[XML] infected neutrals

[agentcom]

How do people find this stuff and dig it up?

The stuff on the one, single page of submitted suggestions? Not with too much difficulty, I would hope.

[vrex]

Due to the announcement today. I see a change in leadership has been effected. (or is it affected?)

Since he has said to point out things that players want done... I'm going to point out this ... I want it done!

It is probably just me, and i'm aware that other things older than this in this 'submitted suggestions' thread might take priority but i figure i might try anyway to see what the new webmaster has to say about this being moved to the next stage after 'last call'

Now after i have spent my new hopes for this site up, ill go back to watching to see if anything really does change, i'll be watching new webmaster... and all the other new guys on the team...

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

Thought it be worth bumping this since the new admin seems to be paying attention to the submitted suggestions forum

[yeti_c]

This suggestion is still the best suggestion that hasn't been realised on this site.

C.

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

This suggestion is still the best suggestion that hasn't been realised on this site.

C.

I have growing, albeit minor, hopes that it will actually get implemented one day. I don't see it happening on a priority basis, especially since I could see it taking a fair bit of coding to do, but it's a good suggestion and worth the time once some of the more important updates are completed.

[SuicidalSnowman]

We finally got Adjacent Attacks in...

This is such a great option for games... such a shame we don't have it.

[OliverFA]

This suggestion is still the best suggestion that hasn't been realised on this site.

C.

I do agree. This suggestion opens a completely new range of possibilities.

It's a real pitty that after all those years this suggestion has not been implemented. IMHO CC would really benefit from those suggestions. The ones that add more gameplay deep and strategy layers. This is not "Semi-escalating spoils with half flat rate". This is not a "let's invent a new setting just to make things a little different". This is new, completely fresh (even after all those years) and something that would keep games very very interesting.

Suddenly deadbetting players become something a lot more interesting. Instead of that big stack of 50 troops that will stay on the board forever now you have 50 angry neutrals that will come after you. Bombarding territories does not just remove the player from that territory, it also creates a potential danger that should be addressed, and thus additional trouble. And what to say about Conquest maps, or maps with many neutrals? Oasis becomes a "Survive against the desert hordes" game. Prison Riot has the additional issue of dealing with all the neutral guards on the first turns.

In one sentence, this setting would spice up games.

[OliverFA]

Just wanted to say I still believe this suggestion to be AWESOME

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

Just wanted to say I still believe this suggestion to be AWESOME

So do I and hope to see it implemented one day

[agentcom]

Just re-read the OP. There are some neutral heavy maps that I'm not sure you'd ever be able to play this with. For example on Feudal Epic, you'd have a hell of a time getting out of your base. If you did make it to the neutral 10, I'm not sure how much farther you would get. I don't think this would work for conquest maps, IOW.

Also whoever goes at the end of the round has a pretty big advantage. That player can move troops around to avoid a neutral attack. Other players wouldn't really have that option.

I like the idea, but I think it needs to be thought out better. Perhaps it's something that could be put into the XML instead and be made an option for mapmakers.

[OliverFA]

Actually, I would love to play this in Feudal Epic. An important part of the strategy would be to keep neutrals under 4 so they don't attack but at the same time block the other neutrals behind them, and then bombard those 10s to reduce their numbers before attacking them.

During first turn neutrals would incubate, so their number wouldn't grow. The second turn their numbers would grow, but as they would be 3s they would not attack yet. That gives enough time to prepare to bring them down. And as I said, bombard the 10s before taking down the neutrals blocking them.

Villages and their surrounding areas would be different, as they would have high numbers by the time they are reached, but by that time players would be strong enough to fight those angry neutrals.

Yes, it would be long before "human" players clash, but that would be the whole purpose of a conquest map with infected neutrals. In fact, it would feel even more like conquest, as the civilized players would have to grow their civilizations before worrying about each other.

[agentcom]

Actually, I would love to play this in Feudal Epic. An important part of the strategy would be to keep neutrals under 4 so they don't attack but at the same time block the other neutrals behind them, and then bombard those 10s to reduce their numbers before attacking them.

