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@Rimple: You say that only an idiot doesn't start with targeting the farm and warehouse when attacking a target? That this is Strategy 101? The irony here is palpable.

I argue that there is more than one strategy that can be applied it attacking a target, depending on what your goal is. Not to belabor the point, but in my guild, we go after 20,000-point targets BECAUSE they are 20,000-point targets. It makes no sense to reduce such a high-value target to rubble and drop the point rating to 5,000 by demolishing it's farm and warehouse. By then, you'll have conquered a crippled target that can neither keep resources nor produce its own defense. I'd rather have a small network of 8-10 cities that are fully developed at 30,000 points than 50 cities that are each stuck at 8,000 points because I crippled each target's warehouse and farm during takeover -- where's the fun in that?

As for your rant in the final paragraph using politics as an analogy... I have no words.

-Kaleel

You said it would add new strategy to the game for people to attack the farm and city hall, sorry but if you are at war with someone you are, in my opinion, an idiot if you don't start with their farm and warehouse! This is Tactics 101. In principle this idea seems good BUT it is countered SO SO easily it is a waste of time and energy putting it in!

Let me tell you about it...stud. Sorry lost my train of thought. Okay I want to attack someone who I suspect to have guerillas, I send 25 attacks at them, 24 of which are fakes, obvious tactic again, which one are you going to send your guerillas at? Counter number 2, I send 25 fakes at someone, if none of them guerilla'ed then immediately send my army! If they do get attacked, wait 12 hours and try again until the person is sleeping.

In concept I rate this as a 4/5 for well thought out-ness
In application this would score maybe a 1/5

Too easy to counter! Too much hassle to use! Too much relies on luck of being able to use it! Why not just use the new found ~ 4000 population to create ~ 4000 troops.

And let's face it, the first time it was used for realzies, the owner of the huge army would only whine that there is no counter for it (assuming the owner of the big army doesn't know any tactics) so instantly people will scream out for a counter guerilla troop, for the farm limit to be raised to 40000000000 to allow for this new 'death star' abomination the people will scream for, oh the men will cheer, the women will swoon, but no one will be happy! And why you ask! Let's look at it in politics terms, okay so labour are in power for 12 years, they truly, truly f**k up England, so everyone decides to vote conservatives, oh how they will change us, oh how we will have a golden age with a million children each and no taxes or pigeons! But nothing changes, no one thinks in the long term, they do one thing badly, then do nothing for three years... Awesome, how much money did you waste on your degree? Cool!

That roughly sums up how bad this idea is to me!

Wow, thanks for all the great responses!

@Vasasalo: I like your suggestion of maxing out the city size as a pre-requisite for guerrilla recruitment and training. I ddin't bring it up before because with a population cap of 23,778, a fully-maxed out city doesn't leave much room for growth.

So.... how's this for a thought?

[list]
[*][b]This is a new quest by Aurora: [/b]Once you max out your city on all structures, you will be awarded with an increased population cap of, say, 27,000 and the ability to upgrade your Farm from LVL25 to Bonus-LVL30 and City Hall from LVL30 to Bonus-LVL35.[/list]


[list]
[*]You also gain the ability to recruit Guerrillas (and there can be a series of smaller quests that have to do with commanding 100 guerrillas, 250 guerrillas, etc...)[/list]


[list]
[*][b]Here's the catch: [/b]If both your Farm and your City Hall fall below pre-bonus level standing (e.g., either due to demolishing or enemy attack), then you lose your bonus population boost and the cap falls back to 23,778. This freezes your troop production and you can't recruit anymore. You will have to rebuild Farm and City Hall to standard-MAX to regain the higher limit, then building up both structures to Bonus Levels to support your population:
[list]
[*]Farm LVL26: allows 24,500 max population, but pre-requisite is City Hall LVL 31
[*]Farm LVL27: allows 25,000 max population, but pre-requisite is City Hall LVL 32
[*]Farm LVL28: allows 25,500 max population, but pre-requisite is City Hall LVL 33
[*]Farm LVL29: allows 26,000 max population, but pre-requisite is City Hall LVL 34
[*]Farm LVL30: allows 27,000 max population, but pre-requisite is City Hall LVL 35[/list]
[/list]


