Alea iacta est

Start of the Week

So, at the start of the week, the game was looking something like this. At the end of this week, it is now looking like this.

End of the week

First of all, a bit of a disaster avoided, which I think is more related to Monodevelop rather than Unity. I mentioned in my last post that I wanted to start going through all the rules of the game with a fine toothcomb, so I thought I would give my code a bit of a tidy up before doing anything. I just wanted to rename a few things, more for semantic reasons than anything else.

Up until now, the module holding the code for the Tribal Relations was called defineTribalRelation , I changed it to tribeRelation, however, this kicked off all kinds of crazy with the editor, which kept trying to add it back - Thankgod for backups.

I can now say though with certainty, that my code for the following parts of the game is working 100%

Tribal role up 
Tribal hostilities Equal strength Rules
Tribal hostilities unEqual strength 
Tribal revolts ( this is a vicious mechanic btw) 
Diplomacy  

There is still some ambiguity around the original rules of the board game. I've been reading the discussions  intensely and as well as the original rules; I have read a German translation, a Polish translation (to revisit at a later date), a Spanish translation and I found on Vassal Engine, the same rules that were on boardgamegeek, but printed in a more easier to digest two pages. These had been done for an Italian wargame magazine(now out of print), but I  managed to track down a copy, and not only did it have the English rules but those same rules in Italian.

I also ditched the computer for a bit and decided to do some probability trees and some other maths on the game (back of the fag packet maths I should clarify). To cut a long story short for now; I am finding the game plays better with a starting budget of 200 talents, and the important one. I mentioned in my last post about the tribal relations at the start of the game. In the game rules it says;

Before starting the game it is necessary to "Roll up" a tribal map for the area east of the Rhine. Roll 1d6 . if the score is 1,2 then the tribes are at war, else they are at peace.

Now there are 11 tribes in the game,16 relations. a dice score of 1,2 is 33% so we expect there would be around five tribal relations where they are hostile.

The Original board game layout and tables. 

From my experience with the game so far, I think this number is too low. For testing, I have changed that to 3 (50%) and it does make it a potentially far more interesting game.  I would also go a bit further and say, that one of the bordering Rhine regions should always start pro-roman. If I was to go out on a limb at the moment, I would also say the region Sugambri is problematic.

Looking at the rules of the game this way, it has got myself wondering about game balance in general. There is, for example, a scenario in this game, where the player builds up all the Germanic providence into Roman towns. But from my analysis so far; this perfect victory is unattainable - or extremely unlikely within the games five turns.

So, should a game offer a win scenario that the player can not ever hope to achieve? Is this cheating the player ? is it being dishonest?

On the flipside however, this is (no matter how small) meant to be a strategy game with politics and military action. Would this not be a far more realistic proposal ?

Next Steps 

• Re do the entire Map ( there is a reason stay tuned) 
• Get fleet mechanics working 
• Continue to debug to make sure all rules are working correctly 
• Ongoing, UI Tidy up 
• Ongoing, Graphics tidy up.