A number of mechanics suggestions

[Mordrek]

In the old days, when a kingdom topfeed waved like that, the other kingdom would just train up and declare. That's not possible anymore, so there's no incentive to train up. Why why waste another 3-4 days razing away the acres gained when that's counter-productive to your goals and doesn't give any fun or enjoyment to anyone?

The problem is not that it's going to slow the dicing down and force them to train, per se - it's that there's no recourse for gaining anymore, so there's no point. It's literally an unwinnable fight. At best, you can break even. That's pointless.

Which is a direct result of the dicing + widespread NAP'ing currently in the top. If more kingdoms would threated the dicers with waves then dicing wouldn't be as profitable anylonger hence running more wars would be far more profitable.

But since we have to live with widespread NAP's then dicing will be the best option available today and then you'll have to look for either a change in the general game mechanics to improve the possible rewards from wars or live with the occasional topfeeding wave and hope that they will get spread evenly around the dicers.

[Mal]

Which is a direct result of the dicing + widespread NAP'ing currently in the top. If more kingdoms would threated the dicers with waves then dicing wouldn't be as profitable anylonger hence running more wars would be far more profitable.

But since we have to live with widespread NAP's then dicing will be the best option available today and then you'll have to look for either a change in the general game mechanics to improve the possible rewards from wars or live with the occasional topfeeding wave and hope that they will get spread evenly around the dicers.

As I already stated the NAP's have nothing to do with ability to dice. We could dice in a semi-war build without naps. Hell we diced while in hostile with BiO.

Stop saying things that are blatantly false.

[Sheister]

But simians had more fun doing it.........

mal, in my dream world, everyone grows up and just plays the game without worrying about optimizing dicing. The top KDs would all still be contending for a crown, they just would not need to worry about a war here and there because everyone would be taking at least some time to war and deal wiht whatever challenges like this happen. I know, I am an idealist. But I figure if enough stop doing it, sooner or later the only KD left dicing is going to say to themselves " its really boring dicing against no one........"

[Mal]

But simians had more fun doing it.........

mal, in my dream world, everyone grows up and just plays the game without worrying about optimizing dicing. The top KDs would all still be contending for a crown, they just would not need to worry about a war here and there because everyone would be taking at least some time to war and deal wiht whatever challenges like this happen. I know, I am an idealist. But I figure if enough stop doing it, sooner or later the only KD left dicing is going to say to themselves " its really boring dicing against no one........"

You need to make warring easier and viable as a growth mechanic for that to happen. If that happened we'd see a lot of fighting on top and kingdoms like yours/ghettocats would WANT to be in the top because thats where the best wars are.

Also "simians had fun" but it likely cost them having fun the next fight :P.

[rsjabba]

guys, RE: topfeeding waves

big kingdoms make bottomfeeding waves all the time - one or two 'free' waves in exchange for a CF.
small kingdoms make topfeeding waves with little profit in retalliation for big kingdoms.
i'm not seeing the issue - its tit for tat. use diplo just like others have to, or train up some more to prevent yourselves looking like easy pickings. that is all i can say for one or two waves.
beyond that, the meter maxing mechanic is the most simple and most practical tool for preventing pesky topfeeders, whereby a maxed meter removes the inability of the bigger kingdom to declare or makes it less profitable for a smaller kingdom to topfeed.
HOWEVER, bear in mind that this feature is just as manipulable as is the current relations meter.
remember sanc hitting into TFC daily, but never pushing the meter beyond normal relations?
a smaller kingdom dedicated to jackassery will be careful not to max out the meter, perhaps leaving 2 points or a few more under max to keep the hits profitable. don't pretend it won't happen, because it will. the same goes for any clear mechanic that creates an obvious point of no return in terms of hostility.
perhaps, instead, a percentage based meter reading is a better solution. this can work both ways, with topfeeding AND bottomfeeding. no trickery or manipulation, just a clear mechanic that cannot be circumvented.

how about something like this instead:
for every relative % difference between points on the hostile meter in hostile relations (ie. does not affect war or unfriendly), attacks lose an equal % in gains as of 4 ticks from the first attack (to allow for waves, not just in top kds but also mid-range ones that don't do it all in 1 tick).
so an unaswered wave you might get away with, but the next wave will have gains reduced by 25%.
if the wave is responded to equally, gains are not reduced. if there is a partial response, say, 10 attacks for 20 points (10% hostile), then gains will be reduced 15% for the initial aggressor in the next wave.

it may not be perfect (i havent really delved into details) but it is a solution that works but ways and reduces topfeeding and bottomfeeding gains while not affecting the current culture of waves for CF.

[TheRock]

Which is a direct result of the dicing + widespread NAP'ing currently in the top. If more kingdoms would threated the dicers with waves then dicing wouldn't be as profitable anylonger hence running more wars would be far more profitable.

