r61 Changes?
 

Appoco, could you elaborate on your recent post about 61 changes?

Thanks in advance!

Re: r61 Changes?
 

There is a little more on the forum announcements:
Modifying cost depending on the current ship distribution is an interesting way to make ships that are statistically worse a bit better.
All for the bp and late start changes, good to see some listening being done.
It would be good if someone could say a bit more about the gal fund changes, I did not see anything saying what they are last round and don't here either.

Re: r61 Changes?
 

The amount you can donate into the gal fund will be more like the alliance donations, thus limiting covop boosting. I also believe the amount you can donate out will be more limited aswell. Basicly making it so that the planets in a galaxy are only useful if they actually use their ships.

For ship cost I think it will be smth like this:
say there are 50 ships, in average there should be 2% of each ship if there is a ship thats at 10% then its 5x the average and will cost 5% more. if there is one at 0.4% its 1/5 of the average and wlil cost 5% less. And there will be a limit on how much less/more a ship can cost.

Re: r61 Changes?
 

First 300 ticks are gonna be the race for 11th, that'll be interesting.

Re: r61 Changes?
 

However, with the fund now counting to gal score the best way to hide value is gone. Other than having the whole gal not spending their resources it would be difficult to suppress score in order for a top gal to get down to a position where it can get a late sign. Would you crash value, or avoid landing attacks for a few days in order to get a late sign?

Re: r61 Changes?
 

Personally, no. I look forward to seeing if people do, though!

To expand on that a bit: I think if you're sitting at #3, you wouldn't do it. If you're sitting at #10 with an active late starter in the wings, then.. yeah. I'll be very interested to see how this affects those galaxies sitting around #8-12 when it's close to late starter time, and whether there ends up being a few hundred ticks of those galaxies switching around as they add late starters one after another.

Re: r61 Changes?
 

Expecting this round to fail again with ally tag sizes staying the same. If it does, I will once again be campaigning for a reduction to it to fall on deaf ears.

Just a heads up Appoco, if you intend to ask people if they would be willing to start an alliance, then ignore their positive response, it doesn't provide much encouragement for anyone to make suggestions in the future. We may as well just let you continue on a whim up on that pedestal and have ourselves a party in the acknowledgement and action room.

Re: r61 Changes?
 

The late starter, bp reduction is at least a step in the right direction but not nearly far enough

Re: r61 Changes?
 

I like the late-starter and the little-built-ships-are-cheaper changes.

Re: r61 Changes?
 

Even if they do the exact same thing they did last round, of the top 10 galaxies at the end of r60, 6 were top 10 at tick 300 and 4 were not (including the #1), meaning 4 were top 10 at tick 300 and weren't at round end. So this measure hits 6 of the galaxies it targets, lets 4 pass unchecked, and kills 4 innocent pedestrians. That's not a great success rate.

On the bright side, smaller galaxies is good, and the ship cost change is interesting if nothing else.

And a procedural note: you should make announcements in one place and one place only. That ensures we won't have to trawl through multiple places to find all the information, and saves you time to boot. If you're dealing with a bunch of inflexible jerks who refuse to look in that one place, just link to it from the place they do look (ie, here).

Re: r61 Changes?
 

All cliff edge cutoffs present problems.
It certainly shakes things up a bit as some gals used to go into the round knowing who they would have late sign while others ran around looking for one so as not to be disadvantaged. Now nobody knows if they can have one at all.

Re: r61 Changes?
 

I entirely agree that based on how the game played out last round, such changes wouldn't make a damned bit of difference in the overall results; I'm mostly curious about how it'll affect the early round regardless, and what risks people choose to make on the basis of a forecast benefit from getting a late starter as soon after tick 336 as possible. Somewhere along the line, odds are high that such a change will affect the way a galaxy or two plays, and that'll have some small outcome on the eventual galaxy rankings, simply because they'd make different decisions otherwise. People will always want to test those cliff edges - that's why I like the change, and am looking forward to watching it play out.

Re: r61 Changes?
 

i like

Re: r61 Changes?
 

i like it, just hope the stats are good enough that there are a good range of strat options

Re: r61 Changes?
 

Copy that

Re: r61 Changes?
 

Not entirely sold on the ship cost change. Without seeing the formula for that (and having mz explain to me because I'm an idiot) it seems exploitable to a certain extent.

Useful ships are more expensive, crap ones are cheap? I'm not seeing how this helps anything.

Also reiterating what others have said...gal fund limit change?

