Rontonimo
during the week(not for the pvp reward), if you leave 350 jav nobody will raid you because it will cost more ressources that you will get.
in my raid , the acropole was not the Problem,I got 50k of ressource, the maximum BUT i have lost 1 agema and 8 hoplites in order to raid 50k. if now i want to rebuild the same unit to replace my lost, it will cost me 28k of ressource. the gain in ressource is only 22k
but if this city will have leaved 350 jav, my lost would have been the double.. and then even by getting 50k it would have cost me in unit 56k of ressource !!!
I predict that If plarium do not change this , in one month everybody will leave 350 jav in there City and no more raids

have fun with the game...without raid for ressource :(:(:(

IAC

Kris5225 said:

I have to admit, I prefer the older algorithm.  The older method is also more real world realistic - if an army of 200,000 men attacked a small band of 500 men, the army of 200,000 would have zero losses.  That is the way it has been throughout history.  This change isn't real-world at all.  I understand why it was made - the big elephant in the room - the problem with all MMORTS is that advanced players can easily destroy newer players and newer players quickly become disenfranchised and leave the game.  With this change, advanced players suffer losses when destroying newer players, slowing down the elephant in the room.  Still, I would like to see a different solution than eliminating real-world realism.

Other game designers smarter than me have offered other solutions, such as restricting attacks to a 10-level difference or limiting army size based on level difference and those are relatively easy implementations.

Personally, I like the idea of factions and territory.  When a person joins the game, they select a faction (in our case, Greece, Persian or Roman) and are automatically assigned an island of all in the same faction.  Everyone on the island are in the same "coalition" and cannot attack each other.  There would sill be bandits and pirates to practice attacking and earning points.  Each city would still have its own defense, and there would also be an island defense which everyone would work together on, and the big battles would be against other islands group defense, then raid cities in the island if we could break through.  Very Trojan War and very real world realistic.  We'd all have friends close by when we started the game rather than spread all over.  Territory and comradeship.

But, either way, I still prefer the old algorithm.

Clearly you are talking out of the no-man zone. This is not some large boulder falling off a cliff and killing ants and all other living things on the way is it? No it isnt. When a 1 million army attacks a 500 thousand army. There will always be a 500 thousand loss for the attacking army unless they had superior training and had an advantage either by the training itself or by the terrain or surroundings. Because this game does not take terrain or surroundings into consideration, they are just going by a ratio loss which to me is still not enough. It is surely a great change and now those huge coiners willing to spend thousands of dollars will have a lot to lose and that will force them to avoid spending mindlessly.

Archons, first of all, I am grateful to you for sharing with me both negative and positive feedback.

DarthRevan, the base average dp of an mounted peltast is 587.5 and 725 for cavalry defense so I am not sure where the 600 dp used above came from.

600 DP is an approximate value which we took to make calculations for the stated examples.

I would like to notice that new formula also makes Coalition Challenges more fair. Before, the defending party used receive more points while defending. Now the correlations between offensive and defensive parties in terms of gained points also became more equal.

Important notes about this update:

- The changes don't presume that 10 Swordsmen can destroy half of a big hostile army defending a Pantheon;
- It doesn't mean that the number of units in the defending army has no impact on the outcome of the battle;
- It does mean that the bigger force you have, the less damage you get.

there a problem im facing when raiding.

i send in 32 agema to raid a city that with 50 javeline.

the result shown i lose 1 agema while killing all 50 javeline

when i calculate my agema base offensive is 1680 and the javeline defensive on cavalry added not even close to 600 with max agrrment it only 800 from the 50 javeline.

1680 offensive with 32 unit i send never die during defeating 50-200 javeline or psilos after the updated calculator i have lose 1 agema every 50 javeline. and im really sad knowing the new method is killing your unit method

PrimeGuardian said:

there a problem im facing when raiding.

i send in 32 agema to raid a city that with 50 javeline.

the result shown i lose 1 agema while killing all 50 javeline

when i calculate my agema base offensive is 1680 and the javeline defensive on cavalry added not even close to 600 with max agrrment it only 800 from the 50 javeline.

1680 offensive with 32 unit i send never die during defeating 50-200 javeline or psilos after the updated calculator i have lose 1 agema every 50 javeline. and im really sad knowing the new method is killing your unit method

I'm taking it there was no fortifications in the city? This will make no sense to raid a city that has defense of any kind. I see how this can turn this game from war to building, and not losing troops. If feedback is not taken into account this game will be a ghost game. Quite a few players have heart burn over this, and with vets leaving, and new players not staying longer than LV6. I am starting to see a bait, and switch going down before my eyes. Probably will cut my losses soon. 

Initially, I didn't think this was a big deal, but If I hit a few javs or peltas, and lose on horseman each time this is not even worth it. I'm becoming increasingly disappointed in this game, and it's mechanics. I've given it three weeks, and the road the game is going is the typical path I have seen in other games. It's like a store that doesn't get business so they raise the prices to compensate, which in turn they lose regular customers, and do not get new ones. I'm not telling Plarium how to run their biz, but this game is going down hill fast. I would like to see it improve, and stay and play, but If I continually have to spend drachmas to build armies instead of relying on the game to produce the resources I need to make up for losses it's just not worth it to me. I can understand maintenance which is normal but this is ridiculous. New players don't stand a chance, and old players lose what they have built up. Take away the fun of the game, and no one will play for the hell of it. 

