Why is the game dead?

    Quote from detached#EN

    From a noobs perspective imo the biggest issue is all the large premade groups that take over servers and by doing that chase off most new players, which naturally causes the playerbase to decline. Those same people will generally blame everything else without realizing that they are the problem, similar things have happened in a lot of other games

    I understand 100%.

    We need to make clear to the newer players that it is completely acceptable to join those big kingdoms. We also need to make sure big kingdoms respectfully educate the newbies, given that they are active and they also give respect.

    Quote from Pinkguy#NL

    I understand 100%.

    We need to make clear to the newer players that it is completely acceptable to join those big kingdoms. We also need to make sure big kingdoms respectfully educate the newbies, given that they are active and they also give respect.

    I think what Detached was trying to say is this game is all about like 4 -5 big kingdoms in a round and everything else is just farms, which is a shame to see as the last few rounds i played you had to join a big kingdom or just stop playing after you get turned into a farm. I also understand that some new players might join with a few friends and instead of just joining the main 3 -5 kingdoms they want to try and make their own which is almost impossible which also makes the game unplayable for small groups.

    "Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I’m not a pious hermit. I haven't done only good in my life. But if I’m to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all." Geralt Of Rivia

    Quote from Bigfar#EN

    I think what Detached was trying to say is this game is all about like 4 -5 big kingdoms in a round and everything else is just farms, which is a shame to see as the last few rounds i played you had to join a big kingdom or just stop playing after you get turned into a farm. I also understand that some new players might join with a few friends and instead of just joining the main 3 -5 kingdoms they want to try and make their own which is almost impossible which also makes the game unplayable for small groups.

    Yes, that is also what I understood.
    That is simply the reality of the game.

    It is not possible to enforce smaller kingdoms cause in reality this will turn into multiple smaller kingdoms that are practically still the same big kingdom.

    You indeed have to play with a big kingdom or you will become a farm.
    Legends had the same issue (or almost the same). They made it easier for new players to prevent them from becoming farms by increasing cranny capacity (cranny lvl 10: 2k for roman and teuton, 3k for gauls).


    Small groups are possible on regional servers. But then still it isn't optimal.

    There need to be some game mechanics that promote the small groups, not punish big ones. I know you didn't call for punishments to big kingdoms, but I know someone will. So I am simply stating it preemptively.

    Quote from detached#EN

    From a noobs perspective imo the biggest issue is all the large premade groups that take over servers and by doing that chase off most new players, which naturally causes the playerbase to decline. Those same people will generally blame everything else without realizing that they are the problem, similar things have happened in a lot of other games

    Yeah the hardcore premades are unstoppable, you have to find a good team to play with. I think roman is the best for starters now because of clubswinger spam and double build is good for less active players. Strong wall help survive early game.

    Quote from Pinkguy#NL

    It is not possible to enforce smaller kingdoms cause in reality this will turn into multiple smaller kingdoms that are practically still the same big kingdom.

    Of course it's possible. X members per kingdom at max; you can only reinforce players in your own kingdom. Bam. Done. Creating multiple wing kingdoms just lost its purpose.
    (Okay they didn't a 100% lose it. It's still beneficial to create multiple kingdoms so you amass treasures faster than others. But that's the same thing as 2 legit kingdoms making an alliance that only benefits one of them. Nothing you can do about that honestly)

    Quote from Pinkguy#NL

    There need to be some game mechanics that promote the small groups

    A mechanic that promotes small kingdoms can be gamed by creating a meta alliance where the "main" kingdom is small. It's literally the same "exploit" you just said people would do if large kingdoms were punished

    Quote from Xayira

    Of course it's possible. X members per kingdom at max; you can only reinforce players in your own kingdom. Bam. Done. Creating multiple wing kingdoms just lost its purpose.

    "its not possible" as in "its not possible to make it practical and fun"

    In the situation you just described people will do what is happening on large Legends servers right now. People will get rotated. You just need one village in each kingdom borders, which isn't that hard. Deffers will get invited to the main kingdom whenever they are needed. Off players will only go to the main if they are participating in an op.

