RWL: Fearless Ferret

[The Lady Shael]

Hi RWLers,


The Regular server has been upgraded! If you haven't played Turbo recently, you will see a lot of new changes. There are many new features, and a ton of equation changes and balances, including a whole new race chart.

Because of the new race chart, we are giving everyone ONE free revolt (race change). You may use this at any time in the near future by going to Manage Army.

Also, if you haven't noticed, there is a Headquarters page in the menu. There you may collect some free resources once per day. Take advantage of this, never pass up a chance to get free stuff!

For more details on the new changes, check out the following topics from when the changes went on Turbo:
http://www.redwallwarlords.com/forums/index.php?topic=12742.0
http://www.redwallwarlords.com/forums/index.php?topic=12544.0

If you see any bugs or if you think something isn't working the way it's supposed to, PLEASE report it to me right away. This helps keep the game fun for everyone. :)

If you have any questions, feel free to reply or post on the forums.

Hope you enjoy the changes, and welcome to the era of RWL: Fearless Ferret!

~The Lady Shael
RWL Administrator


[edit] Oh, another note, you might have to refresh to get some of the CSS changes.

[The Lady Shael]

Here is a nearly comprehensive list of the new changes:

Major Changes:


Ferret: the Farmer strategy

We introduce a new race, called ferret, that is the new RWL farming race. This strategy is exceedingly simple, very newbie friendly, and quite competitive. Farming works by building foragers, getting food from them, and selling it on merceneries or the market for cash to buy armies. Since it is not a great leader race, ferret will not work for use in a resource hording strategy, but rather a method it excels at getting resources to build and feed an army.

Ferret's race ability, Rain Dance, has a few effects. When it is active, your foragers produce 5% extra food, and clanmates get 2% extra from their foragers. In addition, you have a 50*foragers/land % chance to heal one extra point per turn spent foraging. So if all your land is on foragers, you will have a 50% chance to heal extra while foraging. This is intended to make it a little easier to produce while attacking, since your forager output is based on your health.

In order to make this strategy competitive, the output of foragers has been increased by about 30%.


Magpie: the Casher strategy

We introduce a second new race, called Magpie, that is the new RWL cashing race. This strategy can be quite complex, and is very micromangement intensive. It is based on taxing your workers, and getting cash from markets. During the attacking run, it is best to focus on markets, since market output, in addition to having been doubled this update, is not affected by health or tax, so they produce at full capacity even while you are attacking. During your production phase, building all tents is the best bet. Spend 5 turns with 5% tax to fill up your tents with workers, then switch over to 70% tax for 20-40 turns to tax the life out of them, and repeat.

Casher, like farmer, is strategy with overall poor leader defenses, so it is intended as a way to get cash to build an army rather than as a resource horder.
Magpie's race ability, Tax Evasion, makes it so that your max health is not affected by tax rate, so that you can full heal even at 70% tax. It also provides a 50*(markets+tents)/land % chance to heal extra while looting.

To make cashing competitive, the rate at which workers leave has been greatly slowed down, their output doubled, and the output of markets doubled.


Lizard enhancement: the Agri-Indy strategy

As a by-product of extra forager output and $9 food selling on mercs, it is now possible to run the agri-indy strat, using lizard. This strategy is a hybrid farmer-indy strat where the cash to upkeep an army comes from selling food on mercs rather than selling your army directly.


Race Balances

Nearly all of the stats for all of the races have been modified. This helps to balance out several of the overpowered and underpowered races. Still a work in progress so feel free to give feedback!


Race Ability Changes

A few other races are getting makeovers as well. Rat and Lizard are both getting upgrades.

Rat "Battlefield Healers" now reduces losses when attacking by 20%, and provides immunity to fear losses - you can attack as high as you like without taking desertions. The hard net cap at which you cannot attack at all is still in place, however, and so are shame losses, so no beating up the newbies.

Lizard "Fortify Defenses" now reduces losses by 20% when defending, and increases the attacker's losses by 10%.

Fox's "Cloak/Uncloak" also includes a bonus ability from the old days called "Falsify Documents". If you are cloaked, when someone tries to espy you, your report values will be skewed by a random percentage.

Painted One now has the ability "Pay Tribute", which is a combination of the Feast and Loot missions.


Scores Page Enhancement

By clicking on anyone's empire name on the scores page, a drop down will appear with some information about their horde, basically same information you can get by going to their Warlord Info page. From here, you can easily attack, aid, or send them a message. You can also see the last time they spent turns.


Emperor Tracking

This system will keep track of who is currently emperor, and what emperors we've had in the past. Depending on the "time-to-emp", a player will become "Emperor" if they can stay in the number #1 spot for that amount of time. They get a little crown next to their name on the scores list and access to a page called "Throne Room", where they can send a mass-message (decree) to everyone in the game.


Clan Requests

To join a clan, you will send a "request" to the clan officers. On the Clan Management page, only the founder can view a list of the pending requests to join the clan and choose to Accept or Deny them. When you accept a request, the player is immediately put into the clan and they get a notification in their news feed. If they are denied, their request is cancelled and they also get a notification in their news feed.

You can only request to join one clan at a time. In other words, you can't just request to join every clan in the game, only the last request will be kept.

You may also cancel your request before it is accepted or denied.


Rent Skiffs

In the aid section, if you are short on the skiffs you need to send, you can now tick the "rent skiffs" button to have the necessary skiffs automatically provided for you, at mercenary prices. The recipient of the aid will not get the skiffs that you rent, however. (I know this isn't really a "major" change, but it's awesome!)



Minor Changes:


Bank Capacity Increase

We have decided to make the capacity market dependent. The more markets you have, the more cash you can store in the bank. With 0 markets, it is still quite large however, and can be up to doubled if all of your land is on markets.


Market Income

Income from market transactions will now go to your bank savings, instead of the cash you have out. If this puts your bank savings over max capacity, the extra amount will leak out by a small percentage (3%) every 10 minutes.


Base Upkeep Food Costs

The base upkeep food cost of troops (how much food your troops eat per turn) has been increased - rat by 10%, weasel by 20%, stoat and skiff by 25%. This is to balance out the increased forager output and lowered indy output for solo play.


Landfarm Auto-Scout

Once per day, the landfarm account will auto-scout with all of its turns.


Standard Attack

Standard attack now takes buildings, in random amounts, from the ones you take. Up to 90% of the buildings captured are added to yours directly, so on average  you will capture 45% of buildings intact. Non-standard attack types do not take buildings.


Chaos

Chaos now really does kill extra troops for your opponent (15% extra), but only yelds 80% of the usual land.


Secondary attack types

Since nobody uses them, Flank and Enslave have been removed from the attack options. Enslave also had potential for abuse with the new casher strategy, so we just got rid of it.


Clan Lock-in

There is no more clan lockout. However there is a clan lock-in, which means you must stay in your clan for at least 72 hours. Not even the clan founder can kick you out before then.


News feed order

The news on your main page goes most recent first.


BAXX Turns graphics

A throwback from RWL: Black Ages Expansion (Expanded)! We put back in the graphics from the olden days on the Loot, Forage, Earn, and Scout pages.


New (but really Old) Color Scheme: Battlefield Hills

This was an old theme from the beginning of RWL, and Shael's personal favorite theme from the old days. We've brought it back for your enjoyment. =)

[Shadow]

Yay for progress!

If people feel that any of these changes need further tweaking and balancing, please don't hesitate to let us know :)

[Ungatt Trunn II]

When I first joined I always wondered where the ferret was.

BRB, going back in time to tell my past self so he doesn't wonder for like, 3 years.

[The Lady Shael]

Worry no more, little Ungatt.