V4 - New Battle Mechanics

[106763]

Lords and Ladies of Camelot’s Northern Territories,
We heard your Feedback and we have tons of exciting New Features and News to share!
We are very excited about it and we can’t wait to hear from you!

These changes will apply to Version 4 of Kingdoms of Camelot: Battle for the North App which will be released in a few weeks (ETA end of February)!

In this Forum Thread you’ll find info about the brand new:
- TROOPS STRUCTURE
- WALLS DEFENSES TROOPS
- TROOPS TRAINING AND TROOPS DESERTION
- WILDS, PICTISH CAMPS and SCOUTING

HIGHLIGHTS (keep reading for the juicy details!)

1. New Troop Units, Troops Structure and Troops Stats!
2. Training Troops is cheaper and faster!
3. No more Troop Desertion!
4. Pict Camps will hold more Gold!

IMPORTANT NOTES
1) Combat values might still change, we are particularly looking at Defensive Training times as something we might re-evaluate
2) The fact that troops now require a more mixed set of resources will not change. You can begin adjusting resource building mix without fear of us changing that again
3) Why did Wagons become Carts? Well, we made the old wagons cheaper and faster to build, but we also lowered their load limit, thus they became carts.
4) Some people are complaining the troop training times are slower. They are on average faster, but some units are slower (specifically, Battering Rams have become slower). Also, the new training times only apply to new trainings, not ones that were already in progress
5) We know the fiction and story does not always make sense, (Archers need stone??), but unfortunately its not possible for us to always make the fiction work.

Right off the bat we want to ensure you that WE ARE NOT DELETING ANY Data FROM OUR DATA BASE!
You won’t lose your Buildings, Troops, Resources or Technologies. We are introducing brand new Troops so you will see changes in your Army as some of your Old Troops are automatically “transformed” into New Troops... It’s like Magic! ;)

PLEASE NOTE: this new system will be subject to change and we might continue to tweak the Combat System after V4’s launch!

Lets us know what you think and thank you for playing Kingdoms of Camelot: Battle for the North!

[evpzydousri]

Troops Structure

Your Army will enjoy the services of 3 Brand New Units:

1. Light Cavalry
2. Heavy Cavalry
3. Supply Cart!

NOTE: Pikemen will be transformed into Light Cavalry and Supply Wagons will become Supply Carts.

TROOPS STRUCTURE:
4 Troop Types divided in 3 Tiers (Higher tiers have more Life and more Attack than lower tiers)

SUPPLY TROOPS Supply Troop Supply Cart Supply Wagon

GROUND TROOPS Militiamen Swordsman Battering Ram

HORSE TROOPS Light Cavalry Cavalry Heavy Cavalry

ARTILLERY TROOPS Archer Ballista Catapult

TROOPS TYPE ADVANTAGE:

- Ground Troops are Strong against Horse Troops and Weak against Artillery Troops
- Horse Troops are Strong against Artillery Troops and Weak against Ground Troops
- Artillery Troops are Strong against Ground Troops and Weak against Horse Troops

[evpzydousri]

Wall Defense Troops

WALL DEFENSES TROOPS:

1. Wall Defenses will be split into 2 Tiers, similar to Combat Troops. We currently have 3 in Tier 1 (Ground, Artillery, Horse) and one in Tier 2 (Artillery), 2 more will be added in future releases.
   
   

1. Wall Defenses will also have damage bonuses against particular types of Troops
   
   

1. Wall Defenses will take longer to train but will be cheaper and not consume food! (up to 4x cheaper)
2. • Traps total resource requrement from 960/unit to 500/unit
   • Defensive Trebuchet 720/unit to 500/unit
   • Caltrops 1920/unit to 500/unit
   • Wall-mounted Crossbow 2880/unit to 1000/unit
   
   

1. Wall Slots will not Change
   
   

1. Walls themselves will have a small amount of Life as well, which means that you will have to send at least some troops in order to loot a city. (Not just Supply troops)

[evpzydousri]

Troops Training and Troops Desertion

1. Troop Training will be faster (on average troops train TWICE as fast) and Troops resource cost (food, wood, etc) will be cheaper!
   
