cRPG

Strategus => Strategus General Discussion => Topic started by: Beans on October 14, 2011, 10:15:48 pm

Title: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Beans on October 14, 2011, 10:15:48 pm
We've had a lot of changes happen in strat since the 3.0 map opened up, but lets focus on what makes this game actually fun for most people. The battles. They are what draw people to play crpg in the first place, and why they maybe then get interested in strat.

If in 2.0 I had to pick an average size for armies made for battle/sieges(not just moving dudes around)I would say around 2500 is a pretty good number. So with that in mind lets look at what it costs in 3.0 to equip that force.

2500 * 107.16(Studded Leather Coat) = 267,900
2500 * 31.76(Nasal Helmet)                 = 79,400
2500 * 11.56(Leather Gloves)              = 28,900
2500 * 6.12(Sarranid Leather Boots)   = 15,300
625 * 26.16(Falchion)                          = 16,350
800 * 30.04(Old Heater Shield)           = 24,032
625 * 30.16(Two Handed Axe)            = 18,850
625 * 5.08(Pitch Fork)                        = 3,175
625 * 34.84(Short Bow)                     = 21,775
1875 * 6.44(Arrows)                          = 12,000

Total:                                                    487,682

That gear is about the bare minimum I would go to actually spend money on equipping people and expecting the gear to actually do any good. I suppose you could cut the boots, helms and gloves to save ~125,000. Also there are no catapults or anything. Maybe cut some more and just give everyone 2h axes and pitchforks and let them wear trash bags.

So how long is it going to take clans to start assaulting fiefs and stuff? Well I guess it depends on what the most profitable trade route is for your clan and how many people you have. If you have 50 people in your clan, it will take them each earning 266 gold every day for a month to make 400,000. You'll have to get the troops via magic because that is with all 50 going full for gold, 0 on recruiting.

Of course if you lose I imagine your clan will completely quit because no one is going to do that again.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Aseldo on October 14, 2011, 10:19:27 pm
Cudgels for life
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Turboflex on October 14, 2011, 10:25:27 pm
Yeah current gold production seems way too low...
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: SeQuel on October 14, 2011, 10:26:12 pm
Exactly my point, I don't wanna play a browser game. I want to play in battles and fights, not to mention how much money it takes to equip a army is only encouraging people to not go to war and either save there money or get more for better equipment.

It's come to a point where clans will be too scared to lose all there money and there pixels.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Digglez on October 14, 2011, 10:36:51 pm
what you fail to take into consideration is there is no more scaling.

previously you could have an army of 4500 defending a castle and each spawn would cost 8 tickets, so your army isnt anywhere remotely close to that size
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Beans on October 14, 2011, 10:44:39 pm
what you fail to take into consideration is there is no more scaling.

previously you could have an army of 4500 defending a castle and each spawn would cost 8 tickets, so your army isnt anywhere remotely close to that size

I am not currently by a castle or town but from my understanding they have the same number of defenders as strat 2.0, which means attacking a castle with less than 2,500 would be a complete disaster and waste of money. Scaling or not.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Tydeus on October 14, 2011, 10:44:46 pm
More like: Less people will be found inside a fief. You won't have as many people inside fiefs passively farming gold/troops(At least not as much on the troop end). This is because, while you can still farm troops, there's no point having a load of troops if you don't have the gold to upkeep/outfit them. Thus you'll have fewer people doing the troop farming and more in the gold area. So don't think about trying to keep the troop:gold ratio the same while recruiting troops at the same speed, you'll never keep up. You have to go the more efficient rout and drop a few people from the afk troop farming section, and move them into the raiding/trading section.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: PhantomZero on October 14, 2011, 11:19:19 pm
Then reduce the troop number and gold amounts of the AI villages/towns/castles, everyone gave their suggestions when it was still largely based on last strat. Building up a large enough force to tackle a town could take well over a year.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: PhantomZero on October 14, 2011, 11:26:30 pm
what you fail to take into consideration is there is no more scaling.

previously you could have an army of 4500 defending a castle and each spawn would cost 8 tickets, so your army isnt anywhere remotely close to that size

It sounds like you don't understand what scaling was.

Previously if you had an army of 4500, you still had to equip every single ticket with weapons/armor/horses/etc it was simply a measure to shorten the game times. Not only would each spawn cost 8 tickets, 8 of each equipment you spawned with was consumed. I would hate to see a 5000 vs 5000 battle now without scaling, it could last an entire day.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Digglez on October 14, 2011, 11:41:27 pm
It sounds like you don't understand what scaling was.

Previously if you had an army of 4500, you still had to equip every single ticket with weapons/armor/horses/etc it was simply a measure to shorten the game times. Not only would each spawn cost 8 tickets, 8 of each equipment you spawned with was consumed. I would hate to see a 5000 vs 5000 battle now without scaling, it could last an entire day.

Oh you mean like a REAL siege?  If World of Warcraft has/can sport more comprehensive meaningful battleground sieges (Alterac Valley, first incarnation) than this game is in trouble

The point is, you wont see 4500 man armies now, because 500-1000 will represent the same sizes roughly.  And devs still dont have a meaningful route system
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Overdriven on October 14, 2011, 11:56:50 pm
I have to say it does seem like fief numbers are too high. They should have far less troops/gold than they did before, because clans are not going to be able to field armies large enough/well equipped enough to take most fiefs atm.

Also yeah...equipment costs are far to high. Right now everyone is going to be fielding small armies of peasants but not actually attacking anything.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Varyag on October 15, 2011, 12:00:37 am
Any1 of you played Silk Road MMORPG? Well, this is what current strat looks like.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Hrafn on October 15, 2011, 12:26:28 am
Equipment should be expensive, I dont want to see tincan wars like in crpg. But AI armys should be weaker, so the most boring part of the game will finish faster.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Erasmas on October 15, 2011, 12:37:19 am
The point is that this most boring part decides how the map look like. So if it is difficult (and I agree that it is too difficult now) to take the village, you need to get organized first. That means that this round of Strategus may be a long one. Which is good.

Battles. There will be battles. At the beginning - between players - for goods. After some clan become richer - for villages. And only after that wars between clans. This game is called WARBAND not KINGDOM.

My suggestion - increase a BIT direct trade range, increase a BIT the goods availability, and for f#@ck sake decrease a bit cost of the army in field, cause this is a killer for any army.     
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Tydeus on October 15, 2011, 12:50:35 am
Any1 of you played Silk Road MMORPG? Well, this is what current strat looks like.
WOW

Please do not compare crpg to a game I rolled back in '05. Kill 1000 flower creatures, then do it again? Yeah strat is nothing like that game. It has trade "caravans" WOOO! THE SIMILARITIES!

