Hi All,

As promised over the last while, a bunch of updates! These ones are mainly attacking based, though there are netting ones in the pipeline for later.

These will go into all servers as they reset, including FFA tonight (except for the one noted that does not apply to FFA).

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#1) FAST DR TYPE II : ==> This one will NOT go into FFA <==

THIS AFFECTS ONLY SPECIAL ATTACKS (GS,BR,AB)

A new type of Fast DR is being introduced to nerf the 10 or 15 second kills going on out there, while not preventing them entirely.

The defender will now *lose less MILITARY* based on the average time between the last three attacks. If the attacks are *exactly* one second apart, the defender will lose 90% of what they lose now. If they are > 1 second apart, they will lose approximately the same as now.

However, they lose significantly fewer the faster the attacks go. At 2 attacks/second they will lose ~80%; at 3/s ~73%; at 5/s ~60%; 10/s ~35%; 50/s ~0.5%.

The formula for this new type of Fast DR is:

$dr2 = 0.9^(min(300,AVERAGE_TIME_BETWEEN_LAST_THREE_ATTACKS)^-1)

Incidentally, this means that no matter how fast the attacks go, the first 3 attacks will effectively be unreduced.

The intent is mainly to give a sporting chance to people to be able to login or react. But also to require more planning for killrun leaders.

Thanks to Xinhuan for pointing out a logical flaw in development for this one.

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#2) GS / BR Minimum Returns Ramping over Time

We are adjusting the Minimum returns of GS and BR (5 and 10 currently) to ramp to their normal values over the first turns in a reset. THIS WILL BE BASED ON THE TURN RATE FOR THE GIVEN SERVER

The formula for this is:

min(5*MULT,floor(6*MULT*TURNS_ELAPSED/TURN_RATE))

where MULT is 1 for GS 2 for BR, and TURNS_ELAPSED is the turns elapsed since the start of the server, and TURN_RATE is the turn rate in seconds

Express:
Every 40 turns for GS (20 for BR), the minimum will increase by 1, max at 200 turns;

Team:
Every 150 turns for GS (75 for BR), the minimum will increase by 1, max at 750 turns;

Alliance/FFA:
Every 200 turns for GS (100 for BR), the minimum will increase by 1, max at 1000 turns;

Tourney:
Every 250 turns for GS (125 for BR), the minimum will increase by 1, max at 1250 turns;

Primary:
Every 300 turns for GS (150 for BR), the minimum will increase by 1, max at 1500 turns;

This is intended to steer wars to be either later or OOP cripple wars, so people get a chance to play at their first country a while. It will also protect solo servers from any early quick kills.

[TO CLARIFY: The point of this is to discourage OOP wars =/ ]

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#3) Production based on Population

In an effort to make crippling and failed KR's less pointless, we have made production of indies/farms/labs/rigs based on population.

Basically production of each (&TPT) is multiplied by:

min(1,max(0.2,pop/(maxpop*0.8))

This means once you drop below 16% of population, your production will hit a floor of 20%; production does not get affected until you are below 80% of max population. Given cashers are already linearly affected from 100% -> 0%, this is not applied vs Ent/Res.


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#4) GS stealing stuff again!

Because the food destruction component of GS always seemed a bit pointless, GS will now *steal* FOOD, MONEY, TECH, and OIL.

However, the stealing rate is ~0.05% peak rather than ~5% peak now. This is 100x *less* than currently.

Thus, if somebody were to have 100M bushels on hand, over 500 GS attacks they would have approximately 22% of it stolen.

A NW-matched Tyr with 126 turns making 65 attacks could be expected to take 3.8% of FOOD/MONEY/TECH/OIL

This is intended to be a slight buff to GS that focuses more on the long-term aspects of war. Incidentally, it could also nerf stock-destroying suiciders.

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#5) BR CS destruction Nerf

Because of the Population based Production above, BR will receive a slight nerf: BR's will now destroy HALF the amount of CS as before. This will also mean AB's destroy twice as many CS as BR (they were equal in destruction, other than AB having a minimum of 1).

This is intended to make recovery from a BR slightly less difficult than it would be otherwise. We may revisit BR if it proves too powerful now.

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#6) Restart Balancing

Restarts will now receive slightly fewer CS and slightly more Money.

For CS: Instead of TURNS_PLAYED/10, they will receive TURNS_PLAYED*3/40
For Money: Instead of TURNS_PLAYED*3000 they will receive TURNS_PLAYED*4000

This is intended to make the build phase of restarts last a few more turns, and hopefully to encounter fewer cash problems, if unaided.

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You may note some of these changes counteract each other. That is the intent; some changes may have been too powerful on their own, but together we feel these may lead to an interesting balance.


As always, please post your thoughts and concerns below! If we have made any egregious oversights, let us know! As always, these changes are part of a continuing balancing of the game, and are subject to change as deemed necessary.


Regards,

- qzjul & the EE Dev Team!