Age 71 Proposed Changes Suggestions

[Avenger]

My instincts usually tell me not to compensate a race weakness with a personality strength, but my undead sage bell is ringing.

.65*1.25=0.8125
Wasted personality.

[Slayerviper]

Human

Bonuses
+30% Income
REMOVED: Immune to Income Penalties
+10% homes coverage

Penalties
-15% Spell Success (down from -10%)
+50% Rune Costs (down from +100%)

Spell book: Greater Protection, Quick Feet
Elite: 10/5 (down from 11/5, 1000gc, 9.5NW

Orc
Bonuses
+20% Battle Gains (down from +25%)
Free draft
+30% Enemy casualties when attacking (up from +20%)

Penalties
+10% Resource Losses when attacked (down from +20%)
REMOVED: +15% Military Casualties
-25% Thievery Effectiveness (TPA) (down from -10%)

Spell book: Fanaticism
REMOVED: Blood Lust, Reflect Magic
Elite: 13/2, 900gc (down from 1000 gc), 11.5NW (up from 11)

Undead
Bonuses
-75% Offensive losses on attacks you make
Spreads and is Immune to The Plague
No Food Required
Attacks convert Offensive Specialists into Elites
+1 Offensive Specialist strength (down from +3 off spec strength)
REMOVED: Defensive losses automatically convert to soldiers(Permanent Animate Dead)

Penalties
Basic Thievery (Intel Operations Only)
No Elite Training
REMOVED: -35% Science Effectiveness

Spell book: Town Watch
Elite: 15/1, 11NW (up from 10.5)

UD should be playable as something else than just attacker (realistically, current change UD only allows for WH/Tact/Warrior). People should have a challenge trying to play UD/sage, UD/heretic or even UD/rogue-mystic if they want to. -35% sci effects make these 4 options IMPOSSIBLE.

Avian
Bonuses
-35% Attack travel time (up from -25%)
Cannot be ambushed
+75% Birth Rate (up from +40%)
REMOVED: +1 Offensive Specialist strength
Can Train Elites with Credits at the cost of 2 credits/elite

Penalties
REMOVED: -5% Combat Gains
Cannot Use War Horses

Spell book: Greater Protection
Removed: Fanaticism, Blood Lust
Elite: 11/4, 775gc, 10NW

Increasing their strengths, removing some of the "bland bonusses". Reducing offense and increasing speed. Avian is lightning fast but shouldn't be easily breaking fully turtled TMs (if you want that, run orc/UD). Playing with minus gains destroys a race (I experienced it when human had it).

Dwarf
Bonuses
+25% Building Efficiency (up from +20%)
Free Building Construction and Can Use Credits to Raze Buildings
-50% Building Construction Time
REMOVED: +1 Offensive specialist strength
+1 Defensive specialist strength

Penalties
Can't use Accelerated Construction
+100% Food consumption

Spell book: Mystic Aura, Added: Quick Feet
Elite: 9/7 (down from 9/8), 750gc (down from 850 gc), 9.5NW

Dwarves need a reason not to run full elite. Ospec bonus is just an OOP thingy, and dwarves are already strong OOP due to free build.

Halfling
Bonuses
+10% Population
+35% Thievery Operation Success (TPA) (down from +50%)
-40% Thief cost (down from -50%)
+1 Stealth per tick
REMOVED: +2 Offensive Specialist Strength

Penalties
REMOVED: -5% Building Efficiency
-10% Birth Rate

Spell book: Aggression
Removed: Mage's Fury

Elite: 7/8 (up from 6/8), 800gc (up from 700 gc), 10.5NW

The BE nerf makes halfling/rogue hard, esp with TD coverage bonus cut to +50% from +100%. Increasing their thief cost and elite cost makes them slightly harder to fully pump (especially if you want full elite).