Suggestions:

Go back to the old mechanics, or modify once again that the defender has to come close to the total attack from all units. Say 80-90%, for instance 1k attack, and defender has 800 defense. One of the attacking units dies.

Choice for purchase, many times players will que up troops, and only to come back and they are toast because they did't get recruited to the acropolis. To stay on the game a continual 10hrs to make sure every last troop goes to the acropolis is just plain unrealistic. 

Map, external map where people can choose from a drop down menu each coalition to know the location of it's members, and compare. No one has the time to chart this out for each coalition. It will create coalitions that are not scattered all over the place. 

New players, New players need to know that it is not advantageous for higher level players to attack them. As long as they keep their troops, and resources protected in the acropolis they will not get repeatedly beat up on, and if they do, big deal they didn't lose much. If a new player loses their army 90% of them quit guaranteed. Time limit of besiege of their city. 

Shared internet connection, Those using the same internet connection for more than one account, cannot send articles, resources, troops support, and attack same villages. Make them register the shared connection this will cut down on cheating. 

End game, There needs to be an end in sight, not just top coalitions all cozy with themselves, this creates complacency, and stagnation. 

These might not be the answers to the current problems of the game, but they are something to think about. 

Well, I sent my usual 7-8 million offense raid to retaliate some fool thinking he can farms our members, and, as it often happens, he had the bad idea to defend...

Knowing the towers defending the city are really efficient in boosting defense, I generally lose at least some of my most numerous units (commonly a few Agemas and Promachoi), but this time, I lost nothing, while the target was completely wiped out. Probably a consequence of the changes ?... :p

What I understand from the explanations, and more precisely, from the before/after diagram, is sending attack waves to a well defended pantheon will gradually grind some of the defenders down, exposing the target and making possible to conquer it instead of remaining untouched as usual.

Well, I agree it would be more fair than before, though with the old system :

- I did kill lots of defenders during a coalition attack against a crowded level 5 pantheon (so it was possible already) ;

- I did lose some defenders against strong attacks against a pantheon I was helping to defend (maybe it wasn't defended enough then) in several occasions, though I really didn't lose many units.

Anyway, it would still be fair enough if we defenders would have to rebuild some defense to replace losses in our pantheons from times to times, rather than just throwing them there and forgetting them (except for orichalcum use) and leave any potential attacker hopeless. I agree it could get a bit boring and demoralizing in the end for both parties if there wasn't any challenge at all, as it was the case once a pantheon had reached level 5 and was filled up with defense.

Though since we're back with only one pantheon for now, it's so badly crowded I really doubt anybody could hope scratching any defender there, but this is another story. :D

At least, let's give the new rules a try and judge from results after a few months. :)

P.S. : in compensation for losing defense, would it be possible to at least earn PVP points ? As we don't seem to earn any defending pantheons...

I don't think this will matter that much

Very well said, Rontonimo!  I like your map idea.  Having coalitions spread all over is a problem in all MMORTS games - and has absolutely nothing to do with the real world.  MMORPG games, like WoW, have "factions" and everyone on your island is in the same faction, and the big battles are between factions, not squabbling with each other over scraps.  In real history, all the Greek city-states came together and fought together against the Persians and the Spartans certainly never fell upon one another like this game forces us to do.  Having enemies everywhere and allies far away is more akin to an open field full of zombies to the left and to the right, rather than a strategy game.

The business model of all these games, of course, is to get players to spend money.  They do this in a delicate balancing act (sometimes called "the balance of pain") - they need to make the game brutal enough that players feel compelled to spend money to do better, yet not so brutal that they get discouraged and stop playing.  Hopefully, this was a test change for Plarium and they will realize it just makes them like every other MMORTS out there, removing their uniqueness.  There are other, better, ways to solve the problem of top-tier players bullying new players.

its all about money

Well to be honest,

I have been playing this for about 3 months I reached lvl 50 and at this point I have army of DP 150K, yesterday I had offensive army of 200K today only 30K. I lost a lot of army on attacking and now with new changes I will probably loose even more, which is not really a problem at this point but if my army gets bigger and I can loose it faster then what is the point cause to build an army of let's say 500K offensive points player will need about 1-2 months of constant building and in meaningless attack I can loose for example army that I will need 10 days to rebuild - I am really considering to quit now and save my nerves in future.

Forget about resources, it is the time to rebuild the army.

All I would like to know is, how are battles calculated exactly, and how are war/challange points calculated. At the moment I notice that in a battle both sides loose about the same on OFF/DEF points, as shown in the example above. The Attacker with an overwehlming army losses 13,4k and the defender, much weeker losses 14,4k. This relation is also calculated for the challenge/war points. Both sides make about the same points, the stronger one, although, much stronger, makes a little bit more. This was very disappointing, as a winner should get more point in the challange, much much more!!!

Next: Assins win the war! As this is the only way to gain points without loosing points.

The result, I wll never go into a conflict or war again!