(02-23-2019, 10:06 PM)Calidor Wrote: I think expecting someone to declare an enemy on turn 1 is kind of crazy... now if you REALLY wanted to encourage that then you should enforce more stringent alignment stuff. The "evil" Kingdoms and the "good" kingdoms might have an incentive.
That could be an interesting ESO...
Some more thoughts- Currently you grant status points to kingdoms that have been declared enemies but there is no incentive to declare an enemy before you have to (no points for you and you actually give points to your enemy). And it actually costs influence which is a critical resource in the early game. If you want to see more early conflict then I suggest incentivizing it. Grant a ton of status points for declaring an enemy prior to turn 6. Then less for turn 12. Then nothing after that. Consider removing the influence hit for declaring enemies... In short, lead players to take actions that you want to see them take. It would be even cooler if this was tied to the EVIL/GOOD concept...
OK. Not to make this Epic, but.... 1st Cycle had what actually was called "Epic" which was the six "good" kingdoms, the six "evil" kingdoms, and the three neutral kingdoms. It ended up being related to the overall diplomacy problem that persists that players wanted "game long NAP", and so whoever gave the best deal to the neutrals, it became 9 on 6.
On status points, it used to be the opposite: you got points for allies and penalties for enemies. That changed in 3rd Cycle to much grief. This was part of the effort to stop game long alliances, which has been a struggle as long as the Crusades. We lost lots of players who had a whole Alamaze motif of gaining everyone around them as a game long partner, and jointly attacking the one kingdom that wanted to be independent. I have struggled with this essentially forever. In its present form, the solution is Silent format.
As to what I want, it is what I think is best for the world of Alamaze, which is multiple approaches fostered by multiple vectors of attack and development and multiple kingdom strategies and the personalities of the players controlling the kingdoms. Then I constantly tweak what seems a dominant strategy or kingdom or a neglected one. So in 4th Cycle we finally see a nod to perhaps a more defensive approach and whole new sets of kingdoms being preferred.
i wonder how many players really pursue a course based on status points, as vs. maybe a tiebreaker on alternative approaches. Not many games get decided on The Lion's Share.
