Quote
(0019184)
Tom (administrator)
2012-03-04 19:08
good catch.
SFs have lower caps, but the code applied the limit wrongly. You should now get the correct message.
And yes, the max capacity is 25 for a size 3 SF center.
This brings up a few questions...
- What capacity will a level 1 and 2 SF centre have under this new system?
- Will you reduce the price of SF RC enlargements?
- Will SF centres be allowed a higher max level?
- Have you changed the capacity of other centers?
If I need to pay over 1,000 gold for a max capacity of 25 - which is not even enough to replace one unit - I don't see why I would even want a good SF centre. They're already hard enough to come by now, you can't really aim for a SF centre, only waste hundreds of gold in the hope to get one, add to that their complete incapability of finding recruits and there's really nothing left appealing to them.
SF really aren't THAT special as to be worth this...
I would tend to agree. 25 is very low as a max cap. I can understand them accumulating slowly and such, and them being rare to get. But due to all the costs involved, not being able to stock up even one unit's worth is kind of sad really. Especially after all the gold is spent to upgrade it to a level three center.
(Note: One of my characters exclusively uses SF, mainly because he's rich and funds their creation).
They are supposed to be rare, troublesome and not easy to get.
But numbers are still being tweaked, so I might push them a little upwards. But don't expect too much.
Quote from: Tom on March 04, 2012, 10:55:18 PM
They are supposed to be rare, troublesome and not easy to get.
But numbers are still being tweaked, so I might push them a little upwards. But don't expect too much.
They already are. What you're currently pushing essentially makes them disappear completely.
Quote from: LilWolf on March 04, 2012, 11:09:42 PM
They already are. What you're currently pushing essentially makes them disappear completely.
Uh, that's not a new thing. The old code worked exactly like this. It just wasn't as transparent.
Quote from: Tom on March 05, 2012, 12:46:17 AM
Uh, that's not a new thing. The old code worked exactly like this. It just wasn't as transparent.
Not really. In the old code the sizes of RCs were the same for all types of units. SF RCs filled slower, but at least they didn't stop filling at a meager 25 men if you had paid massive amounts of gold for their enlargement.
max 25/50/100 for normal rc?
sounds as if it's like 6/13/25 for sf? with refill at ?/3/4 per day? (10k pop townsland)
won't be too bad if it's 13/25/50.... or sf gets double the max levels at half the cost?
eg... instead of max 3 lvls @ 100/200/300 gold (not real numbers) for a townsland
you get 6 lvls @ 50/100/1 50/200/250/300 for say.. 10/20/30/40/50/60 max men or something along those lines?
Quote from: fodder on March 05, 2012, 04:09:46 AM
max 25/50/100 for normal rc?
sounds as if it's like 6/13/25 for sf? with refill at ?/3/4 per day? (10k pop townsland)
won't be too bad if it's 13/25/50.... or sf gets double the max levels at half the cost?
eg... instead of max 3 lvls @ 100/200/300 gold (not real numbers) for a townsland
you get 6 lvls @ 50/100/1 50/200/250/300 for say.. 10/20/30/40/50/60 max men or something along those lines?
Where did you get the RC costs? Cost for RC's are based on how many existing RC's are in the region Are you just talking about the base cost before any other RC's exist?
eh... the bit that says... not real numbers? and i don't mean mathematical real numbers... just some made up numbers to illustrate what i'm talking about?
Quote from: fodder on March 05, 2012, 07:45:38 AM
eh... the bit that says... not real numbers? and i don't mean mathematical real numbers... just some made up numbers to illustrate what i'm talking about?
I really don't see what this is supposed to fix? If the max recruits is too low we can bump that up without having to write code to make SF recruitment centers different to the others. What would be the advantage of the extra divergence of allowing SF recruitment centers to have a different max level then other RC's in the region?
In the old system my lvl 2 SF centers (max for a rural area) trained one recruit/day until getting to 50 recruits where it capped. Under the new system on Beluaterra they train 3/day until they reach 12 - 13 when recruitment stops and I have to spend days drafting to get it higher. I haven't noticed any difference in max cap when drafting though?
Quote from: De-Legro on March 05, 2012, 07:49:18 AM
I really don't see what this is supposed to fix? If the max recruits is too low we can bump that up without having to write code to make SF recruitment centers different to the others. What would be the advantage of the extra divergence of allowing SF recruitment centers to have a different max level then other RC's in the region?
...gold sink? XD more player effort?