[list]
[*]This creates a new level of strategy, because all your attackers will now be building ballistae in order to damage two specific targets: Farm & City Hall. In response, you'll be rushing to create Guerrillas so that you can ambush their incoming siege engines and destroy them before they can reach your city. And just to make it relatively fair, it doesn't matter if your walls or resource production fall to below max due to enemy attack. You just have to focus on keeping City Hall and the Farm at Bonus-level standing.[/list]


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[*][b]However[/b][b] -- [/b]although you may retain your bonus population cap if you keep up the Farm and City Hall, the ability to recruit [u][b]guerrillas[/b][/u] can only be activated when your city is in [u][b]at least[/b][/u] MAX standing. Hehehe... wow, that's evil of me.[/list]
Scenario:

[list=1]
[*] You attain MAX standing. You unlock bonus-level City Hall and Farm. You unlock Guerrilla recruitment.
[*]You upgrade City Hall and Farm to max bonus-levels, while also recruiting Guerrillas.
[*]You are attacked. Your City Hall and Farm are damaged to LVL33 and LVL29, respectively. You still retain the higher population cap (at that level) and you retain the ability to recruit Guerrillas.
[*]You are attacked again. Your City Hall and Farm are just fine, but your wall falls to LVL20. Because this is below MAX-standing, you lose the ability to recruit Guerrillas (but you still retain control over your existing Guerrillas).
[*]You build up your Wall to LVL 25 and achieve MAX-standing, thereby reaquiring the ability to recruit Guerrillas.
[*]You are attacked again. This time, your City Hall is cut down to LVL25 (standard MAX) and your Farm is damaged to LVL27. You can't upgrade your farm until your City Hall meets the pre-requisite of LVL 33. Your city is also overpopulated at this point (26,812 / 25,000), so you can't recruit anymore troops. The only room for expansion at this point is to rebuild your structures.[/list]

...did I make it too hard? :cool:

Either way, this should breathe new life into the game for those experienced players who might be stymied at the "find at target, throw target into chaos with fake attacks, hit with 5x waves of scholars, rinse & repeat" routine. Also, it forces the advanced-level player to [b][u]actively[/u][/b] defend their high-value targets. Flooding a city with the support of lancers & sentries just won't do it anymore. Now you have to planned a time response to the incoming attack because the risk of loss is higher.

Thoughts?
-Kaleel

That's exactly the kind of well thought out suggestion that gets noticed by the devs I love that idea and it's also believable that if you know your going to get attacked some of your men will want to charge out and counter attack

Yea. This would ad more troops to the game. Only 9 ATM...

I like kaleels idea of having guerilla troops available to slim down incoming attacks. Being able to intercept armies would be an awesome feature!

The last post is a good though but I'd recommend making the requirements maxed. This actually gives us a reason to get maxed out cities. As for races and heroes that's almost direct copy of a different like game. If you want that I'd suggest playing that game which is probably where your ideas came from.

I was reading the thread on archers and how they should be classified as rogues, and then I thought, "What about Guerrilla fighters?" They'd be unique because:

[list]
[*]They can only be deployed once you receive a report of an impending attack.
[*]They can only attack incoming forces, which means that they have to march out to meet the enemy.
[*]Because they use guerrilla tactics, the attacking army won't receive any warning that they might be encountering guerrilla resistance. In essence, the guerrillas would ambush the attacking army before it arrives at the target location. For this, it should be faster than knights, but slower than scouts.
[*]Because their main purpose is offense and catching the enemy unawares, their attacking force should be substantially higher than guardian.
[*]However, to balance the playing field, they should be totally useless if attacked while in the city (like the scout) and should exhibit with minimal defenses (with the logical argument that the constraints of being under siege in a city decreases their offensive ability).[/list]
I recommend the following stats:


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[*][b]COST:[/b]
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[*]Lumber: 200 (more expensive than Guardian)
[*]Clay: 200 (more expensive than Guardian)
[*]Iron: 200 (more expensive than Guardian)
[*]Population: 4 (same as Guardians)[/list]
[/list]


