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Strategus => Strategus General Discussion => Topic started by: Havoco on March 19, 2012, 04:33:22 am

Title: Continents in Strategus
Post by: Havoco on March 19, 2012, 04:33:22 am
My suggestion is this. Make two continents and split them between NA and EU. Allow all players to freely move between both continents- to trade, attack, raid- etc. BUT, while the foreign player is on the other continent, the person gets a HEAVY upkeep increase. Battles while crossing the ocean I really haven't put much thought into, but i was thinking making attacking at sea unavailable, unless you got some boat battle maps you're working on.  :rolleyes:
Thoughts, Suggestions, trollposts? Nebun also posted something like this in ToD's thread but I don't see many people supporting a complete split
Title: Re: Continents in Strategus
Post by: Tanken on March 19, 2012, 04:51:26 am
Can I still do this?

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Title: Re: Continents in Strategus
Post by: RibaldRon on March 19, 2012, 06:23:28 am
You know, I was just thinking about this in the EU/NA split thread.  If they did split it, coastal cities could be used to ferry you to one "continent" to the other.

I had not thought about the increased upkeep cost - that would be an amazing way to balance that idea!

If an opposing side wants to conquer territory in another continent, they'll have to spend a LOT of gold to do so, which might even the odds if a mega alliance is formed spanning an entire continent.  :mrgreen:
Title: Re: Continents in Strategus
Post by: autobus on March 19, 2012, 07:14:26 am
No. You already have ping difference, that's more than enough to make other continent fiefs the unwanted target.
Having two isolated regions unable to attack each other is no balance and your idea is no more than an attempt to protect weak NA region which has with no unity, economy and skill whatsoever.
You need to overcome the challenge, not avoid it.
Title: Re: Continents in Strategus
Post by: RibaldRon on March 19, 2012, 07:35:47 am
No. You already have ping difference, that's more than enough to make other continent fiefs the unwanted target.
Actually, a lot of the EU players we've been facing in NA have VERY workable pings, in the low hundreds.  You can also hire anyone for your battles, the armies are the main problem.

This is, I think, due to the position of the servers.  Meanwhile a lot of NA players will get 200+ ping on EU, especially west coast. :(


Anyway, the point is that how Strategus has played out, the UIF took control of a large portion of the map and sat, essentially peacefully trading and building up armies.  They could have hired awful players with huge pings and not lost many battles due to the massive gear advantage they had, and they are still producing massive amounts of gold to rebuild and gear out even more armies.

Something has to change in strat,  there's really no arguing that.  The old style of strat where EU and NA can interact without being split into sections seems as though it would be more balanced and fair for everyone, and since nobody wants to fight with people they like, history is going to repeat itself.  The continents idea is a pretty good suggestion, if one continent is captured entirely, they can use their massive gold surplus to invade the other at a high cost, as opposed to having a massive production bonus and the same upkeep as their opponents.


Edit: And since you generalized NA as no skill, consider that EU region encompasses more than 1/2 the map, with the most desirable trading locations.  NA land has coastal regions, and  lots of rivers (and bridges are ridiculously stupidly slow and randomly teleport you) so trade is NOT good there.

What you've seen of our battles were our already weakened armies, we were essentially shut out of the EU side of the map, unlike our NA opposition, who we had been constantly battling with up until the DRZ invasion.
Title: Re: Continents in Strategus
Post by: autobus on March 19, 2012, 08:01:20 am
I do understand what you are trying to tell me but
Ron, UIF enemies are twice as much in numbers as UIF. Gather them, make some paperwork, contracts and agreements and you will beat UIF in no time.
I am fighting on UIF side and i support them but seeing you guys turbowhining instead of actually doing something to beat your enemy makes me sad.
We have Strat v4.0 comming and i really hope that there will be an actual Anti-UIF coalition.
Title: Re: Continents in Strategus
Post by: Darkkarma on March 19, 2012, 08:04:01 am