---
or each RC can have X extension (instead of lvls)
each extension can do... one of the following: higher max capacity.. higher rate of recruitment.. (or something else... i don't know.. better equipment? training?)
Quote from: fodder on March 05, 2012, 09:18:38 AM
or each RC can have X extension (instead of lvls)
each extension can do... one of the following: higher max capacity.. higher rate of recruitment.. (or something else... i don't know.. better equipment? training?)
Yeah, right. Because making things more complicated without any actual benefit is what we enjoy doing.
Quote from: Tom on March 05, 2012, 12:46:17 AM
Uh, that's not a new thing. The old code worked exactly like this. It just wasn't as transparent.
That's...definitely not true. The SF RC sizes were the same as all the other types. If they are not now, that's a big change that will not at all be welcomed.
I am not a fan of the reduced maximum. But we can give it a try. I suppose this just means that if there are multiple nobles using the same SF RC they will need to refit in shifts. It will only take a week for it to fill...
Quote from: Anaris on March 05, 2012, 03:13:42 PM
That's...definitely not true. The SF RC sizes were the same as all the other types. If they are not now, that's a big change that will not at all be welcomed.
You're right. The cap is new. Everything else (less recruits per day, etc.) isn't, but the cap is.
Quote from: Tom on March 05, 2012, 06:19:07 PM
You're right. The cap is new. Everything else (less recruits per day, etc.) isn't, but the cap is.
OK, then: Why the hell did
we you add it? What purpose does it serve, other than to make SF RCs a truly abominable investment?
Quote from: Anaris on March 05, 2012, 06:27:16 PM
OK, then: Why the hell did we you add it? What purpose does it serve, other than to make SF RCs a truly abominable investment?
Yeah, not cool. And I don't ever use SF. But if I build an RC, I expect that RC to recruit 25 units.
Quote from: Anaris on March 05, 2012, 06:27:16 PM
OK, then: Why the hell did we you add it? What purpose does it serve, other than to make SF RCs a truly abominable investment?
I'm also interested in why the change was made.
If the reason is to make SF more rare, then I think that can be done better in a different way. Perhaps raise the price of upgrading an SF recruitment center? Raise the upkeep cost (dramatically perhaps?) Reduce the chances of creating one? I just think, by limiting the # of maximum held recruits to 25, SF centers are essentially made useless or at least they are completely changed in the way we as characters would have to build units around them.
Usually (as far as my experience goes, which granted is limited) SF are only recruited by the wealthy of the realm as they have a high cost. These characters are also ones that have a higher honor so they can recruit more men. The goal is to get a very strong unit with one character and thus greatly increase their contribution to an army. However, this usually involves them recruiting perhaps a unit of 50 SF which can easily reach 1000 cs. (For reference, my character currently has a 66 SF unit for 1350cs.) This change though would make it impossible for such a unit to be made. If that is the purpose of this change, then I must agree it will be successful. Although, I would disagree that this is a change that needs to be made, or that perhaps it couldn't be achieved through one of the above methods.
I would rather see SF limited to 25 recruits, and level 2 and level 3 merely increase the recruits per day. 25 SF can do serious damage, but not if the center doesn't have that number of recruits.
Quote from: Tom on March 05, 2012, 09:45:04 AM
Yeah, right. Because making things more complicated without any actual benefit is what we enjoy doing.
i wouldn't say no benefits. questionable perhaps. allows you to get variety like huge capacity rc but crap rate. (for those useless TO/militia type that you probably won't touch normally...) or great rate but crap capacity.
perhaps an estate thing instead? eg.. allows you to recruit from a private stash of recruits (from rc of your region)... if someone else emptied the public lot first..
Quote from: egamma on March 05, 2012, 08:10:12 PM
I would rather see SF limited to 25 recruits, and level 2 and level 3 merely increase the recruits per day. 25 SF can do serious damage, but not if the center doesn't have that number of recruits.
Except that at that point you're better off getting a good infantry/archer center than can actually provide a unit for two nobles instead of a single wealthy one. It becomes extremely hard to justify the cost for SF, especially the cost of expanding the center. They're already bordering on too expensive to be worth it.
I guess it would be good to know what the problem was and what this solution is actually intended to do.
egamma has it right. The problem is that there would be 100 SF available after a long enough wait, and that's a very serious number. I wanted to make SF have more than just money to make them rare.
Quote from: Tom on March 05, 2012, 10:08:05 PM
egamma has it right. The problem is that there would be 100 SF available after a long enough wait, and that's a very serious number. I wanted to make SF have more than just money to make them rare.
