Development details!

[Firetooth]

I can do that, or at least try. Do you mean just write a summary of what a leader and indy strat is, or write an individual paragraph for each race's strat. eg. Wolf focuses on high leaders and its enrich bonus to produce more food, Marten focuses on goldmine to produce double cash, or something along those lines? Maybe before you went into detail about each races stratergy, you could write a short summary of what an indy and leader is?

[Shadow]

I was thinking a race specific strategy guide, but just a very basic one. Avoid even using words like indy - just something like:

Rat is the best race in the game in terms of its ability to produce troops. A typical strategy based on this race involves tons of attacking others for land, and using that land to build barracks and foragers. In order to get cash, rats just sell part of their army in order to fund the production of more, while food comes primarily from buying it on the market, or from foragers if needed. To be successful, a rat needs to attack a lot, so this race is not for players who prefer a peaceful round.


...just off the top of my head, something like that. Maybe with a little bit more detail. Just so that players have an idea of what they are signing up for.

[Firetooth]

That sounds great. That should be easy to do. I might write some up now quickly.

[Firetooth]

Before I write up much more, I just want to show these 3 to check they're OK. I've found writing leader races is difficult to explain easily and briefly. I tried my best, but  think you may need a brief description of the buildings and generals hut first.


Wolf

Wolves specialize in producing food, along with having strong leader defence. Most strategies for Wolves focus on attacking for land, then building all of this land into huts. Using these huts, they produce leaders, which allow them to perform specialist missions in the general's hut. Using these missions, they can produce cash and food, as well as race the food production for them and their clan. A wolf has to earn loyalty before it can perform these missions, and the more huts a wolf has, the more loyalty it can earn. A wolf is difficult at the beginning, but great for more peaceful players who prefer a stable source of net worth.

Painted One

Painted ones have lower expenses then every other race, as well as being able to scout land more easily. Painted one is very balanced, forsaking high production for security and ease of use; however it is better for new players to get to grips with the game then for making masses of net worth. It has a very useful special mission in its generals hut, allowing it to produce food and cash at the same time. Painted one is a good all around race for beginners.

Lizard

Lizard's specialise in defence, and are also good for producing troops. They also feature a foraging bonus, allowing them to produce food and troops at the same time with ease. Lizard works similar to rat, focusing on gathering land and producing troops, however they are good to defend the land you gather with, especially using towers, due to their defence bonus. Their special mission also allows them to gain a 10% boost to defence for 12 hours. This race is good for those who want to not only gain land, but keep hold of it.

[Shadow]

That looks great, keep it up if you want to.

[Firetooth]

Finished them off. I tried to set races like Wildcat and Stoat that are slightly similar together, to help explain them simply, but their nature means they were quite difficult to do.

Marten

Marten is the best race in the game for cash. Like Wolf, Martens work best using huts to create leaders to perform special missions. Marten has one very special mission called goldmine. Goldmine is similar to loot, but with twice as much input. This mission is very powerful, but is balanced by the fact it costs a lot of loyalty, and Marten has the poorest leader defence, meaning their net is venerable to enemy leader missions. Marten is a more risky race to play then wolf, but the end results can be better. This race is suited best for those who love having money to spend.

Fox

Fox is nearly entirely centred about its unique value to cloak its net worth. Whilst holding more net worth then the top player, you can appear as a lower player with little net worth. It is great for making net without having to fear it being destroyed, or holding net for somebody else. Even when a player espionages a fox, there is a chance they will receive faulty results, helping cloak your true net. Fox runs best as a leader race like Wolf or Marten, and is great for those who like to conceal their true power and rank until the end, or for those who think secrecy is the best protection for their net.

Wildcat

Wildcat is a unique race that is a good, sometimes better, alternative to rat for troop production. It combines elements of races such as rat and Wolf. Like Fox, Marten and Wolf, Wildcat works best when you build huts to gain loyalty. However, Wildcat has a unique and potent power called Pressgang conscription. This special ability allows it to change its workers into troops! You get workers from buildings called tents. Workers increase the money you gain, and help you build buildings faster. If you want to run Wildcat effectively, you have to regularly switch your land distribution. Wildcat is challenging to many players, but it is fun and can be very effective if played right.

Stoat

Stoat is a very powerful and very unique race. Stoat performs best using huts, like Wolf and Marten, however it has a powerful special mission called Academy. Academy allows stoat, similarly to Wildcat, to translate workers not to troops, but to leaders. This takes many turns, but gives Stoat huge leader numbers, allowing their leader missions to be very effective, and offering great leader defence. Stoat is a tricky race, but is excellent for defending large sums of net worth, or for getting the best use out of your generals hut.

[Juska]

You just changed the color code of mercs only? So, merc bonuses are still broken.....

If you would fixed the code so a bonus increases merc buy and merc sell prices..... Would of course kill the current indy strategy, but for the sake of a code that makes sense....

