War Spoils and Ambush - Needs Revision

[Twyla]

Anonymity

War is at the heart of the world of Utopia, but the fear of retaliation makes many leaders cringe. This spell casts an aura of mystery around your army. After a successful cast, your forces will remain anonymous during your next attack -- while your kingdom will be revealed, your enemy will not know your province's name.

Available to: All
Effect: Hides your province name during your next attack at the cost of no honor gains,
causing the attacked province to be unable to ambush that attack.
Increases your attach times by 15% for your next attack.
Duration: removed after attack
Cast Message: Our next attack will be cloaked under the shades of anonymity.
Mystic Advisor Message: Our armies are surrounded by a cloud of anonymity for our next battle.

...

War Spoils

Ordinarily, any land captured in attacks require time to take control of and become available for your own use. War Spoils gives you the opportunity to get this land from combat immediately. The spell lasts just a few Utopian Days, but is more than enough to use on a couple of attacks. This allows you to begin the process of expanding much more quickly than otherwise.

Available to: The Undead, Halflings, Faeries
Effect: Makes the land gained from Traditional March immediately available.
Duration: max 6 hours
Cast Message: Our army has been blessed with immediate War Spoils for 3 days!
Mystic Advisor Message: War Spoils give us quick returns on our attacks

According to many, War Spoils prevents Ambush - not as a matter of reducing the incentive by removing the land from the equation, but altogether!

As illustrated by the highlighted sections of the above entries, these are two entirely separate mechanics - while Anonymity prevents Ambush at the expense of longer attack times and no Honor gained, War Spoils grants immediate access to the lands gained (for both good and ill).

By this mockery which makes War Spoiled attacks immune to Ambush, such an attacker is gaining most of the benefits of Anonymity without any of the liabilities - the attack avoids troop losses due to Ambush, the attack still gains full Honor, AND returns at the normal time.

War Spoils is a mechanic unto itself - with the instant acquisition causing a marked deflation in all of the Province's per-Acre figures, most notably WpA and TpA, in exchange for being able to utilize said lands. Should a Province opt to use both Anonymity and War Spoils, that's entirely their call - but they should not receive the benefits of both spells without the liabilities.

As presented in the above citation, taken directly from The Guide, is precisely how these spells should operate. According to the above, War Spoils offers no protection against Ambushes (apart from the incentive), nor should it.

[Avenger]

No it doesn't. Can't tell if L2P issue or epic troll.

[Darkz Azn]

odd ...

http://a7.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot...00429023_n.jpg

[Meeni]

War spoiled hits cannot be ambushed.

[Twyla]

War spoiled hits cannot be ambushed.

Forget the screwed-up in-game mechanic and try to offer any rational reasoning as to why.

With Anonymity, you can't Ambush an army because you don't know who it was (even though you can find out with a bit of spying and deduction). What's to prevent you from Ambushing an army that used War Spoils? Does War Spoils somehow make the army invisible?

[Palem]

Because there's nothing to ambush...

[Twyla]

Because there's nothing to ambush...

While it's true that the land has been transported back to the attacker's Province, the army is still there.

[Palem]

You don't know that. Maybe they're there, just not available.

[nooblet]

War Spoils is a double-edged sword. What is certain is that warspoiled hits cannot be ambushed... maybe there was something you're missing when your hit was ambushed. People make errors in this game more often than they'd like to believe.

[Twyla]

Back when Undead had no offensive losses, Ambushes (even if they used War Spoils) was the only sure way of taking out their Elites. That's the way The Guide says it's supposed to work, and how it should be. Removing the land from the equation shouldn't also remove the army.

As I stated above, there's no reason why using War Spoils should give you all the benefits of Anonymity without the liabilities - in addition to it's normal function.

[nooblet]

Warspoiled hits cannot be ambushed... it's an explicit part of the game's design.
Are you proposiing that warspoiled hits should be ambushable? That would be something different. War spoils brings liabilities which are too complex to go into here, but well known. Protecting against Ambush was explicitly intended by developers as one of the advantages of warspoiling, decided around the time ambush was introduced in the game.
I play an undead this age, and I do not warspoil every landgrab I make, in war or out. It has to be used cautiously.

[Ethan]

WS in war also has a side effect of death, at least against good kingdoms. So I'm kinda unclear what all the fuss is about in the first place - 'tis bad strategy to ambush a WS when those troops are going to force overpop for you anyway if you leave them out.

Sure, less skilled kingdoms have trouble with killing the WSer, but then, they really just need to max gain with more unique anyway, and they'll win. I speak from experience - the finer points of strategy don't matter too much when you just are trying to have all 20 provs show up for the fight.


*If* you fix the side-effect of death, then you might ask if WS has sufficient negatives. Or just use it as a racial spell that is a fairly major bonus, like say, tog. Either way.

[Twyla]

War spoils brings liabilities which are too complex to go into here, but well known. .... I play an undead this age, and I do not warspoil every landgrab I make, in war or out. It has to be used cautiously.

Very true.

But the point remains that it is an entirely different dynamic than Anonymity, and should not provide immunity to Ambush.

[Landro]

Very true.

But the point remains that it is an entirely different dynamic than Anonymity, and should not provide immunity to Ambush.

The objective of ambush is to take back land. When people use WS there's no land to take back. I know people often use ambush just to kill enemy offense but if you could ambush hits that don't have land, then why can't you ambush learns and plunders? The bottom line is that WS'd hits can't be ambushed. That's how it was intended to be and that's how it works.

[Bishop]

Back when Undead had no offensive losses, Ambushes (even if they used War Spoils) was the only sure way of taking out their Elites. That's the way The Guide says it's supposed to work, and how it should be. Removing the land from the equation shouldn't also remove the army.

As I stated above, there's no reason why using War Spoils should give you all the benefits of Anonymity without the liabilities - in addition to it's normal function.

You are just making stuff up, stop it. Since Ambush was introduced in age 22 you have not been able to ambush a war spoiled hit. The guide states very clearly that you cannot ambush a warspoiled hit.

Neither Anonymous attacks or War Spoiled attacks can be ambushed, and you cannot ambush a failed hit.