> Or do the arguments in favor of realistic time suggest having a
> realistic map as well? (Better atmosphere, more complex yet easier
> to reason about.)
No.
Right now, time is on a single scale: How many "days" does it take to
perform a certain action. [Where "days" is 0, 1, ..., to about 10.]
The reason for "zero-time" movement in that situation is simple. It doesn't
take a whole day to "leave a castle and get on a ship". An hour or two, but
certainly not a whole day.
I don't think any action really take "zero-time" -- I just think of it as
taking "less than a day". And there's always time for another "less than
a day" errand. Sort of like the elevator principle: There is always room
for one more person on an elevator.
If you introduce a second scale of time, then you have to start rethinking
how much time all those zero-time orders take. Maybe it takes an 30 minutes
to go to the market and sell your pots, or an hour to find Joe Bob and join
his company. Etc., etc.
> I chose this model [of the map] to make the game easier to play, believing
> that a straight grid or hex map with line-of-sight rules would be too
> fine-grained to work with in a PBEM format with a week turnaround.
I agree completely. That was an excellent design decision.
Ed Bailey, ip9
--
Ed Bailey | Voice: (512) 471-4198 Fax: (512) 471-6715
Inst. for Fusion Studies | Internet: bailey@{hagar,ziggy}.ph.utexas.edu,
Univ. of Texas at Austin | u70262@c.nersc.gov, or pnab643@chpc.utexas.edu
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