[list]
[*][b]ATTRIBUTES:[/b]
[list]
[*]Attack: 200 (higher than Guardians)
[*]Defense against infantry: 5 (like Barbarians)
[*]Defense against cavalry: 5 (like Barbarians)
[*]Speed: 5 (slower than Scout, but faster than Knight)[/list]
[/list]


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[*][b]REQUIREMENTS (same as for an Academy, but with max Stable):[/b]
[list]
[*]City Hall: LVL 25
[*]Barracks: LVL 15
[*]Stable: LVL 20
[*]Forge: LVL 20[/list]
[/list]
How it might work:

[list]
[*]Your city receives notice than incoming attack is eminent, to land in about 4:00 HRS at 15:36 PM VT.
[*]You highlight the incoming attack but instead of choosing to "reveal incoming troops", you have an option to "deploy guerilla fighters".
[*]Just like launching a normal attack, you are taken to a page that shows estimated travel time (say, 2:00 HRS) and ETA to the incoming forces (14:16 PM VT). You won't know the make-up of the incoming forces that you are ambushing unless you use "reveal in coming troops" or until the after-attack report (depending on how many troops survive -- see below).
[*]You click "Confirm" to launch your forces.
[*]They head enroute to meet the incoming forces and duke it out.
[*]You receive an attack report once that happens, and the results are based on how many of troops survive, similar to that of scouts:
[list]
[*][b]If 75% ~ 100% of your guerrillas survive, [/b]then you receive a full report of the incoming troops (as if you had used the "reveal incoming troops" feature) including how many were originally deployed, how many were killed, and how many enemy troops have survived and are still enroute to your location, as well as their army's attacking morale and where they came from (point of origin).
[*][b]If 50% ~ 75% of your guerrillas survive, [/b]then you receive the same report as before, but without the point of origin.
[*][b]If 25% ~ 50% of your guerrillas survive, [/b]then you receive the same report, but without the point of origin and original army size.
[*][b]If 1% ~ 25% of your guerrillas survive, [/b]then you receive the same report, but without the point of origin, orignal army size and morale report.
[*][b]If no guerrillas survive, [/b]then you receive a null report (like usual).[/list]
[/list]


[list]
[*][b]RESTRICTIONS:[/b]
[list]
[*]Because Guerrillas have no real defensive ability, you cannot send them as defensive units to other cities. This means that you cannot send them away to "dodge" an incoming attack. So if you have Guerrilla forces in a city that is being attacked, then you have to "use them or lose them".
[*]Because Guerrillas are specialized attack units that can only attack incoming troops (including scouts!), they cannot be used for direct attack against another city.
[*]If you launch your Guerrillas too late against an incoming attack, it is still possible for them to engage the incoming troops; however, the Guerrillas will be at a disadvantage because they did not have enough time to prepare for a proper ambush, so their efficiency is lowered (e.g., akin to their "morale" being lowered). The amount of efficiency points lost is a function of how little time they had to prepare (e.g., if they normally take 1 HR travel time to engage with an incoming attack, but you deploy them only 30 minutes away from the incoming forces, then their efficiency may be lowered by 25% points).[/list]
[/list]

In this way, they are not some uber-troop that replace the need for the other troops, and instead add a level of complexity to the strategic gameplay (e.g., they take up the same population units as Guardians, but having 500 Guerrillas on hand is only useful if you can respond appropriately to an incoming attack; otherwise, you've just wasted 2,000 population units that could have gone towards 666 Knights for offense or 250 Lancers & 750 Sentinels for defense, etc).

For this to work, however, I think we need to raise the Population from 23,778 to 25,000 to allow for the extra troop type, and I understand that this is a whole other consideration...

Just some thoughts,
-Kaleel

But why not add another layer to the strategy,

And I only called them commandos as it is a name we all can relate to.

As far as Herod go, think specialisation, you build a troop, and you train it into a hero, any troop type. But you need additional bonuses for each troop type to prevent the guardian spam. For example, lancer gives 15% attack bonus to non mounted troops. Commando (that's right) gives an additional 1% chance on each option. And so on

Currently scouts counter scouts. The strategy is in the logistics. How many? Where? Attack or Support?

I think we need more backstory before we can have heros.

Commando should be renamed to be era-appropriate: saboteur, spy, assassin, infiltrator