improving the game via prison

[Bendix]

I like where this is going.

Prison Break- What if a feature was added where, if you attack an enemy capitol with a certain unit setting (like 'evasive'), or use a particular unit type (like 'Special Forces'), or a particular designation (like 'Vanguard'), it would dramatically increase the chance of freeing prisoners? This would represent a concentrated effort to free a prisoner, as opposed to a happy accident of circumstance. Imagine it- one heroic Noble brings a band of special forces into the enemy capitol alone. He will probably have his unit wiped out, and be captured himself, but he does so anyway to free his King, or other dignitary, knowing that he will have a better chance with a small unit of specialists than with a massive frontal assault. It would certainly liven up the action if Nobles had an incentive to attack an enemy capitol alone!

Conversely, perhaps we could build a Prison Break option into the Infiltrator Class to help balance out the new longer prison terms.

As far as luxuries, it would be kinda cool if imprisoned rulers were allowed to write to the ruler channel from prison. It would represent the kind of imprisonment that a leader could work to his own political advantage if he plays it right. Also, I vote yes for optional use of the Academy from prison, and also suggest we throw temples, shrines, and maybe even guilds in there. I think some of these options should become intrinsic (meaning the Judge cannot deny them) depending on a character's position, or honor/prestige, or possibly even his family fame.

This overall concept is a great way to raise the stakes, although I do think some of the larger prison terms are unnecessarily long, and some of the shorter ones not long enough. Here is my suggestion, with Priests and Infiltrators added:

simple nobles with no position: 2 days
knights (nobles with an estate): 3 days
priests: 5 days
marshals, stewards, etc: 7 days
infiltrators: 8 days (I personally think they need a better incentive to not get caught, though they should also have an increased chance of escaping)
landed nobility (lords): 10 days
dukes: 15 days
government members: 20 days
rulers: 25 days

This brings the terms a bit closer together overall.

Anyhow, that's my two cents.

[SaDiablo]

I like where this is going.

Prison Break- What if a feature was added where, if you attack an enemy capitol with a certain unit setting (like 'evasive'), or use a particular unit type (like 'Special Forces'), or a particular designation (like 'Vanguard'), it would dramatically increase the chance of freeing prisoners? This would represent a concentrated effort to free a prisoner, as opposed to a happy accident of circumstance. Imagine it- one heroic Noble brings a band of special forces into the enemy capitol alone. He will probably have his unit wiped out, and be captured himself, but he does so anyway to free his King, or other dignitary, knowing that he will have a better chance with a small unit of specialists than with a massive frontal assault. It would certainly liven up the action if Nobles had an incentive to attack an enemy capitol alone!

Conversely, perhaps we could build a Prison Break option into the Infiltrator Class to help balance out the new longer prison terms.

As far as luxuries, it would be kinda cool if imprisoned rulers were allowed to write to the ruler channel from prison. It would represent the kind of imprisonment that a leader could work to his own political advantage if he plays it right. Also, I vote yes for optional use of the Academy from prison, and also suggest we throw temples, shrines, and maybe even guilds in there. I think some of these options should become intrinsic (meaning the Judge cannot deny them) depending on a character's position, or honor/prestige, or possibly even his family fame.

This overall concept is a great way to raise the stakes, although I do think some of the larger prison terms are unnecessarily long, and some of the shorter ones not long enough. Here is my suggestion, with Priests and Infiltrators added:

simple nobles with no position: 2 days
knights (nobles with an estate): 3 days
priests: 5 days
marshals, stewards, etc: 7 days
infiltrators: 8 days (I personally think they need a better incentive to not get caught, though they should also have an increased chance of escaping)
landed nobility (lords): 10 days
dukes: 15 days
government members: 20 days
rulers: 25 days

This brings the terms a bit closer together overall.

Anyhow, that's my two cents.

If that really was the case for a Lightweight game I would delete my account.

[egamma]

If that really was the case for a Lightweight game I would delete my account.

Which part, specifically, would make you delete your account?

[SaDiablo]

Anything more than a few days brings the boredom level to enough where I just don't play with that character.  I mean honestly its like a short vacation for your character.  Granted your Judge May does a good job keeping players to a short time span.

[Tom]

It occurs to me that we should re-think the prison experience.  Not for implementation for the next 3 or 6 months, but a long term goal.  It is reasonable to expect an enemy ruler would be granted many privileges, and what part does that play in the game?

You can copy it from Might & Fealty, where the entire system will be very, very different.

[Tom]

Conversely, perhaps we could build a Prison Break option into the Infiltrator Class to help balance out the new longer prison terms.

I like that.


And I'm not averse to having more messaging options for prisoners, but I still want them to be severely limited. Being in prison should suck. Maybe right now it sucks a bit too much, but it definitely should be something you want to get away from as soon as possible.

[Penchant]

I like that.


And I'm not averse to having more messaging options for prisoners, but I still want them to be severely limited. Being in prison should suck. Maybe right now it sucks a bit too much, but it definitely should be something you want to get away from as soon as possible.

A possible downside could be increased aging while in prison.

[egamma]

Anything more than a few days brings the boredom level to enough where I just don't play with that character.  I mean honestly its like a short vacation for your character.  Granted your Judge May does a good job keeping players to a short time span.

I think it's fine if you let your character sit in stony silence while in prison. Don't you have other characters?

[SaDiablo]

I think it's fine if you let your character sit in stony silence while in prison. Don't you have other characters?

