Now that John is working on the rules engine, a few things are going to come up which I haven't quite thought about before. The first of those deals with Refresh. When should a Trace be lost, and should the website keep track of who you have noticed?
Let's say that Hypatia traces Apollonius in the Trade influence, but Apollonius suspects his actions are being followed: he uses the Refresh action. Should Hypatia know that he has thrown off the trace immediately or not? It makes more sense that she would not know until she attempted to Follow or Attack him again, I think. But, what if Hypatia was following Apollonius on the turn when the Refresh was successfully accomplished? Maybe that ought to reveal this information. Otherwise, you might have traced someone and not paid any attention to their influence until you're informed they refreshed their influence. The same question applies to attacking someone's influence. If you attack during the turn when your opponent refreshes, it seems like the attack should succeed, but should you be notified of the refresh, or must you attack or follow again only to learn your prey has evaded you? Should the notification of refresh be tied to your pools, so that bigger influence pools might act slower than smaller ones, including for any refresh notifications?
The second question, is should the website keep track of your previous traces? So Hypatia traced Apollonius, but Apollonius has since refreshed and Hypatia knows it. Is it the website's job to remind Hypatia's player that Apollonius once had some influence in Trade, but has since evaded her notice? Its a different situation from Shenouda, who has Trade influence but Hypatia does not know this, or Longinus who has no Trade influence. It is also a different sort of category than Paulus who has just Attacked Hypatia's influence, which is the sort of contact between influence networks that can be Traced.
So it seems like we at least need to have the website track active Traces and Traceables, and also think a bit more about how the timing of actions should work.
Let's say that Hypatia traces Apollonius in the Trade influence, but Apollonius suspects his actions are being followed: he uses the Refresh action. Should Hypatia know that he has thrown off the trace immediately or not? It makes more sense that she would not know until she attempted to Follow or Attack him again, I think. But, what if Hypatia was following Apollonius on the turn when the Refresh was successfully accomplished? Maybe that ought to reveal this information. Otherwise, you might have traced someone and not paid any attention to their influence until you're informed they refreshed their influence. The same question applies to attacking someone's influence. If you attack during the turn when your opponent refreshes, it seems like the attack should succeed, but should you be notified of the refresh, or must you attack or follow again only to learn your prey has evaded you? Should the notification of refresh be tied to your pools, so that bigger influence pools might act slower than smaller ones, including for any refresh notifications?
The second question, is should the website keep track of your previous traces? So Hypatia traced Apollonius, but Apollonius has since refreshed and Hypatia knows it. Is it the website's job to remind Hypatia's player that Apollonius once had some influence in Trade, but has since evaded her notice? Its a different situation from Shenouda, who has Trade influence but Hypatia does not know this, or Longinus who has no Trade influence. It is also a different sort of category than Paulus who has just Attacked Hypatia's influence, which is the sort of contact between influence networks that can be Traced.
So it seems like we at least need to have the website track active Traces and Traceables, and also think a bit more about how the timing of actions should work.
If possible (Sorry John!) then I do think the website should track these things, yes. One of my least favorite parts of Toulouse was having to re-open and re-look at all previous turns, just to find out info like that above: "Did I trace this person last month, or the month before"? "Was I successfully attacked last month?" "What's my political influence at right now?", etc.
ReplyDeleteA "here's all that you know" monthly summary would help a lot. Hell, even just a print-out of our own influence history would be great... (Turn 1: Political 3, Turn 2: Attacked by "Candle", reduced by 1. Turn 3: Political 2, etc.)
I like the "larger pools are slower to react" but it seems like that'd be a headache.
"f you attack during the turn when your opponent refreshes, it seems like the attack should succeed, but should you be notified of the refresh [...]"
I agree.
I think the site will track your actions like this. In Toulouse, I kept my own word doc with all my previous turns in it, but that was in part so I could plan a turn ahead. (Often as I was submitting one action I had a clear follow-up for next turn and I wanted to keep those notes all in one place.)
ReplyDelete