My Thoughts on Tactical Features

[Maximilian Cervantes]

Suggestions to make KaM a more Tactically Driven Game

A Short Introduction

While KaM is a very good (the best) game when it comes to managing the economy and maintaining troops; it does suffer when it comes to tactics instead of scale when it comes to defeating the enemy. While I don't play the multiplayer, primarily because I dislike the peacetime, it does sound like it's more about 1) Build an army 2) Storm the enemy; instead of making tactical decisions which are a major part of real warfare of the era. The plan is to reduce the use of the peacetime function which make for the same game plan every time, to scout the enemy, attack strategic points and exploit enemy blind zones. So the idea is to have the peacetime game the standard one, while having features which make more specialized missions both strategically challenging, and possible.

These features will make each match more unique and make the learning curve steeper, making combat rely on more than just numbers and superior equipment to win battles.

Each feature I suggest will have its unique advantages and disadvantages, I'll give one example. Patrols (a new feature to allow your units to go from point A to B constantly and automatically, used to temporarily lift the fog of war (A feature I hope you'll implement, due to the added emphasis it places on strategy instead of just storming the enemy, which I think is boring when repeated in match after match)).

Example

Advantages: The patrolling unit will allow you to keep an eye on blind zones which the opponent could easily march through and attack your forces unprepared, if you have many units patrolling you can always be prepared for an enemy attack. Or you can use them to scout out the enemy and see how they're doing. If you have no scouts the enemy can easily check out your army and find out key points to attack and vice versa.

Disadvantages: Patrolling units will be away from your main army (usually), so it will take a while before they're ready to join the combat and that can prove fatal if your opponent is quick and builds an army which will conquer your city easily. They can easily be crushed by enemies, if they're few in number or slow, and will have to return to the main city for food (unless you want your serfs to cross a vast distance and be slaughtered by the enemy if they're spotted). If you have too many units it will drain food and numbers from the main army.

The Suggestions

The Town Hall's Mercenaries

There has been some complaints on the Town Hall from the devs, which I agree with, primarily due to them not really fitting into the whole idea of the complex economy. My suggestion will make it rely more on strategy and timing to pull mercenary troops off, by basing them on history.

Suggestion 1: Recruit the mercenaries as normal, with the same cost, but set a limitation in how long you keep them until they return to the Town Hall. Either by 1) Setting the timer to the average length of a battle or 2) 3/4 or half to make them more reliant on strategy and careful timing.

What these suggestions will mean: You'll have to plan the attack correctly and be careful what you plan them to do, as they can abandon you when it counts the most. In addition, thanks to the new 1+ bonus for troops armed with shields against missile fire mercenaries won't be thougth of as more than cannon fodder to most players' minds, and specialised vulnerable units to those more tactically minded.

Fog of War

The fog of war will be important for some of the features that will make the game reward careful strategy instead of brute force, in keeping with the concept of the game being to manage things well instead of just spamming things.

Instead of just being able to scout the enemy once and then always see what the enemy is doing down to the minutae detail, you know have to send your troops from point A to B, to get updated information.

With the fog of war you can't just scout the enemy's base once and then always know what they're doing. As the game progresses it will be harder and harder to get to the heart of the enemy base, due to to Watchtowers and enemy soldiers.

Suggestion 2) : Introduce it.

Patrol

The patrol button exists because of the fog of war, and will be there to allow the player to send a unit to go from point A to B, constantly, without having to manually send them forwards and back. This is in keeping with real armies to update your intelligence on the enemy. With this new ability they can guard blind zones which cunning enemies can take advantage of. Patrols will also be a unit away from the main army which can prove devestating if you have too many.

The Enemy will have to take these patrols into account when marching on the enemy as well as sending their own scouts to find out the lay of the land as well as the enemy's position and find their blindzones.

Suggestion 3): Give units the option to go patrolling from point A to B in their command menu (or C, D and E as well, if you feel inclined:).

This will make the standard tactic of just gather your men and storm the enemy potentially hazardous and will allow games to be more challenging and interesting and reduce the repetition that is a little too painfully appearant in the game. It will also increase the potentiality of ambushes and skirmishes, instead of always having massive armies confront each other, so it will challenge commanders in different ways.

