Well, that was fun

[Thovex]

Less whining more battling!

[Keshian]

Yes, current situation is, once again, shitty as hell. I'm trying very hard to find something to not only crush those big alliances, but nerf big clans into oblivion as hell. Once a 30 guy clan/group/whatever is no longer more dangerous than a 10 guy clan, and clans start splitting up and fight each other, then I'm happy. Before that, I'll swing that feature&nerf hammer so long and hard until I succeed. Strat will have no future until I succeed in that.

I'm not blaming anyone in those factions, although I really don't get why you're playing the way you're playing. My limited experience in previous strat rounds in a carebear faction was like this:
Let's attack!
We can't, they'd crush us!
Then let's attack them!
We can't, they'd have allies that crush us.
So what now?
We find allies ourselves!

Needless to say, the fun was somewhat limited. I can say I never had so much fun as I have in current strat, of course with an expiry date, it's just a matter of time until we get crushed, but, even if it's only for a few days, I prefer having fun in those, than being in a soviet union simulator for half a year.

 I agree.
  Strangely Strat 1.0 had the most diverse number of alliances and wars up until all of Eastern Europe united into UIF 1.0 (and even then a lot of battles and wars).  No other strat version had so many fluctuations of fortune and broad sweeping wars.  2.0 was 2nd best for this and 3rd was worst.The pattern seems to be going the wrong way and there is a reason for this:

By making gold and troops far more difficult to make and produce the intention was to favors smaller, more active clans over large multiple cd-key inactive clans.  But like economics, when you reduce the money supply you slow the velocity of money as well.  By making buildup to battles ever more elaborate and requiring more individuals to pull it off, you made large battles less common and more important, which caused the fluctuations of fief ownership to slow down - this is the core of mega alliances as people solidify holdings and become more entrenched in alliances around these holdings and fewer clans taking risks because coming back from losing a war is so much harder now.

The tick system is a good step in the right direction, but the gold (+100/tick) and troop production (+10/tick) should be significantly higher allowing for more diverse battles (most battles right now are fief transferships with no real fight).  (also increase gold buy/sell/profit of trading 5x). To help balance this make ticks even more restrictive so need to play every day or two to get benefit.

People may worry that small factions may be even worse off, but the FCC was only Cavalieres and Bridgeburners, a 6 man faction in Strat 1.0 and we took and lost several fiefs repeatedly including a city and were more active than in Strat 3.0 with 60-70 members.  So many great battles to merc for as well for little guys as people were always looking for mercs as there were so many battles they couldn't always just fill up the roster with clan members like now where battles are a slow buildup.  Also, neutral fiefs, expecially castles and cities are a great thing in the beginnning - just having people merc against you in neutral fiefs creates opportunities for conflict down the road and they provide a lot of early big battles, which strat 4.0 is lacking.

Strat 1.0 and the middle to end of Strat 2.0 were the most fun I've had since starting cRPG 3 years ago.

[Casimir]

How do you think kingdoms are formed my friend.

[Zlisch_The_Butcher]

Really glad that you see it this way. The same here, I am having more fun than I've ever had in Strategus. The system is so much better and playing in a loosely organized, aggressive faction is much better than playing in a boring mega alliance, even if it won't last.

This is why you'll probably fail (+ you're heathens), you're willing to just accept that you're losing the game, Werfrieds Battalion is blessed by the one true goat and therefore us prevailing is the only logical option, but, if we were all expecting to lose and were just gonna GTX at the first sign of bad luck we'd lose Morks favor and he'd let us die out, for the goat and for lord Werfried!

[Keshian]

I just realized how much fail the voting system was for actually having an interesting strategus round.  So I broach the idea of fucking up some decent sized clan and forcing them out of their fiefs in an equal sided war.  Then someone mentioned - what about their castles/city?  And it hit me - by allowing castles and cities to be voted for instead of hard-won late game through fighting, you gave most clans on the map strongholds that cant be taken for months so any war you initiate doesn't force them out of their territory. 

Instead they just retreat to their castle/city, save up, and attack you back.  Nothing gets accomplished and you dont force them out of territory, just gain a new enemy.  In older strategus version the early game had the most jostling for location and position that created new wars and enemies and you could force a clan to relocate out of your local region.  It wouldn't be the stagnant cold war nightmare its set up to be.  If we had the troop/gold production of strat 1.0 it wouldn't be quite so bad, but since we don't every clan was given impregnable fortresses without a fight.

I could use a really good neutral fief fight right about now, this is getting boring.

[IR_Kuoin]

Looks like Al_Adin has a job to do

[Casimir]

i dont understand the new wave of people this strat who have joined, said they intend to play for fun and then got surprised when they were taken out by more serious and focussed factions.  Its exactly the same as a bunch of pubbies on eu1 getting steam rolled by an organized clan, just bigger.

