Conquest 2.0 - on 1.8 server

[SlowThinker]

latest version of lotr conquest (updated to 1.03)

There are errors:
Wilderlands should give 3g in accordance with the .cfg file, and 2g in accordance with the text under the map. But it gives 0 gold because one village has error in the coordinates.

[miati]

thx. ill check this

[Ashe]

Im liking conquest and i have ideas but i dont know how to make them work:
like making archers units who can attack 2hex range
That whuld be great and make more strategy , they cant have berserk but they cant be attacked back and must have marksman.
Making them with berserk and small attack in melee give them a small chance to win or give damage to the attacking unit.
they would have few HP making them weak to melee attacks.
making units like that will be great because with that the controller of them can attack to the other side of a river or ships.
Also they have cost more then normal units.

just one great idea who will be good on conquest

[SlowThinker]

I noticed these bugs:

1. AI units can move on coastal reef - it happens on the Jel'wan map.

2. Drakes can be reinforced for free if there is insufficient gold.

3. I couldn't start a 3p game in capitol mode: red got 25 starting gold in place of 10g. It happened twice in a row (a save is attached).

If needed then i can send also saves for bugs #1 and #2.

[SlowThinker]

My ideas next are usually general, but sometimes are related rather to 1 vs 1 games (i play them mostly).

1. Allow any unit to suicide (give a 0-0 attack to every unit for example) (More about suiciding in my next post. I am not sure this idea would be the best solution of the problem with suicides)

2. Villages cannot be defended from the naval attacks by recruiting around the defended village, since a boarded unit ignores ZOCs. I suggest to implement ZOCs also for the unboard. (Also I think it would make the game simpler and more logical if the naval and land fighting would be similar.)

3. Another feature that makes a naval village attack very effective: a player can recruit, board and unboard to a captured village in one turn. So the attacker can see which unit is exactly needed to defend the captured village, also the gold is needed a turn later in comparison with a land attack.
My suggestion: require one move for boarding, another move for unboard. If this is too laborious to implement
, require 2 moves for boarding.

4. Don't add gold bonuses to the base income. It spoils the fun of exploration. (especially in 1 vs 1 games)
Exploration should be a matter of decision. (Shall I invest in exploration or not?) Introduce a 11-move unit, weaker than a military. It can see the enemy before it may be spotted. This unit should not be able to take a village directly, only the way ships can (ships must stand besides a village before they can enter).

5. Add an info about the boarded unit in the menu of boats (i mean for the boat owner). (BTW -shouldn't everybody see what unit is loaded? At least if you have a unit next to the boat)

6. Healing is a good game element, but the reinforcement should be removed IMO. It just induces more micromanagement and makes the game more complicated. Fortunately it has not an extremely large impact and so I ignore it during my decision making. But for a perfect play it should be taken into account (for example a 23-damage lancer would be great vs cavalry).

[SlowThinker]

Suicides
The possibility to suicide in a city is an important point as it allows "big achievements" and a player who is behind can turn the game in his favor.

Another positive point of the suicides is it gives an advantage to a player who captures a village IN TIME or with enough forces.
A very significant example: Let us say there is an AI village on a shore, one side controls sea, other side controls land. Of course both sides want to capture and hold that village, so that they have a base for attacking land/sea. If one (for example the land holder) captures the AI village in time, he can withdraw his attacker, let even a weak but isolated defender in the village. If the enemy takes the village, he cannot create a base (he cannot recruit). But the original owner can retake the village and suicide on his attacking boat and recruit ships around.

Unfortunately the possibility to suicide is not assured and tactics that raise a chance suicide will work are tricky and unnatural: if you attack a village and you want to prevent the opponent can suicide on his turn, you need to attack with weak units and hope they will win, but will end very damaged (so that no enemy unit can suicide on them). Conversely, the opponent will try to capture the city with very damaged unit (and for example will train and board very damaged militias).
This is why i suggested units have also a 0-attack.

I still see one problem: it may be somewhat risky to recruit besides a village.
A model situation: two opposing enemy villages on a flat terrain, defended by 1 militia. Both sides can invest a bit more than 10 gold there, (but not 15).
One side builds a lancer with some militia and the other side has no way how to defend. The best the defender can do is to buy a Lancer who has only 40% def in a village. The defender can add some militia around, but they may only serve as a target unit for a suicide (now it is very hard to suicide a militia on a militia on a flat terrain, but with my suggestion anybody can suicide) and so a further expansion.

The conclusion: it is a positive point people can suicide on a unit that just did attack the village. But it is a negative point people can suicide
on units that were just recruited.
And I don't see how this could be solved easily. (maybe to allow suicides on wounded units only, but it is somewhat unnatural)


____________________________________________
Earlier I got another idea how to manage the suicides:
Not to allow normal suicides (If a unit captures a city, then attacks and loses, the village should return to the original owner.) And to introduce a special unit (I called it a diplomat) that would capture villages permanently and would be able to self-suicide on the village (if needed) - even without an enemy besides.
But also this solution has brings problems: now the defender can let an isolated unit in a city, let enemy to capture it, then retake. A diplomat would make this defense impossible. This is not a serious problem on land, as a diplomat would be a weak and rather slow unit. But on sea a diplomat may be covered by a strong and fast ship: a diplomat becomes too powerfull here. A solution would be to allow only special ship (rather weak and not very fast) to carry diplomats.


_______________________________________________
Responses to older ideas:

in fact i think you shoulnd t be able to recruit in a city IF an enemy unit stands on a hex adjacent to it.

