Upcoming test releases

lol ok ill try in the form of questions

Are you trying to nerf total massings ( ie 0in someone completely ) by making it hugely costly and increasing a defenders chances?

Are you trying to discourage such massing and instead focus on the farming part of the game by allowing smaller strikes to farm larger defences?

If yes to either of these - why?

nope to both

And trying to clear up some confusion, how much do you think does an attacker have to pay kuwal to kill one assassin, main server, and i mean only the repairs, ignore the turn cost.
I get the feeling some people think, even though they hunted assassins, that this cost is some peanuts, i.e. 1k kuwal to kill one assassin

The main reason for anyone to mass some1 is to target the enemy strike. If the attacker needs to go through a defense that is not 0 + the enemies strike there will be trouble. Perhaps if we do these other units like income have a small defense bonus we should make it easier to kill a strike? Perhaps make it so destruction doesn't have to go through the defense? If that was possible most people wouldn't be so motivated on taking out a defense since the strike is the only real threat to them.

If people are ok with that suggestion then I have no current issues with making strike massable ignoring the defense of the attacked person.

Right now if you want to teach someone a lesson you can hit someone's def 5-10 times, get it down to maybe 60-70%.
The difference between the previous system and the current is that before the attacker HAD to mass that def to 0 to kill as much as they lost, first few hits made the attacker lose 2-3 times more units than the defender.
Now the losses remain pretty much the same so even a few hits can cause the defender to lose a significant amount of stuff (a nice way of telling the farmer to not attack so often)

So basically even if a war breaks out, defs will fall but strikes will enjoy somewhat of a protection allowing the other party to retaliate.
In your suggestion, strikes would get massed first.
Think very carefully if you want that

No thats not what we want - the defence should protect the strike but what we are saying is it shoudnt be suicide to try and target the strike. The best way to ensure that is to 0 a defence. Currently in the test server this is working out well, i do not see the need for an update on that...

Hai-Shulud wrote:No thats not what we want - the defence should protect the strike but what we are saying is it shoudnt be suicide to try and target the strike.

When targeting enemy strike
Before:
Attacker lost 2% fighting the defense soldiers
Defender lost 0.25% defense soldiers

Now
Attacker loses 1.5% fighting the defense soldiers
Defender loses 1.1% defense soldiers

So basically it's not suicide anymore as you can see even if some part of the defense is left standing, because the ratio has been improved in favor of the attacker by around 580%
Unlike before...
Hence the part about there being no reason anymore whatsoever that would make it vital for the attacker HAVING to get that def to ZERO under all circumstances before doing anything else.

The fact that the attacker now kills units 5.8 times faster than before (and that's still ignoring the tons of kuwal the attacker saves by not having to pay repairs) is why I'm repeatedly asking someone to explain to me with logical reasons why do some people demand the ability to be able to zero a defense before you go on to kill assassins or income units or even strike.

Ummm im not really asking for a way to 0 a defence easily, but if there is one i will ofcourse utilise that method. Im just confused why your trying to remove all ways to 0 a defence. As i say make it a choice, you can do it but it costs you more. I like the changes in the test, personally i dont see a need for any further radical changes. Im just saying let us have the decision to how far to mass someone, feel free to make it pointless to 0 a defence but i still like doing it even with the extra costs associated with it.

ok, you explained nicely that you want to be able to do it and that i shouldn't remove all ways.

now could i finally get a reply to my question which i've asked in this thread at least 5 times already?

a short answer

a 0 defense is an acomploishment and a goal.

*is not stating my own opinion, just offering an explination or answer to the question*

k, i'll leave the sab/assassinate past the % limit then.
someone who wants to get that def to 0 can then waste their units if they really need to

Uhm its impossible to sabb a strike. I targetted strike and killed defense weapons. No more defense weapons and i was doing 17bil damage with spies killing no strike weapons. The guy has 250k strike tanks and nothing was going. I am going to assume this is a bug?

but you did select that you want to target strike weapons, right?
cos there is a dropdown box just above the sabotage button (or at least should be).

