Thank you for demonstrating my point in its entirety with that ridiculous post. Once again, the scrub mentality is in full display.
Introducing.... the Scrub.
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Thank you for demonstrating my point in its entirety with that ridiculous post. Once again, the scrub mentality is in full display.
Introducing.... the Scrub.
So... are you just throwing around qualifications or are you discussing something?
no, his point is that if we do not try to crown, then we are unqualified to discuss the game. It is a very good thing Dharan is not in charge of this game or else it would die even more quickly.
but while we are on the subject Dharan:
"A scrub is a player who is handicapped by self-imposed rules that the game knows nothing about."
I guess there is a little bit of scrub in every elite player too.....and their 48 hr notice CFs and all the rest of that crud. Oh wait! Were you saying that *****ing about this supposed "NW problem" means they are scrubs?
Sheister, if you get 10k people who never played before utopia there will be again top/midle/low rank kds. Its natural same like sun go up every morning and down every night. Last few ages there was major changes but i didunt bother to care much. But after read TheRock post about explore i got a lot respect to him.
From game was removed FWr 2 ages ago and explore formula was changed. This combined have very huge effect. Basically in all past ages there was 2 main option for use your kd land pool. 1. run cow 2 explore all kd. Second is possible only if you prepare all your kd for explore make it and go in fwr. Now you cant FWr legit and use pool with all your kd is very hard. For this Cows are become much more important for all kds who compete for n1 land. Look like explore cost is so high on bigger size and for this they run 2-3 cows per kd, make use pool more effective. Its ok but now there i dis balance. First you must up cow if you want to compete for n1 because explore all kd is not possible. Losing this strategy option is huge problem for have more variations. This explore cost affect not only top kds but small kd too. A lot t/m use to explore. Same for chained provinces.
This need tune too. I dont need arguments how ppl shold war not explore. If there is option in game its need to work proper.
I wish to hear constructive comments about declare peace option. Its can be good for all kds in any range.
Peace Option: May be workable, but IIRC as it was used before it was kind of what fort is now (or at least some aspects of it), or am I thinking of a different game. I thought back in the 20's we had a peace relations option.
Yes i'm refer to age 20 too when there Hostile was declared from kd A and after both kds fill meter war is started. Peace was used for prevent war. This was good way for defend.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sheister
There is big difference from Fort stance and new peace option. In fort stance when both kds fill meter both get option to declare war. Fort stance gave different bonuses and its affect all kds who hit in/out. Peace declare affect only 2 kds. What i want is to make not effective to feed on same kd for long. Its much more bigger problem for low rank kds from big kds. Same time in past was used Fwr. Its was very good way for protection when kd A don't have chance for war vs kd B. Now they can declare fort stance but its don't change much. After 3 days stance is gone and Aggressor can keep feed on you.
Declare peace is just new extra option. All rest stances stay. Monarch have choice how to play. If he want he can go in fort if he want he can declare peace if he want he can make retal war. Having more strategy choices is best.
Sure. But then what are the impacts on meter and bonuses/penalties. If there are bonuses and penalties, is it best to let them stack with fort, conflict with fort. I think declaring peace should prevent ops (for example) but how to do that fairly is a tough question. Also, if declare peace becomes the new method to just run, I have issues. For example, KD A waves KD B. KD B does not want a war, do we allow KD B to full wave and then declare peace? Do we let KD B Op and then declare peace? If we restrict it, how well can ghetto KD's with little to no control over provinces use this option? Is that a problem? Do anyone care? Is it fair to the KD waving.
Part of what I would say is, a KD declaring peace should surrender something to the waving KD. My recommendation would 2.5% of honor pool modified by KRNW. This should give something to the waving KD for their efforts in organizing, investing in, and preparing the wave, but significantly less than war profit (we would assume) and modifying it by KRNW if appropriately formulated should stop people from just waving tiny KDs for honor whoring. Scale it so that waving someone outside declare range (to the small side) gives no honor at all with maximum gain at the maximum declare range (for having cajones) and then 0 outside of max declare range (take the risk on the line of death, you may lose).
Problems implementing are to engage tracking of that. Perhaps to implement peace we need to reinstitute "declaring a KD hostile" but to avoid conflict with the current relations/meter system, declaring an "enemy" so that the DB knows to start counting hits and calculating what it needs to and tracking things to prepare for the potential peace/war resolution.
Declare peace is available only if your meter is x2 less. Its mean if you got 10 hits you can return 5 before declare peace. If you get 20 hits and you return 20 you cant declare peace before you get ratio 2:1. So try to retal war and declare peace after it will cost you much more land overall. Yes they can make op before declare peace but after it they loss all ops. Its fair enough and if they don't retal = give uf/hostile they wont resive any hostile ops in return.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sheister
Yes i agree on it but its need to have other propose. For me game is not success now because people in ghetto cant really compete alone for any chart. In old days honor chart worked very good. Normal gains when you was in peace is lets say 1. After KD declare hostile gains is up to 1.3-1.5. When start war honor gains is up to 2-2.2. So there was good way for kds and people to play for honor and have fun. Right now all ops are broken. Rob gold, propaganda and AW gave same honor. Its nonsense. Rob gold is much easy op compare last 2. So game need huge change in this aspec. Fix honor gains from ops/attacks. Make different gains in no relation/hostile/war and add old way on start relation: Declare hostile. So honor kds can gain honor ever if opponent dont want to go in war and declare them peace. This will make game much more live and interest. So far there was done few good step last few ages. Bring personal WH is good for begin. Make WW chart is very good too. People in small kds need to have goal for compete. If they don't they wont play.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sheister
all i got from Dharan's scrub post is that i'm a crap gamer if i'm not playing to win. just some guy's drivel written while on an ego trip. good for you dharan, you go dharan!
the declare peace option sounds good. fine tuning required but i like it.
at the same time as i like it, it might not be a good thing.
nobody likes to be bullied and farmed, but at the end of the day, i don't think preventing people from being asshats is the right thing to do. your penalties are mild enough that continuing to farm out a kingdom is possible but has diminishing (all things considered) gains, but they are there.
i don't think severe penalties for being jerks are appropriate in this game. while underhanded play isn't nice, it is still just as valid as making a 48hr notice NAP. I don't like it, i think it is the tactic of a coward - but it is VALID and should remain an option.
in fact, in light of my recent experience in the top 10, i think all i really want is some dirty and underhanded play back down in the ghettos.
