Hi LG,

Thanks for responding. I am not taking away anything form relative value, that is the bulk of the equation. However, if you think about my option, it actually doesn't change the game all that much from what it once was. It just allows smaller fams more options, however, it requires them to work to still attain good outcome. It rewards good players for being good, it gives bad players options, so if they are just inactive still bad, if they are learning it will be good. This is the best outcome in my mind. 

My philosophy is this: I want people to be awarded for effort and skill in this game, but also to allow players who are in lower ranked fams to have some way to more effectively combat bigger fams. I would think this is the goal for everyone.

In the old days, as you might remember, the old formula was abused by the top 2 fams, they would farm every family 2-3 times a round. This lead to a ton of deletions, players stopped playing because there was no point, things seemed hopeless, new players couldnt learn because they wouldnt be drafted by good players to learn, or they would try to learn on their own and get destroyed.

I think my option actually gives us the best of both worlds. We have a semblance of the old game back, but allows weaker players to flourish (if they so choose)

Oh man,

I completely forgot about sending out all those ships LOL. However, some of those were due to intra family squabbling

Make the morale formula public and people will adapt better.

I think capping it should be done eitherway (at like 15) But there are bigger issues. In my opinion:

Start from the old formula. And why it got changed. To counter farming. I can tell you (and will show you below) it has not worked. Not because the idea of including networth was not right. But because the influence of certain weights were not right (too big). Also because Player Nw does influence this (don't listen to the mods who keep saying it doesn't, they're wrong - sorry guys).

I would like to refer you to my previous post in this thread also for a more acceptable alternative. Even if it's only a temporary solution, it would improve gameplay significantly:

https://imperialconflict.com/forum/view … 4#p1771954

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is an example of how the current morale formula allows farming: (3681 - 3683 war)

3681 - 14mil nw before jumping - 22mil nw after jumping
3683 - 8mil nw before jumping - 10mil nw after jumping

------------------- 424 from #3681 -------------------
------------------- 123 to #3681 -------------------

3683 (my fam) could do 150 hits in a single tick. 3681 on the other hand, used about 3/4 of all their morale on 6 attacks.

My point being, this formula allows farming even more than ever before. It takes away the skills you need in a real attacker vs attacker battle. It jumps right to the raiding part. With the biggest fam not having any way to fight back.

The system is broke. Period.

I think this needs to be said, and I think it's a shame...

This game was more fun to play back in the early 00's. I'm of the opinion that this game started declining in player-count due to the restrictions and compromises, and this constant attempt at forcing a manufactured balance between big and small families and players.

This game developed a death wobble, so to speak, and the harder you try to maintain this unnatural handicap between dedicated and un-dedicated/unskilled, the worse things will become! The term death wobble is used to describe the front wheel of a motorcycle shaking violently when traveling at high speeds; the more the operator fights to bring the bike back under their control, the worse the wobble becomes until they invariably wreck and usually die. The only way to correct a death wobble is to stop fighting it; just let go for a moment and allow it to correct itself...

Part of what makes a game like this fun is the power of being able to wreck somebody else. This is a war game. Size matters... It forces real diplomacy, and most of all, honor. For instance, when a large fam is dis-honorable, they deserve to be swarmed by as many small fams as are willing to fight. That's life!

It's not like the top families get some pay-to-win advantage! They've played the game, found good allies, and built relationships with other active players who then over time developed into a top family! It's not unfair, it's absolutely fair! There's no monopoly on skilled or dedicated players!

Stop trying to fix what isn't really a problem at all. When a player is preyed upon for being smaller, they'll either be forced to learn how to become more diplomatic, they'll give up and quit playing the game entirely, or they'll suck it up, take the hit, and push harder next time! If they quit, they weren't going to stick around anyways!

The game should be balanced. No two players should have any unfair advantage over another that the other couldn't also obtain. Balance the game, but for Gods sake; stop preventing people from doing what they want to do with the tools this game provides them both fairly and equally! It's not like you can pay for an advantage as you can in some other games. That level of fairness is the best thing this game has going for it.

This path towards attempting to balance player choices/decisions just destroys every incentive for both the skilled/dedicated player, as well as the unskilled/undedicated player. Nobody, excepting the very few nostalgic IC players wants to put in the effort anymore, and everybody ends up leaving the game for something else. IC players are human, they came here to dominate! Each is willing to risk wasting their time for the chance of a rewarding power-trip and some reputation... Winning is fun. Victory is fun. The prospect of victory is enough to keep players playing. When you can't destroy another player, there is no victory...

Skilled and active players deserve a power-trip, and that power-trip is the incentive for unskilled players to become skilled! It's also an incentive for small players to form networks of other small players that create their own balance for the game. That's the natural order of life and death! It works well...

Get rid of morale. No limit to the number of attacks, lasers should target every type of aircraft, including bombers and fighters. Lasers should fire before bombers, but should only have a small % chance to hit incoming bombers before the bomber has a chance to drop a bomb. Lasers should have a high kill ratio to figs and transports.

Weaken the effects of all ops and magic, increase the costs, and eliminate the cap on the number of times they can be cast entirely. Scale the cost by NW/size of the target or whatever, if by anything at all; less is best...

This game should try to be fair and objective to all players, and that means not punishing those who choose to set alarms and wake up throughout the night to send out fleets, or buy food on the market, or begin new constructions. Those players are winners. Nobody is stopping anybody else from doing the same thing...

IC Freedom.

TLDR

Hey guys, I have an update here.

The test version of the game now has the old morale formula back in place as a default setting.  I'm moving towards the direction of more configurability, meaning we can dice up the battle calculations into multiple pieces to test over time what works and what doesn't.

This is important because, as several of you have pointed out, this isn't as simple as "old formula vs new formula" but rather there are components of each setup that can and should be evaluated independently.

On that note, I want to clarify that an update is soon coming, but it is *literally* with regard to the formula itself.  The update will not (yet) bring back the following:

• protection rules: players will still be able to attack whoever they want, limited only by the (old) morale formula

• sentinel tag: is not yet ready

• spells/ops: will still be bound by morale and not the original hard limit

• warcry: is not yet ready

Additionally, I'd like to stress and remind us that the old morale formula wasn't perfect.  Long before players were frustrated with the current one they were frustrated with the old one.  We should be aware of our expectations going forward and not anticipate that this change will fix everything, although it will surely help curb some of the more extreme situations.

Also, I do think it is worth adjusting the morale loss cap to help with this.  Some of you feel this should be done regardless, and I strongly agree.  This would be a good compromise while reserving complete morale-removal for HC galaxies.

For now though, we'll start with restoring the old formula itself.  More info will be coming soon.