it becomes 1/10th the size it was before it died?

like if you had a 10 mill NW country, you'd get a 1 mill NW restart with 50 turns on hand with 1/10th the bushels/cash/tech etc that you had before you died

players that are killed, would have soooo much more of an incentive to restart and keep playing, rather than having a wasted set

and wars would be so much more fun, since players wouldnt be out of the war for 3-5 days, not being able to do anything, while they built back up from a tiny 4717 NW country

Would have to enforce 100 turn protection on these countries to prevent suiciding to pump out more hits

intriguing..

thinking more

combine this with 120(120) restarts and you have a very dynamic and fun war :)

maybe 100 turn protection would only apply to that countries ability to attack, it could still be attacked during it's protection or probationary period allowing clans to further kill a suicider who will just attack again after coming out of protection.

mmm-hmmm...So there'd be no such thing as a 'kill', per se, but rather a forced reduction in nw? What's to stop ppl from continuing to attack the country after it's been 'reduced'? What happens when a 'reduced' country gets 'killed' again? How many times does a 'reduced' country get 'killed' until it's truly dead?

At least give the country some sort of time out from both attacking and getting attacked.

Also, impose a time-out for using turns as well. Say, 24 hours or so. EDIT: Or, at least disable the war room and spy center for a certain amount of time/turns.


A major problem I see with this is the fact that when a country dies, the owner makes a new country, and the enemy doesn't necessarily know that the new country will need to be killed soon, unless that country tags up immediately after creation.

In this proposal, you are essentially taking the element of surprise away from someone who's in a severely-weakened state. A brand-new, $4717 nw country can use this element to try to grow some before being thrown in the meat grinder. A $500k nw country will just get killed again as soon as the timeouts expire.

maybe give a choice to a dead country when logged into...

option #1:
restart with (1/10 NW country info displayed here) and (probationary period)

option #2:
start brand new country

not an automatic restart, the person would have to see they were dead, and click a restart me link. maybe have it take 12-24 hours for the restart country to be playable at all. call it 'regroup time' where your cizitens try to regroup what they once had

the country would start off untagged as well

and could have a different name

just something that would give the killed player, a way to get back into the action faster, and a way that is based on what they once had

that way an FS'd alliance a month in, those countries killed in the FS, don't lose everything of what they spent the entire previous month building. they can still restart, and then have a chance to do something relatively soon after

...and a different number as well? Because without a different number, that country will simply be targeted again. With a different number, you may as well take away totally restarting altogether, because everyone's going to want to choose a $500k nw country with a small amount of stock/decent military, etc. over a $4717 nw country with pretty much nothing at all...

i wouldnt think it should be a choice to have 4717, that would be pointless in comparison just like you said

and yes, a different number as well. like your old country regrouped and formed anew, much smaller than the old one. new #/name though

i've seen so many people die once, and then never play again. a friendlier death message, telling the player they can start over in day with part of what they had, will entice them to continue playing. it wouldnt be a total loss

people that are playing the some of the more successful games right now (WoW, farmville, evony etc..) have accounts that can't die, or when they die, like in WoW, you don't actually lose everything you had

maybe country checkpoints , or levels, that are standardized for all players
you start at level 1, all restarts will be 4717 NW. once you pass 1 million NW, you reach level 2, and if you ever restart, you get a standard 100k NW country with X military and Y acres. once you pass 5 mill NW you get to level 3, and restarts get you 500k NW with more military and acres. once you reach a level, you dont go down, until the country is killed. so a commie indy that sells military every day, wont just be going up and down levels every day. likewise when you're killed you would lose lots of NW but the level wouldnt change

so if that level 3 country is killed, the restart would be back at level 1, until you reached 1 mill NW again

however if say a level 4 died, and that for example restarts at 1 mill NW, then it starts as a level 2.

so maybe a level up system would be best. it would also be tangible progress for new players to aim for

it would also be great for when the game is on facebook... you can have it update your news feed on facebook when you reach new levels

just like 'susie just grew an acre of carrots' or whatever farmville does

but its something that could be implemented right now prior to facebook integration

Your country dies.

