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Lewin

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KaM Remake Developer

Posts: 3822

Joined: 16 Sep 2007, 22:00

KaM Skill Level: Skilled

ICQ: 269127056

Website: http://lewin.hodgman.id.au

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Location: Australia

Post 09 Nov 2011, 11:35

I agree with RiT4LiN that militia rushes are pretty dull really and not they way KaM is meant to be played. Towers are NOT the solution to this, because you cannot cover all of your buildings with towers so 1 militia will always be able to find some unprotected building or road square to kill your serfs. The only way to combat it is to rush for militia too, which means you just build woodcutters, sawmills, weapons workshops, barrack and gold mines and not care about running out of food because by then the game will be over. I think that is ONE style that you can play KaM, and if people want to play games like that then agree on it and go ahead. But I do not think it is the main way to play KaM as you only end up using 1/4 of the buildings and 1 of the troops...
And when I host a game I tell people that during peace time you are not allowed to explore each other's bases (you must turn back as soon as you see a building or road) because without fog of war this gives you a huge advantage and just doesn't seem very sportsmanlike.
The person who wins a militia rush is just the person who can pump out militia the fastest, there are no real battle tactics or complex economic management. Sure it takes skill, but it's a very specific skill and there is little room for alternate tactics. I'd like KaM to be a game where each player has their own "style". Some might make lots of militia because they're cheap and fast, some might spend the time building a massive iron economy, some might go for 2 stables and lots of scouts so they can out run their enemy and encircle them. I think THAT would lead to interesting games. But with militia rushing, there is only one playing style. Make militia as fast as you can. You don't even have to worry about balancing your weapons vs food production, just forget food. That's not what KaM means to me at all. (but as I said I think it's cool if people want to play competitive games like that, but I don't think it's for everyone)

I believe enforced peace is an important feature, because it will give you time to build up your economy and tower defence meaning you will be able to defend yourself. The host can choose a peace time that suits everyone. By doing this I think you could have fun games with randoms.

Also, please remember that the English speaking community is a tiny part of the broader KaM community. Almost half of our downloads have been from Poland and the Russian and German communities are fairly strong too. So often people just don't understand what you're saying to them.

Yes I think KaM has imbalances, but I'm hoping we can address these and build it into a game that is less frustrating to play online. It's still very early days for multiplayer in the Remake, and this is really the only time KaM has been played multiplayer on such a large scale. It's never been tested like this before, so of course there will be problems. Don't expect it to be a full featured well balanced game so "early" in development.

In other news, I started work on the auto reconnecting code. I made it work once or twice (I killed the TCP connection and the game reconnected and continued without a hitch) but there's a lot still to be done as most of the time it doesn't work. But I think I've proved that resynchronising is not hard at all.

P.S. I'll care if you leave. I'd hate to see fans being turned away from KaM because of things like this. I know you are not the only one who feels this way because I've spoken to other people in games, they always seem amazed by how fun the game is once it really gets going without militia rushes.

tl;dnr?
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Shadaoe

Knight

Posts: 584

Joined: 28 Jul 2011, 22:00

Website: https://www.youtube.com/user/KaMRemake

Post 09 Nov 2011, 11:41

Id you didn't agree on a peace time, you have to eccept being attacked.
KaM is really fun in multiplayer.
People play like they want, you can't blame them for a tectic IF it's not against the rules, it wasn't here since you didn't even egree on a peace time, so what he did is not a problem. Be fairplay, I already lost a game because a guy attacked me when we agreed on a peace time, he attacked before the end of it and killed me, it was frustrating, but if he had done it within the rules, no problem. And if you leave every games where you dislike some people of the whole community, just stop playing online indeed.
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Attyla

Laborer

Posts: 14

Joined: 05 Nov 2011, 23:00

Post 09 Nov 2011, 12:17

I wouldnt agree that game is imbalanced in multi. It is possible to have long gg even without pt, but it forces to build more towers and make army simultainusly with economy. I used to first make economy and later army playing campains becaouse computer nver atack too fast and strong. But if every player would prepare to defend no one could rush. Towers are possible to build at beginig and are strong and cheap. And moreover rushing player would lose in such a case, he must leave his village without defence and has poor economy.

