Dear players, we would like to start by thanking you for sharing your thoughts and feedback with us. We have discussed the points you raised with our developers and will address your concerns point by point.
1) New Agreement levels: offense and defense will no longer matter at level 32 and both will be equally strong
Even with such a significant boost, Offensive Units will not be as effective at defense as Defensive Units, and vice versa. When our developers design a new game feature, they make sure it does not change the core of the game while enhancing your gaming experience. New Agreement levels provide equal opportunities to both offensive and defensive players to have better chances against their enemies. As in real life, you will need both Offensive and Defensive Units to wage war effectively.
There are a number of comments stating that it will no longer be possible to ambush Offensive Units, and one will need more offense to be able to perform that “trick”. You are right. This trick is a nice strategic move, but let us look at it from a different standpoint: multiple players brought it to our attention that their armies were destroyed in unfair battles like that. So it is only fair that players have some security against such “tricks”. We do not grant absolute protection from this, so the strategy in question can still be used. What we did is reduce its damaging effect. Such battles will still be unfair, but you are free to employ this strategy if you wish. We do, however, want all of our players to have more real and epic battles, where both sides gain Experience and agree that fights are fair.
2) The divide between players that make in-app purchases and the ones that do not players
Each and every player in Sparta: War of Empires can reach TOP positions. That, however, requires a lot of time, Resources, Units, and considerable effort. Alternatively, you can use a special Resource - Drachmas - to develop your City and increase military power to dominate the map. Everyone can get Drachmas for free simply playing the game actively, i.e. participating in Tournaments, capturing Emporia, completing quests and Achievements, etc.
Some players decide in favor of in-app purchases to save time. It allows them to progress a little faster. Sparta: War of Empires is free-to-play, and like any other game of this type it gives all players free access to all game features and an opportunity to accelerate their progress with in-app purchases. It is not unfair that players taking this route, thus supporting the development of the game, enjoy certain advantages. Again, all these advantages may be summarized in one word - time. It takes less time to advance, but does not change the core of what every player needs to do to develop their City and grow military power. Moreover, there is a number of in-game limits so no one player can dominate an entire server. Therefore, when we develop a new feature, we make sure it will not negatively affect the game balance.
Yet another thing to consider is the social aspect of our games, which is extremely important. We want our players to unite in Coalitions and build Alliances to become stronger. We understand that it is hard to compete against stronger players -- it has always been, in any game -- and that is why we pay so much attention to various Coalition activities and give players an opportunity to unite against a stronger enemy. If you have any suggestions as to how this part of the game can be improved, we will be happy to hear from you.
3) Tournament Rewards are not good enough
We would like to emphasize that Tournaments should not be considered the only way to receive Units, Crystals, or Items. Tournaments may add a bonus to all actions you perform in the game, such as fighting rivals, capturing Pantheons, attacking and defending Persian Positions, developing your City, etc., but they are only a nice addition. The main purpose of the aforementioned actions is to get Resources from Raids, rewards from PPs, and actively develop your City.
Also, Tournament rewards have always been subject to change. We regularly add some new Items, remove some old ones, change the amounts of things you get, etc. Our developers carefully calculate each Tournament reward emphasizing that rewards are a bonus, not the main point of participating in Tournaments. There are, however, rewards that can only be obtained in Tournaments. Those have a greater value since they are rare, and we do want players to participate in Tournaments to get them.
4) Drachma-only items, such as Sketches, are not available in Tournament rewards in sufficient quantities
We add new Items to the Tournament rewards from time to time, including the Items available at the Market. Apart from Tournaments, those Items can be obtained at the Market. Please bear in mind that there are many ways to earn Drachmas in the game. They are a very important in-game Resource that can be used to purchase different Items and Units. That is why we made sure our players have enough opportunities to earn them in Tournaments, Missions, Quests, Achievements, Emporia, etc. Additionally, according to players who have already used Sketches for upgrades, there are enough opportunities for you to get this Resource.
5) Mathematical Errors (Coalition attacks, reduction of Unit construction time, etc).
Calculations. Since all Battles are calculated on the server side and we do not display other players’ bonuses on the client, when you launch a joint attack, you will not see its total power. However, at the moment of the strike, all bonuses (including the bonuses from Champion Units) will count.
Construction time. It is important to understand that all the bonuses in the game increase the speed rather than reducing the time. Therefore, it is not an error. Let us look at an example to understand the difference between the two:
Let’s say a builder can build a house in 1 day (24 hours). We apply a bonus to his building speed, and now he can build 1.5 times more over the same period of time. Namely, he can build 1.5 houses in 24 hours, which means he will need 16 hour to build 1 house.
6) Increase the number of GPs in Tournaments or make it possible to trade them - GPs are important for small cities & bigger players that have many and don't need them
Our game has a certain dynamic that was planned by the developers. It means that each game feature was designed to take a certain period of time to upgrade. It gives players an opportunity to get acquainted with the in-game content step-by-step and imitates real City development, which requires Resources and, once again, time. There is no arguing that it is hard to gain Glory Points, but since they give players certain advantages, they should be hard to get.
Stronger players have more of them not because they are easier for them to get, but because they are playing the game for a long time and have accumulated them. However, it does not mean they do not need those GPs. They can still get many useful Items for them. We know that our players want to have more Items available for GPs, and we will consider adding more Items that can be obtained for GPs to the Market in the future.
Unfortunately, we cannot make them tradeable because it would negatively affect the game balance and could be abused. If we gave the opportunity to trade them, it would force us to make them even harder to get.
It is our hope that we have fully addressed your concerns and explained why things are the way they are. If you have any additional questions or points you would like to discuss, please feel free to post in this thread.
