Inner Resource Buildings Producing More Than Outer Ones

[Elite KryPtik]

I don't like this change that came with the recent update, and I have been assuming(and hoping) that it is a bug. Most people I have talked to agree with me, outer farms have always produced more than inner farms, and cost less, to increase the value of settlements over castle farms. Changing this makes camping a reliable strategy, and gives Gondor a distinct advantage, because they get 9 build plots as compared to the rest of the factions only getting 7 or 8. It should be changed back to outer farms producing more resources than inner farms I think. Let me know your thoughts, everyone!

[TiberiusOgden]

I have been assuming(and hoping) that it is a bug.

No it isn't. It's intentional bug.

Changing this makes camping a reliable strategy

Yes, it goes against strategy and against BFME1. Sometimes, fortunately sometimes, I have feeling, that we are doing some things completely conversely.

[Lord of Mordor]

It's partly a bug, internal and external resource buildings are meant to produce the same amount. This is a difficult topic, because we have two conflicting goals here. In the early game, the players' main objectives should be fighting for external settlements. If this is not necessary and you can get all the money you need from internal structures, the game becomes stagnate.

However, in the late game the focus should start to shift more and more towards outposts and finally siegeing the enemy fortress. Right now, though, games are simply won by one player capturing the majority of settlements and the other surrendering because he can't win anymore and playing out the siege would be pointless. For a siege to matter, the internal resource structures must produce enough that the besieged player at least has a chance to still win.

One problem here is that as the game goes on, the external structures actually pull farther ahead because you can upgrade those with the economy upgrade while internal structures often the command point upgrade because they're safer.

I'm still a bit torn on how to balance all these factors: Creating a progression from fighting for settlements to fighting for castles, making sure that settlements and map control are important, and making sieges matter. One idea was that internal structures cost 500 and produce 36, while external ones cost 250 and produce 24. That way, external ones would be more cost-efficient and you couldn't even build too many internal ones from the start, but in the lategame you could have a powerful economy inside the fortress that the enemy has to target to bring you down.

Another possible idea (which could work together with the first, but wouldn't have to) is to bring back the inflation mechanic, which means that resource structures produce slightly less the more you have of them. That way, we could slightly limit how much one player can pull ahead while still allowing them to gain an advantage over the opponent - you'd just have, say, twice as many resources instead of three times as much.

[Adrigabbro]

Even though my opinion doesn't matter much, your first idea seems better. 
Nice analysis anyway.

[Elite KryPtik]

Well I personally have never found a problem with the old system, but here's another idea. Keep the current cost of the inner and outer farms, but decrease the cost and research time of upgrades on the outer ones, while increasing the cost and research time of upgrades on the inner ones, and make both types generate the same resources. This would allow players to rapidly upgrade outer farms and get a few inner farms.

Another idea would be to increase the effect of the resource upgrades on inner farms, for example 35% and 60% instead of 25% and 50%. That way, at the beginning outer farms would be more cost effective, and still allow a player to redo his farms if he is under siege.

Finally, this system really makes no sense for Evil factions, because they don't have walls. Besieging them is childs play. So for Evil at least, I think the old system should be in place, because if you lose map control as an evil faction you have likely lost the game. Having outer farms generate more for Evil would encourage aggressive play, which Evil needs to win.

[Lord of Mordor]

So do you regularly play sieges in the current version and the previous? Or do you also find that one player usually surrenders before a siege even takes place? That's a problem we really want to fix, and it's been reported by many players (the economy is not the only problem with the siege, but it's a major factor that a player inside his fortress is already so massively outgunned that he has zero hope of ever coming back anyway).

Increasing the upgrades' effects on inner farms could be another factor to consider. The trouble here is that the upgrade system is already extremely complex in the codes and we have a limited number of different upgrades we can in the game. We could change the effects of the upgrades without defining new ones (because the effect is defined in the structure, not the upgrade), but they'd also have to cost the same for external and internal ones. We couldn't define one cheap price for external upgrades and a more expensive one for the stronger internal upgrades. That would make it a viable strategy to build mainly internal economy structures from the start and upgrade them for cheap while neglecting external structures, which would be problematic in my opinion.

[Elite KryPtik]

Well whenever I'm a faction of Good and losing I defend to the last gasp, and I have come back in these situations too. Most people do leave when they are under siege though, its quite frustrating. It just comes down to people not having much time to play games and wanting to get into a game where they have better chances of winning. I think to encourage players to try and defend in a siege that you need to give them something useful for a siege situation.

A couple of ideas off the top of my head would be to add more defensive wall plots, or maybe make plots for catapults and towers separate so that players could get both, decrease the cost of the Gondor Stoneworker and its upgrades, give the Dwarves some kind of upgrades to their castle walls, give Rohan wall onagers, and give units on the wall some kind of an armor bonus against ranged and siege attacks. Archers on the wall get shredded by other archers and catapults, except for Gondor's Morthond Archers, because of their formation. I'm sure most of these ideas would probably be pretty unbalanced for Evil factions, who have no walls, but there must be some way to make defending in a siege fun without killing the evil factions chances.

Ultimately, I don't think changing the economy structures is going to make people want to try and endure a siege, all it will do is unbalance the game IMO. It should be changed back, the old system worked good.

Also, in regards to my previous idea, you could make the outer farms a different structure technically in the code, but identical in terms of appearance, function and health, allowing them to get different upgrades. This would allow the same upgrade for a cheaper cost.

