Update: WOK5 V3.30.6 released !!

[gm_al]

It certainly is a good idea to do a WOK5 taskforce that can discuss and polish new suggestions. I would also be willing to do WOK5 updates on a more regular basis, but BEWARE that many of the changes that sound good actually are too difficult/lenghty to implement. Sometimes even the smallest changes take the most time and testing for me to do, sometimes a lot of code and routines are affected by even the smallest change.

So I can never promise that a suggested change will really be implemented for good, but you know that I will at least TRY (that is if you convince me of your idea, which is the real hard part)

Two quick suggestions I found interesting along the way: increasing initial DEF of home province (maybe to 2.0) and raising the +LEVL worker effect slightly again.

[TK]

Two quick suggestions I found interesting along the way: increasing initial DEF of home province (maybe to 2.0) and raising the +LEVL worker effect slightly again.

These are both suggestions that I would support.

Increasing the DEF at home would allow people to attack more in the early turns, as a smaller number of armies will be able to defend the home (so more can attack).

A *small* increase in the +LEV aim would also be nice to see, but I would prefer to couple it with a reduction in some types of upgrade. Knights and catapults are so strong that LEV rarely makes any difference. Archers are at a very good level, and pikemen are perhaps a bit weak (or perhaps not - they are OK so long as they remain the weakest upgrade).

Thoughts?

[BigJOzzy]

Al those would be great help to all out there.

Both Defense and level increase.

The only problem with upgraded units is getting them caught out of the right province type.

Massielita

[phred]

Regarding troops maintenance costs Im going to point this out one last time - good players will not spend 1000+ gold to pay their troops when instead they can simply put one province on +EFF and cover the penalty.

A comment from left field: If nobody pays their troops, then why have the "pay" rule at all. It seems more of a nusiance that of any benefit to the game. An alternate approach could be to reduce it so that people have a reaslistic choice whether to pay or not, rather than having it set so high that nobody can pay. Maybe 20% of the current maintenance amount. Also, you don't have to be restrict your thinking to EFF loss as the penalty, you could also consider reducing LVL or the number of Attacks allowed depending on the % troops are underpaid.



“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” If that is so, then the holder of the technology is probably ripe for worship from any lesser civilization.

[TK]

If nobody pays their troops, then why have the "pay" rule at all. It seems more of a nusiance that of any benefit to the game. An alternate approach could be to reduce it so that people have a reaslistic choice whether to pay or not, rather than having it set so high that nobody can pay. Maybe 20% of the current maintenance amount. Also, you don't have to be restrict your thinking to EFF loss as the penalty, you could also consider reducing LVL or the number of Attacks allowed depending on the % troops are underpaid.

L,

I couldnt agree more.


TK

[Bjorn]

Regarding troops maintenance costs Im going to point this out one last time - good players will not spend 1000+ gold to pay their troops when instead they can simply put one province on +EFF and cover the penalty.

Another country heard from. Yeah, yeah I've been away for some time, but I do follow some of these threads.

This is true once you get your economy established. There really is no incentive to paying troops unless you are attempting to build LEV someplace. In fact, one thing that always 'bugged' me when I sat down to figure out my orders was the money management. You wanted to be in a situation where you did NOT have the money to pay your troops lest your treasury become depleted when you had some spells you wanted to purchase that turn.

I suspect the reason non-payment affected EFF was because Spies took quite a bit of gold to maintain. The only way to degrade their performance, along with armies, was to reduce EFF. If you really want to get people to pay their troops (and I think you should) you should reduce the LVL or have troops disband if they are not paid. This would leave spies and their activities out of the payment equation. One suggestion is to REQUIRE 100% for spies or you lose them all. So, 5 spies would be an automatic deduction of 25 gold from your treasury. If you don't have it, then you lose all your spies.

Then allow a player to set the percent of payment they are willing to give their troops for each turn, much like you set the percentage of corn to feed them. If you pay them 100% maybe we add some level to all troops. Pay them less than 70% and they lose some level. Level can never go below 1.0000, so new troops would not be affected by this. If you are going to have high level troops, then be willing to pay them or lose the level.

Just my 2¢ if you are fishing for some ideas.

[Donut]

Wow... What he said

Donut

[BigJOzzy]

The only problem I see with what Bjorn said has to do with someone who uses a lot of upgraded troops.

With someone using upgraded troops they could keep the army level low, not pay the bill and still have a good attack power.

But in most respects that would take care of some of those problems with not paying troops.

Massielita

[Saladin]

As Massielita says, it doesn't do anything to counter the non-paying of upgraded troops.

That's why i like Bjorns idea of having troops disband. This affects both leveled up armies as well as upgraded troops.

[Underdog]

The only other idea I could possibly come up with would be to change WHEN they are paid, which would require, probably, too much work for Al to rewrite the code. If they were paid AFTER the working phase it would be more effective to hit the EFF. or to pay them BEFORE the GCA's phase but I HIGHLY doubt that would be considered because of the work required for rewriting.
Personally I prefer the disbanding idea, say anything below 70% and you lose 10% and for every 10% less you lose another 5% or something along those lines. Of course then we are going back to a more defensive game since players won't be able to have the HUGE upgraded armies because they can't pay them. Of course this would have to be balanced with the new tribe changes. Didn't Al just change one of the tribes so it has cheaper maintenance costs. Have to figure out some numbers that keep THAT tribe from becoming too powerful.

Good luck, There are so many things it can affect. I can understand why Al is hesitant to make drastic changes. you never know everything that could be affected when you change 1 thing too much and then couple it with other changes and the possible ramifications are enormous. But I think that something needs to be done about the paying problem. Right now it only penalizes the people that are bad at math and keep too much money on hand and actually PAY their troops once the game gets too far along.

