A number of mechanics suggestions

[Netheril]

I really like these suggestions, I have to agree with them all except the wd suggestion. This age the winner gets enough in my book. I don't mind loosing a little land at the cost of a war win, especially when gaining land is easy oow(especially in top kingdoms where you have the proper naps, and enough respect to deter other provinces from attacking you).

[flogger]

These have been in the works for a while, but due to my inactivity over the last 3 weeks are too late for this age. Sorry! Please consider for next age - I reserve the right to update them until then :).

Acres incoming at EOA should be added to the provinces. This should definitely include attack acres and probably also explored acres. - AGREED

Bounces remain poorly designed in that they don't move the meter - one recommended change is that a bounce that sends x% of the target's offense should have x% chance of moving the meter by a full hit (in this case, a raze so it'd be 1 hit); bounces should probably also give limited GBP just as ops can do (perhaps an x% chance of a bounce giving the same gbp as a massacre/plunder/learn). IMPLEMENTED

Dragons - rather than having dragons fly away after 121 hours, make the dragon strength decrease by (base points) / 120 each hour; this would give partial benefit to kingdoms half-slaying it rather than making that half-slaying useless. DON'T SEE ANY REASON THAT THIS IS BAD. WHY NOT SPICE UP DRAGONS BY ALLOWING OFFENSE TO SLAY AS WELL. RIGHT NOW ONCE A KD CAN FUND 2-3 DRAGONS IT MAKES NO SENSE TO SLAY THE FIRST BECAUSE YOU LOSE TOO MUCH DEFENSE

A similar change should be done to plague. Rather than make it last a random duration with NB randomly curing it, make each plague a random level from 0% to 100% plagued. Each hour the plague level drops by 4%, and each NB drops it by 20% (alternately, NB could cause it to drop by 20% each hour). Having plague ?stack? is an option, but should be done via some clever math so that it can?t get over 100% plague ( newplague = 1 - (1-oldplague) * (1-plague), for instance). As a possibly simpler alternative, plague can be set as a fixed number of hours (12-24?) and NB just decreases its duration by 4 hours. SINCE THERE'S NOT MUCH USE FOR MANA FOR YOUR AVERAGE ATTACKER IN WAR I THINK THIS NERFS PLAGUE TOO MUCH, ALTHOUGH I AGREE THE CURRENT NB SYSTEM IS QUITE ANNOYING.

Propaganda should not have its returns be random. This is the only thief op that is random, inexplicably. It?s ok to have the troop type taken be random, but the number of troops taken should not be. AGREED

Being sat shouldn?t hide online status. This is a major bug. VERY AGREED

Losing wars is overpowered. Whether it?s a close war or not, the kingdom that withdraws first can usually get a 3-5% edge in land, and for good kingdoms with perfectly sync?d waves this can be 10% or more. People use it to justify losing a war, but the real problem is that losing shouldn't give you that advantage. My suggestion: change withdrawing. The monarch can "surrender" at any point after min time, this halts hits from his side but the other side gets to continue for 6 ticks (5 hours instead of 2); really the "surrender" should be effective the following tick so that if you "surrender" during the 2nd your kingdom can no longer hit after the end of the 2nd and the other kingdom can then hit from the 3rd-6th (until end of the 6th) freely. Allow a kingdom with a significant networth edge "claim victory" and end the war immediately at any time. A significant networth edge is a 20% improvement in the nw ratio from war start to end; i.e., "(kd1_nw_current / kd2_nw_current) / (kd1_nw_warstart / kd2_nw_warstart) >= 1.2" allows kd1 to "claim victory" at any time (this shows as a win). Either remove MP or have it count as a tie on the kd page (currently it counts as a loss, and offering MP gives the other side the chance to either laugh at you or accept it at a time of their choosing, so there's little reason for anyone to ever use it). I AGREE THIS IS AN IMPROVEMENT BUT NOT PERHAPS THE BEST WE CAN DO.

