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A novel approach to reworking Supply lines
Captain_Oz
Registered Users Posts: 81
Supply lines is a mechanic in campaign which increases the total cost of armies depending on the number of armies that you field above one army. The intention of this mechanic is to restrict the player as they grow stronger, making rapid expansion harder. However, the dependence of the cost increase due to the number of armies favour bringing few armies containing elite and expensive units. Together with the lightning strike skill, this makes low and medium tier (~200-600 gold) units redundant quickly.
I propose a change of the supply line system where it is based on the total cost of all armies and where the cost increase has a more profound effect on expensive armies and less of an effect on cheaper armies. How would this work?
The upkeep of all armies is increased depending on the TOTAL base upkeep of all armies. This leads to an upkeep increase of every individual army, where the increase is lower if an army cost is lower than a "baseline" cost and higher if it's lower than the baseline.
But what is the baseline cost? This is an arbitary number (for base upkeep, not including ANY modifiers) that ensures that the upkeep increase from supply lines would be the same as it is now. I.e. if you have any number of armies and all of them each have that upkeep cost, your total upkeep cost will be UNCHANGED. In other words the extra upkeep cost from supply lines will be the same as it is now.
If an army has got a base upkeep which is higher than this amount, its upkeep increase from supply lines will be HIGHER than it is now. On the other hand, if the army's base upkeep cost is lower than this amount, it will have a LOWER upkeep increase from supply lines. The upkeep increase or decrease scales LINEARLY with respect to army cost. An army with an upkeep half of the baseline cost will be affected by supply lines half as much and vice versa for an army twice as expensive. Your total upkeep will be the sum of the individual armies which might be affected differently from supply lines.
So to summarize this idea: Fielding more expensive armies will increase the upkeep of all of your armies. More expensive armies will be affected more by this upkeep increase while cheap ones will be affected less. Your total upkeep is the sum of the individual army upkeep for all armies.
Why is this a good mechanic?
Clarifications of some concepts
This system seems very difficult to understand. Why make it so complex?
It could be hard to understand every single detail and to predict how differences in army composition changes the total cost at first glance. However my suggested supply line mechanic is not very hard to understand at the core level. Expensive armies are more expensive and all armies become more expensive if you have more troops, especially for costly ones. In the same way, it is very difficult to understand every detail of the process of eating an apple. But no one has got any problems with actually eating an apple.
I think that it might be harder to understand every single detail of my suggestion than to play the game with these changes. However, if my proposed system is too hard to understand the UI could be updated to include some details about the upkeep changes etc. It could also be optional to play with or without the additional information.
Problematic cheese exploits
So what do you guys think? Leave a comment and share your view on the topic! Together we will find a solution to the doom stacks dominance and pave the way for weaker troops
I propose a change of the supply line system where it is based on the total cost of all armies and where the cost increase has a more profound effect on expensive armies and less of an effect on cheaper armies. How would this work?
The upkeep of all armies is increased depending on the TOTAL base upkeep of all armies. This leads to an upkeep increase of every individual army, where the increase is lower if an army cost is lower than a "baseline" cost and higher if it's lower than the baseline.
But what is the baseline cost? This is an arbitary number (for base upkeep, not including ANY modifiers) that ensures that the upkeep increase from supply lines would be the same as it is now. I.e. if you have any number of armies and all of them each have that upkeep cost, your total upkeep cost will be UNCHANGED. In other words the extra upkeep cost from supply lines will be the same as it is now.
If an army has got a base upkeep which is higher than this amount, its upkeep increase from supply lines will be HIGHER than it is now. On the other hand, if the army's base upkeep cost is lower than this amount, it will have a LOWER upkeep increase from supply lines. The upkeep increase or decrease scales LINEARLY with respect to army cost. An army with an upkeep half of the baseline cost will be affected by supply lines half as much and vice versa for an army twice as expensive. Your total upkeep will be the sum of the individual armies which might be affected differently from supply lines.
So to summarize this idea: Fielding more expensive armies will increase the upkeep of all of your armies. More expensive armies will be affected more by this upkeep increase while cheap ones will be affected less. Your total upkeep is the sum of the individual army upkeep for all armies.
Why is this a good mechanic?
This change would create an incentive for bringing other armies than doomstacks. Cheap armies and medium cost armies might become more viable as they provide decent combat ability without costing too much. In addition the cost of fielding so called "doomstacks" would increase significantly . Doomstacks might still be viable in some situations, but the increased cost of expensive armies could restrict their overall strategic value.