Faery
Bonuses
+40% Combat Instant Spell Damage
+40% Sabotage Operation Damage
+1 mana per tick (removed: in war)
+1 off spec strength

Penalties
-5% Population
-10% Income

Spell book: All Racial Spells and Tree of Gold/Mages Fury
Elite: 5/10, 850gc (down from 1050 gc), 11.5NW

Faery will still not be a very potent attacker, but at least has some buff to its offense so it can ambush/exchange some hits. Having fae on 5/10 6/0 makes it very dimensional and just a pure turtle. I feel Faery needs MF more so than halfling.

Elf
Bonuses
+2 Defensive Specialist strength
+30% Spell Success (down from +35%)
+25% Spell Duration (instead of damage)
+50% Rune Generation
-35% Military Casualties

Penalties
+50% Military Wages

Spell book: Pitfalls, Invisibility, Fools' Gold
Elite: 8/7, 800gc (down from 900 gc), 9.5NW

Fae is the damage dealer, elf is the tanky duration TM. I like Elf as it is, can run a range of different perses and still be viable.

Personalities

The Cleric
-40% Your Military Casualties (on attack or defense)
Immune to The Plague
Access to Greater Protection, Animate Dead
Starts with +800 soldiers and +800 specialist credits

The Heretic
Wizards do not die on failed spells
Thieves do not die on failed operations
Successful spell casts get 35% of rune cost refunded
+20% Spell Success
+20% Magic and Thievery Science Effectiveness.
Access to Nightmares and Blizzard
Starts with +100 Wizards and +200 thieves
Access to Revelation

The Mystic
All Guilds are 100% more effective
+75% Magic Science Effectiveness
Access to Meteor Showers, Chastity, Revelation
Starts with +400 Wizards

The Rogue
+1 Stealth recovery per tick
Access to all thievery operations, including 3 unique to rogues: Greater Arson, Assassinate Wizards and Propaganda
Thieves Dens are 50% more effective (please define again, is it effects or coverage?)
+100% Thievery Science Effectiveness (up from +75%)
Access to Gluttony
Access to Revelation
Starts with +400 thieves

The Sage
Protect 50% of scientists on abduct attack (up from 30%)
Scientists are 30% more effective (up from 25%)
Increase base Scientist spawn rate by 30% (up from 25%)
Access to Amnesia
Starts with 50% extra scientists (up from 20%)

The Tactician
-20% Attack Time
Accurate Espionage
Access to Clear Sight
Starts with +800 soldiers and +800 specialist credits

The Warrior
+10% Offensive Military Efficiency
Enhanced Conquest range
+ 1 General
Access to: Bloodlust (spell effect changed to: +5% own OME, +10% enemy casualties, +10% own casualties).
Starts with +800 soldiers and +800 specialist credits

The War Hero

+100% Honor Effects (down from +125%)
Immune to Dragon and Income penalty effects
Added: -66% training time
Increase honor gains by generating honor in all land attacks (in or out of war)
30% higher honor generation in war
Access to War Spoils
REMOVED: Pitfalls, Fanaticism
REMOVED: +10% Battle Gains
REMOVED: Converts some Specialists into Elites on successful land attacks (increasing this amount by ~20%)
Starts with 800 elites

I like this a lot more +1

[Persain]

Yes i complain ;) Was great usage :D
14 + 6 = 16-17 PPA that i could use for Def :) Great to use and with our setup helped us out to win every war this age and the last 4-5 the age before that in the end as well.

Persain

"This" :)

How many wars have you won in a row ? :) It's all about a teamwork, if the HA's can break every enemy TM early war, you have to pick do 1x on the HA or deep chain the attackers with 220-240 OPA :)
With higher early RTPA as well, you gain more / op with prop as well and lower the NWPA.

we're currently at 12, would be closer to 25 but we had one bad age where i tried to hybrid undeads lol. Anyway thats fine you use teamwork so do we, thing is our kd ran hybrids all this age and your halfer would have been barely breakable as you designed it that way. any kd facing u with pure attackers would/should be able to break you as your running low def JUST so u can op t/m's. And see the thing is the intial reasoning you brought out your prov was qqing that u didnt have enough def. i.e.