   
2. • Base training time per unit (secs):
   • • Supply Troops from 60s/unit to 30s/unit
     • Militiamen from 180s/unit to 90s/unit
     • Archer from 240s/unit to 90s/unit
     • Pikemen/Light Cavalry from 240s/unit to 90s/unit
     • Swordsmen from 360s/unit to 480s/unit
     • Cavalry from 960s/unit to 480s/unit
     • Supply Wagon/Carts from 420s/unit to 90s/unit
     • Ballistae 960s/unit to 480s/unit
     • Supply Wagons 480s/unit
     • Heavy Cavalry is at 1200s/unit
     • Battering Rams 960s/unit to 1200s/unit
     • Catapults 1440s/unit to 1200s/unit
   • Total Resource requirement:
     • Supply Troops from 160/unit to 200/unit
     • Militiamen from 600/unit to 500/unit
     • Archer from 600/unit to 500/unit
     • Pikemen/Light Cavalry from 600/unit to 500/unit
     • Swordsmen from 900/unit to 1000/unit
     • Cavalry from 1320/unit to 1000/unit
     • Supply Wagon/Carts from 1050/unit to 400/unit
     • Ballistae 2410/unit to 1000/unit
     • Supply Wagons 800/unit
     • Heavy Cavalry is at 2000/unit
     • Battering Rams 2400/unit to 2000/unit
     • Catapults 3610/unit to 2000/unit

1. To the delight of your farmers that had to work overtime in order to provide Food for your Army, NO more Troops Desertion! BUT you won’t be able to train troops if you have no food ;)

[evpzydousri]

Wilds, Pictish Camps and Scouting!

WILDS and PICTISH CAMPS:

1. The number and types of Troops that defend Wilds and Pictish Camps will change.

1. Wild and Pict Camp resource payouts (when you win) will also change with a better mix of Resources and Gold

SCOUTING:

1. Scouting will be FREE (will not cost any gold) and Speedups can be applied to Scouting Time!
   
2. Time needed for scouting is dependent on the distance to destination

1. There will be an “Instant Scouting” option for Gems, which comes with the advantage of super detailed Reports, as if you had Level 10 Eagle Eyes!

PLEASE NOTE: this new system will be SUBJECT TO CHANGE and we might continue to tweak the Combat System after V4’s launch!
Lets us know what you think and thank you for playing Kingdoms of Camelot: Battle for the North!

[aannetaedaka1707]

Hello, it would be nice if you could introduce a raid type of option for the pictish camps, also I think it is very important at the moment when you are scouted the report does not give you any details of the player that has scouted you not even the coordinates from where the scout originated, it only. Gives you the name, which makes impossible to find since there is no leaders board, unless you scan every sector of the map until you come accross the player, which it too time consuming and boring. And another simple feature would be the ability to send invitations to players to join the alliance. Thanks for listening.

[evpzydousri]

Hello, it would be nice if you could introduce a raid type of option for the pictish camps, also I think it is very important at the moment when you are scouted the report does not give you any details of the player that has scouted you not even the coordinates from where the scout originated, it only. Gives you the name, which makes impossible to find since there is no leaders board, unless you scan every sector of the map until you come accross the player, which it too time consuming and boring. And another simple feature would be the ability to send invitations to players to join the alliance. Thanks for listening.

Hey OZ1,

Thanks for your Feedback and Suggestions! We added them to the list ;)

Specifically what do you think about the new Battle Mechanics System?

Let us know!!

[eyewofaxuirix]

What I'd like to know is in what world do you think a battering ram (slow moving, wood siege weapon designed to destroy walls and buildings) is somehow effective against horse units (fast, devastating units designed to trample and flank strong positions.) Honesty, that's ludicrous. Bat rams do nothing you mounted infantry.

Furthermore, allowing players to keep traps, even if they are above the new max capacity, is simply not fair. You will not see any shuffling of the top 10 might players. I know you think that since an attacker knows they can't rebuild them, they'll attack. That won't happen. Those players are scattered amongst the top 5 alliances in Lancelot1, and won't be attacked as usual.

You guys need to get in line with the other games and make NPC's "no loss" beatable. Beginners protection is brutally boring, especially in Kay2, since you can't farm other players or NPC bases without losing more res in the troops you had then what you gained from the camp/wild. I assume you're trying to balance out the unit creation by taking out the range factor so not everyone makes Archers/Ballistas/Catapults to do battle with. But honestly, there's not a whole lot of serious PvP fights for anyone to care that the units don't balance.

I know I'm just a lowly non-gem buyer and I hardly warrant listening too. People like me get called trolls by your Dev team, right Kyle?
I'm sure you've been flooded with requests for beatable NPC's in the game. Why not just do it?

ChrumeKK / BlustardKK

[dxpyvgsefqv]

Good ... ish

In FB KoC rams were always good as an almost indestructible meat shield behind which your archers and ballies could shoot away undisturbed, so (unlike some others) I think making them top tier ground troops makes sense, so long as they have this huge life value.