(New Building) The Outpost

This has been on the idea list of the devs, but I want to repeat it in hope that they will implement it:)

This building will be there to guard strategic blind zones and will just be a normal building except for that 1) It has no function but lift the fog of war, 2) Doesn't need road connection and 3) (This one might be challenging so please don't complain if the devs don't want it) Notify you when it spots enemy troops, in the same way you are notified when your troops are hungry or your houses have remained unoccupied. The third is to make it superior to troops commanded to scout, since it won't defend itself and won't store or produce any goods.

Suggestion: Implement this feature for advanced tactical options, the 3rd might be very challenging, but I have no coding skill, so I can't really say if any of the suggestion in this article are too hard to implement.

Because the labourers must go to the physical location to construct the Outpost, I don't think the Outpost will be overpowered at all. If the opposing player is using scouts effectively the labourers will be slaugthered; this makes it too risky to send them unguarded which brings us to the next feature...

Escort

This Option Exists primarily because of features which will be suggested later in this article, but is true for the labourers and the odd serf here and there as well. The ability to Escort troops is basic in most strategy games (Patrolling as well), and is a feature which hasn't been that important yet, but will be if the suggestions in this article are implemented.

It will make the assigned escorts to follow the unit they're escorting, which seems quite pointless right now, but it's usefullness will become appearant after you've seen the other features.

Suggestion: Skip the following paragraphs and see the following features before deciding whether or not to implement this one... Then implement this(:

You can escort Caravans or Supply Wagons which are otherwise vulnerable, though your escort should be big enough to fight off enemies or they're little use, if you have a whole army escorting them who'll defend your city?


A New Function for the Storehouse and the School

The storehouse is the most important building in the game, as well as always being the first, so I have a suggestion that I hope you'll implement.

Give the storehouse the ability to be placed on the map without connecting to a road so that you can, in a sense of the word, create new
cities, or if the coal or another resource is located far away from your starting location then you can create a small city dedicated to this purpouse, when I think about it, you'll also have to disable the serfs from other cities from responding so it might be impossible to implement. The entire thing about this feature is to create new tactical options, advantages and disadvantages.

Well, since the serfs are attached to their roadsystem, what I said about having to disable them from responding isn't true. Thank God, I thought this would be the end of this feature:)

I do really like the road system, but sometimes it's a little unwieldy for my tastes. When you have to build a road that stretches far across the map and takes ages instead of just building an additional city, it's quite stupid, and unrealistic at times... While the serfs are connected to their former city and can't be used to construct Watchtowers and Barrackses anywhere on the map, I think it will be good to see the Storehouses using this feature to construct cities and small cities at key locations.

Now, about the School, we'll need it to be able to share the feature if this new system is to work. Because the serfs are attached to their roadsystem, these two buildings will have to be excepted from the rule, in the same way as roads, farms and such are.

Suggestion: Free these two (and the Outpost) from the restriction so you are able to build new cities (perhaps by letting the servants recognize them as roads just with normal production costs).

This means that yes, you can build a new city, even one with nothing but serfs, a school, an inn, storehouse and watchtowers, but what if your enemy ignores this one and goes for your main city? Or if you station many units here what then of your main city, or none at all and it will fall within seconds, or if it is big with too few troops the enemy won't have any problem crushing it before your main army arrives.

This might seem very stupid (since your Storehouse and School won't have any goods when it's created and the serfs won't carry any except to build them), but I have a new feature which will make this a sound tactical option, if the resources or your overall plan demands it.

The Caravan

I know this idea has been discussed before, with the devs against it. I also know I haven't read many of the suggestions of the Caravan unit, so I am sorry if I say something others have said before, but this idea makes for a more tactically based game since it's a tempting target, because it's basically a storehouse on wheels. If you ambush the caravan it will destroy the resources the enemy is sending and thus be devestating, so it will be wise to assign an escort, but that will be one unit away from the army so either way it will be a disadvantage. The advantage lies in trading, as you can send resources from your storehouses to your own storehouses, or markets; or your friends, if you prefer. This makes my idea of having multiple cities possible which can be used to provide just one resource or be a watchtower equipped base.

About the cart: The cart itself will be made at the carpenters, for 4 wood. Two horses will be needed from the stables. 1 Cartdriver will have to be trained at the school. Then it will have to be sent to the barracks to be made into a complete unit. It will be able to carry 100 units of whatever goods you wish to include into it.

Suggestion: This will make for new advantages and disadvantages. So including it would make the matches more interesting.

