Couple strategus suggestions

[Loki]

The current problems with strat:

1. Defenders have huge advantage over attackers.
a. can camp their flags.
cure: limit flag capture to one flag per player.  this way 1 player cannot drop 10 flags and force a retreat. opens up battlefield for more strategic play.
b. can have huge reinforcement window due to night time settings.
cure: force static night time settings for NA/EU.
c. time limits placed on attacker make armies larger than 1500 almost invincible.
cure: limit army size to 1000 or increase time limit to 2.5 hours or let attacker keep remaining troops and equipment so battles can be fought over multiple days.

2. Raiding makes fief population worthless.
a. Raiding only uses fief's troop count.
b. Fief takes casualties from army before population.
c. Raiders take all equipment.
cure: Overhaul the system completely.  Here is my idea:
Chests spawn randomly across the map. Each chest represents 5% of the defenders equipment.  Defenders will use both population and troops in defending.  Defenders have 5 minutes to pick up and move the chests before attackers spawn.  The chests can either be looted (by moving them to attackers flags) or destroyed (by attacking the chest).  Attackers have 30 minutes.  Take defender casualties out of both pop and troops.

3. Retreating is useless.
a. currently destroys all troops and equipment.
cure:
option 1: retreating army takes 20%+100 troop casualties .  Starts a new game where attackers are now defending chests which represent 5% of their equipment with no preparation time.  Defenders now attacking can try to steal chests or destroy them.

option 2: retreating army takes 20%+100 troop casualties and attacking commander loses all strategus gold, defender gains all attacking commanders strategus gold.

4. Strategus maps don't reflect the terrain being fought on.
cure: make a few random maps for each terrain type being fought on. (snow plains, plains, steppe, mountainous, etc.)  Will lead to more strategic play.

[Tomas]

1a - not sure
1b - i'd agree with this as server night times have been something i've wanted for a while.  Perhaps even staggered across the map to have some variation
1c - agree that its a problem but not with the solution.  Instead how about at the end of the battle, if the attacker still has troops left over then a new battle is created for the following day, with new reinforcement windows of 2 hours for BOTH sides and with the map frozen as it was at the end of the previous battle.

2a,b,c - agree raiding is crap, but i'd just remove it for now as anything else is just a lot of work when there are other more important issues to fix

3a - same as 2.  There's more important things to fix and my suggestion for 1c would help this anyway.

4.  Definitely agree - but the maps need creating first. 

[Butan]

I agree on 2 / 3 / 4 (even though chest raiding seems meh, but raiding could be improved and you are right to propose)

But 1 I partially disagree,

The "defending is OP" problem of strategus comes only from the looting system + battle time limit. The flag capping is great as it is, and reinforcement window too and prevent fiefs being taken too easily.

[Haboe]

1 Disagree. The attacker knows whats gonna happen and can plan accordingly. Defenders should have the advantage.
2 Disagree. Defenders are forced to actually defend their fiefs with army's instead of just pumping into population, thats why i like the possibility to raid. Maybe limit the amount of loot to 100% equip of the army stationed, and 50% of all thats left after that (population gear). If you want to use the chest system like you suggested i would always attack towns with 500 man, since its impossible to hold the complete map and thus you always take a good share of their loot.
3 Disagree. If you retreat it means you didn't perform good enough to win the battle. Defenders was locked down for 24h, if attacker can't win it he should lose the battle.

4 Agree. Plains should be actual plains. On top of that i would love to see a weather system added to the strat map (clouds moving around the map, representing certain weather conditions, that way you can plan on what conditions you want to fight. See rain coming? Charge out to your enemy with only meleegear. Enemy castle is very good for archer? wait for rain or snow or whatnot and then start an attack)

[Loki]

1 Disagree. The attacker knows whats gonna happen and can plan accordingly. Defenders should have the advantage.
2 Disagree. Defenders are forced to actually defend their fiefs with army's instead of just pumping into population, thats why i like the possibility to raid. Maybe limit the amount of loot to 100% equip of the army stationed, and 50% of all thats left after that (population gear). If you want to use the chest system like you suggested i would always attack towns with 500 man, since its impossible to hold the complete map and thus you always take a good share of their loot.
3 Disagree. If you retreat it means you didn't perform good enough to win the battle. Defenders was locked down for 24h, if attacker can't win it he should lose the battle.

4 Agree. Plains should be actual plains. On top of that i would love to see a weather system added to the strat map (clouds moving around the map, representing certain weather conditions, that way you can plan on what conditions you want to fight. See rain coming? Charge out to your enemy with only meleegear. Enemy castle is very good for archer? wait for rain or snow or whatnot and then start an attack)

1st. Defenders would still have the advantage in fiefs, because of the fortifications.  They shouldn't have an advantage just due to the fact that the attackers can't kill enough of them in some arbitrary time limit.