Just off the top of my head: how about requiring a high enough leadership and/or swordfighting skill to be able to recruit SF?
Leadership because they're not normal soldiers and you need to be able to lead them in difficult circumstances.
Swordfighting because these seasoned warriors won't follow just any green nobleman.
Quote from: Lorgan on March 05, 2012, 10:11:55 PM
Just off the top of my head: how about requiring a high enough leadership and/or swordfighting skill to be able to recruit SF?
Leadership because they're not normal soldiers and you need to be able to lead them in difficult circumstances.
Swordfighting because these seasoned warriors won't follow just any green nobleman.
If swordfighting is a requirement, then R5 SF would not be able to be recruited for players that only ever use archers. So, I don't think that's a good requirement.
Quote from: Dante Silverfire on March 05, 2012, 10:13:30 PM
If swordfighting is a requirement, then R5 SF would not be able to be recruited for players that only ever use archers. So, I don't think that's a good requirement.
Most ranged SF units (that I've seen) will kick any infantry unit's ass in melee though. Anyway, that's why I said "and/or"
Quote from: Tom on March 05, 2012, 10:08:05 PM
egamma has it right. The problem is that there would be 100 SF available after a long enough wait, and that's a very serious number. I wanted to make SF have more than just money to make them rare.
In practice, this almost never happens with SF that are actually worth their cost. Even in peacetime, they tend to be chronically in short supply, because they are trained very slowly, and only a few people can afford to recruit and maintain the units. And those few tend to snap them up as soon as they're available.
Tim is right though. I've never seen SF being used very much with the exception of when I was in Melhed and people had months to recruit and train units that seldom saw battle, and if they did it was against rogue undead or monsters. That sort of unit building was much more of a pass-time than a preparation for war.
Recently the amount of SF units on BT has also increased as their recruitment is encouraged because of their effectiveness against daimons, but still they are only a marginal part of any army.
Quote from: Lorgan on March 05, 2012, 10:22:40 PM
but still they are only a marginal part of any army.
They should be.
Quote from: Tom on March 05, 2012, 11:00:53 PM
They should be.
But the change you are making will mean that they will not be any part of an army.
I personally really like the SF RCs in the realms I have. I think all my characters lead SF units. They are very effective and do not die as quickly.
In Melhed where SFs are likely used more than in most other realms, I think we have 7-8 RCs, the CS of the SF troops is 6485 of the total 15815, 41% of the CS. It's 293 of 1067 men or 27% of the men. That's from 6 units. I can understand that this is more than you want in an army.
The RCs that I use are in my region, so I will likely just have to draft more and deal with the concequences.
I would say that restricting how many you can recruit based on your honour and prestige would accomplish what you want better than this would. Drop the number of men you get per honour by half? Maybe restrict it to cavaliers and heroes? Or create a new class, but that seems like alot more work than it would be worth, and you would likely want more reason for it than just to command SF units.
Dropping it from the 100 for a lvl 3 is the right move though, I guess figuring out how much lower is the challenge.
My point is that I do not think this solves the problem you have highlighted.
Tom, is the change to the max recruitments meant to make it more difficult for those using SF to refit after battles? That is my understanding from this thread that you don't want SF units to just rock up to the capital and quickly replace the 40 men that died in the last battle.
Among other things, yes. Big SF units should be something you don't want to lose, because they are difficult to refit.
Quote from: Tom on March 06, 2012, 12:17:13 AM
Among other things, yes. Big SF units should be something you don't want to lose, because they are difficult to refit.
Makes sense, oddly enough I've always found it easier to refit my SF unit then say refit my Arcaean infantry unit, but then I think I was the only one using the SF recruitment center, while half of Arcaea wants to recruit from the Remton Steel RC. This change would certainly make me think twice about the size of the SF unit I was going to recruit, so if others think the same smaller SF units might be the result.
Is it possible though to maybe raise it above 25? I understand the change, but perhaps make it scale to 50 instead of 25, can still meet both the goals that you seek and allow players to still reasonable use them, if somewhat less than they currently do.
Quote from: Tom on March 06, 2012, 12:17:13 AM
Among other things, yes. Big SF units should be something you don't want to lose, because they are difficult to refit.
Then just retain the low max recruitment
rate. Then, people might be able to re-recruit their SF units
once, but not serially. Especially if you make sure that drafting is also not a viable method of refilling a 100-man center (at least, not in under a month).