In addition it would improve the strategical depth of the game as the upkeep system is more complex. This would greatly improve the replayability of the game, as well as increasing the amount of strategies that players can explore during campaigns.
In addition it would improve the strategical depth of the game as the upkeep system is more complex. This would greatly improve the replayability of the game, as well as increasing the amount of strategies that players can explore during campaigns.
Clarifications of some concepts
The upkeep that determines the upkeep increase from supply lines is the base upkeep cost. In other words the upkeep of the unit neglecting any type of modifiers (buildings, traits etc.). This simplifies balancing as you don´t have to take into a account the large amount of cost modifiers that exist in the game.
The "baseline cost" is arbitary and set by the developers in order to balance the game. My idea of this cost is that it is the cost of an average army which is not too expensive and not too cheap. Something along the lines of 2500-3000 gold base upkeep could be considered the "baseline cost".
The upkeep increases depend on the total base upkeep, but the upkeep increases are added on an army to army basis. If you have any questions about how this works send a PM to me and I could provide you with the math that describes it in more detail.
The upkeep of heroes is treated as if they were a unit while embedded in an army. Outside of armies their upkeep increases as if they were a part of an army with an upkeep equal to the baseline cost. So if you only have armies with individual upkeep equal to the baseline cost, the upkeep of agents will increase by the same amount as it does right now.
The "baseline cost" is arbitary and set by the developers in order to balance the game. My idea of this cost is that it is the cost of an average army which is not too expensive and not too cheap. Something along the lines of 2500-3000 gold base upkeep could be considered the "baseline cost".
The upkeep increases depend on the total base upkeep, but the upkeep increases are added on an army to army basis. If you have any questions about how this works send a PM to me and I could provide you with the math that describes it in more detail.
The upkeep of heroes is treated as if they were a unit while embedded in an army. Outside of armies their upkeep increases as if they were a part of an army with an upkeep equal to the baseline cost. So if you only have armies with individual upkeep equal to the baseline cost, the upkeep of agents will increase by the same amount as it does right now.
This system seems very difficult to understand. Why make it so complex?
It could be hard to understand every single detail and to predict how differences in army composition changes the total cost at first glance. However my suggested supply line mechanic is not very hard to understand at the core level. Expensive armies are more expensive and all armies become more expensive if you have more troops, especially for costly ones. In the same way, it is very difficult to understand every detail of the process of eating an apple. But no one has got any problems with actually eating an apple.
I think that it might be harder to understand every single detail of my suggestion than to play the game with these changes. However, if my proposed system is too hard to understand the UI could be updated to include some details about the upkeep changes etc. It could also be optional to play with or without the additional information.
Problematic cheese exploits
The system I propose is not perfect and is susceptible to cheese. You could field mass amounts of one-lord armies which would circumvent the supply lines in practice. I have been thinking about this problem for a long time without a good way to deal with it. Perhaps you could only field a certain amount of lords depending on how much income you have or how many regions you control (similar to how agent caps are tied to buildings as well as a base capacity). Another way to try to solve it could be that armies below a certain size cost extra upkeep. You could also change the upkeep increase from supply lines to depend on the average cost of a unit in an army. That way one-lord armies would suffer from very high upkeep increases.
I welcome any suggestions in this area as I have not found a good solution to this problem.
I welcome any suggestions in this area as I have not found a good solution to this problem.
So what do you guys think? Leave a comment and share your view on the topic! Together we will find a solution to the doom stacks dominance and pave the way for weaker troops
NEDKIL™ for life! 
Post edited by CA_Will#2514 on
Tagged:
Comments
Supply Lines +% Upkeep (applies to all armies) = (Total Base Upkeep across all armies)/1000.
Simple, clean, and accomplishes most of what you set out to do.
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1 · Disagree AgreeHowever, I think that one drawback to this that you have not considered is that different factions would need different "base costs for army". The reason is that certain armies can easily bring a decent stack within the "base cost" while others will struggle due to expensive roster. In a way this might actually be loreful, but I think the balance might get out of whack, especially since certain low tier units can get some pretty great buffs from tech/lord skills so instead of doomstacks you might end up with 20 stack armies with low level troops being the optimum composition. I am not sure about this, but it's one possibility.
OR
what could happen is that despite the upkeep cost penalty for doomstacks, they would still be the go to strategy, despite the extra penalty.
In terms of limiting single Lord cheese, I think a decent solution might be to tie number of lords to number of provinces/regions owned. Something like 2+number of provinces owned (where "owning a province" counts for this purpose if you hold at least 50% of the regions in that province). So at the start, you would only be able to have 3 lords and be able to slowly add them on as you gain territory. Maybe after your 5th province owned you would need to "own" 2 provinces to get an extra lord?