I sort of agree with what you're saying , actually. Still, Lets get a few things out of the way first. I'd appreciate it if you'd quit making it sound as if it is a perfectly even split with no side having a more advantageous set up. The EU map has little to no mountain ranges,bridges or any of that foolishness  to deal with when it comes to designing trade routes. What's more, the current set up is just silly, EU eventually always ends up invading anyway due to the fact that most of the major players in EU (save a few) support one another and they alone pretty much outnumber every strat presence on the NA side. The current split really has little to no point. I was more content with the previous set up where the server for battles was decided on an individual basis subject to change depending on who attacked who and what server they aligned themselves with. It also made other factions work with one another regardless of where they were from as opposed to dividing them by either EU or NA. When we made our last little coalition in this round of strat that had some wiped out EU clans involved, other NA clans threw fits because EU were being given NA land, despite it being land we already owned. The tensions eventually led to the whole Green vs Red War. Something like that wouldn't have been an issue at all in the previous version of strat. To be perfectly honest, a big part of CHAOS's success in last strat came from working with European allies. DRZ and it's plethora of allies are some plotting, two-faced mother fuckers, but god damn, they know how to fight and plan for a war and it was a blast working with and against them. The NA community in general is weak, small and largely inexperienced in strat compared to our EU counter parts aside from maybe two or three factions that seem to enjoy fighting one another a great deal. As long as it is EU vs NA, NA will pretty much lose every time due to a lack of numbers,map location,and lack of unity. These problems were less apparent and game breaking in the previous version of strat. This splitting of a map was an interesting way to try and solve alot of the problems facing a community spanning over multiple continents, but it just ended up creating more problems than it fixed.
Title: Re: Continents in Strategus
Post by: autobus on March 19, 2012, 08:20:08 am
I sort of agree with what you're saying , actually. Still, Lets get a few things out of the way first. I'd appreciate it if you'd quit making it sound as if it is a perfectly even split with no side having a more advantageous set up. The EU map has little to no mountain ranges,bridges or any of that foolishness  to deal with when it comes to designing trade routes. What's more, the current set up is just silly, EU eventually always ends up invading anyway due to the fact that most of the major players in EU (save a few) support one another and they alone pretty much outnumber every strat presence on the NA side. The current split really has little to no point. I was more content with the previous set up where the server for battles was decided on an individual basis subject to change depending on who attacked who and what server they aligned themselves with. It also made other factions to work with one another regardless of where they were from as opposed to dividing them by either EU or NA. When we made our last little coalition in this round of strat that had some wiped out EU clans involved, other NA clans threw fits because EU were being given NA land, despite it being land we already owned. Something like that wouldn't have been an issue at all in the previous version of strat. To be perfectly honest, a big part of CHAOS's success in last strat came from working with European allies. DRZ and it's plethora of allies are some plotting, two-faced mother fuckers, but god damn, they know how to fight and plan for a war and it was a blast working with and against them. The NA community in general is weak, small and largely inexperienced in strat compared to our EU counter parts aside from maybe two or three factions that seem to enjoy fighting one another a great deal. As long as it is EU vs NA, NA will pretty much lose every time due to a lack of numbers,map location,and lack of unity. These problems were less apparent and game breaking in the previous version of strat. This splitting of a map was an interesting way to try and solve alot of the problems facing a community spanning over multiple continents, but it just ended up creating more problems than it fixed.

Yes, NA lands are harder to work with and i'm not denying it but thats not the main problem, you have internal conflicts and you were not ready to face your potential enemy.

No, EU is split and all the huge factions who are against the UIF and the carebear attitude just went inactive this strat but they do exist.

On the 2nd strat i was representing RuConquista, i know what was going in there, Chaos along with Mercs and FCC had a perfect chance to wipe UIF off the map, instead Mercs set up RuConquista which lead in RuC wipe by 22nd while Chaos went alliance with DRZ.
Title: Re: Continents in Strategus
Post by: Matey on March 19, 2012, 09:47:01 am
Yes, NA lands are harder to work with and i'm not denying it but thats not the main problem, you have internal conflicts and you were not ready to face your potential enemy.

No, EU is split and all the huge factions who are against the UIF and the carebear attitude just went inactive this strat but they do exist.

