Suggestions

This has now been implemented (I just tested it to be sure). It no longer matters which “direction” you merge the units; they will always get the best available combat experience modifier in the merged group. But your original ask is still good: often it’s advantageous to group units not just all together, but into “slightly larger” groups, and for that you’d still need to know the xp values of each unit to make sure you’re merging in a sensible way.

Good to know, thanks for the answers!
But yes, displaying the combat experience level next to the unit names (like the one already displayed next to the portrait of the leading unit) might be a useful little addition, which is probably not hard to implement.

This is a cool idea Anderty! Sorry I missed it when you posted a month ago. It could add a lot of flavor to the game. You could then have heroes tie into the system, ie you could have somebody summon rain or fog.

Sorry about hiding the feature. I was trying to find a way to add it without cluttering up the interface too much.

[quote=“mammon, post:139, topic:5143”]
‘The spirit of mana corrupted’, an immortal lord that reduces the mana production of all uncorrupted manapools to 0. [/quote]

Very cool idea. I love your fiction as well.

There was a feature I was working on many months ago where you could gather together everybody as a unit of essentially refugees. It was very slow moving, had no attack, but you could move a population from village to village to keep it out of the hands of the blight. I was even thinking you could resettle the refugees in a blighted settlement.

I never finished the feature because it was just fun to play. Nice from a story point of view, but kind of frustrating and hard to balance.

Sorry about that @Infern0 I will make a note to update the help pages now that this is not the case any more. I fixed the bug but forgot to update the help.

[quote=“JayKyburz, post:144, topic:5143, full:true”]

You don’t have to follow my suggestion off course, as the developers you’re free to do whatever you want with your game. I bet any creature-summoned immortal lord would be awesome, I just gave an example to get people interested. My first thoughts were to make it reduce valour production to 0 instead because orcs and dwarves can just shrug the mana depletion off easily, but that wouldn’t make much sense lore-wise. And it would be too devastating with no wiggling room if it happened early game.

just chucking an idea to the wind don’t know if a card already exists like it only played dwarves and and elves outside of solo play “started last week ^^;” but how about a card that temporarily strips the zombies (or just zombie lords) of their buffs? and also maybe some way to tell how long till the next wave of zombies rise from their graves? cause i just had a massive ouch of 3 zombie giants spawning and smashing the army that was barely gonna kill the 2 that were already there into little bits. ;^;

Don’t the Trolls already have a card like that? The Hag or something?

like i said idk if a card exists the wiki for this game looks practically non-existent and i don’t know where else i could find a list of cards

Also: Suggestion for dealing with AFK players.

What if the other players could temporarily “claim” AFK settlements? And we call it “governing” or something.

  • The other players can elect someone to take control over everything from the AFK player. They can use them as if it were their own, getting resources, deploying troops etc etc.
  • Players can claim them like neutral settlements, except theyre free and any units will switch player control as well. Trading them also becomes free, in case the nearest player isn’t the one who needs that settlement the most.
  • Players can remotely claim the settlements (might turn into a “first come first served” mess though.)

Of course, once the AFK player comes back control of all settlements and units will revert back.

This should allow players to mitigate a large part of the damage from people going AFK: The fact that an entire portion of the map basically goes unchecked, and the zombies are allowed to build up massively unchallanged. This would at least allow other players to actively fight them with the AFK players stuff.

unchecked portion of the map… oh like our current game? yea 2 ironhides, a necromancer, and a nest of zombie gryphons because 1 persons disappearance does seem a bit harsh seeing you’ve just expanded into new markets (platforms? idk whatever you’d call steam) maybe another idea is that the property is just randomly split between the remaining actives and the troops out on unclaimed just become grey

That might work too. Most of the AFK people are so at the start anyway.

I agree with this idea. Probably by a stroke of luck I haven’t had a lot of games where too many people went AFK, but I too have one game where all my efforts might go to waste because I’m the last of 6 players remaining. Strangest thing is that most even built up +1000 armies before leaving while the average AFK’er tends to do so on day 1. But most people don’t have the luck that the leavers leave empires that take days to crumble. But regardless of when they leave, one player doesn’t stand much change against a situation like this:

And that’s just one sixth of the map, the rest isn’t much better and I’m unfortunately right in the middle. Freaking deadman’s land everywhere, though only half of it of the immortal kind. (I know it says there are only four AFK, one recently returned but I doubt it’ll be for long.)

