i already have it recording the new scoring system at the moment. it looks pretty cool so far.

much more interesting numbers and stats than the current system, and in some cases has changed the order of players in games. (Mog wasnt happy about dropping from 3rd to 4th but in the end there was another player that currently controlled more than him, so its only fair).

the big difference will be in Gold management, as all items would cost only Gold, and of course stats/ranking pages, which would show the new scores.

Id be willing to test this out with a group of people if possible

I think the games will be setteled a lot faster with that system. Someone will most likely grow too big a lead for the others to reach around ½ way into a game.

maybe, but then if its only half way, there's still half the game to take over, catch up and get ahead.

of course now, whoever steams into the lead can just steamroll whoever they choose and its impossible for anyone else to catch up.

I is not. With the exp counting you cant get as many points early in the game as you can late since there arent that many troops around. Killing some basic troops and take a castle early doesnt give very many exp while defeating a big army late in the game does. More points are given the longer the game lasts at present. With the new system it will be the same points for owning a castle turn one as turn 120

Me I have always been more of a Kingdom building player.

as for how resources are now look at the Proving grounds market place.

does that show activity from everyone buying or just me? if it is everyone then boy is the costr of material climbing or what! must be in that game resources are worth more than gold right now. I see that as a huge limiting factor.

all that being said I like your Idea of a new scoring system, just not of getting rid of resources

LOD has a point; I like the idea of factoring in territory, it does add a cool dynamic, but I think making it the sole basis of the score is a bit too limiting. As other players have suggested, a hybrid approach incorporating battle results (weighed to one degree or another) would give the ranking a big more flexibility. As to whether this is "too complicated," you can do all the calculations behind the scene and then distill it down to a single number if you like. As LOD points out it'll add some fluidity into the system, which keeps things interesting even late game.

I also have to come down firmly on the side of not getting rid of resources. As I've said before, some great strategy games have had only two resources, but then they had "resource nodes" which players could fight over, not individual mines scattered about the map. It may be a change to consider in the future, but to keep the game interesting and strategic it would require a redesigning of the maps and a whole mess of work I really don't think we want to deal with right now (let's balance the new barracks system first).

I agree resources could be "balanced" better, but rather than just say screw this I'm getting rid of them, perhaps we could try to incorporate them better in the meantime?

I was making a similar point to Req in IRC, LOD. Games would get really, really short, because by the time turn 60 rolled around, there'd be a great chance you couldn't catch up to the leader.

That's the problem with points accumulating over time...you'd have to take into account the time it would take to kill a person's troops (about 30 turns?) and then the time it would take to catch up to their resource advantage pointwise (another 30 turns?) So if it's turn 61/120 and you know it'll take you 60 turns to catch up, you might as well forfeit.

Well, it's odd how Req was making the arguement earlier that all resources are pretty much similar, since they are located in equal proportions around a map. However, he has given them different point values for owning each one.

Are they equal or not? What gave a quarry more value than a woodmill? I would argue the opposite.

Its even more odd that he talks about making the game easier to comprehend and then introduces this system of point I don tunderstand how its calculated does anyone else? Look at the rankings of the proving game if you are in it and try to explain how people with 2-3 castles and only played the last 15 turns or so can have about the same score as those with 16 whos been in the game for all 105 turns.
If you cant calculate what you need to do to get points then why play at all? Is it better to sit tight or to attack? Seems to be fighting isnt rewarded at all.
Maybe we should start calling it "sims, castleowner" and all be friendly to eachother

Req! If you keep this then you will lose even the few ones left playing, Im beginning to think that is what you really want? You lost interest in the game but dont want to just shut it down only make us players quit.

Last Edited : Thursday, 9 October 2008 - 12:54

I think Req did that so that there would be some point to having the different resource buildings on the maps.

