Zzzzzz....

[trewqh]

Seeing how nothing's going on on the boards I have a rules change suggestion of my own. I don't think that one can be achieved through changing the defaults.

I suggest making the +LEV bonus dependant from the LEV of armies at the beginning of the working phase. I played around with numbers and managed to figure out a formula which makes +LEV more effective than it is currently in levelling low levelled armies, but is less effective further on.

Check out my proposal here: http://www.boloyoung.w.tkb.pl/level.xls It's the highlighted column. You can play around in the spreadsheet by changing the number of workers and the initial LEV.

What do you guys think?

[Vortan]

can't open your xls file so cant look sorry Trewqh I dont have excel I only have MSWorks.

[Yondallus]

Seeing how nothing's going on on the boards

Hey man, I even made a map!

[trewqh]

[trewqh]

Hey man, I even made a map!

It's called irony, Yon.

[korexus]

Another option along the same lines was suggested way back when we were writing WoK-On. That the level created by workers be split evenly between the armies in the province. That way it would be relatively easy to make a small-high level force, but hard to make a big one.

The problem with anti-sleeper methods though is that they don't work. If everyone chooses to sleep, sleeping remains a good tactic. Making sleeping weaker just seems to mean that everyone sleeps longer...


Chris.

[trewqh]

You're right that some players will still choose to sleep, but I think that my proposal would ensure that players who fight instead of sleeping will still be able to stand up against sleepers since the LEV of the fighters' ARM will grow much faster (due to empty prov bonuses and battle exp.).

[Vortan]

I find myself in agreement with Trewqh AGAIN! What on earth is going on?

What he is suggesting seems to make real sense. It would be representative of the 'reality' thing. After all no amount of training of recruits can prepare them for real combat situations and the current system makes those just undergoing training as strong if not stronger than those actually out doing the fighting which is unbalanced.

In my opinion of course.

[Saladin]

sleeping/leveling up has of course already been greatly reduced by lowering the level bonus from 0.05 to 0.03. As a result you do see more attacking play (though not enough yet).

You have to consider why sleeping (eg not fighting right from the start) is the best option. It's simply because you keep your armies alive. Of course the extra level is a great incentive as well. But keeping your armies alive is the prime objective.

In the end the best way to stop people from sleeping is to not nap with them and not give them a long period of continuous peace like Hannibal and tbert tend to do. Who are both living proof that you can play very agressively in this game and win your fair share of games.

However i fully agree with Vortan that it's not very realistic that training gives you better results than actual fighting.

Having said all that and after looking at the numbers you propose i find the change isn't very big. With 10 rounds of leveling (which is a LOT in most games) the difference is only 0.630 level.

I don't think this will deter any players from sleeping, because as i said the leveling is not the main reason for sleeping it's the keeping your armies alive.

However to promote more attacking players i suggest an even bigger change in level bonusses. To give more attacking players a bigger advantage. Let's keep the leveling aim the same as the proposed system is unnecesarily complicated. And there are easier ways to making attacking play more appealing and more worthwhile.

I would suggest increasing the attack/defence bonus from 0.006/0.003 to 0.012 and 0.006?

In a 50 round battle you will then gain an extra 0.240 level (0.600 total). That makes a bigger difference than slightly changing the level bonus.

If that doesn't prove enough to have more attacking play i propose we increase it even further. Maybe even make it 0.02 and 0.01.

Because although my prefered style is sleeping (as i treasure each and every wok, pop and army of mine) attacking play is much more interesting to most people and therefore the best way to go for standard wok.

[trewqh]

There's one point in which I think my offer proposal is better than yours.

By making the difference between attacker's exp and defender's exp twice as big as it is now (0.012-0.006=0.006 while 0.006-o.003=0.003) you unbalance the beginning of the game. The players winning fights after defending (even if their fighters not sleepers) would be disadvantaged. And whether you defend or attack on early turns depends on OoP, so luck.

Also, I don't think the difference in the resulting LEV you quote (0.630 LEV) is that small. Imagine how many empty provinces a player could take in those 10 turns, or even in the 6 turns after the 2.500 LEV border.

The difference wouldn't matter from the perspective of playing a game with my 'system', since comparisons with the older system would not make anyone stronger or weaker in the game. What is important is that quick-levelling would be more effective and would motivate people to start using the acquired LEV asap.

[Saladin]

I agree with you on the difference between the defensive level bonus and attacking level bonus. I don't mind if they are both the same. Though the defensive bonus was already half of the attacking bonus so i just stuck with that.

Looking again at the numbers, i now noticed the green column at the far right. I was first looking and comparing with the second column. Well then the difference after 10 turns is 1.250 that's a big difference. Looking at it further it turns out that leveling becomes more and more worthless and leveling after level 3.000 is useless. So i'm still hoping your plan was to weaken leveling a bit and you plan on using column 2 as the green column makes leveling useless after level 3 and therefore is definitely not a good option.