But since we have to live with widespread NAP's then dicing will be the best option available today and then you'll have to look for either a change in the general game mechanics to improve the possible rewards from wars or live with the occasional topfeeding wave and hope that they will get spread evenly around the dicers.

Nearly all of the NAPs you see now came as the result of earlier fights. CFs are usually done after cow/killer hits or waves, not just two kingdoms being friendly.

As for why they CF until late age, here's some math!

Let's assume, for fun, that the conflict in question will take 5 days - 1 day hostile, 2 day war (min time!), 2 day postwar. 5 days = 120 hours.

Dicing Kingdom - Explores 480 acres per day, paradises 2500 acres per day. 2980 per day x 5 = 14,900.

A war where one side gains 5% acres would probably be a win for that side. 10% would be a decisive win. 25% would be a total farming.

Between two evenly-matched kingdoms, if both sides are very very good and playing well, for one side to want to beat the dicers for growth, they'd have to be at 298,000 acres each to start. 5% gains translates to a 14,900 gain, just matching the dicers.

10% gains from a war means they'd have to be 149,000 acres to start in order for 10% gains to surpass dicing gains.

At a total farming, 25% gains, the kingdoms only need to be about 60,000 acres to start.

This should explain clearly why kingdoms CF. Think of it like poker - if the stakes aren't high enough, it's not worth the players' time to play in the game, because there's nothing to win, so even the winners lose out. The only kingdoms anyone would want to wave between years 3-6 are the kingdoms they think they can really farm out. Otherwise, why would you do it instead of dicing? Taking 10% off a 75k kingdom is nice, but the other 75k kingdom gained double what you did. This is why you see long NAPs in place - kingdoms know that they need to raise the stakes before playing the war game, because otherwise, it's not worth their time and effort.

Note that this analysis ignores the second mover advantage and the negative impact on pumping and preparation. It also ignores negative impact on kingdoms who haven't finished their explore pool.

This is why top kingdoms say dicing is overpowered - for basically every kingdom in the game, dicing is better for growth than warring. The only time you'll see warring being better is when one side is getting farmed, and that rarely means good things, long-term, for the kingdom getting farmed.

Separation is a good thing, but war needs to be strengthened to the point that winning a war is significantly more profitable than dicing.

[Mordrek]

Which is why I suggested decreased gains in dices given that you diced at least 2500a or so and is above 2k acres, where the average dice might drop as far as to 33% of a regular dice. Suddenly your equation starts to make war profitable at 100k acres, right, which is also where the dicing should start being throttled.

Now, add a major bonus to the winners such as 10% of the losing sides land and the risk-reward calculation makes wars the way to go for the good kingdoms and the ones not fighting wars will be fed upon...

...you could also make this 10% split 50/50 between an even distribution on the winning kd's provinces and a pool for the monarch to distribute. That would make it even more worth for cows to fight wars, since that would be the way to secure the biggest prov on the server, while it could help the smaller chained provinces to get back on track.

However, to make the risk-reward calculation even better then let provinces beneath kd average explore at the old formula up to kd average. Then you'll get an easier rebound time as well as potentially shorter time between wars.

[goodz]

1) All attacks in war generate 10% new land (not taken from explore pool)
2) Dice takes 70% of its gains from explore pool. If no explore pool dice will be 30% as effective aka a 7 acre dice yields 2 acres. 6 acre dice and below = 1 acre.
3) Reduce KD relative NW gains in hostile. by a modifier of .75 at 15 meter points sliding to .00 at 90 meter points. (KD a has -30% gains due to KDNW when meter is at 52 they would only have a penalty of approximately 15%, when meter hits 90 the penalty would be totally gone.
4) If 2 KD's are out of declare range and both sides max meter they will both receive a button to force a CF for 1 week. If they are in declare range both KDs will receive a button to declare war with.



Dice being slowed when out of explore pool well still have KD's dicing but the decrease in acres would slow it down some, quite frankly war is never going to generate enough acres to make up for lost dicing if you can dice as fast as you do now.

War generating the land rather then taking from explore pool well result in pretty large acre gains for KD's who empty their pool as they can now come oow and dice much faster then those who have not been warring.

Changes to topfeed/bottomfeed are to account for less of a gap between non dicing and dicing KD's as you may see KD's top feeding more in an attempt to abuse the protection they receive by KDNW. Anyway I think could work somewhat. Random declare should be brought back as well but is not really related to what the changes listed are trying to fix. Which is dicing vs warring.

[Sheister]

Goodz,

Perhaps also add +300% land into the winners explore pool as a bonus for winning a war.

[goodz]

Goodz,

Perhaps also add +300% land into the winners explore pool as a bonus for winning a war.

