No peacetime, no militia rush!

[Shadaoe]

And the Heroes series are another story, that's like nothing related to KaM, except for the fact that it is also an RTS game.

More like a turn based strategy game rather than a real time one
But you're right you can't compare KaM to Heroes 3, because in heroes 3 everyone has starting troops, and you can't exactly "rush" the enemy, because he usually puts soldiers in defence, and it's harder to siege than to defend.
(look, a game where it's harder to siege than do defend, I wonder why nobody complained about that back in the days of HoM&M 3, because currently people want to attack and win but that's another debate)

In Starcraft 2, everything is built very fast, so you can quite easily fight a rush back if you have a unit-creating building.
In SC2, you need only two resources for everything, mineral and gas which are directly added to a global pool. It's totally different from KaM where you have to do the unit equipements, do a recruit, and wait for a serf to bring all of that together. It's slow, and I don't think we can invent solutions directly from that game, because they aren't supposed to work the same way.

I'll try to think of a solution from a more slow-paced game that I played :
Anno 1404 : (multiplayer games are even longer in anno 1404 thank in KaM, and I played quite a lot, so here are my observations).
.in this game, everything is slow, quite like in KaM, except the creation of buildings which is done instantly
.in this game everything needs different resources, like in KaM, and these resources need to be brought up to storehouses (which have a global pool per island) via roads, like in KaM. In this game, it's long before you get any troops, like in KaM.
.in this game, there are woodcutters, stonemines, gold mines etc, and although there are differences in the use of these resources, I think we can certainly do a link between these two gameplays.
.in this game, citizens eat, like in KaM, and you lose population if you don't feed people correctly
.in this game, when an enemy destroys your economy, you have a hard time rebuilding it, like in KaM
I'm done here for the arguments showing that Anno 1404 is a good test subject to think of KaM gameplay.
The warfare in anno 1404 is quite oriented on naval battles obviously, but let's take the example of land battles :
if a huge army comes on your island, there is an area around each army settlement which prevents you from building, but outside this area, you can still build instantly. So if you have the resources needed, you can build towers arund the enemy, and here starts the siege part of the game, the enemy destroys your tower and tries to make his safe zone (preventing you from buiding) bigger. Meanwhile, the defender tries to get more army recruited to have a chance to win.
So, like in KaM, if a bigger army attacks, you enter "siege mode", and like in KaM, you can't build towers near an enemy troop otherwise it gets killed. But if you see an enemy starting to siege your towers, you can build more behind, and we cancertainly think of an analogy between those two gameplays, because in KaM the attacker tries to extand his control zone on your city, while you try to buy time to get more troops.

So I said many things that are "like in KaM", there is only one thing that isn't like KaM. And it's a fastly built defence building.
So imagine a "rush" in anno 1404 (yes rush is quite slow in this game, but you can still rush.), the enemy is on your island, you don't have troops yet, what to do ? You build towers, try to buy time, and then you have a chance to survive.

The main point being :
in KaM, ANY way of recruiting troops is too slow if an enemy is inside your city an you don't have towers. Being able to build a low-resistant simili-tower with serfs bringing resources directly to it without the need of a road and quite fast to build seems like an idea to try, because if you can slow the enemy, you have much more chance to recruit enough troops.
It should not cost much but still if you spam it you'll slow your economy so you'll have to place them well.

The problems being :
-a new building, sprites, people not being used to build it
-transposing an idea to mimic the gameplay of another game might be a bad idea
-I surely have flaws in my reasoning
-I like anno 1404 too much
-I didn't take naval battles into account, because in Anno 1404 if you destroy a trade boat on an important road, you can kind of starve the enemy and do huge damages to his economy
-MIGHT not be that useful on all the maps, depending on openness
-in this game it's quite hard to siege too, harder than to defend anyway. (no link but I wanted to point out, who knows why)

Sorry for the reading.

[Krom]

@Dicso: it makes no sense to me. There are exactly the same problems. When you see approaching militia you are dead - there's no time to build TownHall (which is opened after gold smeltery) and hire anyone.

good step towards diversifying and rush/anti rush strategies because now all you actually have is either also militiarush or towers

Diversification means added variety. It does not solves the problem of rush / norush at all.

@Shadaoe: That is a good example, but I'm afraid it does not fits with KaM. Towers are not instantly built and they need a connecting road, as well stones to throw. Overall KaM is a turtle compared to Anno. However Anno falls into #1 category of games where player has access to cheap defensive towers.

