Rules update 2022

Overview

Every year we carry out a review of some part of the game looking to see what we improve. Although that process has been slowed this year, we've still been working on some important updates. This page summarizes and explains the changes so that players can identify and understand the changes easily.

We try to include a section after each update to explain the reasoning behind the change, as well as providing a in-character rationale for what has changed.

Armour

We have fundamentally changed the definition of which armours count as heavy armour. From now on, any armour that is made of metal or is built to look like it is made of metal will count as heavy armour. The previous rule that the armour must be physically heavy to count as heavy has been scrapped. This means that polyurethane plate armour will count as heavy armour, along with other physically light armours such as light mail.

We have changed the rules for medium armour, so that any armour that counts as leather, or is built to look like it is made of leather will count as medium armour. If the armour covers your torse and one other location then it also provides one hero point, provided you are not wearing any metal armour other than a helm.

We have introduced a new 1 point skill called dreadnought, which provides one additional hit for a character while they are wearing steel armour that is 1mm thick or more and which is physically heavy.

We have relaxed the restrictions on what materials can be used to make armour, so that armour can now be made from foam.

Reasoning

When we created Empire, we were very conscious that heavy, bulky armour can restrict mobility and movement. We wanted to encourage the use of cool armour, because we felt it would make the game more immersive, and so we gave a significant game benefit to armour that was physically heavy. The aim was to incentivise people to wear it by offsetting the downsides the weight imposed.

It is clear to us now that that approach was fundamentally flawed. It took no account of the difficulties faced by people who can't physically wear heavy armour for a range of reasons. We were making rules to benefit people who could choose to wear heavy armour, without any thought to how that would affect access to the game for people who can't make that choice. The practical effect of the existing rules was to create additional barriers to participation for many players - that was a major error on our part.

Changing the rules has not been trivial, not least because a large number of our orc opponents on our battlefields use our own polyurethane breastplates - which will now be classed as heavy. We realise that that impacts characters using two-handed weapons and bows in particular, but we feel there is no way to fix the core problem at the heart of the existing armour rules without fundamentally shifting the game balance around the Impale call. We appreciate that affected players may have different views, but we believe that these calls will remain highly useful on battlefields. As a result, we're not currently planning any changes in those areas, but we will monitor the situation carefully as the new rules bed in, to see if that view is justified in practice.

We understand that changing the rules doesn’t mean barriers to participation will disappear. Empire will still turn on hard skills, allowing characters to showcase that they’re good at fighting or performing or public-speaking or trading. But access to battles and skirmishes should be based on the relative fighting ability of a character rather than being primarily influenced by your OOC physical levels of fitness. We will try to improve access for everyone by continuing to develop new opportunities for players to get involved with the game.

As part of the change to the armour classifications, we've introduced a new benefit to wearing medium armour - it now provides one hero point to anyone who wears it. That will be most useful to characters with heroic skills, but the rules have been clarified to make clear that any character with a hero point can use it to resist roleplaying effects on their character. The goal of this change is to encourage the use of medium armour and make it a very viable character choice - one that is comparable with wearing heavy armour. The hero point you gain reflects the boost in confidence and mobility your character gains when they put the armour on. We want to make it easier for players to wear the type of armour that fits with the kind of character they want to play.

A small benefit to wearing heavy armour remains, with the introduction of the new dreadnought skill. This is a skill you purchase when you generate your character or spend XP. It grants a character wearing steel mail or plate that is OOC heavy an extra global hit while they are wearing their armour. We've taken that step because we still want to provide some offset for the OOC challenges faced when wearing armour that weighs a lot. We know some players have invested time and money in heavy armour that looks fantastic and we want to support people to wear that armour if they want to. By making it a skill purchase, we believe it will provide a vastly fairer balance between those who can and can't wear physically heavy armour than the current rules allow.

We're aware that the new rules don’t prioritise realism, but that is not one of the design criteria for Empire. Empire isn't a simulation, it's a live roleplaying game, so the emphasis is on character and player choices and on creating a beautiful immersive world to roleplay in. We are also painfully aware that these rules are still flawed in some respects. For example, some suits of heavy plate are incredibly punishing to wear, while a good vest of mail can be much less encumbering. Some level of abstraction is essential to create a functioning game and that means major compromises have to be made about how we classify armour.

IC Explanation

These changes are primarily abstract in nature, but if players want to be able to discuss in-character why polyurethane plate counts as heavy now when it didn't then we suggest you put it down to recent improvements in mithril smithing that have made mithril armour almost as good as steel armour. The dreadnought skill represents the small advantage that a character can aquire by becoming strong enough to wear the thickest, heaviest armour.

Further Reading

• Rules update 2024
• Rules update 2023
• Rules update 2022
• Rules update 2020
• Rules update 2019
• Rules update 2018
• Rules update 2017
• Rules update 2016
• Rules update 2015
• Rules update 2014
• Rules update 2013