Hi All,
This is just to give you an idea of the 'house rules' for Fracas IV. Nothing too different from most games, except maybe the bug report stuff - I just like to lay everything out so there's no confusion. Drop me a line if you have any questions.
We've got 29 players signed up to play Fracas IV, which is over some sort of arbitrary limit, I'm sure, so I'll get it underway tomorrow morning. I'm giving you a little bit of leeway so that if you know of people who are planning on signing up too, you can tell them to hurry up. They can still join later, so it's not a big deal, but they might like to join at the start.
I'm planning on running the first three turns relatively quickly, one tomorrow, one at some point next week - probably Wednesday, but only if everyone's got their turn in. Then another one on Saturday at midnight GMT, and then the turns will run weekly, again on Saturdays at midnight GMT. Drop me an email if you have any unavoidable problems with getting your turns in. All clear? No? Here's a 'picture':
Tomorrow Sunday morning for me, about 4PM GMT.
Wednesday next week, midnight GMT only if everyone's good to go,
otherwise this one will be skipped.
Next Saturday, midnight GMT
Each Saturday after that, midnight GMT.
The official email address for fracas is fracas@westnet.com.au. The official admin email is abriggs@westnet.com.au. Don't get them confused:
fracas@westnet.com.au - game server - send all your turns, #messages, #times reports, etc. here. No guarantee that I'll check it manually, so don't ask it any important questions.
abriggs@westnet.com.au - game admin (me) - send all of your questions, rants, queries here. I'll check it at least once a day. Orders may or may not be ignored, so don't send me any turn reports.
If you send me your turn, and then ask the game server "Why didn't I get a turn check back?", you're not likely to be very happy with my response once you do send an email to the right place. This is mostly for my sanity - I refuse to take responsibility for your turn before it gets to the game server. I'm more than happy to answer any and all questions that you send my way.
I've changed a bunch of stuff between Fracas III and IV, mostly to try and cut down on the min-maxing stuff, such as shuffling tools and silver around. There should be a reasonably realistic economy - if you build and trade, and generally improve your hexes, they'll get better, and villages will be created if the economy gets good enough. Roads and fortifications are much cheaper than in standard Atlantis, and I've tweaked almost all of the races, and a lot of the major monsters. Hopefully the game will be quicker and more fun to play than standard Atlantis. The downside is that any change to a program introduces the possibility of bugs! My standard bug policy applies for this game - I reward players for finding and reporting bugs, on an exponential scale based on the current turn. The formula goes like this:
Reward = 10xTurn^2 + 10xTurn + 1000
We're currently on turn 0, and as soon as the turn's run, we'll be on turn 1. Anyone with basic high-school algebra should be able to work it out, but here's a table:
| Turn | Reward | Turn | Reward | Turn | Reward |
| 0 | 1000 | 12 | 2560 | 24 | 7000 |
| 1 | 1020 | 13 | 2820 | 25 | 7500 |
| 2 | 1060 | 14 | 3100 | 26 | 8020 |
| 3 | 1120 | 15 | 3400 | 27 | 8560 |
| 4 | 1200 | 16 | 3720 | 28 | 9120 |
| 5 | 1300 | 17 | 4060 | 29 | 9700 |
| 6 | 1420 | 18 | 4420 | 30 | 10300 |
| 7 | 1560 | 19 | 4800 | 31 | 10920 |
| 8 | 1720 | 20 | 5200 | 32 | 11560 |
| 9 | 1900 | 21 | 5620 | 33 | 12220 |
| 10 | 2100 | 22 | 6060 | 34 | 12900 |
| 11 | 2320 | 23 | 6520 | 35 | 13600 |
NOTE: This isn't quite as good as it seems - Fracas IV gives you a larger start-up than regular Atlantis. 10k of unclaimed, as well as a big bunch of units at the start.
Of course, the final reward is at the sole discretion of the GM - a large bug that affects many players will probably get more than the listed amount, and a typo on the web site is likely to get far less, if anything (perhaps a derisive snort). Also, if you report a bug in a sloppy fashion (eg. "There was a bug a couple of turns ago, I don't know whether I got enough silver from taxing") then you'll probably get less than you would've if you submitted a good bug report (eg. "On turn 12, in hex (12,2), my unit 1234 taxed, but instead of getting 1000 silver, they only got 800! What gives?"). At some point I may work out an hourly rate in silver, and subtract that from any rewards you recieve, but it hasnt been an issue so far. In any case, this will give you a rough rule of thumb. Also, in the case of non-serious bugs, I may take a turn to verify and get back to you, but in all cases, I'll try and be as quick as possible. In short:
Hopefully that clears up a few things.
The usual online game play rules apply - be nice to me, be nice to other players (within the bounds of role-playing, naturally :> ), don't be an ass, read the #help first if you have a problem. Also, you might want to check out the GM's/players' code of conduct in the Atlantis GAMEMASTER file. If you haven't read it, let me know and I'll send you a copy, or put it up on the website. Actually, I'll put it up on the website, along with this note, so that you can refer to it if necessary.
Have fun,
Anthony