To your first point...we're already seeing it. Go look at how many smaller kingdoms have waved OOR kingdoms because it's an easy way to get free acres now that the big kingdoms can't declare back. It's not a small number, and this is only the first age with the new changes. The kingdoms doing it now are the stronger kingdoms - Psych Ward, Insolence, Snakes, all full of smart players who've been around at the top a while. Just like chaining started with the best kingdoms and is now widely adopted, this will become a standard play. You say it hasn't happened - I call bull****, it absolutely has, just not to the degree that it COULD happen. As more people see the strength in the plan, it will become more widely adopted.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bishop
The argument is not "bull****". The value in declaring smaller kingdoms was building larger provinces and unbreakables, which was always enough to be comparable to dicing while giving a strong strategic advantage. Good kingdoms would even gain acres vs dicing while doing it. Kingdoms REGULARLY declared down on kingdoms 30-50% smaller than them, which was part of the reason you changed the range for declaration. I recall many kingdoms doing it, with the first one coming to mind being Sonata stealing a button from Old School via hitting in Normal and then switching to Aggressive before they noticed. If you don't recall how that turned out, I'll be happy to dig up logs/papers, but it ended up very well for them and they won the age.
The deterrence was in the ability to declare which, as demonstrated above, is no longer there. Raze is a flat kill percentage and GBP is substantial OOW, which limits your ability to do damage or fight back effectively. KRNW means the smaller kingdom will always have a built-in gains advantage. This means that when a smaller kingdom waves a much bigger kingdom, the bigger kingdom, due to size issues (bottomfeeding) and KRNW, will never be able to match the hits in individual size. Increasing the volume of hits can provide temporary relief, but only until GBP sets in, which is very quickly. Even if the bigger kingdom is doing doubletaps back
with bigger provinces, they'll be hitting down and hitting into GBP. Raze is an effective means to cut their gains but does not help you recoup acres.
In the old days, you could declare, and your big provinces could gain acres via multi-tap hits. That's no longer available, which gives smaller kingdoms even more incentive to do it. They know big kingdoms are smart and, faced with the choice of fighting for days to hurt the smaller kingdom or just letting a few acres walk, the big kingdoms generally let the acres walk.
To review: the two options for deterring were declaring and farming with big provinces or razing. Razing is not an efficient or effective deterrent and ALWAYS sets kingdoms back against their competition. You took away the only "good" play.
TheRock, Sometimes you have to take the less optimal play. In the abstract it is difficult to saw which is better. however, it is precisely dealing with challenges like this, and overcomming them that make crowning an acchievement. Otherwise it is just recruiting people who can add, being active enough to dice and manage mana/stealth and having a leadership that sets a sensible build/pump strategy once CFs/NAPs are in place. Snakes was not trying to wave up. They dealt with sanctuary hitting down. If this was part of their design, trust me, there is no way jonny and mansoor would not keep doing it. They LOVE to pound on Abs and it is no secret. I can't speak for inso and trollfags hit up into simians because they figured dwarves would be fewer problems. Simians declared and did fine. They are still #3 and within 6K acres of HoH. rage (got hit by inso yes?) handled it another way and fips between 1 and 2 with HoH and HoH is currently #1 having had to deal with it as well. It is because they dealt with it and did so well that these three deserve to be in competition for the crown. The rest of this is all meaningless crying. There are ways around every problem and the crown contenders find them every age.
This problem is not: 1) widespread; 2) demonstrated to be a problem; 3) preventing crown contenders from being in contention, the same suspects are all there no matter these horrible waves from smaller KDs. Therefore, unless there is a suggestion that retains the protections for smaller kingdoms and somehow addresses this problem, I am not in favor of relaxing those protections.
Now, propted by my own musings while I write this one potential thought did occur to me.
Adjust gains choke to occur sooner and stronger based on KRNW and adjusted for hits back, set button for delcare at 200 regardless of KRNW. So, choke starts now at 100 on the meter (correct me if I am wrong) the KD gets choke sent to 200-(100*KDnw/opkdnw). Therefore, the smaller KD gets gains choked higher than 100 at some level and the larger kd gets choke sooner BUT if the smaller KD pushes it, eventually they end up getting declared on or else sitting with armies home as they hold hits (or wasting hits outside otherwise) while the larger KD keeps hitting and catching up.
So hypothetically a 7M NW kd hits up into a 12M NW KD: choke on the gains for the larger KD is set at 200-(100*(12/7)) or 28 on the meter (this would relax by the other KD hitting into them by comparing relative choke on gains). Choke for the smaller KD would set in at 200-(100*7/12) or 141 on the meter. The point here is that eventually the meter gets full and there is a declare option. I suspect some would say that throttling gains at 28 might be extreme, but I do believe there is a cap on that right? max is 50%? or was it 25%? We adjust that appropriately too. Also, as the larger KD loses NW (we presume faster than the smaller KD, the choke points will move closer together.
Are we seeing it? I was told the smaller kds got nailed. So yes, i'd like an example showing how the smaller kd abused this and won out in such a way as would have been impossible under the old range. There were several instances recently where large kds used the big range to declare on ghettos for the purposes of FW basically though.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheRock
"GBP is substantial OOW, which limits your ability to do damage or fight back effectively. KRNW means the smaller kingdom will always have a built-in gains advantage."
^^ so, why don't you suggest these get removed? Do you actually think a wide open declare range is clever or elegant?
Here's what i suggest.
