New setting: Upkeep [Poll for minimum reinforcements]

[OliverFA]

Concise description:
A new setting called "Upkeep". With upkeep enabled, part of your reinforcement income is deduced to pay for maintenance of your existing armies.

The setting has the following values:

• No upkeep
• Low upkeep (1/20)
• Medium upkeep (1/10)
• High upkeep (1/5)

Specifics/Details:
Each turn, the upkeep cost is calculated prior to the reinforcement calculation. That cost is

Code: Select all

Upkeep Cost=Number of armies *Upkeep modifier

Then, the reinforcement formula is changed to:

Code: Select all

Reinforcements=Reinforcement bonuses-Upkeep Cost

• Decimal values are rounded up.
• Reinforcements can never be lower than 0. So if you managed to create a big army you keep it but can't increase it until you get more bonuses.
• Autodeploys are not affected as they are placed directly in the region.
• Spoils are also not affected.

Taking medium reinforcements as a sample, this means that each bonus allows you to place a new troop each turn or to pay for 10 existing troops. If you have Africa in the classic map, that's a bonus of +6. If you already have 10 armies on the map, you will only get 5 reinforcements. If you have 30 armies, you will get 3 reinforcements. If you have 50 armies only 1 reinforcement. And if you have 60 or more armies you get no reinforcements.

Some posters have expressed their concern about the minimum reinforcements being 0, because this leaves the player with absolutely no reinforcements in extreme situations and in some starts depending on map size and number of players.

In my opinion, that's exactly how the setting should work and there is nothing wrong with it. But because I always listen to comments and feedback, I have a way to fix this issue. The fix is raising minimum reinforcements from 0 to 3 (in fact to the minimum reinforcements in that map, which usually is 3). If the majority of people think that's a change for the best, I will apply it to the proposal. I am making a poll to learn people's feelings.

How this will benefit the site and/or other comments:
This will make the game a lot more strategic. Is not only about conquering but also about holding the resources to boost your economy and pay for your army. Autodeploys become a very precious resource, as they are not affected by upkeep.

As upkeep is incorporated in reinforcement formula, it is simple yet effective.

And as it would be an option, it would not piss any player that did not want it.

But players who want their games to resemble more the real war, would love this setting.

It opens the door for an XML update, incorporating an <upkeep> tag that would allow for upkeep bonuses and a whole new family of maps. (This would be in a second phase).

To do:
close the poll and process feedback
Ammend to include defered troops
write a log example

[macbone]

Intriguing idea. Would you go into negative troops at any point? If you have 70 troops, would a troop be randomly deducted somewhere?

So in a 6-man Classic game, since you start with 21 troops, on the Medium setting, you'd get no troops to place on your first turn? Very interesting. I'm not sold on the idea of creating an entirely new setting, though. What about a single On/Off for Upkeep instead to keep things simpler?

[OliverFA]

Intriguing idea. Would you go into negative troops at any point? If you have 70 troops, would a troop be randomly deducted somewhere?

The idea of randomly deducting a troop is interesting, but I think that is best to keep things simple. With this suggestion I want to make the game more complete but keep it as simple as possible.

I think that not receiving any income is enough "penalty" for not paying all your upkeep. Also, it would allow for strategic retreats. Take all your troops to a corner in the map and sleep until the opportunity arises. With the negative income, the only option would be to attack and strategical choices would be reduced.

Another problem would be that escalating spoils would directly clash with negative income. (Even if I think that this option would be best played without escalating spoils, better to make them compatible).

So in a 6-man Classic game, since you start with 21 troops, on the Medium setting, you'd get no troops to place on your first turn? Very interesting. I'm not sold on the idea of creating an entirely new setting, though. What about a single On/Off for Upkeep instead to keep things simpler?

On the medium setting, you would get only 1 troop (3-21*.1=0.9, rounded up is 1). On the high setting you would get no income. And on the low income you would get 2 troops (3-21*.05=1.95, rounded up is 2).

