Rules Suggestions

First topic message reminder :

This is where players can gather to suggest some rules, and if enough of us start jabbering, maybe something will happen.

My current suggestion:
Reduce the Combat multiplier range from [.5, 1.5] to [.75, 1.25]. This is just to ensure a little more carnage ensues on both sides. Carnage=good!...Wait...

Well, it'll make battles dependent on luck, but not so dependent that a 2-Attack unit can croak a 4-Defense unit.

(2*1.5=3; 4*.5=2; 3>2)

Below is what Dark Arbiter had in his rules. I did not care for his rule too much, because according to the Wiki, "Having a Regent Warlord boosts city income and reduces unit upkeep, among other things."

12.Administration
1.Administration is a special only Courtiers may have
2.Units with Administration reduce the upkeep cost of every unit in the garrison by 5%. Can be stacked up to a maximum of 25% (5 Courtiers).
3.If a unit with Administration is at a resource point (mine, lumber mill, farm, wharf), it increases its output by 10% a bonus which doesn't stack.
4.Courtier bonus and warlord bonus don't stack together. Only the highest bonus is taken into consideration.

I would recommend something like this:
City Income: +5%/level.
Unit Upkeep: -5%/level.

IIRC, Kaed had it at 5%/level and they didn't reduce upkeep.

I got idea for a new simple special:

Cheap: reduces upkeep cost by 5. Can be taken multipul times, and does not increase the upkeep on basic infantry.

Thoughts?

Another Idea for you GMs

Don't keep any stack information until a battle takes place, just have units in the hex. Then when two enemy forces meet have each side form the stacks. This may simplify turns where there is no combat but could make fights take longer. Just an idea and something to think about during the beta testing.

Well, actually since i've automated most of the stuff it won't really be a problem. Also, restacking every time two enemies face of isn't all that cannon.

thetobias wrote:I actually noticed that yesterday and have a slight problem with that, it seems that Kaed never mentioned this. If I read over it could someone tell me how much percent the increase is?

Otherwise I would like set the percentage to 10%/level, maxing at 100% (only 1 manager per city allowed)

Is this the final decision on this question?

I have a rules clarification question. As long as I've been playing fantasy games I've been fascinated by the element 'water'. When I first read the 'Side Sign-up' thread(before I found the rules) and saw "Favored terrain," I immediately thought "water." But reading the rules, there are a couple of problems. The first is balance. A city on the water would only be attackable by Flying units and water-capable units, making it among the most defensible positions on Erf. The other problem is one of semantics. As far as I can tell, rulers, warlords, and casters can't have the "water-capable" ability, meaning a side with water as its favored terrain would lose as soon as the game started(when their ruler drowned). I think that, in Erfworld(where cities pop out of the ground, fully formed), the possibility of a city on water in not out of the question, and I think a water-based side could have a lot of very interesting "fluff," as well as some very interesting strategy. So my question is as follows: Would it be possible to have a water-based side, and what rules would need to be put in place to make it a viable (and not overpowered) option?

Well, to start, every side has 3 Water-Capable Cargo units. And no Water-Capable unit has (or can buy) Land Capabilities.

Which would mean that everyone could attack you, and you might not even be able to retaliate.

Ok, the word of the titans on this one is currently:

A city on water is completely, utterly and totally impossible. However, it is possible to have an island kingdom or archipelago, but the city HAS to be on land. If you choose a water based side you will however start next to at least two tiles of water and all your units will be able to move across water tiles.

Also: watercapable units ARE land capable Nihila. Only ships can not be land capable (unless the land also has a river or canal)

Suggestion:
Currently, it looks like when a normal unit levels up, its upkeep increases by 50% but its stats only increase by 10%.

Can we make this 10% and 10%? Because otherwise high-level units will get way too expensive. Warlords give bonuses to whole stacks and are more special cases; as it is, a stack of Level 3 Stabbers will get slaughtered by 2 stacks of Level 1 Stabbers, which will have the same upkeep.

Unless those fractions are compounded. Then the level threes will be slightly better, but even MORE pricy. And still get massacred. Also, when I say 'slightly' I mean 'instead of 120% base power, 121%'. Like I said... still get butchered. And the cost goes from 200% to 225%.

I'd be inclined to agree. It seems like keeping high-level units would be detrimental to a side.

My thoughts on XP: No increase in upkeep. It seems like it punishes players who keep high-level units alive - and given the fatality ratio Erfworld's combat is likely to generate, this will probably be a difficult thing to accomplish. I imagine assembling even a single stack of level 2s would require the deaths of three stacks' worth of other level 1s, making the 2s a "badass veteran" squad that would, itself, suffer severe casualties the first time it is used in earnest.

