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Thread: Playing Total War as RISK or D&D

  1. #1

    Default Playing Total War as RISK or D&D

    Essentially, playing the game by following a series of dice rolls to determine your moves.

    I was playing Rome last night and happened to catch two enemy spies trying to sneak into my Capital. This had me thinking, is that enough to declare war or not? This is where I miss the old 'we are the senate' games where you could debate this and come to a conclusion. You can't really do that by yourself or you'll get locked up!

    So then I got to thinking about a system which would take these decisions out of my hands and thought of games like RISK and D&D where actions are determined by a dice roll. This could replicate the Senate, or your faction elders, quite well. This could be incredibly in-depth and I need some help to determine fair and simple rules.

    I haven't gotten far!

    I think a good starting point would be to list all possible transgressions and then scale them. Please tell me if I've missed any or if you think they should be in another section. I think this can be split up into 2 sections: War? and War!

    War?

    Light - Bribery, Spying, Army crossing your land, Sabotage,

    Moderate - Breaking alliance, Minor skirmishes/ raiding parties,

    Severe - Assassination, Besieged, Port blockade, Attacked in the field in force,

    I'm thinking of rolling a few dice at the same time. Say 3 dice. For light transgressions where you don't really want to go to war you have to roll 15+ out of 18; moderate 11+ and severe 6+. That also leaves a chance of a severe transgression not leading to war - maybe there are some very cautious backbenchers or Senators with another agenda? The problem with dice is that you can't roll a zero so the numbers have to start high.

    War!

    This section would cover your remit from the Senate or Council as to how far you can go if your dice roll leads to war. It's quite an extreme move to suddenly jump to the extermination of an entire faction.

    This is a difficult section. I need to balance the possibility with the outcome. Things like extermination are easy (18 out of 18). There are lots and lots of possible plays here... Block ports/ devastation/ sabotage (8-11); field/ sea skirmishes (12-14); take a city (5-7); take an entire province (e.g. Near Spain or Sicily)(15-17); eliminate faction leader through any means necessary (3-4); Extermination (18)... In fact, are there actually any others? I've added the dice roll in brackets thinking that it's more likely that you'd roll towards the middle?

    Those numbers are very tight, especially if I've overlooked any other possibilities which is more than likely. Maybe 4 dice would be better?

    --

    Anyway, I don't want to waffle on any further because I'd like some input. I do think this will add another dimension to the way we play the game but I need some help getting it to a workable stage, please.

  2. #2

    Default Re: Playing Total War as RISK or D&D

    A quick update:

    I've been having a tester campaign as the Julii (RTW1 but that doesn't matter this can be used with any TW game). It took a while to kick off, I ignored the Senate missions and waited for the action to find me. The Gauls were quick to send spies, every year I was getting messages of spying on my capital. True to the nature of the formula, we didn't go to war over this small transgression. It gave me a lot of time to train up a legion and build my towns.

    I've also been following a realistic conquest timeline. We hit the first Punic war and I did my bit by taking Caralis on Sardinia with my legion. The Gauls saw this and blockaded a port, declaring war on me. The dice were rolled and war it was although I'm questioning if a port blockade is actually 'severe'? My orders were to skirmish on land and sea. Cue a rather exciting little campaign in the foothills of the Alps roaming around with my legion back from Caralis goading the Gauls into leaving their towns and attacking me. I've reduced two rather large garrisons down to single units in each - ripe for the taking if the Senate allows me!

    I've reduced the threat and probably should now retreat. There's a gap in my instructions - I can't be the aggressor! I maybe need a To War!! roll to determine if we take the fight to a faction? Otherwise I'll be sat back in my territory letting the Gauls recruit more men to attack me, however then I may roll for one of the more aggressive outcomes like take the province. To fall back on judging by my timeline, it's around 18 years until the first Illyrian war where I can take two settlements and then Rome conquered Cisalpine Gaul in 20 years anyway but that's a long, slow last resort.

  3. #3
    Jake Armitage's Avatar Artifex
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    Default Re: Playing Total War as RISK or D&D

    More or less the things you're proposing are doable, but they will take a lot of effort man.
    How much do you know about lua scripting?

  4. #4

    Default Re: Playing Total War as RISK or D&D

    Quote Originally Posted by Jake Armitage View Post
    More or less the things you're proposing are doable, but they will take a lot of effort man.
    How much do you know about lua scripting?
    Sweet nothing!

    I'm not proposing a mod to the game to incorporate the dice roll, simply a set of rules to abide by. Like a game manual for a board game.

    This has pretty much gone down like a lead balloon though! I'm still thinking about how to make it entertaining and not one big game of waiting around to be attacked or gain a mysterious senatorial green light.

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