how to stop the stalemate in gvg

[DeletedUser2989]

@ tankovy
If in your idea the number of sectors a guild currently holds in an age has some effect on siege costs than i expect a % reduction would be the easiest solution, otherwise in your example the value of "x" itself would have to somehow be calculated based on a guilds sector holdings, and would be different for each guild.

I found a way to introduce a bias so the lower ranked guilds attacking higher ranked guilds get cheaper siege costs, details are in my updated idea thread linked earlier. As for this latest suggestion, my equation has gotten pretty complex and adding another factor would make it very bug prone. I'm working on how to represent your idea in numbers to see if it can be added (or replace something). I'm already sort of considering the number of sectors a guild owns as the combined power of each sector owned determines rank (High rank = High Power which sort of equals high number of sectors). I think I know where your going with that though.

@ byeordie, My idea isn't well tuned for dealing with ghost guilds. I think ghost guilding needs to be dealt with seperately, probably in general guild formation rules or something. Your modification is interesting, I'm not sure how to add that to a working equation but I'm sure someone could. It seems like a lot for the computer programming to follow, I know mine has to track difference in guild ranks but you'd be adding a discount depending on attacking up in rank tracked seperately for each gulid above the attacking guild depending on how long the attacking guild has existed and how many attacks it's made against specific guilds. What happens if the guild they were attacking (ranked 1) drops in rank? Same discount but now different base values? (Base value drops from 860 to 800 and the discount is now applied to that).

@falcon93, Simple fixes are nice and it would be great if they worked, but setting goods costs so low seems too much. I think the point of high goods costs as the empire grows is to simulate logistics or something (it makes sense in my head but I can't explain it). I think it's also in place to stop rapid expansion by a few guilds, which then put up Iron Wall defenses. If everything was really cheap it would just mean everyones towns would be full of military buildings instead of trying to strategically manage a goods supply and a military. High goods costs do at least force people to work out a strategie and not just win out be brute force (I will give it that 1 good point).

I agree that stronger guilds should beat weaker (hence I initially left out the bias for attacking up in rank). But to enable them to constantly beat the weak guy into the dust pushes the competition out of the match entirely. Your idea would get a lot more guilds fighting guilds, I'm just not sure at what cost it would be to player participation (but hey could work and solve the title of this thread).

 

[DeletedUser]

2) You can't use fake guilds to reduce costs as that "new and fake" guild would be low ranked, thus a high ranked guild would find it too expensive to take those sectors owned by the low ranked fake guild.

Can't a fake guild just grant freedom to the sector? That way the high ranking guild will be attacking an NPC sector thus negating your proposal.

 

[Amy Steele]

@tankovy
"a) Lets say a guild ranked 31 attacks the guild ranked 1 the cost to siege is 860 per good (4300 total)
b) Lets say a guild ranked 1 attacks the guild ranked 31 the cost to siege is 860 per good (4300 total)
c) Lets say a guild ranked 1 attacks the guild ranked 2 the cost to siege is 12 per good (60 total) "

Shouldn't a low ranking guild be given an advantage when attacking a high ranking guild? I would have thought a low ranking guild attacking a high ranking guild would have had even lower siege costs than guilds of similar rank attacking each other. I would have thought it would be better to do something like this:
a) Lets say a guild ranked 31 attacks the guild ranked 1 the cost to siege (75% reduction on their NPC siege rate)
b) Lets say a guild ranked 1 attacks the guild ranked 31 the cost to siege is 860 per good (0% reduction on their NPC siege rate)
c) Lets say a guild ranked 1 attacks the guild ranked 2 the cost to siege is 12 per good (50% reduction on their NPC siege rate)
or something along those lines.

@fischh directly, I wanted to do that but I havn't worked out how to make an equation do that. My solution to that (if we want it easier to attack up than down) is to produce a static chart that determines the cost to siege based off only the targets current rank (not the difference). So the cost of sieges against the top 5 cost "x", 6-10 are cost "x+50", 11-20 are cost "x+100" or something along those lines. It makes the powerful vulnerable to constant sieges and the weak expensive to remove.

Your idea of % reductions is interesting I'll have a look at modifying the equation see if I can get it to do something along those lines. It's just tricky to produce an equation like this that works in one direction and not the other. (I'm not that well educated in mathematics)

Hi Tankovy - you could consider using a factor in your equation such as attacked guild rank/attacking guild rank?