I have others yes.  But it takes time to grow interactions so sometimes to much of the game is sitting in stoney silence.  Back in the day when there was more than a few prisoners there was more interaction with yelling and screaming.  But now your lucky if you find more than one.

I mean honestly we don't play this game to be in prison, we play it to be in battles which you can never have enough of.  Having prison lengths as Tom suggested is in my opinion a terrible idea.  Now if this was a hardcore game with more turns in it and faster days then yes it would be fine but its not.  But really if you want to find the true value of the players opinion, have an in game poll about it.

[Foxglove]

Anything more than a few days brings the boredom level to enough where I just don't play with that character.  I mean honestly its like a short vacation for your character.  Granted your Judge May does a good job keeping players to a short time span.

I'm sorry to hear that prison stays make you feel that bad about the game.  Even now, there are ways to make prison a more engaging part of the playing experience, although I agree that improvements can be made to make it suck less.

I'm curious if you've ever written letters to the Judge who's imprisoned you. Playing as a Judge, I don't think I've ever received a letter from a prisoner trying to talk themselves out of the dungeons (weirdly, not even when I've written to them first). Long stays in dungeons may also indicate that your own Judge isn't doing anything to arrange prisoner exchanges. I've been surprised by how few Judges even bother to try. At the moment, there seems to be some sort of feeling among players that once a character's in prison they just ignore that one and carry on playing with other characters (obvious exception being escape attempts). I think that's partly responsible for long prison stays. If the Judge running the prison never hears from prisoners and never hears from the enemy Judge to bargain for the release of his captured nobles, it's not surprising that many leave prisoners in the cells for the full 7 days.

I also like the idea of adding a prison break feature to infiltrators. I think I suggested something like that myself back when Anaris was asking how the infiltrator class could be improved.

[SaDiablo]

I'm sorry to hear that prison stays make you feel that bad about the game.  Even now, there are ways to make prison a more engaging part of the playing experience, although I agree that improvements can be made to make it suck less.

I'm curious if you've ever written letters to the Judge who's imprisoned you. Playing as a Judge, I don't think I've ever received a letter from a prisoner trying to talk themselves out of the dungeons (weirdly, not even when I've written to them first). Long stays in dungeons may also indicate that your own Judge isn't doing anything to arrange prisoner exchanges. I've been surprised by how few Judges even bother to try. At the moment, there seems to be some sort of feeling among players that once a character's in prison they just ignore that one and carry on playing with other characters (obvious exception being escape attempts). I think that's partly responsible for long prison stays. If the Judge running the prison never hears from prisoners and never hears from the enemy Judge to bargain for the release of his captured nobles, it's not surprising that many leave prisoners in the cells for the full 7 days.

I also like the idea of adding a prison break feature to infiltrators. I think I suggested something like that myself back when Anaris was asking how the infiltrator class could be improved.

Well I am arguing this also to provide another point of view.   As a judge myself I tend to let nobles go fairly quickly and try to get my nobles back as fast as possible also.  As for infiltrators, the most improvement they need is to be harder to catch, as it stands its way to easy and very discouraging.  For example, changing road signs should be low risk, so low chance of being caught, compared to knifing a noble, that could be improved by having a research option that allows you to track the activity of the noble and reduces the risk of capture to a percentage.

[Ketchum]

2 days is so the enemy judge has a chance at interaction and the captured player has a chance to experience prison. Lots of casual players can easily miss a day. About a third of our players do not log in every day.

Alright, I see and understand your point, Tom. This is acceptable in my opinion :)

Anything more than a few days brings the boredom level to enough where I just don't play with that character.  I mean honestly its like a short vacation for your character.  Granted your Judge May does a good job keeping players to a short time span.

Thank you for your praise. I think as Judge, my characters do interact a lot with the prisoners. When they first landed in my dungeon, I will message them first.

I think it's fine if you let your character sit in stony silence while in prison. Don't you have other characters?

Sit in stony silence while in prison for a day or two? Yes, it is fine.
Sit in stony silence while in prison for more than one or two days? Not fine as no interaction between characters occur. Player will get bore with that particular character.

As some forum posters point out. A good Judge is the one who keep interaction and game communication alive and well, even when you are in prison. If we wish to give incentive to Judge who interact with prisoners, perhaps a Rating or some kind of reward for good Judge? ;)

Here's some of the Roleplay of funny interaction between one my character Judge and a prisoner. Not sure if you still can view this forum link below.

http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,2721.0.html

[Tom]

Sit in stony silence while in prison for a day or two? Yes, it is fine.
Sit in stony silence while in prison for more than one or two days?

your fault. There are always 3 people you can message - their judge, your judge and your liege or ruler, I forgot. Anyways, you never have NO messaging options. In that regard, being wounded is worse.

[Ketchum]

your fault. There are always 3 people you can message - their judge, your judge and your liege or ruler, I forgot. Anyways, you never have NO messaging options. In that regard, being wounded is worse.

Maybe I not make myself clear in my last post. Their Judge not talking to me when I was a prisoner. The main reason why I suggest to reward talking Judge.

[Sacha]

your fault. There are always 3 people you can message - their judge, your judge and your liege or ruler, I forgot. Anyways, you never have NO messaging options. In that regard, being wounded is worse.

Well to be fair, every letter takes one hour, and you only get two per turn, so you can't really converse a lot.