Leader-races vs Indy

[Peace Alliance]

Me and windy had an interesting (if lengthy) conversation in regards to leader-based races (stoat, wolf, marten and wildcat) and how to balance them compared to indy races (rat, lizard, and also wildcat)

It starts off we're discussing defending... and ah heck, basically we cover everything!

I hope some of you are interested enough to skim over it, as we covered most of the major issues in regards to the games balance right now. And your input is greatly appreciated!


(23:22:21) Windhound: btw, I'm right in in thinking its silly to have troops of every type.. right?
(23:22:28) Windhound: its just silly
(23:22:32) Windhound: you're going to get broken
(23:27:34) Sticker Sticker: sort of
(23:27:40) Sticker Sticker: as an indy it works, because you get broken less
(23:27:48) Windhound: how so?
(23:27:48) Sticker Sticker: 'same reason I move to a location where few people are
(23:28:00) Sticker Sticker: because it limits the amount of people who can break you
(23:28:08) Sticker Sticker: and ensures that no matter what they suffer losses
(23:28:12) Windhound: people max you anyways
(23:28:14) Sticker Sticker: it makes it so you aren't as worth it
(23:28:16) Sticker Sticker: sometimes
(23:28:19) Windhound: it only takes one
(23:28:19) Sticker Sticker: but sometimes they don't
(23:28:26) Windhound: I dont pay attention to losses
(23:28:34) Windhound: but maybe I'm alone on that
(23:28:42) Sticker Sticker: last round as a rat I managed to hold on to most of the land most of the game, because I was trying my hardest to defend
(23:28:50) Sticker Sticker: and unlike leader races, it's not such a loss if I get broken anyway
(23:28:50) Windhound: yes
(23:28:55) Windhound: but for a lower player
(23:29:00) Windhound: a few mil of each troop type
(23:29:03) Windhound: aint gonna help
(23:29:22) Windhound: ah..  except for stoat
(23:29:30) Windhound: its good for a leader user to get broken
(23:29:38) Windhound: higher ratio
(23:29:41) Sticker Sticker: ya sort of
(23:29:43) Windhound: better gains
(23:29:43) Windhound: cheaper
(23:29:54) Sticker Sticker: but if yo don't get broken as much, then you get more land
(23:29:56) Windhound: 's why most leader players run in two stages
(23:29:56) Sticker Sticker: and more leaders
(23:30:05) Windhound: loyalty then ...  stuff
(23:30:06) Windhound: food/cash
(23:30:08) Sticker Sticker: if you're massing resources
(23:30:13) Sticker Sticker: then the two parts works
(23:30:21) Windhound: if you're a leader player that works
(23:30:26) Sticker Sticker: but I find that in general, whoever has the msot leaders is going to dominate the leader aspect of the game
(23:30:30) Sticker Sticker: to have the most leaders you need the most land
(23:30:30) Windhound: 's the whole point in leadering
(23:30:38) Windhound: eh
(23:30:44) Windhound: at first
(23:30:51) Windhound: but to beable to use that land
(23:30:54) Windhound: you've gotta lose some of it
(23:31:20) Sticker Sticker: but still. To stay on top you need to hold onto more land then the other guy, that way next time you run you get even higher then everyone else
(23:31:31) Sticker Sticker: either that or you become wicked good at scraping like I am
(23:31:35) Windhound: eh.  I guess thats the difference
(23:31:35) Sticker Sticker: :D
(23:31:40) Windhound: I've never cared about staying on top
(23:31:48) Windhound: as long as I could reach it if I wanted
(23:31:50) Sticker Sticker: that's what I normally care about
(23:31:54) Windhound: ...which hasnt happened as of late
(23:32:02) Windhound: used to always be the case though = (
(23:32:03) Windhound: ah well
(23:32:07) Sticker Sticker: 's why I rarely get the top ranks in the end... I like to try and stay on top for the whole game
(23:32:27) Sticker Sticker: I hope I get to go back into player mode on reg, 'cause I'm ready to do my emp strat I think, hehe
(23:32:48) Sticker Sticker: I think we've got more good players then we used to
(23:32:58) Sticker Sticker: brb
(23:33:02) Windhound: playing style has changed
(23:33:04) Windhound: kk
(23:36:20) Sticker Sticker: that too
(23:36:29) Sticker Sticker: and I'm feeling encouraged these days
(23:36:40) Sticker Sticker: seeing how the other races are working, and that people are considering indy
(23:36:47) Sticker Sticker: I think the game is darn near completely balanced IMO
(23:36:57) Windhound: ...close
(23:37:07) Windhound: closer than it was before
(23:37:07) Sticker Sticker: mayhap a few changes to help indy's defend against leaders... but really, I got along okey without that
(23:37:25) Sticker Sticker: leaders can only do so much damage. I think the solution may be to make it harder to use leader-attack
(23:37:28) Sticker Sticker: and perhaps harder to murder
(23:37:39) Windhound: murder maybe
(23:37:43) Windhound: not harder to leader attack
(23:37:45) Sticker Sticker: attack for sure
(23:37:48) Windhound: no
(23:37:56) Sticker Sticker: no because how can an indy ever defend his land?
(23:37:59) Windhound: leaders die and are hard to replace
(23:38:11) Windhound: indiers make troops so much easier
(23:38:19) Sticker Sticker: yes, but it's hard for an indy to work properly with any more then 30-40% in huts
(23:38:24) Sticker Sticker: any more then that and you can't make enough troops
