ADVICE: dont assign attacker and defender

[MagyarKhans Cham]

imo it would be best if in twm the sides playing a battles are called side and side B or whatever
instead of attacker and defender.

now a lot of maps arent used since it gives a too big advantage for the defender.

most maps are beatifull and well suited if fought in teh centre of it, but defenders tend to move towards edges and corners.

your reaction plz

[ShadesWolf]

Or give the attacker a larger amount of money.

Or an extra unit to reduce the advantage of defending.

[Erado San]

The fact that a defender will be called player A won't stop anybody from camping.

An option to set different money values for the two should be more effective.

[Rath]

Although this sounds like a good idea...it may result in 2 players refusing to budge from where they start...at least 'attacker' and 'defender' gives people a direction as to what they have to do.

[LordTed]

The Cham brings much advice but how much will be taken aboard and do the developers of the game know that we are posting all these good ideas here?

It would be much better to put a standard map rating on each map..for example in the map 'Tosa' the defender gets 85% of the attackers koku or so.

The ratings should be editable...

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Evil is within us... http://terazawa.totalwar.org/emo.gif
Visit my resource site here! (http://terazawa.totalwar.org/)

[Toda Nebuchadnezzar]

i agree with Tera's small point (which makesme agree with everyone here) the attackers get an unfair disadvantage on easily defended maps

perhaps an event that says the defender must release X amount of his defending foce to go and help a vassal in trouble
Yet this vassal would have no affect on the game in such. Just a way to even the odds.

[Target]

OR perhaps work out a better way to determine the winner of a timeout battle - maybe based on kills or ground captured or army weightings ( cheap troops against expensive ones will earn you more points ) or objectives completed, perhaps. Perhaps the attacker/defender situation should only be used for castle battles, and all other conflict is a case of the winner being the side who causes the most inconvenience to the other, perhaps.

Yeah, hope those elusive developers are actually reading these suggestions. Would hate for all these good ideas to go to waste.

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Quote MagyarKhans Cham:
i even suspect Target is coming here to hype things up.[/QUOTE]

[Sir Kuma of The Org]

"Yeah, hope those elusive developers are actually reading these suggestions. Would hate for all these good ideas to go to waste."

_____________________________________________

LOL , i hope also http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif



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Yes the camel sprites do look good

[Kraellin]

lol target.

the reason for having an attacker and defender makes more sense to me, so i tend to agree with rath on this one. someone 'owns' the map you're playing on, and someone else is attacking you for it or to get thru you or whatever, but someone owns the land. now it may be that you're fighting on neutral territory or someone else's territory that isnt even in the battle, but someone owns the land and therefore someone is the aggressor and someone else the defender. it might be possible to show this in some way and reflect this in the setup and in the results tables and might even be a way to break into an online multiplayer campaign.

if i'm defending a land (map) and own it, then most likely i would know the best locations and have the advantage of terrain, in most cases. what i dont have control of is when the aggressor will attack and from where and with what. i see no mention in this discussion of the attacker's advantages that somewhat offset terrain advantages. the attacker gets to choose when he attacks, i.e. weather control. this can be a very large advantage to those that know how to use it.

it might also be possible to allow the attacker to choose where he attacks a particular map from, but this gets a bit complex. if the defender gets to choose where he sets up, e.g. on a hill, then the attacker shld be able to pick where he comes from to attack this hill. but that implies the use of one very large continuous map that could be scrolled around on and repositioned for viewing and i doubt that's going to happen for a while.

one possible solution for multiplayer games might be, a player hosts a game, he picks the map and if he's going to attack or defend. the opposition then gets first pick of sides as to where it will set up. then the host team gets to pick the weather. this somewhat nullifies the host from picking lopsided camping maps because the other team will obviously pick the best defensive position. one could still pick such a map if he wanted a challenge, but the host wouldnt get first pick of locations so it also somewhat forces folks to 'know the terrain'. it would also necessitate a change in how maps are assigned an orientation of always having the attacker on one side and defender on the other. it would also make sense to allow maps to be rotated so that one could pick the 'left' or 'right' side of a map and have it be the attacker's or defender's starting position. and that's part of the current problem with the maps in the game; one side is ALWAYS the defender's side and one is ALWAYS the attacker's.

i would ask that CA re-think this a bit. allowing some way for anyone to end up with a starting position anywhere on a given map might eliminate some of the 'apparent' lopsidedness on some of these maps.