Imho multi just forces some changes in strategy, and makes the game even more realistic - you must defend your village. While playing campains it always confused me that computer starts with such strong army that could easy win and my only chance is that he dont want atack me, or do it in extreamly stupid way (in original game).

edit
Of course posibility of militia rush forces to also make militia, but you dont have to spend all gold and wood on it ( towers will help in defence) and not build anythig else. I agree that with rush there is danger that game will end before it have started.

Lewin I have much respect to you and I will play the way you want if you tell to.

I'am from Poland and I noticed that polish players use words "peace time" instaed of polish translation. But that doesnt changes the fact many of us dont speak english.
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Siegfried

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Knight

Posts: 494

Joined: 24 Jul 2009, 22:00

Post 09 Nov 2011, 13:10

The milita rush is somewhat annoying, but it's not the root of all evil. Because you simply cannot distinguish between a player rushing for some fast militia to have this game won in a few minutes and a player, that is just two minutes faster than you attackig you with his first recruited army.

You see the problem in KaM is, that there is - apart from towers - no way to defend your town except with troops. And before you can recruit troops, you will need several steps to be taken which take a long time (several minutes).

So, after you've build the school, found a place for the inn, searched for stones, found some trees and established a sawmill and finally reached the workshop and the barracks, you finally are able to train a recruit, which has to walk to the barracks, an axe has to be transported there by a serf and finally you will be able to recruit one troop. It is very natural that different players will manage to train their first troop at different times. And since there are so many steps, the variation in those times will be large. So KaM differs from similar games where the first troops can be recruited pretty fast. The time span which troops need to walk from your base to the opponent, cannot compensate the recruiting speed differences.

Summed up, the KaM mechanics lack a balancing method in multiplayer. Or, like others would say, KaM multiplayer indeed is broken.

And maybe this was the reason for the town hall introduced in TPR (i cannot think of any other reason because the town hall breaks the entire KaM style).

So, all in all, the first player who recruits troops will always be the one who wins, because the 30 seconds marching time to the opponents base is far to low. Fog of War even worsens the situation because it lowers your reaction time to 2 seconds - which is way to low to even train one recruit or hire one troop. Fog of War breaks KaM completely!

And to answer this strategy, you need to rush to be able to train troops soon enough. I would not blame people for using a lame gameplay, as they are forced to rush for troops since there is no other way to defend your base. So, what I think could help is the following:

-> enforced peace time: it will definately help to avoid the early 1-militia rush. We need this! But don't think that it will solve all problems, because still you need to rush for a big army. As soon as the peace time is over, the person with the largest army will destroy the weaker opponent.

-> larger maps: to increase the reaction time! Recruiting troops takes so long that you definately need some time to react to an imminent attack.

-> leave fog of war out of this game! It reduces your reaction time to very few seconds. You won't be able to react to a attack any more. Also, this is absolutely unrealsitiv as in the Middle Ages enemys did not just pop up at your village and destroy you but could be seen from miles.

-> implement town hall: this is a way to quickly react to an attack, on the cost of gold of course.

... or a very new idea. We could think of the church (graphics from the alpha) being implemented into the game. The church could apply a blessing every hour. The blessing lasts for 2 minutes or so and prevents your civilians from being killed. So this would give you a small time span to react to an attack on the cost of realism.
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RiT4LiN

Blacksmith

Posts: 28

Joined: 30 Oct 2011, 23:00

Post 09 Nov 2011, 13:28

And maybe this was the reason for the town hall introduced in TPR (i cannot think of any other reason because the town hall breaks the entire KaM style).
TPR was kind off retarded anyways.
So, all in all, the first player who recruits troops will always be the one who wins, because the 30 seconds marching time to the opponents base is far to low. Fog of War even worsens the situation because it lowers your reaction time to 2 seconds - which is way to low to even train one recruit or hire one troop. Fog of War breaks KaM completely!
Could you elaborate on that. How does fog of war break the game. I think its dumb i can see what my enemy is doing while no one is there.

