Official KaM Remake Ideas topic

[Lewin]

I am growing very tired of this thread, for the following reasons:

- People see one little bit of information and then go and make huge assumptions about the balance of the entire game and the way the engine works:
a) if we gave militia zero defence, the game would crash because it would be dividing by zero. 1 is the absolute minimum defence. You have no understanding of the formulae used in the fighting system, so PLEASE do not tell me "you must rebalance it!" based on the unit statistics. If you have a reason to think militia are unbalanced from your experience playing with them, that's a different matter. But you CAN'T just look at the statistics are make assumptions when you don't understand how those statistics are used in game.

b) Militia do not need rebalancing. Have you found them too powerful in game? I haven't, they die very quickly and don't do much damage. The difference between 1 defence and 2 is twice as much, meaning they will take twice as many hits as an axefighter. They are as weak as a serf! Don't assume things are unbalanced without understanding the formulae and testing it.
Also, @Jeronimo: One post you said something like "militia should be cheaper because they are so weak and useless" and now you say "militia are overpowered". I am therefore at the conclusion that you assumed these things based on the unit statistics and no knowledge of the fighting system formulae, rather than from an observation in-game. By the way, there is a topic somewhere called "fighting system analysis". I suggest you read it, but keep in mind that you CANNOT balance a game by looking at formulae and unit statistics. You must test it to see how things work out, it won't always be how you expect.

- People keep bringing up the same things again and again, especially regarding the town hall/siege equipment. I find I am repeating myself every week explaining the same reasons over and over. If the sprites for these units didn't exist, everyone wouldn't be crying at us to add them. We will NEVER add something to this game just because there are some cool unused sprites lying around. We will only add things when they fit nicely into the game balance and structure, which we think siege equipment and the town hall do not.

- People keep saying things like: "you must do this", "in your to do list must be", etc. etc.
No, it's our project, we "mustn't" do anything because you told us to, especially when you are making stupid assumptions based on statistics when you don't even understand how those statistics are used to simulate a fight. Please have some respect.

I think tower+crossbowmen faceoffs are a problem in KaM online. However I think the crossbowmen are the biggest problem. Lake Wololo will always have this issue because there is only one narrow entrance from one side to the other. I've still played some great game on it though. I really don't think tower limiting is a good idea, if we want to limit something it should be archers! Walls of crossbowmen defending a base scare me more than a few towers. A town will kill 3-4 soldiers then be empty, a crossbowmen can kill hundreds.
I don't want to limit anything, I'm just saying that towers aren't a big problem, the crossbowmen are the problem.

B) You dont complain about spamming Militias (1 axe/1 gold chest) that have Charge ability, but you consider that Rebels (2 gold chests) would be a problem? I think its a contra-logic.

In TPR rebels cost 1 gold, and militia cost 2. Please check your numbers before making accusations.

They start eating 1 bread/1 sausage (which completes them). The problem is that if you have, for instance NO bread, then they will eat 1 sausage/1 wine/1 fish -> a complete waste because sausuage+wine will leave them with 80% condition and then eat a fish which is pure economic lose (fish adds +60% bar).

I will look into this and check how it works in KaM. I agree units should only eat 2 items max, and I think that's how it is in KaM. Thanks.

Stats? it has 1 defense it should be 0 (no armour) cost? one single axe, time? one recruit and one axe and no armour needed? is the faster units to be trained at a very cheap cost, use? massing them in few time to kamikaze against towers, and die by other massed unit, the cross.

Yes I also think we should make the game divide by zero and crash As I said above you CANNOT make assumptions on balance when you have no idea how the fighting system formulae work!

Huge thanks to The Dark Lord and GreatWhiteBear for having some sense.

[ThibbyRozier]

About multiplayer.
Would it be an idea to make a player invite menu/button in the lobby for players who aren't in a other game/lobby?
This would make it possible to play the games faster. means less lobby waiting.

[Lewin]

About multiplayer.
Would it be an idea to make a player invite menu/button in the lobby for players who aren't in a other game/lobby?
This would make it possible to play the games faster. means less lobby waiting.

How should it notify them? If the Remake isn't running we can't notify them, (there's no process on their computer to be connected to our servers and show the notification) and if they're already in the multiplayer menu they'll refresh and see your lobby anyway. Is that what you meant?

[Jeronimo]

B) You dont complain about spamming Militias (1 axe/1 gold chest) that have Charge ability, but you consider that Rebels (2 gold chests) would be a problem? I think its a contra-logic.

In TPR rebels cost 1 gold, and militia cost 2. Please check your numbers before making accusations.

