Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[bclacquer]

I can think of 3 things that will improve the game.
1)  drop the upkeep.  This was billed as a way to even out the game play.  we have found it does not do so.  rather it makes it more difficult for smaller planets to attack larger ones.  I know it limits the size of a fleet a larger planet can have, but in doing so you limit the smaller planets.  so if a large planet can support 500-700K of various ships, and smaller planets can support 50K, where is the value?  An example:  say I can support 200K of Punishers, my income with upkeep is about 50 a turn.  Now someone comes along with a hell of a lot more ships then and takes most of my rocks.  I pull my ships because it is obvious I can't win.  Now I can support 50K ships.  what do I do with the other 150k?  dump it? lose it?  I can't keep it to seed a new fleet to counter because the upkeep won't let me.
This brings up #2.
2) increase the bash limit.  of the three suggestions, this one is the easiest.  frankly I don't understand why it was ever lowered.  seems like it was just a way to get the very large planets some more targets.  too bad, if you are on top it is quite lonely, if you want more targets, dump some pop.  this is by far the most unbalancing part of the game. 
3) lose the infiltration tech.  Colony-wars is billed as a space combat game NOT a poor spy game.  If we wanted to play a spy game, we would go find a better one.

at the rate things are changing to benefit only a few top players, you will lose other players.  I am not alone in my unhappiness with this game and if we start bailing all that will be left are noobs and sinners.  boy that sounds fun. 

[Eldrad]

first to upkeep.

if you were going to lose your ships anyway why didn't you fight (destroy some of their ships so the were weaker for a counter attack, which you would still need to get friends in on)?
AND yes recycling is the only alternative if you lose half your population.

I'm intend to change rock stealing so it is reduced when there is a defence.
and reduce ship losses for encounters where your are out-numbered.

my calculations of the limits are still, 
fleet size = pop*1
was
fleet size = pop*1*time_at_given_population

now get a second player who has the same population as you and you should be able to topple the fleet of a player with twice your population. (of course they may have allies who will defend, so get some people to attack them aswell)

I would listen more if your complaint wasn't phrased as 'i dislike everything which is new, please go back'

Back in the day you could have supported a larger fleet after losing population. And you could even have used this fleet to attack those players who were new in the game, and didn't have such advantages. You would easily amass such forces that all players near your population would be of no threat to you. (and they would spend their time building up their ships for fear of attack from their peers) You would attack many of them and gain population (and the smart ones would avoid fighting your fleets ad do the same to smaller players)

You would go on to be beaten a second time by the original player whose fleet you avoided.

That was a worse game, in my opinion.

[Nightstalker]

I don't like the way infiltration starts out in the round... on the perma I dont' know what it's like to attack up though maybe it's the same. The first 500 or so ticks are hard because of the minimal fleet you can sustain, and you have to launch the entire fleet you've got to attack someone. Indy's don't stand a chance anymore IMO.

[himdo]

I agree with bclacquer.

Back in the day you could have supported a larger fleet after losing population. And you could even have used this fleet to attack those players who were new in the game, and didn't have such advantages. You would easily amass such forces that all players near your population would be of no threat to you. (and they would spend their time building up their ships for fear of attack from their peers) You would attack many of them and gain population (and the smart ones would avoid fighting your fleets ad do the same to smaller players)

You would go on to be beaten a second time by the original player whose fleet you avoided.

That was a worse game, in my opinion.

With few exceptions, thats pretty much how it is now.  You get attacked by fleets that you can not possibly win against, then go and attack smaller players to regain pop.  Upkeep has made it easier for the new players to gain pop, but it basically just speeds up their becoming bait.  Wouldn't raising the bash limit help more by making everyone attack players at or above their own pop level (yes, I know it makes it harder for those of us at the top to find targets, but thats what pop farming is for).

As for infiltration, I think it adds complexity to the game but takes away from the part I really want to play, the ship bashing.  I really think its too costly for what you get.

[General_Archer]

Oh how about when the perma  is done have two rounds. One with CW in it's current form and one with it how it would be with out the Upkeep, INF and new bash. Then let th eplayers decide what game they wish to play?

