Next Age suggestions

AID
Change how aid and tax is calculated. Make it based on kingdom networth instead of province networth. This will allow kingdoms to help out their small provs more with aid, but the big provs wouldn't be able to get as much. Currently its the complete opposite.

Also, remove gangbang protection as it applies to tax. I dont like how its used by organized kingdoms to create cows. In the current setup, a kingdom will gather a bunch of soldeirs and gold, then ask another friendly kingdom to hit a particular provinces until that province has gbp. While under gbp that province can receive an unlimited amount of aid and use it to grow. Its an unfair advantage to kingdoms which have friends.

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Originally Posted by Lead Pipe

AID
Change how aid and tax is calculated. Make it based on kingdom networth instead of province networth. This will allow kingdoms to help out their small provs more with aid, but the big provs wouldn't be able to get as much. Currently its the complete opposite.

Also, remove gangbang protection as it applies to tax. I dont like how its used by organized kingdoms to create cows. In the current setup, a kingdom will gather a bunch of soldeirs and gold, then ask another friendly kingdom to hit a particular provinces until that province has gbp. While under gbp that province can receive an unlimited amount of aid and use it to grow. Its an unfair advantage to kingdoms which have friends.

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this is utter bullsh*t, have you ever played in a kd. where everyone is in the range of 3000-4000 acres and in war, some of them get deep chained to 500 acres? YOU expect the other guys to wait for 2 weeks to get that prov up on his own attack for land and explore and dice? are you completely nub or what the hell are you thinking? your suggestion would make top kingdom play so SLOW and recovery from wars even more slower than its now.

WB VT2, didn't you have a life today?

Ppl will never learn the importance of keeping a decent strat if there is hardly any punishment for keeping a bad one. The game has been going in the direction that you can't really do much wrong for ages now and if it continues it will be no incentive left what so ever to make an effort and learn the game. I don't see any reason why new players, or old ones, keeping a bad strat shouldn't be punished for this. Ppl don't quit this game because they get hit when they keep a bad strat, ppl quit this game because when they get excited over finding a perfect target, like 200 acre larger and just possible to break they get 14 acre and 36 hrs return time. If we want ppl to think this game is fun we need to make it more logical, and getting crappy gains from countries your own size isn't logical.

I'd like to see lower tb for significantly smaller provs, sure there might be some loopholes, but for new players it helps as they get help to get to a better level faster. If a kingodm is organized enough to abuse tb they deserve it

Yepp, I have a life today.
That's why I've only been able to idle, and not directly post anything of value so far.

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Originally Posted by Lead Pipe

AID
Change how aid and tax is calculated. Make it based on kingdom networth instead of province networth. This will allow kingdoms to help out their small provs more with aid, but the big provs wouldn't be able to get as much. Currently its the complete opposite.

Also, remove gangbang protection as it applies to tax. I dont like how its used by organized kingdoms to create cows. In the current setup, a kingdom will gather a bunch of soldeirs and gold, then ask another friendly kingdom to hit a particular provinces until that province has gbp. While under gbp that province can receive an unlimited amount of aid and use it to grow. Its an unfair advantage to kingdoms which have friends.

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Very good idea, wonder who thought of this :P miliits, please reread the idea I don't think you understand the concept.

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Originally Posted by adjin

WB VT2, didn't you have a life today?

Ppl will never learn the importance of keeping a decent strat if there is hardly any punishment for keeping a bad one. The game has been going in the direction that you can't really do much wrong for ages now and if it continues it will be no incentive left what so ever to make an effort and learn the game. I don't see any reason why new players, or old ones, keeping a bad strat shouldn't be punished for this. Ppl don't quit this game because they get hit when they keep a bad strat, ppl quit this game because when they get excited over finding a perfect target, like 200 acre larger and just possible to break they get 14 acre and 36 hrs return time. If we want ppl to think this game is fun we need to make it more logical, and getting crappy gains from countries your own size isn't logical.

