Bring back RAZE

[Chrizz]

I rest my case!

[Chrizz]

No way to plan a decent strat
The game has turned so gay
You´ve turned my nightmare´s into crap
And OP´s are down the drain
We lost 4 players until now
And more are leaving soon
This game can now be played by cows
And penguins and baboons
I see so many good ideas
Being posted on these boards
But rarely do I see implents
And everyone is bored

Bring back Raze
I rest my case!

[VT2]

No.

REJECTED.

[Minbar]

I disagree, wars are actually useful for growth now that both kingdoms don't spend the whole war razing each others land.

Keep raze as it currently is.

[DeVille]

Bldgs raze is ok for war. Once you've mastered it, it's quite a useful little tool.
______________________________________________________________________

That's where it ends. Raze in peace & IK is ridiculous. Try taking out inactive after inactive with Trad March. Ludicrous. Not to mention IK clear acres aren't being differentiated from out of kingdom hits in terms of strength. IK shld clear a lot more acres.

Why anyone would think it was desirable to horde inactives in the kingdom or remotely popular & make it twice as difficult as it was before is beyond me.

Annnnd - it makes land dropping unfeasible. By the time you got the require acres down your 7 IK hits would be up & you'd self destruct.

[Yuri]

As I see it, raze destroying land is a double edged sword. On one hand, it adds more strategy to wars and allows deeper chains. On the other, it makes unbreakables that much more powerful and essentially forces kingdoms to run banks.

The building raze as it currently is is basically useless. If someone starts doing the building raze it's an act of desperation and the war is already over.

I would like to see raze brought back, but weakened. Last age raze was powerful to the point where it wasn't uncommon to see 6-7 green provinces on each side in kingdoms at war. I'd like to see it's strength reduced based on relative nw similar to a TM but not as diminishing as a TM. This would also stop high GS from being mandatory.

[VT2]

"On one hand, it adds more strategy to wars and allows deeper chains."

It creates a scenario where you have one attack, ops and spells are no longer necessary for victory, and the side that razes more automatically wins.

Bad, stupid, and not good.

[Yuri]

As things stand now there's only 1 attack and you can't even use it to chain someone deep enough to put them out of commission. It makes things rather boring if you ask me.

Spells and ops are useful as support mechanisms to attacks, nothing more. It's been that way for ages with or without raze. I don't understand where you get the idea that raze makes them any less useful.

Raze is situational like anything else especially if it's weakened so you can't kill off 10% of someone's land no matter the nw difference.

[VT2]

You have three attacks, but only one of them causes direct, instant damage.
You can take land, which tranfers it from your target onto you. This dilutes your TPA, WPA, your build, and every other part of your province, but it's the fastest way to grow, and the best way to hurt people.
You can destroy population, which has zero negative effects on you, but causes very little damage in the short run.
You can destroy buildings, which hurts extremely badly if you've already gotten your economy damaged, and it also kills more units.

How is this not superior to only having one attack? One attack, you will all note, that kills more army than the rest, has lower military losses for you, completely destroys land, which makes growth impossible, and has zero negative effects on your own province?

Raze destroying acres in war is a classic gamebreaker. It's like the metal blade from Megaman 2.
You have several attacks that cause damage, but once you discover the power of the metal blade, all other options are meaningless, and you cannot lose to any boss or enemy in the entire game, except the two that are immune to metal blade.

[Yuri]

You can take land, which tranfers it from your target onto you. This dilutes your TPA, WPA, your build, and every other part of your province, but it's the fastest way to grow, and the best way to hurt people.

It also raises your peasants over time which will raise your income, BE, total offense and total defense. You of all people should understand that once you get into war dpa and opa are rather irrelevent and all that really matters is total offense and total defense since you're in a bubble solely against 25 others. WPA and TPA aren't particularly that important for pure attackers which I'd argue are better than hybrids at the moment since they'll likely be broken by a hybrid whether or not they have 2 wpa or 1.5. And the income effects from land the amount of land gained to go from 2 to 1.5 far outweigh the drawbacks.

You can destroy population, which has zero negative effects on you, but causes very little damage in the short run.