K.


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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

[evilc]

you could always do an approach without provinces at all, but then the entire game would be different and i think we will be waiting a while for that...

[ShadesWolf]

As a quick thought

Is there a way to us TIME. So for example, if the armies arrive at the same time then they can only really start in the middle.

If the one arrives earlier than the other, then he can camp a little, but the attacker has a better choice of which direction to attack from.

etc

so for example. The defender arrives and camps. The attacker arrives with part of his army and attacks to stop the defender from digging in.

The rest of the attackers army arrives, 5 mins later (of somethink) but arrives from a different location on the map

What do u all think ?


In my oppion this would be more realistic. Who in there right mind would appear on a battle field. March up to a hill under fire (from the worst possible position) and hope he can use tactics to win. Would it not be more realistic to see the enemy is camping and attemp to enter the battle field from a different direction.

[BakaGaijin]

Another way to negate defender advantage (feh, plain skill not enough anymore?) would be to allow the Attacker to spot the Defender's troops during the deployment stage, if they aren't hidden and can be seen from a spot within the usual camera restraints of the deployment zone. This would model the fact that the Defender gets better location, given that he was there first, but for the same reason, the Attacker can deploy in direct response to the Defenders; after all, the Defender would have his troops in place before the Attacker would arrive, or else the Defenders would be caught totally unawares and defeated without a formal battle.

Alternatively, you could call into effect the "initiative" which comes with being the Attacker, as Krae described it. The Defender, by definition, has to defend where the Attacker attacks. He can't go camp on some hill out on the outskirts of his province, or the attackers will march right around him and sack his nice castle. So, the attacker gets a choice of approaches toward the province and can choose, from the possibilities presented, terrain more appropriate for his particular area of combat expertise.

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"If your soul is imperfect, living will be difficult." -- Ryo Hayabusa, DOA2

[BakaGaijin]

Oh, I forgot one thing. I totally agree with Target concerning alternate ways of deciding a timed battle. This "I'm the Defender, so I win when times runs out, even if my entire army is routing and only half of them are even alive" business is just silly.

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"If your soul is imperfect, living will be difficult." -- Ryo Hayabusa, DOA2

[tootee]

Maybe an option in MP for random deployment areas. Instead of top/bottom(Att/Def), it can randomise to bottom/top(Att/Def), left/right(Att/Def) or rightl/left(Att/Def).

Map rating is not as good as flexible amt of money I think, which essentially serves the same function.



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tootee the goldfish
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[Rath]

I like Tootee's idea about random deployment areas.

[MagyarKhans Cham]

Target what would u think about this?

let the side that spents the less koku wins a battle if the sides wont fight each other.

so both players spent koku as normal and press ready.... before the game starts both players get to know how much koku is spent by either side

an idea?

[MagyarKhans Cham]

although i am still in favour of being able to decide koku allowance of attacker and defender, so people can decide themselves if they join. in some time we will have a list of estimatets mapratings and people can easier decide on who to join on what map for what koku (or gold).

so if noone joins your game then maybe u set the koku for the defender side to high or too low depending on what ur playing yourself.

[Kraellin]

i think shadeswolf hit on the right idea....time. it isnt always true that the defender of a province arrived with his army in that province first. sometimes, he had to rush to an area that was already under siege by the attacker...and that implies that sometimes the attacker would actually be more in place for camping than the defender of the province.

it would or shld be relatively easy to add a randomizer, regardless of who is the attacker or defender in the setup, to arbitrarily re-assign those roles based on the results of the randomizer.

you could also add a feature, similar to what someone said above, where the attacker chooses his direction of attack which would then change the deployment zones for each side. that could prove interesting.

i also see no reason for not allowing being able to see a defender's setup beforehand. surely scouts were sent ahead and so on.

i also see no reason why one army couldnt simply arrive from off map at either a fixed or even a random point. might be interesting to see that camper up in the hills suddenly swarmed from behind by an enemy arriving from off map ;)

K.


