Reinforcing inactives (spiking)

    I've always found spiking to be a legitimate tactic in Travian - whether Legends, or now on Kingdoms. Spiking is very good for passively taking down opponents around you, and can be near essential to helping you establish control over your local area.


    I would not support changes to limit it - this is a war game and we need to play it like a war game. There are obviously some informal guidelines on how to effectively spike as well as some do's and don'ts but all in all it remains a very valid tactic.

    Quote from Jallu

    Spiking doesn't equal to less attacks. If i'm building a primary hammer it'll be used 1-3 times the whole server no matter does it get spiked or not. Secondaries i don't give a shit about losing and spiking doesn't make me use it any less.

    Good luck building hammer loosing to spikes more then you can build

    Quote from Augustus_COM

    Spiking is very good for passively taking down opponents around you

    It won't "take down" anyone. It is "passive" in the sense that you don't have to do anything much. It also doesn't gain you much, because you will lose some troops too and you don't gain resources. It is simply a spoiler for someone else and that's why people are making the fun argument. If this is your best defence of the practice then it's not a very good one.


    However, I would point out that the tactic of sending 2 clubbies at everything is not "fun" either, nor does it take much effort.


    The game should not reward either tactic IMO.

    Spiking abuses inactives <=> Plundering abuses inactives


    Spiking is too easy <=> Plundering inactives is too easy



    Inactives are just a way of giving active players free resources. I dont see a problem of that coming with the risk of spiking.
    As for the viability of spiking: The farmer loses troops. The farmer also gains resources from farming inactives. Currently the gained resources apparently outweigh the losses.
    The spiker loses troops and doesnt gain resources. That is probably the reason it is not more common.

    Sorry for you, but you are totally wrong. Read all the thread again. You like simplify many aspects or not understand the concept of abusing. Like Victory points,
    theorically is a broken sistem cause if you spike in large scale you ruin the game. But also pratically is broken too, cause you cannot counterattack invisible enemy.


    If could know every time who spike me i'd choose to cata him. And even if find from statistics who spike maybe is really far from me and i cant do anything.


    In a real war must be clear who are your enemies. Otherwise i cannot define it war, but likely terrorism.


    Last thing. You suppose that Spikers are not allowed to be also raider. Fail.

    Quote from Avin

    Like Victory points,theorically is a broken sistem cause if you spike in large scale you ruin the game. But also pratically is broken too, cause you cannot counterattack invisible enemy.

    I disagree. If it was broken I would expect it to have a major impact on gameplay. From what I can tell it doesnt have.


    Quote from Avin

    In a real war must be clear who are your enemies. Otherwise i cannot define it war, but likely terrorism.

    And to me terrorism is warfare.


    Quote from Avin

    Last thing. You suppose that Spikers are not allowed to be also raider. Fail.

    Of course spikers can raid. But when you look at spiking, you should look into losses and gains for both sides. What each of the involved parties does beside spiking/raiding should not be taken into account, unless it directly affects the topic.

    Inactive players, i remember are canceled after some time, so are not free infinite resources and usually before going inactive you have to clear them, or someone fought them in a war losing troops aswell. Keep a farmlist is not so simple like many say. And who thinks even for a second that plundering inactives is a sort of abuse, has always played as simmer, without building a true WW hammer. Without plundering inactives only kings and dukes have the chance to build hammers/anvils able to defend or attack a WW, that is one of the aim of this game. So please think before write.


    Whitout reinforcements to inactives, and the fear to lose troops, maybe more less-skilled player would start to raid and be stimulated to do more troops? This could be a chance to have more fights, interactions with other players?
    More players raiding, less spread between top and not top-raiders? more competitiveness? Tell me if i'm wrong.


    Quote from Aenggd#DE

    I disagree. If it was broken I would expect it to have a major impact on gameplay. From what I can tell it doesnt have.

    Explain me what you mean for broken system, maybe we have different views.


