If you could change the way strategus battles work...

[Tomas_of_Miles]

Input: 2 parties, different troops, different weapons, fighting on different locations (villages, castles, towns, plains)
Ingame Battle: ?
Output: 1 party wins.

Two parties. Troop number is the amount of tickets that human players can use. However, independent of this figure there are a number of commandable bots on either side. They are equipped with selections of the weapons that the commanders bought, with stats that allow them to use any weapon, to a minimum of use, i.e. enough power throw to use throwing spears but not enough wpf. Or perhaps power draw for any bow but no horse archery. Locations would have to be redesigned with AI maps (which is a crazy stupid amount of work but it's ok because brainstorming). These bots might make adequate spawn guards if commanded by a single human player. Also bots could populate random roving parties (opportunity for creative dev with ideas for custom troop design) and attack Strat players, and people could still sign up and fight on either side etc. Maybe devs could even have limited control over the movements of such parties.

Cons: bots in Strat?!?!?! Impossibru.
Pros: bots in Strat. Always some kind of standing army (albeit a naked one if you have no equipment).

Expecting lots of minuses.

[Corsair831]

2 ideas --

[IDEA A]

Make the 3 flags spawn at the start of the battle, and change the ticket system so it works in a similar way to the way it does in some ticket games (battlefield 2 off the top of my head) ...

 Where if team 1 controls 2/3 flags and team 2 controls 1/3 flags, then every time a person from team 1 spawns it will use 2 tickets, and every time someone from team 3 spawns it will use 3 tickets. If someone captures all of the flag points, then their team loses just 1 ticket per respawn whilst the enemy loses 3 tickets per respawn. Basically whoever controls the most flags loses the least tickets.

This means teams will have to think more tactically about taking areas of the map and holding them, rather than just constantly deathmatching into each other. Splitting up into units per team using teamwork and stuff could spice things up a hell of a lot .

Injection of tactics and map control into strat would not be a bad thing i think ? ;)


[IDEA B]

increase the respawn timer by a Lot -- make it so that people have to really really value their lives (im talking like a 30 second starting respawn timer increasing by ~~3 seconds per death)

 -- that would make people value their lives a lot more, and therefore ... make tactics more important ...

of course if you were doing this, you'd have to make the battles a lot shorter by reducing tickets by ~~ 1/3 what they are atm.

Also the tickets system in strat battles, what do you think about this, completely separate from my other idea,

[Chagan_Arslan]

Add physical presence on map as a factor in how big roster is.

This is just an example so numbers could be worked out:

If every battle would have 50 slots available for battle, half of which would be for people from anywhere on the map and the other half for people in the close proximity to the person that attacks/defends, i think this would make strategus/battles much more dynamic.

- You would punish large faction for streching too much, leaving them vurnable in certain parts of their empire (No 50 man roster in every battle)
- Players that are in physical range of battle would have very high chance of joining (instead of not being accepted due to lack of place in roster)
- More power to small factions, which can make use of the bigger roster if they play it smart on strategus map
- A true place for mercenaries in strategus, by getting hired they would follow their employer and make use of the close proximity slots.

[Andswaru]

Add physical presence on map as a factor in how big roster is.

This is just an example so numbers could be worked out:

If every battle would have 50 slots available for battle, half of which would be for people from anywhere on the map and the other half for people in the close proximity to the person that attacks/defends, i think this would make strategus/battles much more dynamic.

- You would punish large faction for streching too much, leaving them vurnable in certain parts of their empire (No 50 man roster in every battle)
- Players that are in physical range of battle would have very high chance of joining (instead of not being accepted due to lack of place in roster)
- More power to small factions, which can make use of the bigger roster if they play it smart on strategus map
- A true place for mercenaries in strategus, by getting hired they would follow their employer and make use of the close proximity slots.

Sounds nice and I +1 the general idea but it screams to me "please engage in account sharing as i need 25 mindless clones to follow my army around the map".

[Casimir]

1.) A greater emphasis on commander skill and tactical prowess should be implemented.  IMO player skill should be less important in strat battles than cRPG.  Players should fuction far more like a drone for the commander and team cohesion and strategy should be rewarded.

2.)Aggressive play should be rewarded, dropping enemy flags and control of the map should result in reward.  Players should not be punished for attacking and should be incentiviced to take the initative and attack and enemy rather than waiting to defend.

