Post here suggestions about what to change for LT43

Post by **wieder** » Mon Mar 05, 2018 6:29 pm

The ruleset is based on LT41. Start in about 15 days. The games usually start 0-3 days late meaning that's not the exact start date. There will be test game(s) and the ruleset is not yet fixed but based on LT41.

A native 2.5 client is needed.

Post by **Corbeau** » Mon Mar 05, 2018 7:39 pm

Suggestion: introduce tech upkeep. That will increase late-tech delay. Also, slightly offset tech-sharing frenzy. Also, test it for standard LT games

Also, if the target audience is Web, maybe x2 movement.

Maybe declare "no alliance victory, only score counts" so that I can include it into LT League?

Is there ANY way to create a poll on this forum?

Sketlux · Post by **Sketlux** » Mon Mar 05, 2018 7:58 pm

No 2x movement pls. The last two games I played were slowly enough. You get used to 3x movement pretty fast.

Post by **Corbeau** » Mon Mar 05, 2018 8:35 pm

Oh, I'd definitely keep worker experience progression (veteran levels).

Sketlux · Post by **Sketlux** » Mon Mar 05, 2018 9:31 pm

What abou the map? Can we have a mix of continents and big islands? Some people on the big continents, some on islands?

fran · Post by **fran** » Mon Mar 05, 2018 11:21 pm

Corbeau wrote:Suggestion: introduce tech upkeep. That will increase late-tech delay. Also, slightly offset tech-sharing frenzy.

That just will help the strong players. They have the means to pay tech upkeep, the stealing folks have not.

I could live without the stealing stuff, but it's hard to go without the city limit.

Oh, and besides that, this "let us grow our cities to size 150" stuff together with "city will grow every turn
if larger than size 25" is plain ridiculous in my opinion.

Post by **Corbeau** » Tue Mar 06, 2018 8:36 am

fran wrote:
Corbeau wrote:Suggestion: introduce tech upkeep. That will increase late-tech delay. Also, slightly offset tech-sharing frenzy.
That just will help the strong players. They have the means to pay tech upkeep, the stealing folks have not.

Depends how you set it up. I played with "1500" and around Renaissance upkeep took up between 10-20% of my income. Its effect is only to make later techs slightly "more expensive".

I could live without the stealing stuff, but it's hard to go without the city limit.

What city limit?

Oh, and besides that, this "let us grow our cities to size 150" stuff together with "city will grow every turn
if larger than size 25" is plain ridiculous in my opinion.

Yeah, it's slightly wrong for me, too.

Sketlux · Post by **Sketlux** » Tue Mar 06, 2018 11:50 am

About tech trading. I think its the most toxic thing that exists. SG1 was totally trashed by it, instead of fighting we mostly saw a competition of Old MacDonald who grows the biggest crop in the game. I can step aside this game but I deeply recommend disabling tech trading.

Post by **wieder** » Tue Mar 06, 2018 1:49 pm

The supermarkets allow almost any city to grow every turn after reaching some size. Or having grass will also allow the cities to grow every turn after certain size. We could make this less easy for the future games but maybe not making it too hard for LT43.

The city limit refers to LT40 where there is a "semi hard" limit for the number of cities one player can control. I'm fairly sure LT43 will be played without a limit like that since it will be more traditional game. There will be a follow up to LT40 and there we will see the city limit making a return.

Tech trading, yes, there are lots of issues with that. However if the web-players on average feel more comfortable with it then we can do that. The unit based trading worked reasonably well on LT40 but that will need some more thinking.

How about using the LT40 granary sizes for LT43 to compensate the pop cost of settlers?

Traditional granary sizes:

granary_food_ini = 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 30, 30, 40

LT40 granary sizes:

granary_food_ini = 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 30, 40, 50

Mooreinstore · Post by **Mooreinstore** » Mon Mar 12, 2018 6:55 am

I'm going to stop playing games that ban tech trading. You do as you like.