Not sure if removing desertion from hunger is smart. Makes a city that does not defend impossible to reduce. The troops will sit hiding, without worrying where their food is to come from.

This version of KoC has improved many things, and it is always going to be much more difficult for cheats to find a way through Apple's controls to create scripts. So please do not produce anything like barbarian raids, which was your answer to the scripts. This ruined FB KoC (for me) as I soon was sitting with 7 cities each with 70+billion food, and the only activity was getting raids renewed once a day.

You have a wonderful opportunity to make pictish camps really contribute to the game. Have you thought of making them active? Right now they just sit there. Suppose that if I attacked one that gave it the right to attack me back, at random intervals. That would add a real dimension of interest and activity.

In general I think the new battle mechanics make sense, and I look forward to faster builds. Even as things stand I am enjoying Koc BFTN much more than the original KoC. And the iPad I use is much easier to take with me wherever I am.

[bpatrckmyandext6077]

Interesting changes for V4, and I am excited to see new units.

When I initially saw this post, I thought I was going to be able to read about the battle mechanics. By that, I am referring to how battles and results are calculated. Looking at my battle logs, I noticed that when sending in several different types of troops, all the archers and pikemen would die and would have significant loses to the other units, except for the malitia. The malitia suffered the least losses, even compared to the cavalry.

Not being an expert in medeval warfare, how come the malitia survive so much? I would have assume they would be sent in first, where as the archers would remain safer at range.

Please help me understand. I apologize if this has been already answered, I assumed it would have been discussed here.

Thanks!

[bgregoramaarley3366]

New battle mechanics, some ideas

Hello Riccardo and Condor,

first of all, thanks for your great support!
I like your game quite a bit, so here are some thoughts regarding a new battle mechanics:

. the reason I play KoC is because of its level of >immersion<; the more believeable the game works, the more fun it is.
. having >no pikemen< in a professional medieval army is not very realistic. Do you remember the main battle sequence in Braveheart? Without the pikes, I don't see how you can oppose a (heavy) cavalry charge (other than with built defenses or overwhelming numbers).
. what is the sense in having >3 types of supply troops<? they don't add anything new to battles, they just create one more troop type to handle.
. >attacking only with siege weapons< (say, an army of catapults) makes no sense - how could they possibly occupy a city/ defeat all infantry? So this should be heavily penalised if not supported by ground troops.
. >attacking a fortified city without siege< makes no sense, neither - how could, say, an army of heavy cavalry, ever enter a city without dismounting and climbing or destroying the wall? Infantry could at least climb ladders, but that should also incure cost (for example, less defensive and offensive strenght against militia).
. the rock-paper-scissor system you propose is a good start, but I believe it should be modified, because it really makes no sense having >rams kill horsemen<.
maybe somehow like this:

Infantry: Pikemen, Archers, Swordsmen
Cavalry: Light Cavalry, Cavalry, Heavy Cavalry
Siege: Battering Ram, Ballista, Catapults
Supply & Militia: Supply Troops, Militia, Supply Wagon

with:
Pike kills Light Cavalry, Cavalry, some Heavy Cavalry
Archer kills all Infantry at a distance, Light Cavalry, Cavalry; but is weak close against any other than Supply&Militia
Sword kills all Infantry, good against Light Cavalry, bad against Cavalry, very bad against Heavy Cavalry

Light Cavalry hunts down Archers, Supply Troops&Militia
Cavalry good against all but Pike and Heavy Cavalry
Heavy Cavalry the Elite, good attack against all; but too slow to catch Light Cavalry (which means Light Cavalry have a high survival rate), and vulnerable to ballista and catapult attacks.

Battering Ram good against Ballista, Catapults, and City defenses; can't kill anything else but can defend for a while against all other troop types (shortest against Catapults)
Ballista is a better version of the Archer, with all the strenghts and weaknesses, with the added features: kills heavy Cavalry, weak against Battering Ram
Catapult is a better version of Ballista, additionally with good attack against City defenses

Supply Troops and Wagons have no attack (and their defenses only last for so long), they just transport stuff as they do now.
Militia are the weakest of all troops other than supply; however, they have strong attack against Siege Weapons, so that the irrealistic attack on a city with only siege-weapons should be easily thwarted with a cheap army of militia. And in defending a city against an army that has no siege weapons (who would destroy he walls or gate), they should get some added defensive strenght against infantry (who would then have to climb ladders or somehow destroy the gate) and archers (who can't shoot through a wall). So in the end, Militia would actually be good, cheap, early to build city-defenders against an imbalanced attack but no good at all in the field other than as cannon fodder.

