A number of mechanics suggestions

[Elit]

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.
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.

[Sheister]

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.

[Elit]

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.

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.

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.

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.

[rsjabba]

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.

[TheRock]

I seriously doubt that the top kds will now be unable to successfully play to chart because kingdoms that are, at a minimum, 30% smaller than them can dictate their age with ease. This hasn't happened with a wider declare range and I don't see it happening now. The argument that with a 50% range you could declare on them is just quite a lot of bull****, the gains would not outweigh dicing and would result in a net loss of acres so kingdoms that wanted to win would never declare down to 30-50% smaller than them.

Anyway, lets go with the idea that there is a valid point here - the tighter declare range allows kingdoms that are 30% smaller than you to mess about with you a lot. Why are you now unable to deter them?

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.

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.

[Sheister]

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.

[Bishop]

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.

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.

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.

"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.

[Sheister]

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?

[Elit]

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.

I cant believe you can give so simple and smart suggestion :) Maybe its can work best atm.
BTW Rock are you ignoring me? What you think for peace declare?

[Mal]

I guess the question becomes, and this is aimed at representatives of the top, if you did not have the comfort of NAPs/CFs with notice periods and hence could be hit at any time would you sit in Dice builds?.

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??.

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.

well, whatever else is said, it is very obvious that there are two completely different play styles happening ... at the top, and then everywhere else.
i actually like a great many changes listed by dorje. i just don't like that so many people seem to think dice needs to change.
yes, you are absolutely right that warring can set you back. you are absolutely right that pumping on the highest science possible at all times will give you more science than winning a war while maintaining a decend science rate throughout.

i think the most meaningful thing i've learned in and about this game is that no matter what you do, you're taking a chance. there is NO guarantee that you'll win a war. you take a big risk - you could win comfortably, you could come out more or less the same as everyone else, you could get stuck in a pride war and end up behind everyone else... you just don't know, except when you're at the top. behaviour at the top, if i'm reading this thread right, has become too predictable.
i still maintain that this dice issue is a player issue, not a mechanics issue. i recognise that there are probably more benefits to sitting and dicing than risking one's tailfeather in certain circumstances, when multiple kingdoms focus their entire play on it.

my belief is that in utopia, if you want to get ahead without limiting your own options, you need to take a risk. that means waving more. here is a hypothetical: stop dicing. if one kingdom continues to dice, so be it. let them crown at 40mil on their own. they can be bored all age.
alternatively, let them dice, play dirty and break your CF and have your way with them when they don't expect it.

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.

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.

Separation is fine, its pretty essential really. We dont have any issues with it. The problem we do have is small kds getting declared on and nailed by massively larger kds, this was quite a common problem.

I seriously doubt that the top kds will now be unable to successfully play to chart because kingdoms that are, at a minimum, 30% smaller than them can dictate their age with ease. This hasn't happened with a wider declare range and I don't see it happening now. The argument that with a 50% range you could declare on them is just quite a lot of bull****, the gains would not outweigh dicing and would result in a net loss of acres so kingdoms that wanted to win would never declare down to 30-50% smaller than them.

Anyway, lets go with the idea that there is a valid point here - the tighter declare range allows kingdoms that are 30% smaller than you to mess about with you a lot. Why are you now unable to deter them?

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.

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.

[Mal]

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.

"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.

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.

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.

[goodz]

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.

[Bishop]

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.

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.

[Mal]

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.

I approve. <3

[Sheister]

I approve. <3

I agree with mal?