I still do not see any good reason to add special code to change the sizes of SF centers.
Especially when so many people already have SF centers bigger than that, we have
never had any exceptions to the size of RCs, and you didn't even announce the change so people not on the forums have a clue about what to expect.
Quote from: Anaris on March 06, 2012, 01:15:53 AM
Then just retain the low max recruitment rate. Then, people might be able to re-recruit their SF units once, but not serially. Especially if you make sure that drafting is also not a viable method of refilling a 100-man center (at least, not in under a month).
I still do not see any good reason to add special code to change the sizes of SF centers. Especially when so many people already have SF centers bigger than that, we have never had any exceptions to the size of RCs, and you didn't even announce the change so people not on the forums have a clue about what to expect.
I was about to suggest that. Wouldn't it solve the matter, without killing SFs?
Though, to be honest, I have always disliked SFs and their lack of definition (people RP them as anything, mostly as better soldiers of the other types).
Quote from: JPierreD on March 06, 2012, 04:41:30 AM
I was about to suggest that. Wouldn't it solve the matter, without killing SFs?
Though, to be honest, I have always disliked SFs and their lack of definition (people RP them as anything, mostly as better soldiers of the other types).
They mostly ARE better soldiers of the other types. They aren't something like Navy Seals :) We have always had freedom with how we RP our units. I could recruit men from the same RC as you, but RP they are pikemen wearing mail, while you decide they are axemen wearing brigandine for example.
Quote from: Anaris on March 06, 2012, 01:15:53 AM
Then just retain the low max recruitment rate. Then, people might be able to re-recruit their SF units once, but not serially. Especially if you make sure that drafting is also not a viable method of refilling a 100-man center (at least, not in under a month).
I think the change Tom envisions would change a bit the way SF are currently employed. I more or less agree with Delvin's analysis. I have always shoot down enthusiasm about building a nice SF-centre because they are completely worthless in case of a serious war, where units are lost and refitted on a weekly basis.
The good side of SF's centres was on the other hand to potentially allow people (read: wealthy people) to recruit 2-3 very powerful units and perform specialised tasks, like a long-range expedition to support an ally (where the high cs/man of SF reduces the pain for long travels) or for instance take care of whatever monsters you may find and shred them to pieces with a single unit. The SFs were recruited very slowly, but the large size made sure that if those guys lost their men and went back to the capital some weeks later, they would more or less be sure to find some decent amount of soldiers ready to fill in the casualties.
The change Tom considers, reducing a lot the size but increasing the rate may allow realms to reliably field in every battle some tiny SF units as opposed to before, but those large specialised SF units taking care of something on their own would likely disappear.
Thing is, one can't prevent others from recruiting a certain type of soldiers. Whereas mixing different soldiers is usually not a problem, with SF it's not a very good idea - especially if they have something very peculiar such as range 5. If one has a large recruitment centre this issue is still manageable, as the sheer cost of those guys prevent people from emptying the centre randomly.
If on the other hand one has a 25 men max, the frustration raising from the random guy picking up 10 of them to test and forcing the SF-aficionado to stand still in the capital for a week to wait new recruits could easily lead to basically have no-one seriously consider using SF for more than a fun run some time.
Is there also a cap on cavalry? If not I need to report a bug. If so, 13 and 17 were not the limits I was expecting for what I believe are a level 1 and 2 RC.
QuoteIs there also a cap on cavalry?
Yes. Half of what normal RCs have.
Quote from: Tom on March 07, 2012, 10:13:51 AM
Yes. Half of what normal RCs have.
Tom, this goes too far.
If you want everyone to just recruit infantry, then come out and say so.
If you want to make it functionally impossible to recruit cavalry and special forces in any real numbers, then either make them worth it by significantly improving their stats, or just remove them entirely.
And for the love of Great Cthulhu, have the courage to
announce that you're doing this kind of thing!
You made this change
3 months ago. In all that time, you never said
anything to the players
or to your own dev team.
I don't know how you expect us to be able to help you when you refuse to communicate with us.
Wasn't intentional.
In fact, in my mental model of the game, it has always been like that. Apparently, I never added it to the old code for whatever reason, and then added it to the new one without giving it much thought when I updated the code.
I do think that having 100 or 200 men of SF ready is... not fitting to the "special" part of SF. However, I agree the change was a surprise and was probably too strong.
