Turtling The new way to play

Okay I am not a fan of the new patch. I am going to be honest I use tank strategy and am usually very offensive. The new way to play, because of the increase economy from holding territory, nerfs this strategy hard. The new way to play is clearly slow and turtling. I enjoy this game because of its fast past and quick game play. With the new strategy, I am much better off waiting to be attacked and then moving out. This seems to be the only way to play because quickly gaining enemy territory does not help your economy. It is true it does hurt your enemies but they will quickly wear down your forces and counter attack.

Being offensive is no longer a viable strategy anymore and I do not like this.

I gotta admit, you are broke for a while at the start of the game, which sucks.

Maybe they can tweak the patch so that cities can gain income quicker at the start of the game, like up to turn 5, and then after that slow down the rate?

Perfect defense is definitely the go to strategy. You experience the benefit from cheap troops in a low economy while also gaining the benefit of not losing any cities.

We hear you, people. Hence we decided to make some alterations: http://afterwind.com/events/news_comments.php?news_id=11 (read the 0.917 part)

Written by Ivan, 01.12.2010 at 05:33

We hear you, people. Hence we decided to make some alterations: http://afterwind.com/events/news_comments.php?news_id=11 (read the 0.917 part)

That is a nice change. As dev's I would not worry about complaints too much: they'll happen and sometime you will need to make changes: but it's also a good idea to let new settings / rules 'prove' themselves.

I actually like the way the offense/defense works. I've never liked games where all anyone does is offensive rushes (read: RISK), because then all it is constant back and forth as people attack/counterattack, and is no fun. In this game there is a lot more planning and strategy due to the need to conserve your units.

Plus, I still see plenty of tank rushes, anyway.

Written by Ivan, 01.12.2010 at 05:33

We hear you, people. Hence we decided to make some alterations: http://afterwind.com/events/news_comments.php?news_id=11 (read the 0.917 part)

Thanks Ivan! =)

Upon consideration, I think the system of a gradual increase in prodcutivity is good, but would be better if it had a lasting effect. I doubt that was very clear, so I'll elaborate.

With the concept of cities recieving damage (population reductions, income reductions) due to fighting I think that cities really should just take time to recover, but holding a city for long enough will allow the productivty to have increased, making the reduced effectivness less of an issue. This would also mean that constantly swapping a coutry gets no one anywhere, as they don't get the 0.05 of the 'full' income, but eventually get nothing as the entire population is removed (though at this point should the city itelf be abolished?).

Just occured to me also that this might encourage more battles to be fought outside of cities, or atleast to reduce the number of units inside cities when they are attacker, a style of play someone advocated for somewhere else on the forum (but I can't remember where).

The destruction caused to cities could perhaps he managed by players (to an extent) so that rather than holding a city they can choose to demolish it and hinder an opponent. Not sure how this could be arranged, but the type of unit could also be take into account (for example, bombers will do more damage to a city than infantry, which I think would make them a far more accurate representation of the truth (and note that currently (as they can't take cities (quite rightly)) they have no impact of income what-so-ever)).

Personally, I see this as the only reasonable way of doing things, as the current situation is very imperminant (though better than having no kind of productivity lose). If there is a single change made before the first non-beta is released, I would hope it is something city destruction/reconstruction orientated. I feel it would open a whole new tractic, and just generally make the game more realistic.

Last thought: Wars of attrition should be much more feasible with this kind of system... This would make recreating the world wars (in scenerios and such) much better.

Hope this opens up some ideas.

You're talking mostly about our upcoming population mechanic. Yes, city population will be affected by battles in it, and the degree of it will also be influenced by the type of participating units. I'm not sure we will go as far as demolishing cities - it's more likely that the city will remain on the map, with 0 or 0.1 inhabitants and no reinforcements. Even in extreme cases, big cities were never completely wiped out during wars. There will be also ways to restore some population, I guess. It will (very slowly) increase naturally, and we're thinking of making a 'civilians' unit, that can be used to migrate the population between cities. We'll see. I think this is gonna be very interesting, and we can't wait to implement it.

Written by Ivan, 06.12.2010 at 17:16

and we're thinking of making a 'civilians' unit, that can be used to migrate the population between cities. We'll see. I think this is gonna be very interesting, and we can't wait to implement it.

Uhohh - sounds like it might be time to make some labensraum for the German volk. Seriously though, it would be interesting to move population from a poorer area to a wealthier area or from a battlefield to a city behind the lines.

While there is a direct relationship between population/reinforcements, how will the population/wealth relationship work? Although I am sure some people will disagree, when poor people move to wealthy areas they are more economically productive and increase the wealth of their host country as well as their own living standards. Is there a "productivity factor" specific to each city that will be multiplied by the population to determine income?

Written by sinecure, 07.12.2010 at 10:17

While there is a direct relationship between population/reinforcements, how will the population/wealth relationship work? Although I am sure some people will disagree, when poor people move to wealthy areas they are more economically productive and increase the wealth of their host country as well as their own living standards. Is there a "productivity factor" specific to each city that will be multiplied by the population to determine income?

At the moment there is no relation, apart from the distribution of the country's income between cities (total is not affected). However, this will definitely change, and population will affect total country income, as well as city income.

Glad you are definatly adding it, I just recon that this 'Population Mechanic' will disolve the issues that other people have brought up if implemented properly. Also, it would be nice if ground units were less capable (with exceptions) of attacking/averting Air Units. I feel that bombers in this game are actaully not nearly as useful as they could be, and these two fundemental additions/changes would make for a far more tactical unit, and warrent the need for fighters and intercepters.