User:Paulandon

ideas page. please feel free to use any of this in your own thoughts or discussion, but leave my page for my own notes. thanks.

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Two thoughts that came from this post: http://news.battlemaster.org/pipermail/discuss/2009-December/041449.html

I think Gloria brought up a good point. I certainly felt very discouraged when dueling was stomped down on (especially in a realm that has no issues with 7-up and cookies), but I would be happy if things were a bit more interesting other places. Dueling is one of the few "hold your breath till turn change" parts of the game; I find it much duller without it.

"Realism" aside, I find another nice part of dueling is it serves to actually prove who is top banana with the sword. So, some ideas:

Tournaments - right now, it seems as if everyone is just randomly thrown together. I think a seeding would help duelers who weren't at the very top to gain a bit of a reputation. I would propose something similar to what is used in many soccer tournaments:

Each tournament, you gain points of reach round you progress (i.e., 3rd round is 1+2+3=6pts.). The results of your last (5? some number) tournaments is added up, and you are seeded based on this number. Only your most recent tournies count, so newcomers can climb the ranks. The biggest difference is it will help mid-level duelers avoid being matched against the champion in the first round and never gaining a name for themselves.

Academy Training - right now, it is just click and some random numbers decide if you improved or not. Some ideas (not mutually exclusive - any or all might work):

- New link - duel at academy. Two players can agree to a training duel that will occur only where there is an open academy. No training advantage - just a "sporting duel" or whatever it used to be called.

- Chance of injury in training

- Chance to injure the trainer - with a realm-wide "rumor" sent out. "Sir X injured his trainer! I would steer clear of him."

- Rumors of thrashings - similar to above, only just a message that might build/tear down your public reputation. "Sir X of Y thought he was good enough to work with an advanced trainer today, but was quickly taught otherwise. Snickering at Sir X's expense is on the increase in the pubs of Z tonight."

- Duel the trainer - actually make some decisions like a normal duel. More work to do on this idea.

- Series of messages based on how well you did, similar to getting an estimate % now.

- Ability to "Show off" at the academy, just like at a tourney.

Battles - a little vague, and most people just like to RP what happened in their battle, but perhaps there is some way of translating swordsmanship to "awesomeness in battle". Just as "Sir X was spotted wearing...", perhaps you have a chance of having been spotted "ferociously smashing skulls" based on your swordsmanship, which could increase your honor a little for the battle.

- another bit that would be fun, although perhaps a pain to be realistic, is if everyone who was wounded was assigned a "wounding unit", which would be reported. So, instead of "Sir X was wounded" it would be "Sir Y's Screaming Eagles brought down Sir X" ... in a barrage of arrows/cavalry charge/clash of swords -depends on unit type.

It's not to replace the RP, just to stimulate it a little.

Family Trees - a couple of parts here. First, a page to set up your family tree that everyone could see. (note - Searching google on "php family tree code" produces a lot of stuff that could probably modified easily.) Second, as a part of this, ability to add a character id and link two characeters as husband/wife; cousins; etc. (A bit more work, I think, because once a character leaves an island or dies, his character record disappears from that island. A more permanent solution would be needed, that might take a lot of db space.)

Weddings - relationships and marraige ties were incredibly important back then. Be able to announce a wedding island wide; set up like a duel, when the second person agrees to the wedding, an island wide announcement goes out, like a battle or execution.

Jousting duels - perhaps as a compromise on the dueling, jousting duels could be added as the "sporting" duel, with no death duels or fame, and swordfighting duels could be reserved for matters of honor. Jousting was basically a sporting version of a cavalry technique anyway, and not used for anything other than tourney situations.

Unit vs. unit attacks - like infiltrator assaults, only your unit attacks another unit. I think should be reserved to units of same realm; there are already ways to attack other units from other realms. Infiltration is supposed to be a dishonorable, sneaky thing that no noble would take part in. There should be a way to rally your men and go attack Sir X's men who are passing through. Since it is one-on-one, if you attack Sir X while he is travelling with friendly nobles, they will just chase you down after and get you, so you need to use this wisely. If you are attacked in your own region, you get the benefit of a palisade or more on defense.

Looting your own realm - some one said this used to exist, but was turned off. I wonder why? Plenty of good reasons to have it, historically and In-game.

Infils stealing from temples/guildhouses - seems a logical thing to exist - there's a building, it has (perhaps) gold inside, one of your skills is to steal stuff like that. They can hire guards, I believe, though it may be something completely different. I suppose this could just be more of the same, and not really adding much to the game.

Investigate/discover guilds - 1) break in and look around - find out who is on the rolls, etc. 2) search out Secret Societies. Again, don't know that either of these are really useful - perhaps on Dwilight, where they RP much more intrigue than other islands.

Plague - no need to go into what an important part plague and disease played in military campaigns throughout history. Idea would be based on the way I understand monsters and undead to work; every region has a hidden tolerance level which is how many men can be in the region before the level of disease increases (this should vary, based on climate, type, and some random factor). Less than this level, the region gets 'cleaner', more, it goes up. When it reaches a certain level, plague breaks out and starts to "wound" soldiers, increasing each turn exponentially. The only thing that can be done is move your soldiers (or wait till enough die off).

This would greatly reduce the amount of large armies that just sit in one region, especially in cities, and also reduce the amount of militia that can sit in a city (making it virtually impregnable).