So, everyone please accept my apologies, try to see what I'm seing, and let us discuss what level of size reduction would be a good balance. I do think that cavalry and SF should have reduced max numbers, but on second thought, halving it was way too much.
So, to start the discussion off, how about 80% for cavalry and 75% for SF? For my gut feeling, that's still a bit too much, but given that it used to be 100% all these years, it might be a good compromise.
Sounds good and once we get used to the new percentages, an even lower percentage won't be as big a deal later on, if you still think they should be made smaller.
well... it depends doesn't it...
you could make sf / cav stronger for more gold cost and lower max unit limit. thus a tiny group... say 20 sf would be equivalent to 100 infantry. (or whatever)
they'll end up being a bit like glass cannon..
you could also make it so... you can't mix sf... so you have to recruit from the same centre..... though it would really be helpful if we know what's so special about each unit. aside from rock hard evil bastards....
----
i mean.. you want lots of normal units with tiny sf units dotted around occasionally?
Seeing a few battles against Daimons with small SF units and many of the rest I kind of like the new concept. I suppose it's a matter of balancing now.
Actually I think that halving it for SF can work, that would give a lvl 1 ~13, lvl 2 ~25, lvl 3 ~50 and lvl 4 ~100 (if anyone can afford a lvl 4). That actually seems reasonable to me, I think what we had was 25%. Dropping cavalry by less than the SF would make sense as well, 75-80% maybe?
I like the idea of knowing the different specialties, especially between MI and Archers. Are there Cavalry SF units? Not mixing the different types makes sense, although if you have two of the same type you should be able to mix those. Not sure if that is too complex.
Quote from: Penchant on March 07, 2012, 11:03:10 PM
Sounds good and once we get used to the new percentages, an even lower percentage won't be as big a deal later on, if you still think they should be made smaller.
I second this view of things. The percentage you've laid out will be a change, and we'll adjust to it. If it is still necessary to reduce in the future we can make that change then.
Quote from: Penchant on March 07, 2012, 11:03:10 PM
Sounds good and once we get used to the new percentages, an even lower percentage won't be as big a deal later on, if you still think they should be made smaller.
I'm still not convinced we need a reduction in max size.
Keeping RC sizes consistent across the board makes it much easier to maintain a mental map of the game. I maintain that the appropriate way to ensure SF and cavalry cannot be used in the same profusion that infantry and archers are is to keep their recruitment rates low.
I would not oppose a
soft cap, with gradually reducing rates above it, even potentially reaching 0 natural recruitment before the hard cap, thus requiring drafts to reach full capacity.
I feel that the different capacities on centers for different ypes will be confusing. I think I agree with Anaris that controling the training rate is a better option.
Or, perhaps increase the honor/prestige requirements to 3x normal, instead of 2x?
I would agree with the honour/prestige requirements being raised rather than the training rate being decreased. I could see training being dependant on the space available in the RC so that it slows as the RC fills.
Quote from: Charles on March 08, 2012, 02:05:11 AM
I could see training being dependant on the space available in the RC so that it slows as the RC fills.
Why? it's not like it's going to be easier to find SF amongst the general population simply because there are more in the RC.
You want an RP reason?
My reason for suggesting it is because of the concern about having 100 available troops. Others were concerned that they would be waiting for weeks just to refit their unit. This method would give faster training when the RC was empty, but take a very long time to fill.
For a realistic explanation, consider that the RC does not just Give people weapons and call them SF units. They are trained. As there are more and more people training, they train slower. This requires the trained troops to still be stationed at the RC, training to keep their skills sharp.
Or, perhaps as the RC fills up, less people are interested in joining the RC because it gets too crowded and the living conditions deteriorate. Causing recruiting to slow.
Take your pick, or come up with another suggestion.
I'm trying to have things simple, which is one of the regions the original caps were 50% and 25% - halving is a mathematical operation most of us can do without thinking too much. And halving it for cavalry had some IC logic - you need to store two creatures: The soldier and his horse.
I still shudder at the thought of someone having 200 (in a level 4 RC) SF available at once. That's a massive amount of something that should be somewhat rare. 100 is still lots, 150 (my 75% proposal) is massive.
I agree that it slightly complicates the mental map, though I'm not sure how many people really keep the max recruitment sizes in mind, especially now that the game explicitly tells you when they have been reached.
different max capacity between rc types isn't really a problem to be dead honest. just need documentation and getting used to.
the other thing you could do is... not have lvl 4 rc store more than lvl 3 rc. or you could just max the max capacity of rc to 25 (lvl 1-2) /50 (3-4 or more?) or some such and just adjust rates for higher lvls.
