Raze/Paradise/Mintime for wars

[Charis]

I started this discussion in Realests Raze Discussion thread but I realize that perhaps bringing up some of these other changes risked hijacking his thread so I would like to move this specific discussion here.

I think part of the perceived problem of the last few ages is that you can either whore or war. The usual path of the typical whoring kingdom would be to attack as fast as possible, secure a position somewhere in the top 5, launch a bank successfully, use killers early in the game to secure your cf's or naps. And once your provinces have successfully grown to the point where there is no person that is above 60% of your nw that is not in a cf'ed or nap'ed kingdom you sit back and start dicing because of the steady predictable growth and economic advantages of not having to worry about getting waved you sit getting as much science as possible, before converting near the end for possibly some action or go straight into an eoa nw pump.

For the warring kingdom, it was simply impossible to keep up to that kind of growth, or if they did manage to get close to one of these whoring kingdoms and managed to provoke them into hostilities, the whoring kingdom had such a huge advantage through an age's worth of science accumulation that it was no contest.

So a couple of changes were made, now with there being no dice the explore pool has to be carefully managed to a select few provinces to keep the right provinces setting the benchmark for the rest of the kingdom, or else the entirety of the pool goes to your bank province for those few kingdoms which are able to effectively launch one.

What this leads to is much more forced action at the top. I expected that the action for this age would begin at about the 3 week mark when historically kingdoms switch to dicing. Yet know with no dicing these kingdoms are forced to war for position - already this age we saw Rage simply destroy a kingdom that was close to it, and now with nearly a 30k acres lead over the nearest kingdom they literally have nothing to do but sit and accumulate science until someone comes close enough to them. But we have also seen wars, seasons, playboys, sanctuary, all have warred, and with seasons and playboys coming out of a fakewar, sanctuary is possibly entering its second conflict as it tries to regain a position among the top kingdoms.

So what have we seen among these top kingdoms now that raze has been implemented? Provinces are able to be taken down much more effectively and whereas last age if you were chained down, a good player who knew how to handle his overpop situation could conceivably regain much of what he lost because it was very hard to chain him to a point where he truly had to release his offense to survive.

What needs to be changed in the current warring dynamics I believe is a couple of things - first of all the acres coming into the game need to be increased now that there is a significant amount being lost through raze, so I would suggest that the daily acre bonus be upped to 10 acres. Secondly I believe the tax needs to be relaxed - perhaps at the 3 or 4 week stage into the age once the banks have been successfully launched the point at which provinces tax kicks in needs to be doubled. This is to allow chained provinces which have had to lose a majority of their land and military units to be more quickly fed back into an effective position. Combined with the fact that the explore pool is very limited the chances for this to be taken advantage of is low.

The last suggestion and perhaps the largest change to current game mechanics is that mintime needs to be extended 12-24 hours. Adding this extra time to war would have couple of obvious immediate impacts. As it stands right now, much of what a losing kingdom lost or is losing can be regained through a strategic maxgain wave followed by a withdrawal. This idea of a max gain wave would be less effective with an extra day because more provinces would be disabled. Secondly, as it stands right now the kingdom with the better strategy and better implementation of it - ie: nightstriking provinces, or keeping duration opps up. This would have a greater benefit. As it stands right now a kingdom that knows it is losing can still withdraw before taking to much of a beating leaving the other kingdom standing frustrated because it knows its tactics were better, it knows it was winning and yet with still has very little reward for warring, and more importantly warring successfully, adding this extra day allows for the rewards for the winning kingdom to be even greater.

glad to see someone with at least a vague idea of the workings of this game. You have a solid understanding of whats going on, but the proposals you offered don't change anything.

First, boosting the 10 daily acres wont change things much. What you want is just to revert Paradise back to the previous version, detached from pool, but weakening it to a lower cap, maybe 4-5 (balance not important atm). The aid system currently is fine, so no need to get fancy.

Next bumping back a war a few hours wont change much either because the max gain withdraw wave is relative to when the war ends. You just merely delayed this occurrence a bit. True, it may allow stragglers to come home for the final wave a lil easier, but it's not a big difference, if a kd has already been dominated.