During first turn neutrals would incubate, so their number wouldn't grow. The second turn their numbers would grow, but as they would be 3s they would not attack yet. That gives enough time to prepare to bring them down. And as I said, bombard the 10s before taking down the neutrals blocking them.

Villages and their surrounding areas would be different, as they would have high numbers by the time they are reached, but by that time players would be strong enough to fight those angry neutrals.

Yes, it would be long before "human" players clash, but that would be the whole purpose of a conquest map with infected neutrals. In fact, it would feel even more like conquest, as the civilized players would have to grow their civilizations before worrying about each other.

I think you'd better check your math on this one. Feudal Epic has 128 territs, of which a vast majority start neutral. Lets try to make this as advantageous to the humans as possible and assume an 8 player game in order to maximize the basic (+3) deployment. At the beginning of the game, the humans can put a total of 64 troops on the map. The next turn, some will still only get 8, most will get 9, and some will get 10. The neutrals are still outdeploying the humans. From there the situation worsens, as some players can't beat back the wave of neutrals, and some of them will get killed by neutrals, especially on bases like ID, RoM, and GK.

Only a handful of humans will be able to take the territs around their bases, but they need 2 of these to get a +1 and they will have to protect them from the growing amounts of other neutrals, including the neutral that starts at 10. That neutral is particularly problematic on some bases, since so many of the territs border it and controlling that 10 would be essential to get the bonuses needed to keep beating back the neutrals.

If anyone did make it to the 10, they would probably have to collect their force together and attack in a straight line toward other castles, allowing the neutrals to swallow up their reinforcement chain and having to dedicate at least some of their drop to keeping the gate to their castle safe.

Maybe on escalating you could reach the point where humans outdeploy the relevant neutrals. (The humans don't need to outdeploy all neutrals because some of them like Tri 5 may never be touched.) But it's going to be a very long and painful road to get to this point. If the game is trench, I'm not sure it's even possible. If it's not escalating, I'm not sure that's possible.

You might end up with a game where the last player standing becomes the victor. That player might just stay on his castle beating back the neutrals there, and depending on his dice and drop the first couple turns to put him in a position to do this.

[koontz1973]

I spoke to a couple of people over this idea, and the one thing that both have said, and I am starting to agree with them would be to have this as an xml feature on future maps. So it would get used only if a map maker wanted it in some regions.

The reasoning for this is that it would have to get blocked for a lot of existing maps. Both feudal maps would become unplayable. The idea to keep neutrals under 3 to stop the attacks is pointless. Most maps have neutrals automatically set at 3 and others have them set a lot higher for GP reasons. Killer neutrals, win conditions, losing conditions would have to become exempt from this as well. Going over a neutral stack of 10 or anywhere near to it would end up becoming problematic. No one would go there and waste troops and maps with set neutrals would have to be looked at again to make sure players start evenly.

Having this as an xml feature, you can get maps dedicated for this idea. Themed maps would be made glorious with this, but some maps would become unplayable. I know this is the same old excuse of what about the maps, but that is what we do here and that has to be the priority with this. You cannot make maps unplayable just to please a few.

[spiesr]

show

Well agentcom, I certainly agree with your assessment (and go farther to say that this is a setting that I would likely never want to use on any map) but at least some of the people who supported this suggestion seem to be aware that on some maps the game would consist entirely of players trying to survive the neutrals the longest, never coming into contact with each other. While I think it is a bad idea some people seem to want it like that nonetheless. Is there anything you can think of that might convince them otherwise?

[chapcrap]

Is this an XML change or a new game type? The XML tag confuses me, because I feel like this is a game option.

It can be limited to which maps it can be used on, like manual is.

[OliverFA]

Well agentcom, I certainly agree with your assessment (and go farther to say that this is a setting that I would likely never want to use on any map) but at least some of the people who supported this suggestion seem to be aware that on some maps the game would consist entirely of players trying to survive the neutrals the longest, never coming into contact with each other. While I think it is a bad idea some people seem to want it like that nonetheless. Is there anything you can think of that might convince them otherwise?