I dont remember doing anything with the covert missions lately so no bugs should have appeared there out of nowhere

Yes i selected strike weapons originally and it killed defense. Then i just figured to finish the defense. Then i went back to strike and it was not killing anything despite it being a successful attack and the enemy having these weapons:


Mobile Artillery Attack 250,000 1450/1450
Main Battle Tank Attack 97,610 1100/1100

These are some of the logs, i sent 155k spies and sabbed nothing.
[30 Jan] 13:05 Aworon Sabotage Destroyed: 155,000 details
[30 Jan] 13:05 Aworon Sabotage Destroyed: 155,000 details

Hi admin.

I ve finally got around to reading this topic due to my exams.

Couple of things:

1.) Unarmed soldiers? Are they killable - yes/ no?
If yes..... good. There should be some way to kill them - and the best way is to simply leave them to come out and fight with the rest of the army

If No.... can you make them be killed as part of the invasion mission. I.e. once the attacker has breached the enemies defence it only makes sense he's going to charge into the enemy homeland and using invasion slaughter the civilian population - including any unarmed troops.

Eithier way - some way to mop up remaining enemy troops should be possible. Personally i think we should be able to kill them just like we can now.

2.)Keep strike protected by defence as proposed by this update UNLESS you change the weapon's system to make weapons be lost proportionately to unarmed troops... in which case make strike able to be attacked outside of the defence.

3.) I accept and recognise the problem regarding invasion missions and hunting assassins being basically free if the defence is 0'd.

Therefore - the simplest option is to do as Jiro suggested - assassins, spies and civilians get knives or something to give them a *tiny* amount of self-defence power - literally a fraction of what the striker;s troops which will be equipped will have.

If you decide to make it so unarmed troops don't march onto the battlefield... you should have them killed off via invasion missions and assassin hunting - and adjust the % killed (just for the unarmed troops) to reflect this... For the record though: I prefer the idea they just get butchered along with the rest of their army - in any army there will always be the wounded, the cooks, the medics etc.. who are generally unarmed

4.) I request the ability to hunt spies be created as well. Currently assassinating spies isn't really enough - and if you introduce these new updates which make it near impossible to 0 a defence you might as well add the ability to hunt spies - make it like hunt assassins.

5.) Have you considered the implications of the airforce on this new system when you finally get around to releasing it - as you are fine tuning this system... if you have to then fiddle around with it again i think you ll take a lot of criticism since already a lot of people were reluctant for a major change to the attack system - if you do it again you ll likely have more whingers.

6.) Weapons? Your worried that with unarmed troops on the battlefield you could end up with a situation where if you had 30,000 armed troops and 100,000 unarmed troops then killing 2% = 2600 dead troops and for each soldier 2,600 weapons die. Thus 12 or 13 assaults and the weapons are gone and defence 0'd?

IF you have to make it so for every soldier killed a weapon doesn't necessarily get killed - do as you said with the % i.e. 10,000 troops, 2000 of them armed - other 8000 unarmed. 10,000 x 0.02 = 200 dead. 1 in 5 troops armed - 200 / 5 = 40 weapons destroyed along with the 200 dead troops.

HOWEVER - it is exceptionally difficult to zero a defence IF the person's account is balanced. You could sabb their defence weapons away partly and then use assault missions to kill troops and kill weapons they are armed with untill you run out of armed weapons.... but the tactic will only really be viable for those targets with dangerously unbalanced accounts i.e. those lacking spy power or a strike which is too large vs. defence. Normal well balanced account's will be massively heavy losses to zero it.

I.e. I m sure my sabbing (4)% is wrong but it ll prove my point - 100,000 strike. 50,000 defence. 150,000 x 0.04 = 6000 weapons destroyed on the first hit. 8 sabbs and the enemy looses 41,792 weapons - leaving them with 8,208 defence weapons. 50,000 x 0.045 (4.5% defender's dead is also wrong i m guessing) = 2250 troops killed first hit - and under the current test set-up that would be 2250 weapons dead with it as well. 4 assaults would result in the defence being 0'd due to the defender running out of defence weapons.

If however the target has 75,000 strike troops and 50,000 defence. Thats 125,000 x 0.04 = 5000 weapons destroyed first hit. 8 sabbs and the enemy looses 31,069 weapons - and has 18,931 weapons left for defence. 50,000 x 0.045 =2250 troops killed first hit. It would take 10 assaults to 0 the defence.

