You're right that it's possible, but how many people actually do it? It's too much work to deflate NW in a significant way.Originally Posted by Zauper
You're right that it's possible, but how many people actually do it? It's too much work to deflate NW in a significant way.
And unlike running little land, running low NWPA is actually bad, because it leaves you unable to compete with people on your own networth-level.
He's not right, Mourhelm - he's simply trying to win an argument that was lost by his side ages ago.
Catwalk's crusade for legalized cheating was a stunning success, with ghettos and low-tiered teams everywhere losing their wells of knowledge to better kingdoms in the process.
Step one: replace everything that works.
Step two: blame the predictable epic fail on outside forces.
Step three: keep the community informed that no progress has been made since the last update.
Step four: thank you for your patience.
Another thing I have a problem with are the "maximum" gains based on the attacking province's size. If a 700-acre province attacks a 2000-acre province and actually breaks through, I want to see the 700-acre province gain like 800 acres or something. This will both force the 2000-acre province to actually keep a decent amount of defence to keep lower provinces away, and force the 700-acre province to do the same since there could be 400-acre provinces hitting the 700-acre province..
The gangbang-protection is another thing. If practically the only "hurtful" grab is going to be the first one, then of course people won't loose much by leaving most of their defence out.
What I would like to see is changes that makes the game more attractive for the casual gamers. I don't really care if that somehow makes the game slightly less attractive to the people at the top, in the "serious" kingdoms. Neither should the people who bought the game and probably want to earn money on as much ads as possible.
"If a 700-acre province attacks a 2000-acre province and actually breaks through, I want to see the 700-acre province gain like 800 acres or something."
You do know that max gains are 20%, so the maximum you could gain from hitting a 2k province is 400 acres, right?
And, yes - that's what happens when you hit really fat dudes.
As long as you're in their networth range.
Catwalk's crusade for legalized cheating was a stunning success, with ghettos and low-tiered teams everywhere losing their wells of knowledge to better kingdoms in the process.
Step one: replace everything that works.
Step two: blame the predictable epic fail on outside forces.
Step three: keep the community informed that no progress has been made since the last update.
Step four: thank you for your patience.
Most kds or provs competing for the top use it. Hell, those are just the most effective methods -- other methods exist, and have already been named in this thread (training a higher off:def ratio, for example).
Running 'little land' is also bad. Running low NWPA leaves you exposed to some risks -- but they don't matter if you can hit and have massive retal power / as a gnome have tw to use your peasants as def / have a soldier bank of 30-40k soldiers to use as defense after you send out.
Running 'little land' means you have less income, less raw off/def, etc.
and VT2 -- just because I'm better at taking advantage of the game than you doesn't make me wrong.
Last edited by Mourhelm; 21-08-2009 at 10:03.
...the 800-acre thingy was a bit exaggurated just to get my point of opinion across, and no, I did not remember that the max gain was 20%, but now that you mention it it does ring a bell. I do remember that 20% is taken in intra-kingdom hits and that 20% of that land is captured... AGAIN, my memory is a bit hazy.
And, again, I want to see those gains almost all the time if someone much smaller grabs someone much bigger. (I do not believe this would encourage suiciding, but on the countrary discourages it) The "as long as he is in your NW-range" mindset of programming the gains is just BS in my opinion, and helps people run these suicide-strats, which in turn makes people far too dependant on the shape of their kingdom.
I, and I would guess a majority of people, want to be able of creating a province without knowing that the kingdom we end up in will dictate how well our provinces will do.
Having no cap either up or down would lead to fat, overexplored n00bs getting owned harder than they already are.
So no.
The whole point of the game is that your kingdom dictates how well you'll be able to do.
It's not a singleplayer game, and never has been.
Catwalk's crusade for legalized cheating was a stunning success, with ghettos and low-tiered teams everywhere losing their wells of knowledge to better kingdoms in the process.
Step one: replace everything that works.
Step two: blame the predictable epic fail on outside forces.
Step three: keep the community informed that no progress has been made since the last update.
Step four: thank you for your patience.
Training high offence and low defence is a valid strategy, and the game promotes using it because of the different NW values of defence and offence. It is not artificial like not building land.
LBG allowed provinces to outgrow their kd by good tactics like buildstrat, targetsearch . I remember checking ALL provs in range to find the optimal target, and if you found the most landfat dude in your range you could hit him for better gains then he could hit you back for. if you now hit the ideal taret, the target drops in nw and will have nice gains on you aswell. LBG made sure the landfat (= weak, bad province) couldn't hit you back for any decent gains unless scuiciding (in case of defensive leets). these days there are no opitmal targets because all of them can hit you back unless noob exploreres that are recently hit or worse.
there isn't any real ghettoplayer ending up in topcharts of any race /island age after age. Only luck can make it happen.
