Redwall: Warlords

Hello my name is Shadow Kilkenne, and through the magic of the internet and a lot of hours of code/testing (involving horribly named hordes), we have created another version of the Redwall: Warlords Online Rat War Simulation Engine. Henceforth, RWLORWS v3.0 will be referred to as RWL: Worker's Paradise. The aim of this new version of RWL is to address a multitude of the concerns brought forward by the community and has also realized some of the ideas that have been in development for some time by the RWL admin crew and development staff.

This being said, the work on this project is ongoing, and we near approximately 80% completion. It is therefore that this post is here to inform you of what kind of changes are coming down the pipe, and that there will be a closed (but inclusive, details on this later) beta testing process to ensure that we have ironed out the kinks of this version of the game.

Without further ado, here is what you can expect:


The fundamental change from what we have come to think of as the game comes in the form of the Worker Economy. Without being too long winded, your production of food, cash, troops, leaders, and frustration shall be your population of Workers.

Workers are now housed within buildings, with different population values for each building, much as Huts house Leaders now. The amounts can be determined thusly:

70 workers/land Markets
100 workers/land Tents
100 workers/land Barracks
80 workers/land Camps
60 workers/land Huts
90 workers/land Foragers
50 workers/land Towers
50 workers/land on Free Land

In addition to being housed in different amounts on all of your land, your workers can be allocated to their primary tasks at the percent that you as Generalissimo determine is appropriate. This function in your "Manage Army" tab will allow you to allocate percentages of your workers to either produce cash or food for you totaling to 100%. You can even set this value to 1% 0% if you are terrible at internet rats the way that I am and don't understand basic math.

This should create a more modular economy that is more customizable and able to support new strategies dependant on the playstyle of each individual.



This is the section where swaths of the community come out to rip my throat out before desecrating my corpse with terrible posting. Please read the entire section before you go into an unstoppable dork rage.

Leaders no longer function in the capacity that they have previously functioned. The "loot" and "feast" functions have been removed from the game. Individual leader spells such as "goldmine" and "pay tribute" have likewise been removed and will be replaced at a later date by separate leader spells.

Leaders are henceforth to be used to "buff" the use of turns that allow you to perform tasks such as produce food/cash at a variably (depending on leader/land ratio) greater amount whilst using turns. Additionally, players can use their leaders to buff their turns to increase their rate of worker gain, decrease the rate that workers leave, decrease their net expenses, and a variety of other functions. These can be used in unison, assuming that the player has the correct amount of Loyalty to pay for them.

Due to the fundamental change in that building all land to 100% huts will no longer be viable, we have introduced a new aspect to the attacking interface. Like turns, Warlords will be able to augment their attacks with their leaders. Their leaders, based on ratio and number, much like previous, will be able to buff attacks on opposing warlords, and will be sent with troops on attacks. Murder will no longer function as a slaughtering of enemy troops, and instead will reduce the target warlord's health. Likewise, Steal has become "Pillage" and allows a greater version of "Sack" to be performed, should a player's leaders be victorious.

The currently available attacks (sack, capture, drive, chaos) will remain in the game as options for warlords who do not wish to sacrifice their leaders upon the altar of progress.


This can be put under the category of workers no longer being useless, but it also sort of deserves its own category.

Your armies will no longer spring out of the ground. The collective groan you just heard was every indy being upset (it's your turn now, jerks) that they will have to also run an economy. Workers will be converted to troops as designated by the same percentage system as before, with the same ratios applied as before. However, you will not be able to recruit troops from workers that you do not have.

Leaders are gained in much the same fashion. Your workers are able to become leaders.

However, when being converted to troops, obviously your workers that are converted are unable to render their services in the fields or markets, so you will no longer gain their economic benefit. Just one more reason that this economy should be more in-depth.



When will this be done?
It's about ready for a beta right now.

How do I get into this beta?
Magic. We haven't determined the selection process. Be assured that it'll be more of a responsibility than a right to mess around and not give feedback should you get in. There'll be a post about it later.

Why are you posting all of this?
Because I love to hear my own voice in my head. Also, people have been wondering what's been going on lately.