[bokachika]

[two cents]
Upkeep, like bclacquer said, it doesn't fix the problem, and its somewhat of a double edged sword.
and although it keeps the big guys down, it also keeps the littler guys down to the point where you need to join up to take down a top player, and thats really hard with this player base
not sure there is anything to do about it, either way it seems like the same things would happen

pop cap- 66% ftw!
if upkeep was kept in, that would mean two players could take down the top player since 132%> 100%

infiltration- I'm never gonna turn down bombs, but personally i don't like the way infiltration has become a huge focal point of the game. In my opinion it takes away from the simplicity, but thats just me



[/two cents]

[Nightstalker]

See, I really like infiltration. I don't use it much on the perma, mainly becuase I have to destroy 5-10 sabatages a day. But it's not very hard to defend yourself from infiltration attacks.

[StarWolf]

I don't like Inflitration. What a waste of money if you fail to sabotage your opponets?

[bokachika]

what a waste of money if you build ships and they get destroyed

[Tommy]

AND yes recycling is the only alternative if you lose half your population.

What about dumping to Docks? (Not available to indies, obviously.)

I'm intend to change rock stealing so it is reduced when there is a defence.
and reduce ship losses for encounters where your are out-numbered.

Noooo... IMO, more important than restoring the 50% bash limit is to restore the generous capturing of R2.5 (maybe R3, can't remember when exactly it changed). When a single attack has much more impact the pop landscape becomes much more lively = more action ensues, which is good. It also favors the small guy who gets more when he manages to sneak in for just one successful tick. (If this is not a goal, then make cap progressively better so that ticks 2 and moreso 3 fetch more rocks than now.)

And please don't reduce ship losses when outnumbered, a major part of the Art of CW is designing battles so that you have that double or quad superiority at the important spots and lose less ships (I mean even with equal total forces across all spots). Favoring small forces dumbs the alliance gameplay down, unless you introduce some kind of Spartan Hawk, max 300 for each player.

I would listen more if your complaint wasn't phrased as 'i dislike everything which is new, please go back'

Hold on. I read it as "I dislike new things that favor big players" which is very different from the general antagonism that you suggest. 

Back in the day you could have supported a larger fleet after losing population. And you could even have used this fleet to attack those players who were new in the game, and didn't have such advantages. You would easily amass such forces that all players near your population would be of no threat to you. (and they would spend their time building up their ships for fear of attack from their peers) You would attack many of them and gain population (and the smart ones would avoid fighting your fleets ad do the same to smaller players)

You're ignoring here the simple fact that everybody with a large fleet wants to go back to "where they belong" in the scoreboard, in other words you're ignoring human nature.

When it was possible to have large fleets (that you had worked your ass off to build, mind you) with a smaller pop, all kinds of funky stash ops and honeypots and pop donations to second rosters were possible and indeed done. All this creative goodness is effectively gone now. Not complaining, just pointing out. 

[Eldrad]

AND yes recycling is the only alternative if you lose half your population.

What about dumping to Docks? (Not available to indies, obviously.)

you're right, i had forgotten about the upkeep free docks

I'm intend to change rock stealing so it is reduced when there is a defence.
and reduce ship losses for encounters where your are out-numbered.

Noooo... IMO, more important than restoring the 50% bash limit is to restore the generous capturing of R2.5 (maybe R3, can't remember when exactly it changed). When a single attack has much more impact the pop landscape becomes much more lively = more action ensues, which is good. It also favors the small guy who gets more when he manages to sneak in for just one successful tick. (If this is not a goal, then make cap progressively better so that ticks 2 and moreso 3 fetch more rocks than now.)

And please don't reduce ship losses when outnumbered, a major part of the Art of CW is designing battles so that you have that double or quad superiority at the important spots and lose less ships (I mean even with equal total forces across all spots). Favoring small forces dumbs the alliance gameplay down, unless you introduce some kind of Spartan Hawk, max 300 for each player.

ok, i'm not sure where the rock capture balance lies, nor where it should lie, i haven't touched it since ~round 4 when i started.

however my aim would be to increase (relative) rock capture for undefended attacks, and decrease it for defended attacks. (hoping to make people think of the tactical decision of whether to defend and lose more ships but less rocks)

Also I say relative because i don't aim to change the overall balance, just introduce a difference between defending and dodging.