I'd like to see lower tb for significantly smaller provs, sure there might be some loopholes, but for new players it helps as they get help to get to a better level faster. If a kingodm is organized enough to abuse tb they deserve it

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The perfect target is the fatty around your own nw. Before it was the fatty with lower nw. Not a very big change. And well, fact is that there is less focus on pumping now than it was before, and I believe most people think that's a good thing.

Sorry, but I really don't see how bringing land based gains would improve the game in any way. It'd be more likely to scare away new players. If you think getting pwnt hard right when you start to play is a good way to motivate people, then you're pretty naive. It's a textbased webgame, so most people would just quit instead of trying to learn. There are lots of other fun stuff to do instead

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Originally Posted by Lead Pipe

AID
Change how aid and tax is calculated. Make it based on kingdom networth instead of province networth. This will allow kingdoms to help out their small provs more with aid, but the big provs wouldn't be able to get as much. Currently its the complete opposite.

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I like this point very much. The second one, well i am not too sure what you fully mean by it.

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I just had a quick little lightbulb moment:
There are 6 races, and 8 personalities (obviously).
Taking into account that every province needs defensive units, there are 3 'main sections' left over: Offense, Thievery, Magic; and each province can choose any combo of these they see fit. Also there is 'ways' to play that province, through those three listed (ie being heavier on one or two or complete balance on them all) and you can also be 'a grower and/ farm'.

So here is what i was thinking to balance the game (since it seems like it isn't):

1)Split each race into one of those first three categories.
Ex. Elves and DE into magic, Dwarves and Orcs into Offense, and Humans and Gnomes into Thievery. --which gives them a good bonus (like +30%).
And they then can be put into a secondary category to give them a slight bonus like +5% or 10%. and the third category give them a negative like -20% or -30%, or somewhere on that line.

2) Then split the personalities with that same theory of methods, while adding in the grower/farm of the list (so it still stays 2 per category).

In by doing it this way the game becomes a bit more modular, thus creating more balance --if that is what OMAC wants to see the game become.

I believe from this way a KD will need to cooperate together and be less single province KDs. And I know that there is flaws in this, but you can't do much else to an already hugely established game, unless it becomes shuffled, then you can create a perfectly balanced (in theory) game.

Please get rid of nw-based attack times in war.
Please fix the paper bug and normalize papers between kingdoms in war.

I got a suggestion, could omac please give us an idea of what they are going to focus on for the upcoming changes, so we the players can concentrate on those areas instead of wasting thought on ideas that wont be taken into consideration anyway.

thx

So there's not so much whining in the forums about NB not curing the plague, adjust the NB formula. Assuming Orcs are strengthened I'd expect to see a lot more threads on here about the Plague not being cured ;)

Base chance of curing NB = 10%
Each consecutive cast = Previous chance of curing NB + 10% (i.e. 10, 20, 30, etc.)

Allow for a way to train wizzards faster as in training thieves ,at least up to a point say 2wpa raw ...let us pay for thier training as we do thieves and once the 2wpa raw has been reached the permissive for pay to train wizzards will be removed until you drop below 2wpa raw.....

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Originally Posted by allonons

Allow for a way to train wizzards faster as in training thieves ,at least up to a point say 2wpa raw ...let us pay for thier training as we do thieves and once the 2wpa raw has been reached the permissive for pay to train wizzards will be removed until you drop below 2wpa raw.....

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Why should it be so easy to get wizards? You can train thieves "fast", but you also lose them fast since they die when you get caught. Of course you could work on something for recovering from war faster (massacres etc.) but making it easier to get wizards outside of that sounds like something that would remove the need for anyone to go mystic or actually make an effort to get wizards

I'd be very happy if there was no way to boost wizard-assembly, other than straight up building more guilds.
Mystic needs to be altered.

It's boring 'needing' to go mystic if you're serious about going M.

Biggest issue with training wizards is war recovery - a simple +50% to wizard training during EOW CF only would help that without changing overall gameplay much.

And I completely agree with VT2 on changing mystic. (I think the sun might be standing still right now).