If the target has 50,000 strike troops and 50,000 defence. Thats 100,000 x 0.04 = 4000 weapons destroyed first hit. 8 sabbs and the enemy looses 27,861 defence weapons - leaving 22,139 weapons left for defence. 50,000 x 0.045 = 2250 troops killed first hit. It would take 12assaults to 0 the defence.

If the target has 25,000 strike troops and 50,000 defence. Thats 75,000 x 0.04 = 4000 weapons destroyed first hit. 8 sabbs and the enemy looses 20,896 defence weapons - leaving 29,104 weapons left for defence. 50,000 x 0.045 = 2,250 troops killed first hit. It would take
19 assaults to 0 the defence.

Throw into consideration the effects of players having high coverts, realm alert level, covert techs and personal points in covert making sabbing a pain the ass - or if the strike : defence ratio is even lower and the attacks losses start to get out of control.

YOUR REASON TO KEEP THE SYSTEM AS IT IS: Keeping the system as it is will ENCOURAGE wars. This is your objective isn't it? The main thing stopping those being farmed from massing the farmer back is costs. IF they are being farmed by someone, it means that person has a strike - thus the strike : defence ratio will be higher making the farmer a lot more vulnerable. It is consequently a LOT easier for the defender to mass the farmer - and therefore it is a LOT more likely that he ll mass the farmer. Whats the end product? War - which is what *you* want. If you make it so weapons lost are proportionate to unarmed troops, you are decreasing how easy it is to mass the farmer, and therefore decreasing the likelyhood of war between farmers and strikers - which happens to be the main cause of war's on these sort of games - both between individuals and between alliances.

Therefore if you decrease the likelyhood of war - you are contradicting the ENTIRE point and efforts of this update - to make war's a lot more likely and frequent on Aderan Wars. The maths can't be denied... nor can human instinct to seek revenge on those who harm them. Keep the weapon system as it is - and it will help towards the objective of this update: Making war's a lot more frequent... that is the answer to the question you ve been asking everyone so far. If the defence is 0'd... its going to be cheaper to kill the rest of the account... which will make it more likely the defender will kill the rest of the account, thus making a counter-strike more likely and increasing the intensity of the conflict - making the war more viscious and longer fought.

The % of the above may be wrong - but i think it illustrates the basic difference account structure and defence to attack ratio's can have - and clearly shows the effects of these.

Not to mention arming the civilian populace, spies and assassins with knives makes having the account zero'd not a issue considering there would still be some defence power left if trying to hunt spies (assuming you implement my suggestion to hunt spies), assassins and civilian units - and consequently a cost to hunt those units.

Basically though - if you build an unbalanced account... you should suffer the consequences. Anyone who builds a balanced account would simply not be worth the effort of zeroing - and it certainly wouldn't be possible to do cheaply.

9.) I like the idea of being able to "sabb/assassinate past the limit" - i ve got a general idea what you mean, but could you be more specific - i.e. %'s killed and at what point?

@admin - ok ill break it down

There are 41 members in TIE for example. A vast majority of which do not have huge strikes or even medium ones at that. Most farm 0 defence people with a few weps.

In a war the larger strikes ( simplifying here ) take down targets. This requires a lot of Supply Turns. So the actually offensive capabilities are limited by the number of people who can partake in an offensive and not necessarily the individual power of the people in the strike teams.

IF defences can be 0'ed the full 41 members of TIE can partake in the offensive. As once the defences are gone the strike teams no longer need to waste further Supply Turns killing stuff which can be killed using a much much smaller strike.

YES i understand the defence doesnt have to be 0 but can just be low enough to allow lower strikes to succeed in missions but if it is 0 the losses to the majority of members in TIE will be 0. Seeing as they already have small strikes not taking losses would probably be a benefit.

Now what is wrong with that?

Admin wrote:When targeting enemy strike
Before:
Attacker lost 2% fighting the defense soldiers
Defender lost 0.25% defense soldiers

Now
Attacker loses 1.5% fighting the defense soldiers
Defender loses 1.1% defense soldiers

Last guy i attacked on test server just now i lost ~1.5% and he lost ~.33%


How about we keep test as is. AND release it end of this week I am excited for the updates

OR

Perhaps you could make it so the strike and defender ratios matter more and disregard unarmed units. Say the defense you have 1bil defense and the strike has 2bil strike. It would be silly to keep it at 4% and 5% loses since the strike is twice as strong. So maybe since the strike is twice as high the defender takes twice as many loses? Which makes alot of sense and easy to calculate.


