Myself, Cryptite and the LCR's have been having a lot of conversations about conquest and have been trying to narrow down the core issues/things people don't like with the current system. We managed to pinpoint the following 6 problems/concerns:
...Which is where beachheads come in
Now the original implementation of beachheads back in 2016 was littered with problems, so we have had to make wholesale changes to it. This includes adding plenty of restrictions to prevent cheese and abuse, as well as trying to keep mechanics consistent with the rest of continental conquest. One of the big design decisions was to prevent beachheads interfering with continent capitals. This is to prevent a dominant alliance steamrolling the entire server, discourage proxy towns, and keep world capital warfare to Balak. We don't want World Capital being decided the month before because a town prevented their main rivals on other continents gaining Continent Capital and getting to Balak. We are hoping beachheads 2.0 will help to solve points 1-4 above, as well as providing a bit of extra progression/scaling to help with point 5. Below are the proposed changes that we are aiming to implement for the March conquest cycle. If you have any feedback or concerns about the changes please post them below in this thread. There are plenty of small tweaks that can be made to the system too so we welcome all suggestions.
Beachheads 2.0
A system that allows the capital of a continent to attack and claim land on another continent. The 'beachhead' itself is the specific territory on another continent that you begin to control territories from.
How & What Happens
Something we are unsure about is whether there should be restrictions on when the invasion beachhead can be placed. Since you are able to place on neutrals, you could start a beachhead in the middle of the night. If we don't want this to happen there are a couple of things we could do. Either we can have a server vuln time for beachheads like Balak used to work. Or alternatively, we could force beachhead placements to respect the capital of that continents vuln time. So it's effectively like placing a beachhead on the continent's capital, even if you are placing on a neutral.
edit: something that has been brought up is whether other fights such as Balak or even regular conquest should be able to happen at the same time as a beachhead. If it's an issue we could block further placements once a beachhead is set up as the warm-up time is 2 hours.
In order to address points 5 and 6 we wanted to add a further perk to becoming World Capital. This should allow an alliance to continue to grow bigger and bigger and give more meaning to winning Balak. Especially if a town has maintained World Capital for many months in a row.
World Capital Changes
The final way we would like to give more stakes to Balak is to add some new World Capital policies that are strong and powerful. This is where we would like some feedback and ideas from you guys. Please post all your ideas here.
- Don't like people/alliances moving continents all the time.
- Want to be able to harm enemies on other continents (have everything feel more connected).
- Want to have an alternative to trading for other continents resources (war for them).
- Not enough big fights involving the whole server.
- Lack of scaling, no progression. Hit 30 territories and can't get better.
- Balak fights do not have enough stakes and are not meaningful enough.
...Which is where beachheads come in
Now the original implementation of beachheads back in 2016 was littered with problems, so we have had to make wholesale changes to it. This includes adding plenty of restrictions to prevent cheese and abuse, as well as trying to keep mechanics consistent with the rest of continental conquest. One of the big design decisions was to prevent beachheads interfering with continent capitals. This is to prevent a dominant alliance steamrolling the entire server, discourage proxy towns, and keep world capital warfare to Balak. We don't want World Capital being decided the month before because a town prevented their main rivals on other continents gaining Continent Capital and getting to Balak. We are hoping beachheads 2.0 will help to solve points 1-4 above, as well as providing a bit of extra progression/scaling to help with point 5. Below are the proposed changes that we are aiming to implement for the March conquest cycle. If you have any feedback or concerns about the changes please post them below in this thread. There are plenty of small tweaks that can be made to the system too so we welcome all suggestions.
Beachheads 2.0
A system that allows the capital of a continent to attack and claim land on another continent. The 'beachhead' itself is the specific territory on another continent that you begin to control territories from.
How & What Happens
- Continent capitals can only beachhead 1 other continent at any one time.
- The same Continent CAN be beachheaded by both other Continents.
- Can only beachhead coastal tiles.
- When the beachhead is placed the whole server is pinged and it takes 2 hours to come online (should be a conquest channel where this ping happens).
