The minimum number of changes to make Strat 5 interesting

[Tomas]

Here's my attempt to describe the most important problems with Strat 4 and then identify solutions to solve them with the minimum of work

Problem 1: Too much of an advantage for defenders after winning a siege.
Solution 1: Destroyed walls should stay destroyed for a minimum of 24 hours after a battle and after that they should have to be repaired using PP.
Result: If you re-attack a Fief within 24 hours you don't have to redestroy the walls.  After that you may or may not have to depending on whether or not any PP have been saved up for repairs.

Problem 2: Voting is a bit too hardcore
Possible Solution 2: Remove the element of choice for normal faction members and make them automatically vote for their own faction in their nearest fief.  Faction Leaders then select a candidate for each fief from the list of their members voting for the specific fief.  So if 3 of my players vote for Jelbegi, I pick which one of them they are all voting for.  To stop clans amassing votes there should be a gradual penalty in vote strength for clans over 100 members.  To stop people joining other factions just for the voting then there should be a Strat Tick cost for swapping factions - you can go negative in Strat ticks due to this but won't be productive again until you regain the lost ticks.
Result: Hopefully less stress on vote day

Problem 3: It can be hard for small clans to fill rosters
Solution 3: Smaller rosters for smaller battles. Big battles (1000vs1000 and over) should stay at 50vs50 but the small 100vs100 battles should decrease to 15vs15 imo instead of the current 25vs25 (ish).  Everything in between then scales.  On top of this allow all players to create a pseudonym for playing strat anonymously.  If your cover gets blown its your own fault but you can fight and build the reputaion of your fake character as if it were your main and use it to fight without worrying about diplomacy.
Result: Easier to fill rosters

Problem 4: Hard for individuals to protect what they have vs bigger clans/alliances
Solution 4: Increase the level of free gear slightly and then give it to both sides in all battles, regardless of what gear they already have.  I'm talking Aketons, Nasal Helmets, Hunting Corssbows, Nomad Bows and Simple Swords here.
Result: No naked battles ever and the gap between the best and worst equipped armies is narrowed.
Result:

[serr]

Problem 1: You proposed interesting solution, would be cool if this would be implemented, but much easier and more important - change current loot system. Maybe it is realistic, but it favour winning battles and encourage defensive careful playing even more, which makes strat less fun

Problem 2: Agree.

Problem 3: Completely agree and it is very important, would make strat more playable for small factions/individuals

Problem 4: Not sure here, solution from problem 3 should help here as well. But well, it may result in more small fun battles, so should be ok.

[Haboe]

1 agree
2 no
3 don't really care about 100v100 battles
4 no

[Knute]

Problem 3: It can be hard for small clans to fill rosters
Solution 3: Smaller rosters for smaller battles. Big battles (1000vs1000 and over) should stay at 50vs50 but the small 100vs100 battles should decrease to 15vs15 imo instead of the current 25vs25 (ish).  Everything in between then scales.  On top of this allow all players to create a pseudonym for playing strat anonymously.  If your cover gets blown its your own fault but you can fight and build the reputaion of your fake character as if it were your main and use it to fight without worrying about diplomacy.
Result: Easier to fill rosters

How about letting skip-the-fun characters sign up for strat battles?  The tradeoff would be no xp but you could change their names easily.  Also it'd let people make use of more types of gear, imagine massive cav only or horse archer battles.  When was the last time you saw horse archers in strat?  If a clan wanted to roleplay a Mongol style horde, there you go.

[Araxiel]

Yes Knute! There are big factions without a remarkable number of archers, heavy cavalry or shielders. I don't know just do it.

Also STF characters level 30 is not good enough. It should be level 31 to have a complete build in most cases.

[Butan]

STF/Alt characters able to play strategus would def be a big big win.

[oprah_winfrey]

Problem 4: IMO this is a problem with S&D. Individuals and small clans can't keep up with large clans in regards to money and as such are always out geared.

[Shik]

1. yes
2. no
3. ok
4. no

For #1, I think that aside from castles, defenders have way too high of an advantage even in field battles. With the new spawn timer system, it makes it really hard for attackers to win in time; all the defense has to do is simply camp.
#3, imo just allow alts to be able to fight in battles, and pseudonyms or whatever are no longer an issue.
#2, Voting imo is fine as it is
#4 imo is more of a problem with the new equipment buying system where you have to spec PP in order to get usable gear. It's highly unlikely that anyone will spec low level gear in their fiefs, so it becomes really hard for casuals to gear their armies. Better solution I think would be to make it so that most cheap gear is +0 by default in fiefs. I really don't support better free gear. That would give too much of an advantage to turtling with population in fiefs and defense in general.

[Zlisch_The_Butcher]

Increasing free gear is idiotic, if you don't buy gear you deserve to get attacked, imo free gear should only be low tier no block peasant 1hs, stones, and a few shirts.
And my faction consists of less than 15 players..

[Falka]

3 don't really care about 100v100 battles

Ye, me too, because most of the time defenders have no gear and are outnumbered heavily so it's not worth to participate in such battles. But with good default gear and smaller rosters battles with 100 ticks could be funny I really liked small battles with cheap gear at the beginning of this round.

[BaleOhay]

I agree with shik.

breaking a wall should carry over. I would also love to see the option to destroy a fief when u win instead of just capturing it. Would make the map.smaller over the round and more competitive. If that is to extreme maybe raze it which knocks the fief back to zero points and does not let you accumulate the points or something for a length of time.

alt would be cool to use. exp goes to main like strat ticks

[Hobb]

We really need a system of appeals for glitched battles/random buggy shit that results in huge losses for the victim. A system that works and is done in a timely manner as well. Strat is a numbers game, and losing numbers to bugs is something that really has to be dealt with. This strat in particular has had alot of stupid shit happen to all of us.

And of course battle times, suprised that wasnt in OP.

[Tyr_]

Problem 4: Hard for individuals to protect what they have vs bigger clans/alliances
Solution 4: Increase the level of free gear slightly and then give it to both sides in all battles, regardless of what gear they already have.  I'm talking Aketons, Nasal Helmets, Hunting Corssbows, Nomad Bows and Simple Swords here.
Result: No naked battles ever and the gap between the best and worst equipped armies is narrowed.
Result:

It doesnt really matter if i attack someone who as an aketon or some peasand cloths while i wear my lordy corrazina armor.
I think a better solution would be to make random traders useful for clans so they dont attack them on sight.

My suggestion:

Add "S&D free" goods to each fief. Lets say every randomer can buy/sell 200 goods from a fief without using the S&D. So to make money you need to buy in many different fiefs and go trading with it. Clans get profit from the tax without loosing S&D, which actually encourages them to get more randomers using their free goods.
How to Prevent Clans using this?: You can only buy this free goods once every week, this prevents massive abuse and also forces the randomers to trade across the whole map.

Also, since there may be some extremely busybees that buy goods in loads of fiefs and therefore become an attractive target just to get there goods:
Make it impossible to loot the last 200 goods (of each kind ofc), like its not possible to transfer the last 100 troops you have.

[Bjarky]

@Tomas: can u put up a problem 5: S&D
it pretty much is an big clan buff, plus everyone has to protect it, wich pretty much makes everyone stress about it even more 24/7.
can't we just delete it and make goods start distance penalty a bit higher to prevent shortselling?
the bonus of this would also be that everyone can buy/sell it freely then without the owner getting mad, no more of that randomers getting killed for trying to trade/smugle, plus more to do for bandit/s factions 

[Latvian]

is strat 4 getting reset or what?