[Charis]

And then the reply

As of right now there is 14,300 provinces, lets be optimistic and say around 80% log in once per day because of this roughly 60000 new acres are coming into utopia per day. As of atleast the last few ages very few - probably only five kingdoms were able to effectively take advantage of the economic benefits that the steady, peaceful growth that paradise afforded. These few kingdoms, over the course of the age that were able to capitalize to capitalize on this spell were able to gain an enormous acreage lead on the rest of utopia. (upon reading my previous post it is clear that I should have done atleast a cursory edit as I did not finish the thought that I started in the first sentence, so allow me to elaborate here) part of the perceived culture problem that utopia has had the last few ages is that there has been a clear distinction between the whoring kingdoms that have a legitimate shot at winning the nw/land crowns and the warring kingdoms that would still like to war have fun but not necessarily the patience or discipline required to merely log in twice a day and repeatedly press the paradise button because they believe this game has much more to offer.

I am not in favor of adding the paradise spell back to how it was - adding acres to the game. Even if it was lowered to 4 or 5 acres. This spell was able to be used effectively by a mere 1-2% of utopia, I dont think a spell that is as strong as it is should be allowed to be used for the clear advantage of the minority. By doubling the daily acre bonus, or adding 120 thousand plus acres per day to the game this would benefit everyone. Inevitably the acres will take the long slow journey from the random ghetto's who are bottomfed on all the way up to the top kingdoms. As we have seen this age where one kingdom has gained a huge lead and can now sit waiting for the next kingdom to catch up to them. The more acres the nubs have, the more acres the middle kingdoms can get and the more acres the elite kingdoms will harvest from them which will throw them into contention for that top spot faster. Removing the extra acres from the paradise spell has forced the top kingdoms to fight for their spots, why not have the extra acres in the game which will allow everyone on a whole to get larger, quicker. That is one of the criticisms of the game that growth simply takes to long to happen.

The change to the aid system is not necessary but I believe it has specific and valuable benefits - remove the gbp I am fine with that. But why not for those kingdoms that are legitimately trying to rebuild allow them to be able to more quickly fund those provinces regrowth - looking at the 'top' kingdoms now, those that have gone into war - playboys, seasons, sanctuary all have provinces that were heavily chained down. Granted those specific kingdoms have banks which allow them to have a tremendous economic advantage in rebuilding provinces over those kingdoms that are not blessed with banks. Yet the principle remains - I dont think they are willing to jeopardize their current position until those 4-5 provinces are rebuilt into functioning units of their kingdom. No kingdom is going to want to go into war when they start with one quarter of their provinces at a severe disadvantage when compared to the other, so why not facilitate the specific rebuild of those players provinces. Having this happen after the first few weeks of the age means that it will not change the bank launching dynamics early age, and by now it would be to late for a kingdom to viably start trying to launch bank type provinces so I do not see specific instances where this could be taken advantage of.

As to changing minimum time - One of the problems with wars is that it is very hard for one kingdom to actually get significant gains from it - this age Secrets is sitting pretty at the #2 position and have not warred, in the previous ages the kingdoms that generally were able to avoid war the most ended up doing the best.

My suggestion - extending minimum ties allows a kingdom to see the fruition of whatever strategies it is employing - whether that be heavy chaining, constant duration opps - the kingdom that is able to do this more effectively would actually be able to gain something - So often on utimes, or AR I see the summaries of two kingdoms go into war and at mintime one of them withdraws - oftentimes they are able to gain back all of their acres, or even come out ahead because of a last minute max gain wave. And yet when I go and personally talk to people from both kingdoms oftentimes the one that pulled out with a slight acreage lead, or little to no losses had simply had their provinces thrashed during war, and yet because of the short time that war currently is the other kingdom does not receive the proper benefits it should for employing better strategies. You say that not much would change if war was extended an extra day - that the losing kingdom could still maxgain and withdraw. I agree, they could still do that but because of the longer war time and especially now that there is a viable means of disabling provinces in war (razing) come that third day, the losing kingdom would not be in much of shape to profit so much from that max gain wave, while the winning kingdom would be able to see much more tangible results from their war. Basically adding a third day into war would accentuate the risk of war - both the possibility for gains, and the possibility for losses.

you were doing so well in your first post, what happened there? I'll let Spheric address you though, cuz you called out his kingdom.

[Charis]

Bishop's and Spheric's comments

Originally Posted by Charis
So often on utimes, or AR I see the summaries of two kingdoms go into war and at mintime one of them withdraws - oftentimes they are able to gain back all of their acres, or even come out ahead because of a last minute max gain wave.

Nothing is stopping the other kingdom from max gaining on that wave also.