Keep in mind that level 4 RCs are pretty rare since you can only have them in cities(maybe strongholds too?). Even then they usually cost something like 1000+ gold due to other buildings so not a lot of realms are going to make that investment. So nerfing everything based on what a level 4 RC does is a bit misguided in my opinion.
Quote from: Tom on March 08, 2012, 08:58:24 AM
I still shudder at the thought of someone having 200 (in a level 4 RC) SF available at once. That's a massive amount of something that should be somewhat rare.
How long does it take to reach that level? At 3 recruits per day, it takes 67 RL days. If a soft cap is implemented, it could be raised to 150 RL days, or 2 in-game years.
If it does happen, it is because the realm has made a serious effort never to recruit from this RC specifically to save it in case of need. That is indeed rare, but rare things should not be things that pop up randomly but rarely; rare things should be things that require dedication to achieve.
draft bypasses all that. though drafting sf in lvl 2/3 in my townsland usually was crap.. single digits..
probably not true for cities though..
Enlarging the SF RC in my region to level 4 costs 3180 gold. Level 3 cost 1130 gold.
EDIT: the reason why I increased it to level 3 was not so that it could fill up to 100, it was so the recruitment rate would increase. I never expected it to fill up completely and it seldom has, and the only reason why it has is because my realm hasn't had a real defeat in a year or so.
The problem is low rates is that the rates used to be so low that rural regions and sometimes even townslands have problems generating recruits for SF centers. I don't mind the reduced maximum as long as the recruitment rates are higher. There is no reason that Calvary and SF can't have the same max cap being half of the regular centers.
Quote from: Tom on March 08, 2012, 08:58:24 AM
I'm trying to have things simple, which is one of the regions the original caps were 50% and 25% - halving is a mathematical operation most of us can do without thinking too much. And halving it for cavalry had some IC logic - you need to store two creatures: The soldier and his horse.
But it's still an additional complication, at a time when we are explicitly and avowedly trying to make things simpler.
Quote
I still shudder at the thought of someone having 200 (in a level 4 RC) SF available at once. That's a massive amount of something that should be somewhat rare. 100 is still lots, 150 (my 75% proposal) is massive.
As others have said, that would be a very, very rare occurrence.
There are almost no level 4 RCs of any type, and I think that few realms would raise an SF center beyond level 2 because they take so damn long to fill up already, they would effectively never get full.
Quote from: Eithad on March 08, 2012, 01:38:24 PM
The problem is low rates is that the rates used to be so low that rural regions and sometimes even townslands have problems generating recruits for SF centers. I don't mind the reduced maximum as long as the recruitment rates are higher. There is no reason that Calvary and SF can't have the same max cap being half of the regular centers.
There's also no reason that we can't have a faster rate at the low end (so that it can be pretty near guaranteed to fill up to 5 within a few days) and then slowing down as it fills up.
Quote from: fodder on March 08, 2012, 11:54:34 AM
draft bypasses all that. though drafting sf in lvl 2/3 in my townsland usually was crap.. single digits..
probably not true for cities though..
We can easily restrict drafts of SF centers, making them little more effective than an extra day or two of normal recruitment.
For mathematical purposes fifths is even easier. 25/2 is not an integer. 4/5 for the Cavalry and 3/5 for SF is 20 and 15 respectively.
Quote from: vonGenf on March 08, 2012, 11:49:03 AM
How long does it take to reach that level? At 3 recruits per day,
Larger centers also recruit faster.
Quote from: Anaris on March 08, 2012, 02:07:19 PM
There are almost no level 4 RCs of any type, and I think that few realms would raise an SF center beyond level 2 because they take so damn long to fill up already, they would effectively never get full.
14 level 4 RCs on EI, 2 of them SF
17 level 4 RCs on Atamara, no SF
16 level 4 RCs on Belua, 2 SF
and so on
Many of those centers are filled to capacity, except on BT.
Quote from: Anaris on March 08, 2012, 02:08:04 PM
There's also no reason that we can't have a faster rate at the low end (so that it can be pretty near guaranteed to fill up to 5 within a few days) and then slowing down as it fills up.
I like that idea quite a lot.
Quote from: Charles on March 08, 2012, 02:55:55 PM
For mathematical purposes fifths is even easier. 25/2 is not an integer. 4/5 for the Cavalry and 3/5 for SF is 20 and 15 respectively.
Agreed on that as well.
