Land lost when hit

I'd like to suggest that when hit for land the acres you lose come equally from the land you have currently built and the land you have in progress.

Example i have 1000 acres built & 1000 acres building

I am hit for for 1500 acres i end with

250 acres built & 250 acres building.

(or say 1500 built 500 building down to 500 u end with 375 built 125 building)


Reason: Its very strange to be chained from 2000 acres and end with 40 build acres and 650+ incoming acres, kinda get screwed when you lose all your farms/guilds till your land comes in in 12 hours.

This was changed intentionally when they removed raze killing to make it easyier to disable people. Wars already last long enough.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by goodz

This was changed intentionally when they removed raze killing to make it easyier to disable people. Wars already last long enough.

---

If i remember correctly it was changed to take both baron land and regular land.. i wasnt aware they they changed the mix of what was being taken. ie something other than to prioritize not just baren land first. My thing is right now normal hits always take "some" of your building land, but its not taking land as a percentage of what u have.

Ie if i have 100 acres farms, 500 acres GS, 400 Acres Building (lets say TG). If i'm chained i can very much end, 50 GS, 350 Building (TG). At a minimum it should pull from what i have built in an equal percentage.

Take a look at http://forums.utopia-game.com/showth...Guilds-war-bug
Its an issue with how the buildings are prioritized when you have land being built. In the case of that thread Guilds were lost at a much higher percentage, normally one loses stuff like ALL their farm, or ALL their Dungeons.

For me the example was along the lines of

START Build:
50 farms 30 incoming
200 GS 100 incoming
100 TG 200 incoming

MID chain-
1 farms 20 incoming
10 GS 90 incming
3 TG 190 incoming

Final chain
0 farm 15 incoming
0 GS 80 incoming
0 TG 180 incoming

There is no easy way to predict the land i'l have mid-post chain when i have a large portion of my land building, and im left with a mix MUCH different from what i tried to build. Kind of strange that i have all land "Building" as i have to 100% rely on my kd for aid.

I mean say i grew from 2000->3000 acres via 2 uniques. I build that land and then get trad marched to 900 acres, it makes no sens that i'd have 900 acres of buildings "building" and be 100% unbuilt.

That thread is wrong. You can tell because i said it was, like so.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bishop

Guilds aren't special. They stay/go the same as any other building.

---

I believe land is taken as a % of the gain from built and barren and if not enough there then from in progress.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bishop

That thread is wrong. You can tell because i said it was, like so.

I believe land is taken as a % of the gain from built and barren and if not enough there then from in progress.

---

That thread is wrong because he was missing what is being done, My "suggestion" gets to the heart of that. Ie at a minimum include the in progress % when you decide what land to take. right now the best i can tell is it only looks at built+barren. As a better choice to actually take from in progress as well as built.


2500 acres=>500 acres as lose 20% of everything

500 farms +1000 building=> 100 farms 200 building
1000 TG+ zero building=> 200 TG

I see no reason not to do this, as it help NEW players by not screwing over their build with all unbuilt acres. (and thus REQUIRING kd aid for many hours)


EDIT
At a MINIMUM it shouldn't take JUST from built acres first, ie

START:100 farms,200 in progress guilds
HIT: 100 acres
END: 200 in progress guilds

No, we don't want to take from in progress. This behaviour is deliberate and addresses more issues than changing it will address.

I can see where Persain's coming from on this one. I think I'd rather have say 5% farms and 5% in progress than 0% farms and 10% in progress.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bishop

No, we don't want to take from in progress. This behaviour is deliberate and addresses more issues than changing it will address.

---

i'd been trying to track exactly how acres left and the last time i got chained finally let me see why. (and tells me to never run dungeons in war). It is VERY anti new play friendly. I'm just curious though what issue does taking ALL built land before in progress address? because the current systems required about 3-4 chains+1 DEEP chain to actually calculate the exact process. Would be nice to have the suggestions forum actually be of use if i can suggest an alternative way to deal with that issue and address the non-standard acre loss :P

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by lastunicorn

I can see where Persain's coming from on this one. I think I'd rather have say 5% farms and 5% in progress than 0% farms and 10% in progress.

---

Or have what happened me me last chain 0% unbuild 100% in progress (mostly GS). I wasnt sure how it'd work but i had something like 20% farms (aid) and figured when chained it'd put me at a sustainable level. So i took and build the 600 acre grab i just got and placed it most of it into GS. Well low and behold i get chained to under 300 acres and end up with 0 built land and zero farms. (i would of done better not building knowing that the chain was coming which is just dumb)...Then, I had to wait for my land grab to come in (7 hours), and 16 hours before i could build ANY farms. Thats 23 hours with ZERO farms. I 100% have to get aid.

