Turns and production units

[Itangast]

A lot of people probably noticed this all ready - but anyways....

I just noticed that production units pop when your own turn begins, not when all turn has been processed.

This gives an unfair advantage to players early in the turn cycle.

For example: Player #1 starts his turn with 30 cities and eg 15 new production units.
These 15 new production units can be used to attack player #2 who not yet received his/her production units for the current turn.

Solution: Make all production units pop at the start of a new turn cycle. This would mean that all players may benefit from new production units while defending a city.

[KGB]

Itangast,

This is traditionally how Warlords (and all turn based strategy games that I've played) work. You get your production on your turn having waiting a complete cycle of turns.

As far as an unfair advantage goes, I don't quite follow your logic:

Yes, when player 1's turn starts, he gets 15 armies he can use to attack.
But when player 2's turn starts, he also gets 15 armies he can use to attack (assuming the same 30 cities).

Your logic is predicated on the idea that player 1 can in fact use all 30 armies instantly to attack with (ala Risk). In reality that's hardly ever the case. Plus your logic assumes that player 1 is the first player to get to attack (ie player 1 reaches player 2 before player 2 reaches player 1). That is also likely not true as Warlords is not Risk and so who attacks who first can never be known due to having to move.

The other side of the equation that you are not considering with this change is:

Assume player 1 conquers a city on his turn and sets production. He must then survive all attacks from the other players before he gets his production (lets assume we are in a 2 player game for simplicity). Now when player 2 goes and conquers a city, he gets his production INSTANTLY because all production comes at the start of a turn. So player 1 has no chance to attack before the production is in the city. This is now hugely unfair to player 1.

The *only* real advantage player 1 has is in the race to neutrals/ruins since he moves first.

KGB

[Itangast]

Perhaps there is nothing to fix - as you clearly pointed out there are valid arguments not to change it (instant pop of 1 turn armies). Though its still worth discussing as its not a perfectly balanced design.

The logic is simple - think I made that clear in my original post. "Early" -Players will benefit from more armies while attacking compared to players later in the turn cycle.

As player #1 you can basically capture a town using newly poped armies and capture it on the same turn as the defending player would normally get his/her 5 turn devil in relevant town.

Personally I like simplicity over complex rules. Even though I suggested a solution - I am not sure this issue is worth altering, even slightly. I still think its worth some discussion...


Instant pops would be solved by applying this rule for >1 turn units.... just poping ideas...

[HaZe]

I see your point Itangast.

But as KGB already pointed out, this is the nature of round based strategy games.
You may compare it to chess (well no spawning units) where white got the first turn.

If executed perfectly, white got a slight advantage due to his 1st turn.
But as we are all human beings, mistakes matter a lot.
Therefor i think this evens out during the game.

If player #1 e.g. fails to take advantage of his additional unit - for example at conquering
player #2's city - player #2 on the other hand may have the advantage of +1 unit during his turn
and may in turn conquer #1's city.

Well a lot of if and when's but you are right. It is worth discussing.

Greets

[KGB]

Itangast,

In an *ideal* game, all movement would be simultaneous rather than turn based. DLR actually did this for the online MP where all players moved at the same time. So there was no 'player 1's turn', but rather just 'turn 1'.

To achieve that in this game would require an awful lot of programming and is basically beyond the scope of what Snotling/Piranha set out to do.

Anyway, back to your discussion and example for a moment.

As player #1 you can basically capture a town using newly poped armies and capture it on the same turn as the defending player would normally get his/her 5 turn devil in relevant town.

Yes. But I'd argue that 50% of the time it will be the other way around. That is, your Devil will appear before the newly created armies get there to attack. Here's why I say that:

If at the start of a game there is a city/ruin exactly midway between player 1 and player 2 then player 1 is going to reach it first. That's his slight advantage of going first. On the other hand, if that city/ruin is just slightly closer to player 2, then player 2 is going to reach it first. If player 2 reaches the city first, then their production will now be 1 turn ahead of player 1's because they got to the city first.

Here's what I mean:

Example A)
On turn 1, player 1 captures a city. They set production then move their hero off in another direction
On turn 1, player 2 captures a Devil city. They set the 5 turn production and move their hero off in another direction (leaving it empty).
On turn 2, player 1 sees the empty city, realizes they can just get there in 5 turns with their newly made unit and head to the city.

- In this case, player 1 will capture the Devil city just before the Devil is made.

Example B)
On turn 1, player 1 doesn't quite capture a city
On turn 1, player 2 captures a Devil city. They set the 5 turn production and move their hero off in another direction (leaving it empty).
On turn 2, player 1 captures the city. They set production then move their hero off in another direction.
On turn 3, player 1 sends the army toward the Devil city.

- In this case, player 1 will arrive late to capture the Devil city because the Devil is created before the unit gets there.

So you see, what matters is not who goes first in the game, but rather who captures their city first. If you are player 2 and you capture the city on your turn then you have the advantage because now you are now technically 'going first' because player 1 is 1 turn behind you.

Or think of it in another way. On turn 1 as player 1 if you don't capture a city and player 2 does capture a city then on turn 2, you get no new production while player 2 does get new production on his turn. So now technically you are 1 turn behind him in production.

Thus it's the map/distance to cities etc that matters most, not who goes first because the production advantage goes to the player who captures their city soonest. On a perfectly balanced mirror map that would always be player 1. But since maps aren't perfectly balanced and starting positions are randomized it's not clear who has the advantage if indeed there is any because there are so many movement options.

KGB