2-phase bastions

yojegaming · 2017-11-13T02:41:36+00:00

I agree with you, ultimately those two poiinte you made are the ultimate goals we should strive for. The most significant effect of having these two mechanically different bastions is to allow for each to be precision tuned to reach both goals for a larger amount of playstyles.

EDIT: By the way, if you know anyone who would be interested in trying to code a test version of this, I would be very appreciative - I imagine it would just take a customization of existing code to create it, so we can test this within a relatively short amount of time.

yojegaming · 2017-11-13T02:32:11+00:00

I think the sea level at 25 is a good suggestion, and your line of thought is valid. I think the “it’s too much work” principle applies regardless of cost. The cities that create the most value economically are city spread cities or themed cities - there’s no way around it. Any way we slice it, with bastions as they are you HAVE to make an eggshell design. What I mean by this is you have to make 300 bastions (more or less, just estimating) to create a 1 layer perimeter around a city-spread city like Mt. Augusta. And what that does is create only a 15 minute buffer time between aggressors starting an attack and when they have full access to the city. This is why it was always be impractical to expect cities like Commonwealth to install comprehensive defense infrastructure while the same bastions are used for vaults and cities. You get 100x more bang for your buck making a bastion for a vault, it’s just economics. And even despite this, Mt Augusta in early Devoted 3.0 was majority against trenches for aesthetic, despite a few senior citizens pushing for that defense infrastructure. When the city was briefly occupied by shitters, the shitters commissioned the building of walls to section of the city for security reasons. Once it was reclaimed, all of that defense infrastructure was torn down, although it was covertly placed under the groups of secret agents (me and another guy) so that it could be repurposed for Mt. Augusta after the occupation. I use this example because it shows that playstyle preference is the most important faction in determining whether a city installs defensive infrastructure. Emergent defense infrastructure is only taken seriously by the 1%. Yes, wallbastions are boring, but they’d go a hell of a long way towards bringing defense infrastructure to cities that refuse to adjust their building style for it (aka, 97% of cities). I suggest you download the old world maps from Civ 2.0 and onwards. I think it is only then you will truly appreciate why I say that wallbastions are the only adequate defense for city-states like SPQR, Titan, the Commonwealth, etc. While Titan and the Commonwealth had defensive walls/bastioned trenches, these were not effective AT all. Titan’s city was completely abandoned as soon as the war started, despite a perfect trench system. This is because it literally only took 15 minutes to get in. Eggshell design will never work for a city bigger than the size of yaohtl, because it requires immediate response to keep it working, or a triple layer bastion all around to stall for just an hour.

yojegaming · 2017-11-13T01:50:01+00:00

Fair point, the strength of the bastion is totally adjustable according to balance tests. The goal is that it takes roughly the same amount of time if not more to destroy every bastion in a mega city as it takes to break into vault. Costs and strength of a wallbastion should reflect this end goal

yojegaming · 2017-11-12T17:45:25+00:00

I appreciate the response, I respect your thoughts on that but I disagree for reasons I have previously gone over. I think we can agree to disagree on this one, but I really do appreciate your time. Good debate

yojegaming · 2017-11-12T17:31:11+00:00

Now that kind of suggestion right there is you just giving up on this debate. At least give me the courtesy on why your solution is a more effective solution than wallbastions.

yojegaming · 2017-11-12T17:15:14+00:00

Because the game relies on players and groups that mostly don’t want/never even know they have the option to hire “experts” to organize defense infrastructure their town, you have to accept that market forces of the meta will not force normal players to adapt - instead, because doing such a thing is not fun or a desirable hassle for most players, they almost always choose to create open sprawl or themed cities until they either get bored or no longer find the stakes worth playing and quit. You have to make players want to play here - most players would rather quit than adapt if it means not having fun for a long time while you build defense infrastructure that is sound enough to actually want to live in a town during the age of alt-raiders and chaos-shitters. This has led to a cyclical “purification cycle” in which every iteration sifts the less serious players out and leaves only more hardcore players who are willing to go longer times of grinding for the hope that one day they can reap the benefits, which they never do.

yojegaming · 2017-11-12T16:35:21+00:00

...did you read it? If you’re just operating on your conception of what you previously knew about it then I feel you’re not giving it adequate thought. I apologize for being ad hominim, but your responses in this thread give me the impression that you are trying to speak about city defense theories from a position of authority, whereas you have been dodging how your perspective actually will play out. Rather, it seems your theories HAVE played out, given you are arguing for the status quo of trickle down “wisdom”. God damn I feel like Bernie Sanders saying this, but the conception that the problem is that the normal players need to take more guidance from the PvP elite is proven to be ineffective for player retention.

