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Tournament Terrain

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Gry View Drop Down
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    Posted: 14 Jun 2022 at 19:35
Overabundance of plains is definitely still a problem in tourney, and I agree this is in effect weighted distribution of tourney tiles already. The main reason it is a problem is that plains are fought differently: they can't be defended and the cav advantage outweighs everything else. It's hard to defend anything, really, but that's what could make a more interesting tournament.

This is worth fixing because regular tourneys can be a driver of game economy. Millions of troops are spent, plus gear gets produced and redistributed. PvP doesn't have the same potential for diversity of materials consumed.

However, it's sort of iterative to address by troop types produced, as a lot of people hunt with cav, npcs land on plains, etc.. But I do think weighting regional differences is a good approach. I would suggest as an alternative filtering the tourney tile candidates with more restrictions, such as a hard cap on the number of plains tiles allowed in the final selection, e.g. 25% of the total regions. Regions containing the highest number of plains tiles could be assigned first, so substitution of a non-plains square would be more likely to affect regions that already have more diversity.

I'm not really bothered by proximity to towns, because it encourages participation (though I would really rather not defend a plains tile next to one of my infantry towns again), but this is another reasonable filter. In addition to the max cap on plains, providing a minimum representation for other terrain types could also help, especially buildings and large mountains, which offer the best chance to defend.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Alred Reylynn Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14 Jun 2022 at 16:08
Originally posted by GM Stormcrow GM Stormcrow wrote:

Hi everyone,

As Tensmoor has indicated in his post above, buildings squares are indeed considered as spawn locations, and have been assigned in the past.

The server tournament square rotation assignment is from a Random Number Generator (RNG), with an exclusion list (eg not sov, not impassable, not a hub, not water, not a town etc).  

The fact is simply that there are a lot more plains squares on the map than any other type, so when the RNG runs, it's more likely that there will be plains squares than other types.

I *guess* we could put our hands on the scales of the RNG to get a more diverse square type selection, but the idea makes me a bit uneasy...  

Our RNG has always been independent of weighting influence, however it's possible that we could implement the idea of quotas (eg random assignment but roll until X Plains, Y Hills, Z Buildings etc).  Or we could say that "whatever the combat terrain type was last time (for this region), make it different this time".

I'd be interested to hear thoughts and/or alternative suggestions, though.  We certainly want to keep tournie combat interesting.

SC



GM Stormcrow [[ The fact is simply that there are a lot more plains squares on the map than any other type, so when the RNG runs, it's more likely that there will be plains squares than other types.
Our RNG has always been independent of weighting influence. ]]


I find the 2 statements above, rather at odds with one another. The RNG runs and picks plains because there are more plains squares, however the RNG is not weighted?? Of course it is weighted, and weighed exclusively by the terrain type, it appears.

I mostly use Cav. so this is more or less, shooting myself in the foot here, to argue for a different approach.

This approach works for most thing Illy, however for Tourneys, not so much. The game was designed with four races, and all four have the same 4 types of military available to them. Although each, has only one or two military types that are optimized for them.

I would suggest that assigning tourney squares based on the ratio of the military type of the cities in each region, instead of by the ratio of terrain types. A scan could be run just before a tourney of each city in a region, and then based on that ratio, run the RNG to first determine the tourney terrain of each region. Then another run of RNG to select the exact square. In selecting to settle a city, the ratio of terrains in a region is irrelevant. I do not know of anyone who selects where to settle by the ratio of an entire region, more likely the ratio of what's in the very near proximity. i.e. if a particular region had an allocation of 25% each; Spear, Infantry, Ranged, Cav cities in it, the RNG should be weighted evenly, for that region. If an imaginary region, had forests on one edge, connected to forest from the adjacent region, and similar situation for mountains on the other side, 25% forest, 25% mountains, 50% plains, and the forests & mountains due to proximity to the adjacent same terrains were heavily populated, with Non-Cav cities but for whatever reason the plains were mostly vacant, why would plains get the best chance of being selected, as with the current approach?? There's no cav there.

With this approach, a region where the RNG selection comes up for example: Infantry; the RNG would only be given Infantry favorable squares, in that region to select from, as the final process. Additionally, if Buildings would be part of that military type, Buildings might require a bit of modification to ensure, some were selected. Might be good to ensure at least 1 or 2 Buildings in the North, and same in Badlands, each tourney, was selected.

