- Location
- Southampton, Great Britain
- Pronouns
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This is wrong. What I said was that you wouldn't be able to intervene until the Mid-Turn actions if the Caradysh choose to join in with the fighting.
Chronicles of Nations - Civ Quest
- Thread starter Oshha
- Start date
- Original
This is wrong. What I said was that you wouldn't be able to intervene until the Mid-Turn actions if the Caradysh choose to join in with the fighting.
Here's some choice quotes.
Yes, there is a greater than 50% likelihood of winning, maybe even something like 70%. But there's also a chance an undead army will be sent to the loyalists' way and we will lose the Maradysh. We don't know how likely it is.
So if you voted to venerate instead of war, note that you could be dooming the loyalists.
10ebbor10
DON'T PANIC
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This may be an issue of perception, but it's not like we have a particularly tall build. To go over the stats :
Econ : We have done zero extra farming
Defense : We build 2 pallisades on our own. We have 6 more in the Merntir, but they're on the wrong side of the battlefield, which makes those pallisades useless
Mines : 0 build
Wealth : 0 build
Temples : 0 build
The only stuff we have is basic trails (which Urth didn't seem to lack, given that could move 2000 men around with ease in order to trap us) and Shrines (which give us a measly 3 extra mystic).
So, when you say that Urth has build wide, it doesn't really click with me that that is supposed to be a disadvantage compared to us. As far as I see(saw?) it, all it means is that he gets more actions and more econ than us.
Nah, we don't have time to intervene, but it's unlikely that the zombie army can wipe out hte Merntyr instantly. It just means they'll have to tank the blow untill the next turn.
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- Location
- USA
Ok so I'm going to take a step back from this specific topic and try to explain some of my opinions on how this quest has functioned so far more generally. I want to preface this by saying that I have greatly enjoyed this quest and I hope it continues and want to make very explicit that this is in no way, shape, or form any sort of personal attack on Oshha. Given the charged nature of the current thread and the loss of nuance in this sort of text format I want to really want to get that across. So that said, the current drama over Urth is rooted in a more general problem that has reached critical mass with Urth. This problem is that despite the tag at the top and what some people have tried to claim this has not been, is not, and likely will never be a narrative quest. It might present itself as one and attempt to emulate one but even a cursory examination of how it has functioned will quickly show that the narrative portion of this quest is a secondary layer laid over top of the primary mechanical core.
The actions we can take are fundamentally constrained by the mechanics, the feedback we receive is overwhelmingly mechanical in nature, and the narrative has almost never overridden the rules and never to the degree that it changes how we play. Take for example the blessing of Arthryd and how it has been stated to have the effect of increased birthrate. That's all well and good but it has done nothing. Our settlements aren't cheaper, we don't get a free settlement periodically, our supposedly higher quality settlements don't count any more towards more actions, or anything. We receive no mechanical benefits for our choices. Theoretically the narrative of these well organized, efficiently administrated, large settlements supported by well developed infrastructure should override the mechanical rules and have some benefit but they don't. Or if they do it hasn't been communicated to us.
As another example our choice to focus on a smaller number of professional elite soldiers has likewise been meaningless. Despite supposedly punching above their weight all of our fights boil down to who is bigger (stop me when this sounds familiar "Despite striking down two or three for every catclaw that falls they are ultimately overwhelmed"). The narrative of not one but two elite military formations (catclaws and cateyes) that not only start from a higher baseline than normal humans but can now further optimize the bodies at will should allow us to operate at a lower martial (or give permanent martial) but once again because we haven't taken the specific mechanical action to trigger the mechanical effect we see nothing from this.
I will preface this point that I am not calling anyone out but using this purely for an example. Even the people who claim to believe that narrative trumps mechanics operate as if the opposite is true. This is most clearly demonstrated in the reaction to us gaining a monarchy. They did not pick actions that would narratively counteract a monarchy they chose the action that would make the stats the values they wanted to make stability and legitimacy go down. They then tacked a narrative justification to why this would then give the result they wanted (that being the monarch gets blamed for focusing on the temple as a vanity project over the people). This of course ignored any number of other possible narratives that such an situation could result in. Off the top of my head the people could have decided that the priests were using their power to unjustly pressure the monarch into focusing on religious concerns over temporal ones, resulting in the people removing power from the priests and giving power to the monarch so the monarch has a freer hand to act in the interests of the people.