It was a 4)B). So my commentary was made on base of your "Townhall response" to "my initial suggestion".

B) But if it uses idle units, then I can still use the towerhall to spam cheap units by training 100 fisherman and converting them all. Also if there is a timer then it is a very slow way to make troops this way, so not good for emergencies. I think there is some promise in this idea though, when we get more of the game done we'll think about ideas like this. (there's so many other things to work on that I honestly don't care about balancing the townhall/siege equipment right now, they game is fine without them and they can always be added later)

Respect Towers, I do believe that players on Room should be able to decide how much Towers per player can be built (from 0 to 12).
Before starting, the players involved will accord a limit (towers x player) based in: Map design/Teams.

Respect Fighting System, thanks for telling me which Thread.

Respect me, Im done.

[GreatWhiteBear]

Nope, you should be able to adapt to new situations and improvise.

I'd use militia to get the tower hits and then right after that I'd send in my axe fighters/scouts/sword fighters/knights.

[The Dark Lord]

I have another idea as well.
I've seen alot of people use labourers to scout a player in the early game. If it is still peacetime and I'm unable to train troops, my blood starts boiling when I see a labourer entering my vision because you can't do a thing. Also, he ruins the landscape by digging fields everywhere.
So, obviously my idea is to disallow labourers to scout, so labourers can only walk on terrain that has already been discovered.
This is not ideal though. If you build a building on the edge of your vision, labourers aren't able to walk around it. I came up with some solutions:
- Increase of the serf's line of sight (I dislike this idea)
- Make it possible for labourers to go everywhere within 1 tile of the bulding (so you can make it like they are walking through the fog and they disappear for a few seconds, or you could make an exception and let them discover the terrain) It won't be useful for scouting though, because the player will have to build buildings in order to see a little more.
Other possibilities:
- Decrease the labourer's line of sight
- Have a range labourers can walk in, like: 10 tiles away from every building or road (but this could bring problems if people want to make long roads within their line of sight)

None of these suggestions are really what I'm looking for but I hate hate hate hate HATE it when people scout me. If they do it in a fair way with soldiers and manage to sneak in or something like that I can live with it, but this filthy trick with the labourers makes me angry.
If anyone has better suggestions on how to prevent labourers from scouting, please share them. Don't be telling me that you like evil hostile labourers in your village because I won't believe you.

[Teyrn Leto]

I think The Dark Lord brings up a fair point. Although I think it would be prudent to add that this handicaps players, especially ones that are unexperienced or unfamilair with the map that is played on. For example, in one of my very first times of playing KaM online (thanks through the Remake) it was only through luck that I had a friendly teammate that could point me out all the points of interests (iron, gold, coal, space for farms, etc) or else I would have certainly resorted to this. On the other hand I would personally never use this to scout my enemy.

Don't get me wrong, I fully understand the problem but I just wanted to share some thoughts.

[The Dark Lord]

Good point, I hadn't thought of that yet...
As far as I know, Krom and Lewin plan to show a picture of the selected map in the lobby. That might solve it? But as long as that isn't implemented it stays a problem. Thanks for your post.

[Lewin]

I have another idea as well.
I've seen alot of people use labourers to scout a player in the early game. If it is still peacetime and I'm unable to train troops, my blood starts boiling when I see a labourer entering my vision because you can't do a thing. Also, he ruins the landscape by digging fields everywhere.

I've never seen someone scouting my base with labourers, but that's a really dirty tactic and I would like to stop it.
David suggested an idea a while ago which I like:
At the start of the game, the engine calculates a territory for each team. Tiles are in your territory if they are closer to your storehouse than to your enemy's storehouse. Distances are calculated by WALKING distance, not direct distance. (so territory will go around hills and be blocked by obstacles like mountains) During peacetime you are only allowed to move troops and build within your territory (yes you are allowed to use troops for scouting) This would stop people scouting with labourers and stop people complaining about not being able to scout properly (I agree that scouting with labourers to find your resources is very lame)
A few issues with it:
- This will cause issues on some maps, for example, Road of the Valley, the corner iron positions will only be accessible to one player. But these corner positions don't work with existing peacetime either. The first guy to get a watchtower there wins and gets all the iron. I guess that's more of a map fault than anything. We could possible allow the mission script to define parts of the territory, e.g. neutral areas and areas belonging to a certain player.
- We will probably have to actually make soldiers not fight during peacetime (at the moment we just stop you from equipping/commanding them) because you will be able to stand your troops right next to the enemy at the point the territories meet. I can see people lining up troops along the border for the moment peacetime ends etc., so maybe we should have a small gap of "no man's land" where borders meet?