Remove GBP and kdnw reduced gains when X hostility is reached.
Allow the dual button at max meter to ignore NW.
Yuck to removal of GBP. The other two are possibilities with some good promise. But is it a concern that the dual availability of buttons at maxed meter can be used to goad a smaller KD into war?Quote:
Originally Posted by Bishop
I cant believe you can give so simple and smart suggestion :) Maybe its can work best atm.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bishop
BTW Rock are you ignoring me? What you think for peace declare?
I promised to address this question when I got home. This is one of the main themes coming out of the mid-range kingdoms boiling down to two questions ?why do you Nap/CF?? and ?What happens if you don?t??.Quote:
Originally Posted by AlphaWaveCascade
Question 1:
I think a lot of the confusion is that when you play in a kingdom that isn?t in the chart race all your choices are linear, it is simply ?how do I beat this person in front of me?? and the answer is often simply ?chain better and hit more?.
In contrast top kingdoms don?t think that way; they need to think about how to beat their immediate opponents but also how it changes the positioning in the top both for themselves and their allies.
How is that relevant to the question you might ask? Well the first part is that CF?s/NAP?s are necessary in timing/planning conflicts properly so you can manage to fight at a time that is beneficial from both the perspective of beating your opponent and in terms of chart positioning.
This is a simple answer to a really complex question though, it also has to do with being able to put up banks and being able to pump. See next answer.
Question 2:
If we didn?t nap this changes the landscape quite a bit but there is a risk that one kingdom will acquire all the naps (except ours) but then grow past us while we are engaged (as mentioned numerous times, conflicts between good kingdoms stall both even if you win).
The other possibility is that no one gets all the cf?s and you maybe aren?t engaged. Would we still dice? The answer is of course, we have no choice. Failing to dice while others do causes you to fall behind quite quickly meaning you either can?t catch up or can?t beat a larger opponent. What it would mean instead is that we would constantly be watching for NW changes in opposing kingdoms (watch for build change/training up) and we would hold gold enough to do the same.
Again, this is a really simple answer to an extremely complex question. Quite a bit of Utopia is about effectively managing game theory on what is the efficient course of action with a balance of psychology in knowing how people react unreasonably(rationally) at times.
You are absolutely right about the ?risk? thing, that is one of the central themes of this game. The problem that top players are suggesting is exactly that. The problem at its essence is ?the reward from fighting other kingdoms doesn?t justify the risk so please fix this?. The problem lies at how strong dicing is relative to warring. We warred fury at OOP when they were #1, took 40% of their land and fell behind in chart position. That is an extreme example of why dicing is so powerful.Quote:
Originally Posted by rsjabba
That doesn?t mean anyone is saying that dicing itself necessarily needs to be changed. The answer to something being overpowered is not necessarily to nerf it, the answer could be to make conflicts more helpful to growth.
It is hardly a fair suggestion to say ?quit this playstyle because it has aspects you don?t like?. There is a lot to like about playing in the top, it involves an enjoyable multifaceted strategy that drives extremely intelligent people like dorje to continue to play this game.
The reason it is extremely difficult to deter smaller kingdoms is twofold the first is that a smaller kingdom is likely to have their kingdom in range of your smallest players (say smallest 10 people) but outside the range of the biggest 15. This means that outside war it will be essentially a full kingdom of attackers against 10, this combines with kingdom-range based gains to make it extremely difficult to fight outside war. Your smallest people get owned while all your top can really do is raze (significantly weaker than trad marches). Whereas if you can declare war, the entire kingdom can effectively retaliate.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bishop
The next reason has to do with timing, war tends to ?reset? relations. If you have a solid war win over another kingdom the conflict usually ends meaning that a war. Further since your full kingdom can fight and you have full use of all strategies it tends to mean that it makes conflicts faster. An out of war fight has only two viable strategies (A) AW+LL acres allowing a broader range of people to fight (only applicable on certain set ups and one of the reasons why you see rogue heavy top kingdoms) and (B) razing down the smaller kingdoms smallest one by one. The first strategy is not particularly effective at ending the conflict (in fact it can prolong the conflict since it makes the ?topfeeding? kingdom so weak at fighting peers) and the second strategy can take weeks.
A lot of the suggestions revolved around diplomacy which seems to be quite misunderstood. The ability to effectively end conflicts with diplomacy is tied up in bargaining position, without being able to war our bargaining position is severely curtailed. How do I convince someone who doesn?t like my kingdom to end a conflict on good terms? They have the strong position because the risk of me fighting for weeks razing them down is pretty low so long as they don?t take it too far and make us hate them . And what happens if I can?t get good terms, either my age is likely over to fight them due to lost chart position or I have sent a strong signal to opposing kingdoms about how easy it is to take acres from my kingdom.
The other problem is that the second strategy is very very bad for the game. It is a slippery slope to chaos when we start mass killing other players and makes the game no longer fun for a lot of people.
Another thing that you are ignoring is about who these kingdoms are; no one has neutral relations with everyone. Insolence is clearly closely allied with BiO, when they waved Rage the kingdom that benefitted from this was BiO. By making it so easy for a smaller kingdom to devastate the chances of one kingdom to win with little consequences you encourage fights to be indirect and unfun.
This is also directly tied to the way BiO reacted with ghettocats (as I mentioned in that thread). Smaller kingdoms not needing to fear the top leads to them griefing the bigger kingdoms. This leads to bigger kingdoms griefing them later. No one thinks this type of game is fun, it involves no strategy and little diplomacy.
If you believe this cured a problem that might be true, but I can?t remember the last time I gave away a button without intending to. You told us to ?learn to play?, the answer in my mind to this problem is the same namely to manage the declare button (woooooo makes people actually want to buy that hostile meter thing for their kingdom!!!).
The problem I have with your cure is that it introduced negative effects into the game as discussed above. I think there is an alternative solution that can make bigger kingdoms declaring smaller ones unlikely indirectly while also curing other problems: make conflicts between in range opponents much more beneficial and easier.
