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Unformatted: Balancing Negotiators and Fighters

Malang

Private
Proposal:

Multiple ideas for addition and tweaking of some aspects in the game that can strengthen negotiators.

Reason:

Most players agree that the game is highly inclined towards fighters. Initially it is hard to gather enough att/def for attacking army, once the player has passed that stage, fighting becomes a simple automate fights tasks. Fights are extremely fast compared to negotiations. Lot lesser troops are lost in battles of GE & GBG than the troops production from Alcatraz. And almost never a fight is lost. On the contrary, negotiators still need to keep accurate goods, and work out the tedious tasks of trading those in the market. And then they need to do 'negotiations', which are slow, and have certain chance of failure too. Only plus side is that negotiations are far simpler early game when the player hasn't gathered enough att/defense.

The idea here is to balance out the strength of negotiators in later part of the game when fighters has much higher advantage. For this, multiple ideas are being presented. Of course, some of these idea would be inapplicable for some reasons. But I hope some might be helpful to the developers in future developed of the game.

Detail:

  1. Additional Turn Chance Percentage in Negotiations:

    Much like att/def, a percentage can be given to certain existing or new special buildings that would provide all the negotiations some chance to bring forth additional turn if failed. One can comment that this can be abused as 100% chance would become possible if a player can grab enough buildings providing these bonuses. But after all, this percentage would only be giving chance of an additional turn, and hence, only ensuring that a negotiation would net fail. Player would still need to invest the goods needed for those negotiations. If look closely, this is in par with the att/def bonuses to the attacking army.

    Most special event buildings that end up choosing between multiple type normally have three types:
    (a) One focusing on att/def bonuses (and can be considered for fighters).
    (b) One focusing on FP's.
    (c) One focusing on Goods.

    I'm sure the developers would agree that the third types are least chosen. If this percentage is added to this third type, these buildings would also become truly rewarding for the players who play the game as negotiators. Fighters would still choose the buildings with att/def bonuses. And new players with high focus on leveling their GB's would still go for option b - FP's.

  2. Lesser goods needed for Negotiations (percentage based chance):

    This would bring the possibility of requiring lesser goods needed for a single turn in a negotiation. Let's say, the chance would only work if a negotiation would require 3 or more goods, then there would a chance (percentage based) that they would require 1 lesser good for all the goods in that specific turn. Much like the first option, this would only help the negotiators, as they would be the ones picking the special buildings with these bonuses. Fighters would still pick the att/def bonuses most of the time. And players interested in FP's would still go after FP's.

  3. Special Buildings that can provide early era good in high quantity:

    Before I present this idea, I would like to discuss the reason behind it. There are two actually.

    (a) One aspect of the game never intended by the developers, but has become a crucial part of a negotiator's gaming is the selling of goods in exchange for FP's. These people call themselves traders. I am not sure if the developers are happy about this or not. But honestly, this is actually playing a major role in smoothening the game, and dealing various difficulties of the game. Many players are able to place higher level GB's by purchasing higher era goods from the traders. Many people people purchase early era goods from them for negotiations, guild treasury needs, etc. These negotiators, however, face higher difficulty in grabbing different era goods from the market. If you look closely, the market is mostly filled with reverse trades (selling higher era goods for purchasing early era goods.)

    (b) Observatory and Arc are two main sources of most guild treasuries. However, even the best guilds struggles with the treasury of early era goods. Problem is that, most of the players with these GB's move to higher eras quickly. Hence, almost in every world the game is facing a high shortage of goods from Iron Age, Early Middle Ages, etc. Hence, the game itself is demanding a way to increase early era goods treasury. For dealing that many players in the higher guilds need to place early era goods buildings, which is inefficient and frustrating for the guild leaders most of the time.

    Solution to all that can be bring forth some special buildings or GB's that can allow the player to produce early era goods at higher quantity based on the current era (multiplied by difference between the eras.) This bonus increase in quantity do not need to be accurately 1:2 ratio, but lesser. For example, previous era can have +25%, and the era before +50%, etc. This percentage increase can actually increase more, let's say from 25% increase to 50% increase if the chosen era is three eras prior. And then it can be calculated that the special building or GB of this type would be highly inefficient if used for current era or the era before. But it would be great for several eras before the current. For example, a special building of a 4x5 size would not be very attractive if it's only giving 10 goods a day of the current era, or 13 (12.5 actual) of the previous era. But same building can be really good if it's giving 60 or 80 goods a day of a very early era. The quantity provided and the size of the building should decided based on the game's need for balancing, but the point is simple. That building would bring forth a feasible solution for people to grab goods of several different eras.

    This would actually solve both the issues above. Traders would be able to grab goods of early eras. Guild Treasury can be manually filled up with the goods of the early eras in lot easier way. This would also bring forth the possibility of a new type of player into the game, someone who would be controlling the guild trading by fulfilling the requirements of many players. Also, the market would no longer remain a jumble of only reverse trades, as players of higher eras would be then producing early era goods as well with some efficiency. Trading in the market would become much faster.

    One problem I can see here though. In the current game most top ranked guilds are filled up with people in higher eras. They are enriched with goods of higher eras, but are mostly lacking goods of early eras. Because of this, such guilds avoid participation in early age GvG sectors. This gives chance to the other guilds who want to play GvG. If a solution is provided to them to siege earlier eras as well, the weaker, but active guilds, would have even lesser chance of participating in GvG. How much their participation would be affected would need to be calculated. But I think implementing this idea would improve the game mechanics lot more than it would effect GvG (which is something the developers don't seem to be too interested in anyways.)

  4. GB that fills treasury of early era Treasury in higher quantity:

    This option would not be needed if the third idea is implemented. But if, for some reason, the third idea is not applicable into this game, this idea can also help in goods trading in general. If we have a GB that fills treasury of early eras at higher quantity, then the need of early era goods would reduce greatly. Somewhat same calculation can be made as described in the other idea. Only difference would be that the GB would only fulfill the earlier era of our choice, and the quantity would be higher if that era is far away from the current one.

    I would like to add here that making Observatory that GB can improve the game in my eyes. Since the GBG is launched, GvG's importance has diminished greatly. Hence, the importance of Support Pool is now negligible. As most players make Arc anyways, very few people actually need an Observatory
I hope it helps.

Zaarm
 
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