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War system (Age 51)

Closed Archived Bolle opened this discussion on

Bolle -

The new war system

First, let me present to you the super short summary:

Removed:
Bonus on kill during war.
Size penalties on magic and thievery
Maximum ML based on acres/100. There is no maximum ML!
Size caps on thief operation availability (size requirements for thievery ops)
Thieves to send based on opponents' total acres

Added:
Hostility – measures relationships with other alliances. High hostility will eventually lead to war.
Power – measures your progress in war and also counts towards the power rankings.
Power rankings – your amount of power determines your alliance's ranking in Alliances at War!
New war rules – No instant surrender, no truce, multiple wars possible, closest to victory wins when war time expires.
Global damage modifier – Damage is halved out of war but goes up to normal damage upon war declaration within 10 hours.
T/M modifier – The bigger you are, the more thievery points and mana points your hideouts and guilds will hold.
Diplomacy – new operation which tells you how hostile you are towards the target alliance.

The intention of the system is that it functions invisibly. Basically, the new situation is that your acts in-game will cause wars, and that your acts in wars – not just your kills and grabs – determine who wins.

The new war system has been tested extensively on Dev. Pretty much none of the numbers stated in this topic are the original numbers; almost all numbers have been changed at one point or another in view of new calculations or insights. But of course it is likely that there will still be bugs here and there.

Now it's time for the super extended explanation, which is organized by topic. The extended explanation features a lot of formulae and detailed explanations of how these formulae work. It even tells you why we chose to do things that way. If the formulae confuse you, try to skip them and read the explanations below the formula instead. If you aren't interested in the mechanics at all, you can basically skip the whole explanation.


Why?

Let me explain why we chose to implement a new war system. First, a large part of official wars end in surrender, sometimes after mere minutes. The penalties aren't considered that high, and losing a tribe is much more costly. Why were these wars surrendered? Because of a war bonus which gave the alliance who killed an enemy tribe in the top half of that alliance a bonus regeneration of one tick. This meant that wars tended to snowball really quickly in one alliance's favour, so the elders usually decided to be smart and cut their losses by surrendering.
Second, the amount of burst damage in AatW is so high that everyone tends to run defense against magic and thievery in anticipation of an attack. It's pretty much required to stay alive. Consequently, a large part of a tribe's constructed buildings is rather predetermined. You also run the risk of getting killed asleep, which is fun for the killer but demotivating for the victim. This is made much harder in the new system.
Third, the current system gives mages a pivotal role. Every tribe is forced to run academies because everyone could potentially go mage. Mage is also the safest role; thieves and attackers usually have less citizens. Additionally, if you want to go war mage is the worst option as everyone will have defense against you. In other words, mages prevent wars.

Fourth, the current system features a complete overload of war modifiers in war. All these crazy little things are removed making the whole system much easier to grasp, though it may seem overwhelmingly complex at first sight.
Fifth, life below 2000 is considered boring. With the new war system, you'll be able to wage wars, even though you won't be able to cast as many spells as you'd be able to at 2000 or above.
Finally, the current system encourages people to grow big, as size is what makes one #1 in-game. This is a good thing if there were actually a race for supremacy which started at the same moment. As it is, people play safe once they have it in order to maintain their position. In the new system, a large size has both advantages and disadvantages.


How?

How did we deal with these issues? Basically, by getting rid of a load of stuff and instead add a new system based on hostility. As you play the game, you will eventually destroy some walls of this guy, poison some of the food of that other guy and grab the acres of a third. These acts of aggression will eventually lead to war. Hostility is the variable we use to determine whether two alliances become at war. Hostility is measured for each alliance with regard to every other alliance in game. Your hostility towards another alliance resembles your diplomatic relations with them. This is how you gain hostility:


Raw hostility gains

Land
Grabbing an acre yields 1 or (2000/your_size) hostility, whichever is lower.
Destroying a building yields 1 or (2000/target_size) hostility, whichever is lower.
Exploring an acre yields (250/your_size) hostility.

Kills
Killing a tribe yields target_acres/2 hostility
Killing military yields (offpoints+defpoints)/55 hostility. Does not include normal military losses.
Killing a thief yields (2000/target_size)/100 hostility.
Killing a soldier yields (2000/target_size)/200 hostility.
Killing a citizen on a raid yields (2000/target_size)/250 hostility.

Resources
Stealing a crown yields (2000/target_size)/5000 hostility.
Destroying one kg of food yields (2000/target_size)/5000 hostility.