Its useable but its not intuitive and leads to threads like the one i linked to above (about guilds) and gives new players a big disadvantage as they dont know how to be chained. One good thing about being chained so hard i guess is i see exactly what happens when chained beyond currently in progress acres.

The current method is buggy. I don't know the exact bug, but it was seen earlier when one kingdom that had numerous acres in progress was hit and lost fewer acres than were actually taken.

I have seen a previous example of the bad mechanics, in a war of quad-tapping orcs where all acres were permanently in progress and because barren acres were taken before in-progress acres, it meant only your barren acres were ever taken (free build and +credits were rendered completely useless).

And the bug is commonly seen, where if you only have a few of a certain building and get chained, you will invariably lose every single one of that building.

Acres should be taken equally from all available types. If you lose x% of your acres it should take x% of your barren, x% of your built dungeons, and x% of your dungeons in progress. Round (down?) and take the extra left over from a random building type. There's no need for bugs or inconsistencies here; these mechanics are quite clearly the best ones and not very hard to implement.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jdorje

The current method is buggy.

---

thanks jdorje, that is exactly what i was trying to say...and there isn't a "bug" i finally got how it takes land but it makes no sense. Thus the need for something better

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jdorje

The current method is buggy. I don't know the exact bug, but it was seen earlier when one kingdom that had numerous acres in progress was hit and lost fewer acres than were actually taken.

---

Legacy bug from mehul - if you had a hit of X acres and not enough land left in built or barren to allocate to it the game then takes from in progress. Mehuls code iterated a limited number of times to take the land from each schedule meaning that under certain cases a prov would not lose all the land they should have. This bug existed for years it appears, but due to the criteria needed to fulfil it I guess we didn't see it occurring often enough. Anyway, we fixed this recently.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jdorje

And the bug is commonly seen, where if you only have a few of a certain building and get chained, you will invariably lose every single one of that building.

Acres should be taken equally from all available types. If you lose x% of your acres it should take x% of your barren, x% of your built dungeons, and x% of your dungeons in progress. Round (down?) and take the extra left over from a random building type. There's no need for bugs or inconsistencies here; these mechanics are quite clearly the best ones and not very hard to implement.

---

The bug you refer to isn't a bug, its how the allocation of a % gain works in conjunction with rounding. We do not want to take from in progress on the initial allocation because you would remove a persons ability to manipulate their build.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bishop

The bug you refer to isn't a bug, its how the allocation of a % gain works in conjunction with rounding. We do not want to take from in progress on the initial allocation because you would remove a persons ability to manipulate their build.

---

um if i have 5% gs and build 10% more gs i now have 15 % of my land in gs. if i lose 10% land i'd STILL have 15% GS.

total 1000 acres,
100 GS, 100 in progress, if im hit for 20% of my land and lose 20 GS and 20 in progress than i was still able to manipluate my build. what am i missing?

Arson

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bishop

Arson

---

what about it, how it would work? or what effect it would have. Because i cant see arson being significantly effected.

Greater/ normal Arson causes you to not be able to manipulate your build, that's what you were missing - nados would similarly be affected. We do not want land taken from in progress unless its because there is nowhere else to take it from. That is the current behaviour and we don't intend on changing it. You can, ofc, argue as to why you would like it changed but be aware that its just not something we are interested in changing right now.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bishop

Greater/ normal Arson causes you to not be able to manipulate your build, that's what you were missing - nados would similarly be affected. We do not want land taken from in progress unless its because there is nowhere else to take it from. That is the current behaviour and we don't intend on changing it. You can, ofc, argue as to why you would like it changed but be aware that its just not something we are interested in changing right now.

---

:( Sad, i would think greater/normal arson and nadoes would destroy built buildings. Thus they are a tool to deal economic damage, or remove say WT/GS/FARMs and whatnot when strategically needed. It then causes a person to have LESS of a control on their build by forceing them to rebuild/waste gc & time.

While there might not be an intent in looking at/changing the way land leave i find it very sad as the current system doesnt provide an intuitive or even logical way in taking land. A new player should be able to build see they have 10% farms see that they are going to be changed and up their build in GS. Then WHEN chained they shouldn't END with only GS incoming, they should end the chain with 10% of their land being farms. The current system only serves to punish new players who dont relaize the system isnt a logical one.