That isn't even a coherent amount. At start of age 300% of 10k is 30k acres? The fact that your not losing land from explore pool during war should be enough land...

Edit:
If you just mean that explore pool grows at 300% the speed during the duration of the war I disagree with this as well. War is going to generate a ton of land if the +10% gains does not come from explore pool. Also KD's without explore pool are only dicing 600-700 acres a day so if your average hostile stops you dicing for 10 days thats only 6-7k acres you need to generate. If you win the war even in a close war you should come out with that much acres and some land in explore pool that you can quickly add on if you wish.

War would be by far the best method of growth the only problem is WDing at min time in a war setup like this would likely be overpowered. I would make the losing KD dump all explore pool gained during the war to the winning KD. Something like that might be nice.

[DHaran]

300% lol

[Sheister]

Goodz, I was thinking, that at that point most do not have a lot of explore pool to use and gaining that much land into their explore pools would be an incentive to war.

but I figure that most larger KDs, if dice is taking from explore pool, would not have more than 2000 acres or so at the start of a war right? (probably less). Then you figure they gain 20 acres/hr into pool so in min time war that is 20*48=960. So roughly 3K acres in the pool at the end of the war gives them 12K acres to explore and dice out. That is not, imho, an unbalanced amount12

**edit**
Also goodz, if they are only dicing 900 acres/day I need to revise my estimate of top KDs downward as it is easy for a faery T/M to dice 100-150 acres day without breaking a sweat. So you should figure running 12-15% guilds for reasonable dicing they should be able to do 50-100/province. That is at least 1250 to 2500/day dicing plus whatever gains they have in combat from smart farming (figure 100-200 acres/province per day which is probably a conservative estimate, on each of their attacker provinces). Asuming they have 20 attackers in the KD that is roughly 2-4K in land gains per day minimum. Because they run banks to aid them and so on, they ought to be able to sustain 250 acres growth/province/day from week 6/7 onward. Therefore, I would expect that 25*250 = 6250 being the base gain/day a war would need to provide them a pool boost to make up for lost dicing and provide a war environment where they should be able to gain at least 13K acres (which is doable in a war winning scenario). Therefore, I think what I proposed might well be what makes warring palatable if dicing comes from pool.

[goodz]

Goodz, I was thinking, that at that point most do not have a lot of explore pool to use and gaining that much land into their explore pools would be an incentive to war.

but I figure that most larger KDs, if dice is taking from explore pool, would not have more than 2000 acres or so at the start of a war right? (probably less). Then you figure they gain 20 acres/hr into pool so in min time war that is 20*48=960. So roughly 3K acres in the pool at the end of the war gives them 12K acres to explore and dice out. That is not, imho, an unbalanced amount12

**edit**
Also goodz, if they are only dicing 900 acres/day I need to revise my estimate of top KDs downward as it is easy for a faery T/M to dice 100-150 acres day without breaking a sweat. So you should figure running 12-15% guilds for reasonable dicing they should be able to do 50-100/province. That is at least 1250 to 2500/day dicing plus whatever gains they have in combat from smart farming (figure 100-200 acres/province per day which is probably a conservative estimate, on each of their attacker provinces). Asuming they have 20 attackers in the KD that is roughly 2-4K in land gains per day minimum. Because they run banks to aid them and so on, they ought to be able to sustain 250 acres growth/province/day from week 6/7 onward. Therefore, I would expect that 25*250 = 6250 being the base gain/day a war would need to provide them a pool boost to make up for lost dicing and provide a war environment where they should be able to gain at least 13K acres (which is doable in a war winning scenario). Therefore, I think what I proposed might well be what makes warring palatable if dicing comes from pool.

Your thinking wrong unfortunately if your pool just grew by 300% when you win a war top KD's would probably start age with 20 provinces. War 2x without exploring to get 130k acres in pool. Then grow like crazy and invite their 5 players. Heck it would be mighty tempting if you could get 3 war wins in the first 2 weeks you would have 450k acre pool...

Further if war gains did not come from pool most KD's in a close war at say 100k acres are talking about 30k acres for a clear winner, 20k for a moderate winner and 15k for a closer win. Even an MP would probably net 10k acres each. Say your only double tapping your generating about 35 acres per attack, we will have 20 attackers making 10 attacks each (pretty low hits) we are generating 7k acres in a min time war per KD. This is enough profit to keep up with KD's who diced with -75% dice gains.

[Sheister]

hmmmmmm I see your point now. I clearly lack the conspirator's mindset. Well bummer. In a world where people were not playing cheap that would be a nice war reward but oh well.

[Mal]

Eh? If you wanted pool acres as a war reward you could have it fixed based on time spent in war. Example: mintime war rewards 4k pool.