The effect of ally size caps on large galaxies and planets

[Monroe]

I was having a conversation in my ally channel regarding hitting large planets and it got me thinking about one of the possibly unintended consequences of the ally member cap. Because galaxies have between 10-15 planets (depending on the round) and allies have an effective size of 70 it can be very difficult late in the round to hit top planets and galaxies with sufficient force to effectively steal roids. This coupled with the general difficulty of coordinating attacks between multiple alliances on large galaxies makes it very difficult for even the top allies to organize a raid with many waves on the top couple of galaxies the last 1/3 or so of the round. This means that if your galaxy can get into the top 5 or 10 about half way through the round you tend to stay there, especially the galaxies at the very top because you have such a value advantage it makes it very difficult to have many waves on you, and therefore also makes it easier to cross defend and the like lessening the need for ally help covering incomming.

There are of course many other factors in being a top galaxy, and I am not saying that the alliance limit is even a key factor in staying near the top, but I think it definitely is a factor. Anyone agree/disagree?

[isildurx]

I agree on them being hard to hit by a single ally. I disagree on it being hard to coordinate attacks with other alliances.

[Monroe]

Originally Posted by isildurx

I agree on them being hard to hit by a single ally. I disagree on it being hard to coordinate attacks with other alliances.

Well I agree that allies do team up regularly, but it is not generally in my experience against galaxies but against other allies. Now obviously there are some fortress galaxies that are heavily one ally, so in that case allies do sometimes team up on them, but otherwise when you have a "normal" ally mix in a galaxy it is tough in my opinion to do coordinated attacks on the galaxy.

[isildurx]

Well, once a galaxy gets fat enough most alliances(the non-retarded ones atleast) will be willing to hit a galaxy with few members of their alliance in it(from 1-3), simply because they are too fat. To add to this, many rounds, like this one, have seen some galaxies, with a pretty low standard of players in them, avoid inc the whole round and thus grow very big. This then makes them a excellent target for roids and xp come the latter third of the round.

[Mzyxptlk]

This is entirely correct. We encountered the same problem some rounds ago, when small alliances were effectively barred from raiding galaxies alone. As a result of this, galaxy disbanding was removed from the game, and this reduced maximum galaxy size from about 24 to the current size of 14. Galaxy size at tick 72 has pretty much stayed the same, at 9 or 10 planets, both with and without galaxy disbanding.

Splitting a galaxy between two alliances is pretty easy though. This reduces the problem to attacking a galaxy with half the planets. If an alliance cannot cover about 7 planets in a particular galaxy, then they're probably better off attacking further down the food chain anyway.

[Monroe]

Originally Posted by Mzyxptlk

Splitting a galaxy between two alliances is pretty easy though. This reduces the problem to attacking a galaxy with half the planets. If an alliance cannot cover about 7 planets in a particular galaxy, then they're probably better off attacking further down the food chain anyway.

Does this happen on the top galaxies? Not in my experience, but I could be wrong here, but I think the top galaxies (unless they are fortress galaxies) rarely get hit by multiple allies simultaneously. Ally politics simply make it difficult for allies to team up on galaxies that have their own members in them. Either way I haven't seen massive wave attacks on top galaxies (I'm talking t10) much the last couple of rounds, whereas I have seen many many waves on smaller galaxies. Big planets are very hard to hit and require major teamups, even for the top allies, making it tough to do 4 or 5 waves on all of the big planets in a t10 galaxy.

[[B5]Londo]

That is so dependent on the political situation its hard to draw generalities. Ascendancy fortress galaxies get multiple allies teamed on the big ones a few times a round because so often many alliances fight ascendancy at once it is actually the most efficient way to attack us.
A fenced galaxy on the other hand requires allies that are either not squeamish about disadvantaging their own members or dont have members there; so it depends on the ally and the clout of the individual member in the top gal whether they can get a team up of allies going.
OTOH Ascendancy is usually happy to team with whoever to fight the evil fencing ppl.
SO
The issue is not that they are invulnerable... they aint. The issue is that these galaxies get none of the regular raids the lower gals get. The lower gals get thumped on a regular basis because there needs to be co-ordination to hit the bigger gals, which is a hassle so ppl dont do that more than once a week or less thus the remaining 6 raids fall on the gals in the middle (as those at the bottom are not worth a raid, solos are fine) so a rather nebulous death zone is created thus creating the situation that top gals can pull away thus emphasizing the original issue.
This could be overcome if 2 allies co-operated on a regular basis to take on a big gal, but as they dont seem too from a game mechanics point of view u solve it by merging the two allies into an uber ally.
OFC thats gonna create other issues im sure!

[Monroe]

Originally Posted by [B5]Londo

The issue is not that they are invulnerable...
OFC thats gonna create other issues im sure!

