Olympia - G4 - PlayByMail Forums Archive

#2793 Jan 13, 2014 03:13 UTC

#2800 Jan 20, 2014 02:14 UTC

The link to the game's main page, where you can read the rules and sign up:

http://www.shadowlandgames.com/olympia/

Steve (Olympia G4 admin).

Edited Jan 20, 2014 02:14 UTC

#2847 Feb 7, 2014 02:22 UTC

The turn 5 link there has the right number of players, but links to the turn 4 report. You can see all the turn reports online at http://www.shadowlandgames.com/olympia/times/ (although it is nice to see the player numbers at a glance here).

#2848 Feb 7, 2014 02:41 UTC

Oops! That's because I copied and pasted, but forgot to change the last character in the link.

Thanks for the catch, Steve!

#2958 Mar 10, 2014 20:22 UTC

Signed up for this game myself last week. Got my position via email yesterday, and sent in my first turn today.

This looks like a fun tribal "sandbox" game with a simple framework that sits over a fairly deep set of orders and actions. I followed the link they have on their site to the unofficial wiki, which had a "tutorial" for the first couple of turns. This was very helpful. Moderators take note! You will entice players to join if you give them an easy on-ramp.

So instead of wading through dozens of options, I read a few wiki articles. One ran through some of the possible "pure" positions a player could take (like focusing entirely on developing an arch-mage, or turtling inside immense castles), but ultimately recommended that for the best play experience, players should try multiple things in parallel. Set up a mage, develop him more slowly, and grow a trade business on the side, or spy on other players and sell the info, etc.

And the tutorial showed how to add a couple of nobles to your starting position and begin training them up on basic skills. Hopefully by next week I will have added 2 nobles (the key to doing anything in the game), begun their skills tracks, and trained half my starting peasantry into workers to begin some construction projects.

#2967 Mar 13, 2014 18:37 UTC

I'm preparing to step outside my starting safe haven at the end of my 2nd turn. Hopefully I have invested enough in skills and soldiers to be safe for a brief foray into the countryside.

Nobody bothered to try to send recruiting offers to the new player when he appeared in the city, so I am going to try to put a notice in The Olympia Times announcing my intentions.

#2969 Mar 17, 2014 15:23 UTC

Got my first turn back. My 2 new nobles are on-board, and all 3 nobles are getting trained up. I think I'm going to have to start burning some of the "fast train" days that every player is issued, just to speed things along.

Problem one is that while I gave one of the new nobles 100 gold to pay for training, he spent some of the rest of his time training workers, and he had no gold left to pay them. 3 of them deserted. Argh.

Problem two is that I didn't get my message to appear in the Olympia Times. Probably used the wrong command.

This turn: finish training my 3 nobles in their 3 basic skills, recruit some more people, figure out how to make a ship, and find a way to earn some cash money. People seem to be selling a lot of woven baskets and clay pots...

EDIT: fixed typos

#2970 Mar 17, 2014 17:47 UTC

Stacked all of my nobles together and left the city, moving into the surrounding province with a mixture of peasants, workers, and soldiers. Then moved into next adjacent province and explored, discovering a cave. The province is controlled by a castle & garrison, so planning to move further inland to find somewhere with lower population density.

My post DID appear in The Olympia Times. I used the PRESS order so the name of my entity would appear. (The other option is RUMOR, which posts an unsigned post.)

Did miscalculate the days certain things would occur on, as forgot to account for the travel time of the units stacked under the stack leader (the unit that was issuing the movement orders). Will have to issue STOP orders first thing to clear queued orders for next turn.

Each of my nobles knows 2 "base skills" at this point, so will start on learning some subskills (don't have to be in a city to start studying those).

#2972 Mar 17, 2014 21:54 UTC

Ooohhh ... I think I have figured out what to do with the Map Viewer program linked from the main Olympia page.

If I'm remembering what i just did:

1) Actions > Recently Used Map Files > templateG4.xml.
2) This gives an error as it is a template file and prompts you to save map under another name.
3) Open the new map copy.
4) Find an email with a game turn report. Select All > Copy > Paste into a .txt file.
5) Report Parser (one of the tabs near Province Info in upper left corner) > find and select the .txt file you just made.
6) Data is parsed and imported into the Map Viewer program!
7) Actions > File > Save Map File As (overwrite previous copy of map file).

I've done this to all 3 of my existing turn reports. Will be building up a map and sightings of other units as I go.

#2983 Mar 28, 2014 20:06 UTC

I think I miscalculated the way days are spent, and that that's why my message to the newsletter failed. My next set of orders had some failures, too, in that I didn't provide money to a couple of leaders for advanced training. I checked, and they were granted money first and given training orders second, but the game processed the training first and the money-thing second. With no money to spend, their training orders failed.