I don't like these ideas, you are bad at the game Kilkenne/Shadow/windy/whomever
When you can give a reasoned argument; AFTER having seen the content, feel free to let someone to know your findings. Complaining that it's a change that might remove you from your seat as "internet rat God-king" will earn you only my ire.

I have another question
Feel free to PM me or Shadow with it. I spend too much time around the internet all day, seeing as it's on my phone and can probably answer you.

Kilk...I gave up on this game a few months ago when I decided I was tired of building 100% hut and not being good enough at math to get anywhere...and then this happens...my favorite game of all time just might become something I could enjoy again! I love building economies! I love workers! I love COMMUNISM!!!!

YOU ARE INCREDIBLE. (and by "you" I mean Kilk and all the others devs who have worked on this rip-roaring stunner of a project)

I'm very pleased that the first reaction was so positive :)

Please stay tuned for beta access as well as more information about the new game mechanics.

Basically, everyone will be a newb again, and it will be awesome learning together.

Even though I understood about 20% of that, I look forward to the new changes. It sounds really cool you guys. Although I'll miss my leaders and armies appearing out of thin air.

I approve of this change. Be interesting to try anyway. (Course you guys knew that already.)

Woah, this is pretty big. I approve, though, I've suggested before that troops should come from workers, and good to see leaders being balanced.

Are we going to get a themeless round to figure out how this all works, though? Another thing, will cashing/farming races still exist, because it sounds like leadering has been merged with those strategies?

Pretty much all strategies have been merged, ie, building 100% of anything is probably going to be a bad idea. In fact, cashing and farming will become central to all of the strategies to some extent.

The plan is that over the next month or so, there will be a testing process underway, during which time Kilk and I will make a medium sized post every few days with details of one aspect of the change. If testing goes well, we will open it up for general testing in a few weeks. After that there would likely be several turbo rounds for people to play with things.

Awesome guys, I love what I'm hearing here :)

Workers being more useful and the added complexity of the economy will definitely make things more interesting around here, like Shadows said too, it'll be interesting to all become noobs again.

Don't know who designed that logo too, but it also looks pretty amazing!

Very nice Kilk.  This new complexity aspect should make everything more fun, as well as re-level the playing field.

Quote from: Sharptooh on January 02, 2012, 08:08:02 AM
Don't know who designed that logo too, but it also looks pretty amazing!

This is the best comment so far.

I made an art.

All right tell me if I am correct. Say I am a leaderer.

I set your workers at percentages to make food/cash/whatever, then after I have gotten the leaders (which are recruited from the workers, amr?), I use my turns to

Quote"buff" the use of turns that allow you to perform tasks such as produce food/cash at a variably (depending on leader/land ratio) greater amount whilst using turns.

thats the part I don't get. :P

I love your style of posting kilk I wish I could post like that.

sounds good

Quote from: Rakefur on January 02, 2012, 08:40:57 AM
I set my workers at percentages to make food/cash/whatever, then after I have gotten the leaders (which are recruited from the workers, amr?), I use my turns to

Quote"buff" the use of turns that allow you to perform tasks such as produce food/cash at a variably (depending on leader/land ratio) greater amount whilst using turns.

thats the part I don't get. :P

You will gain leaders much like you do now, however, until your huts are full (100 leaders/hut) they will be recruited from your population. Your population will continue to arrive and grow assuming your taxes are low, but you will have guys being converted to leaders (if you have non-full huts) and troops (if you have active barracks). So you will always have some population. When you buff turns, it means that you are using your leader ratio, to a maximum set by your racial traits to improve your production in one aspect.

Here's an example of a turn I ran:

Turns Included: 1

Economic Status
Income:   $5,206,859
Expenses:   $9,765,317
War Tax:   $0
Loan Pay:   $0
Net:    -$4,558,458

Food Status
Produced:   650,688
Consumed:   605,729
Net:    +44,959

Workers and Army Status
Recruited Workers:    -70,031
Workers:    +55,854
Leaders:    +0
Loyalty:    +13,147
Rats:    +35,362
Weasels:    +17,565
Stoats:    +8,725
Skiffs:    +5,778

Oh so there will  be leader missions that boost production in different areas. right?

 think so

It's basically a drop down menu that you select from that will spend loyalty along with food etc to increase production or decrease expenses. I'll be screenshotting and writing this up as soon as Shadow gets back to me, the system should make more sense then. None of them are "missions" perse in that they can't fail unless you don't have enough loyalty, like missions now fail when you lack a certain ratio. They will just amplify your production less.