Agreed, the problem is there an effective strategy to deal with this fact? I really don't think so, the gals that rise to the top are all active, fence sitting, and cross defend. This allows them to retain value which simultaneously allows them to pull ahead. The only effective strategy I can think of would be to eliminate their ability to get exiles thereby limiting the sizes of the galaxies and making them easier to hit. If they drop back out of say the t10 then they could receive exiles again. This might allow smaller galaxies (by value/score) to be bigger in planets then the top galaxies and thereby make up some of the disadvantage they have.

[[B5]Londo]

I dunno that limiting exiles will be very effective; big gals get 2 late sign ups thus leave the exile bracket at tick 336 and stay out for a long period of time (that very period in which their t10 status solidifies)

Most exiling about happens in the first week and in that period the top gals are xp'ers and not usually those who stay up there so they would be penalised under your system while those who play value without clocking up large amounts of early xp still gather the worthwhile exiles, just in time for t336 when they get 2 new hand picked ppl and no longer worry about exiles.

Therefore if the solution is something to do with the exile system it has to be far more radical. a limitation on the number of ppl a gal can kick out has been suggested b4 I believe.

[Monroe]

Well the obvious answer to that is to not allow them the late sign ups either then.

[[B5]Londo]

Clearly late sign ups were meant to be a way for new ppl to be introduced but it actually works mostly as a way for old players to get into established galaxies. Thus to not allow them to join the top gals would probably have quite a radical effect. Quite possibly a lot fewer in total, this may even mean more ppl sign up at the start thus more bps thus more gals thus everything is more spread.
BUT
late signing is an easy option which many ppl take in preference to playing a whole round so now its whole raison d'etre is to get ppl into big gals. That is now so institutionalized that to disadvantage it in this respect may reduce the player pool.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Monroe

the gals that rise to the top are all fence sitting

I don't think so!

The only effective strategy I can think of would be to eliminate their ability to get exiles thereby limiting the sizes of the galaxies and making them easier to hit. If they drop back out of say the t10 then they could receive exiles again. This might allow smaller galaxies (by value/score) to be bigger in planets then the top galaxies and thereby make up some of the disadvantage they have.

Basing the exile bracket on galaxy value would level the playing field a lot. I'm not really too sure if that's what we want though. I'd rather find a way of allowing the active newbies a way into the bigger gals than spread out everyone into shitty gals. You could also see a large luck element come into play with a gal getting 3 good exiles in pt 72 and becoming miles bigger than anyone else.

[Monroe]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

I don't think so!

Sorry that one should have a note next it excluding fortress galaxies, and EVERY statement I make should be taken to have exceptions to it anyway.

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

Basing the exile bracket on galaxy value would level the playing field a lot. I'm not really too sure if that's what we want though. I'd rather find a way of allowing the active newbies a way into the bigger gals than spread out everyone into shitty gals. You could also see a large luck element come into play with a gal getting 3 good exiles in pt 72 and becoming miles bigger than anyone else.

Don't you see that as a total catch-22 though? The reason there are so many crappy galaxies is because good players never take the time to stop in them but keep exiling. This leads to the top galaxies getting farther and farther ahead and the ones that were not luck enough to get ahead early falling farther and farther behind because they cannot attract top players.

For example my galaxy this round isn't even t50, but enough of us have stuck with it that we're having fun and helping the smaller ally players in our galaxy. Occasionally a big player will exile through our galaxy and not even bother to stop and ask for directions, we are active and cross defend but cannot retain top players because we got the snot kicked out of us early on, is that really our fault? Maybe, maybe not, but we basically have no chance to recover because other then the last exile who came in none of the other good players have given us a chance.

Having an exile system that makes it more difficult to get in a top galaxy, but not any more difficult to exile then it is now gives active players an incentive to stay in their galaxies, or perhaps at least look for galaxies that are active rather then ones that are currently in the top 10 or 15.

[Light]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

Basing the exile bracket on galaxy value would level the playing field a lot. I'm not really too sure if that's what we want though. I'd rather find a way of allowing the active newbies a way into the bigger gals than spread out everyone into shitty gals. You could also see a large luck element come into play with a gal getting 3 good exiles in pt 72 and becoming miles bigger than anyone else.

The thing is, the top galaxys tend to exile 2-3 players at tick 72-76.. So they arnt top10 straght away.. Then they continue to exile until they get the decent players they want (usually pretty quickly due to dedicated alliance exile times, increasing the chances significantly).

So i'd presume top galaxys dont even reach top10 counted score until they've got the exiles they want.

Then after tick 200+ or so, its highly unlikely anyone will get any real active exiles, as those in alliances usually have found there home already.