Repeatable spells - specifically paradise, tree of gold, fireball, tornado - should remain as the default spell even after a successful cast. It would be harmless for all spells to behave this way. (Thief ops already do work this way.) DEFINITELY AGREED

Thief gains capping should be done before bonuses or penalties to thief gains. Specifically this applies to the bonuses from watchtowers (-x% losses on successful ops) and some race bonuses (+40% thief sabotage gains). Currently these mods are applied pre-cap, meaning that the maximum amount of sabotage gains is unchanged by them; +40% gains just means you need to send fewer thieves while opping into wts just means you need to send more thieves, to get maxed gains. This is basically a bug that makes such mods nearly worthless. I 100% WHOLEHEARTEDLY AGREE. PEOPLE ARE POSTING IN THE STRATEGY SECTION AND TALKING ABOUT WATCHTOWERS AND BEING GOOD. I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH I DON'T THINK THE POWERS THAT BE QUITE UNDERSTAND HOW USELESS THE CURRENT CALCULATION ON SABOTAGE GAINS EITHER THROUGH WT'S OR THROUGH THE RACIAL BONUSES ARE USELESS BECAUSE OF THE WAY ITS CALCULATED, AND FURTHER, NO PERSON STARTING THE GAME WOULD READ IT TO WORK AS ITS CURRENTLY CALCULATED. THE CURRENT WAY IT NEEDS TO BE DESCRIBED AS + OR - "GAINS PER THIEF". THE REASON THIS IS USELESS IS BECAUSE WE HAVE THIEVES DENS AND DOUBLY EFFECTIVE THIEVES DENS THAT MAKE THIEF LOSSES ALMOST NOTHING. IT DOES NOT MATTER TO A THIEF WHETHER SOMEONE HAS WT'S BECAUSE HE CAN JUST SEND MORE THIEVES WITH NO LOSSES. ALTERNATIVELY A +SABOTAGE RACE DOESN'T CARE IF IT SENDS LESS THIEVES BECAUSE IT HAS LESS LOSSES. INTERESTINGLY, UNDER CURRENT CODING YOU LOSE MORE THIEVES ON SUCCESSES THAN WITH FAILS, WHICH IS A BUG. TD'S SHOULD LOWER THE THIEVES LOST ON SUCCESSES, OR FOR MORE SIMPLE CODING GET RID OF THIEF LOSSES ON SUCCESSES ALTOGETHER.

The 50-200% declare range limitation needs to be removed. This was added solely to prevent fakewarring, at the cost of worse gameplay. Fakewarring was removed but this limitation was left in by accident. This qualifies as a bug, and should take just a few seconds to fix.

I'M NOT SURE HOW I FEEL ABOUT THIS. I WAS INITIALLY AGAINST THIS AUTOMATIC BUTTON SITUATION BECAUSE I THOUGHT IT WOULD LEAD TO AUTOMATIC FARMING, HOWEVER THAT HASN'T HAPPENNED, YET. I BELIEVE THE REASON IT HAS NOT (AT THE TOP LEVELS) HAS TO DO WITH YOUR NEXT POST OF WARS NOT BENEFITTING GROWTH. I BELIEVE THE IDEAL SOLUTION INVOLVES HAVING DAMAGE OPS COUNT TOWARDS THE METER AT A RATE OF 10-20 OPS PER POINT, AND INSTEAD OF THROTTLING AT 100 POINTS, THE KINGDOM DOWN HAS A SURRENDER OPTION THAT LASTS FOR 2 WEEKS IF THE KINGDOMS ARE 75% OF EACHOTHERS NETWORTHS OR UNTIL END OF AGE IF NOT. (CALCULATED AS AUTOMATICALLY DROPPING YOU OUT OF THE CEASEFIRE AFTER 2 WEEKS WHENEVER THE TWO KDS ARE WITHIN 75% OF NW) HOWEVER I THINK THESE NETWORTH CALCULATIONS SHOULD BE A WEIGHTED CALCULATION OF LAND AND NW, OR JUST LAND BASED, NETWORTH IS TOO EASILY MANIPULATABLE)

