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Topic: Fighting System

the-x
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Posted at: 2019-08-16, 15:43

We definitely need some changes in the fight system. The problem is simple to explain: After playing like 15 games vs world saviour indeed nothing makes any change and it is 100% the fighting system that decides every game. It doesnt even matter how both of us build the economy and it is sad after everygame i have a close look at the economy and see that every building is set perfectly and still lose the game.

How are then 100% of the games decided: Indeed its the percentage chance of win of the 4 tribes that on every small and medium map, and this only and this will lead to quitting the game.

Lets collect some ideas and of course will have a closer look which is possible to implement:

  • Building a Circle: Speer wins Bow wins Sword wins Speer ...

In the best case these 3 kind of soldiers (maybe hard to implement) cost different types of more iron / gold resources so if someone expands and builds a mine the opponent knows what he might play for a strategy and can try to react. Maybe we can put this idea simpler as i know that this might be too much change but it would expand the game on a psychological aspect and make games very very good.

  • Adding another Unit / Improvement: very interesting could be the priest who can convert units randomly as proposed at the Egyptian Tribe. To make it as easy to implement as possible, its an improvement of soldier. To the balancing: i mean its ok, after three hours of playing if it turns out to be too strong, or even useless - depending on the style of how you attack.

  • Training Step by Step Isnt it crazy, that you must train your soldier from 0 to full in one term, cause everything else doenst make sence. Its like a civilization going from stone age to modern without recognizing all the time in between. Maybe we can make it more step by step, so that in small/medium maps players already have some stage 2-3 level training when they fight and later imrpving that and getting fully trained soldiers only very late. I mean in min. 30 world has none trained soldier at all but in min 40 already fully trained soldiers which makes the game somehow - it loses the excitement and fun of it.

Any more Ideas?


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Nordfriese
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Posted at: 2019-08-16, 15:59

I fully agree. Fighting is carrying way too much weight in this game that is supposedly about economy and not about warfare. Personally I never play multiplayer and only against the AI, and I implemented the Peaceful Mode for a reason.

Building a Circle: Speer wins Bow wins Sword wins Speer ...

This would add too much complexity to the fighting system IMHO. You would have to pay very much attention to the correct ratio of the units you recruit, train, and use; this moves the focus further from economy to military. Besides, how long will it take until certain players are familiar enough with the new system to manage to defeat everyone in racing time anyway?

Training Step by Step

Fully agree. IMHO the best way to enforce this is by dragging out higher training steps over a long, long time, e.g. by requiring advanced foodstuffs for higher training that needs a worker with hundreds of experience points. However, it is more than likely that any such suggestion will be shot down by the majority of the community…


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king_of_nowhere
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Posted at: 2019-08-16, 16:45

the-x wrote:

We definitely need some changes in the fight system. The problem is simple to explain: After playing like 15 games vs world saviour indeed nothing makes any change and it is 100% the fighting system that decides every game. It doesnt even matter how both of us build the economy and it is sad after everygame i have a close look at the economy and see that every building is set perfectly and still lose the game.

How are then 100% of the games decided: Indeed its the percentage chance of win of the 4 tribes that on every small and medium map, and this only and this will lead to quitting the game.

wrong. utterly, completely wrong. Also, very arrogant in the telling: "I always lose, but i am playing perfectly, so the game must be wrong". Really?

both you and worldsavior play atlanteans normally. if both of you play perfect, then the game will be decided by the random engine, so you should get 50% victories.

Now, unless you radically changed strategy in the last two weeks, your strategy is always to rush, rush, rush. you don't even build a dungeon to train soldiers in attack. So the moment your opponent can field a hero soldier you stop making progress.

Claiming that economy doesn't matter is ridiculous. economy lets you train hero soldiers. Worldsavior wins by economy first and foremost.

You can look at me vs worldsavior on fjords: we both did well, and we both trained hero soldiers. the game was decided by the following factors:

  • worldsavior was able to optimize wood production earlier, getting an advantage in expansion

  • worldsavior was able to get a hero soldier a few minutes earlier, pushing me back a couple buuildings

  • worldsavior was able to build more economy on the land he conquered, getting an economical advantage

  • worldsavior was able to make hero soldiers at a mildly faster rate than I did, which eventually led to me running out before he did. my streak of luck starting at around 2 hours only delayed it.

