Reset and aid credit change

[cloud]

As a strictly leader player I think this system is completely unfair to indy players. This game is already imbalanced in the favor of leader players and this does nothing more than widen a chasm. It needs to be removed now.

[Shadow]

The change only affected clan indy, which was already the highest net output strategy in the game by miles. I have been rather enjoying having to think about my run and actually having to pay upkeep.

I'd like to point out that only extremely rarely has a solo leader player won when there was even a half decent clan around, and I don't think this round will be an exception.

Remove it. NOW

I have to say, though. Nothing motivates me to get things done more than someone being rude on the internet.

[Kilkenne]

This basically, now that I've played with it, a way to make clanned play obnoxiously complicated to the point where it takes so much coordination to do something that it's not worth doing anything anymore. We even talk in real time and it takes forever. It is just a mechanism that makes solo leader cashing/feasting even stronger, because they don't have to worry about credits anyhow. And when they do aid, food/cash aid faster than troops if you have unclanned people chaining to one another. It's reared its head as a poor change, the deck is already stacked enough in the favor of solo players at present. All you have to do is log in and push butan and make food and sock it away (I don't care that the market might change eventually, not my problem right now) or maek cash and hope that no one sacks you too hard before you hit a trillion cash so you can buy several billion in troop net. The aid credits change the amount that a clan can put on a person, adding to the massive disadvantages that being in a clan already holds. The ability to attack other clanned players unlimited times means next to nothing when the rest of the round is unclanned or newbies.

[Shadow]

Relax, people.

The change is still in beta, and if it really is not salvageable we will take it out. But telling us it sucks is not helpful. We need alternatives. Because no matter what was said about solo play, upkeep free team indy was and is the best strategy in the game by a large margin in terms of net output.

I personally don't see the complication in clan play. To be fair, I missed the clan run that seems to have sparked this. If you could elaborate on what exactly happened that made you think this, it would be helpful.

[Firetooth]

Team indy does need to be nerfed.

However, until solo indy is fixed I think it should be left alone. Just my view anyway, this change isn't thatradical anyway.

[Kilkenne]

This isn't really about team indy or non team indy, it's about resource flow. I'll talk to Shadow in private because it's ~operational security~ about what was going on and how we learned that this was awful. And it's applicable in a lot of situations. Once it's not opsec, I'll post a version here. I'm way behind on my RWL fixing/ranting because I've had to pull a lot of extra hours at work lately, so hopefully I'll catch up enough to do this.

[Sevah]

The change is fine. If anything there should be a few less aid credits for bigger clans. Perhaps each member substitutes 1 aid point or indiers have slightly higher upkeep.

The issue is that such drastic production can be easily managed by anyone new or old and the strategy literally has very few adjustments to separate the effectiveness of accuracy. It's the full combination that overpowers indies in teams. Sales are over valued, upkeep is cheap.
The initial base production of troops over barracks is strong enough to make sending aid a non-comparable netgaining upgrade against the races original intentions.

Clanning up opens new perspectives and opportunities. The ability to aid is a gift that gets abused so it should be reduced so each players actions contribute to the plan and failures have an impact on the teams.
Don't forget that unclanned empires get desertions, hitlimits and have to fund themselves. The reality is, in faster servers teams should be kept to few members or good players can take control of a server overnight.

[Shadow]

oO

Sevah likes a change I made. One of the signs of the Apocalypse ^_^

Perhaps the problem is in the hard cutoff after which you cannot aid. Maybe we should set it up so that you can still aid when you have no credits, but that it costs a lot more turns to do so (5 per aid or something). That way you can still get yourself out of a jam, without keeping unlimited aid/upkeep free indy.

EDIT: that wouldn't quite do it actually, since the turns spent would still allow full production. What should happen is that perhaps we should allow players to "buy" more aid credits, at the cost of three turns per credit. 

[Shadow]

The aid credit change was intended to reduce the power of (uncoordinated) team indy play. I did not think that it would affect coordinated clan play to the extent that it does (apparently, I haven't yet had a clan run with it, but the description was awful).

I'll recommend that we remove that change as of next round, but hang onto the code so that we can try to retweak things a bit down the road.

[Firetooth]

I disagree. The aid credit system is too restrictive at the moment but unlimited aid isn't the way. Perhaps jack the limit to 30, or some other appropriate figure? I don't want the return of team indy dominating with no kind of though required beyond "get land, build stuff, make troops, aid troops."

Co-ordinated team play is still possible, but perhaps a little too weak. No questions that it was previously overpowered, though.

[Shadow]

Another possibility is to allow players to aid with 0 credits at the cost of extra turns. An aid taken at 0 credits would cost 4 turns, only two of which are actually used (the other two just disappear). That way, aid is still possible an in emergency, but it would greatly reduce output for someone playing a no-upkeep strategy.

[Sevah]

Aid credits are fine, indies are fine, teamed indy to a leaderer is a cheap strategy unless there's 2 teams and proves nothing in skills to solo leaderers

For any indier that can't handle their troops. Go to manage army and set all the troops to 0 0 0 0. It de-activates your barracks and you softies can manage a small warforce with a few sacks.

Ingame message me for help or watch how it's done.