djmoody said:

This has nothing to do with big players. Big players don't buy food in the market.

so, are we happy about this?

Lord Oberon

I have two arguments against this update.

1. this contradicts logics from real life - no food, units die

2. it has killed food market. i can not sell food, cant set a lower price either

Lord RED said,

`To clarify, you cannot train troops if you do not have food. You can be in negative production and train troops, so long as you have enough food in your barns.`

This is a welcome & good clarification.

This would only be usefull really if you ran food into negatives, and you needed to get it back into posetives to actually make new units.

You would have to raid to keep build units, buit at a certain level raiding wont be enough and you need to start use your units on something.

Oberon, forgive me, for this will only add to the controversy !

First off, if we don`t have enough food, then ultimately, we die. So should it be in the game.

I have some sympathy for DJMoody who may use his troops to help his league and such, however, having much sympathy for players that have grown armies so big that they are constantly running out of food, is a little difficult!

Throughout history leaders have had to deal with this problem. Those leaders did not have any `boulders to food` ability. If they did, who knows where we would have ended up. It`s possible that none of us would even be able to play games!

An army marches on it`s stomach. To attempt to change such a fundamental fact only invites myriad problems.

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As for those players big enough for loss of troops due to lack of food, the solution appears to be simple and already been given by DJMoody, kill some troops until situation is manageable again! That way, at least it keeps you competitive with other big players in the same position.

Assuming that all BG`s have been cleared, there are many ways to do this, which I`m sure the big players know. Coiners or no, once the ceiling is hit, then it surely acts as a leveller, in that you can no longer have more than what another coiner or long time/good player can have. If big players fought more with other big players, instead of going more for easy targets, then it would also be more eventful for them & could reduce troops at the same time.

Further increasing advantages of big players over the rest can never be a good thing. 

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Unless some more features such as some kind of Arena or other events can be added to help reduce those big player`s troops more interestingly, or maybe as DJMoody suggested, more Relics with higher food reduction and/or Obelisk food consumpton reductions, which apart from the Arena, would be open to everyone, then I cannot see any way that the no food - no troops lost makes much sense or is in any way fair.

Skramble AOC2 Recruitment said:

DJMOODY and RED, I do agree with you on all of your points with the current game mechanics. well, all but "there is still a cap of sorts on army size"

Food is easily obtainable through raids, my barns are usually maxed out within 4 or 5 raids. Train up troops and 4 or 5 raids later maxed out to train more. No longer is the worry of over training my food supply. Many of us have our buildings and arts maxed out, so all we need the food for is training.

The problem I see with an unlimited army is it farther encourages the congregation of large players into a League (or multi-league). When that happens, the only time the large Leagues will have any real excitement is when there is a diplomacy breakdown (those are fun to watch, probably main reason I still play this game)

Smaller leagues, such as mine, will no longer stand a chance of gaining any ground.

My original point was why does the developers not look into incentives for players to use their troops, instead of implementing something that allows and eventually forces) players to stockpile. 

One example is that League Challenges burn A LOT of troops. But there is no real individual (or league wide) incentive to participate for the rewards are squat compared to the time and resources spent. 

I can see the cap on army size becoming more dependent on time with this change.  If you have time to do 3-5 raids and get building, you're golden.  If you don't, then you're effectively capped.  For some bigger improvements that take almost all the food you're able to hold, army size might become a problem.  I'd assume that players who have their massive armies from being older players and from knowing how to get max rewards out of the system would already have max improvements and not worry about it; it would most likely be a problem for armies built from cash before the player is built up enough to support it.  

I agree that the game encourages and rewards stockpiling.  Certain elements of the game, like beacons, almost require it.  PvP also seems based on attacking those you can beat, defending if you think you can win and hiding in cata if you're fairly certain you can't.  The lion's share of rewards go to the winner and the more overwhelming the win, the fewer losses you take to get that reward.  Not exactly a dynamic to encourage fair fights or risk taking.  

DJMOODY and RED, I do agree with you on all of your points with the current game mechanics. well, all but "there is still a cap of sorts on army size"

Food is easily obtainable through raids, my barns are usually maxed out within 4 or 5 raids. Train up troops and 4 or 5 raids later maxed out to train more. No longer is the worry of over training my food supply. Many of us have our buildings and arts maxed out, so all we need the food for is training.