Since there isnt an intent to address this (and i doubt im going to single handily convince anyone who cant already see the issue) I'll leave the thread then with a closing thought and and example.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bishop

This bug existed for years it appears, but due to the criteria needed to fulfil it I guess we didn't see it occurring often enough

---

Logically based algorithms allow for bugs like this to be easily addressed/identified instead of existing for years without people discussing them.

Dungeons are one of the single best buildings for your military if full, however the current systems means that once you start getting hit in war, you should instantly abandon them as the low % being run along with rounding on land taken means you are going to lose them every time you lose 20-30% of your total land. Its not a matter of building more, its a matter of EVERY time u get hit your going to lose them, so it isn't good to include in your build, something that until recently i couldn't justify and a non-logical build that i'd have to teach any new player....again sad.

You are talking about a completely different bug that is no longer an issue.

Current method means that you will have *different* future builds at any given time - one that you will get if you are hit hard, one that you will get if you are mostly not hit. I'm fairly sure this is not helpful.

Imagine the case where you have no idea who will be chained next amongst your attackers, just that some of them will be chained and some left alone. Because the unchained matter more (conventional wisdom says so, at least) and because the odds of you being a chain target within a day are maybe 10% (2 out of 20?), you have to build your buildings mostly assuming you won't be hit (within reason).

Now, 1 of 2 things happens - either you:
1. Aren't chained, and thus get the build you expected but get no benefit from the "faster build change" that is the claimed goal of this design.
2. Are chained, and thus get a build that quite possibly looks nothing like the build you intended. So you've successfully "gained" the goal of a fast build change - to a bad build!


Under current warring tactics, this system is strictly worse that the OP's proposal. The only people that see a difference are those that get forced into a functionally halfway random build instead of the build they intended. The only time this helps at all is in a trading hits/pure max gain war, when it maybe makes the build% more slightly faster than otherwise. Even there, you end up rebuilding your starting size in 2-4 days time... which is either too long to wait for the build change (schools, for example), or is more than fast enough to cut a building you don't really want in half (banks, for example). If the banks fall to 10% from 20%, that's good enough, you don't need them to fall all the way to 0%. While if you waited *3 days* to get rid of your schools - you've got bigger problems than if there are a few left.


Imagine a slightly exaggerated example where you can only log in every 12 hours exactly (11.75 + 15 minutes to plan the hit, same dif). So you've got plenty of rax from war start while the attack time bonus was phasing in, but now you don't need that many. Great, you think, I won't build them... but wait. I learned about the bizarre "Build B" problem from the forums, and I really can't afford to miss an attack, even (especially?) if chained. So I have to make sure I have enough rax in progress that I won't lose my attack time bonus. So... I build more rax anyway.

Where, here, is the faster changing of the build? This poor prov is *forced* to keep building a building he *doesn't want* or risk having his build ruined suddenly! The only way he can ever fix his build safely is to raze existing rax just to build more of them! If he lacks the money to waste like that.... then well golly, I guess the "faster build change feature" prevents you from changing your build - sorry for that, we're *sure* it must have helps someone somehow.


Given the number of people that have their provinces seriously messed up by the "semi-random build" *feature* - can you really offer an example where it helps, on even remotely the same scale? I'd be amazed if more that a very few people (that actually understand what is going on) think the current method is the least bit useful. I, for one, reported this as a bug because something so ludicrous never even occurred to me as an intentional decision.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ethan

Given the number of people that have their provinces seriously messed up by the "semi-random build" *feature*

---

We don't consider it an issue in any way, its been like this for years.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bishop

We don't consider it an issue in any way, its been like this for years.

---

okay so i couldn't stay away, not being an "issue" and not being the best system that can be in place are different things though bishop.

That's true, its just not a priority at all. I feel its better to guide people away from areas that may not be as productive rather than let them waste too much time.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bishop

That's true, its just not a priority at all. I feel its better to guide people away from areas that may not be as productive rather than let them waste too much time.

---

so other than the broken explore formula what areas are the developers looking to address mechanics wise? WW bonus? Honor? If its a waste of time to make a good suggestion to improve the game why not sticky a thread for each topic that might actually get worked on.

Post a good topic and i will consider it

I think this would be a good change. I've always thought it makes no sense that built acres are taken first, and it's one of those aspects that is so frustrating about this game.

If being able to manipulate your build is a concern, then it could be easily fixed by adding a checkbox option that allows the player to decide if they want to prioritise "defence" of their buildings in progress. That would not add too much overhead to the code, since it only requires the checking of a simple condition then proceeding to process one way or the other.

Even if this isn't a priority, it should at least be noted for consideration in future.

