Question about the recent changes to the capture system

[Dakara]

Hello everyone,

I noticed that the capture system has recently been modified in the A27. (compared to Alpha 27). I would like to better understand the reason behind this change.

 

• What was the main motivation for adjusting the capture mechanics? (nerf the capture resistance)

• Was it mostly for balance purposes ?

• Are there any design notes or discussions I can read to follow the reasoning?

I’m asking because the capture system is quite central to gameplay, and as a player I’d like to know the vision behind these changes.

• In the long run, what does the team (and community) want the capture system to be?

  • A strong resistance mechanic (buildings being very hard to capture, taking time, mainly when base is empty capture is a nice decision)?

  • A moderate option where some buildings are hard to capture and some moderate to capture?

Thanks you 

[real_tabasco_sauce]

There was a PR that let building capture resistance be determined by the capture attacks of the units inside. Before, it was determined by the number of units, so women and champions defended equally well from capture. Now, since women don't defend at all from capture, a cc with 20 women can be captured very quickly.

Players are saying capturing is too easy at the moment, especially civic centers. I do think the second of the two options is good, where civic centers and forts should be difficult, but houses can be captured without great difficulty.

@Dakara I'm not sure if you will find someone to play with, but in the community mod current version, women receive a small capture attack and buildings have higher default capture defense. 

[Dakara]

21 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

There was a PR that let building capture resistance be determined by the capture attacks of the units inside. Before, it was determined by the number of units, so women and champions defended equally well from capture. Now, since women don't defend at all from capture, a cc with 20 women can be captured very quickly.

Players are saying capturing is too easy at the moment, especially civic centers. I do think the second of the two options is good, where civic centers and forts should be difficult, but houses can be captured without great difficulty.

@Dakara I'm not sure if you will find someone to play with, but in the community mod current version, women receive a small capture attack and buildings have higher default capture defense. 

I will try, but i didn't like the cheap cost of wall. for me in vanilla game it okay 

 

[real_tabasco_sauce]

1 hour ago, Dakara said:

cheap cost of

That was in the last version, not this one 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

It should be difficult to capture, easy to destroy. It's counterintuitive on the realism scale, but in a gameplay world it makes most sense: the greater reward should be harder to attain. 

[Classic-Burger]

3 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

It should be difficult to capture, easy to destroy. It's counterintuitive on the realism scale, but in a gameplay world it makes most sense: the greater reward should be harder to attain. 

This is how AoE works, you use the monk to convert but that is harder than destroying it.

[Deicide4u]

35 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

It's counterintuitive on the realism scale, but in a gameplay world it makes most sense

It's actually not. In real life, you had to hold that building with troops in order to keep it. Especially when near the enemy's territory. You had to bring more supplies to the front line as you now occupy more land.

Destroying the building usually meant burning it down to make it unusable to the enemy. That was very much an easier thing to do. It's one of the reasons why "scorched earth" tactic was historically popular for the retreating army.

Edited 18 hours ago by Deicide4u
typos

[Dakara]

I think that a building such as the Civic Center or military training structures, when properly defended (with at least half of their garrison capacity filled), should be almost impossible to capture in Phase 3—except in cases of an overwhelming numerical difference, for example at least a 1-to-15 ratio (10 defenders against 150 attackers, not counting champions or mercenaries).

The idea is to avoid capture becoming the “default option,” and instead make destruction through units or siege weapons the more realistic and relevant solution. Of course, there’s always the option of heavily damaging a building to force the garrison out before attempting to capture it.

On the other hand, I think it would be interesting to keep a moderate capture speed depending on the type of building:

• Light civilian buildings or watchtowers could still be captured quite quickly, as they are now.

• Un-upgraded towers could resist capture at about a 1-to-5 ratio (e.g., 3 defenders vs. 15 attackers), while upgraded towers could resist at about a 1-to-10 ratio (5 defenders vs. 50 attackers), with capture becoming much slower beyond that.

• Military buildings without defenders should still be capturable, but they ought to resist better. We just need to find the right balance so that capturing them isn’t a trivial action but more of a time sink for the attacker.

[Atrik]

11 minutes ago, Dakara said:

I think that a building such as the Civic Center or military training structures, when properly defended (with at least half of their garrison capacity filled), should be almost impossible to capture in Phase 3

1. That was the case in previous alphas. It forced on the 'get sieges and attack' build. This alpha we see a wider variety of builds and team strategies in TGs.
2. It also introduce a interesting balance between optimizing fields, and having to protect your CC with a bit with other buildings (A cc surrounded by fields, have no reasons to be hard to capture).
3. Your base is not protected by default against an army if you have no defenders. You can still build defenses (palisades a few towers are rather cheap and can help tones) that will give much more time to get allied defenders to your base.
4. There is a wider skill gap now (and that isn't some clicky boring mechanic) about defending tactics. You need to put best units in buildings, you need to know how to play with the greed of your enemy who'll try to capture your buildings...

I love turteling this alpha, because buildings are very strong, but it stays dynamic and interesting, due to not having every single building having to be rammed down. Overall when capturing was impossible, game stalled much more often and that wasn't so fun.

Sieges are useful in many situation, but are just no longer mandatory to take out a CC if you have much more superior forces in enemy base.

[Dakara]

I see your point, and I agree that this alpha brought more variety and dynamics in team games compared to older versions. I also like that captures add another layer of tactics. Also I think a lot of strategy of today were usable in past too. It more about how people play and communicate. I remember 2 big army in phase 2 could take a CC even with 20 citizen troop inside even in previous alpha.

My concern is mostly about late game (Phase 3) when some strong buildings like CCs or fortresses can still fall relatively quickly to capture. In those cases, I feel destruction (with siege or units) should remain the primary way, otherwise capture sometimes feels too cheap compared to the investment in defending and upgrading. Tower seems annoying to use (put men inside etc) for a low result and easy capture. 3 or 5 men can't give enough capture resistance. But you can tell me we can obstruct access to the tower, it true and I do. I will try do more tower for have an opinion

Maybe the solution is not to make captures impossible, but to adjust ratios depending on the building type and upgrade level. Civilian buildings and light towers could remain easy to capture, but core military buildings (CC, fortresses, barracks with garrison) should require much bigger numbers unless the attacker has already crippled them.

If you play a civ with hero elefant you can't have a CC with hero garnison. 

That way, we could keep the current dynamics you enjoy (more tactical choices, not always relying on siege), while still ensuring that capturing a well-defended CC in late game doesn’t become too much of a shortcut. What do you think of this middle ground? Just run on cc and then capture all building is annoying. It should be exceptional situation. 

if you invade an enemy without army to defend or refusing the fight, you still can capture and destroy some building in my point of view, they enemy will be hurt and he don't recovery easy. He still has to micro for garnison some men in the important building, just less. It open also the strategy of counter attack in some way.

also i said " here’s always the option of heavily damaging a building to force the garrison out before attempting to capture it. "  with some military tech, the cc it easy to destroy if your opponent have no army. 

I will add in the most of situation, except if you retard spam them, palisade give a fake feeling of security (and that's normal for the low cost of ressource invest), they are easy to destroy if you right clic with an entire army on it. 

I like a lot turtle and protect my building with other building for win some time.