    Quote from Xayira

    A mechanic that promotes small kingdoms can be gamed by creating a meta alliance where the "main" kingdom is small. It's literally the same "exploit" you just said people would do if large kingdoms were punished

    Obviously not in a way that can be meta played you absolute buffoon. I'm not talking about a morale buff to small (pop) kingdoms that then amass a ton of treasures. The morale would not apply to anyone who is ranked higher than you in pop, vp, or current treasury count or up to 20% lower.

    Still, a stat buff (like morale) for small kingdoms is not great. But there for sure need to be more anti bully mechanics. Extra cranny capacity still sounds really good to me after I've seen how well it worked in Legends.


    Regardless, are you going to contribute any ideas of your own or are you just gonna try to shoot down others with logical fallacies?

    Thank you very much for the nice exposition of ideas, please keep them coming!


    So far I see that it would be beneficial to implement something that will benefit small Kingdoms, but not sure what we can do yet for what I read in the thread, any one has any ideas of what that could be?


    A concrete suggestion I see is extra cranny capacity for smaller kingdoms.

    How would that work? What would be the limiting factors to get that benefit? When would you loose it? (in case the kingdom grew too much?)

    Would all players on the kingdom get it, or just gauls?

    Would bigger players not just use catas to destroy those smaller players?


    Any other ideas to get newer players protection without hampering experienced players and without it been too OP?

    Because we have to ensure what ever we think of could not be abused by more experience players...

    Why are you asking all this? We all know perfectly well that YOU WILL NOT DO ANYTHING.

    Yes you did get it right. You won't get the official medal but I for one don't care about the victory medals.

    You will end up with situations similar to beta where I believe kingdom sizes were limited and we had wings. I believe I was part of one of the winning wings in one of the earliest COM2 servers.

    As for selling stolen goods for treasures, you would join main, sell, go back to wing.

    Quote from Pinkguy#NL

    Regardless, are you going to contribute any ideas of your own or are you just gonna try to shoot down others with logical fallacies?

    First of all (and most importantly :P ) I don't think you know what a logical fallacy is. I pointed out an (IMO obvious flaw) in your "suggestion". I think this was in fact constructive.
    But yeah sure I'll entertain you and sketch the first idea that pops into my head. (Mind you it'd be easier if you gave me a problematic feature or area of the game you want my input on. It's kinda hard to just give you an idea that will turn the game into a "not dead" one. Especially since I'm not a game designer and this task would need a larger overhaul than just a single mechanical or thematical change)

    So yeah the basic idea: the menhir system as a whole should be removed from the game!
    - What was the problem menhirs were meant to solve?
    "Uniting friends quickly at the beginning of a game world". Now, when checking if this feature achieves its' goal, first you have to define who the target playerbase is (i.e. who are the "friends" in the above sentence). I think there are 2 cases. This group of friends either has someone who has played this game before, or they are all brand new.
    If there is an experienced player in the group, in my opinion it's sufficient if they coordinate outside the game. They should all register at the same time and choose the same map segment. Done.[1] They should be pretty close to each other.
    The other possibility is that they are all brand new players... in which case the menhir system will do them little good because new players won't know one of them must play as king. (Since the game itself recommends new players go for governors). Yes, technically even then they could all just join a random kingdom, but finding a king who is willing to invite and "train" multiple brand new players (and has enough spare tile to invite these players), could prove challenging. And at that point it's the same as just registering at the same time and ending up next to each other (and playing in the random kingdom they'd end up then).

