I don't understand why you think the extra resources don't add strategy or planning into the game. As Neb pointed out there are tons of different choices that come directly from having those other 4 resources. Even your examples force choices that a player wouldn't have to make otherwise due to lack of wood or whatever.

I know a goal was to get more and more of the troop types being used in a game. With other resources being used or required it will help quite a bit in that respect.

With gold you can spend it however you want, which means you can buy marks or ballista as much as you want with whatever melee you prefer. With wood, stone and metal being factors you can't simply bring out your ideal army without a lot of planning out of your extra resources or even settling on something lower than what you wanted. So you then have to decide between what you want and what you can afford bringing about the use of different troops based on that decision.

There is no choice there.

If you dont have the wood, you cant buy it. No choice.
Same if you dont have the gold. You cant buy the Marksmen if you only have the Gold for a Balista. Its exactly the same if you needed wood. If you dont have it, you either wait till you do, or go for something smaller. Same choice.

Sacrifice an outpost for wood? Sure, if you didnt have GOLD, you'd still have the exact same choice. Wait, or sacrifice a building to get the Gold you need.

Where are these choices you speak of? I still dont see anything different.

"It's gold. You either have it, or you don't"
Exactly the same with Wood. If you dont have it, you cant spend it. No choice there.
Trade for it? Sacrifice for it? You have exactly the same choices with Gold. Where is the difference?

The "resource" choices you guys are suggesting are illusions I think. They arent really there. The only real choices are exactly the same if Gold was the only resource, only a simpler mechanic.

"Exactly the same with Wood. If you dont have it, you cant spend it. No choice there."
Right now if I don't have wood, I have these choices.

1. Sell a building that will give me wood. I used outposts because they offer the most wood. You wouldn't sell a tower in order to get wood.
2. Buy it at the market. This actually involves many choices, as you have 4 other resources to deal with at the market. Sell stone, gems, or metal to get gold to buy the wood? Well, if you know you're putting up towers soon, you may rather sell the gems and keep the stone.
3. Wait on my wood income until I have what I need.

Please note that I may have plenty of gold already to buy what I need. However, I may be short on only one resource needed to get the troops I want. Gold is fairly easy to come by. Stone isn't needed much except in buildings. Ore is essential to tech up. Gems are needed to tech up and are very hard to come by. Wood is necessary to outift a ranged army. Without it, your melee army may not last long.

You are proposing that all resources are equal, so that it won't matter if you replace them all with gold. I don't think that is the case...just look at the market in any game and tell my why the prices are different, if they are all equal. I'm betting the order goes (cheapest to expensive) Stone, wood, ore, gems...at least at the beginning game. You have yourself acknowledged that gems are more valuable by setting their price so high at the start.

Those are the decisions that we need. Don't take our decisions away!

You still have to be careful of your expenditures So the idea that a resource building supplies a certain amount of a resource that is more important than buying that same amount if enough gold is supplied to do so is all in yer head

and as far as "decisions" go will actually make them more difficult because you won't have a chart of the value of each to guide you unless you provide one.

rex

Last Edited : Tuesday, 14 October 2008 - 19:13

Neb, your choices are not quite true.

If you dont have wood, the choices are...

1. Sell a building. You wouldnt sell a Tower cuz it has no wood.
This means in the NEW system, you COULD sell a Tower for Gold. So you actually end up with MORE choices.

Do you sell the Outpost (the ONLY choice now), or do you sell the Tower instead to get the Gold you need. Difficult decision that currently doesnt exist.

2. Buy it on the market.
The market is flawed. Its based on the players that use it, and who floods the market first. Its not a true value of resources but a value of who bought and sold. Once a few players buy Wood, its too expensive for anyone else to buy. So first in best dressed as they say.

Instead, the NEW market will allow you to trade Tribute points for Gold. That's right, you can sacrifice some of your Tribute Score (and perhaps your current rank) to get some much needed Gold. It could save your bacon, or it could cost you the game, which is a much bigger choice.

3. Wait for more wood.
How is this any different from waiting for more Gold?

"Those are the decisions that we need"
What decisions are you referring to that dont exist in a Gold system?

You're making the change anyway, so why do you ask our opinion.

Just quit stalling and change it already.

Last Edited : Tuesday, 14 October 2008 - 19:42

sigh. he just said they were exchangeable.
sell tribute for gold.
the market choice is still there, its just compacting 4 broken resources into one, and making that the score.

so really, you don't just have 1 resource, gold.
you have two.

is it better to think of it that way? I think it is.

On the topic of the scoring system itself, I think it's a little dull campared to directly fighting for points and even may have an effect on incentive to play/win.

rex

TR...I agree with you!

neb is right req, just do the changes and we will silently shoot you

but please, when they are done, put them on the notice forum.

btw, this new scoring system already produced some very awkward results. One example, matrhb - Baron duel...hush...never thought that might be possible.

Last Edited : Wednesday, 15 October 2008 - 03:55

hehe fine!

btw, for those of you following this thread, here is a preview of tomorrows events. type the following URL into your browser while logged in...

waronline.net/game2/

Nice 10 points for that one

I like the idea of traiding tribute for resources; that really makes the game interesting, particularly duels.

My caution about the new system would be that we're making it too easy to train huge ranged (balista) armies; with the lowering of health (but not damage) melee just doesn't have the stamina it once did. If you're relying on squires as a counter just stick in some falsh (even scouts will do the job). Let's see how things play out, but I think down the road we'll need to tone down ranged a bit.

What, that I would be beating him or that I would be beating him and he still have a much higher score than me?

Wow, I can't believe you want to want to remove the resources so badly... the choices they cause are strategic and tactical from the get-go. Lemme see what I can come up with... :

-opening strategy. Especially in duels, the good players pretty much have the map memorized. Important resources are commonly placed in neutral positions, requiring the players to choose where they focus their troops to fight to control them. If you essentialy make all resource types equal as VPs, then a player can easily compensate for not having a high VP-output by having multiple lower ones. You can't do that cost-effectively in the current system, unless your opponent has been buying alot of a resource in the market that you want to sell. (You aren't just gonna 'come across' another enemy resource and take it b/c it is there. U are going to have made a choice to push @ a particular resource and take it. The other choice is to conceed that structure and push elsewhere.)

-tech and troop management. It's hard to articulate, but you need to make choices with your limited resources about which techs/troops you are going to get now or later.

I guess, the main argument is this: The different resources add flavor. Sure, there are very 'simple' games that are super-complex to master, but many good empire-management strategy games have more than 2 resources. And you don't want to give people too much flexibility! For one, it could make the game too 'complex' because people have too many options to choose from. For two, a difficult and risky "heads or tails" decision is much more engaging and enthralling than a wide open "pick a card, any card!" decision. And sometimes having no decision is important. If you screwed up and let you opponent get three metal mines while you just have one, you better d@mn well go capture one or do something else decisive, or conceed defeat because you got outplayed.

-Biodus-

Last Edited : Thursday, 16 October 2008 - 11:22

just one insignificant question req, what will happen with our current resource stocks?

marketprices will fall like the dow when the sellrush begins

When? I thought it already had.

Just a note Req...on the building page it says it only needs gold...however, if you don't have stone, you can't build a tower...or a wall.