On the 2nd strat i was representing RuConquista, i know what was going in there, Chaos along with Mercs and FCC had a perfect chance to wipe UIF off the map, instead Mercs set up RuConquista which lead in RuC wipe by 22nd while Chaos went alliance with DRZ.

so you say NA lacks unity, and use an example of EU clans not working together as an example?

anyways... you say "NA lacks unity" like it's a bad thing: IT'S NOT!
that is why NA is interesting, that is why NA has wars and does fun shit instead of sitting around doing nothing and then mashing some small group into paste on occasion. Also, it was my goal to have all NA clans to be united in defending against any big EU aggression, but that plan failed as NA clans have enough beef with each other that some clans prefer to be minions of the UIF than to fight against them when they come knockin (lookin at you hosp... I got nothing nice to say about hosp.). While NA was busy doing its thing, UIF took all EU lands and then poured enough resources at their NA minions to take about 1/3 of the NA lands... so now the remaining NA factions were that much more screwed and it was obvious how it would play out. but im ok with that, cause at least NA had some wars.

also... strat 3.0 was extremely boring from the get go but there are a couple of events people should remember that really chased a lot of NA players away.
1. Fallen losing a great amount of their best gear and a large number of their troops just before being attacked by their enemy.
this one was done as a result of fallen taking advantage of a bug to delay the enemy army... so maybe they had it coming, but it went too far IMO, and signaled the end of strat.

and
2. When leiknir was having his jolly rampage through FCC lands and we couldnt field a roster at 3am on workdays as 90% of our players didnt give a shit about strat as it had been unbearably boring... we then launched some counter attacks to have a little fun and clear out the rabble in our lands... what happened though? well we had our big conclusive battle with leiknir and every 3 seconds 90% of our roster would get DC at which point they had to rejoin, which means spawning naked, and then getting dc 3 seconds later... while the defending team had 0 disconnects and like the true sporting gentlemen that they are, blitzed our flags and captured almost everything we had. I also feel I should point out that the faction we were fighting consisted of almost all the devs for cRPG. Coincidence? maybe... but they never bothered responding to the bug report, nor did they bother to reimburse FCC, nor did they bother to roll back the battle or take any action at all. That is the moment that killed strategus for FCC and killed the mod itself for a large number of us (though a fair amount of us have returned to cRPG (though not really to strat).

anyways... i guess what im trying to say is.. fuck you.

as for the actual topic about the continents... sure that works for me. I love the idea of NA being able to have fun playing strat and having dynamic ever changing relationships that lead to a ton of big entertaining wars and plenty of rage and drama no doubt, while the EU continent gets swept by the same people who always ally together and after they have wiped out all competition they can then arrange chivalrous battles with each other with proper gentlemanly conduct and agreed upon rules and so on, cause you know, actually fighting each other would ruin the experience.
Title: Re: Continents in Strategus
Post by: Nebun on March 19, 2012, 11:18:51 am
oh come on Matey NA got only 2 sides right now, those who with Chaos and those who is with Hospitallers, and bunch of smallers clans that switch side from time to time

maybe at first they was separate but now :) i doubt there will even be 3 separate powers on NA
Title: Re: Continents in Strategus
Post by: Lordark on March 19, 2012, 11:38:24 am
If we have 2 Na's the EU side will stop playing and so would I. So in the future maybe but for now no.
Title: Re: Continents in Strategus
Post by: Matey on March 19, 2012, 07:04:27 pm
oh come on Matey NA got only 2 sides right now, those who with Chaos and those who is with Hospitallers, and bunch of smallers clans that switch side from time to time

maybe at first they was separate but now :) i doubt there will even be 3 separate powers on NA