Heroes 3 is a valid example because if you abstract TBS part of it, it deals with the same thing - rushing enemy. And when you look at it - player can hide behind the walls that grant him defense and small artillery support. Which is on par with games where servants can hide in houses and shoot arrows back. However Heroes have another very effective anti-rush measure - neutral monsters guarding almost all passages. So player needs to accumulate enough army before he can fight through and attack another player.

[Shadaoe]

@Shadaoe: That is a good example, but I'm afraid it does not fits with KaM. Towers are not instantly built and they need a connecting road, as well stones to throw. Overall KaM is a turtle compared to Anno. However Anno falls into #1 category of games where player has access to cheap defensive towers.

Well I was talking about a new tower building with a new approach, but you're right the games are different, that's why it's hard to find a good idea

[Bence791]

However Heroes have another very effective anti-rush measure - neutral monsters guarding almost all passages. So player needs to accumulate enough army before he can fight through and attack another player.

Yeah, but that won't work in KaM (maybe yes...) because you can't "pile" monsters. And luring them to towers would be too easy imo. Rushing is never possible in Heroes, of course. For example on some maps in Heroes 5, tier 6 monsters block the way (tier 7 is the maximum, telling the people who don't know the game) to others. They don't withstand a hard attack, because they are not so many, but it actually gives 2-4 weeks to all players to prepare (you can build once a day, and you get the monsters growth once every Monday). And that's actually enough. Not to mention that the attacker loses soldiers while battleing. I'd be curious about this solution in KaM, but I think it won't work.

[Esthlos]

In KaM you can only rush with militia because the others need longer production chains. That's why I think implementing TPR units for some kind of low cost (For example 1 lance for a rebel and 1 bow for a rogue, even though this seems strange for the rogue). This way you create some options in the rushes, if you see someone making for example rebels you can make militia or a few rogues. I have no clear ideas yet on how it will turn out or how it can be implemented, but I do think that we can't get no pt games working with this low amount of units.

While I do like this idea, I also agree with Krom in saying it wouldn't really give players a chance to fight back.

(By the way, I forgot to mention the Stronghold series, which is very similar to KaM; in those games, you get the Lord, a powerful melee warrior that can easily dispatch a few enemies but can't walk away from your fortress)

I think we need something that
-is powerful early game but falls off later
-can actually defend the base (i.e. it's fast to build and cheap, or it's a unique powerful unit given to all players from start)
-is not viable for offensive use (i.e. in the Age of Wonders series you can attack with your mage/hero at start, but then you can lose him in the battle - and with him, the game) or simply cannot be used offensively (i.e. neutral monsters in Heroes of Might and Magic).

Last but not least, it should fit KaM.

Why does the Tower not satisfy these needs?
-it's weak early and way more useful later (it can miss, and with a good micro you can make it miss every stone and then send the attacking unit at its door, to prevent restocking; early on in the game it is more probable you can micro than in the mid/late game, where the presence of big armies makes this kind of micromanagement very hard, if not impossible).
-it can't actually defend the base by itself (it's not cheap and needs to be planned way before the attack occurs; in addition, if you place it at choke points single enemy units can just walk past it with a fair chance -given they get some micromanaging- they'll survive due to the tower missing), and if you build it in your base it still will take space, food, a lot of building resources, and still can't really defend your town on its own due to its not-so-great range and, again, to the possibility to make it waste stones).
-at least, it can't really be used offensively.

I still think that "street guards" could fill this role.
Maybe make two types of them: a ranged one, weaker but... well, ranged, and a melee one, tougher but... well, melee.
Maybe they could be trained at a "Guard Post" you need to build beforehand: there you could order the creation of guards like you do in a weapon workshop or in the market: if you do, a serf will walk in the building and permanently become a guard.
Guards would patrol the roads and eat like all citizens.
If you hit a toggle in the post, then every guard will stop patrol and behave like recruits, just sitting in the post and eating sometimes. This would reduce the traffic on your roads but also stop the patrolling.
Hit it again to release them.
Of course you could use this later, turn every serf in a guard hoping they'll defeat the enemy army... but a single melee in front of the door could prevent this (disabling the building, jut like happens to every other building) and, if you manage to turn them anyway, the enemy can just walk away and wait for your town to starve and die (and it will, since you just sacrificed your serfs but still need the same food as before).