Ultimately rather than allowing for a more free form type of play what narrative elements you have in the running of the quest has only introduced ambiguity and a feeling that non-player civs get to play with looser rules than we do. Urth is simply the first sufficiently powerful antagonist that we have faced that has pushed this mismatch from feeling challenging to feeling unfair. You can claim that there are narrative effects to things we are complaining about but we have had little to no narrative feedback, so even if they do exist from the player's perspective it doesn't appear to. In addition if you are going to run a narrative quest you really do need to "put every last detail in the update" or as much as you possibly can. I can't speak for everybody but from my perspective you leave out far too many details, and what you do leave in is often contradictory, for me to reasonably analyze things and figure out what the correct narrative is. Further it is entirely unreasonable to expect us to somehow know all the relevant information that we need to ask about that our civ would reasonably know. To me the idea that our people would even consider peace with what they consider the "ultimate evil" after this ultimate evil attacks us unprovoked, assassinates multiple members of the royal family, and then steals our goddess given blessing, never mind blame their leaders for rejecting that peace goes beyond illogical and into the absurd. Likewise the idea that Urth would have knowledge of Maradysh values despite only briefly ruling over them something like a hundred years ago while we don't despite our first monarch having a Maradysh parent and spending a significant portion of their childhood living with them makes no sense.
If I had to get this down to a short conclusion statement it would be this, even if I am wrong about the reality of all of this there are fundamental problems in the structure of this quest that, for a significant portion of the player base, create a valid perception of unfairness.
Sorry for the really long post and don't feel obligated to respond to this. This is as much for me trying to get my opinions down for myself as it is to give you feedback.
The actions we can take are fundamentally constrained by the mechanics, the feedback we receive is overwhelmingly mechanical in nature, and the narrative has almost never overridden the rules and never to the degree that it changes how we play. Take for example the blessing of Arthryd and how it has been stated to have the effect of increased birthrate. That's all well and good but it has done nothing. Our settlements aren't cheaper, we don't get a free settlement periodically, our supposedly higher quality settlements don't count any more towards more actions, or anything. We receive no mechanical benefits for our choices. Theoretically the narrative of these well organized, efficiently administrated, large settlements supported by well developed infrastructure should override the mechanical rules and have some benefit but they don't. Or if they do it hasn't been communicated to us.
As another example our choice to focus on a smaller number of professional elite soldiers has likewise been meaningless. Despite supposedly punching above their weight all of our fights boil down to who is bigger (stop me when this sounds familiar "Despite striking down two or three for every catclaw that falls they are ultimately overwhelmed"). The narrative of not one but two elite military formations (catclaws and cateyes) that not only start from a higher baseline than normal humans but can now further optimize the bodies at will should allow us to operate at a lower martial (or give permanent martial) but once again because we haven't taken the specific mechanical action to trigger the mechanical effect we see nothing from this.
I will preface this point that I am not calling anyone out but using this purely for an example. Even the people who claim to believe that narrative trumps mechanics operate as if the opposite is true. This is most clearly demonstrated in the reaction to us gaining a monarchy. They did not pick actions that would narratively counteract a monarchy they chose the action that would make the stats the values they wanted to make stability and legitimacy go down. They then tacked a narrative justification to why this would then give the result they wanted (that being the monarch gets blamed for focusing on the temple as a vanity project over the people). This of course ignored any number of other possible narratives that such an situation could result in. Off the top of my head the people could have decided that the priests were using their power to unjustly pressure the monarch into focusing on religious concerns over temporal ones, resulting in the people removing power from the priests and giving power to the monarch so the monarch has a freer hand to act in the interests of the people.
