EMPIRE2!-CWBG-VI-Save-The-Hufflepuffs!

[DimpleLoamsdown]

Re: Whoever said the numbers where BS.
I looked through all the personality types, and even though they did not say percents for two of them, the number still made it up to 84%, with a lot of weight in the Sentinel Classification and the Explorer Classification. (even though the two personalities without a percent were in the Explorer classification).

[BootStrapTommy]

Hi guys! Here is this month's podcast as promised. We discuss the pros and cons of continuing E2 vs beginning E3 and play How do you pronounce that?

We also had a player request for us all to take the 16 personality quiz. Feel free to take it as well and reveal your personality type if you wish. As always, thanks for listening and for your support!

Aed & Pepper INFP-T The Mediator.

Dark ENTP-A The Debater

Zayuz ENFJ The Protagonist

QuintonBeck INTJ-A The Architect

Like HT, I am a Logician. And not even a little bit either, 70%+ on all regards. Not sure that was much of a surprise for me.

Interestingly, Quinton was not far off with his joke; "fona beinne" does almost translate to "phone mountain" in Scottish Gaelic. However, "fo na beinne", or "under the mountain", would more likely be pronounced "fo na BEH-nya" (Aed would have got it if he did what he does with every other region I name and tried to Celtic it up).

Most of the time, however, I pronounce it like Zayuz, because I too speak French and it is a habit.

On the subject of Svartalfheim, I think Aed nailed it. Honestly, I don't speak Old Norse, so I don't know. But on that subject, the inhabitants of Svartalfheim are the svartálfar, who are also called the myrkálfar (where have we heard that before?). Another name used for it is Myrkheim (I sense a pattern!). In otherwords, 254B and 323B are named after the same thing, because I'm that lazy. At this point, I might populate 288B with more Myrkálfar, and name it Niðavellir, which is the other name for the same place in Norse mythology, because apparently the Norse can't make up their mind with regards to names...

[Jerry]

I am a Logistician, ISTJ-A.

[Kasanip]

Hi guys! Here is this month's podcast as promised. We discuss the pros and cons of continuing E2 vs beginning E3 and play How do you pronounce that?

We also had a player request for us all to take the 16 personality quiz. Feel free to take it as well and reveal your personality type if you wish. As always, thanks for listening and for your support!

Thank you for the hard work! Always it is interesting podcast.

It is interesting to hear about idea of Empire 3 game. Even though it has not been played for a long time, I thought maybe it would be interesting to join again Empire 3. To be honest, I was very frustrated by misunderstandings and ambiguous rules of Empire 2, however I am optimistic of a new game.
About depth society:
It was very interesting to try this style of game in Empire 1 game. Chivalric Republic of the United Free Cities was such a style, and I very much enjoyed such a style of game.
About trade:
Because it was a new style of rules, I thought to try the use of these rule actions, however they seemed inconsequential. Because trying to use such an action for trade became seen violently, it became just a military style action.
About rebel leaders:
I remember when Luska was invaded. Players and GMs both encouraged me to try "Rebel Leader" rules because it was supposed to be exciting and enjoyable to continue.
Because the important play for me was to enjoy the roleplay together, I tried to enthusiastically use. However, I disagree that it is an interesting mechanical rule for it. In the situation of Luska, it was attempted such a Rebel Leader play. However, against the invasion of 4 players of Aeldir federation, it was a hopeless motion. It is such a motion of 20 Actions against 4. Although it was tried such a rebel [secret action], it can work 1 time before one player can counter easily.
To be honest, it was a very helpless feeling. It was never an enjoyable situation for me to continue to play after such a time.

[DimpleLoamsdown]

To people participating in my event, I have posted and all of you can reply. This time, you meet Jelha De.

[woolli264]

Military Table up to date. Please note the total units and unit caps are almost all off as I am just rushing this out quickly to make up for being about a week late. I will update those later (and honestly they're just simple math so it's not hard its time consuming)