In my opinion it would be:
-fast to set up (you only need the post and serfs, and you should have serfs available anyway)
-strong in small towns and versus few enemies (since guards wouldn't really focus or pursue enemies)
-weak in big towns (too much traffic or not enough guards) and weak versus late game armies (if you try to use them, then it's either not effective or kills your own town in the process).
-hard to be used offensively

What do you think?

[The Duke]

In KaM you can only rush with militia because the others need longer production chains. That's why I think implementing TPR units for some kind of low cost (For example 1 lance for a rebel and 1 bow for a rogue, even though this seems strange for the rogue). This way you create some options in the rushes, if you see someone making for example rebels you can make militia or a few rogues. I have no clear ideas yet on how it will turn out or how it can be implemented, but I do think that we can't get no pt games working with this low amount of units.

While I do like this idea, I also agree with Krom in saying it wouldn't really give players a chance to fight back.

(By the way, I forgot to mention the Stronghold series, which is very similar to KaM; in those games, you get the Lord, a powerful melee warrior that can easily dispatch a few enemies but can't walk away from your fortress)

I think we need something that
-is powerful early game but falls off later
-can actually defend the base (i.e. it's fast to build and cheap, or it's a unique powerful unit given to all players from start)
-is not viable for offensive use (i.e. in the Age of Wonders series you can attack with your mage/hero at start, but then you can lose him in the battle - and with him, the game) or simply cannot be used offensively (i.e. neutral monsters in Heroes of Might and Magic).

Last but not least, it should fit KaM.

Why does the Tower not satisfy these needs?
-it's weak early and way more useful later (it can miss, and with a good micro you can make it miss every stone and then send the attacking unit at its door, to prevent restocking; early on in the game it is more probable you can micro than in the mid/late game, where the presence of big armies makes this kind of micromanagement very hard, if not impossible).
-it can't actually defend the base by itself (it's not cheap and needs to be planned way before the attack occurs; in addition, if you place it at choke points single enemy units can just walk past it with a fair chance -given they get some micromanaging- they'll survive due to the tower missing), and if you build it in your base it still will take space, food, a lot of building resources, and still can't really defend your town on its own due to its not-so-great range and, again, to the possibility to make it waste stones).
-at least, it can't really be used offensively.

I still think that "street guards" could fill this role.
Maybe make two types of them: a ranged one, weaker but... well, ranged, and a melee one, tougher but... well, melee.
Maybe they could be trained at a "Guard Post" you need to build beforehand: there you could order the creation of guards like you do in a weapon workshop or in the market: if you do, a serf will walk in the building and permanently become a guard.
Guards would patrol the roads and eat like all citizens.
If you hit a toggle in the post, then every guard will stop patrol and behave like recruits, just sitting in the post and eating sometimes. This would reduce the traffic on your roads but also stop the patrolling.
Hit it again to release them.
Of course you could use this later, turn every serf in a guard hoping they'll defeat the enemy army... but a single melee in front of the door could prevent this (disabling the building, jut like happens to every other building) and, if you manage to turn them anyway, the enemy can just walk away and wait for your town to starve and die (and it will, since you just sacrificed your serfs but still need the same food as before).

In my opinion it would be:
-fast to set up (you only need the post and serfs, and you should have serfs available anyway)
-strong in small towns and versus few enemies (since guards wouldn't really focus or pursue enemies)
-weak in big towns (too much traffic or not enough guards) and weak versus late game armies (if you try to use them, then it's either not effective or kills your own town in the process).
-hard to be used offensively

What do you think?

so we get rebels/militia and/or rogues as townguards. actually that sounds pretty good. maybe the house needs an range so that the guards won't walk to far away in a big city, bigger city's just need more guardhouses. building this house lets you defend yourself against rushes or slow the few that run past defense during a battle. however you need a good roadnetwork and they are just patrolling hoping to run into opponents, you can't control them. so you need pretty many to prevent that they are slaughtered one by one. it only needs the sprites for the building and the coding, because no sprites needed for units.

