Game Needs More Good kds Competing

[Lestat]

I just hope when Palem calls people ghetto trash he is also talking about himself.

[KuhaN]

Since I write so good things, I'll requote myself when you're silly enough to compare a hobby to when professionals compete: "This may be true for the 0.001% of the game that has no job and plays utopia instead. Possibly also for people that has a job they find no challenge in as well, so they measure success here. For the rest you should rather regard it as if a top hockeyplayer has a hobby he likely will not try to become best in the world at the hobby as his main focus point and where he puts his energy will always be the hockey."

You make a good point elurin. Although abs kds are not that active, theyre still solid. In order to get #1, u either got to beat them or join them. Since joining them would mean a round of boredom and coin flipping, you'd have to be super active in order to beat them (like beastblood last round). Making utopia a top priority for 2-3 months of a person's life is a huge sacrifice.

[KuhaN]

Anyways, i see two solutions to the problem(s):

1. Get rid of ww/honor rankings.
2. Make kd size 10 players. I don't know why full kds would complain, just form an alliance with the other "half" of your kd, and you can still idle in the same channels' etc.

The amount of action you'll get after making these two changes will be insane imo. If these changes ever come into play for the longterm, i'd probably donate like 100 bucks to the game also.

[nooblet]

nothing will stop honorwhores short of removing honor from the game entirely.
this would be a welcome change, actually.

[fwordz]

nothing will stop honorwhores short of removing honor from the game entirely.
this would be a welcome change, actually.

The amount of FSU kd's you would end up with then would be interesting. Gotta love the idea, remove what 360 out of 365 kd's play for.. Seems like a well though through buisness modell..

[blah]

I thought utopia was about warring??? I have always thought the NW and land charts were the lesser of the charting due to the lack of wars the top has from avoiding wars unless they can do some major farming in one. Exploring, whoring, dicing, lame as hell. CF here, non-aggression pack there, Diplomacy over there. etc... If you just use your best growing calculations and allies and diplomacy then you can run up to the top of charts and not risk actually having to take on a kingdom that might shame you by kicking your ass in war. The NW and land charts are what need removing from the game if any rankings are removed. The land chart means nothing anyway. The NW chart declares the age winner anyway from the past ages. I think rather than removing any of the charts there should be an overall average of the combination of the 4 charts. And at the end of the age the kingdom that has the overall best average is declared the Ultimate Winner of the Age. Or if you want to do the ultimate kill to all the lame ass nw charters who try to avoid wars unless they are lopsided in there favor, make gains oow like 10% of what you can do in war lol.

[jdorje]

The land chart is most relevant metric of success because it's the only one where you actually compete head-to-head with your competition. Winning honor charts means staying small, warring ghettos, and hoping you're in range to war other honor kingdoms; if you farm your opponents and become twice the size of other honor kingdoms, you've lost. Or, you can be the best warring kingdom on the server but if nobody ever wars you, you can't prove it.

As in any game or sport, many people will enjoy casual play more than competitive play, and there's nothing wrong with that. But competitive play should be looked up to by the casual player, not dismissed as boring and irrelevant - and this attitude should be founded in the mechanics of the game by making top play entertaining and challenging.

As a side note, I noticed an ELO rating suggestion above. I've been thinking about that for a few ages, and it'd be awesome. Each kingdom would get an elo (or possibly glicko) rating, and a war win/loss/tie would adjust your rating accordingly. The rating would carry over from age to age, but would only be shown on the kd page after the start of year 4. Rating charts would be optional.

[Ovenmitt]

Anyways, i see two solutions to the problem(s):

1. Get rid of ww/honor rankings.
2. Make kd size 10 players. I don't know why full kds would complain, just form an alliance with the other "half" of your kd, and you can still idle in the same channels' etc.

The amount of action you'll get after making these two changes will be insane imo. If these changes ever come into play for the longterm, i'd probably donate like 100 bucks to the game also.

10 player kds would be amazing

[tetley]

Sillcats (speaking of not tagging...) are one of the best kds on server. They can beat just about anyone, but they refuse to give any kind of real effort towards playing the REAL game.

Palem I think your post is interesting and largely correct but you are really only looking at the metrics of land and networth to determine what kingdoms are the "best." But that doesn't mean that a kingdom's good-ness can only be evaluated on those criteria...

I would say that sillcats DO try and war their way to a crown - but it's the WW crown ;)

Who's to say that the WW crown winner or the honor crown winner aren't just as "good" or as "top" as the ones at the top of the land/nw chart? Sure there are obvious issues with honor and with WWs but are there not issues with land too? What makes finishing with the most land any inherently better than an 8/8 record?

Edit: I wrote this from about page 10 so I missed jdorje's post where he answers this. But I think it's still something to think about. Maybe honor is about warring ghettos, but isn't land whoring a lot of the time about feeding off people who outgrow their ghettos?

Another thing I take issue with is this:

With the game more war oriented than ever it's absolutely silly to NOT try to war to a crown. that "With the game more war oriented than ever it's absolutely silly to NOT try to war to a crown.

How can you really say this, when there's basically a general consensus among the top 10 that warring slows down growth? Everyone agreed that pulse couldn't win this age once they went to war with mercy.... and they even won.

[Persain]

Anyways, i see two solutions to the problem(s):

1. Get rid of ww/honor rankings.
2. Make kd size 10 players. I don't know why full kds would complain, just form an alliance with the other "half" of your kd, and you can still idle in the same channels' etc.

