VOTE FOR SMALLER KINGDOMS / MEMBER LIMITATION

    Quote from Ammanurt

    Be2-e4


    While I mostly agree with you on "Good game design doesn't enforce hard limits to try to force players to do something", good game design and balancing in particular entails "pulling levers" on variables within your control, be it existing or new ones. A member limit can be one such lever, and whether you achieve such a limit by strictly enforcing it or by making it almost completely infeasible (e.g. by a nerf on troop strength or by making treasure production negative or w/e if your kingdom > 60 members) doesn't make much of a difference in this case.


    Anyway, I don't think the point is that having a member limit would stop metas in their tracks - it obviously wouldn't. It would only function as a small first incentive against metas. If you want to have a meta you need to organize several wings, which is somewhat more work than simply having everyone in one massive group.

    Well spoken Ammanurt . Let's not accept the proposed frame of the debate that hard limits is bad game design.. This is untrue and a lie. Just look around you which games have been among the post popular in human civilization and you know how false such a statement is. This is a false premis of the debate and a frame set by people whom are against a max player limit for other reasons they may not want to reveal.


    Hearing people say that a hard member limit is a bad game design in Travian-like games clearly contradicts the fact that Travian Legends are built on this rule. Put this in the light of the dropping player base and closing of local servers in Travian Kingdoms, and the large and frequent updates of Travian Legends recently makes the statement of a hard member limit being bad game design even more absurd.

    A strategy game is supposed to be designed around strategic decisions. Hard limiting anything is the opposite of this, because it takes away decisions. To bring T:L as (only) example of hard-limited game after bragging about the amount of them to exist is kinda ironic, by the way, because everyone bypasses the 60 member limit with ease by creating wings and metas. Your only example doesn't even work, because metas there have way more than the limit would allow. They just are spread out into multiple alliances. Accusing me of having hidden intentions with my con-limit mindset is pretty stupid, I already said I wouldn't be affect at all. We [kingdoms I lead] always stand against a significant higher member count, not having surpassed 45 members in total including confederacies and naps (which mostly didn't exist) for a few years. This is true after union (since unions exist) and during 3-kings-per-ally era. :p

    Also I said explicitly, that I don't like huge metas, but that hard-limiting is still bad. One needs intelligent solutions to make the players want to play differently than before, instead of closing both eyes and dumbly throwing a hard-limit in, ignoring everything speaking against it.

    The dropping player base "argument", which I read kind of everywhere for everything, is also kind of useless. T:L's playerbase isn't growing either, should I come in and say "all hard-limit's fault" now, like you do? Even if T:L's playerbase was falling apart significantly slower or not at all, it's quite bolt to blame an existing hard limit for that. That's not the only difference between those two games, you know? And not even near the biggest.

    Guess you're a little bit upset, because I said your statistics didn't reveal anything non-obvious. This was a bit harsh, I know, and I already said I feel sorry for saying this, but despite being interesting statistics, it's quite true, because the linear dependency between member count and victory points in a peaceful round is indeed obvious if you think about it for a while. Nobody said metas aren't too strong, this sometimes seems to be forgotten.


    Like I said, Ammanurt, in a strategy game you should be able to make decisions. You should have all freedom you can possibly get, instead of enforcing one particular way to play. Currently building a meta with huge player counts is a kind of enforced decision, because it's very op and you have to work incredibly hard as smaller kingdom with significant lesser members to beat the huge one, while they can chill on their passive treasure production. This is obviously bad, because again, that's no decision, nothing you have to think about whether you do it or not, what the advantages and disadvantages are. There aren't significant disadvantages right now. But hard-limiting isn't a decision either. Let alone the fact, that, like we (we con-limit guys) pointed out dozens of times, there will just be a wing.

    If you want me to stick to your lever-analogy, I'd say it's more like a mixing console (for sound, not sure what the correct english term is), where you can change the strength of certain playstyles with the goal to balance them out. Right now, meta is very strong, now someone needs to change some mechanics to balance it out again, such that metas are weaker (or other playstyles are stronger). But not pulling a lever with an emergency stop sign to ban meta playstyle at all.