I still have no idea why you want to make it impossible to zero a defense, really i see no reason why someone should not be allowed to zero peoples stats. You kept asking why make it possible well why would you make it so you cant? But if you do decide that despite everyone wanting them to be 100% removable we should use an idea like someone said, I think Jiro, to give income units a weapon of some sort to allow them some protection. Make them expensive, weak, and unkillable. That way people that dont care if their defense gets zeroed dont need to buy them. People that want the protection of not having the defense completely zeroed can spend a bunch of money on weapons to prevent being dropped to zero. I am meaning like 2bil kuwal for a weapon that gives 1mil power expensive btw. Or even more expensive since the protection of an unmassable weapon should be extremely costly. You will only be able to buy something like (1-AE) So some1 at 30% AE can buy 70 of these and have 70mil permanent defense.

Admin wrote:

Hai-Shulud wrote:No thats not what we want - the defence should protect the strike but what we are saying is it shoudnt be suicide to try and target the strike.

When targeting enemy strike
Before:
Attacker lost 2% fighting the defense soldiers
Defender lost 0.25% defense soldiers

Now
Attacker loses 1.5% fighting the defense soldiers
Defender loses 1.1% defense soldiers

why is there such a radical change?

Why did you choose a 1.5% to 1.1% ratio
and not for example 2% to 1% ratio?


=> Defender loses 1.1% defense soldiers
1.1% of what?

PS: I personally think wars are good for a war game like Aderan Wars, but on the other hand, I don't think it should be too intense. Currently wars require a lot of free time to take part in, I would prefer a system where battles don't take place in matter of minutes, that you can mass the whole alliance within half an hour of organised fighting, it should take 1-3 days for battles to take place, so that the defender can respond, divert resources during the battle, so that wars will place less constraint on time, and efficient fighting will not require to hit someone during night.

If wars take too much time, or if they are too intense, in terms of being ready to fight / repell attacks during the day, this will have a negative effect on the players who might quit playing, or simply not favor war.

Kenzu... unless i missing something here - the *only* 2 major war's so far fought on the server - i.e. T.I.E vs. WR - didn't involve entire alliances being massed in 30minutes.

Infact - as far as i recall it normally involved a maximum of 2 - 3 targets being killed each time, with strikes being conducted maybe 2 to 3 times a week. It took T.I.E about 2 weeks to kill 14+ of your members - and WR found it virtually impossible to kill T.I.E's members in any significant amount at all... hardly a quick and fast battle was it?

War's are NOT fast moving on AW. Its all about tactics and strategy - and i also completely fail to understand how exactly war's take up a lot of time. This isn't like SGW or Dune wars where you can knock the enemy account defences down at will, and then it comes down to which sides the most active at raiding and farming the other - on AW its pretty damn expensive and difficult to do knock a defence down, and takes a LOT of preparation in terms of stockpiling the required resources.

The result? There has yet to be a war on AW where the majority of a alliance's defences have been knocked down AND kept down - and thus there's hasn't been a time where raiding and farming i.e. sitting on one another's alliance - becomes a issue.

Aderan War's is probably the least time-consuming game i know of to fight a war on. If your defence is knocked down... just rearm the remaining troops and its highly unlikely the enemy won't come visiting you again for a couple of days - and since anyone with even a half-decent defence is a lot less likely to be farmed or raided... it definately doesn't need you to sit behind your computer 24/7 banking like you would on other games EVEN if you ve been massed.... You ll remember once T.I.E had broke your defence you simply rearmed the surviving troops and that was enough to make it impossible to effectively farm/raid you frequently due to the losses/repair costs for the farmer.

If i m wrong - please correct me and point out how exactly war's take lots of time... or how exactly ANYONE can mass a whole alliance within half an hour... because believe me, if it were that easy i m sure both T.I.E and WR would have tried it.