3a.) Spawn waves should also be introduced, of which the commander may decide what gear the players may choose from.  Commanders should be able to automatically see players stats so that they may pre assign them to a battalion which can have certain equipment available to it, i.e. Heavy inf, Lancer, Archer etc.

3b.) A central area of the map should also be the key objective, controlling this area would allow for ddecreased time between spawn waves. 

4a.) Auto-generated maps should be removed entirely fram strategus and replaced with a series of precreated battle maps.  I believe a project for briges has already begun, but i believe all maps should be premade to avoide the rediculously unbalanced maps.

4b.) Make it so an attack may select the map he wishes (available froma  regional pool i.e. desert, mountain, plains, snowy etc.) as well as the time for attack, which is limited to prime time depending on the continent he is on.  Defenders should be allowed to appeal this via seperate selection, at an expence of reduced set up time in game.  Failure by the attacker to meet the defenders appeal should result in increased defender set up time.  The aim of this would be to encourage cohesion and better battle times / maps.

Feel free to comment and critize these ideas, there just a few that popped into my head while sat in uni. I'm sure many have terrible flaws or abuses that i havent seen.

[Erasmas]

Sounds nice and I +1 the general idea but it screams to me "please engage in account sharing as i need 25 mindless clones to follow my army around the map".

This. uhhh did I really say that????

It would mostly mean forum wars: "c'mon loosers, y u no attacking us, carebearing should be banned, we are waiting for u", instead of "real" ones....

[Chagan_Arslan]

Sounds nice and I +1 the general idea but it screams to me "please engage in account sharing as i need 25 mindless clones to follow my army around the map".

follow mode on map is already in ;]

[Firebrand]

I don't know. Firstly i wanna say that gathering good army to enjoy battle takes ages. Buying loomed equipment around whole map, endless trading, crazy slow movement speed makes whole gameplay procces really boring. It would be good if devs could add more dynamic in gameplay. Faster travel, faster army gathering and faster money earning...

 About battles. As we have eu map splitted on two huge sides - UIF vs Anti-UIF - so problem with roster for small clans partitially solved cause if you will attack or defend against UIF faction for example, so you can count on guys from Anti-UIF coalition to join battle on your side, there is always ppl who wants to help you with battle even comanding and they even can allow you to use their TS channel. So to roster its not big problem untill we have this "cold war" (thanks to UIF).

But what i have miss in strategus is RPG element for building my army. In singleplayer i enjoyed travel around map and hire different units in different fiefs. Each unit had different stats and upgrade tree. With every battle units are gaining xp, they lvl up and become stronger. From peasants to knights. It was fun. Why we cant use this in strat? Let players hire different units with pre-defined builds that they will reach in the end of trainings and lets players play in battles for those units in battle. And only army generals can use they "real" cRPG builds - to feel them selves as heroes against low lvl soldiers!
There is many others ideas about such kind gameplay, more strategic and RPG elements to discuss to make strategus playable and joyfull.

[Elindor]

  The making of more location specific strat maps that many mappers are working on right now is clutch.

If the battle occurs at a bridge, it should be a bridge map.
If the battle occurs in the forest, it should be a forest map.
If the battle occurs in the snowy mountains, it should be a snowy mountain map.

This way armies engaging in the open would have options available to them.  One might actually WANT to go through forests to avoid a big army trailing them or something, especially if they are low on horses (a forest map would cut down the effectiveness of cav).

  In addition to this, make it so that an army on the map could "fortify" itself.  It would take 2h or something but it would basically mean that if an army fortified and got attacked, they would spawn as defenders in a very very basic defensive area - like inside a circle of spikes with a couple raised platforms for archers, some tents, etc. 

[Tomas]

Other than maps I don't think the battles themselves need to change.

I would like to change the roster system though and here's how

Split rosters into two

Section 1 = Soldiers
- Soldiers' rosters are done via a white list. 
- All your own faction plus your "listed allies" automatically get white listed.
- Individual Players can also be white listed
- The roster size for these is approximately half what it is now but it only controls the number of your white listed players that can be spawned at the same time.
- Spawning is done in turn with the spawn timer determining your place in the queue.
- Soldiers use up whatever equipment your character has on them

Section 2 = Commoners
- Commoners' rosters are done via blacklist
- Your "listed enemies" are automatically black listed and individual players and clans can also be black listed
- Players can also be black listed mid battle.
- Commoners' rosters are unlimited in size but with the same limit on troops spawned at once.
- If both sides have extra commoners present within a battle then the spawned troops limit will get automatically increased.  It cannot go lower than the default though.
- Commoners do not use up tickets and will continue to spawn until the Soldiers have used up all the armies tickets.
- Commoners use default free equipment (both as attackers and defenders)
- The level of the free gear is increased to include 20-25BA stuff and slightly better weapons so that people are no longer peasants.
- Commoners can earn some sort of Valour based XP reward for doing well (Soldiers can't).

