Size 1 Fief Spam across all empires, siege scoring

[kongxinga]

I am noticing certain players spamming size 1  fiefs across multiple empires. I think what happens is they are trying to maximize income by spamming as many size 1 temple fiefs as possible in one empire, before converting to another and spamming more. It would seem strange how the empire they left would let them retain their fiefs after they switched sides, so I am not sure if this is WAD or a bug.

I managed a defend city mission resulting in 9000 gold points to 0 in my favour, but because of some bot deaths from the opposing player sniping the ramparts (about a dozen or so) the attacking side won by score despite not doing any objectives. I had burned and returned twice but the score bonus for doing objectives pales in comparison to simple sniping even when the game is player versus player.

 

[nijis]

Thanks for catching those. Both are oversights, although I'm more concerned about the sniping as it makes the game less competitive.

I had long thought that crossbows should be slightly less accurate anyway at extreme range, so this might be a good time to try this. They should not really be precision sniper weapons.

In a pinch I can just not award points in siege mode for a long-range kill.

For fiefs, the easiest thing might be simply to reduce income in fiefs held under a subfaction from another empire. I don't want to take away fiefs or lock a player into a faction. At a later stage in the game, I hope to develop the fief idea further and might try a different approach then.

 

[Somebody]

Reduced income would be good - an alternative idea would be to have spheres of influence within different factions, with renown producing influence for your home faction so there is incentive to stay in one place. While influence decay could be implemented, I don't think it would be a good idea as relationships already deteriorate.

On the subject of fiefs, I dislike how fiefs with the imperial governor and 5 million farmers produces the same income as rebel factions with 1k men under arms. I realize this is for balance purposes, and a fief really only represents a small estate and not even thousands of farmsteads (although the small-scale fief defense seems to produce larger casualties than decisive field battles), but the overall productivity and influence produced from affiliation should be somewhat reflected by having income be reduced depending on which subfaction the fief is affiliated with and whether that faction is hostile/friendly with the province ruler faction.

 

[nijis]

It would probably be a good idea to have a script that would modify income by a number of factors -- laws, holdings, etc. I don't want to make it so that players all gravitate to the dominant faction, however.

On the sieges, I've actually found it quite hard to hit a bot from the ramparts. I could make crossbows marginally less accurate, but I think the problem might be discouraging players to snipe from between the lines -- make alerts last longer, perhaps, or dramatically increasing their visibility if they shoot someone.

A dozen bot deaths is not too decisive, however. I could certainly up the score for siege objectives, as they are rather difficult.

 

[Audustum]

Well, there goes my plan of having unlimited wealth ingame.

It's a bit odd how much more rewarding buying level 1 fiefs is compared to upgrading existing ones, even within only one culture though.

As for sieges, the problem is that the defending bots do not sally out and attack the enemy camp, many of the defending bots are melee bots, and the archers that do exist do not have anywhere near as good of a LOS to the opposition when compared to the sieging archers.

This, combined with the relatively high score for each kill for the attackers compared with siege objectives (500 each?) make it hard to win for the sponsor.

You might also want to modify the collision mesh on the trebuchets, it's extremely easy to interrupt burning by firing an arrow into the trebuchet, or by standing on top of the lower extremities, since doing so disables scene prop usage completely, as it does with ladders.

 

[nijis]

I had intended for getting lots of fiefs to be the way to maximize income, while developing fiefs was the way to build up a good stock of troops, but it might be worthwhile to add a bit more balance.

I'm not sure exactly how to deal with sniping in sieges. I've upped the score for siege objectives, and made it so that you don't get a score unless there's an enemy close to the agent who is hit. But that doesn't solve the problem of making bots on the ramparts too vulnerable to below. I could up the number of missile troops in the mix.

Is there a specific blind spot where a player can snipe with impunity from return fire for the ramparts?

Thanks for catching that with the trebuchets, too. Rather than adjust the collision mesh, I can make a separate object spawn next to it that is only relevant for burning.

 

[kongxinga]

I have only played on defense in this patch, but the main blind spot is any spot very near the wall back in the old patch. I could run there, then hug the wall, and pop out to take a shot, pop back in, the the bots will only have time to draw their bows, but since the player has the bow predrawned (or using crossbows), he can get a shot out. The lack of bastions that stick out means the attacker will not be caught in the crossfire so much, but the main issue is how much score bot kills seem to give in comparison to the much riskier infiltrate, sabotage, run back, especially since the player often has to bring a screen of bots to buy some time, and any bot that dies in these attempts adds yet more score it seems to the team doing the sniping.

 

[nijis]

Thanks for that. I have adjusted the scoring somewhat, which is easy enough to do.

I should also give the bastions that do exist archers on top, as covering blind spots is exactly what bastions are for.