We went for WW's before their was a ww chart. Honor is a tool, very few actually try to win the honor chart. 10 player kds would kill the game even more. Issue is finding good leaders is hard. Half the size means u need twice the # of leaders. You wouldn't get 2 good kds u'd get 1 kd good and 1 ghetto

Who's to say that the WW crown winner or the honor crown winner aren't just as "good" or as "top" as the ones at the top of the land/nw chart? Sure there are obvious issues with honor and with WWs but are there not issues with land too? What makes finishing with the most land any inherently better than an 8/8 record?

you cant FORCE a kd to war you, u can force ably take acres from someone. Forced wars would be "good" for the ww crown but would utterly destroy the bottom few kds in the game since they'd go from war-to-war-to-war all age and no one wants to lose 10+ wars every age.

[Pillz]

The biggest problem with building a kingdom now Palem is that it takes too much time and effort, and if it doesn't work you've wasted 1-2 ages, at a time where the game is already on its last legs. Twice now Magic and I have successfully put together 25 provinces and twice it has collapsed. A lot of ghetto players have what it takes to play in a top kingdom. They can follow the orders, they can make the waves... but most of them lack the commitment. Similarly, the people you are most likely to recruit to your "new" kingdom are former kingdom mates. Many of these people have stopped playing for ages, if not years. So here you are, trying to get back in the swing of things with all the changes, your core and leadership are all doing the same and you have to teach the rest of the drones how to play at a higher level while you're at it.

[Palem]

I know because i asked every single monarch in game last round (literally pm'd everyone, no joke) what they're plans are with their kd.

I never received a PM :(

Since I write so good things, I'll requote myself when you're silly enough to compare a hobby to when professionals compete: "This may be true for the 0.001% of the game that has no job and plays utopia instead. Possibly also for people that has a job they find no challenge in as well, so they measure success here. For the rest you should rather regard it as if a top hockeyplayer has a hobby he likely will not try to become best in the world at the hobby as his main focus point and where he puts his energy will always be the hockey."

So the successful kds are filled with no-life losers with meaningless jobs. Nice to know the kitties take the same stance as other ghetto monarchs who don't have the slightest idea what they're talking about.

I just hope when Palem calls people ghetto trash he is also talking about himself.

I've yet to provide anything to the contrary. I've defended my kd in saying that we at least TRY to compete, but I never once said we can on any legitimate level.

How can you really say this, when there's basically a general consensus among the top 10 that warring slows down growth? Everyone agreed that pulse couldn't win this age once they went to war with mercy.... and they even won.

This is false. Winning wars is a wonderful tool for growth. I believe Beastblood's biggest growth spurts were due to winning their wars. It's only when you can't win your war that your growth stalls.

The biggest problem with building a kingdom now Palem is that it takes too much time and effort, and if it doesn't work you've wasted 1-2 ages, at a time where the game is already on its last legs. Twice now Magic and I have successfully put together 25 provinces and twice it has collapsed.

I believe your failed rebuilding efforts are due to in large part to trying to revive a specific kd. It wasn't "Hey guys, Come play in this cool new kd!" but rather "I'm bringing Sinners back, and it's going to be just like it was". Of course it won't, things change. This is of course my own opinion. I built TFC from nothing and it only took an age. Whether or not you'd call TFC a "success" is up to you, but it certainly hasn't collapsed and it will prolly end when I decide to move on. My point is building a new, competent kd isn't impossible. You just need to do it the right way.

[Snp]

So much fuss about this...

It was always less popular among the majority of the people playing this game to grow,simply because imho its not about the end or the crown or tops,as it is more about the journey wherever people want to get,WWs or Honor or land...Its easier to play in a warring kd,because ppl`s needs to war get faster satisfied and they enjoy spending time on the game,whereas growing into nothingness just to get pwnt by some allied kds or by some luck you end up winning land/nw crown after countless hours of diploshietness and maybe a couple wars doesn`t sound very thrilling and rewarding because all u can do is to brag on the forums and watch how no one really cares as 90% of the kds don`t play for land/nw.

Alliances in this game were always a turn off to compete against and now it seems there`s only 1left with no competition,it`s not even appealing watching the land/nw charts,they don`t bring anything good to the table.The game doesn`t have a function for alliances therefor they shoudnt exist.
Idk how BiO won couple ages ago but props to them.

[Elit]

I built TFC from nothing and it only took an age. Whether or not you'd call TFC a "success" is up to you, but it certainly hasn't collapsed and it will prolly end when I decide to move on. My point is building a new, competent kd isn't impossible. You just need to do it the right way.

Don't want to offense you or ppl in kds but TFC is not real kd. Its kd setup for retired and inactive ppl not for real compete and play. Basically its very boring way to play if you want to play serious and you never can win any.

Didn't read any from other post but in general: yes there need more strong kds for better competition. To me main problem is relation system atm. Its need dramatic change or game wont become more fun soon.

[Elurin]

So the successful kds are filled with no-life losers with meaningless jobs. Nice to know the kitties take the same stance as other ghetto monarchs who don't have the slightest idea what they're talking about.

On several spots in this thread the kd I have created has been mentioned as the best kd at warring in game. I don't know about your definition, but I would say it's at least pretty successful. There is a good christian saying for people like you Palem, about removing something from your own eye before you try to do it from another's. You're so eager to accuse and yell at others that you don't take the time to actually see what people is saying and try to comprehend their viewpoint. My post states that comparing utopia to a professional sports league where people earn the monies to put their kids in school is plain stupid. It states nothing about the characteristics of anyone in any kd. That said, thinking that building a kd that can turtle and dise an achievement prove my exact point; let everyone put up their own challenges and enjoy fulfilling them. In my book what you have done is a tiny achievement compared to a random 20 prov ghetto actually winning a war, but I respect that you are happy with it and thus I gratulate you on a job well done fulfilling your goals. Do others the same courtesy.