Knights and Merchants.net Forum

Hey. As I said in the Gamespeed discussion topic, I'd like to invent a new gamemode, which would fulfill these conditions:
-takes less time than normal x1 speed, 60pt gameplay - it's aimed at casual players, who don't have more time for a whole game than, let's say 30-60min (this includes time spent on gathering players in lobby, then building during PT, finally fighting and winning the game)
-includes building part of the game - the gamemode might be purely economical, to maximize the building part; but also some sort of fighting would be nice
-keeps whole fun from playing KaM the normal way
-keeps the KaM spirit
-stays competitive, just like x1 60pt is the only way for competitive gameplay right now - I want better players to be able to micro etc.
-is a good training for normal building mode - it needs to be fun for both casuals and TS "pros".

General ideas, to start brainstorming:
-remove a few buildings from the production chain, to cut the time needed for production in general
-change game settings, so you need way less farms, mines etc. for production (for example, 1 farm per 3 buildings; people get hungry slower; lower cost for iron/wooden weapons/horses/...)
-make some maps that somehow would be much faster to play than normal eco mode, while keeping the variety (militia only maps are not the solution ;P)
-no militia mutator + delete peacetime? (but people already disliked this idea before)

I don't like removing buildings from the "production chain", because in order to lean how to play good you need to learn the basics first, if you introduce something that's too different from "original", you'll only get confused when you switch to "real" mode. For the same reason adjusting the building "ratio" might be a bad idea. One notable exception - I would actually remove towers from such game mode, this would actually encourage making an army instead of spending 20mins to make towers and this will actually reduce game time in general (and probably pt ?).

I was thinking about speeding up the game by adjusting the maps, increasing the starting raw resources might work but it's not ideal, players might just screw the economy completely and just make units (and we want them to have eco) so if we choose to do that then perhaps limit it so some small adjustments (+20 wood/stone, +10 food, +10 gold ?). It's not really to speed the things up but to give larger margin for error.
Making some actual new maps, where resources are easier to get (i.e. closer) and with some better positions to defend (if we remove towers), so a small amount of large "chokes" (more than one-two might be to hard to defend, too small choke will encourage camping while too big might make some strategies too effective, i.e. militia rush).

Other than that.. perhaps reduce amount of resources required to build (-1 wood/stone ?, of course this way we shouldn't give more resources at start, maybe even reduce it), while this changes the gameplay (paragraph one..) I think it's not that bad. Perhaps speed up building process itself (10 per tick instead of 5 ?, same for roads, fields). Speeding up the production process might also work but I don't think it's possible to do, afaik right now it work like this - "worker" is doing something, then rest for a while and cycle repeats, we shouldn't speed up first part (paragraph one again..), we might cut some time from second phase across the board but do we have enough margin for that ? (we can't change it individually because this would change the ratios).

*edit*
Few things like number of "ticks" required to build and maybe reducing the "rest" time should be pretty easy to do, so we might even test it fairly easy to see how it works in practise.
I'm only little concerned about this idea in general, the new mode might actually end up too popular and some whiners from TS might as well start complaining soon enough requesting its removal

*edit 2*
On a seconds thought, if we decide to speed up building process it should affect only building construction, messing with roads/fields could affect the balance too much (number of serfs/labourers).

Building maps: PT slider is needed, without it the game heads to militia+pikemen mass.
Changing production chains or working rates is a mistake... because kills the "traditional KaM spirit".

Speed modificator: It's only interesting for battles. Using ONLY troops at high speed is viable and fun/entertaining.

My proposal is short -> PT slider only for building maps, and Speed slider only for battle maps.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

How to make 60 PT buildings games x1 a bit faster?
Reduce PT, then action time will start sooner. Bad player = bad performance. Incurable.

Honestly reducing PT is the only way, what other things can you think of?
Hear yourself.... I guess nothing really natural/convenient for the game.

This one fits more to the other topic I guess. 60PT is a nice compromise since it gives players on a good enough level, a chance to have enough army to at least not feel like crap after PT. But still, Thanatos-style gameplay (35PT, x2 speed) feels too short and not as fun as normal building game. I don't know. That's the problem, I want someone to share his great idea - I'm sure it's possible to make a good gamemode which would keep KaM spirit yet would be much shorter.