Other
0.2 hostility per magic or thievery op (regardless of success or failure)
3 hostility per successful Fireball.
6 hostility per Magical Void, ES and Winds of Distress.


You can also lose hostility. You lose 2 hostility each hour until your diplomatic relations are perfectly friendly at 0 hostility.

How did we determine these numbers? The 2000 is used throughout the new system as the model number: we calculate everything taking 2000 acres as the point of departure. Why? Because 2000 is 4x your starting size and generally 25% of the size you'll be when you die. Each single formula has another number, however. This number is the one that determines how much of something you need to get in order to gain hostility. For instance, we used 100 thieves as the required amount; 200 soldiers; 250 citizens; 5000 crowns and 5000 kgs of food. These amounts are arbitrary. If it becomes apparent in practice that these numbers are too low or too high, we'll change them.

Grabbing acres by using Ambush also yields hostility.

Killing military also yields hostility, but only on LB, Ambush, and on the special effects of BC and HnR. BC kills thieves which count if they have offense or defense, HnR now kills half the military as a special effect. Basically, special effects of invasion types are counted. Therefore Rept Hai's venom is not counted at the moment.

You may have noticed that exploring counts as well. This is a special case: exploring increases your alliance's hostility toward all enemy alliances. This way, full explorer alliances will be forced to go to war as well.

Note that hostility is measured both ways: aggressive acts by A against B and vice versa both count. If you do not react aggressively, you might prevent a war. If you do react aggressively, chances are you'd better start on the preparations!

Now that we have determined the variable that leads to war, we can deal with modifications of this variable, and the amount required to have war declared. Any raw hostility gains are modified by the first vital formula:


Modifier of hostility gains

(Raw_hostility_gains) * (your_alliance_size/no. of tribes/2000) * (smaller_alli_size/larger_alli_size)

The first part of the formula are the end result of the things I just explained. The second part may seem weird but it is basically the assurance that any gains are modified according to the 2000 acre model size we used. As you may have noticed, the raw gains diminished as you grew bigger, so that going to war ought to be harder at bigger sizes. This modifier effectively counters it. The third part of the formula is there to negotiate whether this alliance is really one you could have a proper war with. In other words, if that alliance is thrice as big but has the same amount of tribes, you've got to deal thrice as much damage to be able to war them. Or vice versa, if the alliance is three times smaller. Either way, the bigger the size difference, the harder it is to go to war.



The War Part

War is automatically declared once you have a certain amount of hostility. This amount is regulated by the second vital formula:

1000-(((smaller_alli_size/larger_alli_size)+(lower_alli_power/higher_alli_power))*250)

The first number, 1000, gives you an impression of the amount of hostility you need before a war is declared. The rest of the formula subtracts a number of that 1000. That number is something between 0 and 500. However, it is a gliding scale: any number between 0 and 500 can be subtracted. The exact number is determined by the size and power difference.


It is possible to be at war with more than one alliance at the same time

Power

No doubt you've noticed the new power variable introduced there. Power is like hostility, but it can only be gained by warring. Moreover, the amount of power your alliance holds determines your position in the game! Instead of being the biggest, you now have to be the best warring alliance!

Whereas it was very important to provide a balanced mechanism for declaring war, this is much less an issue once at war. This is intentional, because players will want to be able to understand how to win a war. These are the ways to gain power:

Gain power

Land
Grabbing an acre yields 1 power.
Destroying a building yields 1 power.

Kills
Killing a tribe yields target_acres/2 power
Killing military yields (offpoints+defpoints)/55 power.
Killing a thief yields 1/100 power.
Killing a soldier yields 1/200 power.
Killing a citizen on a raid yields 1/250 power.

Other
3 power per successful Fireball.
6 power per Magical Void, ES and Winds of Distress.

Ending the war

Of course, size must be taken into account somehow. This is taken care of in the requirement to win the war. You need to gain (opponent_alli_size*0.25) power. That's 25% of the enemy's size in power. Other ways of ending a war:

After 48 hours the war ends. Victory goes to the alliance that has come closest to attaining the victory conditions: this is measured relatively, so % gained of power required to win.
War can be surrendered after 24 hours.
War can be surrendered after the enemy alliance has gained half of the power required to win.
Truce is impossible.
Surrendering does not 'cost extra'.

