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Unfair Expansion

DeletedUser354

Guest
It has been reported to me that some provinces are requiring Orcs as part of negotiating even though the player is only just entering the Dwarf chapter. Also in these provinces the squad sizes appear to reflect those that can be researched in the Orc chapter. This puts 'junior' players at a distinct disadvantage - in that they cannot expand at a rate they might normally expect. They will only be able to 'open' these provinces after several months of game play. Surely orcs should only be part of the game once a player has arrived at that particular chapter and not before.
 

DeletedUser1829

Guest
The requirement is an attempt to balance the 2 branches of fighting and negotiating. You only need 160 provinces to get to orcs and there are 222 provinces you can do without orcs so there is a reasonable gap in between. The devs have said they are monitoring the situation to see if they have put the requirement on too early but so far only a minority of players have been impacted (according to their figures which only they see).

Making the requirement relevant only to those in the orc era would not only not address the imbalance it would likely cause additional issues and be better not to be introduced at all.
 

Tonton-des-bois

Illusionist
Sorry Mykan, the number of provinces needed to reach orc age depends upon how much you fight (or negotiate)... I've reached orcs' provinces 3 weeks before reaching the ability to make orcs (Breeding Grounds)... Mainly because they forced us to go back in the research tree to spend KPs on unneeded wonders we had left uncompleted before to be able to restart our progression where we were... And then I just had to wait hourly KPs to reach the Breeding Grounds because I wasn't strong enough to fight all types of orcs' provinces without a new squad upgrade...
 
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DeletedUser

Guest
The requirement is an attempt to balance the 2 branches of fighting and negotiating. You only need 160 provinces to get to orcs and there are 222 provinces you can do without orcs so there is a reasonable gap in between. The devs have said they are monitoring the situation to see if they have put the requirement on too early but so far only a minority of players have been impacted (according to their figures which only they see).

Making the requirement relevant only to those in the orc era would not only not address the imbalance it would likely cause additional issues and be better not to be introduced at all.

Well I'd like to see this data. I expect it's highly skewed as the only people not affected are the ones that were already at the end of fairies, people who only fight and people who acquire provinces at a slow pace and probably don't play that much. Most people in the fellowships I am in were already done with fairies when orcs came along, ergo they are not affected. However, they could get as many expansions as they wanted without this restriction, putting anyone who had not finished fairies at this stage at a distinct disadvantage. This game is advertised as being both free to play and allowing for several play styles, yet every update restricts play style parallel to increasingly throttling the pace of ftp players and people who don't spend a lot. Balancing a game would make it equal for everyone, not punish some and not others. In order to effectively add a min/max provinces per chapter system, they would have to add a requirement per chapter that prevented people from advancing beyond a certain point, and that would include using the battle system. If it's impossible to negotiate, it equally ought to be impossible to fight. At the same time as adding orcs, the max number of expansions for the next race (and possibly the race after that) ought to have been set, so people exceeding that number of expansions could also not advance, even if that meant not being able to acquire a single province using orcs.

The fact that only the orcs were added and thus the so called balancing only targets people who were not already at the end of fairies when orcs were introduced, makes it clear that it's not about balancing, or if it is, it's incredibly badly thought out as it only reflects hindsight and not foresight.
 

DeletedUser1829

Guest
They have clearly stated it was for balancing and as a person who runs a town designed purely around negotiating it is completely unfair in favour of a negotiator. I am not defending the approach taken merely relaying the information and the reasoning.

Fighting is balanced continually by tech upgrades and increasing enemy squads and troop quality. In theory a person in tech era 3 could negotiate an unlimited number of provinces (ignoring the scouting/main hall limits). It is complete impossible for a person in the same tech era to go very far at all by fighting. The introduction of the orcs puts a cap on negotiating at 222 provinces only until the orc era at which point it is unlimited again.

From the fellowships I am in very few people are impacted by this, approx only 4 out of 160 people I play with have mentioned this issue. While those people can fall into all spectrum of frequency of play it will typically follow a bell curve which is what I expect the developers have used by restricting those at the far right of the bell curve. Frustrating as it is you could also consider it a compliment as recognition as a high achiever by the devs.
 

Deleted User - 106219

Guest
In theory a person in tech era 3 could negotiate an unlimited number of provinces (ignoring the scouting/main hall limits).
In practice a player in Chapter ONE could unlock hundreds* of provinces by spending Diamonds. That has always been possible and the addition of orcs has done nothing to "balance" this.

Besides, it's not the players' fault that the addition of tournaments made it really easy to reach 700% boost and thus get a huge amount of goods for negotiating.

*No idea if you can spend Diamonds to scout a province even if you don't have enough coins, so it might not be that bad, but the fact remains - spend Diamonds and you can get a lot more provinces that free-to-play players.
 

Tonton-des-bois

Illusionist
I think we are all partly right, no matter we are more fighters or negotiators or a mix of the 2 and perhaps Inno added the orc limitation was for "beter balancing" as they said... but it's for balancing the tournament effect as shadowblack said
I followed the fighter's path in my first city on Arrendyll and as Mykan said, I was regulary slowed down by the need to upgrade my troops or enlarge my squad size, okay...
But I've just started a new city on Wyniandor to check if the negotiator's path would be more easy and after I did 2 provinces circles very fast, reaching the middle of the first age in 2 days, I'm now also blocked because you cannot produce goods so fast : like for fighters you need to build twice more factories and upgrade them to be able to negotiate encounters and to have enough goods for your regular needs so you're also slowed because of that...
Nothing is all white or all black here.
At the point I reached in my first city that I designed only to produce regular goods for building/upgrade purposes, even by going from 400% to 500% production thanks to the tournament, I don't produce enough goods to negotiate more than 2-3 encounters a day (and that would mean nothing for other uses) but I can produce troops enough to fight 1 or 2 provinces a day for a while. In my second non-fighting city I'm already blocked after 2 days because I have no room to build enough factories to produce enough goods to negotiate any more encounters... I'm obliged now to produce troops... I need to go further in this city researches to give a realistic advise about the ability to progress without fighting.
 

DeletedUser

Guest
If it was purely about balance (and not about wanting people to spend money at all), it would also have to impact people who were already at the end of fairies in the same way by placing additional requirements pertaining to coming races upon them as well. It does not, so it means anyone who'd reached that point at that time isn't subject to said "balancing" and they can continue to amass provinces thus getting even more of an advantage. If a max of 222 is to be reached on hitting orcs, there should be a max for all other chapters, and also a cap for the end of orcs.
 
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