Taking that game as my experience, the ‘governing’ option would indeed be the most practical solution. The ability for the active players to temporarily claim settlements and train the people there would be a necessity. Right now, the settlements I do have are starting to run out of living souls and I can’t get do anything with the hundreds of mortals sitting there doing nothing. I have to either watch the undead run over unprotected fortresses or send my own already thin-spread soldiers whole days in advance to protect them. And that’s just impossible to keep up.

I don’t think the remote control thing would be wise, though. This would indeed be a ‘first come’ mess and would make the active players too overpowered, especially when combined with sharing resources. Probably wise to keep the Valour costs (to trade settlements, not to recruit them) and let the AFK’ers keep their troops as well.

Sharing resources would be a necessity though, you can’t expect a player to run six empires with only one empire’s income. But if a player were to lose all their gold to the other players the moment they go AFK, this would be too much of a motivation for people not to come back at all when they do go AFK. I can imagine not being able to play for a whole day and then considering all my open games forfeit because others would have taken my gold and valour.

So what I suggest instead is that the income from AFK players is pooled together and then spread among the active players. That way, a temporarily AFK player doesn’t lose anything and the active players get a bit stronger to compensate for the inactive ones. Just a little bit if it’s just one, a lot if everyone else went AFK.

2 Likes

This seems like a good plan.
My own idea was that the AFK player kept their stored resources, but the active players would get the income from the sources they “governed”. We might also have to tag every unit created from the “governed” settlements as such, so that a returning player doesn’t have to build a whole army when they return.

If you let the AFK’ers keep their troops, you still run the risk of having a large force suddenly paralyzed and reduced to a fleshy roadblock. This is less of an issue if other players are nearby, but if you have a map where everyone is spread out it might still give serious problems due to a lack of offensive and raiding power (at least until the active players build up a seperate army).

Good idea, that would ensure that the players that branch out and govern a lot of cities would get more resources to hold those cities, instead ofhaving to share with players that are barely active or spreading themselves. And it would limit the surge of resources that an AFK empire that actually grew large before being neglected would leave, urging people to send out troops to govern these settlements.

I think there should still be some penalty for AFK’ing like that. If it were completely consequence-free, people might get alts to fill in the last few spots to get their game started and then leave those accounts to go AFK. They might even go as far as sending their troops to their alt’s empire before going AFK and acquisitioning it the moment the player position opens up, allowing them to bolster their troops for that top position. I’m not sure if this will happen (if trolls are motivated enough to play like this) but penalty-free AFK might inspire such strategies that wouldn’t aid the team spirit of the game. A few armies ending up as zombie-retardend doesn’t seem like a big deal anyway.

I hadn’t thought of that. I could certainly see people do that if they wanted to play multiplayer maps on their own or something. I also agree that there should be some penalty for AFK’ing, but preferably that would be something outside of the game. This is a cooperative game after all, and hurting the AFK player in-game would indirectly hurt the whole team.

After some thinking, it does seem like it wouldn’t be THAT big of an issue if we made the troops neutral. Most of the players go AFK at the start anyway (1 unit got paralyzed, ring the Doom bell guys!), and worst case scenario they thin the zombie hordes as the AFK empire starts falling to the undead.

You did point to another issue though: What do we do with the zombies killed/bodies burned by the “governed” units in regards to the medals (and rewards thereof)?

  • Do we count them to the “governing” player? that would pretty much guarantee they get both awards for that game.
  • Do we not count them at all? That would incentivize the “governer” to use the AFK-troops as garrissons or for the knife-edge-98%-casualty fights, while using their own for the raiding and steamrolling parts.
  • Do we count them to everyone? That’s basically the same as not counting them (and would screw with the stats).
  • Do we count them to the AFK player? But that would mean they get rewarded for the effort of the “governer”, can’t really have that either.

I dont think this would be that big of an issue (most players probably don’t care THAT much, and necessity demands that you can’t mess with your tactics too much), but it would still be one of those annoying things bouncing around in the back of your mind while playing, “I could be doing this more optimally for higher rewards!”.