That's right. I can't speak for everybody else, but I am well aware that in a Conquest map a very big part of the game would be fighting the barbarian hordes instead of the other players, and that would be the whole point of the game.

However, I disagree with the calculation that neutrals would kill players without any kind of hope. Of couse, I may be wrong, but I think that a well played game would avoid that. We have to remember that neutrals would advance only when they had adjacent territories to attack, and that they would never reinforce. So despite they would deploy a lot more than humans, that deploy would not effectively enter in the math. It's the case of superior generals with inferior forces prevailing by strategy, and IMHO that fits Conquer Club a lot. Again, I may be wrong, but I feel that people who like that setting would spend the first few turns securing their castle and then conduct well defended expeditions out of their borders. And once out of their kingdoms, they would face the choice between fighting the neutrals will all their forces (a choice that would benefit not only them but also the other players) or just use an small-medium force to keep neutrals in check and go directly against the other players.

IMHO blocking this setting from conquest maps would be killing the fun from it. Then infected neutrals would only appear when someone is kicked out from the game for missing too many turns.

Limiting it to some maps would be making too much work for just a possibility.

I would prefer to give mapmakers the ability to forbid this setting in their maps if they really think the setting doesn't fit it. But let's face it, escalating already changes most maps to the point they can't be recognised, and we don't ban it. In fact there are many people who enjoy escalating a lot to the point of making it their favourite setting, and they don't seem concerned at all with the fact that escalating "spoils" the delicate bonus balance on some maps. Even more, I am sure they love the fact that escalating breaks that delicate bonus balance.

And finally, if there are issues that really make this setting unplayable on some maps let's discuss those issues and fix them. I was not around when this was discussed for the first time, but I bet the incubation turn and the 4 armies requisite before attacking are examples of adjustments that were made to make this setting playable, so if there is a real issue perhaps an adjustment could fix it. I remember that when trench was suggested some people argued that it could never be implemented because of killing neutrals, then someone came with the idea of allowing to attack through those territories even if ther were just conquered, which was very nice and achieves two purposes: First it makes trench playable in maps with killer neutrals, but second and most important, it integrates killer neutrals in trench maps, making them an important gameplay element the same way they are in no trench games. So, if we have issues, let's discuss them and fix them.

[OliverFA]

I think you'd better check your math on this one. Feudal Epic has 128 territs, of which a vast majority start neutral. Lets try to make this as advantageous to the humans as possible and assume an 8 player game in order to maximize the basic (+3) deployment. At the beginning of the game, the humans can put a total of 64 troops on the map. The next turn, some will still only get 8, most will get 9, and some will get 10. The neutrals are still outdeploying the humans. From there the situation worsens, as some players can't beat back the wave of neutrals, and some of them will get killed by neutrals, especially on bases like ID, RoM, and GK.

As I said in the previous post, despite neutrals would deploy a lot more globally, most of this deploy would be useless, as it would be in landlocked territories that would not attack human players until they were "opened".

Only a handful of humans will be able to take the territs around their bases, but they need 2 of these to get a +1 and they will have to protect them from the growing amounts of other neutrals, including the neutral that starts at 10. That neutral is particularly problematic on some bases, since so many of the territs border it and controlling that 10 would be essential to get the bonuses needed to keep beating back the neutrals.

The first turn the neutrals would grow from 2 to 3, so they would not attack. This gives humans enough time to take some of the territories and keep the others below 3, or to reduce the 10s. Remember they are making no less than 8 troops per turn, while those "huge" 10s would only get an extra 1 deploy per turn. In fact humans are outdeploying neutrals where it matters.

If anyone did make it to the 10, they would probably have to collect their force together and attack in a straight line toward other castles, allowing the neutrals to swallow up their reinforcement chain and having to dedicate at least some of their drop to keeping the gate to their castle safe.

That would be one strategy, but not the only one. Some people would prefer to secure a zone around their castle, so when the other humans arrived with their "fast kamikaze" force the defending players could confront it without any problem. Balancing the need to fight the neutrals vs the need to fight the humans would be an important (and fun) part of the game.

We have to remember that the reinforcement rate is a lot slower than it seems, because it is 1 per territory, including landlocked territories.

