Sovereign & leveling » Forum Post by Cynjian

Sure! I could see experience from a Champion led army ... perhaps 10-20% of that experience to be fed to the Sovereign. Not as taking experience away from the Champion, but as extra experience created because the Sovereign was not present.

In fact, it would probably be cool for the Sovereign to gain 20% experience of all battles fought by the player, a Champion would get 10% of the experience of any battle they are a part of.

Then beyond that, each unit (including Champs and Sovs) get base experience determined by participation/damage/kills/etc

This combined base experience of your forces creates the "Battle Experience." And it is this battle experience that your Champions and Sovereigns gain a % of in addition to their own personal base experience.

I think its a good idea and it allows for Champions and Sovereigns to be stronger overall. It also *potentially* allows for Kingdom Champions/Sovereigns to gain levels more quickly ... unless Empire troops can "earn experience" while not gaining any levels.

Even if it makes Kindgoms' CHampions level more quickly ... that seems quite fitting within the lore to me!!

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Why not treat it as a give/take system. Have a slider that goes up to 50%, which allows you to syphon off up to that much xp from battles to your Sov. Think of it as how much the armies are relying on magical communication with the Sov during battles to know what to do.

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Well, I suppose we could have a slider for a give take system where the Sovereign is literally ripping the experience directly from his subordinates ... however I would prefer a surplus approach, akin to the one I have mapped out.

(with perhaps lower percentages of surplus experience as a matter of balance ... as in not 20% Sov and 10% Champs but something lower, yet this is a balance thing not a qualitative thing; my preferred qualitative is the one I mapped out, I have no preferred quantitative)

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A slider or a fixed % could work, it would have to be tested. I thought of some variations similar to what you guys mentioned. Maybe even something accessed through Adventuring tech. If the player has some control then that also adds a little unknown quantity to how thier kingdom will perform.

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Solid Idea.

On the subject of leveling... why are we using a point distribution system. Selecting traits and skills are more fun and intutitive. "Under the hood" the effect could be the same. (e.g. Selecting the skill Nimble could add 5 defense or Heart Seeker could add 5 attack). You have to admit though selecting Heart Seeker is more fun than clicking the little plus symbol 5 times.

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Quoting klaxton499,

reply 5

On the subject of leveling... why are we using a point distribution system. Selecting traits and skills are more fun and intutitive. "Under the hood" the effect could be the same. (e.g. Selecting the skill Nimble could add 5 defense or Heart Seeker could add 5 attack). You have to admit though selecting Heart Seeker is more fun than clicking the little plus symbol 5 times.

I agree.

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Quoting ,

quoting post

Just trying to think of a way to add some play depth, while avoiding the feeling of gimping your Sov. while he/she stays in town.

I like meaningful choices in games, especially strategy games. Currently there's the choice of:

1-keep sov safe in a city, and enjoy the bonuses

2-risk sov out there to fight and gain xp

Wouldn't letting the sov do 1 while gaining some/much/most of 2's benefits make it a much easier choice, perhaps too easy?

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I wouldn't think so, because actively completing quests and fighting in battles grants you *theoretically* much more exp than sitting around siphoning off empire-wide exp on a percentage base.

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Whatever else they do, they could have every hero or sovereign gain 1 exp-point per turn, like heroes do in MOM & AoW:SM. It kinda make sense that he is training|studying|practicing some of the time when he isn't doing anything else.

Also, maybe try one or more of the following...

1: If the sovereign is parked in a city, give some exp points for every new building he builds. After all, he is getting experience building things.

2: If he is parked in a city, have "x" percent chance to grant or increase one of the provides-x-bonus-to-the-city traits to the sovereign every time he accomplishes something like build a building or research a tech. This way we could have him develop into a super-administrator even if he doesn't level-up in the normal way and can't fight well. Maybe do the same for heroes. Then experience has mostly to do with combat, but there is also a separate way be become a major asset. (Sorry, the more I type the more I like this one

3: Let sovereigns cast spells to help remote armies in some circumstances (again like MOM & AoW:SM). Then give him exp points for any enemy he kills with those spells, just as if he had been there killing in person. Maybe even give 1 point exp for casting healing or defensive spells in remote combats (?) (for those who haven't played Aow:SM, the king can cast combat spells without being present, if he is in a city with a special tower, and the combat is within range of a either one of his heroes or one of his towers)

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For me the deciding factor is the depth and utility of the magic spell tree. It has been extremely limited thus far and had little utility. I expect that to change drastically with the next release. This ties into several other recent threads regarding essence and how it is acquired and and used. I suspect that essence will become a far more important selection for SOVs and champions once embued and then able to cast spells on their own. Time will tell, but I suspect the essence/mana/magic/experience interelationship will be tweaked well after Elemental is released.