On the subject of neutral territories: I think their numbers are too high, but the ratio of troops:gold is still appropriate.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: SPQR on October 15, 2011, 01:06:24 am
The problem with current gold levels is it basically squeezes out small clans entirely and encourages large clans to repeat Strat 1 tactics (stockpile gold like its going out of style, never attack).

Also, the whole "not fun" thing.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Slamz on October 15, 2011, 01:22:38 am
Not sure I see the problem, at least not via this example.

Why assume armies are going to be 2500 in size?  OP basically proved that they are NOT going to be that large, especially if you want to use decent equipment.

Personally I'm looking forward to a lot of smaller battles.  I also have yet to see discussions regarding how much money we can expect to make through trading.  When we start seeing people transport hundreds of goods across the map to sell, we may have a better idea of the real income levels.  I think a major point of the recent changes was to make cross-map trading be the #1 income source.  It's also the riskiest.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Matey on October 15, 2011, 01:23:58 am
one reason to use 2500 as the army size is because thats how many troops are in castles... and its 5k in towns. if people are rolling around with 100-1000 troops and never any more than that... then no one will take a castle or town. and if its way to expensive to equip and maintain a 2500 man army... then yeah you wont see one.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Tydeus on October 15, 2011, 01:28:56 am
one reason to use 2500 as the army size is because thats how many troops are in castles... and its 5k in towns. if people are rolling around with 100-1000 troops and never any more than that... then no one will take a castle or town. and if its way to expensive to equip and maintain a 2500 man army... then yeah you wont see one.
Except when those numbers get changed.

"<chadz> castle/town pop/gold is work in progress"

From about 2 minutes ago.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Beans on October 15, 2011, 01:31:27 am
Not sure I see the problem, at least not via this example.

Why assume armies are going to be 2500 in size?  OP basically proved that they are NOT going to be that large, especially if you want to use decent equipment.

Personally I'm looking forward to a lot of smaller battles.  I also have yet to see discussions regarding how much money we can expect to make through trading.  When we start seeing people transport hundreds of goods across the map to sell, we may have a better idea of the real income levels.  I think a major point of the recent changes was to make cross-map trading be the #1 income source.  It's also the riskiest.

Cross map trading is really an awesome idea and is probably what I am most excited about(really helps small clans, or even single players can raid). However, actually moving across the map is a real pain. We really need waypoints to make long route trading less menial.

Except when those numbers get changed.

"<chadz> castle/town pop/gold is work in progress"

From about 2 minutes ago.

That is good news. However, it still requires much more time to equip troops on a 1:1 scale than it did in strat version two. It didn't take a month to equip 2500.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: SPQR on October 15, 2011, 02:27:29 am
Ok, lets do the math for 500 troops. (I'm going to assume in the following #'s that troop upkeep and gold from crpg cancel out or are negligible)

Time to recruit 500 troops @ 100% recruitment rate: 500 manhours
Cost to recruit 500 troops @ 5 gold per hour: 2,500 gold

Equipment for 500 troops:
500 * 107.16(Studded Leather Coat) = 53,580
500 * 31.76(Nasal Helmet)                 = 15,880
500 * 11.56(Leather Gloves)              = 5,780
500 * 6.12(Sarranid Leather Boots)   = 3,060
150 * 26.16(Falchion)                          = 3,924
400 * 30.04(Old Heater Shield)           = 12,016
100 * 30.16(Two Handed Axe)            = 3,016
150 * 5.08(Pitch Fork)                        = 762
150 * 34.84(Short Bow)                     = 5,226
450 * 6.44(Arrows)                          = 2,829

Total cost for equipment: 106,073
Estimated gold per hour via trading: 12/hr (based on averages I've calculated)

Total cost for troops and equipment: 108,573
Time to raise 108,573 @ 12/hr: 9048 manhours
Total manhours: 9548 manhours

--
Time per member - 50 man clan: 191 hours
Time per member - 25 man clan: 382 hours
Time per member - 10 man clan: 905 hours

So at this rate a 50 man clan will need 8 days to raise and equip a 500 man army, assuming all members are active and working at 100% efficiency (ie just pumping out trade goods and recruiting, no traveling or anything else).
A 25 man clan will need 16 days.
And a 10 man clan will need 38 days.

--
The underlying problem is it takes 18x longer to equip a soldier than it is to recruit him.


Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Matey on October 15, 2011, 02:32:03 am
clearly we are all doing this wrong.
lets try it again

500 shirts (at 0 gold each) 0-20 gold?
500 wrapping boots (0 each) 0-20 gold?
500 scythes (25 each) 12,500 gold

12,500 - 12540 gold per 500 troops.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Slamz on October 15, 2011, 03:39:38 am
Coming from someone who enjoyed single player, 500 troops is "a lot".

I think the goal may be to get Strategus to feel more like single player.  A newer player will have around 35 troops, poorly equipped.  The average player "lord" will have around 50 troops with him, modestly equipped.  Well-to-do veteran players with a couple months of Strategus under their belt will have around 100 troops, well equipped, but this will be rare and hard to maintain.

The average 20 vs 20 clan bash will end up with around 1000 troops on both sides, with fairly modest equipment.


Of course, we are still off by a fair margin to meet this goal.  Troop equipment costs will definitely have to be reduced.

Figure:
Brand new player (which all of us are at this point in Strategus)
35 troops
Leather Warrior Cap 10x35 = 350 gold
Leather Vest 5.8x35 = 203 gold
Hide Boots 2.8x35 = 98 gold
Leather Covered Round Shield 28.8x35 = 1008 gold
Hand Axe 40.4x35 = 1414 gold

Total cost: 3073 gold

This is, to me, the bottom line starter price for a really simple army that a newer player could use to start caravaning goods around.

That's going to take a fair amount of playing to raise that kind of cash and it's so valuable, you'd hardly want to risk it on a caravan!


I think we may be off by as much as a factor of 10.

For 307 gold, this basic army might be worth the risk of running a caravan.




Maybe a good rule of measure would be to ask:

"How many successful caravan runs do I need to pay the cost of the army used to escort it?"

I would think you should be able to pay for an army like the one I listed in 1 successful run, from, say, Sargoth to Suno.  If you make it BACK from Suno to Sargoth then you've paid for your army twice (and can now afford some upgrades, or a bigger army).