So, all the reasons for his victory were purely economical, not stemming from the fighting system.

heck, your whole argument is a non sequitur: I play against worldsavior and I lose every time, so there is a problem with the game. How, exactly? the starting conditions are the same for both of you, so if you are losing it means he is consistently playing better. if you were using different tribes you could argue that his tribe was stronger - I already made an argument for atlanteans being stronger than other tribes, by the way, but that's not related to the fighting system.

Nordfriese wrote:

Training Step by Step

Fully agree. IMHO the best way to enforce this is by dragging out higher training steps over a long, long time, e.g. by requiring advanced foodstuffs for higher training that needs a worker with hundreds of experience points. However, it is more than likely that any such suggestion will be shot down by the majority of the community…

Actually, I wouldn't be against trying to keep the low-promotion soldiers useful for longer. already in the past I made suggestions for delaying the arrival of hero soldiers.

however, keep in mind that this requires balancing soldiers from different tribes at every stop point in the training. Also, getting first to hero soldiers would still mean victory

Edited: 2019-08-16, 16:53

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the-x
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Posted at: 2019-08-16, 21:58

King, you put it in a wrong direction - It is not about criticising you - absolutely not and you dont have to discuss personal I think. But it is definitely obvious that there are a lot of changes that must be made - mostly because on every small and medium map economy does exact 0% for a win. Watch replays or casts for this. Even on ice wars (big map) economy relatively late starts to make any difference.

And because most people play this game for the economic part, or hasi even demands a peaceful mode, there really is need to do something. --> Most people dont play multiplayer, they prefer single player because it puts a higher effect into it (and yes Fjords is special map) and we need to make a nice multiplayer lobby witch motivated players.

Edited: 2019-08-16, 22:20

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the-x
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Posted at: 2019-08-16, 22:11

This is for collecting ideas, and for at least Training Step by Step we are all saying 0 to full is not good, but we need more Ideas (and not pushing every idea down)


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hessenfarmer
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Posted at: 2019-08-16, 23:52

There is an easy way to give the economy part more importance. just give an advantage to the defending player and a quick attack is not a good concept anymore. still having a hero first doesn't mean you will win easily. only the ability to produce heros (continuosly) faster would be the key to success.


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king_of_nowhere
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Posted at: 2019-08-17, 00:20

the-x wrote:

King, you put it in a wrong direction - It is not about criticising you - absolutely not and you dont have to discuss personal I think. But it is definitely obvious that there are a lot of changes that must be made - mostly because on every small and medium map economy does exact 0% for a win. Watch replays or casts for this. Even on ice wars (big map) economy relatively late starts to make any difference.

And because most people play this game for the economic part, or hasi even demands a peaceful mode, there really is need to do something. --> Most people dont play multiplayer, they prefer single player because it puts a higher effect into it (and yes Fjords is special map) and we need to make a nice multiplayer lobby witch motivated players.

I'm not taking it personal. I am reacting angrily because you don't seem to make sense. Saying "economy does exact 0% for a win", what does it mean? how do you produce soldiers if not with economy? and how is that related to your games against worldsavior?

You think economy does not matter because worldsavior beats you with hero soldiers. but he makes hero soldiers faster than anyone else exactly because he can make a good economy. and training sites are the keystone of the economy. And when he has an opponent that can make hero soldiers about as fast as he can - namely, me - then the game revolves around who can make the more of them. or around who gets lucky in the early game fights. So, economy is 100% of this game, and if you lose it is because your economy cannot sustain your army. You don't train your soldiers and blame the system; it's just that your strategy of early rush with half promoted soldiers is not the most effective strategy in this game.

But probably we are misunderstanding each other. By reactions of other posters, I take that maybe you meant "it's not nice that the figthing system capitalizes so much on getting a hero fast, so the only optimal strategy is to beeline a hero soldier ASAP".

