Age 54 Potential Changes Rev II

[Demascus]

radical indeed... and cannot wait to test the changes for new age :-D!!!

Me likes it - especially the game mechanics not over done this time!!!

This. Word for word. Lets end age 53 now and get freeze time for 54 going! I like these changes

[Humanoize]

A war hero with honor is very strong - all you have to do is get it and keep it.

+50% honor bonusses is a blessing and a curse. I was a marquis with the warrior bonus this age for a while. It took exactly 5 attacks (5 minutes) to drop me to lord and causing to drop my population bonus from 21% to 2%. Its very easy to counter; a semi chain will feel like a deepchain. And if you get hit while your armies are out for a while you ll be toasted. for a warring kingdom its not viable to use this personality, because its too easy to counter once honor has been aquired and it has very little initial bonusses. When it happened to me within 12 hrs 30% of my origional population deserted (as in army) leaving me with 1 dpa and 0.1 tpa when my army returned 12 hrs later. This personality will not get popular on attackers/hybrids.

[Ethan]

median or mean? it makes a BIG difference

I also like mean instead of median, although since it is a reward to the winning kingdom it shouldn't matter too much usually. Either is better than per prov, as per the rev1.

...
I assume when it says a war win awards free building credits equal to the total of your current unbuilt acres, that includes the land currently out with armies at war end that returns home immediately?

Also much improved from rev1. I too hope that the army returns home with land *first*, then other conditions (like the <50% pop) check.
I worry you can "stockpile" credits near war end, and get more of them that way. I don't know how it will be implemented, but I'd like to be:
"Free building credits *increased* to the total of your current unbuilt acres".
Then stocking money near war end while leaving acres unbuilt is still an issue in theory, but the enemy could always steal it. But stocking build credits isn't helpful, because it will increase only enough to build all your current land.

"Instant population growth of 20% of your max pop if you are under 50% of your max pop"
I'd like this to have a sliding cut off. Could we instead say "Instant population growth up to 2/3rds your total max pop" ? That is both slightly lower (at 49.99% you get up to just under 70%) and more likely to trigger. Honestly it could be capped at max 10%, or 20%, but it really wouldn't matter much. (10% is enough because that is at least 2.35 pes/acre - with +500% growth that goes up fast. Even if base rate is only 1%, at 6% growth you more than double every 12 hours.) Having a cap of +10% might even be good because it means you have some time to get farms/food aid in while pop grows.


"100 books of science per acre based on your median province"
I'm still worried about the size of this for min time wars. I'd like it better if it were 50 + 10*days of war (so min time = 70), or 50 + .5/hour. Honestly, I'd like it even better as +50 bpa for winner, *both* sides get +.5/hour of war (at war end, via mean).


Races: still dislike human, can live with it. (Tis an ATM? In every sense? no focus = fail, or epic win.) Human elite is nearly useless, since it is strictly worse the *either* spec. Maybe a 6/5 at 4.75? Tog might still make it playable though, I don't know it's balance yet. Orc/UD look a bit too strong in comparison, but I haven't run numbers so I'm not too sure of that. Since both have fairly major weaknesses it might be fine. I'll look at them more closely for balance later.

Elves elites are also just abysmal, gotta fix that NW. That'll shake out in the power rankings though. One race with poor elite is ok, 2 useless elites isn't good.

[Persain]

Id also like to point out THIS age
Feary 3/8, 8.0 =>7.5
Orc 9/2, 6.75 =>7.25
Undead 9/3, 7.0=>7.5

And while him not against the concept of playing with nw/leet as it stands now a feary can easily pull off 130-140 dpa which is fine becasue attackers can counter that and still be in nw range by being larger (acre wise) than a feary since the feary will run well over 200 nw/acre. But with the change to all races but orc/undead having a max leet of 7 means that fearies are now effectively unbreakable to all races but orc/undead. however now fearies can run a smaller nw/acre while orc/undead has to run higher nw/acre and you make fearies almost 100% unbreakable to ALL races.

For example bit of math Right now relativistically a
Faery at 210 nw/acre ~140 dpa . 1000 acres means 210k nw 140k def.
orc at 195 nw/acre ~125 opa. to break 1120 acres means 218.4k nw 140k off.

with the changes you up the orc by 5 nw/acre (10 leets) and lower the feary closer to 7 nw/acre
Faery at 203 nw/acre ~140 dpa . 1000 acres means 203k nw 140k def.
orc at 200 nw/acre ~125 opa. to break 1120 acres means 224k nw 140k off.

as 224k *0.9 (hiting in max gain range) =201.6k is only marginally lower than a fairies nw of 203k your looking at it almost never being possible for a non-warrior attacker to be able to break a feary in nw range. that seems a bit broken to me.