What the above achieves
- A Drop in nature to Strat Battles whereby casual players don't need directly accepting but won't damage their team by dying often or not following orders.  If they are truely annoying or TK they can be immediately black listed though.
- Less stress on normal players in battle.  If you can only fight the first 20 mins then this is now fine.
- A nice reward for players that die less
- A bad side to having too many players in your alliance as your good players will spawn less often.
- Room for less skilled players and newbies in battles

The above is more than a little complicated and I have explained it very badly so have fun working it out

Here's an example to help though
1000 vs 1000 battle
 old roster size = 50
Max Soldiers spawned at once = 25
Max Commoners Spawned at once = 25 (unless both teams have extra commoners)
Max Soldier tickets = 1000
Max Commoner Tickets = infinite
Battle ends once a team loses all its Soldier Tickets

There's a few other ways or doing this as well rather than black lists and white lists - but you did ask for big changes

[Teeth]

First of all, good luck reading all these wall of texts, if you ever will.

Idea 1
I'll start with the TL;DR version: Strategus battles like regular battle mode

With that out of the way, let's elaborate. The current battles are basically a huge grindfest, where only global tactics have any use and yet it is mostly equipment and ticket count that decides who wins. Respawns make the game an hour long deathmatch. I say remove respawns, imagine regular battle mode with 120 players on, with all of them on teamspeak. Wouldn't that be glorious? Every order a commander gives matters, every player that dies, is gone for good. If you manage to catch the enemy archers off guard, they are dead forever, instead of just respawning ten seconds later, making your clever ploy a waste of time. I know it is pretty crazy, but just think about it.

Example of ticket scaling. 500 troops (A) attack a 1000 troops (B). If 120 players is the total troop count that means A gets 40 players while B gets 80. They spawn, fight until 1 side is dead, end of battle. Yes, A will get its buttraped by B. That is what you get for fighting a 1 to 2 battle.

I am convinced that this would be epic for field battles, but sieges would pose a problem, Their defensive position will grant them to many kills before the attackers are able to get a foothold. I have some solutions but I am pretty sure that my idea is deemed too radical anyway, so I can't be arsed to double my wall of text.


Idea 2
In any case, the respawn speed should be reduced and there should be ticket scaling. 2000 tickets actually meaning 2000 players that have to die, makes any battle devoid of tactics. Scale everything to 500 per team and do reinforcement respawning like in singleplayer. The dead people of your team respawn as soon as you get below 1/4th or maybe 1/2 of the players alive. This will create a natural wave system and a tactical element that will greatly increase the importance of proper commanding, maneuvering and troop composition.

[Elindor]

Something like this  http://forum.meleegaming.com/strategus-general-discussion/strat-only-stats/

Basically stats for STRAT only which you get to assign and can respec (with some delay) that make your character on the map different than someone elses.  Maybe some people are generals, others are traders, others are lords, etc etc...with different skills.

(This is for strat in general but applies to battles since, for example, those that choose combat leading skills would be have advantages when they led an army)

[BaleOhay]

I would like to see it where you do not always have to play your regular Crpg build.

Maybe make the person when they hire build a ratio of types of troops they hire.

archer/shield/two hander.. Would make buying equipment easier since you know how many of each type of unit your army is marching with. Then when you spawn pick the type you want. Comes with the load out already purchased and a pre determined build by the owner of that army.

When that army is out of archers... no more spawning as one. Pick a different type.

Would make planning for fights more interesting.

[Arathian]

I generally like strategus chadz. It doesn't need a re-design.

I would do 2 big changes. Both of them I analytically laid down in the 2 following threads.

http://forum.meleegaming.com/strategus-general-discussion/uses-of-renown-(suggestion)/msg647303/#msg647303

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Since this is a strategus suggestion, I thought it would fit here more. If this is the wrong place, feel free to move it.

Right, as of now, we have renown that does...well, nothing. chadz has some basic, good, ideas of what it should do, however alone these ideas could create an imbalance.

The original suggestion was for renown to increase troop recruitment. That is a very good idea, and I would like to start with that. It should certainly do that. For example, it could increase recruitment by 10% per 20k renown or so (rough numbers). However, this leads us to a problem: old players simply get a big advantage over new ones.