Ultimately rather than allowing for a more free form type of play what narrative elements you have in the running of the quest has only introduced ambiguity and a feeling that non-player civs get to play with looser rules than we do. Urth is simply the first sufficiently powerful antagonist that we have faced that has pushed this mismatch from feeling challenging to feeling unfair. You can claim that there are narrative effects to things we are complaining about but we have had little to no narrative feedback, so even if they do exist from the player's perspective it doesn't appear to. In addition if you are going to run a narrative quest you really do need to "put every last detail in the update" or as much as you possibly can. I can't speak for everybody but from my perspective you leave out far too many details, and what you do leave in is often contradictory, for me to reasonably analyze things and figure out what the correct narrative is. Further it is entirely unreasonable to expect us to somehow know all the relevant information that we need to ask about that our civ would reasonably know. To me the idea that our people would even consider peace with what they consider the "ultimate evil" after this ultimate evil attacks us unprovoked, assassinates multiple members of the royal family, and then steals our goddess given blessing, never mind blame their leaders for rejecting that peace goes beyond illogical and into the absurd. Likewise the idea that Urth would have knowledge of Maradysh values despite only briefly ruling over them something like a hundred years ago while we don't despite our first monarch having a Maradysh parent and spending a significant portion of their childhood living with them makes no sense.
If I had to get this down to a short conclusion statement it would be this, even if I am wrong about the reality of all of this there are fundamental problems in the structure of this quest that, for a significant portion of the player base, create a valid perception of unfairness.
Sorry for the really long post and don't feel obligated to respond to this. This is as much for me trying to get my opinions down for myself as it is to give you feedback.
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When players lose, they tend to analyze and speculate on why the QM is being unfair. This is a natural response. After all, are you going to overanalyze when you're winning, thus risking the players' wrath when you convince the QM? I suspect not.
People has a tendency to rationalize to themselves why they are right all along, or should have been right all along.
Players like me do not feel that the whole thing is unfair, thus do not criticize the QM when this specific situation went awry, partly because we felt vindictive.
When things go wrong in this quest, I tend to blame the players rather than the QMs. I am a veteran of PoC, so when players decided to ignore my advice, I felt flummoxed.
10ebbor10
DON'T PANIC
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I did that once. Went fairly well.
To be honest, this doesn't really engage with any of the arguments that were brought up. It comes of as a bit dismissive and self-aggrandizing.
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I don't care if I am right or vindicated. I care if we win. We are not winning, and some people in this thread do not make this a learning opportunity.
Instead, people wrote entire effort post as to why Urth is OP as hell and should be completely nerfed or that he is somehow hypercompetent and that we will never defeat beat him, speculating(with basically no evidence) on what his stats must be and what his kingdom must be.
- Location
- USA
Every time I see this kind of comment I am amazed at peoples inability to imagine multiple possibilities or comprehend the idea of opportunity cost. Absolutely no one thought we were going to throw out the diplomat, march into the forest, and kick Urth's ass. People knew that Urth was going to do something. That was the whole point of refusing peace as has been brought up by multiple people, by removing pressure from Urth things would be worse later when they made their move. What people are complaining about is the scale of what they were able to accomplish.
To restate my previous post in a much more succinct manner, despite being told time and time again about all these narrative things that make our civ unique this has never been actually demonstrated to us. By what feedback we have gotten our civ does not function any differently from any other civ. So when we are told that our opponent is conducting god-tier magic, performing amazing feats of subterfuge, engaging in long-term significant diplomacy, and has more actions than us something doesn't add up. We know the cost of actions, we can reasonably estimate that this has taken a lot of econ, mystic, and martial and oh yeah, little side note, the power base this is built on is the same area that underwent a localized apocalypse and got set back to square 1 halfway through the quest.
Finally like I said in my last post, this whole debacle isn't really about Urth, Urth just brought some problems that were in the background to the forefront.
10ebbor10
DON'T PANIC
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In your post, you spend 0 sentences addressing the arguments made. Most of it is talking about yourself and how you were right.
So, it very much comes across as you caring significantly more about being right and being vindicated than about the actual issue.
Incidentally, even now you dismiss arguments about Urth's stats or his Kingdom as being based on no evidence, when we in fact have direct WOG on what the rules that govern them are. You may disagree on whether or not the specific implementation of the immortal hero is OP, but falsely pretending those arguments are based on speculation in order to discredit the argument is dishonest.
