed
desertprob=(1-desertprob)*(pow(2,-amount/halfamount))
where halfamount is the amount that would half the chance of
the character deserting.
whenever a character is honoured
desertprob*=(pow(2,-amount/halfamount))
where halfamount is the amount that will half the chance
of that character deserting.
Then at the end of every turn, the probablility of the
character simply deserting would be:
prob=desertprob
if the character was in the same location as another
character of the same faction:
prob=0.5*desertprob
If the character was stacked with another character:
prob=0.1*desertprob
if the character was in a stack with two or more people:
prob=0.05*desertprob
If the character has just won a battle, it could be lower,
or if he has just lost one, it could be higher, etc.
The above suggestion formulas are all picked so desertprob remains
in the region 0 to 1. I would expect that desertprob would be
less than 0.01 for most characters, but it would be a lot higher
for characters with fear loyalty, an those terrorised into joining
their current faction.
New nobles could be given desertprob=0.1, or something similar.
This may seem rather high, but it does imply an average loyalty
of 1 year, and this will improve with time. If the new noble is
stacked with an older noble for the first few months, then it
will be much better.
Terrorised NPC's could be given something to do with the amount of
terror, or else you could keep track of their loyalty, in the same way,
but just not have them desert.
It has several desirable features:
It is fairly simple, and only needs one new parameter for each unit.
(I had originaly thought of one based on both short and long
term memory of how it was treated. In many ways it would be
more satisfactory to have one, as it could include features such
as when the character last met a non-fear character of the same lord.)
Well treated nobles rapidly aqquire loyalty to their new lord.
It has several disadvantages:
It is fairly complicated and would need some revision to the code.
Honoring may make nobles forget terrorization quickly, whereas in
my opinion, they should remember torture longer than they remember
honoring.
Well, it's an idea. What do you think?
Cheers,
+-----------------------+----I think that when the aliens come,----+
| Ben Liddicott | they will look like us, talk like us and |
| b.liddicott@ic.ac.uk | think like us. We'd better have some |
+-----------------------+----bloody big guns waiting for them.-----+
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-- Rich Skrenta <skrenta@shadow.com>