War

The current plans of the Devs where some buildings can't be transported works well with the idea of a defeated player/alliance retreating to a player safe zone. However it doesn't work too well when a player is attempting to move from the player safe zones to the un-policed areas. PLayers shouldn't be punished for entering these areas, However a retreating penalty is certainly appropriate.

Currently, armies take a long time to build and disappear instantly...there's no satisfaction or confidence in having actually gained the upper hand.  Dragging out battle would certainly drag out the enjoyment of warfare, possibly lend greater weight to the sense of accomplishment from simply killing enemy troops, and just maybe make the proposition of war over non-city resources feel more approachable or worthwhile.  Sovereignty looked like something that might be interesting enough over which to do battle, but so far there doesn't seem to be any point significant enough to draw troops.

Certainly any battle that takes place over things other than cities will be more pragmatic and not require dire offense or extreme conviction.

This is a tough isssue.  On one hand, I want to be able to destroy and /or conquor other cities, on the other hand, I don't want to upset or drive away someone from the game.  I want people to be safe from unjustly losing what they built up, but I want the ability to punish/deter people who attack my alliance.  I'm pretty much against crippling warfare as it currently is.  I tend to side with the group that wants to see the ability to rebuild quicker.  When I used to play MUDs where PKing was common, I remember getting annoyed whenever I was killed, but it went away real quick, because my character was still the same, he just got replaced in the starting spot and got a count on my character sheet for how many times he died.  Nothing to dishearten me or make me want to quit.  So it's not the dying part that sucks, it's the losing everything.  As I said though, I want to be able to deter people from attacking so I see a need for some kind of penalty to accomplish that.  So what if we restart with what we had before the siege began, but with "a pound of flesh" taken?

I don't see a problem with veteran players being destroyed in sieges.  They have allies (or should, at that stage in the game) and stand a chance.  Especially if proposed changes such as retaining their highest city's level of research + HM's idea of all lev 5 resource fields are put into the game.

(those ideas should, or some version of it.  Restarting has to be quicker for the health of the game, imo)

Here's the thing:  

New players should not get obliterated before they even know what this game is all about, or how awesome *most* of the community is.

Thing is, I don't think anything really special needs to be CODED in to protect noobs.  Let players play police.  There are already numerous alliances, (Toothless?, FDU, among others, who try to protect and take new players under their protective military wings).

That's great.

But knowledge is power.  How can players help protect new players from bullies sieging if they don't know it's happening?

Proposed Solution:

Make the HERALD link have fields that can be sorted.  For instance:  sort by area (northwest, northeast, southwest, southeast), sort by attack type (attack, raid, siege, etc).

This would allow players to see, ok who is sieging who in my quadrant.

If it's some war or seemingly a fair fight, who cares.  If it's a 6 town bully demolishing a 49 pop new player, that might enrage quite a few of the playerbase to react.

Picture this:

How cool would it be to join a new game, get sieged and initially think, wtf?!!?!?... only to have your mailbox fill up with a few players saying:  Hang in there!  Help is on the way.  Here are some supplies and 1,000 troops to reinforce. 

Try to use the rocks I sent you to build your walls.  Keep hope alive!

I don't know about you, but I think that would be one of the coolest gaming experiences ever.  To go from rock bottom to hopeful and to have such community involvement. 

Edited by Grunvagr - 27 Sep 2010 at 16:22

So a city can no longer be razed or captured.

I kind of like this idea, how about siege becomes far less damaging to the city and that once a city has been captured it becomes an NPC city that pays tribute to the alliance. However players within the defeated players alliance or in a NAP or confederation can attempt to siege back the town. Obviously the player would have the option to give up the city or their smallest town if the returned town would give the player too many towns for their population.