I've had two hours sleep, so I'll keep this one short. You gave an interesting read. The thread was initially about raze, so we may find it easier to follow in a separate post since you've brought together issues from suggestions made by Realest in his other thread.

The more acres the nubs have, the more acres the middle kingdoms can get and the more acres the elite kingdoms will harvest from them which will throw them into contention for that top spot faster. Removing the extra acres from the paradise spell has forced the top kingdoms to fight for their spots, why not have the extra acres in the game which will allow everyone on a whole to get larger, quicker. That is one of the criticisms of the game that growth simply takes to long to happen.

You're describing this effect too narrowly. The game is relative, so the discrepancy between the Kingdoms would be somewhat comparable to the present. An increase in daily acres would obviously bring more acres into the game, but to what extent will all Kingdoms being larger have an effect upon the top?

I'm not sure what you mean by the paradise spell having had its extra acres removed? The spell itself is intact, just it has been linked to the exploration pool.

This is one of those moments where I should be careful what I say, because I think I mentioned elsewhere before that I don't want to be too explicit in talking about the top, not just for personal considerations but also those of others.

Regarding razed or chained provinces, with specific attention to the Kingdoms you've mentioned, Playboys, Seasons and Sanctuary are all highly competitive and I don't believe that just because they're sitting on a handful of razed provinces that it makes them as weak as you may initially suspect. Obviously, they will want those provinces to grow back as soon as it's viable to do so, but why should they require additional assistance? They're fully aware of the short-term damage their conflicts will have yet there's still an incentive there for them to war. There are advantages and drawbacks to every situation and I suspect the players behind those provinces are also decent enough to grow back of their own accord. Post raze, it is - perhaps - not so optimal for them in the medium-term, but I don't believe it stops them from responding to further engagements.

You can't make it too easy for people or dumb-down the game.

As to changing minimum time - One of the problems with wars is that it is very hard for one kingdom to actually get significant gains from it - this age Secrets is sitting pretty at the #2 position and have not warred, in the previous ages the kingdoms that generally were able to avoid war the most ended up doing the best.

I just spent ten minutes thinking about how to respond to this carefully and after typing several different things I've decided to simply say that I have to disagree entirely with the analysis that its difficult to get gains from wars.

It would be irresponsible for me to say why this is the case.

I suppose I could cite BIO as an example of a Kingdom that's warred up recently and they finished 3rd or 4th a couple ages ago.

I'm all for destructive wars, but a third day simply isn't feasible with considerations to the top and the bottom. There is such thing as being too destructive.

[Charis]

Toadi's comments

Both Kingdoms might lose acres in a raze war, but in the end both would have likely gained a far superior growth potential. I've played very very intense raze wars (like the Knock Out vs. Sleepy raze war, with 15 provinces killed in 72h of war), and every time my Kingdom headed out with less acres, but happy for the growth potential.

It is pretty easy to understand. Let's imagine a Kingdom made of 2 Provinces.

Start of War:
Province A - 5000 acres
Province B - 5000 acres

End of War:
Province A - 8000 acres
Province B - 500 acres

Overall, that Kingdom lost 1500 acres. Is it bad? Absolutely not. The value of the 3000 acres gained by Province A massively outweights the 4500 acres lost by Province B. This is simply because the value of an acre growth along with size.

Out of war, gaining 3000 acres takes ages if you go for safe hits because of KNRG, but can be done in a 48h minimum time war pretty easily. Growing the 500 acres province back to fighting size is easy. On low sizes, an acre is worth nothing, and that chained province will feed on newbies and thus has a very high growth potential.

Raze is bad for short term growth. For long term growth, it is good. Without razes, acres are swapped around and people go for gains, which often prevents provinces from becoming unbreakable or from keeping their acres. In my original example, Province A and Province B would have still been around 5000 acres after 48h of a no raze war, but with 25% of their original military and buildings.

That revelation was far too generous.

the common argument people use to counter Toadi's example is that regrowing a province is boring and not fun to do, so I'll throw that out there before someone uses it as a weak point.

[Charis]

Nothing is stopping the other kingdom from max gaining on that wave also.

What I obviously inadequately expressed in the rest of the paragraph that you quoted from me is basically this - under last ages rules one could not effectively knock enough people, by damaging them enough by 48 hours into a war (and I am talking specifically of people that know how to manage overpop through chaining, splitting armies, using landlust etc) that after 48 hours even those provinces that had been chained in your first wave more then likely could be a big part of the maxgain last wave, with gbp and the rewards for max gaining it is very hard for one kd to pull ahead by a large amount IF the other kingdom is fairly equal to them in hitting activity and capacity. I think we can agree that 'war wins' are generally a useless way of determining who won the actual war with many kingdoms actively using the max gain and withdraw strategy simply because it suits their purposes.

