War Renewal Idea

edited October 2013 in Idea Box
So since the current war system has been disabled for some time (Also was terribad), and I know that it makes city vs city conflict localized to either flinging yourself at guards or lessers, with no real...reward to it, a working war system would be rather nice.

Pack Challenges have two avenues, PvP or PvE, where kills against the opposing pack count towards points in PvP, and number of kills in PvE is your points. Though they aren't used -often-, the idea behind it isn't terrible and a combination of the two would actually bring in more traditional non-coms involved.

Each party involved in the war would have certain requisites:

War Coffers
-
This is a fund that can be donated into, but not withdrawn from. This goes towards 'reparations', either to pay to repair damaged components of the city from the battle, pay soldiers, or in the event of losing the war, to pay out a tithe to the conquering city (10%-15%).  In order for war to be initiated by a city, they must have full coffers (Max at 300,000 gold, and 5,000 of each commodity)

Protected/Controlled Mob Areas
 
- Each city would be assigned 2 villages (or 3 if there's enough surrounding) that would have certain number of soldiers positioned there, each city would have X number of soldiers that can be reinforced, and a village can be 'conquered' once that number is severely depleted. Once the war is initiated, those troops will be activated and will automatically aggro against enemy militia and react similar to city guards within that village space. Kills by non-enemy militia would not detract from the reinforcement pool. (Meaning no jump in when I feel like it combatants, or another city not involved 'helping')

Siege Wars
- In order to fully 'conquer' the city proper, the outlying villages must first be conquered, this effectively cuts off the 'supply lines' of food, and commodities to the city, forcing their soldiers to hole up, eat their boots and various wandering vermin. Once a city has conquered the pre-requisite villages, siege wars would ensue, each city would have their own unique siege weapons.

Enorian:
Catapults - Can hurl large boulders into the city, when aimed at certain 'quadrants' has the chance to take out X number of soldiers in a large space, very slow and can only be fired once every other day.
Spinesreach:
Trebuchets:
Quick firing slings - Can be fired once a day to take out targets, does less damage than catapults.
Duiran:
Ballistas
Massive well..giant crossbow things - Can be fired twice a day, but can eliminates fewer targets, BUT can affect two quadrants at the same time (front and back) as it fires in a straight line.
Bloodloch:
Mangonel:
Trebuchet of sorts that hurls a large spread of smaller rocks (shotgun-style) at the aimed quadrant. Can be fired once a day if aimed at one quadrant, or every other day if in full 'spread' which distributes the attack across 3 quadrants, for significantly less damage.

Each city would have 4 Quadrants (quad=four), to be reinforced with X number of soldiers. Prior to the Siege Wars initiating, Militia leaders can position the number of soldiers in each quadrant however they wish, similar to battleship.
If the attacking Siege weapons strike a hit, they'll be notified how many kills they received by:
'The harsh screams of what sounds like X soldiers is abruptly cut short by the slam of your large projectile.'

In this way the attacking city could still strategize on where to aim, and know when to move on, because each city can only have X total soldiers in their city. Once no more cries are heard in Quadrant 1, move on to Quadrant 2 and so forth. If the defending city never set-up their quadrants by the time Siege wars are initiated, then a default configuration will be set.

Final Push:
Once the Quadrants have been eliminated, the attacking city will initiate the BATTERING RAM to break into the city proper. Once 5 successful batters have been performed (Requires 4 people, and can only be done once every 15 minutes) then the city is lost, and the invading forces lay claim to their rewards. (Big game-wide message of the invading city rushing in to plant their flag)

Conquering vs Defending:
 Just as in the Middle Ages and sieges then, the attacking city can still lose, if the Siege is not completed fast enough, or enough failed attacks compound with this, they'll lose morale, and soldiers will leave the attacking party. In this way the defending city still has a chance, not to mention that they don't have to idly sit by, the players themselves can still push the fight against the other city in the same way, attacking their villages and moving onto the Siege stage.
One way or the other someone -will- be Conquered unless an agreed upon cease-fire is declared by the ruling members of each city.

The Defenders will:
Have to pay reparations to the conquering city, as well as to pay for rebuilding their own city and their outlying villages.
Forcibly unenemy all members of the winning city for a period of 10 years. Another war cannot be initiated by that attacking city against this one for another 30 years.

The Conquerors will:
No longer be able to hunt down/harass the militia members of the conquered city (war's over), and will pay any reparations they need to repair their city and protected villages. (The tithe can be used towards this). They will not be able to initiate another war against the conquered city for 30 years, and not be able to declare war against any OTHER city for another 15. Their soldiers and villagers need time to rebuild and get back to their lives.**
** However if a war is initiated against -them-, they can most certainly defend and move on from there.

