The To Do List.

[Suicide_Run]

Does negative casualties mean you take less or take more cause hen wzl will have 60% less casualties from what I can tell plus it gets nice stats boost from other things too.

[Animate Dreams]

I'm actually planning on doing the opposite, allowing 11 covert actions per day

 

Can you elaborate on this? Does that mean 11 per day, or 11 against any individual player?

[Suicide_Run]

I think there should be more initial UP cause everyone is just gonna go for the 40 UP rite in the beginning. Then bank everything till the no-attack period is over, then buy wat they want and hit ppl. Im not asking for alot, just make it 10 --> 20 --> 30 --> 40 --> wat you have after 40 on ur chart.

 

With more initial UP, they will have to choose whether they buy UP in the beginning or buy weapons.

[Aileron]

Sorry for the week long hiatus. Its been a really stressfull week. Suffice to say I had reports due for Arabic, and I had to even go as far as to buy a whole new computer so that I can type "في الّقة العربية". Wasn't my only reason for buying the computer, but... Oh, and just so you know, Vista sucks !@#$%^&*. It has so far caused 4 technical problems I had to figure out, and that one Mac commercial in which the Secret Service agents asks "Cancel or Allow" after every line of dialog is indeed an accurate representation of running programs on Vista. I wanted to opt for XP, but I couldn't. !@#$%^&*, I wouldn't mind using 3.4 again.

 

I'm not quite sure what "casualies" means to be honest. (To demonstrate how limited the core is, I cannot even correct the spelling error as it will appear on the race selection screen.) Even from the core settings editing screen the description is vague. I'm pretty sure that -60% casualties means that when you attack an enemy or when he attacks you, he suffers 40% of the casualties he normally would. The weasel is my biggest worry in the ships, because I've been in games where that figure was -100%, meaning anyone who attacked that race would suffer NO casualties. In theory, that would make them good farms, because you could attack them and not worry about losing your soldiers. In practice, in that particular case the race had some big bonuses and since the game wasn't that violent, they dominated. However, here the bonuses are strong but not that great, and this RPG is very violent.

 

Simply put, the -60% casualties is a very negative stat for the weasel, and the +60% casualties is a positive stat for the levi. If you want to however, you can double check on the KoC forums.

 

It would be 11 attacks against any individual player. This includes everybody, so if A sabs C 8 times, then B can only sab C 3 times. I'd prefer have sabotage limited on the giving end instead of the receiving end, because if you pissed off a lot of people, you deserve to be the recipient of a lot of sabotage. However, the core is only programed to limit the recieving end. For your information, this variable is currently set to 5.

 

 

Due to security contraints, "initial" UP cannot be 0. All of the upgrades are expensive enough so that it should take two or three days of saving in order to buy one, so yes, people will buy the 40 UP upgrade because they have to, and will likely not be able to afford the 50 UP by the time attacks open, and if they do they will still be seriously outgunned. However, the choice of "buy weapons now" or "invest in UP" is still there.

 

More importantly, the core only allows for a finite amount of UP upgrades. It has to be set up so that everyone hasn't maxed out by week 2, because if that happens by week 3 weapons are building up faster than income, and by week 4 no one can afford to attack anyone. Thus I had to space them out over the course of the month. Why 40? I started with a base plan of people just having 1,000,000 troops at the end of the month if everyone is a pacifist, though I added a few upgrades on top so don't hold me to that. 40 was the starting value in the resulting growth curve. Actually, due to the nature of exponential growth curves, starting at a slightly higher value makes a big difference. If it started at 10 as you suggest, in order to achieve the desired count, the growth rates would be slower in the beginning and faster in the end, which would favor people who are ahead because their lead would tend to accelerate as time goes on.

 

Why do I want 1,000,000 troops at the end of the month? Casualties are based upon troop numbers. Right now, we haven't been seeing fights where casualties are important because troop numbers have been so low that the formula barely kicks in. Usually, they start to make a difference in the 100,000 range. I'm aiming for a point where casualties are high enough that if a player is the victim of constant massings, he should lose troops faster than his UP generates them. This would bring his numbers down to a "floor" for his current UP, and while he is on that floor, weaker players can catch up to him.

 

I could certainly split the one 40 UP upgrade for 10,000 points into four upgrades that cost 2,500 points a piece, but there wouldn't be much of a point. The point is that the formula works best and favors the lower ranked players if people start a little above zero rather than at zero.

[Animate Dreams]

Well, either way 11 is a good number, I guess. Edited April 22, 2007 by Animate Dreams

[Gravitron]

I've been in quite a few or many rather battles, even against people who I outrank by several dozens gap, whereas they will sustain barely any casulties and I will suffer 50-100.

 

And here's a question, why in the world allow for reset in the first place?

Who in their right mind, other than those MG cheaters, would even want to reset?

You start form nothing, great disadvantage mid-game.

It's a !@#$%^&*ed up idea.

Choose your steed and march to battle with it.

