UN needs his money

[DuPont]

25% of training is 1,000 at the base rate instead of 1,500 - horrors. Of course, you can raise the rate to 6,000 and get the 1,500 within a few turns.

[Beatific]

So it got even worse the UN only gets 25% of the training cost not 1500.   Dang this will likely be the last UN I play.  With RD taking his own hits guess I will have to stick with the vanilla kingdoms.

Amen to that brother.  Except the vanilla kingdoms aren't as fun.  Who the heck is moving my darn cheese?!!!!  I played the UN and the GN in the Titans game and the ONLY thing they had going for them was those discounted rates.  It certainly was not their armies or diplomats or mages (although GN mages got to be ok and hidden ore was really nice at level 2).  

But, I have to say that even with the discounts, I likely would not play them again.  BL kind of ran right through them and he didn't even have Phoenixes yet.  I suppose that, in the hands of an expert, they would both do very well, but I wonder if using the "most wins in Valhalla" argument is the best metric.  Can we say for sure that the most wins is because the kingdom is overpowered or because the expert players play them the most?  I would put forth that an alamaze veteran can take any kingdom and thrash those less experienced (ie very steep and long learning curve and mastering curve).

The risk I fear is that we take the "fun" out of playing the diverse kingdoms of Alamaze for the sake of perceived play balance.  Rick's concept of chivalrous picking of races pretty makes takes care of any minor imbalances.  Be careful or you may risk creating a boring game of chess where all the pieces are all the same.  I can play chess online for a lot less money.......just saying........

On the other hand, I also like the concept of introducing new races and changing things up.  The dilemma becomes how to do so in a fair and balanced manner.  My proposal for consideration by Rick and staff is that you all are moving faster and faster with changes so, don't be afraid to experiment and swiftly counter any gross imbalances.  In this way, you can include diverse (and fun) races that enhance the complexity and diversity of your game system rather than going in the direction of vanilla vanilla and more vanilla.  And, with the model of game 300, don't be afraid to let the community beta trial new ideas.  They will quickly find, and exploit, any such imbalances.  I, for example, do not like the Druids apparently untouchable grove.  I also do not like players getting knocked completely out of the game.  Anyone who wants to play guerilla warfare should be able to.  You may knock me out of the game by turn 5, but if I get the reputation of harassing you until turn 25, perhaps you will be a lot more diplomatic with me next game.  Of course, I have not developed such a personal reputation, but I am seeing such spirit in 300 (fighting to the bitter end) and find it quite admirable.  Still, it is your business......

My two cents for free.......

[Hawk_]

So it got even worse the UN only gets 25% of the training cost not 1500.   Dang this will likely be the last UN I play.  With RD taking his own hits guess I will have to stick with the vanilla kingdoms.

Amen to that brother.  Except the vanilla kingdoms aren't as fun.  Who the heck is moving my darn cheese?!!!!  I played the UN and the GN in the Titans game and the ONLY thing they had going for them was those discounted rates.  It certainly was not their armies or diplomats or mages (although GN mages got to be ok and hidden ore was really nice at level 2).  

But, I have to say that even with the discounts, I likely would not play them again.  BL kind of ran right through them and he didn't even have Phoenixes yet.  I suppose that, in the hands of an expert, they would both do very well, but I wonder if using the "most wins in Valhalla" argument is the best metric.  Can we say for sure that the most wins is because the kingdom is overpowered or because the expert players play them the most?  I would put forth that an alamaze veteran can take any kingdom and thrash those less experienced (ie very steep and long learning curve and mastering curve).

The risk I fear is that we take the "fun" out of playing the diverse kingdoms of Alamaze for the sake of perceived play balance.  Rick's concept of chivalrous picking of races pretty makes takes care of any minor imbalances.  Be careful or you may risk creating a boring game of chess where all the pieces are all the same.  I can play chess online for a lot less money.......just saying........

On the other hand, I also like the concept of introducing new races and changing things up.  The dilemma becomes how to do so in a fair and balanced manner.  My proposal for consideration by Rick and staff is that you all are moving faster and faster with changes so, don't be afraid to experiment and swiftly counter any gross imbalances.  In this way, you can include diverse (and fun) races that enhance the complexity and diversity of your game system rather than going in the direction of vanilla vanilla and more vanilla.  And, with the model of game 300, don't be afraid to let the community beta trial new ideas.  They will quickly find, and exploit, any such imbalances.  I, for example, do not like the Druids apparently untouchable grove.  I also do not like players getting knocked completely out of the game.  Anyone who wants to play guerilla warfare should be able to.  You may knock me out of the game by turn 5, but if I get the reputation of harassing you until turn 25, perhaps you will be a lot more diplomatic with me next game.  Of course, I have not developed such a personal reputation, but I am seeing such spirit in 300 (fighting to the bitter end) and find it quite admirable.  Still, it is your business......

