Balance testing release r4297

[The Dark Lord]

If I remember correctly, player 'zones' are planned, meaning you won't be able to get near the enemy before pt is over.

Yes that was planned to stop people building into your area during peacetime or exploring your village with builders. But it won't stop builder rushes after peacetime so I think we need another solution like I suggested above.

No it won't, unless you prevent towers from throwing stones at labourers/serfs, as proposed earlier. This way, labourers won't be able to scout because they can't reach you during pt thanks to the player zones, and after pt they can't empty the towers because they will be ignored.

[Bludmaster]

If I remember correctly, player 'zones' are planned, meaning you won't be able to get near the enemy before pt is over.

Yes that was planned to stop people building into your area during peacetime or exploring your village with builders. But it won't stop builder rushes after peacetime so I think we need another solution like I suggested above.

No it won't, unless you prevent towers from throwing stones at labourers/serfs, as proposed earlier. This way, labourers won't be able to scout because they can't reach you during pt thanks to the player zones, and after pt they can't empty the towers because they will be ignored.

TDL there are maps where player zones overlap each other. For example Border rivers locations 6 and 7 in left vs right.

[Krom]

@Lewin: I agree with you disagreeing. However I suggest looking at problem from higher perspective like we do that in "Balance issues".

Builders rush: Players have excessive amounts of builders that they don't need after PT, but can use to their advantage to empty towers, explore terrain, waste enemies town.
Idea 1: Restrict builders activity to within players area only. Pros - all problems solved. Cons - new non-trivial mechanics, problems with distant mines. Problems with maps that share common resource
Idea 2: Make it impractical to have so much builders. Cons - hard to balance, yet easy to hire builders instead of militia to empty towers.
Idea 3: Disallow towers to shoot at civilians. Cons - builders can still be used to waste enemies town.
Idea 4: ..
I'd pick #1. Players areas can overlap (in that case both players can build in the zone)

What do players think about making a game less "build for 60min and fight 15min" ? Is it a problem a all?

[Da Revolution]

Krom the fight of 15 min isn't such a big problem, but the way the fight occurs is. At the moment it seems you get punished for using a massive leather production because its easier to produce large amounts of militia and iron troops within PT. This isn't possible with leather. (militia 80-100, iron 40-50 and leather maybe 40).

Shortening the PT would be beneficial for rushers and playing with more PT isn't preferred by most players since it takes much time already.

About the builder rush I still think sado's idea wouldn't be that bad, towers just don't lose a stone when throwing at builders (enable it for example when 1 stone is available). This way people will lose their builder but won't empty the enemy towers. I think this is a better solution than areas since you'll always have areas where it isn't clear whose area it is even though you could build in overlapping ones.

[ChrisEggII]

What do players think about making a game less "build for 60min and fight 15min" ? Is it a problem a all?

This isn't problem make by game, but by players. I solved this problem already. How? I play with Chinese players. They like to play with strange rules, so I'm not bored.
Idea 2? No way! Why should be punished players, who prefer play with many builders?

[batoonike]

@ Chris: If the game rules make it so, that winning is granted to the player who exploits annoying things, then the game is badly designed. Because it awards playing in a lame way.

"What do you think about PT 45min and moving iron production past leather? (let iron mines be built later in game)"
Sounds awesome. Anything that makes the non-interactive part of the game shorter, where you have no contact with other people, is good imo.

How about making the fields a special kind of thingy, that must be placed in ~8 (4? 20?) square radius of any other building type from the player. So you can't build fields away from home. Why would anyone do that anyway if not for scouting and disturbing people.

[Bo_]

moving iron production past leather?

I've already thought of that, unlocking iron mines after your pig farms, but would it really fix the militia? And wouldn't it make the game too simple?

[pawel95]

Well Idea 2/3 arent that good for me. The player should make that much of a type of a civilian, that he wants and there shouldnt be a limit. Also the thing with NON-Shooting on civilians isnt great for me. In some special maps,you need towers to defend you city from other people.

For me Idea #1 is actual the best idea:

Maybe working with sth like radius from houses. So when you build a tower, your builder can go only (for example:) 10 Meter from that away. This would fix maybe the problems,because when you will build a house directly before a city of your enemy,this enemy can shoot than at this building and you cannot make a builder rush than behind the frontline of the enemy.