Also: "Units in airspace can only attack ground units with ranged and vice-versa" - does this mean that all flying can ONLY attack archers? This seems counter-intuitive, especially given that a proven Erfworld strategy is letting the archers deal damage to your high-Hits units but then engaging the non-archers instead. Or does this errata only apply to the airspace zone of a city? This ALSO seems counter-intuitive, given that putting a roof over your garrison to protect it from flyers seems to be an upgrade you buy, as GK had nothing like it.

Squeejee wrote:My thoughts on XP: No increase in upkeep. It seems like it punishes players who keep high-level units alive - and given the fatality ratio Erfworld's combat is likely to generate, this will probably be a difficult thing to accomplish. I imagine assembling even a single stack of level 2s would require the deaths of three stacks' worth of other level 1s, making the 2s a "badass veteran" squad that would, itself, suffer severe casualties the first time it is used in earnest.

Also: "Units in airspace can only attack ground units with ranged and vice-versa" - does this mean that all flying can ONLY attack archers? This seems counter-intuitive, especially given that a proven Erfworld strategy is letting the archers deal damage to your high-Hits units but then engaging the non-archers instead. Or does this errata only apply to the airspace zone of a city? This ALSO seems counter-intuitive, given that putting a roof over your garrison to protect it from flyers seems to be an upgrade you buy, as GK had nothing like it.

'
You might be reading it wrong. It's sayong a flyign unit in the air space must have a ranged attack to hit ground units, and ground units must have ranged to shoot at airspace.

Crovius wrote:

Squeejee wrote:"Units in airspace can only attack ground units with ranged and vice-versa" - does this mean that all flying can ONLY attack archers? This seems counter-intuitive, especially given that a proven Erfworld strategy is letting the archers deal damage to your high-Hits units but then engaging the non-archers instead. Or does this errata only apply to the airspace zone of a city? This ALSO seems counter-intuitive, given that putting a roof over your garrison to protect it from flyers seems to be an upgrade you buy, as GK had nothing like it.

'
You might be reading it wrong. It's sayong a flyign unit in the air space must have a ranged attack to hit ground units, and ground units must have ranged to shoot at airspace.

Once again, I would argue that this is counter-intuitive. Flying stacks seem like they should be able to selectively attack ground stacks, but ground units need ranged to hit flying units - that's the advantage of air power. Otherwise you're paying extra for flying units but getting no real advantage for it.

Out in the field any flyer can pick and choose how they attack. But in a city the flyers without ranged have to attak the tower. At least that's how I read it. If a Flyer doesn't have ranged, technically they would have to move at least within range of pikers and the like to attack the enemy.

As an example, when parson had dwagons attacking the siege, most of the dragons used their special ranged abilities so only arches were hitting them. We see an image of one dwagon engaging what I think were pikers, landing to munch on them, and making itself vulnerable to melle ground units.

Yes, in a city the flyers have to take over the tower before they can move on to the garrison. Unless they have battlecrap or ranged.

Suggestion: Lumber mills no longer remove forests after a few turns.

Reasoning: If someone wanted to make a forest side, the only way they could improve the economy of their cities would eventually remove their army terrain bonus from around those cities.

HerbieRai wrote:Suggestion: Lumber mills no longer remove forests after a few turns.

Reasoning: If someone wanted to make a forest side, the only way they could improve the economy of their cities would eventually remove their army terrain bonus from around those cities.

I agree 100 percent. That's one of the reasons that forest sides suck the most.

HerbieRai wrote:Suggestion: Lumber mills no longer remove forests after a few turns.

Reasoning: If someone wanted to make a forest side, the only way they could improve the economy of their cities would eventually remove their army terrain bonus from around those cities.

I already implemented a rule regarding this to fix the deforestation, but apparently it didn't carry over -

All forest tiles have a default amount of 'Forestation Counters', 10 for light forests, 15 for heavy forests.
Lumber Mills have 'settings' that you can put them to that reduce smucker gain to slow down degradation of the tiles.

Standard - 100% of Schmucker gain, -1 forestation counter per turn
Relaxed - 75% of Schmucker gain, stable (-0 FC per turn)
Reduced - 50% of Schmucker gain, growing (+1 FC per turn)
Preservation - 25% of Schmucker gain, recovering (+2 FC per turn)
Halted - 0% of Schmucker gain, booming (+3 FC per turn)
Slash and Burn - 200% Schmucker gain, depleting (-4 FC per turn) Special: This setting requires a Warlord or Courtier to be present on the mill for the entire turn to recieve the bonus schmuckers, i.e. he cannot move and is managing the situation.

Additional rules:
Heavy forests become light forests when they reach 5 FC. They may become heavy again if they are allowed to reach 10 FC again afterwards - if they go to 4 counters or below, they cannot become heavy again without the aid of a Florist caster.
Any forest hex that is reduced to 0 counters through the Slash and Burn setting becomes a special land type called Wasteland (No movement penalty), and cannot be used to gather Schmuckers from. Only a Florist caster may recover this hex.