[korexus]

The only other idea I could possibly come up with would be to change WHEN they are paid, which would require, probably, too much work for Al to rewrite the code. If they were paid AFTER the working phase it would be more effective to hit the EFF. or to pay them BEFORE the GCA's phase but I HIGHLY doubt that would be considered because of the work required for rewriting.
Personally I prefer the disbanding idea, say anything below 70% and you lose 10% and for every 10% less you lose another 5% or something along those lines. Of course then we are going back to a more defensive game since players won't be able to have the HUGE upgraded armies because they can't pay them. Of course this would have to be balanced with the new tribe changes. Didn't Al just change one of the tribes so it has cheaper maintenance costs. Have to figure out some numbers that keep THAT tribe from becoming too powerful.

Changing when the troops are paid also messes up the won't -level thing. What you could probably do is move the 10% EFF hit to the end of the working phase. There's already one did troops get paid check there after all...

[Bjorn]

The only problem I see with what Bjorn said has to do with someone who uses a lot of upgraded troops.

With someone using upgraded troops they could keep the army level low, not pay the bill and still have a good attack power.

Massielita

Good point. The guys with a few forests always have the advantage there. Maybe we could reduce the upgraded troop bonus based on how much you pay your troops.

[Undertaker]

I might be too hard to have to always pay your troops at least 70% every turn. Don't forget it's quite expensive to pay, which is why some of us don't. And sure there's a tribe, but then everyone will have to use it by mid-game or so.

[Bjorn]

I might be too hard to have to always pay your troops at least 70% every turn. Don't forget it's quite expensive to pay, which is why some of us don't.

Which the point of this discussion. It IS difficult to pay your troops when you have a lot of them. Those who do make the effort should be rewarded somehow, or those that don't punished a bit more than just loosing a little EFF which can be readily replaced.

But Massies comment raises another issue which always bugged me. I really like the idea of upgraded troops raising level and the idea was brilliant. However, it does tend to return the game to the dark old days when sheer number of troops was used to calculate PATT an PDEF. I would like to propose that the Level boost given by upgraded troops in combat be limited to no more than 1.0. So, building 13 catapults in the mountains, or 17 knights in the plains will max out the level boost from troop upgrades. Sure, you can put a few more in there so your level does not drop as you take losses to the upgraded troops, but this business of collecting 60 knights in the plains and gaining a 3.6 level boost just seems way out of line.

This has some advantage in that an attacking army does not need to fear 50 catapults in the mountains because bringing in 20 of your own will match the level boost of the upgraded troops. I believe it would lead to more "combined troops" attacking armies, as you would like to gain the level boost as you move through different terrain. You still have to deal with the DEF though.

This might make it worth the effort to pay your troops and build level again, which would give this AIM a bit more usefulness. This would also give creatures a bit more impact. You might want to adjust their maximum level boost to 50% of the armies level, but at least they would still be a major player in most battles. Some would then argue the "luck" factor again of the early loss of the creature level bonus, but life is uncertainty.

(Let's see, how many more gray hairs can I give Al this week?)

[Saladin]

I might be too hard to have to always pay your troops at least 70% every turn. Don't forget it's quite expensive to pay, which is why some of us don't. And sure there's a tribe, but then everyone will have to use it by mid-game or so.

Well you don't ALWAYS have to pay. Of course you can decide not to pay a turn, but that as in real life will cause a bunch those mercenaries you hired to walk out.

It would be nice if these armies that disbanded didn't just dissappear but get turned back in to pop, for instance 3 pop for every army that disbands.

Not paying your army for one round shouldn't pose to big a loss, but the longer you don't pay the higher the loss percentage should be, a sliding scale.

[TK]

Great posts from UD and Bjorn. Shame you guys cant see the discussions of the WOK5 focus group, but Nick thinks "five is a good number". Sorry.

[korexus]

Re: Bjorn's suggestion, how about instead of capping the bonus at 1, setting it to a fraction of the pre-bonus PATT in the same way as for a creature? - That would certainly make a combination of upgrades and level the best option...


korexus.

[Allister Fiend]

I think your starting to take all the fun out of the game if you cap the level limit.

First off, the LEV aim is so minimal that the only way to get a good power is to upgrade.

And why should someone with 100 armies be almost as strong as someone with 50 Knights and 50 Cats?
If you run your economy the correct way, there is no reason that the weaker player couldn't be as strong as long as they payed attention to their orders.
I also think you would be encouraging more suicidal attacks just because they may a good chance at coming out alive.

Leave the bonuses alone, just make it easier to get more LEVEL.

[TK]

No, "the only way to get a good power is to upgrade" because upgrades are too strong.

Starting in (or near) a forest shouldnt give you such a huge instant advantage as it does now.

Finally, if suicidal attacks have a good chance at coming out alive, then they are not suicidal!!

[gm_al]

Quite some potential in this thread, I like it.

Already we see some very different view on things though, and others are (at a first glance) a nightmare to code. I might add my 2 cents at this point...

* I also like upgrades, and they are especially "cool" on maps with varied terrain. Im not really in favor to cap the upgrades at a certain level, especially since the upgrade always is only handy for ONE type of terrain. I also dont follow on TKs view that starting in/near a forest province is such a huge advantage. But see my next point.

* I agree that not payying troops needs some overhaul. Seems the -12% EFF cut is easily overcome and not really frightening players, which leads to having them "outsmart" the penalty. I kinda like the suggestions of troops disbanding when not paid, just need to look of some easy way to introduce this... if troops disband this will also help with "easy" upgrades (ie. by having upgraded units disband first if not paid, or having them downgraded again hehehe )

So far I take the following suggestions with me:
* starting Province should get 2.0 DEF to start with
* +LEV aim should be a bit more rewarding
* overhaul effects of not paying tropps (ie. disband them, downgrade them)