The strategy that relies on thief or mage opps is really only showing the results of that by 48 hours into the war. In many cases I have seen the kingdom that is withdrawing is literally suiciding to get those hits out.

With the reintroduction of raze as a viable options in wars a good kingdom will obviously not allow provinces that they chain to regrow. What I am basically saying is that by extending wars longer then 48 hours allows for much larger variance in successful strategies rather then the hey lets get everyone on, chain for 3 waves, semi chain or max gain for a fourth wave and then maybe get a 5th wave of max gains in, which as long as you arent totally inept against NS chains gives you a fairly good chance with today's war mechanics. Wars in utopia are somewhat like an exponential graph - if after 48 hours of war one kingdom is ahead by 5%, that 5% could be nullified by a maxgain strategic withdrawal from one side. After 72 hours it would be probably 10-15% ahead and a maxgain withdrawal would effect much less.

As it is right now the war win number is a very horrible indication of a kingdoms warring ability. I think making this change would result that war wins would be a truer reflection of a kingdoms warring ability.

You're describing this effect too narrowly. The game is relative, so the discrepancy between the Kingdoms would be somewhat comparable to the present. An increase in daily acres would obviously bring more acres into the game, but to what extent will all Kingdoms being larger have an effect upon the top?

I'm not sure what you mean by the paradise spell having had its extra acres removed? The spell itself is intact, just it has been linked to the exploration pool.

As for the describing the effect of bringing new acres into the game I actually thought that I perhaps had described it to generally - as since a change like this has not been done in I dont know how many ages it would be difficult to predict the exact differences this would make. However I feel the game is to small nowadays - this is obviously because of only 15 thousand people, why not make the game 'bigger' by adding more acres to it? You are correct the game is relative, but what I described - the filtering of the acres from the 'smaller' majority to the 'larger' minority takes place now and would take place with more acres as well. But I would suspect that by allowing the majority of players to have more acres would do two things - the provinces recovering from war would have more targets, more acres out there available to them as they regrow their provinces. And that simply there would be more targets available - a rough metaphor that obviously has its shortfalls but I think can demonstrate the point I am trying to get at would be comparing a scale of 1/10th's <-- what we currently have. To a scale of 1/20th's.

As for the paradise spell - What I meant by that is that its ability to add "extra" acres into the game (separate from explore pool) has been taken away.

As for your comments regarding the 'top kingdoms and I regarding them as weak" I disagree - I have personably been apart of those kingdoms and those type of kingdoms as they have warred and I do not for a second dismiss their ability to fight even under less then ideal circumstances, but what I was meaning to say - What I expect to see in the following ages if these changes(regarding raze specifically) are kept is that the kingdoms will do their best to avoid conflict with kingdoms that are near their own fighting ability until they have reached what they feel is an optimum state (of course the same thing has happened for the past few ages) but in my opinion with the reintroduction of raze the stakes for war have just risen dramatically.

What we have seen, and will see even more of as more kingdoms going to war is kingdoms that vast nw rifts in them - as the difference between chained/razed provinces, and those that were not razed is simply huge. (and I understand, and to a certain extent agree with you Toadi about the growth potential) By raising the trade balance limit partially through the age you are not dumbing the game down by any means, you are however rewarding those kingdoms that won the war and grew provinces large and providing them a means that through teamwork they are able with the economic benefits gained from those extra acres to more quickly prop up those provinces that have been hit down. Not enough to help them elite pump, but perhaps enough to regularly send them soldiers and some gc for spec training as they random their way back up.

As for your comments regarding the current viability of warring and citing BIO as an example of a kingdom that rose quite high in the charts through warring I would assume you are referring to two ages ago, that would be of course when they ended up 6th for nw and 7th for land (they ended at 26 million, a mere 40 million and 183 thousand acres behind Seasons in first place) as much as that was an impressive achievement (and it truly was) I would hardly call them as the top warring kingdom remotely competitive with the top whoring kingdom at the time

I find it interesting where you say adding a third day into war would simply be to destructive where Realest made the offhand comment that in fact bumping back min time would not change much. I happen to agree with you in that maybe an extra 24 hours of war, especially with raze involved could be simply to destructive. You would note however in my first post I said it should be extended 12-24 hours so I am happy that there is debate on this issue because in my own mind I am not certain.

