A couple issues.

It works if I am adding a new base.

It is not available at most existing sea bases.

It is available at Sea Base 10 Borogov, but when I try to add it I get an "invalid sector conditions" warning.

Sorry, I forgot to mention that the radar must be built using a construction truck!

i'm using 99x99 resolution when viewing the map, and from the looks of a test radar that i built on cerato, it has a 50square diameter. confirm/deny?

At $5000 per unit and no further that it sees, a radar net along your coast would not be cost effective.

Per my earlier calculations...
http://gt.toomuchstupid.com/board/t_t36#m6

One sector is 60 miles and the radar radius of 25 sectors = 1500 miles

Technically, line of sight is about 10 to 12 miles so this is actually LONG range radar.

51, technically. I have the range set at 25, so 25 in both directions plus the sector at the center.

I forget the movement range of ships but I think its less then 25. However if it isn't radar isn't all that usefull.

On another thought would there be a way to have a turret get a 10% (just picked a number) boost in range,power, etc. from occupying the same square as a radar sea base. Most like against aircraft only.

Dman56

- The Ankylo world's final cycle will take place Monday, February 8th (i.e. Sunday's attacks will be the last attacks processed). I expect to have new worlds open for joining this weekend.

woot

BOO! I started on Ankylo only 2.5 months ago and I'm still expanding. Why is the map ending now? There is more than one Country/Alliance still alive in the game. Why not leave Ankylo running to see who can conquer it? If the map is reset now it shows the players that there is no winning to this game, only surviving.

I'm still expanding and I've got potential to conquer several nearby countries. I wish to keep playing Ankylo!

I agreed with you as i to am a late comer to the game itself and Ankylo. But I noticed i was defending against autoattacks and attacking human vacated countries. So It was an inflated since of accomplishment.

To the point of no "end-game" I agree with you there.

Johnny,

Maybe 2 months or so prior to actually closing a map you should stop allowing "new" countries. This would allow the one's that have established themselves remain and to fight it out. Maybe calculate the shutdown "stages" on future worlds based on data. I.e. when did Ankylo's original set of inhabitants start "flatten" out or decide they were content with what they had.

It would be nice to have Risk style "I rule the world" type of victory but with alliances, always open enrollment, and other factors (time) that result if highly unlikely.

My 2.5cents.

Dman56

playing on ankylo means submitting to johnny's nation in the end.

all your squares are belong to him.

I definitely agree here. I've thought about limits to allowing new players. I like your idea of creating a shutdown phase where no new nations can come in. Also, if maps aren't going to be played to the bitter end perhaps there should be a set percentage of the map one country or alliance should own in order to be declared the winner.

Personally Johnny, I think dman is right, I think you should move Ankylo's close date back a couple of months and turn it into a closed game, that way the number of nations will only decline and eventually everyone will either give up or be destroyed.

The life cycle of each world is definitely going to be different. For example, I am most likely going to block Borogov from new joins and create a new small world this weekend. Then Borogov will be left to proceed with only the current players.

The reason Ankylo is ending is because it stopped having a purpose. As Hanibel and I reached a country, there would either be no resistance or the country would simply resign. So, a little over a week ago, I sent a note to every player in the game asking if they intended and expected to pose a serious challenge to HAL. Only a single country voiced an intention, while admitting it would be "futile."

No users replied about some alliance waiting to oppose us, so I decided it was time to put the world to rest.

I was that nation! Saying it is futile is only being realistic. If you want to take Golf you can take it from my cold, dead hands!

That's basically my point. There isn't much point in continuing when the only person wanting to continue admits defeat.

It makes playing not really worth the time.

And if that's the mentality then these worlds will never actually end. On every map there will come a time where groups of people will leave one map as it draws to a close, as long as one can play multiple maps this will hold true.

Question: when this map ends next week who will be declared the winner?

- The country information displayed within the game now lists and links to the country's alliance.

- The "Overview" tool now includes a "Display" button that allows you to customize the elements that are elements. It includes an "Alliances" option that highlights and labels all alliances with more than one active country.

