The Dark Forest - where we fight one another before getting overrunned by thrash mobs
It'd be very ironic if the Scribe was the first one to bite it.
As to the war between me and Argyra, I believe he lost one troop taking W. I decided to reinforce, before taking W again this turn. This has gotta be the most action the uh...swamp, has ever seen.
Wow, that was unexpected turn of events. Time to join the fun before it ended!
Quote from Morpheus Kitami on 7 September 2023, 3h08It'd be very ironic if the Scribe was the first one to bite it.
As to the war between me and Argyra, I believe he lost one troop taking W. I decided to reinforce, before taking W again this turn. This has gotta be the most action the uh...swamp, has ever seen.
Well, it has become a tradition around those parts to attack me immediately to avoid any accusation of favouritism :
- Murdered by Argyraspide before I could play my second turn in Timelords,
- Bottlenecked by Ahab before I could play my first turn in Islandia,
- Assaulted by Dayyalu in Dark Forest the second the NAP ended.
I am not even mad, it made perfect strategic sense everytime and I would have done the same.
Mere days have passed since the terrible attack from the Pistris, called "Spectre" by the plebeians. My liege thundered and asked for righteous revenge, and his loyal companions assembled, ready to strike south, were the Frenchmen brooded and studied blasphemous magics.
Our host marched forth, sure in their holy mission and noble quest. The Frenchmen waited for us, a host of more of double or numbers, more than five hundred men in armour with countless followers. Our liege did not fear, and struck quickly!
Cowering in fear, the thousand Frenchmen could not withstand our might, and they quickly dispersed, their commander dying from an arrow to the neck. Not a single one of our men fell, not even a single wounded! Surely a sign of divine protection.
While the peasantry dealt with the two thousand bodies of the vanquished foe, our Liege already planned for the next move. The Castle of the French Lord is in sight, and a lengthy siege is impossible in this dreadful land. A bold assault is however risky, but as we all know walls can nothing against the pious, as Jericho teaches.
Quote from The Wargaming Scribe on 7 September 2023, 9h06I am not even mad, it made perfect strategic sense everytime and I would have done the same.
The Scribe has been very honest and kind, and it pains me immensely to have to jump on him. My success here is mostly RNG, but one of us had to go, the place is an excellent position but for a single player.
Well, we are waiting for one of you to make a snap decision after a grud attack that totally failed, but since you all knew my demise before I did, let me tell you that one of you has been smited dead by the power of bullshit RNG !
Who ?
I need to snap decision to update everyone.
I have a bad feeling about this...
Ahh, the joy of not having those pesky gruds anywhere near one's sensitive parts
Turn 4
This game keeps delivering.
When I took over the turn, Dayyalu is sitting on my regal throne, eating my cereals. While I am going the way of the dodo, the other players are nicely expanding in grud territory or, in the case of Morpheus, in Argyra's territory.
With nothing to attack, and no reinforcement on their way anyway, I fall back to E. Enjoy the gruds, Rastignak !
And then, and then...
Sometimes, Lady Luck says "Fuck YOU in particular", and when she says this you should know she is talking to Argyra :
End result :
- The Spectar attacked Argyra's castle and ate two of his men,
- Seeing this, the gruds assaulted his castle... and snatched it ! They are sitting on Argyra's throne, eating his kids !
- The gruds also attacked Morpheus and separated his territory in two,
Good job guys, you fought so much with each other in total and together you are negative two territories to the gruds. I don't see Argyra recovering for that, so maybe that's good for Morpheus anyway ?
The gruds also attacked Porkbelly but they are pushed back (Porkbelly : 3 deaths. Gruds : 5 deaths). Porkbelly was offered to follow up in T but refused.
The wooden walls of the enemy castle were before us, a daunting perspective. Talking with the few hunters that dared to live here before our coming, it appears that most of the castles of the lords are built on ancient ruins, without doubt of Roman or Gaulish origin. For sure, I do know that the bridges were built by King Tiberius.
But enough history. A siege was an impossible task in this land, with the Homini Silvani and the Spectre plaguing the land, so my liege decided to act with daring and heart, and in a few short days siege equipment was prepared, in the manner described by the ancient writers. Then, at dawn, despite our inferior numbers we stormed the French castle. I write this with regret, as the Frenchmen are nonetheless Christians, even if here they sinned and trusted false idols.
Their resistance collapsed shortly, and their leader, a gaunt man known as "The Scribe", apparently managed to escape through an underground passage, much like a rat. He's trying to rally his men in the countryside to regain his castle, but the cheering crowds of the freed peasantry tell me this is impossible. I'll have to check carefully amongst the artifacts and writings of this "Scribe", he was apparently a man of letters.
Turn 5 :
- Dayyalu pushes me out of my last strong position. I have ONE man left in P...
- Rastignak and Porkbelly carry on focusing on the gruds. Not that of course I am not sure where the attack on T came from,
- Morpheus reconnects its separated territory... by taking over another of Argyra's territory,
- Argyra manages to retake his castle. He leaves the territory behind him to the grud... which is a bit of a loss, because the magician was going to protect it. Instead, the gruds get protected.
Where is the Spectar you ask ? Well... somewhere in L, O or N
Good luck maintaining your notes on whatever you hide in those forest, Porkbelly !
