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Post by ourjake on Apr 6, 2011 8:46:37 GMT -5
i agree. my stint in the top with lots o territory was overwhelmingly because mikeeb was giving me monies, then i slept and came back and all of my things had been looted. also, nawglan said he had a way to rotate the alliances so that at least two out of three cooperating players could make max money every update
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Post by succat on Apr 7, 2011 22:48:57 GMT -5
Working together is definitely a key to success. Meanwhile, I've made gold slightly more easy to obtain during updates, although this probably wont matter much if you own a lot of squares ( actually, on 2nd thought, you could still benefit even with a lot of squares ). I'll soon be adding a new feature... sort of a lottery. A random number will be chosen and players will be able to drop some gold into a pool, and when the number of gold in the pool reaches or exceeds the secret random number, the player that was the one to make that happen will be awarded half the gold in the pool. The other half of gold will go to purchasing units for a new square, which said player will then occupy as well. So if the pool is 2000 gold, and you hit it, you'll get 1000 in gold, and a new square with 100 units on it. Obviously the more gold you dump into the pool, the better chance you will have, but even a poor player who drops just 1 gold into the pool at the right time could take the loot.
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Post by mikeEB on Apr 8, 2011 23:30:00 GMT -5
Uh, you realize that gold is basically free unless it's used to buy units, right? The only downside for a small player dumping money into the pool is that there's a risk someone else will have money they won't otherwise.
Actually, on second thought it's probably really stupid for a small power player to use the lottery because it gives them an extra square they'll have trouble getting rid of.
EDIT: income changes seem to favor large players. I am getting ~50 a turn now instead of ~15 from before when I was the same size.
EDIT2:WristWrath claims to have figured out how to exploit the Gamble RNG.
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Post by nawglan on Apr 9, 2011 17:08:34 GMT -5
A small request. Would it be possible to have the text in the text area where you type for chat always have white text? Kinda hard to see what I'm typing.
Also, could you toggle the color of the Invade button when it's pushed?
Bug Report:
Square borders do not reset to the player's color when you mouse out.
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Post by succat on Apr 9, 2011 19:14:08 GMT -5
I wouldn't worry about players exploiting the gambling system. It's truly random... so even if it seems like they've exploited it, what goes up must come down. And down has slightly better odds than up - which is why every gamble is... well, it's a gamble.
Nawglan, I will try to take care of the requests and bug you mentioned as I get the time. Thanks.
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Post by xade on Apr 9, 2011 19:51:00 GMT -5
Gambling is fun.
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Post by nawglan on Apr 9, 2011 20:53:40 GMT -5
one more request if I may... can you add word boundaries to the chat filter for bad words? It is mangling assume for example.
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Post by mikeEB on Apr 9, 2011 22:06:41 GMT -5
It seems like players get increasingly weaker after a certain size point, in a way that is not intended. The number of units per territory decreases linearly with the number of territories. Therefore:
Past ~20 territories, a player's total unit count at the regeneration cap decreases as he expands.
Past 32 territories, a player's territories will not regenerate enough units on their own to make attacks. (they stay at 4 or less)
Past 38 territories, a player's territories will not regenerate any units. All units must be purchased. This makes it rather difficult to do anything.
Having hit the 39-territory limit, I think I'll retire now.
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Post by succat on Apr 10, 2011 12:05:06 GMT -5
Mike, it looks like you've hit that sweet spot where a number is being rounded between 0 and 1, and based on your total square count that number is falling over to the 0 side and you're not seeing regeneration anymore. Gold can still be used to gamble and / or buy more units at that point, and if you're getting, on average, 50 gold per turn, you could still have pretty unit-filled squares I would think. But, if you've chiefly only concentrated on expanding your territories without maintaining them as much, and / or given too much gold to alliances without using it for yourself, you would get thinned out fast. I think there is a balance, where a player has to decide if they want to build up territory quickly like you have done, or do it much more gradually, making sure they don't get thinned out in the process. It's really up to the player and their style of play. My thinking behind the system was to be able to allow a player to get very powerful, but not overnight or even over a few nights... but over weeks, months, that sort of thing. Of course, my logic isn't perfect and it's sort of been a work in progress to create a somewhat balanced system. I had to give some advantages to noobs and fresher players so that although they could still get blown out of the water, hopefully they could also hold their own if they focused more on building up a couple of really strong squares that are not likely to be attacked because of the number of units in them. Unfortunately, you can't really retire from this game... if you do, your squares get eaten up as soon as one of your neighbors starts feeling a little greedy  |
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Post by mikeEB on Apr 10, 2011 12:49:48 GMT -5
The problem with the no-regeneration state is it means I automatically lose any fight where my opponent is logged in, unless I have enough resources banked to win in one or two turns. New units placed where I want them effectively cost 15 gold each, compared to 5 for redeployed troops for a medium-sized player or 0 for free reinforcements for a small player. On average, I can raise 3 new units per turn, compared to 9 for a slightly smaller player and lots for a player below 32 who gets combat-ready reinforcements.
I can still build up with a lot of effort, but if a single player is just poking me every turn then I'd get worn down faster then I could build up. I can expand beyond 39 only with great effort (1 square/hour assuming victim is logged off) or a lot of help (smaller player attacking a square until it's almost empty and letting me have it)
I do know of a strategy for expanding without limit though. It involves having a second, medium-sized player acting as a barrier and creeping outwards while deliberately yielding inner squares (by deploying them down to 1) to avoid bloating himself.
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Post by ourjake on Apr 11, 2011 11:31:16 GMT -5
one thing that could be added that would be cool for invading parties would be if you could not deploy units to another territory unless they are contiguous. that would allow for divide and conquer strategies, but would also force you to redeploy yours troops if you overcommit to one front or the other
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Post by succat on Apr 11, 2011 15:29:20 GMT -5
OurJake, originally I was going to do just that, but then because it was taking me longer than I wanted I decided to skip it. Plus, I figure it's kind of a hassle enough just to deploy troops, why make it even more frustrating if you can't deploy troops to one of your isolated squares? It is kind of a cool idea, though, if I felt like putting in more time for something like that, and for just a better Deploy interface in general, instead of using JS prompts for everything.
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Post by ellipsis on Apr 11, 2011 23:12:42 GMT -5
Can I request that the word censor gets modified a little? It's pretty silly right now. Earlier I typed in "It's a work of art", and it apparently read the last 4 characters as "fart" by ignoring the space, and turned the sentence into "I'm an idiot." Cute, potentially, but there have been enough accidental triggers of the censor that it's a mild annoyance. Honestly, I don't think inappropriate language is much of a concern for the game right now...
*edit* Just noticed that mike asked for this above. It's not just me, then, with my dirty, filthy mouth.
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Post by nawglan on Apr 12, 2011 19:37:17 GMT -5
one more slight glitch. it's a display only error I believe. When I lose a gamble, it shows me as having 10 units in the square (in the grid), but 20 in the stats below.
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Post by succat on Apr 12, 2011 20:09:37 GMT -5
Ellipsis, I've still been experimenting with the word filter. I removed the 'I'm an idiot' bit though so no one will unjustly be called that again Nawglan, what browser are you seeing the display bug in? I'm not seeing the bug on the Firefox version I'm using. It sounds like updateStats() for whatever reason is not firing on your browser. Earlier today the site was down. The issue has since been fixed with the web host. |
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