Thus if the attacking guild is #30 and the attacked guild is #1 the costs would be based on or include a factor of 1/30 or 0.033
but if the attacking guild is #1 and the attacked guild is #31 the costs would be based on or include a factor of 30/1 which is of course just 30

Of course the above example is a little extreme and the equation would need some adjustment to bring the figures closer together, but the general principle is there.

 

[DeletedUser]

@falcon93, Simple fixes are nice and it would be great if they worked, but setting goods costs so low seems too much. I think the point of high goods costs as the empire grows is to simulate logistics or something (it makes sense in my head but I can't explain it). I think it's also in place to stop rapid expansion by a few guilds, which then put up Iron Wall defenses. If everything was really cheap it would just mean everyones towns would be full of military buildings instead of trying to strategically manage a goods supply and a military. High goods costs do at least force people to work out a strategie and not just win out be brute force (I will give it that 1 good point).

I agree that stronger guilds should beat weaker (hence I initially left out the bias for attacking up in rank). But to enable them to constantly beat the weak guy into the dust pushes the competition out of the match entirely. Your idea would get a lot more guilds fighting guilds, I'm just not sure at what cost it would be to player participation (but hey could work and solve the title of this thread).

Yeah I agree, 10 goods might be too little. At the same time, a guild without sectors shouldn't need to pay more that 10 goods. Maybe the best solution would be to make the cost start at 10 goods of each, and for each sector, increase by 10 goods of each, up to a cap of 100 goods of each. Then players would still need to produce much goods, but not in the super-high ratio that is today. So, for instance:

Number of sectors​	Cost of each good​
0​	10​
1​	20​
2​	30​
3​	40​
4​	50​
5​	60​
6​	70​
7​	80​
8​	90​
9​	100​
10​	100​
11​	100​
12​	100​
13​	100​
14​	100​
15​	100​

EDIT: I also think that balance would occur pretty much by itself regarding guilds with many sectors. Think of it this way: a large guild with many sectors will automaticly be attacked by many other guilds, compared to a smaller guild which will propably not get so much attention. And if multiple smaller guilds attack one large guild, the large guild will find it pretty difficult to protect all those sectors. So basicly the main problem here is that I think that goods costs should still be there, but in a lower amount. I agree that there should be a strategical choice between units and goods production, but currently the demand of goods are so high that many guilds could propably delete all of their barracks and just go for goods, which is wrong in the other way

 

[DeletedUser2989]

Can't a fake guild just grant freedom to the sector? That way the high ranking guild will be attacking an NPC sector thus negating your proposal.

With my proposal the cost to siege the NPC's is seperate to the cost of sieging another guild. So if the fake guild is taking sectors off other low ranked guilds and releasing them the larger/higher ranked guild still faces the current prices that go into the 1000's. All in all with my propose in place it would be much more worth while to find a guild within 5 ranks of them and start attacking them due to the low siege costs. I've said before though my proposal isn't to stop fake guild use, it would impact their use but hardly stop it.

@ Amy Steele, I've just worked it out (mentioned it in my last post here) and have added it as an option down the bottom of my idea thread's opening post (http://forum.en.forgeofempires.com/showthread.php?24653-Seperate-Goods-cost-to-Siege-in-GvG). I havn't played with the "factors" too much but have seen a noticeable effect with very small ratios in place. With actual implementation the values could easily be refined.

@ Falcon93, Now that idea sounds appealing, simple and as you said it should be self balancing.

@ Everyone... As this is a discussion thread about how to stop the stalemate (and not a "discuss Tankovy's idea, I sewar I'm not trying to hijack this thread) I'm going to put out another idea (seperate to mine). Offering a "plunder" system where you can gain "x" goods from taking another guilds sector based on the number of sectors that guild owns in that province? Eg you get nothing from taking a guilds only sector but if they have 10 sectors and you take one of them then maybe your guild "plunders" 15 of each good. The goods wouldn't physically come from the other guilds treasury but are simply gained by your guilds treasury.

Just a random thought I had, just putting it out there.

