Wall Gates

[Wisler]

Allow alliance mode is broken anyway. I don't understand why I would build wall (and gate) in that mode. Why ? Since the only thing i need to win is to crash my force on the single player that refused my alliance ?

I suggest we make all the trucks, all the derricks and all the power generator explode when someone accept an alliance. And we put 2 minute delay before we can offer a new one.

These are my thoughts on allow alliances too, also you can just ally up everyone and get an auto win, totally stupid mode.

[Iluvalar]

And if he wants to allie whit you so he has time to make units and atack you later?

Somehow what happened but with fixed teams, instead of attacking me, I've got "walled" into my base. Being unable to destroy the allied walls. That's why I prefer the "allow alliances" mode.

When that happen, you ask the host to kick him. That's why there is a kick option.

[effigy]

Allow alliance mode is broken anyway. I don't understand why I would build wall (and gate) in that mode. Why ? Since the only thing i need to win is to crash my force on the single player that refused my alliance ?

I suggest we make all the trucks, all the derricks and all the power generator explode when someone accept an alliance. And we put 2 minute delay before we can offer a new one.

This sounds a bit extreme, but I agree that alliance mode is somewhat damaged.

I don't think there should be a penalty for making an alliance, but a penalty for breaking one would make sense. It's a bit too common for people to "ally" then break alliance with a mass of tanks in your base, etc.

[Per]

What penalty could matter, short of self-destructing everything as Iluvalar suggested, when you've all but won the game?

Allow alliance mode is just silly.

Walling in or otherwise attacking your allies in fixed alliance mode is game abuse similar to cheating, and will be dealt with accordingly.

[Wisler]

Maybe this mode would work if the two people who wanted to forge the alliance had to each donate power and both accept before it was final.

The amount of power could be the [(number of derricks) / (number of players)] x (1.5 x amount of seconds passed in game).

Also some additional rules to keep things legit:

- Minimum costs of forging an alliance is 1500 power each.

- For each extra ally you add the 1.5 in (1.5 x amount of seconds passed in game) goes up by 1.

I just came up with this off the top of my head, formula probably could use some adjusting and maybe a few extra basic rules, but I think something similar would work better than what we currently have.

[Giani]

That might be a good idea.

But there should happen something when you broke an alliance, like waiting 5 minutes before you can atack him, so if the ally knows that his new enemy has many units (that he made when they were allys), the other ally would have time to make units.

[effigy]

...
I just came up with this off the top of my head, formula probably could use some adjusting and maybe a few extra basic rules, but I think something similar would work better than what we currently have.

I think you need a graph.

[Iluvalar]

No graph will work. Excellent idea wisler but the actual game progression is linear. That mean that the research have a slowing down outcome over time. So when we have a good idea like that, we can't fix any price that make sens. Whatever price we chose, there will be a fixed time in the game where it will become more interesting than researching or anything else. It will become forced and known. like "i must ally at 13 minutes..."

[p0l1z1]

I had some great games with this "allow alliance" mode, it was one of the good surprised when I discovered warzone. For sure, if you play real battle online, you better take FFA or permanent alliances. But when you play in a LAN with friends, especially when there is big level differences between players, it can be very fun.

*example*
I remember a game we played on Sand Castles. There was two good players, two middle ones and one who was discorering the game. The two good ones never allied for obvious reasons, and the goal for them was obviously not to crash the weak players. But we played a long time negociating "open border" to be able to cross these whith planes to bombard each other base. The two middle players spend long time in a war in a corner of the map, until there reached an aggreement, exchanged techs and came back to battle with more powerfull units. The players who discovered the game was in the middle of the map, but had a lot of alliances that made him able to evolve and discover the tech tree by himself. At the end, it's a diplomatic incident in his territory (middle players attacking him) that made a lot of alliances break, and we played the "final battle".
*/example"

Ok, it's more about roleplay than real competition. But I think this mode has an interest for a lot of people, and especially those who dont play online for rank, or even come to this forum, but rather play occasionnaly and only with friends. Trying to balance it for competition will never be successful, and would take out a lot of fun for those who use it for "RP" games. Besides, with friends you can also think of special types of game since A can be allied whith B and B with C, but A and C in war. If you define it at the begining of the game with friends, you can for instance make a 5 player games with each players allied with neighbours, but in war with the two players accross (Magic the Gathering style )

***tldr: I think nerfing the allow alliance mode would be good for those who anyway don't use it, and bad for those who do. ***

To come back to the topic, I think wall gates in "me only" mode are indeed more interesting than an "allow ally" mode if we have to make a choice. You just have to be aware of that, and not put gate at all if you want your ally to be able to cross (like before the gates, finally).

[Wisler]

No graph will work. Excellent idea wisler but the actual game progression is linear. That mean that the research have a slowing down outcome over time. So when we have a good idea like that, we can't fix any price that make sens. Whatever price we chose, there will be a fixed time in the game where it will become more interesting than researching or anything else. It will become forced and known. like "i must ally at 13 minutes..."

Yeah that's a problem, also I was thinking of reasons for people making alliances other than the obvious, and one might be to fight a player who has more oil control, if making alliances is based on power levels then this wouldn't really make sense if weaker players didn't have the power to ally other weaker players, to fight a stronger one.

So the 2 main problems are:

-Harder for weaker players to ally.

-The formula is doesn't match the balance in the general progression of things best to spend power on.

But I think if someone could think of a way to get rid of these problems and some others, maybe by relating power charges more to the actual player rather than just the derricks/number of players/time.

The second one could be fixed maybe in the same way, by taking factors of how well the player/s are doing by taking factors that cant be easily manipulated into account.

To Giani: With the double crossing issue, I reckon people would be less likely to forge fake alliances with you if it actually costs them significant amounts of power to make. Also i think double crossing in allow alliances might work out with a new system to be very interesting so I don't think we should try to prevent it completely but maybe make the option less easy to take, hence additional power charges for taking extra allies.

[NoQ]

Did anybody propose forcing the side that just won to break their alliances, instead of counting it as victory, until only one player remains? Not really a fix, but makes a bit more sense.

[Per]

I don't know if this is just a fisherman's tale, but it is said that if you catch several lobsters in a trap and leave them for too long, you will end up with just one lobster left as they eat each other, and it will always be the second smallest lobster. Why? Because the smaller lobsters gang up on the largest remaining lobster until only two are left, and then the smallest lobster is eaten.

I leave it as an exercise for the reader to see how this has any relevance to Warzone.

I once made a game AI operate along this concept (different game). It was not very fun to play against.

[NoQ]

Oh wow, they are so much more clever than humans