Knights and Merchants.net Forum

PostPosted: **29 Dec 2012, 18:12**

About making dismiss button : easy to abuse.
Now rush will be imba for sure, you dont have to feed your serfs, dismiss the serfs and builders that are hungry and build new serfs and builders, Rush no longer needs food completely (or less food).

If the rush fails, then you lose the game, because small base cannot compete with big base.
Btw, this is all theory... let's see what happens with the changes that they will implement next test version.

I like Lewin's proposal of farmer checking first 6 crops near his entrance. It's something like that what I imagined.

The way I see Dismiss a way to abuse is making dozens of coal mines, iron mines, gold mines, then dismiss the +30 miners once everything is depleted... this is the "imba tactic" I am imagining now... But of course the consequence is huge (if first attemps fail).

The "mine spam" can be considered a new valid tactic, which you go over all your coal as soon as possible and get the best of the best fast.

Anyway I agree with the DISMISS feature. I think of the lazy fishers/stonemasons.
It will be worth of testing, because I have faith.

@Mulberry: It's true that I havent been playing lately with you at TeamSpeak.
However I have been all replays that you guys have uploaded there, checking every 2 days for new games (for instance I found Mixons duels in Abrak along with a 8p game in Border Rivers).
I have been analyzing all the matches on test release, so I know what is happening... And can give a reasonable opinion from observing.

PostPosted: **29 Dec 2012, 18:17**

About making dismiss button : easy to abuse.
Now rush will be imba for sure, you dont have to feed your serfs, dismiss the serfs and builders that are hungry and build new serfs and builders, Rush no longer needs food completely (or less food).
We can just "reverse" the training process, this way "dismissing" citizens will block the school for some time but I guess it will still need some testing.

About the whole towers issue - for now it would be nice if every citizen treated area in shooting range of towers as "can't walk zone", since it's equally annoying to loose serfs while feeding your soldiers. In the long run - see my ZOC proposal in ides thread

Also, don't touch the farms/swine farms, other than eliminating the issue with efficiency of multiple farms close to each other. You're all thinking how to kill the rush strat, completely ignoring the fact that such change might destroy the balance of late game.

I think we already found a strat that can kill a rush, it just needs maybe 10% boost in farms effeciency.

About making dismiss button : easy to abuse.
Now rush will be imba for sure, you dont have to feed your serfs, dismiss the serfs and builders that are hungry and build new serfs and builders, Rush no longer needs food completely (or less food).
If the rush fails, then you lose the game, because small base cannot compete with big base.
Btw, this is all theory... let's see what happens with the changes that they will implement next test version.

I like Lewin's proposal of farmer checking first 6 crops near his entrance. It's something like that what I imagined.

The way I see Dismiss a way to abuse is making dozens of coal mines, iron mines, gold mines, then dismiss the +30 miners once everything is depleted... this is the "imba tactic" I am imagining now... But of course the consequence is huge (if first attemps fail).

The "mine spam" can be considered a new valid tactic, which you go over all your coal as soon as possible and get the best of the best fast.

Anyway I agree with the DISMISS feature. I think of the lazy fishers/stonemasons.
It will be worth of testing, because I have faith.

@Mulberry: It's true that I havent been playing lately with you at TeamSpeak.
However I have been all replays that you guys have uploaded there, checking every 2 days for new games (for instance I found Mixons duels in Abrak along with a 8p game in Border Rivers).
I have been analyzing all the matches on test release, so I know what is happening... And can give a reasonable opinion from observing.

We dont post any replays of recent games, and most best games arent uploaded anywhere either.

PostPosted: **29 Dec 2012, 20:24**

Yes. Please find a way to take away shoot/halt option from the game. Players saying "while its in the game we want to use it". But it makes really big difference so i'd like to see this issue fixed.

We're working on that, but it's happening in the development version of the code so you won't see it until we start beta testing the next release. For now you guys can agree with each other to not abuse it, can't you?