// Calculates the selling price of a military unit
function getCost ($emp, $base, $multiplier)
{
   $cost = $base * $multiplier;

   // when selling units, the bonus INCREASES the price, so you can get more for them
   $costbonus = 1 + (1 - PVTM_SHOPBONUS) * ($emp->e_bldcost / $emp->e_land) + PVTM_SHOPBONUS * ($emp->e_bldcash / $emp->e_land);

   $cost *= $costbonus;
   $cost /= $emp->race->market;
   if ($cost > $base * 0.5)
      $cost = $base * 0.5;
   return round($cost);

[Twilight Shadow]

Juska has some knowledge in coding OoO...
Shadow no need to judge on a leadering rat when I just did an indy strat with a wolf by myself and went from bottom to second place in three runs last turbo round. If you know how to play races correctly you can do a lot of things with them, but only if you know how to run turns. But I don't suggest a rat leadering though lol

[Firetooth]

Juska has some knowledge in coding OoO...
Shadow no need to judge on a leadering rat when I just did an indy strat with a wolf by myself and went from bottom to second place in three runs last turbo round. If you know how to play races correctly you can do a lot of things with them, but only if you know how to run turns. But I don't suggest a rat leadering though lol

No reason why you can't indy as a wolf, but it's far more productive to use wolf for leadering and rat for indying.

[Twilight Shadow]

I know you are more productive but with the correct strat for your surroundings you can do numbers which I did making about 60 billion in cash and 35 billion in food with 500 million in troops in three runs.  So I am saying you are giving the basic idea of the game but if you play the game correctly their are better strats than the "norm."  And for props to myself I think its safe to say that I am no noob anymore :D

[Shadow]

You just changed the color code of mercs only? So, merc bonuses are still broken.....

If you would fixed the code so a bonus increases merc buy and merc sell prices..... Would of course kill the current indy strategy, but for the sake of a code that makes sense....

// Calculates the selling price of a military unit
function getCost ($emp, $base, $multiplier)
{
  $cost = $base * $multiplier;

  // when selling units, the bonus INCREASES the price, so you can get more for them
  $costbonus = 1 + (1 - PVTM_SHOPBONUS) * ($emp->e_bldcost / $emp->e_land) + PVTM_SHOPBONUS * ($emp->e_bldcash / $emp->e_land);

  $cost *= $costbonus;
  $cost /= $emp->race->market;
  if ($cost > $base * 0.5)
     $cost = $base * 0.5;
  return round($cost);

The merc code is now significantly different from other promi codes. This is what it used to be, it is like this no longer.

Markets have no effect anymore, among other things. Mercs behave exactly as laid out in the first post. If you find anything amiss in the game, please post it. Once changes are all done, I imagine the code will be released.

A + in mercs means that buy and sell prices are both higher. a - in mercs does the opposite. Camps raise sell prices and lower buy prices, but the maximum achievable sell price is still lower than the minimum achievable buy price. In both cases, the maximum is achieved at 40% camps.

The change in price is as I said less than 10%. It will not kill the indy strategy. Indeed, the increase in buy price is bigger than the decrease in sell price, so this change is more of a nerf to leaders than indiers.

Rat has been nerfed significantly, though. That was because it was hands down the biggest net producer - on  a rat, in maybe 3 runs, I could out produce a month's work on most leaders strats, and you could have too. The difference is in how easy it is to kill off that net. If the nerf turns out to be too much, there are still tweaks that can happen, as well as a better race spell for rat. We are open to suggestions in that area if you have an idea for something to offset the nerf.

@Firetooth: Peace is the master of layout, so when he gets some time away from getting ready for marriage I'll get him to go over the game guide with me and put that in. I have a very specific vision for your blurbs that I need his help to implement. Thanks for your contribution, I'll let you know when it gets up there :)

[The Lady Shael]

If any of you are interested in being an integral part of balancing the races at RWL, I'd suggest you join Shadow's "Testing" clan on turbo. =)

[Shadow]

Best place to get first hand input into the development process, besides maybe right here :D

[Juska]

A + in mercs means that buy and sell prices are both higher. a - in mercs does the opposite. Camps raise sell prices and lower buy prices, but the maximum achievable sell price is still lower than the minimum achievable buy price. In both cases, the maximum is achieved at 40% camps.

The change in price is as I said less than 10%. It will not kill the indy strategy. Indeed, the increase in buy price is bigger than the decrease in sell price, so this change is more of a nerf to leaders than indiers.

So, yes you've still left mercenaries broken. Or rather you've reclassified bonuses in terms of player strategy. So now what a bonus is becomes reliant upon strategy instead of strategies being built from the code.....

Instead of +,+ and -,- a bonus should -,+ and a disability should +,- Because logically, if you have a bonus in mercs should have lower buy prices and higher sell prices, seeing as those are both bonuses.

Don't I make logical sense?

I didn't say what you did killed indies, I said fixing it as I would and leaving rats with a +% in mercs (ie a disability) would make it much harder to play an indy as they are currently played.

Maybe there should be two Merc race bonus categories. One that controls sell prices and one that control buy prices. Then you could give each race bonuses and disabilities in those categories. You could give indies sell prices bonuses and buy price disabilities. At that would make logical sense.....

That's my hangup.....

Also, is the turbo game guide accessible from anywhere besides turbo itself?

Edit: Thanks for fixing the troop loop, glad that it's not even possible anymore.

[Shadow]

Ah, I understand what you are saying now. I misunderstood your previous post.

You're right, for the race chart to make perfect sense, there should be both buy and sell bonuses. That would solve the ambiguity once and for all. I don't know what it would take to add a stat to the code like that, but I will definitely file that away for development after we get casher/farmer/reseller working.

I don't think the game guide for turbo it accessible outside of turbo. I don't know why that is, really. These changes are eventually going to go into reg, so the reg guide will be updated to the turbo one as updates are moved over. By the time we are done, they will be the same.