Let's take a moment and LOL together.

[Tomas]

Strat's main problem is that there is no cap on what you can have, and the more clan members you have willing to just craft the quicker you will gain resources.

This means that a faction with 50 people will constantly out grow a clan with 40 members.

Why is this a problem? - because Strat becomes a race over the first month and the following 5 months are just mopping up.  Once a clan falls behind they cannot catch up and new clans have no room to enter the game except as Vassals/Friends of the leading clans.

What can be done?
1) Cap troop numbers.  A simple 100 troops max per person system with a Single Player style reinforcing system would make a big difference.  The biggest clans/alliances would still be the most powerful, but at least a smaller clan with a higher % of active players would be able to put more troops in the field.  Fief ownership could boost an individuals max troops to give a good reason for taking all fiefs and not just villages. 

2) Remove the ability to buy the higher tier equipment from the AI and make those items craftable only.  Since troops are limited by #1 then equipment levels will be higher in general, making that higher level equipment only available to crafters limits the gear to a reasonable level and also encourages independent crafters to sell their equipment on Town marketplaces.

3) Remove personal goods production and instead make people craft goods that can only be sold on a fief marketplace so that any trader can come in and buy them.  This makes trading available to everybody and also means traders will make more trade runs instead of having to spend a week crafting in between each trip.  More trade runs = more opportunities to raid.  This idea also means that goods crafting efficiency penalties can be removed from the game and clans will welcome tax paying randomers to their fiefs.  A 1 week cooldown between goods price changes will prevent exploit and if you wanted to make this a bit more fun you could let the crafters "build houses" in fiefs and then upgrade them for e-peen reasons.  To enable easier prediciton of how this will work in strat, I would remove goods crafting costs from the game but up the min visiitng fees to 10 gold. Its 1 less random factor to think about.  The current goods price/prosperity system would still be used to determine selling prices, so crafters in the remote corner villages will know that their goods will sell for upto 150 gold and will price accordingly.  Of course every crafter will want to be setting up their so competition for prices will be pretty high.

The above 3 changes are pretty simple to add to strat but would make a big difference in creating a stable global economy that is accessible to all, whilst rewarding activity over inactivity on the military side of things.  They changes don't really address the Mega alliances directly but they will definitely make it easier for clans to hold onto their lands as it will take a much more coordinated attack to displace them.

Personally, I would prefer more drastic changes to Strat such as the AI kingdoms ideas that have been presented, but this at least is a step in the right direction.

[Osiris]

Problems is with the amount of people who can craft/farm gold/troops, not the people in battle. Ofcourse most of the carebears don't see/don't care about that since they have the number advantage and are playing easymode.

Most of the idiots in here ofcourse believe that this is all baseless QQ or just generally have no clue what the whine is about. Osiris is the most recent example ^.

considering the size of your clan in recent strat versions then your QQ about numbers is just funny

[Lorenzo_of_Iberia]

considering the size of your clan in recent strat versions then your QQ about numbers is just funny

As far as I am aware in strat, the fallen generally picked fights with opponents the same size as them, whereas this strat even if you claim you arnt all siding with each other I'm pretty sure most clans that had any success this strat outnumbered whoever they were warring against quite drastically. You can call it a matter of picking your fights, but in the same sense no one thinks its cool for a 20 year old guy to pick on a 5 year old

[Vibe]

considering the size of your clan in recent strat versions then your QQ about numbers is just funny

Check the first few posts in this thread then come talking about numbers again.

[Osiris]

so in the past the fallen have never been massive and have never attacked smaller clans? I call BS on that

[[ptx]]

Templars have been massive and attacked smaller clans and done so with great pompousness and all, what does it matter now?

[Vibe]

so in the past the fallen have never been massive and have never attacked smaller clans? I call BS on that

Don't know, but we sure as hell haven't made peace with 3/4 of EU and dominated the map making it impossible to play as a small and/or independent clan.