And to answer this strategy, you need to rush to be able to train troops soon enough. I would not blame people for using a lame gameplay, as they are forced to rush for troops since there is no other way to defend your base. So, what I think could help is the following:
-> enforced peace time: it will definately help to avoid the early 1-militia rush. We need this! But don't think that it will solve all problems, because still you need to rush for a big army. As soon as the peace time is over, the person with the largest army will destroy the weaker opponent.
My point exactly. Also you'd still be able to scout your opponent unless you'd restrict movement and that would be very unrealistic
-> larger maps: to increase the reaction time! Recruiting troops takes so long that you definately need some time to react to an imminent attack.
Or maps with inital towers and decreased attack paths
-> leave fog of war out of this game! It reduces your reaction time to very few seconds. You won't be able to react to a attack any more. Also, this is absolutely unrealsitiv as in the Middle Ages enemys did not just pop up at your village and destroy you but could be seen from miles.
Okay I understand, but it's also kind of retarded that you can scout once and always have information about the size, composition and tech of your army. Hiding tech and units is a great asset to RTS. Also just park one militia in front of your opponents base and you'll see them comming. That's how it works in starcraft2.

-> implement town hall: this is a way to quickly react to an attack, on the cost of gold of course.
... or a very new idea. We could think of the church (graphics from the alpha) being implemented into the game. The church could apply a blessing every hour. The blessing lasts for 2 minutes or so and prevents your civilians from being killed. So this would give you a small time span to react to an attack on the cost of realism.
Sorry but, no.. I'd rather see a bunch of serfs kill a militia
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xzaz

Barbarian

Posts: 105

Joined: 28 Jul 2009, 22:00

Post 09 Nov 2011, 13:35

I think this is one of the points why KaM never implemented the Multiplayer very good. Its hard to balance this out.

So what can we do about it? Well we have to make rules, and those rules can be build in due the fact Lewin and Krom build this game from 0 to the point we are now.

We need to define those rules describe them and implement them. Their is no big game company that is doing that for us right now, we need to do it ourselfs.

=> I think the multiplayer is going to be alot beter when their is fog of war, supprise is always good.

=> Countdown clock, we need to know WHEN attacking is allowed, how are we going to manage this? Can you build a army in piece time? Can you even build a barrack and war-building is piece time? Can you build them or can you just not attack with your army? The last point sounds for me not the real solution. People are going to make armies go to the enemy place their army in their town and wait for the peace time to be over.

We as a Community have the ability to change this game the way we want, thats why INPUT like these topics are so important.

And ofcourse, dullheads are always their, you got them in every game. Though, I just love to play the battle maps, more then the building maps :) as some of the people already noticed :P
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The Dark Lord

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King Karolus Servant

Posts: 2154

Joined: 29 Aug 2007, 22:00

KaM Skill Level: Veteran

Location: In his dark thunderstormy castle

Post 09 Nov 2011, 14:00

Towers will actually help you survive. Sure, you can't defend all buildings with towers, but if you defend the most important ones you can still recruit new soldiers so you still haven't lost. And you can always ask an ally for help.
If you want to play without militia rush, you should play on a map with narrow entrances so a couple of towers would be enough to defend your whole village.
But again, if you do not talk to the other players and do not make rules together, you ASK for it.
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GreatWhiteBear

Knight

Posts: 578

Joined: 13 Sep 2011, 22:00

Location: The Netherlands

Post 09 Nov 2011, 14:08

Maybe an in-game vote kick system would be an option.
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RiT4LiN

Blacksmith

Posts: 28

Joined: 30 Oct 2011, 23:00

Post 09 Nov 2011, 14:37

Maybe an in-game vote kick system would be an option.
Yep, but that should go together with an auto replace function.