A single on/off setting would work for me (Would have to be medium in this case). I think that those three settings make for more interesting and varied games. But if having only one setting was the price to pay for getting it implemented, it would be ok for me.

[Victor Sullivan]

Brilliant! Sam, ian, Widowmakers and I are playing a Feudal Epic game with Escalating spoils (we're up to 250 per cash!) and it's still a stacking game. Upkeep solves this problem.

Well done Oliver! You continue to amaze me

[AndyDufresne]

Interesting idea, I kind of like it. Basically, 'the costs of war/campaign'!


--Andy

[OliverFA]

Brilliant! Sam, ian, Widowmakers and I are playing a Feudal Epic game with Escalating spoils (we're up to 250 per cash!) and it's still a stacking game. Upkeep solves this problem.

Well done Oliver! You continue to amaze me

Thanks! Victor

Interesting idea, I kind of like it. Basically, 'the costs of war/campaign'!

--Andy

And also thanks to you, Andy. Now that You have honoured me with your attention, I would like to add that this adds a whole new world for mapmaking. I'll try to explain it in a simple way: It makes room for a new resource, the upkeep bonus.

"Current bonus" is the deploy bonus. "New bonus" would be the upkeep bonus. It would not increase the reinforcement rate, but it would increase the army limit. I'll give an example:

In a medieval-like map, an iron mine would be the deploy bonus. The iron allows you to equip more soldiers for war. A windmill would be an upkeep bonus. It gives you more food for feeding those soldiers.

And all this could be done just with a single new XML tag. But of course this would be a second phase after the upkeep option gets implemented.

[Woodruff]

I like the idea IF it doesn't ever cause someone to receive less than three armies (the default). Yes, I know this can occasionally happen on certain maps (which pisses me off), but it shouldn't happen as a setting.

[OliverFA]

I like the idea IF it doesn't ever cause someone to receive less than three armies (the default). Yes, I know this can occasionally happen on certain maps (which pisses me off), but it shouldn't happen as a setting.

I see your point. After all with the current system players get 3 reinforcements even if they don't have the required 9 territories.

But I am not sure this would make sense. I would prefer the minimum reinforcements to be 0 and not 3. I think it makes a lot more sense. A single territory shouldn't be able to create additional reinforcements forever. On the other hand, having a minimum of 3 reinforcements just makes the slow building situations a lot more slow.

And from the gameplay perspective, remember that receiving 0 reinforcements would mean that you already have a decent army (15, 30 or 60 depending on the setting, or bigger if you retreated.).

[SirSebstar]

Conquerman and hive use a simmular arrangement where you get less armies per country when you have reached a certain amount of countries.
So this suggestion would be based on the amount of troops instead of countries availiable?
it would certainly make stackking less attractive.

playing on huge maps or small maps should get a different upkeep number. placing 30 on doodle earth is an accomplishment in itself. getting 30 troops total on world 2.1 .. well you'd better! or you loose right away.


strategies that would go boom.
it does mean you need the bonussess of countries more then the amount of countries. So if you get a lucky drop. its better to stay relativly small and gather forces then to keep whacking and winning the game more quickly.

I would like to see the proposal amended so that if you have a lot of countries, you do not also loose your income..., if that defeats the purpose (and i can see how that could be) then I would vote against this proposal

[OliverFA]

Conquerman and hive use a simmular arrangement where you get less armies per country when you have reached a certain amount of countries.
So this suggestion would be based on the amount of troops instead of countries availiable?

Yes. It is completely different. Conquerman's approach you could say it's upkeep per territories. But this suggestion is about upkeep per army. Your soliders is the real stuff you have to pay for, and not having more or less territories.

it would certainly make stackking less attractive.

It would. But the goal is to make the game more strategic and interesting. A side effect is that stacking is less atractive, and in my opinion is a good side effect.

playing on huge maps or small maps should get a different upkeep number. placing 30 on doodle earth is an accomplishment in itself. getting 30 troops total on world 2.1 .. well you'd better! or you loose right away.