A better army of chainmail and midline weapons will of course require more than one successful trade route run.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Tydeus on October 15, 2011, 03:40:29 am
Total cost for equipment: 106,073
Estimated gold per hour via trading: 12/hr (based on averages I've calculated)

Total cost for troops and equipment: 108,573
Time to raise 108,573 @ 12/hr: 9048 manhours
Total manhours: 9548 manhours

--
Time per member - 50 man clan: 191 hours
Time per member - 25 man clan: 382 hours
Time per member - 10 man clan: 905 hours

So at this rate a 50 man clan will need 8 days to raise and equip a 500 man army, assuming all members are active and working at 100% efficiency (ie just pumping out trade goods and recruiting, no traveling or anything else).
A 25 man clan will need 16 days.
And a 10 man clan will need 38 days.

--
The underlying problem is it takes 18x longer to equip a soldier than it is to recruit him.
First, how are you getting such a shitty average of 12g/hr. I'm just going to assume that's straight profit, but that seems absolutely ridiculous, especially if you have a clan of 30+ players coordinating. Second, the extremely low ball "12[gold]/hr" causes you to have an obscure amount of manhours. This in turn throws off your "18x longer to equip a soldier than it is to recruit him" estimate.

I can see 12g/hr maybe, if you're talking about each crafter also serving as his own trade caravan.

I could have made over 12g/hr by myself if I chose to sell my reindeer meat at a castle 1 location away from where I crafted it.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: SPQR on October 15, 2011, 05:00:47 am
12/hr is the profit margin.

I used the follow calculations -

Selling trade goods to sell them in the village you gathered them in:

Cost to gather : 8 gold
Visiting fee: 5 gold
Sale price: 16 gold
Profit: 3 gold/hr

--

Selling trade goods in adjacent village:
Cost to gather: 8 gold
Visiting fee: 5 gold
Sale price: 18 gold
Profit: 5 gold/hr

(Assuming you can get there and back in an hour)

And I kept calculating at higher and higher distance bonus and dividing by the time needed to perform the action, moving the full distance for the 450% bonus still only netted 20 gold/hr due to the absolutely horrible movement speeds.

Of course as soon as I wrote this the visitor fees have changed to 1/hr so this is no longer valid.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Tydeus on October 15, 2011, 05:42:32 am
12/hr is the profit margin.

I used the follow calculations -

Selling trade goods to sell them in the village you gathered them in:

Cost to gather : 8 gold
Visiting fee: 5 gold
Sale price: 16 gold
Profit: 3 gold/hr

--

Selling trade goods in adjacent village:
Cost to gather: 8 gold
Visiting fee: 5 gold
Sale price: 18 gold
Profit: 5 gold/hr

(Assuming you can get there and back in an hour)

And I kept calculating at higher and higher distance bonus and dividing by the time needed to perform the action, moving the full distance for the 450% bonus still only netted 20 gold/hr due to the absolutely horrible movement speeds.

Of course as soon as I wrote this the visitor fees have changed to 1/hr so this is no longer valid.
Yeah, the issue is that you're selling at the wrong places/times. Selling at a fief that doesn't have +3 or higher prosperity is pointless, especially if you have a ton of trade goods.

For me it was like this:
Cost to gather: 6 gold
Visiting fee: 5(now 1) gold
Sale price: 12 gold
Profit: 1/5 gold/hr

But when I traveled to the closest castle that was at +3 prosperity, it looked like this:
Cost to gather: 12 gold
Visiting fee: 1 gold
Sale Price: 24 gold (with only a 4% distance bonus)
profit:13/17 gold/hr(not counting the 1 1/2 hour travel time).

You're just completely going about trading the wrong way by disregarding fief prosperity.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: PhantomZero on October 15, 2011, 05:46:56 am
You're just completely going about trading the wrong way by disregarding fief prosperity.

Yeah, disregarding the completely random thing that adjusts the buy/sell price of goods.

I too base my income on luck. ("I'm a professional slots player.")

By selling at a place with +3 prosperity you are actually wasting your money, because that means soon the price will increase by +3. Hold onto your goods and wait.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: SPQR on October 15, 2011, 06:08:26 am
Yeah, the issue is that you're selling at the wrong places/times. Selling at a fief that doesn't have +3 or higher prosperity is pointless, especially if you have a ton of trade goods.

For me it was like this:
Cost to gather: 6 gold
Visiting fee: 5(now 1) gold
Sale price: 12 gold
Profit: 1/5 gold/hr

But when I traveled to the closest castle that was at +3 prosperity, it looked like this:
Cost to gather: 12 gold
Visiting fee: 1 gold
Sale Price: 24 gold (with only a 4% distance bonus)
profit:13/17 gold/hr(not counting the 1 1/2 hour travel time).

You're just completely going about trading the wrong way by disregarding fief prosperity.

You can't just discount the travel time when determining the rate per hour, because that defeats the entire purpose of figuring out the gold/hour.

The travel time HAS to be included in calculations because it has an opportunity cost. Any time you are traveling you cannot do anything else to gain money/recruits ect.

So in your example, the expenses are 13 gold, and the income is 24, for a profit of 11 gold. However, there is also the hour lost to gather the resource and the hour and a half travel time. So the income rate is 11 gold /2.5 hours = 4.4 gold an hour.

Remember now that you used to be able to work for 40 gold an hour in cities, AND gain gold via cRPG play, AND equipment was 1/4 the cost, AND upkeep has been raised. Its a quadruple nerf to equipment and gold gain.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: LLJK_Siggy on October 15, 2011, 06:17:02 am
This is still incorrect. You are assuming that he is working for 1 hour, then moving and selling. Lets suppose he moved and sold his goods every 24 hours instead.

His costs are 11 gold(not 13). 6 gold to gather, 5 gold for the visiting fee.

His time spent is 27 hours. 24 hours crafting goods, 3 hours travelling(1.5 hours one way). He recieves 24 goods in his 24 hours of crafting

hourlyProfit = (numberOfGoods*profitPerGood)/timeSpent.

(24*13)/27 = 11.5 gold/hour

If he crafted even longer, his gold/hour would go up, although only slightly. Also now that visiting fees are only 1 gold he is making an additional 4 per item, which turns out to be 15 gold per hour. Still not great but a lot better than 4.4
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: SPQR on October 15, 2011, 06:21:06 am
Oh whoops, I used the numbers for the wrong fief, and yeah, that was calculated for 1 good.

At any rate, what you've just proved is that my original 12 gold/hr calculation is pretty close. Less if you are selling locally/trading frequently, more if you are trading far away/ less frequently.