    The reason I post so much here, by the way, is, because I want metas to be nerfed, aswell. And since we're a lot of people here, who have some experience and similar thoughts on the opness of metas, one could maybe discuss better design options against them, instead of trying to ban them. I don't see, from your side, why you would mind metas being nerfed instead of removed, by the way. You wouldn't see so much of them then aswell, and if you do, you can defeat them more easily.


    By the way, a little fun fact for you all, to relief the tension in the atmosphere here: As far as I know, there is indeed a member limit right now. 111 players for non-united kingdoms, 222 players for united ones. Can't tell with 100% certaincy, because this information is a bit older, but if it's up to date and consequently implemented, this should be true.

    No mate, I'm not upset at all. I'm happy this topic is getting this well deserved amount of attention.


    I don't think I need to add a list of more games with hard limits to prove my point. The evidence are abundant. Hard limits are every where in games.. even in this game. Its is factually wrong that hard limits are enherently a bad game design.


    The difference in our thinking may come from that you judge a max player limit as a way to stop metas (you conclude it will fail, and I agree). I do not judge the max player limit according to if this will stop metas or not. Metas will always form.. As they should be allowed to do. A max player limit is important for totally diffident reasons.


    Its a cheap shot trying to frame the debate of a max player limit as a method that will fail in its objective to stop metas. Any system will fail with that, and its not the aim of a max player limit to even try to stop metas.

    What are you trying to achieve with your last last post? You're just repeating yourself, without any new argument or going into my points, that I wrote. I really tried, but I don't see any substance in your last post. I do try to dicuss these topics, provide arguments and reasons for my believes and thoughts, everything you did was to say "you're wrong, I'm right". This appears a little childish to be honest. If you want your opinion not to be ignored (by anyone who doesn't share it, not only by me), post reasons for your thoughts and arguments of some quality. For instance, why do you think hard-limits are beneficial for strategic depth? What are those reasons, that you think a player limit would be good for? What are those hard limit examples, let it be Kingdoms or another game, that you're talking of? And why do you think, they are a good design choice there?


    And no, I don't judge the limit only by whether it's working versus metas or not. My main point is, that one should have the option to have many members, if one likes to, but that it should come with a downside aswell - and not, that one just can't pass a certain member count. That a member limit won't achieve its desired effects is just a secondary point, which makes it not only a very suboptimal game design choice, but also useless aswell. And I know, that you just said, that a member limit isn't supposed to stop metas. But the main post from Deacon is about having 10 active kingdoms per game world, instead of two huge ones. This original post is about the benefits from multiple small kingdoms in a FFA versus the current situation of two huge metas fighting each other. So basically this both topics are about changing the current way of having two huge metas fighting each other into multiple smaller non-meta-kingdoms, while you didn't provide any other effect, that you want to achieve with it. Therefore this is, what I adress in my posts.

    Quote from Be2-e4

    What are you trying to achieve with your last last post? You're just repeating yourself, without any new argument or going into my points, that I wrote. I really tried, but I don't see any substance in your last post. I do try to dicuss these topics, provide arguments and reasons for my believes and thoughts, everything you did was to say "you're wrong, I'm right". This appears a little childish to be honest. If you want your opinion not to be ignored (by anyone who doesn't share it, not only by me), post reasons for your thoughts and arguments of some quality. For instance, why do you think hard-limits are beneficial for strategic depth? What are those reasons, that you think a player limit would be good for? What are those hard limit examples, let it be Kingdoms or another game, that you're talking of? And why do you think, they are a good design choice there?

    I can see that Scorox is just trying to say that he respect your opinions on the matters and not mad at your posts. Regarding all the questions you asked, most of them have been touched upon in some manner or forms throughout these 2 discussions and I do not see starting a debate on them over and over again.


    Clearly both you and we think that the game is not working properly or competitively enough. While we are suggesting limiting kingdom members, you are suggesting having consequences instead for having more members which is a better option in theory but it's very hard , if not impossible to implement while limits are easy to implement and all the consequences can be addressed via new strategies and different gameplays.

    Quote from Be2-e4

    My main point is, that one should have the option to have many members, if one likes to, but that it should come with a downside aswell - and not, that one just can't pass a certain member count.