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Random Member
Gardener of Human Happiness
- Location
- Behind You
What issue? There is no "issue", no real "arguments" being made, save in your mind.
The only issue is that some people still can't get it through their thick skull that stupid actions have consequences.
10ebbor10
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Unfortunately, some people still haven't understood that insults are not a substitute for arguments.
Because that's what pretty much all of the non-GM counterpoints have amounted to. Dismissal, veiled insults, or open insults.
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Random Member
Gardener of Human Happiness
- Location
- Behind You
Because all the arguments so far have been false at best, if not outright stupid. Maybe if you actually spend the time you wasted on complaining about the QM railroading on trying to understand what was being written? But nope, you can't see it, therefore it's the QM's fault.
You have no one to blame but yourselves.
You know what? You're right. I come off as condescending. I apologized for my poor argumentation.
Now let's move on when it's very clear that @Oshha hadn't budged one bit. Let's not have the breast discussion episode again.
Random Member
Gardener of Human Happiness
- Location
- Behind You
Flat is still justice.
10ebbor10
DON'T PANIC
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They don't become more convincing because you repeated them.
Random Member
Gardener of Human Happiness
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- Behind You
Some people actually begin to understand it the 2nd or 3rd time. Most don't, but some....
- Location
- Southampton, Great Britain
- Pronouns
- He/Him
A couple of things first. Narrative comes before the mechanics doesn't mean that they trump the mechanics or I will override the mechanics because of 'narrative'. It means that if I will treat this first and foremost as a narrative quest and if the mechanics aren't representing the narrative, I will change the mechanics to fit the narrative. It doesn't mean that I will just give you mechanical bonuses because narrative.
I will not just be giving you mechanical bonuses because the players want more stats and bonuses.
Secondly, the idea that I need to add every last detail into an update is laughable and ridiculous. That is not possible. Any QM can tell you that trying to put everything into an update is impossible. Maybe if you were willingly to accept an update that was tens of thousands long every couple of months. But I would lose interest in the quest before any updates got released.
The best that I can do is put what I consider the relevant information into the update and then it is up to the voters to ask for more information. If things seem to be unclear or contradictory, then it is up to the players state this and ask for clarification. If you want to know more information, you need to ask for it because I don't know what information the players need if only because I am looking at things from a different perspective so some things that seem obvious to me aren't obvious to the players.
At the end of the day, there is only so much information I can just provide in the updates and further information about the setting, the ongoing events and so forth needs to be asked for by the players and then shared with the rest of the players. And the onus is on the players to ask up for more information. I can only put some much information into the updates without bogging things down or reducing the update speed to a crawl or suffering authorial burnout. You feel like you need more information or just want more information, you need to speak up and ask for it.
Communication is a two-way street. I will provide what information I can, but if you guys need more information or feel that is not enough information provided, you need speak up and let me know that is the case. You need to be specific about what information you want to know and not just make broad requests for just more information in general. You can't just expect the QM to provide every last bit of information you want without prompting.
The rest of this post is not directed at the @demonthese2211 and their post specifically, but at the thread in general.
Looking back at the debate today, I think that while there is a perception of unfairness, I don't consider it to be valid. While there is some criticism, it seems to have mostly given way to pessimism, salty, rationalisation and complaints about unfairness, cheating and illogical actions.
Very few of the posts have been about how to defeat Urth or win the war or how you can do better or what you need to avoid next time. Instead it has been primarily complaining about things are unfair or don't make sense and how your opponents are overpowered and need to be nerfed. While I debated back at the time, in hindsight, it has been the voter base getting unhappy at getting bested by an NPC and complaining that things need to be changed to make things easier for them so they don't lose.
To go down the list.
-The Caradysh are superior and more powerful civ and they not a peer opponent and the QM wasn't telling the truth when he said they were a peer civ.
