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Thread: Re: Massive army thread in On-Topic

  1. #1

    Default Re: Massive army thread in On-Topic

    The reason people have bigger armies in Age I and spend a lot of time keeping them is, honestly, primarily for defense against a combined attack on you by many players, or by a massive attack by a war city that has ported in on top of you.

    Sure, you could say "your alliance should help", but if someone is up close and personal, there's little warning and potentially long march times for reinforcements. Also, the alliance cannot rebuild the wall that was taken down. The individual player has to do that. The same applies to a coordinated attack on you by several players. Alliance support can only help so much.

    What you are doing with the NPC sweeps on Age I, which will eventually target level 5 and 10 NPCs (once the sweep runs out of others, it will have to select those to serve any purpose), is you cut off the food supply for people to support defending themselves.

    On the other hand, you have this item that you can buy for $30 called "Vesta's Blessing". It reduces food upkeep by 50% and is stackable.

    Long-term, what you're doing by removing NPCs is shifting the balance of power even more away from the non-spender (or, in my case, previous spender) to those who spend constantly. While I'm sure having a higher percentage of spenders would be ideal for the company, when you starve out the non-spenders and only spenders are left, things will ultimately reach a point where there'll be stalemates and then the spenders will also leave, as they'll find the game "boring".

    As several people have mentioned, Age I should be left as-is. The changing of the rules now is tantamount to saying that Mediterranean Avenue and Baltic Avenue are now worth more than Park Place and Boardwalk.

    Additionally, the sweep process is inherently unfair, as it appears to simply start at 0 on the Y axis and clear candidate NPCs from 0-499 (or 499-0, if right-to-left) along the X axis, moving down 1 row on the Y axis, repeating the X axis sweep, and repeating by moving down and then across until the predefined number have been removed. It then stops. The stopping point last week was in the 110-120 Y axis area. This week it was the 130-135 Y axis area. Next week it will be a little farther down on the Y axis.

    This means that some people are hit harder than others, and some not hit at all. That is why you have an uproar about what's being done. It's not 2 or 3 here and there, but concentrated at certain points. It's not people making a mountain out of a molehill, but an inherently flawed and unfair process. If you insist on continuing the sweeps, then there needs to be a change to where it divides the number of NPCs removed equally across all 16 states, and done all at the same time. That is the equitable / fair way to do it, not by removing hundreds from specific rows along the Y axis and gradually moving down. It needs to impact everyone as equally as possible, all at the same time (the entire map, not just a segment).
    Last edited by neko_lord; 08-10-2010 at 06:14 AM. Reason: editing for clarity

  2. #2
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    This discussion is meant to be held here
    http://bbs.evony.com/showthread.php?t=144174

    For all the people who don't know how to get permission to post on that thread go here
    http://bbs.evony.com/showthread.php?t=113170

  3. #3

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    Since my response got tripped up over the embedded URLs, I would like to thank LordSal for the input, but the powers that be will know why this has been posted here.

    If it is felt like it must be posted there and no discussion here, then I'd ask that someone move the comment into that thread, either by moderator action or by copying and pasting.

    That said though, a moderator has already passed through here once and cleared out some distracting material already, which is why you saw no replies.

  4. #4

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    Quote Originally Posted by neko_lord View Post
    The reason people have bigger armies in Age I and spend a lot of time keeping them is, honestly, primarily for defense against a combined attack on you by many players, or by a massive attack by a war city that has ported in on top of you.

    Sure, you could say "your alliance should help", but if someone is up close and personal, there's little warning and potentially long march times for reinforcements. Also, the alliance cannot rebuild the wall that was taken down. The individual player has to do that. The same applies to a coordinated attack on you by several players. Alliance support can only help so much.

    I agree with you there.
    i would also like to add a few more things if you don't mind.
    The player who teleport often has the bigger advantage.
    Why? This players have excessively produced a massive army for this sole purpose often having a -100 plus in food deficits.
    Plus he has the option of selecting his target, while the defender can only defend or force to attack what may be a very risky and costly attemp.


    Let's look at the reason why massive army is necessary.
    Once a player gathers enough archers for his defense both from his and allied reinforcement, let's say in the range of 600k - 1,000,000 plus archers with their proper layers, than it becomes more dificult to do much damage without first lossing alot. What then?

