Illy's Military Structure

taken from http://forum.illyriad.co.uk/advance-notice-new-buildings_topic2401_page6.html if you want to read it in its natural state

Erik Dirk wrote: Looks fantastic and I look forward to it all coming out. One criticism tho. All the aspects of the new specialisation improves the game except for millitary. The new changes will basically mean that each city will only produce and maintain one unit type and will therefore only attack with one unit type. A system whereby a player was rewarded for having a spear wall infront of archers would be very nice.

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HonoredMule wrote: That was already the optimal case previously.  The value of per-city troop specialization based on production is only being increased a little, and for anyone with 3+ cities it's an easy pill to swallow.  Furthermore, it has always been tactically superior to choose at most 2 but more likely one type of troop for a particular engagement, which means having diverse armies only makes them less effective.

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BellusRex wrote: HonoredMule wrote: That was already the optimal case previously.  The value of per-city troop specialization based on production is only being increased a little, and for anyone with 3+ cities it's an easy pill to swallow.  Furthermore, it has always been tactically superior to choose at most 2 but more likely one type of troop for a particular engagement, which means having diverse armies only makes them less effective. This is true, but not being able to have a diverse army with differing tactics takes some fun away from fighting...I suppose part of the problem in having those kind of mechanics is a lot of work for the devs, as well as shifting the game play balance more heavily toward military based players...what ever comes down the road, it's going to be quite interesting to see  over the coming months...

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Erik Dirk wrote: Having those kind of mechanics wouldn't need to shift the game mechanics toward military based players any more than the current new buildings do. The basic mechanics could be very simple ie. archer and spearmen combo get + 3% against infantry and +6% against cavlery, opposite for infantry and archer, Cavlery and infantry+ 4% to attack, cavlery and spearmen +4% to defence. The devs would just have to figure out the balance as they have to for what they already have planed

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HonoredMule wrote: Adding these combinatorial bonuses would only restore the balanced army back to equity (or even supremacy).  But a "diverse army" does not provide diverse tactics.  Focused armies represent diverse tactics, while diverse armies offer one generalized tactic modeled after the kitchen sink. It sounds to me more like the argument being made isn't for "better" military balance but one requiring less decision making when preparing, planning, and executing battles.  But unless you just want to bash clubs at each other and see whose is biggest, picking optimal troops is the primary thought exercise affecting outcome, and just due diligence.  Those who take the decision lightly rather than planning focused armies well in advance deserve to have their troops wasted needlessly.

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Erik Dirk wrote: I disagree, the troop selection for a battle will still often be a matter of chance rather than a tactical choice, especiall given that built troops must be made long in advance, especially as a siegeing force, there's little to do other than choose spearmen or archers. At the moment I'd accuse the current system of dumbing it down, as a millitary focused city is rather simple to design; choose one troop type, build the relevent structure and sov squares, done.   Under my suggestion players would have to balance the pros and cons of city design. Especially with the new buildings. Should I sacrifice another building plot for the respective buildings of both unit types? Should I have really good sov for one unit and therefore fast army replacement, or should I have sov for both units.

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BellusRex wrote: HonoredMule wrote: It sounds to me more like the argument being made isn't for "better" military balance but one requiring less decision making when preparing, planning, and executing battles.  But unless you just want to bash clubs at each other and see whose is biggest, picking optimal troops is the primary thought exercise affecting outcome, and just due diligence.  Those who take the decision lightly rather than planning focused armies well in advance deserve to have their troops wasted needlessly. This was exactly what I was getting at, although I might have done it badly...I hate the pure numbers, I have more than you military structures. The more elements that highlight individual tactics and choices the better with me. I suppose order of movement, attack, initiative, and the like would be crucial. Say you had cav attacking spears and bows. Terrain would obviously be critical, but so would whether the spears engaged the cav first, say as in a pike wall screening archers. Or look at Agincourt, with heavy cav against longbowmen. Terrain, weather, movement, rate of fire, all combined to trump the accepted, proven tactics to that point. So basically, for me anything bringing more depth and individual tactics and decisions will always be great, and to quote HM like all the cool kids do, the "kitchen sink" army will always be a sloppy, hope for the best approach...

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JohnChance wrote: I have to agree with this. The combat in our game is extremely NOT satisfying. Often I get the same message about troops I didn't even use being good on such and such a terrain, and nothing about the actual battle except that I won it. Also whether I lose troops or not the loot picked up from battle is fairly worthless. Normally it's not even enough to replace a single loss. There is no selection of which regiments are going in first, no real aim to the combat except for there to be combat which generates experience, for more combat that generally has no point, and no reward for the chore. There isn't even an interesting story of this specific battle or the factors that came into play for this specific set of my troops, enemy troops, and terrain. It's awful. Adding new buildings doesn't change that, it just means that to be effective in combat I have to divert more of my resources into . . . not getting anything worthwhile. But I have to do it because otherwise I risk getting attacked by a "stronger" player and unlike normal combat siege combat is very destructive and purposeful. I could have my city destroyed or taken if it isn't filled with the best and most experienced troops. So it's not an optional system really.

