Marten strategy

[Shadow]

Ways to go before we consider 3.0 good enough for reg, we'll work the details out over the next few months.

[Ian2424]

I'll miss the old Reg if it's gone.  :'(

[Wolf Snare]

I already hate the old reg, though I think we'll run into the same clan passing strategies with the old leader missions back. I actually liked the new missions, they were sophisticated and well thought out. Any chance they will be back?

[Shadow]

Maybe. Probably not pillage or offense, but murder could, and enslave will once I get around to doing it properly (read, this summer).

[cloud]

The only problem I had with the new missions is how they were based on numbers rather than ratios. Change that and I think they'd be perfect. I agree with snare that bringing back the old missions will likely cause problems.

[Shadow]

We'll see what happens this round. If it does cause problems we can bring the others back after some tweaking. I won't have time to do anything beyond small balances until summer, though, so we'll see what happens in the meantime.

[Wolf Snare]

Pillage was fun but overpowered. If toned down a bit it would keep massers in check, and adds another element to the game where some leaders are required, not only for buffs in foraging/looting but also for protecting stockpiles. Sack is just too simple to execute to be made too profitable, there needs to be another variable included for a half decent return imo, that being leader math. I agree though, it was really overpowered.

Enslave, on the other hand, I found to be next to useless at the current return rate. I'd say it needs to be a little more worthwhile if we expect it to be used. I know you were slightly disappointed at how seldom these new features were used, but it's just because everyone is adapting to the bigger code changes to muck around too much. You should not so hastily do away with pillage or offense. I found all of your alternatives to the old offensive spells to be both genuine and effective, and they all added new elements of strategy into everyday game-play.

Don't be hard on yourself, these ideas are worth pursuing, after balancing the attack system in general I'd suggest revisiting every attack you invented and tweaking it to accommodate game-play.

EDIT: And by summer you mean early to mid May, correct?

[Shadow]

Yeah, I start working full time in may so I won't have to do as much studying and I won't be under so many deadlines, so May should work out. My hope is that the output for the strategies will be reasonably balanced at that point so that we can then focus on the attack function by itself.

I am thinking something along these lines:

-make leader mission add on to troop attacks like the attack buffs did (we can actually use several of them directly in the attack function instead of defining new attacks, which would be a much better way of doing it I think).
-make them only do half damage if you fail to break with troops (and then shields on top of that)

That way pure leader offense can work, but is less effective than a balanced offense.

[Shadow]

EDIT: And by summer you mean early to mid May, correct?

...I may have gotten excited and coded this up in a few hours tonight. I will leave things as they are for this round to see how leader missions affect things, then combine everything into a rather nice attack system for next round.