If this is a case where the order can change, then I might start doing one-day commands in between orders that might process on the same day, to enforce my own sequence.

#2984 Mar 29, 2014 02:00 UTC

If you had miscalculated the days some things would occur (such as on a previous turn I did not factor in that nobles stacked together would ALL incur 7 days time to move to another province, even though only ONE noble (the stack leader) actually issued a MOVE command), then any leftover commands that ended up past day 30 would be queued and rollover into the following turn. If needed a STOP order can be issued as the first order next turn to clear the slate of the queued orders.

Also, re-read "Command Priority" under the Rules page:

http://www.shadowlandgames.com/olympia/rules.html

Maybe some unexpected interaction of differing priority orders?

(Personally, I expanded all sections of both the Rules page and the Orders page, and saved them locally to view offline for reference.)

http://www.shadowlandgames.com/olympia/orders.html

Were you using "Claim" for each individual noble to take gold from your faction stockpile? So far that is what i have been doing to keep enough gold on each noble to cover training and upkeep for the attached men.

Although I am searching for someplace to set up camp and harvest some resources that I can sell (need to find another city too); the money will not last for many more turns at the rate I am training soldiers and workers.

#2989 Mar 31, 2014 01:33 UTC

Well, I inadvertently had one of my nobles use fast study days by mis-writing orders (meant to do regular study). This wasted 14 fast study days for no purpose, and since that noble was the stack leader, the whole stack ended up moving to another province "ahead of schedule" throwing off the orders of the other nobles in the stack.

Nothing crucial, but wasted a lot of days that could have been spent more productively.

I'll soon have enough soldiers to risk splitting the stack, as it is slow going exploring out here. Is Hilrun nothing but Plains once away from the coast? Sure seems like it so far... Need to find some Forest, or Hills, or Mountains - anyplace I can harvest some resources.

#3167 Apr 28, 2014 02:23 UTC

After splitting my nobles into 2 stacks and further exploring a few turns I have found some Forest! I managed 2 whole turns without making any errors, but this last turn I mistakenly had a noble study a skill he already knew, instead of practicing with the "use" order. Oh well was only a time filler while waiting for another noble anyway.

I need to see if there might be a city somewhere in the vicinity to have a marketplace to sell any excess resources I might harvest. If I can get some income coming in, I might upgrade some of my soldiers into pikemen.

#3335 May 21, 2014 22:40 UTC

In my wanderings about Hilrun, I have passed into the realm of the Mountain Queen.

Flurry of diplomatic messages back & forth as we try to feel each other out.

After all, if a large armed band wandered into your neighborhood you'd be a bit wary too I suppose.

Hopefully we can come to some arrangement in which I can keep moving through peacefully. Maybe we can even conduct a bit of business while I am in the area. Building that castle of hers probably needs a lot of resources to be harvested, maybe I can sell Her Majesty some.

#3346 May 22, 2014 13:05 UTC

The Realm of the Mountain Queen. I like the sound of that.

#3479 Jun 21, 2014 14:32 UTC

Having found a spot to camp for a few turns, have been harvesting resources and making a few weapons. Found a couple of nearby cities.

Sent a noble back in the direction of the Mountain Queen, and was planning to pay a visit and do some business, but upon sending a message was advised that the gates are shut due to possible hostile forces in the area.

Seems a war is brewing in this corner of Hilrun.

Her Majesty seems eager to purchase some weapons, so will return to my camp and train another weaponsmith to accelerate production.

Considering moving the camp as well.

#3564 Jul 27, 2014 17:41 UTC

Updated the initial posting in this thread to add a link for the Turn # 29 issue of The Olympia Times.

#3607 Sep 1, 2014 14:40 UTC

After 25 turns... still sending in my turn every week :)

I've kept my position small (only a handful of nobles), plus an Inn I built to use as a base.

I guess I am now an "ally" of the Mountain Queen, although I am trying to keep from being entangled in the larger alliance of players for now.

Maybe "employee" might be a better term than "ally?"

Maybe "feudal underling?" It's an evolving negotiated arrangement.

Supplying weapons and helping to secure some areas with garrisons in return for cold hard cash. I think I'm also expected to report on sightings of potential strangers passing through. (It is not possible from within the game itself to tell if a noble is player-controlled or computer-controlled, or which faction the noble belongs to.)

I think I just might be close to being able to generate enough income to support my 19 men per noble I have been dragging around, without needing more deals with the Mountain Queen, although I do need access to the markets in her cities to have a place to sell resources.

I'd also like to think about upgrading my troops to a better type, but that would increase the amount of pay they need by 50% per turn. That might have to wait until my economic situation improves some more.

Edited Sep 1, 2014 14:41 UTC