Assuming the majority of clans will be selling their goods in patches of 25-50 within their general vicinity you can see that the profit margins are not all that impressive.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: SeQuel on October 15, 2011, 06:34:33 am
Oh whoops, I used the numbers for the wrong fief, and yeah, that was calculated for 1 good.

At any rate, what you've just proved is that my original 12 gold/hr calculation is pretty close. Less if you are selling locally/trading frequently, more if you are trading far away/ less frequently.

Assuming the majority of clans will be selling their goods in patches of 25-50 within their general vicinity you can see that the profit margins are not all that impressive.

This is also assuming EVERY clan and their members are 100% active like you said, which as we all know is not true.

So double all your times by x2  :lol: :lol:
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Tydeus on October 15, 2011, 06:43:06 am
Oh whoops, I used the numbers for the wrong fief, and yeah, that was calculated for 1 good.

At any rate, what you've just proved is that my original 12 gold/hr calculation is pretty close. Less if you are selling locally/trading frequently, more if you are trading far away/ less frequently.

Assuming the majority of clans will be selling their goods in patches of 25-50 within their general vicinity you can see that the profit margins are not all that impressive.
I wouldn't say "pretty close" Especially when we're talking about a faction coordinating trade routes. The more goods you take to a far-away location, the more sell price becomes the most important factor to optimizing profit.

For example:
(Revising this to show the cost to gather from A and the sell price of B)
5 people gather at one location for 5 days
600 items bought
Cost to gather: 6 gold
Visiting fee: 1 gold
Sale price: 24 gold *400% distance modifier
Profit: 89 gold/hr(Because while you're on this trade route, those people never stop crafting trade goods)
53,400 gold total

Cost to gather: 6 gold
Visiting fee: 1 gold
Sale price: 20 gold * 450% modifier
Profit: 83 gold/hr
49,800 gold Total

It's important to remember that if you're not working alone, you're able to increase your profits by quite a bit since you don't have to stop production just to travel and sell your goods.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: LLJK_Siggy on October 15, 2011, 07:07:13 am
I just wrote up a big long post explaining tydeus' point with exact numbers calculating gold per hour, but then I realized I made a mistake with calculating faraway bonuses and how far you need to travel. The formula according to chadz is:

round(pow($distance_percent*100, 1.28));

The max distance is 139 km. This is where I'm assuming you get 450%. The tricky part of the formula is the $distance_percent. It can't be 100 because that gives you an insanely large number. Plugging in 1, which would be 100%, gives you 363. This is much better but still not 450%. We need to figure out what this variable is supposed to represent since faraway bonus is exponential.

I'm sure it's not that complicated but it's like 1am here and it's making my head explode.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Keshian on October 15, 2011, 07:08:47 am
I wouldn't say "pretty close" Especially when we're talking about a faction coordinating trade routes. The more goods you take to a far-away location, the more sell price becomes the most important factor to optimizing profit.

For example:
(Revising this to show the cost to gather from A and the sell price of B)
5 people gather at one location for 5 days
600 items bought
Cost to gather: 6 gold
Visiting fee: 1 gold
Sale price: 24 gold *400% distance modifier
Profit: 89 gold/hr(Because while you're on this trade route, those people never stop crafting trade goods)
53,400 gold total

Cost to gather: 6 gold
Visiting fee: 1 gold
Sale price: 20 gold * 450% modifier
Profit: 83 gold/hr
49,800 gold Total

It's important to remember that if you're not working alone, you're able to increase your profits by quite a bit since you don't have to stop production just to travel and sell your goods.

Cost to manufacture where I am at is 10 gold.  I went from Fisdnar to Kwynn (so somewhere between 1/3rd and 1/2 the distance of the map) and got a 115% distance modifier and that was a 20 gold base only because that village had a +2 prosperity rating.  (Definitely impossible to get 450% modifier).  It took me 3 and a half days of active travelling (and I was on a lot readjusting my routes to maximize travel on easy terrain) to travel that distance where 1 member of my clan - me - was not earnign gold, recruiting or doing anything else useful.  Also, if you have more than 36 troops you will be paying upkeep that whole time at a much higher rate because the troops are not in a village.  You can field a large enough force to take a village with equipment after 2 weeks for a 40 man clan, but taking a city/castle will be utterly ridiculous, you will never be able to afford the amount of siege equipment, armor, and weapons needed.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: LLJK_Siggy on October 15, 2011, 07:39:57 am
139 km is the max distance for faraway goods, so I'm assuming that is where you would hit 450%. I'm the snow my speed is 24.750 meters per minute. If the entire map was covered in snow, and I had a straight line for the 139 KM, it would take me 3.9 days to make a one way trip. Of course there would be obstacles, but I also wouldn't be travelling in the snow for the entire time.

I'd say consistently getting the 450% bonus is unrealistic, but it's hard to calculate how far you would have to travel to get an exact bonus, since the formula is exponential and there is a variable I don't understand.

But lets take your example. You were crafting goods for 10 gold, which is a bit high and you should probably craft somewhere with a lower prosperity for a higher profit. You were able to sell the goods for 20 gold base. Lets take your bonus to 100% to make things easier. This gives you a sell price of 40 gold. You made a profit of 29 gold per item .

Lets suppose you have a 40 man clan, but only 21 of those people reliably participate. You are making 21 goods per hour. Ever 3 days you take the goods they have made and transport them.

Initially you are crafting with the group. 21 people craft for 72 hours. You have 1512 items. You take off to sell these items. You have now made 43,848 gold. The total man hours spent crafting was 1512 hours, with 84 hours of traveling. This comes out to 27.47 gold per hour, but by the time you have made the return trip, your 20 people have already been crafting for 7 days. They have amassed 3360 items, which you can immediately pick back up and transport. This nets you another 97440 gold in profit. Your time spent was 3528 hours (7 days of 20 people crafting and 7 days of travel), which comes out to about the same gold/hour.

With only 21 people actively crafting you have made 141288 gold. If you had the full 40 you would make a shitload more. If you decided to spend an extra day or two travelling somewhere farther you would make significantly more due to the fact that faraway bonus grows exponentially as you reach the cap. There are great risks in travelling with that much gold or trade goods without protection, though. It's a gamble on how far you want to take it. This is where trade agreements and diplomacy come in.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: PhantomZero on October 15, 2011, 08:00:59 am
Initially you are crafting with the group. 21 people craft for 72 hours. You have 1512 items.

21 people crafting in the same village will not generate 1512 items in 72 hours. Snow has no effect on movement speed.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: SPQR on October 15, 2011, 08:10:41 am
I wouldn't say "pretty close" Especially when we're talking about a faction coordinating trade routes. The more goods you take to a far-away location, the more sell price becomes the most important factor to optimizing profit.

