Conquer Club

Dukasaur wrote:In Escalating Spoils games, once the cash reaches 100 it increases by 10% of the previous cash, instead of a steady progression by 5s.

This will be genuinely Escalating spoils: after 100 there will be a hyperbolic instead of the current arithmetic (straight line) progression.

How this will benefit the site and/or other comments:
There is a generally-accepted belief that escalating games don't stalemate. Unfortunately, more and more often we are seeing escalating games that do stalemate, or at least take a very long time to play. The old progression was designed when most of the maps were wide-open maps like Classic or Hong Kong. Maps have gotten bigger and more complex. They have many dead ends for players to hide in, and numerous bonuses that make the spoils less important. Larger armies are needed to break open the defensive lines that are causing stalemated games on maps like the Hive, Supermax, Conquer Rome, Das Schloss, and even World 2.1.

Original Suggestion wrote:Concise description:
In speed freestyle games, games often turn into a stalemate simply because it benefits no one to attack. Stalemates like this occur when the ability to cash garners less armies than it would be to simply sit back and do nothing. Thus the players sit back... and do nothing. No incentive is made to attack others because they'll get 225 armies or so for killing someone... when they have to blow through 400 armies to kill someone. So no one does anything, and continents at this point in teh game are useless

Specifics:
I propose that after the 100 army turn-in point, the armies should start increasing by 15-20 armies instead of by a mere 5. Therefore games won't end in stalemates and people will be able to continue to have an incentive to eliminate others.

This will improve the following aspects of the site:
-Help stop stalemates late game in escalating games, whether speed or casual.

Look at this game, it was going on forever... (also watch the chat logs of Blue being a moron)... It went down to a threeway stalemate between yellow, grey, and I. Eventually we let yellow win the game not because he was ahead (he was the weakest) but simply because he had eliminated the most players during the course of the game, and it was the only solution we could agree upon.

http://www.conquerclub.com/game.php?game=2380676

Having games end like that, which apparently get to that state often, is terrible...

jiminski wrote:I think this is a very sensible idea .. perhaps the increase would need to keep increasing in order to give a certain conclusion and ensure a viable take-out attempt.
For example the cash value could escalate as follows: 100, 120, 150, 190, 240, 300.

It would certainly cause more action and diminish the possibility of stagnation. (like increasing blinds in Poker)

The increase at 100 cash value, is probably 'about' right (perhaps it would need to be a little higher to placate some); generally this is where the game reaches the point of no return. Where the kill is not worth the return gained by a cash and all players are dug-in for a stalemate game; locked in prayer for an opponents 3 day loss of Internet, Meteor-strike or death of a dear family pet.

lord voldemort wrote:if this was limited to only speed games i see it as viable
cause there are build games and it would get kinda silly if your playing a build game. and yer. if you get me

DiM wrote:

lord voldemort wrote:if this was limited to only speed games i see it as viable
cause there are build games and it would get kinda silly if your playing a build game. and yer. if you get me

if you're playing a build game then this would be even better because you'd get HUGE armies

DiM wrote:i agree with the 100 cash value as a start and i especially agree with the non-linear increase....

or perhaps an even steeper increase
100
100+20
120+40
160+80
240+160
400+320
720+640
etc. this would definitelly put an end to stalemates in escalating games
and for anybody that thinks stalemates in escalating is impossible look at Game 1432626. it's horrible

FabledIntegral wrote:Concerning Build games... they aren't even legit games...! Everyone know whoever pulls the trigger first would most likely win anyways, considering attackers' advantage...

But yeah, I'm open to any change, but I've been in multiple stalemates now, and they suck quite badly.

It could even be subtle...

At 100 they start increasing by 10.
At 200 they start increasing by 20.
At 300 they start increasing by 30... etc.

You guys gotta remember how much faster they would reach those numbers too. Atm the time it takes to get from 100 --> 200 is 20 sets turned in, now it would only be 10, then 5, then 4, etc. We don't want to dramatically alter it, but that's something how I could see it turning.

DiM wrote:

FabledIntegral wrote:Concerning Build games... they aren't even legit games...! Everyone know whoever pulls the trigger first would most likely win anyways, considering attackers' advantage...

But yeah, I'm open to any change, but I've been in multiple stalemates now, and they suck quite badly.

It could even be subtle...

At 100 they start increasing by 10.
At 200 they start increasing by 20.
At 300 they start increasing by 30... etc.

You guys gotta remember how much faster they would reach those numbers too. Atm the time it takes to get from 100 --> 200 is 20 sets turned in, now it would only be 10, then 5, then 4, etc. We don't want to dramatically alter it, but that's something how I could see it turning.

actually if it is a subtle change then it won't change anything. the point of this suggestion is to make the sets worth so much that you are actually tempted to eliminate an opponent and take his cards. for example i'm in a stalemate where each player has 15-20k troops and the sets are just over 1000. so it's not worth killing.

if they increase by 10 then by 20 and so on they would still allow a lot of armies to be gathered and still won't offer any incentive to attack.

that's why i think a very steep increase would surely end all stalemates. something like this:
100
100+20
120+40
160+80
240+160
400+320
720+640

lancehoch wrote:As another idea, maybe using a Fibonacci sequence from the start would work just as well (1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,...). This would be less per turn-in up to the 8th turn-in, then at the 9th turn-in, this would become more than the current escalating values. What do people think about this idea?

lancehoch wrote:As another idea, maybe using a Fibonacci sequence from the start would work just as well (1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,...). This would be less per turn-in up to the 8th turn-in, then at the 9th turn-in, this would become more than the current escalating values. What do people think about this idea?

DiM wrote:I think a very steep increase would surely end all stalemates. something like this:
100
100+20
120+40
160+80
240+160
400+320
720+640

jiminski wrote:I think this is a very sensible idea .. perhaps the increase would need to keep increasing in order to give a certain conclusion and ensure a viable take-out attempt.
For example the cash value could escalate as follows: 100, 120, 150, 190, 240, 300.