I was thinking of a special game mode where the barracks is only available after you have your Bakery/Butcher etc etc. But for nostalgic reasons this should not replace the original game
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Ben

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Former Site Admin

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Joined: 08 Jan 2009, 23:00

Location: California - Pacific Time (UTC -8/-7 Summer Time)

Post 09 Nov 2011, 18:18

What if we had a soldier who couldn't leave a certain area of your town--ever?
Kind of like a town watch unit that couldn't step more then 25 squares away from your starting storehouse. It sounds like it might be hard to program (in my slightly uneducated opinion :P ) So, you would start with 6 of these guys and since you can't rush with them, all they would do is defend your base.
However, we would need graphics for a unit like this. We could always just remove the warrior from the town hall (since he is the exact same as a barbarian; which, I might add, is pretty stupid) and change his role.
If we decide to remove the town hall, we could have rebels serve this function (it would make more sense since they look like untrained peasants). The problem with the latter is that I don't like the idea of removing town hall units, just the town hall itself.

Just some ideas. I like the sound of it, but there are a few problems, like I mentioned.
I used to spam this forum so much...
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GreatWhiteBear

Knight

Posts: 578

Joined: 13 Sep 2011, 22:00

Location: The Netherlands

Post 09 Nov 2011, 18:22

Totally unrealistic
unless shock collars were already invented back then
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Shadaoe

Knight

Posts: 584

Joined: 28 Jul 2011, 22:00

Website: https://www.youtube.com/user/KaMRemake

Post 09 Nov 2011, 18:32

With fog of war + forced peace time, everything will be solved :p
Well actually, think this game IS balanced, you can kill a bigger army with some tactic (and chance :p ), and if you did some towers it'll slow them enough to have time to build one on your own, then your allies can also come to help. 1v1 is more of "the sooner I build troop, the easier I'll win", but team matches are quite balanced imo.

I think Siegfried's Bannockburn map shows exactly that tactic is important in the fights, not only the number, both sides can win, but they have quite different armies. With some forced peace time of at least 1 hour (to me less than that doesn't really fit KaM, such a slow-paced game ! But sometimes 40 minutes or around can be fun, maybe, I prefer building at least, it's the core of the gameplay) plus some fairplay players, and you can have some good games !

In fact every map has it's peace time, it's recommendations, it's ways to play. For exemple, I'll recommend for my The Valley Of Dangers map not to have forced peace time because there are 2 key towers that protect your whole area, but it's part of the tactic if you take the risk of building outside, you can have more ressources, more defenses ... but you can be rushed.
That was only an exemple to say that we can't do a "global recommendation of THIS peace time, THIS way", because in KaM, every map is meant to be played differently !

The fog of war would be a good addition imo, it's more realistic, it adds so many tactics also ! And since it'll be optional, it's good for everyone :p
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Danjb

Sword Fighter

Posts: 288

Joined: 14 May 2007, 22:00

Post 10 Nov 2011, 00:59

It seems I'm a little late here so I won't be able to address everything but the most important things to be said are these:

1) KaM fans are short enough in number as it is, so any fan that leaves is a big loss!

2) The game is a little flawed, yes, and always has been, in that there is curerntly no good answer to the "militia rush" dilemma. But I'm sure if we work together we can find a solution!

3) I think the best solution - at least for now - will be Lewin's idea of a "forced peace time" decided by the host at the start of the game. That way all players have a known amount of time to build up a small base, defences, and troop buildings, after which they can all start making troops together, so there will be an even enough playing field that rushing is no longer quite so feasible.

This may not be the best solution but it's a darn good start, and personally I'm excited to see it happen :D
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Lewin

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KaM Remake Developer

Posts: 3822

Joined: 16 Sep 2007, 22:00

KaM Skill Level: Skilled

ICQ: 269127056

Website: http://lewin.hodgman.id.au

Yahoo Messenger: lewinlewinhodgman

Location: Australia

Post 10 Nov 2011, 01:14

My plan was to disallow equipping and moving of troops during peace time, but nothing else (so you can still stock up on weapons/recruits, but after peacetime everyone should have enough towers/army to defend themselves)
What's your opinion? How should peace time work?
Of course we will show a clock in game and announcements will be made telling you how much peace time is left.