Military Table

Spoiler

Show

Nation	Region Count	Land Units	Naval Units	Total Units	Unit Cap
Berrium	16	9	10	19	33
Crystal Union	34	32	27	58	--
Grey Drieduch	6	6	7	11	14
Hagiarchy of Besina	4	11	0	11	11
Jörmungandr	15	18	0	14	33
Kalamahar NPC	8	4	7	9	19
Koya	13	12	0	12	29
League of Allied Provinces	42	38	33	65	87
Melrakki-ey NPC	10	6	15	18	23
ND Transcendent Unity	2	0	0	0	7
ND United Nihoni Exarchate	15	22	9	30	31
Nemeria	16	8	25	33	33
PE Aardrosil NPC	6	11	0	12	13
PE Anceris	19	5	10	15	33
PE Cahoosa	13	18	2	23	28
PE Clan Holds	11	11	8	21	25
PE North Hold NPC	3	6	0	5	9
PE Pale Reach NPC	5	9	2	6	14
Praetorian Protectorate	19	19	7	28	39
Primus Imperium	16	15	7	16	27
QA Avonlea	19	18	6	26	37
QA Stormlands NPC	9	4	0	4	21
Rose Courts	44	26	46	85	85
Silver Horde	0	6?	0	6?	0
Svea	1	2	0	2	5
TK Jagalata	3	5	0	5	9
TK Transfirlia	8	6	0	6	19
Unicity of Seereno	7	5	6	10	17
Univale Commune	6	12	0	4	15
Vr'kxian Empire	8	5	4	13	13

[PepperP.]

Thank you for the hard work! Always it is interesting podcast.

It is interesting to hear about idea of Empire 3 game. Even though it has not been played for a long time, I thought maybe it would be interesting to join again Empire 3. To be honest, I was very frustrated by misunderstandings and ambiguous rules of Empire 2, however I am optimistic of a new game.
About depth society:
It was very interesting to try this style of game in Empire 1 game. Chivalric Republic of the United Free Cities was such a style, and I very much enjoyed such a style of game.
About trade:
Because it was a new style of rules, I thought to try the use of these rule actions, however they seemed inconsequential. Because trying to use such an action for trade became seen violently, it became just a military style action.
About rebel leaders:
I remember when Luska was invaded. Players and GMs both encouraged me to try "Rebel Leader" rules because it was supposed to be exciting and enjoyable to continue.
Because the important play for me was to enjoy the roleplay together, I tried to enthusiastically use. However, I disagree that it is an interesting mechanical rule for it. In the situation of Luska, it was attempted such a Rebel Leader play. However, against the invasion of 4 players of Aeldir federation, it was a hopeless motion. It is such a motion of 20 Actions against 4. Although it was tried such a rebel [secret action], it can work 1 time before one player can counter easily.
To be honest, it was a very helpless feeling. It was never an enjoyable situation for me to continue to play after such a time.

KAS!

Thanks so much for listening, it always makes my day when you pop up in the ooc! I agree that both the rebel leader rules and trades need an overhaul. I am also optimistic for Empire 3.

[WaylanderX]

KAS!

Thanks so much for listening, it always makes my day when you pop up in the ooc! I agree that both the rebel leader rules and trades need an overhaul. I am also optimistic for Empire 3.

Would it maybe be an idea to increase the number of secret actions for rebel leaders to 2-3? They would still be disadvantaged, but they could do more covert stuff that way.

[woolli264]

Would it maybe be an idea to increase the number of secret actions for rebel leaders to 2-3? They would still be disadvantaged, but they could do more covert stuff that way.

Or perhaps it would require an investigation action to discover what they did on any given turn?

[DimpleLoamsdown]

What are some religious symbols for all of the Faith 10 and starting religions?
(Dragons, candles, what else?)
Maybe Celtic knots for the Aeldir?

[Tychris1]

An ice-worn spear dripping blood, the ouroboros, and a raven with one eye are all religious symbols for the Fimbulvintr.

[DimpleLoamsdown]

An ice-worn spear dripping blood, the ouroboros, and a raven with one eye are all religious symbols for the Fimbulvintr.

Did you Faith ten that though?
If so,
Thanks! Which is the most important symbol?

[Tychris1]

Did I faith 10 the Cult of the Fimbulvintr?... Uh.... Yeah? And the one eyed raven is probably the most important, as it actually signifies the Fimbulvintr's form in his/hers past life.

[DimpleLoamsdown]

Did I faith 10 the Cult of the Fimbulvintr?... Uh.... Yeah? And the one eyed raven is probably the most important, as it actually signifies the Fimbulvintr's form in his/hers past life.

Double Thanks!

[BootStrapTommy]

I think trade could be simplified with a system by which trade is tracked more along the lines of "by the faction" than on trade routes. Tracking would be much easier for that. For example, I have Good Mithril, that would mean that I could trade it with X number of players (rather than along X number of routes), assuming some simple, logical geographical rules. More or less a simpler version of how goods get traded in the Civ games in the aggregate, just subtracting the road building part we keep having trouble tracking. Just a suggestion.

