Three Kingdoms Online

So back in high school, I got pulled into the world of Browser Based Strategy games.

The first of which I played was Utopia which is now hosted by Jolt.  What got me interested in these games initially was the idea of "Wait...so it's like Warcraft, but with tens of thousands of players simultaneously?  Awesome."  Also the games were free to play.  They usually made money off of donations, advertisements, or providing benefits to paying players.

The reality is slightly different, but the analogy is as fitting as you can get.  Needless to say that with a browser interface and the sheer volume of player limits the game play significantly.  Despite that, I was addicted.  I went on to play Dominion, Astronest, Archmage (now known as The-Reincarnation), and a host of other RT-BBS games.  And my high school friends all played with me...which is what made it great.  During lunch hours, we would check our accounts at the library and coordinate attacks and intelligence gathering on our latest victims.  But enough nostalgia.

The topic at hand is Thee Kingdoms Online, a BBS based on Romance of the Three Kingdoms.  It functions like many of the older BBS games except that they bothered to place down a full scale grid map of China and they labeled the 30+ states which impressed me greatly.  TKO also contains a ton of bells and whistles that makes the game much more complex than anything else I've ever played previously.

The other games followed the same basic formula:

You start with some Land

Land -> Buildings get built on Land -> Buildings enhance production -> Having production allows you to train troops and maintain upkeep -> Troops can go get you more land (attack or explore)

And thus the cycle of growth is formed.

Better players know how to balance their resources and troops for optimal growth while providing defense for their territory.  In a nutshell, that is what all of these games are about.  TKO is no different, excepting its bells and whistles.

Most notably is the Heroes and Factions.  In TKO you play the role of a warlord in control of a city during the Three Kingdoms period of China.  Heroes are noteworthy characters who serve you, you start with one and can recruit more provided you meet the requirements.  Heroes can military or support.  Generally, you place political heroes as the Governor of a city to boost the resource output, while you send your more militaristic heroes to lead your armies.

Heroes function much like RPG characters.  They have stats, and can equip arms and armor, also they can learn techniques and carry ability scrolls to enhance your city, troops, or themselves.  They also gain experience and level up, so don't slack on leveling up your hero or else they won't grant a sufficient leadership bonus to your army.

Factions are the historical factions.  You can send your heroes on Faction Quests to gain bonus XP or send your hero and army to aid in historical battles and earn resources.  Either way, you will gain and lose reputation with your actions and based on who you decide to help.  Reputation allows you to purchase some trade goods that can be used to boost your "nobility" status, thus elevating oneself from a small time warlord to a rival for the throne.

Not only can armies be used to attack others, but there are also server events like a weekly "King of the Hill" event, in which an NPC run city is declared a strategic stronghold and leagues of players can struggle to capture and hold the city.  Similar things can be done with provincial capitals to provide a benefit.  Needless to say, there are rewards to participating.  All of this works to break the basic cycle of  Land, Buildings, Troops, Attack that the older games had.  Nothing is wrong with such a game scheme, but TKO does a good job of providing alternative goals beyond personal growth.

For instance, you could decide that you want to have the most powerful hero and spend all of your time and resources building up your hero and dominating the dueling arena.  Or you want to be the Provincial Governor so you go after the provincial capital.  Or maybe you do want to just grow big and conquer cities.

There are several frustrations I had with the game.  The game has a steep learning curve.  Troop death comes really easily.  Just earlier this week, I had  4000 man army come in and wipe out my army of 1500 which was sitting at home behind a high level wall and with archers entrenched.  Recovering said troops would take weeks.  This game model generates a "rich getting richer" scheme in of itself.  To exacerbate things further, there is an "Overwhelming numbers" bonus in where a side with 3+ times the troops will suffer fewer losses.  While this has a degree of gritty realism, it doesn't necessarily make for a competitive mass multiplayer game.  I mean, after a month of build up, suddenly my army is wiped out with little effort by someone who decided to spend money for in game benefits (totally legal, but still categorized under the heading of "un-fun" experiences).  Not to mention that this isn't conducive to getting new players in on the game once someone else has a head start.

As a result, I see little point in continuing to play the game to watch my cities be ransacked and what few troops I train to get killed by overwhelming numbers until my attacker gets bored.

All in all, the game was fun until I realized the tremendous advantage gained by people willing to spend money for in game bonuses.  Other games granted meta-game bonuses for paid players.  A good use of "paid account" schemes was the way Dominion did theirs.  Paid accounts in Dominion removed pop-up advertisements in game, and now grant you access to some tools to make your gaming easier (such as attack/defense calculators).  These benefits do not translate into direct in game bonuses, but rather can help in a metagame fashion.  Though for me, I was patient enough to just ignore the advertisements, and skilled enough to create my own calculator using excel.

I don't be-grudge paying TKO players their game, but I don't think it to be good gaming when I have to throw real life money at a game in order to progress.  So the people willing to spend money can continue throwing their cash at each other.  I'll retire...and update my list of current games/projects.

Current Games and Projects:

Computer: Team Fortress 2

Computer: StarCraft 2 (beta)

Computer: Warstorm

Tabletop: D&D 4th Edition

Tabletop: D&D 3.5 Edition

Forum Play-by-Post: L5r RPG 3rd Edition Revised

LARP: Live Effects (Wyrd, Veil, Lanaque, Messina, & others)
Book: Half-Real by Jesper Juuls

Book: Luck, Logic, and White Lies: The Mathematics of Games by Jorg Bewersdorff