Fixing TB tax is also a great suggestion. It's tough to receive meaningful aid if you're a small prov trying to catch up or recover from a war. Lead Pipe's solution fixes that nicely.

Suggestion:
Add a new stance called 'Crazy'
It would do something like the freak personality used to, and maybe something extra like some random events. Maybe someone logs in to find they got 2 million gc's for free. Or they lost all their thieves. Something like that would be awesome

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Originally Posted by Luc

Suggestion:
Add a new stance called 'Crazy'
It would do something like the freak personality used to, and maybe something extra like some random events. Maybe someone logs in to find they got 2 million gc's for free. Or they lost all their thieves. Something like that would be awesome

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That is by far the worst idea I have read.

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Originally Posted by Jobolob

That is by far the worst idea I have read.

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haha I gotta second that one, why dont you go play lotto instead :>

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The perfect target is the fatty around your own nw. Before it was the fatty with lower nw. Not a very big change.

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That's completely wrong, the perfect target goes from being around your nw to around your size. It's a very logical change.
Actually to make it perfect target would be slightly larger with your exact nw, would be minimum return times and max gains, pretty much exactly as it is today. For new players it would be a lot easyer to understand.

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Sorry, but I really don't see how bringing land based gains would improve the game in any way. It'd be more likely to scare away new players. If you think getting pwnt hard right when you start to play is a good way to motivate people, then you're pretty naive. It's a textbased webgame, so most people would just quit instead of trying to learn. There are lots of other fun stuff to do instead

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Well, you must be a terrible player if you're going to get to feed off the newbs after this, For most decent players it won't make much of a change, for our new players, and fairly poor players who is constantly in the lower 1/4th of the scale this will make a huge difference, that will have a much more compettetive environment. I think new players in general will have a much easyer way of understanding this.
While most ppl might quit, I think it's obvious that most ppl already are quitting, this doesn't mean the game is to harsh. It means
1: The gude sucks and whoever OMAC got writing it should quit, you're making our players stupid, ppl actually believe what's in the guide!!!
2: Game isn't logical, granted the randomfactor is gone, but ppl still struggle to make good hits. So new players get oop, given that they're in a fairly decent kingdom they will have some info on what's required oop. So, they start looking for a target, witch takes forever, and they hit it. A: They fail because they believed the som was correct, B they get crappy gains because their target had low nw (What new player knows this concept? You will logically go for the similar sized province) or C they send every single troop because they have no idea what it takes to break a province.

To be short, going back to landbased gains is a logical continiuation of removing the randomfactor. It makes the game simpler for new players to understand. Keeping the NW based attacktimes ensures this won't be a pumping game only.

I like what you have been doing so far Omac. Below are my 2 cents though to make it more fun to play Utopia. Which is more imporant than anything else! Games should be about having fun!

1. Make the age longer. I want to suggest 16 weeks.
10 weeks is by far too short. Too little time to build up and get a nice couple of wars. I don't understand the logic of having short ages. People will need to start from scratch again so soon, they tend to lose their enthousiasm in the game. Atleast in my kingdom. I support the idea of ages and having to start from scratch, but not so soon. Actually I'm quite pissed about it. People quitting the game etc.

2. Balancing the game. I know it is difficult, here are my 2 (short) cents.
Dark Elfs and Elfs are by far superior when you are warring. Don't weaken them please. Make Orcs, Humans and Dwarfs stronger attackers. Give them more offensive power or more defensive strength (thieve/mage wise).

3. Monarch support. Please give monarchs the option of mass message his/her own kingdom. It would make life so much easier for an already time intensive role in the kingdom.

I like what you've been doing so far. Please keep improving this game into a more fun game!

Land based gains are atrocious. I don't want to be pumping for days before sending my troops out. Nw based gains make the game more dynamic and diminish the amount of pump you have to do.

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Land based gains are atrocious. I don't want to be pumping for days before sending my troops out. Nw based gains make the game more dynamic and diminish the amount of pump you have to do.

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No it does not.
If you want to hit someone say hlf your nw and same land you also take a big risk in army taking 36 hrs to return. The use of pumping is very overrated as long as we keep the nw based attacktimes.