The Supply Wagon

The idea for this is to provide troops stationed far away from home, with food. And will function by a new button on the soldiers menu which allows them to take food from the the Supply Wagon instead of calling the serfs.

Built the same way, with different cosmetics to distuingish them. This one can carry the same ammount, but can only carry food items.

Suggestion: Yeah, you get the point...

Players Skill Level

This new suggestion is about scaling the matches according to the players chosen skill level (I wrote Skilled, but it's a long time since last I played). Veterans will have serious limitations against Beginners for example.

I will also suggest ranking the matches, so you progress or fall as you win or lose, in addition to making the games more competitive, this will also prove useful for those players who might have written Veteran, but really are Beginners and vice verca. Thus making the games more balanced and unique in a strange combination. The limitations can either be in buildings/ units they can't construct or that the player who isn't very skilled can get starting advantages.

The point of scaling the matches, as well as ranking them, is to make sure the game always gives you the challenge that is best for you. Thus you will always progress, if only slightly sometimes, towards Veteran rank and more importantly to the delight of refinement and illusionary perfection.

Third and lastly (bet you're happy to hear it=)), I suggest having specialized missions where you have a specific objective to achieve, for example you have 100 soldiers and the enemy has a base and 250 soldiers and your mission is to destroy a specific building (or two or three different ones) or the enemy stops you and you've lost. These Special Missions would be best if having a story-ish description, partly to show why the targets are important etc. get creative if you like:)

Conclusion

If these features are included the game will be more varied and they will make the actual battle interesting, instead of it just being about creating a base (A complex one, but a base all the same) and because you focus on building the same army nearly everytime, you'll build the same base (see the vicious circle?). By having so many different tactical advantages and disadvantages, nearly every player will fight differently making their bases differently and they will always try out new tactics, refine their bases to get better armies. Instead of fighting a similiar battle every time, you'll now have unique challenges everytime.

Ironically, though I didn't intend it, it will put a new fresh emphasis on the basebuilding, because there's advantages and disadvantages to having the power centralised or spread out, and you'll be less likely to use the same army for long periods as someone will always have an army you didn't expect and defeat you. So then you'll adjust or try out something new, and the quest for the perfect army begins anew... Hope you enjoyed this article:)

[dicsoupcan]

I am sorry to say this, but most ideas already have been proposed and rejected.

The town hall has bene discussed to death, even the suggestion you made here has been proposed already.

Fog of war has also already been proposed, but has been rejected (i forgot the reasons why)

Patrolling units is a new suggestion i think, but i do not see any useof having patrols even in fog of war. an enemy player can just kill your patrol without you seeing it with ranged units for example so the patrol has no use since you have no idea what killed it and what is coming.

without returning fog of war there is not much useof an outpost, buti do have to say this: i often see people sending labourers undefended into the battlefield hoping they die so you have more food for your town and troops.

I do not get your escort suggetions, all i can make up from it is that we would need new sprites.

The sotrehouse is in my opinion the least iportant building in the game, as soon as my starting resources are gone from it i do nothing with it unless i have much food. but that is a case that almost never happens, 19 out of 20 games i could just destroy my storehouse for extra space. In multiplayer you are not able to make a second town since most towns from all players often already use 60% of the map. it is impossible to make a second town even on the largest map size.

since the caravan is included with your second town suggestion i will provide the same arguments against it. Not to mention we need new sprites. (you got this idea from settler IV did you? )

I like the calling for serfs more, because you then need to watch out where you are going to feed your soldiers and it might even force you to retreat, food cart will kill this option.

A ranking system has been discussed, but as far as i know the technical and security capabilities are not available at the moment.

The specialized missions are in progress thanks to the new dynamic scripting beta, a few special missions have been made already and someone (read siegfried) already succesfully launched an entire new multiplayer gamemode with no pt.


I am sorry for being so blunt, i know you have the same goals in making kam a better game and i am not trying to kick you down.

[Maximilian Cervantes]

Discupan, I added these suggestions because KaM, my favourite game is becoming boring, due to constant repetition.

All the suggestions have been included to create new tactical options, which will make each match different. I do not know why they took down the Fog of war, but that and the patrolling command is there for the same reason. Your argument against them is one of the disadvantages I listed, which is true and meant to be there. None of the futures are meant to be pure advantages, they're dillemmas made so that you'll have to choose carefully whether you'll use them or not, and how many and so on...

