Thread: Conquest Suggestions

Originally Posted by s2cuts

Yeah, the two parameters that are throwing the game out of whack are "Income Ratio" and "Recruit Ratio". They're both calculated off of a growing variable, which means those stats will grow exponentially no matter what. The only thing I can think of to try is to reduce "Income Turns" to try and make investing in armor and weapons for early attacks more desirable. That might have an affect of slowing people from growing their troops too much.

I have to say, it can't be all that difficult to patch the game to fix those growth rates. Just take the current troop count out of the formula for calculating troops and income per turn. If you wanted to get really tricky, make troop or income rates grow based on an average of the opposing team's troop count. That way, those who are really behind would have the highest troop and income growth rates, and those that are ahead will have the slowest troop and income growth rates. Just an idea.

Agreed :)

But I'd prefer a parable function, where at the start you catch up, with the growth rate increasing by alot as you get more troops, and then starting to decrease later on, slowing down again. If you set the turning point at 10,000 troops, users will reach that value more quickly and advancing from then onwards will take longer again...

That way two people who've played for a month and hit 10k can overwhelm somebody who's played two months and has hit 15k. Just example values. With the current system the second user has 20k because growth is geometric-exponential.

Assuming this is based on php code it shouldn't be too difficult to modify...

Do you ever update the code? If not, I could take a look at the source and try modifying it...

Yup, it's a relatively simple php script. PM me if you're interested in hacking the code and I'll email you the files.

Alrighty, I've taken a look at this and found the underlying variable/function that needs to be modified:

$newTroops = $player[pTroops] + $settings[gCycleTroops];

which translates to:

Every hour ("cycle"), increase the current number of troops by a set amount.

In the game, purchasing/troop-producing power is directly linked to the current amount of troops. With a geometric growth rate it is hard-impossible for new players to catch up to the older players.

(A further variable/function that could be adjusted is the money gained each cycle, but the troops are the most important aspect of the game: $newGold = $player[pGold] + $goldGain; )


By modifying this function, the following scenario could be created:



Before a player amasses one million troops, the player's troops grow very fast, gradually slowing down. Then from one million onwards, the player only gains a set amount of 150 troops per cycle (150 x 24 = 10.800 troops per day). By contrast, on the first day the player earns nearly 40.000 troops.

It takes 1.300 cycles to hit the million, that's the equivalent of 1.300/24= 54 days. It takes roughly the same amount of time to gain a further 200.000 troops.

Obviously these values can still be adjusted. One million was an arbitrary turning point. Currently there are people with >10 million troops and people with <100.000 troops.

I think this modification could level the playing field slightly, making the game more accessible/exciting for noobs and pros alike.

Feedback/Criticism would be welcome :)
~ Exa

I agree with the comments that troop growth should be linear rather than exponential.
Perhaps as a quick fix that wouldn't require modifying the code "Recruit Ratio" and "Income Ratio" could be reduced and "Cycle Gold" and "Cycle Troops" could be increased so players gain more gold and troops after each cycle refresh.
Also increase the "Attack Ratio" so players have the potential to steal more gold but slightly decrease "Attack Toll" and "Attack Max" to minimise troops losses.
Possibly also consider decreasing "Spy Cost" and "Spy Upkeep".

I think this would promote a more attacking oriented game with lots of small skirmishes.
The game would be more based around spying and attacking to steal gold rather than on building troops to gain income and hence weapons.

I'm just throwing ideas out there. If they're not fully thought out I apologise

Originally Posted by greigor

Perhaps as a quick fix that wouldn't require modifying the code "Recruit Ratio" and "Income Ratio" could be reduced and "Cycle Gold" and "Cycle Troops" could be increased.

I don't understand what this would do to solve the issue at hand. Decreasing the first two slows the game down, increasing the last two speeds it up again. Also, I think the default recruit ratio is already at 1% so desreasing is difficult (?)

The main thing this changes is it gives an advantage to people who spend they turns quickly, as the 50/50 will be reached sooner.

Also, you won't be able to afford to buy something big by spending 48 turns on money, because you won't get as much for it. Instead you need to save up which leads to you losing more money if you get attacked in the meantime. Whether or not this is desirable, I do not know...