(23:38:27) Windhound: there's already a huge incentive not to use leaders in attacks
(23:38:42) Windhound: they've become an emergency standby
(23:38:49) Sticker Sticker: with 30% in huts, pretty much anyone in the top 30 can break you
(23:38:53) Windhound: and we dont want to make it too easy to hold land
(23:38:55) Sticker Sticker: maybe not 30, but 15
(23:39:02) Windhound: it creates Ereptor-like problems
(23:39:11) Windhound: which is why the attack system is like it is, the groups
(23:39:17) Windhound: which are silly
(23:39:18) Sticker Sticker: we don't want to make it impossible to hold land either
(23:39:32) Windhound: noone wants to hold land though
(23:39:32) Sticker Sticker: we haven't had an emp in a long time, besides people who were ignored long enough
(23:39:41) Sticker Sticker: I want to hold land...
(23:39:49) Sticker Sticker: lol
(23:39:52) Windhound: almost the entire game is a masser
(23:39:59) Sticker Sticker: right
(23:40:01) Windhound: I doubt thats goign to change
(23:40:09) Sticker Sticker: not if we don't allow the change
(23:40:10) Windhound: massers will win
(23:40:12) Windhound: always
(23:40:24) Windhound: if they dont, there's somthing wrong
(23:40:26) Sticker Sticker: who was it who outranked you last round?
(23:40:33) Windhound: unless you want to make it so you have to attack with two troop types
(23:40:43) Windhound: cheap sticker
(23:40:47) Sticker Sticker: lol
(23:40:47) Windhound: 4 mil net
(23:40:56) Windhound: that would have been two turns
(23:40:59) Sticker Sticker: 4 mil net earned by the sweat of my brow!
(23:41:00) Windhound: but I locked early
(23:41:05) Sticker Sticker: and by aid from lonewolf!
(23:41:09) Windhound: :P
(23:41:13) Windhound: little bugger
(23:41:15) Sticker Sticker: hahaha
(23:41:17) Sticker Sticker: the point is
(23:41:25) Sticker Sticker: right now indy still has a problem
(23:41:27) Sticker Sticker: and that's that it has a cap
(23:41:35) Sticker Sticker: depending on how much land they have, they can't get any higher
(23:41:48) Windhound: Josh did pretty well I remember
(23:41:51) Sticker Sticker: last round my cap was 1.8 bil, to get higher I had to send my troops away for storage
(23:42:03) Sticker Sticker: it was a completely different game when josh was playing
(23:42:13) Sticker Sticker: and he used teamwork too (even if he was every team member)
(23:42:23) Windhound: haha
(23:42:30) Windhound: nah.  he used people
(23:42:35) Sticker Sticker: I like to encourage teamwork, but if sending your troops away is the only way to bulk up, nobody will play indy I don't think
(23:42:39) Sticker Sticker: not for long at least
(23:42:43) Windhound: I was a supplier for a few of his runs
(23:42:43) Sticker Sticker: he used people too
(23:42:49) Sticker Sticker: ya
(23:43:08) Windhound: leader players would have to send away if they wanted a standing army
(23:43:22) Windhound: I dont see what the big deal is
(23:43:40) Sticker Sticker: what is a standing army?
(23:43:54) Windhound: an army you dont dump at the end of your run
(23:43:57) Sticker Sticker: the point is unless the land is increasing, indy's hit a cap wheras leader-races can store up
(23:43:59) Windhound: like any good leader player does
(23:44:15) Windhound: you mean food players
(23:44:26) Sticker Sticker: food or money, that's how leaders win
(23:44:39) Windhound: there's no downfal to storing either
(23:44:42) Windhound: thus
(23:44:43) Windhound: no cap
(23:44:48) Sticker Sticker: no cap for storing, correct
(23:44:51) Windhound: they dont cost anything to hold
(23:44:51) Sticker Sticker: as it should be
(23:44:53) Sticker Sticker: caps are annoying
(23:44:59) Windhound: and can be stacked indefinatly
(23:45:00) Sticker Sticker: age of empires has tought me that
(23:45:07) Windhound: without holding costs
(23:45:16) Sticker Sticker: I considered adding a tax to food
(23:45:18) Windhound: troops have holding costs
(23:45:33) Sticker Sticker: also considered (and I like this idea better) making it so you need "food storage" buildings to hold food
(23:45:53) Sticker Sticker: they could store a ton, mind, but it would be a good way to force building deviation
(23:46:00) Windhound: oo
(23:46:04) Windhound: like cities maybe
(23:46:10) Windhound: and they could be stolen
(23:46:17) Windhound: make for an interesting turbo round
(23:46:18) Sticker Sticker: and the food goes with them?
(23:46:28) Windhound: yup
(23:46:31) Sticker Sticker: I think that would make food useless... or at least fricken impossible to keep, lol
(23:46:40) Windhound: exactly.  a fun turbo round
(23:46:54) Sticker Sticker: heh, but I'm thinking about permanent changes
(23:46:59) Windhound: right
(23:47:04) Sticker Sticker: hmm.... having to store them in cities is a cool idea though...
(23:47:16) Sticker Sticker: actually I donno, 'cause what if you can't afford a city 'cause of the food cost?
(23:47:27) Sticker Sticker: and also, players who start off don't even have 1k land to spare
(23:47:33) Sticker Sticker: I think it would be better as a separate building
(23:47:55) Windhound: hm
(23:49:03) Sticker Sticker: we should post this convo in the development forum and see what people have to say
(23:49:16) ***Sticker Sticker is currently pro-community-cooperation
(23:49:19) Windhound: feel free