The process in a nutshell

1) Enorian declares war on Bloodloch, because Ellenia said Dato was a smelly butt face.
2) Troops are distributed to their villages (requires 1 Aetolian Month of preparation, no 'surprise wars' in the middle of the night for unfair advantage)
3) The PvP portion begins, and militia auras are given to indicate their involvement (Blue Aura) 'An aura of resolute pride surrounds Saybre'
4) The PvE portion begins, and militias can defend their own villages against attack, or attack the other city's villages to gain the same advantage.
5) To prevent 'war is over in 5 minutes' Each village would have say 25 troops at one time, with a reinforcement level of 150, once a troop is killed, they'll be reinforced within 1 Aetolian day.
6) Protected villages are eliminated, or enough enemy militia members have been killed that morale has depleted the reinforcement level of the villages. (Mazzion has been killed 45 times, so 80 troops go 'screw this, they took out the Ankyrean!') Higher ranking Militia members are worth more, etc.
7) Siege War is initiated against Bloodloch by Enorian, Bloodloch continues fighting against Enorian's villages.
8) Enorian takes out Quadrants 1 & 3 of Bloodloch (the boulders bring down the cavern), Bloodloch finally manages to get to Siege Level.
9) Enorian finishes off Quadrants 2 & 4 and Initiates the BATTERING RAM
10) Enorian successfully breaks through, while Bloodloch just managed to eliminate Enorian Quadrants 2 & 3.
11) Enorian invades the city and wins the war, Bloodloch stands down.
12) Bloodloch pays reparation tithe to Enorian, unenemies their militia members for 10 years, and the war is over.
13) Enorian goes back home with winning goodies and fixes up their losses.


This is just a cursory idea, and the example cities were just to make a clear cut point of how it would work. This would be able to allow normal non-comms to contribute in the militia by running the siege weapons (they can just run if enemy soldiers show up), or attack the villages, etc. It would actually entice some real city vs city conflict, that lessers just scream 'blugh, they bring 10 people, what's the point'. Since high-ranking militia members would be worth more (more kills, successful siege usage = promotion), the higher ranked fighters may be less apt to go in by themselves and get destroyed.

Feedback, angry 'oh nobody got time for that' and whatever else is of course appreciated. The siege weapon ideas are just to give some flavor. (Duiran's ballista could still pierce into Loch's cavern ceiling to make stuff fall down and kill)


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JensenStathan

Comments

  • JensenJensen Corruption's Butcher
    I like it but I feel the catapult and trebuchet descriptions should be switched
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  • MoireanMoirean Chairmander Portland
    Personally, the RTS element of warfare was part of what made it appealing. This is an entirely different conflict mechanic. I don't dislike it, but I wouldn't call it the war system, and I wouldn't want this in place of a tweaked and adjusted war system.

    TBH, I don't know why the war system was just ripped out. You only need a few changes to make it more engaging and less tiring/griefy; it's not THAT far off from being a great system.
    Angwe
  • SeirSeir Seein' All the Things Getting high off your emotion
    The war system was removed because the wars would've constantly gone on once the surrender period was lifted. As a result, the organization with the most gold and credits (Bloodloch) would've eventually been victorious as a result of a war of attrition in running everyone else out of gold. Wars also ultimately came down to who rushed troops months before the other side. One war in particular between Duiran and Bloodloch demonstrated that it didn't matter how much you took out in troops if the other side managed to raise a bunch of them a few months before you figured out they were doing as much. Duiran actually took out a lot more troops than Loch during that war even though all of the fighting against us was at range and made it impossible to march or field a group in response. We still lost ultimately because of how strong ranged combat was and because Loch had a few months of advantage in terms of troops.

    Also, it was removed because it was an exhausting ordeal for all involved. War was a 24/7 commitment and it basically meant that anyone and everyone that was military was attacked (active roster or not were attacked, both sides were guilty of this). This, in turn, lead to a huge amount of the population logging off until the war was over. 

