#300 - Experimental

[unclemike]

Normally I'd let this go, but since my intention for development is to increase emphasis on unusual encounters and lessen territorial requirements, I'd say, yes, see my previous post about recommended values based on quality of encounter.  It actually might be higher, especially for Quest artifacts.

In Fall of Rome, the unusual sighting combat resolution is by round, but in Alamaze it is the "original" and so us a fairly straight-forward formula such that a tactic 1 is something like -25% to leaders and wizards killed and -25% to death, and -25% to artifact recovery, and the reverse at tactic 3.   Again, the method in Fall of Rome is what we want to incorporate in Alamaze, but what you have now is what it ha always been in Alamaze. 

I never played Fall of Rome so I wasn't aware of this. If anyone is knowledgeable on Fall of Rome regarding their encounters and how they were handled with what kind of information being displayed, send me a note at prototype300.alamaze@gmail.com. I don't want to bother Ry Vor or Cipher because they deserve some time off during the holidays.

In the meantime, what I can do is add the following to the new game engine:

1) Allow recons to display the encounter's difficulty level. This way, players will know whether they should go all out or skip the encounter entirely. The difficulty ratings are as follows:

Note: these values will change once I have the official version...

Free________No risk (no leader promotion)____Recon won't show other criteria (like need to be an Evil kingdom to pick up Red Bats)
Easy________25-50 rating______Low grade artifact, may kill leader/wizard that's not protected
Medium _____51-75 rating______Average quality artifact
Hard________76-100 rating_____Decent artifact, will help you in the long run
Extreme_____101-150 rating____Uber artifact, go home if you're a Halfling without a siege machine

Don't forget there's also a random factor that sways encounter results, something like + or - 15 pts.

So recon the encounter before investigating it with order 140 to save your crummy lives. Recons may be performed by any agent, raven, palantir, or crystal of seeing. If Ry Vor says so, I can display more info on the encounter if the agent is higher level (like how an agent-4 is necessary to see thru masked groups) but that's later.

2) To further Ry Vor's request above, I'll throw in the same recon effect with order 140 if you issue it with a TAC 0. So if you can't recon the encounter then investigate it with order 140 and TAC 0 beforehand or you're diving in there blind.

I can make both of these enhancements ready before turn 9 is due (this Friday - get your orders in early if you can).

How's that with everyone? I may add more functionality once I understand how Fall of Rome works so send any info on it to the above email address if you can.