Masked Wolf, you're about to get moderated, consider making posts longer than about two words.

cool

lol for kilk's last comment and the last post.

OK, I think I understand now. Man this will be hard.

why would it be hard

We'll have to completely re-learn the game.

oh...well at least everybody will be equal

Alright, a little more information:

I have always found it bothersome that the most intuitive way to run turns, which is to make your cash and food green, is the worst way to play RWL. This makes it difficult for newbies to get into the game and discouraging when they can't get ahead as well as veterans, who are playing in the red all the time.

So we made it so that you pretty much have to run in the green all the time, or at least as much as you run red. Leader production missions are gone, so you can't just build huts and make resources, and merc sell prices are very, very low, so you can't just sell troops for the resources to run - you have to produce it, turn by turn, using workers, markets, and foragers.

Kilk already mentioned that workers are stored in all building types, and workers form the backbone of your economy for both cash and food. Markets and foragers both produce some resources passively, but most of it will come from workers via taxes. You will find that the optimum tax rate for spending turns is somewhere between 25% and 35% in the long term, though you can micromanage to suit the game situation in the short term as well.

Leaders will provide an important addition to any economy, though buffs. There are buffs that increase income or decrease expenses (and more, which will be covered later). Note however that these do not produce directly, they only multiply what your workers produce. Which means that building all huts will not work - since huts hold less workers overall, your economy will suck, and multiplying a bad economy doesn't add much.

Economically, you stop getting a benefit from more leaders after 20 leaders/land, and any more leader beyond that are purely offensive/defensive in nature, and represent a blow to your economy. More on the specifics of leader changes later.

Workers join you much like leaders did in the past - they trickle into your buildings up to a certain point, and they leave if you go over this point. You can expect to spend about 100 turns filling up your workers to capacity. This means, of course, that losing land will cause a major hit to your economy, and so it will be in your best interest to defend your land if possible. Land passing will be a bad idea for pretty much everyone.

As of right now, you will probably find the numbers you see will be a little more sane. Hundreds of billions of dollars and hundreds of millions of troops/net are going to be tougher to get. Don't get discouraged by the change of pace! Everyone is experiencing it.

Stay tuned for more information! This just scratches the surface.

The more I hear about this release, the more exited I get . . .

1st...are there new races

2nd... How do you get into the beta (not that i would be in it)

3rd...will there be a new server for this

1) There are no new races yet, though there are plans for one more. We have not changed the existing races (except to remove race specific spells, for the moment), but we may rebalance existing ones if it becomes necessary, and we may implement race specific buffs depending on feedback

2) There will be an open beta in a couple of weeks

3) Initially yes, if all goes well then this code will go into the regular game as well, but that is a fair way away

ok...thanks...one more question. How do you get picked for the Beta

It just sort of happens ;)

oh....well anyway i know i won't be picked because i'm still a NOOB

That's no way to talk.  In the beta, everyone would be a noob, so you experience now would have no impact on getting into the beta or not.  Or at least that is how I feel

oh...well i thought they were picking people by experience and popularity

Possibly Durza, though I feel that the "vettier" you are, the more likely you'll go in cause you'll be able to MAKE new strats. Definitely NOT by popularity, I guessing Sevz is going to get to be playing. (no offense sevz)

I think this will make the game more realistic and most likely much more fun to play. I'm not going to have hundreds of billions of dollars at the end of the set. The part about the land passing is making me very happy, that was something that always bothered me. I mean, how does losing land help you rise above the others?

oh...well thanks

Right now we are just testing things and tweaking numbers. The actual beta, in the sense of people actually playing the game, will be open. So don't worry about it.

oh...yeah

The admins are a nice bunch. . . They will choose a fair variation of skill levels.

Am I the only one who thinks this sounds incredibly complex and is likely to deter new players?