    Not be able to fight invisible enemy is not an opinion you cant disagree. And worst case scenario can always happen, and about spiking is very easy if someone want make it happen. A system has a FAWL when that scenario ruin the game.
    And if you are aware about the level of how much friendly VP stealing is raising in TK, the skill average in TK of players, and human instinct to abuse the aspects/rules of a game, you should expect more impact.





    Quote from Aenggd#DE

    And to me terrorism is warfare.


    A little OT but i need to answer.
    Yes you are right, terrorism (like holocaust, using chemical/gas bomb etc) would be a kind of allowed warfare in a world with NO rules. Unfortunately for you, and fortunately for me and the rest 95% of pop we live in a world with rules and fundamental human rights, at least after WW 2...




    Quote from Aenggd#DE

    Of course spikers can raid. But when you look at spiking, you should look into losses and gains for both sides. What each of the involved parties does beside spiking/raiding should not be taken into account, unless it directly affects the topic.

    As i said you tend to simplify too much, you need to think also about the secondary effects of an aspect/rule and how they impact in the other aspects of the game, and how players could react to that. Otherwise you'll never have a balanced game.

    I don't know what you want to say ? If i want someone to be my personal farm i'll reinfoce him so others stop farming = more resources for me ! It's tactics ! And it's damn WAR game ! if you don't like it, go play simcity or any other nonWAR game !

    Quote from Avin


    Explain me what you mean for broken system, maybe we have different views.
    Not be able to fight invisible enemy is not an opinion you cant disagree. And worst case scenario can always happen, and about spiking is very easy if someone want make it happen. A system has a FAWL when that scenario ruin the game.
    And if you are aware about the level of how much friendly VP stealing is raising in TK, the skill average in TK of players, and human instinct to abuse the aspects/rules of a game, you should expect more impact.

    I think the curent system is not broken. Spiking isnt a big issue from what I can tell. If spiking was so gamebreaking, I would assume a lot of players to abuse it. I dont see that happening.



    Quote from Avin


    A little OT but i need to answer.
    Yes you are right, terrorism (like holocaust, using chemical/gas bomb etc) would be a kind of allowed warfare in a world with NO rules. Unfortunately for you, and fortunately for me and the rest 95% of pop we live in a world with rules and fundamental human rights, at least after WW 2...

    This is a wargame. Why not have some "terrorism" option? It is only a game after all. As you can probably imagine, I do not condone terrorism in real life.
    By the same logic you would have to disable features like shooting people in games like GTA. That is also against human rights. But again: It is a game.



    Quote from Avin


    As i said you tend to simplify too much, you need to think also about the secondary effects of an aspect/rule and how they impact in the other aspects of the game, and how players could react to that. Otherwise you'll never have a balanced game.

    You should do the same. Do you really want risk free farming of inactives?

    I want to emphasize that the current situation on most situation is not so bad, i would say that the situation could best be described as annoing, not game breaking in any way.


    However my argument about this is not what is currently done but what could potentially be done with the system as it is. Right now it is not broken as people choose not to use spiking to its full potential, but it could drastically change how servers play if people abbused it.


    Let me give a small scale example of spiking that is maybe more realistic for most players than the "great spike" i described above


    Lets say i choose to spike 20-40 large inactive villages per day (random location and time). Its maybe 10 minutes of work sending from the map


    I would bet that within 1-2 weeks the total plunder on the server would have more than halfed .(large farmers would like loose something like 500-2000 farming troops per day due to the spikes which is unsustainable in the long run)


    Do you honestly thing that its a good thing with a system that allows a single player be able to have that large an impact on the server is a good thing? While its not a big problem now i don't expect it to always be like this since because people are people when they realise what you can actually achieve with spiking a lot more people will use it as a tool, with a tremendous effect on overall gameplay.


    Also i think the discussion regarding farming in travian itself is a whole different issue. (you could say this is the argument for why allowing people to farm for resources is a good thing)


    farming has existed in all versions of travian, the only difference is that as of late the farm list has made it more available for the average players (not just botters or no lifers). And you have to realise removing the option to farm at a profit would have a profound effect on a travian server as plundering is the main driving force for interaction between players in the early game. If you removed the option to farm players at a profit it would lead to a early game where people ignored eachother as much as possible cause fighting would cause their economic development to stall.