Maybe on escalating you could reach the point where humans outdeploy the relevant neutrals. (The humans don't need to outdeploy all neutrals because some of them like Tri 5 may never be touched.) But it's going to be a very long and painful road to get to this point.

I disagree again. The point when humans outdeploy neutrals will be reached often because of what I said, most of the deploy is landlocked, and the effective deploy is 1 per border territory, something that a skillfull general can outperform by smart deploy and smart reinforce. I agree that the road may be long, but not painful. IMO that road will be fun, very fun. It's like playing Civilization with ravaging hordes, I would define it as "challenging" not "painful".

If the game is trench, I'm not sure it's even possible. If it's not escalating, I'm not sure that's possible.

If the game is trench it will be in fact less challenging, because the neutrals advance one territory each turn, and as we said border territories only deploy one army while human players can concentrate their deploy. Castles will be safer as they have several turns to bombard coming neutrals.

You might end up with a game where the last player standing becomes the victor. That player might just stay on his castle beating back the neutrals there, and depending on his dice and drop the first couple turns to put him in a position to do this.

That could happen but I really think would be very uncommon. Once again, the key is that neutrals deploy just one army and humans can concentrate their attacks, be it normal or trench. As I see it, it's a clear case of smarter civilized general outperforming dumb barbarian hordes, who are bigger in number but using dumb tacticts, and giving the general the possibility to slowly defeat them.

Anyway, as I said, if there are some issues let's expose and discuse them, so the proposal can be fixed (if it need fixing) and become a reality. If there is an issue, we can solve it as we solved the killer neutrals issue with trench.

[agentcom]

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Well agentcom, I certainly agree with your assessment (and go farther to say that this is a setting that I would likely never want to use on any map) but at least some of the people who supported this suggestion seem to be aware that on some maps the game would consist entirely of players trying to survive the neutrals the longest, never coming into contact with each other. While I think it is a bad idea some people seem to want it like that nonetheless. Is there anything you can think of that might convince them otherwise?

I understand that, but the problem is that on a map like Feudal, the whole game could be decided based on who gets the castle with only 2 neutrals bordering it.

Oliver, like I said before, run through a couple of hypothetical turns starting on the base that has 4 neutrals bordering it and see what happens. Your whole post just assumes that you could get through them. That's an assumption that I don't share.

Finally, FTW, All Your Base. Victor is the person who's starting base is last in the alphabet according to the OP. Same with Krazy Kingdoms. Same with Antarctica. To a lesser extent Arms Race. Add Baseball to the list

2010 World Cup separates all surviving players into little pockets and it will be questionable whether they can get out and attack each other ever.

Age of Realms 1: Ghyr, Aoria and Xi are a death sentences.

Other maps have things happen that may be more "interesting" but they would still have to be evaluated for problems:

On Das Schloss, the first turn clears much of the upper right and left corners if not all of them. People who's territs are last in the alphabet survive. (Talk about arbitrary). The neutral bombardment at the bottom of the map kills the auto-deploy of whoever's territ is first in the alphabet.

Baltic Crusades: You're probably dead if you don't have a castle in the first turn.

Battle for Iraq: Sunni cities probably become uninhabitable

City Mogul: not sure what happens here, but it would certainly be different.

Conquer Rome: You'll likely lose territs faster than you can gain them.

....

I could go on. Maybe some people would find if fun to see how long they could survive the neutral invasion. I probably would too. But some maps are set up such that this would be more dependent on luck than in any map map/setting combo that we currently have.

Koontz is right. Have it as an XML feature. If someone wants to design a map where you run away from the zombies that's fine, but it should be by design rather than trying to convert Feudal Epic to this purpose.

[koontz1973]

agent is right over a lot of the maps, without even looking at them all, the ones he mentioned would never be allowed with this, but you would also get a lot of other maps deselected with this. Antarctica would be funny with this as the south pole can attack all bases so with its turn, the neutrals will start eliminating bases with its 30 neutral army.

Lets get this as an xml feature, that way we can have it on a few maps made for this idea. I would rather get 5 great maps using this idea than 100 maps having this tacked on hoping it works.