@ Admin - the current set-up is pretty much perfect. The actual massing's are quick and fun - but the actual war's DO last a long time, and are massively more tactical than SGW, Dune war's etc... Its this tacticalness, coupled with the intensity of the actual battles when you do launch the attacks - which makes AW so appealing. There is nothing better than having to figure out what assets your going to need for a strike, assembling those assets spread across a multiple-person strike team - then launching the assault factoring in stuff such as logistics (ST), attack turns, attack super losses (remaining strike left for more massings) etc... - and then having to repeat the process every couple of days in a war of attrition which potentially would take weeks/ months before the enemy's alliance is eroded down.

THAT is what seperates AW from other games. The fact its not a quick-massing and then simply followed by whoever's the most active at farming and raiding. Please don't pander to those who want War's to be even more difficult or slow natured... as you ve got the balance pretty perfect as far as i can tell

@vesper I have kinda crazy week again, so next batch of changes for testing should be out sometime this week hopefully. Will look at that sabotage thing, I might have an idea what's wrong but not 100% sure yet.

Now ian:
Spoilered paragraphs mean that I consider them invalid and not part of discussion as being part of an answer given. However you can ask about them again if anything's not clear

ian wrote:Hi admin.
1.) Unarmed soldiers? Are they killable - yes/ no? YES, soldiers die as usual, armed and unarmed

Spoiler:

2.)Keep strike protected by defence as proposed by this update UNLESS you change the weapon's system to make weapons be lost proportionately to unarmed troops... in which case make strike able to be attacked outside of the defence.
Dont forget that currently defenders strike only deals ~70% of real power when attacked. Should I increase that to 100% in that case and remove protection from def? Or just remove protection from def? or neither?

3.) I accept and recognise the problem regarding invasion missions and hunting assassins being basically free if the defence is 0'd.

Therefore - the simplest option is to do as Jiro suggested - assassins, spies and civilians get knives or something to give them a *tiny* amount of self-defence power - literally a fraction of what the striker;s troops which will be equipped will have.

Spoiler:

4.) I request the ability to hunt spies be created as well. Currently assassinating spies isn't really enough - and if you introduce these new updates which make it near impossible to 0 a defence you might as well add the ability to hunt spies - make it like hunt assassins.
Notion taken into consideration

5.) Have you considered the implications of the airforce on this new system when you finally get around to releasing it - as you are fine tuning this system... if you have to then fiddle around with it again i think you ll take a lot of criticism since already a lot of people were reluctant for a major change to the attack system - if you do it again you ll likely have more whingers.
I will honestly say that I haven't considered the implications of the airforce, however it's not going to be sgw/dune style MS that always fights along with your troops for no extra cost. So it's not necessarily something that will make killing enemy units NOT covered by a MS piece of cake

6.) Weapons? Your worried that with unarmed troops on the battlefield you could end up with a situation where if you had 30,000 armed troops and 100,000 unarmed troops then killing 2% = 2600 dead troops and for each soldier 2,600 weapons die. Thus 12 or 13 assaults and the weapons are gone and defence 0'd?
Yes

IF you have to make it so for every soldier killed a weapon doesn't necessarily get killed - do as you said with the % i.e. 10,000 troops, 2000 of them armed - other 8000 unarmed. 10,000 x 0.02 = 200 dead. 1 in 5 troops armed - 200 / 5 = 40 weapons destroyed along with the 200 dead troops.
The % will only apply in case weapon amount is less than soldiers in battle. If there is more weapons than soldiers then you'll lose only as many weapons as you lost soldiers


HOWEVER - it is exceptionally difficult to zero a defence IF the person's account is balanced. You could sabb their defence weapons away partly and then use assault missions to kill troops and kill weapons they are armed with untill you run out of armed weapons.... but the tactic will only really be viable for those targets with dangerously unbalanced accounts i.e. those lacking spy power or a strike which is too large vs. defence. Normal well balanced account's will be massively heavy losses to zero it.
That's generally a good reason for having a balanced account

Spoiler:

Response to ^that^:
Sabotage was intended to get reworked that each time you'd kill 4% of attack weapons AND 4% of defense weapons, haven't got to do it yet.