[Sir_Stig]

For evil siege, could it be as simple as giving them default leadership while in/near their own base? That would tend to make up for the lack of walls, although it might be too strong, I think testing would be needed to see.

[Elite KryPtik]

I think that would be a bit much, evil isn't really supposed to defend anyways, their supposed to attack and be aggressive.

[Draco100000]

Im still a bit torn on how to balance all these factors: Creating a progression from fighting for settlements to fighting for castles, making sure that settlements and map control are important, and making sieges matter. One idea was that internal structures cost 500 and produce 36, while external ones cost 250 and produce 24. That way, external ones would be more cost-efficient and you couldn't even build too many internal ones from the start, but in the lategame you could have a powerful economy inside the fortress that the enemy has to target to bring you down.

Another possible idea (which could work together with the first, but wouldn't have to) is to bring back the inflation mechanic, which means that resource structures produce slightly less the more you have of them. That way, we could slightly limit how much one player can pull ahead while still allowing them to gain an advantage over the opponent - you'd just have, say, twice as many resources instead of three times as much.

You cant prevent the win of a map controlled faction, because camping is the same as defeated. Who have the map will win, because of more resources and more units, than the camper player. Also putting the cost of inside farm in 500 will provoque that Dwarves and Isengard will loose all chances to make a good early, and will give Gondor and specialy rohan an enormous advantage. Why? Well Rohan can survive easily with outside farms spamming pèasants and getting camps to recruit westfold heavy units.

Any faction will have chance agaisnt Rohan, probably only Gondor because of free troops thx to signalfires, but if rohan destroy this signal fires the match will be for Rohan. Well You will provoque early camping of Isengard and dwarves who need more than any other thing inside farms. to get a good production and rise their economy, allowing them to get troops and  have chance to fight against faction like rohan or Mordor, who can spam lot of troops without effort.

So the gameplay will change a lot, if you decide to implement this prices, you will make slower the early game, and the map control will be more and more important. More important than now, so lategame and sieges wont come, and you cant prevent the rise of a faction who controll the map, sieges are cool, but is fair that a player who have winned the map control have to be defeated thx to a unbeitable dwarven or gondor defense?

[Elite KryPtik]

Most of what you said is right Draco, except 1 thing: That controlling the map is an automatic win. Just based off the games we have had together, 2 times you have had full map control and I only had my base, and I was able to turn you back. Once as Mordor, and once as Gondor. So you can turn it around in a siege situation if you play well. This was doable before the change to inner resource buildings producing more/as much as outer ones though, the change really just made certain factions harder to fight early game, due to the slower factions relying heavily on the cheaper outer farms to produce as many resources as possible.

What the team wants to do is make people actually want to try and defend in a siege, instead of just leaving the game(like you did earlier). Like I already said there are other ways to make sieges enticing and fun without changing the core concept of outer farms generating more resources than inner ones, the old system was better.

[Draco100000]

Most of what you said is right Draco, except 1 thing: That controlling the map is an automatic win. Just based off the games we have had together, 2 times you have had full map control and I only had my base, and I was able to turn you back. Once as Mordor, and once as Gondor. So you can turn it around in a siege situation if you play well. This was doable before the change to inner resource buildings producing more/as much as outer ones though, the change really just made certain factions harder to fight early game, due to the slower factions relying heavily on the cheaper outer farms to produce as many resources as possible.

What the team wants to do is make people actually want to try and defend in a siege, instead of just leaving the game(like you did earlier). Like I already said there are other ways to make sieges enticing and fun without changing the core concept of outer farms generating more resources than inner ones, the old system was better.

The last match I made lot of errors, which I havent got to made. I could get a lot of units, but get sleeping in our battle. That one against gondor, I didnt know anything about rohan spearthrowers, who could change completely our mid-late battle. So in nearly all cases turn back a match is nearly imposible if the other player have the map and dont make enormous mistakes, as I did as rohan in our last match.

[Elite KryPtik]

I could barely understand this post, try to improve your English a little bit when you post please, no offence

Anyways that's the point, most people who play this mod are not pros, half of them aren't even as good as us, which is why siege situations can be turned around for a lot of people. We aren't talking about pros on this forum, most people who use this mod play for fun, because they don't like the stupidly fast paced action and rush focused gameplay of the vanilla games.

In terms of your 2 counters to our previous games, which are irrelevant anyways because you still lost, Rohan Spear Throwers might be good and have a knockback, but they aren't going to kill a full army of upgraded Tower Guards and Citadel Guards, which is what I had in that Gondor match. Its simple math, Spear Throwers cost 120 CP, Tower guards cost 90 and have a formation that gives them +50% armor on top of leaderships. Not to mention Gondor's heroes completely trump Rohans heroes once they are leveled up, and all my heroes were level 10 by the time I turned it around.

In our match where I was Mordor, if you made mistakes then you hid them well, because your play seemed fine to me. You had plenty of peasants, and heroes, but once my Nazgul came out at level 5 with Morgul blade and killed all of your heroes, combined with the Cirith Ungol units, there was practically nothing you could've done. You might have turned it around if you hadn't just quit and instead had built a huge cavalry army, considering the bulk of my army was free orcs, but we'll never know because you decided to leave rather than let me besiege you.

That is the whole point of this topic and what the team is trying to change.