mod - don't capture by default

[Freagarach]

/me likey capturing.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Funny thing is, if the game had never implemented capturing, no one would be the wiser. 

 

If capturing were implemented in 2022 instead of 2014(?), then would it look and act like it does now? Or would it have been implemented differently?

[Freagarach]

I would certainly vote for a different mechanic. E.g. capturing by occupation. Not being able to delete stuff randomly. Stuff like that.

[hyperion]

10 hours ago, Freagarach said:

I would certainly vote for a different mechanic. E.g. capturing by occupation

Just to make sure I understood, you mean a mechanic based on territory influence / weight, instead of capture attack? If so sounds worth a try.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

10 minutes ago, hyperion said:

Just to make sure I understood, you mean a mechanic based on territory influence / weight, instead of capture attack? If so sounds worth a try.

Indeed. I think if your territory swallows up a building of the enemy's, then that enemy structure should slowly convert to your side. That happens now already. That, plus units can capture buildings that have gone Gaia. And that's the extent of it.

[Radiotraining]

4 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Indeed. I think if your territory swallows up a building of the enemy's, then that enemy structure should slowly convert to your side. That happens now already. That, plus units can capture buildings that have gone Gaia. And that's the extent of it.

btw, the other day I proposed a variation on the mechanic in this thread here: when you damage a building to a critical level (like 25% of health), then it lose loyalty/functionalities or turn to gaia, so you can conquer it.

I don't know if it's too unnecessary or complicated in the game, but it can be a way to make attack and capture work together more coherently.

[ChronA]

1 hour ago, Radiotraining said:

the other day I proposed a variation on the mechanic in this thread here: when you damage a building to a critical level (like 25% of health), then it lose loyalty/functionalities or turn to gaia, so you can conquer it.

I like this idea. The system that exists now definitely feels extremely contrived and produces some head scratching emergent gameplay conventions. It's also frustrating mechanically having to judge whether you have enough men to capture a structure, and then needing to tell them to switch to regular attack if they are not up to the task.

I think if the feature were being implemented today it would probably not make it into the game. There would be too much wrangling over competing proposals for the specific implementation, and too much concern for destabilizing the competitive scene's and its metagame. Or it would be supported in the engine but, after the inevitable outcry following its first demonstration, it would be so heavily nerfed in the succeeding alpha as to have no practical impact on gameplay.

[Lion.Kanzen]

2 hours ago, Radiotraining said:

btw, the other day I proposed a variation on the mechanic in this thread here: when you damage a building to a critical level (like 25% of health), then it lose loyalty/functionalities or turn to gaia, so you can conquer it.

I don't know if it's too unnecessary or complicated in the game, but it can be a way to make attack and capture work together more coherently.

There are several problems.

1- Soldiers tend to be very incompetent and capture everything.

2- The second thing is the mechanics of capturing and deleting buildings.There should be an extra step. Like an assimilation process.

Loyalty is fine. The damage depends...

You have understand that a house is not the same as a barracks or a fortress. They must have different mechanics.

Capturing 10 houses is a waste of time.

[Lion.Kanzen]

35 minutes ago, ChronA said:

I like this idea. The system that exists now definitely feels extremely contrived and produces some head scratching emergent gameplay conventions. It's also frustrating mechanically having to judge whether you have enough men to capture a structure, and then needing to tell them to switch to regular attack if they are not up to the task

You have to micro too much. Ctrl or Ctrl+Q.

Not to mention that you can not put hotkeys to the stances.

So the troops disperse quite a bit at the slightest deconcentration.

Without mention in most cases they are cannon fodder for towers and Fortresses.

[Radiotraining]

16 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

You have understand that a house is not the same as a barracks or a fortress. They must have different mechanics.

I agree with all the other points but I just wanted to remark this, which I find an interesting point never really discussed. Maybe, if the concern is on making clear the function of capturing to the user, if can stay as default for CC (and maybe a core of vital structures), while the others, and the defensive ones, can be attacked by default instead. Like what's happening with farms, which are definitely more satisfying to destroy 

Could be a compromise to make everyone happy? 

EDIT: okay, I'm saying something stupid cos is what DE already does and I forgot lol But hey! It just makes a lot of sense 

Edited February 2, 2022 by Radiotraining

[Lion.Kanzen]

1 minute ago, Radiotraining said:

which are definitely more satisfying to destroy 

It would be satisfying to burn. (Visual)

[Freagarach]

10 hours ago, hyperion said:

Just to make sure I understood, you mean a mechanic based on territory influence / weight, instead of capture attack? If so sounds worth a try.

Well, I was thinking more in the terms of garrisoning a structure to capture it. And when the enemy already has someone garrisoned, you can only destroy.

[alre]

that's the same as now but more rigid and without visual feedback. 

[Radiotraining]

1 hour ago, alre said:

that's the same as now but more rigid and without visual feedback. 

I agree!

Maybe there's a bit of a misconception, because capturing is not bad per se. I like it!

I just think - but that's an opinion - that it could probably work better as second choice. Or, as Freagarach suggested,  with some limitations that can prevent abuses

6 hours ago, Freagarach said:

when the enemy already has someone garrisoned, you can only destroy.

like this.

[hyperion]

On 02/02/2022 at 8:26 PM, Radiotraining said:

when you damage a building to a critical level (like 25% of health)

There is eject health already defined and structures should switch to "damaged textures" at that point to give a visual clue for needs repairing to be garrison-able again. (Just that the art department only managed to get Carthage done in all those years )

One could make eject health the breaking point for can now be captured as well. This isn't that far apart form @Freagarach's suggestion me thinks.

[Radiotraining]

33 minutes ago, hyperion said:

There is eject health already defined and structures should switch to "damaged textures" at that point to give a visual clue for needs repairing to be garrison-able again. (Just that the art department only managed to get Carthage done in all those years )

Yeah, correct! That was a consideration that emerged exactly from working on new textures for this reason. It was more clear that it could open a different gameplay mechanics. It was an idea though, not sure if it will improve things or not. Would be interesting to try tho. 

(One of the reason I proposed it was also because of the unrealistic fragility of buildings with rams and siege weapons.. with this trick it would be possible in my mind to squeeze some 25% more health without changing the balance. But I guess this is more of an aesthetic change than gameplay) 

[Lion.Kanzen]

58 minutes ago, Radiotraining said:

Yeah, correct! That was a consideration that emerged exactly from working on new textures for this reason. It was more clear that it could open a different gameplay mechanics. It was an idea though, not sure if it will improve things or not. Would be interesting to try tho. 

(One of the reason I proposed it was also because of the unrealistic fragility of buildings with rams and siege weapons.. with this trick it would be possible in my mind to squeeze some 25% more health without changing the balance. But I guess this is more of an aesthetic change than gameplay) 

but these aesthetics help to improve the gameplay.

gives you the idea of damage types for units and buildings.

there are things that have not been considered, either to keep the gameplay simple or to make logical sense of it.

In the end, the game is a logical simulation of reality, with its limitations and abstractions.