hard to say for sure. there has been tremendous pressure for NA to unify in order to have a chance at surviving against the UIF which control the entirety of the EU map as well as the steppes part of the NA map. I realize you count Hosp as the other side in NA but really they are just an extension of your own power, even so, like you said, there are a bunch of smaller NA factions causing shit here and there, that kind of warfare is what makes NA more fun, smaller clans are able to make a go at it here and there. as for "doubt there will even be 3 separate"... well if strat were to reset tomorrow, it is possible that NA would unify a bit more to prevent UIF from being able to launch successful invasions again... but more likely is that people would rather just have fun fighting NA vs NA wars with good ping and good time slots until you guys had farmed for a few months and were ready to end strat again. at the end of the day, for all our bitching, i bet most NA players fought in more battles with good ping and good time slot and had more fun than 99% of UIF members. it's just a shame that we have the giant coalition that comes by to stomp all over our lil game of RISK whenever he gets bored.
Title: Re: Continents in Strategus
Post by: Havoco on March 19, 2012, 09:39:52 pm
No. You already have ping difference, that's more than enough to make other continent fiefs the unwanted target.
Having two isolated regions unable to attack each other is no balance and your idea is no more than an attempt to protect weak NA region which has with no unity, economy and skill whatsoever.
You need to overcome the challenge, not avoid it.

Unable to attack each other is not what I said. With my suggestion their would still be plenty of workarounds for EU incursions into the NA continent.
ie. An Eu player handing an army over to an NA player then attacking a fief. After the fief is conquered the NA player could hand the army and fief back over to the EU player and go back to the Eu continent, etc.

You propose that there should be one large NA coalition against one large EU coalition. What would happen would be the exact thing that happened first strat with Northern Empire and UIF. Neither attacked each other because neither wanted the ping disadvantage. and from my knowledge Northern Empire viewed Fallen and UIF as pontential enemies in strat, which also led to us "defending against Eu incrusion."

IMO strat shouldn't be about who makes the largest alliance and builds up the most materials, it should be about fighting lots and lots of battles. As matey said, people would rather like fighting in a server with good ping than a series of Eu vs NA battles.
Title: Re: Continents in Strategus
Post by: Matey on March 19, 2012, 10:05:58 pm
the ping isnt even the worst of it... the ping does suck, and as someone mentioned earlier, it sucks more for NA than EU as the NA server is east coast and many EU players get 100-120 ping whereas only NA players on the extreme east coast can get 100-120 to the EU server, most get 130-180 and all the west coasters get 180-250 or so... hell i get 80-100 in the NA strat server... ive seen EU players with the same ping as me!

but anyways, as shitty as the ping is... its the time slots that are the biggest issue. it is impossible to keep people interested in strat when they know that they are going to miss 95% of the battles because all the battles happen between 4am and 4pm est... so everyone is either sleeping or at work. the FCC vs Merc war in 2.0 was an absolute nightmare for both sides and most of the people involved have no interest in fighting a similar conflict again... we have fond memories of that war, but it was miserable at the time and no one wants to skip sleep like that again.

tl;dr: people can play with bad ping and bitch about it, but people cant play when they are at work or sleeping because they have to get up in the morning. so time slots mean more than ping.
Title: Re: Continents in Strategus
Post by: Lemmy_Winks on March 20, 2012, 01:55:55 am
If strat 4.0 was to start due to DRZs invasion as some believe, it would just be a repeat of what is going on now. The exact same factions would allign with chaos/hosp and take the exact same lands and fight the exact same war that had been going on until DRZ stepped in. DRZ might even invade again. This last strat was kind of bad in that Hosp used the strategy of mass recruiting to try to get more money and troops to beat out Chaos who generally had better players, and once Chaos started to lose becuase of this they too started mass recruitment to try to compete with us as well as getting all the allies they could.

So now you are left with these 2 super factions with nothing to do but fight each other as none of the few small independent factions left could possibly stand against them for long. I preferred it when there was alot of small factions fighting each other and alliances and stuff changed all the time, there was more variety there. Also liked guilds being smaller tight nit groups instead of massive conglomerates whose sole purpose is strat dominance.
Title: Re: Continents in Strategus
Post by: BADPLAYERold on March 20, 2012, 02:21:08 am
This last strat was kind of bad in that Hosp used the strategy of mass recruiting to try to get more money and troops to beat out Chaos who generally had better players, and once Chaos started to lose becuase of this they too started mass recruitment to try to compete with us as well as getting all the allies they could.