I think Ankylo will be the only world to end early. It was the development map, which means many players used it as a testing ground. It wasn't necessarily an accurate battle.

I suppose HAL would probably be considered the victor, since all other players either left or admitted defeat. As I said in the note, if anyone felt they would actually challenge us, I would have considered extending the world.

If multiple people currently feel <i>strongly</i> about continuing it, I'll still reconsider. I understand players put time into building up a country and don't want to see it go away if they're still invested in it.

- A construction truck's attack range will now include its available move distance. If you haven't moved a truck at all, for example, its attack range will be 8 instead of 4. This allows it to attack further into enemy territory, which is a significant change in gameplay. It also allows its perpetual attack to take advantage of its full range of movement without having to move and reset its attack manually each day.

soooo happy about this update.

Aww... I liked that construction trucks moved faster across your own terrain and were just about useless for attacking with, you couldn't have just added the moves to the attack if it could move?

It adds a whole extra layer of decision making and processing time to the Daily Cycle. In general, I like players to know that what they set is all that the Daily Cycle will process.

Since terrain or ownership doesn't affect any other units in the game, I think it makes sense that it doesn't affect trucks, either. The "move" functionality was important because the truck is responsible for building, which just happened to lead to the functionality that was in place before.

They're still pretty useless to use for attacks, though, since they cost way more than other land units, don't move as far, and are very weak.

I don't see how the not being able to move on unoccupied territory is any different from having a 1x1 body of water in your way with a perpetual attack, the attack shows itself going beyond the water, and yet it stops.

Yes terrain ownership doesn't effect other units on a turn by turn basis, but when you create a unit it does, you can only move it to your own territory, if you're going to do this why can't a jeep on a land-base attack 20 sectors the first turn. and they are now twice as effective for land attacks (you can jut out and create 7 units instead of 3), and twice as fast at moving over unoccupied land.

It's not just an issue of running into an obstacle, though. The unit would need to keep track of its range with each step and decide if the next move should be processed based on whether it was in its move or attack range. It's not a huge problem, of course, but it's just extra processing and the result won't be as obvious to players. More importantly, I think the new truck movement is actually a big improvement, so I'm especially not inclined to add the extra processing.


<i>and they are now twice as effective for land attacks (you can jut out and create 7 units instead of 3), and twice as fast at moving over unoccupied land.</i>

I'm not sure what you mean by "create 7 units instead of 3," since the move distance each turn is still 4. And yes, it can grab unoccupied land faster, but it's an absolutely awful unit to use for land grab. It costs $2,500 and moves less distance than a $100 infantry unit. If someone wants to spend $2,500 a pop to grab land, we should let them. haha

Those of us that are partially colorblind would like to see the connector lines on the alliances a bit thicker...

other than that... GREAT

I don't have a country in Ank... I would like to be able to see the alliances (like on the display) on the explore map. This would also help new people to decide where to create their country.

Also, I think it is about time to move the spawn points in Cerato.

Better?


<i>I would like to be able to see the alliances (like on the display) on the explore map.</i>

Sorry, I didn't have time last night. I'll probably add that this weekend. It'll really come in handy with the new worlds.


<i>Also, I think it is about time to move the spawn points in Cerato.</i>

Alright, I'll do that tomorrow, too. I think I'm going to drop the number of spawn points to 4, too, but I'll see when I review everything. (The map definitely had too many at launch, but I'm not sure if I need to keep them now that the damage is done.)

Much. maybe a bit more opaque though.

Alright, I adjusted it a bit. Let me know what you think! (I don't want to adjust much further, though, because I'd like the map to still be fairly discernible below.)

I also moved the alliance label to the eldest country's origin (instead of the left-most country).

- Two new sea units, aircraft carriers and missile frigates, have been added to the game. The units are created and moved like other ships, except they also provide air base options. The air base on the ships can only be modified when adjacent to an air base and can only carry a maximum of 27 units (jets for carriers and missiles for frigates). The air bases can be used to attack just like normal air bases.

