Chaos change and attack change

[Vasasalo]

Really think its funny how people try to get a dev or admin to act on a suggestion just because you threaten to leave. Do you expect that they'll jump to do what ever you want because you, on your tiny virtual world, and your "number of big players" (which honestly probably only attack barbs and have a kill score of less then 100k threaten to leave) threaten to bail on a great game? Although I'm sure they value you as a member of their society threats really don't get anyone any solutions. If you want to leave then leave and stop bluffing. That will give other players that cry less when their words aren't jumped at more things to do by conquering your cities when they go barb.

Opinions are like @ssholes. Everyone has one. Just some stink worse than others.

[Naita]

Lmao .... I guess this thread that was aimed at improving the game just went feral ... Thanks everyone for your helpful suggestions ... My comments about leaving the game weren't threats they were concerns that I will be losing comrades that are good players due to frustration with the pace of play. I make the comment to emphasise that the chaos issue is important.

Anyway, i hope our troll leaves us to get on with discussing this in peace... But I doubt it

[Naita]

By the way .... My ksa is 2.1m

[Orlor]

Lets get this thread back on track please. Lots of good information and suggestions/ideas in here about the chaos mechanic.

[Brendone33]

My input is that chaos sucks. Honestly, what do you think lags a server more, someone occasionally getting attacked by more then 40 waves, or dozens of players with 30+ cities each chaosing each other in a massive guild war? In world 25, our guild made it standard policy in guild war to chaos target cities just so that their allies couldn't. The three warlords of our guild recently quit that world (for your information, we ranked one, two and three for KSA and never were out of top 5 overall) purely based on how slow the game was running for us and how frustrated we were with chaos from enemy guilds, and our players having to fight fire with fire and needing chaos as well (how else do you counter being attacked from a player who has every one of his cities in constant chaos?)

Onto my suggestion:

Limit the number of troop commanders. Every city starts with one troop commander. Each troop commander should be significantly more expensive then the previous. Say something like this:

second commander is 50 each res
3rd 100 of each res
4th 250 (and so on)
5th 500
6th 1000
7th 2000
8th 4000
9th 8000
10th 16000
11th 32000
12th 64000
13th 125,000
14th 250,000
15th 500,000 each res

There is no reason a city should need more then 15 troop commanders, and at least it would take more cities to provide chaos (make it less possible to chaos people). My other suggestion would be that troop commanders reset to 1 when you conquer a city (they were loyal to the previous player) so you have to recruit new ones when you get a city. Its quick to get back up to operable status (first 5 commanders are cheap) but would require a lot of investment to get 15 commanders in a city.

[Asplundh]

At the Company Commander's at Fort Benning, GA, is the mid 1970s, the doctrine called for an 8:1 numerical superiority when attacking a strong, fixed defensive position. I suggest a modification of this doctrine, but still at the 8:1 ratio. If the defender has 1000 each of Lancers, Sentries, Zerx, Knights, Guardians; 500 each of Scouts, Rams, Ballista; and 8 Scholars in defense, the Chaos does not ensue until the attacker launches at total of 8000 each of Lancers, Sentries, Zerx, Knights, Guardians; 4000 each of Scouts, Rams, Ballista; and 64 Scholars in however many assault waves it takes to achieve these numbers. Withdrawal of any wave reduces the total number by the number of troops in the recalled wave, thus delaying Chaos until the 8:1 ration is achieved. Chaos remains until the city is captured or the assaulting forces are destroyed.

[Stark Bledfast]

At the Company Commander's at Fort Benning, GA, is the mid 1970s, the doctrine called for an 8:1 numerical superiority when attacking a strong, fixed defensive position. I suggest a modification of this doctrine, but still at the 8:1 ratio. If the defender has 1000 each of Lancers, Sentries, Zerx, Knights, Guardians; 500 each of Scouts, Rams, Ballista; and 8 Scholars in defense, the Chaos does not ensue until the attacker launches at total of 8000 each of Lancers, Sentries, Zerx, Knights, Guardians; 4000 each of Scouts, Rams, Ballista; and 64 Scholars in however many assault waves it takes to achieve these numbers. Withdrawal of any wave reduces the total number by the number of troops in the recalled wave, thus delaying Chaos until the 8:1 ration is achieved. Chaos remains until the city is captured or the assaulting forces are destroyed.

The problem is that this would make chaos even easier.

You need to defend your city? Just keep 1 lancer in it, and send a single wave of 8 lancers at it. You are now in chaos.

[Kaleel]

@Brendone33: I like your suggestion. This makes war more realistic and players will be less trigger-happy when they realize that it's not enough just to spend resources to recruit troops, but that you also have to spend resources to train the necessary commanders as well. And while I like the exponential cost structure (it keeps players on their toes about how to manage their resources), to reduce the mercurial nature of commander acquisition, may I suggest that they be obtained five at a time per the following cost matrix:

[TABLE="class: grid, width: 592"]
[TR]
[TD]Purchase #
[/TD]
[TD]# of Troop Commanders
[/TD]
[TD]Resource Cost
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]0[/TD]
[TD](1st 5) 1 ~ 5[/TD]
[TD]Free - default with every city[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD](2nd 5) 6 ~ 10[/TD]
[TD]10,000 of each resource[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]2[/TD]
[TD](3rd 5) 11 ~ 15[/TD]
[TD]50,000 of each resource[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]3[/TD]
[TD](4th 5) 16 ~ 20[/TD]
[TD]100,000 of each resource[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

...and cap it at 20 troop commanders per city. Also, the troop commanders should not incur a population cost (just they don't right now). And I say the first 5 should be free by default because it usually takes 5 scholar attack waves to conquer a city, so we should give the player something to work off of when they take over a fresh city. But I agree with the notion that the remaining 15 troop commanders have to be purchased at each individual city and that they are non-transferable (e.g., they are reset to 0 when someone takes over a city).

This would seriously reduce the abuse with which the Chaos feature is currently being applied because (1) it makes it expensive and (2) a detriment to to the chaoser, because now they have to choose between chaos'ing a friend for support or actually attacking another hostile target. This should bring the gameplay strategy back into line.

-Kaleel


P.S.: I don't think troop commanders should be engaged when sending support to a target, though. Not just because it seems unfair, but because it would seem strange if:

• You conquer a target city to find out that it has deployed support at 10 different cities.
• You recall your newly acquired troops from all 10 cities (let's call it 10x instances), but discover that, because this is a newly-conquered city, you discover that you can only send up to five instances of support at a time to other cities.

Then again, we do have that strange/silly notion that a LVL 3 guardian loses its LVL 3 abilities when sent to support a city that hasn't poured any research points into Guardians, so...

[DarthInsidious]

Chaos ruins the game. Makes people unconquerable... Kinda dumb

[Asplundh]

For Stark Bledfast: anyone who defends his city with just one unit is a fool. In the mid and late game, I have a dedicated MINIMUM of 1,000 defenders. You can send 8,000 "cheap" units against me and put me in chaos, but those 8,000 "cheap" units still have to kill my mixed force of defenders, heavy on Sentries and Guardians.