Anyway it's just an idea David suggested in the comments on http://www.kamremake.com, I'd be interested to hear what other people think of it.
Cheers,
Lewin.

[ThibbyRozier]

How should it notify them? If the Remake isn't running we can't notify them, (there's no process on their computer to be connected to our servers and show the notification) and if they're already in the multiplayer menu they'll refresh and see your lobby anyway. Is that what you meant?

Well, if I am right... The Remake servers and the TPR's and TSK's original servers don't combine.
And I thought about making a small pop-up window, 400x100 (WxH), with a accept and dismiss (or reject) button and the host/server name.
And it would be a small, yet good idea to make the server page refresh in every... 10, maybe 30 seconds.

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[=NL=Gila]

I have another idea as well.
I've seen alot of people use labourers to scout a player in the early game. If it is still peacetime and I'm unable to train troops, my blood starts boiling when I see a labourer entering my vision because you can't do a thing. Also, he ruins the landscape by digging fields everywhere.

I've never seen someone scouting my base with labourers, but that's a really dirty tactic and I would like to stop it.
David suggested an idea a while ago which I like:
At the start of the game, the engine calculates a territory for each team. Tiles are in your territory if they are closer to your storehouse than to your enemy's storehouse. Distances are calculated by WALKING distance, not direct distance. (so territory will go around hills and be blocked by obstacles like mountains) During peacetime you are only allowed to move troops and build within your territory (yes you are allowed to use troops for scouting) This would stop people scouting with labourers and stop people complaining about not being able to scout properly (I agree that scouting with labourers to find your resources is very lame)
A few issues with it:
- This will cause issues on some maps, for example, Road of the Valley, the corner iron positions will only be accessible to one player. But these corner positions don't work with existing peacetime either. The first guy to get a watchtower there wins and gets all the iron. I guess that's more of a map fault than anything. We could possible allow the mission script to define parts of the territory, e.g. neutral areas and areas belonging to a certain player.
- We will probably have to actually make soldiers not fight during peacetime (at the moment we just stop you from equipping/commanding them) because you will be able to stand your troops right next to the enemy at the point the territories meet. I can see people lining up troops along the border for the moment peacetime ends etc., so maybe we should have a small gap of "no man's land" where borders meet?

Anyway it's just an idea David suggested in the comments on http://www.kamremake.com, I'd be interested to hear what other people think of it.
Cheers,
Lewin.

Hi, I'm new in this forum, and I am only reading most of the time to inform myself properly. Anyway, I was reading this topic and checked it in the game. Therefore I have something to say, if you all allow me

Scouting with your labourers is indeed a lame and weak strategy, though I can understand why people do it, they did it one time, it worked, so in their eyes its a beautiful way to explore the map. But it irritates the experienced players. Me aswell.

So if I may, I got some sort of idea/suggestion but I dont know if this works in KaM.

I compared the issues with other games in my inventory. Games like Age of Empires series and the Command and Conquer series. In these games, you got the ''fog'' of the map like KaM, when your units go to the edge of the ''fog'', you explore some of the landscape (as everyone know, even the persons who dont know the game). But if you leave your explored area, the area goes in some sort of ''thin fog'', wich means, you can see the landscape (mountains, trees, rocks, etc.) but not the actual scene like if someone walks through that area with his army, unless you have a unit nearby with his line of sight. Is this possible in the game engine of KaM?

Also, I've looked for the border issue, but I find it difficult to see what the problem really is. Is it that players line up their soldiers so close to your border or should there be a area between two borders? If you can direct me where to look for this issue, I would be grateful for that.

Looking forward to your reply.

Stanley a.k.a. =NL= Gila

[themyth]

old kam was have ally option if this comes back we have no need peace time and we can battle with our allies
if it easy to make, town hall units can be added to castle example: 2 battle axe, 1 sword = barbarian.
1 battle axe, 1 horse = vegabond
1 spear = rebel
2 battle axe, 1 metal armor = warior
and one last think stone towers attacks can be change to like slinger attack now it cant kill anything with 1 shot

they are just my thinking good work

[caykroyd]

I have another idea as well.
I've seen alot of people use labourers to scout a player in the early game. If it is still peacetime and I'm unable to train troops, my blood starts boiling when I see a labourer entering my vision because you can't do a thing. Also, he ruins the landscape by digging fields everywhere.