OKay, now i understand what is Thanatos style.
XD

We 've played some together in this mode. Personally i dont like it.
Why not?
-The most maps have lots of food in the storehouse for this game mode.
-Lots of food--->lot trading...> then the market could be again stronger then a normal way....
-Games without focusing foods...
-no leather units in the PT?
-only milities, pikes and xbows? Less swordman???
-after35mins how many towers possible around a small city?

and Why?
-possible it has some fun asspects also.
-It is good for those players whose have less time.
-if likes milities only
-or then if you ve seen xbows last time in the goldageXD

GG!

It's beginning to bother me just a little bit by now that people want to rush a game like KaM. Just accept that this is a very, very slow game to play. My opinion is that if you don't have the time to play a ''normal'' KaM game online please play one of the other +1.000.000 games out there. With that being said and going back to topic I think this is the best solution to reduce gametime sofar:
Can't really think of better solutions to speed up the game atm.

I don't think it is, so I won't even bother. Meanwhile I agree 100% with the first part of To's post.

I also agree with To, only other thing I could think of is to start with the school already (and perhaps those 4 extra roads already build before the school. Saves 4 minutes or so, for what it's worth.

In a game recently I player just placed about 20 tile of road at the beginning, so it's not suprising that he gets bored with x1. This is the reason for people playing with high speed imo, it can be solved with starting school and more labourers. Maybe townhall could also help as a game mode (shouldn't be allowed for all maps), so fast army is possible with lower pt. And only 1 townhall could be built.

I don't think that few labourers more would matter at all, same for school (what good will 5min do in 80min pt game ?), not to mention I personally hate maps on which you start with more than storehouse. Anyway, you said it yourself, such players would make a lot of "plans" and then get bored (I did the same when I played single many years ago..), so if we actually speed up the building process itself that might help.

I think this is very true. Only the first 5/10 minutes of a x1 game is very slow. That is because you don't have a school yet for more serves/labourers to speed up things. Giving players a school from the start will solve the entire problem

If you want a faster map make a map that starts whit a filled inn and school, more builders and slaves and a stonemaison + same resourses at start. then use speed x1 and 40-55pt.may be speed x1,5 but low speed results in way better peformance and experimence and less lags.

That´s why the slider was implemented, because a few new players didn´t accept the gameplay itselves. I don´t get it also, like you would take a Need For Speed game and making all cars same fast, because for new players the beginner cars are too slow

So I agree with To´s post also, some ideas like taking out towers or sth similar belongs to the "fantasy section" like implement swordfishes and co. One player will have one milita more and the other play has no defence, seriously. The only thing I thought some months ago(before the game speed came even out) was, to make on most maps really towers from the beginning on, that belongs more to "how to remove Peacetime" but this way it would MAYBE be possible to speed the game up a little bit. However that what To said about KaM is just the only correct answer, in my eyes...




About adding school from the beginning on I will just post a nice quote from a known KaM Player from TS: -Anonym
I know it´s a bit strict, but we are going into this direction really with a prebuild school or prebuild roads(Townhall is maybe an option, but hard to balance etc.)...

The "speedup" feature was requested by a lot of players, at that time no one was against it. Besides that it's just an option, some players want to play 3x and suck at it, while other enjoy vanilla 1x, deal with it.
There are maps where towers are disabled (for some locations or in general), so your "fantasy" is already implemented, also I already mentioned before that we would probably need some new maps which are easier to defend so the early rush would not screw you over.

Other than that this topic is meant to propose ideas about game mode which would allow build faster eco, which would in turn would allow to reduce slider "length", so how about we actually do so and kept this discussion/flame war in the other topic.

Funny... I didn't read that before thinking about my idea.

Ok, I'm quite sure that my next idea is something that casuals would love. Let me present you...
THE PREBUILD MODE
You get an amount of wood and stone (displayed by overlay text). You can place buildings on the map, just like when you make a prebuild in the builtin map editor. Each time you place a building, you "lose" some virtual resources that were given to you at the start (see the overlay). You have a limit of buildings that you can make (I know that after the speed slider fiasco it's not a good idea to introduce a new one, but I think the amount of buildings would work best with a slider...), possibly a limit for some types of buildings (woodcutters?) if needed. After the timer (5 minutes?) stops, you can't place buildings anymore, and the normal gameplay starts, with peacetime reduced to 20-30min. Whatever army you'll manage to produce, you'll get after PT.

Keep in mind: this mode is purely directed at casuals. But I think it's way less brainless than x3 speed, while keeping the skill factor needed - you have to plan your city well to get a good amount of soldiers later on.