    I'd prefer that as well, and as mentioned before, it is not desirable to make decisions in who leaves and who stays, but this is what leaders are for , to make right decisions. Many players have argued that it's in the name of the game that kingdom is supposed to protect each member, active or passive , good or bad, which is a valid argument superficially, but again, even in real kingdoms, not everyone was in army, there were peasants , there were tradesman, there were troops, priests , what not, so no this game is just not a copy of original concept of kingdoms. If it was that, there would be roles for players to produce just resources for kingdom, and they can't make troops, etc.

    Anyway, we all have seen interactions and communications in various kingdoms throughout the servers and in no kingdom, not even the best of the best ones we see more than 60 players proactive. Rest are just being "used" for tributes, VP, spamming defense; sure that's works in favor of the kingdom but it essentially makes Travian a game for recruitment rather than a war game.

    Ignoring few anomalies most of the servers are just 2 way contests or even 1 way (all the servers where 2nd kingdom tries to unite with other kingdoms to take on the pre-organised meta rarely works in favor of them, there are more than enough examples from recent past , likes of GGG and ★STARS★, it might again superficially looks like a fair contest but at the core it never is).


    Will your suggestion about having consequences works better than hard limiting the members count ? Maybe. But it will need to introduce few new mechanisms in the game and will change the game in some ways or other. Hard limit will allow us to keep the same game with minimal change in strategies and game-play (and yes, we all know T-L exists but people are not going to go back to it as the differences in graphics and game experience is of monumental scale)

    Quote from Be2-e4

    You're just repeating yourself, without any new argument or going into my points, that I wrote. I really tried, but I don't see any substance in your last post. I do try to dicuss these topics, provide arguments and reasons for my believes and thoughts, everything you did was to say "you're wrong, I'm right". This appears a little childish to be honest. If you want your opinion not to be ignored (by anyone who doesn't share it, not only by me), post reasons for your thoughts and arguments of some quality.

    Telling me this just goes to show that you have not read my other posts on this subject. In these post I clearly point to the fact what I believe a max limit to be beneficial for. My last 2 posts were strictly aimed at pointing out the fact that hard limits are not inherently bad game design (which some people claim it to be), and to point out (which have been pointed out many times) that the max player limit is not a solution to wings or METAs. Why would you not finding any substance in this? Hearing people using the arguments over and over again that a hard player limit is bad game design and that it will not solve the meta problem is pretty problematic, because the first part is factually wrong, and the second part is not even the purpose of the proposal. It surely have substance to respond when these 2 arguments being used against the proposal of a max member limits of kingdoms.


    Furthermore, saying that all I did was saying that "you are wrong, and I am right", and that I'm childish ... I think this is highly unfair when I even in my last reply to you supplied a separate paragraph addressing why I think we have different opinions about this. If anything I try to see this from your point of you and trying to see why we differ so much in our opinions about it.


    If you still don't know why I support a hard max limit please read my earlier post on the subject (in Deacon's or Starx's post). Your quote above clearly show that you have missed these. This is understandable since there is so much to read in these threads now. Maybe there is a need for a new collection of the points and arguments I have posted before. I have even respond to why a soft limit is not something I believe to be better than a hard limit. So it's wrong for you to dishonor what I wrote in my last two replies (saying I'm childish and upset) just because I did not include the arguments I have made before into my most recent post/reply. This time I felt like I strictly wanted to comment on the argument "A hard limit is bad game design", and I think this is perfectly fine to do so without having to also supply all my other arguments and comments I have made before.

    Just thought I'd throw in another angle, but what if it was made harder to simply "delete" your account? what if you had to commit to play a server and the only options were to either abandon your account (meaning all troops, crannies, walls residences & defenses were removed) and the villages just become farms or you could maybe have an option to "pay to delete" if you were really serious about deleting and didn't want to just be a farm.


    Maybe then the recruitment would have to be more selective, or those meta's could just end up full of grey villages, since the most deletion & replacement happens inside their borders.


    (I will await being shot down in flames) :D

    You DO NOT need to limit the number of members of the kingdom

    It's enough to limit the kingdom to the number of pops

    or the number of villages in the kingdom.

    If this restriction is logical, the kingdom will only be arranged so that not everyone will have the opportunity to the current best royalty.

    ( now media village a one player is 8 or 5-6k pop) + -

    If the king wants to have many players, he will also be a great hideout for treasors, but the players will populate less settlements or populattion.