Galaxies outside the top 10 not getting a late starter? So #11 gets one, jumps into the top 10?

Re: r61 Changes?
 

If players are able to cleverly use ships which no one else is using, they might effectively get a 3-6% value gain over planets who go for the most common ships. Also, if one or two races are over-subscribed, then those who play in the less common races will basically get a slight value gain as by default their ships are going to be less common almost-always.


I will need to double-check the logic which was implemented by Cin but, as has been said above, it's a bit similar to the alliance logic - I think it's got a similar limit (with no delay) which has been modified to take into consideration value loss.

yes, and then the #10 -> #11th galaxy could use their late starter. Every galaxy gets one, it's just that you can only use it when out of the top 10. Similar to the alliance ranking system of old where the lower alliances had those extra spots?

Re: r61 Changes?
 

Thanks for the reply!

Re: r61 Changes?
 

Aint you apart of the gang that is creating a new tag this round?
It will be interesting hearing you experinced playing in a smaller tag pos round.

Re: r61 Changes?
 

I dont think he is.
In any event arguably the experience of playing in a smaller tag when there are 60 man tags out there is not going be directly comparable to playing in a universe of all smaller tags.
Indeed, arguably having Rogues as a smaller tag makes the problem which Krypton wanted smaller tags to tackle even worse. The whole point of smaller tags was to create a level playing field between many alliances and thereby make politics more open.
Creating a new small tag like Rogues takes a few players from other tags meaning fewer are on 60 and thus even notionally in contention (and that is before removing those that count themselves out for reasons of their own). At best creating Rogues has removed just p3n leaving 4 potential tags on near 60: Ult, BF, CT and ND. ND can presumably be counted out already so thats 3.

Yeah thats good so its not really a cliff edge as I feared, and probably only counts out the very top from using lates should they wish.

Re: r61 Changes?
 

Well what i was aiming for was people with experince playing in smaller, inactive, tags to come forward with their opinion on it.
Ive played in and HCed multiple tags, and in some way playing in a smaller tag can be compared to being in a inactive/low scored gal.
Where there is nobody taking charge, or helping out DCing.
Yet people are spending half their round exiling into "good gals".
The experince is exactly the same, if you cant land in a good gal, you will sooner or later be tired of being roided and go inactive.

Re: r61 Changes?
 

Yes but the point of the smaller alliance idea was that you would in theory split the 4 current 60 man tags into 8 ACTIVE 30 man tags so its not at all the same experience. The small tag lobby dont accept the counter argument that you would get 4 very active small tags and 4 inactive tags for the simple reason that most pa players are too inconsistent to be categorised before a round starts and thus shunted into the 'inactive' tag.
I played r35 and r36 in c.30 player Ascendancy tags in rounds where the upper limit was bigger than the 60 it is now and I dont remember it being terrible.
Granted it was long ago and I dont remember it much at all!:rolleyes:

PS. I dunno why im arguing this, i never wanted 30 man tags I just wanted 50 to make 5/6 potential competitors rather than 3/4!

Re: r61 Changes?
 

Its never ever gonna be 5/6 competitors with such a small playerbase, in fact, i dont think there was ever a round where there were 5/6 competitors?
Just look at r17, even though 1up were the smallest in terms of number of the top10 tags, the others wernt even close

Re: r61 Changes?
 

potential competitors is not the same thing as competitors. Im just aiming to maximise the number of nearly full tags... you cant legislate for whether people want to win

Edit: Anyway this is a bit of topic. The smaller BP size does make things slightly easier for a smaller tag.

Re: r61 Changes?
 

Well if we get more smaller tags, and less people playing in a tag wanting to win, you will risk ending up with half the univers sitting on a fence stagnating the round.
If the chance of winning is smaller cus there is more people infront of you competing for it, some would perhaps choose to go the BF way to try land as much top planets as possibole, napping out the top tag.

Re: r61 Changes?
 

You have totally missed the point of smaller tags and why their supporters believe they are needed.
ATM one alliance can choose the BF way and jam up the whole system. With smaller alliances it is perfectly possible for a number of tags to fence sit but because the smaller tags are inherently more vulnerable to attack it would still be perfectly possible to challenge a top ally with the remaining willing tags.

Re: r61 Changes?
 

Don't really like any other but the gal status change and the bp size change, 4 +1 Imo is the optimal bp size for the current playerbase. The production cost change hangs there on the verge, will see how it plays before saying much. Counting the funds doesn't matter, it's peanuts anyway after the galfund change.