You can select:

'Restart completely'
or
'Scavenge country'

Either way you get a new country number and name and you are not in a tag.

If you choose to scavenge the country you start at 4717 NW and spend turns recovering the old country. You get back .1% of the country to a maximum of 10%. You have the first 100 turns to do this in. You can spend a turn doing something else but it takes away from a turn you can scavenge. When scavenging you recover land, buildings and tech and military (you find some function body armor, rifles, some tanks that haven't rusted over and some jets that were safely stored in hangars (I suppose you shouldn't find any spies)).

interesting idea, make it take 100 turns to recover back to 10% of your previous country...

should that be based on the level system? what would signify 10%? the NW before the kill run started? or the highest NW the previous country attained? or?

I was thinking upon death. What would be interesting is a casher who has high expenses and no population or someone with a lot of agri tech but no farms or turrets. Maybe missiles should be recoverable too? Or maybe your opponents can do ops to steal missiles from dead countries?

missiles shouldnt be recoverable i dont think, unless its a random chance option on the restart that costs turns

so if you had 60 missiles stocked you could spend 10 turns on the hopes of recovering up to 50% of them. i think that would be worth it!

i think maybe the level system so that restarts would be standardized monarchies with a sustainable economy, otherwise there could have been something in the way the original was killed, that would make the restart completely unplayable for many turns, 5k acres and 0 buildings and no cash if it was killed by BR for example and you had no cash. not much that restart could do

if you had a surplus of over a certain amount of bushels/cash/tech. then that would be added to the standardized level'd restart. so if you were level 3 with 200 mill bushels, and were killed, you'd restart with a 500k NW country with 20 mill bushels (totally hypothetical), but i think you get what i mean.

the option to permanently stock bushels, with a specified turn recall should be implemented though. so that countries wouldnt have to worry about dying with all the bushels on hand via GS and still restarting with no % of their bushels. otherwise runs would all be GS when the country stock at home, and no BR, to make sure all stock was destroyed to hurt the restart.

i know theres a lot of options with this idea...

Would you rather have a 5k acre country with nothing or a 100 acre country with nothing? I suppose that is something to weigh. You could have always bought fewer turrets and left some cash on hand =P Like you can stonewall and destroy your country to prevent its death, or you can die easily and get a fraction back... maybe this would affect war strats people play... maybe everyone would want to go tyr techer and have a ton of agri tech on hand so their second country can go farmer... I think the point of this would be to get people back on their feet and contributing, not to just reload completely.

On the other hand with levels- perhaps it would be a downsized version of your other country? Like you would get 10% of everything exactly. (or the 500k or 3M NW equivalent or whatever)

You could have the country pre-built

% of acres as CSes, % of acres as Farms (Because after your country is destroyed, pretty much from scratch, all they can do is farm on land), about half empty acres.

As you use turns towards 100 of restart protection, you gain the ability to start building residential, industrial, enterprize, military base, oil rigs and finally research labs. Through different stages, thus preventing people from going insane IC right away.

Tech points should not be salvaged, if a country is destroyed, their computers are gone. Things break.
Spies should be very low %, small faction of loyal spies.
Troops also should be very low %.
Jets should be all gone, maybe a few? That 'saved' your leader.
Tanks should be all gone.
Turrets would be based on the 'level' you were, and should gain more as you use turns up to said protection's ending, as your people recover and fix your turrets. If it was a BR kill, less turrets.

If we're going through all this, this definitely needs to be detailed. Gives these new people more back stories, more things to feel for their country.

well based on my land trading this set, and trying to build land when you have absolutely no production... its such a ridiculous pain in the ass, that i would rather not have the 5k empty country, i'd probably drop it to 1k acres and then build from there. the cost per building is what really kills you for trying to rebuild when you have no production. though if you could get FA, leaving at 5k would be preferrable. but the point is to be able to start off at a better position without any outside required help i would think...

well maybe you can select allocations for what a restart would be. so that all military/tech etc would be converted to a value number and then depending on your %'s, when killed, it would be distributed of so many points per acre, per troops/jet/turret/each tech. that would definitely be a tad more complicated to understand and setup for every country on every server though.