    In the end, I did enjoy the war system but it had glaring flaws that made it utter torture for those involved (and even those who weren't). If war comes back in some form, I'd say it'd have to address those flaws before it could be released again. Personally, I can't think of many ways those flaws could be addressed, so it'd likely have to be a completely new system.
  • ArekaAreka Drifting in a sea of wenches' bosoms
    That, and it was difficult for non-coms to help, and there was a lot of guilt-tripping about not jumping into PK (I've experienced this on both sides of the game when it comes to war), or noobs, especially noobs without someone to teach them about troops and be babysat/people going out of their way to incorporate noobs into things. 
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    Seir
  • SeirSeir Seein' All the Things Getting high off your emotion
    I'd like to add something to this and a suggestion to any future war system: Wars should be fought over strategic objectives and not be an "all-or-nothing" system where the winner gains all of the opponent's territory. There should be a measure of strategic planning by the organizations that involves troop composition, areas of control, etc. while the tactical planning comes down to the individual player. Non-combatants should be involved in the form of logistics and supply, allowing them to assist their faction without being targeted by the opposing military.
  • JensenJensen Corruption's Butcher
    Seir said:

    I'd like to add something to this and a suggestion to any future war system: Wars should be fought over strategic objectives and not be an "all-or-nothing" system where the winner gains all of the opponent's territory. There should be a measure of strategic planning by the organizations that involves troop composition, areas of control, etc. while the tactical planning comes down to the individual player. Non-combatants should be involved in the form of logistics and supply, allowing them to assist their faction without being targeted by the opposing military.

    Sounds like company of heros

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  • MoireanMoirean Chairmander Portland
    Those are the issues I am talking about, yes. They could be addressed by changing the existing system, though. Some examples: 

    - Make war an ongoing thing with punctuated skirmishes (eg fight to take over control of a village/area), instead of all or nothing. You eliminate the 24/7 exhaustion by having a system where players prepare for an engagement that simply takes a day or two and also ensure that troop build rushing doesn't become such a big deal. It also means that a loss isn't crippling - you lose a village, battle is over, and stuff isn't drawn out until the eventual conquest a week later. You could put a CD on how often villages can be attacked and/or on how often a city can attempt a village capture. Think similar to revolts in Lusternia. There is also a self-limiter in that cities really won't plan insane campaigns that take RL weeks if you give an option for smaller, concrete wins/losses. It becomes a smaller-scale series of fights that can happen more often.

    - Make village engagements last for like 1-3 RL days. This means you can't win wars by just playing troop capture during the night, which is like 75% of the tactics that won me wars. An example mechanic could be like you have to blanket an area in troops for x hours. Keep the chain of territory concept, but let MULTIPLE rooms get captured in one go, and make that go take significantly longer - with that single change, you've made it more about defending an area instead of ninja capping or camping troops for hours, while still leaving tactical options in how you set up legions at the entrance to the area you are capturing. It also ensures that players have lots of time - a RL day or 3 - to respond to the threat, instead of losing half your territory because you had to go to work.

    - Let cities have standing armies, and factor their maintenance into the economy system (including lowering overall costs) - if the system is re-designed from the ground up for cities to have a standing army, instead of kinda shoe-horning in cost changes like we had happen, it'd be a lot smoother. It'd also mean that losing a chunk of troops wouldn't be debilitating and would only set you back a village.

    - Toss in some sort of quest/gathering/etc mechanic to let non-comms increase potential and/or actual troop numbers and perhaps include retirement (eg a troop only stays recruited for x number of RL weeks). This makes rushing less of a big deal since there is work tied to troop generation, gives those who don't fight a way to get involved, and gives a more natural way to handle troop sizes, instead of just mechanics. The fluid army sizes means that a city with active noncomms could push a size advantage over one with just heavy PKers - it also would give citizens a "background" activity to do, similar to gathering minors. An example thing along these lines would be like, go to villages or wander your city and find NPCs to enlist. Lead them back to barracks. That's really basic and boring and easy to automate, so a more creative twist would obviously be better, but I'm just illustrating an example.

    - Give a small bit more RTS rock-paper-scissors to troop battles. There were ideas tossed around about this before. I'd argue against doing anything excessively complex, like different troop types or equipment or etc, and keep it simple and elegant, with a few easy to grasp modifiers: troops move at different speeds over different terrains and based on their size, troops can be ordered into defensive or offensive formation, troops have a much weaker ranged attack. With those few changes, you now have a setup where you can quick-march small units and merge them for a big strike (ideally after clearing out the defenders via PK) OR you can pepper enemy troops from range, necessitating a switch in formation and a chase from blocker legions - tada, more tactics. Do you attack with small unit sizes for a quick escape/kiting? Do you rely on a big unit for a heavy hit? It also encourages people to use terrains to enhance battle layouts, picking rooms for battles carefully, etc. These are just basic examples; my point is that small changes can give a better, more rounded experience, with room for tactics alongside PK. 