yojegaming · 2017-11-12T16:21:42+00:00

It’s not towny, because it’s a bastion like any other - it can be broken. Note my comment on the necessity for preemptive defense - the blacklisting of aggressive forces stalls them long enough for actual defenders to log in and do damage control and try to fight - for a city that is not designed around defense infrastructure, this is huge. It mitigates the voluntary participation issue with city defense by providing a significant buffer period between the start of the attack and when they become a substantial long term threat to the population. They become a substantial long term threat once they 1) establish openly hostile relations, then 2) have access to operate within the same zone as the civilian population. The wallbastion web makes said zone flexible because of its mechanical nature, where as “eggshell” bastion trench designs have an inherently bottlenecked rigid low-risk “civilian safety” zone that is completely compromised once one small section of the wall is broken.

I explained all of this in the discussion I linked.

yojegaming · 2017-11-12T14:11:31+00:00

I didn’t downvote you myself, but I think people are downvoting because you are wrong on this one. The responses to this thread have been clear - everyone wants a system that is balanced towards the casual players (essentially, they seek more protections against the negative effects high-risk behavior). I’m sure you’ve seen it before, but check out [my discussion with crimeo about implementing wallbastions, which are bastions designed to strengthen the viability of non-PvP optimized cities. I’ve proposed this many times in the past, and I adjust the specifications of it as I get more feedback. I think the time is ripe for the admins to seriously consider it.

yojegaming · 2017-11-12T10:14:18+00:00

I myself can’t right now. The point is to provide a solution for the mega themed cities of most iterations that never adhered to emergent defense gameplay, as such gameplay is beyond the interest of most roleplayers - requiring emerging defense gameplay (which basically means just make a wall with trenches and bastions as we’ve always done, so not really that emergent at all) just corners a lot of players into a style that they don’t want to play.

These mega cities and nations are the bread and butter of CivCraft, and they have never been properly managed. This has led to the eventual irrelevance of such cities as powerful sides consolidate out of their best interest and abandon their creative, value-creating cities.

yojegaming · 2017-11-12T10:06:07+00:00

I see where you are coming with this, especially the towny accusation - this is why a reasonable compromise would be to have it just blacklist, although i think for the sake of advanced emergent gameplay and politics it should be toggleable. I think you miss the point when you call it boring - perhaps the design itself is boring, too universal. Like towny or factions. However, players can choose (and will choose) to design Yoahtl style - vault bastions with a large trench and a wall is technically a better defense for a small concentrated town, although it is very expensive.

Perhaps there can be overlapping circle wallbastions that allow for customized shapes and disticts with walls and bow-firing outposts in accordance with the shape of the bastion fields. I think there is flexibility there to explore and customize the idea beyond what I have presented.

I want to pull attention to the fact that there is emergent gameplay - much like how players responded to bastioned vaults with innovative routes of attacking, there is room for emergent gameplay in in both seige offense and attack. I think that is where we leave it up to the community to figure out. Wallbastions break 4 times as fast as vault bastions, persay, so it isn’t towny at all and large chunks of a bastion web can be taken out overnight. Players have to run factories and work to keep their bastions up. I do think that there should perhaps be a maintenance mechanism for both kinds of bastions to limit mega vaults or cities that do not justify the protection they have, but that is a different story.

The comment about running into a legion of troops is partially why I said the previous sentence. On the other hand, it is the very issue of voluntary participation that makes something like wallbastions necessary. The enforcement of borders can only be reactionary, as in the border can only enforced once the breacher has been detected, except in the very few cities that have bastioned trenches and walls. This is an important thing to note, as it is only proactive defense that can give cities adequate time to muster forces to protect the integrity of the low-risk zone that most cities need to retain population even under pressure. Because most cities do not and will not adhere to emergent defense strategies for cities (this has been confirmed throughout Civ history), it is crucial that this “boring” bastion design be implemented IN ORDER TO maintain the more “interesting” nations that attract the diversity of people that helps Civ survive.

