Indy net cap

[Shadow]

Hey all,

One of the fundamental imbalances in this game is that indy players hit a land-dictated net cap when they play solo, while leader players do not. It is a very tricky point to balance properly without really changing how one or both of the strategies work.

I would like to hear your opinions and suggestions on the issue.

[Firetooth]

I agree that this is a problem. I remember solo indying in a emperor round with a tonne of land free at the end, and I never got higher then a bit over 1bil. In fact, my last run actually left me on slightly lower net,

Would it be possible to allow Indies to store more% of their troops on the market with shorter times until they appear? The market is already a key element of solo indying, so it would be good to capitalize on it. You could even make indies have marketed net count (in turbo) and be able to withdraw marketed net with lower losses then leader races. This would give indies a good way to keep their net increasing every run if they want to store troops, as well as a good source of income from excess troops. It is also still perfectly possible to market theft an indies net, so it's not too OP. Indies would still reach a point where they are unable to get any more net production, but each run their overall net would still increase. (does that make sense?)

The only issue I could see would be people signing up as indy races but running a leader strat and using the market to store their net with it being very difficult to damage.

[Shadow]

I've been toying with the idea of a storehouse type thing where indy players can put troops to pay less upkeep on them. Troops in the storehouse would count toward net, but would take extra damage from murders and would not be available for attack/defense until they are removed.

It's not a very elegant solution though, and the cap would still be there, it would just be higher.

Some sort of inverse upkeep cost scaling with networth might work - the more net you have, the less you pay in troop upkeep per troop per turn. It would have to also be dependent on the percentage of your net that was troops to avoid leaders taking advantage though. Hrm.

[Firetooth]

I prefer the inverse upkeep costs to the stourehouse, but how difficult would it be to code in? Also, I'm sure it would have to be finely tuned by somebody to get good leader defense and troop production with little costs-would it be exclusive for indy races like rat and lizard?

[Shadow]

If we went that route, we would make the effect proportional to the percentage of your net that was troops. So people with a lot of food net would not get much of a boost.

Cashers would be able to benefit though, since cash net is low. Hrm.

[Firetooth]

If we went that route, we would make the effect proportional to the percentage of your net that was troops. So people with a lot of food net would not get much of a boost.

Cashers would be able to benefit though, since cash net is low. Hrm.

Make penalties based on worker numbers, perhaps, seeing as cashers usually rely on tents and high workers?

[Kilkenne]

reduce efficacy of leaders, leaders are for jerks, bring them down, don't bring indy up

PUNISH THOSE WHO PLAY EFFECTIVELY FOR DOING SO

might makes right

[Firetooth]

reduce efficacy of leaders, leaders are for jerks, bring them down, don't bring indy up

PUNISH THOSE WHO PLAY EFFECTIVELY FOR DOING SO

might makes right

Joke or no, indies actually produce way more net per run then leaders, and don't need to do resource runs. Leaders don't produce too much, so that's no unbalanced. The real issue is balancing indy so they can actually sustain their net and defend it, at least to an extent, without invalidating leaders. AT the moment, indies are for teams and leaders are for soloing, and I think that should be changed, at least to an extent.

I'd really enjoy a no leader round. It would be good. I vote that for next round. (also, everybody should start in northlands)

Also tractors.

[Shadow]

Kilk: exactly. Indy is for teaming, leader for solo. What I want to do is make indy viable solo in the long term game. Somehow.

[Neobaron]

It will require a few changes I think... No 1 thing is going to change the basics.

Make troops worth more in terms of net.
Make troops worth more in terms of cash value.
Cut food net value by ~75%.
Make leader spells less efficient/carry a penalty.
Increase efficiency/output of barracks.
Redesign spells like murder/poison to work based on the strength of the leader player's resources rather than as a simple % of enemy resources.
Increase the cost of spells like murder/poison cost so it's something that needs to be thought about rather than just done.

Really... I was 1/5 the size of a guy last turbo round and was eliminating 3% of his forces for only 11k loyalty a turn. I was actually gaining loyalty while completely decimating a months worth of work. It seems a bit stupid. I destroyed 3.5 billion networth, and actually gained resources. I understand he should have prepared better, but why should an indy have to spend some of his precious resources building the leaders to raise defenses?

[Firetooth]

It will require a few changes I think... No 1 thing is going to change the basics.

Make troops worth more in terms of net.
Make troops worth more in terms of cash value.
Cut food net value by ~75%.
Make leader spells less efficient/carry a penalty.
Increase efficiency/output of barracks.
Redesign spells like murder/poison to work based on the strength of the leader player's resources rather than as a simple % of enemy resources, and increase their cost so it's something that needs to be thought about rather than just done.

No, I think food is low enough. Martens are already supreme but less secure, this will just give them a bigger boost.

Troops worth more net and more cash could work, though. I honestly don't think food value needs much, if any, cutting, otherwise the strat just won't really be viable.
As for your other ideas, I'm divided. I'll wait for more discussion to see what other people think. I think the last one of success based off strength might have some issues though.

[Neobaron]

I edited that to be a little more clear but...

You really don't think food needs to be cut? Given that it is barely used and only serves the function of being sold in a pinch to the merc hut, it seems kind of silly to me that it is worth so much net.

If it were harder to get - in other words if spells for it were less efficient - I could understand a hoard of food being worth so much.

[Shadow]

Neo:

the problem with your ideas of basically increasing indy net potential is that they would completely unbalance team play as compared to solo play - an indier could use this huge net output potential to easily boost a leader player up at low cost. Which they can do now, but the recent changes have partially addressed that.

If the only issue was to balance solo indy versus solo leader your suggestions would be good, but we have to balance both solo and team play at the same time.

[Neobaron]

Is it really necesary to consider team play in balancing the game though?

In doing so, you are balancing around the notion that it is "right" for the game to play out in such a way that rats make net, and wolves/stoats/martens make emp.

Isn't your goal to make it so rats can emp too?

I think you're also looking at it from the perspective of "how do I make rats more powerful" rather than "why do rats have issues."

The first assumes the rats problems will go away if the numbers are bigger. The second assumes the problems will go away if the numbers are made bigger AND the things causing the problems are looked at.

---

To use a (bad but relevant) example I saw elsewhere;

If you have a scale with 20lb on one side and 80lb on the other, you don't go find 60lb to bring the scale into equilibrium.

Doing so will generally break the scale.

To balance, you remove from the 80 and add to the 20.

[Sharptooh]

Isn't your goal to make it so rats can emp too?

Rats will never ever ever emp, simply because their leaders are so dreadful, and reducing the murder/poison effects to the point where rats could emp would make them WAY overpowered

Cut food net value by ~75%.

Have you seen how much food is actually worth in networth? It's pretty pitiful currently, if you reduced it by 75% wolf would just die a death, it would simply take too long to make any decent amount of net at all (it already does unless you're on like 100K land)

I'm not sure if this is a great idea but couldn't you simply make it so that indiers lose a smaller percentage of networth when they take items off of the market, but when their items are brought from the market they receive the cash immediately, this way they have a place to store their amazing networth for later, yet the networth isn't untouchable (market thefting, thus the instant cash part)

I'm not sure what losses are currently, but maybe some races could have lower than others, e.g. Wildcat could have the lowest loss (because they're difficult to play) and Rat could have the highest among indiers (because it's the easiest to play) but have lower losses than normal