[Ruddertail]

Food storage in cities/city like things would work. If you're worried about people just starting out, make it so you can store a certain amount of food on your land after which you need food storage buildings.


Alternatively, have X% of food decay per Y period. That way, people would reach a peak after which they can't produce more food than decays. You could make it decay over turns, or over time. The latter would prevent 4 people from massing food and dumping it on a 5th who takes 1 turn every 6 days to avoid deletion, thus getting way above what he'd otherwise be limited to.

[Peace Alliance]

if 4 people are storing and sending it to a 5th why wouldn't the 5th use more turns? Food doesn't make it hard to use turns.

'sides, if 5 people are working together like that, then i don't think they should be penalized, because teamwork is hard.

Maybe a building for storing food, and cities store food too. Just like tents and camps.

[Ruddertail]

To avoid food decay per turn used, were such a thing to be implemented.

[Peace Alliance]

Ah, that would make sense. I think it would be better if you lost the food per turn though, rather then over days. it's a turn-based game more then it's a calender-based game, right?

[Ruddertail]

That is true. On the other hand, you do get the workaround I mentioned. Still, I suppose somebody like that would be relatively easy to smack down with leader suicides, so it's not that big a problem.

[Shadow]

Make it so that you can hold say.. 30k food per land, and you lose a percentage of the surplus for turns used while over your max. Make something similar for cash, except maybe 10 times larger? This would impose a cap on resource massers very similar to that on indy. They are just numbers that I grabbed out of the air though, the numbers themselves would obviously need some tweaking.

[The Obliterator]

dont make it so you have to store food in citys cause no indiers could get any food cause it would all be stolen by leaders.

[Shadow]

dont make it so you have to store food in citys cause no indiers could get any food cause it would all be stolen by leaders.

Food cant be stolen. But you're right, indiers would have a hard time building up food.

[Shade]

I think he meant that leaderer's would just take the cities and thus get the food stored in em.

[Shadow]

A lot more goes into taking a city then leaders.

[Ruddertail]

Cities /should/ to based primarily on troops, or at least a balance between troops and leaders.

Shadow - if it's food per land, you get the problem of losing food when you lose land... Just make it a strait loss per turn, or per 100 turns. Land will still determine cap, but land loss/gain doesn't affect things, just what you get per run, average.

[Shadow]

Cities /should/ to based primarily on troops, or at least a balance between troops and leaders.

Shadow - if it's food per land, you get the problem of losing food when you lose land... Just make it a strait loss per turn, or per 100 turns. Land will still determine cap, but land loss/gain doesn't affect things, just what you get per run, average.

Is that such a bad thing? An indier usually drops a large portion of his/her net at the start of a run, why should a resource masser be different?

[Ruddertail]

Because they're not getting anything for that food. If they sold food, that'd be one thing, but they shouldn't have their cap lowered because they lost land, unless we move toward a system where loss of land is not a standard event.

[Shadow]

Because they're not getting anything for that food. If they sold food, that'd be one thing, but they shouldn't have their cap lowered because they lost land, unless we move toward a system where loss of land is not a standard event.

Good point... perhaps the sell value for food could be upped. It would create a balance point where the masser could sell just enough food to avoid losses while keeping cash under the limit as well, and allow him to net it up more as he gained more land.