Galfund change removes another strat and I don't really like it when options get limited. Much like the overdone XP change (even if I prefer value over XP).

Removing the LS for top10 gals only really affects those who got lucky and had some nice lands early, hence punishing them, not the ones who plan to win gal.

What comes to this tag size talk, can't really see how it helps, the "top tags" will get even more exclusive and the gaps between skills will only grow, or the "top tags" will play 2 tags of 40 for example, instead of one tag of 60, so you lose another 20 from the smaller alliances, ally them ingame and the deffing ain't that hard either. Very common in other games where the top alliances are bigger than the alliance limits. We had 680 members in Travian, with 100 in one tag for example.

Re: r61 Changes?
 

Oh man imagine DeeJay prodding one hundred million cheap Haunt at the end of the round :o

Re: r61 Changes?
 

Pretty much everything Londo said. Pure sense.

Also, an additional reason would be to allow more smaller based "training" alliances as you will, a better chance at survival for their members, rather than finding the majority of their players going inactive because they just keep getting roided away by 60 tags worth of fleets. So much easier to fight back. There wouldn't be the political inflexibility there is now. Bored of repeating myself anyway. Let Appoco and the admin team continue to run the game quicker into the ground.

Re: r61 Changes?
 

It's not like any respectable ally going ftw would block a tag ranked 7th for example. And the repurcussions could be far more severe for the alliance with something to lose, but the admin team continue to be unable to comprehend this

Re: r61 Changes?
 

And no I'm not in Rogues BB. I'm not playing as I've previously stated because they didn't make significant changes. I have no intention to waste time on the same drivel as the past two rounds. I've already played in a small tag not so long ago, so stop patronising with this "oh now you'll get to experience it nonsense"

Re: r61 Changes?
 

you forget that BF initially was a small tag last round, the big tags... CT, P3ng and Ults had wars and P3ng/CT did not close down the rounds politics. you cant blame the bigger tags (apart from ults) :P

Re: r61 Changes?
 

Thanks gm, but let them bark, we're used to it already. No one remembers (or at least doesn't seem to remember) how the round actually went after it ends.

And pals pls, could we stay in topic? You can start a "whining about BF" -thread in AD.

Re: r61 Changes?
 

I find it hilarious that you expect uncapped tags to be some kind of retirement homes for lazy PA players.

With the current community it is really hard to find 60 decent players willing to join a new tag so it is inevitable that you have to start with lower numbers.

With lesser numbers you will also have less incs so it sorta scales itself nicely and in the event of AvA battles, well i barely remember a case where someone got away cleanhanded with bashing smaller alliances. :up:

Re: r61 Changes?
 

Well im sure those that has runned a few alliance know its no problem getting the tag filled up with players.

All the alliance ive HCed has been 50+ members the first round theyve played.
If you think you are gonna get 60 active dedicated members the first round, unless 1-2 tags disband, you surely must have a lot of friends willing to join you.

Alliances like Ultores, Faceless, BlackFlag, p3nguins, and RainbowS has managed to set up a alliance, and kept it going for 3+ rounds, i dont see why others wouldnt be able to do the same.
CT/HR/ND has been around for ages, but theyve been shifting out A LOT of members the past few years

Re: r61 Changes?
 

I didnt forget... i never knew!
r60 was my first round since r39 so other than CT and ND all the alliances are basically new to me. Who was gonna be big, who was gonna be small, who was hiding members/likely to acquire more was all a closed book to me at the beginning of the round. Im not sure BF was ever 'small' in the sense ive been using. Small in this discussion has been 35 or less not BF's 50 or so. If BF started out on 30 or something i totally missed that.
The point can be a general one without casting aspersions at anyone in particular. It is surely blindingly obvious that in an alliance system where 5 tags are full the actions of any one alliance is gonna have a vastly bigger influence than in a system where 8 or 10 tags are full.
Indeed I would suggest that if you are pointing to 45-50 as a small alliance then that reinforces my point further. If only those that are on the absolute maximum count for anything in politics the the absolute maximum needs to come down in order to count more tags!
This is a pointless discussion anyway; it is clear that the tag size question is closed for the foreseeable future.

As to r61 changes: are the stats in the manual final?

Re: r61 Changes?
 

Does that not slightly contradict what u then said:
I would suggest that the second part of your statement is surely the truer. In the ever shrinking universe there can only be a finite number of big alliances. For one to be born another has to die. For it to be 'no problem getting the tag filled up' the conditions have to be right.
I dont think any of last round's alliances have quit and so a new large alliance is unlikely.