It was indeed predictable that I had to reduce or nuke your reinforced presence. 5 men are strong enough to launch an assault with a non-zero chance of success (or a good chance of success, if the Spectre gave me a visit) but I merely wanted to reduce you, the RNG hates you with a passion. I honestly have no idea what I will do when I finish the Scribe to eat.
Also, your French version is far funnier and livelier to read (despite my terrible University-forced knowledge of French).
Quote from Dayyalu on 9 September 2023, 0h11
It was indeed predictable that I had to reduce or nuke your reinforced presence. 5 men are strong enough to launch an assault with a non-zero chance of success (or a good chance of success, if the Spectre gave me a visit) but I merely wanted to reduce you, the RNG hates you with a passion. I honestly have no idea what I will do when I finish the Scribe to eat.
Also, your French version is far funnier and livelier to read (despite my terrible University-forced knowledge of French).
The French version is basically a translated version of the English one with minor adaption on the jokes.
I am not sure it is RNG only. I think the game gives a huge bonus to the roll if you have more troops, and then it snowballs if you win the first or first two rounds. I am sure someone will check that code :).
I am sure someone will check that code :).
Ok, ok... so here's how it works.
It's a boardgame type of mechanic using a simple d6 roll.
Each round:
- Each player counts their men.
- If the defender is in a defensible area (mountains, dark forest) add 2.
- Each player rolls a d6 (combat is simultaneous).
- If you roll equal to or under your number of men then you kill one opponent.
- If both players missed, then continue to roll until someone gets a hit.
- Rinse and repeat.
Grud attack triggers
I didn't look too closely how this works... but I think it takes 4 Grud minimum before they attack.
Grud ceasefire mechanism:
- After each round the Grud randomly generate a number 0-3.
- They will only stop if they have less warriors, i.e..
- 25% chance of stopping when they are down to 2;
- 50% chance of stopping when only 1.
Magician's Corner:
If you are presented with the option to summon the Magician, 1 of 9 random things can happen (if something is not possible, it tries another):
- She grants you a boat.
- She causes a random player to miss their turn
- She materializes 1-12 men for you
- She makes you play the Grud for one turn
- She taketh away your boat.. "No boat for you!"
- She gives your home castle to another random player
- She gives one of your territories to another random player
- She is out with the serpent
- She decides not to help
Hmm.... if all conventional hope were lost this could be a way back in. Just saying...
Great info. Indeed, defensive positions does not defend that well (the manual lies when it says that it doubles your defense), but it looks like Dayyalu was indeed lucky to take my castle. Being more numerous than the opponent is extremely important.
Are castles a defensive terrain ? You did not mention them. Any mention of rivers ?
The magicians is extremely high-risk, good reward indeed. "Give your castle to another player" that's likely to be a total game over.
Yeah so you're right I missed the bit about rivers, here's the lines
17900 AP% = AR%(AK%,0) - INT (AR%(AK%,0) / 100) * (100)
18000 DP% = AR%(DF%,0) - INT (AR%(DF%,0) / 100) * (100) + AR%(DF%,13) + BG% * 2
17900 gives you number of attacking men
18000 gives you number of defending men + terrain bonus + bridge bonus.
BG% is a 0 or 1 (true/false) which is calculated earlier, where the code figures out if the territories are joined by a bridge
AR%(DF%,13) is the numeric bonus for the terrain. I am not exactly sure where that "geography data" lives but it looks like it may be embedded in the map graphic (which is pretty clever and interesting) but I'm pretty sure it is 2 for castles, forest and mountains but I haven't actually trawled the memory for the numbers. There is no defensive doubling mentioned in the manual (I think).
In any case, assuming 2 is bonus for defensive terrain, then the defensive bonus could be +4 into hard terrain across a river.
Ok, I found the data in memory, and it's not always 2.... here's a dump.
- Castles are 3
- Mountains are 1
- Dark Forests are 2
3480- 03 Castle 1
3482- 03 Castle 2
3483- 03 Castle 3
3484- 03 Castle 4
3485- 03 Castle 5
3486- 03 Castle 6
3487- 00 Territory A
3488- 00
3489- 00
348A- 00
348B- 00
348C- 00
348D- 01 Territory G
348E- 01 Territory H
348F- 01 Territory I
3490- 01 Territory J
3491- 00
3492- 02 Territory L
3493- 00
3494- 02 Territory N
3495- 02 Territory O
3496- 00
3497- 00
3498- 00
3499- 00
349A- 00
349B- 00
349C- 00
349D- 00
349E- 00
349F- 00
34A0- 00 Territory Z
It's kind of interesting how the scenario data is stored in the graphic. It would be possible to create new scenarios and maps entirely self-contained within the graphic. Pretty neat programming!
Extremely silly question: it would be possible to create wraparound maps? For example forcing the game to recognize links between the provinces even if they don't "physically" touch on the map image?
End of turn 6:
Dayyalu loses 2 men to the wyrm.
The magician smiles on Mortpheus.
Quote from Dayyalu on 9 September 2023, 19h53Extremely silly question: it would be possible to create wraparound maps? For example forcing the game to recognize links between the provinces even if they don't "physically" touch on the map image?
Good question. Yeah it looks the embedded data in the map image defines which areas are adjacent, and whether a bridge or water (for nautical maneuver) is involved. So 'wrap around' or 'teleport' maps are feasible. Any map of 32 (or less even) area is possible. For it's age this is a great piece of programming for developing these simple area-based strategy games. The core code is very neat and compact, with plenty of room to add chrome.