If you allow new people that are smart and or active and or good players to get topranks again (sometimes top of bad races), the number of players will go up again for sure. Imaging joining a new game and being kicked really hard simply because your 'teammates' are the worst. No one will keep continue to play. Even if utopia is a teambased game (and I do believe it is, it makes the biggest fun part for me), there should be possibilities to achieve personal goals as well. And I do believe nwbased gains aren't the best thing to do. Some of you do believe lanbasedgains are even worse :)
someone can give me top ranks for acreage for the races in the last four ages of landbasedgains and topranks for races in the first ages of nwbasedgains ? want to see the difference there. and also the number of players around ofcourse.
Right now, even in going back to LBG, you couldn't top a chart as an individual player. The skds would knock you down because they want the spot.
Already been done.
Dolgil Rosethorn
If it's broke, fix it.
If it's not, don't.
If you do not like the results, change your methods.
Quit making the same old mistakes. Make new ones.
topkd's always wanted topspots, don't think that's the reason it is more difficult these days.
Your problem can be summed up as such: you want this game to be singleplayer, so you can be a big, bad, awesome man in your ghetto, without fear that the 'top' will take your land.
Here's the thing. The game's not singleplayer.
You're one of 25. If you suck, then your team will be limited to a maximum powerlevel equal to your suckage.
Want a singleplayer game?
www.utopiakingdoms.com <- size is everything. Have fun.
Catwalk's crusade for legalized cheating was a stunning success, with ghettos and low-tiered teams everywhere losing their wells of knowledge to better kingdoms in the process.
Step one: replace everything that works.
Step two: blame the predictable epic fail on outside forces.
Step three: keep the community informed that no progress has been made since the last update.
Step four: thank you for your patience.
Why is that a 'valid strategy' while not building land isn't? Networth is, by definition, artificial. I can control my networth completely, just by controlling my acres and population. Networth has always been a function of land. Just because you do something doesn't mean it's any more or less valid than anything else. The game does promote high off/low def -- though the SKs would use that setup regardless. The game also promotes not building land if you are in rapid growth mode in one of the aforementioned SKs, because they can get better gains then.
Pint: I would say two things have changed. First of all, the development of the true SK killed indie provs in the top. There had been SKs before, but imo, Pansies changed what it meant to be one, and thus altered the dynamics of utopia.
Secondly, kds and provs now are far more concerned about offense than defense. Out-defending a kingdom is almost impossible. Generally, the provs that aren't in t10 ot t15 kds that stay in the t100 have:
1) Contacts.
2) Get hit several times and get deals from it.
http://utopia.swirve.com/honors/
Poke around yourself and take a look.
http://utopia.swirve.com/honors/age27k-2/land.htm
That would have been the first age of NW-based gains, but I wouldn't take the results that age as being right -- almost all of the t50 was involved in the KLECHO - ABS awar.
After thinking about it a bit more you convinced me. It is a valid strategy not to build your land.
Still, making your province suck so it'll have a much lower NW to get better gains is a bad strategy, IMHO. I don't see a problem with letting people do that.
It's a situational strategy. Think about it this way, Mourhelm:
If I'm <however big> acres, and my kingdom is relatively safe from waves due to CFs/etc, my goal is to gain land. I go and look at the charts -- I'm currently safe from being randomed, with my army home. Now I start randoming. I don't train, I don't build my incoming land. My NW stays artificially small, since I aid my soldiers out every time before I hit. My soldiers provide me with more defense, and I carry some gold so I can train them and build if we get into a war situation -- and I'm confident we won't. I'll have saved so much NW I can hit for another 1-2k acres than my kdmates, or competitors.
A few ages ago, PBs were in full dice mode, I took over the smallest province (by ~1k+ acres), converted it to attacker/dicer, did that ^^ and hit into the middle of the kd before going back into dice mode. Only kept enough land built to dice every hour. As a gnome, mostly used peasants/soldiers for def. Being able to grow an extra ~500a/day is huge.
Realistically, it's very simular to using a mixture of WS/QF/non-ws/qf'd hits to regulate land growth in a LBG system.
Situational, but very effective if someone that knows how to whore uses it.
Last edited by Zauper; 25-08-2009 at 19:03.
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