Birthright: Chimaeron

The other complexities are not strictly necessary, but the low level summer allowing war, and small-growth potential (settlers), I think enhances the setting.

That said, I agree with AF. Efficiency-centric players who plot out everything will have to cope with more randomness.

Variance for variance sake is terrible. It takes agency away from players - the less control you have the less your decisions matter. If your decisions dont matter why are you playing?

What is important is that you have a controlled level of variance which allows you to still make relevant and interesting decisions. It is a delicate line to walk but very important game design concept.

DM Juan wrote: ↑

Mon May 13, 2019 2:04 pm

The other complexities are not strictly necessary, but the low level summer allowing war, and small-growth potential (settlers), I think enhances the setting.

That said, I agree with AF. Efficiency-centric players who plot out everything will have to cope with more randomness.

Tosses out turn plans for Turns 6 through 15...

I like it will keep growth slower and it really doesn't impact planning so much outside of when/when not to enter war (or when to be prepared for war -- which is always).

I can agree that going back to my original thought:

1. Normal Summer
2. No Summer
3. Weak summer (Raise Settlers only, no Rule Province) is easy, and achieves the desired result.

Players don't have much agency if their actions can be pre-planned in an objectively right or wrong way; the most they can do is to go along with it or rebel against it. Uncertainty about the weather, just like about rolling for success, ensures that there's always new information to react to in each of the game's time units, so there's always opportunities to make new decisions, and to reconsider old ones. When there's uncertainty, you can only do what you think is best, and there can't be a graven slab telling you what that should be, no matter where it comes from. That sounds like it offers more agency, to me. (As far as assuring there's still a reason to play, though, I'm much more concerned about how broadly applicable the skills used to play are, and how plausible the story that develops from play is. Those tend to go together.)

I like the long season/severe winter conditions more than I like the weak summer, but it still seems like a slight improvement.

What can you use the setlers for when all the provinces are lvl 2?

Changing racial make-up of a province, potentially. Resettle a province that you pillage... (or got pillaged down) Nothing else.

Send them into the Permafrost and see what happens!

EF - Ethak Farsight wrote: ↑

Mon May 13, 2019 2:01 pm

I don't understand any of this, so I'm just going to duck my head under the sand and wait it out.

Ditto

I don't see a problem with most of the weather effects, but I don't like the Severe winter lowering garrison sizes. I could see increasing Attrition to say 80%. It shouldn't drop how many units you can have in garrison if there is more, or less snow/cold. Like the weak winter lowers attrition, severe winter should raise attrition.