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War System Changes

KeorinKeorin
in North of Thera
ANNOUNCE NEWS #5172                                     (01/20/2020 at 20:29) 
From   : Ictinus, The Architect
To     : Everyone
Subject: War and Guardian Changes!
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Good morning Sapience!

First up! The city guardians have been distinctly buffed, good luck!

Secondly we have a big overhaul to city vs city war! This is going to get a little verbose...

Most importantly of all, citizens and soldiers are not open PK during wartime.

Let me say that again for the people in the back.

Most importantly of all, citizens and soldiers are not open PK during wartime.

On to the new systems at hand!

There are two aspects to this update. First is a background hostility metric that tracks every city vs every other city. This is affected by hostile acts, and continual hostile actions can result in natively setting your city hostile to another!

Cities can declare their relations to each other city using the CITY SET RELATIONS command, and review the existing relations using ORG RELATIONS ALLIED and ORG RELATIONS HOSTILE <city>. Possible relations include Allied, Neutral, and Hostile.

Mutually hostile does not automatically mean you are at war. This allows cities to declare their political stance without creating perpetual war scenarios.

The following actions generate hostility:
- guard kills
- tank detonations
- sanctions gained
- killing citizens inside a city
- sinking org-owned ships

This hostility will slowly decay every Achaean month, and decay at an increased rate if there has been zero hostile actions by the city for three months.

When the hostility from one city (city A) towards another city (city B) reaches a certain amount, city A will automatically declare itself hostile to city B, and the CITY SET RELATIONS command can no longer be used until the hostilities drop naturally.

When city A is declared hostile towards city B, be it through use of the CITY SET RELATIONS command
or by acts of hostility, the following happens:
- citizens of B get bonus xp on denizen kills in city A and its allied areas.
- citizens of B can't get quests in A's allied areas.
- citizens of B don't lose infamy when dying in A'a allied areas.

Conversely, if city A declares alliance with city B, then:
- citizens of A get higher xp loss if they die to a denizen loyal to city B.
- citizens of A can't gain sanction for raiding.

If cities A and B are mutually allied, then:
- non-enemied citizens can call for help in either city
- non-enemied citizens get bonus xp for quests in the allied city and its areas
- non-enemied citizens can defend city without XP loss during raids (but they also count for tank/sanction kills)

Onto WAR DECLARATIONS!

The city leader or War Minister of a city has the ability to issue a war challenge to another city using the CITY WAR DECLARE <city> command. Once issued, the other city has three months to either CITY WAR ACCEPT <city> or CITY WAR DECLINE <city>. You will need to CONFIRM either option before it takes effect.

If the other city accepts, the two cities are at war from that point onwards (see below for implications).

If the other city declines, it may need to pay a penalty depending on the current hostile status.

CITY WAR DECLARATIONS shows the unanswered declarations.

In particular, if city B declines a challenge issued by city A, the penalty is:
* None if B is not hostile to A
* 250k if B is hostile to A, but the overall hostilities have been low
* 500k if B has been highly hostile towards A, but A has not been highly hostile towards B
* 2M if both cities have been highly hostile to each other

The exact penalty is shown when attempting to decline a war challenge, and the declining leader is required to confirm it before it takes effect.

Practically, this means that if a city is actively hostile to another, but then turns down a war challenge, it will have to pay.

After a challenge is declined, city A cannot challenge city B again for 2 Achaean years.

If the city does not have enough money in its coffers or security/war funds, the debt will be remembered and any money received by the city will be automatically paid to the debtor until the debt is paid off in full. Outstanding debts are shown in CITY ECONSTATUS, if any.

WAR

Once declared a war lasts for 2 Achaean years. Participating cities may choose to CITY WAR EXTEND <other city> to extend the duration by another two years - this takes effect when both cities have done so.

An active war has the following implications:
- Room repairs (both automatic and manual) are disabled
- Retaliation raids do not work - only sanctioned ones do
- Kills for tanks and sanctions count from anywhere
- Citizens and allies of involved organisations count towards sanctions and tanks
- Soldiers are NOT OPEN PK
- An automatic bounty is placed on the city council and the war minister of each city

The winner is determined based on performing the following actions:
  - destroying a room
  - dismantling a tank
  - killing a city soldier (anywhere) - high-ranked soldiers count for more
  - slaying the city guardian
  - fulfilling the automatic war bounties
  - causing city morale losses
  - sinking org-owned ships

A list of wars is shown on CITY WAR LIST, including the current status (duration and who is winning).