Rewarding attacking play YES! Making leveling a useless option later in the game...NO!

[korexus]

Another off the wall idea. Victorious armies would get the chance to treat their wounded. How about if the winning army got half it's casualties back? This would reduce the problem of using up your resources to take out another player...


korexus.

[Saladin]

I like the idea!

I also like the idea of being able to retreat armies just like in wok 5. And i like the idea of routing another army (as in real life) so not a fight to the death, but more winning the province whilst the other army flees.

[Calidus]

Another off the wall idea. Victorious armies would get the chance to treat their wounded. How about if the winning army got half it's casualties back? This would reduce the problem of using up your resources to take out another player...


korexus.

That's just crazy enough to become popular. I like this this idea a great deal. I think this would also encourage people to attack more, as they would be more likely to not be completely wiped out, even though they were victorious. It's what happened to me in Back to the Roots. I did manage to RIP dragonette, buch she severly weakened me. I barely had enough troops left to RIP Tbert, then bully Jen came crashing in and spoiled the rest of the party!

[trewqh]

the defensive bonus was already half of the attacking bonus so i just stuck with that.

It wouldn't matter if LEV started at 0, but it does matter when it starts at 1.

Rewarding attacking play YES! Making leveling a useless option later in the game...NO!

The solution I like best is the green column. To reword your statement; yes, levelling armies of a decent level becomes progressively less worthwhile and that's the point. But it's not like it becomes useless later in the game, if you get your hands on some POP then regardless of the turn number if their LEV is 1.000 they'll level quickly.

The point of my proposal IS to encourage fighting with ARM of lower level AND to make levelling ARM at a decent level pointless.

I know noone would like to figure out the actual LEV bonus in their minds but writing a calculator for that would be very easy. I think I'd be able to do it myself if need be. (OR you could use my spreadsheet )

How about if the winning army got half it's casualties back?

Just as with Sal's proposal, I am afraid it would give an advantage to the lucky winner of early battles, consequently leading us back to steam-rolling. (Even though I am aware that this 'half' could be tweaked)

Of course, if more people like kor's proposal then we should defenitely try it. But I do believe that my proposal brings us closer to making strategic skill the most important factor necessary for winning a game. The reason for that is that my proposal changes the outcomes of player decisions (choosing a worker aim) rather than changing the outcomes of more luck dependant factors (outcomes of battles -> number and level of armies).

[Saladin]

The point of my proposal IS to encourage fighting with ARM of lower level AND to make levelling ARM at a decent level pointless.

Ah, ok than we have the same view on what would happen if we used this setup. We just differ on wether it's a good thing or a bad thing.

[Vortan]

I like kor's new idea - can we try that? - can we? Please, can we?

Imagine - Vortan with armies yippee!

[korexus]

As I see it, sleeping should still be a viable strategy, but not the best in every game. To be honest, I think we're already pretty much there. People do win games without sleeping after all...

I still like the idea of bigger armies being harder to level up. It has to be easier to train a group of 5 into a crack troop than an army of 100! It would also be quite balanced - the 5 high level armies could wade through far more low level groups than would seem fair, but they'd be massively vulnerable to missiles.

Vortan, my idea was to get half the armies back if you win how is that going to help you?


korexus.

[Vortan]

[trewqh]

As I see it, sleeping should still be a viable strategy, but not the best in every game. To be honest, I think we're already pretty much there. People do win games without sleeping after all...

I know I used the word pointless in my previous post, but I don't actually think my proposal would make sleeping pointless. It's difficult to predict (or maybe even impossible to say) what kind of modifiers would make both tactics 'equal'. But I DO want to reward fighters for fighting, so I DO want fighters to have an edge. I believe now sleeping is more effective, but you still can opt for not sleeping adn if you're good you'll win. I want it to be the other way round; fighting is the better option, but you can choose sleeping and still win if you're a good sleeper.

ALSO, this argument (sleeping becoming pointless) could be brought up against ANY change discussed in this topic. My proposal does not make sleeping any more useless than rewarding fighters by retruning ARM. (At least we won't know this until we try different options out)

I still like the idea of bigger armies being harder to level up. It has to be easier to train a group of 5 into a crack troop than an army of 100! It would also be quite balanced - the 5 high level armies could wade through far more low level groups than would seem fair, but they'd be massively vulnerable to missiles.

What I like about this idea is that it leans towards changing results of player choices not results of luck dependant factors. I discussed this in my previous post.

And similarly to my proposal, this idea would require more planning from the player. That's nice! (Giving armies back just makes the game easier )

Do you remember the formula for that one, kor?