You guys killed EU Strat. What now, you guys gonna fight each other? Gonna believe that when I see it. Most likely it will be idling until Strat reset. And then rinse repeat until devs actually change the core mechanics.

[Lorenzo_of_Iberia]

so in the past the fallen have never been massive and have never attacked smaller clans? I call BS on that

For as long as I have played strat, I only remember fallens having a major war with the northern alliance, which was roughly the same size Maybe in strat v1 they had (I honestly dont know) but that was so long ago They have never from what I have seen attacked say a 40 man clan (mercs) + rag tag remnants (lets say 40 and be generous) with 100 DRZ + Crusader Alliance + others I cant remember the whole list but I think Ravens had some part and they are another 40

I get it that some people want to be successful in strat and one way is via economy but strategus is a mod for a game with one of the best combat mechanics around atm. Why would you waste that quality by playing overlords and only ever mopping up small factions, there is no real challenge and imo no real fun in it. I like the idea that if I choose to go to war, there is a good chance I could lose and that the stakes are high, not that I have pretty much won this cause even if this army dies the rest of my allies will step in before I can get counter attacked. If it was a real life war I could understand but this is a game that was made for battling factions, not trading lords and ladies

And as an extra just to cover my back from a GK angle, yes we were vassals to the Fallen last 2 strats. Why?

- we are an all cav clan and when we started strat we had 14 or so active players, we needed an infantry bulk and fallen had that
- No small clans ever fight in strategus they all have big bad brothers so we needed one
- After realising the redundancy of cavalry in strat v3 and the fact that the course of banditry is no long term solution (24 hour lockdowns, lack of villages) we had no choice but to help our friends out in a war they were struggling with.

[Casimir]

Strat 1.0 fallen repeatidly attacked smaller factions who established near their borders ir their allies. E.g. Hospitallers.

Strat 2.0 fallen ally with FCC and TKoV to attack the NE, which basically became a mopping up operation considering the force of numbers. Fallen then only continued to do war by proxy iirc.

Strat 3.0 fallen are defeated by alliance of Crusaders, Wolves, Hospitaller and Occitain.

[Nebun]

Oh like you guys haven't QQ-ed at all when we were at war? 
There was massive QQ and silly excuses every time you lost from you guys pretty much every day then. RETARD THE SERVER. lmao

Atleast we have a real reason to whine. Many agree. The others are socially retarded people like DRZ, Grey, Hospitaller with a few monglos like Paul, Fluffy_Muffin and so on, who are simply too blind to see the flaws of this game and would rather play easy mode (or idle apparently) all the time. Fuck the community, right?

Have your Strat, I have my Rageball. /pats Wilson

How can u be so stupid Idiotic comments like yours making clans u piss off get closer together so they could wipe u over and over
Can you hope for diplomacy reset after next strat wipe? ) I don't think Mercs, Fallen or FCC will ever get their diplomacy reset with us.

Respect to HRE for not crying.

[Vibe]

How can u be so stupid Idiotic comments like yours making clans u piss off get closer together so they could wipe u over and over
Can you hope for diplomacy reset after next strat wipe? ) I don't think Mercs, Fallen or FCC will ever get their diplomacy reset with us.

Respect to HRE for not crying.

Don't care about that to be honest. It's up to the devs to change the game, you guys have shown over and over that you would do anything to win the easiest way, even if it means breaking it completely for others.
On top of that, what makes you think we'd like to be friends with you? 
You guys can bond as much as you want, but since having a number advantage is a clear indication of victory in Strat, wipes and wins you do are meaningless to anyone who has a brain.

In short, /care.

PS: Your diplomacy reset button worked great for Strat 3.0

[Gristle]

I don't think Mercs, Fallen or FCC will ever get their diplomacy reset with us.

You don't think so? What can we do to remove all doubt?

[BlindGuy]

Templars have been massive and attacked smaller clans and done so with great pompousness and all, what does it matter now?

But God willed that.

[Xinot]

so more people shouldnt be able to produce more?

[Vibe]

so more people shouldnt be able to produce more?

Exactly.