Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM, Under Construction.
 

You can add more income and resources to capital by increasing its population.

Though Sept should define his notion of balance. At which point should vets be able to come even for it to be "balanced"? Or should they be constant underdogs?

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM, Under Construction.
 

You can also add starting sites to the capitol that would give bonii. You can have them give extra gold, gems, or resources to the cap province. For the record I don't think a boost is necessary either, I am just offering ideas as to how it could be done :).

I don't think it really matters if the noob team is as good at fashioning a list as the vets. Chances are trying to go for a perfect team setup to play against the vet team just would not work for a noob team. They would do better and have more fun playing nations that they know/want to play. Of course they would also do better if the vets didn't have all the high-powered nations for the era, which I think is probably the best way to nerf the vets in this game.

I am just a third-party follower of this series of games, but don't forget that giving a noob a nice chunky gold increase on his capital just means an extra bonus to the vet that takes it off him :D

Joking aside, my outsiders advice to the noobs is to get the SP practice games going, and learn to conquer Indy's with the minimum number of troops possible. Since that is where a large part of the vets advantage over the noobs occurs in the first 10-15 turns. Some of the nations with good sacreds only need 3-4 troops to expand with using the right bless, so sending an army of 20-30 of the same troops can sometimes translate into expanding 5 times slower than a vet would in the same circumstances.

For example, try MA Ermor with an S9 bless. Use an army of Thaumaturg + 4 Shadow Vestals + 4 cheap Tower Shielded arrow decoys. This costs about 300gp and will take out most Indys, and what is key is that it can be recruited every turn to maximise quick expansion.

This is just one quick example, and there are many more like this for practically any half decent bless nation. Even some of the non bless nations have tough enough troops to allow expansion with just minimum numbers (eg.Abysia). And the best way to learn them I find is through trial and error in SP games :) Since the first few turns of SP games are very similar to the first few turns of MP games. It's only after those first few turns that MP and SP games vary completely.

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM, Under Construction.
 

Very good information, true the right selection of troops (and Vets know all that stuff), is I'm sure more efficient at expanding than simply clobering the indies with numbers, though I am sure both will work. The noobs I am targeting though, have very little SP or MP experience working with the different units of each nation and the in's and out's of n4 bless versus a n8 (or is it n9) bless.

Personally, I have never really taken the time to experiment with such things. (I just recently learned that there is another level of bless beyond level 4!). Some noobs just pick units they like and use those to expand with. But I am noobs noob if ever there were one or a more casual player if you will. :D

I am glad we do have a fan base though. Lets keep the input coming, especially from outsiders.

I am going to try an experiment with terrain types and starting location income,etc. I'll post my results in a bit.

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM, Under Construction.
 

It is either that or setting Indy strength = 0 or 1. Aside from the noobs getting smart all of a sudden, those are the only two measures I can think of to address this expansion gap. Choose your poison.

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM, Under Construction.
 

what gap do you specifically mean? if you set indie strength=0 and give the noobs twice as many starting forts as the vets... the noobs will literally expand at twice the rate of the vets and by turn 6-8 or so will have double the vets income province count and gem score... is that what you are going for? additionally indie strength 0 will decrease the first turn on which conflict occurs dramatically... something you said you wanted to increase?

Namad, No I don't want the noobs to expand at double the pace of the vets merely to keep up as best as possible. Your right indie strength at 0 would result in a lightning fast game and quick conflict.

I've completed my tests. As mentioned terrain modifiers in the cap itself resulted in only a miniscule increase, it is also tied in to the graphics of the map, making a province a farm just doesn't mesh with the look (though it would work). I could locate the noobs in caps with lots of surrounding favorable provinces and neigbors but that might throw off my even placement scheme.

I think the best idea and most fair and consistent with the theme would be to just increase the population (as already suggested) in the cap's of the noobs to 50000 (the max I can set) which will give a slight bonus to the noobs to ease their expansion difficulties.

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM, Under Construction.
 

as far as i can tell in game 1 the noobs expanded faster than the vets and in game two it was a dead tie?


you still haven't specifically explained what this gap is that you are talking about... i have no idea what you are referring to... making it hard for me to comment

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM, Under Construction.
 

Noobs vs. Vets 2 was the optimal settings. You just did not have the placement to get all the noobs into the fight. Some kind of equidistant map would solve that.

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM, Under Construction.
 

Well, I agree mostly to namad here the expansion rates were ok, maybe a slightly lower indie strength (4) is ok but 0 will easily result in a huge lead for the noob team and will destroy much strategy. 1st turn take 3 provs. 2nd turn take 3 provs and recruit 3 commanders. 3rd turn take 6 provs. etc.
However I don't think the settings were completely perfect. At turn 10 you were larger than us and all in all we were unable to go on offense after that. The game ended around turn 30. The ideal balance would be imo to give the noobs just that much advantage, that it goes on for 60 turns or so.
However if the initial nation pick advantage is gone this already has to count as a boost for the noob team.