The way growth works currently makes most wars among top kingdoms unproductive. Repeatedly, players have complained about this and suggested changes, but the majority of these changes fail to account for the necessity of growth. The following changes should address this:
* Grow the pool of each kingdom by 125 acres/hour (or, 5 acres/hour for every province).
* Diced acres come ENTIRELY from the pool. If there are no pool acres, paradise is not available. Double the power of dice (giving 10 acres on average), but make it require more guilds than it does now.
* In war, 10% ?pool gains? come out of your own pool.
* Remove the exponent on the explore formula, completely. This makes explore costs linear. In its place, add another straight multiplier. ?MAX(1, acres / (2000 + 10*tick)?. This makes explore growth straight linear, until you pass a certain point when it starts increasing linearly. Cows will not be impossible, but there is a significant cost to doing them - and note that, unlike before, cow growth comes directly out of your kingdom acres. AGREED WITH MOST, BUT I SAY TAKE THE POOL GAINS COMPLETELY OUT OF THE WAR EQUATION. ALLOW ANY PROVINCE IN EOW PROTECTION TO AID ACRES TO THOSE <75% OF THE KD MEDIAN ACREAGE UP TO THE POINT OF 75% KD MEDIAN ACREAGE

See my responses in bold behind each suggestion. Last Change: Someone explain to me why we have networth based gain formulas. If I make my province better by maximizing everything and making more homes for more troops, or affording more science, why should I be penalized by having lesser gains hitting provinces that did not do what I did. In the olden days Mehul seemed to go back and forth between land based and Networth based gains, I suppose not really settling on one or the other. I've long since thought land based gains made much more sense.

[ata]

Someone explain to me why we have networth based gain formulas. If I make my province better by maximizing everything and making more homes for more troops, or affording more science, why should I be penalized by having lesser gains hitting provinces that did not do what I did. In the olden days Mehul seemed to go back and forth between land based and Networth based gains, I suppose not really settling on one or the other. I've long since thought land based gains made much more sense.

I believe utopia originally moved to nw-based gains because the game was boring with land-based gains: too much pumping. We *could* go back to land-based gains, fix the pumping problem somehow, and then rebalance whatever is broken (war spoils, homes, pop bonuses, science, 0/6 spec, ops that lower target's NW), but that seems like a large cost for an uncertain gain.

Also, note that gains are somewhat land-based right now. The current gains formula is a function of both land and networth.

I think you need a better argument for how the game would be better with land-based gains than "I should be rewarded for being good at spreadsheeting". I think you need to explain why the game would be more balanced and/or fun. I know i've seen you post about land gains in more detail, but I can't find it.


Personally, I don't think nw-based gains are particularly broken. I'm much more concerned about fixing the relations system, honor and science.

[goodz]

I believe utopia originally moved to nw-based gains because the game was boring with land-based gains: too much pumping. We *could* go back to land-based gains, fix the pumping problem somehow, and then rebalance whatever is broken (war spoils, homes, pop bonuses, science, 0/6 spec, ops that lower target's NW), but that seems like a large cost for an uncertain gain.

Also, note that gains are somewhat land-based right now. The current gains formula is a function of both land and networth.

I think you need a better argument for how the game would be better with land-based gains than "I should be rewarded for being good at spreadsheeting". I think you need to explain why the game would be more balanced and/or fun. I know i've seen you post about land gains in more detail, but I can't find it.


Personally, I don't think nw-based gains are particularly broken. I'm much more concerned about fixing the relations system, honor and science.

NW based gains works because if your more pumped you will have less acres then your target. Therefore your 1500 acre province will be hitting say a 1200 acre province. You will take 12% of 1500 and have better gains.

With just land based gains you keep attacking age long, just bottomfeeding all teh time. I think the general public disliked this. I would be ok with land based gains returning if you got 0% gains hitting a KD 30% bigger/smaller then yours so you couldnt just bottomfeed all age. But really I think NW based gains is better for the game. Results in more conflict in the top and provides smaller kingdoms more protection.

With land based gains why attack someone near your size when you can quad tap someone 4x smaller then you for the same gains and no fear of retaliation?

[theRizzler]

I loved these suggestions. I don't have time to go into detail right now, but I wanted to discuss a couple of them further. I'll edit this post shortly to add some points.

[Mal]

I see Utopia as having one major current flaw and that is the strength of dicing relative to attacking and lack of viability in attacking up.

Ideally any kingdom with 5 well played provinces should be able to place those provinces within the top20 land/nw. The question is how to do this effectively.

