What would it take?

[topsy's revenge]

Buff eowcf. Remove explore penalty from eowcf.

With 24 hour protection and 5k acres at start, if you don't get ahead early you will be warring forever to leap frog people. This is a fun mechanic, but only works if there is a way to overcome the fact that after your first win(even if you win big) you might have half your total potential acres in a pool that you can't even use.

[StratOcastle]

So I've started ages with a couple of these war kingdoms that had the smarts and activity to attempt a cow and it didn't happen. As was said here by maximouse, tops won't let you build a monstrosity that endangers their well being. I see this as stage one: try. See what comes your way. It's not the end of the world. See how it's done and what you could've done.
You could also try looking for them. Tops are best at finding you, but you have to try tracking to learn tracking.

In RL I learned how to track by looking for the signs.
In RL I learned to use my blockers in football by seeing them simply as obstacles that the opposing team had to circumvent; successful block or not. It's that split second that counts. Speed is leverage, but only insomuch as you perceive.
There was a gunfighter who was obviously alive to offer this advice. When asked how he was so good despite his comparably slow draw he said: " I aim quickly " (paraphrase). The moral here is to act on evidence now and not expect a second chance with a flurry of misspent lead.
Here in Utopia when I break up my uniques into relay taps it allows me to adjust to the myriad of situation that fluctuate in war. Max, chain, ambush the guy with pricey elites. If I predict wave times I can jump the wave and press key provinces.
Organization for neatness sake is a waste and inefficient. Find the efficiency in your actions beyond knowing what numbers you need to run. When chained last age I found myself in a turtling situation and mutated into a mini-bank because ours was rendered incapable. Just attacking like some robot would've been a losing proposition. Believe in your ability to adapt and you'll find yourself in a winnable war.

[Anatak1989]

So I just kind of skimmed through here. But honestly, I just don't see the appeal of building a whoring kd. I have fun warring 5+ times an age. I honestly just do not see the fun in logging in, exploring, maybe looking for a big hit every now and then, and logging off. War is full of action (most of the time). War is fun. I don't know why all the super kingdoms think warring is for losers haha (or at least, that's what Godly has led me to believe).

If I had to choose a favorite kingdom to cheer for and buy personalized jerseys for, it might have to be Pew Pew because they war all the time. They still have two links up on the throne page, for goodness sake! Haha.

[TheOne]

I rather hit for 500-600 acres 3 times an age, compared to making 50-100 acres hits an entire age.. just saying :P

it's an addiction!

[Anatak1989]

Maybe one day I'll try to join one of these whoring kd's for at least an age, see what all the rage is about. I just feel like I'd be terribly bored, and frustrated when someone else hits me for 600+ acres haha. It just seems like it's still something I need to try out one day I guess, even if I don't want to.

[StratOcastle]

I'd like to see a tally of all the 9 box provinces on the server to get an idea of the potential explorer players. Yknow, the boxes on the recruit page. I'm in vac mode myself, but still clock in to attempt to keep my options open.

If it's perceived the only way to do things is how you see distribution in other kingdoms, whore or war, I'm just trying to say you can make your own way. Warseekers certainly got pretty far non-cow. I'm not even saying do it like that. Do it your way, have faith in your players ability to fight with economy based builds and only draw advice that applies. I can certainly see a scenario where tops simply want more available acres from naive explorers. Yeah, I thought of that to. That's why I preach about bringing the danger.
Do you know how to dismantle a dwarf core? Do you know how to deal with that and tear down a cow? Might as well look it over just for kicks. When a dangerous kingdom gets hit by a number of ' random ' kingdoms do you track them? You should.

Warring is fun, I won't deny that. I think exploring is sold short because it encompasses even more of the game. If we could track the players that may be interested it'd go a long way. Some simply enjoy the culture they know. I have the advantage of seeing many kingdom cultures and know there are individuals strewn all over the game that would be ideal if they simply embraced the challenge as a joy in gaming.

[noobium]

i thought cowing was supposed to be dead?

[goodz]

Maybe one day I'll try to join one of these whoring kd's for at least an age, see what all the rage is about. I just feel like I'd be terribly bored, and frustrated when someone else hits me for 600+ acres haha. It just seems like it's still something I need to try out one day I guess, even if I don't want to.

it is good in a few ways. The intra kd competition for growth in a relative bubble when outside of war is fun. Warring 2-4 times an age against great competition is better then warring 6x where only 1-2 wars is against good competition.

I have fun doing both but ultimately if you have time whoring is more fun imo. I am very much hoping to be able to play again soon :)

Cowing is dead :(

[American Badass]

So I just kind of skimmed through here. But honestly, I just don't see the appeal of building a whoring kd. I have fun warring 5+ times an age. I honestly just do not see the fun in logging in, exploring, maybe looking for a big hit every now and then, and logging off. War is full of action (most of the time). War is fun. I don't know why all the super kingdoms think warring is for losers haha (or at least, that's what Godly has led me to believe).