Throw into consideration the effects of players having high coverts, realm alert level, covert techs and personal points in covert making sabbing a pain the ass - or if the strike : defence ratio is even lower and the attacks losses start to get out of control.
Would it still be a pain in the ass if I said I was thinking about making sabotage and assassination more deadly which means if said account does not use the realm alert level then it'd be possible to reduce defense or strike significantly without the target knowing who the perpetrator was.


YOUR REASON TO KEEP THE SYSTEM AS IT IS: Keeping the system as it is will ENCOURAGE wars. This is your objective isn't it? The main thing stopping those being farmed from massing the farmer back is costs. IF they are being farmed by someone, it means that person has a strike - thus the strike : defence ratio will be higher making the farmer a lot more vulnerable. It is consequently a LOT easier for the defender to mass the farmer - and therefore it is a LOT more likely that he ll mass the farmer. Whats the end product? War - which is what *you* want. If you make it so weapons lost are proportionate to unarmed troops, you are decreasing how easy it is to mass the farmer, and therefore decreasing the likelyhood of war between farmers and strikers - which happens to be the main cause of war's on these sort of games - both between individuals and between alliances.
I want to encourage smaller wars, as in one person gets farmed. The farmee throws a few shots to the farmer's def dropping it to 40-50%, both sides losing approx the same amount of units, the farmer then retaliating a bit to make a point that they will not get stepped upon, but without having to zero a def like before and spend too many resources on one single target, because first few hits caused attacker to lose 2-3 times more units than the defender, basically forcing them to zero a def to kill as much as they lost. With the new system, with each hit, both sides lose about the same amount of units and the proportions dont change as the attacks continue.

Spoiler:

9.) I like the idea of being able to "sabb/assassinate past the limit" - i ve got a general idea what you mean, but could you be more specific - i.e. %'s killed and at what point?
Ok to be clear since the message probably didn't get through yet. There was always the option to kill past that limit (Reading the updates page, though long, can help you understand some things believe it or not). However whoever did the sabbing/assassinating had to send a bucketload of units way past the normal required limit.
Basically if someone had 1k def supers and 0 assassins then you would have had to send 60k Assassins, losing 3k assassins in the process and killing 1k units.
Very stupid thing to do if fighting an equal opponent. Very useful thing if you're fighting a pesky tiny account which annoys you.

Basically as you can imagine, I'm not trying to make some changes without thinking about it, but I do feel that by giving players the option to just hit the def a few times and NOT forcing them to zero a defense like before will increase the amount of clashes. Albeit smaller ones.
That is my target which I am trying to aim for.

The prime directive must be obeyed
(that's obviously NOT an ST reference since ST's PD wouldn't make sense in this case)

Err... admin - by keeping the system as it is (i.e weapon's destroyed being equal to troops killed regardless of amount of unarmed) your *not* stopping smaller war's from happening - or to put it another way:

- Will the person being farmed be able to hit the farmer a couple of times to back off? Answer: Yes he will... just like what you want. Keeping the existing set-up won't limit or impact this - if a player wants to fire of a couple of warning shots... he can still do just that.

However - by keeping the system as it is you also make it *more* likely that war's will escalate to be more intense and brutal.

Remember this has nothing to do with zeroing a defence. The current weapon system set-up makes the sabbing an enemy target, then using assault's to finish off the remaining weapons (due to unarmed troops = more dead... which results in more weapon loss) strategy potentially more readily available - which in some (not all) situations will make wars easier and therefore more likely. This strategy is different to the sabbing an enemy's defence completely away one (which require's the enemy to have a poorly balanced account) in that it can utilised on more balanced account's more frequently.

By keeping the existing set-up your enabling, not limiting, more game strategies which will result in more variety in account set-up's and war tactics as a result (to deal with the different strategies) - thus more things for players to take into consideration when building their account's and fighting a war.

Basically then - keeping the weapons as they are accomplishes your prime-directive of encouraging more SMALLER wars... but it also helps in encouraging more larger wars and in encouraging more variety in wars.

Unless your prime-directive is to restrict larger wars... i don't see there being a compatability issue. Surely you d want to go for a set-up which is balanced, well thought out and which enables as many different type's of gameplay as possible - as oppossed to a set-up which is balanced, well thought out which offers *less* types of game-play and strategy as the previous/ existing one?