The first comment is that there is a need for care with any rebalancing because significant damage has been caused by recent changes to exploring. Exploring brought acres into the game which was a good thing. A good first step would be a reversion to the previous exploring formula. We should be aware that when we make a change to combat one perceived issue (explore with cows for example) that it affects the game in a multitude of ways.

That being said what is the best solution to this? The first is that we need to make wars more viable relative to paradicing (dorje suggestion is okay here). The second is that the game needs more acres flowing upwards. This can be done by making exploring more viable but also by making wars more effective thereby increasing their frequency. The final is that troop nw should be rebalanced (I believe decreasing nw of offence by 20% and defence by 5% would be effective at making attacking more attractive). It makes no sense that you can get your province to a point where no one can get good gains off you due to extremely high defence relative to nw (currently possible with faery).

Another personal pet peeve is the degree to which we have protected weaker kingdoms. Relying on a fixed and rigid game play system for this type of thing weakens the game. It makes sense to do things diplomatically. Today there is too much diplomacy on the top (due to the strength of paradicing relative to wars) and not enough through the game. People should be encouraged to ask for support from larger friends if they are being unfairly targetted. This isn't specific and it can be taken too far but ideally I'd like to see smaller kingdoms move the meter less than bigger kingdoms but remove declare range restrictions (e.g. a kingdom 50% your size hits you gives 80% the meter points).

I would also like to see more t/m ops and honor gains OOW but weakened (no meteor showers). This should be combined with it moving the meter as has been suggested. This encourages a balanced province and makes thieves and mages more viable. This cannot be taken alone as allowing people to run provinces in ghetto's to constantly t/m op bigger kingdoms would cause significant grief.

~Jackson

[jdorje]

Making dicing more expensive is going to have exactly the opposite effect of what we want. First of all, if it's more expensive but still the same amount of growth, it doesn't make warring any more viable than it is now. And secondly, since the only people you can hit are dicers, attacking up would become even harder than it is now. End result? Dicing kingdoms pull away faster.

What the game needs isn't harder growth, it's easier growth, starting with exploration being fixed (this is such a no-brainer, I don't really see why I keep repeating it - it was a no-brainer from the moment the new change was introduced). But to make war viable early on, what's needed is for lost growth acres (dicing) not to be lost.

In short, all the changes I propose here are still relevant. I've made a few updates, but the biggest changes (fixing exploration, having dicing come from a larger pool) remain the same.

[Xanthus]

I have to agree with jdorje...This is a STRATEGY BASED game...its on the login page as such.

[Ethan]

Reminded of how explore costs should be changed. Like the general idea, had a slick formula to do everything I wanted it to somewhere. Key point was making explore cost depend in part on *how fast* you were growing - 5% daily growth > 2x 2.5% daily growth. I'll see if I can turn up the old idea and clean out some of the extra math's it needed without allowing an exploit sometime this week.

[E_Boko]

beautiful changes dorje. i hope the devs read this list.

[TheRock]

SO MUCH SENSE WAS MADE IN THIS POST

Anyone who disagrees with any of these suggestions is wrong.

[ZeroCool]

Well there really needs to be done some major changes to the game and I think these suggestions are a good step in the right direction for that.

[Thunder TA]

The only thing i dont really like is the added time after a surrender that a kd can get hit.If your watching you can tell a kd has thrown in the towel and you can get your hits in over the 2 hours .Making it longer is just giving them a exta wave normally that isnt really needed.Alot of kingdoms are not going to want to take a wave for more hours while sitting there not being able to attack.Newer players will quit because of it.Being told they cant attack while taking a 10-15 province chain for 5 hours isnt to fun for most.

[goodz]

jdorje easily your best sugg i have read was to change formulas so they multiplied differently. Its not included in this post which includes many changes that really are not very important to how the game is played by most of the community.

A majority of them only affect the top 4-5 because they prevent them from growing away :P

[jdorje]

That change was longer than all the rest combined, and for the most part not as important. I'll add it to the list later though. The most important thing is to make top play competitive by fixing growth mechanics - this may only affect 10 kingdoms and 250 people, but it's something that everyone else watches and should be aspiring to, if the mechanics didn't make it so boring.