This should be controlled by the mapmaker. The values I suggested are standard values. But in a second phase an XML tag could be added for the mapmaker to specify the upkeep multiplier. Something like <UpkeepMultiplier> of similar. The standard values would be multiplied by this number.

strategies that would go boom.
it does mean you need the bonussess of countries more then the amount of countries.

That is what already happens. Isn't it? You need the bonuses of countries in order to have a good income.

So if you get a lucky drop. its better to stay relativly small and gather forces then to keep whacking and winning the game more quickly.

Again, in my opinion that's also the current situation. Take the classic map. It's better to secure yourself in Africa or even Australia than try to get all the Asia territories.

I would like to see the proposal amended so that if you have a lot of countries, you do not also loose your income...,

I am not sure I understand what you mean, so if I misunderstood it, my apologies. I understand you want the upkeep limit to be bigger the more countries you have. That is the way it would be. Taking a standard map as an example, you get 1 additional reinforcement each 3 countries, which also means higher upkeep limit.

The proper way to do it would be to assign different bonuses (a reinforcement bonus and an upkeep bonus) to each territory. But I chose not to do that way because as I said I want to keep things simple. The more complicated are things the less likely is that people will accept them, and also the more difficult it will be to implement them.

Sumarizing, each threee countries increase your upkeep limit. So the more countries the more income you have.

if that defeats the purpose (and i can see how that could be) then I would vote against this proposal

Excuse me again. I don't understand what it means "if that defeats the purpose". Could you please explain it again? Thanks!

[Dako]

I like the idea, but I think the formula should be changed to reflect number of territories. Maybe together with armies.

For example, take classic map 1v1. You have 14 starting regions with 3 armies on each - that will result on 2 upkeep cost deduction at the very start. And you will get 2 armies to deploy.

Also, you cannot add <UpkeepMultiplier> to current maps as they are already quenched and to balance 100+ maps for this feature seems impossible.

We need a solution that will work for all current maps without their XML tweaks. Some new maps may implement that multiplier, but only as a new feature. Which is a doubtful feature because it affects only 1 game type. No one has <FlatRateValues> for some maps because those values are basic and should be shared by all maps.

So... I think we should work towards changing the formula, but I really like the idea.

[SirSebstar]

OliverFA,
would it be possible to have
Upkeep Cost=( Number of armies- number of countries) *Upkeep modifier
or something. if you have a big map. you start with more countries. So the upkeep would hit sooner then on a small map. But in this way you at least do not get punished for having no bonussess.

strategies that would go boom.
it does mean you need the bonussess of countries more then the amount of countries.

That is what already happens. Isn't it? You need the bonuses of countries in order to have a good income.

So if you get a lucky drop. its better to stay relativly small and gather forces then to keep whacking and winning the game more quickly.

Again, in my opinion that's also the current situation. Take the classic map. It's better to secure yourself in Africa or even Australia than try to get all the Asia territories.

No, I win a goo many games without taking bonussess if i need to kill neutrals for it. I usually get my extra troops from having more countries then my opponant and roll over him from there. This tactic would not work on an upkeep map.
With the new tactic i need to spend troops and time to kill neutrals to get the extra bonussess active to be able to continue defeating my opponant..

[eddie2]

would this not blow the feudal games that are all about stacking out of proportion maybe make it ok for none conquest maps but on conquest you need 2 stack.

[SirSebstar]

lol @ eddie, i se the dot have been on premium again...
yea, it sucks to be on them maps with upkeep. although you can just go for the power attack and do not have any stacks. just keep attacking asap and you will grow bigger faster then your opponant,
obviously assuming you can maintain the rate of attrition by the upkeep doe to lands you own

[Dako]

You stack in feudal because you want to get your opponent in 1 hit. With upkeep you will slowly kill neutrals, few at each turn. But in the end you will have a stack anyway, just not that big.