I feel for the smaller families, especially those being continuously farmed as there’s really not a great deal you can do about it if they are really persistent. I am partially guilty of this though do start to feel guilty after a while.
However, in a mid-size fam you’re stuck with the option of either committing kamikaze on a top fam and ending up a farm yourself, or hoping you’ve managed to get enough shares near a similar size fam to actually have a decent fight.
If you aren’t close enough to a similar fam and don’t want to ‘farm or be farmed’, then it becomes a pretty boring game of Imperial Infrastructure. Asides from positioning yourself better during the expo phase, I don’t really see a solution (it was my first round back in 15 years so yeh I cocked up with that…) to ensuring even fights throughout the round.
But, just one thought to try and reduce the farming factor… why not exponentially increase the morale cost the closer you get to an enemy core? Just an example:
10 ticks + : fair game, fill your boots
8 ticks + : starting to fence somebody in, +5% morale penalty
6 ticks + : bordering on dick move, +15% morale penalty
4 ticks + : bore off, + 30% morale penalty
Can’t say I’ve thought too much on this, and I am tired… and a nub… so feel free to shoot it down
Exposed yes 3 ranks lower. And the length is what I’m talking about. Fine beat me take some planets. You guys grabbed 50%. Long after we could even attempt to fight back. FYI with only this many families 3 ranks can be a huge difference.
HFO, don’t get me wrong, I sympathise for your fams plight, played in enough low ranked fams myself and seen it happen and seen fam members delete because of situations such as yours which is why I stopped spells and others stopped attacks, but at the same time don’t try to make out your fam was bottom ranked to begin with so the bigger top fams will play their “Oh lets defend the little guys” when their real reason is “look we can farm a family a lot lower and pretend we are sticking up for the smaller ones”.
It may be some comfort to you that #30 are warring us at the mo…they must be farmers are they are 4 ranks higher…and wait, not only them but their non allies and Pnap’d friends #29 have opped/dropped spells and fighter run the exact same tick #30 hit us…now I’m not implying anything about #29’s perfectly timed execution and the fact #30 could not op bankers or kill attacker but make the point of fact they are 5 ranks above and therefore in the eyes of this thread are also farming a far lower ranked family.
Still, its only a game and you never know, next round you may end up in an higher ranked fam and be able to help smaller fam when you see the fam you join hitting smaller ones to dust
All I read was @HFO his first post. I agree, although plenty people will complain I am/been/am half of the problem above, especially if you check my fams ranking.
Before this turns into a TL;DR kinda post. Only quick solution is if players with @HFO’s POV end up as leaders in top fams and police the galaxy.
Farming has always and will always be in imperial conflict. There is a unwritten code about honour so this doesnt happen as much but without morale laws or a way to rank players and even families out more then there isnt much that can be done.
All i can say is leaders need to take more time doing real diplomatic relationships. It isnt up to the attacker to make and decide on naps, we have a lot of say but its up to the family and in the end the leader. So my suggestion would be to work on diplo skills.
For instance my family has offered every family a nap that we have attacked this round some have denied the terms that is not our fault and ultimately makes us look at fault.
No game will ever be perfect but even with farming and the odd crappy round i think this game has came a long way and no matter what you have the chance to redeem yourself in other rounds
Make it possible for smaller fam to force a NAP on bigger fam after certain % of planets lost (within some time limit) and make the limit somewhat random. Bigger difference in NW and planets between fams, longer NAP call-off time (from 24-48-72 hr NAPs) and second forced NAP would be PNAP. It could even be automated safeguard.
Make it IA to ask any planets for a NAP.
Make morale costs bigger vs smaller fams
After war has been declared, give smaller fam better chance to land hard opps after some time limit or gradually, because killing big fams economy would teach them a lesson if they prolong the war. Take away the bonus when smaller fam is able to force the NAP, to make them force it instead of opping.
This would give some options for smaller fams. War declaration vs bigger fam would help opping if bigger fam just keeps farming, especially if they do it in slow pace to prevent forced NAP. Prolly big fams would make fights vs smaller fams fierce, fast and surgical, until NAP is force upon them. I think that could be easier to tolerate than long winded farming.
