Unlocked Teams

[Ben]

A new member of the forum reminded me of this so I thought I'd ask what the status of this is.

Contrary to popular belief, there are some players on Teamspeak willing to play "funny" games, such as 30 minute pt on 2x speed (blitz gaming!) These games are typically played as FFA, but it would be nice to have breakable alliances of some sorts. In original KaM, you could make someone an ally at any time. This caused a huge exploit where you could "ally" someone in order to retreat your soldiers.

In my opinion, the best way to introduce breakable/formable alliances is to send a message to a player regarding a truce. Say player A wants to ally with B. B receives a message saying A has offered an alliance. The alliance is only formed if B accepts; thus preventing any cheap retreating tactics. Sending alliances could be worked into either the chat or player list windows/scrolls I suppose(?). Further, a nice addition to this feature would be "Last Man Standing" where there can be only one winner!

Furthermore, should such a feature be added, it will be important to have locked teams as well. Locked teams should be enabled by default in the lobby.

[Remer]

This is a brilliant idea.

But, when player A and player B make up a team, player C and D should get a note like "Player A and Player B formed an alliance".

AND, if you cancel the alliance, you should stay about 5 minutes in peace after that, so you can't attack the other player right away.
Par example, if Player A sent units to Player B's base and then attacked him from within.

[Ben]

AND, if you cancel the alliance, you should stay about 5 minutes in peace after that, so you can't attack the other player right away.
Par example, if Player A sent units to Player B's base and then attacked him from within.

I disagree. The whole point of unlocked teams is so you can be a snake and betray your friends

[Freddy]

I disagree. The whole point of unlocked teams is so you can be a snake and betray your friends

That's "nice" and all, but given the KaM mechanics (soldiers in town -> end) this would be pretty cheap tactic.

[The Dark Lord]

I disagree. The whole point of unlocked teams is so you can be a snake and betray your friends

That's "nice" and all, but given the KaM mechanics (soldiers in town -> end) this would be pretty cheap tactic.

This is true. However, FFA games already require a certain amount of 'trust', since people can always team up.
(I once played a FFA game in CC3 online with 4 players, of which two were working together from the very beginning. Although I didn't know it for sure, it was strongly suggested by the player opposite me trying to rush me, which is something you don't usually do in a FFA game because you're as good as defenceless. Later on, when I scouted the map it became completely clear these two players were working together. Anyway, this is not related to KaM but it can happen there as well, with or without changing alliances.)

[Ben]

I disagree. The whole point of unlocked teams is so you can be a snake and betray your friends

That's "nice" and all, but given the KaM mechanics (soldiers in town -> end) this would be pretty cheap tactic.

If you don't trust your ally, then don't grant him "military access" to your city All this trust drama is what makes such games interesting

[Remer]

If you don't trust your ally, then don't grant him "military access" to your city All this trust drama is what makes such games interesting

In...deed!

[Freddy]

I disagree. The whole point of unlocked teams is so you can be a snake and betray your friends

That's "nice" and all, but given the KaM mechanics (soldiers in town -> end) this would be pretty cheap tactic.

If you don't trust your ally, then don't grant him "military access" to your city All this trust drama is what makes such games interesting

Fair enough.

[Duke Valennius]

In original KaM, you could make someone an ally at any time. This caused a huge exploit where you could "ally" someone in order to retreat your soldiers.

Now that is a feature I've been looking for! However I see how it can be called exploit since it kind of violates "game mechanics" of not being able to control your soldiers, however inconsistent that is (e.g. you can retreat ranged units, but not melee, but yeah... whatever)

Anyway, how should this work? Will others be notified about changing alliances? If not, getting end-game with "randoms" will become a mess, since no one is willing to communicate and you won't be able to tell what is going on. Assuming alliances are not transitive (I guess it would be silly to be forced into alliance with someone, wouldn't it...). And how would sending messages only to team work, if you can be in more than one "teams"?

[Lewin]

A way of consensually changing alliances has been on our todo list for ages (consensually meaning both players must agree to the change before it occurs). If we did implement this feature we would have a "lock teams" checkbox which is checked by default in the lobby.

It hasn't been implemented because it's not a simple task (we need some interface for requesting/agreeing to team changes and all the code behind that) and also because it's only useful in rare situations (I reckon at least 90% of games would be played with teams locked), so we haven't seen it as a priority.