Now, I'm still on the "continue E2" boat for the moment, but... Let Quinton and I know when you plan to end it, Zayuz. We'll unleash an eldritch abomination to destroy the universe. We'll all go out with a BANG!

We currently have regions in the hundreds (well over 400, based on what numbers we uncovered so far). Based on the Wiki, Telluris looked to be a bit over a hundred? Are we talking a return to Telluris size? Slightly bigger? Slightly smaller? I do think pseudo limiting things to a continent would be fun and a good idea. Honestly, I did that with my own campaign setting after discussions with Tzi and Yora here in the WB subforum, after they lead me to the light of keeping things manageably small. Plus it gives the GM the nice tool of being able to shake things up with foreign invaders, the same way Medieval 2 Total War shakes things up with the Mongol and Timurid invasions in the late game.

One the subject of the more localized thing, I will bring up one of my other favorite games, Rome Total War. It separates the Roman faction into parts (the Senate, the House of Julii, the House of Scipii, the House of Brutii). For most of the game, they are cooperative, but when one gets too powerful, things turn to ****, and that is when playing a Roman faction gets fun. I don't think the rules of this game have to be stretched for a sort of "Heirs to the Empire" type things to be accomplished, and that sounds amazing to me as an idea for the next iteration.

It would allow for more of that "sandbox" analogy (giving use an walled sandbox instead of a whole desert) mentioned in the podcast, in that the starting players would be restricted to an actually collaborative narrative for the nature of their Empire. It could also be used to more easily justify players keeping their capital, through use of some sort of Imperial Law that prevents that. And players leaving could simply fluff a marriage tie to whomever they pass the region to.

That would encourage border skirmishes and small wars, as well as some fun politicking, especially if there is a sort of ekected "Holy Roman Emperor" type title of value that gets passed around (though I do worry how the cliques might effect that).

Introduce a "Barbarian neighbors" things and eventually a "New World" or "Middle East/Africa/Asia" analogue that emerges in the later game for the factions to attempt to expand their power into, and I think we' d have a game I would certainly lover to be able to play, enough to cut my loses. But taht's just my opinion.

Spoiler: WARNING! Enormous

Show

Cool map of Europe (from one of my favorite games, Medieval 2: Total War) I feel like sharing in context. Looks about Telluris sized, maybe smaller. Maybe we could do alternate history fantasy for E3?

[BootStrapTommy]

Also, has anyone else had problems with the site? Keeps timing out on my computer...

[DimpleLoamsdown]

Also, has anyone else had problems with the site? Keeps timing out on my computer...

I will occasionally have problems with the site while others do not, but within the next hour or so, the site will be working fine again.

[HalfTangible]

I think trade could be simplified with a system by which trade is tracked more along the lines of "by the faction" than on trade routes. Tracking would be much easier for that. For example, I have Good Mithril, that would mean that I could trade it with X number of players (rather than along X number of routes), assuming some simple, logical geographical rules. More or less a simpler version of how goods get traded in the Civ games in the aggregate, just subtracting the road building part we keep having trouble tracking. Just a suggestion.

Ummm...

This is the system we had for E1, and uh...

It was even more of a nightmare than the Trade Route system. Trust me, you don't wanna do that.

[DimpleLoamsdown]

Ummm...

This is the system we had for E1, and uh...

It was even more of a nightmare than the Trade Route system. Trust me, you don't wanna do that.

It would make it easier for individuals to track, and yes, even though I was only in E1 for a brief amount of time, I preferred it that way, also with more than one resource per region. It would be cool if you could combine, two different resources from the same region and upgrade the amount to the next step (Minor chickens+Minor stone=Good stone or Good Oil+Good Gems=Greater Oil) or something like that.

[HalfTangible]

Also: I gained 6000 land troops when I claimed P29.

[BootStrapTommy]

It would make it easier for individuals to track, and yes, even though I was only in E1 for a brief amount of time, I preferred it that way, also with more than one resource per region. It would be cool if you could combine, two different resources from the same region and upgrade the amount to the next step (Minor chickens+Minor stone=Good stone or Good Oil+Good Gems=Greater Oil) or something like that.

By E1 rules, I could tack my own resources with minutes of work per round. By E2 rules, I have to do days of research and I still **** everything up. But I speak having not been around for E1, so my opinion is not worth much, I suppose.

But based on what I saw looking at the rules, E1 seemed to have some basic "road" building.

[woolli264]

Also: I gained 6000 land troops when I claimed P29.