[Totengraeber]

I still think that "street guards" could fill this role.
Maybe make two types of them: a ranged one, weaker but... well, ranged, and a melee one, tougher but... well, melee.
Maybe they could be trained at a "Guard Post" you need to build beforehand: there you could order the creation of guards like you do in a weapon workshop or in the market: if you do, a serf will walk in the building and permanently become a guard.
Guards would patrol the roads and eat like all citizens.
If you hit a toggle in the post, then every guard will stop patrol and behave like recruits, just sitting in the post and eating sometimes. This would reduce the traffic on your roads but also stop the patrolling.
Hit it again to release them.
Of course you could use this later, turn every serf in a guard hoping they'll defeat the enemy army... but a single melee in front of the door could prevent this (disabling the building, jut like happens to every other building) and, if you manage to turn them anyway, the enemy can just walk away and wait for your town to starve and die (and it will, since you just sacrificed your serfs but still need the same food as before).

I actually like that idea, I think it could work in the world of KaM and make rushes harder.
In addition u could make them a little more intelligent like they are all attacking if a villager is attacked. But there will still be the same problem as with the towers: u will be able to outmicro them, one way or the other. But it would make rushes harder as u can use the guards and ur own militia for defence so ur more likely to outnumber ur enemy by far in ur base. Which might make players take their chances in iron.
So I guess the guards wont stand a chance against iron troops, which will make the iron rush the new strategy. Nevertheless this will give players more time to build towers and train troops themselfs.

[Ben]

You just kicked a dead and old topic, dude

For for the heck of it, I'll have you know that making no PT games isn't really needed, in my opinion. Try playing a 30 minute PT game on 2x speed. You'll essentially get the same results you are seeking. You'll have enough defence to keep you from being too easily rushed, and you'll have combat much earlier

[John_Outward]

1. How about a "DINAMIC ORDER CHANGE" I click on a self and select and option and instalty he will do that LIke Gathering corn from the farm no, the new order is delivery lumber or quarry. Or even select witch house is about to be made first hight priority!

2.I like the idead where the selft and laborites can defend themselves it feels like is stupid that 1 militia in a city killing 100 self lol.
Also why the baker dies with full bread on his table if u dotn have inn?
WHy army dies when they can steal bread from enemy city I mean is stupid to seea ppl die with the bread in front of him just because he has to go to the inn to eat he just has to go....

3. how about when the self dies he drops the goods on the ground and they are not lost forever....


And yes like many ppl said ban militate with result in axefighter or spearman rush .... so what u get more time but I still rush you.

[pawel95]

You just kicked a dead and old topic, dude

Haha Ben you made actualy a nice joke, but you don´t know that you made one

"Totengräber" is "dead digger" in German, so it fits perfectly that he just answered in an old topic

[Ben]

TROLOLOLOL XD

[Esthlos]

-Post moved from http://www.knightsandmerchants.net/foru ... 781#p47781-

One script that would be nice to see implemented for the testing, is to give every citizen a minimum combat value (25% attack as the lance carriers).

Something like this? (Needs testing, notes are not decorative)

  Code:

//Civilians do not have an attack animation, but since the attack speed for melee units is pretty much constant we can simulate theirs by adding a counter-attack-like-mechanic procedure OnUnitAttacked(aUnit: Integer; aAttacker: Integer); begin if States.UnitType(aUnit) < 14 then begin //Civilians only if States.GroupType(States.UnitsGroup(aAttacker)) != 2 then begin //Melee only if States.KaMRandom < 0.13 then Actions.WoundUnit(aAttacker, 1); //Did you ever get around to implementing this? Also, 0.13 instead of 0.25 because there was a bug that caused OnUnitAttacked to proc twice as often as intended for melee encounters... did you perchance fix it? end; end; end;

P.S. 1-[(1-0.25)^(1/2)] = 0.13 ; translation: two 13% events have the same chance of failing twice as one 25% event has of failing once
P.P.S. Alternatively 0.25^3 = 0.016 and 1-[(1-0.016)^(1/2)] = 0.0078, thus 0.78% could be used to simulate 3 successful consecutive counterattacks and so we could use Actions.UnitKill instead of Actions.WoundUnit, which would allow testing this script in the current public Remake release
(Is this even worth it?)
It would be:

  Code:

//Civilians do not have an attack animation, but since the attack speed for melee units is pretty much constant we can simulate theirs by adding a counter-attack-like-mechanic procedure OnUnitAttacked(aUnit: Integer; aAttacker: Integer); begin if States.UnitType(aUnit) < 14 then begin //Civilians only if States.GroupType(States.UnitsGroup(aAttacker)) != 2 then begin //Melee only if States.KaMRandom < 0.0078 then Actions.UnitKill(aAttacker, False); end; end; end;