The problem I see with an unlimited army is it farther encourages the congregation of large players into a League (or multi-league). When that happens, the only time the large Leagues will have any real excitement is when there is a diplomacy breakdown (those are fun to watch, probably main reason I still play this game)

Smaller leagues, such as mine, will no longer stand a chance of gaining any ground.

My original point was why does the developers not look into incentives for players to use their troops, instead of implementing something that allows and eventually forces) players to stockpile. 

One example is that League Challenges burn A LOT of troops. But there is no real individual (or league wide) incentive to participate for the rewards are squat compared to the time and resources spent. 

Skramble AOC2 Recruitment said:

This has to be a joke, right?

Hard to imagine a company that publishes games for a living to come up with such a game breaking idea. 

Would it not be better to brainstorm ideas that increase troop activity within the game instead of making it easier to stockpile troops?

The patch lets the strong grow stronger.  Those who weren't impacted by issues with food yet and/or who were putting significant resources into preventing the food problem are upset and understandably so.  There is still a cap of sorts on army size.  If your army is too big, you simply won't be able to keep enough food on hand for long enough to do anything.  There will still be ways around it; redeeming from black market to build, being online and spending second raids come in, temp production boosts, etc.  

There already is a lot to encourage troop activity in the game.  The problem is that the frequency of the tournaments coupled with the fact that it takes a long time to rebuild what is lost ensures that players who want the best rewards will stockpile massive armies and seek out easy wins. 

I agree with DJMoody that something had to be done about food because it was game over for many players once they reached the point that their armies simply weren't sustainable.  The only way to prevent game over without the devs doing something would have been to radically change your play style, and that might not have been feasible if your armies needed to be huge to accomplish league goals.  

It would have been interesting if they'd found other ways to do it such as more technologies to increase production, allow players to have more farms, create settlements with much higher food output, be able to level farms up higher, etc.  Since they chose to solve it this way instead, we're left seeing how it has altered the dynamics of game play and adapting.  

This has to be a joke, right?

Hard to imagine a company that publishes games for a living to come up with such a game breaking idea. 

Would it not be better to brainstorm ideas that increase troop activity within the game instead of making it easier to stockpile troops?

After reading the entire discussion i guess it would have been better to have the update as follows..

The troops would not desert or die with 0 food.. but they would fight with say 50% or reduced power..

The Units still consume, even when the number reaches 0. Yes, they stop deserting you, but with 0 food you cannot build or upgrade anything. It's not that now there is no Food consumption at all.

"It severely devalues the Farms and Upgrading them to Higher Levels, The Use of Dark Essence, Obelisk of Power."

You still need Food (the more the better), so it doesn't.

Your Answer Lord Oberon, - Are they still consuming when i reach Zero Food? They do not consume food at that point or neither dies when there is no food to consume, thus it does not make sense . 

But Basically right now  my Units Consume Food when i have enough to feed them and they "morph a boulder into bread" when there is zero Food to consume. I mean you guys should have come up with this idea before !!  It must have solved the ongoing Starvation and Hunger Problem in The world and save millions of  children from dying

But on a Serious note here is several other factors which are been affected by this change. 

1) It severely devalues the Farms and Upgrading them to Higher Levels. (As someone else suggested). And Farms are much more expensive to upgrade at higher levels. 

2) The Use of Dark Essence -  it reduces the Food consumption by half . But this change also devalues the use of DE by half, since i don't see any use of it reducing Food consumption if they don't die. 

3) Obelisk of Power - Food consumption tab under Obelisk of Power is also useless since many of the players who spent there skull runes on that would Not want it anymore.

There is More if you want to hear them :) . But at the end i too would enjoy this new change since i also have negative food production and even tho there is a term called food consumtion which has no value in the game. 

The Whole Idea of "Food consumption" doesnt make sense anymore. 

My  suggestion is remove the whole Idea of " Food consumption: from the game and make "Food" a regular Material, like iron and gold which is   used to upgrade and to build Units. 

Also remove the 'Food consumption' Tab From Obelisk of Power 

-ww3