Originally Posted by greigor

Also increase the "Attack Ratio" but slightly decrease "Attack Toll" and "Attack Max"
Possibly also consider decreasing "Spy Cost" and "Spy Upkeep".

I think this would promote a more attacking oriented game with lots of small skirmishes.
The game would be more based around spying and attacking to steal gold rather than on building troops to gain income and hence weapons.

I don't see this changing the discrepancy between users with >10m troops and users with <100k troops.

Originally Posted by greigor

I'm just throwing ideas out there. If they're not fully thought out I apologise

I'm just guessing too mate, the only way to really see what happens is if you actually try it ^^

Originally Posted by Exa

I don't understand what this would do to solve the issue at hand. Decreasing the first two slows the game down, increasing the last two speeds it up again. Also, I think the default recruit ratio is already at 1% so desreasing is difficult (?)

I suggested the changes in order to maintain the speed of the game. I think you're right about the ratios being at 1%. Don't know if they can be decreased further. My point was that it would discourage just building up troops exponentially as a strategy.

Originally Posted by Exa

The main thing this changes is it gives an advantage to people who spend they turns quickly, as the 50/50 will be reached sooner.

Also, you won't be able to afford to buy something big by spending 48 turns on money, because you won't get as much for it. Instead you need to save up which leads to you losing more money if you get attacked in the meantime. Whether or not this is desirable, I do not know...

Players wouldn't receive turns more quickly but would receive more troops and gold after each cycle. Regardless I'd agree on both points. Those not spending turns as quickly would need to invest more in defense. Buying large items would be harder or at least delay doing so until later in the game. Players would need to build defense or possibly attack and steal alot of gold to buy a large item

Originally Posted by Exa

I don't see this changing the discrepancy between users with >10m troops and users with <100k troops.

If the recruit ratio and income ratio could be decreased it could possibly prevent such a large gap between players from building up. The game could be less about troops and more about attacking to steal gold to build weapons and armour.

Originally Posted by Exa

I'm just guessing too mate, the only way to really see what happens is if you actually try it ^^

Yer I realised that when I thought of it. I'm sort of just thinking out aloud about what possible tweaks could easily be made to change the nature of the game

Exa, I didn't want to quote your entire post but we have already talked about how the troop count is easily exploited. I don't think you were here last round though were you? Heck, I was the first one pumping troops above everyone else when I found this out last round right away. I even graphed a function as well to show everyone else on my team, except i find your statistics to be a bit more accurate and not as sloppy as my MS Paint graph =P . However, you are right, no real changes have been implementing to combat the rapid troop inflation.

Anyhow I came here to add my ideas to the list as well, I think some of these have already been mentioned so credit to whoever did. Since we're on a team, more "team" like efforts should be available such as:

*Ability to send to friendly nations for support:
-Troops
-Money
-Spies
*Small factions/guilds that automatically pool a percentage of your troops in retaliation to defend/assist a member of your guild or faction.

Other suggestions:
*More complex tech trees:
-Watch Towers (Passively spies on neighboring nations. (I would think roughly 1 nation every 15 turns. Rough cost: 500 gold a turn))
-Research (Instead of maxing out every upgrade easily in the first few days, have a timeline for how long after the purchase the upgrade will be available to your troops)

*Banks (Able to keep funds safe from attacks but 10% fee to deposit)

*Other investment options:
-Mines (Actively generate income every turn)

Ways to combat inflation:
-Farms ( you need farms to feed your troops. ex) 1 farm feeds 500 troops. How does this combat inflation? People exponentially increasing their troop count must use their troops to generate income to buy more farms before moving on. This keeps everyone on a bell curve with a standard deviation of very little. Instead of a range of troops from five thousand to one billion)
-Villages (Only so many troops can occupy the same piece of land. You must build another village before you can increase your troop count. Now this can take up money, time, or both.)

*Other:
-Random event to every user every 100 turns Ex) Your town has been flooded and one thousand pieces of armor have been destroyed. (This keeps the game fresh and interesting and can also turn the tides of battle)

Just throwing out my crazy ideas. Unfortunately to be fair, a game must have opportunity's, problems, and such. I know what I said here seems daunting but I am willing to volunteer my programming skills to make this happen. Since I would hate to leave this to the staff to figure out. Especially since University is over now I'm going to be bored as hell for the next 4 months.