scavenge idea is interesting, spending the turns to get back...but it would take some working out. this could introduce a interesting element into it, even chance. a scavenge button like llaar said, but not just for missiles, maybe even targeting specific areas...

scavenge land
scavenge tech
scavenge buildings (though this is a dilemma if the country has been BRed)
scavenge military

each turn spent scavenging would recover a portion of the previous countries NW, 7-13% each time.

but who knows, maybe that is just making it too complicated...

certainly starting with a boilerplate mono with some % bonus as to your previous country's specialty and stock would be easier and less complicated. based on the level system, once you reach a certain point you start with the base size for that level

This is a team game.. people can FA you as you said. You can also drop the acres... if you have a 10k acre country maybe you want to salvage a turn to get ~100 acres and some tech then build some. Maybe you only get 1500 of the acres back... still better than the alternative.

And Forgotten, why no tech? Ever read a book? ;) Like a country with 200k in a tech is giving back 20k... that is like going from open heart surgery to field dressing a wound or from pesticides and bovine growth hormone to crop rotation... I think its fair =P

actually after reading forgottens last post, new idea! lol...

when you restart off of a level system, you get to pick which country strat of a pre determined build layout that you want.

so if you were a level 4 (as described above) techer you could restart as a level 2 farmer or a level 2 techer.

the different types of restarts would be the basic casher/techer/oiler/farmer/indy as a monarchy that you could then switch to whatever government you wanted with the same starting cash, bushels, oil plus a bonus of 10% bushels/cash/oil that you had before you died

or maybe litte slider bars to indicate how many of each building you want to start with. 5 k acres, with 5k buildings to allocate, with a max of 80-100 CS or something that you can have along with the buildings

W's idea is great.

complication sometimes is the simpler option.
These things would give 'new' members and 'oldies' something new, new members would find it interesting and feel they didn't waste all their time, oldies gets to have another thing to try and optimize, especially the warmongers, who have all been complaining about too many changes for netgainers.

predetermined could have something like 4500 farms, 300 indy, 200 CS (very rough example)

oldies would also get the feeling they didn't waste all their time either. that would be a universal feeling of accomplishment with level up system that allowed your restart not to be a completely naked 4717 country

maybe have it all built , but production level of these said buildings are lowered? Like readiness for military?

Creating a Production % for buildings. (Residental would decrease income as well since condition of building is poor, lower rental income.)

2500 Farms, 300 Indy, 240 CS. 1960 empty acres, that you can use your turns to built, instead of scavaging turns?

Would create even more flexibility for warmongers to customize their restart.

well the little slider bars for allocating buildings would allow for the customization

5k acres, 200 CS, and 4k buildings you're allowed to allocate for free, however you want, before even playing turns

If we want to give flexibility - just give people X acres and X free buildings which they can allot any way they want =P

yup, basically what i'm saying

except for CS, can't let them have 5000 CS... lol.

Important stipulation =)

interesting ideas here :) keep talkin and i'll keep reading and thinking about it ;)

We can't allow them to have 5000 ICs either,

would be over powering for a restart that can start participating in war chats right out of said revive protection.

max on ICs, and max on CSes

1500 and 300?

Though, if you had 50k IC's, would you not 'deserve' 5k IC's as much as a 5k indy would 'deserve' 500 IC's ?

that's what the levels were for, 50k acre country would be like level 8 or level 9 probably lol.. maybe restart with like 20k acres?

I really like the idea of a player not having to start over entirely from scratch when killed. It helps cover a lot of issues the game has, even if some of them are minor...

It rewards people who don't suck. That would be a very welcome change.

It would decrease the strength of a FS, especially on an unprepped alliance.

It would take away the frustration that comes with 6 weeks of play time being completely nullified by a 17 second chem rush. What other games make you start completely from the beginning when you die? Pretty much any game that does that fails. There's always some penalty for death, but I can't remember any successful game that makes you start from the very beginning any time you die. Can you imagine if every time you died in WoW, you started over at level 1 with no gear? Sure your friends could send you some gold to make catching up go a little faster, but it's still really slow.