Yes, we are seeing a few kingdoms starting to catch on that waving bigger kingdoms is highly beneficial. Snakes vs Sanctuary, FTF vs Rage, Insolence vs. Rage (HoH vs Fury as well? Ghettocats robbing from the top at will?) all ended with the smaller kingdom gaining significantly at the expense of the larger kingdom that would not have happened if we could declare. In fact I have logs from negotiations with both Insolence and trollfags where they admit to abusing the nw range somewhere. There is also forum posts where Insolence states they were abusing the nw declare range.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bishop
I like your solution but would also like to see a move towards a more conflict oriented top (actually your solution helps there too since it removes the incentive to fight OOW for long periods of time ala Snakes vs. Fury currently). This combined with something like extending the surrender time by 6 hours (let the winning kingdom get the last wave thereby causing proper separation based on who is stronger/make war more beneficial to winning kingdoms) and making it easier to explore chained provinces during the EoWCF would make the game a lot more fun from my standpoint.
Dual button at max meter ignoring NW is too much. I also dont think removing GBP is unneeded. Removing KD relative NW at 50 points would be nice though. Perhaps reduce GBP to 50% if both kingdoms are hostile.
KD relative NW to 50 means randoming / waving within your NW range is more beneficial but it also means if you topfeed a ton and they respond you will not benefit from the reduced gains for more then 1 wave.
I would probably actually slide it in between 25 and 75 if possible.
The problem is more that it is better to eat the wave on your smaller provinces and keep the KD dicing then it is to get in a 3-4 day hostile in which you gain limited land. So I think the fact that top kingdoms are so napped and its so noncompetitive up there means that a smaller KD waving you slows you to much to deal with so you give free land. If you don't give free land you dont necessarily lose acres but you do lose dicing time.
I'm not a fan of punishing the loser more, I would like to see winning kingdoms be able to choose their reward, building upon the current system. Being able to select bonus land, honor sci etc would make winning a war profitable with direct rewards for your current kingdom requirements.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mal
I approve. <3Quote:
Originally Posted by Bishop
I agree with mal?Quote:
Originally Posted by Mal
I had thought it was a pretty rare (once an age) problem where a top kingdom declared on someone tiny. If it is more common than that though, then a 50% ratio is at least playable. Nobody uses multis to trigger farmwars with kingdoms 60% their size. One other idea I had though was that button hostility level could depend on the nw range; i.e., a kingdom 1/2 your size would take 2x as many hits (15 trads instead of 7.5) to go to hostile.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bishop
OOW fights massively favor a significantly smaller kingdom, because they get +50% gains on all their hits. It's really as simple as that. When you talk about kingdoms getting chained down in war, they end up with small provinces that anyone can pick on. Other than razekilling (which is absurdly inefficient, at 5% per hit) there is nothing you can do to stop it. It's impossible to explore up small provinces to get them out of range, since explore costs are x2 for chained provinces versus what they were two ages ago and also x2 in postwar. Kingdoms running cows contributes to the problem but since there is no other way to use pool that's not going to stop under current rules. One other idea I had here was to have KNBG (kingdom networth-based gains) by symmetrical, so hitting a kingdom 1/2 your size is -1/3 gains for both sides. That would then favor a kingdom bottomfeeding on one 80-90% their size more than it does now, but in conjunction with fixing province-nw-based-gains to make them symmetrical that could be balanced. Maybe.
Removing GBP oow would be a really, really bad idea. Removal of gbp protection is about 75% of the war effects, so you'd already basically be in war once that happened. Meanwhile raze is available oow (only 5%, but still deadly without gbp) while it is not in war. And the smaller kingdom can chain while the bigger cannot. The result is an incredibly destructive chain/raze/razekill fight, with none of the benefits you get from actually warring.
my thoughts exactly re: removal of gbp
Oh I don't disagree removing gbp might be a bigger problem than being able to declare, it allows big kingdoms to pick on smaller ones and makes fights destructive (basically the worst of both worlds). You would see a lot of dead provinces in general, but I would be a lot less afraid of a kingdom like Insolence :P.
Removing the range restriction at max meter and kd-nw gains after a certain number of hits would be sufficient. It seems odd that a kingdom should feel strong enough to max out the meter on a kingdom but not feel like they are able to fight that kingdom in war.
As previously posted in this thread:Quote:
Originally Posted by Bishop
Insolence waving Rage - free wave for Insolence
Psych Ward waving HOH - acres for Psych Ward
Snakes waving Sanctuary - acres for Snakes
I'm open to the possibility that three kingdoms lead by some of the most experienced leaders in the game who have consistently excelled over the last ~10 ages and are generally regarded as some of the top kingdoms remaining today happen to be collectively missing some giant loophole that would allow them to effectively fight back, but as nobody's actually presented one yet, I stand by the standards of The Zebra Theory (if you hear hoofs, don't think zebras, think horses) and think the system is not working.
I agree that the mechanics need changing, but I think it's also clear that the current mechanics do not work to promote a fun environment for the players.
Make it half max. Ask Maximouse how much fun his kingdom had flirting with the NW-range line.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mal
If someone is making 100 points worth of hits, they're either the most dedicated multi ever or they want a fight. Once meter passes 100, NW range becomes 50-200%.
I like the idea in a vacuum, but it's a very dangerous thing to have. From a diplomacy perspective, it makes a whole new set of issues. If VN waves Mercy and I declare Peace on you, can Rage wave you right away? Can Ghetto Cats wave me right away? It's a serious problem that is usually sorted by diplomacy.Quote:
Originally Posted by Elitbg
On the other side, if VN waves Mercy and then they declare Peace on me, I got pretty screwed. That would suck.
Can you explain it more?
