Delayed attacks

Mandarins31 wrote: in fact that's not really a problem if 100 armies, allied or ennemies, arrive at a location at the exact same hour. and you dont need to make them fight in alphabetic order of what. we are here talking about avoiding a grouped attacked (as if all the armies where one). but in fact, what is the difference between 1 big army and the same army devided in various armies? if my memory is good, the only difference is the overpower. that's why 10 000 knights are better than 2 armies of 5 000 knights.

Personally If I send my crack army of 10,000 advanced cavalry to ravage a plains occupation I don't want it being combined with my alliance-mate's army of poorly lead mixed defensive unit force and messing up my kill ratio. ;)

re: what bartimus said about HMs idea: I haven't read HMs idea but it sounds like a kind of "tick" system... for example every army that arrives at a location will wait until the first minute of each hour before attacking so the combat reports are generated on the hour every hour, and all armies that arrive before each hour will combine into 1 force... like SC said though I think somethink like that would require a complete reworking of the combat system.

i dont think that's the good moment to give new ideas about UI v2, as it will be upgraded in 8 days :p

and i would like to pecise we are tending to be out of the subject :p









Edited by Mandarins31 - 20 Jan 2011 at 02:40

SirTwitchy wrote: The cost to field a large army is currently only in gold, and I honestly believe that to march and or camp an army should cost more anyways. In a real world situation To have any army sitting at home base idle or defending will inherently cost less than to send an army to war in a foreign land and hopefully this will be added to the game.

in fact, if i remember, Stormcrow already explained (long time ago) why armies movements didnt cost anything else, and also why we can run out of food without losing our population/soldiers.
I forgot his exact words, but that was about the fact that the food you produce is only the castle's food (or something like that). your soldiers and you citizens have the means to buy theire own food with theire revenue.
and soldiers take theire own provisions, and find theire food during theire travels.
that was something like that. (that's a part of the realism of the game :p)
no need to have more costs for armies actions as Stormcrow just precised in the post above.

some random guy wrote: Another interesting point is that armies currently automatically get payed no matter how far away they are.  Caravans should be necessary to get pay and resources to an abroad army.  This would create a better use for the "blockade" stratagem, and it would have an interesting strategical twist when there are unlimited caravans and "pathfinding."

Sure that would be cool to add these kind of features! but precisely for this one i would have replied as Twichy.
if i remember, with the next upgrades we will be able to escort our caravans. then with pthfinding and factions upgrades, that may mean we would be able to attack some caravans when they leave a hub or something like that. im sure there are many ideas to develop about this.






Edited by Mandarins31 - 20 Jan 2011 at 02:16

Another interesting point is that armies currently automatically get payed no matter how far away they are.  Caravans should be necessary to get pay and resources to an abroad army.  This would create a better use for the "blockade" stratagem, and it would have an interesting strategical twist when there are unlimited caravans and "pathfinding."

Hi all,

Just answering a few points raised here, but would still very much encourage an active debate on these issues!

col0005 wrote: Any objections I see to this idea seem to be that players are opposed to automating the game.

We don't want to "automate" the game by any means; however we are sensitive to what we described as the "clickfest" back in the August "Newness" announcement.

We're all in favour of making repetitive actions 'without general purpose' easier, and less micro-managementy (unless a player wishes them to be so).

So, for example, we're quite in favour of (eg) allowing building queues to allow players to queue 2 buildings OR up to 24 hrs worth of building time. This means that a player who has just settled their 3rd/4th city might not be required to sit online for many dozens of 5m-35m builds of basic resource buildings whilst building up the next city.

For another example, we don't think a player should have to click on every production building in his town one-by-one to find out what his town is currently producing and whether new things need to be queued up (and UI v2 goes some way to addressing this).

bartimeus wrote: Createure wrote:  Imagine an alliance of 50 people each sending 10 armies to one location at exactly the same time to the second...? I imagine you're gonna be getting some problems with how the server is going to handle that, and also a problem with what order the armies arrive in, and also a problem with the "game sense" of the situation, because the armies will all attack seperately even though they are actually generating a battle report at exactly the same time. that wouldn't be a problem if the dev enable HM's suggestion of non instantaneous battles... otherwise we can just make it arrive in alphabetical order...

HM's suggestion of battle longevity is intriguing, but not one we're actively pursuing at the moment. The systemic/gameplay changes required would be vast, and we also need to balance the questions of "player expectation" in there.

We have, of course, already introduced some longer-term battles in the form of Sieges, and so we're not averse to the concept. 

The issue on general combat is that most players aren't 24/7 in Illyria, and their expectation is that the outcome of an event they sent out to occur at a specific time is that the event actually occurs at that time (be it a success or a failure).  If we introduced the concept of 'combat over time' (beyond siege, which is a special case - and rightly so) then we're effectively alienating the casual players and making (through escalation) 24/7 participation a requirement of even the slightest military engagement; which we're very much against.

Also, worry not about the server's ability to cope with such multi-participant engagements - everything we do has performance in mind at some level - and it's our job to worry about the capacity ramifications rather than anyone else's!

SirTwitchy wrote: the delay should cost everyone equally, to have an army at the ready only costs gold now, mebbe if camp time is allowed than this could cost food and gold for the duration of the camp. This could be double or triple of the cost to stay in the castle and launch without camp time , due to the fact that costs outside of the city would be more. A simple solution without giving it away.

We have actively discussed ideas around upkeep and logistics supply chains.

The key thing, as always, is that whatever we do is transparent to the players through the User Interface, and also passes the "fun test". 

The transparency issue is that when numbers change on your screen you need to quickly and easily know why (even when they changed because they were as a result of your orders, eg an army encampment has arrived and this now costs more). 

The "fun test" is more complicated.

It's like the idea of having multiple caravan types with different capacities/speeds/etc. 

Whilst we like the idea of different caravan types - because it gives us new unit types, new technologies, new specialisations for players and many other extensions to the existing systems - it does by necessity mean that loading up a caravan and sending goods out means more steps (selecting which caravans and/or combinations of caravans to send that can carry the goods). 

Thus far we've rejected the "multiple caravan types" idea as "failing the fun test", and for the same reason will also reject changing upkeep/logistics requirements depending on army activities in the future.

Best,

SC