    - Maybe consider some sort of protection for marchers that the troops can give. Don't make it absolute, and have there be a cost to using it and ways to get around it, but give people a way to stymie a sheer overload of PKers group-ganking to stop marching.
    Angwe
  • Some good points raised (though completely ignoring any feedback on what I put)

    The marching troops bit was easily the most annoying and awful thing that I hated about wars, it was just..annoying awful, took so much work and then you still end up losing and it's just like..'blah' It requires too much to be invested so that when/if you lose, you feel like utter trash. While in real combat/war that's what happens, it takes away a lot of the incentive and fun from the game. The war system shouldn't be about griefing, or nearly self-griefing in this manner.

    As for the gathering part..quests would be cool, short sweet easy to the point. Anything beyond that, you'll have very few people involved. There's a lot of people that just don't bother with minors because it's so tedious, and still has that option of getting ganked, so it's hard to keep people involved to do it. If it was something like 'Dig up some ore, smelt it into bars, hand it to city blacksmith' Blacksmith then makes weapons to supply the troops, that'd be cool, easy, keep people contributing.

    I think an effective war system would be won where they're obviously something to be -gained- by winning (gold/comms, pride), but the losing side doesn't feel like they want to quit the game cause it was just crap because they worked their butts off and lost. Nobody likes to lose, there's no way to change that, in a war somebody has to, but the way that the loss is given makes a profound difference.

    That's what I'm looking for.
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  • MoireanMoirean Chairmander Portland
    Well, regarding your idea, I don't think it addresses the core issue of wars being an all-or-nothing, extended engagement. The fun of war, imho, should be in the tactics, the political scheming and in a few battles. Any system that basically has open PK or where you have to be "on alert" for an extended period gets really tiring.

    I like the idea of focusing it around the villages. The mechanics I'm having trouble envisioning, but I'm more a "learn by doing" type of person. I don't like the super long CDs, and I think direct assaults into the cities get really messy.

    A good war system, if designed well, could really augment the city system - a well-planned one would have an ongoing effect on the city like resource intakes (gives people an in-built reason for warring), it would have room for political machinations, and it would ideally give citizens something to do when they are bored and want to contribute to the city, instead of the current system of just joining in when a war is actively going on. I think in that regard your proposed system doesn't really offer much in the way of long-term effects on a city, and it's mostly just a (although cool sounding) conflict mechanic. There should be a stronger tie-in to the city on a long-term basis, imho.
    Haven
  • AngweAngwe I'm the dog that ate yr birthday cake Bedford, VA
    I have to agree, the actual fighting part of wars doesn't interest me much, if at all. Politics, tactics, subtlety. These are things that are missing from Aet. We already have a group PK minigame.
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  • There are examples of when the war system we had, was used like that. The first ever war (or was it the first of the second version of the war sys, I forget) was purely over the steel comms in th Great Rock, and nothing else. There was a clash between Duiran/Bloodloch that lasted about 2 rl days and was fought entirely on the other side of the Vashnars (Aalen+Dun).

    Those were loads of fun and I think supports the opinions above: that if a future system could remove that ongoing 24/7 aspect, reducing it to short, strategic and dramatic encounters, then we'll be onto a winner.
    Hadoryu
  • ArekaAreka Drifting in a sea of wenches' bosoms
    In regards to Saybre's idea - I like the thought of utilizing villages as key points (and tying the war system back to the -world- rather than just the primary 'bases', though rather than simply assigning them, they could be a point of contention within themselves (battle tempered by factionnns sweet sweet factions, give some purpose to RP and alleigances and the strength of bonds affecting war ability). This could also provide noncoms more things to do (negotiating, supplies, medic camps for injured soldiers, lots of neat things). 

    Though, I want to say that the time frames would need to be re-assessed, since 30 years = 1 RL year. 
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  • Ah yes factions. Sweet sweet factions. That might very well make a change to how to see about rolling with a new war system.
    I was just arbitrarily throwing out numbers for that, didn't really math it out. 30 years is a bit much, yeah. Just didn't want to have a war every week and a half is what I was really going for.
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  • Moirean said:
    Well, regarding your idea, I don't think it addresses the core issue of wars being an all-or-nothing, extended engagement. The fun of war, imho, should be in the tactics, the political scheming and in a few battles. Any system that basically has open PK or where you have to be "on alert" for an extended period gets really tiring.

    I like the idea of focusing it around the villages. The mechanics I'm having trouble envisioning, but I'm more a "learn by doing" type of person. I don't like the super long CDs, and I think direct assaults into the cities get really messy.