Spoils of war

Both the winner and the loser keep the power they fought to gain in their war. The victorious alliance also receives ((enemy_land/12)+2400) power. Additionally, each tribe in the victorious alliance receives ((enemy_land/100)+500) fame. However, this amount of fame will not be subtracted from the loser. Apart from killed tribes and wasted goods, then, no harm is done to the loser.

Finally, on completion of the war hostility between the warring alliances is reduced to 0.


Power ranking

The power gained in war is added to your power ranking. The ranking keeps accumulating until age end. The alliance with most power at age end wins age 51. As the only way to gain power is by warring, it is best to war a lot!

Your power ranking also affects how easy it is to trigger war, as it is part of the formula determining the hostility required to becoming at war.

Power substitutes king of the hill! Being biggest no longer means you win the age! You must now have the most power at age end to win the age!

We would like to add that this power ranking is not our long-term solution. We're working on something like the formula one racing system, where you get points each day. The higher you are in the power rankings, the more points you'll get. The alliance with most points at the end of the age wins that age.
Additionally, we might make power decay over a period of 4 weeks (or something like that) instead of removing it at the end of the age. It is not even certain yet that we'll reduce all power to zero at the end of age 51. However, we just couldn't get this thought out and coded in time. So you'll have the chance to enjoy a typically classic-like race for the finish line! [:D]



Co-operation concerns

The new system allows multiple wars. This means that two alliances can both be at war with one alliance, and might actually target the same tribe in this one alliance. How do we deal with this? Basically, the same as always:

Quote
4.2. Alliance Co-op
Alliances are not permitted to work together under any circumstances.
[Co-op (Cooperation): To plan-contrive-scheme-and act with another alliance (or tribe outside of your own alliance) to take action(s) against a common target (tribe or alliance) together or synchronized where the sum of the actions are intended to be of a greater impact than one of the offensive parties would expect to do on its own.]


When you think that this is not mere coincidental opping of the same tribe, report them for co-op so LnO can investigate. In theory, nothing changes except the likelihood of opping the same target. We've decided to see how things work out for an age and if it does turn out to be a problem, we might add more detailed rules to deal with this.


New operation: Diplomacy

That's right, we've added a new operation. It works just like recon, sneak, intercept and truth's eye: same cost and difficulty, and just send one thief. It tells you how hostile the relationship between your alliance and the targeted alliance is – though of course you target a tribe.


Global damage modifier

Damage modifier: out of war all spells, operations and attacks deal *0.5 damage. This does not include standard attack and other land-grabbing invasions.

Once war is entered, the damage modifier increases with an absolute 0.05 per hour. So when the first tick passes after war is declared, the damage modifier is increased to 0.55. After 4 hours, it will be at 0.7, and so on to its maximum of 1 after ten hours.

Once the war ends, the modifier immediately goes back to 0.5.

In case of multiple wars, multiple modifiers are used: a specific one for each alliance. Damage is only affected by the modifier pertaining to your relationship to that alliance. It sounds complicated, but basically you want to hit the guys you've been at war with longer.


Size modifier on mana/thievery

The new war system puts a great emphasis on war. In order to reward growing on the one hand and limit 500 acre ninja's on the other hand, we have changed the formula for maximum mana and thievery:

MP = Guilds * x
TP = Hideouts * (0.5+x)

if size <=2000, x = (size+1000)/3000
if size >2000, x = log4(size/500)

Basically, this means that you'll have half the usual mana at 500 acres, the usual mana at 2000 (though the % of guilds you run doesn't increase your mana anymore!), and twice as much mana at 8000... and thrice as much at 32000. As for hideouts, you'll have TP equal to your number of hideouts at 500 acres, 1.5 times your hideouts in tp at 2000 acres, 2.5 times your hideouts in tp at 8000 acres and 3.5 times your hideouts in tp at 32000 acres.


Things we got rid of

Next to all the stuff we add, we remove a lot, specifically:

Bonus on kill during war.
Size penalties on magic and thievery
Maximum ML based on acres/100. There is no maximum ML!
Size caps on thief operation availability (size requirements for thievery ops)
Thieves to send based on opponents' total acres


Add: Thieves to send based on own acres

This last addition revolutionizes thievery. Along with the removal of size penalties, a thief can now safely attack a 10k tribe. How does it work? Basically, on an arson you now need to send your_size*0.7 thieves, so if you own 1000 acres you need to send 700 thieves to arson the enemy tribe.


This announcement is locked. Go here to discuss these changes.
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