[Lordwarallied]

"War will end automatically if your opponents networth drops to 50% of yours."

This gives a big advantage to the bigger kingdom. The smaller kingdom need to reduce the NW of the bigger kingdom to its size and then reduce it further.

Why not instead look at the relative ratio of NW at the beginning of the war and say that automatic war win conditions are met if this ratio moves past certain thresholds after a minimum of 1 week of war.

Those thresholds could for instance be asymmetrical with the intent of making war win conditions easier for the smaller kingdom and thus making the odds more even.

This ratio would also make following the war easier as you would look at one number as opposed to daily acres gains adjusted for exploration gains...

Here it would be much simpler.

For example, the ratio was at 125% at the beginning of the war. It is today at 120% which means that the smaller kingdom is actually wining and should it fall to 90% then it would be an automatic war win for the smaller kingdom.

You get to decide who you war. dont war a kd 45% bigger than you, yes?

[Bishop]

Id also like to point out THIS age
Feary 3/8, 8.0 =>7.5
Orc 9/2, 6.75 =>7.25
Undead 9/3, 7.0=>7.5

And while him not against the concept of playing with nw/leet as it stands now a feary can easily pull off 130-140 dpa which is fine becasue attackers can counter that and still be in nw range by being larger (acre wise) than a feary since the feary will run well over 200 nw/acre. But with the change to all races but orc/undead having a max leet of 7 means that fearies are now effectively unbreakable to all races but orc/undead. however now fearies can run a smaller nw/acre while orc/undead has to run higher nw/acre and you make fearies almost 100% unbreakable to ALL races.

For example bit of math Right now relativistically a
Faery at 210 nw/acre ~140 dpa . 1000 acres means 210k nw 140k def.
orc at 195 nw/acre ~125 opa. to break 1120 acres means 218.4k nw 140k off.

with the changes you up the orc by 5 nw/acre (10 leets) and lower the feary closer to 7 nw/acre
Faery at 203 nw/acre ~140 dpa . 1000 acres means 203k nw 140k def.
orc at 200 nw/acre ~125 opa. to break 1120 acres means 224k nw 140k off.

as 224k *0.9 (hiting in max gain range) =201.6k is only marginally lower than a fairies nw of 203k your looking at it almost never being possible for a non-warrior attacker to be able to break a feary in nw range. that seems a bit broken to me.

Conquest.

[Lordwarallied]

I like the changes better. Avians are good, maybe a slight buff somewhere and remove 5% of thief op dommage imo.
Dwarves are good this time. Id say to buff them a bit aswell. Add +10 BE more or add +15% kills. THAT would make them very viable with the drawbacks they have. Its characteristic. (maybe immunity to dragon?) Then you would have all attacker races with unique traits.
Elves are good. no complains.
Fearies. No problem here.
halflers. No problem, but it would give flavor if you gave them aggression.
Hums. I like it, altho i disagree wit hthe instant spell bonus. It looks repetitive compared to dwarf.
Orcs: Perfect.
UD: Bishop, have you looked at my plague post? I believe adding virulence to the plague would make them a very good choice.

Every race is almost all playable to pwn. good job!

[Darkz Azn]

undead.warrior kd will be the best kingdom oop ... and also the most annoying kingdom! =)

ps. the changes seen doable for me =) i like it, nothing too strong, nothing too weak.



odd

[lastunicorn]

Because to win the war you either were strong with a nice bank and should be rewarded for it, or had a bunch of people who were chained hard and you show an inability to protect the "weakest players" in your kd. Either way for 99% of wars the chained & banky players should even out. And its not like you are punishing or rewarding the bank/chain specifically where land=bonus, you'd still be giving average kd land=bonus.



With a median since there are 25 prove in a kd you specifcaly are telling kds that to screw over the kd thats beating you you should aim to bring the acres on the bottom 13 prov as much as you can

ie kd it specifically asks kds to be land split and instead of encouraging a loseing kd about to withdraw to max gain for acres pre withdraw your telling them they should try to do something like
12 prov at 2500-3000 acres
1 prov at 900
10 prov at 800-900
2 chained people in the typical 300ish acre range.

to specially hurt the bpa/credits the winning kd gets. It just you encourage a certain play type of kd nw splitting in war such that whichever kd wins gets screwed with science/credit gains upon that win. Instead of simply rewarding kds to try to get a war win by being stronger than than their opponet, they also have to now make sure that the 13th ranked prov is as large as possible. Not a fan.