A global War newsboard is available to everyone enlisted in a city army, and all important war-related events are posted here, including a summary of war activies each Achaean month.

ENDING A WAR

A war ends when its timer runs out and the cities do not agree on an extension.Additionally, the leader or war minister of the losing city has the option to CITY WAR SURRENDER <city> to surrender and end the war.

After the war ends, the following happens:
  - hostility metrics are wiped
  - the loser pays 5 million gold to the winner (or ends up in debt, see above for how that works)
  - the victor's banners are placed at key points in the losing city
  - an accolade is gained by the winner
  - morale loss for the loser

After the war, there is a two Achaean year period during which the two cities cannot declare war on each other.

A whole load of HELP files have been updated for this information including HELP PK, HELP CITY LEADERS, HELP ARMIES, HELP CITY DESTRUCTION, HELP WAR MINSTRY, and HELP WAR has been created!

Finally, in case you made it this far and missed this:Citizens and soldiers are not open PK during wartime.

Penned by My hand on the 13th of Valnuary, in the year 820 AF.

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Comments

  • AsmodronAsmodron
    Most importantly of all, citizens and soldiers are not open PK during wartime.

    Let me say that again for the people in the back.

    Most importantly of all, citizens and soldiers are not open PK during wartime.

    Finally, in case you made it this far and missed this:Citizens and soldiers are not open PK during wartime.



    @Ictinus I love you XD

  • LaedhaLaedha
    Nicola clarified on leader channel that the bounty on council members and the War minister is re-posted on the first of each Achaean month provided it was picked up the last month. 

    That's a pretty big buzzkill for me. I'm interested in exploring the war thing and not at all against Cyrene engaging. We've got good reasons to be at war with a city or two. I also don't mind personally bearing some extra cost for that as a council member. But a bounty potentially every single day for a real life month will make playing incredibly not fun for me. 
  • VakvyrVakvyr
    edited January 2020
     queue addclear eqbal CITY WAR DECLARE ashtan
     queue add eqbal CITY WAR DECLARE mhaldor
     queue add eqbal CITY WAR DECLARE cyrene
     queue add eqbal CITY WAR DECLARE hashan
     queue add eqbal CITY WAR DECLARE targossas
     queue add eqbal CITY WAR DECLARE eleusis
     queue add eqbal CITY WAR DECLARE delos

    Do it before you get fined for not wanting to play war.
  • KeorinKeorin
    I hate to start off on a negative note, but I'm already pretty skeptical about these changes. I think they do some cool things, and are approaching some issues that definitely needed solutions, but I don't know that I like this implementation.

    Let me start with two very important caveats:

    First, exactly how this system works in practice will hugely depend on the specific numbers, namely the amount of aggression it takes to move to hostile, and the amount of further aggression while hostile moves you into the "highly hostile" level.

    Second, I fully understand that the admin are trying to balance a -lot- of different interests in a system like this. They want to make war viable and less sucky to be in, they want to make it so it's -possible- to compel a city into it, without making it so that it's something that you can trivially force another city into. There isn't ever going to be a single perfect system.

    With that said, I have some concerns. Unless you're a city that can win or is willing to risk a war against another, there are basically only disadvantages to becoming hostile. Most of the immediate impacts are marginal (your enemies are more likely to hunt your denizens and denizen allies, but whatever), but the bigger issue is that the moment you're hostile, the other city can start declaring wars on you bi-yearly. If you're up for a war, or are big enough that they won't want to risk it, that's great! But that's basically only going to apply to decently well matched cities.

    For everyone else, mutual hostilities will mean that a stronger city can just declare war regularly to take gold from a weaker one with basically no downside. For instance, if Mhaldor and Eleusis were mutually hostile, then Mhaldor can just declare war every other year, and Eleusis' two choices are to pay it, or go to war (and risk losing even more gold from losing). This means that unless Eleusis is up for war, then being hostile is purely a disadvantage. The rewards to this new system almost solely go to the strong cities who can be aggressive, while all the risk is on the weaker cities.