For example:
(Revising this to show the cost to gather from A and the sell price of B)
5 people gather at one location for 5 days
600 items bought
Cost to gather: 6 gold
Visiting fee: 1 gold
Sale price: 24 gold *400% distance modifier
Profit: 89 gold/hr(Because while you're on this trade route, those people never stop crafting trade goods)
53,400 gold total

Cost to gather: 6 gold
Visiting fee: 1 gold
Sale price: 20 gold * 450% modifier
Profit: 83 gold/hr
49,800 gold Total

It's important to remember that if you're not working alone, you're able to increase your profits by quite a bit since you don't have to stop production just to travel and sell your goods.

Your gold/hr is wrong because you're not counting the hours for the people crafting. Remember, there is an opportunity cost to any action.

--

Siggy:

Interesting but consider that to get to that point you have to be able to front at least 10k to equip the troops to guard the mega caravan, 16k to pay for the trade goods, and then wait 10 days for a return on your investment.

And when you get back that 43,000 is only enough gold to equip about 250 troops. 10 days of the entire clan working together to equip only 250 troops is pretty awful.

Edit: The point isn't shitting on trade. I think its a great idea and way more interesting than working. What we're griping about is how outlandishly expensive it is to equip an army. The simplest and easiest solution is to reduce the insane cost of equipment and increase peoples ability to smith for cheaper goods.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Tydeus on October 15, 2011, 08:58:43 am
Your gold/hr is wrong because you're not counting the hours for the people crafting. Remember, there is an opportunity cost to any action.

--

Siggy:

Interesting but consider that to get to that point you have to be able to front at least 10k to equip the troops to guard the mega caravan, 16k to pay for the trade goods, and then wait 10 days for a return on your investment.

And when you get back that 43,000 is only enough gold to equip about 250 troops. 10 days of the entire clan working together to equip only 250 troops is pretty awful.

Edit: The point isn't shitting on trade. I think its a great idea and way more interesting than working. What we're griping about is how outlandishly expensive it is to equip an army. The simplest and easiest solution is to reduce the insane cost of equipment and increase peoples ability to smith for cheaper goods.
I wasn't exactly thinking of it in terms of total man hours, more breaking down your profits as a collective unit of 6 people, for the "unit" it's 89/83 gold/hr.

That was for his first trip. His second, the full 10 days, ended up bringing the total to 141,288 gold. That's 600 gold per troop if you only have 250 troops, far more than necessary.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: SPQR on October 15, 2011, 09:17:29 am
I wasn't exactly thinking of it in terms of total man hours, more breaking down your profits as a collective unit of 6 people, for the "unit" it's 89/83 gold/hr.

That was for his first trip. His second, the full 10 days, ended up bringing the total to 141,288 gold. That's 600 gold per troop if you only have 250 troops, far more than necessary.

Yes but then you are comparing apples to oranges. You can't use a different metric to argue against mine.

Also, the 43,00 comment was based on Siggys calculations, not yours.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Tydeus on October 15, 2011, 09:28:48 am
Yes but then you are comparing apples to oranges. You can't use a different metric to argue against mine.

Also, the 43,00 comment was based on Siggys calculations, not yours.
It turned out to be an incomplete post. The top part that I posted was in reply to the first sentence of your post.

To the rest, I have this, knowing it was about siggy's calculations:

You're forgetting that while he was out traveling to sell his troops, the other 20 people were still crafting trade goods. When someone gets a job as a roofer for example, and they get paid every two weeks but you don't get your paycheck until the third, yet you started working at the start of the second pay week, you don't say you worked two weeks for that paycheck, nor do you say it was a full paycheck. If you were to quit the day you got that first paycheck, you'd still have another one for that 1 extra week that you worked.

Again, I think you're looking at this situation wrong

Even though it takes 7 days to get money in your pocket, you're still creating money during those 7 days. So, in the end, every week those 21 people make 97,440 gold.

It's also worth mentioning that these numbers were far from optimal and from a rather low distance bonus, meaning you could make substantially more than 97,440 a week or 43,000 for your starting trip. That's 390 gold per troop, rather high for 250 troops.

Edit: With current prices being what they are(1/25 rather than 1/100) that turns out to be a rather shitty amount of gold for 250 troops. You'd have to make sure you were crafting and selling at as close to the best possible places you could.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: chadz on October 15, 2011, 10:11:33 am
Don't forget that item buying is supposed to be 'last resort' - you should get items by crafting and trading.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Gingerpussy on October 15, 2011, 10:21:04 am
Don't forget that item buying is supposed to be 'last resort' - you should get items by crafting and trading.
yeah lets have 4 diffrent weapomns of all kinds, how are you able to show them on the screen chadz ?
Dont u remember the item bombing ? this is just the same due to all the diffrent weapons and shit equiping a 500 man army now takes  hours and hours of counting to see if u have all what you should, then the next days fight u cant even show half what u have.

aka

elite scimmitar
+1
+2
+3

see 4 different for each weapon armor. i dont think u thought about all when u made the crafting. what impact will crafting have ?
You realy need to put yourself in the payers site, and see how much time it all takes.

And maybe try yourself to equip a army from your clans crafting. Or even better try organize it all

Hey Mr ยค%&/()  you have to make 20 ladders asap 
other dude.: but chadz my town is atr fucking 20 % this 20 ladders will take atleast 2 days to craft
Mr chadz ohh wel my calculation is that the attack is in 11.november so go ahead
other dude. 3 weeks for taking a saml village )
chadz: yes its great all have to be in 100 man clans now even then it takes 3 weeks of crafting Wohoooo
other dude: im off to visit my grandmom, cuz thats more fun the playing strategus
chadz . Yeah fucking yeahh this is great. looks like this 1980 trading game i once tryed.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Matey on October 15, 2011, 11:06:30 am
well i think the goal with smithing for gear is to standardize in your clan, and have only the guys who can craft the items you want crafting items...
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: LLJK_Siggy on October 15, 2011, 02:03:24 pm
21 people crafting in the same village will not generate 1512 items in 72 hours. Snow has no effect on movement speed.

Who said they all have to be in the same village. Perhaps nearby villages? Do we know for a fact that the number of people crafting in a city lowers the amount of goods you craft?