It's not a good idea, a defense of an isolated city would be impossible.

And concerning your previous but abandoned idea:

new recruits dont have an attack anymore

Now a player must decide if he shall attack a village or adjacent units; a failed attack usually causes a loss to the attacker. If new recruits couldn't attack then players would always attack. This is not good, the deciding (to attack or not to attack) shall be preserved.

[monochromatic]

@SlowThinker Please do not triple post. If you something new to add, please use the edit button. As illustrated in the Posting Guidelines. Thanks

EDIT - Expanded due to being suspected as spam - OP:

Do not triple post, please. Edit your posts next time, thanks.

[SlowThinker]

NOT related to Conquest

Do not triple post, please. Edit your posts next time, thanks.

I don't think my posts can be considered a spam. (BTW I would rate your post much closer to a spam )
Bugs-Suggestions-Suicides are three different themes, and they should be visually separated IMHO.

I'm not saying you are spamming. If you have something new to add but no one has posted yet, use the 'Edit' Button. You can visually separate it with the format.

yes, i can visually separate with the format, but separation by different posts is better.
I didn't mean you were a spammer or bot, anyway we are filling a thread about Conquest with a very different topic. And that's not good.
If you want to continue lets start a new topic.

[monochromatic]

I'm not saying you are spamming. If you have something new to add but no one has posted yet, use the 'Edit' Button. You can visually separate it with the format.

(EDIT: No, I'm not spamming. Nor am I a bot. View the links in my sig to see I am a real person. And just because it is a one line post being a link does not mean it is spam. I can edit it if you like.)

[Mabuse]

Im liking conquest and i have ideas but i dont know how to make them work:
like making archers units who can attack 2hex range
That whuld be great and make more strategy , they cant have berserk but they cant be attacked back and must have marksman.
Making them with berserk and small attack in melee give them a small chance to win or give damage to the attacking unit.

hi, i also thought about archers, and i have/had as well much more ideas how to expand/improve conquest.

however, it isnt quite clear if that is truly an improvement, and also in general the conquest crowd seem to dislike any changes. if yu read this thread carefully you wil see that there were voices who demanded to delete all the new units and jus keep the "very old" units. adding even more units would surely overstrain some people.

second: balance is not so easy. since i already had this idea (of ranged units) i have made of course thougts to myself how balance could look like. the problem is here that quite soem playtesting is needed to determine the impact on the game/gameplay.
you dont want to make them useless also you dot wantto make them the new units that dictate the game.

right now it seems to me that there is no need for real ranged units in conquest, nor that a huge number of players demand it. also it requires some work/time.

[Mabuse]

6. Healing is a good game element, but the reinforcement should be removed IMO. It just induces more micromanagement and makes the game more complicated. Fortunately it has not an extremely large impact and so I ignore it during my decision making. But for a perfect play it should be taken into account (for example a 23-damage lancer would be great vs cavalry).

really ? how does reinforce includes more micromanagement than, for example - recruit ?

in any way i wouldnt exspect any changes to the current way how conquest works in the near future.

the only thing i would like to add is a "fortify"-option. that means any units can be fortified on any terrain and would get +10% defense. fortified units woud have always 0 moves. unless you "unfortify" them, in this case they wil get the full moves on the next turn.
a small twist is that units that fortify on castles get +20% defense.
that means a fortified lieutenent on a castle (80% def) can defend versus a knight or has even a (almost) 50% chance versus a marshall (assumed marshal is on 40% def hex)

however, im sure the conquest crowd dont like it, so i dont spend work on it

[SlowThinker]

really ? how does reinforce includes more micromanagement than, for example - recruit ?

I would say it requires similar amount of micromanagement.
But the game may work hardly without recruits, while reinforcement are unnecessary.

[Mabuse]

I would say it requires similar amount of micromanagement.
But the game may work hardly without recruits, while reinforcement are unnecessary.

well, tbh, its exactly the same. additionally it makes a ton more sense to care about wounded units instead of simply using them until they are fully depleted.

it was annoying that wounded units were simply "useless" with no possibility to let them heal (effectively), so you simply let die them off, instead of caring for them. since they couldnt fullfill their role in combat anmore.

the amount of micromanagement is exactly the same, instead of recruiting a new unit, you can heal a wounded unit - for slightly less money, and .. depending on the (remaining) expierience of the wounded unit you may get a slight combat bonus. (veterans fight better)

it makes a ton of sense that way.
the normal healing (8 HP per round) wasnt enough (useless), still it can make sense to let a (not required) wounded unit with many XP heal a few rounds until you reinforce it. that way you may save a lot of the XP and get better combat bonus

[Mabuse]

second: balance is not so easy. since i already had this idea (of ranged units) i have made of course thougts to myself how balance could look like. the problem is here that quite soem playtesting is needed to determine the impact on the game/gameplay.
you dont want to make them useless also you dot wantto make them the new units that dictate the game.

btw one more comment about archers:

the problem is that IF they aren uselss, they will have a lot of impact on the game and that may lead to the point that they dictate or heavily influence the gameplay and probably change it a lot - which is of course not intended.

the new units they were added dont change the gameplay, they fit in, while archers would be a CHANGE
(at this point i must say that CHANGE is not nessessarily bad, but from my expierience .. unwanted)

[Ashe]

yes, that right that will change all the game type.
i was reading the heal type
it is possible changing the recovering in a village to 20% or 30% HP of the guy who is staying on it?
it will be better to have a great live recovering to a genereal or 20gold units