TheLadder/content/frontier/index.js

// The Frontier — the second content pack for The Ladder.
//
// Cold Fork, a freight town at the end of a stage line. You are a hired hand
// in Vane & Co.'s yard; the town has a marshal who is tired and a road that is
// not safe. Two rungs, the same as Corporate Ladder, and not one line of
// engine code between them.
//
// This pack exists to prove the split holds. Everything that makes it a
// different game from Corporate Ladder is in this directory: a four-day cycle
// instead of a week, money that arrives from work rather than from a wage,
// relationship stats named for a place where being owed a favour matters more
// than being liked, and a skill pair of nerve and trade.

import { characters } from './characters.js';
import { events } from './events/index.js';

export const frontier = {
  id: 'frontier',
  name: 'The Frontier',
  blurb:
    'Cold Fork, at the end of a stage line: a freight yard, a road that is ' +
    'not safe, and a marshal who has been six years retiring.',
  version: '0.1.1',
  turnUnit: 'day',
  startingStage: 'hand',
  peopleHeading: 'Cold Fork',

  stages: {
    hand: { label: 'The Yard', title: 'Hired Hand' },
    deputy: { label: 'The Office', title: 'Deputy Marshal' },
  },

  // Not a week. The stage comes every fourth day, and the whole town runs on
  // that: the outfit settles up when the stage comes in, the boarding house
  // collects on the rest day before it. A pack that wants a seven-day week
  // says seven here; the engine has no opinion either way, and Corporate
  // Ladder's calendar is the same field with different numbers in it.
  calendar: {
    cycleLength: 4,
    cycleName: 'Run',
    unitNames: ['Stage day', 'Haul', 'Yard', 'Rest'],
  },

  // Money is smaller here than in Corporate Ladder by a factor of about
  // fifteen, and it behaves differently: the settlement covers board and room
  // and very little else, so the difference between a good run and a bad one
  // is what you took from the work. See `tuning` below for the arithmetic that
  // is actually asserted.
  state: {
    'money': { initial: 40, min: -400, max: 100000 },
    // The store ledger. Named for what it is rather than for a loan: nobody in
    // Cold Fork lends money, they let you carry a balance.
    'owed': { initial: 0, min: 0, max: 100000 },
    'standing': { initial: 50, min: 0, max: 100 },
    'skills.nerve': { initial: 5, min: 0, max: 100 },
    'skills.trade': { initial: 5, min: 0, max: 100 },
    // The same shape as Corporate Ladder's lifestyle, in this setting's own
    // terms and at this setting's own scale: what the office expects a man to
    // turn up on, and what keeping that up costs. See DECISIONS #36.
    'lifestyle': { initial: 0, min: 0, max: 2 },
    'flags.carries_iron': { initial: false },
    'flags.owes_the_store': { initial: false },
    'flags.covered_for_dutch': { initial: false },
    'flags.sworn_in': { initial: false },
    'flags.spoke_for_dutch': { initial: false },
    'notable': { initial: [] },
  },

  // A different vocabulary from Corporate Ladder's likes/fears/helps, and the
  // reason the vocabulary is content's to choose. Out here the useful question
  // about a person is not whether they like you: it is whether they will take
  // your word, and whether they are carrying a debt to you they mean to pay.
  relationshipStats: {
    trusts_you: { label: 'Takes your word', initial: 45, min: 0, max: 100 },
    owes_you: { label: 'Owes you', initial: 10, min: 0, max: 100 },
    wary_of_you: { label: 'Wary of you', initial: 15, min: 0, max: 100 },
  },