except chaos wasn't losing until DRZ stepped in and they had all their allies before the war started
Title: Re: Continents in Strategus
Post by: Tomas_of_Miles on March 20, 2012, 02:24:30 am
I've heard that people tried to make counter alliances at the beginning of this strat. Why was it so hard to get these together?
Title: Re: Continents in Strategus
Post by: Canary on March 20, 2012, 02:26:36 am
If strat 4.0 was to start due to DRZs invasion as some believe, it would just be a repeat of what is going on now. The exact same factions would allign with chaos/hosp and take the exact same lands and fight the exact same war that had been going on until DRZ stepped in. DRZ might even invade again.

This is most certainly untrue. Even disregarding things like LLJK not being the same faction it was (any of the people who were allied to us are not the LLJK people anymore) and HoC calling it quits, not everybody holds through their diplomatic alignments once the map gets wiped.

This last strat was kind of bad in that Hosp used the strategy of mass recruiting to try to get more money and troops to beat out Chaos who generally had better players, and once Chaos started to lose becuase of this they too started mass recruitment to try to compete with us as well as getting all the allies they could.

What?

Title: Re: Continents in Strategus
Post by: Havoco on March 20, 2012, 02:36:05 am
These massive alliances have made me start thinking about having an active diplomacy menu in strat, similar to the total war diplomacy. Obviously alliances should be encouraged, but not to the point of a massive group of allies spanning half the community. Also having enemies should be encouraged. Something to the point of having an increase in item production that would recur every time a large battle was fought.
Title: Re: Continents in Strategus
Post by: Darkkarma on March 20, 2012, 02:41:20 am
This last strat was kind of bad in that Hosp used the strategy of mass recruiting to try to get more money and troops to beat out Chaos who generally had better players, and once Chaos started to lose becuase of this they too started mass recruitment to try to compete with us as well as getting all the allies they could.



I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with this. While it is true that more productivity in strat was a discussed bonus it was not our main reason for becoming more lax in our recruitment standards. We more so got tired of turning away people that were inexperienced but hungry,driven hardworking players. What's more, we saw very few members join up this strat comparatively to last strat and in between strat 2.0 and 3.0. Even then, we didn't see much of a difference in strat productivity given how horribly we got hit with the wave of inactivity. What's more, I could see making an argument for saying it was  an evenly matched war, but to say you guys were winning before DRZ and friends jumped in just isn't true. From someone that was once a Hospitaller, The strength of Hospitallers is how appealing you guys are to newer players and how quickly you can organize them and make them battle ready in terms of strat productivity. Who doesn't want to be a holy knight going to fight "evil heretics" and all of that? It really is an awesome theme. You guys seem to lose a good number of developed, individual game changing  players over time, but given how often new people want to apply and sign up and quickly change from newbies to functioning members, this is pretty much negated. Your strength has and still is in your numbers and your unity. Anyway, that's just my opinion.
Title: Re: Continents in Strategus
Post by: Lordark on March 20, 2012, 05:48:32 am
Damn str8! We ride toghether we die 2ghether! Unity!

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Title: Re: Continents in Strategus
Post by: PhantomZero on March 20, 2012, 05:50:04 am
This is most certainly untrue. Even disregarding things like LLJK not being the same faction it was (any of the people who were allied to us are not the LLJK people anymore) and HoC calling it quits, not everybody holds through their diplomatic alignments once the map gets wiped.

I must disagree, LLJK was the same faction it always has been, but this round of strategus was just a chore to play and participation was low. However, I do agree that diplomatic alignments can shift during map wipes.

The main problem for LLJK at least, was most of Strat 1 and 2 was fought against European clans, so when Strat 3 rolled around we only had allies next to us. If the Northern Empire hadn't collapsed there would have been a much greater struggle in the north.