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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

[Vanya]

GAH! Let me say this one more time in case youz didn't hear me the first time: different starting koku amounts for the players involved opens the door to abuse and the proliferation of a new generation of cheating schemes! GAH! Nobody liked the bastids that hosted a game with a 5 minute timer. Well this will allow them to add to their repertoir the infamous hosted game where you legally get assigned a dramatic koku difference. Heck... can you really defend Awa with 1000 koku when the enemy is attacking with 50000?!? Maybe the cham can share his strategies for doing just this. For the sake of fairness, the koku available to both sides must always be equal or play will become just the opposite.

But, I do like the idea. So, maybe the compromise should be: force all comp games to use the same koku values for both sides, but allow friendly games to adjust this for the sides as the host sees fit. AND... the koku variance should be shown on the status line shown when you select a hosted game OR in the waiting room while you wait endlessly for a sap to join.

That's just my .39 koku... http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/tongue.gif

[evilc]

i think the idea is to ahve fixed koku ratios, not like in custom games, i agree, that would be open to mega cheating.

[Hirosito]

not really cheating it only has to be clearly displayed how much everyone gets and if u accept the terms then it's not cheating

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Hirosito Mori

Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.

[MagyarKhans Cham]

yip hirosito

vanya i am not talking about an hidden koku setteing but an open and visible koku allowance for attacker and defender

when tw2 is released we will have a list of fair mapratings for download so people can check themselves before they join if it is fair or challenging or a cat in the bag.

understood?

[Vanya]

Quote Originally posted by MagyarKhans Cham:
yip hirosito

vanya i am not talking about an hidden koku setteing but an open and visible koku allowance for attacker and defender

when tw2 is released we will have a list of fair mapratings for download so people can check themselves before they join if it is fair or challenging or a cat in the bag.

understood? [/QUOTE]

GAH! I see your point. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif Map ratings... OK. From CA/Activision/EA? http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/rolleyes.gif But really... if the koku variance is expressed as a PERCENT (ie, between 0 and 1) decrease from the norm (attacker gets Norm, defender gets Norm * variance) then you could tie the allowable maximum variance percent to the map rating.

IE
Map Rating (r) --> Max Variance
r >= 90 --> 0.05
75 >= r < 90 --> 0.125
60 >= r < 75 --> 0.180
40 >= r < 60 --> 0.250
r < 40 --> 0.300

Of course, the numbers I used are arbitrary and assumes that a perfectly flat map would have a rating of 100 and a single-bridge river or castle map would be in the 30s-40s.

If this is what you are talking about... I applaud you and would love to see it come to fruition... but will it be so? Will the masters of EA Play implement online map ratings? And how will they be implemented? Based on subjective arbbitrary assignments or based on total games played by everybody online? The later would allow difficult flat maps to move towards lower ratings as well. IE, the more the defender wins, the more the rating for that map decreases. So, a map that the defender ALWAYS wins on would settle in the 30s, and one they ALWAYS lost on would float above 90. But that is problematic as well. After all, an ideal map would have a 50/50 split approximately. So... if the defender always wins... perhaps they should have the attacker penalized or the defender gets a koku BONUS (since variance would be >1)? If not, what have we really accomplished other than to make defensive stances unpalatable?

GAH!

[This message has been edited by Vanya (edited 01-02-2002).]

[Kocmoc]

no maprating plz!


it will be never fair! just the flat maps can be fair, but how we can see in campain, the mapratings are sometimes very unfair.

so, everyone will have an own opinion on the mapratings.

no, it will be impossible, let it be the 100%
for all maps, but there should be a option, that u can select a gametype wich means, that
both players have to play 2 games or the first game dont count...

CA will never change the defender/attacker style, coz there is still a SP-campain agains puter and this means always defending or attacking.

koc

[theforce]

How about the defender having less money in green and other flat provinces? :P
That would be a bad idea.