It would make dropping land/dropping out of humanitarian range (some of the most inherently flawed game mechanics imaginable) to stop a kill run on you a questionably sound tactic rather than the free "out" it currently is.

If this could be figured out it would be one of the most positive changes to ever be made, IMO.

then again should the levels be based on NW or land, or should there be a land level and NW level

land level accounts for how much land
NW level accounts for how much military you get

30% of the land and 10% of the military?

so a 10k acre, 50 mill NW TMBR could become an indy restart with 3k buildings and 5 million NW

a 30k acre farmer at 10 mill NW could become a 9k acre farmer at 1 mill NW

and for each.. add in a base amount of cash and bushels and oil + 10% the cash and bushels and oil the country had before it died

the tech points could be attributed just like the buildings where you get to pick where they are placed. so if you had 1 million tech points, you will now have 100k tech points to place anywhere.. so you can focus on production techs, or war techs, or a mixture

definitely glad you seem interested qz, so far everyone seems to be liking the concept of having something other than a 4717 NW country when they're killed, just a matter of how to decide how big it will be and how to determine that

@Thesus Diablo II Hard Core Mode.

You have to be careful about not making it too powerful.

And I'm assuming if restart is killed, new restart is based on the last killed restart?

oh totally, it would be based on your last country living, not on the first country you had in the set

Love this idea. It gets Better as it gets more refined.

Can i clarify something.

So from llaars most recent imput. We are saying we have a Land Level and a NW level.

So once a country reaches 10k acres. He can get farmed down to 2k acres and then get killed. And will restart at 30% of 10k acres.

Similarly the country reached 10m nw. And because he got farmed his nw dropped dramatically. He will restart at 10% of 10m nw.

Because that is the max level he reached during the set, not what he was at when he died.

Forgotten - the thing is D2 hardcore is an option that a minority of people select that requires essentially no work for them to implement. It is something I have only done a handful of times while playing that game who knows how much (like, I last played it yesterday). I certainly would not have stuck with it if complete reset was the only option.

ah i see a downside to this. i was thinking this earlier but forgot to post it.

once you reach a level, if you drop more than 2 levels requirements below that, then your level goes down by 1

that way, all the effort a clan does in killing someone isnt terribly wasted

level 4 land : 40k acres
level 5 land : 50k acres
level 6 land : 60k acres

level 3 NW : 10 mill NW
level 4 NW : 15 mill NW
level 5 NW : 20 mill NW

country A is 40k acres, and then farms clan X for another 20k acres, just reaching level 6. country A buys up from 10 mill NW to 20 mill NW

clan x farms country A down to 32k acres over 2 days and then kills him, and the NW when it dies is 9 mill NW.

the NW dropped 2 levels and the land dropped 2 levels, and therefore the country will restart assuming the original was at level 4 land and level 3 NW

if the country died at 48k acres and 16 mill NW, it would still restart at level 6 land and level 5 NW

that way if you try to landkill a country, and then it logs in, so you have to then kill it a different way the next day. all the damage you did to it, will hurt its ability to restart

and i say 2 levels, because if you're at 15.6 mill NW and then you're killed and die at 13 mill NW, you shouldnt be penalized and would still restart at level 4.

this would also prevent a commie indy from going up and down a level every day as it played turns then sold military.

what do you all think of that?

therefore if you farmed a 10k to 2k in drinks scenario, it definitely wouldnt start off at 30% of the 10k it would be a bit lower since that would have dropped it down a few levels


also might i note:
bomb banks would still be effective and raid food stores should affect market goods, this would enhance war strategy, and make two ops more useful for preventing a restart from being too big

if this were to work i have a few statements...

one i dont like the "levels idea" i think it should strickly be %.

two A random percentage would be nice as well seeing how each new coming country could be identified by the 10% rule. "i killed a 10m NW country and oh look there is a 1m NW country that just started"


NEW IDEA:

rebuilding phase. give the country a set # of turns. the turns dependent on when you die in the set (kinda working off this levels idea). you are in a protection mode until you use all these turns. then you can build the country as you see fit.