    So yeah, now we've established that menhirs bring basically no value to the game :P, so this section should list all the downsides and issues menhirs cause. However there are many threads about this scattered on the forum already so I'll only repeat a single point (that affects new players, this thread is kind of about them after all) out of the many:
    - menhirs accelerate "pro" kingdoms and therefore crowd out (and eventually destroy) "random" kingdoms faster.
    If relocation wasn't a thing, there would be a (slight?) trade off when deciding on where to settle a new kingdom. You'd have the option to stay where you spawned, or sacrifice a day or two to acquire a better position on the map for you kingdom. With menhirs though, only a couple royals (or their duals, if you know what I mean :) ) have to sacrifice some of their resources and infrastructure to settle at an optimal spot. All others governors can then be menhired at the desired location. Now "random" kingdoms not only have to compete with more experienced players, but also, those players have a better location too for basically free.

    So yeah. That's (one of) my idea(s). Remove relocation to resurrect travian! Was that good enough Pinkguy#NL ? Am I allowed to critise now? Or is there a certain "random idea" : "pointing out flaw in systems" ratio I must maintain?


    [1]: Now to be fair menhirs do solve one particular problem. Someone jumping on a server later than his friends and wanting to join them ASAP. I don't know how often this happens, if TK has the data, and judges it's a common enough problem, we can probably brainstorm some ideas though.

    This game is not that pay to win compared to mobile games, yes the players are using advantages of gold, but they also know how to play and spend a lot of time playing, sometimes multiple people on the same account. So i don't think that is the problem.

    Quote from Primate

    This game is not that pay to win compared to mobile games, yes the players are using advantages of gold, but they also know how to play and spend a lot of time playing, sometimes multiple people on the same account. So i don't think that is the problem.

    True.

    Though that is the reality, does it feel that way? Are other games just better at disguising their p2w aspects?

    Quote from Pinkguy#NL

    This has been discussed over and over again.

    There used to be limits but they didn't do anything cause people made agreements to just be wings.

    It is simply not an option.

    so instead of creating wings people just join a single kingdom now. could you clarify why that's better? same number of players as with wings, but no disadvantages

    Quote from Xayira

    so instead of creating wings people just join a single kingdom now. could you clarify why that's better? same number of players as with wings, but no disadvantages

    Because that is apparently what people want. They want to be part of big kingdoms.

    If the kingdoms can't be bigger then they will make wings simply agree that they are practically one big kingdom.

    Good = whatever people want. People want to be part of big kingdom: big kingdom = good.

    I'm sorry, I don't understand what the confusion is here.

    Quote from Pinkguy#NL

    I'm sorry, I don't understand what the confusion is here.

    in my book kingdom size limits would improve the situation.
    sure, it's not a perfect solution since wings could be created. But having 300 players in a single kingdom vs having 300 players split in multiple kingdoms would at least make their life a tiny bit harder (especially if more restrictions e.g. own kingdom reinforcements only would be introduced).
    So my confusion is: why not introduce a partial-solution if it has no downsides?

    Quote from Pinkguy#NL

    Good = whatever people want

    I uhh... help me out here please. Just to make sure I understand your reasoning.
    Some want to register multies and get free resources from them. Good = whatever people want. So TK should allow/legalize multi farming. Did I get that right?

    Quote from Xayira

    So my confusion is: why not introduce a partial-solution if it has no downsides?

    Because it has plenty of downside?
    People don't WANT it.

    It is clumsy to organize and will just be annoying. It will make the job of leadership harder, we already have a lack of leadership in a lot of kingdoms, lets not stress it further.

    Quote from Xayira

    especially if more restrictions e.g. own kingdom reinforcements only would be introduced

    I've already addressed this.

    Quote from Pinkguy#NL

    Deffers will get invited to the main kingdom whenever they are needed. Off players will only go to the main if they are participating in an op.

    It won't help anything, it will only be annoying.

    Quote from Xayira

    I uhh... help me out here please. Just to make sure I understand your reasoning.
    Some want to register multies and get free resources from them. Good = whatever people want. So TK should allow/legalize multi farming. Did I get that right?

    "Some want..." and the vast majority doesn't.

    Please don't take part of a statement and pretend it is the complete statement.