Official KaM Remake Ideas topic

[Ben]

Lewin, you raise an excellent point. The game already favors defensive strategies. This would only make attack harder. On the other hand, rebuilding is nearly impossible. When a player most of their serfs, they usually quit, and understandably so, because they'd rather not spend an hour rebuilding their economy just to be so weak that when they get attacked again they get beat for good.

[vojta_f]

Lewin, you raise an excellent point. The game already favors defensive strategies. This would only make attack harder. On the other hand, rebuilding is nearly impossible. When a player most of their serfs, they usually quit, and understandably so, because they'd rather not spend an hour rebuilding their economy just to be so weak that when they get attacked again they get beat for good.

Unfortunately, it also has some disadvantages(unnecessarily delayed play, abuse, etc. )

[Da Revolution]

I'm against the idea of a shelter. In almost all RTS you'll need some time to rebuild after an attack. In some games this will go faster than in other games, but when you implement this in KaM you'll get even longer games than we already have. Many times it already exceeds the 2 hours and when people can just save their serves it will be easier to keep enough serves alive. This in combination with a market will make "infinite" games possible.

[Nissarin]

And that might actually don't work as you imagine it, since your serfs will need to get there first (huge traffic jams) and they will eventually get hungry, so a few minutes in "safety" might cost you a starvation and even more jams (it doesn't matter if you food if you have too many hungry citizens).

[vojta_f]

And that might actually don't work as you imagine it, since your serfs will need to get there first (huge traffic jams) and they will eventually get hungry, so a few minutes in "safety" might cost you a starvation and even more jams (it doesn't matter if you food if you have too many hungry citizens).

it would suffice to set the number of serfs who go into hiding

[Kridge]

If this idea would be implemented, and my guess would be to use the town hall for this, then it could become even more easy to destroy your enemy. If your oppononent succeeds and provides shelter for his serfs, then you can come in, and destroy that building. Now the opponent will defend this building ofcourse, but nothing is undefeatable, especially without serfs.

But for your opponent, the one that provides shelter for his serves, it would be somewhat easier to defend, and be able to rebuild afterwards.

Maybe there should be a cap of maximal units that can enter one town hall, so for instance only 40 serfs can enter, which forces the player to build multiple if he wants to protect all units.

I personally like this idea very much, and I think it would be a great addition, since people can develop new strategies with this.

I mean, you have to decide if you want to protect all your serfs, and have a hard time resupplying while under attack, or protect some, and hope for the best. And I don't think this would make the game infinitely longer. Besides, medieval wars took long too. They weren't won in a day.

As for the traffic jam, well that will have to be a part of your strategy as well, learning how to deal with that.

And if you would want to make it more expensive to protect the serfs, maybe you would need iron for the bell or something in the building. But in my opinion, when you're protecting your serves by protecting them this way, you are stopping your own economy as long as they are in there.

I think the panel could display what kind of serves and how many you have in there, and have a toggle for "alarm fase".

[Lewin]

I personally like this idea very much, and I think it would be a great addition, since people can develop new strategies with this.

I don't agree with the argument of "this would add more variety to the game and let people form new strategies." Yes that is true, but by the same logic adding flying pink elephants to the game would also allow people to form new strategies (pink elephant rushes?) and add more variety. There's a lot more factors to consider (does it fit in the game style? Will it make games unnecessarily long? Will it ruin existing strategies that we want to be used?). I think "new strategies" really doesn't matter much since basically ANY new feature allows for new strategies.

And I don't think this would make the game infinitely longer. Besides, medieval wars took long too. They weren't won in a day.

Sure, so in the next KaM Remake release trees will take 10-50 years to grow, wheat will need to be planted in spring and harvested next autumn, so your game will need to be running for almost 1 year of real time to harvest wheat. And yeah medieval wars weren't won in a day, some lasted hundreds of years. So lets aim to make the average KaM game last for about 10 years, and long ones go for about 100. Lets hope our children will be able to take over from us and finish the KaM games that we start today.

Seriously though, I don't like this argument either. Saying "we should add this because it's realistic" doesn't make much sense for a game where you can fit 1000 horses/trees/etc. in a building that's only about 10x10 meters. And where there's no night and when people die they turn into ghosts and one guy can live his whole life drinking only wine (not to mention drinking a whole keg of wine every 20 minutes without getting drunk/sick). Games aren't meant to be realistic, they're meant to be fun, mimicking parts of the real world while changing most of the rules (like fitting things in a storehouse) and removing "annoying" things about life, like the fact that trees take tens of year to grow.

ANY new feature which will cause games to last longer should be seriously reconsidered in my opinion, since a lot of people already complain that 1.5-2 hours (average game length) is already impractical/not what people want in a game. A lot of people keep asking us to implement speed up for multiplayer so it doesn't take up so much time to play one game (we'll probably let the host choose two game speeds, before and after peacetime). Another problem with making the game last longer is with leavers/quitters, longer games would just make it even more annoying when somebody leaves and "ruins" the game by unbalancing teams.

[FeyBart]

I think it might not extend games too far. After all, your serfs aren't instantly in the building.

I propose that you first make this, and release it as a modifier. If it works, you can release it as a game function. If it doesn't, you can always leave it as a modifier, or take it out.