As an aside, when I first heard the term "supply lines" I though it meant that there would be some mechanic that penalized you from being in enemy territory and the further you are from your base of operations, that more severe the penalty. I also envision ways to "cut the supply lines" to armies, thus causing them extra attrition/higher cost/extra penalties.
But alas I was disappointed to learn it just a lazy +X% total upkeep.
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1 · Disagree AgreeSupply Lines +% Upkeep (applies to all armies) = (Total Base Upkeep across all armies)/1000.
Simple, clean, and accomplishes most of what you set out to do.
I have considered that type of approach. The issue is that is does not create enough incentives to use less costly troops in every individual army.The higher combat ability and power concentration of more elite armies will still make them preferrable. In addition if you already have a lot of armies with a high combined upkeep, creating a new army consisting of expensive troops will not change that much. However, if the expensive armies cost even more there is a choice between a higher quality expensive army and a cheaper army which has lower combat ability.
However, I think that one drawback to this that you have not considered is that different factions would need different "base costs for army". The reason is that certain armies can easily bring a decent stack within the "base cost" while others will struggle due to expensive roster. In a way this might actually be loreful, but I think the balance might get out of whack, especially since certain low tier units can get some pretty great buffs from tech/lord skills so instead of doomstacks you might end up with 20 stack armies with low level troops being the optimum composition. I am not sure about this, but it's one possibility.
Unit cost is supposed to reflect the quality of the troops. Having different baselines for different races would mean that some races pay less for a similar combat ability compared to others. Instead I think it would be better to set one baseline that ensures that even the races with expensive troops can field a decent army without having to pay too much extra money for it.
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0 · Disagree AgreeAttacking gold inflation should happen at the settlement level.
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0 · Disagree AgreeGenerally, elite beats passive enemies and cheap beats aggressive enemies. Therefore you could make the AI more aggressive because if you did that now, it would be impossible for your 2-3 armies to cover everything and it would feel cheap and annoying. At the same time, lightning strike/stalk stance ruins all balance but I have no idea why lightning strike is in the game.
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0 · Disagree AgreeI like OPs idea.
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1 · Disagree AgreeI remember playing a campaign with the army caps mod and some AI recruitment mod that made sure AI armies were balanced in composition and it was awesome. It reminded me a bit of multiplayer where armies were diverse and had some elites, some chafff, some ranged etc.
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0 · Disagree AgreeThe reason I like cost-based cap is because it's pretty well balanced, dead simple to implement & maintain, it encourages players to use more of their roster, and doesn't require the devs to make a bunch of judgement calls on composition and restrictions.
Combining it with a max army size increase (which is even simpler to implement) would explode the diversity of viable builds in the campaign and solves two of the biggest problems with campaign balance while also enhancing player choice:
1. Making low - mid tier units viable from start to finish.
2. Creating interesting and competitive alternatives to doomstacks.
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0 · Disagree AgreeBTW, I totally agree that the 20 unit limit is silly. I think It can easily be made to be 40. In this case, your idea would be even better since it would be next to impossible to have a elite 40 unit stack since the cost woudl be astronomical.
What I would also do with large stacks is to maybe slow down their movement speed and make them take more attrition (ie its hard to forage for big army in one area, more diseases etc. For Undead the attriton comes from Necros not being able to maintain all the minions with their magic)
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0 · Disagree AgreeAll factions are already balanced for 12400 in MP. Raise this to 18000 for campaign (+500 for every 4 Lord level)
and have some factions be able to bring 22-25 units per battle and you'll have more diverse & interesting army compositions.
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0 · Disagree Agree- Report
0 · Disagree Agree- Report
0 · Disagree Agree- Report
0 · Disagree Agree- Report
0 · Disagree AgreeThe only thing I would say though is it would make steamrolling easier. Becasue as you expand you get more and more of these buildings and so negate the supply lines upkeep penalty that serves to slow you down.
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0 · Disagree AgreeI don't believe in cost dependanr hard caps of an army as many things are hard to quantify in cost. How much does the equipment of the lords and heroes account for the total cost of the army? How much would spells cost? And if spells have a cost associated with them, shouldn't other skill point related things also have a cost? How do you put a price on +ambush sucess chance or +movement speed? It does not affect the army in battle but provides bonuses that indirectly may improve the army's strategical and tactical value.
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0 · Disagree Agree