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

[Butan]

I hope you and your whole team come back at least in the beginning, strategus isnt the same without Mercenaries 

[MURDERTRON]

who?

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[Tomas]

If you have any *working* suggestion to stop people from creating large factions, feel free to tell me, because I've been looking for a solution for years now.

Starting the game
1) Start Strat on Sat at 18:00 EU time
2) When first joining Strat you pick your region (EU/NA), your clan (you can form one if you like) and also you have to tick a box if you want to be a fief owner.  That is all though for 24 hours.
3) Joining a clan automatically registers your vote for your clan
4) At 18:00 EU time Sunday all votes are added up and fiefs are awarded according to clan votes.  This is complicated but should be done as follows 
 - divide Players joined (with ticks) by the number of fiefs
 - pick the largest clan (with an available fief owner)
 - award them a random fief
 - lower their size by the value calculated in the first step
 - pick the next largest clan (with an available fief owner)
 - award them a fief
 - lower their size by the value calculated in the first step
 - continue until all fiefs are awarded
 - repeat for NA
5) Finally players will be spawned spread around the fiefs their faction won.

This will spread fiefs out amongst all factions.  The bigger factions will still get proportionately more fiefs than their smaller rivals - you can't avoid this in any system - however at least now their fiefs will be completely random meaning claims are useless.  Sorry to random individuals here but it is impossible to cater for you without creating loopholes for larger clans to exploit - it has to based on averages

Other game mechanics twists
1) Do everything else suggested in your change list
2) Raise the level of free gear (looking at Gambesons and simple sowrds here)
3) Alter the new price formula to be (Old_Price^1.35)-X where X brings the price of the lower level gear into line with the new free gear level.
4) Give free gear to attackers and defenders

This just gaurantees that ALL battles have reasonable equipment whilst keeping the better stuff as expensive upgrades

Also
1) Split renown so that is calculated per side and not per battle
2) Make sure there are no bugs
3) Create a score board where Score = renown_gained_by_faction / (tickets_created + tickets_received)
4) After 10 months declare the top scoring faction the winners

Since score is divided by tickets (both created and received) then each factions score is normalised according to their resource pool.  You should therefore be able to compare clans evenly regardless of their size.  It also takes full on alliances into account and actually punishes them slightly by counting tickets twice if they are transferred between factions.  IF you want to ally and avoid this, just use your tickets yourself.

Strat 4 had the following main flaws all of which are solvable without resorting to shitty AI Fiefs
1) Voting was a hassle to manage (so take the choice out of it and we get randomised fiefs without the hassle)
2) It was too easy to take over fiefs you didn't win in the vote (this was already solved with free gear so no need to do more, although raising the free gear level makes it an even better fix)
3) Too many plate armies by the end (this is fixed by ending Strat after 10 months - we were still on Black Coat of Plates then, so no real need to change the economy imo although i'm not against slowing things down so long as the free gear level is raised so that we don;t spend months in shitty peasant gear)

Finally
What is the plan for preventing abuse by faction members signing up anonymously for AI rosters and then doing shit or opening gates?  Anonymous rostering only works when players are in charge of rosters and can weed out the abusers

[HardRice]

A few clarifications:

The anonymous signup works like this: Fighter says "damn I'd like to fight, but my clan disallows it, I sign up with an alias." Only the guy accepting the signup sees both the alias and the real name. Teammates and Enemies will only see the alias. So you dont hire randoms, you hire pseudonyms that you know who is behind it.
It basically just means people can fight incognito without the fear of political shunning.

Holy shit, you just made it easier to blackmail people for fighting against their clan.

[kinngrimm]

(click to show/hide)

...
I have to disagree with Tomas, Segd, and Kingrimm though about this round compared to last round favoring larger factions.  Not owning cities and castles makes it really tough for any faction, from the smallest to the largest, to get far ahead of anyone else economically.  Expensive armies will have tunics over mail, while any independent trader can buy 50 axes, 5 nomad bows, 45 arrows, 50 military scythes, 10 rouncies with 10 pitchforks, 50 basic swords with 50 round shields, 3 arbs and 45 bolts with no armor or the weakest peasant armor and be able to fuck up the richer faction with only 50-150 more troops while spending less on weapons then the other side spent just on their armor alone. 

When gold is more valuable than troops in previous strat iterations there is a LOT more fighting and activity.  Basically you fight a lot more because the troops are worth less and low end gear can do damage regardless of what the other side has because they won't have plate armor so all weapons are at least somewhat effective.  When everyone owned a city/castle and had full plate the fighting was far less and you needed more organization to get ana rmy properly equipped.  Lack of armor that will resist most cut weapons makes a huge difference.  Any Joe Schmoe or Kamikaze Joe can stop anywhere - buy gear with minimal effort and be a force to be reckoned with.


P.S.  Forgot to mention - can we fix the Dhirim map?  probably have a few months to do it.

I would suggest price^1.14 to 1.25max;

I cant say for sure, how much of an advantige huge mega faction have through shitloads of potential players, it could be they get on their own, a roster without the need of randomers, it could be that they have really lots of playing members, just look at how often and how many GO and DRZ you have lately seen on a regular base on pub servers. When all those also will play Strat ... does it really matter which system we have at start then? Yes sure in a castle or town you can stay longer alife and have longer time to build up, still 325 players Grey Order in comparison to 45 in Fernis ... sure i will try to ally with others, still i would need roughly 6 clans in the size of my own with also a fairly good activity to be able to compete with GO alone, when you then would still count DRZ(214) and other possible friends of tehm to this like Nord(104), Basilea ton Romaion(102) ... there we are at about 745 "potential" players ... the main enemies Fallen/GK/HRE not really getting into strat 5.0, leaves a view clans up in the north .. .this will be so much fun ^^. Segd 6 months lol, perhaps more like 2-3 .... and wait Kapikulu too?