Post by **Corbeau** » Mon Mar 12, 2018 10:58 am

Actually, LT43 is going to have tech trading, if I got it right.

As for granary sizes, how about the classic style, each city size gets a bigger granary size, no limit? LT40 is getting pretty silly with basically rapture-like behaviour. Some of my cities can get 50 food each turn, I can basically sell the Granary building.

I'd go with

12, 14, 16, 20, 24, 30, 36, 42, 50 and then +10 for each size.

Sketlux · Post by **Sketlux** » Mon Mar 12, 2018 11:59 am

Im posting this because Im getting tired that people who made severe errors in LT39 blame the missing tech trading for their own faults.

1. Tech is not the only way to win.
2. If you cant win alone, gang up with others
3. If your neighbour is threatened by an enemy force and you will be the next one, it is deeply recommended to help him while he still can put up a fight, otherwise its too late and you are the next.
4. Secure free land before the enemy gets it, not taking it, makes the enemy take it and ultimately make him stronger
5. If you cant win conventionally, find the backdoor and kill the enemy where he is weak! Wich in fact is always recommended...
6. Use the soil! Build on hills. They can be mined and give good protection.
7. Build early on workers, they improve your land, help in war by providing roads and get promoted from the beginning and can do probably twice the work if you build them early.
8. Units can be decisive factors: tiremes give multiple options, veterans give your attack the decisive edge

Im not denying that a starting position or an idling player can influence massively the game but all those points I just mentioned were all or in part ignored by the loosing faction. One player had even his workers on autosettler...
In the whole game nobody even closely tried to attack me or change the overall course of the winning faction. Only a few tried to do something meanwhile our other opponents where closing their eyes and ears and hoping that the storm would spare them. Is that the behaviour this game wants to reward?

Besides, would I have been able to trade techs I would by now have howitzers, tanks and so on and the victory would be more swiftly. And believe me, I would have prevented the loosing faction from getting the new acquired techs. The reason I have one of the leading positions is, that I took risks, risks that only 2 of the loosing players were willing to take and who werent supported by their peers and thus failed.

Short: Play better by learning and applying new strategies and dont blame others for your mistakes. Im sure everybody is willing to help in giving advices. I myself have learned a lot from my team mates!

Post by **Corbeau** » Mon Mar 12, 2018 12:37 pm

Maybe this won't translate well, but at least twice in the last few days I got the urge to ask people on this forum how did it happen that they got their pants full of burdocks...

Sketlux · Post by **Sketlux** » Mon Mar 12, 2018 1:35 pm

Im not angry if this is what you mean?

I apologize if I do. By no means I want to change the decision to play with tech trading this time. But it is a dangerous narrative if we let wrong conclusions jeopardize the game in the future.

ptizoom · Post by **ptizoom** » Mon Mar 12, 2018 1:50 pm

Sketlux wrote: 1. Tech is not the only way to win. ...

yes but it would be nice to bring it slowly back....trading should be part of this famous game!

Sketlux wrote: Im not denying that a starting position or an idling player can influence massively the game but all those points I just mentioned were all or in part ignored by the loosing faction. One player had even his workers on autosettler...

I had one worker autosettling....!

Sketlux wrote: ...In the whole game nobody even closely tried to attack me ...

you are too scary good ! and I was going too anyway but I had to pass over wwqt, lord_p, arkan first !

Sketlux wrote: ... closing their eyes and ears and hoping that the storm would spare them. Is that the behaviour this game wants to reward?

it has a southing effect building up a peacefull civilisation (after a hard days' work !)...

Sketlux wrote: ... The reason I have one of the leading positions is, that I took risks, risks that only 2 of the loosing players were willing to take and who werent supported by their peers and thus failed.

yes, this is the key, nothing better than stealing idlers cities...

Post by **Corbeau** » Mon Mar 12, 2018 2:14 pm

Sketlux wrote:Im not angry if this is what you mean?