Nw is another measure of size. Why is it more logical for you to compare land? That's right, because you played when there were land based gains. Have you conducted interviews with new players to confirm that they think land based gains would make more sense?

Today you need to hit provinces that are within 10% of your own nw to get good percentual gains. If the target's nw happens to be big part nw from the all the land, you'll get very good gains. It prevents excessive bottomfeeding in a much better way than land based gains ever did.

Please do explain how it makes things more competitive. I really don't understand why.

The random factor is not gone. Bishop emailed OMAC and Roisin confirmed that the first general does not give a bonus, and there is still a random factor.

I still don't see how the game would be improved by going back to a system that has been discarded before

* Charge 5-10 dollars per age per account

Clean up the extensive multiing, hire an additional programmer and make this game worth playing again.

Most controversial suggestion thus far? Maybe. Drop in players? Most definately.

But once this game is clean again and additional features have been implemented, popularity will pick up. Case of getting worse before getting better.

It's not more logical for me, it's more logical for everyone.
I've played in many ghettos over and over for ages trying to teach new players the ropes, and one of the questions that keep appearing is the "why did I only get 14 acre when I attacked someone larger then myself"
For any normal person that hasn't been in utopia NW (Which is a measure of strength not size) has little or no meaning. They quickly learn that it relates to how much army you have, but why in the name of god they should not get better gains from attacking greenland then israel is beyond them. one has tons of lands and little or no army, one has tiny lands and a ton of army, surely ppl would attack greenland first. But with NW based gains they would get about a ton of snow and nothing more.

Landbased gains are easily tuned to prevent bottonfeeding as much as NWbased gains.

It makes things more competitive because ppl will look more to similar size, thus exploring gets much harder as you can be broken for decent gains by similar sized provs that's for some reason been pumped. Weeks on is not the only way a province can find itself with low nad and high army, say you get chained in war and suddenly you are oow, you have 75% draft and 500 acre, surely it will be easyer to come back then if you have to hit ppl twise your sice to get a decent gain.

The randomfacotor is to all intents and purposes gone. The tie was between a: a 2% random factor and 3% bonus from first general or b: no random factor.
So if there is no bonus for general there is no random factor.

This is not the system it has discarded, that system had static returntimes, and that's what makes bottomfeeding viable. If you can make 4 smal hits safely each 8 hrs that's a huge growth combined. Do not get your systems mixed up here!

When I tell new players that the game was once based on acres versus acres, rather than networth versus networth, they go 'uhhh? How does that make sense?'

Introduce new enhanced trad march, Trad march with added abilities for 3 hr more attack time or require 15% more offense to win.

Human: Does a minor learn as well
Elf: Steals some runes and wizards
Dwarf: Reduce BE by 1% for 3 hours
Orc: kidnaps soldiers and peasants
Gnome: Steals gold
DE: steals 3% mana.

Reality has nothing to do with it. The game isn't made to reflect reality, it's made to be fun to play. Being unable to grow because you get bottomfed on (nw wise) too much is not fun. With land based gains you have to pump all the time or you get fed on. That's not fun.

If they can be easily tuned to prevent bottomfeeding then I would really like to see that solution.

If OMAC says there is a random factor, there probably is a random factor. I base that belief on the fact that they have access to the code and they said there is one.

With land based gains, anyone with low nwpa is a prime target. You'll gladly trade an extra few hours of attack time for a big safe gain. With nw based gains, those fatties will only be good hits for people close to their nw. That's what stops bottomfeeding

I have seen some poor human suggests(and some suggestions for other races that would rape humans)

Why give Orcs 8/3 elites? You already have the highest offense, with this Humans would become useless as attackers. Same with giving Orcs +1 def spec or removing human +1. As it stands right now doing any of the above would make humans worthless to play.

I can understand if Orcs have some defensive issues(some they should have for balance) but don't destroy humans to fix orcs, there is no sense in that.