    In practice, this new system has basically just introduced more reasons -not- to raid or engage offensively for any city that doesn't think it can win wars or is working on building up its fighting force. While hitting hostile and getting declared on isn't terrible (though paying gold to an enemy city is embarrassing at best), I don't imagine we're going to have a clear enough idea of how much offensive stuff kicks you into the 2m range for that not to be a concern for people. And no matter what, the safest way to deal with the system is not to engage with it at all, which seems like the last thing we want.

    Hopefully the numbers are balanced so that this isn't a huge concern, and that it's not too easy to get to hostile or the 2m point. But even then, the best thing we can say about this system for weaker cities is that it won't often affect them. This system might well work between strong, evenly matched cities, but for everyone else it is solely a disadvantage, and we are only worse off under this new system.

    (Also, on a totally different note, does this even do anything to fix the biggest issue in wars with clear end points? In the Targ/Mhaldor war, both cities just started dodging any raid they might lose, for the sake of not giving points to the other side. This system lets you sanction off of enemies outside the city, which would help, except army members aren't open pk in a war, so you'd still need cause. Feels like there's a decent chance that sanction-dodging still becomes the prime strategy in any war.)


  • TorinnTorinn
    edited January 2020
    It seems like it's saying "don't be hostile if you can't back it up" which seems like it's fair to me.  I'm excited to see this system in action!
    Deucalion says, "Torinn is quite nice."
  • KogKog
    I've typed and deleted a few comments, but I think I just want clarification that I am correct on this bit:
    In particular, if city B declines a challenge issued by city A, the penalty is:
    * None if B is not hostile to A
    * 250k if B is hostile to A, but the overall hostilities have been low
    * 500k if B has been highly hostile towards A, but A has not been highly hostile towards B
    * 2M if both cities have been highly hostile to each other

    If Cyrene raids Eleusis ten times and gets set to 'hostile', then they declare war and we decline, we will pay 250k at minimum.

    If Eleusis raids Cyrene ten times and gets set to 'hostile', and then they declare war and we decline, we will pay nothing as we are not hostile to them.

    If both of us raid each other enough to get set to 'hostile', and then they declare war and we decline, we pay 2 million.

    If Cyrene raids Eleusis nine times, which is one less than the threshold for 'hostile' (arbitrary numbers), then they declare war and we decline, we pay nothing?
  • ThaisenThaisen
    Kog said:

    If Cyrene raids Eleusis ten times...


    I can't even...this is too hypothetical to answer... :D

    JK...that is the way I understood it from the post.
  • KeorinKeorin
    Kog said:
    I've typed and deleted a few comments, but I think I just want clarification that I am correct on this bit:
    In particular, if city B declines a challenge issued by city A, the penalty is:
    * None if B is not hostile to A
    * 250k if B is hostile to A, but the overall hostilities have been low
    * 500k if B has been highly hostile towards A, but A has not been highly hostile towards B
    * 2M if both cities have been highly hostile to each other

    If Cyrene raids Eleusis ten times and gets set to 'hostile', then they declare war and we decline, we will pay 250k at minimum.

    If Eleusis raids Cyrene ten times and gets set to 'hostile', and then they declare war and we decline, we will pay nothing as we are not hostile to them.

    If both of us raid each other enough to get set to 'hostile', and then they declare war and we decline, we pay 2 million.

    If Cyrene raids Eleusis nine times, which is one less than the threshold for 'hostile' (arbitrary numbers), then they declare war and we decline, we pay nothing?

    I believe that there's a spectrum of military activity tracked in the "hostile" status, and so if both cities are mutually hostile to one another but the actual hostile actions taking place are limited, it'll be 250, while if the hostile actions have been mutually high, it's 2 mil.

    Torinn said:
    It seems like it's saying "don't be hostile if you can't back it up" which seems like it's fair to me.  I'm excited to see this system in action!

    I don't disagree that one could argue that it's -fair-, but I'd rather see a system that -encourages- cities who may lag in military strength to build up a fighting group, rather than solely discourages fighting against stronger opponents. I don't feel like the game needs more reasons -not- to fight.
  • LennLenn
    I personally find it interesting that city alliances are implemented. Maybe that's meant to be a possible solution, as much as the playerbase hates the idea.
  • SilasSilas
    Tend to agree with Keorin on this.