Built acres aren't taken first, barren and built are.

yes barren and built, that's what I meant to say. Doesn't change the point though.

I got chained and now 78% of my acres are now buildings in progress. If I get hit much more I won't have any built acres left.

The current system is just stupid. I'm left with very little modifier bonuses or ability to generate runes.

The idea that people would lose the option to control their build is completely outweighed by the ridiculous disadvantage that the system imposes.

How is not a bug when you eventually lose ALL the buildings of certain building types?

Why would it be a bug?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bishop

Why would it be a bug?

---

because its not expected behavior to lose land disproportionally to how you have it built+incoming. There is no "Recommended reading" in the wiki for how buildings are lost when you are hit, and even if there was it'd be lost on most players untill their first/second massive chaining.

Just because you don't understand something doesn't make it a bug though. I can clear this up easily.

Working as intended.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bishop

Just because you don't understand something doesn't make it a bug though. I can clear this up easily.

Working as intended.

---

lol which is y this thread is in suggestions and not bug forums. :P It would be nice to have the wiki actually explain how land is taken, but as i have no wiki account or English skills to do a non-mathematical explanation justice it wont be coming from me.

It takes whatever % you lost individually from each stack of buildings in order of built/barren then incoming if built/barren isn't enough. This was changed from barren>built>incoming when raze was changed to suck to allow you to do more damage with trad.

I can explain it for the wiki, right?
"Also remember that, if you lose a large amount of land in a short period of time, you build will revert to a semi-random collection of whatever you happened to build last, and have nothing to do with whatever strategy you hoped to be using. One side effect of this is that, if stealing/aid is not reliable, any province that needs food must *always* build farms or risk staving. If you have too many farms already, try razing some farms and rebuilding them as farms to fix this."

Good, right? Explains perfectly *why this should be changed!*


If you *must* keep the "balance" currently, go ahead and strengthen TM somehow (also does a war-raze for 1-2% of built?). But having a mechanic that is intended to do damage to a province by *removing the player's ability to control their own build* is a terrible decision, and is only excusable because it clearly happens like that by accident of the coding instead of deliberate malice on the part of the devs.

Since the impact is only felt strongly on chains, IMO simply changing the priory to take evenly from all acres would provide a nice small balance tweak to weaken chaining a tiny bit. (*Really* tiny, since overpop is the main point anyway.) Regardless of the desired balance, the current priority should be changed for an improved game experience (and better logic).

Did you even read what i said :/

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bishop

We do not want to take from in progress on the initial allocation because you would remove a persons ability to manipulate their build.

---

The game does take evenly from all acres, you are proposing that it doesn't.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bishop

The game does take evenly from all acres, you are proposing that it doesn't.

---

It takes evenly from all built/unbuilt land and then only after that is all taken does it remove in progress land. The suggestion was just to include in progress in that at the same time(even if you pull from it last ie include 500 gs in progress will you pull a % of GS from me). As you stated

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bishop

This was changed from barren>built>incoming when raze was changed to suck

---

Back when it took from each one in order that was fine because by the time you lost barren+built you were geting raze killed and it didnt matter what incoming land you had so there was no reason to complain. But once it got changed that you always lost built acres it made no sense to keep incoming separated as it actually matters what you end up with and

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bishop

We do not want to take from in progress on the initial allocation because you would remove a persons ability to manipulate their build.

---

you can no longer manipulate your build when chained without

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ethan

if stealing/aid is not reliable, any province that needs food must *always* build farms or risk staving. If you have too many farms already, try razing some farms and rebuilding them as farms to fix this.

---

Point one, sure - i may have taken ethan up wrong, no to the rest.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bishop

We do not want to take from in progress on the initial allocation because you would remove a persons ability to manipulate their build.

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by angevin

If being able to manipulate your build is a concern, then it could be easily fixed by adding a checkbox option that allows the player to decide if they want to prioritise "defence" of their buildings in progress.

---

If the issue is about disabling opponents, then you can make the point that it does aid in that process, but the overpopulation mechanics are already very strong, and the problems that the current method creates only lead to a frustrating game experience. The example of farms is a good one, and so is that of guilds. When you are left with 0.3% guilds, you may as well forget casting any spells - sure they may not add much to a chained province anyway, but is the motivation of this just to frustrate players for being unfortunate enough to be the target, so that they just feel like giving up? The current method just detracts from the game playing experience and makes it very negative. Overpopulation is a good mechanic and it makes sense, but leaving buildings in progress until all other acres are gone is illogical and it disadvantages and frustrates a defender in a way that is completely over the top.