Agreed, it is actually another example of the range restriction being harmful. They had to work to get into range to declare and won the war, same with ghettocats vs OS.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheRock
Any other questions :)Quote:
Originally Posted by TheRock
Ehem. However, why should in this disparate NW situation both KD's get button when they don't until max meter in range. Or do you mean that buttons SHOULD be available to whoever is behind after the 100 point mark regardless of KRNW and then both get button at max? The former, I am not in favor of, the latter I am in favor of.Quote:
Make it half max. Ask Maximouse how much fun his kingdom had flirting with the NW-range line.
If someone is making 100 points worth of hits, they're either the most dedicated multi ever or they want a fight. Once meter passes 100, NW range becomes 50-200%.
There is no reason my KD should have been unable to control the button, but we would have appreciated being able to chain with our first 8 hits. It would have made bringing mercy down a lot easier. Instead we were forced to max gain those 8 hits to drop their NW and then declare so it screwed our initial chains. Very frustrating indeed.
He meant the latter.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sheister
Peace prevents war? Very dangerous. Who would ever wave a kd with a bank? They'd just have the bank quad raze your T/Ms and then wait for maxed meters to drop Peace and declare.Quote:
Originally Posted by Elitbg
Letting people block war is a dangerous move, because it lets kingdoms control when war can be declared. What's the limitation on length of time in Peace?
Yes, allowing the range restrictions to fall after a certain amount of meter is a more elegant solution.
Pleas read my explain in page 10 before you comment again. I really hate when people ask me stupid questions and its your second time.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheRock
Its gave zero protection to smaller kds. You can start hit them and if they retal for few days range gone and you can declare them. How its good?Quote:
Originally Posted by Mal
Baaaaah. Long post, but that's the price one have to pay if you miss the beginning of a thread like this...
First, I am a big noob and a worthless player according to the limitations several of you in this thread have set up even though I've won crowns in the more competitive ages so those of you who holds the belief that you need to compete for the crown now to have any knowledge of the game don't need to read below this.
Second, even though this was written last, I do have to say that KDRN gains is a great addition to the current game meta since it punishes some of the earlier IMBA-strategies such as cows and province optimization which results in kingdom suboptimization.
Third, the current nw-range for declaration is decent since it prevents small kds from being vultured upon. This is especially true since there are ways a larger kd can take which prevents them from having to give up free waves to smaller kingdoms, but these actions are not something the top kingdoms enjoy since it would prevent them from growing at an optimal pace.
And finally, the main problem in all this is that everyone wants to keep all the advantages from their favourite strategy without having to deal with any of it's drawbacks hence a thread like this will always end up being a list of suggestions that punishes everyone who isn't playing like you do.
Anyway, here comes my comments, and oh boy it's a long list :)
As a complete "has-been" and someone who would probably be seen as a n00b by a larger part of the top players if they knew me... TheRock, are you out of your mind?Quote:
Originally Posted by TheRock
First and foremost, the conflict between my kd and Mercy wouldn't have degraded into war earlier if there had been a different declare range. I know that you know the game mechanics fairly well since you brag about it in this thread. Given that, you still decided to wave a pumped orc kd about the size of your bulk while you also had a huge cow who inflated your kd nw. Hence, you had the benefit of a cow while we had the benefit of relative nw gains. Your choice and it's more or less a fair deal. You also knew that we would have to hit Mercy down a lot before being able to declare, hence your decision to wave could look more like you hoping that we would give you a free wave because your cow was so large and frightening. However, your objectives with the wave is not important since the result, us finally declaring, wouldn't have arrived earlier had the nw ranges been different. We in Monument had some pre-war goals which included taking down your faes as well as taking control of your bank and the war was declared as soon as our pre-war objectives was reached since we had stripped you of enough nw at that time to declare.
Now, since your wave and our retals have been used by you as a standard for top kingdom mechanics gone wrong then sure - Mercy having a huge bank forced us to make half of our declaration wave as a normal wave because you were out of range but that's about it. However, whining about KDRN gains is just stupid. Why? Because you knew about it and still decided to run a cow hence inflating your kd nw and making it more profitable for other kds to hit your bulk than it is for them to retaliate. There is no hidden mechanics, no unknown factors or nothing except different decisions on a kd wide level and your kingdom decided upon the bank even though the bank also resulted in the other provinces being more vulnerable.
It does sound like you're angry because the current mechanics doesn't allow you to eat the cake and still have it for later. A cow grants your kingdom huge benefits, just look how you aided some of your provinces during the war, but any good game brings counter-play and your bank brings some disadvantages that others can use and abuse. It's called adaptation and is a trademark for good players so just please leave the Mercy vs Monuments conflict out of this discussion and treat Sheister like the good player he is.
That is, unless you want to admit that top kingdom mechanics is different from any other mechanics, and that any disadvantage to the current preferred strategies is illegitimate since it can be used and abused to harm the big egos that inhabit this thread.
Because, as stated above by many others throughout this threat the game is currently balanced in such a way that you have to stay on low draft and far away from a war build if you want to have a competitive province during the later stages of an age.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bishop
An easy answer to how a kingdom could avoid this is just to tell them to train up and stop using an offensive-heavy draft strategy. Given the right racial setup you could run 90+ dpa with armies home which would prevent n00bs like me being in kingdoms smaller than 75% of theirs to break their provinces. However, being that defensive would yield other problems...
...which is why they could train up and pump like normal provinces. Once a target is 160% your own nw then gains goes toward 0. Hence, a province 60% larger than mine with the same pump will be a worthless target for me (just like Sheister proved when he said that we failed over 90% of our ops towards the enemy bank) because the target is outside of our nw range.
This could be dealt with by imposing an upper limit where gains got throttled down. However, this would be extremely damaging to the game since there are decent kingdoms out there with 20 provinces or less who would lose a large part of their targets as well as the random biggie in a small kd who would get screwed.