And that's actually an argument I made myself several times. I don't really see a solution that does not introduce new problems, though. And I think if the optimal tactic was to early game rush with everything, that would be even worse.

Just, please, don't make unsustainable claims about economy and losing to worldsavior. making soldiers in early game is as much an economic effort as making them in late game. spending resources on the wrong kind of promotions is a wrong economical setup. And you lose against worldsavior because, well, everyone loses against worldsavior. I only remember him losing twice. The reason you can't make any headway by optimizing your strategy is that your strategy is sub-optimal. It works against a less skilled opponent. Heck, it workes against me if I'm not prepared for it. But it does not work against me when I'm ready and prepared, so it certainly won't work on worldsavior.

hessenfarmer wrote:

There is an easy way to give the economy part more importance. just give an advantage to the defending player and a quick attack is not a good concept anymore. still having a hero first doesn't mean you will win easily. only the ability to produce heros (continuosly) faster would be the key to success.

I actually started a thread proposing that very same thing a month or two ago.


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the-x
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Posted at: 2019-08-17, 01:37

I fully understand the point - what you mean, but the problem is not a Fjords game where players can train heroes, indeed i mean all the other games we played where neither of us had any hero or even any improvement on troops. And thats the point, if you attack fast both players dont have any upgrades. You cant solve this problem if every soldiers gets 10% defense bonus cause this will lead to stack games. We can make the upgrades cheaper so that you are little improved and you think if you will invest in defense or which ability ever makes sence. If your having only 0 and full soldiers :( I mean we shouldnt take advantage of it if you can train heroes fast cause that makes the game not so interesting for every other player - and is also linear which means that you are always doing a similar build order. If we can manage to make a scissor - paper - stone principe in this this would be also great like ausweichen (evade) conters attack. Or if we make early improvements very cheap and the later ones more expensive.


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king_of_nowhere
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Posted at: 2019-08-17, 02:50

the-x wrote:

I fully understand the point - what you mean, but the problem is not a Fjords game where players can train heroes, indeed i mean all the other games we played where neither of us had any hero or even any improvement on troops. And thats the point, if you attack fast both players dont have any upgrades. You cant solve this problem if every soldiers gets 10% defense bonus cause this will lead to stack games. We can make the upgrades cheaper so that you are little improved and you think if you will invest in defense or which ability ever makes sence. If your having only 0 and full soldiers :( I mean we shouldnt take advantage of it if you can train heroes fast cause that makes the game not so interesting for every other player - and is also linear which means that you are always doing a similar build order. If we can manage to make a scissor - paper - stone principe in this this would be also great like ausweichen (evade) conters attack. Or if we make early improvements very cheap and the later ones more expensive.

oh, i finally understand the point you are making.

and i still disagree with it. even on crater, the smaller and faster map, we both got out several soldiers with evade promotions. and the game is resolved by being able to make more, faster.

it's only worldsavior that goes the "all or nothing" way fully. he knows he will lose ground early when the opponent has evade and he has not, but he will get a hero soldier in time to turn the table. It works.

This I agree is not a desirable strategy. I think there should be an intermediate point where it is convenient to train soldiers in just evade, before you can afford the big promotions.

One quick and easy way to would be to tamper with starting wares. currently, atlanteans can make a hero soldier without making iron or coal mines. forcing them to make those mines before they can train a hero would slow them down somewhat. they could still do it in one hour, though.

Another ooption would be to increase the base attack value of all soldiers, and decrease the boost given by training. It would not affect the combat between soldiers of equal power, but it would make lowly trained soldiers more effective. And it would make attacking with a lone hero soldier against evade soldiers more risky. we'd have to be careful to not overdo it, or it may make promotions pointless. perhaps a 50% increase in base attack could be tried

I don't think, instead, you can solve the problem by making upgrades cheaper. the reason is, it takes a set ammount of time to establish your economy - building farms, bakeries, smokeries, fisheries, mines, smelters, all the chain from basic resources to high weapons. and that time is dictated by how much wood you can gather, and it's around 45-60 minutes. making promotions cheaper would only mean that more are made once the economy is established.

