Delayed attacks

Limited ability to set scheduled launches/arrivals is ok with me, largely because it's only requiring an active prestige account AND only provides a very limited grace period (i.e. can't in one sitting set up 20 launches across the next 3 days).  Simply maintaining an active prestige account costs roughly $10 per year (haven't actually calculated, but it's around that order of magnitude).

I don't think that's asking a lot, and if you can't even do that, then you'll just have to set your alarm clock or sneak a quick session on your smartphone while the teacher/boss isn't looking (don't tell them it was my idea, I'll deny it).

As for alliance wars, I agree that this removes the only space in which non-leaders get to personally influence the outcome of an operation for better or worse according to their skill and activity.  Maybe that's ok, but there should be new skill-based opportunities added in its place for regular alliance members to personally influence battlefield outcome.  It shouldn't be all about generals dictating/predicting the better strategy and planning operations.  Training and unit (player) tactics ought to play a big part as well.

1) reply to HM

for what you say, HM, about the regular members on an alliance that wont use prestige and wont be able to delay their attacks/movements, we could imagine a new option in the members rights, or a new research called leading army.
that would be the capacity for a player using prestige to delay his attacks, to lead 1 or 2 other player's army. that would be a restricted ability.
for exemple, in each alliance, the leader could apoint a max of 3 of his members as genenrals or whatever. the important is that he would give them tho right to lead armies.
these generals must already have done the expensive research/quest (!) to be able to lead other's armies.
then we can imagine that a general will ask 2 players in his alliance to be under his leadership, and then each player will put 1 army of his choice in the waiting of the general's orders. this must be done in advance enough for these armies to go automatically at the right time to follow the general's one (when he launchs it) and to arrive/attack just after him.

we can imagine that this abilyty would be possible to use once every day and for 1 army only.
that could be a mean for the regular players to have a significant action, according with the leader's strategies.



2) an other idea resulting of the delay time ability

mmm... and as im lauched to give some ideas...

if we have the ability to delay the army movements, then we can add new features to the game... for exemple we can add a night and day notion.

then depending or your race or whatever you would have an attack bonus if you attack the day or the night, and a defence bonus if your are defending the day or the night.

as there are 4 races we could cut the days in 4 to add specific bonus to each race.

then we have:
the Dawn: 3h - 9h
the Day:    9h - 15h
the Dusk:  15h - 21h
the Night:  21h - 3h

we could also imagine that these hours would change depending on the seasons, because for exemple nights are longer during winter and days are shorter.
then some each race will have his proper shining season.

as we know in the history, we often talk about the attacks of some european cities during the night (Constantinople as an exemple). these were surprising attacks because everyone was sleeping :p.

then maybe each race, traditionnally or for physiologigal reason... uh... go to the bed at different hour. so they would be more vulnerable when they are asleep but ready to the fight during the opposite part of the day, when they are fully awaked and full of energy.

so for exemple:
Humans sleep during the Night
Dwarves during the Dawn (as they did party all night :p)
Orcs during the Day (because they dont need the sun as they live in the caves or such things)
Elves during the Dusk (because they like to be awake to see the first rays of the sun)

then, humans would the stongest during the day, elves during the dawn, etc...

and so, each race will have his natural ennemy. Orcs would be the natural ennemies of humans as their cycle is the opposite (when humans are the strongest, orcs are the weakest, and vice versa),  and dwarves would be the natural ennemies of the elven community for the same reason




enough brain-storming for the moment :p





Edited by Mandarins31 - 18 Jan 2011 at 14:04

to Feral

i dont think that does too many rules if the night and day feature was added. there will be also many things to assimilate when ships and factions comes.

i think this kind of idea is in the line of our GMs vision of this game, because that could make more sens for the existance of the races and the seasons (yes dont forget the game already counts the seasons and the moon - even if that's a minor factor).
and my suggestion also gives a way to improve the battle strategies.
If the Devs created the game with terrain bonus, that's not to add more painful rules, but for us to take pleasure using a bit more our brain than in others games of this kind.
night and day, and the bonus it brings, is a way to use your strategy/leadership/protection/diplomacy skills to a higher level :).
with the exemples i gave, if you are a human using knights to attack an orc on a high montain defending with spearmen, during the night... you didnt get it.

link with the subject

well, not to seem to be out of the subject anymore, i must precise again that this could be a new feature ONLY when the delay of the armies will be updated. because you will be able to say when your army will arrive.
but, the dark face of this idea, is that it will disadvantage further more the ones who doesnt use prestige, even if, like HM said, that wont cost that much to use prestige account to be able to delay your armies.
that's why personnally im not for this feature to need prestige account.

that's why i talked about the leading army, which was my first proposition. it would allow a prestige user to share his delay benefit with someone, in his alliance, who  doest use prestige... but with some restrictions as i already said.





Edited by Mandarins31 - 18 Jan 2011 at 18:12

The GM's are reading this forum also. But they are far to busy with making the dealine for the major UIv2 release.

If they see a interesting idea posting by someone. They might add it on their ''to do'' list.

But about your calculation tool. I've seen talks about GM's wanting to keep this game as human as posible. So adding ALOT of auto-tools in the game might not happen anytime soon.
And to be honest, I like it the way it is now. Having too much auto-tools in the game will just distroy the social gameplay and people can ''robot'' themselfs through the game without actual brain storming. :)

here is the kind of message that can encourage me to do more brain stromings :p

to Zeus


Zeus, as Strategos and Crank said, the discussions we have in your post, this one, or any serious post in this part of the forum is never useless. here we can help our greatful Devs to have some new inspiration... but also that's in this kind of posts that we can point the consequences of the said ideas.
point what would be a problem, what could be cool to add etc...

So your inspiration will never be lost, but you must be cool with the fact that these topics are just dicussions and these ideas, even if they are interesting, wont be add in a short time. the actual dev list is just very Big. And some upgrades have the right of way on other ones.


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well, to speak about the subject, i wanna say i really enjoy to give some ideas about armies and battle system.
as we see delay an attack could bring new features with it, with more detailled strategies. i guess this feature was put on the dev list because that's a way to launch your army at a moment you cant because you are sleeping or working. but personnally i see it can bring many new interesting possibility with it.

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(To make a parenthesis, i played very active strategic war game that could give some inspiration about battles. it's called BattleDawn. very exciting game where u must use your coordinating and diplomacy skills as well. it works turn per turn of 10min-2h, which allows to coordinate impressive grouped attacks. you can conquer other players to produce more/turn. you have various camps like watchtowers, gates to go faster, lunch dragons :p from some camps, train units from some camps... u can move your armies from camp to camp and attack from them. and you are never sure to win an area, even if you are in a good alliance, because there are treacherous everywhere XD.

for the Devs to find some inspiration for new features about battles, or for anybody else who want to experiment intense strategy/battles i advise you to try BattleDawn |on Kongregate by preference]. the only thing that made me leave this game is that it asks too many playing time if you want to be well ranked)


i promise that's my last too long and boring post for a moment




Edited by Mandarins31 - 18 Jan 2011 at 23:24