So, how about these changes:
- max capacity for Cavalry: 4/5th, for SF: 3/5th
- +50% recruitment rate for centers filled less than 10% of max capacity
- +25% recruitment rate for centers filled less than 20% of max capacity
Quote from: Tom on March 08, 2012, 11:40:02 PM
14 level 4 RCs on EI, 2 of them SF
17 level 4 RCs on Atamara, no SF
16 level 4 RCs on Belua, 2 SF
and so on
Many of those centers are filled to capacity, except on BT.
So..2-3% of recruitment centers on each island is level 4 and out of those SF accounts for..pretty much nothing. Really, this is just adding something to the game to fix something that isn't a problem to begin with.
Quote from: Tom on March 08, 2012, 11:41:59 PM
So, how about these changes:
- max capacity for Cavalry: 4/5th, for SF: 3/5th
- +50% recruitment rate for centers filled less than 10% of max capacity
- +25% recruitment rate for centers filled less than 20% of max capacity
I'd suggest filled less than 20% and 40% respectively. It's easier on the rounding.
So when the capacity is 15 for SF, it fills at 50% below 3 and 25% below 6.
Quote
So, how about these changes:
- max capacity for Cavalry: 4/5th, for SF: 3/5th
- +50% recruitment rate for centers filled less than 10% of max capacity
- +25% recruitment rate for centers filled less than 20% of max capacity
I like this. But agree with Foundation that it should be 20% and 40% (or 1/5 and 2/5) of capacity you could also drop it by similar amounts when it reaches 3/5 and 4/5. That may make it too complicated.
Quote from: Charles on March 09, 2012, 01:09:03 AM
I like this. But agree with Foundation that it should be 20% and 40% (or 1/5 and 2/5) of capacity you could also drop it by similar amounts when it reaches 3/5 and 4/5. That may make it too complicated.
Excellent idea, it is symmetric in that case and accomplish what Tim suggested.
- Max capacity for Cavalry: 4/5th, SF: 3/5th of a normal RC
- +50% recruitment rate for centers 0-20% of max capacity
- +25% recruitment rate for centers 20-40% of max capacity
- normal recruitment rate for centers 40-60% of max capacity
- -25% recruitment rate for centers 60-80% of max capacity
- -50% recruitment rate for centers 80-100% of max capacity
Quote from: Foundation on March 08, 2012, 11:52:41 PM
I'd suggest filled less than 20% and 40% respectively. It's easier on the rounding.
So when the capacity is 15 for SF, it fills at 50% below 3 and 25% below 6.
Since it's not a player-facing value, rounding nicely isn't an issue. And I want to prevent people gaming the system too easily.
I'm not really a friend of the "soft cap", because we already have to play tricks in the code to make sure that some RCs recruit anything at all, because otherwise they would tend to recruit extremely slowly. This would only make it worse.
Quote from: Tom on March 09, 2012, 11:09:47 AM
I'm not really a friend of the "soft cap", because we already have to play tricks in the code to make sure that some RCs recruit anything at all, because otherwise they would tend to recruit extremely slowly. This would only make it worse.
If this is in response to 50% drop in training for the last 20%, then do less of a change, 25%? Or increase the training in general, I really do not know what the factors are in training, I assume the region type and population have an effect. Have those other factors which cause training to drop be less effective?
implemented higher caps and faster recruitment for empty centers.
A better solution to this problem would, in my opinion, simply be to further increase the Honor to Recuitment Cap ratio. If at 150 honor (which takes considerable time to amass for most people) I can still only recruit 25 Cav/SF, most people aren't going to bother to recruit them at all, making them the playthings of the very honorable and Cavaliers/Heroes, and those class options come with major drawbacks (like losing all your region maintenance/looting buttons and that non-trivial chance of death in battle).
Since there already seems to have been a decision though, I would add the following:
Particularly for cavalry, if their numbers are going to be restricted then they need to be better. SF seem to have artificially higher median equipment and training values (rare though not impossible to see any stat under 70%), but cavalry span the full range from useless (25%) to awe-inspiring (100%). This change will make low-end cavalry entirely useless. Why would you want cheap cavalry when your center is going to take forever to fill up anyway? They're only good in numbers, so really they're not good at all anymore.
My advice would be to bump up the average equipment/training values on cavalry centers. Maybe not as high as SF, but higher than they are. After all, you can't just draft a peasant and stick him on a warhorse. Cavalry require specialized training and were historically either born to the saddle, as in many central asian peoples, or were professional soldiers, and you didn't arm your cavalry with pitchforks.