The Escort doesn't need sprites it's just a command, just like you press the attack button or the charge (for axemen and such).

This is just to make the game more tactically challenging:)

And by the way, I'm not sure if I played this Settler game you talked about, I've played one, but I'm not sure which. It took me two missions before I realized it was nothing near KaM so I stopped playing it, and the CD has gathered dust:) No, the idea of the caravans I think it comes from Mount and Blade, another game I like for entirely different reasons.

Discupan
Do agree with you on the serf vs. Supply Wagon issue though, it was primarily meant to be used when your army is very far away, waiting for the patrol to see where the enemy is.

The reason I agree with you, is because I didn't think of how easily it could be abused:)

Sorry, if I seemed rude, didn't mean to shut you down at all On the contrary I'd like to discuss these features (in the hope of catching the devs attention ) and illustrating what I meant more clearly.

It's true what you said about the ranged units vs. units patrolling except that 1) I think they've got the same line of sight, so you'll see them by the time they see you 2) If you have horsemen, like I plan to they're dead without support 3) You don't know where the units patrolling are, just guessing, until you've lifted the fog of war

The whole point of these features is adding advantages to spreading out your forces, based on real wars from the era. As well as disadvantages so that every player fights battles differently.

So for example: You'd like to keep your forces in your base until you attack, but then you'll have no information on my army, where I'm stationed, and I can outmanoeuvre and trick you. Attack your base while your away from it, place some decoy troops that you can attack or chase while marching on your city.

I'll have certain advantages and you'll have others, and yes if your army met my patrolling unit, they'd be dead. But one unit patrolling (I'd use six men per patrol I think) would be of little consequence compared to the advantages it would bring me.

[Shadaoe]

This new suggestion is about scaling the matches according to the players chosen skill level (I wrote Skilled, but it's a long time since last I played). Veterans will have serious limitations against Beginners for example.

Do you mean by "I wrote Skilled", that you have put "skilled" into your account information ? you forgot to login then
I understand that some people want "ranked games" along with more pushed account features, I'd like to get some of it too, but the developers chosed not to do it because they can't provide a totally secure account system, and they prefer not to risk the user's information, which is perfectly understandable.

As for your other ideas, I must admit the main idea is good, to provide a more tactical feeling and change how monotonous games can be. But as dicsoupcan pointed out, most of your suggestions require larger maps, or differently thought maps at the very least.
I think the developers mentioned that maybe the "split city" thing could be done, but they'll confirm themselves about it

Another thing, now that the dynamic scripts are implemented, the possibilities are vast. As dicsoupcan said there is already a map named "Florescence" that'll be along with the next release, on which you don't need a PT and you can achieve many objectives with different playstyles. The mapmakers now can do different maps with many possibilities, which should bring more variety to the game.

[Lewin]

I'll explain my opinion here, I haven't really discussed these with Krom yet so don't assume my opinion is what the "KaM Remake Team" thinks.

People seem to think a lot of stuff has been "rejected" meaning we won't consider it any more. But I'm always open to considering ideas if they fit into the game, improve it and are feasible to implement.

I agree that peacetime isn't a great solution to things like militia rush (first person to train a militia wins by killing all of your villagers). Long term I would ideally like to completely remove peacetime if we can make it possible to defend yourself effectively at the start of the game. A solution could be something like the town hall giving you units cheaply for a short amount of time (a few minutes, not long enough to attack but long enough to defend) or making the town hall units unable to walk far from your village, or converting some of your villagers temporarily into town hall units for a short period of time (so you can't just spam troops this way). This is how it works in most RTS games, you can attack and scout at the start but there are very effective ways to defend yourself right from the beginning of the game. Peacetime is a boring game mechanic in my opinion, but finding an alternative solution isn't easy.

I think fog of war might work if the view radius through fog is quite large for all units (much larger than their view radius through unexplored areas). I like the "open" feeling of KaM and the fact that you can have massive battles and see where the enemy is lining up his troops, that's one of the core features of KaM. Large fog of war view radiuses might fix this because you could still see quite a large area around your army (but not through unexplored areas).

Separate villages is technically challenging, since currently there's no way to lock serfs to a certain village, all houses look the same to them, they only check for connecting road when seeing if they can deliver from house A to house B. I also think running two economies at once is a massive amount of work, giving that each village needs so many houses just to function at all (stone, wood, food, gold, coal, etc.).

