Age 47 Changes - comments

[FireBones]

Ok. Let's see here, Chastity is a pop growth killer, is mid difficulty and runes? Anyone else thinking not game-changing, but game-breaking? Chastity being what it is should be very difficult (hardest spell in the game) and the most expensive, given that it WILL be abused as is. There is no doubt that it will be abused to kill off the new players who you are trying to get into the game. Think about this, Chastity + Storms + Plague. I can promise that this lethal combo will be seen many times during this Age of Thievery (as it should be known), not because I will be doing it, I won't even be playing the right race for Chastity or Plague, but it's simple logic that says that this combination of effects will come about.

Save your breath, Dracoa. I tried to tell people that chastity was going to change gnome's role and that it would make them useful as a spellcasting race... no one seemed to agree.

[FireBones]

First post was preliminary changes, next one(s)are updated changes. SoT will be random, from 3-25% randomness most likely - depending on the ratio of thieves you send (compared to what you have). The ratio needed for max inaccuracy is not available to us.

edit: gnomes will be 100% accurate on all intel ops.

Bishop, can you confirm that you meant what you typed here. Earlier, I thought that the accuracy of things like SoM was based on how many [absolute] thieves you sent...not on the proportion of thieves you send. It seems like basing it on the proportion punishes people with more thieves, no?

[Bogdan]

the people with more thieves ( higher tpa ) won't fail the intel ops they make ( even if they have to send a larger % of thieves ) , if they make a fix number that won't make sense for larger provinces ( sending like 1000 thieves when u are 10 k acres - and get an accurate intel - is not the same as sending 1000 thieves when u are 2 k acres )

anyways ... DO NOT FORGET ABOUT THE ELVES - make them worth playing !!!

[beeper]

only thing i can say is : game has a lot of unsolved bugs so expect many for next age too

[Deorc]

Bogdan - I don’t think FireBones meant absolute in the manner you took it to mean. He probably meant: absolute = fixed number compared to your size, not absolute = fixed number full stop. I've earlier raised the same concern that FireBones did and suggested to cap the number of thieves needed for full accuracy at for example 1 thieve per acre , so if you are 2000 acres that would mean that you get full accuracy either if you send 2000 thieves or more or all of your thieves if you have less than 2000 thieves...

Please - can we get some feedback to this... seems silly that a province with high tpa has to send all for full accuracy, and not only silly but dangerous, if opponent has WT or is another high tpa province then you could loose tons of thieves (and there is the random factor to, you could even fail against low tpa province and loose LOTS of thieves!

Example to drive this home: I was around 2000 acres at end of this age - had almost 50% lower losses from thievery ops from my TD:s, when sending all my 8000 thieves in last war to NS opponent i lost more than 100 thieves every time that I failed (I remember numbers like 129, 156, aso). So, if i have a similar prov next age who wants to take a SoT even one fail with high TD:s (-50% losses) will mean a cost of more than 60 000 (100 or more thieves lost * 600), the random fails now and then will hurt "quite" a lot, and if you ever have the misfortune to try to SoT a prov with WT:s or even higher tpa you will give up if you fail 2 times and then let him be because you cannot afford to try anymore only to get intel.

All this assumes off course that there will be no easy way instead to take 2 SoT with only 1 thieve and get accurate info from that...

[otokonoko]

It is interesting since it will force warring kingdoms to either adopt 1-2gnomes.

Also I am thinking when kingdoms are waring, no intel gathering ops can go in or out of the war.

[[Bee]]

question:

in the announcements this was written:
"For this coming age, Crystal Ball and Crystall Eye will not be randomized, however in future ages we may tentatively add some small randomization. An effort will be made to ensure that Crystal Ball and Crystal Eye are not significantly more difficult to successfully obtain than previously. "

does that part still stand? that the upcoming age won't be messed up just yet? as in CB or whatever is it's new name WON'T be randomized for this upcoming new age?

[Dracoa]

Here's an idea for the following age if the horrible idea of Chastity is going to still be around, let Avian's fly away and the Undead rise up to take their place, have them be immune to Chastity along with being the most recent version (which I actually didn't mind, the changes were minor enough that it was easy to adapt to), or at least have Chastity be much less effective. I mean really, how many Undead reproduce in such a way that Chastity would have any effect at all? Pretty much none.

In short, there needs to be some counter to Chastity given how abused it will be, and just making it an Unfriendly/Hostile spell alone won't cut it, though that would help.