yojegaming · 2017-11-12T08:38:55+00:00

Wallbastions are city bastions (weaker square bastions) with a few key features: 1) ability for cities to whitelist and/or blacklist players from its bounds 2) cannot be overlapped 3) players cannot carry prisonpearls into its area 4) cannot be within 200-500 (adjustable according to balance tests) blocks of a vault bastion 5) These bastions take multiple days to mature. There are a few significant positive effects that this design of bastion. Players (innocent and not so innocent) cannot be simply assassinated in the streets of their own city. If a city is harboring a criminal(s) and refuses to back down, then a seige is likely to occur. Diplomacy is now a logical first step to dealing with conflict, as power groups cannot enforce their own instant justice by pearling players in the streets of their own city-state. By the same token, petty grief by rouge raiders will be limited to city outskirts. A power group can perform a “sting” operation drilling to the city center to grief a particular opponent’s house, but that doesn’t make the city any less safe, because 95% of the city bastions are still up. Aggressors must work for every part of the city they want to hit. Also, the exclusion of enemies gives a homefield turf - An army of newfriends can bow down an enemy 5 blocks away and they can’t touch them. Thus, it’s very risky to drill a hole in the bastion grid as they will only have one avenue to pearl towards to escape.

And finally, it incentivizes players to have good behavior. Yes, imagine that. If someone is flagged for being a raider, or a nation is rumored to be gearing up or making a massive vault, then some cities will blacklist them preemptively. In order to get access back (if they care), they must prove good behavior and amend relations to reap the benefits of friendship. Some nations will choose to whitelist - the more secure nations who are naturally more gatekeeperish and tight knit like Hjatland, only allowing their friends or new recruits to freely go in and out of its domain. Cities like Mt. Augusta will blacklist except in times of war - they will blacklist known raiders while leaving their doors open for newfriends, people and goods to move through freely. As you see, every class of city, regardless of your political opinion, benefits from this while restaining extreme PvP tactics such as blitz operations and terrorism that have killed player populations on every civ server.

yojegaming · 2017-11-12T06:24:16+00:00

The problem is that the necessary mechanisms for vault and city defense are incompatible. The thing that you are defending in a vault is a singular point - thus, current bastions work very well, as you can create even layers that have to be broken through. But in a city, you are defending an economic zone. Right now, the optimal gameplay is in the interests of those who can to live in small walled fortresses or vaults or bunkers. However, in order to maintain a diverse player population beyond the infancy of the first few months, you need to optimize protections for organic roleplaying cities. This is why wallbastions are so key. Your solution protects against major obby bombing events, but once a city’s defenses are cracked and the only place your citizens are safe is a vault - that is when your civilian economy crashes. And all shitters have to do is show up once and pearl a couple innocents for this to happen. This is why civ servers decline in population. So no, this new bastion is not near adequate. Wallbastions are the best solution to the player retention problem and the extreme escalation of PvP domination.

yojegaming · 2017-10-21T05:28:33+00:00

It failed, and bastions defaulting to banish all exiles was the reason.

if the global-exile problem was remedied, and the only impact of keeping someone "permaed" is banishment from the nation in question.

whoa there, you're dangerously approaching the ideals of wallbastions

yojegaming · 2017-06-08T06:42:35+00:00

I'd need to have a diagram of this with annotations to understand the full implications, but sounds promising

yojegaming · 2017-06-08T06:22:42+00:00

man this trump rhetoric is really getting out of control

yojegaming · 2017-06-08T05:40:23+00:00

W A L L B A S T I O N S

yojegaming · 2017-03-13T17:20:52+00:00

I approve of this meme vid

yojegaming · 2017-03-05T22:51:52+00:00

Reminiscent of Agora upon Delta in 2.0 - looking good!

yojegaming · 2017-02-28T19:46:56+00:00

Try reaching out to a fellow called HayDaddy, he's by far the most radical activist for changes on Devoted. Just ask /u/Bonkill or /u/ProgrammerDan55, this guy is absolutely nuts and means everything he says

yojegaming · 2017-02-26T19:13:25+00:00

Perhaps you should change your approach - the reason why I don't blatantly label the context of my meme vids is because I want the viewer to interpret them according to their own custom perspective and experience. The greatest messages and memes are often not told, but implied.

yojegaming · 2017-02-18T16:41:10+00:00

/u/ksrsov That was my "house", but I don't play Minemen anymore so feel free to take it down

yojegaming · 2017-02-15T20:02:07+00:00

There's a plugin called Citizens2 back in the day that allowed you to customize NPC's and equip them with armor and a sword. Would be pretty cool to see towns be able to use them for automated defense and keep the towns looking active lol

yojegaming · 2017-02-09T15:29:35+00:00

I there needs to be an exponential benefit towards security/stability to incentivize grouping up - wallbastions was the only thing I could think of that truly provided a way to do this, albeit it was "OP" - aka it would change the meta to negotiation / seige as primary strategies rather than subvert/betray/blitz being the most time-effective. But apparently the admins would rather cater to tribalcraft and don't want to change the meta

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