There is also the matter of banks, provinces which brings a huge advantage to the kd while inflating it's size and nw. The the above mentioned matter between Mercy and Monument their bank counted for 25% of their size making them 33% larger than us. Now, Mercy vs Monument is a bad example in specifics but a pretty good one in general. It's sheer existence gave Monument a 10% boost on every hit, not counting racial or sci. Hence any prolonged retaliation war was a doomed endeavour for Mercy, unless they would utilize the bank optimum.
However, it seems that a lot of the people commenting in this thread seems to think that the tactic to run a bank is sacrificial hence the result that it's sheer existence makes a retal war less profitable proves that the game is flawed...
DHaran has a point in that anyone not in the top 10 are nubs in the eyes of the top. Just read this whole thread if you are in doubt. However, a lot of the well renown players who said something here thus far have showed that they lack the same ability to understand basic game mechanics as they accuse the average player of not having. Dicing and running low drafts are an efficient way to win the land crown hence they play accordingly. However, when the "average" player gathers intel on these "super provinces" and realizes that a lot of them are just yummie targets then it's the game that's flawed...Quote:
Originally Posted by Sheister
...so why not change the mechanics so that a warrying kingdom will stand a greater chance to win something? It worked before, as I should know, so why wouldn't it work now? And you don't have to do it the "hard" way, by switching declaration ranges or relative kd nw.
Instead one should decrease the acres gained on dice (I think it was TheRock that gave the calcs necessary, since all you have to do is make war far more profitable than dicing, so make dicing half as efficient and also that the winning kd get 5-10% of the losing kds acerage). Voil?. The best players who run the most efficient kds will have to war to win the crown and thus the top will be a much more active place to be in.
This will also stop the waves everyone complains about. A fully drafted kingdom with a small acre gap will not be a good target since most if not all provinces will be out of optimum nw range, and the kingdoms doing those waves wouldn't wave unless they benefited from it (which I know from personal chats with several members of the kingdoms mentioned earlier)
And yes DHaran, your comment about the pack being nubs might be right but it's still a bad comment. As proven by many others, even though I highlighted it above in this post, top kingdoms who run low draft and cows will and are getting exploited by smaller kds who wave upwards. This is only a problem because the top kds choose to run low draft and cows hence your classic argument fails.Quote:
Originally Posted by DHaran
Most of the players commenting here knows about ALL types of play, but it also seems as if several players want to optimize their provinces as if they played the game in single player mode where they don't run the risk of getting whacked due to poor defences or low nwpa.
But, given your own input then here's the deal. Bad players complain about tactics that doesn't suit their current one. A lot of the top players comments in this thread have been directed towards a problem which isn't a problem if they had been running different strats. By stating that it's laughtable that anyone pointing this out is a nub, you also make a fool out of yourself (and the worst part is that I did like you somewhat earlier since you used to post decent ideas).
A lot of big kingdoms run strategies which encourages OOR kingdoms to hit into them. Is that the game that's flawed? Is it the top players who know everything, and the kingdoms abusing the current system that's scrubs for waving top 10 kingdoms? How can you even state something like that, when there is an efficient way of making those topfeeding waves unefficient? You know what? You are the nub. Thanks.
I am in a small kingdom. You waved us. We fought back. You had decided to run a cow, hence you suffered from KDRN during the hostile and lost ground even though you did more hits.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheRock
I will interpret your statement in two different ways;
1.) You had a huge prov. That province could raze or farm us in war. Hence its bare existence would deter us from retaliating your wave because it would be unbeatable. In the same way, it would deter anyone from waving into your kingdom, given that you played a strategy involving low draft (which you didn't do since you were out looking for a war). However, the game is flawed since that province became a liability instead of an asset and thus something has to be done since you want that big fancy province.
2.) War is not as productive as it should be. At least not if you are the winning part. The problem is that provinces not in war will gain far more than you can expect while fighting a war. Hence the benefits of being at peace should drop and/or the gains of war should increase. Potential suggestions to this would be lowered dice gains once X amount of acres had been diced as well as your province being above Y amount of acres as well as a %-age of enemy acres being given to your kingdom to disperse as the monarch prefer upon a WW thus promote wars for everyone.
There is also a third option which you forgot to mention being keeping your provinces pumped and ready for war. It's simple - GB protection is huge when not at war. That protects your smallest provinces from being vultured on by a waving kingdom. Meanwhile you can protect your middle sized provinces by sheer nw due to nw related gains. If there is no profit in hitting larger kingdoms then most won't. Simple as that.
However, the third option is not a viable one since it makes you lose ground against the other kingdoms your size. So, how do one encourage it?
Removing KDRN gains, or increasing the declaration range, will not fix this. Gearing up for war is not profitable since wars are not profitable. jdorje tried to address the issue, but I'm not sure he dragged it far enough. The solution should be to increase the risks of war while making them more profitable. That would make the third option viable and the problem with extreme topfeeding waves less of an issue.
I really hope you intended to miss the point xD GB protection is there to protect a province from excessive targetting prior to war. If you want to chain someone then raze is still pretty powerful albeit with no gains for the province chaining. And making the dual button at max meter to ignore NW leaves smaller kds completely without protection especially with reduced KDNW gains since that would only promote prolonged hostiles.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bishop
What TheRock, and a lot of others, have been saying is that it's boring to be waved by smaller kingdoms and being unable to fight back. This is due to the game being balanced in such a way that dicing is more profitable than conflicts at any stage of the age except maybe in the latest stage. The above suggestions would maybe promote some bottomfeeding but it would not target the core problem - that of conflict not being profitable enough.
So why not make it profitable? Why not make it so that you gain a huge amount of the enemy land upon getting that WW? Meanwhile drop dice gains or increase the difficulty of the dice spell so that dicing at larger sizes gets unprofitable?
Suggestion:
1.) Upon WW, the winning size gains 10% of the enemy kds total acreage, removing acres according to how large someone is. These acres is split into two pools where 50% lands on the provinces directly in even terms (hence a 100 acre pool gives every province 2 free acres). The other 50% is given to the monarch, to divide as he pleases (so that he can either help chained provinces or feed his cow or whatever). Since KDRN gains comes in play as well as the declaration range the game will sooner or later land in a situation where the largest provinces will have to battle each other if they want to win the land crown thus making war a must do even if you're aiming for the size crowns.