The whole thing is very interesting; however it really comes across as something that's perfect for veterans but near impossible for new players (and I mean players totally new to Promisance) to pick up. It doesn't seem all that intuitive. It's also a pretty huge change. I trust you guys to introduce the changes slowly and with plenty of warning, but I'm concerned about a huge drop-off in player numbers when this thing finally goes into effect.

Please bear this in mind: I'm not mad about the forthcoming changes. I'm just a little concerned. Maybe keep a 'RWL: Classic' server running? I've been up for over 20 hours and I could barely formulate this post, I'm sorry if this sounds like a ragepost. It's not and I'm very interested in getting involved with the Glorious Revolution. I appreciate the development team's fantastic work and dedication to creating pretty much an entirely new game. I had no idea you'd been working on this. I'm sure any issues there are here are fixable. I'm just worried about people getting mad about change on the internet, haha

Quote from: Ashyra Nightwing on January 02, 2012, 04:13:19 PM
Am I the only one who thinks this sounds incredibly complex and is likely to deter new players?

The whole thing is very interesting; however it really comes across as something that's perfect for veterans but near impossible for new players (and I mean players totally new to Promisance) to pick up. It doesn't seem all that intuitive. It's also a pretty huge change. I trust you guys to introduce the changes slowly and with plenty of warning, but I'm concerned about a huge drop-off in player numbers when this thing finally goes into effect.

Please bear this in mind: I'm not mad about the forthcoming changes. I'm just a little concerned. Maybe keep a 'RWL: Classic' server running? I've been up for over 20 hours and I could barely formulate this post, I'm sorry if this sounds like a ragepost. It's not and I'm very interested in getting involved with the Glorious Revolution. I appreciate the development team's fantastic work and dedication to creating pretty much an entirely new game. I had no idea you'd been working on this. I'm sure any issues there are here are fixable. I'm just worried about people getting mad about change on the internet, haha

I agree with this... I think a good idea would be to keep the classic regular and turbo the same and then make a new server with these changes...

I appreciate your concern, but to be honest I expect the exact opposite. When new players start at RWL, what do they do? They build a little bit of everything and try to keep their turns green. Which is exactly what you CAN'T do in the current RWL to get ahead, and is exactly what you HAVE to do in the new one.

While there are certainly as many layers of complexity as you care to explore in this version, many of them are quietly behind the scenes unless you want to interact with them - everything depends on workers, but workers join you for every building type including free land, so you will never be low on them even if you are only getting them accidentally ^_^

The fact that troops come from workers will be useful, but knowing it is not necessary to make troops - you will always have workers. Likewise with leaders. Leader math now is either done for you, or depends more on numbers than ratios, so that aspect will be much simpler conceptually. Messing with the economic settings can give a player an edge, but leaving them as-is is perfectly viable and will likely be the usual option for most players. Etc etc. When building this thing, the main idea was "easy to get into, but hard to get good at".

On the other hand, veterans who are using to running one building type in the red are going to have the hardest time :)

Of course, if what you say is the case then it will be a while before we move this into regular play - and we won't rush that without the blessing of the community at large. This won't go into mainstream play until everyone is happy with it.

Finally, I actually have every intention of running a RWL classic server as long as space permits (which it should) even if/when this thing becomes mainstream.

The speed at which this project was done is simply because of opportunity - I had a lot of time over the break that I spent coding, whereas I usually can't.

Good...Good

Stop spamming one or two word posts! I am going to just delete posts like that without further warning.

Shadow
modding

I think this development will actually help me, in that I get to basically start over along with everyone else.
Sounds fun! :D

Quote from: Shadow on January 02, 2012, 06:02:24 PM
Stop spamming one or two word posts! I am going to just delete posts like that without further warning.

Shadow
modding

sorry..a'm not one for many words...

I have decided that is appropriate to answer the questions about how complicated things are by making a photo essay for you to follow along with. Pictures and words are more fun to look at than just words, right?

(http://i.imgur.com/zYlys.png)

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(http://i.imgur.com/J4FjW.png)

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(http://i.imgur.com/fpJ11.png)

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(http://i.imgur.com/tTHPY.png)

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(http://i.imgur.com/RR4Yw.png)

Sorry the words are a little small. Also I edited out my warlord name because it is borderline inappropriate and horrible.