I think anything either not supported by cannon or absolutely necessary to make the game balanced should be kept as simple as possible (to make the GM's life easier). In the case of forests, just make the default setting "relaxed" and forget about all the Forestation Counters.

I agree with Twoy that the goal should be to make this game as simple as possible for the GMs. Along those lines I have another suggestion. With the current rule set all cities have their own treasuries that are used for upgrades and such. I suggest each side just have a generic "treasury" that doesn't have a specific location. This should simplify the accounting a good bit, and with a few rules like characters can only hold, lets say 10,000 smuckers (but they can hold a gem of any size).

This can be implied through this strip: http://www.erfworld.com/book-2-archive/?px=%2F2011-03-10.png

I like the idea of having only one treasury, rather than each city having their own treasury. The question is, How do you pay for a city upgrade that costs 30,000 shmuckers? Do you have to make 3 trips or can you just upgrade the city from your central treasury?

I dunno, I like complex things, they give more room to maneuver in.

Yeah, I can see the unified treasury thing making sense, but it leaves up a few other questions.

How do sides trade Schmuckers? Why are gems needed for some, and others, like Charlie, simply make contracts for payment?

Is magic a facilitator for this? Does Charlie use the Arkendish like PayPal?

Actually, now that I think about it there is a better explaination for this that incorprates many of these points. There is not a 'universal treasury', however the Capital City's treasury is readily accessible to the overlord/ruler at all times, along with the chief warlord and others, presumably. This city inevitably carries most of the wealth anyway, allowing it to be doled out for quick city upgrades across your side, promotions, and mercenary contracts.

Non-capital cities DO have their own treasuries, but their can be easily enough transfered to the primary treasury either through moneymancer gemcraft or probably a few other ways, or by razing the city, which empties it's treasury into the Capitals, along with a partial refund of the total upgrade cost (I'd say around 25% or so? Slately seemed to see this is a desperation move when he did it, and it still left him without enough to promote Trem, so it must not have much payoff)

Incidentally, I'd say a Razed city counts as a theoretical Level 0 city similar in nature to the Ruins terrain type - no defensive bonuses or treasury. Anyone can walk in and claim it if they can fight off any units happening to be there.

I know this was a while ago, but on the topic of ambushes/burrowing, ambushes require intel on the enemy. If you jump out of a hole and swing your sword, only to find out the enemy is behind you, your ambush just failed. Sizemore had intel coming in from Parson, so it made sense that he could ambush. Hidden units can see the enemy, and therefore can ambush. Burrowing units should only get ambush bonuses if they know what's there. Same goes with defending units, if they don't have a way to know the burrowers are coming, they can't really ambush them. Intel is key. So burrowers moving into the dungeon/tunnels of a city, it would probably end with neither getting ambush bonuses unless they had a way of detecting one another (warlords having a chance to detect burrowers, like they can detect veiled units?[remember, Duke Nozzle said something seemed off right before Sizemore pwned him. could be he only just barely failed/succeeded on his detection check] That, or burrowers have a chance to detect other burrowers naturally).

Agree with the forest policy. Also, I think light forest should 1/2 burrower's speeds, and heavy forest should prevent burrow travel althogether. Makes sense, due to tough tree roots blocking the way, and it buffs forests so they aren't useless. Mountains give better bonuses to defense, but burrowers would get bonuses due to a lot of fighting being done in tunnels. (should be a thing with burrowers, that they get bonuses to fighting in tunnels, which balances out them not being able to ambush without intel[which is hard for burrowed units to get]).

Hills are almost entirely useless terrain. Should probably be buffed with greater LOS (like getting LOS to 2 hexes away, except possibly to forested hexes [another bonus of forest] or past a mountain hex). Also, should get a bonus to defense. The reason mountains shouldn't get this bonus to LOS is because they're so high up, most things will look like dots (except of course, large armies). This balances out hills well.

Desert and Tundra's -20% health per turn means that 5 turns in there without shelter (which exists in deserts in the form of an oasis, but no similar thing exists in a tundra[hot springs maybe?]), your units croak. An alternate is something like having the chance of going the wrong way in the desert, or having a -1 to combat and defense in the tundra. These are just ideas though.

Desert ideas: losing way in desert, -10-20% base health until spending one turn out of the desert (or 5-10% per turn, max 20-40%) due to dehydration/heat stroke. Something similar for combat/defense/move, grounding air units (sandstorms).
Tundra ideas: -1 to combat and defense, 0+1*turns spent in tundra damage (due to frostbite), chance of getting caught in the snow, reducing move, grounding air units (snowstorms).