I've never seen someone scouting my base with labourers, but that's a really dirty tactic and I would like to stop it.
David suggested an idea a while ago which I like:
At the start of the game, the engine calculates a territory for each team. Tiles are in your territory if they are closer to your storehouse than to your enemy's storehouse. Distances are calculated by WALKING distance, not direct distance. (so territory will go around hills and be blocked by obstacles like mountains) During peacetime you are only allowed to move troops and build within your territory (yes you are allowed to use troops for scouting) This would stop people scouting with labourers and stop people complaining about not being able to scout properly (I agree that scouting with labourers to find your resources is very lame)
A few issues with it:
- This will cause issues on some maps, for example, Road of the Valley, the corner iron positions will only be accessible to one player. But these corner positions don't work with existing peacetime either. The first guy to get a watchtower there wins and gets all the iron. I guess that's more of a map fault than anything. We could possible allow the mission script to define parts of the territory, e.g. neutral areas and areas belonging to a certain player.
- We will probably have to actually make soldiers not fight during peacetime (at the moment we just stop you from equipping/commanding them) because you will be able to stand your troops right next to the enemy at the point the territories meet. I can see people lining up troops along the border for the moment peacetime ends etc., so maybe we should have a small gap of "no man's land" where borders meet?

Anyway it's just an idea David suggested in the comments on http://www.kamremake.com, I'd be interested to hear what other people think of it.
Cheers,
Lewin.

Hi, I'm new in this forum, and I am only reading most of the time to inform myself properly. Anyway, I was reading this topic and checked it in the game. Therefore I have something to say, if you all allow me

Scouting with your labourers is indeed a lame and weak strategy, though I can understand why people do it, they did it one time, it worked, so in their eyes its a beautiful way to explore the map. But it irritates the experienced players. Me aswell.

So if I may, I got some sort of idea/suggestion but I dont know if this works in KaM.

I compared the issues with other games in my inventory. Games like Age of Empires series and the Command and Conquer series. In these games, you got the ''fog'' of the map like KaM, when your units go to the edge of the ''fog'', you explore some of the landscape (as everyone know, even the persons who dont know the game). But if you leave your explored area, the area goes in some sort of ''thin fog'', wich means, you can see the landscape (mountains, trees, rocks, etc.) but not the actual scene like if someone walks through that area with his army, unless you have a unit nearby with his line of sight. Is this possible in the game engine of KaM?

Also, I've looked for the border issue, but I find it difficult to see what the problem really is. Is it that players line up their soldiers so close to your border or should there be a area between two borders? If you can direct me where to look for this issue, I would be grateful for that.

Looking forward to your reply.

Stanley a.k.a. =NL= Gila

=NL= Gila took the words from my lips: FOG OF WAR. It resolves everything, no one will ever bother to do that anymore (although they never did it to me.)

At the start of the game, the engine calculates a territory for each team. Tiles are in your territory if they are closer to your storehouse than to your enemy's storehouse. Distances are calculated by WALKING distance, not direct distance. (so territory will go around hills and be blocked by obstacles like mountains) During peacetime you are only allowed to move troops and build within your territory (yes you are allowed to use troops for scouting) This would stop people scouting with labourers and stop people complaining about not being able to scout properly (I agree that scouting with labourers to find your resources is very lame)

Bla,bla,bla... I really liked this idea. This way you would be able to train troops during PT! however, the troops should not attack eachother if they encounter themselves on the border(like archers shooting through borders) AND THE BORDERS SHOULD BE SHARED BY THE TEAM, AND NOT EACH PLAYER!!! BECAUSE OTHERWISE IN GAMES THAT HAVE PLAYERS NEXT TO EACH OTHER, THE SHARED STONE WOULD BELONG TO ONLY ONE, AS WOULD THE BIG LUMP OF GOLD BETWEEN THEM, ETC! IT WOULD BE TERRIBLE!

[GreatWhiteBear]

old kam was have ally option if this comes back we have no need peace time and we can battle with our allies
if it easy to make, town hall units can be added to castle example: 2 battle axe, 1 sword = barbarian.
1 battle axe, 1 horse = vegabond
1 spear = rebel
2 battle axe, 1 metal armor = warior
and one last think stone towers attacks can be change to like slinger attack now it cant kill anything with 1 shot

they are just my thinking good work

vagabond, fine with me but others declined.
1spear rebel? Lewin already said that a rebel uses a pitchfork, not a spear.
2 axe and 1 metal armor, sounds ok to me because 2axes together will be like the warrior axe.

[The Dark Lord]

2 axe and 1 metal armor, sounds ok to me because 2axes together will be like the warrior axe.

...Yeah.
Two axes made of wood and stone will turn into a huge iron axe.

Themyth, If TPR soldiers will ever be trainable, it will NOT be like that. An axe and horse as requirements to train a vagabond are realistic, but everything else isn't, so set it out of your mind.