or maybe a straight percentage on the land and NW, which would most likely be different %'s i think

levels or %'s... hmmm

i think straight %'s would be more straightfoward, except for a nuke target that was landkilled, that dude would start with nothing. then again, if levels could drop, he would also start with nothing

will think on this...

hmmm modified turns... in protection til you use them all...

so if you die after 1000 turns, you get 1000*x turns to use?

thing is, what if you started warring at turn 200, and warred for 800 turns and only had a 200k NW country

that would be quite different than a netter going 1000 turns and getting to 5 mill NW and having a small stock

they both shouldnt get the same size restart or same number of turns to use


the level idea is that once your country passes are certain land/NW then no matter what your restart should get something higher and higher depending on the level

i was thinking 1000 turns into the set you get maybe 20% of those turns (or more). so you die 1000 turns into the set we give you 200 turns to run before you get out of protection. 200-500 turns isnt going to get you far.

Also you yourself said this was to help warring. if you go by country... most of the people who know how to run a country will restart. the problem to me is the new guys who dont know how to run a country. when their country dies they are the first to seemingly dissapear

well you only die in warring, so this would be a change for warring for sure ;)

the screen of death, needs to be simple, explain the death and explain your new options

so new players would realize its not really over yet! if they realize that, and a new country is waiting for them to take over, for them to get revenge, i think they'd be much more willing to keep going, than saying 'heres 400 turns now, have fun restarting'

part of the point of getting part of what you had, is to reward the better players for their accomplishment

if you were in week 5, and suddenly FS'd, your 600 million bushels down the drain.. do you want 700 turns and a 100 acre country with 100 troops, or would you want a 5 mill NW already built country at 10k acres, with 60 million bushels?

i think scaling free/starting turns and longer protection later in the set is a better option

perhaps that combined with a smaller carryover bonus, the good thing about a carryover is it reduces the incentive to make a new account to get some other bonus that new players might get

as to the levels and % things id keep it small, maybe you can start with 10% of the csites , 50% of the cash you had when you died, 5% of the military, 5% of the land or minimum 900 that sort of thing

make sure that building costs arent prohibitive somehow, like a discount during the free turns youd receive

(from what i hear about spies theres no benefit to being under 1k acres)

since cash is more beneficial to use while walling if you didnt get a chance to use it you could get a bigger chunk back

warlords idea of giving you a percentage of the turns you ran free as extra protection turns is interisting too

of course they need to be non attacking turns in someway to prevent too large a bonus

I think the correct way to do this is to

a) Have a cap. A 20M netter getting to start again anywhere near that is unfair on others, Takes the competiveness out of it. Plus. Any 20M kill is a fair kill. Thats not an encouragement to new players, rather a hinderence, landing a well atuned player among potential new players (around their networth). I think a lot of bad things would come about

b) I like the ideas of salvage. It makes sense and gives chance to the option, meaning some may benefit more, and some less. Means that when restarting you really would have to make the most of what your given. Say A = B. Say A country gets 8% of NW but 3% L back. B Country gets 3% NW 8% L. B Country uses the excess more effectively than A as A has more land taken by buildings. The formula for Building cost would have to be recalculated, maybe off actual acres occupied (less space, higher building commisions, land is valued more because of previous development) This could be implemented with CS% as well. Less overall % back = More overall % of CS back. Balances it a bit. That way, regardless of defecit, either A or B have the same chance depending on how they use their advantages. Gives wake to a lot of new strats if thats the case, and the strats wont be - turn 1 - this, turn 2 this. It will have to be adaptable, meaning learning the game. Not following instructions.

c) They should not be given ample turns. 50 is enough. After that, they have another 50 turns in protection and then thats it. It flows with the other idea - REF: http://forums.earthempires.com/...5&z=beginning-of-sets

Just some points

To stress my point above - 50% cash. Some Rep cashers have 13Bil cash = 6.5Bil cash. At something like 2M NW? Very unfair. They could stock - attack - destock too quickly out of protection.