I agree with Siegfried in that the time that a player produces militia will vary because of the complexity of the economy. Therefore I think enforced peace time is necessary to even this out. Maybe one player had good luck with the prioritising of deliveries, or maybe they had a few extra trees near their base. Either way, this should NOT mean they win in 10 minutes. That's pretty pointless.

I disagree with Siegfried in that fog of war will ruin the game. I HATE the way if someone sneaks a militia into your base at the start you have no way to surprise them or hide troops from them. They can watch your economy and figure out what you will be doing and therefore counter it. I agree that it will drastically change the game, (that's why it's optional) but I think if we have outposts that reveal a large area of fog and give you a warning bell when the enemy comes within sight then it won't ruin the game at all. If you had to rely on the existing LOS of units/houses to protect your base then yes, it wouldn't work well because you'd only see the enemy when they were on top of you. But if the outpost can see 2-4 times as far as other buildings I don't think this will be such a problem.
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Siegfried

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Knight

Posts: 494

Joined: 24 Jul 2009, 22:00

Post 10 Nov 2011, 07:33

Fog of war is one of the worst things you can do to this game.

Mainly because of the fact, that it takes you minutes to set up a small army. Other strategy games like Starcraft only need seconds to build weapons.

So if the enemy appears at your border, you don't have any chance to fight back unless you already have a middle-to-large army set up and defending your town.

This means that you are forced to play even more defensive as you always need to have a medium army defending your town. Think of the building time of this army alone, this takes forever!

Also, it limits the means you can put into offense, which makes the game even more static - if you want to win, you are even more forced to rush and attack before the opponent has his army set up.

Did anyone of you ever play Command&Conquer Tiberian Sun? You could see it in this game perfectly. If you did not rush the opponent, you hade absolutely no chance of winning in the end game unless the opponent runs out of resources. And KaM is a military dominated game after all.

Another fact that ruins the game for me is, that it gives you no chance of meeting an opponent army in the middle of the map for a huge battle, because you don't see where you could meet. Only the option of a siege is left.

Also, do you really think fog of war is realistic? Each tile in KaM has a size of roughly 2m. A 192x192 tiles map has a size of 400 meters, which is a distance that you can oversee without problems. Is it realistic that all units are nearsight, so they only see 15 meters in advance. And if there is a huge opponent army located in the middle, you don't see it until it is 20m away from you?

Look at the scale of other games, they are mostly an a much smaller scale.

Also fog of war enhances the problem of the milita rush because you don't see a single milita approaching until it enters your village. And then you have no chance left to react because of the long recruiting time.

Additionaly, it lowers the effect of scouting, as everything that would be of intereset disappears in the fog again.

Did you ever think about why Joymania left fog of war out of the game though the watchtower was fully designed and implemented in the game? Don't you think that they left it out for the same reason they left walls out - that it destroys KaM gameplay completely? Think about the fact, that a game developer voluntarily renounce two features that were fully designed and would fit to KaM and to strategy games on a first glance. There are reasons not to implement both into KaM.

The only way that I see to implement fog of war was to simultaneously increase the scouting range of all civilians by at least a factor of 5-10. And one outpost would have to reveal the whole map. This is the only way to keep it realistic. But obciously this destroys the sense of fog of war, so it does not work.

And regarding the questions: yes, I think that it is realistic that a revealed tile should stay visible forever, because of the mentioned large scale of KaM. Those few meters can be overseen without any problems.

But there is another way to prevent both, the scouting and the militia-rushing problem: this is an intelligent map design with already established towers near the entrances of a base, so each militia attacking is a loss risk. Your base stays undiscovered and a militia rush is prohibited until you can build archers. But by the time you have enough archers which need some time to attack the towers, you should be ablte to train defending troops. If not, then the opponent is that much better than you on KaM that you loose.

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