Re: r61 Changes?
 

What i said was that you can recruut to 50-60 easily, though prolly not all top class players.
if you only accept accomplished players you risk at ending up in a infinant loop as BF, and never aim for #1

Re: r61 Changes?
 

FYI, the thread really wasn't about alliance tag limits. Again.

Re: r61 Changes?
 

You're not listening. 25 man tags are the ONLY solution and will guaranteed make this game 1000x more competitive and bring back players. Why will no one listen?

Re: r61 Changes?
 

You can continue down your path of ignorance - but until you try it, you dont know what it will do for the game. Shows a certain level of intelligence for administrators who run the game, to be so close minded (when meaning to be impartial) on this subject. Thank you for confirming my correct decision to leave after all these rounds as part of the community.

And it is to stem the flow of players leaving the game, nothing else. As game numbers decrease, so should tag sizes accordingly - only they haven't in god knows how many rounds.

Re: r61 Changes?
 

The game hasnt realy decreased much the last 10 rounds.
And im pretty sure that we will see more planets the next two rounds than r60.

Re: r61 Changes?
 

Why do you even talk?

Over the past ten rounds the number of people within alliances has decreased by almost 20%.

Not to mention the distribution of members was far better. Tags above 66% full to tag limit capacity:

Round 50 11 tags
Round 55 8 tags
Round 60 7 tags

The other thing to note between round 55 to round 60, the number of members within medium to small sized tags (between 20%-66% max tag capacity) got significantly smaller. Basically, because there was no point in these tags continuing or because there was no incentive for them to do so. Now there may be a number of factors here influencing such as stats, politics etc. but the fact they cant survive is a reflection on the tag limits in a decreasing player base being too high for far too long.

So BB, stop contributing falsely to a thread...again.

But yeah, you're right, we will see more planets in the next two rounds. Because a lot of the community can be bothered to put up with this can they? Get real. They will just do what I'm going doing and quit. Please don't respond if you're not going to supply some sort of argument with evidence, because I can't be bothered to keep searching the archives for evidence to support my claims/beliefs, just like I cant be bothered to keep stating the incompetence of those with power to change things.

http://www.planetarion.com/files/cin..._alliances.htm
http://www.planetarion.com/files/cin..._alliances.htm
http://www.planetarion.com/files/cin..._alliances.htm

Re: r61 Changes?
 

Round 50 was a free round or something i belive, so i didnt count that into it all.
But R51 had almost the same amount of players as last round had

Re: r61 Changes?
 

Still 12% decline. WP

Re: r61 Changes?
 

Well as i said i belive next round to boost it up to closer to 800 again.
Why do i belive this?
New alliances has been forming, and that means there will be more spots to be filled up, therefor attracting more ex players back, or giving new players a fighting chance for getting into a alliance.
Im all for trying to experince with sizes, but i think it should be done in a "half round" instead in a real round. And then the PA crew need to put up some poll on how people experinced playing in smaller gals/tags.
Instead of wasting life on running havocs, PA crew should just move directly to round 61,5, and test out new features/limits/suggestions from players.
They dont need to run the rounds for 1177 ticks, perhaps half will be enough to get some experince from it.
Also they could test out round stats they intend to run in R62 if they did something like this

Re: r61 Changes?
 

Round 50 had 590 players in alliances over 40 members. This round was an anomaly because it was a free round. Round 51 had 375 players in alliances over 40 members, which was the lowest ever. Round 52 had 515. The average between round 45 and 55, excluding round 50, was 485. This round had 404.

The average total number of planets between round 45 and 55, again excluding round 50, was 886. This round we had 724, the lowest ever.

The game is in decline. Has been since round 6. No surprises.

Or you can look at a time during which the ratio between total planets and tag limit was the same as you're suggesting. And then you see absolutely no relation between the two numbers. It doesn't matter if you increase (Butcher's favourite off-topic posting subject) or decrease them. Nothing changes.

Re: r61 Changes?
 

Round 51 also had 606 players within alliances, compared with 537 last round.

You can say there's no relation, but boredom created from political positioning has resulted in people leaving the game more over the past two rounds at a quicker rate. The tag size limit has directly contributed to this.

Re: r61 Changes?
 

And these are people who have played the game throughout the different decades

Re: r61 Changes?
 

You are saying words, but I have data.