    Strategy requires that you know what is inside his base, in order to better understand what you should send. What if this players has 500k scouts or possible 1 million plus, how much scout do you think you will need to break through? Some players can do 140k damage with their 100k scout if their hero is extremely high in attack, plus excalibur , corselet and ivory horn, however, how many players have a very high attack hero?

    In many cases, seige unit is needed to break through their layers and expose archers for a cav and phract run, but even seige requires alot of food, which lead as back to the the big issue, farming food to maintain a much smaller force in number with higher effeciency.

    Let's say you nearly reduced his army, and about to send a finishing strikes.
    Than you encounter a full sets of reinforcement from possible different sets of his allied players which we call "cycle or cycling reinforcement. What is cycling reinforcement? when your reinforcement is depleted, you recall that wave of zero troops to open the slot in the embassy for a new 100-125k additional troops. You would have to start over again.

    This cycle of attackers and defenders advantages and disadvantage will not end. It is a common strategy for many if not all players to have a massive army often beyond what they can maintain, either for defense or for offense.
    It is part of players adaptive nature to do so and will always be soo.
    Small force with strategy is less likely to work on the offensive because this game is not 1v1 it is often 1v half the alliances.


    The main complain we have had with food is not the farming, it is the method required to farm for food.
    Farming 100-200 plus npc per farming session is taking away their chat time which often lead to a very quiet chat.
    Most players in the other hand don't have time to attack and often schedule their attack on the weekend, if it's even possible due to the time it takes to farm to feed their armies.
    Farming is 60-90% of their time spent in evony, is that what we want to remember?

    i playe many game just like evony, and you be suprise what they say about evony. they said it is a farming game.
    Last edited by deadlysage; 08-10-2010 at 02:44 PM.

  5. #5

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    Quote Originally Posted by neko_lord View Post
    On the other hand, you have this item that you can buy for $30 called "Vesta's Blessing". It reduces food upkeep by 50% and is stackable.

    Long-term, what you're doing by removing NPCs is shifting the balance of power even more away from the non-spender (or, in my case, previous spender) to those who spend constantly. While I'm sure having a higher percentage of spenders would be ideal for the company, when you starve out the non-spenders and only spenders are left, things will ultimately reach a point where there'll be stalemates and then the spenders will also leave, as they'll find the game "boring".
    Couldn't agree more. Evony doesn't want people to have massive amounts of troops yet they introduce items into the game to cut upkeep in half.

    I'm not going to go around yelling hypocrisy, but it does seem fairly shady that they say these things then basically allow you to double your troops. The argument can be made that they were designed to have people farm less, when it reality its only practical function is to allow people to hold more troops.

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  6. #6

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    Quote Originally Posted by deadlysage View Post
    I agree with you there.
    i would also like to add a few more things if you don't mind.
    The player who teleport often has the bigger advantage.
    Why? This players have excessively produced a massive army for this sole purpose often having a -100 plus in food deficits.
    Plus he has the option of selecting his target, while the defender can only defend or force to attack what may be a very risky and costly attemp.


    Let's look at the reason why massive army is necessary.
    Once a player gathers enough archers for his defense both from his and allied reinforcement, let's say in the range of 600k - 1,000,000 plus archers with their proper layers, than it becomes more dificult to do much damage without first lossing alot. What then?

    Strategy requires that you know what is inside his base, in order to better understand what you should send. What if this players has 500k scouts or possible 1 million plus, how much scout do you think you will need to break through? Some players can do 140k damage with their 100k scout if their hero is extremely high in attack, plus excalibur , corselet and ivory horn, however, how many players have a very high attack hero?

    In many cases, seige unit is needed to break through their layers and expose archers for a cav and phract run, but even seige requires alot of food, which lead as back to the the big issue, farming food to maintain a much smaller force in number with higher effeciency.

    Let's say you nearly reduced his army, and about to send a finishing strikes.
    Than you encounter a full sets of reinforcement from possible different sets of his allied players which we call "cycle or cycling reinforcement. What is cycling reinforcement? when your reinforcement is depleted, you recall that wave of zero troops to open the slot in the embassy for a new 100-125k additional troops. You would have to start over again.

    This cycle of attackers and defenders advantages and disadvantage will not end. It is a common strategy for many if not all players to have a massive army often beyond what they can maintain, either for defense or for offense.
    It is part of players adaptive nature to do so and will always be soo.
    Small force with strategy is less likely to work on the offensive because this game is not 1v1 it is often 1v half the alliances.