Quote from: Geronus on March 16, 2012, 06:32:07 PM
A better solution to this problem would, in my opinion, simply be to further increase the Honor to Recuitment Cap ratio. If at 150 honor (which takes considerable time to amass for most people) I can still only recruit 25 Cav/SF, most people aren't going to bother to recruit them at all, making them the playthings of the very honorable and Cavaliers/Heroes, and those class options come with major drawbacks (like losing all your region maintenance/looting buttons and that non-trivial chance of death in battle).
Since there already seems to have been a decision though, I would add the following:
Particularly for cavalry, if their numbers are going to be restricted then they need to be better. SF seem to have artificially higher median equipment and training values (rare though not impossible to see any stat under 70%), but cavalry span the full range from useless (25%) to awe-inspiring (100%). This change will make low-end cavalry entirely useless. Why would you want cheap cavalry when your center is going to take forever to fill up anyway? They're only good in numbers, so really they're not good at all anymore.
My advice would be to bump up the average equipment/training values on cavalry centers. Maybe not as high as SF, but higher than they are. After all, you can't just draft a peasant and stick him on a warhorse. Cavalry require specialized training and were historically either born to the saddle, as in many central asian peoples, or were professional soldiers, and you didn't arm your cavalry with pitchforks.
I agree. Low Quality centers should have some advantage over high Quality centers. Didn't Tom mention something about dividing the cavalry unit into two categories?
For now maybe let low quality centers to fill up a lot quicker with higher caps than high quality centers?
Quote from: Zakilevo on March 16, 2012, 06:43:06 PMFor now maybe let low quality centers to fill up a lot quicker
They already do. Most people just don't notice the difference until they realize that their 90/90-5/90 size 1 SF RC in a low-pop rural hasn't been training any recruits lately.
Quote from: Geronus on March 16, 2012, 06:32:07 PMA better solution to this problem would, in my opinion, simply be to further increase the Honor to Recuitment Cap ratio. If at 150 honor (which takes considerable time to amass for most people) I can still only recruit 25 Cav/SF, most people aren't going to bother to recruit them at all, making them the playthings of the very honorable and Cavaliers/Heroes, and those class options come with major drawbacks (like losing all your region maintenance/looting buttons and that non-trivial chance of death in battle).
Making honor more important for SF/Cav is a good idea, IMO. For most people, hitting 4-50 honor is more than enough to hire all the troops they can normally afford. Only the people leading the TO unit, or the rich dukes, usually need the more honor to hire the size units they want.
why not make prestige decide how many SF you can hire? it is harder to gain high prestige.
Quote from: Zakilevo on March 16, 2012, 09:32:30 PM
why not make prestige decide how many SF you can hire? it is harder to gain high prestige.
You can only recruit as many SF as you have prestige?
Here's kind of hoping that doesn't get implemented, but by what I can see, something along those lines may be what Tom is interested in?
Quote from: Indirik on March 16, 2012, 06:52:38 PM
Making honor more important for SF/Cav is a good idea, IMO. For most people, hitting 4-50 honor is more than enough to hire all the troops they can normally afford. Only the people leading the TO unit, or the rich dukes, usually need the more honor to hire the size units they want.
Aren't Honour and Prestige getting reworked anyway?
Quote from: Velax on March 17, 2012, 04:43:43 AM
Aren't Honour and Prestige getting reworked anyway?
Yes, but Tom apparently wants to cut back on SF now.
Surely the easiest way to restrict SF usage is to lower the probability of an SF RC being built, either generally or specifically in Cities and Strongholds (which would effectively abolish lvl 4 RCs).
It is already frustrating to try to build a good SF RC if you have any RC already. :P
sorry for digging this up...
but what was the final change?
I can see daily reports that says my sf centres are "full" when they have 60 men (lvl 3).. yet the draft screen says max is 100 (since i missed this a couple of weeks back, i might not be able to test whether i can draft over the cap of 60, due to proximity of daimons and the refitting army.... it might just be possible before the next turn... 1 centre is at 59 men)
also.. as far as i can see, the daily recruitment rate is constant?
--
1 soft draft allegedly found 5 men..
and there were 64 men... in the centre.
so.. i take it for lvl 3 there's a cap on daily recruits at 60.. but you can draft up to 100 then?
In one region I am knight of the lvl 1 SF center max is 20.
Level 2 cavalry center is full at 46.