I'm not convinced the supply wagon or caravan are a good idea, and they'd require a massive number of sprits which we can't make right now.

Matching players with skill level would be good, but pretty hard to do without an accounts system. I think we could do something like this:

1. Players set their perceived skill level at the same place as their name (1..4 or something) and then everyone can see that as an icon in the lobby next to their name. This would help with matchmaking, assuming players can judge their own skill level effectively. There's no real reason for anyone to lie about it since skilled players don't want to appear like noobs and have a boring game where they crush everyone, and unskilled players don't want to appear skilled because they'll get crushed.

2. Have a "skill level" for each lobby which can be seen before you join. I'm not sure that's a good idea since you can have a balanced game if each team has a fair mix of skilled/unskilled players.

As Shadaoe said, the next release has missions with special objectives thanks to dynamic scripting.

No promises on any of this, I'm just giving my opinions

[Krom]

I'll add to Lewins post, but before we have discussed it these are just our personal opinions, not the "KaM Remake Team"

First of all TL;DR. The text is massive and needs some sections and tldr section that lays out main message.

Peacetime .. I think Lewin did a good sum up, if we give serfs ability to defend themselves against melee, yet don't allow player to control them directly that might work towards removal of peacetime.

Dynamic FOW does not fits KaM very well because of it hides the tactic maneuvering on explored areas, which is an important feature/element in KaM.

Separate villages are not needed because even now a standalone village takes huge space and needs a lot of attention from player to function well.

Caravans - no real need in them. PvP trading can be dome with other means.

Skill level - we can have that when we have accounts system (which is an interesting area) and apply some ranking solution (alike one used in Chess circles). Should not be a problem.

Specialized missions - with dynamic scripts they are more than doable.

TownHall - maybe later.

[Siegfried]

A detailed suggestion deserves a detailed response. As a matter of fact disagree on the first points you raised

Peace time: I also think it's sad that it became like standard scenario to have like 60min pt then send your army to the opponent to destroy and the game is finished. There is little tactics and only limited pleasure in this for me.

The need for pt however is understandable, and you have to think into the game and compare it to others to get the reason.
And I come to the conclusion, that the biggest issue with KaM is it's lack of defending possibilities. This makes all gameplay so one dimensional. You can't defend against the first militia, so you have to look for something like pt. You can't defend your city after you lost your army, so your city is destroyed immediately after the loss of the first army. KaM is so slow paced that it takes ages to recruit a new army.

For the pt problem, there would be another solution: starting troops. If you are given maybe 6 starting scouts, then the first militia can't win. But people are getting so used to pt that every map I've played with starting troops and w/o pt ended in a 2 minutes match because everybody rushed to the middle and started to fight immediately. The one troop that was left then could destroy the defenseless towns.

But this lack of defense is a fact, and maybe walls would help here, because you could give a narrow entrance that can be defended with some towers. So there actually is a defense and you'd need a final siege to win. But it's hard to build walls while your city is expanding. And putting those walls not until the final stage of your city is way too late for a good defense. As long as they are filled with stones, towers are overpowered (killing every unit with one stone, like ballista does), but this is countered by the fact that they are useless as soon as they are empty.

But this is KaM gameplay and there are consequences out of that:
1. and most important: fog of war is teh ev1l! Seriously, this will destroy the gameplay even more. Think of it, you have a defenseless city and you have no idea from where the enemy might attack. So what other can you do except leaving your troops at home.
The lack of fow has one very big advantage - there are those big battles in the middle of the map. In my opinion, that's how it should be. Build your city, recruit your army then then send it to battlefield.

If we found a way to defend your city for a time span long enough to recruit some more troops, then it would also be possible to come back after you've lost your first army and there you have the strategy we want.

fow and patrols and all those things are good for a fast paced game like C&C, where fow suits well. But KaM is the slowest game available out there.

[Krom]

Starting troops aren't going to help because you can just take them and kill enemies laborers or serfs.

Take **craft for example, you can defend with peons, but attacking with peons is nonsense since you leave your base undeveloped. So frankly speaking peons are tied to the base and provide some degree of defense to it. Further explained in viewtopic.php?f=24&t=1608

[Maximilian]

Sorry about the username thing, last time it told me this name was occupied, probably was logged out at the moment.

