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Age 57 changes

Dear players,

This age there'll be some tweakings and additions(!) to (relatively) recently implemented game mechanics.

Further there's some minor changes.


Damage scaling

The rate at which t/m damage output increases with size is decreased. Growing is still worth it in terms of damage, just slightly less so.

Magic Points: ((x<=2000)(1/3+x/750)+(x>2000)(1+2*log(x/333)/log(6)))
Thievery Points: ((x<=2000)(1/3+x/750)+(x>2000)(1+2*log(x/333)/log(6)))

The part of the formulae before the + sign counts for <2000 acres, the part after for >2000 acres.

This shows the actual change in damage output.
Black is old, blue is new. Y (vertical) is mana/thievery points per guild/hideout, x (horizontal) is size.


Thieves scaling

We're abandoning the easy 1 TPA per op system. Instead, we'll go for the easy autofill system. You select the op, and the correct number of thieves is inserted.*

Here's the formula that calculates the number of thieves required.

TPA required per op: base_TPA_required * 3/(((x<=2000)(1/3+x/750))+(x>2000)(1+2*log(x/333)/log(6)))

The result can be viewed (more or less) here As you can see, tribes smaller than 2000 will need extra thieves, but thieves above 2000 will be able to deal more damage than they currently can

This change is intended to counteract the general complaint heard by thieves that getting more TP is useless if you can't run the required TPA. In fact, it puts big thieves in a better shape for war.

The damage and thief scaling changes therefore combine to make warfare at high sizes a more intricate affair.

Thanks to Max for providing Dev with the tools to handle this issue, as well as for checking and improving both formulae.


Fame gains

Current: LB yields 3*(your size*0.0015) fame. The size modifier applies (smaller size/larger size)
New: LB yields 3*(target's size*0.00075) fame. The size modifier applies (smaller size/larger size)

Current: Hwighton Raid yields (your size * 0.005) fame. The size modifier applies (smaller size/larger size)
New: Hwighton Raid yields (target's size * 0.0035) fame. The size modifier applies (smaller size/larger size)

Current: Enforced Honesty yields 3*(your size*0.0015) fame. The size modifier applies (smaller size/larger size).
New: Enforced Honesty yields 3*(target's size*0.00075) fame. The size modifier applies (smaller size/larger size).


Power/Hostility

Fear no longer takes soldier's values into account (e.g. make sure Fear doesn't interact with the killing military line but only with the killing soldiers line).

Killing a soldier yields (2000/target_size)/200 hostility → Killing a soldier yields (2000/target_size)/500 hostility
Killing a soldier yields 1/200 power → Killing a soldier yields 1/500 power

Killing military yields (offpoints+defpoints)/100 hostility → Killing military yields (offpoints+defpoints)/125 hostility.
Killing military yields (offpoints+defpoints)/100 power → Killing military yields (offpoints+defpoints)/125 power


Science

Allow science to be invested partially rather than all at once.


Templar

Removed: 25% defense against thievery*

*The current idea is that Templars trump other mages. So they'll keep their 2/2 clerics regardless. If their in-game performance turns out to be too good in the coming ages, we'll probably experiment with 15-25% weakness to thievery traits.


Additional information

The tribe activity log and tutorial mode haven't been completed yet.

Also, the alliance spells/ops haven't been thoroughly discussed yet. That is partially because there was barely any feedback from the community.


* It is said auto-fill doesn't work on mobiles, or at least not on some. We'd like reports on this asap. Ideally, a fix would show the number of thieves required upon loading the thievery page, rather than after choosing a thief op.


Have fun in age 57! If there's anything you would have liked to have seen here but did not, discuss in Game Talk. An easy way is to point out already posted suggestions which you'd like to see implemented. There's a nice one about Bribe Accountant.


~ AatW Dev

have fun in age 57? I choose Templar and now they are being screwed.....

Liking the new changes for thieves.

So far on my htc g2 I currently have no problems with auto fill for ops.

Samsung Ativ S IE also no issue with thieves auto fill.

@Saura/Darkwing changes haven't been uploaded yet.

In fact I might have forgotten to tell max about this little addition

EDIT: I actually did tell him. Yay.

Well then I'll let you know then when they are.

So thieves have been made much more complicated now.

Why were people complaining about thieves and tps? I always thought that was why thieves had 3 hour return time. You get to have 2 chances with your thieves on a KT before the tribe can rebuild if you op correctly. In that case I can not imagine tribes having “extra” tps. If you do then you should train more thieves. Yes, yes I know that makes you easier to kill but that is the risk you take when you play a thief race.

I honestly have never heard that general complaint in my time playing.

