I agree with your observation that wood is generally the scarcest of the 3 resources... logical since it is the last one to get a temple (Pan) which allows increased production so players will have excess bronze earlier and excess grain before bronze. This imbalance is global for the entire game since people trade to get what they need. But is it a problem that needs to be solved by changing the game or an intended hurdle that makes it more challenging to play the game?

Make sense, maybe top players have built a defense force, buy low level players have no defense forece except some weak units.

So if u like attacking, what u gonna attack? If u mean raiding, then well people arent online 24/7.

U can't attack without defenders, as how u gonna score points when there is nothing to kill.

Besides that i would say that there should be more options in rewards from events, why does every reward give offensive units. Then offcourse it gets even harder to defend because high quality offensive units are easier to acquire.

Which again leaves everyone with mostly offensive units and nobody with defending units.

Also since defending require more units, u run into grain problems with more units as new players which again makes it more useless to defend as u need to many units when u dont have the city to provide it yet and support the army.

Also the reason why people are holed up is because most offensive armies are too strong and defending is pointless. A small offensive army can easily take out a much bigger army of def units which take longer to build and acquire.

I do agree that most of the players choose offense but that contributes to a more dynamic game... if more players chose to defend the game could become too static.  You can still frequently catch cities with 1/2 day production of units sitting in the open so finding targets is not really that difficult.

Now one area where I think a change is warranted is the PPs.  Why? because the offensive and defensive positions of a given level are about equal in strength while most players have much more offense than defense in their armies.  It is much more costly to engage the defensive positions and a bigger portion of the total city units are lost.  I think that a defensive PP should be 2/3 the strength of the same level offensive PP or the game should uncover new positions in a 1/3 to 2/3 ratio.

well i think coalition rewards from the events need to have choice between defense units or offensive like for the big events.

U can create a very strong offensive army just by getting those rewards. So there is no way to build enough defense unless much later in the game.

This also feels that there is not much life in cities.

Sure i like raiding people safely without a chance to loose units, but this feels boring after a while as i think 1/200 cities might actually have defense up and mostly thats even help from higher levels who send support force.

I think if people could choose between defensive and offensive units, there would be more balanced armies and bigger battles.

Unless u been playing for a long time, u will never be able to produce enough defensive units to counter the free ones.

From getting the elite rewars i have a small army of macedonian which to counter with javelinns and psicos which build very slow is impossible. Since it takes a while to be able to build peltast and which arent even strong against horses, require lotsa resources and slow to build.

And yes killing off people weak production doesnt give enough points and is waste of time, sure u can check and raid every city for their 50 points or something, when events require 10000 points to score decently high. So its quite impossible lol.

Im pretty sure most players will be suprised if they send a raid and expect resitance unless its a high level players. Its almost 95% sure that your raid cant fail, due to the lack of units u can produce or lack of supply from defending units.

Anyway this is a non-coiner perspective level 57 now, playing for three weeks.

defensive or offensive units cost same, and takes same time to build

yes it might be 1 strong offensive units vs 3 weaker defensive unit, but they combined resource cost and production time will be same.

once u finish all upgrades and all agreements, timber or bronze is more or less, you build unit types based on what resoruces you have so you use them most effectivelly

Rob

I absolutely don't agree with you... At every level the defensive units are much weaker than their offensive counterpart.  For example Thorakites vs Promachos... or Legate vs Agema.  The game also pays out loads of offensive units (I have received scores of Agemas) and almost none of the corresponding defending units (When was the last time you received 200 legates from PPs?).

I don't think it's a bad thing as it favors a more dynamic game but your answer is incorrect.  Every player in my coalition has much stronger offensive forces than defensive ones and not by choice.  Even if I pick 100% defensive units in tourney rewards I still end up with way more offense than defense usually in a ratio 3-to-1 or higher. 

As far as the wood is concerned the imbalance is real... while you can raid, trade and mine protectorates or Emporia for wood the reality is that the global amount of wood that "enters" the game every day is less than bronze which is less than grain.

i believe free units and unable to choose from defending or offensive units are the biggest problem. I guess people like attacking, but what u gonna attack if no one puts out his defense because it will get obligerated.

Besides that i think grain consumption for defense units should be much lower. Having to build 3x more units who consume the same grain as 1 offensive units, is alot to support and impossible for a growing city.

I guess these problems will go away with eleusis maybe, but for lower level cities , its very hard to be able to build enough defense units without going in the red.

Thats why i stop building defense now, because i cant support that many troops when a more powerfull offensive army is just way easier to maintain.

This makes defending at lower levels impossible which makes u feel helpless and stupid. Even if u want to grow a large defense, u just cannot do it and u need to wait till u get the right articles to lower consumption.

As example a small horse army of 20 is 22k power, try building 22k defense in javs, psicos and peltast, these are shitloads of units u need to counter free units.

Give people the option to choose. That way we can have more balanced armies and more battles as people will have more def units to waste and more options.

boisdejustice said:

Rob

I absolutely don't agree with you... At every level the defensive units are much weaker than their offensive counterpart.  For example Thorakites vs Promachos... or Legate vs Agema.  The game also pays out loads of offensive units (I have received scores of Agemas) and almost none of the corresponding defending units (When was the last time you received 200 legates from PPs?).

I don't think it's a bad thing as it favors a more dynamic game but your answer is incorrect.  Every player in my coalition has much stronger offensive forces than defensive ones and not by choice.  Even if I pick 100% defensive units in tourney rewards I still end up with way more offense than defense usually in a ratio 3-to-1 or higher. 

its fine that you don't agree me with me, but well I'm correct :)

funny that in my coalition we have more defense than offense:) maybe because we hold pantheons? :)

you can't get legates or any other denarii troops from PP, but you can get defensive troops for sure. After you fill up your bank, well depends what do you invest, could be 50:50, 50% offensive to red position and then another 50% defensive to green positions to make up your 100% bank. or could be one-sided just lets say using only offensive on red positions to fill up bank.

Then simply finish red position for big payout of offensive troops, or green one for big payout of defensive troops. (you can have some mix from other category during payout as well)

Easily manageable if you know how PP works and how to track your bank, then you can do things such as load with offensive and get defensive out for example.

here is your comparison of promachos vs thorakites,(i use elixirs lvl 8 and DOM9 as example, agreements lvl 20, scrolls maxed, 50 and 40 respectively):

promachos: 1352.25 dmg building time 1hr 40min 53sec, 153 633 total resource cost

thorakites: 629.7 def(average), 751.3 def(vs phalanx) building time: 46min 25sec , 166 738 resource cost

lets have a look at 24hour build for both and compare their power:

promachos: 19 581

thorakites: 19 811average, vs phalanx(promachos) 23 634

promachos would be dead meat, add lvl 5 pantheon bonus of 25% def, even more meat

add up to 94% extra defense bonus from fully developed city, you are looking over 51k defense vs these 19.5k offense promachos:) meat, meat, meat and steaks:)

meat, meat, meat and steaks:)

It's true that wood and bronze aren't quite balanced. Look at the port, people who offer wood ask for more bronze...

I am the opposite, always running short of bronze! 

I'm mostly short of grain... :p