And to be honest, if I had never played before but was considering it, just looking at Chastity would make me decide against it. The spell is broken, plain and simple. Add in that the dev's don't even seem to consider what the players say, and that only compounds the issue, or if they do they immediately dismiss it out of hand and just go with what they want regardless. Especially when there is a company out there that makes flash based games, most of which have weekly updates, all of which are FtP, and the players input is not only considered, but often makes it into the game the suggestion was for if it's reasonable. Heck, one of my ideas eventually made it's way into a game, as simple as the idea was (just a high level version of an old enemy).

[Doom Scythe]

Given that the final changes are out, I'd just want to share my thought on the changes. This age, I think everything else is pretty much levelled, with the possible exception of Sages still being the overpowered personality.

1. Everyone is criticising the changes of CB being made into SoT with a random component. If anything, this change make teamwork all the more important, meaning all warring kingdom will be coaxed to have at least 1 Gnome in their kingdom for intel accuracy. It's a trade-off to have an extra cannon in the kingdom, or have a dedicated intel gatherer for 100% intel. Isn't Utopia all about teamwork in the first place? Give Brian and Sean a chance to implement this change. We wouldn't want to have a race that's good in everything now, would we?

2. The introduction of Gnomes has drawn quite a lot of flaks as well. But look at it this way, they are a race specialised for intel gathering, and have the spell of Chastity. Sure, they are weak attackers, but Chastity gives them an edge. If they are still weak after this age, I hope (and believe) Brian and Sean will tweak Chastity a little, to make them stronger. Or perhaps introduce a little bonus. But from the looks of things now, they are not too bad.

These game changes are for the better imo. Sure, there are other things that I think they could have done a better job at balancing or introducing new ideas, but for a start, they did a decent job this time around. For me, there is only 1 major unbalanced factor: Sage. I think removing the 30% Cheaper Sci or 30% Science Effectiveness should do the job. But I guess people won't be griping about it because they are going to take advantage of the imbalances.

In the final word, give them a chance. The devs are far from perfect, with contradicting announcements and poor communication, but things are getting done. Do give them credit where it is due.

[Ahab]

Per Brian's announcement explaining Chastity: "Its difficultiy, cost, duration and/or required relations may require tweaking during the age, however I hope to avoid this."

For god's sake don't add to the confusion by saying "we may change everything after you make your race/personality selection." I mean, that's the whole point of all this. You can't pull the rug out from under anyone on anything after the selections are locked in. That's the sort of decision that leads to these conspiracy theories about you intentionally sabotaging the game, because it will so obviously cause players to scrap their accounts or quit. Once it's set, it's set. Don't think you can adjust anything mid-game.

And what does it mean that "it's a short lived timed spell"? How short? Like fanaticism? War spoils?

[pmyraje]

We never get exact numbers on spells.

As for tweaking things mid-game then why not? I agree that changing the relations in which it is avalable mid-game is going over the top, but tweaking difficulty is fine by me - it is a dynamic game, it doesn't need to be made too easy for the players by having everything spelled out for them.

People expect bugs to be fixed mid-Age so clearly Chastity being massively overpowered or underpowered would be considered to be a bug.

[Ahab]

Tweaking would be fine, but when things like duration and unfriendly/hostile only are thrown in, that doesn't sound like tweaking. Given all the anxiety about this very high-powered spell, obviously it's a substantial factor in deciding whether to run a gnome. If you choose a gnome based on Chastity, then it ends up being a 1-3 hour spell that's virtually impossible to cast, you may find yourself wishing you hadn't selected that race or a particular personality and just delete, or worse, go inactive. Obviously we don't have exact numbers on a lot of spells, but that's hardly what's at issue here.

[pmyraje]

Surely nobody chooses a race for just one spell? Most normal people will choose Gnome for intel purposes with Chastity as an added bonus for something additional to do.

[Ahab]

Well, get real. Not for just one spell, but with all the anxiety about this spell it's obviously of substantial significance. How do you think a dark elf would feel if they nerfed tree of gold mid-age? Or an orc if they nerfed fanaticism? Or a mystic if they nerfed meteor showers? All the anxiety proves it's a big deal. So is it or isn't it? We should know now, not figure it out as we go.

[Kemia]

CE: Steal Daily Paper
CB: Scout Enemy

My ideas check it