General Impressions

[Shadow]

Over the next few days, maybe after your second or third run, I would appreciate if everyone took a few minutes to tell me their first impressions of the game. Was it intuitive to understand? Were menus confusing or any of the information presented ingame unclear?

Throughout the round, if you have suggestions for other turn buffs (especially race specific ones) or attack buffs, by all means post them as well :)

[Shadow]

A bump for this, with mine:

I like how the economics are working out, but the attack system is not good enough yet. Attack buffs are only useful against people around the same level as or below you. The old leader system may be necessary for balance, though without leader production missions or direct attacking or open attack op.

I am undecided on the subject of the high attack limits, and the penalties for almost maxxing someone. On the one hand it encourages clan play, on the other it makes solo locking a little easier. What do you guys think?

EDIT: constructive criticism with a rationale is more than welcome; don't worry about hurting my feelings ^_^

[cloud]

I'm still feeling like this is a rich get richer/poor get poorer system as I've found it to become incredibly easy to lock land once a higher NW than a majority of the other players is reached. The only downside is that everyone else is so low that I can't continue to expand that much due to a lack of hittable targets.

[Shadow]

That really is the fault of the attack system, I think.

[Alazar is Back]

My impressions of the game so far are as follows. First off I think that the mercenary sell prices need to go up. I have been selling Everything that i put on the market every time, and that has been the only reason I have been able even run turns really. Everyone has such high defenses all the time because of how important the land is, which I do think is good, but then I have to hold on to the troops I have longer and that really destroys the rest of my run. Because of the merc prices I can't recover any of those losses. Maybe when you look into race specific spells, the indy races could get a raise sell prices spell, or something...

I am not sure how crazy about it I am yet, even though I think I am doing well so far. I am still getting a feel for it and micro managing more and more to make certain ends meet, but I think that its necessary for the mercenary prices to at least double.

And...What is the math that goes into taking cities from people?

[Shadow]

I peeked at your account a few times, and you had 11% tax every time. If you are doing your whole run like that, then that is the entirety of the source of your cash flow problems. Merc sell is unlikely to rise much, reason being that merc sell was to indy what loot and feast were to leaders - they were free passes to avoid actually managing an economy. So if you can't fund a run with selling alone, the code is doing what it is supposed to.

cities are like standard attack, but leaders are 22 DP and the defender gets a 50% boost.

[Alazar is Back]

The times you peaked at my account were when I wasnt running then, because when I run turns I run 25-50% tax usually, 30% most of the time, and just 11% at the end to heal to 100%.

If you don't want to raise the merc prices, then there should be some way to store your troops, like the reserves feature at faf, or you should also be able to pull them back off the market. If you are trying to cut indy completely out of the game as a viable strategy then just say so, but the way its set up now just isnt going to work. I can't expect to sell all the troops I put on the market everytime, and if they dont sell, then in order to run turns I will just be going backwards... I understand that in 3.0 indy strategies have to change(a lot), but the game is currently set up to make indies depend on other players entirely!

[Shadow]

I am trying to cut out pure indy. "Indy" just means different levels of troop production. I can run indy quite well on my admin account - there is just a lot more to it than building barracks (usually I have less than 50% barracks for solo runs. ^_^

If you pm me what you're doing in more detail I can help you work out what is going wrong.

fyi, you can use the heal buff to get to 100 health even at high tax

[cloud]

I've stopped using the public market entirely, except for food, as the usefulness of cities has gone up exponentially in 3.0. I've got about 30% of my land into cities which drastically increases worker numbers and keeps my merc costs at or below public market cost. That way I can buy whatever I want without worry about funding my enemy.

Then I can sell what I've bought for more or equal to what I paid for it from the mercs on the public market and not lose money between runs (while it is a little delayed waiting for people to buy them off the market).

[Alazar is Back]

I am trying to cut out pure indy. "Indy" just means different levels of troop production. I can run indy quite well on my admin account - there is just a lot more to it than building barracks (usually I have less than 50% barracks for solo runs. ^_^

If you pm me what you're doing in more detail I can help you work out what is going wrong.

fyi, you can use the heal buff to get to 100 health even at high tax

I am not "pure indying" by any means. I build about 40-50% tents, 10-20% huts usually and then the rest I divide out. Im not using many barracks. I am managing to run, but just barely. You may as well take indy completely out of the game, if you cant resell at all. Its effin ridiculous. If you don't fix or improve some of the points I have told you about then I just wont be using an indy race...

[Shadow]

try markets instead of so many tents, it makes a fair difference in cash levels

you need to remember that your perception of indy as weak is in relation to what it used to be - all strategies are a lot weaker than they were, not just indy, so the real difference is mostly in your head.

please don't simulate swears on the forums

[Sevah]

generally seems dodgy with heaps of loopholes. Tighten up those nooks and the game has potential.

I say keep redwal turbo and just have a 3rd server

[Kilkenne]

The perception that some people are getting that clans are weak right now is a direct result of the fact that there is only one active clan in the game, who is fighting against four unclanned players working together. This has always been an issue, and would be an issue even if nothing has changed.

Read: Unclanned play is grossly overpowered at present if you're smart, clanned play is the same as usual.

However, it also showed how many changes are necessary for balance, so that's good, I guess.

[Alazar is Back]

try markets instead of so many tents, it makes a fair difference in cash levels

you need to remember that your perception of indy as weak is in relation to what it used to be - all strategies are a lot weaker than they were, not just indy, so the real difference is mostly in your head.

please don't simulate swears on the forums

I do run a lot of markets for the first half of my run... It still doesnt keep up though... I understand that everything is weaker, but unless you want to destroy indy completely as a strategy, you need to give it at least a little better reselling ability.

[cloud]

Food production seems way too weak compared to cash production.

With a relatively balanced army and 2mill workers with 100% cash I can cover my expenses, however, with 100% food I cover less than 50% of my food consumption. Almost no one is selling food on the market (other than Peace for $20-25 each) because no one has any to spare. Overall consumption of food seems to be either the same, or lower, than before, but the production rate is exceptionally lower.

Also what is the formula for markets/foragers. Last run I was making about $18 billion with 14k markets and 11k tents, but this run I only made about $14billion with 20k markets and 5k tents and 75 more turns. It seems like the number of workers affects income way more than the number of markets, making tents more economical than markets, at least up to a point.