Snow certainly does effect movement speed:

Quote
movement speed:
$speed = (0.25 * ($terrain['speed']/100));
$troop_influence = (pow($troops, $terrain['troops_influence']/200)/100); #capped at 0.99
$speed = $speed * (1-$troop_influence);

terrain look distance:
(distance_in_pixel/(($my_geo['look_out']/100)*($other_geo['look_in']/100)) < 100 )

terrain:
http://strategus.c-rpg.net/geo_calradia.png


movement table:
color
   name
   speed

   troops_influence
   look_out
   look_in
000080   Sea   0   100   250   50
22b14c   Plains   100   100   100   100
c3c3c3   Hills   60   100   140   140
ffffff   Snow Plains   70   100   100   100
003e00   Plain Forest   60   110   70   20
008080   Snow Forest   50   110   70   30
535353   Mountains   30   140   200   120
00a2e8   River   0   100   100   100
96924f   Steppe   100   100   100   100
697801   Steppe Forest   70   110   80   40
000000   Cliffs   0   100   100   100
f000ff   Road   180   100   40   170
fff200   Desert   100   100   100   100
53a600   Desert Forest   80   110   90   50
b45e34   Bridge   10   150   100   30

Your gold/hr is wrong because you're not counting the hours for the people crafting. Remember, there is an opportunity cost to any action.

--

Siggy:

Interesting but consider that to get to that point you have to be able to front at least 10k to equip the troops to guard the mega caravan, 16k to pay for the trade goods, and then wait 10 days for a return on your investment.

And when you get back that 43,000 is only enough gold to equip about 250 troops. 10 days of the entire clan working together to equip only 250 troops is pretty awful.

I know this, which is why I said it isn't great, but lets consider this: if nobody can reliably equip 250, then you don't need 1000 to protect yourself. I think everything is initially going to take more time, but once the ball gets rolling things will get interesting.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Overdriven on October 15, 2011, 02:19:17 pm
Do we know for a fact that the number of people crafting in a city lowers the amount of goods you craft?

It lowers the villages efficiency...so yeah it lowers the number of goods you can craft. There were something like close to 10 people in Peshmi and it was down to 70% efficiency.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: LLJK_Siggy on October 15, 2011, 03:02:06 pm
It lowers the villages efficiency...so yeah it lowers the number of goods you can craft. There were something like close to 10 people in Peshmi and it was down to 70% efficiency.

You see this makes things very confusing, as chadz clearly stated:

Quote
There are 2 different crafting values: The first percentage is a general percentage for this fief. It's a general yes or no random pick per hour. If this is 100%, you will get to stage 2 every hour. If this is at 0%, you will never produce anything

This means that either chadz changed something without telling us, something is not working properly, or it doesn't really matter if it's at 70% or 100%, as long as it's not at 0% you will still craft. Can we get some sort of confirmation on this?

In the long run I think we need to wait and see what happens. There are rapid daily changes going on, so sitting down and theory crafting things is almost a waste of time because tomorrow some new variable will be added in that completely changes everything. Horses were just made to affect movement speed, but you need a rider per horse. It looks like the troop upkeep formula was changed as well.

At the moment I think things are set up so that once the economy machine is turning gold will come easy, but there is quite a hump to get that initial investment going. Eventually people will have small armies with horses to carry goods and will move much more quickly across the map, allowing them to go further, get better bonuses, and make more gold more quickly. Once the larger clans have achieved this then they can afford to outfit larger armies, which makes travelling to trade more dangerous. You'd have to keep up with your neighbors if you wanted to trade safely.

The problem is at the moment this looks like it could take a couple of weeks for a larger clan to start getting this rolling. Smaller clans can forget about it as they don't have the members to produce and move goods reliably. They may be able to get enough going to set up a very small army and try to ambush an unprotected caravan.

I'm really excited for where this is all going, though. We just need to piddle around making money and trying to adapt to the changes while we see what happens in the end.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Tovi on October 21, 2011, 09:14:05 am
This whole system seems too capitalist and not medieval. In the middle ages you hire men at arm which are already armed. You get money by owning a land.
Land owners should hire mercenaries or lord in the vicinity, including their men and equipment.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Vibe on October 21, 2011, 09:27:01 am
Buy Strat gold for cRPG gold, equip an army in no time!
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: RandomDude on October 21, 2011, 02:53:00 pm
This whole system seems too capitalist and not medieval. In the middle ages you hire men at arm which are already armed. You get money by owning a land.
Land owners should hire mercenaries or lord in the vicinity, including their men and equipment.

Thats not a bad idea.

If recruits came with their own basic gear that would be nice. Also maybe some hirable mercs or something with better gear.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Zaharist on October 21, 2011, 03:32:44 pm
If you have 50 people in your clan, it will take them each earning 266 gold every day for a month to make 400,000. You'll have to get the troops via magic because that is with all 50 going full for gold, 0 on recruiting.

Druzhina has about 60 active Strategus players.
It took them several days (mb 2 weeks, don't know when did they start) to field 1,5k fully equipped (low-end equip) army and to take village with 1:1 K:D with less players in roster.

You don't need 2,5k troops with equip worth ~200 gold per troop to start your campaign. Once you own several fiefs (you can manage) and army to guard your caravans you can start trading. The more caravans you have the more gold you get and the better army you have.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Jacko on October 21, 2011, 04:24:05 pm
Nerf DRZ, proving whiners wrong and breaking the game.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Balton on October 21, 2011, 10:24:16 pm
Exactly my point, I don't wanna play a browser game. I want to play in battles and fights, not to mention how much money it takes to equip a army is only encouraging people to not go to war and either save there money or get more for better equipment.

It's come to a point where clans will be too scared to lose all there money and there pixels.

The game is called Strategus for a reason. It's not "Act-now-think-later-egus." Hence why there is so much "downtime" between battles, so that your strategy is always top notch.

I am really enjoying this strategus, significantly more than the previous ones. Everyday I wake up I find myself thinking about my daily plans on strategus, and how they will impact my future opportunities, for a week, or even a month ahead. Every path a single person  wanders upon will heavily impact an outcome countless days away, when you are in a clan and you have 50+ people, the idea is to orchestrate everyone with such perfection coordination, that in the end, strategy will win over all. A truly unique and magnificent game.

I am sorry if you just want to mindlessly battle without applying strategy, but hey, that's what the regular c-rpg battle server is for.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: dynamike on October 21, 2011, 10:59:46 pm
The game is called Strategus for a reason. It's not "Act-now-think-later-egus." Hence why there is so much "downtime" between battles, so that your strategy is always top notch.

I am really enjoying this strategus, significantly more than the previous ones. Everyday I wake up I find myself thinking about my daily plans on strategus, and how they will impact my future opportunities, for a week, or even a month ahead. Every path a single person  wanders upon will heavily impact an outcome countless days away, when you are in a clan and you have 50+ people, the idea is to orchestrate everyone with such perfection coordination, that in the end, strategy will win over all. A truly unique and magnificent game.

