Concede-stats

[KGB]

SnotlinG,

I think a guaranteed 12 units in auto-produce mode is too many. If someone drops out in the early turns having 12 men made there compared to 1 in normal neutrals is a bit much. I believe War2 capped out at either 4 or 8 men.

Rather than use a set number of armies (12) or city upkeep why not just let the city produce until there is X amount of strength points from the units there where X = 5+(turn count/2). So if someone dropped out on turn 1, any cities they owned would produce 5+1/2=6 (round up) strength points. If they dropped out on turn 20 it would be 5+20/2=15 strength points. That way you don't get early turn cities filling with 12 men while neutrals have only 1. Meanwhile in late game you get more defenders as would be normal in mid/late game.

Strength points then translate into units the city can build. So lets say someone drops out on turn 30. Then X = 5+30/2=20. That would be 4 spiders or 2 dragons or 10 Lt Infantry or 6 Hv Infantry. That seems to generate a better number of defenders instead of allowing 12 scouts in 1 city and 12 spiders in another based on the production or upkeep. In cities with multiple units, just let city make the strongest unit until it can't add any more then find anything else that fits under the remaining points left.

Still not sure what you'll do about cities with no production which often happens due to pillaging.

As for self-raze, it all depends on the cost. I hope it's not going to cost a lot of gold. 100-200 tops. Otherwise it defeats the purpose of using it strategically. After all, players can rebuild so it's not like you lose the city forever as you do now. Also even if I could not raze every city I'd definitely raze the ones with key production since I don't want to give away Dragon/Devil/Pegasi type cities.

KGB

P.S. Extending dropout to the first 3 turns doesn't help. Basically if you don't join till turn 3 you are hugely handicapped by missing 2 turns during which the other players likely have snagged 4-5 cities, ruins, 2nd heroes etc. The game would be far better off to extend the 1st turn join time for an extra day or 2 hoping to get a player to join. The other thing would be to not count joining for someone for/against someone's record especially for ladder play. That might encourage more players to join games if it wasn't on their record.

[SnotlinG]

Yes, i had a feeling 12 was too much as soon as I wrote it
The idea of turn based strength is interesting. But also, if a city is set to Active, it will take some time for it to produce the troops, so it might be a bit self-controlled (i.e. number of troops wont be that many in the early game as it takes X number of turns to produce them anyway).

Right now a city with no production will get 1 unit if it is empty. No more units will produced there as it has no production capabilities.

One idea I just came up with, since AI is a bit in the future, would be to make the Capital city of a resigned/dropped out player start making neighbouring cities active as well. Say one per turn, if they are within 25 tiles or something. This could help making the cities close to a dropped out player hard to take, as they slowly will start getting Active and producing more defence troops.

[KGB]

Snotling,

But also, if a city is set to Active, it will take some time for it to produce the troops, so it might be a bit self-controlled (i.e. number of troops wont be that many in the early game as it takes X number of turns to produce them anyway).

1 turn units are produced in 1 turn. So 4 turns = 5 men (since you will automatically place 1 there). It can easily take 4 turns to reach a city after someone resigns in the early game. Many times it takes 10 turns to reach those cities if someone resigned on turns 1-5 simply because you are busy taking neutrals close to your own capitol and don't have lots of men to go get those areas.

This is why I favor having a set number of points based on the turn of the game the player drops out. So that early resignations mean those cities only end up with a couple of men in them. Late game resignations would mean the potential for a lot of men if they weren't captured quickly.

One idea I just came up with, since AI is a bit in the future, would be to make the Capital city of a resigned/dropped out player start making neighbouring cities active as well. Say one per turn, if they are within 25 tiles or something. This could help making the cities close to a dropped out player hard to take, as they slowly will start getting Active and producing more defence troops.

That's an interesting idea. I would actually like to see this as a game setting for all the neutrals. The game creator could select a turn number (minimum 5) of say 10. Once turn 10 was reached all remaining neutrals would begin producing units. It would make the solo map more realistic too.

KGB

[SnotlinG]

After considering this for a while, I think the strength based approach has 2 downsides.
Its a bit harder for new players to understand, and most importantly it will make a good city (dragon city) more or less as hard to conquer as a heavy infantry city, since their strenghtpoints will be the same.

For now I have set the active city to stop producing when it has 4 or more units. This should make cities with good units harder to conquer, while it is very clear how it works for all.

I also implemented my idea with cities getting activated When a player surrenders one of his cities (his capitol if he still owns it) will be transformed to a "Citystate". The Citystate will be activating nearby Netrual cities, one per turn, making them Active as well. I´ll check with piranha about making it a possible gamesetting also.