--This is untrue. The Caradysh are a peer civ to the Arthwyd, but they operate differently to the Arthwyd due to having built wide instead of tall. How did do they operate differently? Try to find that out or figure it out yourselves (without going on about how they are cheating and have an unfair advantage over you). Do remember that they may not neccessarily have the same actions as you or in the same form that you have as I explained to the thread on how the Maradysh expanded so quickly.
-Undead Immortal Heroes are overpowered and need to be nerfed.
--They have already been adjusted so they aren't overpowered.
---They do not need nerfing further just because the players don't want to go up against them. I am not going to nerf your opponent's advantages just because some players want things easier.
-Urth is overpowered, does everything perfectly, nothing goes wrong for them and they are always going to win due to authorial fiat.
--Urth isn't overpowered and they do make mistakes and things don't always go in their favour. They can be beaten and have been. What Urth is a competent Hero who is a planner and doesn't make their move until they got things set up in their favour. Your opponent is an NPC who is competent and can make mistakes not overpowered and infallible.
---The Caradysh and their leader Urth, have bested you. You got bested by an NPC via planning, preparation and diplomacy. Stop complainting about it and crying out out about how they need to be nerf because the OP cheaters and try and figure how to win now or next time.
-The QM isn't provided enough information.
--Then ask for more.
-The players are getting railroaded.
--Not true at all and is frankly stupid. Some players might fail that their only one choice, but that is due to their personal perspective and goals. Maybe you think that one option is nonviable because it costs too much or you have to do something because not doing so is sub-optimital. That isn't railroading. That is you deciding that there is a best course of action for your goals or one to avoid. You don't have to go for the Hero or Megaproject or whatever shiny you are after. You don't have to avoid the options that have a clear price attached to them. You haven't been forced to keep the Maradysh as a subordinate and devote actions to keeping them as one. If you feel that that is only one way to get your most optimal outcome, you aren't being railroaded, you are choosing to go for your most optimal outcome.
---The players are responsible for what options they vote for and those options have consequences. If you want to complain about a vote winning, then blame the thread for voting for that option and not the QM for providing it.
-The NPC civs are unfair and don't follow the same rules.
--The answer is two-fold. On the one hand, I have made it clear I don't track the NPC civs as closely as I do with the player civ. What they do is operate in a similar if less loosely followed manner. Some civs have advantages over you. Are these unfair advantages? No, they are not because the NPC civ has different ways of doing things, different actions, different values and different techs. They usually operate differently to the players and have some advantages over the player civ just as the player civ has some advantages over the NPC civs.
-Diplomacy did nothing for the Maradysh or relationship with them.
--Diplomacy did help as you will noticed that it is a Maradysh civil war and not a Maradysh revolt. Half of them (the stronger half as well) support you and uphold your values. They are firmly in your camp and are strongly against Urth. As for why diplomacy has been so hard, it is because the Maradysh values make them poorly suited for being diplo-ed and being a vassal, especially when your cultures are so radically different. The Maradysh have never been a loyal vassal and rather than let them go, the players have chosen to keep working at keeping them as a subordinate. This is a player choice. You could have decided to cut your losses and not keep the Maradysh under a personal union or just left them drift apart, but instead you have devoted actions and choices to keeping them under your control. This a player choice to devote time and resources to keeping an unruly vassal under your control. It has even worked out as half of them are firmly loyal to you.
-The Narrative isn't overriding the mechanics or providing enough benefits.
--Tough luck. I'm not changing the mechanics or handing out bonuses because posters want to nerf their enemies. The narrative is about the narrative and not the mechanics. It doesn't influence the mechanics, but the dice rolls and fluff. I'm not translating all of that into mechanics and showing it to the thread because is too much work for me as the QM to both do it and then maintain it so tough luck.
-[Insert thing] should have turned out this way because [insert reasoning] and the fact that it didn't is illogical and doesn't make sense.
--Maybe it could have turned out that way that favours you. But it didn't and things instead turned out differently in a manner that doesn't benefit you as well. That doesn't make it an illogical outcome or an outcome that doesn't make sense. It just means that there are multiple valid ways that things could have played out in and it just so happened it played out in another valid way to the valid way that you feel it should have played out in.
-We are doomed because of [insert reason] and there is no hope because the QM is against us.