Edit: Exa has just sent me the source code to work on. Thanks buddy! Also if I wasn't clear, I like Exa's idea.

Originally Posted by Exa

Alrighty, I've taken a look at this and found the underlying variable/function that needs to be modified:

$newTroops = $player[pTroops] + $settings[gCycleTroops];

which translates to:

Every hour ("cycle"), increase the current number of troops by a set amount.

In the game, purchasing/troop-producing power is directly linked to the current amount of troops. With a geometric growth rate it is hard-impossible for new players to catch up to the older players.

(A further variable/function that could be adjusted is the money gained each cycle, but the troops are the most important aspect of the game: $newGold = $player[pGold] + $goldGain; )


By modifying this function, the following scenario could be created:



Before a player amasses one million troops, the player's troops grow very fast, gradually slowing down. Then from one million onwards, the player only gains a set amount of 150 troops per cycle (150 x 24 = 10.800 troops per day). By contrast, on the first day the player earns nearly 40.000 troops.

It takes 1.300 cycles to hit the million, that's the equivalent of 1.300/24= 54 days. It takes roughly the same amount of time to gain a further 200.000 troops.

Obviously these values can still be adjusted. One million was an arbitrary turning point. Currently there are people with >10 million troops and people with <100.000 troops.

I think this modification could level the playing field slightly, making the game more accessible/exciting for noobs and pros alike.

Feedback/Criticism would be welcome :)
~ Exa

For what it's worth, I think we should keep it really simple for starters. I think we can resolve much of the balance problems by making the troop growth rate linear. The parameter on the configuration screen called "Recruit Ratio" should specify a fixed amount of troops per turn expended on troop growth.

As far as the other stuff about growing rapidly to 1M, there already is a parameter called "Starting Troops" which would have an almost identical effect. If the admins want to start people off at 1M, they can do it there.

So just to recap, in my view, the only thing that needs to change is how the parameter "Recruit Ratio" is used to calculate the increase in troops when a player expends a turn to recruit troops. Specifically, there should not be any multiplication in that formula, only addition. We're talking about modifying probably only one line of code. KISS.

@s2cuts: The actual troop growth ratio is already linear.

In addition there is, as you've correctly mentioned, the Recruit Ratio, which is currently a percentage of the current amount of troops, set at 1% of the current amount of troops (http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/3...lesettings.jpg). Making this linear would indeed decrease the exponentiality, with which higher-players will increase their troop count. However it will not improve a new player's chances of catching up.

Example:
- Player A plays from Day 0 for 100 days. His troops grow in a linear function for one month. Additionally he purchases a linear amount of troop-upgrades whenever availble. He now has linear X natural troops + linear Y purchased troops times 10.
- Player B plays from Day 50 for 50 days. He has exactly half the amount of Player A.

Player B doesn't stand chance of beating Player A.

With my suggestion, Player A would still have more troops than Player B, because he's played for longer, however due to the fact that the natural troop growth decreases, Player B catches up more quickly in the beginning, and gradually less the longer both players play. The result of this is that the longer both Players amass troops, the less high Player A's advantage over Player B becomes.

I agree with you, that changing the Recruit Ratio from a percentage to a set value would indeed increase the fairness of this game.

Changing the starting troops value to a million would imo defeat the purpose of playing this game for a long time. Two people with million troop armies are created, clash, one survives and the other comes back, starting with a million troops, and pawns the previous victor. Rinse, repeat...

Originally Posted by s2cuts

So just to recap, in my view, the only thing that needs to change is how the parameter "Recruit Ratio" is used to calculate the increase in troops when a player expends a turn to recruit troops. Specifically, there should not be any multiplication in that formula, only addition.

I agree with the underlined part, changing the way that troops are purchased would indeed help to level the playing field. However I do not beleive this is the only thing. IMO, new or recently defeated players need to be able to "catch up" to older players with the helps of a quickly building natural troop growth.