A more accurate word would be "grumpy"

Sketlux · Post by **Sketlux** » Mon Mar 12, 2018 2:20 pm

Actually I was saying that you and Kocurek put up a fight and were left alone.

Maho didnt idle completely until I crushed his last forces. Not many idling cities I took there. You had as much access to idlers as I did...

If you enable trading you enable free rider behaviour. Who researches doesnt put his money in armies. So why research at all if you can just "trade" it and conquer with all the money you put in your military?

In LT39 you stopped researching because you could simply buy the enemy. Not my fault if you rely on a unreliable strategy... Same for the 16 chariot attack. You gambled and lost.

Anyhow, I still think you performed better than most and understood the overall strategic constellation, wich was the root of the problem and not the tech!

Sketlux · Post by **Sketlux** » Mon Mar 12, 2018 2:26 pm

Also, the famous tech "trading" ist not a trading, it is mutiplicating. You create a good simply for making a transaction. If you were to loose another tech for trading another it would make sense, otherwise an intermediary simply trades with enough trading partners and without doing something that requieres physical hardship of your beloved workers you multiple techs. What is the value behind it? It is a bogus economy that gives the biggest market crier the benefit.

Post by **Corbeau** » Mon Mar 12, 2018 10:09 pm

Sketlux wrote:Also, the famous tech "trading" ist not a trading, it is mutiplicating. You create a good simply for making a transaction. If you were to loose another tech for trading another it would make sense, otherwise an intermediary simply trades with enough trading partners and without doing something that requieres physical hardship of your beloved workers you multiple techs. What is the value behind it? It is a bogus economy that gives the biggest market crier the benefit.

Well, that's how it generally works with information and knowledge, innit?

Sketlux · Post by **Sketlux** » Tue Mar 13, 2018 8:27 am

There are patents and fees. But techleackage represents that. The more widespread a tech is, the cheaper it is. That is btw what we did, we tried to leave at least an enemy unit/city alive therefore keeping the prices for tech up. If you want cheap tech kill weak enemies.

Lord_P · Post by **Lord_P** » Tue Mar 13, 2018 8:58 am

This is why I think it would be good to try a ruleset in which tech/knowledge is quite easy to obtain (Preferably by stealing or capture not trade, to stimulate some action), but cannot actually be used without some required infrastructure. The ancient greeks knew how to get power from steam and make gear mechanisms, but they couldnt have built a train...

Personally I hate 'tech upkeep' as it kills your economy, but maybe an 'age of empires' style building tree. So unless you have a refining plant, steel foundry and shipyard you cant just build destroyers in every city... Then it doesnt matter too much if tech spreads quickly, and if one player is much more advanced others can strategically target their industrial base to try and limit their capabilities.

Post by **Corbeau** » Tue Mar 13, 2018 10:01 am

Lord_P wrote:Personally I hate 'tech upkeep' as it kills your economy

Why do you think that?

It depends on the rate you set up. You can set it up so that it doesn't kill the economy.

Sketlux · Post by **Sketlux** » Tue Mar 13, 2018 10:02 am

Like the idea with required city structures to build certain units. It would make it more realistic, since you can dump technology on an underdevoloped state but he will have big difficulties implementing it if the necessary infrastructure (humans, transport etc.) is missing. As far as I heard, capturing tech could lead to easy exploitation through "hub cities".

Post by **Corbeau** » Tue Mar 13, 2018 10:31 am

Capturing tech is one of the less realistic and most abusive features in the game. Like you said, there are "hub cities" and also it very rarely happens that you find the complete blueprints for something in a city you just conquered. You can find scraps and devices, but usually a lot of reverse engineering is required. So I'd drop it altogether.

Post by **wieder** » Tue Mar 13, 2018 3:27 pm

Techs can't be stolen by conquering cites. Not in lt.org games. It used to be possible but no longer is. That feature was removed from the game.