Edited: 2019-08-17, 02:52

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WorldSavior
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Posted at: 2019-09-21, 16:44

king_of_nowhere wrote:

the-x wrote:

I fully understand the point - what you mean, but the problem is not a Fjords game where players can train heroes, indeed i mean all the other games we played where neither of us had any hero or even any improvement on troops. And thats the point, if you attack fast both players dont have any upgrades. You cant solve this problem if every soldiers gets 10% defense bonus cause this will lead to stack games. We can make the upgrades cheaper so that you are little improved and you think if you will invest in defense or which ability ever makes sence. If your having only 0 and full soldiers :( I mean we shouldnt take advantage of it if you can train heroes fast cause that makes the game not so interesting for every other player - and is also linear which means that you are always doing a similar build order. If we can manage to make a scissor - paper - stone principe in this this would be also great like ausweichen (evade) conters attack. Or if we make early improvements very cheap and the later ones more expensive.

oh, i finally understand the point you are making.

and i still disagree with it. even on crater, the smaller and faster map, we both got out several soldiers with evade promotions. and the game is resolved by being able to make more, faster.

it's only worldsavior that goes the "all or nothing" way fully. he knows he will lose ground early when the opponent has evade and he has not, but he will get a hero soldier in time to turn the table. It works.

I don't agree completely. Honestly it works against the-x better to train some soldiers only half-completely instead of training only one soldier completely. If you send only one hero soldier to the battle, the-x can still push you back face-wink.png

currently, atlanteans can make a hero soldier without making iron or coal mines.

But if the soldier should have all promotions, a coal mine / charcoal burner is needed (obviously the charcoal wouldn't make sense).

they could still do it in one hour, though.

No problem, all tribes can train a soldier within one hour to the highest level.

Another ooption would be to increase the base attack value of all soldiers, and decrease the boost given by training. It would not affect the combat between soldiers of equal power, but it would make lowly trained soldiers more effective. And it would make attacking with a lone hero soldier against evade soldiers more risky. we'd have to be careful to not overdo it, or it may make promotions pointless. perhaps a 50% increase in base attack could be tried

I'm against it.

the-x wrote:

If we can manage to make a scissor - paper - stone principe in this this would be also great like ausweichen (evade) conters attack.

scissor-paper-stone would be bad because you would need more luck for winning. What is the point of making a game more luck-based?

the-x wrote:

and we need to make a nice multiplayer lobby witch motivated players.

How should we change the lobby? I see a problem there: It is not obvious that players in a match can not chat, so newbies might feel ignored sometimes. And now there is this bug: Sometimes a player seems to be in the lobby, but he is in a match (if his connection is too slow).

Nordfriese wrote:

Training Step by Step

Fully agree. IMHO the best way to enforce this is by dragging out higher training steps over a long, long time, e.g. by requiring advanced foodstuffs for higher training that needs a worker with hundreds of experience points. However, it is more than likely that any such suggestion will be shot down by the majority of the community…

Yep, for example I'm against it face-wink.png

the-x wrote:

We definitely need some changes in the fight system.

I don't think so face-wink.png

The problem is simple to explain: After playing like 15 games vs world saviour indeed nothing makes any change and it is 100% the fighting system that decides every game.

The reason why I win so often is that I mastered Widelands, so to speak. At the other hand I'm not a chess master (just a strong chess player) and I could lose against a chess grandmaster also 40 matches out of 40. What I want to say by that: Some games are just like that, mostly skill-based and hard to play/learn.

How are then 100% of the games decided: Indeed its the percentage chance of win of the 4 tribes that on every small and medium map, and this only and this will lead to quitting the game.

How do you mean that? I don't understand.

  • Adding another Unit / Improvement: very interesting could be the priest who can convert units randomly as proposed at the Egyptian Tribe. To make it as easy to implement as possible, its an improvement of soldier. To the balancing: i mean its ok, after three hours of playing if it turns out to be too strong, or even useless - depending on the style of how you attack.

Somehow I don't like the idea.

  • Training Step by Step Isnt it crazy, that you must train your soldier from 0 to full in one term, cause everything else doenst make sence.

Other strategies can still make sense


Wanted to save the world, then I got widetracked

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