 

[DeletedUser14576]

i know byeordie i have been offered up chances of easy points from a few guilds since guild wars started mate, but heres the thing i do almost 2 million a day now as it is, without the need for any tricks of the trade shall we say : )

now back on topic
the rant from the preivous poster is out of order i am not trolling i am putting out an idea of how to try to stop the map being as empty of action as it is now and its only going to get worse which might be fine for the big guilds but it makes for an ultra slow and boring game for anyone who enjoys a good fight

if anyone else can come up with a good idea of how to stop this slow down that is going on then please lets hear it !!!!

when was the last fight on the map your on ? compared to how it was when gvg was first released ?

honestly if nothing is done then what is left in the game ? it really will be just a game to pop in once a day to collect goods and not much else and i care to much for the pvp fighting side of the game to let it just go without so much as a fight to do something about it

Just a thought about the "Goods Cost" for GvG: The more hexes you own....the more you pay. If a guild has 20 hexes they pay x amount. If you own 6 hexes you pay less. This lets small guilds try and try to land on the map without pricing themselves out of it in a week and restrict the big guys somewhat in throwing weight around. Add on a "Time of Hex Ownership" increase ( Every week you own 1-5 hexes you get a 1% rise in goods cost. 6-10 hexes 2% rise.) then you might have some kind of balance.
I'am sure there is some kind of counter to this ....so...

 

[DeletedUser14576]

Just a thought about the "Goods Cost" for GvG: The more hexes you own....the more you pay. If a guild has 20 hexes they pay x amount. If you own 6 hexes you pay less. This lets small guilds try and try to land on the map without pricing themselves out of it in a week and restrict the big guys somewhat in throwing weight around. Add on a "Time of Hex Ownership" increase ( Every week you own 1-5 hexes you get a 1% rise in goods cost. 6-10 hexes 2% rise.) then you might have some kind of balance.
I am sure there is some kind of counter to this ....so...

I see that the thoughts of others are in a same mind. Did not read the previous replies.

 

[DeletedUser96867]

@ Killgar II

We are mostly talking about trying to reduce the goods cost not having them increase even more. For most guilds the goods costs are already so high that no guild is risking the many thousands of goods attacking another guild to take a sector for little benefit. If the goods cost continue to rise over time(without taking more sectors) gvg will become even more stagnant as it's a feature currently designed to go on and on. What would happen 6 months or 1yr from now with increases of 1% or 2% a week how about those guilds with 16-20 sectors would that be 4% a week increase?

@Amy Steele
Using your example consider guild 2 attacking guild 1 which would be 1/2 = 0.5, and vice versa 2/1 =2 Those guilds are only 1 position apart but that sort of equation would result in a big difference in goods costs. As you said your example was in the extreme so it could be greatly adjusted so the goods costs didn't differ that much. However then consider guild 30 attacking guild 15 which would be 15/30= 0.5, and vice versa 30/15=2.

So using that method the difference in goods costs between guild #1, and #2(1 rank apart) would be proportionally the same as #15, and #30(15 ranks apart) If the number of sectors held was also still part a factor than the equation we just did would be some sort of multiplication factor. As it's likely guilds 1 and 2 hold more sectors than guilds 15 or 30, their base goods cost would be greater and the equation would create a much larger difference in the goods costs of 1 and 2 attacking each other than it would for guilds 15 and 30.

Also consider guild 30 and guild 1 attacking each other which would give factors of 30 or .0333. Then consider guild 30 and guild 2 attacking each other which would give factors 15, or .0666. In that case the multiplication factor would be twice the difference between when guilds 29 ranks apart were attacking each other compared to being 28 ranks apart.

@Tankovy That is another interesting idea, and so we aren't just talking about your proposal i still like the reset option.

 

[DeletedUser2989]

I see where you are going with the reset option, I'd say it's a bit late for them to do it though, unfortunately. The key to it working would be useful rewards to everyone (not just the fighters but the farmers too) in the guild, a long enough cycle that people can participate and get the guild organised (You don't want to feel like your spending half the cycle trying to get all the cats to follow orders) and finding a way to reward a range of guilds, trying to avoid the situation where it is always the same 10 getting the rewards and everyone else gets nothing (even though they tried really hard). Obviously with a reset style tornament you can't reward everyone at the end but the rewards that occur during (as you suggested which I quiet liked) would also have to be worth while enough to entice those that can't break the top 10 (or whatever the reward limit is set to).

@Killgar II, It might just be me but isn't that what we have already but with a time factor added on? If so I'm not sure that would work.

