Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: KenClark

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ORIGINAL: Marshall Ellis

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ORIGINAL: KenClark

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ORIGINAL: Marshall Ellis

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ORIGINAL: Mardonius

Hello Marshall:

Thanks for the clarification. What about simultaneous diplomacy and economic phases? Would these work with the coding?

Thank you,
Mardonius

These would certainly be easier. I cannot see why diplomacy couldn't be this way. As for the eco phase, I must ask for opinions from a typical Russian and Turkish player as to if for example:
Should Russia see the unit LEVY of Turkey in December which would happen before Russia's eco phase and what eco decisions might this affect?

I can't possibly imagine a different economic buy by Russia due to Turkey's inevitable levy step bringing all its Feudals to full, which it would do EVERY YEAR unless they were retarded.

Careful here because some feudals may be taking North Africa and raising them from Africa could hurt her position in Africa (Perhaps a reason for not raising all of the time) but she could change her strategy and pull them all out of Africa and raise them to their home provinces in a Dec eco phase and IMO as a Russian player this could change my build strategy to reinforce my border with Turkey. There could be a potential 30-40 factor swing in the area and I for one would like to see that before I purchase forces.

Again IMO.

Why would your builds change? Perhaps you build a few more corps counters? More militia? You have to realistically build for 3 months ahead of time - as the Russian player you are not likely to change builds based on the levy step. You almost for sure don't care what Turkey does in January because it takes Turkey so long to mobilize for an invasion of Russia. In which case, fo course, you let them drive halfway to Moscow before doing anything since Turkey can't really hurt you on its own except some minor production damage. This is due to the timing it takes to move the feudals from their home provinces to somewhere where they can mass up.

If you teleport the feudals in December, they don't show up anywhere near the Russian border (except maybe the Bulgarian corps). If Turkey wants to supply them in the winter, it still takes at least two turns to get them near the Russian border (more if you are trying to get the Greeks there, less for some of the cav perhaps).

I don't see how knowing that Turkey brought some corps home and could invade you in 2 turns would change your builds.

Even if there were some reason to change your builds I think the impact that this would have on the game would be extremely minimal, and the benefit in less waiting for PBEM a vast improvement.

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ORIGINAL: marc420

Since I happen to have a life outside of games,  I almost never play PBEM.  My life gets busy at times, and I don't have time to play games.  During such times, since PBEM play in most games drags on for months, I either abandon a PBEM game or keeping it going becomes a royal pain in the rear.  And since I play games to have fun, I don't go out of my way to find royal pains in the rear.

Meanwhile, sometimes I get time to play.  Maybe its a weeknight when I've got time and I'll start playing a game at midnight and I want to crank through a bunch of turns till 3 am.  I might have a couple of days when I can do that, but then won't be able to do so for awhile.  In PBEM, on that schedule I could do one measely little turn of a game, send it off, then shut the game down.  Again, I play to have fun.  And playing one turn then stopping isn't fun.  When I to get a chance to play, I want to crank off a lot of turns in a row.

So, I always look at the AI before I buy a game.  Its litterally the only way I have fun playing games.  Typically in this niche of the game industry, the AI gets short shrift.  There are way too many wargames out there with truly horrible AIs.  And when someone mentions it on a board, you instantly get they 'you should be playing againnst humans' line of bull.

BTW, for those who keep saying that its impossible to write a good game AI, remember there are chess AIs that can beat human master level players.  And there have been other games with decent enough AIs.

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ORIGINAL: Marshall Ellis

KenClark:

Let's say that I have been trying to build my fleet up and spending most of my money on naval factors. This might change drastically if I suddenly had an extra 20-30 factors threatening my border.

Realistically, I do not have to plan builds 3 months a head of time. Militia would be ready the very next month before any hostile move were made! While these are not perfect factors for combat, they tend to be good against the feudals and could at least slow the Turks IF thery chose to invade.

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ORIGINAL: KenClark

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ORIGINAL: Marshall Ellis

KenClark:

Let's say that I have been trying to build my fleet up and spending most of my money on naval factors. This might change drastically if I suddenly had an extra 20-30 factors threatening my border.

Realistically, I do not have to plan builds 3 months a head of time. Militia would be ready the very next month before any hostile move were made! While these are not perfect factors for combat, they tend to be good against the feudals and could at least slow the Turks IF thery chose to invade.

If Turkey levies the feudals in December (which Russia should expect every year for all the feudals that are empty, for example, and any feudal corps which is not otherwise occupied every year without fail), they take at least two to three months (in the winter) to threaten Russia on land. And that's only if you want to stop them in the Ukrane. I think your example is highly unlikely to ever happen, and even if it did and you failed to change your builds, the prejudice would be insignificant.

My main point, though, given the compromises that the game already has built into it for PBEM gameplay reasons is that I think that the incredible benefit to PBEM to having simultaneous economics far far outweighs any potential prejudice to Russia due to the levy step.

Of course, in the board game Russia would have to do its production prior to the levy step ANYWAY so it could never (in the board game) make changes depending on the levy step (Rule [ 8.5 ] MONEY AND MANPOWER EXPENDITURE STEP comes before [p 8. 10 ] THE LEVY STEP). I wish I had checked this earlier because really it is the final word on this silly issue.

Also see 3.5 which sets out the economic step sequence)

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ORIGINAL: KenClark

I should have spotted that earlier Marshall, sorry about that.