I also made these in MSpaint, the best thing around.

this is pretty crazy. Kilk, shadow, sorry for senselessly bashing your ideas, I was ignorant of the changes taking place. I'm kinda excited to see this through now. anything I can help with boys?

Now THAT is a welcome change of tune. I'm sure there is lots you can do, stay tuned.

Just so you know because we've paged over, there are ~game photos~ on the previous page (page 3, the third page). I am posting this post so you don't miss my post.

you sounds like a muppet when you talk like that ha

MS paint ftw.

okay sounds good.

i want a cool siggy :wink:

(Nice siggie Shads)

Now back on topic: "O.O" is all I can say. WOW. Now I really want to try it out.

siggie courtesy of kilk

those photos were cool

Although I would be sad to see the old code gone, I do approve and look forward to the new version of the game. Well done boys.

*Claps*

Best quote ever

That belongs up there with the logo.

All right, that's going a bit too far.

Towers get a nice boost in this game. Previously, towers provided 500 DP each, and needed 100 rats per towers to get the full effect. We have instead reduced the passive tower defense to 200 DP each, with the same rat requirement, but with a twist. If you are attacked with a single troop type, the towers allow some of the troops from your other stacks to help defend. Which means that when someone attacks  you with rats, your rats get a little bit of help from your weasels, stoats, and skiffs, and when your stoats are attacked, they get some help from your rats, weasels, and skiffs. The size of the effect is modified by the defensive value of the troop being attacked, which means that guerilla strike benefits much more from tower sharing than does bombardment.

This troop sharing applies only to single troop type attacks - for standard attacks, towers just provide a passive 200 DP, which means that you may find yourself in a situation where you can break with standard, but not being able to break in any of the individual troop attacks.

The exact formula governing the amount of troop sharing is not particularly important - the new fields in army status accurately convey the information so you can check your defenses before and after making towers. The only things to note are:

tower sharing increases the more of your land that is on towers
tower sharing is affected by health, but the passive 200 DP added is not

The net effect of all this is that towers are "levelers" of the defense values of your single troop stacks - rats and stoats get a big boost, weasels and skiffs get a small boost, with the net result that your defense can be much more balanced despite the highly offensive nature of troops in RWL.

I am mildly excited for these new changes, i have played at a lot of promisance sites and never seen anything close to this. I would definitely suggest making this a seperate server, even if people like it in the beta. Maybe for a few months or so to see how it carries over...

Also, if you need another tester to give some feedback, I would be more then happy to help with whatever.

...so would ah

How is this going?

Updates?

Currently just tweaking things, going smoothly so far. I will have an update for you guys detailing how leaders work in 3.0 in the next few days :)

YAY, more information to rack or brains over.  (No sarcasm)

Leaders have been changed the most in the new game. We completely scrapped the direct production missions, as well as race specific spells (for now). Instead, as already mentioned, leaders provide "buffs" to your worker production. The exact power of the buffs is an ugly and complex formula and doesn't need to see the light of day, but the punchline is that you get stronger buffs up to 20 leaders/land, and after that, any more leaders you get are purely offensive/defensive in nature and represent a low to your economy since huts hold very few workers.

The buffs mostly server to multiply the output of your workers and buildings. You can increase your cash and food income, or decrease cash and food expenses, by at most somewhere between 25% and 35% depending on your race. You can increase the rate at which workers are converted into troops, or decrease the number of workers lost when recruiting, or the rate at which workers join you. Finally, you can increase your hut capacity to 120 leaders/hut, or heal at twice the rate you normally do.

You can use up to three buffs per turn - one from each category: economic, which includes the income and expense, industry, which includes the troop and worker buffs, and warlord, which include the leader and health buffs. More may be added later.

This makes the economic game very rich, since there are many combinations you can use, depending on the game situation you find yourself in. It also means that pure leader play is completely dead - since leaders only multiply the power of your worker economy, if you are all leaders your economy sucks, and so multiplying it really had no effect. You will need to balance your buildings to get the most from your workers, and balance your need for defense against a strong economy.