Additionally due to the relative speeds of each type of military unit type, Cav has a much easier time, going to an alternative tourney square, if the closest one in unfavorable.

With the current 8 valid terrain types, plains should not always be the majority of tourney squares every tourney. 8 as in hills=2, mountains=2, forest=2, plains, buildings.

Other Thoughts:

There's way to many Tourney squares within 5sq of cities, which leads to a huge advantage. Additionally, for those players who do not participate at all on tourneys, this is taking their prime hunting, herb/mineral spots. Many started sending spies with a military unit withing 4 sq viability range, and those are now considered targets. Therefore players with a tourney square this close would not want to risk getting their gathers destroyed due to someone assuming their collecting encampment is someone attempted to collect information on the tourney square.

If "non-ocean" water squares were also included, even with the current setup, this would water down "pun intended!!", the current high plains ratio. There's nothing preventing water combat? Assuming it's completely neutral stats, attack/defense/military type.

There was some comment in a later post, regarding the possibility of excluding plains. Don't see why that would be necessary. However another thought would be "if and only if" the previous tourney square was plains, then exclude plains, just for the current tourney, and for that region. Also it was suggested that would cause a full rotation of every terrain type, which should not be the case.




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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote demdigs Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30 Apr 2022 at 01:24
I think that a simple fix would be that the terrain change every tourny, it would add some changes without seriously affecting the tourny integrity. At the very least it would allow other troops other than knights a chance to shine.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Thirion Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 Feb 2022 at 22:54
This tournament there are 2 (!) squares that you can defend with only slight losses as a defender (Small Mountain). Most of the other squares are "spam" squares that usually only have a small amount of troops on them or get cleared fast.

Originally posted by Tensmoor Tensmoor wrote:

By changing the structure of the tournaments so that it becomes more usual to hold a tile with larger armies


That would not be the case though. Instead of maybe 2-5 (out of 68?) defendable squares you would have probably around ~10-15 (out of 68) defendable squares - there would still be enough squares you can attack as a small player. A lot of small players participate in SMA/ITG - and there is a lot of other stuff to do (training commanders, getting military experience, scouting, reporting, ...)

Defending Forests and Hills is still inefficient and expensive. Just not as crazy bad as on plains.

I would even argue it would be the opposite. At the moment some players stack Plains - as there are not many good alternatives for defense troops. Giving some good alternatives would focus more troops on those squares and would probably reduce the numbers of big armies on inefficient terrain.


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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Tensmoor Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 Feb 2022 at 16:42
I'm not talking about small players WINNING the tile. They do however have an opportunity to sneak in the odd few minutes of occupation by defeating a very small occupying army. By changing the structure of the tournaments so that it becomes more usual to hold a tile with larger armies you greatly reduce the chance for small players to do anything but send their troops to die with no chance of being able to get any occupation time. That in my opinion removes one aspect of the game from small players.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Thirion Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14 Feb 2022 at 23:22
Originally posted by Tensmoor Tensmoor wrote:

If plains are removed from the equation then there is a very real risk that tournaments will become the plaything of the large players only.


Why?

I completely disagree with that statement and in my experience i would even say that it is the other way around.

You win plains (and most other squares) by sending cav clearing armies at regular intervals and small holds in between. The more attacks you can send the more time you get. Thus the limiting factor is usually the amount of commanders and clearing armies - more cities makes a huge difference there. You cannot occupy/attack when all your commanders are dead.

And yes, defense on non-plains is a bit less expensive - with good play (counter elite units) you can break those though. I have been sending to a lot of squares over the last years and when 2 alliances are fighting for squares big holds rarely hold longer than a few days. In my experience squares are usually decided by how many attacks were sent.


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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Tensmoor Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14 Feb 2022 at 19:14
If plains are removed from the equation then there is a very real risk that tournaments will become the plaything of the large players only.

I agree that buildings would be a good adittion to the tournament terrains. The danger of any occupying force being destroyed by NPCs spawning on the tile would add a certain amount of random danger to the play.