Suggestion - Look back and start with an setup that was used when Utopia was at the highest pop and try to go back to elit's with MAX 6-7 off elits.

i.e. like age 20 or so with an 8/1 +15 pop orc and a 4/6 feary, 4/5 halfer, and 5/5 elf? go back to that number and lets see assuming 15% pop science and

age 20
20% homes 4ppa, 4 wpa, 7 tpa=>~16 pop on def or 80-96 raw def
+15% pop 0% homes, 4 ppa, 3 wpa, 2 tpa, 8 dspec=>16 epa or 128 raw.

age 71
20% homes 4ppa, 4 wpa, 7 tpa=>~16 pop on def(-1.5 for fairy) or 128-145raw def
0% homes, 4 ppa, 3 wpa, 2 tpa, 8 dspec=>11.75 epa or 152.75 raw.

so offense has gone up?

[Legality]

I would like to propose that you set the limit of provinces for each KD to 22 provinces per kingdom. It will remove the immediate disadvantage many KDs have that are less than 25 provinces without dismantling any KD cores.

[Caelum]

I've played longer than David :) it would be nice if people stopped ragging on the old Devs. You wouldn't still have a game without them.

I hate agreeing with Bishop, but he's absolutely right.

Whether you agreed with the things they did or didn't do is irrelevant now. They carried the torch from one point to another and we still have Utopia because of it. In my opinion there have been some decisions made that probably cost a large part of the player base, but had Mehul just shut the doors on the game so many years back...that wouldn't be a better option.

I used to play a game called Paintball.NET. It was a simple, cheesy, fun as hell game. But it had a small following and couldn't have been profitable. They didn't have somebody to pick up the reigns like we've had here. I consider myself fortunate that Utopia hasn't met the same fate, even if some of the decisions have led to a loss of the playerbase.

Yes, I'm sure we'd all like to see tens of thousands of players again. And maybe we will. But be thankful for what you've got.

[Caelum]

True i am greatful for your work Bishop, just sometimes you don't listen to the public and it's been no alpha testing.
Since we are the alpha testing every age with 0% tries in an test server.

Exampel the last two ages with the science.
Or the HA's been useless for 10 ages.

Bishop might have a problem listening to the public (read: opinions he doesn't immediately agree with) but the things you mention have nothing to do with him the way I understand it. He's a moderator, not a dev.

[StratOcastle]

.65*1.25=0.8125
Wasted personality.

Sounds like an experiment. I have something in mind ;-)

Thank you for the continued sculpting Dave & Jeff. I usually don't offer suggestions, but I'll take a hard look and see if anything strikes me.

Edit: on reflection I think humans need a little more pizazz. I was thinking a tweak to stables/horses to reflect the powerful cavalry humans tend to be associated with in both fantasy and historic reference.

[tiggis]

I hate agreeing with Bishop, but he's absolutely right.

Whether you agreed with the things they did or didn't do is irrelevant now. They carried the torch from one point to another and we still have Utopia because of it. In my opinion there have been some decisions made that probably cost a large part of the player base, but had Mehul just shut the doors on the game so many years back...that wouldn't be a better option.

I used to play a game called Paintball.NET. It was a simple, cheesy, fun as hell game. But it had a small following and couldn't have been profitable. They didn't have somebody to pick up the reigns like we've had here. I consider myself fortunate that Utopia hasn't met the same fate, even if some of the decisions have led to a loss of the playerbase.

Yes, I'm sure we'd all like to see tens of thousands of players again. And maybe we will. But be thankful for what you've got.

I got no problem with Bishop.
He was a perfect fit for this crowd and did what he had to do to maintain order and some semblance of civility with very annoying people.
He should be proud of the job he did.

