Emotion and pride

[The Beatles]

You're right, diplomacy and all that can be really fun. I'm just not sure how we can encourage that, so I thought a Duels-style game to at least create the "we're all in this together" kind of feel.

What if we change the game mechanics so you need to be in a clan for any reasonable success? Maybe force division of labour somehow?

[The Beatles]

OK, I think we've kind of run out of ideas on this one.

What we have so far:
- More resources, to encourage micromanagement. Perhaps more specialisation.
- Kills kick you back to protection.
- Special rounds: auto-divide into locations

We also have, from the land flow thread:
- Attack costs food and cash.
- Attack takes more than 2 turns to other regions, which might just be a flat rate (say 4-6 turns out of region, or variable), and we scrap the open/close gate missions.
- Attacks cost more health.
- Building costs more turns. This might be the real one to decrease the land flow cycle a bit.
- Nerf the private market.
- Decrease troop losses.
- Up or scrap aid limits.
- Reduce sack.
- Make land/cash/food taken be in proportion to troops surviving of those you sent.
- Make attacks happen say 10 at a time, all or nothing.
- War weariness factor
- Troops die on attacking marches.

In general:
- Power up clans.
- Balance the heroes out a bit.
- Revamp the stock market.

We haven't agreed on all of these by any means, they're just the ones we haven't scrapped so far.

I think our best strategy on the land flow will be to make building cost more / take more time / use different kinds of resources. If breaking is just as easy, but putting the land you gained to good use is hard, then attacking becomes less immediately useful, more rude, and the land you've built up becomes more valuable to you. It doesn't make the emp position any easier to hold down though; if anything, it's harder to use cash/turns to recover from a big hammering.

Thoughts please, and that includes any of the above points you don't want to see in FAF.

[Freenhult]

I think that we could most certainly help the slow down of land by doing two other easy things.

1. Actually give buildings DPs after their built.
2. Buff the strength of Towers some more.

[The Beatles]

I'm trying to slow land flow without increasing defensive points. As a lot of people have pointed out, that makes it easier for someone to lock up all the land in the game. Instead I'd rather discourage land flow -- by upping building costs and times and maybe other factors -- rather than actually making it harder. It's fine by me if we even make it easier, really. But we have to strike a balance between the two extremes Rudder pointed out:
- Attacking too easy: mutually assured destruction, little war.
- Attacking too hard: land locked down, little war.

Decreasing the utility of free land and making building harder are a way completely around the problem, they create a social rather than game pressure against random land grabs.

[edit] Incidentally, any volunteers for jotting down the conclusions of our long AIM chat?

[Slasher]

What we have so far:
- More resources, to encourage micromanagement. Perhaps more specialisation.
<span style='color:red'>sounds like a plan, but this may make the game a bit too complicated</span>
- Kills kick you back to protection.
<span style='color:red'>I'm in favour of this</span>
- Special rounds: auto-divide into locations
<span style='color:red'>maybe give it a try and see how it goes, we can always revert as long as it's not too difficult to code</span>

We also have, from the land flow thread:
- Attack costs food and cash.
<span style='color:red'>sounds good, as long as it is limited and not something totally out of whack</span>
- Attack takes more than 2 turns to other regions, which might just be a flat rate (say 4-6 turns out of region, or variable), and we scrap the open/close gate missions.
<span style='color:red'>i'm in favour of this</span>
- Attacks cost more health.
<span style='color:red'>maybe 2% more or so, or more health depending on location, what about also implementing random events for example, 10% of your army was injured by falling over potholes so didn't make it to the battle</span>
- Building costs more turns. This might be the real one to decrease the land flow cycle a bit.
<span style='color:red'>yeah, double the turns to build or something</span>
- Nerf the private market.
<span style='color:red'>private market being which one? bazaar/market/clan market? if it's clan market then yeah, scrap it</span>
- Decrease troop losses.
<span style='color:red'>um yeah, at the minute it's kind of totally out of whack - what about the "many desert" thing for strong/weak opponents? maybe keep it for the weak opponent but scrap it or up it for strong opponents</span>
- Up or scrap aid limits.
<span style='color:red'>bin them</span>
- Reduce sack.
<span style='color:red'>yeah, it's way too powerful</span>
- Make land/cash/food taken be in proportion to troops surviving of those you sent.
<span style='color:red'>not quite sure what you mean here?</span>
- Make attacks happen say 10 at a time, all or nothing.
<span style='color:red'>as in 1 press attacks 10 times?</span>
- War weariness factor
<span style='color:red'>hmm?</span>
- Troops die on attacking marches.
<span style='color:red'>haha, just wrote this in earlier, so yeah, sounds like a good ides, but only on a random base, not all the time</span>

In general:
- Power up clans.
<span style='color:red'>yes</span>
- Balance the heroes out a bit.
<span style='color:red'>yes</span>
- Revamp the stock market.
<span style='color:red'>yes</span>

[Freenhult]

What we have so far:
- More resources, to encourage micromanagement. Perhaps more specialisation.
<span style='color:red'>sounds like a plan, but this may make the game a bit too complicated</span>

:| How is this ever too complicated.

Also Private Market = Bazaar. I honestly think that if we somehow limit cash, the Bazaar will balance itself out. The number of boats/otters that it does produce is out of whack though. Needs to be reduced by 10.