Currently small players can capture a tile and start to accumulate time on that tile. The chances of them being able to get enough time to win a region on their own is almost non-existant however a small alliance will be competing for bragging rights against other similar sized alliances.Perhaps the devs could implement some sort of ranking system to win medals that would allow those small alliances to get a medal however such a system is not easy to design as I learned when trying to design the hunting tournament system.

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Thirion Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14 Feb 2022 at 16:27
In my opinion plains should be removed from the tournament tiles and buildings should be added.

Cav in tournaments is by far the most powerful attack unit (because of its speed) and it is already good on at least hills (and usually forest and small mountains too - depending on whats there).

Defense in Illyriad has 2 major disadvantages compared to attack: First the enemy usually knows what troops are used in big defenses and can send a counter unit. Second you do not know what attack units are coming - thus its a lot harder to skill commanders (in contrast to the heroism+division+Prestige attack for attack commanders).

In its current state it is expensive to defend on all terrain and it is hard to get efficient combats as defender.

Removing plains means the best case for attacks gets removed and with adding buildings a defendable (against cav) terrain is added. I would not completely change the current state but weaken the advantage the attacker has a bit.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Thirion Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14 Feb 2022 at 16:00
Originally posted by Hyrdmoth Hyrdmoth wrote:

I think an advantage of the tourney square selection being entirely random is that, if there are lots of plains squares in Illyriad as a whole, then lots of tourney squares will be plains, and this means people get to practise on the tiles that PvP combat will take place on.


Most of the players that actively participate in tournaments do not want to do PVP. Tournaments are an alternative to PVP and hunting - thus in my opinion tournaments and PVP should be balanced each on their own.

Originally posted by Hyrdmoth Hyrdmoth wrote:

If you bias the selection of tourney squares away from plains, then this means it becomes a type of combat even more different to that in the rest of the game. Not sure if that is a great idea.


Tournaments are by design different to PVP and hunting. In tournaments your region gets a random square. In PVP and hunting you know the terrain in advance and can act according to that. In addition the distance is random and the timeframe is a lot longer (~1d for a siege compared to 30d tournaments).

In my opinion having different options or even different ways of combat is a good thing though - as long as it is balanced decently well. You do what you enjoy most.

Originally posted by Hyrdmoth Hyrdmoth wrote:

So, if we think that there are too many Plains squares in the tournaments, and that plains combat is not so much fun, then maybe there is something that needs to be done about plains combat across the board?


I think the developers designed Illyriad to be played for a long time (in contrast to other browser games with servers). Thus they made defending a city easy and attacking a city hard. Which is in my opinion a valid design choice - but it should not affect tournaments as much as it does (and at the moment it does).

I do think both PVP and tournaments need balance improvements. Doubling the movement speed for all units would be a good start in my opinion.

Originally posted by Hyrdmoth Hyrdmoth wrote:

One tweak that might make Plains tourney squares a bit more interesting, and would change the dynamic on tourney squares more generally, would be to change the calculation of occupation time so that it only counts occupation time after the first x hours.


In my opinion this would be a horrible idea. Currently small players or players with little troops can make a difference by sending small attacks and getting time this way - which is good. That would be gone. In addition it would make tournaments a lot more dependant on luck - wether you catch a timeframe were the enemy is sending enough clear/attacks or not.

Defending is really expensive - thus your suggestion would probably have the opposite effect. You make one big defense to get some time and send big clears else to keep the opponent from getting time.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Hyrdmoth Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12 Feb 2022 at 11:24
I think an advantage of the tourney square selection being entirely random is that, if there are lots of plains squares in Illyriad as a whole, then lots of tourney squares will be plains, and this means people get to practise on the tiles that PvP combat will take place on.

If you bias the selection of tourney squares away from plains, then this means it becomes a type of combat even more different to that in the rest of the game. Not sure if that is a great idea.

So, if we think that there are too many Plains squares in the tournaments, and that plains combat is not so much fun, then maybe there is something that needs to be done about plains combat across the board?

One tweak that might make Plains tourney squares a bit more interesting, and would change the dynamic on tourney squares more generally, would be to change the calculation of occupation time so that it only counts occupation time after the first x hours. This mirrors the experience of running a siege, where it takes some number of hours before the siege engines start firing at the city, and it would mean that the tactics for tournaments would have to change away from the Clear Square -> Occupy with nominal force paradigm.
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