  // The economic shape, and the thing that makes this pack a real test of the
  // engine rather than Corporate Ladder in a hat: there is no wage worth
  // living on. Vane settles up when the stage comes in and it covers the room
  // and the feed and four dollars besides. Everything else you earn, you earn
  // on a turn, by choosing to — and what the choices cost is where the
  // pressure comes from, not an unexplained drain.
  //
  // Keep this arithmetic honest when tuning. Per four-day run:
  //   hand:    -12 board  -8 room  +24 settlement  =  +4
  //   deputy:  -12 board  -8 room  +38 pay         = +18
  // Both are asserted directly by the conformance suite against `tuning`
  // below, so a number changed here without re-deriving it fails the build
  // rather than trapping a player forty turns in.
  upkeep: [
    { label: 'Board and feed', effects: [{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -3 }] },
    // Turn 1 is a Stage day, so offset 3 is the first Rest day and offset 4
    // the next Stage day — the room is collected the night before the outfit
    // settles up, which is the boarding house's whole business model.
    {
      label: 'Room at the Cordwood',
      every: 4,
      offset: 3,
      effects: [{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -8 }],
    },
    // Labelled as wages, because they are. "Settlement" read as jargon to the
    // first real player, who could not tell it was the twenty-four a run the
    // first morning quotes; the ledger is written for a player (DECISIONS #27).
    {
      label: 'Wages from Vane',
      every: 4,
      offset: 4,
      requires: [{ path: 'stage', op: '==', value: 'hand' }],
      effects: [{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: 24 }],
    },
    {
      label: 'Wages from the county',
      every: 4,
      offset: 4,
      // The town pays a real wage, and it is still not much of a living. What
      // changes with the star is not the money; it is what the days contain.
      requires: [{ path: 'stage', op: '==', value: 'deputy' }],
      effects: [{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: 38 }],
    },
    // What the star is expected to arrive on, and what that expectation costs
    // to meet. The office nets +18 a run; a deputy on his own horse is +11,
    // and one with the horse and the room is +4 and makes the rest on the
    // days. Money is meant to keep mattering after the promotion — but the
    // first pass charged 9 for the room and left a keeper's median balance at
    // $8 after 200 turns, which is not pressure, it is the debt trap this pack
    // was tuned twice to avoid.
    {
      label: 'Feed and shoeing',
      every: 4,
      offset: 4,
      requires: [{ path: 'lifestyle', op: '>=', value: 1 }],
      effects: [{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -7 }],
    },
    {
      label: 'The room over the Ellis place',
      every: 4,
      offset: 4,
      requires: [{ path: 'lifestyle', op: '>=', value: 2 }],
      effects: [{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -7 }],
    },
    // Gated on the office for the same reason Corporate Ladder gates its
    // equivalent on Dispatch: a hand cannot afford any of this, and being
    // charged standing for that would be a trap rather than a choice.
    {
      label: 'What the star is expected to be',
      every: 4,
      offset: 4,
      requires: [
        { path: 'stage', op: '==', value: 'deputy' },
        { path: 'lifestyle', op: '<', value: 1 },
      ],
      effects: [{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: -2 }],
    },
    {
      label: 'What the star is expected to be',
      every: 4,
      offset: 4,
      requires: [
        { path: 'stage', op: '==', value: 'deputy' },
        { path: 'standing', op: '>=', value: 65 },
        { path: 'lifestyle', op: '<', value: 2 },
      ],
      effects: [{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: -2 }],
    },
    {
      // The top step, for the reason Corporate Ladder's has one: without it a
      // man who plays for standing every single day holds a hundred of it on a
      // livery horse, and the bay is money thrown away. With it he settles in
      // the low eighties and the last stretch has to be bought.
      label: 'What the star is expected to be',
      every: 4,
      offset: 4,
      requires: [
        { path: 'stage', op: '==', value: 'deputy' },
        { path: 'standing', op: '>=', value: 80 },
        { path: 'lifestyle', op: '<', value: 2 },
      ],
      effects: [{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: -14 }],
    },
    {
      // The charge that never stops, for the reason Corporate Ladder has one:
      // without it a man who has bought everything and stands well with the
      // whole town has nothing left that money is for. Being somebody in Cold
      // Fork costs, every run, and nothing you can buy ends it.
      label: 'What the standing costs',
      every: 4,
      offset: 4,
      requires: [
        { path: 'stage', op: '==', value: 'deputy' },
        { path: 'standing', op: '>=', value: 85 },
      ],
      // Four rather than six: this pack's late game is already flat — measured,
      // a deputy who has bought everything drifts 0 a run either way — so the
      // charge is here to keep money live, not to arrest an accumulation that
      // does not happen. Six left an ordinary run at 55; four leaves 105.
      effects: [{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -4 }],
    },
    // Store credit costs more the deeper in you are, the same step function
    // Corporate Ladder uses for its loan — a shape, not a setting.
    {
      label: 'Store credit',
      every: 4,
      offset: 4,
      requires: [{ path: 'owed', op: '>', value: 0 }],
      effects: [{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -3 }],
    },
    {
      label: 'Store credit (carried)',
      every: 4,
      offset: 4,
      requires: [{ path: 'owed', op: '>=', value: 60 }],
      effects: [{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -3 }],
    },
    {
      label: 'Store credit (posted)',
      every: 4,
      offset: 4,
      requires: [{ path: 'owed', op: '>=', value: 120 }],
      effects: [{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -4 }],
    },
  ],

  // What the conformance suite holds this pack to. Declaring it here rather
  // than writing it into a test is the same principle as the rest of the pack:
  // the numbers a setting must hit are the setting's business. See
  // DECISIONS.md #31.
  tuning: {
    // Net movement of `money` from upkeep alone, per calendar cycle, at each
    // stage. Upkeep is the floor a player plays against: barely above water in
    // the yard, and a real if unremarkable living with the star.
    baselinePerCycle: {
      hand: [0, 12],
      deputy: [10, 30],
    },
    // States a player opts into or earns, excluded from the baseline above:
    // the floor is what a man faces owing nothing, keeping nothing, and being
    // nobody in particular.
    baselineExcludes: ['owed', 'lifestyle', 'standing'],
  },

  display: {
    'money': { label: 'Money', format: 'money', order: 1 },
    'owed': { label: 'Owed at the store', format: 'money', order: 2, hideWhenZero: true },
    'standing': { label: 'Standing', format: 'meter', order: 3 },
    'skills.nerve': { label: 'Nerve', format: 'meter', order: 4 },
    'skills.trade': { label: 'Trade', format: 'meter', order: 5 },
    'lifestyle': {
      label: 'What you keep', format: 'tier', order: 6, hideWhenZero: true,
      labels: ['The livery horse', 'Your own horse', 'Horse and a room'],
    },
    'notable': { hidden: true, inLedger: false },
    'flags.carries_iron': {
      label: 'The scattergun', hidden: true,
      whenTrue: 'You are carrying Vane’s scattergun on the box.',
      whenFalse: 'The scattergun is back under the office counter.',
    },
    'flags.owes_the_store': {
      label: 'The store ledger', hidden: true,
      whenTrue: 'Your name is in the book at the store.',
      whenFalse: 'You are square with the store.',
    },
    'flags.covered_for_dutch': {
      label: 'Dutch’s run', hidden: true,
      whenTrue: 'Dutch owes you a run.',
      whenFalse: 'You and Dutch are square.',
    },
    'flags.sworn_in': {
      label: 'The star', hidden: true,
      whenTrue: 'You are sworn in.',
      whenFalse: 'You are back in the yard.',
    },
    'flags.spoke_for_dutch': {
      label: 'Dutch’s name', hidden: true,
      whenTrue: 'Dutch’s name is in for the good runs.',
      whenFalse: 'Dutch’s name is not in for the good runs.',
    },
  },

  characters,
  events,
};

export default frontier;