@Gonzo,

The changes to thievery were made based on their performance since the implementation of the War System:



As you can see, this is based purely on TP. Now, this led to the issue that big thieves had much more tp than they had thieves to op with. This issue was further aggravated in age 52:



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It's this issue these changes try to address. Since you ask if it's really an issue, here's an extended example:

http://fooplot.com/plot/npb8jhp9jk

This graph shows:
black - mana/tp per guild/hideout
red - DMs per % guilds
blue - Arsons per % hideouts

As you can see, an 8k tribe can do 1.7 arsons per % HOs. So if you were a thief with 30% homes, 25% CH, 7% farms and 5% guilds, you'd have just about 33% hideouts left. That's 33*1.7=56.1 arsons. Which requires 56.1 TPA, and thieves don't have that. So you can argue, let them wait three ticks for the rest?

56.1/5=11.22 arsons regen per tick, so 3 ticks after that the total arsons to do is 56.1+(11.22*3)=89.76. The thief still requires almost 45 TPA.

Meanwhile, an 8k mage with 25% hideouts can simply cast ~2.333*33=58 DMs at once.

Now, running 45 TPA is quite a lot if your average max population is 111 pop per acre. You're basically saying come kill me.

-----

The above example was with 33% hideouts, but what if you want to go for a more suicidal build? It's hopeless. You've hit a ceiling in the number of arsons you can pull off.

The above calculation is why:
- People mostly play mage and almost everyone runs ML 30
- Owl and Spirit (only thief to have 0/2 thieves, allowing for more TPA) were/are by far the most-played thieves.

Two things which are, by (roughly) the same argument I've put forth until now, countered by:
- The improved Templars (as of age 56) (render ML 30 a less effective defense against mages.)
- Less tp/mp per hideout/guild
- Less TPA to send as your size increases

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Of course, the question for the coming age will be if the 40 citz per hideout trait is still required. We'll have to watch that in practice.

I hope this helps explain why this change was made.

Not to mention if you run a huge tpa they disappear when's bunch of mages dice to Jura you.

at 8k acres you can easily run 40-45 tpa as almost any thief race and still have a decent ratio because you are running ~200 dpa or less. Thieves are cheap so you can release them if you are in big trouble. If you are willing to do a suicide build with more than 33% HOs then you should be willing to do a suicide build in terms of ratio as well (50tpa). Also Britts get a larger Ho bonus so you can run higher tpa if you want. That is their advantage, play britt if you want to do more arsons at kt.

And what about small thieves who are running ~300 dpa? They pretty much get screwed.

Also in terms of getting rid of the 40 citz per ho, it would make much more sense to just go back to 1 tpa instead of less in this age change. Without doing any calcs it seems like getting rid of that would be the same as increasing the tpa back to 1.

I am not really against this change, it just does not make much sense to me why we keep making the game more complicated. A varying tpa required per op makes it so much more difficult for someone new to understand (or even someone old). How is someone to know how many thieves they need per op so that they can train accordingly? Use that formula, or will there be something that tells you arson requires x tpa?

This is not the least bit true if there are attackers around.

@Gonzo, the problem is not primarily with their survivability but rather with the amount of damage thieves can deal.

E.g. the perceived discrepancy between mages getting a flat damage bonus and thieves getting useless thievery points.

I don't agree with taking away the risk factor for thieves
Also don't understand why thieves lower than 2k get so much of a penalty. So people under 2k are now almost completely useless? Protect biggies much?

Will you need more than 1 TPA for TT under 2k now? That's not right

Agreed

It's not about the risk factor sanzo. Thieves just didn't scale like mages did. Mages who depend just on guilds were scaling well since they cud use all their mp. Thieves couldn't. Now they can. Simple

This is getting very confusing, presently, isnt it 1 tpa for all ops?

Except PW and Ambush, yes.

You see that is misleading as we just changed all to 1 tpa not long ago, autofill inserts 1 tpa etc. , and if you send .7 tpa for those ops you dont do anything. “Max damage” leads people to believe they can be successful with .7 tpa!

It was changed!

It's actually quite simple. Autofill takes care of everything!

but does autofill put in the numbers for max damage, or for minimum amount of thieves required?

See the confusion? Lol

*cracks whip

Dw, from what i see it autofills correctly at 1 tpa (max damage)

And for clarification, 1 tpa is minimal required if you want to succeed

Autofill puts in the numbers for max damage, which also happens to be the most efficient choice

These changes suck. Why so much hate for Templars?

You are confusing it Mazja......

1 TPA is NOT minimal to succeed, it is max damage.....70% is minimum to succeed?

ML 60 20% guardhouse and +25% natural defense. hmm