Req, you have even more opinions here that say exactly what i tried to tell you in irc yesterday. To have the rankings based soley on one factor limits it in just the way that you saw the rankings based soley on exp flawed. I do think having a part of the rankings based on controlling resource buildings to be a great thing, but it needs something to balance the other side of the game which is combat. Right now you can kill troops if you want, but there's nothing there that makes me want to go out and have a huge fight with someone especially when i need to protect the buildings i have and really that is where a lot of the fun is in this game.

very annoying indeed...

Don't have the time to read all, so I'm not going to make any calculation from now on until the manual for the "NEW GAME" is ready .

For this to work, eliminated players need to go down at least to the lowest of the active with their score holding them above other eliminated players if higher or at least take a huge loss of points ...
it's the only incentive for warrior types to win against empire/kingdom builders with this arrangement.

rex

Last Edited : Thursday, 9 October 2008 - 13:02

That will not be a good solution TR. It will promote ganging up on the leader since all the attackers will gain one place when he dies.

Definitely keep the varying kinds of resources. They aren't that complicated, and having the different kinds really helps the game strategy.

As others have said, I wouldn't make territory/building control the sole score defining factor. Combat needs to be a significant score factor cuz much of the fun is in venturing out and killing stuff. Maybe 50/50? I wouldn't make combat less than 50%. The need to defend your stuff for more than just their resource value is a good aspect, but will slow things down.

If you are set on using territory/building control as the sole defining score factor, then I might suggest having the point value of all buildings increase as time goes on. Like @ the beginning a mine is worth 1 point per turn, is 5 points per turn by turn 60, and by turn 120 is like 8 points/turn.
Or, you could give increasing score bonuses every, say 20, turns. So, a mine might give you a +10 point bonus on the start of turn 20, a +20 point bonus on 40, a +30 bonus on 60, and so-on.

-Biodus-

The only fun has been to see how your exp grows after a sucessfull fight closing the gap to the ones ahead or incrreaisng the lead as the situation may be. Now I dont even understand how points are given.

Last Edited : Thursday, 9 October 2008 - 13:16

How can you not understand the scoring? Its so simple...

2. SCORE is based on points earned each turn by capturing Castles, Gemponds, Mines, Quarries and Woodmills. (Castles = 50 points, Gemponds = +20 points, others = ~+10 points per turn).

It doesnt get any simpler than something like that.


With currently running games, I had to give people a made-up score based on their current game position, how many turns the game was up to, and a set number.
Since the old combat ranking system was so flawed, its no wonder that players who only played for a short time but did well in combat (against newbies or inactives?) ranked so highly.
If they ranked highly in the old system (deserved or not), then they were given a higher score to start with. There was no other way for me to know who controlled what for how long, so we had to start somewhere.

This is only an issue in running games, not new ones, where the Combat rankings didnt truely represent who was controlling more.

in terms of combat, I will likely add points for killing stacks as well. Nothing huge, but enough to make a difference in a close contest.

wars are not won based on how many EXP you gained over EXP lost, but who controlled the land/key locations.

and if you think you can win by capturing a small area and walling up, i say go try it. see if other players on the map wont quickly overtake you.

it also wont take 60 turns to take over the top player. thats crazy talk. as soon as you take even just 1 mine away from a player, it reduces their tribute points and increases yours. so its a doubled effect.
so while you are attacking him/her, you are also changing the points you are both accumulating.

if you would attack for 30 turns and not take control of any mines,etc until he is dead then you are crazy and you dont deserve to win.

i know some of you are not happy with the change, as it takes the focus away from getting the best EXP+/EXP-, but after playing this new way for a while you'll find that it is fairer, promotes more expansion and wars.
its not just about typical RTS style build up and swarm, like its been here for ages.

I think somewhere on the game page, you need to be able to see how many points you are earning each turn. The "buildings" screen might be the best spot to put it. Rather than having to manually add up everything, we can just go to that page and see what we are earning for what we have.

Or, maybe the income page, where it shows the buildings you have, if you could add the point income you are getting.

yea, the income page is the objective. just ran out of time