Teamstacks

[makeixo]

Hey guys,

I think in team games, it should be possible to build team stack. In my opinion it would enhance team-play.

Sal2

[makeixo]

seems like nobody is interested in that.

[KGB]

I think no one understands how to make it work.

Are you just allowed to stack units in the same square for defense purposes? If it's just that then I could see having such a feature you still have to figure out whose fight order to use in cases where they are different.

But if it meant moving and attacking then how do you decide who moves the stack and do all units move together or separate (ie each team mate moves their units). This could get very complex. This would also basically be the equivalent of 'giving armies' to your team mate which is something the game has decided not to allow.

KGB

[Igor]

Looking at my team games, current and last, I find that would be useful to join together units from different players of the same team to attack an opponent's stack in city or in field. Unfortunately it's really look difficult for realisation, as KGB said, should be it will take a horde of hours to input this. If somebody will ask me I will say that probably should be ready to use only what it is in the moment and unite armies with your team partners in city during defence.

[gil]

reassign of a unit to a team member will upgrade team games

[smursh]

It would change team games tremendously if you do this. Now if my team is looking to build say unicorns each player who wants them would have to buy/build them. If you can swop units then only 1 player might need to buy and another could buy say medusa for example.

Coordinating unit production would favor those teams working together best.

But I agree it probably would be very hard to implement. Easier perhaps if when you port production you could specify if you want the recieving player to control the units ported, then it essentially becomes property of the recieving player.

[KGB]

It would change team games tremendously if you do this. Now if my team is looking to build say unicorns each player who wants them would have to buy/build them. If you can swop units then only 1 player might need to buy and another could buy say medusa for example.

Correct. This would be the biggest obvious thing that would happen.

But I agree it probably would be very hard to implement. Easier perhaps if when you port production you could specify if you want the recieving player to control the units ported, then it essentially becomes property of the recieving player.

This (along with directly giving armies) would lead to another abuse. One player on the team should be designated to get *all* the armies given to him by all team mates so he essentially controls EVERY army in the team. This allows him to co-ordinate all movement. More importantly he will be broke but the game doesn't disband armies you can't pay for. So giving him all the armies means his team mates have 0 upkeep and thus get max gold every turn while he is broke but has endless armies he doesn't pay for.

KGB

[makeixo]

I dont see the problem of implementation. If I move on the square of my team mates stack I only need a button "join the stack", then my team mate controls the whole stack, fight order, movements etc... until I separate my unit from the stack.

If you can swop units then only 1 player might need to buy and another could buy say medusa for example.

I think thats a good thing, dont you?

Not only it would upgrade "team-production" also players can help out each other with terrain-move, terrain-moral, fly a hero over the river or to an island to conquer the city/search a ruin.

If you are afraid of abuse there could be a limit for reasigned units. Lets say max 10 or 20% of your units.

[KGB]

I dont see the problem of implementation. If I move on the square of my team mates stack I only need a button "join the stack", then my team mate controls the whole stack, fight order, movements etc... until I separate my unit from the stack.

This leads to serious abuses in combat.

For example a hero / bonus unit (Red Dragon) can join a teammate stack attack and provide a major bonus. Then it can leave and join one of your stacks and provide another major bonus to your stack. You *think* this is a good thing but it won't be because the key units will be providing bonus in WAY more battles than they do now. What's worse is that newbie players won't easily grasp this concept leading to teams that are really coordinated from lots of experience winning even more games than they do now.

If you are afraid of abuse there could be a limit for reasigned units. Lets say max 10 or 20% of your units.

Lets say I have 100 units and give my 10% (10 units) to a team mate. They are now my team mates units and his upkeep etc. How will this be tracked? Next turn I will have 90 + whatever I build (lets say 8 units). Now what's my 10%? Is 9.8 MORE units or have I already transferred my max? It will be hard to track this for the game cause it will have to track way more things about a unit. Plus players may want to be able to disband units they gave already to be able to give more in another spot so you have to identify them specially. This leads to a LOT of extra stuff for the game and players to manage.

Then what will happen when a team mate resigns? Currently all 2+ turn units are lost but 1 turn units are transferred. Will the game now have to differentiate these transferred units from manual transfers? Should it transfer 10% of 2+ turn units since a player could have done that legally? So many things to code and handle and then write up a set of rules explaining what can and can't be done.

I'm fine with sharing a defensive square in a manner similar to how cities are shared. But I can't see a viable way to go beyond that without adding a LOT of special code/rules to handle abuse.

KGB

[smursh]

Simple way to insure no abuse is to add a cost. Instead of units belonging to the other player they just get a transfered command, units might have an aura around them to show which color controls the units.

For cost both players pay upkeep on transfered troops. If player runs out of gold tranfered troops automatically revert command back. Now you can't transfer everything to one player without bankrupting them. Also if a player is out so are the troops he owns regardless of who commands them.

Still seems like a major undertaking for the programmers though so probably best to let this one go.