 

[DeletedUser7719]

Note Amy mentioned "based on or include a factor", so I don't think she meant to make it as simple as X/Y She is just asking if the guild difference in rank should be based more on proportions rather than subtraction

 

[DeletedUser]

With my proposal the cost to siege the NPC's is seperate to the cost of sieging another guild.

I think that's confusing for the usual player though. I think it's fine if they published the information clearly in-game. But as it is to find these statistics you need to come to the forums and dig it out.

 

[DeletedUser96867]

Note Amy mentioned "based on or include a factor", so I don't think she meant to make it as simple as X/Y She is just asking if the guild difference in rank should be based more on proportions rather than subtraction

I understand that but as my examples demonstrate the portion of the equation that would be X/Y could end up the same in very different situations #1 vs #2 and #15 vs #30, or very different in very similar situations like #1 vs #30 compared to # 2 vs 30. There might be some very complicated equations that could make that work but it's beyond what i'll be able to figure out. It would likely involved altering X and Y before the division, and further equations after. If someone wants to try to figure out a way that will work feel free.

@Tankovy I think my reset option would have to include most of the other points i included as well if it to work. With each guild limited to participating in just 3 or 4 gvg ages(at any one time), and rewards being given for ranking per age(and likely overall as well) the majority of guilds should be able to manage a reward at the end of each cycle in some age. I would not be opposed to giving every guild a payout at the end of each cycle for each sector it holds as compensation for being reset. Think i sort of suggested that before if there continued to be a per sector goods cost some of that would have to be paid back at the reset(maybe similar to the grant freedom return rate now).

The other thing i wondered about is if all the gvg ages should reset at the same time or if it would be better that one reset each week or so. That way each age would be at a different stage in it's 8 week cycle. Guilds fighting in 3 or 4 ages might be fighting in a gvg just reset, a couple in the middle slower period, and another age with the dash right at the end before the reset. That way guilds would only be dealing with the mad dash at the start of the reset in 1 age at a time. Another option would be 2 ages would be reset at a time. 2 this week, 2 more 2 weeks later etc. Perhaps any 1 guild would only be allowed to take part in 1 of the ages in each pair, with a lower age paired with a higher age, this would likely prevent most of the top guilds from participating in the lower age of each pair as they fight for the higher rewards.

 

[DeletedUser7719]

A little more complicated, but:
[X/(Y-1)]^(1/4)
(1st vs 3rd would be around .84 and 1st vs 30 would be .43. Still isn't perfect, but the devs can probably make a better equation)

 

[DeletedUser]

Just a small question; but why do you want to make it so advanced with an equation etc? Wouldn't it be much better to just have a set table of costs:

1st sector = 10 of each good
2nd - 9th = +10 of each good
10th sector and above = 100 of each good.

And a few other points:

- I don't think that the cost should be determined by the difference between the rank of guilds, hence I personally think that a fixed table of costs would be better. The main reason that I don't like it is because it is so complicated, and it opens up a whole room of potential bugs and exploits. What do you think about the table? Wouldn't that be a better solution?

- Don't do a regular reset of the provinces. I'm pretty sure that guilds will get bored of it after a while, because many guilds work hard to control their areas and getting it all reset regulary won't be fun for them. It's much better to lower the costs for sieges

So I think that the best change to solve this problem is:

* Set the costs to a table like I proposed in a post above.

* Revert the goods GB change, allowing us to get current era goods from our GBs as we did before. There was an inflation of goods before GvG, but now it has totally changed and goods are now a shortage. So if we were to get current era goods from our GBs and WWs again would just help GvG.

 

[DeletedUser96867]

@ byeordie, and 15 vs 30 would also be .84 so the same difference for guilds 2 ranks apart as 15 ranks apart. As you said the 30th guild attacking 1st would be .43 but 30th guild attacking 2nd would alter that to 0.51, and the 30th attacking the 3rd would move it to 0.57. A 33% increase in the factor(.57/.43) for the 30th rank guild attacking #3, instead of #1. I expect the 30th rank guild wouldn't see a 33% difference between a guild ranked 1 and a guild ranked 3.