- Country labels on the World view now display differently if the country's capital is occupied by enemy forces.

Looks Good. Thank You very much

Careful buying a frigate, a fully optioned out one is right at $125k

Yes, you'll definitely want to protect those out at sea!

Only one Ankylo player indicated he would like to see the world continue in the poll, so it will end on the 8th as previously announced.

Two players who don't even have active countries said yes, which goes to show how seriously they took it. haha

WOW... That is a lot for one unit! Although, being a Navy man, it may just be worth it! [/grin]

- An "air attack / clone" option has been added to the keyboard shortcuts in "Settings." Holding this key when clicking on a sector or unit will duplicate your last air attack exactly (i.e. the same base, target type, and number of units).

- Several new worlds have been added, one of which is a play/test world exclusive to new users.

One of us just wanted the poll on the main page to go away.

When do these worlds start?

Drypto: Feb 15th

They're set for 2/15, but that may be delayed if not enough countries have joined when the date arrives.

You can see the date on the "Join" page for each country. I'll probably revise the World list on the GT home page at some point soon, so the date will probably be listed there, too.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. This makes shock and awe sooooo much easier...

You're welcome, and thank you! It was a good idea. It definitely makes the game easier to play.

You still should've at least given players enough advanced warning to cancel treaties before the map ended.

Why are there only 2 spawn points per map? Is this going to be like Cerato and Bogorov where you punished players who joined early by adding more spawn points later, giving players who joined later a lot more freedom to expand?

I would love to see, not a start date, but a starting minimum number of players. On the smaller of the two, say 25 players to start and on the larger, you need say 40 to start.

Am I right to assume that you will be moving the spawn points before start up to disperse the countries?

Probably not. I think the excessive spawn points in Cerato caused problems on the map. Fewer spawn points means that players will have to join in a tighter formation, hopefully preventing users from exploding out.

If I do move the spawn points, then they'll still be near the other countries that have joined.

My 2cents. I think random spawn points covers a lot of issues. Overcrowding, under crowding, alliances grouping up around a spawn point, having people base there spawn "after" your spawn selection, etc..

The fact that we can pick based of other peoples choices of spawn points inherantly gives the advantage to the last person to pick (pre-game).

Picking your starting point is at least 50% of the games strategy. (avoiding alliance clusters, giving yourself initial space, sea access etc.)

On a slightly related note this alliance spawning together for me is deflating the game. My only alliance to this point happened naturally like it would have in a real world i chose to work with my neighbor instead of fight him. If we start always next to our allies the game is the same kill local none allies get as big as possible then maybe or maybe not fight opposing alliances.

fewer spawn points also means that one country will either dominate the others around them or enter into treaties to conquer the weaker nations. in the end, you ultimately have the same problems.

i think that the bigger failing on cerato is that the map is so large in he placement screen, and the spawn points were all on the extreme edges of the map, that a lot of people gave up and placed near the first point they found. <I>or</I>, they were planning an alliance and all place near each other, cutting off their own resource supply in the process by alliance overcrowding in one location.

if the map was fit to your screen the way the overview map is, people wouldn't have to search for five minutes looking for a spawn point.



edit: looking at the new maps and the nation creation page, it looks a lot easier to locate spawn points now. i still think that was the crushing factor on cerato, though

If the world has many countries scattered when it starts, though, then battles will have to happen. Otherwise, the world will just become one big alliance and end. haha

A lot of this is still experimenting to see how different processes work. Hopefully, I'll eventually come up with a system that works well each time and makes the game as enjoyable as possible. The random spawns could be an interesting test, too.

- The country spawning method on Drypto and Einio has changed. Instead of allowing players to select a starting location for their countries, these worlds are now set to use a random spawning system. All existing countries have been removed.

- The random placement algorithm has been changed. Instead of looking for spawn locations based on spawn points, the initial seek begins at a completely random spot. Countries have been repositioned using the new algorithm.

- Einio's launch date has been changed to March 8 (two weeks later). Drypto will begin Monday, as planned.