--Stop belly-aching and try to solve the problem. Stop going on about how there is no hope and you just give up because the QM is against you and there is nothing you can do to win. Frankly, half of these reasons are just incredible negative assumptions that the thread has come up with to rationalised why you got bested and how the QM is being unfair and making the NPCs cheat to beat you. Stop complaining that things need to be changed to favour you. Instead try to come up with solutions to deal with the problem which don't require a QM bailout to save you.
-The [Insert the thing being complained] is unfair and needs to be fixed.
--At least half of these complaints are just posters wanting their opponents to be nerfed so they can't beat you or you don't lose to them or to have the situation changed so they are more favourable to you. I am not doing this. The rules are working as intended and if that means you get beaten, tough luck. You can be defeated and you can be bested by NPCs without those NPCs cheating or having unfair advantages or winning due to authorial fiat.
---The rules aren't meant to be perfectly balanced. They are meant to simulate a civilisation and the world around them so you have run a civ quest. That means that some options are inherently unbalanced and just which option are better depends on your perspective. Iron and Steel are better than Copper and Bronze. Cavalry will often rule the battlefield. Metal is generally superior to stone. Some government or economy types provide inherent bonuses in certain areas. Some civs have advantages over other civs because that is how things work out. Nobody is fairly balanced and has the same chance of success or doing something as everyone else. Some will get an advantage over their rivals and they will make use of those advantages. Does that makes unfair? In a way, I suppose it does. Does it mean that they are cheating or getting QM favouritism to get an unfair advantage? No, they are not.
----NPCs are also not just going to give you a fair chance. If they can, they still try to stack things in their favour so that they will emerge as the victor and not the defeated. That doesn't mean that they are cheating or have been given unfair advantages. It means that they are going to act in their own self-interest and do that it takes to win.
At the end of the day, I am not nerfing your enemies or giving you bonuses because you think that things should be different in a way that benefits you and doesn't let you lose. Stop rationalising way you getting defeated by an competent NPC opponent as them having unfair advantages and cheating thanks to the QM and demanding that they get nerfed to make things easier for you. Try to come up with actual solution to the problems that don't require the QM changing things to bail you out.
I will not be giving you free-handouts because you got bested and you complaint a lot about it.
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- Location
- Southampton, Great Britain
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I'll answer this tomorrow night as I don't time tonight.
10ebbor10
DON'T PANIC
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- Present
As far as actions go, we've actually been pretty consistent.
These are the actions pre-Urth attack, for example :
[X][SEC] Sunrise Mountain Passage
[X][SEC] Support Subordinate = Maradysh
Arthwyd = [SEC] Sunrise Mountain Passage, [SEC] More Farming (Hero override)
[X][SEC] Sunrise Mountain Passage
[X][SEC] Study Metal.
[X][SEC] More Farming
[X][SEC] Temple
We just don't have enough.
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We've not really had a plan though. Just a kind of "eh, this seems good right now," or "we want metal lets get more study on that." Without any real long term intent behind our actions. We need to actually have a multi-term plan to be able to really succeed.
10ebbor10
DON'T PANIC
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Anyway, few minor notes:
The discussion isn't about a simple detail though. That specific discussion was about a value which was essential to Urth's plan, a plan that (since it was prepared) you knew.
If you're relying on people making conclusions based on incomplete information, don't be surprised when they make conclusions based on incomplete information.
If people only see the NPC completing actions that they couldn't pull off, and recieve the info that the civ has more actions than them, then the logical conclusion based on the information we have is that the civ is more powerfull than us.
The discussion isn't about a simple detail though. That specific discussion was about a value which was essential to Urth's plan, a plan that (since it was prepared) you knew.
If you're relying on people making conclusions based on incomplete information, don't be surprised when they make conclusions based on incomplete information.
If people only see the NPC completing actions that they couldn't pull off, and recieve the info that the civ has more actions than them, then the logical conclusion based on the information we have is that the civ is more powerfull than us.
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Knight Draco
Tea Sipping Advocate of the Devil
- Location
- North America
HERETIC!
Nope, just the one. So we can get it this turn.