I am hardly saying I have all the answers I remember from back in the day Mehul wanted a game that to win you had to be economically sound. As amazing as it is to dice hundreds of thousands of acres I think it is more exciting to fight for that top spot. With the changes regarding raze and paradise for the first time in a long time that perhaps may be a distinct possibility which is why I am taking the time to atleast try and voice my opinions on the matter.

[Realest]

First of all, great post! Definitely one of the best threads I've seen made by someone I haven't gotten to know yet (though I might know you if you're just hiding your alias). Its evident you have a solid grasp of game mechanics, so that's good. Just a few things though I wanted to touch on.

I'm gonna see if I can get a mod to watch this thread and delete the posts by idiots who try to add to it and thereby derailing it.



When I said adding a day to min war time won't change much, its because the effect is still relative. Max gain withdraw is the "standard" way to withdraw, just for the sake of why not? With raze, the max gain is not really to cut your losses like you would in nonraze war, where people can still hit for a lot. With raze, it is conceivable that neither side will end with net acre gains, but its to create the rifts like Toadi described. If you add another day, both sides will just get on the receiving end of more razes and just create a larger rift. Is this necessarily a bad thing? I don't think so. Would it hurt? Well, like you said, war is a calculated endeavour, so it has to factor in your decision. You're right in the sense that it will allow the dominant side to impose their will even further so that it makes the max gain wave cut into the gains a little less. But that's not really important, because with raze you cannot max gain and withdraw with gains, which is the key relation flaw in the previous system that we want to address with withdrawing. The issue is not that it penalizes the winner.

Previously, if growth is on your mind, war is often never profitable/efficient until mid-late game (ie no more targets, and boredom, etc.). Most of the time, random hits and dice will get you more land in the same period of time but its just a lot less fun. On that same token, that's why paradise not being linked to the pool is important. You need a way for people to grow while pumping. You need a way to introduce acres to the top once targets are out of range so that it does not stagnate like you see currently. (Yes you can hit each other, but its costly like you described). You need a way for the top to break free from the weaker competition so that the best will duel it out at the top for the spot without hindrance. Having raze does not mean you have to get rid of paradise. They do not discourage war, if thats what you are saying.

[Mourhelm]

Wars in utopia are somewhat like an exponential graph - if after 48 hours of war one kingdom is ahead by 5%, that 5% could be nullified by a maxgain strategic withdrawal from one side. After 72 hours it would be probably 10-15% ahead and a maxgain withdrawal would effect much less.

Instead of adding 12-24 hours to wars to address the max gains withdrawal, why not add a price in acres to the withdrawing kingdom? If you take a few % of land from the losing kingdom (maybe some/all of it from their explore pool) you will be "compensated".

You need a way for the top to break free from the weaker competition so that the best will duel it out at the top for the spot without hindrance

The top is already free from the weaker competition.

[Charis]

Thats actually quite an interesting suggestion to take a % or two of acres from the withdrawing kingdom, would be much more effective then the current honor loss penalty.

[Catwalk]

I agree with the notion that having a way to more decisively force a conclusion to war is important. That was taken away with raze, and nothing was added in its place. I disagree that destroying acres is the only way to achieve this again, there are countless options.

[Mourhelm]

I disagree that destroying acres is the only way to achieve this again, there are countless options.

Opening a thread and seriously discussing these countless options might be a good idea...

[Toadi]

Thats actually quite an interesting suggestion to take a % or two of acres from the withdrawing kingdom, would be much more effective then the current honor loss penalty.

But then you achieve exactly the opposite of what you want to achieve. The harsher the penalties are, the less Kingdoms will withdraw. Being stubborn giving me free acres? Deal.

There should be 0 penalty for withdrawing.

[Catwalk]

Being stubborn giving me free acres? Deal.

That's only a good deal if you don't stand to lose additional acres by not withdrawing. Do you disagree with the notion of making hit'n'run a less useful strategy? I recall you objecting to this in the past, saying that there's no reason to discourage hit'n'run tactics.

Opening a thread and seriously discussing these countless options might be a good idea...

Has been done before, I'm not up to it. I merely wanted to counter the notion that the only way to allow wars to decided more decisively is to destroy acres. The good argument above is that it's good to have methods at our disposal that allow wars to be decided decisively rather than bogging down, I agree with that.