    The main complain we have had with food is not the farming, it is the method required to farm for food.
    Farming 100-200 plus npc per farming session is taking away their chat time which often lead to a very quiet chat.
    Most players in the other hand don't have time to attack and often schedule their attack on the weekend, if it's even possible due to the time it takes to farm to feed their armies.
    Farming is 60-90% of their time spent in evony, is that what we want to remember?

    i playe many game just like evony, and you be suprise what they say about evony. they said it is a farming game.
    Very well said. I totally agree with you here. If a change needs to be made it needs to start with battle mechanics and then troop upkeep. Evony just doesn't understand what the real problems with their game are.

  7. #7

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    Quote Originally Posted by jobu55 View Post
    Very well said. I totally agree with you here. If a change needs to be made it needs to start with battle mechanics and then troop upkeep. Evony just doesn't understand what the real problems with their game are.
    No. Changing evony battle mechanics and troop upkeep does not solve the problem. Lowering troop upkeep makes it easier to get more troops (which evony says they don't want). Raising troop upkeep does lower the amount of troops you can have, but the system is still broken at its core.

    Players will continue to push the boundaries whether archers eat 1 food or 1000. It's not the amount that is causing the problem, its the system in itself.

    I still don't really understand why evony wants to change their game. To "fix" it is nearly impossible in an MMORTS without completely rewriting the game. Please leave Age I alone, Age II was meant to fix Age I, and by attempting to fix Age I all you will do is make it more like Age II (which I personally don't like). We don't need 2 Age II's.

    The devs need to stop trying to shape evony into what they want it to be, and let the players shape it to what they want (which is what has happened).
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  8. #8

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    The discussion here is nice...

    As for there, there is the allegation that archers rule and that phracts are somewhat pointless...

    I know someone on n4 who would disagree.

    We had a person in an opposing alliance, someone who spends a lot on the game, who was being all "I'm invincible" / "you better do what I say or I'll pound you"... I got tired of the attitude...

    I spent a few weeks farming exclusively level 5 NPCs and using the iron to train cataphracts, then selling the remaining lumber to get gold to buy food to support the phracts. Ultimately, I had 1 million cataphracts, along with enough cavs and a few war ensigns to send 100k phract + 25k cav repeatedly.

    I ripped up one city totally the first time. I believe I tagged that city a second time before he was able to reallocate his troops to defend against that much strength. He wiped out a lot of what I had, but I then just retrained some more. He had to keep a large proportion of his army in that city to protect against me. That city was over 40 map-miles out from me. After he defended, his honor was so high that his attacks on our alliance would yield 10% heal rate.

    As I said, removing the NPCs like what's being done removes my ability to address someone who thinks that their money makes them special... What I did was BOTH "brute force" *AND* "strategic"...so the notion that porting about is needed and one should not be able to insulate oneself against a major army by making them have to march a longer distance makes me
    Last edited by neko_lord; 08-10-2010 at 05:57 PM.

  9. #9
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    1M phracts?

    Err.. do you know you only need like 200k to wipe out even the biggest archer army?



    I bet you didnt spam away the range setters

  10. #10

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    Quote Originally Posted by Melri View Post
    1M phracts?

    Err.. do you know you only need like 200k to wipe out even the biggest archer army?



    I bet you didnt spam away the range setters
    At over 40 miles, that would take far too long and give too much time for reinforcing. It's about 1h 50m for warriors, but only 39m for phracts. Spamming away the abatis with cavs would only have alerted the alliance to a possible large attack inbound, thus they'd send reinforcements, or do the ever-popular tactic of sharing logins and signing onto the account.

    I adapted to the scenario that was in front of me and addressed the situation accordingly. The waves all landed within a few seconds, and it was rewarding to see the fruits of my few weeks of labor to make it happen.

    Also, the ultimate objective wasn't to defeat him outright, but only contain him, to keep him from attacking other members of my alliance that were close or reinforcing his own alliance due to needing his reinforcements for himself. The tough talk that was being made wasn't being made towards me, but towards others in my alliance. I got tired of it all, and got involved.

    That is known as "strategy".

    That's also why one has to keep a large and properly configured army, to defend against sudden attacks that give no warning to the rest of the alliance if the player is not online and sees the inbound attack in time.
    Last edited by neko_lord; 08-10-2010 at 07:25 PM.

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