... which is an novel concept of leapfrogging your attack troops from guild city to guild city until you are close enough to unleash them upon your target, but my suggestion is different, yet aims to achieve the same notion of "hiding" your attack troops from their intended target until a certain time:
Suggestion: Implement a "Fog of War" add-on that you could apply to your choice of attack wave before you send it towards against a target. This will allow you to hide your attacking wave from the enemy until the "Fog of War" lifts and your attacking wave is considerably closer. This gives you the advantage because it reduces the time that your target has to react (e.g., by sending their troops away to dodge the attack or calling in reinforcements to defend against it).
Procurement: The “Fog of War” crystals (yes, I arbitrarily assigned that icon) CAN ONLY BE PROCURED via gambling for it through the Fortune building. This means that you need amulets and luck. You cannot buy this item outright. You can, however, spend real money to buy gold, then use the gold to buy amulets, then use the amulets to try your luck for it. By limiting the acquisition of this item through chance, we limit the risk of abusing this feature (e.g., someone buying a whole bunch of it) while still making it available to the players without incurring a direct monetary cost. Also makes the players more diligent in completing the daily quest of gaining an Amulet and inspires greater use of the Fortune building.
Mechanism: Like the “reduce time” scrolls, the “fog of war” crystal comes in different flavors of effectiveness (shown below). The different levels are unlocked when you complete new Aurora’s quests such as upgrading various buildings in at least one of your cities:
- Hide attacking troops for 1 hours ..... Default option, available to all (requires Rally Point).
- Hide attacking troops for 2 hours ..... Unlocked when City Hall, Barracks, Stable & Forge are upgraded to Lvl 10
- Hide attacking troops for 3 hours ..... Unlocked when City Hall, Barracks, Stable & Forge are upgraded to Lvl 15
- Hide attacking troops for 4 hours ..... Unlocked when City Hall, Barracks, Stable & Forge are upgraded to Lvl 20
- Hide attacking troops for 5 hours ..... Unlocked when City Hall is Lvl 25 and Academy is Lvl 1
The "fog of war" option is not limited to one specific city; like the “reduce time” options, it sits in the player's "bank" in that world and can be applied to any attacking wave that you send from any of your cities within that world. And you can procure multiple instances of each item which sit in your bank/cache, ready for use.
To apply the item, go the Rally Point and initiate an attack. At the Confirmation page, there will be a green button right above red "Confirm Attack" button, called "Apply Fog of War". Just like clicking on the "Speed Up" button in City Hall, clicking on this button will open up a new dialog window that lists the available types of "Fog of War" that you currently possess:
- Hide attacking troops for 1 hours ..... <available quantity> ....... [Apply Button/Get More button]
- Hide attacking troops for 2 hours ..... <available quantity> ....... [Apply Button/Get More button]
- Hide attacking troops for 3 hours ..... <available quantity> ....... [Apply Button/Get More button]
- Hide attacking troops for 4 hours ..... <locked!> ....... [Apply Button/Get More button]
- Hide attacking troops for 5 hours ..... <locked!> ....... [Apply Button/Get More button]
If you haven't upgraded your city enough, then some of the versions will be locked. If you don't have any "Fog of War" crystals available for that type, then the "Apply More" button is replaced with the "Get More" button. Clicking on this "Get More" button will take you directly to the "Fortune" building where you can gamble for it.
Once you choose the "Fog of War" item allowable and have successfully assigned it to the attack wave, then you return to the Rally Point's "Confirmation" page, which now displays a new line underneath the "Arrival Time" (See mock-up below):
[BACK button] ................ CONFIRM .............. VT DATE/TIME .... [?]
ARRIVAL IN: ................................................. 00:01:30
FOG OF WAR: ............................................... 00:01:00
{the rest is the same as the existing screen}
Once you click the "CONFIRM" button and launch your troops, then your confirmation page shows two timers:
- One count-down of when your troops will arrive on target.
- One count-down of when your troops will be revealed and the enemy receives notice of an incoming attack.
What the enemy sees: Instead of receiving the formal notification of the crossed-swords-on-a-shield icon showing the number of incoming attack waves, a different icon appears: that of a question mark imposed upon a cloud of fog (I'm just making these up -- I'm sure the developers can be more imaginative).
This is their only indication that they have an incoming attack. But they have no idea how many attacks (unless they are Chaos'd -- see below) or when it will get to them. And the enemy cannot use the the "Reveal Incoming Troops" option, because they would have to pick which wave to reveal, and the Fog of War indiscriminately masks all the waves as one. Instead, they just receive an error message saying, "You cannot permeate the fog of war."
Example:[INDENT]I have 3x incoming attacks (the standard icon says so) but the "Fog of War" notification icon also appears. If I try to use the "Reveal Incoming Troops" feature, I am taken to the page where I have to choose one of the 3x incoming attacks. If I try to click on the "Fog of War" icon (which just sits at the bottom of the line-up) then I receive the error message stated above.
Note that the positioning of the "Fog of War" icon does not reveal its order in the list of incoming attacks. If someone has sent me 4x incoming waves that all have been masked with "Fog of War", I only see one instance of the icon.
[/INDENT]
How this works with the Chaos effect: Chaos allows a max of 40x incoming waves (defense or offense) to a target at any given time. If someone has sent 1x attack wave to you that is masked with Fog of War, then this will prevent you from receiving 40x incoming VISIBLE attacks (because one of them is currently invisible to you). So if your sister guildmates are exploiting the Chaos feature to protect your city, when they try to send the 40th attack, they will receive a slightly modified pop-up notice where Aurora says:
"You cannot send any more. This city is in Chaos. A fog of war surrounds this city."
... and that is a hint that someone is out to get you. (Muwahaha) However, this can work to your advantage to help determine how many masked waves are coming at you.
EXAMPLE:
- I see the "For of War" icon pop-up on my dashboard, along with a notification of 3x incoming attacks. I freak out and ask a member of a sister guild to put me into chaos. So he tries to send 37x attacks but it stops at 30x.
- He receives the notices that "You cannot send any more. This city is in Chaos. A fog of war surrounds this city." He PMs me, saying that I am in Chaos.
- My display only shows 33x incoming attacks, so this tells me that I have 7x incoming masked waves.
- BUT -- I don't know when they are landing and I can't use the "Reveal Incoming Troops" function to find out.
- 3 hours pass, and when I check back, the number of incoming attacks is at 40x. This means that the "Fog of War" function has expired on those 7x incoming waves. I can now use the "Reveal Incoming Troops" feature if I so desire, and warfare continues per usual.... except I lost 3 hours to adequately prepare and now I'm in a tizzy.