Alright I'm on it

[DimpleLoamsdown]

By E1 rules, I could tack my own resources with minutes of work per round. By E2 rules, I have to do days of research and I still **** everything up. But I speak having not been around for E1, so my opinion is not worth much, I suppose.

But based on what I saw looking at the rules, E1 seemed to have some basic "road" building.

I agree, so that makes two.

Trade routes straw poll: http://www.strawpoll.me/11412124

[BladeofObliviom]

And that's great, but having actually seen the tracking tables for E1's trades (and spoken regularly with the man who operated them), I feel pretty comfortable saying that E2's system is a million times simpler to track.

Edit: There's nothing to poll. As Asimov said, "Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.' "

[DimpleLoamsdown]

And that's great, but having actually seen the tracking tables for E1's trades (and spoken regularly with the man who operated them), I feel pretty comfortable saying that E2's system is a million times simpler to track.

But if we are getting players to track them...

[BladeofObliviom]

But if we are getting players to track them...

Most of the players DID track their own trades in E1. It still needed to be centrally managed, because frankly if players track them they might as well just be fluff; you need a central authority because otherwise there's no way to confirm player accuracy. And while surely no such incidents were intentional, player tracking just tends to fail to report things like missing requirements.

[woolli264]

But if we are getting players to track them...

Besides the rules are not made by the players. I would say that the GM should be the one to set up a poll on a rules question if he (or perhaps in the future she) deems it necessary.

[BootStrapTommy]

Hey, general announcement for the relevant people!

The Dominion will be joining the lovely world war, on the grounds that kidnapping former leaders of a nation constitutes direct hostile action against that nation. I will likely be attacking the CU this round. I encourage the remaining members of the GEACS to follow suit to the best of the capability. I also thought I'd give the CU guys the heads up.

Most of the players DID track their own trades in E1. It still needed to be centrally managed, because frankly if players track them they might as well just be fluff; you need a central authority because otherwise there's no way to confirm player accuracy. And while surely no such incidents were intentional, player tracking just tends to fail to report things like missing requirements.

No one is centrally tracking them. On the gradient of lesser evils, the method that is easier for players to independently track is superior to the one that can be more easily centrally tracked under conditions where no one wants to take the effort to centrally track it.

Which I believe was the point of Dimple's retort.

[moossabi]

I could do trades for E3 when/if it happens, but currently E2 is too far along to get enough data to start up a table from scratch (not to mention that I have no idea how tables work in html). I think that the trad route system could work if I got the table up and running from the start of the game and updated it as rounds progressed; I procrastinate a lot have a lot of spare time so it shouldn't be too big of a problem (unless we revert back to E1's method. That would be awful to try and manage).

[Aedilred]

OK, we weren't going to do this, but just to quell the speculation before it gets out of hand.

Empire3! is confirmed. I will be GMing. The game will start no sooner than the (Gregorian) New Year, and may be pushed back beyond that depending how much longer E2 runs, which is up to Zayuz.

We are in early discussions about rules. There will certainly be some changes to the current game rules but it is too early to go into any details. Some things which are points of concern under the current rules may be removed entirely for the next game, or changed beyond recognition.

Regarding trades specifically, player-tracked trades are only an option if trades have no mechanical function. It has long been apparent that if there is no central tracking of a given mechanical effect it doesn't get tracked reliably or verifiably across the whole playerbase. If trades remain in E3 in anything like their familiar form they will require central tracking. Ease of tracking will of course be borne in mind when the rules are worked out. Notwithstanding the above paragraph, I feel confident in asserting even at this early stage that we will not be reverting to the primary trade tracking system from E1. As Blade says, even with fewer regions*, it was much more laborious to track than the trade routes have been, even though the trade routes are in some ways a more complex system.

Further, without wishing to appear overly dictatorial or unkind, and while obviously we will try our best to create a game which all players, whether current, returning or new, can enjoy and appreciate, please don't get too excited about making polls, surveys or the like to try to decide what should or should not make it into the next game (or indeed this one); I can't guarantee we will even look at them, and if we do, we won't feel beholden to abide by whatever the results apparently suggest. Of course, if you have any brilliant ideas you think the next game would benefit from, please feel free to PM me or Zayuz or Quinton so that we can see them, but, again, please don't be offended if any such ideas are not implemented.

In any case, E3 is, while now on the foreseeable horizon, not starting for some time, so I suggest continuing to make the most of E2 for as long as it lasts.


*By the end of the game, there were around 200 regions in E1 by my estimate. In E2 there theoretically exist at least 550, though not all of them are in play.