Ducapan, sorry about The Settlers commentary, totally uncalled for.

Shadoe: Yes, I meant what you thought;) It was a rumour on the KaM site that in the remake you'd change the sizes of the maps and so I thought they'd all be larger. Probably should have checked it out first.

Lewin: While I agree with you on the supply wagon, the whole idea about all of the features I suggested was meant to give players a dilemma about whether or not to have them stay centralized or Decentralized, but I agree with Ducapan there, the supply wagon especially could easily be abused. The caravan was a feature for trading, among yourself and allies, and the idea is to have it physically moving, being a high stakes gain or loss if it goes far from your city.

Good idea about increased visual range on explored territory, really liked that one. The fog of war will open many different modes of player styles, so we'll have more diversity from the players themselves.

Now the one thing I dislike about peacetime, isn't the peacetime itself, when I think about it, it's because it's used to prepare a rush. If we use peacetime to make complex cities and different kind of armies, some meant to rush, others more for manueouvering, that would be the best. Now that the time passes quicker in peacetime I think peacetime is a really good option. So that you have larger armies where different units have different things you want them to do.

The Fog of War is a feature to balance and diversify the game, Ducapan, responded to it by the Rush Tactic, I would have used troops to scout his position, Siegfred would have stayed in the city. Three completely different tactics to one feature, exactly the reaction I was aiming for:)

Multiple Villages was an idea I got from playing the singleplayer and dividing my city into different sections, and by using multiple storehouses I was able to have separate villages, connected by roads, but separate. One had coal and wood, another food and leather etc. etc. If you could further micromanage the resources sent to the different storehouses that would be great. Now you can only exclude some resources, but what if you had a slider which you could use to specify distribution i.e. 50/50, 80/30, 33/33/33.

If I could micromanage the distribution then I could get 2 cities in essence.

Another thing that came to mind, if you could micromanage the serf priority list down to the basics i.e. food, before stone and such. Do you think it could be possible? I am asking because it has often frustrated me, that none of my serfs will touch the corn, while everyone is eager to get their hands on gold.

Krom: What is tdlr? I assume it's about the organization of my article, but is there any way to change what I've already written? Thanks for the heads up:)

Love the idea of serfs defending themselves, didn't think I'd like it but your suggestion is brilliant. Since they're not player controlled, it will work well. It might also allow the actual battle to be longer and more complex since you need to win more decisively against the enemy in order to have enough troops left to take his city after you've defeated his army.

And then not touch the classic game we know? So that the Fog of War is only for the Deathmatch and not the classic one?

The Deathmatch: Where both spawn with an army, but no city, serfs or such. I think it would be perfect with Fog of War, where you can send units forth to scout the enemy and then plan manouvers to outmatch him.

Siegfried: If you read Krom's suggestions on the thread above mine, then you'll see what might be a good solution to both the peactime option and the one army is all it takes thing. When it comes to your opinions on it being a slow paced game, I really agree, and that's probably the reason everyone is striving to win the battle as quickly as possible instead of taking their time and having fun, as well as exploring new tactics.

I think the lack of diversity and challenges are the reason we have the constant rush to the finish line, which is really just abusing the game, and not developing a real economy at all. It's spamming, and some of these new features might be the solution to the constant rush to the goal. What I want, and what it seems that you want is a solid match with new challenges and more focus on different tactics.

[Bence791]

To be honest I didn't take my time to read your whole post, so I won't write about all.

Town Hall: Has been discussed many many times as others wrote before.
Patrol and Fog of War: Patrol is unnecessary without FOW, and as Dicsoupcan wrote, they still wouldn't have any use because you can just pass them by or kill them with archers. FOW doesn't fit KaM, we have tested it some times before, and the problem is that no-one will ever go fighting if he can't be sure no-one is right in his armies' back. Also, you can't do any tactical movements without being able to see the battlefield. On the other hand, FOW would make fighting missions hide and seek instead...
Outpost: We already have a lovely, tall building, on top of this it throws stones! It has a really wide seeing radius. And the outpost would be only "useful" if we had FOW...

I think the game is becoming boring for you because you don't play MP. There is no fun in slaughtering AI's all over and over again, I agree. Come and play with us instead.

Oh and btw:

Players Skill Level

This new suggestion is about scaling the matches according to the players chosen skill level (I wrote Skilled, but it's a long time since last I played). Veterans will have serious limitations against Beginners for example.