[OliverFA]

Oliver, like I said before, run through a couple of hypothetical turns starting on the base that has 4 neutrals bordering it and see what happens. Your whole post just assumes that you could get through them. That's an assumption that I don't share.

And as I said, let's find the issues and fix them. It seems that some maps have very big stacks of neutrals right next to starting players positions. Probably that could be solved by introducing an starting turn for the "infection" to act. Let's say that starting turn is turn 6, that would mean that from turns 1 to 5 neutrals would only reinforce, but not attack, even if stacks are far bigger than 4 armies.

That starting turn could be coded in the map, so different maps have different starting turns giving players enough time to secure their positions, and "impossible" maps would have a late starting turn.

IMHO 12 players update shows the way of how this could be done. Most maps have been granted the 12 players possibility, but some have remained at 10, 9, 8... Here, most maps would get starting turn for infection at turn 1, but some would be 5, 10... that "impossible" map would get turn 100, and so on.

[OliverFA]

Ammendment Proposal: Activation Trigger

The Problem
It has been raised the issue that in some maps, infected neutrals could kill human players before they have the chance to secure a decent starting position.

The Solution
Introduce an activation trigger. Infected neutrals can't attack unless they are activated.

Option 1: Timed Trigger
An activation turn for infected neutrals is coded in the XML. Different maps would have different activation turns. Classic style maps would be activated in turn 1, while maps with a lot of neutrals would have higher activation turns, and some "impossible" maps could even even activation at turn 100 or later.

The good part is that it would require less work on the engine. The bad part is that someone would have to review all maps to establish their activation turns.

Option 2: Army size Trigger
There would be separated triggers for each player, and at the begining of their turn infected neutrals would check with each player to see if they get "activated". Infected neutrals would get activated towards a particular player when:

Total of infected armies in territories bordering that player > Total armies of the player

That would eliminate the problem of huge neutral armies next to starting players, while giving those players free shots at the neutral armies. Following Feudal War example, those 10s are not a problem anymore, as they won't attack unless the player is a match for them.

It can even have an in-map backstory to explain it: The infected neutrals / barbarians first don't care about that small force, but once the player army gets big enough, infected neutrals get aware of the danger.

Once activated towards a particular player, infected neutrals never deactivate.

The good part is that it does not have to be coded in the XML. The bad part is that it requires a bit more of engine coding.

Reminder: Killer Neutrals never get infected
As can be read in the OP.

[chapcrap]

I wonder if this should be moved out to Suggestions or is the OP correctly submitted in a form that will work?

[OliverFA]

I wonder if this should be moved out to Suggestions or is the OP correctly submitted in a form that will work?

I was under the impression that this suggestion was approved and submitted long ago, so I was the first surprised to see that it gets questioned again. However, as my intention is to solve issues rather than deny them, I have come with a solution that allows the suggestion to continue as an approved suggestion and hopefully get implemented some day in the way it was first envisioned, as a setting for all maps, not as an obscure option for a couple of maps.

[koontz1973]

Oliver, the problem you see and the solution will not work for some of the maps. Antarctica has 30 neutrals on it, bases all start with 3 troops, those neutrals will eliminate every player in order of bases.

When this was first proposed, we only had 71 maps in play, now well over 240 and rising every month. This is a problem of the suggestions forum and waiting for updates under previous admins, what may of worked then, will not now. Out of the 71 maps in play at the beginning, this was a problem for all of those maps and still is. Remember, the 1v1 game has a third player who is all neutral, a good round of dice and a bad drop eliminate a player in round 1.

It has been said that this should go ahead for all maps as it is, but that would be so wrong. An obscure setting for a few maps this may end up being but if that gets us the idea, then it should go that way.

Both solutions of a timed trigger and army size trigger are not a good solution. Both carry huge problems for some maps. I said about the third player in all maps for 1v1, so that timed trigger for classic maps would not work. The army size one would not work on other maps like huge neutral maps.

chap, I know it is a step back, but I would move this back as this is not a good idea as it stands now. It will affect all maps currently in play a huge amount and would need to be blocked from the huge majority of them.