This is situational to the point that it's almost never used. If you massacre a few provinces early the other provinces in your enemy's kingdom get a jump on land gained. This is really only useful vs provinces that can't attack since you also gain peasants from attack and you can get aided soldiers which you can release to peasants.

You can destroy buildings, which hurts extremely badly if you've already gotten your economy damaged, and it also kills more units.

And they can rebuild the buildings. I also argue losing an attack has a negative effect on you since you have no credits or land incoming which makes you an ideal chain target. Not to mention you lose troops on offense.

[VT2]

" You of all people should understand that once you get into war dpa and opa are rather irrelevent and all that really matters is total offense and total defense since you're in a bubble solely against 25 others. "

That's simply wrong. 25 points off for that.
If you don't have TPA or WPA to cover your ass, you lose your DPA, your OPA, your PPA, and all your other 'P's' to spells and ops, and this is fact.
In the perfect little world that the top favors, where planning and choice are not favored, nothing matters, except your attack-speed, because the side that razes the other to bits first always wins.

Raze destroying acres in war is bad.
Not only is it bad for the game, bad for the players, and bad for a wargame, but it's bad design all around - just like the metal blade, the rocket launcher in Quake 3, and the parry-system in Street fighter 3.

[VT2]

"And they can rebuild the buildings. I also argue losing an attack has a negative effect on you since you have no credits or land incoming which makes you an ideal chain target. Not to mention you lose troops on offense."

No, they can't rebuild their buildings, because they have no income, and if you played the game using more than one out of the three available fields, you'd have a very easy time making sure they'd require a lot of resources from their own kingdom, just to keep their provinces going.
An 'ideal chain target?' What are you smoking, and can I have some?

Lose units on offense?
Are you saying you somehow don't lose units on offense if you hit with a raze that destroys acres?
All attacks cost you units - that's part of the game.

When you have no buildings, and no money, and no peasants, you cannot make soldiers, so all the credits in the world will not help you.

[Yuri]

If you don't have TPA or WPA to cover your ass, you lose your DPA, your OPA, your PPA, and all your other 'P's' to spells and ops, and this is fact.
In the perfect little world that the top favors, where planning and choice are not favored, nothing matters, except your attack-speed, because the side that razes the other to bits first always wins.

TPA and WPA are only part of the protection. If your tpa goes down you can build WT or cast clear sight and it makes you a much less favorable target to op. For WPA science and magic shield suffice to cover you very well.

As for the attack speed comment I don't know where you get the idea that I'm "top." I don't consider myself a top kingdom until I keep improving for a few ages in a row. I play in a good kingdom that has had wins over some quality opponents this age, but in no way am I top. I was a part of building a kingdom from sub 15 players to 25 and getting myself rather competitive. As my kingdom continued to improved we adjusted our play style and setup to accommodate the game changes and kingdom changes.

Attack speed itself is rather unimportant. The gains per attack and damage you do on that attack is more of a deciding factor than anything else. If you play only for speed you will lose over a long, drawn out war.

As for strategy, my past 2 wars I should have lost if you go by kingdom makeup and my opponents size, but won both of them because of a superior strategy. Choosing who to attack and when can make or break a war. Max gains don't work unless you're considerably larger than your opponent which only applies to Sonata.

[Yuri]

An 'ideal chain target?' What are you smoking, and can I have some?

When you have no land incoming it makes overpop that much more damaging to you. For instance if a 2000 acre province has 200 acres incoming and you chain them to 500 acres when their army comes home they'll have 700 acres and be less overpop than if they had no acres incoming.

When you have no buildings, and no money, and no peasants, you cannot make soldiers, so all the credits in the world will not help you.

It isn't that hard to aid people especially if you only focus on a select few. If your focusing your hits on 5 people that means there's 20 others who can aid. If you waste an attack to destroy buildings that's one less attack you have on one of the 20 others who are growing and aiding.

Lose units on offense?
Are you saying you somehow don't lose units on offense if you hit with a raze that destroys acres?
All attacks cost you units - that's part of the game.

You lose units on all attacks but on TM you get credits back to help mitigate these losses as well as peasants to fill in your new land.

[VT2]

What are you going to use your peasants and credits for, when you have no soldiers, and no means to defend yourself from losing your buildings, your army, and your newly gathered peasants to my ops and spells?