New servers

[Kilkenne]

I have been working on a spreadsheet in excel that pretty much plays the game for me. It's not perfect, and there are some discrepencies that usually end up with me having a 5-10% margin of error which I feel is unacceptable. But if I had some numbers to play with I can simulate how turns would go with and without it to judge what kind of output influence this would have overall. I don't have math for quite a few things, such as a lot of the leader attacks, taking cities and all that, worker gain/tent, and that, but overall it's pretty strong, especially when it comes to calculating troop gain, net gain, profitability of training, and quite a few other things. I will just model small percentage desertions over time when running Indy stuff to start out when I get time this evening, just to see what kind of affect it'd have on that, as it's the only thing I've really 100% learned since I got back. It should at least give some data to see if it's worth it.

[Holby]

See I don't think it will be a huge problem, Holby. Reason being that with tiny desertions, they will only matter for long term play. But for short term, such as takedowns, you could safely go all huts, take a few leader desertions doing a takedown on someone using a balanced land spread, and then switch back to a balance without hurting yourself too much.

So someone using balanced play would be open to people playing short term unbalanced strategies, but at the same time they would have greater long term potential for net than their opponent. So it would add an entire new dimension to strategy that would be far from trivial, since the "optimal balance" you speak of would be entirely dependent on the current game situation, both in terms of net and diplomatically. There would be optimal spreads for defense, for offense, for short term netting like indy, and for long term netting like leader, and they would all be different depending on how long you planned to use them for, and what your opponent's were doing. There would even be setups optimally designed to counter other setups, even if you are both playing the same base strategy.

I think this is a fantastic idea, we just need to find a way to implement it effectively and do some testing.


...did anyone understand any of that?

That does make it sound very worthwhile.

However, the balance between short term losses vs long term impacts is a tricky one. A little too many losses, no-one will change it up. Too few, it won't have an impact to change.

The way you describe it sounds excellent, but I'm still sceptical. I'd love to see it in action.

[Firetooth]

Maybe it could be tested as a one off turbo theme? Maybe half the usual length? It would also be a good way to introduce people who aren't active on the forums to it.

[Kilkenne]

Set up a bunch of bots that just maek troop / scout, and play with values in a sandbox server.

[Shadow]

I would love to set it up and try it out for a few turbo rounds. But since coding time is currently tied up in code migration, we might as well start on the logistics.

Would be nice to have those spreadsheets that Kilk has, so that we can simulate different land setups realistically. If I had time, I would build it.

[Kilkenne]

Lemme clean it up so there's not stuff everywhere and I'll PM you a download link.

[Gen. Volkov]

I thought this was a discussion about new servers to host us, when I first saw. I think that's a more urgent need than adding more game servers.

[Shadow]

What's wrong with the current host? There have been a few blips in service, but nothing major. A couple days a year of downtime is to be expected, I think.

[Kilkenne]

bluehost goes down at like 1:30am for about 10 minutes every night, this is primetime for me to be drunk and doin a thing. I AM OUTRAGED

[Shadow]

So I have been thikning about this, and I think that the way it works should be significantly different for the two main strategies.

For leader strategies, it should require you to have a basic amount of foragers and barracks. If you don't, then instead of taking leader desertions, the maximum number of leaders your huts can hold before they stop joinng on their own should go down. So for example, we should require at least 5% foragers and 5% barracks, and if you only have 2% foragers and 1% barracks, then your huts can only hold 93 leaders each. If you have no foragers or barracks, they can only hold 90 leaders each. In addition to this, there should be small desertions on amounts over the max huts can hold if you don't have the minimum required. So if you have no foragers or barracks and more than 90 leaders/hut, then a few would leave each turn until you are back at 90.

(Numbers just pulled out of the air for example purposes)

In addition to desrtions per turn, if you don't have a balanced defense while offline to some extent at least, then a small percentage of your leaders should leave every time turns come, so that this happens even if you are not online. This will force people to put some resources into keeping their empire balanced in the offline time, and will slow down long term net storing strategies in favour of short term balance, or risk leaving themselves open to takedowns.


For indy players, it should require a certain number of huts and foragers, at pain of straight up troop desertions per turn, and possible reduced production from barracks. For offline play, it should require a number of camps to house troops, or they desert at a steady small trickle.

And finally, I would like food to decay in the long term if certain conditions aren't met. Maybe change "foragers" to "granaries" to make this make more sense, but without them, your food rots slowly. Similar thing for cash and markets.

The trouble then is defining "indy" and "leader" unambiguously to a computer. Which we can do with building spreads most likely, but it is logistics to be worked out.


Just initial thoughts, nothing really concrete yet. Comments on the concept? Is this what others had in mind?

[Gen. Volkov]

What's wrong with the current host? There have been a few blips in service, but nothing major. A couple days a year of downtime is to be expected, I think.

Seems like every time I run, it bogs down massively. Like molasses slow.

[Neobaron]

After ~midnight it slows down considerably.

When the sun is up it's fine though.