What I'd also like to see, is if it could only be for a few buildings. For example: Only in the store house, the barracks and the towers, and maybe the town hall, if a modifier for that ever gets released.

[Ben]

@ Lewin
You are the master of great analogies!

I believe that Lewin is right. Anything that makes the game last longer should be greatly reconsidered. In my opinion, playing two 2.5 hours games would probably be more fun then one five hour game. I know I introduced this idea (the idea wasn't original to me, but I added that twist) but I don't like it. The arguments have convinced me.

Perhaps people should start thinking of strategies that make attacking easier, and propose those instead.

[Jeronimo]

I agree with the idea of townhall working as a shelter for serfs but max 10 limit.
Imagine a building with 10 squares (like barracks) and "Bell button" (+bell sound).

This is great in team games, whenever 2 players attack you and you have to wait your allies expulse the invaders (because you are outnumbered).
Your labourers can get "protected" by moving them far away (dig a field in a far place).
But serfs... the most important unit to recover your economy just will die till the last while they do their duties.

The most horrible situtation is when you have lots of gold chests at storehouse, but empty schools and 0 serfs.

To prevent this "death by system" (serfs doing their protocol and unable to evade enemy huge invasion in 2v1), the "townhall bell shelter", can protect up to 10 serfs each one... Build 2-3 townhalls and you will be able to protect 20-30 serfs, better for later recovery.

Now, this will make your opponent to find and destroy these "Townhalls" so he kills your refugees.
It will be common then to build these near an ally base, or in a very remote place (perhaps protected by towers).

Remember these points
Each worker has alerady his own house as shelter whenever an enemy attacks your base.
Labourers can evade invasors by digging fields far away (and waiting there).
Serfs? -> Townhalls with 10 serfs limit (+Bell function to get in and out).

Aclaration: Townhall keeps its cost (5 timber/6 stones = 550 hit points).

As useful as Market is.

[Encaitar]

If you really want to shorten the game length, we should reconsider the absence of the siege weapons. As those units can easy break down buildings, the game length of one game would actually decrease.

To make it balanced, you could make the siege weapons be:

• much slower reload time (so the rate of shooting would decrease)
• less accurate
• more damageable

By doing so, siege weapons would only be usefull to take down buildings. Using those weapons at armies would then not make any sense as the siege weapon would be much likely miss the target + the enemy could easily take down you weapons as reloading cost much more time.

P.S. I know this would not solve the problem that the siege weapons do drive on their own (which indeed sucks). It's just an idea to bring down the game length!
P.S.S. For those not known to the reason why the siege workshop was removed from the game, check FAQ:
Q: Why did you remove the siege workshop, catapult and balista?
Two reasons:
1. Siege equipment “magically” drives with nobody pushing or pulling it. In KaM every tiny detail is visible, and yet these machines drive themselves.
2. We don’t think it’s balanced. Balista are basically a one-shot-kill ranged unit, so if you get a lot of them they are overpowered.
Later in development we might consider adding them back into the game with somebody pushing them (of course we’d need someone to make the sprites) and some rebalancing.

[Nissarin]

If you want to use Town Hall that badly and use it to protect your serfs then I've alternative idea: you can use it almost like in original, namely get some gold in and the units come out... but with a few the differences: first of all you will be able to make militia only, secondly it will cost you some serfs, i.e. all serfs closest to the building will drop (literally) everything they are doing, go into building and "transform" into militia. There shouldn't be any problems with balance (it's not really a fair trade) and it will help you protect your city if _some_ units gets in.

Anyway... random ideas continued.

Delete key feels lonely.. it wants to be able to destroy currently selected building so the player wouldn't have to click constantly in the panel.

Hearing that, the arrow keys got jealous and want be used to jump from currently selected building to another, e.g. lift/right - previous/next workshop, up/down - weapons/armors.

[Bence791]

To make it balanced, you could make the siege weapons be:

• much slower reload time (so the rate of shooting would decrease)
• less accurate
• more damageable

I don't think they are too fast... They need about the same amount of time like Crossbowmen to reload. (Compare the price and mobility too)
Less accurate? Catapults are totally inaccurate, and accuracy of ballistae is similar to towers'.
And finally the third one. They "die" of the first/second strike at them. How do you want to make them more damageable? To die of the first attack?

So I don't really know why are they "toooooo overpowered". They both cost 5 iron and 5 timber, plus the time of production of the materials and the machine. Maybe a serf or recruit could be added to it to push and pull. And if the guy who handles it dies of starvation, the siege equipment would be unable to move and shoot.

[Ben]

Siege equipment are very unlikely to be included in the Remake (as far as I know). I believe that the reason is because they are "magically" moved around without anyone pushing them around.

Maybe a serf or recruit could be added to it to push and pull. And if the guy who handles it dies of starvation, the siege equipment would be unable to move and shoot.

This has been suggested several times, but the answer is always: we can't add new sprites. We don't have a ability to make animations that are good enough and ones that look similar to the ones in the game.

[Jeronimo]

I want to bump again the Townhall as 10 serfs shelter, today a teammate died because all his serfs were slaughtered, when we arrived to his base to expulse the enemies, we won there, but our friend had 0 serfs and couldnt refill the schools.

I truly suggest this feature for next release. At least 10 serfs x Townhall.
If you want more serfs to be safe then build additional Townhalls.