Prestige and Fruit (was Re: [glob2-devel] Gameplay guidelines)

[Andrew Sayers]

I was just writing up what we were talking about, and some thoughts came
to me about how to improve the prestige and fruit systems.  I've got a
completely different model of fruit in mind, and prestige would become
the main tool for converting globs, so don't reply until you've read the
full text :)

_Fruit_

Ordinarily, I don't think that globs should convert based on fruit at
all.  However, when globs starve, I think they should automatically try
to convert to enemy teams.  Globs should prefer to convert to teams with
a better selection of food, and prefer to convert to teams with "inn
view" enabled, but even teams without inn view should accept globs in
the same proportion that they're being created in swarms, and so long as
their inns have plenty of spare capacity.

For example, a team with inn view turned off, whose only swarm is
producing two workers for every warrior, and which has just finished
several level 3 inns that are now lying empty, should convert two workers
for every worker that requests to convert.  This way, they get the
benefits from their opponent's mismanagement, but not the risk of
showing where their inns are.

The primary purpose of fruit should be to increase/decrease various
skills based on some complex rules, which encourage trade.  I've got a
complete system worked out that would do this, but it's still just an
idea - I'd love to hear different ways of doing the same thing.

Food could be classified along two axes, "type"
(animal/mineral/vegetable) and "origin" (tree/ground/sea).  Each type
could correspond to a weakness, and each origin to a strength:

Animal: makes you slower
Mineral: makes you eat more
Vegetable: reduces armour

Tree: makes you faster
Ground: makes you eat less
Sea: increases armour

So for example, eating a vegetable from a tree would make you more
vulnerable but faster, while eating an animal from the sea would make
you slower but better armoured.  The strengths and weaknesses could be
weighted so that eating both would make you faster and better armoured,
rather than just canceling out.  It might also be better to leave out
the contradictory combinations (e.g. tree animal) so we don't get "super
foods" with no weaknesses.

To make things a bit clearer (for those of you with fixed-width fonts at
least), here's a grid of possible foods:

        Animal  Mineral Vegetable
Tree            honey   orange*
Ground  worm            potato
Sea     salmon  salt    

Since most teams would be unable to get at all types of resource, trade
would be very useful - especially between teams whose local foods have
opposing properties.

_Prestige_

The problem with prestige at the moment is that it's almost impossible
to reach the limit, and when you do, the game suddenly ends.  I think a
better solution would be to work a bit like fruit currently does - a
school of any level can generate prestige, when "fed" with papyrus (so
the professors of the school can record their thoughts).  Teams can make
their schools visible to others, so as to convert their enemies through
prestige.  Additionally, level 3 schools generate prestige points for
free, perhaps being feedable as well.

This way, conversion remains part of the game, working a lot like it
does at the moment through fruit, but slightly easier to control
(because globs that work at inns currently go both for fruit and wheat).
Also, once the game gets towards the end, conversion becomes a lot
easier to do, and the race steps up a gear (because the aim becomes
building more schools rather than feeding the existing ones).  This
should force most games to a conclusion even when both teams' defences
are very strong.

        - Andrew