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Don't use only honour, use theforce, too.
http://lod.nipogames.com/default.html

[Kraellin]

i'm going to tell you all a little secret here. while doing the testing for balancing the 1.02 patch, we were given an executable where the defenders got less koku. i believe it was 80% of the attacker's koku. it sucked rocks. this was partially due to the fact that most of our testing was done on flat maps, but nonetheless, we asked the dev guys to take it out. it just wasnt very workable and IS totally arbitrary.

armies fought. they fought on varied terrain, in varying weather conditions, with varying army strengths and weaknesses. no side ever asked the other to allocate less koku because of these factors. so forcing players to accept some arbitrary like this is not a good idea.

the key word is 'forcing'. it's perfectly acceptable to allow varying koku options in games, but forcing them because of map ratings, which are mostly subjective, or because one is the 'defender', gets into a very subjective and arbitrary situation.

i do like the idea of allowing koku variances in the setup. this gives everyone involved the option of joining or not and allows for handicapping of players....'ok, magy, i'll play against your mongol army if you give me an extra 2000 koku.' ;)

in fact, one could even set up automatic handicapping on a ladder system for comp games, but again, this would tend to be a bit arbitrary. still, it could be done; especially since CA is tieing the game to the web servers with results. i could see the possibility of doing the reverse, checking the web servers during the setup of a game to see what a given player's handicap is and then setting this during the buy phase. one could get quite clever with this.

but i'd hate to see this being done in friendly games or fixed handicaps and koku allotments based on maps and so on.

K.


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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

[Vanya]

Aye, Kraellin-san! Exactamondo! As I said, variances can become very unfair despite their 'good intent'. And, as I said, map ratings are very arbitrary. ANd I agree, this opens the door to more abuse.

Thats kinda why I said using a percent would be the only workable idea, but only if you cap the variance somehow. If the largest variance is, say, 10%, then that doesn't make the game unplayable. But a 10% cut on Green or Totomi? Only a fool would take that...

And that is also why I said that the rating would simply give you a variance range to choose from, including 0%.

But... I agree with you K-man. By the way... why are youz all so bent out of shape over this? Tired of getting spanked by camping newbies with a gun up their arse? http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/confused.gif

[Erado San]

I don't like the forced koku differences, could live with optional differences, but it should show very clearly in the hosted game, otherwise it's just an invitation to cheat.

But how about trying to focus on Target's remark?
Quote OR perhaps work out a better way to determine the winner of a timeout battle - maybe based on kills or ground captured or army weightings ( cheap troops against expensive ones will earn you more points ) or objectives completed, perhaps. Perhaps the attacker/defender situation should only be used for castle battles, and all other conflict is a case of the winner being the side who causes the most inconvenience to the other, perhaps.[/QUOTE]

I have no ideas myself yet, but maybe if we brainstorm on it something useful might come out.

[Vanya]

GAH! If you rout or kill the enemy army and it has no men left, you SHOULD get the win no matter how badly you suffered in the process.

Otherwise, what is the point?

So... if you lose 90% of your men, but you chase the enemy off the field with 10 guys and they only lost 60% of their total force, you plan on giving the LOSER a 'nominal' victory? GAH! You must be KIDDING!

http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/confused.gif

[Erado San]

Hey, that's not brainstorming, that's just picking a few lines and saying it won't work!

[MagyarKhans Cham]

captured textures might work.

we have 25*25 textures in medium map having 625 textures

when battle starts begin with 300 assigned to attacker and 325 to the defender

when battle begins a player can gain a texture by moving an unit over it

the number u control are listed on teh screen

ssome nice kind of capture the honjin? esp in multigames 3 vs 3

[Kraellin]

ok, in addressing target's statement, the first thing to remember is time. he's talking about timed battles. we all know that in un-timed battles it's just a matter of whumping the other guy and whoever is standing last wins.

in timed games you could easily have many criteria for the match. captured territory, men left, captured fort(s), crossing a given line (like a river), captured honjins, assassinate the general, capture the flag and so on. noteworthy here is the fact that we already have some of those games, capture the honjin, king of the hill, and assassinate the general. but who plays these on timed games? in fact, when you get right down to it, who plays these at all? we seem to be a bloodthirsty group when it comes to multi games...kill everyone seems to be the motto in multi. frankly, i love the king of the hill games. i find them a great diversion from normal games. they tend to be more lively and offer some great challenges at times. assassinate the general can also add some flavor. i tend to take a completely different army in that one, since the objective is completely different.

so, what do you do to break this habit of 'last man standing' games only and do we even need to? frankly, i dont know. war as depicted in war games tends to be about overwhelming another and annihilating as many as possible in the shortest amount of time. war in real life wasnt always about that. sometimes a war was fought only to get the other side 'more amenable to one's own viewpoint' or, in other words, to get someone else to change their mind. if that was accomplished then the war would end. it wasnt always about complete and utter annihilation of an opposing factor. even a few modern military actions have had that as a goal and arent always 'wipe everyone out' type actions. war games, on the other hand, tend to be of the later identity, kill everything in sight.

there are indeed many styles of games one could invent for timed and even untimed games and i enjoy these as much or more so than the 'last man standing' type. but i seem to be in a minority here. so, i'm not sure the right question is WHAT other types could be done, but more of HOW do we get others to play them. the last time i initiated a king of the hill game with yuuki as my partner, the two opposition players that joined us didnt even know they were in a koth game and didnt even know how to play it.