    I've been to war in Achaea a few times, and find the tone of this system really kind of off. It's trivialising war into a points-scoring exercise, which will just encourage people to game the system in any way they can to tot up enough points to "win" the war.

    Also, this will almost certainly discourage smaller cities from doing anything against bigger cities, since they can now be extorted for up to 2m gold for daring to attack a bigger city. Obviously I have no idea of the numbers, but the whole idea that you have to pay to not go to war with another city makes absolutely no sense. Unless you're trying to assert that the declining city is so craven that they actually opted to pay 2m gold rather than go to war (for a weirdly arbitrary two year period) with their enemies - in which case this system is even worse than it looks - then the payments make no sense from an in-character, non-game-mechanic sense.

  • SiduriSiduri
    Cobault said:
    I love the 'City officials get a bounty every rl day for 24 days' thing about the War.
    Cus you know, everyone that participates in politics is expected to be a top tier combat-bot, which is really all any 1v1 system is about for winning anymore.
    Essentially, if Ashtan were to go to war with someone, I now have a bounty on me every day for 24 days just because I wanted to help the City from a government standpoint rather than sitting back as a regular citizen going 'what in the HELL are our leaders doing???'

    I get that it's a war system, but come on. It's seriously another one of those 'if you don't PK you can't be an important player' things added to the list.

    I'm not scared of a bounty either, but the potential for 24 of them consecutively when I'm trying my best to hunt to Dragon just sounds annoying as shit to me, at a minimum.

    I could nitpick at other stuff, but this was the main one that stood out to me like 'whoa...' Cus you can't lead unless you pk?
    What? Really? YEET.

    image
  • CobaultCobault
    Siduri said:
    What? Really? YEET.
    It's only City leadership and MoW. So, Lumarchs and Vinzent for you. MoMA would be safe ;)
  • IaxusIaxus
    Just don't go anywhere without a large group around you ready to defend you. Like rl politicians.

    Jumpy said:
    The membership is already such a good deal that there is no way we can reduce the cost. 

  • CobaultCobault


    Only good outcome I can see from this new system >_>
  • SkyeSkye The Duchess Bellatere
    Except unlike RL, you can't be saved in Achaea by a big burly guy tackling you to the ground :( well, I suppose you can, but there's so many ways to get around defend. 


  • TaryiusTaryius
    It'd be pretty hard to get a sanction off council members alone, if it is just one bounty a day. You'd have to have 4/5 of them all be online, and get killed in whatever # of minutes count for sanction timer, and not have their bounties claimed by anyone prior who isn't around.

    Council members should have the most sway over whether or not war were declared too.
  • KogKog
    I think it's less about getting sanction off of those bounties, and more having to deal with being jumped once a day for a month.

    In essence, if you are in a weaker city, your leadership is not going to have good enough fighters to protect them- best case scenario, they get hounded when on the mainland by bountyhunters. Worst case, they quit logging in or alt for the war just to get some peace and quiet.

    From the perspective of someone combat-invested in a weaker city, I don't see a single compelling reason to get involved in this system. If we try to step up our game and fight back against people raiding us a lot, and hit that hostility mark in return, they can declare war and we get fined for trying when we decline, or we accept and pay 5 million when we inevitably lose in 2 years- this isn't even a commentary on Cyrene's ability to fight a war, just that the system doesn't encourage you to actually DECLARE war unless you are very certain you can win, because it costs you 5 million plus a whole heap of shame if you misjudge your enemy. Strong cities will declare as soon as they can on weak cities, who will decline because the cost for trying is so high.

    As a strong city, you can raid as much as you want with little risk, because no one is going to want to risk a war with you. As a weaker city, who arguably needs more practice than a stronger city, you are limited (even if we don't know HOW limited) by your hostility, or you get fined for trying to improve.

    I think I'd rather see "primary antagonists" bountied, being whoever has the top 10 slots of hostility- if five Mhaldorians tank Cyrene, then they get the same amount of hostility they generated added to their personal score. If there's a tie, all go up as bounties, but there are always at least 10. Now your actual fighters are incentivized to go after their actual fighters. If there isn't any hostility but they accept for whatever reason, have it go by army rank?
  • TorinnTorinn
    edited January 2020
    I think the important bit is that the one who is aggressive and gets hostile status are not the ones who get to declare war.  It's their victims.  Unless I really misunderstood.
    Deucalion says, "Torinn is quite nice."
  • LennLenn
    Or just mark army rank 5+s for bounties. They're already defined by the system as very high value targets.
  • KeorinKeorin
    edited January 2020
    Torinn said:
    I think the important bit is that the one who is aggressive and gets hostile status are not the ones who get to declare war.  It's their victims.  Unless I really misunderstood.