I would listen more if your complaint wasn't phrased as 'i dislike everything which is new, please go back'

Hold on. I read it as "I dislike new things that favor big players" which is very different from the general antagonism that you suggest. 

there is no way you can say infiltration hurts smaller players more than larger ones, theives specifically take a percentage of income SO the are better if you use them against bigger players, (and you don't even need to co-ordinate your actions with other small players)

other agents are less hurtful to larger players, but my point is the complaint I read was about something new.

Upkeep costs everyone the same amount, i think it limits bigger players equally, and losing population is now more painful, (which i hoped would encourage people to defend more, but i intend to do more)

the bash limit is as you point out favouring bigger players, but they get less rocks from attacking smaller players with the current cap, so it is in their interest to hit people closer to their size.

When i make/propose things hoping to change people's tactics, (as trying to encourage/reward defence) I expect people to complain a little bit as they need a chance to adapt, but i hope in the long run the game will improve.

 i also want to make certain (such as hiding under someones bash limit, and dive-bombing) un-usable.

BUT you are right, the complaint does say

at the rate things are changing to benefit only a few top players, you will lose other players.  I am not alone in my unhappiness with this game and if we start bailing all that will be left are noobs and sinners.  boy that sounds fun. 

I do however deny the charge, most vigorously. I have made no attempts to benifit only the larger players.

Back in the day you could have supported a larger fleet after losing population. And you could even have used this fleet to attack those players who were new in the game, and didn't have such advantages. You would easily amass such forces that all players near your population would be of no threat to you. (and they would spend their time building up their ships for fear of attack from their peers) You would attack many of them and gain population (and the smart ones would avoid fighting your fleets ad do the same to smaller players)

You're ignoring here the simple fact that everybody with a large fleet wants to go back to "where they belong" in the scoreboard, in other words you're ignoring human nature.

When it was possible to have large fleets (that you had worked your ass off to build, mind you) with a smaller pop, all kinds of funky stash ops and honeypots and pop donations to second rosters were possible and indeed done. All this creative goodness is effectively gone now. Not complaining, just pointing out.

i'm aware that a player with a larger fleet would want to get back up the scoreboard, and to do so they would hit every one of the smaller fleeted players around their pop.

and i think it is a pity some amount of greative goodness has been lost, (though you can still send ships to the docks of your second roster, and do some funky stuff.)

[Nightstalker]

I know you talked about lowering the capturing, and making you have to attack for more ticks, I personally think this and upkeep would be a very porr combination. Right now I have to launch my entire fleet with 2-3 other players (and thats after taking someones defense tech out) just to take acceptable losses. What happens next? we get incomings from 4-5 other players because we enter the top ten, but then have no ships at home.

If you make attacking take longer than it does then whats going to happen is just more people are going to jump in the attack on players who have to launch their entire fleets at someone. I agree, raise the bash limit to at least 50 percent, get rid of upkeep on the round server (keep it on the perma, I mean do we really need it on a server that is reset every two months?). And then increase rock capturing over the 3 tick attack.

My 2 cents.

[Code743]

I'm intend to change rock stealing so it is reduced when there is a defence.

On the face of it, you could defend with one hawk and reduce your rock losses, yes?
I do hope there is more to it than that.








 

[Eldrad]

I'm intend to change rock stealing so it is reduced when there is a defence.

On the face of it, you could defend with one hawk and reduce your rock losses, yes?
I do hope there is more to it than that.

no, it would be dependant on the amount of defence you used compared to the amount of offence, (say 50% of their offence defending would cut their rock cap in half, maybe)

[aazereth]

I know you talked about lowering the capturing, and making you have to attack for more ticks, I personally think this and upkeep would be a very porr combination. Right now I have to launch my entire fleet with 2-3 other players (and thats after taking someones defense tech out) just to take acceptable losses. What happens next? we get incomings from 4-5 other players because we enter the top ten, but then have no ships at home.

If you make attacking take longer than it does then whats going to happen is just more people are going to jump in the attack on players who have to launch their entire fleets at someone. I agree, raise the bash limit to at least 50 percent, get rid of upkeep on the round server (keep it on the perma, I mean do we really need it on a server that is reset every two months?). And then increase rock capturing over the 3 tick attack.

My 2 cents.

ahhhh u kno we do it too in sinners and a while back TCF so i guess its a taste of ur own medicine but i dont like upkeep because as said by other people that it limits the lower peoples power and well we dont have enough active players for us to get 4-5 buddies to attack with