I am sorry if you just want to mindlessly battle without applying strategy, but hey, that's what the regular c-rpg battle server is for.

WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT DID YOU DO WITH COCKY UNREASONABLE BALTON?
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Erathsmus on October 21, 2011, 11:15:59 pm
I agree with a prior post saying that most armies should be fielded from 30 to around 60 troops. (with the excpetion of some kings with 100 troops or more) Like in the actual single player.

Having only huge clans be able to rally up 1000 man armies and equip them all really takes away the chances of new clans forming, especially when the difference between manhours per player is so significant.

I suggest that equipment costs are reduced, and fielding armies is easier at low numbers but cost even more for gigantic armies.. (like when you have 130wpf, another 1 point costs so much extra compared to going from 30wpf to 31)

In other words it is pretty easy to start up, but to get that one extra step ahead of everyone else will cost significantly more. (like with hierlooms)
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: SPQR on October 21, 2011, 11:36:57 pm
The problem with making small armies be the norm, is that castles and cities have thousands of population and have default minimum populations. A castle, for instance, has a 1000 minimum population, I think. The city is 2000 or more. So 1000 minimum free defenders is practically insurmountable defensive advantage against all but the strongest of clans. You basically become invunerable to them because they'll never be able to field enough to take from you.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Beans on October 21, 2011, 11:43:49 pm
The problem with making small armies be the norm, is that castles and cities have thousands of population and have default minimum populations. A castle, for instance, has a 1000 minimum population, I think. The city is 2000 or more. So 1000 minimum free defenders is practically insurmountable defensive advantage against all but the strongest of clans. You basically become invunerable to them because they'll never be able to field enough to take from you.

Well chadz said he might lower them.

Dunno why they didn't just leave all the numbers the same as before with scaling.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Zaharist on October 21, 2011, 11:55:06 pm
IMO in previous versions castles were too easy to take.
One 2hour assault and castle is yours.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Dehitay on October 22, 2011, 05:08:53 am
IMO in previous versions castles were too easy to take.
One 2hour assault and castle is yours.
Did everybody else mentally respond with an immediate WTF like I did?
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Zorato on October 22, 2011, 08:00:39 am
Strategus: The Premier Dried Eel Farming Simulator.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: kinngrimm on October 24, 2011, 04:11:25 pm
Thats not a bad idea.

If recruits came with their own basic gear that would be nice. Also maybe some hirable mercs or something with better gear.
something like? recruiting in
villages => high chance low tear gear
castles  => medium chance medium tear gear
towns  => low chance high tear gear

but i kind of like it that the best chance to recruit is in castles, that gave them in opposite to last strat more meaning.

perhaps we could split the efficency for trading goods and gear
like for trading goods
villages => high chance
castles  => low chance
towns  => medium chance

for gear crafting
villages => low chance
castles  => high chance
towns  => medium chance

that way even if villages or castles are been taken, where castles would take now anyway pretty long to achieve
players would still be able to engage a lot through towns.
the efficency curve in towns needs to be more flat, not that much depenable on players inside so there is room for a lot of guys engaging there.

also have a look at tristans suggestion about a possible trading system (http://forum.c-rpg.net/index.php/topic,18592.0.html)
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Keshian on October 24, 2011, 06:07:39 pm
One thing I dont get was the massive gold nerf and increased gold cost for items.  In most of strat 2.0 we were fighting with low-mid tier armor, rounceys for our cavalry, lower end 1hers and 2hers with maybe a few mid-tier weapons in short supply.  Why the massive nerf???? 

Now we will permanently and forever not have more than 2-4 rounceys or sumpters in battles involving 500-1000 troops.  Its gone a little too extreme and has completely nullified an entire class for strategus.  Im an archer and dislike cavalry, but this is fricken ridiculous and unbalanced.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Zaharist on October 24, 2011, 11:28:19 pm
 :shock:

50 cav units is ok for 500-1000 army. Cav shouldn't be cheap like in previous strat. Everything was too cheap, now it's ok.

I hope devs will cut village markets (leaving only "peasant" equipment), because it's ridiculous that you can buy charger in village.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Beans on October 25, 2011, 03:50:21 am
One thing I dont get was the massive gold nerf and increased gold cost for items.  In most of strat 2.0 we were fighting with low-mid tier armor, rounceys for our cavalry, lower end 1hers and 2hers with maybe a few mid-tier weapons in short supply.  Why the massive nerf???? 

Now we will permanently and forever not have more than 2-4 rounceys or sumpters in battles involving 500-1000 troops.  Its gone a little too extreme and has completely nullified an entire class for strategus.  Im an archer and dislike cavalry, but this is fricken ridiculous and unbalanced.

This is how the mod has always balanced anything, extremes.

They decide that there is too much gold in strat, we need to reduce the quality of items used. So instead of either reducing gold or increasing item cost they do both at the same time.

I imagine they figured that this was to steer people towards player crafted items as the main source of equipping their forces. The problem is that is still extremely expensive and what players can craft is so shrouded in randomness that it is difficult for clans to plan around it. You either already have good items you can craft at a discount or you don't.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: PhantomZero on October 25, 2011, 05:41:45 am
I think it should be decided at a clan-level rather than at a player level, maybe something along the lines of the more players you have, the more shit you can craft at a discount, but the less # of masterwork or other high quality items that can be produced.

Then make it a minimum of like 10-15 players in your clan to do it at all, that way people don't just have a bunch of tiny guilds to print masterwork items.


Large #s -> Can choose to make lots of items at a discount, or few +1, +2 items.

Small #s -> Can choose to make a few items cheap, or a few high quality items.


Or, for every village you have you can choose 5 items at a discount(or 1 item super cheap), castles allow you to +1 3 items ( or +3 one item), towns give you a bigger discount to all items. 

This way a small clan could use one village to fill a niche and make super cheap spears or whatever, while a larger clan would want to diversify in order to use the towns for its main source of discounts.

Independents could still fit into this by having the clan stuff be a part of the village they are in (such as trade goods), so when someone comes to an LLJK fief, they could craft anything LLJK has chosen.

Edit: I noticed this does not particularly address neutral villages or fiefs, people would still be able to craft in these places, but due to being neutral the items craftable could be random, or a list of low-grade discount equipment shared amongst all villages, a medium-grade at castles, and high-grade at towns, shared amongst all of them.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Visconti on October 25, 2011, 06:41:46 am
I think it should be decided at a clan-level rather than at a player level, maybe something along the lines of the more players you have, the more shit you can craft at a discount, but the less # of masterwork or other high quality items that can be produced.