    To my understanding, you can declare war on any city that your city is hostile to, whenever (and with no risk or cost other than the delay before you can do it again, and the risk they accept). There's no penalty for them to decline if the target isn't hostile in return, and mounting penalties depending on how hostile they've been to you.

    So war still has to be agreed to by the victim (for a financial penalty if you refuse), but the city who is aggressive can freely declare, from what I read in the post.

  • SilasSilas
    I've never really been in favour of changing the war system, and the more I think about it the more the changes make me wish it had stayed as it was. It was a messy and imperfect system, but these changes don't adequately address any of the problems with the previous system, and add heaps of their own problems on top.

    Soldiers not being open PK but winning a war now mechanically depending on sanctioned raids and soldier/citizen kills seems like the absolute silliest way to address the problems with the previous system.

    Imagine going to war with a city, assaulting that city, and not being allowed to kill people who have enlisted as soldiers of that city. Completely backwards.

  • KeorinKeorin
    Well hey, on the plus side to all this, we can just go back to 2010-era Achaea and reconstruct team red and team blue, but officially this time.
  • FarrahFarrah
    Silas said:
    I've never really been in favour of changing the war system, and the more I think about it the more the changes make me wish it had stayed as it was. It was a messy and imperfect system, but these changes don't adequately address any of the problems with the previous system, and add heaps of their own problems on top.

    Soldiers not being open PK but winning a war now mechanically depending on sanctioned raids and soldier/citizen kills seems like the absolute silliest way to address the problems with the previous system.

    Imagine going to war with a city, assaulting that city, and not being allowed to kill people who have enlisted as soldiers of that city. Completely backwards.


    I didn't like the old system, either. I think the open pk at all times deters most war and the lack of anything else related to war made it not really appealing.

    I just think that sanctions are really bad as a war mechanic. Once you're at war, you shouldn't have to opt in to lose. It should be setup so if you don't opt in, you lose by default, essentially.

    So, for example, if I defile a shrine, you can choose whether you want to defend it, and if you defend it, we'll get to pk. But if you defend it, you might save the shrine, and you might not. If you don't defend it, you're going to lose the shrine (unless I don't have corpses and am banking on using yours, but let's ignore that aspect). So you are not gaining anything by not engaging. I think that kind of system creates the best conflicts because everyone can just go at it and see who wins, rather than the winner being whoever is the best at tactically avoiding engagement whenever it isn't in their favor. But it still doesn't involve ganking people who don't want to fight. They're engaging by choice. They just don't gain anything by not engaging.

    Whereas open pk results in a lot of surprise ganking on anyone who dares to leave their city, which encourages people to just sit on guards at all times, or qq if they really don't want to fight. I don't like that, either. I prefer there be a clear "engagement" initiated, like when you defile a shrine, and you either go fight or you lose by refusing to do so.

  • [Deleted User][Deleted User]
    Keorin said:
    Well hey, on the plus side to all this, we can just go back to 2010-era Achaea and reconstruct team red and team blue, but officially this time.

    God no. Why would Mhaldor want to team with current Ashtan.
  • TorrentTorrent
    edited January 2020
    The topic of alliances kind of confuses me as there has been such a push to not ally. I mean strife was created to counter act this RP wise. The Darkenwood burnings, the forge between Ashtan and Mhaldor. That and RP has changed over the years. I can understand under big events like the Black Wave but everyday things. I mean Eleusis who is supposed to be against cities allying with another city kinda doesn't make sense to me.

    The other issue I see is that is this system can get a bit grief. Raid a city a couple of times push hostile the raid a bit more and the declare war and lose gold because of it. It kinda pushes that not engaging equal slose, engage and be bad at it lose more. It kinda makes harder to pushes the cities with not a super strong army or not combat orientated into a lose position.  Especially with off hours raiding, no one around lets wipe out all guards. It counts!

    Dont get me wrong I like the positive change.
    Also does this extend to vivifying and extermination runs? @Invictus @Makarios
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