2.) Provinces below the kd average will be able to explore according to the old formula during postwar cf. This will make it easier for organised kds to regrow their chained provinces and return to fighting shape.
3.) Upon reaching a size above 2k acres and having diced at least 2k acres the gains on dicing throttles down towards 33% of the original gains. This should not have an impact on the smaller provinces but will make dicing a no-go if you're aiming at the very top. However, faeries who are unable to attack (more or less) should have the throttle decreased a bit so that they can keep up with their kd once the kd grows large enough. This will also make the explore pool more important, since that will be the only efficient way to grow unless you win wars and/or can attack.
Finally a decent comment. Yes there is a problem that you can abuse the KDNR relative gains (even though some people amplified this problem by running cows, a legit strategy even though it does have known drawbacks such as other kingdoms getting better gains into yours) and the problem should and could be addressed by making the game more conflict orientated both in the top and in general.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mal
I do also believe that the option to gain a free max gain waved if timed properly is a strong incentive for the surrendering kd and shouldn't be removed. However, pushing that surrender button should hinder the own kd from making any more hits while starting a fixed 2 hour countdown until an automated surrender. Meanwhile a huge bonus for the winners, such as potentially 10% of the losing sides total acreage, would cause both proper separation and an incentive for good kds to war.
Risk vs reward someone? You risk a ton by taking a conflict to war and your gains could be monumental. Just make the other options, dice and explore, less profitable and even the losers won't lose too much compared to the dicers and explorers.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bishop
Make the losers lose land, just as they lose honour today (even though that part could be throttled some more), and the winners gain all that. The result will be more fights and a better dispersion in the charts since winners grow and losers stay small.
This will also give you the separation needed to make the game fun for everyone, without the need to remove some of the basic parts that protect smaller kingdoms from bottomfeeding, since good kds will automatically be up there (just as several already pointed out) while it would make it harder for small kds to exploit their efficiency vs weaker players due to their kds growing a lot from the victories.
Yay! A serious problem with an easy solution. Make it so that provinces smaller than half your kd average can explore given the old formula during postwar cf. Problem solved.Quote:
Originally Posted by jdorje
Back to basics, right? The current strategy employed by those kingdoms to reach the maximum possible amount of acres encourages them to just eat the wave hence they eat the wave. I agree on The Zebra Theory with the addendum that the extremely experienced leaders are intelligent enough to realize that they can afford to lose those acres but they cannot afford the time off dicing that a conflict forces them into which makes them prioritize the CF.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheRock
Why say that the system isn't working just because the top players can't sit and dice alone and untouched?
And we're back to you showing that you indeed are a nub. The war between Mercy and Monuments wouldn't have started earlier regardless of the current NW-range since Monument controlled the button during the hostile up until the end and Monument had no interest of pushing it earlier even if we could have.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheRock
Also, you knew about the current NW-range and still you waved. As stated above you either knew that we had to hit you down 1.5 million nw to get in range for war and was planning for that or you hoped we would give you free acres and now you're pissed because you didn't get them... Regardless of which we in Monuments where the ones losing out on the current declaration ranges since we had to waste a half wave to get you in range when we wanted to declare and still we don't complain.
But if you want to discuss ranges then why not complain about the dragon send range that prevented your sweet bank from showering us with dragons until you sacrificed ospec to get into dragon range? Same deal there - you decided to run with a bank which gave you a lot of advantages without thinking of all the disadvantages...
Yes, we got lucky. We got Mercy in range just as we achieved our pre-war goals hence we could declare when we wanted (or after half a wave being done pre-declaration but still). But still, we don't complain since we neither used the system nor abused it. If you aim at making it easier then increase the smaller kingdoms declare range once the button is maxed out to 200% and everything will be fine :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Mal
Look at the NWPA of the provinces in the start of each of those hostiles. It is dudes on 120 nwpa vs 180/190 In some cases the top kd offers a free wave when nap expires rather then rotating build even because the KD top feeding is only taking 5k acres. The problem is that the conflict is going to slow the dicing down / force them to train. I don't think it is a topfeed/bottomfeed mechanic as much as it is that dicing is ftw and stopping is ftlQuote:
Originally Posted by TheRock
I've known your monarch for a long time, we had a pretty open dialogue the entire war. You're completely incorrect about the free wave - we wanted a war and expected you to give one. Logs are being included to give some more evidence, although half were lost to Mibbit.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mordrek
[11:01] <therock> who is it?
[11:02] <maximouse> hawk is a huge noob for not telling you
[11:02] <maximouse> did you not ask around in abs council?
[11:03] <therock> oh it's you?
[11:03] <therock> LOL
[11:03] <therock> nobody knew
[11:03] <maximouse> hehe:)
[11:03] <therock> so we waved
...
[11:13] <therock> if you're up for a war, should be fun
...
[11:20] <maximouse> 1 serious question though
[11:20] <maximouse> why wave a KD out of dragonrange?
[11:20] <maximouse> negates the biggest advantage you have with a bank
[11:20] <therock> biggest kd in range we could wave
[11:21] <maximouse> you NAP too much:P
[11:21] <maximouse> I was kinda expecting you guys would wait till we were in dragonrange
[11:22] <maximouse> use the bank to spit out dragons at a crazy rate
[11:23] <therock> nah, we had hostiles
[11:35] <maximouse> btw, why the half assed wave? Did you think we would be stupid enough to hand you the button>
[11:38] <therock> uh
[11:39] <therock> cuz we're awesome!
[11:39] <therock> :D
[11:39] <maximouse> lol
You guys set three separate declare dates, and then on the third one, were forced to spend half a wave max gaining just to get us into range (per Maximouse). I'm sure you had pre-war goals, but you also got screwed around by the declare range. Given this, I disagree with your first paragraph - it would have gone to war earlier, since you would have used your earlier declare date. It wouldn't have been an instant declare, but it would have been earlier.
