This is from something I said in another thread, but it got me thinking about something else that I think would be cool for Elemental. What if rumors could spread around by way of trade routes. Almost the same sort of thing that happens in games like sid meiers alpha centauri or GalCiv when another faction says something like "I've just mastered [insert technology]" or "I am now producing [insert powerful unit name]". However, this time you can only figure these things out by word of mouth (or a good spy of course). And as we all should know, people fib, people embellish. Things that may be small turn out to be huge or things that are suppose to be a big deal aren't talked about.
But in context with the game, let's say a caravan arrives from The Kingdom of Altar. Perhaps that merchant knows something and offers his information at a price or maybe he's just talking and you pick something up. It could be about another faction's newly acquired hero and how powerful they are. Or maybe it's about how beautiful the Channeler of Altar's daughter is. Or the city of Ulthu in the Empire of Kraxis is being attacked by a fledgling dragon. Some things would be pointless to know, while others could help you in your intrigue or tactics. Maybe technology would sometimes slip across the border? It goes along with an idea I read about on these forums not too long ago that I really liked about how technology would be hard to keep contained.
I think it would be a neat way of acquiring information without another leader being an idiot and telling you all their evil plans. It'd be like a drengin leader saying, "hey we researched lasers, and we're gonna keep researching those" so you would immediately go research shields. Well if the leader is smart, he wouldn't say a thing... But how can he stop what his DPS (Drengin Parcel Service) men say while they unload their cargo at Earth??
Maybe I'm getting crazy here, but just like you could get false information from other nations, maybe you could plant false information amongst your people and spread it. So that when the Empire of Kraxis comes across your border to attack your "helpless and pathetic nation", you ride out with your elite knights and crush them Of course, now they know it's lie... But they should have been a little more skeptical from the beginning. Don't believe everything you hear Kraxis...
Thoughts? Additions? Let me know what you think
I like the idea in general, but if the rumours are potentially important, I'd want a UI chunk that let me 'go through my files' at will and look at old rumours in the light of new events and/or other rumours. I've occasionally kept notes outside a game, but I like it to be optional.
Sounds cool. I can haz beta access?
I've seen this post by you like 500 times its not even fun yet, interesting maybe, but definitely not fun
yea, i think this would be important, maybe it could auto update old rumors if you found something that would change it?
I'm still vaguely hoping that we'll see some 'staff AIs' of some sort in the game. If we get a Royal Council or whatever, the spymaster or senior diplomat should give reports on new rumours that relate to old ones. But I'd settle for a more or less flat list of past rumours.
Yea, I'd love to see this in the game too! Did you ever get the chance to play King of Dragon's Pass? Cuz I heard about it somewhere on these forums (can't remember where) and while I didn't ever get a chance to play it there are some wonderful AAR's for it. That kind of interaction with a council is what I would love to see for Elemental
Here is my favorite AAR: http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=46079 its got lots of pictures to go along with it. If you've got the time, give it a read, it's really good. Your council members age too and it shows that in game. To me, though it's a little thing, is so awesome and it adds a lot of immersion into a game like this.
I don't think I've posted 500 times yet.
It doesnt matter if it's fun to me. I read history books when I'm bored(working on Lords of the Horizon currently) and I find that entertaining, surely Elemental can match a history book.
That's so boring, I got bored reading it... Always wanted to use that smiley! Thanks for givin me the opportunity
Rumours are cheap and unrealiable ways of obtaining information from your enemies. For more safe ways of information gathering, refer to spies, mataharis, ninjas, diplomats, thieves, magic balls and trained monkeys.
Edit:
Oh! And let me pay the rumour mill to start rumours of my own! (with proper UI with some models to make it easy and generic)
Yes, I did, and I wish I'd kept track of the disks so I could putter again via DOSBox. That AAR looks awesome, especially if the detail keeps up for all those forum pages. I was highly addicted to the game when it was fresh, but replayability wasn't that great, probably for the same immersion-related reasons that I enjoyed it so much initially. Detail was wonderfully deep, but in the end the game world felt pretty small compared to a live game of Runequest or a TBS like Civ, MoM, or MoO.
Surprised we haven't seen ScoutDog in this thread; he seemed to be the lead espionage lobbyist for a while. I'm still hoping for a royal council that includes a spymaster who would do a better or worse job of sorting through rumours depending on the stats of the champion or offspring we assign to the job and the resources we give him or her to use. Being able to launch a false rumour campaign would be awesome, especially if the same filtering-skills affected the chances of having a strategic lie be believed by the enemy.
Rising Legend your Avatar is awesome.
This would be neat, especially since, according to the new journal entry, we have non-player characters that are going about their own business. Which we already knew i suppose, but now it's official! So there's a lot more possibility for rumors to be messed up by that dumb witted grandson of mine
And thanks!
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