In what way is iron easier to trade? Trunks -> iron ore (or iron bars?)
Iron ore.

About another values we should ask Pizza and Matt. If they will be honest they would find all current unbalanced values.

Please write about it in more detail and we can try to do something about it.

If we improve farmer efficiency when sharing fields that will be a small boost to all corn based production We just need to find a way to do it.
Can we suggest few ideas? How else we can help you to find out the answer?

By "we" I meant us as a community, not just Krom and I. Yes of course we're interested in your suggestions. My suggestion is to make farmers prefer to work within 6 tiles and work outside of 6 tiles if there's no work within 6.

About the builder rushes:

I don't think it will work when you disable building within those 10 tiles from the tower. I would prefer the idea of not losing a stone when killing a builder, but that this option is enabled when at least one stone is available (if this is possible), this way its less unrealistic and it will solve the problem.

I explained in my last post (the long one) why I don't like that idea.

- Prevent building near towers to stop builder rushing
This sounds good but disables tower wars. Maps without peace time or where you have to 'race' for resources will be almost unplayable (e.g.: Valley of Dangers, first one to build a tower in the center locks up the opposite player). I am almost afraid to say it, but maybe it should be an option you can set in the lobby (sorry Krom's bus! ).

That's true

I guess it could be an option in the lobby, but has anybody got another idea?

About making dismiss button : easy to abuse.
Now rush will be imba for sure, you dont have to feed your serfs, dismiss the serfs and builders that are hungry and build new serfs and builders, Rush no longer needs food completely (or less food).

Well I guess that's effectively feeding your citizens with gold (dismiss hungry and retrain). They only start with about 50% condition so it's not a very efficient way of feeding them. It will take more time because they need to be retrained, but I guess it could sometimes be useful. Maybe we could make it only allow retraining, so you can change your idle fisherman into a serf at the cost of 1 gold? (and the serf would have the same health the fisherman did before he was retrained)

About the whole towers issue - for now it would be nice if every citizen treated area in shooting range of towers as "can't walk zone", since it's equally annoying to loose serfs while feeding your soldiers. In the long run - see my ZOC proposal in ides thread

That sounds good in theory, citizens can't walk within range of an active tower. There could be some problems with it on maps like Valley of Dangers or special maps like tower defence. It's also technically challenging and could cost performance (sounds like it will need a new floodfill and passability).

Also, don't touch the farms/swine farms, other than eliminating the issue with efficiency of multiple farms close to each other. You're all thinking how to kill the rush strat, completely ignoring the fact that such change might destroy the balance of late game.

We don't plan to change house production rates or anything unless there's a really really good reason. There's simpler, better ways to solve this rushing problem.

PostPosted: **29 Dec 2012, 21:02**

I agree with Matt about abuse of a dismiss button. it would be easy to do. It would almost be justified to say that 1-2 extra metallurgist's = infinite 'food'. But I guess we don't need it after all; if builder rush isn't possible anymore people can't send them to their doom (except for sending them to the enemy's army, but there is little harm in that) it just wouldn't be required as badly as it is now.
I can actually think of some funny strategy like not killing builders on purpose so they go back to the inn and eat all food.

PostPosted: **30 Dec 2012, 13:26**

Ok we discuss this problem with my czech friends and we think we have the best solution. What about this: towers will ignore builders (will not shoot them) and builders can make fields only 15-20 tiles from your farms.

It means that if you want builder rush you need to use roads to do it, and if towers will not kill them they cant make fields all over the map. And player who will use builder rush have problem because if defending player will not kill his builders, servs will try to bring them stone - they will not work in town and they can be killed. Still if you want to sacrifice your builders you can just send them to enemy army.

What do you think about this?

PostPosted: **30 Dec 2012, 14:29**

Ok we discuss this problem with my czech friends and we think we have the best solution. What about this: towers will ignore builders (will not shoot them) and builders can make fields only 15-20 tiles from your farms.