In all RPGs, you choose a class, you think the pros and cons and how your gamestyle is and you go with it and you're stuck with it.

Reset is DUMB.

 

Oh, and !@#$%^&* somebody please !@#$%^&* me in the !@#$%^&* hole.

[Aileron]

Post edited for har!@#$%^&*ment of the sysop. Its funnier this way besides.

 

Race Changing is for the MMORPGs that do not have a system-wide reset. Those RPGs developed settings that cause players to reach a sort critical mass and thus anyone at any time can catch up to the pack. Under those cir!@#$%^&*stances, racial bonuses can be more valueble than time lost.

 

Ours has it because its in the core and can't be removed.

 

 

Casualties are based upon army size mostly. If rank is a factor, it would mean that you suffer MORE casualties because you outrank them so much. That's how this system works in general. All actions are most efficient when dealing with someone who is the same approximate strength as yourself.

 

That's true in "most RPGs" as well. If you are lvl 38 with a +9 Two Handed Sword of "I hacked the !@#$%^&* game", and you spend your time picking on lvl 2 goblins, you don't get any gold or XP. Its similar here, except that this is multiplayer, and players are flesh and blood rather than scripted electrons. Getting god-smacked by people hopelessly stronger than them is a waste of time for weak players, thus the strong players get penalized in the form of high casualties, lower returns, and high repair costs. Its also realistic, as it reflects a weak enemies ability to engage in a hit-and-run war of attrition.

 

 

 

 

You want to go for another MMORPG like this one? Go ahead. There are tons of them. Free advice though...they all suck. The players there take things much more seriously than they do here.

[Animate Dreams]

Players taking the game seriously would stop people like me from hounding the game on the social scene and getting free items from everyone(though it would be considered farming anyway).

 

Anyway, Grav, I've thought about re-starting Ages of War(A game like this, except good), maybe you'd want to join a pack with me next round?

[Suicide_Run]

Rofl, r u really thinking about restarting ani? =/

 

Btw I wouldnt say Break ani, more like loop holes or advantages that doesnt really break any rules

[Animate Dreams]

Not breaking rules, broken in the same way Mortal Kombat is broken. And yeah, Pajuno messaged me the other day, saying Caleb is back, hopefully removing bugs... KZY still pissed me off, though. I keep meaning to post the message he sent me in the forums.

[Aileron]

Two last minute changes, and some misc. comments, for those who are planning everything in advance:

 

Income will be 200 per soldier, 150 per covert, 0 per merc. The soldier income was raised from 100 to 200 because of the results of the prediction calculations...suffice to say people couldn't afford the hardware I wanted them to have. Covert rates were raised to encourage people to get sentries. Mercs give nothing because YOU are supposed to be paying THEM to work for you. However, there will be many more of them available for those of you who like to use mercs as cannon fodder.

 

The second change is that sentry weapons will be cheaper. X radar will be as cheap for all races as Cloak, which is the Spider's special. The mines, which will be the weaker sentry weapon, will be proportionally cheaper. This will make it easier to secure your realm from enemy spies than to sabotage others. Part-time sabotuers for whom covert is a secondary focus will find sabotage of properly sentried targets difficult, wheras it will still be possible for people who really want to focus on it.

 

However, those who have focused on offense should have something available in order to hurt the stats of people they don't like, so the offensive phase limit will be removed, as per what I said in the last prediction post (so its really not a "change"). Thus, if you have the turns, you can spend them all at once to m!@#$%^&* somebody. However, with low turn income an no transfers this will require you to save up for it, and thus is only recommended for people you *really* don't like.

 

One more statement, I didn't state this before, but weapons will resell at a 90% rate to encourage fluidity. This is a byproduct of the weapons system, because the efficiency of weapons will rely on two variables, points and soldiers, rather than just points. Thus changing conditions will have a greater effect on which weapon is most efficient at which time. For instance, a player who just upgraded his UP might find that due to a larger number of soldiers, he might find that he'll get more bang for his buck if he converts to low quality high quan!@#$%^&*y weapons. People may need to switch weapons under natural situations and thus people shouldn't lose as much when they need to sell their weapons.

[Shock]

To Do List: Unban Shock and diff for next month.

[Falcoknight]

Zomg. Ages of War? I played that years ago =o

 

And Ail, good job on all of this. Seems like you're spending a lot more time on it than most would, and it sounds like next round will be much more competetive and fun.

[Animate Dreams]

Lol, Falco, what race were you?

[Falcoknight]

UNDEAD FTW

=o

 

I just made an account there. I'm Sumer in kingdom 38. I have no idea what has changed since I last played, but all I remembered was that Undead doesn't need food, so I picked it again.

[Animate Dreams]

Undead are one of the strongest races. Last time I played, I was shooting for top 20, until an admin banned me. Stupid !@#$%^&*.

[Falcoknight]

Heh.. last time I played top 20 wasn't a hard goal, as there were only around 40-60 active players ^^

 

But my kingdom is all inactives, so I just voted for myself and became Monarch =D