    If the king wants to have strong players with many settlements he will invite fewer players. The result will be a little hideout.

    The condition is that the king does not have to kick a player who is once his governor

    Edited once, last by newplayer: limit pop is better, can be more village only with crop ().

    Dislike 3

    I'm sorry, but it wouldn't work from my angle, since people wouldn't make their res villages as "Cities", only 1 or 2 villages max to a city, others would be strictly res village type. You would need to consume every pop number you have, that offensive players would get more, to expand their strength, plus raiders would have a big effect too, they wouldn't settle/conquer new villages for raiding all over the map.
    In other words, if a guy is playing simcity, having 3-4 villages by the 2nd/3rd week and has almost no troops, he would be kicked, just to save pop limitation from happening on your behalf, that guy would still be with you, until the end, in the end, people would destroy their villages, to be able to join their wing kingdom1 and wing kingdom2 members.

    That's why limitation is a better solution, we all would get the same limit, 60 members/kingdom (with union) and you can expand as much as you want, server can be won by 60 members and only by 60 members kingdom, no more no less.

    You like to talk about wing kingdoms still going to exists, of course they're going to exist, but I wouldn't call it a wing kingdom anymore, it would be just a diplomatic relations then. There always some people whose all good with 5th,6th or even lower position, but I'm sure most of people by playing this game, wants to win, that's why all the great players can't fit in one huge kingdom makes rounds interesting again, they would need form second, third, fourth, fifth and i hope even more kingdom to compete in that server until the end for the same goal - 1st position.

    It's a war game after all.

    You're right

    The other page is:

    most players know each other and in one way or another, in the same kingdom or two.

    At the beginning, they gather and cover the catchment area nicely.

    This creates one or two strong kingdoms with 60 players with 15+ settlements.

    If you limit the number of pops or settlements, players decide how they will be.

    Most 50% of players do not make max. interval hideout, such a player is not useful. But you only see this when you play with him, so you let him out to call you better. So be it impossible. You can not get out, why did you take it.

    And finally the kings would start thinking


    I play with Boss

    Scorox, but you still didn't post good arguments to why hard limits are supposed not to be bad game design. And yes, I read your post about PKO (not sure about the abbreviation), but what's the connection of them and hard limits - and to be fair, both of these threads are primarily about stopping metas with limits, not about premade organisations. I actually have thought about them a while after I read it, but there are still some open questions to this, while I still don't see the connection to the actual topic. PKO could be implemented limitless aswell, without real impact on how they work, couldn't they?


    Starx, sure, it's easier to implement and easier to find a less good solution, but if you don't change any mechanics, but only throw in some hard limits for kingdom sizes, this will be of minimal effect only, if of effect at all - in addition to being the lesser design choice. You need to get the players to want to avoid creating a / being in a meta themselves, if you want to have ten 60 member kingdoms instead of what's the case right now. If you throw in hard limits, especially ones of that kind, they will just be ignored and bypassed. And to change the players' mindset, some changes to mechanics are required.

    Maybe I would think about somewhat accepting the lazy & lesser solution, if it would at least work. This kind of reminds me at the 1k outgoing attacks cap, after introducing it, TG said it would reduce server load, be bad for bots and wouldn't affect more than a handful players anyway. 1 + 3 is a contradiction itself and a bot has less irregular spikes due to more regular sending, so 2 isn't true either.

    Quote from Snorri

    So he can accuse us in this chat thread but I can't deffend us in this chat thread?
    I'm just trying to keep the thread balanced. Deacon is obviously fighting for one idea with his opinions, Im fighting with mine opinions. I'd think it's a discussion after all.
    Also there's been many potential risks said during the last couple of weeks - ignored. But pros (even tho you can't be sure it would work like that) are there included. That was my point :)

    Snorri still waiting for those promised arguments, from both sides + / - on your opinion.

    Negative ones especially f

    Quote from Be2-e4

    Scorox, but you still didn't post good arguments to why hard limits are supposed not to be bad game design. And yes, I read your post about PKO (not sure about the abbreviation), but what's the connection of them and hard limits - and to be fair, both of these threads are primarily about stopping metas with limits, not about premade organisations. I actually have thought about them a while after I read it, but there are still some open questions to this, while I still don't see the connection to the actual topic. PKO could be implemented limitless aswell, without real impact on how they work, couldn't they?