    A good war system, if designed well, could really augment the city system - a well-planned one would have an ongoing effect on the city like resource intakes (gives people an in-built reason for warring), it would have room for political machinations, and it would ideally give citizens something to do when they are bored and want to contribute to the city, instead of the current system of just joining in when a war is actively going on. I think in that regard your proposed system doesn't really offer much in the way of long-term effects on a city, and it's mostly just a (although cool sounding) conflict mechanic. There should be a stronger tie-in to the city on a long-term basis, imho.
    I think you need to bring in more than cities to get the right kind of politics going. It might be that I'm old school, but to some extent I miss the influence guilds used to have on cities. 7ish years ago, the guilds were something that the cities really didn't like to mess with too much, so it made for a much more interesting atmosphere within the cities. If guilds could be put on some kind of system to make them want to fight  (e.g. Ylem, Essence, Commodities, gold, bonus skills, whatever) then they'd have a reason to participate. Personally, I've always seen guilds as the source of troops for the cities, so it makes sense that with some kind of hybrid city/guild level mechanics, with wins and losses for both sides (and even, potentially, losses and gains for factions within a city) it could be come quite interesting. 

    Pulling orders in too might help to mix things up.
    MoireanSaybre
  • That's a fair point. I remember plenty of RP where a guild was pressuring their city to act/react in certain ways.
    I also remember when guild loyalty was #1, with orders only sometimes trumping guild. Sometimes.

    The war system is probably partly responsible for that shift toward city being the most important thing, though I sort of wonder if multiclassing also changes things up. In theory it should allow a guild to be full of people that thing similarly and actually want to be there, but I don't know if that is how it is in practice. Perhaps with it not being important for giving you skills, the perceived importance of guilds is lower across the board?
  • MoireanMoirean Chairmander Portland
    edited October 2013
    Well, there have also been limits put on the power the guilds used to have. Stuff like concoctions and venoms aren't jealously guarded skills anymore (complete with all the rarrr rogues used to get), and things like the old Intra-Spirean alliance probably wouldn't fly these days.

    In theory multiclass should allow guilds to form STRONGER identities. For example, Carnifex is all about the military stuff and strength, and I've wiped any sort of learning requirements from advancement, so someone can be a Carni without a single lesson learned in Carni skills - it's about the RP of being a dark knight. However, we are VERY fortunate to have the Shadow Keep up on its own out in the mountains to really help drive home this identity. 

    For the most part, guilds don't have much tangible power or unique ways to claim "This is US" - the faction system and the addition of guild quests sound like they will help a lot with that, so in time, we might see more guild-focused identity emerging. I know I've definitely tried to emphasize the role of each guild with changes I've made in Spinesreach, but for the most part the city loyalty does seem to be a much higher priority among my citizens from what I see. I'm not sure how I feel about that.
  • I agree with bouth @irruel and @moirean - power limitations were definitely put in place, and the removal of a guild being able to hold a class hostage are gone. Across the board, that's a good thing, especially the latter. 

    That said, more power for guilds (or orders) within the city and war systems seems like it could increase a guild's visibility and influence without preventing players from getting the class they want, or having ridiculous situations like the Syssin.



  • Moirean said:
    For the most part, guilds don't have much tangible power or unique ways to claim "This is US"
    I had to read this several times as I thought you were equating to guilds becoming more and more like the USA. There is only one recourse with this in mind: their guild motto must become "these colors don't run".
    Ivoln
  • JensenJensen Corruption's Butcher
    Haern said:
    Moirean said:
    For the most part, guilds don't have much tangible power or unique ways to claim "This is US"
    I had to read this several times as I thought you were equating to guilds becoming more and more like the USA. There is only one recourse with this in mind: their guild motto must become "these colors don't run".

    I thought the motto would be "moar baconators"

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  • Baconators: the carrot of the Carnifex.
    IvolnAarbrok
  • Haern said:
    Baconators: the carrot of the Carnifex.
    What you need to do is get a double down from KFC and split open a quad stacker from BK with heavy stacker sauce, stick the double down inside the quad stacker. God damn I could have sex with that sandwich. Just think of all that cheese and sauce and bacon and beef and chicken. It goes beyond finger licking. You're eating the wrapper. Then you eat your hands because the grease leaked out. You just become a leviathan from Supernatural, grease everywhere gotta eat it all. The flavor is GODLIKE. Induring that's how I gained 30 pounds in 5 months >.>. 
    HavenIvoln
  • AngweAngwe I'm the dog that ate yr birthday cake Bedford, VA
    Ever hear of a McGangbang?
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    Ivoln
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