Darvroth

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I think this thread really starts getting to some ideas solving the issue of passive (I like my city walls) Sovs vs active (find me a monster to kill) Sovs. Basically, if essence wasn't tied to leveling, then active sovs SHOULD be more powerful and the only ones to gain experience, tasunke is correct in saying Risk = Reward!! However my post on the thread below tries to design a system that makes passive Sovs an actual plausible choice, they still don't level though!!

https://forums.elementalgame.com/382176

In my breif I use the word "powerful", to me this means, when I do the same action as you, it will have a Larger, Bigger, Badder, effect. Ie, Str, Dex, Int, Wis, are all higher, therefore = more powerful actions.

My idea, if you look at the link, is to give the passive Sovs more options.

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Quoting StillSingle,

reply 11

My idea, if you look at the link, is to give the passive Sovs more options.

I think that's a reasonable request.

There are kinda competing ideas:

-Sovs who risk combat should be rewarded (risk&reward) compared to sovs that don't take said risks

-we want a variety of choices, not one path to uberness, so sovs that sit at home need to be viable too.

So both need to be viable, while still making reward commensurate with risk.

A general life rule is that when 2 choices are available the 'best' answer is a wise combination of both, meaning some combination of adventuring/sitting. What the 'best' combination is is an opportunity for player skill to determine, rewarding skill.

In other words, sovs sitting at home need essence love too.

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And I have given such "Sit at Home" Sovs some of this needed loving. Please read the posts on the following thread.

https://forums.elementalgame.com/382224

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The model you have designed in that thread is still HEAVILY reliant on being active out in the field. 1, a whole ton of essence is gained for killing stuff. 2, a nice increase per turn of essence is gained by obtaining powerful items, which would probably necessitate killing stuff. Perhaps I'm reading the implementation wrong, but it does seem that in the model the activ Sov would become overpowering to any sit at home Sov.

love the saying!! "Sovs sitting at home need essence love too"!! *cheers*

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Requiring Spell Research to not only cost SP's but X amount of turns in city researching could be a way of slightly balancing things out. That way Galavanting soveriegns while more powerful will be magic weaker. Which if you think about it actually makes a kinda sense.

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The reality here is called Play styles. There are many, they are varied and invariably, someones is going to get the short end.

Whenever there are Resources, from the outset, that your 1 starter guy needs to find/gather, in order to have any chance at all within the game proper, you will have to venture out to some degree.

Unless there is a very Radical change in the way E:WoM is currently oriented, a 1 City SoV will not be able to compete with a 3 City SoV. The ability to build up the SP's to get the best Magic will obviously always favor the 3 city SoV, even if that player actually doesn't like the "staying at home" playstyle.

So, to even the playing field such that both SoV's types can compete will require very radical differences somewhere.

Then those very differences will have to be weighed, as to whether or not those very differences, those that allow one SoV type vs the other SoV type viable, will actually hold up over the long haul of game play.

There is no point in given the Stay at Home SoV a huge Essence or SP bonus early on, since he does not venture out, if that Bonus could be then suddenly turned on the NOT Stay at Home SoV who still awaits his equivalent Essence and SP levels to generate via whatever the other generation method turns out to be.

With a Random based Map game, that is randomly populated with "stuff" to kill, it is possible to have map areas devoid of "stuff" and thus the "kill" risk vs reward guy goes hungry, but the "Stay at Home" guy is always guaranteed his Bonus.

Random is great for variety, but if the game offers one a sure fire way to grow, based on never changing elements (stay at home) vs one who is reliant on that same randomness... game play always loses.

A combo system that states "go forth and then go home, then go forth, then go home would suck as well, so a general split of requirements would be simply blahhsey.

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I think that this particular discussion should cease until we see the next build.

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Quoting Tasunke,

reply 17

I think that this particular discussion should cease until we see the next build.

And the required 2456789 tweaks

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Quoting StillSingle,

reply 11

I think this thread really starts getting to some ideas solving the issue of passive (I like my city walls) Sovs vs active (find me a monster to kill) Sovs. Basically, if essence wasn't tied to leveling, then active sovs SHOULD be more powerful and the only ones to gain experience, tasunke is correct in saying Risk = Reward!! However my post on the thread below tries to design a system that makes passive Sovs an actual plausible choice, they still don't level though!!

https://forums.elementalgame.com/382176

In my breif I use the word "powerful", to me this means, when I do the same action as you, it will have a Larger, Bigger, Badder, effect. Ie, Str, Dex, Int, Wis, are all higher, therefore = more powerful actions.

My idea, if you look at the link, is to give the passive Sovs more options.

You know, the weird thing is what I lay out in this thread is what I thought had been planned all along. It certainly resolves enough problems with conflicting playing styles that I don't see why we wouldn't use it or a minor variation of the theme of essence gain independent from experience or territory controlled. That makes a non-combatant sovereign viable as well as a small one city empire, while still enabling the combatant or aggressively expansionist playing styles to have their merits too.

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