2. What's the point of having population then if they're completely useless to defend with?  Forcing armies to sit in fiefs is boring.

3. Yeah if you retreat it means your losing the fight and want to cut your losses, now you lose everything making retreating completely pointless and useless as a tool.

[Loki]

The "defending is OP" problem of strategus comes only from the looting system + battle time limit. The flag capping is great as it is, and reinforcement window too and prevent fiefs being taken too easily.

People are forced to play with only taking into account the flags that are put in a random spot on the map, rather than being able to move away from the flags and actually use geography as an advantage.  It makes the battles very simplistic.  If you're flags spawn at the bottom of a cliff you're screwed, and because of nothing you did or could anticipate.  If there is a big hill that would be a great place to defend or attack from, you can't have people move there because 1 guy on a horse can come and cap ALL of the flags and force you to retreat.

What I am suggesting wouldn't remove the flags entirely but it would mean that the team attempting to cap the flags would actually have to move in, in mass, against the flags, since it would take 10 different people to down 10 flags.

[Butan]

I agree to the apparent stupidity of a lone man being able to rout an entire formidable army.
But we should find something else than a "1 man = 1 flag" else in some small battles you couldnt even have the possibility to cap all the flags, even if while you pushed for them you had 0 losses.

Maybe a flag capture cooldown where you cant capture a 2nd flag before a small time has passed ? Or a mix of both, 1 man = 1 flag until 10s has passed then he can cap another one ?



But most strategus battles/sieges, except the most unbalanced ones or the most greatly supervised ones do not finish on a flag capture but down to the last man.

Also do not forget that a team that camp the flags are like in the sieges server : if they fail to repel one wave, they are doomed to not being able to respawn fast enough to prevent total defeat, this is why it is more interesting to charge out when you are outgeared/outnumbered, to kill a portion of the enemy army and then respawn and kill the rest (this only delay the inevitable in most cases but still buy some time).

[Haboe]

1st. Defenders would still have the advantage in fiefs, because of the fortifications.  They shouldn't have an advantage just due to the fact that the attackers can't kill enough of them in some arbitrary time limit.

2. What's the point of having population then if they're completely useless to defend with?  Forcing armies to sit in fiefs is boring.

3. Yeah if you retreat it means your losing the fight and want to cut your losses, now you lose everything making retreating completely pointless and useless as a tool.

1) Makes sense, but if you want to kill an army of 1500, you simply attack it twice. There is a reason you have to pay way way more upkeep for and army of 2000 troops then 1000 troops.

2) Population does still make sense. If someone attacks you, and you have no army in there, you make sure you already have the gear on you. In 2 hours the attacker will have it known as a raid or a siege. In case of a siege you put the gear in and defend, in case of a raid you leave the gear out and lose nearly nothing, gain 24h of time to get an army there. Benefits active fief owners, if you decide to have no army in your fief its only natural that it will take more effort to defend your fief. (take for example reyvadin, 3000 pop, kapi lost the fief, and drz got it. Drz is good at strat, and used the population to its fullest, coalition had to kill every single one of the pop to get the castle back)

3) Difference in opinion. If you lock someone down for 24 hours by attacking him i don't think you deserve any compensation other then the win or lose loot you will get.

[Loki]

3) Difference in opinion. If you lock someone down for 24 hours by attacking him i don't think you deserve any compensation other then the win or lose loot you will get.

Why have the mechanism in the game at all then?  It's completely useless.  It either needs to be changed so that it has a purpose or removed entirely.

[Haboe]

Agree on that

[Lt_Anders]

2) Population does still make sense. If someone attacks you, and you have no army in there, you make sure you already have the gear on you. In 2 hours the attacker will have it known as a raid or a siege.

(click to show/hide)

Partially incorrect. It's the first FULL HOUR after 2 hours. SO in effect you won't know up until 3 hours if it's an early attack versus a later attack.

IE 2:03 versus 2:57. 2 hours for 2:03 is 4:03 and the website updates hourly. Therefore, from 4:03 until 5 you won't actually know the type of battle.

I'm fairly sure this is right as I have seen once that raid didn't pop up until after the 2 hour mark. Can't remember so I can't post proof, but I'm 100% certain this is the case...maybe.

[Boss_Awesome]

I agree with everything except for the flag capping thing.  Flag capping is fine as is.  Losing everything due to not being able to cap flags in an arbitrary time limit is a horrible mechanic that discourages attacking at all.  The attacker should lose 10% of remaining forces in the route if the time runs out, not everything.  Retreating should also lose 10% of forces, however, an army shouldn't be allowed to retreat until 30 minutes into the battle to limit the effectiveness of attacking and retreating as a lockdown mechanic.

[Pejlaen]

"Couple Strategus Suggestions"

You want to suggest Strategus as an couple-activity? I'm just not feeling it

[Loki]

Winning from capping flags is a horrible mechanic as well though.