Leader-races vs Indy

[Holby]

With the skill level where it is now, holding land will always be impossible as long as the groups exist. Even without them, an Emperor will never be unbreakable, all the vets know too much about taking each other out to allow one person to dominate.

I really like the balance that indy provides, growth is incredibly fast. But I do believe that it all balances itself out. Indyers can't stop leader attacks taking land, but with no regeneration of leaders like Stoat had, Leader players can't afford to do that for long anyway. In turn, indyers can break everyone, and leader players will struggle to break them in turn, not being keen to hold a large army and burn resources just for the extra few k of land. I like how the races are that way.

In short, I just want to see groups removed, then we'll have a good game on our hands again.

[Shadow]

I have to agree there. Groups are bad. So is troop training for leaders.

My suggestions are perhaps a little overcomplicated.

[Ruddertail]

Cash limit? There shouldn't be a cash limit, except for what other people will take when they can.

Just do a percentage of food decay per turn. Land will then naturally set a cap at where the decay per run exceeds food generation per run.

[Peace Alliance]

May i suggest a theory? We've had people working on being able to break people ever since the first era. It's understandably the one thing people probably focus most on. But all the time we've been spending less time thinking about how to defend, right? So I think perhaps thats partially the reason we have so little defenders out there. Like i mentioned in the convo, adapting a strategy so that it holds /most/ people off, and that being broken a bit doesn't destroy you is actually quite benificial, as it helps you stay in the upper level of land-holders. Thats the /only/ reason i did well last season as a rat...


About the food storage buildings:

You could have it so you lose land slowly per turn unless you have sufficient food storage buildings.

So when you lose land, you'll have demolish something else and put it into food storage in order not to lose. But i'd want it so that you can store more more food then the average army actually needs. That way this system really only hurts people who store EXTRA food for NW. Those people wouldn't have to /lose/ that food, but they would have to work harder to keep it. Because at the moment, food-massing has no downside. Thats why it's the unbeatable strat atm.

Do me this appears to be an interesting way to promote building deviation, and also it falls little short of balancing leader vs indy races. I believe that the only thing left would be to think i about leader-attack being a bit harder to succeed with.

The reason i say that, is because there was absolutely NO reason for me to put up a defense for most of last season knowing that i'll be broken by 80% of the game without any trouble. I had to make sure not to have any enemies that round, as if i had even just ONE person bent on my destruction, i could easily lose ALL my land and ALL my military between every single run! All it takes is a few murders, open attack op and pretty much have a ball tearin me to bits.... I'm not sure what the solution to this would be. i think perhaps making leader-attack rely on leader/hut ratio as wolf snare once suggested. But thats a very major change to the game....

[Shadow]

Again, I think adding a whole new building to the game as a way to balance a single strat is going to just complicate things. Holby made a good point when he said that we are tailoring the game to the oldbies while leaving the newbies completely lost in a game that evolves faster than they can learn it.

I read somewhere that most new (successful) inventions come when something old is dropped out of the model rather then something new added. Simplicity is a good thing here.

A possibility for the leader attack thing is to make leaders have OP/DP and have them go up against an opponent's troops, or a portion of them. Much like city stealing works, only easier. It wouldn't take much to modify that formula into something useable for attacks.

[Peace Alliance]

A new building /appears/ to be a major change. But really it's not. When cites were introduced it made almost NO impact to the game.

I think changing offensive leader spells is a rather large change. Changes like that relate to how players effect each other. That kind of thing can have a ripple effect.

FaF made mistakes when they first started in regards to adding too many features in that everyone wanted. And i've made it my mission to avoid doing just that here. When i went to balance the races, the first thing i did was remove every race that served no purpose. We've been wanting to remove group attacking for some time, and we've removed all the pointless locations as well... Really, we've been refining the game more then we've been expanding it.

However, i believe we've reached a point where we need to make a few changes (Careful changes, mind) in order to reach a stage or perminent balance. Like what was mentioned in the conversation. If you look at the long run for the game, indy races would never be able to compare if they're up against the eternal stacking capacity of leader races.

But you're right to be concerned, and thats why i'm hoping we can have a lot of dialog before we implement changes like this. Something like the food storage building would likely be added in on turbo as a theme first, just to see how it works out. And when we test things like that, i like to be in admin mode so i can watch the lowbies.

Also keep in mind we're working on tutorials and an extensive game guide. Something thats been severely lacking at RWL for a while :\

[Shadow]

A new building /appears/ to be a major change. But really it's not. When cites were introduced it made almost NO impact to the game.

That's because there is only one strat that benefits from cities, and it was only made long after cities appeared. Cities made almost no impact on the game because nobody uses them very much. With stoat maybe that will change, but I doubt it. Making a building that massers are dependent on will be a big change.

[Peace Alliance]

wait, but you said the new building would only effect one strategy?

[Shadow]

wait, but you said the new building would only effect one strategy?

It would affect only a few strategies - ones that depend on storing food. I guess indy on turbo at the moment has a fair amout of food going, but that;s only because of the theme.

Or would these buildings be mandatory for all strats (ei, your food will drop to 0 without them)?

[Peace Alliance]

I think it would make sense to make the building a lot like workers. If you don't have enough tents you lose a small percentage per turn. Except the building doesn't exactly produce food... '

And keep in mind this is just a suggestion. I think it would fix the food-massing strat so that it works, but isn't so easy.

[The Obliterator]

or you could make it you had to buy them for alot of cash but make it so that they cant be taken unless you have no other buildings

[Shadow]

more overcomplication i think. the answer lies in features already in the game. adding something new will just lead to further imbalances in unforeseen areas.