EDIT: Well,now i have read the post of batoonike, and its nearly the same


pawel95

[EDMatt]

Just remember that you want to keep a balance between things, you don't want to make leather way too dominant over iron, same goes for iron over leather.
some of the suggestions here try to rule out 1 thing and make the other much better, black and white logic wont work here.
As for me, I would like to see rush kept in the game but give the defenders some sort of a better chance defending with towers.

[Jeronimo]

Builders rush: Players have excessive amounts of builders that they don't need after PT, but can use to their advantage to empty towers, explore terrain, waste enemies town.
Idea 1: Restrict builders activity to within players area only. Pros - all problems solved. Cons - new non-trivial mechanics, problems with distant mines. Problems with maps that share common resource
Idea 2: Make it impractical to have so much builders. Cons - hard to balance, yet easy to hire builders instead of militia to empty towers.
Idea 3: Disallow towers to shoot at civilians. Cons - builders can still be used to waste enemies town.
Idea 4: ..

Idea 1 in my opinion is best, doing this "protective area" something related to buildings.
This way being the first in reaching a position gives you an advantage (to prevent enemy labourers from exploring that zone).
It has nothing to do with revealed area (such as a tower with 18 tiles view).
Imagine something like 8 tiles cover, counting from the building's door.

Making the players create their "protective area" adds new tactics, strategies to gain terrain control.
If 2 buildings overslap, being built at the same time in certain place... it would block both players simultaneously.

[Krom]

I was thinking that player areas can overlap. So that players can still compete over resources, but can not expand too quickly.

[H.A.H.]

First of all, I haven't used the test release.

Most multiplayer games in the original KaM featured starting troops. You can use these troops to defend yourself from builders or exploring enemy troops.

A suggestion to make the game more interesting from the start -- with the ultimate goal of not having 60 min build / 15 fight -- during Piece Time, the player is only allowed to attack within its own "protective area". Players are, however, allowed to explore outside their area at the risk of being slaughtered and reducing own defenses.

Implications:

• * A builder rush can be stopped (the builder being killed, wasting enemy resources).
  * Competing over resource area's is very interesting at the beginning of the game and adds a whole new dynamic to Piece Time.
  * [specific] Archers are not allowed to target anyone outside of the "protective area", to counter any border exploits.

Additional suggestions:

• * Allow players to produce troops from minute 0. "Protective area" still applies.
  * Limit the number of recruits in the barracks (increases realism too), forcing players to deploy troops from the beginning of the game if they want to have more troops than the enemy. This implicates that lots of troops need lots of food, and an efficient food economy.

The above changes have the effect that rushers do not have an advantage anymore. Let me explain this. The following diagram shows the two extremes a player can pick at the start of a game:

  Code:

Rush <----> Normal <----> Defensive || Weapon Economy <-------------------> Food Economy || Not Sustainable <-------------------> Very Sustainable || Small Strong Army <-------------------> Large Weak Army [extreme] [scale] [extreme]

There is only one choice, the effects are equivallent. Every choice has the same "army strength", provided a flawless economy/building strategy, and given same archer/footmen/horsemen ratio's. Balance challange: equal army strength for different economies (a win/lose ratio of a standardised battle with an equal ratio of archers/footmen/horsemen).

Feedback is highly appreciated!

[krisdw]

I appologize, I didn't read through the entire thread. I just want to say I *REALLY* like the changes proposed in this build and that KAM Remake is continuing to go in the right direction, keep it up.

Now if I can remember to send you guys my logs to fix my crash problem, I can play a couple of games again here at work while browsing the forum, I always tell myself to send Krom the files when I get home. Then I get home and forget about it lol.

[EDMatt]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDIwNwQGo24 -part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSUjkrrF7xM -part 2
Uploaded
Hopefully this will help you understand why rush is so powerful.

btw, sorry for the sniffing, I had a terrible cold.

[The Dark Lord]

I have watched it, and I have one question: what if there are no fish (or just very few) on a map? This build completely relies on fish; does that mean it would be impossible to do without fish? Or could you compensate by some bakeries without losing too much time and resources?
And lol, since when do stables need three farms to run smoothly (I mean, who came up with that)?