[Bjord]

i dont understand the new wave of people this strat who have joined, said they intend to play for fun and then got surprised when they were taken out by more serious and focussed factions.  Its exactly the same as a bunch of pubbies on eu1 getting steam rolled by an organized clan, just bigger.

Yeah, some people even go as far as making a thread about how far their panties went up their ass and start crying about carebears. Ironic, 'innit.

[Jarlek]

Yeah, some people even go as far as making a thread about how far their panties went up their ass and start crying about carebears. Ironic, 'innit.

The best part is he got the blocks wrong xD

[Falka]

I personally think that making bandids liars will improve gaming experience of small fiefless clans.

This. Visible and accessible only for non faction players or members of small clans. Currently big boys caravans are safe even without army because it's almost impossible to attack caravan and then run away on their territory.

I have even heard several sayings like: "Brothers in wine, brothers in war", referring to the close bond of Hungary and Poland.

In Poland we have the same saying: Polak Węgier dwa bratanki, i do szabli, i do szklanki 

[Corsair831]

best way to beat these carebear noobs is to bandit them ;) ... get loads of rounceys and attack their caravans when they're far away from any help, then run away rinse and repeat.

you're never going to be able to hold territory against someone that strong. Best you can manage to do is to harrass them ;)

also, who says your faction won't last teeth ? ... they can't kill you, that's the beautiful thing ... even if they beat you down and beat you down to pitchforks and shirts, i know for a fact that 600 troops with pitchforks and troops will beat 200 troops heavily armed (as soon as the first weapon scavenging starts it's good bye advantage) ..

if you get beaten down to a bloody pulp where you've all got 100 gold left, get 6 guys with 100 troops and 100 pitchforks each to attack one of their "heavily armed we think we're indestructible but in fact are insanely easy to beat" caravans 

[Vibe]

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[Tibe]

Id like to compare this little situation to the "Civilization" game. Sure you can basically murder every other smaller and less developed nation straight at the middle of the game and make alliance with a nation that is equal to yours, but that just leaves you picking your nose and clicking next turn till the end of the game. Sure you can get more resources and shit when you annhiliate everything in your path, but whats the point when you pretty much kicked all who to wave those awesome things at out of the game. Same in strat.

More players = more fun. Start beating people out of the game and you have noone to wave your successes and hard work at( I know some people care about that), exept your clanmates, but even they will be all like "cool story bro".

I think the huge problem here is that there isnt much variety in strat. Nothing exept declare wars and trade. And as I heard trading is kinda ruined factor. Id suggest things like bounties, player bountyhunters, player monks who convert religions, creating civil unrests in tiefs, spies. Strat leveling like for spying, spreading religion, leadership, trade etc etc . Things are just too stable in tiefs and player parties. Get a tief, watch out for large armies....profit till then. Players got nothing to do but just bot in villages or move to conqure. Cant blame them for just fighting all the time.

[Tomas]

The #1 reason why alliances form is to fill rosters with reliable players.  As a rough estimate it takes at least a 200 man alliance to guarantee filling a 50 man roster and since there are only 500ish players on EU in Strat then of course there is only room for 2 alliances.  It is also the #1 reason why small clans struggle and independent players fail in the end

So here's what I propose

1) Slightly reduced roster sizes in general.
mercs = power(smaller_army_size,0.6)
capped at 50 mercs

Results

(click to show/hide)

army size - mercs
0      0
50      12
100      16
200      22
300      26
400      30
500      33
600      36
700      38
800      40
900      43
1000      45
1100      47
1200      49
1300      50
1400      50
1500      50
...
2000      50

As you can see a 100 vs 100 battle would get reduced down to just 16 mercs from its current 28, and village battles at 200 defending troops would only have 22 mercs.  The big Castle and Town sieges meanwhile will still have at least 45 (Castle) or 50 (Town) mercs.

This makes raiding much easier and also slightly prolongs the smaller battles so that they feel less like time wasted.

2)  Remove the reduced upkeep of troops in Fiefs.  This just encourages carebearing over attacking.  If troops cost the same everywhere then faction with too many troops would be forced to get rid of them and actually attack someone.

3) Anonymous mercing.  Only the roster manager can see who you really are.

[dodnet]

Good suggestions. Though I prefer larger battles, its hard to fill a roster as non-member of one of the carebear-alliances. Especially at the non-usual times. Also the roster-size should be reduced even more at those times where hardly anyone is playing (night, morning and during the day).

3) Anonymous mercing.  Only the roster manager can see who you really are.

That would be nice, but at last during battle you would see the names. So still no carebear1 would play against a carebear1-clan.