    Basically if you remove the option to plunder the best way to develop the account is to sim city and ignore troops. Since the only option to increase the income of the account is to invest all resources into fields. It is also the only way to build really large armies if you arent a king or a duke.


    This is why there are so little wars during the early game as people dont wanna fight to destroy their enemy, they want to develop the account quickly so its ready for the real fighting once the end game starts. Removing plunder would signifiantly increase the time it takes for people to reach the stage where they can afford to produce a lot of troops and fight for real.



    However spiking has the largest effect on the late game plunder (as people generally dont waste troops either attacking or defending in early game).
    The largest off players on the server are ALWAYS the ones who plunder and i would think twice before calling them sim city players just cause they built their accounts by farming inactives. Spiking taken to a higher level would efficiently remove all those players which i think would be an overall bad thing for the game.

    I like how people here argue it's a war game etc.. and yet I've never seen them really play like we do.


    TK servers are short, limited time = limited amount of troops, losing thousands of troops because of some spiking instead of using them on real enemies is just stupid. The one losing them might be a big player or a small player, in the case of the big player it will just make him stall, in case of the small one it will lower his chances against bigger opponents.


    I think you are all missing the fact we are not talking about only a village being spiked, if a whole server was to be spiked, everyone would lose troops that they worked hard to have, and they lost them for what nothing. In one night we could kill one month of work of lots of people, and this could be applied on any server. We might aswell remove this feature at this point no? King and dukes gets the resource anyway and the active player will have a huge upperhand against people who can't play 24/7. I'm the first one advocating for a competitive game strategy wise, but if the game is unplayable for casual players we will end up with even less player in each server.


    And may I say, if you have never experienced your off stalling because of spikes, you never really raided like a constant top raider.


    I agree with a lot of what you say here.


    But I think what you are missing is, that spiking on a larger scale would mean massive losses for the person doing it. Additionally the losses on the farmers side would be split between a lot of people.


    I think what you are describing is not feasible. If it was, I think it would be done.


    I could be wrong, of course.


    A: It's a your opinion. Just an opinion. I'd like know if devs thinks the same. If all inactive players in a server were spiked with dozens of thousands troops killed in few hours, they would write in the forum something like '' we definitely don't encourage or recommend such strategies as we understand that situations like this one can be very frustrating for some of you'' or they'd consider it a legitimate strategy......


    B: No thanks. here is absolutely unnecessary. there are spionage and SS, VP abuse. Are enought imho. Some concepts should stay out from game's mechanics.
    You mix/confuse the kind of game and the different purpose of a game. Btw GTA is PEGI 18+ and is not a strategy game, and ''It's just a game'' is not a valid reason to spread-incourage wrong messages/behaviours.


    Here i'd like not see players that play with the only purpose to ruin the game to others sending reinforcements to inactives. I've seen behaviours like that in other browser games, and it's not funny.


    C: Free farming inactives doesnt hurt anyone. inactives are removed after some time. I explained in the previous message what benefits could derive. maybe you missed it:


    Quote from Avin

    Whitout reinforcements to inactives, and the fear to lose troops, maybe more less-skilled player would start to raid due the less risks and be stimulated to do more troops? This could be a chance to have more fights, interactions with other players?
    More players raiding, less spread between top and not top-raiders? more competitiveness? Tell me if i'm wrong.

    Quote from Mayo_COM

    Trust us, it is feasible.

    Perhaps someone should do it and show us how easily done/broken it is. For me atleast, it's pretty hard to believe that one person could actually deal any significant damage alone.


    Devs didn't do crap about VPs until it was abused, it might be the same on this matter. Just talks never seem to appeal to the devs.


    edit: i'll probably get replied something like "i don't want to be the guy that does that" or something, but we gotta know how something works before it can be fixed, am i right? Never lost significant amounts of troops to spiking so i don't see it as a problem before i do.