    Starx, sure, it's easier to implement and easier to find a less good solution, but if you don't change any mechanics, but only throw in some hard limits for kingdom sizes, this will be of minimal effect only, if of effect at all - in addition to being the lesser design choice. You need to get the players to want to avoid creating a / being in a meta themselves, if you want to have ten 60 member kingdoms instead of what's the case right now. If you throw in hard limits, especially ones of that kind, they will just be ignored and bypassed. And to change the players' mindset, some changes to mechanics are required.

    Maybe I would think about somewhat accepting the lazy & lesser solution, if it would at least work. This kind of reminds me at the 1k outgoing attacks cap, after introducing it, TG said it would reduce server load, be bad for bots and wouldn't affect more than a handful players anyway. 1 + 3 is a contradiction itself and a bot has less irregular spikes due to more regular sending, so 2 isn't true either.

    Be2-e4 Could you add some clear arguments on negative side or a positive side from your point of view, that we could add them at the topic list.


    - - - - - -


    Nothing personal guys, but please stick with this topic, without going way beyond what would happen if it would happen since that would happen and im pretty sure that would happen since its already happening.

    Quote from Be2-e4

    Like I said, Ammanurt, in a strategy game you should be able to make decisions. You should have all freedom you can possibly get, instead of enforcing one particular way to play. Currently building a meta with huge player counts is a kind of enforced decision, because it's very op and you have to work incredibly hard as smaller kingdom with significant lesser members to beat the huge one, while they can chill on their passive treasure production. This is obviously bad, because again, that's no decision, nothing you have to think about whether you do it or not, what the advantages and disadvantages are. There aren't significant disadvantages right now. But hard-limiting isn't a decision either. Let alone the fact, that, like we (we con-limit guys) pointed out dozens of times, there will just be a wing.

    If you want me to stick to your lever-analogy, I'd say it's more like a mixing console (for sound, not sure what the correct english term is), where you can change the strength of certain playstyles with the goal to balance them out. Right now, meta is very strong, now someone needs to change some mechanics to balance it out again, such that metas are weaker (or other playstyles are stronger). But not pulling a lever with an emergency stop sign to ban meta playstyle at all.

    Be2-e4 Exactly, you should allow for all playstyles instead of - essentially - only allowing meta playstyles as is currently the case with the existing game incentives. The current situation doesn't allow for more than one playstyle, and a "hard limit", that isn't actually very hard since you would just create wings,, does. At least slightly better, since it still allows for meta gameplay while making life very slightly better for other playstyles. It's obviously not enough though.


    How are we not on the same page here? I think you're saying, at the same time, that a player limit is a hard limit and those shouldn't exist because they stop decisions and ban the meta playstyle, but also that a player limit would never work and therefore wouldn't stop decisins or ban the meta playstyle. Which one is it? Also - what do you think of the incentives I proposed that would/should rebalance the game?

    It just depends on how strong your group is compared to the other groups of a server. There' s no hard line, you'll recognize a meta when you see one. If a group is clearly much bigger than other important groups on a server, it's probably a meta :D

    The most allowed kingdom pop 200k (+500 for city not count)


    Assignment of the first settlement for the king of 9 fields from the neighboring king.

    (or position that does not cover the influence of the king's neighbor when the maximum is 4x4)


    Once, the king remains the king to the end.

    Deleting acc king is not possible, can be * inactive * but not more active.


    King cant kick governor. (Neither attacked)

    Governor can be king.(forever)

    Duke can be king.( but forever)

    Duke can be governor again.


    Kingdom member cant kata second kingdom member without permission of the target.


    Menhir remains. Once rejected (from the invited player), menhir will no longer be able to bid from the same king.


    Minimum number of units per attack (5) + farm

    Farmlist no limit (100) is now for one.

    Ram + kata can be in the farm list.


    Traps - every victory of a full attack frees all captured soldiers (foreign).


    Defending inactive vilages enable. (Consum crop)

    If the inactive village has a foreign unit it does not strike if the attack is raid and the robber will be successful.

    It'll be a fight if it's a real attack.


    Such a system is more favorable to me, I can not afford to spend a lot of money on the game, but I will know that at least I have more self-evident opportunities for my own and not just obedience.