@falcon
At a max of 5x100 goods per siege i expect a small number of top guilds would hold a great many more sectors and the small guilds would find themselves pushed off the map. Currently the goods cost is the only factor limiting guilds from dominating entire ages. Some other restriction would have to be added to keep a guild from taken 50-100 sectors in an age. With a difference based on rankings with a proper formula it may be possible to alter the costs so guilds about the same 'size' would fight among each other(at low cost)but make it costly for the top guilds to take out the small guilds, while making it a bit easier for the small guilds to go after the top guilds who are fortified on the map. The top guilds(and i don't mean those with the most players usually it'll be those oldest guilds with the most advanced players bouncing off the end of the research tree for the last 6+ months who have the best GB's and the most resources, and not much else to do) should and will still have a advantage in gvg but there has to be something useful for the smaller guilds as well. If there was an 'A' gvg event for the most advanced guilds and a 'B' gvg event with lower costs and lower rewards there would be other options for small guilds but i don't see that happening. We have to come up with something that not only gets gvg more active but does so to the benefit of all guilds not just the top few.

Guilds might get bored of a reset after awhile(and take a cycle off while they focus on other parts of the game), without it guild will get bored of gvg far sooner. Trust me i've seen what 5 months of gvg with no reset has done in testing. Other than the occasion siege of a LZ by a guild not on the map nothing happens. Most players are bored to death with gvg and it's hard even to get people involved enough to replace the armies damaged by mountains/rivers/npcs(yes there are still some NPC guilds aren't even interested enough to attack them any more) and it's been like that for a couple months already. (PLEASE don't delete this as it is very relevant to this discussion unless we want to wait 4 or 5 months for what we already know is going to happen to happen here)

 

[DeletedUser]

At a max of 5x100 goods per siege i expect a small number of top guilds would hold a great many more sectors and the small guilds would find themselves pushed off the map. Currently the goods cost is the only factor limiting guilds from dominating entire ages. Some other restriction would have to be added to keep a guild from taken 50-100 sectors in an age. With a difference based on rankings with a proper formula it may be possible to alter the costs so guilds about the same 'size' would fight among each other(at low cost)but make it costly for the top guilds to take out the small guilds, while making it a bit easier for the small guilds to go after the top guilds who are fortified on the map. (PLEASE don't delete this as it is very relevant to this discussion unless we want to wait 4 or 5 months for what we already know is going to happen to happen here)

I think that you're overthinking it A small guild should be pushed off the map by a larger guild - stronger beats the weaker - that is how it should work, shouldn't it? But let's not forget the most important thing here: There is not only 1 large and 1 small guild on the province. There are many different guilds fighting each other, and I honestly don't think that there's one single guild in the entire game that can hold off 10-15 other guilds at the same time, and then let's not forget about the agressive NPCs aswell

The thing is: If many guilds fights on 1 province, then it will balance itself out automaticly, because the guild that controls the largest area will automaticly get the most attention by the other guilds that are trying to expand. Smaller guilds will not get so much attention because they are not a threat. However, let's think of a smaller server where there's just 5-6 active guilds. Then this idea will work very well aswell because these 5-6 guilds will not have to sit and wait but can instead fight.

I personally don't see any problem in the theoretically possible scenario of 1 guild controlling the entire province either, and the reason is that if that guild is that strong to be able to do it, then they simply deserve to control the entire province. However, in reality this is not the case. Controlling the entire province is simply impossible if there's a few other active guilds.

That is why I think that this matter is being overthinked - just lower the costs to make it possible for guilds to actually fight each other and let the balance come by itself - because it will, but not today when costs are this high

Guilds might get bored of a reset after awhile(and take a cycle off while they focus on other parts of the game), without it guild will get bored of gvg far sooner. Trust me i've seen what 5 months of gvg with no reset has done in testing. Other than the occasion siege of a LZ by a guild not on the map nothing happens. Most players are bored to death with gvg and it's hard even to get people involved enough to replace the armies damaged by mountains/rivers/npcs(yes there are still some NPC guilds aren't even interested enough to attack them any more) and it's been like that for a couple months already.

But let's be honest here: guilds won't get bored of GvG because it doesn't get reset, but simply because they are stuck because of the high costs

The reason that NPCs still exist is also due to the high costs. You see, reseting the map will just make it worse, because all goods that the guild has spent will just be removed and they will have to conquer their sectors again. Sure, their guild level remain, but their sectors will just get removed and their power will get down to 0. That means that when they start over again, they will have even less goods that they had before.