[Bart of Sparta]

I like Bishop. He provides extra challenges by putting us on difficult islands each age, making me 100% plague susceptible, increasing spell failure (apart from ToG, oddly enough I dont think I failed ToG once this age) and allowing one of our enemies to sit in vm for 2 months :D

Trolling is part of this game, perhaps the most important right now. and no one trols like Bishop can ;)

[elixer]

My thoughts.

undead- Has to attack to get elites, so you either war or whore. regardless their offense will stabilize mid-late age in regards to orc. Off specs are easy to night strike as well so they will be easier to control in war, now you can only super deep chain or camp their armies as they come home to hit them. Permanent AD can be good and bad, way more prone to overpop if you aren't online.

orc- glass cannon as they should be. seems a bit harsh atm but it will still be played.

halfling/faery/dwarf/elf- all look good. halfling became a bit stronger next age due to no cs on race.

human- seems a bit lame but oh well.

avian- they are a good bit stronger than normal, really like the look of them atm.

pers- they all stay about the same. wh bonus still isnt as good as other combos for warring so its ok.


will likely edit shortly or repost when i have more time to add to it. work time

My revision. Will go into more depth in case some people miss the purpose of changes.

Undead- At first glance it seems very strong, but it balances out. Off specs are easy to ns so controlling their offense will be easier and not dependent on chains. AD could assist in overpop, otherwise it's a strong tool for training others because first 48h of war the AD will have good soldier returns, falls off more once undead are chained and have less to kill. Unless a kd takes the time to pump elites oow or is able to get them in war, their offense will stay similar to orc so its not all powerful. Being chained is their strongest point atm. Once they are down, and if you have converted a good amount of elites, you will have the best offense for chained provs, unless you go less offense to stay off land defense(don't get caught army home ;)). Wouldn't change anything. I think they are good for whoring because they could be a bit more nw efficient for offense.

Human- Meh. they aren't very good for warring or whoring in my opinion. If left alone they can provide income and turtle power(slightly), but fireballs are pretty easy to cast on them along with shelling from ops and new combat gains formula.

Dwarf- Good econ turtle. Has decent versatility for the most part, mostly for defending against ops/attacks.

Orc- They are a trap. I'd make the losses go to either defense or offense, or lower it a bit and make it for defense and offense. Currently they are very frail, especially in a hostile where you can hit them army home. Anon will be a must if losses stay as is, otherwise it will be extremely easy to kill their offense. Very few reasons to run orc.

Avian- imo best attacker race for warring along with undead. Training elites(and specs?) with credits gives it good versatility when chained or left alone. Capable of being shelled ofc, but that happens regardless.

Elf- Best turtle imo. harder to chain now with -losses. Can afford to grow some since they have the +wpa. Vulnerable to rogues as usual so nothing out of the ordinary. The +wages are going to be the hardest part for elves. Will mean players will have to micro a bit more or run more defense instead of elites to keep army in order.

Faery- Fair changes. +sab damage will be the biggest bonus for next age due to increase in offense specs from undead(since they will be most played attacker still). Increased elite defense and lower pop evens out. Glad they lost CS, way to powerful on faery.

Halfling- would't change anything, even though the +ospecs strength is kinda lame. Unless there are few mystics and/or elves they won't have the pop to be any sort of a/t effectively.

Science change is needed, thank you.

Pers- they are about the same as normal.

Gains- will be interesting to see how effective it will actually be.


As for your goal to change the game from super offense and playing more defensive, you have succeeded. Hybrids, while they will take a beating right at the start of war, will prevail in drawn out conflicts. With undead offense being controllable with means other than hitting armies home and deep chaining, hybrids will be able to fight back much better now and not rely solely on chaining. Orcs are extremely easy to control now. A few hits army home in hostile and their offense is gone, plus ambushing. Add in stealing horses on both of these and they wont be able to use their bonuses as well. So a kd of mostly hybrids can actually out play heavy hitter cores now, will require micromanagement ofc. Reason I feel avian will be the best attacking race is because of its versatility. They will ofc be peon controlled and such but what fat attacker isn't, but they have a more stable offense compared to undead(nonchained) or orc because they cannot be bushed and ops don't effect elites as heavily. They can also hold armies at times to slow chains more, speed helps with lining up armies in the right way. Imo a good kd of hybrids will dominate heavy undead/orc attacker cores. Mystics, as from this age, are still useless imo. Only thing that really made mystic good this age was CS, the +wiz production for everyone didn't help either as mages have to run 9+ raw wpa in order to mage effectively. No cs makes them huge targets now so kds will need a good amount of mystics or no mystics. Rogue will reign supreme in terms of t/m ability, good to have a mix of halfling and faery for the raw power and damage.