As for my suggestions for human changes I would have to say:

+1 Def Spec
6/3 Elite 800gc
+25% Income Bonus
+25% Science Effectiveness
1% Learn on TM
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-40% Offensive Magic Eff.
Specific Spellbook – Greater Protection, Aggression, Fog

Redo elites so that costs are in line with points. 100 gc per 1 point. 5/6 DE elite? 1100 GC. 8/2 Orc elite? 1000 GC. Exception is Gnomes, who get a race benefit of 50 gc per point, so their 5/4 elite is 450 gc.

Makes armouries viable, makes hosps valuable, hurts Gnomes because they have to spend more on elites, helps Dwarfs because their 7/4 becomes cheaper relative to everybody else.

I never said game shold in any way resemble reality, I said it should be logical, It might be a poor phracing, intuitive might be better. It's much more fun to play if you actually get it...

Landbased gains can easily be tuned to give 50% of max at 80% of land and 40% at 70% and 33% and under 50% so say you can hit someone with 50% your land and same nw you will get 33% of normal gains at 12hrs return time.
Say you hit someone 100% of your size and 50% of your nw you get 100% of normal gains and 36 hrs return time.
Offcourse the numbers are made up, not balanced towards fighting bottomfeeding, but an example.

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With land based gains, anyone with low nwpa is a prime target.

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That's just silly, now the best gains come from ppl with more land and same nw, more commonly known as low nwpa. They're the perfect target right now, so don't be silly.

Why add in acres to the equation at all? It's just another factor to worry about. I dont see your reasoning other than a nostalgia trip.

I just hope this is disregarded along with the "bring back Avian/Undead" crap.

The key word is "anyone", not "nwpa".

Also, I don't agree that it's more logical to base gains on land. For the sake of the game I think it's more logical to have people attacking people closer to their own strength. If everybody's just supposed to look up the weak ones the game would be much more boring. And again: I'm not convinced that new players think land gains are more logical. At least not relative land gains. Why would you need 1k acres to be able to get good gains from someone else who is 1k acres? Wouldn't it make more "sense" that you gain more from whoever is bigger than yourself? Like if you hit someone who has 20k land, you should be able to get more than from one who has 1k. That would be easy to explain to a new player, but terrible for the game

I'm not adding acres, I'm changing the decicive factor from your strength to your lands when determining how much gains you get.
It gives diversity and hurts exploring and it helps new players by being more intuitive.

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Originally Posted by adjin

It gives diversity and hurts exploring and it helps new players by being more intuitive.

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My version:
It makes the game LESS diverse (for example by hurting exploring and forcing people to spend a lot of time pumping) and it isn't in any way established that it is more intuitive for new players, and it also makes less sense for gameplay.

No it doesnt. Land adds NW, intuition lets you find players who NW is worthless land and who's is military.

Land based gains leads to eveveryone pumping at minimum acres and leads to stagnation, not diversity.

Put Raze back the way it use to be and allow it to Raze land during War again.
That single change would greatly cut back on the sheer number of Suiciders that are now currently in the game.

If they wish to suicide, with raze fixed in War allowing the destruction of land again would allow a kingdom to decimate them if they choose to suicide.

The way it currently is suiciders are not penalized and if you try to hit them numerous times, hit protection kicks in and it takes forever to bring them down.

I agree bring back land destroying raze again.

I'd like these two to be linked:

A modifiction on above two posts...

Raze destroys land and puts it back into their (the kingdom of the province that got razed ) explore pool..
Paradising is COMPLETELY linked to explore pool.

Looking at "A Survey of the World" gives, in my eyes, a clear picture of what needs to be done.
Very few orc and dwarf players, indicating they need to be tweaked up.
And then we have DE. Close to a third of the players are Dark Elves. There's even more people playing the specific combination DE/Mystic then there is playing totally in any other race(except for Elves).
A more clear indication on that Dark Elves need to be tweaked down is hard to find.

I think land-based gains is going a bit overboard. I think a more practical approach would be to limit, or flatten out the gains drop for topfeeds. This does open up suiciders to make big hits with little retribution on the otherhand. Personally I'm pretty happy with the system.