As for the strike issue. Keep the strike protected by the defence UNLESS you change the weapon set-up to factor in unarmed troops - if you do this then make the directly killable and it should only use 70% of its overall power given it is specialised in striking.. not defence thus should be at a disadvantage to the enemy strike which would be doing its trained role (striking).

However if you wanted (if you make the strike directly killable) you could make it so realm-alert level's impact the strike's defensive capabilities?

I.e low = 78% of real power
Medium = 86% of real power
High = 94% of real power
Critical = 100% of real power

If an army is on alert... the troops normally trained in attacking the enemy will have fortified and prepared themselves and got ready for the enemy attack on them... which while they won't be as effective as defence troops, it means they d be better prepared.. and could probably be brought up to be as effective as defence troops in defence with the appropriate addittional investment (lost income for realm alert level) and warning.

ian wrote:Err... admin - by keeping the system as it is (i.e weapon's destroyed being equal to troops killed regardless of amount of unarmed) your *not* stopping smaller war's from happening - or to put it another way:

- Will the person being farmed be able to hit the farmer a couple of times to back off? Answer: Yes he will... just like what you want. Keeping the existing set-up won't limit or impact this - if a player wants to fire of a couple of warning shots... he can still do just that.

Ok, I think you haven't understood me well

Current system on main server: Attacker is forced to zero a defense because otherwise they will have lost way much more than the defender.
Current system on test server: Attacker can do just a few attacks, saving themselves resources of not having to completely mass a defense and saving the defender resources of not having to rebuild a defense completely, while still killing about as many units as they lost. For this reason people will more often now mini-mass because it's actually useful in getting a message across now.

ian wrote:Remember this has nothing to do with zeroing a defence. The current weapon system set-up makes the sabbing an enemy target, then using assault's to finish off the remaining weapons (due to unarmed troops = more dead... which results in more weapon loss) strategy potentially more readily available - which in some (not all) situations will make wars easier and therefore more likely. This strategy is different to the sabbing an enemy's defence completely away one (which require's the enemy to have a poorly balanced account) in that it can utilised on more balanced account's more frequently.

By keeping the existing set-up your enabling, not limiting, more game strategies which will result in more variety in account set-up's and war tactics as a result (to deal with the different strategies) - thus more things for players to take into consideration when building their account's and fighting a war.

Sabbing will still be effective enough, since even without the extra weapons killed during strike, by sabotaging some weapons you also decrease the defense.
Lower defense means a more favorable defense/strike ratio which results in less % attacker losses and higher % defender losses with each hit. So I think it's still good enough even if i change it to % of weapons killed.
Plus not changing it would give a significant advantage to a large player fighting a small player who can afford to go one levels higher in covert skill and several covert techs.

ian wrote:Basically then - keeping the weapons as they are accomplishes your prime-directive of encouraging more SMALLER wars... but it also helps in encouraging more larger wars and in encouraging more variety in wars.

Unless your prime-directive is to restrict larger wars... i don't see there being a compatability issue. Surely you d want to go for a set-up which is balanced, well thought out and which enables as many different type's of gameplay as possible - as oppossed to a set-up which is balanced, well thought out which offers *less* types of game-play and strategy as the previous/ existing one?

The prime directive was still meant as a pun, not to be taken seriously.

ian wrote:As for the strike issue. Keep the strike protected by the defence UNLESS you change the weapon set-up to factor in unarmed troops - if you do this then make the directly killable and it should only use 70% of its overall power given it is specialised in striking.. not defence thus should be at a disadvantage to the enemy strike which would be doing its trained role (striking).

However if you wanted (if you make the strike directly killable) you could make it so realm-alert level's impact the strike's defensive capabilities?

I.e low = 78% of real power
Medium = 86% of real power
High = 94% of real power
Critical = 100% of real power

That's a good one, will consider it.

Whether or not a player can mini-mass is neither here nor there as regardless of whether you update the weapon system a player will still be able to mini-mass. The weapon system being changed won't impact in the slightest on a player's ability to mass through the defence, perform a couple of assaults or whatever.