In a way, the need for siege weapons to attack a city with at least some fortification could protect the newbies to a certain extent, because (1) to get the first siege weapon, the battering ram, potential attackers need to first level up, and when they have they may be less interested in attacking the weakest ones for the small return on investment (you couldn't just send some supply wagons into a city to collect the gold, you'd have to send at least a small army); and (2) militia are early and cheap to build and maintain, so empowering them as explained above strenghtens city defenses without changing the balance of power on the battle-field; when they are no longer needed later in the game, they can be discarded (as they are now) as trap fodder.


. Finally, having troops accumulating experience would be cool, maybe even having them reach some kind of veteran status; but that may be hard to incorporate in your game.

Ok, these are my thoughts, hope they make sense.
Greetings,
Williame (Lancelot1)

[baannetaepitay7190]

Comments

Thanks for this information its good to see the game evolving.

As a general point I think the priority for a lot of players would be bug fixing so I hope that this is your priority as well - every day I lose troops and or resources that just "disappear" - and this is reported by other alliance members too.

It would certainly be great to have more information on how the battle mechanics work as well, and williame's comments on game realism I would support too.

Specifically on these changes, how will you protect the effort from existing players? If troops and wall defenses will become cheaper and easier to train, and in some cases weaker, where does this leave those of us that have built them up the hard way?! Presumably the might of these units will change as well, particularly wall defenses? I would suggest a multiplier to existing troops that become weaker/cheaper so that we do not lose power overnight, or at least some other form of compensation in terms of resources or gems. Otherwise you may lose players who cannot be bothered to adjust to major changes in game mechanics that undermine their current strategies.

Also with walls having innate defence - firstly this is not particularly realistic as an undefended city should be open to siege without loss, and secondly if this innate defence is anything above a minimal level it may stop players attacking each other, which would be a great shame and spoil the game.

Thanks for reading and good luck!

Bosa

[dskaysjmd0]

I have to tell you that this "Rock, Paper, Scissors" idea is attrocious.

I can understand that it might have seemed exciting when discussing it next to the coffee machine in the office, or over a beer at the bar, but the more you look into the finer detail - the worse it is.

In the evolution of military technology - it is just a plain fact that there have always been "killer apps" which are just better than the existing technologies that were available at the time. The idea that the latest and most expensive technology has been seriously vulnerable to technologies created 1000s of years previouly is laughable. Sure - a nuclear weapon sitting in it's silo may be vulnerable to a single guy with a spiked wooden club - but let's get serious. Do you want this game to be serious ?

I cannot think of one other game in this genre that has touched this kind of battle-mechanics. Have you come across a unique idea that no-one else has had the foresight to consider ? ... or is there a reason no other software shop would seriously consider such a model.

When a development team lives in a closed bubble, sometimes ideas like this can get out of hand, especially if it's a small team and no counter-view or criticism is given against new ideas. Beware of this. I have to tell you - "rock paper scissors" on the mid 1500s battlefield is just a dumb idea.

Given that you have so many bugs, I would throw this straight out with the trash, focus the team on bug-fixing, and then go on a recruitment drive to get some talent from a programmer/game designer who has already worked in similar environments who might have some experience of the mistakes that can be made, because if your team couldnt sense this was a flawed idea - you've got some serious problems.

Thanks for your time.

kbd.

[bydxwjrlyuc]

I have to tell you that this "Rock, Paper, Scissors" idea is attrocious.

I cannot think of one other game in this genre that has touched this kind of battle-mechanics. Have you come across a unique idea that no-one else has had the foresight to consider ? ... or is there a reason no other software shop would seriously consider such a model.

You haven't played very many of these types of online games have you? They are all a variant of rock-paper-scissors with a few twists thrown in. The original KoC is, so is Dragons of Atlantis, Evony as well. Just to name some of the more popular ones. Sure there are some out there with a complex and more realistic battle model. They are in the minority and none of them are on a mobile platform. Get your facts straight mate before going on a rant LOL

[eyewofaxuirix]

Runey is right, Roshambo is a constant in war games that do not involve luck. A board game like Acis and Allies is based on the luck of your rolls, while the units determin the minimum roll number for that unit to hit. Here, a system like that would not work, and that's really your only other option then Roshambo. It's a successful alternative when used properly. A game like EndWar has worked it really well, with the basic yet strategic unit triangle of gunship>tank>transport>gunship along with added infantry to spice up the gameplay, and special moves such as an air strike. It works.

ChrumeKK