Rise and Shine: Strategus 2014, starting 16th February, 2000 CET

[The_Slim]

fuck

[Corsair831]

Also, can you guys add the ability for owners of holdings to add comments that people can see when they click on the holding which describe their trading status?  IE - "Open for trade to anyone" "Closed to trade except allies", or whatever.

this, do this ^

simple, game-improving idea

[Corsair831]

On a more serious note:

The gold increase for items is going to hurt smaller clans and will probably only delay the bigger clans from amassing full plate, war horses, and mauls by only a few weeks.

All heavy armor, heavy horses, and heavy weapons should have received a large cost increase, the lighter and unused gear should have remained the same.

as kesh said it's ^ power of, the implication of this being money is worth less the more of it you've got ... what was once a tribal warrior outfit costing 1/50th the cost of full plate will now be closer to 1/500th the cost, meaning lower money clans get a sort of a 'buff' (so to speak)

[Tomas]

I really hope there's more changes under the surface, otherwise for me this is a huge step backwards for Strat.

1) AI villages mean the biggest clans will gather the required resources to take their first fief quickest
2) Production points mean that taking a fief gives you an immediate boost to your economy
3) Large clans will already be the ones who will have the tickets to take their 2nd fief quickest but combined with with the economic boost from PP this will be even worse than before and cascade exponentially with every successive fief
4) Since Castles are now off the table again at the very start of the round the big clans will instead try and grab as many villages as they can and without the defensive capabilities of a castle to even the odds, small clans will just get quickly wiped by larger neighbours
5) Without the economic boost of owning villages it is extremely unlikely that a small clan would ever have the resources to take a castle or town that they would have a hope of holding on to

Whilst voting was shit it did at least prevent the domino effect on taking fiefs which can only ever benefit the largest clans. 

[Butan]

All you speak about is linked to AI villages Tomas, so why make 5 points on it ? 

It is for me a lesser evil than having all fiefs human controlled right at the start. It was even more unbalanced since some "groups" had more than others... at least with AI villages everyone has to earn their fiefs. The biggest downside is AI defense exploits, but I do hope we will have some admins handing out bans this time.

[Keshian]

All you speak about is linked to AI villages Tomas, so why make 5 points on it ? 

It is for me a lesser evil than having all fiefs human controlled right at the start. It was even more unbalanced since some "groups" had more than others... at least with AI villages everyone has to earn their fiefs. The biggest downside is AI defense exploits, but I do hope we will have some admins handing out bans this time.

Yeah the cascade effect was far more dramatic having large clans vote multiple cities and castles under 1 clan with all their clan members voting and with all the massive amount of PP per day not available when owning a village.

[Canary]

This may be important or helpful:

http://forum.melee.org/strategus-general-discussion/strategus-participation-eu-or-na/

[GOBBLINKINGREATLEADER]

I'm going to bring the Jam to every corner of this new sperg-forsaken Calradia.

(click to show/hide)

4urpleasure

https://soundcloud.com/drofnasleinad/r0cket-sauce-childish-slambino

[Testicleez]

I'm going to bring the Jam to every corner of this new sperg-forsaken Calradia.

(click to show/hide)

4urpleasure

https://soundcloud.com/drofnasleinad/r0cket-sauce-childish-slambino

I still prefer

[Dach]

This one pretty good too 

[Tomas]

Yeah the cascade effect was far more dramatic having large clans vote multiple cities and castles under 1 clan with all their clan members voting and with all the massive amount of PP per day not available when owning a village.

That's not a cascade effect and i think you'll find that the larger clans wasted far more votes than necessary in gaining those castles/cities.  Had it been a cascade effect then the largest clan at the start would have gone on to steam roll the map but that never happened.  Even at the end it was boredom and incompetence that gave the UIF their victory - not numbers

Strat 3 meanwhile was over inside 3 months and we'll be back to something similar now that its just a numbers game again. 

[Keshian]

That's not a cascade effect and i think you'll find that the larger clans wasted far more votes than necessary in gaining those castles/cities.  Had it been a cascade effect then the largest clan at the start would have gone on to steam roll the map but that never happened.  Even at the end it was boredom and incompetence that gave the UIF their victory - not numbers

Strat 3 meanwhile was over inside 3 months and we'll be back to something similar now that its just a numbers game again.