This sounds like a good idea... but sometimes you want to make fields ahead of time, either because you're planning to build another farm close to existing one or you want to give your builders something to do while (for example) you're waiting for construction materials.

PostPosted: **30 Dec 2012, 14:32**

What about this:
Builders only have 1 hp,
making them way easier to kill and so builderrush is way easier to counter.

PostPosted: **30 Dec 2012, 21:20**

What about this:
Builders only have 1 hp,
making them way easier to kill and so builderrush is way easier to counter.

Still tower will throw on every single one stone. And this is what builder rush is about - to empty enemy towers. We want to avoid this Bo so your solution will not help us.

And Nissarin we discuss this with revo and I think we have a solution. That you will be allowed to make fields right after you dig a farm. So you will be able make fields before its finished.

PostPosted: **30 Dec 2012, 21:41**

What about this:
Builders only have 1 hp,
making them way easier to kill and so builderrush is way easier to counter.
Still tower will throw on every single one stone. And this is what builder rush is about - to empty enemy towers. We want to avoid this Bo so your solution will not help us.

And Nissarin we discuss this with revo and I think we have a solution. That you will be allowed to make fields right after you dig a farm. So you will be able make fields before its finished.

But making "foundation"

for a building takes time, not to mention you might want to make fields before actually unlocking the building itself. I know it's probably a corner case but nevertheless it will be annoying, besides what if I make "farm" outside of enemy base and then dig my fields in tower range (of course my army will be there to protect the blueprint).

PostPosted: **30 Dec 2012, 22:01**

I said counter builderrush, meaning that you need soldiers to help your towers.
So builderrush still works but will be way less powerful, you could builderrush a player without army,
but when the guy has range your builders will be death even before they get in range of the towers.

PostPosted: **30 Dec 2012, 22:03**

Maybe we can change the dismiss button to be a "retrain" button so you can't feed your village with gold. We could also not allow hungry units to be retrained so you can't use it to replace a hungry worker.

As somebody said the builder rush is about emptying towers so I don't think giving them 1HP will make a big difference, although it would help a little bit.

IMO stopping players from building fields won't work, since roads are almost as good. A few serfs and stones is a small price to pay for emptying the enemy's towers.

PostPosted: **30 Dec 2012, 22:16**

Maybe we can change the dismiss button to be a "retrain" button so you can't feed your village with gold. We could also not allow hungry units to be retrained so you can't use it to replace a hungry worker.

As long I can get rid off useless citizens it works for me, the "retrained" unit might keep their stamina level, so you can retrain unit, hungry or not, unless you think that retraining hungry butcher/farmer/bakers is imba

PostPosted: **30 Dec 2012, 23:10**

As somebody said the builder rush is about emptying towers so I don't think giving them 1HP will make a big difference, although it would help a little bit.

Let me express myself with last game I played:
I had 30 lances, 30 xbow against a guy with 10 militia, 5 xbow and 30 towers.
If I didn't builderrush, I wouldn't be able to attack him because of his towers,
which would be stupid since his army was just ridiculous.
In my suggestion I could have builderrushed him,
but it wouldn't have been possible if he had a decent army,
something like 15-20 xbow and about 20 militia since then my builders wouldn't even be able to reach the towers.

I think, but yes that's my opinion, that builderrush should only be useful against towerrush:
A guy that rather builds 30 towers instead of building army.

I'll finish my reply with this question:
Should 10 xbow, 10 militia be enough, together with 30 towers, to defend against an army of 35 lances, 35 xbow?

PostPosted: **30 Dec 2012, 23:36**

Yes Bo, it actually should. He chose a defensive strategy which most of us would disapprove, but he invested a lot of time and resources in building them.

PostPosted: **30 Dec 2012, 23:38**

Then my vision of Kam is wrong, thank you TDL.

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