Then make it a minimum of like 10-15 players in your clan to do it at all, that way people don't just have a bunch of tiny guilds to print masterwork items.


Large #s -> Can choose to make lots of items at a discount, or few +1, +2 items.

Small #s -> Can choose to make a few items cheap, or a few high quality items.


Or, for every village you have you can choose 5 items at a discount(or 1 item super cheap), castles allow you to +1 3 items ( or +3 one item), towns give you a bigger discount to all items. 

This way a small clan could use one village to fill a niche and make super cheap spears or whatever, while a larger clan would want to diversify in order to use the towns for its main source of discounts.

Independents could still fit into this by having the clan stuff be a part of the village they are in (such as trade goods), so when someone comes to an LLJK fief, they could craft anything LLJK has chosen.

Love this, +1
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Jarlek on October 25, 2011, 04:44:56 pm
(click to show/hide)
:D
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Keshian on October 25, 2011, 04:51:45 pm
Phantomzero's idea is great.  To prevent glitching, but also the hassle of unchangeable accidents just make it a selection that can only be changed once a week.

Another way to format it is to give 100 points per fief, where you can put all 100 points into 1 item for huge discount and 3x loom, but then no other items, or for example put 33 points in 3 different items for 1x loom and medium discount or 20 points in 5 different items for normal items with small discount.

Or in the alternative 1x looms in villages, 2x looms in castles, and 3x looms in cities, with the point systeme above determining the percentage discount and the chance of manufacturing each hour.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Turboflex on October 25, 2011, 07:44:35 pm
Some quick #s I've noticed for equipping troops:

To put together 50 equipped troops in leather, assuming about 15-20 crafting skill per gear here are some figures:

-2 man days to recruit 50 troops
-Costs about 8000-12000 to equip 50 (leather armour, decent weapons in the 50-150 range, NOT peasant)
-So assuming a single member can make about 500g per day working (20 success x 25g profit per good traded from low prosperity fief to high prosperity one 10-15km away), that's 17-25 man days to gather the gold
-About 5 man days to craft all the gear. From what I've seen 15-20 skill = about 2.5 items produced per hour.

So roughly 24 to 32 man days to equip 50 troops once things are well organized and running efficiently. Clans that are poorly organized would take longer.

Is this too much? I don't know, that means a larger clan of 20-50 active members could put together 50-100 per day, maybe add more time though because Strategus now has some inefficiency of scale built in (reduction in efficiency from more people in fiefs). So that same clan could build up a fief conquering force of 750 soldiers in 2 weeks. Again this isn't bandit/peasant crap of falchion/scythe/padded but a step up to leather and respectable weapons.

How much faster should this be, if any?
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Relit on October 25, 2011, 08:00:06 pm
Are you taking into account the (small) amount of strat gold earned just by playing cRPG? That should bring the time down a little bit.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: CrazyCracka420 on October 25, 2011, 08:48:18 pm
So they seem to have implemented these changes because they gave up on stopping people from multi-accounting.  Wouldn't this just encourage more people to go out and use ghost accounts?  $5 isn't really shit if people take this seriously (which is obvious a lot of people do).

Maybe trying to end around the actual issue isn't the best way to go about business.  Why not just address the root problems?

Reminds me of the war on drugs.  We already have laws against murder, burglary, rape, etc.  Why would you criminalize the "good" drug users and make a law to prevent other laws from being broken?  Seems so ass backwards.  Lets deport all illegal immigrants (just to have them literally WALK back into the country).  morons.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Digglez on October 25, 2011, 08:53:34 pm
So they seem to have implemented these changes because they gave up on stopping people from multi-accounting.  Wouldn't this just encourage more people to go out and use ghost accounts?  $5 isn't really shit if people take this seriously (which is obvious a lot of people do).

This is sad because it would seem to be the easiest thing to stop.  Also instead of rewarding people for playing cRPG they nerfed it into being fairly meaningless.  You should be able to make as much or more gold in Strat by playing cRPG as you can sitting there staring at a web browser
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Braeden on October 25, 2011, 08:57:06 pm
This is sad because it would seem to be the easiest thing to stop.  Also instead of rewarding people for playing cRPG they nerfed it into being fairly meaningless.  You should be able to make as much or more gold in Strat by playing cRPG as you can sitting there staring at a web browser

You know that you don't have to watch Strat in order to make it do things, right?  You can do other things and it still works.  No need to sit and stare.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Jarlek on October 25, 2011, 10:43:40 pm
You know that you don't have to watch Strat in order to make it do things, right?  You can do other things and it still works.  No need to sit and stare.
Which totally wasn't his point.

What he said is that you earn more strat gold by micromanaging strat than by playing. This means that if you bought over 9000 different CD-keys you could log in on all of them and they would be over 9000 times as income gathering. But if you got over 9000 people to play cRPG with you and send you the strat gold they would make, it wouldn't give anything close to what maybe 10 of them would earn by doing stuff on strat. This means that it's much better to multi-account to earn gold than to actually get people playing.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Digglez on October 25, 2011, 11:06:04 pm
You know that you don't have to watch Strat in order to make it do things, right?  You can do other things and it still works.  No need to sit and stare.

its a metaphor for not having to do anything...ie AFK or clicking a few times once a week.  I can make more money being afk than I can playing the game.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Rikthor on October 26, 2011, 02:40:08 pm
Digglez is more than correct, chadz said he wanted people to make their money by playing strategus the chadzonomics simulator and yet I still do my few clicks in the browser a few times a week. Which is the same amount as last strat. The difference? We are much, much poorer now. The 4x increase on item prices in addition to the crpg gold nerf is way over done.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Beans on October 26, 2011, 05:04:23 pm
Who the fuck even buys multiple accounts of warband so they can make big money in strat? Is this some EU thing because I literally have not heard of a single NA player ever doing it, and I know a lot of SERIOUS strategus sperglords.
Title: Re: Lets talk about what it takes now to field an army in Strat
Post by: Keshian on October 26, 2011, 05:08:14 pm
Who the fuck even buys multiple accounts of warband so they can make big money in strat? Is this some EU thing because I literally have not heard of a single NA player ever doing it, and I know a lot of SERIOUS strategus sperglords.

BINGO!  Actually the big thing wasnt so much that as that clans would have huge numbers of inactive players that would give their cd keys to their clan leaders who would run it all from one computer.  Kind of like if they had bought those cd keys as those players were not even playing cRPG or strategus anymore.