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Kilotov of DokGthung wrote: JohnChance wrote: I have to agree with this. The combat in our game is extremely NOT satisfying. Often I get the same message about troops I didn't even use being good on such and such a terrain, and nothing about the actual battle except that I won it. Also whether I lose troops or not the loot picked up from battle is fairly worthless. Normally it's not even enough to replace a single loss. There is no selection of which regiments are going in first, no real aim to the combat except for there to be combat which generates experience, for more combat that generally has no point, and no reward for the chore. There isn't even an interesting story of this specific battle or the factors that came into play for this specific set of my troops, enemy troops, and terrain. It's awful. Adding new buildings doesn't change that, it just means that to be effective in combat I have to divert more of my resources into . . . not getting anything worthwhile. But I have to do it because otherwise I risk getting attacked by a "stronger" player and unlike normal combat siege combat is very destructive and purposeful. I could have my city destroyed or taken if it isn't filled with the best and most experienced troops. So it's not an optional system really. ---------------------------- Faldrin wrote: Every game cant have everything and the combat system in this game is complex in its own way. If you want to have a more complex system go play something else :-) That said this game still needs something to fight over beside killing off cities. ------------------------------ Brids17 wrote: Faldrin wrote: That said this game still needs something to fight over beside killing off cities. But the question is, would a change like that not lead to the destruction of cities? ----------------------------- [QUOTE=Createure]Interesting none-the-less... but perhaps we're going a little off topic? Besides - I think some posters need to focus more on the things they are getting - not all the things they aren't.

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I'd like to see the topic continue without de-railing the thread it was in further.

Celebcalen wrote: It is interesting to note that the debate over the new specialisation in buildings has largely been concerned with "the military path". Does this indicate that, yet again, the community largely want Illyriad to be driven by conflict, war and empire building?

As i see it everything in Illy revovles around military

Buildings are used to produce resources and advanced resources that are use to make troops

Magic is used to increase your production or decrease an enemies production or stored goods

Diplo units are to weaken an enemy be reducing res, slowing builds or killing commander to weaken military strengths

Sov increases production to make Unit production faster

Trade gets rid of your excess and gains you what need to increase your production or train more troops

Now this doesnt mean you have to play as a militaristic aggressive player, you can be happy to just gain score in another category or support others in their ways of playing.

Interesting comment about AE Torn - I too have played it.

And yes I do LOVE the combat system in AE... particularly in an extremely large PvP situation, say 50 people going head to head against 50 other people with their full 'armies'.

Illy is rather different to that.... but not worse I think.

It is true that the complexity of an actual combat situation in Illy is MUCH lower... less diversity of units for a start, and a more simple method for calculating combat outcomes.

But in Illy - you send your armies away on their mission and you can sit back and watch the show - all the planning for combat comes quite a while before the first punch is thrown. I guess this gives the combat a less intense feel - but at the same time - are you sad to be missing nights of sleep because your force is landing at 4 in the morning to surprise the enemy?

IMO Illy has struck much more accurately the fine balance between a "laid back" approach to gaming, which opens up the game to everyone and not just the 16-hours-a-day active people... while at the same time rewarding those who invest a good amount of strategy/planning and team-work.

Another thing I would say is a plus about Illy is you can pretty much chose 8-10 different strategies in 8-10 cities... and if you want to change those strategies (say, when your army is destroyed) you can do so in a matter of a month or 2.

In AE - your best strategy is to build pretty much ONE unit across your entire account.... and this is for years and years... I think I'll be hitting my 5th year of building ONE unit in the next few months in AE...

...and one day you sleep past your alarm clock and 5 years of unit production goes *poof*...

Really there is no comparison between Illy and AE... AE is adrenaline junkie gaming, it consumes your life if you play to win and one day you wake up and it's all gone. In Illy - you play hard when you want - you chill out for a bit - you go on holiday and someone sits your account without getting suspended - you lose all your units and in a couple months you can rebuild to full strength - members of the community actually respect each other and act with a little maturity mostly.

Thanks for starting this thread. I have to agree that the game design hints that military is supposed to be central to the game, as it is in Travian. Yet as a new player I have no real reward to using my military. The social networking and politics means that using thieves or troops to raid/rob another player is highly frowned upon.

Using military to guard harvesting caravans can also lead to a diplomatic incident as bumping caravans is tolerated, but killing them with stationed troops is viewed as a hostile action. Furthermore my young cities produce far more resources in an hour, or even a few minutes than a caravan could gather so the reward is lacking in appeal.

Still further down the list of things I would use troops for is killing NPC animals. I'm forced to do it in order to get experience for my commanders, but it's a chore, certainly not FUN. The loot dropped by animals is fairly tiny compared to the cost of even a single troop, the battles are poorly described, and often boil down to various rule of thumb principles, such as "Use cavalry on plains or use swordsmen in buildings" Once you know what the different animals equate too and what units to use the combat is click and wait . . . replace any losses. How many of you LIKE attacking wolves and dogs on plains with cavalry constantly?

I can't speak on siege warfare as I am new. But I have heard that it is horribly destructive, and thus YES I do fear having my cities besieged. I put a lot of effort and time, plus some real money, into building them. So I feel compelled to contribute to their protection with the best, and most experienced military I can maintain. My alliance is good, but it wouldn't be right or fair to depend on them for my defense and not be able to defend myself and go to the aid of others. It's not fun, but it's not an option either.

Which is a shame because the developers said they wanted a "sandbox game" with "an Eve style corporate structure". I'd love to buy and sell commodities. Building up industry would be fun. But I'd need an in-game reason for people to buy luxury resources, or other peace-time products, and I'd need some sort of supply and demand for basic resources. In short cities would need to stop being self sufficient in everything if you want people to need to depend on the markets and inter-city specialization/trade. Generalist cities should be small rural towns, not "Burgeoning cities".  :)




Edited by JohnChance - 17 Sep 2011 at 20:06