If I had to choose a favorite kingdom to cheer for and buy personalized jerseys for, it might have to be Pew Pew because they war all the time. They still have two links up on the throne page, for goodness sake! Haha.

Not everyone explores. The pool gets used every few days on one/two provinces. Look at CR for example. The t5 got there by exploring but the rest have been hitting troops in/out all age.

[Avenger]

Skills.

[Squee311]

So I just kind of skimmed through here. But honestly, I just don't see the appeal of building a whoring kd. I have fun warring 5+ times an age. I honestly just do not see the fun in logging in, exploring, maybe looking for a big hit every now and then, and logging off. War is full of action (most of the time). War is fun. I don't know why all the super kingdoms think warring is for losers haha (or at least, that's what Godly has led me to believe).

If I had to choose a favorite kingdom to cheer for and buy personalized jerseys for, it might have to be Pew Pew because they war all the time. They still have two links up on the throne page, for goodness sake! Haha.

ABA is absolutely correct. But your post demonstrates why players who never have been in a whoring situation do not understand or grasp how a whoring kingdom works. You assume they are less active than you most the age which is false. They are actually more active and do more work on a whole. They have to find safe hits across the entire globe of utopia instead of well my war with XX:XX is in its 5th day let me see who we are chaining. Half of you who play now have never truly experienced bullying or being a ghetto like it was in the early ages.

Once they added War Wins to the kingdom page the game took a slightly different dynamic and you had kingdoms like Free (one of the only ones i remember still around) who went for this goal even tho it was never a chart. Utopia Temple had a thread where a dedicated mod would track how many win the kingdoms had. The game was played on 3 levels at that time Whoring, Honor then War Wins. Now Honor and Wins are lumped together since the best way to get both is to war and you cna get high numbers in both by doing them together. And Whoring which is left for the players who have been around forever have been in the top of the charts and enjoy that style and have always enjoyed that style.

Zauper's changes seem to be the best to do so. Mostly the science advantage based on acres. Now Fake Wars are completely impossible and heavily policed you can return science back to a bought feature. This inputs more risk as well. To have to actually purchase science means you will be sitting with money to be plundered.

[American Badass]

Warring kingdoms wars begin with this message: "XX has declared war on xx" and end with: "XX has withdrawn".

Whoring kingdoms wars begin on tick one and end when the round ends. They need to spend time prepping for wars and don't pick and choose whom they war at a sensible size.

[American Badass]

The only way you'd fully get people whoring is like Goodz said, by removing the Honor/WW charts or make it so the top kingdoms can gain honor and can get to rank 1 etc to make it so people have to war the top to get that honor to crown.

Maybe the way to gain honor has to be revised. I wonder if exploring generated honor as well some of the honor kds would explore more. Or maybe if you made honor a building bonus like guilds are. So you can get "champion halls" and they generate X% of honor a tick.

[StratOcastle]

What comes up missing is a perception of scope. In the warring tier it's basically a challenge based in beating the other kingdom. Stack enough of these against decent opponents and you might get the crown.
In the exploring tier the dynamic is different. Now the competition is not just a race, nor an arms race or exploring race, it's all combined. What this entails is dimension in thought that may not be attractive to players who know their numbers and wave times.
It may seem a bit belittling, but I can sympathize with ones apprehension for diving in with no perception of depth. Next would be what is obvious here, there is no desire. But these are just unnecessary ways of thinking. Like AB points out, there's a misunderstanding. Still, it's enough for players to shy away and I can accept that.

[Palem]

The only way you'd fully get people whoring is like Goodz said, by removing the Honor/WW charts or make it so the top kingdoms can gain honor and can get to rank 1 etc to make it so people have to war the top to get that honor to crown.

I disagree. As I understand it, people don't attempt to whore just because there are other options. There's something about it that absolutely does not sit well with them.


I think it breaks down into two main categories:
1. Genuine misconceptions about the top (only explore, cheaters, ect)
2. Practical warring concerns. There aren't a lot of kds in the upper-middle tier of the game.

I think #1 has caused #2. As the ages went on, more and more people avoided growing because they didn't want to compete with a bunch of jerk cheaters that only explored and so on and so forth and that caused the rest of the competition to be dragged down with them because they wanted to war and the best size to be at if you're looking for wars is the size that has the most kds.

The thing is, I've been in kds that have never tried whoring, and we got on an island without a top kd, and we ended up on the top of the island NW/Land and everyone was so filled with pride. In the old days there used to be a pride that came with finishing the age larger than your competition. It seems weird that these days that drive to do this is just completely gone, but the happiness of achieving something where you're large is still there.