Sounds like a good setup (What Req has suggested.)

I would include the ability to produce 1/2 pop stacks, with the cost of the tech to be able to build them, and slightly/somewhat longer barracks cooldown time than 50%. I wouldn`t charge extra for them tho, because you already paid the extra resources when you bought the tech.

-Biodus-

LOD, way too complicated. I'm trying to simplify the mechanics not complicate them.

Laur, alot of the items you posted are exactly what I'd like to change. No more 1pop retal exploits, or deploying lots of 2 pop armies to collect all the resource piles or flooding the map with fodder/blockers, etc.
All cheap tactics are gone, and in its place is the balanced combat like in Battles.

10 pop stacks simplify the mechanics, but not the strategy.
Its not strategic or skillful to deploy 2 pops to collect resources. its just taking advantage of the system. there is no difficult choice to be made there.

with every deployed army being 10 pop, it makes it much more strategic because you actually have to plan and make difficult decisions. there is no cheap tactic, or simple mathematical decision that you must do to win.

and yes, sometimes you will need a lower troop in the current turn. again this is a strategic decision that doesnt exist much now. do you deploy weaker units knowing you can deploy again very soon, or deploy the big guns and risk not getting anything for a while.
right now there is little to no risk at all.

with costs, these are just numbers that can be tweaked to match any system, so im not too worried about that.

this is a much much simpler game mechanic, providing more balance combat, while at the same time forcing you to make more difficult decisions. to me, that is exactly what makes for a good strategy game.

Ive played games with troopdeplying systems a lot more complicated than that which had several 100000 players in them. Being too complicated is not the problem with this site imo. It is the slow action if anything that makes people leave. Todays kids dont want to play a game where they move once or twice evey day they want a lot of action and fast.

I agree with you LOD,because I like it with more and quicker action during a 24hr. period.Req should allow for more camps with 4 and 6 turns per day.Most people drop out of the camps that I enter,for lack of turns in a day.And the game would be over quicker if you stick with 100 to 200 turns.I think peeps under 25yrs. would like a setup like that better.

6 turns per day means you have to log in every 4 hours to be competitive. who is going to do that? not many.

LOD, i'd like to know what Flash/Web based game that uses a map like this has 100000 active players.

I sent out 4000 emails to players who went missing, and many replied citing the complexity of the game as an issue, and the slowness.

This solves both. Its faster as you get troops right away, which means you can do things right away rather than wait for barracks to build up enough troops.
Its also simple for new and old players to play, without having to worry about production times, complex calculations, etc (which are pointless).

I would rather complex decisions and simple mechanics, then what we have now which is simple decisions and complex mechanics.

The fodder also has a less cheap tactic aspect when used to cover an advancing army that may be in danger of being victim of a second attack, but I think if this no limit on barracks will be a reality that we will find that we have the income and resources to exploit, I personally can still use full stacks of spearmen for the same purpose;

and if we will be able to produce half-stacks, there is definitely no problem, but of course we probably won't be able to reduce them more or will we?

PS:
Will this change be a long time coming or do you have it almost ready Requiem?

rex

Last Edited : Monday, 22 September 2008 - 20:21

No 1/2 sized armies would be the only other option, and you'll need an expensive tech to do it.

as for making the change happen, its still a little while away. this is more a brainstorming session, and to see what people think about it.

i really like the idea, and would like to implement it asap, but lets see what ppl have to say.

I'm all for it

Just one small question. Once a couple 1/2 stacks are deployed, will the ability to merge stacks still exist? If so, what's keeping someone from deploying 2 1/2 stacks merging to 9 and 1 and still using the 1 stack as fodder? I personally hate the 1 stack fodder garbage also.

I don't like either that 1 pop retail...but since is there I use it a lot...but that is only a small part of what will be affected by this change

anyway, on the second thought, since you want to pull one full stack(10 pop) of low level army per turn and currently there is an average of 2/turn growing rate for low level troops that means the troops will grow 5 time faster which means we will be able to pop up x2 units(using current system). So, in the end is only a mater of scaling the system to a different x2 "unit measurement". Cause if you want to keep the current growing rate, I don't think there are too many who will wait 30 turns to pop up a HC stack .

and hack already asked a good question...can we still merge troops etc.?

and if a stack is limited to 10 pop then it will be very cheap to get +20 attack using coms

Last Edited : Wednesday, 24 September 2008 - 13:25

hmmm, not many people have commented on this proposed system.
i guess everyone else must be ok with it. huzzah!