While yes CFA had through voting scheme and diplomacy at start of 4.0 some time to build up without being roflstomped, that but doesnt exclude with the voting again being still roflstomped. I remember DRZ, pretty early taking Slezhk Castle, all allies sleeping and we havent yet been ready, for such an attack. So yeah GG

[NejStark]

If you have any *working* suggestion to stop people from creating large factions, feel free to tell me, because I've been looking for a solution for years now.

Corruption?
Bigger factions lose an amount of resources proportional to the size of their faction versus the size of all factions? Dunno, would need balancing. Just a thought on the spot.

[Harpag]

If you have any *working* suggestion to stop people from creating large factions, feel free to tell me, because I've been looking for a solution for years now.

Only some factions want to be big and only part of them have sufficient human potential. It's a matter of individual interpersonal relationships that's why searching systemic solutions smells absurd for me. Greatest charm of this game is uninhibited freedom and independence in allowing diplomacy outside zystem.

* Working * suggestion? Ban Hetman, me, Vovka and some DRZ guys for at least first two months of new round - UIF issue solved. For this I suggest ban for other potentially dangerous leaders: for example Kinngrimm, Butan, Grandmom - imperial aspirations should be disposed in the bud 

In my opinion artificial restrictions are not a good method for increasing playerbase, therefore I'd put on maximal simplification of rules and derive attractiveness from creativity of players. I know - easier said than done, but it's worth considering.

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[kinngrimm]

(click to show/hide)

Only some factions want to be big and only part of them have sufficient human potential. It's a matter of individual interpersonal relationships that's why searching systemic solutions smells absurd for me. Greatest charm of this game is uninhibited freedom and independence in allowing diplomacy outside zystem.

* Working * suggestion? Ban Hetman, me, Vovka and some DRZ guys for at least first two months of new round - UIF issue solved. For this I suggest ban for other potentially dangerous leaders: for example Kinngrimm, Butan, Grandmom - imperial aspirations should be disposed in the bud 

In my opinion artificial restrictions are not a good method for increasing playerbase, therefore I'd put on maximal simplification of rules and derive attractiveness from creativity of players. I know - easier said than done, but it's worth considering.

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1) i like you Harpag and you know it
2) as mentioned before, i can understand and follow the way huge clans have been realized and had been growing unchecked, even more so as in Strategus 3.0 i was on the best way to that and you safed me from that fate.
3) since i started in 2.0, with a small faction myself back then of 20 Members, due to the often very bad experiences i made with bigger factions, i have allways promoted and tried to help smaller and new Strategus factions. This culminated in the CFA which was pretty much consisting only of small to medium sized factions and i will try a similar thing this round, even though this may seem futile. Even more so when friends of strat 4.0 seem also to jump the bandwagon as it seemed to have happened with quite few players since then too. Then again 325 players listed is the pontential, not the activly playing part.
4) i dont want a restriction, which says you may not do this or that, but trickling down the effiecency a notch of the huge factions. The game principles otherwise stay the same. But perhaps you can tell us what the motivation of yours is to get another 100 players perhaps as there seems no end to it?
You want to have one side only of GO, not letting pubs in? You want the pub servers to be played on both sides by GO? You fear so much to loose that you cant stop yourself from recruiting another guy? I mean come on this cheating buisness back in the day, was it because you didnt want to loose or was it you wanted to win so badly or just to proof a point that it can be done? Not judging here, just want to know the mindset and if it would have to do anything with each other.
5) i was not really suprised by the kind of reaction you gave, surly the biggest dog on the blog barks loudest when you try to take away his bone ^^.

Let me ask differently, how many of those 325, do you really like, talk to regularly, share your own personal problems with? Do you think, a game should pressure you in the need to organize 325 people to be able to have a fighting chance, or would perhaps a smaller group be better, less stressfull, more private and more friendly ... being friends with each other.

[Dutchydave]

• Item prices will be increased by price^1.35
• PP production rate will be lowered

YAY! Less XP. Fuck plate armys we hate high XP battles 

[Algarn]

The formula of strat XP should be changed, otherwise, without any XP, strategus will get a lack of interest from a lot of people.

[serr]

The formula of strat XP should be changed, otherwise, without any XP, strategus will get a lack of interest from a lot of people.

This.
It shouldn't depend on gear cost, at least not that much.
And even with peasant gear it should be higher than when you just play on public server.

[Knitler]

http://forum.melee.org/strategus-general-discussion/same-banner-for-all-players/

erm ... maybe? pleaaase?

[Panos_]

http://forum.melee.org/strategus-general-discussion/same-banner-for-all-players/

erm ... maybe? pleaaase?

Imagine this..


Team 1 are Saracens wearing Saracen gear Vs Team 2, that are Templars!!!


OH THE ROLEPLAY!!! 

[Knitler]

Imagine this..
Team 1 are Saracens wearing Saracen gear Vs Team 2, that are Templars!!!

OH THE ROLEPLAY!!! 

It would be very helpful for the roleplay, i mean in the "united army" of an faction there would be still clans but cmon its an royal army... it would make ppl have gear like their name (Shogunate, Templar, Saracen says)

Also helpful if they dont have sorted equipment cause of the different banners. Also wouldnt it be awesome to see a shieldwall so equal bannered

[Prpavi]

You do realise that new round of strat will absolutely kill off the pub scene right?