There is a way to solve this. Make renown also a resource. This means that give players a way to "spend" renown for big short-term benefits. That way players will (usually) not just accumulate huge amounts of renown but instead spend it thus keeping it down to reasonable levels.

A few ways renown could be spend (again, rough ideas)

-forced march: removes exhaustion, replaces it with a full time quick march again but doubles the exhaustion twice afterwards (can't be used twice in a row).
-surprise attack: give defenders less time to prepare for the attack.
-recruitment drive: increases troop recruitment by a huge % for a day (make it worth it)

I am sure you gentlemen can think of more. Ideally, most players will want to at spend a big part of their renown gains but not spend it all as soon as they get it.


The second part of this suggestion is about trading. chadz said he wanted to give renown for trading. That is, in my opinion, a mistake under my current suggestion. Instead, renown should be for millitary combat only. Traders should have a different resource, let's call it "fame".

Fame could be gained by...well...trading. Unlike renown, its benefits should be to trading itself. So, fame passively will decrease weapon and good prices but then can also be spend on various things.

-bargain: reduce prices for weapons and armors by X big amount for a small period.
-logistics: weight from goods will temporarily slow you down much less
-hide cargo: will stop the enemy from taking a percentage of your cargo in case he beats you.
edit: -kind of silly to forget this. <insert appropriate name for selling stuff more expensively> : you sell stuff more expensively for a small period of time  (surprising effect, init?  )

something cool I also came up with (but very unlikely to be implemented) is "caravan defence" where, when you defend, you start in a mini-fort made of carts.


This would not only help make the game more deep and interesting (at least until the gr...certain clans decide to abuse it :3) but also help strategus specialization. While everyone can technically still do everything, clans will want to have dedicated traders and warriors in their ranks which would make for an interesting dynamic.

http://forum.meleegaming.com/suggestions-corner/surrender-retreat-and-battles-a-strategus-suggestion/msg629851/#msg629851

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Hello, I have been playing strategus a bit more lately and I have a suggestion about our current "retreat" system.

First of all, "retreat" is miss-named. Currently, for all intends and purposes, it is "surrender". You lose all your troops AND gear when you retreat. While functional (it ends pointless battles quicker), I think this functionality could very easily be vastly improved.

First of all, there should be 2 options: surrender, and retreat. 

Surrender would require the enemy team to accept the offer of surrender. If this happens, the team that surrenders loses all its troops except the first 100 and all its gear BUT is granted a 2 hour battle immunity. That could be used in a hopeless situation for the one side where surrendering could at least preserve SOME of the troops if the other side is generous enough.

Retreating would be a different beast entirely. Retreating wouldn't be bilateral. You could just retreat. It essentially simulates the "well, shit guys, this is impossible. Time to leg it" situation. The team that retreats keeps all its troops and a very small amount of gear (let's say, 5% of the original?) but has a very very big speed bonus reduction for about 2 hours (for example 70%). That way, attacks on cities don't have to be suicidal afairs in case of the attacker losing.

These changes would help give more than 1 potential outcome to a battle. Currently, the ONLY possible outcome is: one side gets destroyed. The potential for tactical deepness with retreats, surrenders and, of course, battles to the end gets vastly improved not to mention it eases up the pain of a mistaken attack a bit.

Please read the suggestions chadz. I think they would vastly improve strategus.

Also yeah...get rid of raid, or at least re-design it so the defenders get at least a part of the population to come to the battle.

[Tot.]

Two free-floating commanders who are pretty much in spect mode, they assign their troops to different groups and set flags like go-to/assault here/defend this for them. Basically RTS game for two people, TPP for the rest. Link it with XP/gold for being near your group-flag like it was in the ancient times in cRPG battles.

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There's obviously more, ie. Strat with hex grid, turn-based with 24-hour turns, movement speed tiles/day, certain number of actions per day, initiative to determine opposing actions priority, possibility to hide your army in a woods tile and prepare an ambush, battles only in primetime 20-24, if there are more at given day than can be fought in that time just pause the whole thing for a day; that way every evening there would be some fun battles to participate in for everyone instead of current travian-like system.

Most importantly though link Strategus with substantial cRPG rewards, so that people actually do give a fuck. XP and gold isn't enough. Holding cities/mines/whatever should generate in cRPG ie. periods of free repairs/bonus multi/items/gold/heirloom points.

Though it might be way too late.