Yes, a losing kingdom can still hurt the winning kingdom in some way. I don't see how this is a big deal, as now you could have the losing kingdom max gain wd before, whereas now they might max gain the bottom end, and the winning kingdom still gets tons of bonuses for winning. It's not as if the losing kingdom trashed the winners, it's just that they slightly lessened their bonuses.

[Yadda9To5]

Just a request: can the changes be finalized early next week? Last age changes were very last minute and this made kd planning hard (not every kingdom has their entire playerbase active in irc to quickly discuss the changes and who wants to play as what).

Regarding this set of potential changes, i just gave up caring, i'll worry about the final set instead of the rollercoaster ride that these potential changes are. That's not meant to be negative towards this set of changes, not at all. Whatever the changes, my kd will try to make them work to our advantage, just like every kd will. (Though it's still a shame we can't really dump faeries)

[Ahab]

Yes, a losing kingdom can still hurt the winning kingdom in some way. I don't see how this is a big deal, as now you could have the losing kingdom max gain wd before, whereas now they might max gain the bottom end, and the winning kingdom still gets tons of bonuses for winning. It's not as if the losing kingdom trashed the winners, it's just that they slightly lessened their bonuses.

A mere 200 acres difference in the median province's acreage would result in 20,000 less books per province and 600 less specs per acre. That's an awful lot of weight to place on a single province's size even if it is relative to the kingdom as a whole. There's going to be a ton of jockeying around that issue, but that wouldn't be an issue at all if the game used a mean. I accept if you think a median is better but it's definitely a big deal.

[Darkz Azn]

Spellbook: All racial spells

does that mean MS is not a racial spell and will not appear on faery spellbook?

[Lordwarallied]

I think thats what it means Azn

[Lordwarallied]

Avian

+40 damage? An attacker race should not have more of a mod than a T/M race. Fae being 30, this should be max 25%. Reduce Elite cost to 675 if you feel you need to balance that reduction in op bonus.

Dwarf

Looks OK to me.

Elves

600 or 650 gc on the elite unless you are going to give the Quickfeet back. Give them back reflect magic.

Faery

I like it except for the spell book. I think faes should have full spells including MS. If you feel you need to, drop their bonus to +25% on all op parameters for it.

Halflings

Looking good, but give them back aggression too, so spells should be invisibility, town watch and aggression. I also think because of their elite they need a either the small population bonus (5%) or they need the 500 gc elite so they have space for homes.

Humans

I like the idea of the generalist race. I think people are going to shy away from it big time. I would prefer to see a 6/6 elite here for 750 gc with a 6.5 nw.

Orcs

Look good to me.

Undead

I am sad that you all caved to the Undead whiners about food. They have to eat something. I would like to see them have a small pop penalty if you are not going to make them have food. So, I would propose having a -20% sci penalty and a -5% pop penalty (since they keep eating their peasants)if they insist on the food thing.

I like all personalities but the Sage

Sage

needs more sci protection. Restore the -75% losses on learn attacks. Immunity to plague exchanged for the science discount is a MASSIVE NERF to this personality to then further nerf the protection and renerf the science effectiveness bonus is a screw job beyond the pale. So at least give them back the -75% protection. If you insist on taking away the research discount give them back the 30% effectiveness too.

Mechanics

Without knowing the specific chances of increasing the meter and the casualties on bounes I can?t say if the current bounce mechanic is fair or not. If losses are sufficiently nerfed on a bounce attack, then I am OK with this I guess, but I would prefer the simpler bounce = 1 point on the meter.

Mods for thief or magic are for different types. So fearies still beat avians on they roles. Elf are fine the way they are...and honnestly, they dont need RM nor QF. and for undeads, what r you talking about? They were created with the intent of not eating anything. theya re dead. and guess what, lets say they eat people....they still wouldnt "die" if they didnt. farms is uncharacteristic. Its a unique ability. Make plague more virulant and youd have a strong race.

[UtopiaKarateKid]

I have a question about the Humans. Is the 50% instant spells has an effect on ToG?

Edited: Plus a minor question as well, when we say about 50% extra damage on oping, does it return with greater honour gain?