- Beachhead placement fights are always a reinforcement fight. (this does not consume your normal reins call)
- Beachheads work like a bountiful tile. Half of all costs the invaders have spent on that continent and 100% of all loot generated are stored within the tile.
- When the beachhead tile is captured the invaders lose all other territories on the continent and the victors claim all loot on the tile.
- If you still hold the beachhead at the end of the month you gain all the resources it has accumulated and the beachhead/all foreign territory is removed/turned to neutrals.
- The beachhead itself counts as 5 territories for biome control/industry generation.
- You can take a further 9 territories on another continent.
- If a continent has a beachhead on it then the capital alliance of that continent has its industry output halved.
That half is added to the bountiful beachhead tile. (on further reflection we probably won't give these resources to beachhead tile to avoid cheese) - Biome control works like normal, so can gain control on a foreign continent.
- All industry resources generated by foreign tiles are stored in the ‘bountiful’ beachhead tile until the end of the month.
- The beachhead tile generates the equivalent industry output of a town (10 per cycle).
- There is no input (tools/barn food) required for foreign territories to generate industry resources, likewise, there is no cap on output since its all stored in the beachhead tile and can only be claimed at end of the month.
- The cost of attacking land on a foreign continent (not just beachhead) is 2000 shards. This is taken from your gen balance when you place the inhib. There is no upkeep cost beyond this. Half of the cost goes into the ‘bountiful’ beachhead tile.
- Cost of moduling foreign territories is the same as Balak.
- Cannot remote neutralise on a foreign continent.
- The invader cannot attack the last 2 territories connected to an alliance leader/town. (this is to prevent them from cutting off all territory and interfering with continent capitals).
- If you lose your beachhead you must wait 7 days to beachhead any continent again?
- If you fail a beachhead attack you must wait 7 days to beachhead any continent again?
- No strength is won or lost when fighting on a foreign continent.
- You cannot call reins when attacking foreign territory. (with the exception of the original beachhead fight which is automatic).
- Those fighting invaders on their own continent are able to call reins for both sides. (this consumes you normal reins call)
- An invaders beachhead tile can only be attacked once per day and has a 2h online time. The whole continent may come to the fight to try and repel the invader but reins cannot be called by either.
- Any territory that is unlinked due to an invader will NOT result in a strength loss when it decays.
- If the beachhead fight is a neutral territory then the capital of the continent may mod it for free.
- Locking mechanics work as normal for beachheads.
- Cannot claim more than a beachhead and 9 territories on a foreign continent.
- Beachheads and foreign continent conquest will respect normal vulnerability times.
- If you win a beachhead invasion you must wait 20 hours before you can start claiming more land.
- Foreign continent fights use the same 5 attacks and 7 defences from your continent pool.
- You will no longer be able to call reinforcements to attack the final territory of a town on your continent.
Something we are unsure about is whether there should be restrictions on when the invasion beachhead can be placed. Since you are able to place on neutrals, you could start a beachhead in the middle of the night. If we don't want this to happen there are a couple of things we could do. Either we can have a server vuln time for beachheads like Balak used to work. Or alternatively, we could force beachhead placements to respect the capital of that continents vuln time. So it's effectively like placing a beachhead on the continent's capital, even if you are placing on a neutral.
edit: something that has been brought up is whether other fights such as Balak or even regular conquest should be able to happen at the same time as a beachhead. If it's an issue we could block further placements once a beachhead is set up as the warm-up time is 2 hours.
In order to address points 5 and 6 we wanted to add a further perk to becoming World Capital. This should allow an alliance to continue to grow bigger and bigger and give more meaning to winning Balak. Especially if a town has maintained World Capital for many months in a row.
World Capital Changes
- Each consecutive world capital victory increases the maximum number of territories you can hold on your continent by 5.
- The cost of these territories is the same as the 30th territory (cost doesn't keep increasing). The same goes for moduling these territories.
- When you lose world capital your territories cap returns to 30. If you don't release them during truce then it removes them automatically based on furthest from the leader of the alliance.
- The Eminent Domain world capital policy will be removed.
The final way we would like to give more stakes to Balak is to add some new World Capital policies that are strong and powerful. This is where we would like some feedback and ideas from you guys. Please post all your ideas here.
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