[I lost the logs from Maximouse where he mentioned the three declare dates, here are some other fun ones.]
[22:04] <therock> war time!
[22:04] <maximouse> it is?
[22:04] <therock> yeah
[22:04] <therock> we are ready
[22:04] <therock> you can push button now
[22:04] <maximouse> lol
[22:06] <maximouse> drop 11K NW please
[22:06] <therock> why?
[22:06] <maximouse> declare range:P
[22:06] <maximouse> new feature this age
[22:06] <therock> wtf
[22:06] <therock> you got yourselves hit out of nw range?
[22:06] <maximouse> you can declare 33% upwards and 25% downwards
[22:07] <maximouse> we were at 22% your size to begin with
[22:07] <therock> gayyyyyyyyyy
[22:07] <maximouse> orcs drop harder in NW then your dwarves
[22:07] <therock> odd
[22:07] <therock> it's almost like we ran 20% hosps ON PURPOSE
[22:07] <maximouse> if you wait long enough though we will declare
...
[17:53] <maximouse> seriously, stop gaining NW:P
[17:53] <maximouse> how can we declare you if you keep getting out of range:P
My wave and retals were actually not used as a standard. I'm not sure where you got that idea - I never really mentioned my kingdom in this thread, except in hypotheticals. Given this, I disagree with your second paragraph. When asked for examples, I've given the same three throughout this thread: Sanctuary vs Snakes, HOH vs Psych Ward, Rage vs Insolence. Mercy is not mentioned.
I'm actually not angry about our war, or even angry in general. I've actually left the Mercy vs Monument conflict out of this entire discussion. I'm not sure why you think I'd be mad about it, it was a fun war. I ignore Sheister because he does not respond to statements or take the time to read things that were written. I'm more than happy to engage almost anyone in a conversation, but a dialogue is a two way street. I don't see any need to spend time repeating my points to people who refuse to read them.
As opposed to me, who takes the time to read your post and then respond to each point with concise, fact-based analysis.
I did read it, you didn't answer the question in your post :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Elitbg
How long can you force Peace on someone? Until EOA? 96h, like Fort?
Also, when can Peace be dropped? What happens if I Peace you and 3 days later we want to war?
Assuming a 96h limit (because EOA is silly), here's some points...
Affect for KD A who declare peace
1. War declare is not possible for both sides! <--- this way we avoid all trap wars. POWER MOVE, but this won't prevent all trap wars, it'll only work if the Monarch gets on and sends Peace before the other side declares, which isn't always the case in the ghetto
2. Kingdom can declare peace only if his metter is x2 less. <-- Goal is if KD A don't want to fight back to declare peace from begin not to stall kd B in retal war for few days and declare after it.
3. When KD A declare peace they loss all hostile ops. <--Its for avoid abuse for keep op KD B and refuse CF.
4. Reduce gains from attack with 10% 10% isn't much - what's the goal of this?
Result for KD B after peace is declared:
1. they keep all hostile ops if KD A keep retal.
2. +4h attack time This is waaaaaaaaaay too big
3. +10% army losses.
4. Kingdom B get option to Force in game CF for 48h. <---good way to move on for both sides. This is basically an option for one side to make a last minute wave and then lock the other side out. Make it like war - you can force CF for 48h AFTER you go
What's the goal of Peace?
So you expected us to drop you into declaration range :) Then I revoke my comment about the free acres.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheRock
It's funny that you mention it, since we had forgot about the relative nw part until some 20 hours before we sat our declaration date and the discussions was more about the question whether we would create a dual button once at max hostile or not...Quote:
Originally Posted by TheRock
...and you gave us a really fun week with your wave, and it was a nice war so I don't want to ruin whatever relations and good air it gave both our kids...
...however, if Maximouse told you that he had 3 different declaration dates then probably he had even though he never mentioned it to his council.
And I only picked up on the "I'll give you two more kingdoms it didn't work for - Mercy vs Monument, when we had them just under 75% of our NW. Without our bank, the kingdoms were the same size. They wanted a war, we wanted a war, we both had to deal with things to make sure we could have the war we wanted." part since it's a matter where the system worked as intended regardless of what we think of it :S You had a bank, or rather still have, which inflates your kd nw and that gives you both advantages, disadvantages and... funny problems.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheRock
However, that last part can be addressed by returning to the former nw-range for the smaller part in the conflict, allowing them the "grace" to still declare even though the enemy kingdom is at most 200% their own kd nw size while retaining the protection the 75% limit downwards gives smaller kingdoms.
Propose on peace is to prevent trap wars vs 50+% bigger KDS. You want back old range but a lot pp say its bad because big kds can bully small. There come peace. Back range but let weaker kds to can make sure there wont be war.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheRock
For how long stay peace? Its relation to both kds. Ever if its eoa its don't matter if KD B have option to end all relation with force CF in game for 48h. Maybe peace can gone automatic after both kds hostile meter decay. Its solution too.
About make wave and run with forced CF. I dont see how you can get good gains on 50% smaller kd but there is risk yes. If you think its dont work well simple force cf can be removed. None stop both monarch to offer in game CF and accept it.
Basically 25% range for declare is problem only for top kds vs top kds. Its don't involve most from time rest. None in middle rank kds (if we don't cont mercy :P) make cows. They don't sit on 35-40 draft and they don't keep farm build. So no one will go wave them when they have much other targets in middle/low rank.
Only in top land chart targets is limited. If smaller but good kd decide to wave Big kd in farm mod is suck but part from game. There is idea to make range 50% for situation like this but you still cant instant declare. You need at lest 24-48h for draft/train and they will gain in hostile more land from what can loss in 48h war after it. So all this range change wont help you much if you are in farm mode. So its make sense only if you are in war build and want to bully smaller kd.