I think the best solution would be this one. Or rather, to urge the players to co-op their armies. The governed armies do not gain points for beating immortals when fighting alone. When there are troops from another player fighting alongside them though, that player will get their points.

It would discourage the active players to use the AFK troops as cannonfodder and urge them to train more governed troops, but some of their own troops would have to be present as well. No sending a single Forge urchin to claim an entire empire, you need to invest 10% to get the full 100%.

For settlements, this might not work as good. Needing to have some of your troops present to govern a settlement might be a good balance between recruiting AFK’ers as an OP strategy and having no options to recruit AFK cities at all, but it would be a taxing and slow progress. I can imagine that kind of gameplay to be very stale.

So I’d say; as long as you have some troops of your own present, you can profit from the efforts of these governed troops and maybe even have them follow you/share buffs. You don’t need troops in your governed settlements once you claimed these and you can train new troops there, but these new governed forces won’t be listening to you until you send some of your own men by to collect them (or they won’t listen at all). That way, you can throw up defences against advancing immortals without having the kind of control to counterattack as you would with your own cities.

Regarding the neutral troops, maybe add a simple AI to take over? Slow and incapable enough that the mortals will never win against the immortals’ AI, but capable enough not to let the undead walk over completely undefended settlements? Just something that auto-trains some troops when the funds pile up and maybe sends gifts of mana and valour to other players on occasion.

This seems to be a good compromise. Probably as close to fair as we’re going to get.

Possible, but i’m not sure how viable that would be. The devs might have to write an entirely seperate AI for it, as the zombie-ai doesn’t use resources and is mostly about dumb , semirandomly attacking, while the Governator needs more of a somewhat competent defensive AI.

Considering that it won’t be used all that much, probably not worth the investment. I’m also not sure how much player’s would appreciate the AI mucking about with “their” troops and resources :slight_smile:

I think there are three things that should be done with respect to afks, and I think they’re maybe simpler than the stuff you guys are discussing. :slight_smile:

In approximate order of priority (as I see it):

  1. AFK kick earlier (especially at the start of the game). The current window is something like two days; I think it could be shortened to 1 day, or even shorter for the first 36 hours or so.
  2. Advertise active games with open spots on the front page. Right now there’s no way to replace an AFK without coming to the forum and posting a link. Instead, games in need of players should automatically be visible so people can jump in to rescue them!
  3. Implement an actual penalty for repeated AFKers. Something like after three AFKs, you have to wait a week or pay ten hero coins before joining any more games. Ten afks from public games gets you a six month ban from public games. Stuff like that.
  4. Add a player-awarded badge (1HC) for people who jump into terrible situations to try to save a game for the rest of the group. No coin reward obviously, since it would be abused, but a player-awarded badge I think is exactly the right sort of bonus for jumping into that AFK seat with three towns remaining and trying to hold the line until the other players come to the rescue.
2 Likes

Good points! While i’d still reccommend some way to let players deal with the actual fallout of an AFK, these are pretty good ways to reduce the number of AFK’s in the first place.

To add my own thoughts:

1. AFK kick. Maybe we could do a two-stage system? For example, if your last login was within the first 2 days, you get 1 day before the kick. If you logged in on day 3 and up, you get a 2 day grace period.

2. Advertising active games. Maybe we could add another layer to the existing 2? Like: normal start, hard start, in-progress games? Or at least add a button with a list of existing games.

3. Penalty for AFK This sounds like a good idea. Perhaps add in an occasional slatewipe, so you don’t rack up 10 afk’s across five years or something :slight_smile:

4. Badge reward This is actually a very nice idea. +1, heart and like!

Some great ideas here,

I agree that we could kick earlier - especially because you can simply rejoin in Blight.

I would also like to advertise games with open seats! Perhaps on its own page on the UI somewhere.

A badge is a great idea! Would have to be only once the game finishes.

Working out what defines a repeat AFK might be a little tricky, I’m generally against punishing players. The Carrot is always better than a stick.

What about if joining a game cost a coin that you get back when the game is complete? (If you are still in it? ) Or you could double it, like a bet that you can beat the zombies