All in all I like changes currently. This really adds in more strategy when it comes to hostile/warring. And as long as you have halfling rogues you'll be able to control the t/m side and not have to focus so much on chaining t/m provs in order to disable them, which will free up space for hybrids since you wouldn't need hits on t/m to control them.

This is a bit incomplete, but i am pressed for time. hopefully it helps though.

[dizzysky]

im liking the revisions thus far...i might even consider not retiring after this age at this point. i still think ud is VERY strong though. i know people are stating otherwise and such..and i agree with them 100%...but fact is...super powered elites...free training of elites..easy to do as active attacker..no food needed..lowered losses.. plague spread and immune..thats alot of huge perks. sci negative hurts..and thievery..but its nothing they havent gotten through in the past. to me the biggest thing about ud..and to me one of there greatest assets is plague. 9 times out of 10 its hell of a lot easier spreading it than curing it..and getting plague really can ruin your day in wars. i know plague isnt something new..and such..but to top on top of plague massive elites and such..to me is overkill. plague..either you get lucky and cure in 3 casts..rarely happens or you cure in 30 casts..or it disappears in 1 tick..or it lasts 24 ticks. curing it with ops..wish it were as easy as spreading it.

[StratOcastle]

I know plague bugs a lot of people, and I usually take undead or cleric(war hero in ages past) but when I do run a non-plague immune province I tend to ignore plage. Particularly when facing undead core I don't cure plague via NB.

I never tell others how to run their province, but I notice when we have a rune shortage and folks asking for runes to cure plague. This is a strategic benefit to the undead core and it comes down to deciding if plague is worse than offensive ops. It's an individual decision IMHO. Yes, it's almost worse than tanking a dragon. :-)

Btw @ devs. I like the science change to food science.

[Goodgame]

I'll refer back to my suggestion that Hospitals decrease chance of catching plague rather than chance of curing plague each tick. That would be a huge counter and worthwhile imo.

[Snp]

I wish I would see someday new and different stuff implemented to increase the strategic aspect of the game.Every age its pretty much the same thing with adjustments on the races and personalities with the occasional mechanic changes but all in all its pretty much the same.

Find the best suited race/pers for cores and t/ms and your good to go and when it comes to wars there`s little u can do with a "fail" setup when it comes to strategy in that regard.I feel like for the most part there are little tactical options available and everything is relying on a KD`s ability to communicate,organize and execute aside from composition.

[Smitty87]

So many people complaint about UD 15/1.

Realistically they will have 10 epa max. Added to this they will probably run maximum 4 ospa to maintain 8dspa and 7 pop space for thieves/wiz.

(10*17+4*11)*1.5 = 321 opa. All leet and spec fully mounted.

This is also 58 dpa army in without mods so say ~ 75 dpa max.

That is eaily tripleable by almost all attacking races army in!

You fear the UD breaking tm's with 321 opa? Let them and watch the UD have 1 army out anoned get chained to the ground. Tm's aren't supposed to be unbreakable.

Or do the math of a faery TM.

16 epa. 5tpa 8wpa = 29 pop space same as UD.

(16*10)*1.55 = 248 dpa.

So to hit a faery an UD has to use almost all off just to break at equal size and if they do leave them opened to being 4x by all attacking races and 5x by warriors.

Ppl need to stop whinging. Yea it's a huge off but look at the drawbacks and how easily you can destroy them if they choose to chain a TM.