My two cents for free.......

Even when we try to make things balanced a large degree of the game balance just falls back on who attacks who. 

Kingdoms that are left alone in a region become strong while those that face multiple opponents will struggle to survive.  This may have nothing to do a coordinated effort against them. It can just be how things play out as everyone tries to get their piece of the map.  

Even kingdoms in a 1:1 battle are at a big developmental disadvantage vs the kingdoms that capture their region and then expand elsewhere.

My point on this comment is that kingdom design is part of the balance component but is  probably less critical than who attacks who and how that plays out.

[Jumpingfist]

25% of training is 1,000 at the base rate instead of 1,500 - horrors. Of course, you can raise the rate to 6,000 and get the 1,500 within a few turns.

I am not concerned about the price as it goes up.  That tactic is used to keep others from training agents.  I am more interested in the effect going to 2000 cost to train.  The UN has more agent so does benefit him but at the cost of letting others get into his business.  Before this could be an economic choice to give his goods at a discount and make more gold for himself.  Now a lot of the incentive is being removed to lower the cost to 2000 and more likely the UN will raise costs to 10000 to help maximize the benefit of being able to cheaply raise his agents to level 4 and then cheaply use them to gain levels.   I see this becoming the norm for the UN since the other option was nerfed away.  Where before it was just one option.   

To your point in a few turns you can raise the cost to 6000 and make 1500 again.  You will still be making less as players will not train as many agents.  

I am done on this topic.  Rick gave his reasons.   I disagree, but it is his game.  My choice is just am I annoyed enough to not play.  Nah still a great game will just avoid UN and RD(not part of this topic).

[Drogo]

What's the concern with the RD?

[Lord Diamond]

With the new system, special kingdom abilities that provide a gold reward for certain actions by others do not apply for one's own activities.

This rule is in place for:
- AN (creating high priestess, gets 2000 gold for each new priestess)
- DW (for defense increase at pc's, gets 600 gold per multiple increase since order #600 has option for x1 or x3, gets 0 gold for own special order #599)
- GN (for gold increase at pc's, gets 500 gold per multiple increase)
- UN (training agents, gets 25% of the individual's training cost, varies each turn and is based upon the global agent training cost and whether the specific individual is an agent or fanatic -- fanatics cost less to train)
- UN (creating agent, gets 1500 gold for each new agent created in the game)

All of the above are listed in the respective kingdom's setup files provided with your turn 0 report. I believe the reason why your kingdom does not collect the gold bonus for your own actions is to prevent the automatic discount that you would receive for your own order. If this rule wasn't in place, the AN would hire a priestess at a 2000 gold discount compared to the other kingdoms.

I don't agree with the reasoning for this change. Of course the AN got a discount of 2000 gold when hiring a priestess. Why shouldn't he?

[Jumpingfist]

Ok know I was done but thought I would post some real impact numbers from a game that just finished on how much this could be hurting the UN.

These are the actual number from game 157. This game end after 17 turns and was a full diplomacy game. Likely anon games have even more agent hires and trainings. Also this game the UN set training costs to 2000

Total agents trained = 268
UN agents trained = 74
Agents trained T4 or sooner. = 43. 10 were UN
Agents trained after T4 = 225. 64 were UN

Agents hired total = 29. 4 were UN

So with old rules this UN made 268 x 1.5k + 29 x 1.5k = 445,500 gold over 17 turns or 26.2k per turn average

With new rules this same UN will make. 33 x 1k + 161 x 0.5k + 25 x 1.5k = 151,000 gold over 17 turns or 8,882 per turn.

So a loss of 290k gold during this short game almost 20k a turn. I think anyone that has played the UN can say the UN is a very fragile kingdom especially at the start and to loose 20k a turn for a kingdom that rarely even owns a region is a huge loss. Likely cutting about 4 turns worth of production of this 17 turn game for a position that already struggles. How is the UN expected to compete during the age of SVC and it is already known they do not have the ummf to likely pull out a REX win.

[Lord Diamond]

Yeah, this will ruin the Underworld; a position that Rick had actually fixed and turned into a viable kingdom.

[kevindusi]

I agree. I'm barely scraping by with them in 156 and that's with me getting my agents trained on the cheap. If I didn't have that, no way I would have been able to get out of the gates at all.

On all the changes mentioned in this thread (UN/GN/DW/AN), why doesn't it seem logical that, effectively, a kingdom would be able to do what it is really good at for less?

[Lord Alz]

I am also having gold issues as UN. Very fun Kingdom but awefully hard to scrap up gold.