Do you seriously think that the veterans couldn't choose "Beginner" as skill level if they wanted to (Accounts system and games statistics can be a solution, but that's a load of work, and there are more important things than that)? And also I think this would be very unfair against good players. Why do you want to punish them if they are good?

[sado1]

TL;DR is short for "Too Long, Didn't Read". When people write a very long post in the Internet, it's common to put a TL;DR section at the bottom - to explain the main idea to those that are interested in the topic, but don't have time to read the whole post. Especially, that your post was HUGE. Maybe the longest I ever saw there.

[Maximilian]

Benze 791: If you remain in your City and I scout out your army, I can tailor mine to defeat yours while you only get to see 1 unit. So this coupled with the increased visual range in previously explored area (Lewin's Idea), double the range, would decrease the paranoia.

And if you pay attention to your patrols it will be difficult for the enemy to just shoot them down, since your visual range is longer than the archers can fire.

The Watchpost has two advantages, 1) It doesn't need roads 2) It notifies you when it spots an enemy, in the same way as when your troops are hungry or your buildings have been unoccupied for too long.

Would you lie on that? And get a ridiculously easy game or the other way around? If you've been playing the game for long, it will be very boring to play against beginners. It would be a massacre and no challenge at all, there's no fun in that. That's the whole point of the article, to make the game more challenging and add more diversity.

Sado1: Thanks for the heads up I'm new to the forums, and yeah, I've begun to realize the post was long, read some of the comments and the conclusion for easy (easier) reference.

[Bence791]

Benze 791: If you remain in your City and I scout out your army, I can tailor mine to defeat yours while you only get to see 1 unit. So this coupled with the increased visual range in previously explored area (Lewin's Idea), double the range, would decrease the paranoia.

And if you pay attention to your patrols it will be difficult for the enemy to just shoot them down, since your visual range is longer than the archers can fire.

The Watchpost has two advantages, 1) It doesn't need roads 2) It notifies you when it spots an enemy, in the same way as when your troops are hungry or your buildings have been unoccupied for too long.

Would you lie on that? And get a ridiculously easy game or the other way around? If you've been playing the game for long, it will be very boring to play against beginners. It would be a massacre and no challenge at all, there's no fun in that. That's the whole point of the article, to make the game more challenging and add more diversity.

1) How do you scout my army if I'm in my city?
2) I have a brain and I go scouting right after peacetime to see the nearby area. This way I also see whether you are coming or not.
3) I didn't really understand what you meant with the archers can fire and radius of sight... Archers can shoot further than they can see (which is a problem though, but it's not the place to discuss it), and no-one will ever tell you that someone has scouted your patrol so he can just shoot them down.
4) No, it doesn't have any advantages. How doesn't it need roads? You can only let your serfs deliver stuff there if there is road connection. On the other hand, there are some serious consequences of that "It notifies you when it spots an enemy". I could just spam it wherever I want to, and with these notifications, I could always be prepared for an enemy attack, which is BAD. It would lead to 6-7 hours of camping games... Also, no need for this building without FOW.
5)STOP.

• - Why speaking about lying? Did I lie? No, I guess.
  - You said you only play singleplayer since you dislike peacetime. How do you know what happens in multiplayer games?
  - I have played KaM for a long time. It is very boring against beginners, indeed.
  - No, it wouldn't add any challenge, would make the game exclusively and extremely campy, that destroys the rest of the fun.
  - This is why I play with beta-testers, all games remain fun since I (and all of us as well) know that no-one will just leave without a single reason or something, and we know what to expect each other to get in peacetime etc.

[Shadaoe]

3) I didn't really understand what you meant with the archers can fire and radius of sight... Archers can shoot further than they can see (which is a problem though, but it's not the place to discuss it), and no-one will ever tell you that someone has scouted your patrol so he can just shoot them down.

The discussion was going to an expanded LoS on explored areas :

I think fog of war might work if the view radius through fog is quite large for all units (much larger than their view radius through unexplored areas)

Good idea about increased visual range on explored territory, really liked that one. The fog of war will open many different modes of player styles, so we'll have more diversity from the players themselves.

[Jeronimo]

Maximilian, what do you think of this type of FoW: viewtopic.php?p=27043#p27043
But answer me here because there would be off-topic.