 

[DeletedUser15432]

Well, as far as I am concerned, GvG has not degenerated into stalemate

Example, a guild started an industrial era campaign pm 19th, there ware no unoccupied landing zones, due to an error, the sector initially attacked was one sector above the planned attack, and had 5 defending armies, the guild has managed to take that sector and a further 6 additional sectors, only 2 of which belonged to NPC's, the others were all taken from the same guild. At tonight's recess the guild will be up to 7th position and the 7th position guild will have dropped to about the 19th position

Now, for all those who say GvG is dead, consider the above case, and I am sure there are many more who can say the same

 

[DeletedUser]

Well, as far as I am concerned, GvG has not degenerated into stalemate

Example, a guild started an industrial era campaign pm 19th, there ware no unoccupied landing zones, due to an error, the sector initially attacked was one sector above the planned attack, and had 5 defending armies, the guild has managed to take that sector and a further 6 additional sectors, only 2 of which belonged to NPC's, the others were all taken from the same guild. At tonight's recess the guild will be up to 7th position and the 7th position guild will have dropped to about the 19th position

Now, for all those who say GvG is dead, consider the above case, and I am sure there are many more who can say the same

I partly agree with this GvG is far from dead, but I must agree that it has come to a stalemate. Todays GvG works really nice when there's a huge amount of active guilds, and when the average amount of sectors per guild is like 5-8 sectors. But lets ask us: How many servers does actually meet this criteria? The numbers here on .EN are surely higher, but I don't think that they are even high enough here. And it's even worse on smaller servers where there's just 5-6 active guilds and the average amount of sectors controlled by 1 guild is 20-30 sectors. This is where the stalemate comes in. It simply takes too long to advance. And that is why I think that a lowered cost could boost the phase and actually add more "wars" in "guild wars"

 

[DeletedUser96867]

@falcon
"I think that you're overthinking it A small guild should be pushed off the map by a larger guild - stronger beats the weaker "
I'm fine with that as long as the smaller guild has somewhere else to go where they can compete against guilds at their own level. Currently that is not the case.

"There are many different guilds fighting each other, and I honestly don't think that there's one single guild in the entire game that can hold off 10-15 other guilds at the same time"
Let me know when you think 10 of 15 guilds can get together to organized a coordinated attack, hard enough to get players in 1 guild coordinated. Also consider the case of a top guild with say 75 sectors backed into the bottom corner of the ME map. It is unlikely that the guild will be bordered by more than a handful of other guilds not the 10-15 you are talking about. Similar situations can occur on several of the maps along large mountain or oceancoast(non LZ)

" However, in reality this is not the case. Controlling the entire province is simply impossible if there's a few other active guilds." However 5 or 6 guilds out of 50 each with 30-40 sectors could and after a time will likely get tired of attacking each other and the statuesque sets in.

I direct you to read my post number #12 where i provide the specifics of my reset idea. I specifically mention that at the time of reset there will be rewards paid including repayment of a portion of the goods costs for the sectors held at the time of the reset.(on top of decrease in goods costs to start with) " Presuming there were still goods costs for gvg sectors some amount of goods would have to be paid back at the reset. " Included in my proposal are added daily rewards and reward sectors which would help offset the costs of gvg. " Instead rewards will consist of the daily reward sectors, some daily rewards for guilds by ranking in each gvg age, and a large reward based on a guilds ranking in each individual age at the end of the gvg tournament cycle." My proposal also includes a limit to the number of sectors a guild could take in an age to offset the function of the siege goods cost which would be eliminated with goods costs being decreased drastically(this would force the top guilds with the max number of sectors to plan and attack more based on sector power values instead of just accumulating as many sectors as they can). It also would limit the number of ages a guild could fight in at a time, so those smaller guilds would likely have a place where they can go in the lower ages and not have to compete with the top guilds. I agree 100% that just doing a reset without other changes will not work, however that is not what i'm suggesting, and never have.

@Pzkpfwv1d GvG is not dead but it has greatly slowed and it will continue to slow and stalemate more and more as time goes by. We are only about a month into gvg a balance has not been reached and there are certainly still opportunities around on the map, but the number of them decrease each day.

 

[DeletedUser11899]

In my native server the situation is like here, all sectors of almost all high provinces are occupied except some free areas in lower ages. Also,like here, GvG is in a stalemate status, and now, the big guilds are just starting to land on lower province maps to conquer new sectors due its low cost.

I just wonder, was planned this quick stalemate by GvG designers from a beginning?
Also I'd like to say that GvG is not dead, is just having a nap.