Ive always wanted a system whereby your galaxy isnt put in the exile bracket until 'up to' 72tick but it could be 1tick (i.e. its randomly assigned without telling the galaxy), which would make it much harder to get organised exiles in.. As you wont know for definate that your galaxy is even in the exile bracket until the 72nd tick and if you wait until that tick.. it greatly highers the chance of you getting a truely random exile who exiled 28 ticks after you exiled (but you didnt even realise you was in the bracket).

[Zotnam]

Originally Posted by Monroe

For example my galaxy this round isn't even t50, but enough of us have stuck with it that we're having fun and helping the smaller ally players in our galaxy. Occasionally a big player will exile through our galaxy and not even bother to stop and ask for directions, we are active and cross defend but cannot retain top players because we got the snot kicked out of us early on, is that really our fault? Maybe, maybe not, but we basically have no chance to recover because other then the last exile who came in none of the other good players have given us a chance.

My gal this round has only had 3 nights of inc, but two of them have been with overwelming force (5-7 attackers per wave, typically 3-4 waves on each planet). This is typical for the big gals when they finally get inc.
I would very much prefer facing "normal" incs 3 times a week instead of this, but the truth is on a top gal a normal ally raid wouldn't get through, thus being a waste of time. That's the real reason top gals don't get inc so often, because alliances have tried to pick them for gal raids and barely gotten anything for rounds, whereas medium gals are usually easy picking. Bc's are learning.
Last round I was in a top50 gal, and though there was smaller incs more often, it was also a lot easier to cover myself (since I xp whored I didn't bother doing it all the time though).

I don't think anything can or should be done about making the top gals easier to attack, someone has to rise to the top right? While this round has been a bit of a joke because no-one has wanted to hit 5:1 or 5:3, the rest of the top10 is fairly equal and have had ups and downs. Getting rid of late signups could be an option as it does give the best gals an egde, but it would also make galrace even more dependant on which randoms you get.

[Monroe]

I guess when I started this thread I really wasn't looking for suggestions on how to fix the problem from a game engine standpoint (though the suggestions here have been thoughtful).

What I am more interested if anyone has any ideas on strategies to effectively take on big galaxies? My guess is no, the only strategies I can think of that would be effective would not be effective in the long run for those employing them. For example if a large ally decided it would only attack t5 galaxies every night they would get through some of the time, but not enough to justify the loss of roid income due to not stealing as many roids on average as the other allies who are not employing this strategy.

As Zotnam points out BCs have learned that the most effective strategy is to only occasionally target the t10 galaxies for strategic reason and to concentrate most of their efforts on the galaxies that are in say the t20 to t60 range. This helps those top galaxies get even further ahead at the cost to the mid range galaxies.

So the related question is what does it take to become one of those "top" galaxies that BCs avoid hitting? Can a group of players consistently do this without getting "lucky" with their exiles? I think the obvious answer is yes, but I would invite people's comments as to why they think that is.

[Light]

Originally Posted by Monroe

So the related question is what does it take to become one of those "top" galaxies that BCs avoid hitting? Can a group of players consistently do this without getting "lucky" with their exiles? I think the obvious answer is yes, but I would invite people's comments as to why they think that is.

Yes, just fence your galaxy.. Then as long as your BP is pretty strong, you're going to have a shot at a easy top5.

[tetrac]

Completely agree with Monroe on this and the obvious solution is to lower galaxy size.

4+4 would be interesting, 5+5 at the very most.

[isildurx]

In my opinion the best way go to about attacking a top gal, is to first scan it and then divide the planets according to what they are weak against. An example this round would then be that xans are taken by alliances with alot of fi\co - just lump alot of fico waves on them - while etds can be taken by endless amount of cr\bs waves.

Seeing as stockpiling\prodhiding isnt quite as useful as it used to be, it also means that the chance of a target having enourmous amounts of res and is able to prod shitloads of one shiptype(which used to be easy when you only had one class of inc in previous rounds) really isnt that much of an issue anymore, so you dont have to try and spread out the types of shipclasses you send on him.

[Mzyxptlk]

I don't think there's a problem with the current galaxy size, though as always I'm in favour of raising (removing) the alliance limit.

[HellKicker]

Originally Posted by Mzyxptlk

Splitting a galaxy between two alliances is pretty easy though.

Kinda makes you feel sorry for ROCK this round, doesn't it?

[Mzyxptlk]

..?

[Zotnam]

Originally Posted by Monroe

So the related question is what does it take to become one of those "top" galaxies that BCs avoid hitting? Can a group of players consistently do this without getting "lucky" with their exiles? I think the obvious answer is yes, but I would invite people's comments as to why they think that is.

Yes, you will see the same people make up the bp's in the top10 round after round. Higher than that depends a lot on randoms and alliance politics etc etc, a bp can only push a gal so far. You get to be such a gal by simply not allowing those early alliance raids to roid you, people that keep roids WILL rise to the top.