What I am saying is that by updating the weapon system it *will* render at least one tactic ineffective. Before you could have sabbed *part* of a player's defence away then assaulted it - with more effective results:

If the enemy has a lot of unarmed troops their casualties would be a lot higher. If a weapon dies for every lost soldier - it would be quicker and easier to mass since the defender would loose those weapons quicker... this applies to whether a person want's to zero a player, or reduce that player to a lower level of defence. More weapons killed is more weapons killed... regardless of where the "stop" point is.

The easier it is to kill and mass... the more likely people will kill and mass. The more killing and massing - the more wars. The more war's... the more successful this update will have been.

AFTER the change to the weapon's system no matter how many troops the defender looses... he will only loose a proportionate amount of weapons. I.e. if only 1 in 10 of his troops are armed, then his weapon losses will only be 1/10 of the troop losses. It means weapon's won't die so easily - which in turn means it will require more assault's/ costs/ effort to reduce a player's defence and account down to the targetted level - whether that be 1/2 the original defence, 1/10 the defence or down to 0.

I fully understand everything you have said and am well aware about the impacts of defence : strike ratio - but as i ve said: If something's easier to kill... its easier to kill. You altering the weapon's system to be proportionate will make the above tactic more ineffective. Rendering it basically useless.

Thats one less tactic an attacking player can use, and one less tactic a defending player has to worry about - the result? A decreased range of choices and factor's to take into consideration by all parties involved - along with massing being slightly more difficult, making it less likely someone would go to war.

I don't think i can explain it any clearer than that. It doesn't matter about strike : defence ratio's, or how effective sabbing is or won't be - since with or without the weapon's system change those options will remain unaltered in themselves, what will be altered is the above strategy utilising a selection of options.

As for the larger player fighting the smaller player - i was always under the belief you firmly advocated the view that a larger player *should* have an advantage... since he IS the larger and stronger player... it kinda comes with the territory... why should it be a issue if the larger player can outclass the enemy when it comes to techs and covert levels?

ian wrote:As for the larger player fighting the smaller player - i was always under the belief you firmly advocated the view that a larger player *should* have an advantage... since he IS the larger and stronger player... it kinda comes with the territory... why should it be a issue if the larger player can outclass the enemy when it comes to techs and covert levels?

Outclassing is not the issue, it's just that I dont feel that allowing a strategy to be available which will not be possible to be used by a small player vs a large player.

On a second thought, I can imagine not adding the % of weapons destroyed, however by that logic I would be forced to make unarmed soldiers not participate in combat.
I think it's better just to change it to % of weapons destroyed

Admin wrote:

ian wrote:As for the larger player fighting the smaller player - i was always under the belief you firmly advocated the view that a larger player *should* have an advantage... since he IS the larger and stronger player... it kinda comes with the territory... why should it be a issue if the larger player can outclass the enemy when it comes to techs and covert levels?

Outclassing is not the issue, it's just that I dont feel that allowing a strategy to be available which will not be possible to be used by a small player vs a large player.

On a second thought, I can imagine not adding the % of weapons destroyed, however by that logic I would be forced to make unarmed soldiers not participate in combat.
I think it's better just to change it to % of weapons destroyed

Why don't you just save us all some time and say your not going to keep the weapon system how it is regardless of what reason's are put forward on just why it should be kept the same? Fine... change the weapon's system. Its still restricting game-play and strategies more than it has to, but that's your call.

As for the bit about the strategy not possibly being available to small players. Your basically saying a small player won't have good enough covert or tech's to do the strategy which the large player can do. But that applies to *everything*. If the small player doesn't have a adequate strike - he won't be able to effectively assault someone anymore effectively than he could sabb someone with an inadequate covert capability. Both would end in disasters for him.

I d say against a large player a LOT of strategies won't be available to the small player which the large player can do... so does that mean you ll be altering the game to prevent the large player's utilising their superior account's for more successfull strategies? Of course you won't..... so i don't see how arguiing the larger player being able to do strategies the small player's can't do makes any sense. If you don't want the game to be unevently balanced... just say so.

"Would it still be a pain in the ass if I said I was thinking about making sabotage and assassination more deadly which means if said account does not use the realm alert level then it'd be possible to reduce defense or strike significantly without the target knowing who the perpetrator was."

That would be interesting.