You were talking about large clans becoming too strong for small clans to do much - and it is a lot worse when large clans start off with multiple hard-to-take cities and castles providing numerous economic and defensive bonuses than if they are only able to take a couple villages earlier than others.  Much harder for smaller clans to get on par when they are in full plate with multiple castles/cities after a short period of time. 

This strat should be more like strat 2 where we start with peasant gear - may take a couple villages but it will be much harder to hold them - even against smaller factions because the gear on both sides will be pretty limited and villages dont give enough of an economic advantage with only 1 pp produced a day that even landless factions can't just buy gear in cities and castles or other villages and come mess up a larger faction's caravans or fiefs far more than in the last round.

[Tomas]

You were talking about large clans becoming too strong for small clans to do much - and it is a lot worse when large clans start off with multiple hard-to-take cities and castles providing numerous economic and defensive bonuses than if they are only able to take a couple villages earlier than others.  Much harder for smaller clans to get on par when they are in full plate with multiple castles/cities after a short period of time. 

This strat should be more like strat 2 where we start with peasant gear - may take a couple villages but it will be much harder to hold them - even against smaller factions because the gear on both sides will be pretty limited and villages dont give enough of an economic advantage with only 1 pp produced a day that even landless factions can't just buy gear in cities and castles or other villages and come mess up a larger faction's caravans or fiefs far more than in the last round.

From memory Strat 2 consisted of the UIF steam rolling the west whilst Fallen/HRE/FCC steam rolled the east.  Our war with the Eastern Tsardom lasted just days and the same with the UIF vs byzantium/kapikulu war (ignoring bugs ofc  ).  Other than that I remember LLJK wiping some small clans like Camel screamers in the Desert whilst Mercs and CHAOS sat in the middle.

Basically Strat 2 was the start of the UIF/Anti UIF block war and the only reason it was better than Strat 3 was the slower economy and the fact it ended before the UIF realised how much bigger they were than everybody else.

Strat 4 meanwhile saw small clans like KwsN grab and hold land all the way through the 14(?) month round.  Had it been a village and not a castle the KwsN took in the voting then they wouldn't have lasted 2 weeks.  I know which I'd prefer as a small clan

[HardRice]

For anonymous sign-ups, I'm assuming that is just for when you sign up for AI (and you don't have to sign up anonymously, it says it's optional).  Or maybe you can also do it when signing up for factions, but either way I'm guessing the intended purpose was to get more people to sign up for the AI, so their "friends/allies" won't see them signing up and go "WTF" (like happened before when AI controlled fiefs).   I think this is a great idea.

Devestated.

And thanks for making it slightly easier on traders with the S&D change.

[Segd]

I really hope there's more changes under the surface, otherwise for me this is a huge step backwards for Strat.

1) AI villages mean the biggest clans will gather the required resources to take their first fief quickest
2) Production points mean that taking a fief gives you an immediate boost to your economy
3) Large clans will already be the ones who will have the tickets to take their 2nd fief quickest but combined with with the economic boost from PP this will be even worse than before and cascade exponentially with every successive fief
4) Since Castles are now off the table again at the very start of the round the big clans will instead try and grab as many villages as they can and without the defensive capabilities of a castle to even the odds, small clans will just get quickly wiped by larger neighbours
5) Without the economic boost of owning villages it is extremely unlikely that a small clan would ever have the resources to take a castle or town that they would have a hope of holding on to

Whilst voting was shit it did at least prevent the domino effect on taking fiefs which can only ever benefit the largest clans.

This.
I like how devs did a lot of pro-big clan & economic reducing features & forgot about main problem - sitting on our asses in our fiefs.
With shitty equip it would be even more painfull to attack enemy fiefs since you loose more tickets & give your precious platetunics(which cost as plate now) to the enemy.
So it would be like this:
-month 1-5 big clans take AI & minor clans villages
-month 6-10 big clans take AI castles & cities. Oh, & moving caravans of course.
-wipe. Strat 6.

Also my personal thanks for destroing crossbowmen class. Less PP, higher prises means that we will see arbalests at the last day before wipe.
Don't belive me? We crafted first arbalests(1-2 per xbowman for entire battle) in about 2 months from Strat 4 start. And DRZ had the best economics back there.
Basically crossbowmen would be as popular as throwers at Strat 4
Archers are screwed too but not as much.
Best class to play would be 2h. All you need is some cheap axe to onehit light armored dudes & cheap shields.