Sweetlee
Weeder
I was thinking, (and although it is probably too late to implement for age 5) that maybe there should be some sort of cost to have a huge standing army? At first I was thinking something like a development tree that allows one to have a greater value of troops per level, but I discarded this idea for upkeep. Upkeep would involve having a unit pay an amount equal to 1/2016 (or so) of its cost per tick (that value makes it so that the unit costs it's hiring cost in upkeep every 2 weeks).
The main effect this would have is to take top players with large standing armies and reduce the rate at which they pull away from the lower people. Especially in the beginning of the round, there would be more of an emphasis on development OR a giant army, which could make very balanced play possible without the development modifier (which does very little imo) or without the land stealing cap (which seems very weak to me). This effect also inherently gives a small benefit to those who get zeroed because they make more money while they rebuild their army. The question you have is "what happens when a player has no more money in the bank?" and I answer "simple, a unit dies, and his cost is used to pay the upkeep for the rest of the living units, and this continues until the player has money in the bank". This also adds a dynamic where players have to keep some cash on hand, and makes money launderers USEFUL.
Some options for extended functionality could be:
-Different rates for different classes of units, ie. LET units pay more than INN, and so on.
-Only active after reaching a certain # of developments
-Specialist units that have no upkeep or a lower amount, a little something to balance a unit that is slightly weak for it's cost
-Upkeep modifier, a percentage modifier like the AR mod, that gets chopped if you take a large hit, and increases past the normal value if your staff takes no losses for an extended period of time.
The changes being made to bushtarion for a long time now have been about keeping the game interesting for longer by trying to make it more fair. Bottom line is, I think there needs to be a definitive method to stop run away leaders, something that is more fair to both sides than experience, law&fame, exponential seed growth, injury, land cap, development modifier, and eta modifiers, all of which were designed to stop the top players from running away 1 week into the round, and have only mildly succeeded. Thank you for your time, and your criticisms (constructive or not) are appreciated.
The main effect this would have is to take top players with large standing armies and reduce the rate at which they pull away from the lower people. Especially in the beginning of the round, there would be more of an emphasis on development OR a giant army, which could make very balanced play possible without the development modifier (which does very little imo) or without the land stealing cap (which seems very weak to me). This effect also inherently gives a small benefit to those who get zeroed because they make more money while they rebuild their army. The question you have is "what happens when a player has no more money in the bank?" and I answer "simple, a unit dies, and his cost is used to pay the upkeep for the rest of the living units, and this continues until the player has money in the bank". This also adds a dynamic where players have to keep some cash on hand, and makes money launderers USEFUL.
Some options for extended functionality could be:
-Different rates for different classes of units, ie. LET units pay more than INN, and so on.
-Only active after reaching a certain # of developments
-Specialist units that have no upkeep or a lower amount, a little something to balance a unit that is slightly weak for it's cost
-Upkeep modifier, a percentage modifier like the AR mod, that gets chopped if you take a large hit, and increases past the normal value if your staff takes no losses for an extended period of time.
The changes being made to bushtarion for a long time now have been about keeping the game interesting for longer by trying to make it more fair. Bottom line is, I think there needs to be a definitive method to stop run away leaders, something that is more fair to both sides than experience, law&fame, exponential seed growth, injury, land cap, development modifier, and eta modifiers, all of which were designed to stop the top players from running away 1 week into the round, and have only mildly succeeded. Thank you for your time, and your criticisms (constructive or not) are appreciated.