I think the best way of going about attacking a top gal, is making sure each planet has a fi/co wave, a fr/de wave (ok maybe not fr/de this round) and a cr/bs wave.

[Monroe]

Originally Posted by Zotnam

I think the best way of going about attacking a top gal, is making sure each planet has a fi/co wave, a fr/de wave (ok maybe not fr/de this round) and a cr/bs wave.

So you are saying that hitting planets with a range of incoming is the best route? I haven't seen that be the most effective strategy. Single class attacks seem to me to be more effective. So most active galaxies can cover a few CR/BS waves for example, but 10? Hardly likely. I would think hitting top galaxies with as few classes as possible would be more effective. As pointed out by isildurx single class attacks make it harder to build out of the attack.

Regardless this really only addresses how to hit them once in a while, and since organizing these kinds of attacks is high risk albeit high reward it isn't done often. Are there other strategies that people can think of that would allow the top alliances to consistently hit top galaxies and make the reward worth the risk? Probably not I suspect, otherwise someone would be doing it.

This in itself I think is a good argument to consider revamping how galaxies are populated, but is not really the point of this thread even though it keeps coming up.

[Mzyxptlk]

Originally Posted by Monroe

Are there other strategies that people can think of that would allow the top alliances to consistently hit top galaxies and make the reward worth the risk? Probably not I suspect, otherwise someone would be doing it.

Indeed.

Originally Posted by Monroe

This in itself I think is a good argument to consider revamping how galaxies are populated, but is not really the point of this thread even though it keeps coming up.

Heartless and me have proposed removing galaxies altogether, because they're the cause of many of the problems the game currently faces: full log and summary.

[Shev]

Originally Posted by Monroe

So you are saying that hitting planets with a range of incoming is the best route? I haven't seen that be the most effective strategy. Single class attacks seem to me to be more effective. So most active galaxies can cover a few CR/BS waves for example, but 10? Hardly likely. I would think hitting top galaxies with as few classes as possible would be more effective. As pointed out by isildurx single class attacks make it harder to build out of the attack.

Isil actually said that it was the changes to production and stockpiling that made it harder to prod out of attacks. This makes single class raids harder to build out of than before, but they will always be easier to do that with than multi-class attacks.

The main benefit now to attacking with a varying group of classes is that it pins more of peoples fleets at home.

[Zotnam]

Originally Posted by Monroe

So you are saying that hitting planets with a range of incoming is the best route? I haven't seen that be the most effective strategy. Single class attacks seem to me to be more effective. So most active galaxies can cover a few CR/BS waves for example, but 10? Hardly likely. I would think hitting top galaxies with as few classes as possible would be more effective. As pointed out by isildurx single class attacks make it harder to build out of the attack.

Sorry, but I can't make any sense of this. Giving everyone in gal the same classes of incoming will mean gal def is kept to a minimum, the only reason I went for subclasses is that you generally need the same ships to defend against them ie; a planet has cr inc so he can't send his anti bs away either. Pinning down the fleets in gal like this is essential, other than that you just need to keep waving, no matter the size of a gal it will eventually run out of fleets to send since that number is fairly limited. You can mix it up with no prelaunch attacks too. In the end it's fairly simple, send more ships at a galaxy than they can defend against, have your members diciplined (early recalls can kill later waves) and the attack will be a success, actually finding the way to do it is very easy but doing it is much much harder. Alternatively you could contact alliances that aren't present in the gal you want to hit and suggest a mutual beneficial agreement for a night.

[Mzyxptlk]

Er, Golan, you're contradicting yourself. Earlier on you said each planet should get a fi/co, fr/de and cr/bs wave.

[Zotnam]

Originally Posted by Mzyxptlk

Er, Golan, you're contradicting yourself. Earlier on you said each planet should get a fi/co, fr/de and cr/bs wave.

Where's the contradiction? I still think that, although this round it would be more like a fi/co wave and two cr/bs waves heh

[Mzyxptlk]

Originally Posted by Zotnam

Giving everyone in gal the same classes of incoming will mean gal def is kept to a minimum.

Fewer classes of incoming = less galaxy defence.

[Zotnam]

Originally Posted by Mzyxptlk

Fewer classes of incoming = less galaxy defence.

eh? Let me spell it out for you then,

every planet getting fi or co inc = less fi/co def in gal

every planet getting fr or de inc = less fr/de def in gal

every planet getting cr or bs inc = less cr/bs def in gal

That's the optimal way, every planet has every kind of incoming. I am GUESSING your point is 3 waves of cr/bs inc will work just as well, but it doesn't at all, loads of ships will be free for fakes and having many different classes inc is generally more stressfull not to mention fakes get very hard to cover when half your ships are flying around in gal.