I think it's all ok then. Let's give the new game system a try

As I've said before, there are some things we can change and some that are simply inherent in the game; you can't expect people who don't have the patience or interest in a turn based strat game to play WOL no matter how fast the turns are...they're still turns! You could get me to play a video game for, on a good day, maybe the entire day (in my hayday ), but at some point I want to go to sleep or at least turn the computer off for a while: keeping me glued for several days is near torture, and as Req points out, really unrealistic to expect people to be able to do (kids have school and adults have work). It's a fun option to have but it is by no means going to solve our problems.

That said, I'm cautiously optimistic about the change. The "minute to learn, lifetime to master" mantra (or, more accurately, the slogan for Othello ) seems to apply here. There's nothing more frustrating than feeling like you're loosing the game because you don't understand it; people will accept if they aren't good at the game from day one, but feeling like they can't even play it properly is a serious issue. In chess nobody looses because they don't understand the moves (they are simple enough), they loose because their opponent simply moves better. Now, there is now way this game is ever going to be as "simple" as chess, but removing some of the counter-intuitive features seems the right way to go (particularly in the early game).

One of my frustrations, which I've talked about somewhat in the strategy forum, is how the current system penalizes training a wide variety of troops. Units like arbs, spears, swords, and even pikes are not worth devoting an entire barracks to and the penalties for switching them in and out (with fractional units and the new troop adding penalty) make them essentially worthless. With this new system I should be able to train any unit I want without penalty (beyond the training time).

I think there are a number of balancing issues that will need to be worked out:

-bali become much more powerful
-an all scout army will still crush any other combination of early game troops because spears need a numbers advantage to be effective
-Castle defense is buffed (which may be a good or bad thing...needs some play testing)

However, it seems a direction worth looking into more carefully; huzzah indeed.

seems like a really good plan.

if you want a way to discourage troop production within castles, instead of making barracks stop producing, or slow down, how about this:
squires (or other siege centered units) could have the special ability that if they are standing next to a barracks, any enemy unit produced within that barracks has a chance to be killed or damaged automatically, without retaliation.

simple, eh?

An ALTERNATE idea which is also very simple, but requires you to wait prior to deploying (like now).

Barracks earn DEPLOYMENT points each turn.
This is a set amount, but can be enhanced with techs.
(eg, 10 points per turn, techs could be +1)
There would also be a MAXIMUM points, which could also be enhanced by techs (eg, 150)

You can then deploy ANY troop that the Barracks has enough points for (you still need to afford the resources).
So a Spearman who costs 10 points (2xEXP), could deploy 1 FULL army each turn.
A Scout, costing 15 points, means you could deploy a FULL army every 1.5 turns (2 every 3 turns).
But something like a FULL Knight army, who needs 90 points, would take 9 turns to save up for.

So while a little more complicated, its still fairly simple, no decimals or tricky calculations, has a bit more flexibilty, and can better utilise techs to speed up growth/storage of points.

Thoughts?

im looking forward to the new change as discussed in irc , the idea of buying a half pop tech is good also for this change. since we can build unlimited barracks it wont be so much of concern any longer in taking a castle to get extra troop stacks on the battlefield .

That sounds like a better idea Req

pretty similar to what we have now except this cleans up the decimal points allowing variable troop types. I would still be interested in trying out that first idea and see how it works out.

I like having the ability of storing troops in barricks, thin IF I need them or IF the castle is attacked suddenly I can send them all out as full stacks and defend my land,

almost like a militia, I used this in one camp where my whole army was on the other side of the map fighting when a player who I had a NAP with decided to surprise me with an attack. I did not trust him so I had allowed the barricks to fill with un deployed troops, boy was he surprised to see the next turn 8 battle ready troops and 8 more the following turn.

quick glance it looks good. seems u could get more troops but resorces gonna be a bigger factor to get barracks and upgrade techs. not sure on the details sooo... so far looks intresting