I know, even that proposal is far from perfect, but do not try to find only fault in there. Try to make it better.
I think - at the time a fam cannot NAP more than 2 other fams, farming becomes too big of a risk too.
It’s quite an attractive target: a fam that is taking planets from an easy target; spend all their money on infra etc;
Currently everyone in MW is napped to everyone… except for some fams raping other fams to the bone.
@Zanharim - I disagree with your view on things here. I would want to fix this, by making the big fams targetting small fams, attrective targets to other big fams.
Leveling everything between big and small fams, to me, is not a way to fix this, because it takes away the reward for performing well at the start. You want to do well and get superior infra, because it gets you an advantage over other fams. With most of your suggestions, that rewards gets nullified.
I’m not sure about this one, also about the practical ways around it. Mixed feelings…
First question would be: what happens if a fam is being stupid and picked two targets? Then gets attacked back by two other fams?
This is nonsence. Has nothing to do with vulturting etc. If you are closeby and a perfect target to me, I’m ok with NAPping, but I want some advantage out of it. It’s business.
Agree - But morale works this way pretty much already, doesn’t it?
Wait what? It’s a war game right? We don’t want to completely level the playing field, there must remain an incentive to do better?
Else it would actually make sense to save huge amounts, then drop NW, op the other fam down to oblivion, and then jump fleet and rape them…
… Revenge also comes in the most stupid ways.“Oh you beat me last round fair and sqaure, I’m now going kamikaze on your ass - yea I won’t do well this round, but I’m sure as hell to ruin your round”
Seen that happen so many times.
So no - I can’t agree with this one lol
Anyway - as I said at the start, I think this will already make for a lot more dynamics in the game compared to the current MW round:
I am not trying to level things. Just to give smaller fams a chance. Big fams do not need as big advantage as they now get. If your fam can call the shots, bully, blackmail or coerce smaller fam in anyway, then the advantage is too big. Happens all the time. Should not.
When I speak about smaller families, I do not talk about NW. Planets are more important when determining fam sizes. If it would be taken into account with these suggestions, it would be hard to drop size, because families can’t give planets away in any reasonable way without IA.
Also, you misunderstood my suggested game mechanic totally:
smaller fam would have to be in war for a while to gain bonuses, while is days for me, not few ticks
bonuses would possibly get gradually better over time
bonuses would not level things, just make it possible for smaller fam to fight with opps vs overpowering economy/military force, if balanced correctly they would need to jump oppers with all they have and could not jump any fleet after that
and all that time bigger fam could fight the war with their superior fleets and take planets
until certain % of planets would be lost, in certain amount of time (these can be somewhat random to prevent too much planning), smaller fam would either auto-NAP bigger fam or have the chance to force NAP on them and when that chance would appear, small fam also would lose any bonuses for opping, so they really should take the NAP, because their opps would start failing.
The whole idea is to make wars against smaller fams stay short, limit losses and give them a chance to force a NAP (or auto-NAP) after loss limit has been exceeded. Because farming seems to be low paced, limitless and NAPs are not given to smaller fams when “just clearing cores/shares” one system at a time. If bigger fam tries to spread those losses for a longer period of time to prevent them from hitting that loss limit, smaller fam has a chance to at least opp the enemy, because they begin to gain bonuses for it as time passes on. War declaration is just a tool for these features to take place.
Maybe I should write an example war scenario later, when I have more time, to clarify what I suggest?
Morale costs are not working now.
Planets for NAP is part of the above mentioned bullying tactics. It also gives some families excuse to keep farming. They ask a lot of planets for NAP and when smaller fam refuses, gloves are off, honor is gone and smaller fam will be opped and farmed, until they give planets, on top of the planets they happen to lose while refusing. When someone accuses them of anything, they say these things:
You had a chance to stop it.
It is a war game.
We could have taken the planets we asked for.
We already jumped fleet and had to use it.
Our attacker is just too active and we could not stop him.
Or other nonsense.
Revenge is at least some motivation to ruin someones round, now it is done just because ppl can do it. Also, with my suggestions, smaller fams would have a bit better chance to fight against vengeful foes. Big fams could handle these issues as usual.
