Patrolling

Jazzepi · #1 July 29th, 2007, 03:09 AM

Okay, so I've seen this happen multiple times now as I've taken this as a basic strategy in every game I play.

1. I make my scout a prophet.

2. I assign my normal commander to patrol and set taxes from 130-150 in my capital for a first turn money boost that's pretty significant.

Now the problem with this is, sometimes the patrolling works, other times it seems to do nothing (I don't even get a message saying "blah blah blah has killed x amount of guys" the next turn). I'm not sure why it's happening. Perhaps it's the low amount of starting units?

Is this working as intended, or a bug?

Jazzepi

IndyPendant · #2 July 29th, 2007, 11:40 AM

I've seen it happen too. I suspect it's open-ended DRN-related. I can't find any rules in Teh Buk, but I *think* what happens is:

(Total patroller modifiers) rolls an open-ended DRN. (Province unrest) rolls a DRN. If Patrollers beat Unrest, then the province's unrest value is reduced by an amount modified by how much Patrollers win by. If Patrollers lose, nothing happens (though indeed, a message stating that would be nice).

Now, if Unrest rolls one (or two, or three, etc) natural six, and therefore gets to roll again, Unrest could beat Patrollers--theoretically, even if you have 100 Knights involved!

--Assuming I'm right, of course. : )

HoneyBadger · #3 July 29th, 2007, 04:03 PM

Just a quick plea: Please, when you use acronyms that are game-specific, or obscure (or too modern for us old farts), for the first time in a thread, to make a significant point, list in ( ) what the acronym stands for?

It's not excrutiating to look them up, but it can be bothersome when you're trying to make a point, and I'm doing a quick read-through at work, with other things on my mind, and have to wonder "well, what exactly does he/she mean by "DRN"?"

It'll help everyone else by making posts easier to read, but it'll also help you because it'll increase the clarity of your message.

I'm not picking on you specifically, by the way, lots of people on this thread do this constantly, and it's annoying. I won't go so far as to claim it's "elitist", but it does make things harder than they need to be, especially hard on newbies.

This is to everyone (myself included): The burden of communication, of getting Your point across, is on You.

If you do, I'll be your bff!

BigDisAwesome · #4 July 29th, 2007, 04:34 PM

OMGWTFBBQGB2WORK

I'm sorry. I just couldn't resist.

Lazy_Perfectionist · #5 July 29th, 2007, 05:39 PM

Anyways, DRN is discussed in the manual on page 5 as one of the fundamental game mechanics. (Jokingly) RTFM (Read The [censored] Manual).

I understand where you're coming from, HoneyBadger, and I also understand why IndyPendant didn't feel the need to expound. "Probabilities in Dominions" isn't the most exciting manual section, and easy to overlook.

A DRN is a Dominions Random Number. This is a roll of two six-sided dice, open-ended (roll six, re-roll that die, add new number to previous total).

As a point of clarification - technically, if DRN shows up in the formula anywhere, it is always open-ended roll. If "DRN" does not show up, and you only see 2d6 (two six-sided die rolls), then its not open-ended.