K.


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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

[Rath]

I would hate to see mapratings in multiplayer. It would take away the challenge of attacking so many maps.

I only played the other game types when MI first came out...they are just a novelty to me and are more prone to flukey outcomes than those won or lost due to skill or lack thereof in 'normal' battles.

[Cheetah]

What if the attacker/defender distinction would be reflected in the honour gains as well as the difficulty of the map? There could be five different categories from the point of view of the attacker: easiest (1), easy (2), normal (3), hard (4) , hardest (5). The attacker would get higher honour for winning a difficult map than for winning an easy one. In a similar way, the defender would get a lower honour winning a difficult map (from the ATT point of view) than for winning an easy one (again from the ATT pow). So the following table would apply:

Attacker

map diff. win lose
1) +50 -50
2) +60 -40
3) +70 -30
4) +80 -20
5) +90 -10


Defender

map diff. win lose
1) +50 -50
2) +40 -60
3) +30 -70
4) +20 -80
5) +10 -90

This would greatly increase the incentive to attack difficult maps and campers would think twice to defend high hills since there would be little to gain but much to lose.

Of course, I know that the devil hides in the details http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif Especially in case of map rating. However, there would be only 5 categories so rating should not be that hard. Moreover some easy criteria could have been used, for instance maps with less than 10 m high "hills": first category; maps with "hills" between 10-20 m second category; etc. For instance Totomi: 1; Kaga: 5.

I know that not every hill has the same defensive value. However, there would be a best map for every category as Totomi is currently the best map for flat battles. So, there would be at least 5 maps in use (one for each category) instead of 1!!!

Bridges can be incorporated easily as well. River with one bridge:5; river with two bridge:4; river with three bridge:3. (or 4,3,2)

[MagyarKhans Cham]

between equall skilled strong players the defender of an hilly map will always win, at least much more than the 1:10 ratio

[MagyarKhans Cham]

still i dont see why there cant be 2 textboxes to input teh koku values different for attackers and defenders.

it requires no programming skill and time and just adds a lot and solve the most.

[ShadesWolf]

What about setting objectives......

[Cheetah]

"still i dont see why there cant be 2 textboxes to input teh koku values different for attackers and defenders.
it requires no programming skill and time and just adds a lot and solve the most."

I agree with your great Khan that for friendly games this would be the easiest solution. However, I side with Vanya that for comp games koku must be equall.

As far as the honour differences are concerned it should be matter of discussion.

If you think that on most difficult maps the odds are 20:1 for the defender then the honour gains and losses sould be as follows:

Attacker:
win lose
+95 -5

Defender:
win lose
+5 -95

If you think that the odds are 100:1 then it is as follows:

Attacker
win lose
+99 -1

Defender:
-99 +1

etc. The point is that the honour gain differences should be such that it should make the different levels worth to play.

[evilc]

just have the common sense not to play comp games on hilly campable maps and then have 2 text boxes for friendlies.

[ELITEofGAZOZ]

I like the idea of setting terrain odds for the comp games. The odds could be calculated by all the registered results of multiplayer battles at the special map, starting the calculation with a 50 - 50 odd, so the odds would be flexible.

E.g: the battle result of map X in 2v2 games is: Defender have won 70 % of all 2v2 games. Attacker have won 30 %.

Atttacker has honor: 135. Defender has 120 honor.

If defender wins: Defender gains 135 + 30 = 165 points. Attacker gains only 120 - 30 = 90 points.

If attacker wins: Defender gains 135 - 70 = 65 points. Attacker gains 120 + 70 = 190 points.

Considering all multiplayer battles are recorded this should be easy to implement and would be an enormous development for the online competition.

Gazoz