In addition, the lack of a common enemy with which to troll was what ended up defeating LLJK.
Title: Re: Continents in Strategus
Post by: Lordark on March 20, 2012, 06:08:33 am
What chadz might do then to help solve the care bear issues is to give the faction with the most 'strat' power REWARDS and or BONUSES like perhaps Perma x2 Crpg ticks for best clan in game or Reduced crafting costs for stronger clan in game and perhaps even a minor buff for 2nd strongest. Then 2nd strongest ally in care bare clan will get sick of the one in 1st hogging all the crpg gold and then attack! Sounds simple crazy and perhaps cruel but hell if it will shut every 1 the fuck up then why not chadz my good man?
Title: Re: Continents in Strategus
Post by: Matey on March 20, 2012, 06:16:21 am
What chadz might do then to help solve the care bear issues is to give the faction with the most 'strat' power REWARDS and or BONUSES like perhaps Perma x2 Crpg ticks for best clan in game or Reduced crafting costs for stronger clan in game and perhaps even a minor buff for 2nd strongest. Then 2nd strongest ally in care bare clan will get sick of the one in 1st hogging all the crpg gold and then attack! Sounds simple crazy and perhaps cruel but hell if it will shut every 1 the fuck up then why not chadz my good man?

yeah... but then all the UIF clans would just make a faction called the UIF and take over the entire map anyways, then they all get the rewards... wait a sec... im on to you you sneaky hospitaller! you just want this to be implemented so hosp could join the UIF faction and get benefits! i see through your scheme!  8-)
Title: Re: Continents in Strategus
Post by: RibaldRon on March 20, 2012, 06:20:57 am
Reduced crafting costs for stronger clan in game and perhaps even a minor buff for 2nd strongest.
Strongest clan already has the highest production, and by stamping out enemy fiefs, they effectively reduce/remove/eliminate the competition's productivity.

Giving power to those in a position of power is always a mistake.


perhaps the AI suggestion was a good one - add bandit hideouts to the map, which will produce bandits to go raid.  Areas with a lot of peaceful & vulnerable trade caravans would be a prime target.  Fiefs could also be taken over by these bandits.

At the very least, this would give a faction in power something to do - go hunt down these bandits & their hideouts, instead of just producing/trading all day, and then rolling everybody.
Title: Re: Continents in Strategus
Post by: Tanken on March 20, 2012, 07:14:05 am
Honestly, if we split into two separate continents or better yet, two separate maps, NA would have way more fun and the battles would be much better.

This would also allow for smaller clans to come in and gain a foothold easier.


I would not mind if KUTT was an individual clan, we'd have just as much fun. We were lumped onto the Green Side by Hospitaller's hand in this previous strat by attacking Uslum, other than that, we had every intention of staying out of it. If there weren't so many alliances made up (Hospitaller + Occitan + LL + ATS + Anyone else) and (Chaos + LLJK + TKoV + KUTT + etc etc) and (HATE) and (FCC) then we would have a LOT more battles and a LOT more fun. The map would be played out accordingly, but instead, most clans have held onto Alliances throughout every Strategus and just go to benefit themselves--which is fine, but it's ruining the idea behind Strategus.

Don't get me wrong, I get that it is a Strategy driven game--but if your strategy for winning is to hold hands and craft goods then wipe out all the players who are having a great time just fighting one another till the very last coin is spent, you're just being intrusive. It wouldn't be hard to sit back for three months, and all of North America sign kum-bai-ah while we craft a shit load of gear, run trade caravans safely, and hug one another with our mouths.. but who honestly wants to be involved in that? That sounds like the most boring thing ever. I picture a Cogny person sitting in their study reading a newspaper and drinking Tea speaking to their allies, "I say ole chap, do you want to run a trade caravan? There are no scoundrels to intrude, let's do it for shits n giggles ehh?"

BORING.

What I love about North America's Strategus right now is how everyone WANTS to get INVOLVED. We want to PLAY. We want to KICK ASS and CHEW BUBBLEGUM. But then you have European Nations who sit back and say, "Hey, let's make love to one another, build up an army, when they're really vulnerable, let's stick a knife in their ribs....but let's wait 4 months to do it."

Two separate mentalities.

=

Two separate maps.

In other words..

(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Continents in Strategus
Post by: Lordark on March 20, 2012, 10:42:15 am
you all make valid points. Very well, ! :!: :idea: :?: :(