The rate at which leaders join has also been changed a lot. If you build very few huts compared to land, you can fill them entirely in a few turns. If your hut count is high compared to your land, it takes much, much longer to fill them, and at 100% huts, you might spend several entire runs filling your huts. Leaders also cost 5 workers each, so when you first build a lot of huts your economy tanks - this means that it is in your best interest to defend your land and your leaders, because recovering them can significantly impact your productivity.

Finally, most of the offensive leader missions are changed. They are now buffs to attacks, and succeed depending on the power of your leaders versus your opponent's. Leader power is now displayed in army status, and has almost nothing to do with the ratios that they are currently. While a high leader/land ratio does give your leaders a boost, it is not nearly as drastic as currently, to the point where a rat with a fair chunk of land can break a wolf if they don't mind sacrificing some economy in so doing.

The buffs are:

sack - as it is now - no loyalty cost
chaos - as it is now - no loyalty cost
drive - as it is now - no loyalty cost
capture - as it is now - no loyalty cost
offense - if your leader power exceeds your opponent's, your troops get a 20% offense boost and both players lose leaders
murder - if your leaders win, you destroy a percentage of your opponent's remaining health
pillage - sack on steroids, but is affected by raised defenses
sabotage - destroy enemy towers
enslave - capture enemy workers

These all cost more loyalty than you can make in 2 turns, so there is no such thing as gaining loyalty while beating on someone anymore.

The punchline here is that leader defense is no longer invincible, and there is a tradeoff between leader offensive and defensive power and economy. Leader power is much less dependent on leader/land ratio, and while it still has some effect, it caps at 175 leader/land, which means that getting hit to low land no longer provides invincible defense like it does now. The slow join rate and destruction of economy when gaining leaders adds yet more incentive to hold onto land.

Rejoice all ye' player of RWL.  The age of the pure leader is over.

cooolo

My hope is that we will be able to hide most of the formulas behind the scenes and make it unnecessary to use them - ideally the information will present itself in a way that makes it possible but largely unnecessary to actually do the math. So if this all sounds complicated don't worry - it will work itself out in a way that basically means that you don't need to worry too much about it.

Also bear in mind that both the buff turn and buff attack list are open for additions, so if you have ideas for these after trying them out, by all means suggest them, particularly in the area of race-specific abilities.

So basically, leaders are purely secondary, something everyone will have. I don't think ANY pure strats will exist.

yeah

i havent read through it all but im just wondering how this will affect magpie now that the loot option has gone and its effectiveness.

maybee everyone wsill use ferret

Quote from: Pippin on January 15, 2012, 03:58:58 PM
i havent read through it all but im just wondering how this will affect magpie now that the loot option has gone and its effectiveness.

loot option is not gone at all, it is now essential for pretty much all strategies. It is just a turn buff instead of a separate page - the underlying functionality (gaining cash from workers) is the basis for all cash gain in the game. Looting has been made quite a bit simper though, so tax micro is not really required on a per turn basis.

I suggest you read through it all ;) It should clear up your question.

ok cheers for the answer i'll read through when i got some time

so...when will this wonderfull thing be open

There are a few more things to polish off before, and school/work has started so I won't commit to a timeline. But I would expect it in the near future.

Which translates to in a month or two

That's my hope :)

cool

Quote from: The Masked Wolf on January 17, 2012, 06:29:20 AM
cool

This. Stop doing this. The whole posting one word at a time thing. Do not do this.

dont be so patronizing about it

Quote from: Kilkenne on January 17, 2012, 09:48:39 AM

Quote from: The Masked Wolf on January 17, 2012, 06:29:20 AM
cool

This. Stop doing this. The whole posting one word at a time thing. Do not do this.

fine...calm down

not sure if this is the right thread....

I think cities should have a loyalty cost. Not a lot, but something.

Major  necro, but could somebody please update the numbers in the OP? I'm certain barracks no longer give 100 workers. Come to think of it, we could use a thread where all the math is in one place.

barracks give 100 each
camps give 90 each
tents give 120 each
towers and free land are 50
huts are 60
markets and foragers are 85

np ;)

There's a file called const.php with a lot of these numbers. I'm trying to update the code so that const.php has a majority of the numbers.