Witch Doctors gameplay - manageable risk for everyone

[Dmanwuzhere]

1)
Create cards like Hostile Natives and FoJ that will target voodoo, turns and gold instead. They should be enchantments, and they should expose such assets based on time pass or action made. Once these assets are exposed, they should be obtainable with anything else than voodoo. Fleets should act as a measure to defend these, so any player with a decent fleet should not be able to be affected by this. Although it should not be about ship or fleet numbers.

Can you make this more clear CJ? Not sure I am getting the entire meaning.

[DezNutz]

My statements on seafaring are directly related to the need of voodoo to conduct battle. Voodoo has nothing to do with seafaring, so its use and need to conduct sea operations against other players is what I see as the problem. IMHO, there are alternative ways to conduct battle that need to looked into that do not require voodoo at all. The constant need of voodoo to do this or that, takes the game away from seafaring.

[Captain Jack]

My statements on seafaring are directly related to the need of voodoo to conduct battle. Voodoo has nothing to do with seafaring, so its use and need to conduct sea operations against other players is what I see as the problem. IMHO, there are alternative ways to conduct battle that need to looked into that do not require voodoo at all. The constant need of voodoo to do this or that, takes the game away from seafaring.

You have skirmish. If you have other interesting ideas, we will be happy to hear them.

[Admiral Nelson]

Thats not improving seafairing though; That is just adding to it (Depends what your view of improving is, I suppose)

I think Deznuts means more strategy then just clicking a button like you can today... Maybe you could implement turn success of Skirmishing for both side; If the attacker put more turns, the % of gold coins captured, goes up by X. And on the defenders side, the more turns they put in one route - Means the higher escape %.(A suggestion I thought of at the top of my head)

[Dmanwuzhere]

Thats not improving seafairing though; That is just adding to it (Depends what your view of improving is, I suppose)

I think Deznuts means more strategy then just clicking a button like you can today... Maybe you could implement turn success of Skirmishing for both side; If they put more turns, the % of gold coins captured, goes up by X. And on the Merchant side, the more turns they put in one route - Means the higher escape %. (A suggestion)

That seems one sided for the skirmisher one fleet to feed turns to while the trader would need to insure each fleet.

[Admiral Nelson]

Thats not improving seafairing though; That is just adding to it (Depends what your view of improving is, I suppose)

I think Deznuts means more strategy then just clicking a button like you can today... Maybe you could implement turn success of Skirmishing for both side; If they put more turns, the % of gold coins captured, goes up by X. And on the Merchant side, the more turns they put in one route - Means the higher escape %. (A suggestion)

That seems one sided for the skirmisher one fleet to feed turns to while the trader would need to insure each fleet.

I was giving an example of what I think Deznuts means, and a suggestion too I suppose.

Which is why this topic is marked in the Discussion thread. However, it adds strategy. Do you want your trade fleets to run normal with a % of getting hit, or do you want to maximise your profits and get a lower % of getting hit?

Merchants do not have much to spend their turns on; At least I didn't...

[Dmanwuzhere]

Thats not improving seafairing though; That is just adding to it (Depends what your view of improving is, I suppose)

I think Deznuts means more strategy then just clicking a button like you can today... Maybe you could implement turn success of Skirmishing for both side; If they put more turns, the % of gold coins captured, goes up by X. And on the Merchant side, the more turns they put in one route - Means the higher escape %. (A suggestion)

That seems one sided for the skirmisher one fleet to feed turns to while the trader would need to insure each fleet.

I was giving an example of what I think Deznuts means, and a suggestion too I suppose.

Which is why this topic is marked in the Discussion thread. However, it adds strategy. Do you want your trade fleets to run normal with a % of getting hit, or do you want to maximise your profits and get a lower % of getting hit?

Merchants do not have much to spend their turns on; At least I didn't...

Most of your current guilds defense or clearance of voodoo came from the traders. So there is still the need for turns for other aspects as certain people are junkies when it comes to digging for treasure lol

[sXs]

1)
Create cards like Hostile Natives and FoJ that will target voodoo, turns and gold instead. They should be enchantments, and they should expose such assets based on time that has passed while they are active or once an action has been made. Once these assets are exposed, they should be lootable with anything else than voodoo. Fleets should act as a measure to defend these, so any player with a decent fleet should not be able to be affected by this. Although it should not be about ship or fleet numbers.

Of course, such voodoo will be purify,serenity prone (which means they will be able to be removed by the receiving player) but they should be as dreadful as FoJ and HNs are to big ship holders.

2)
Exploring further the aforementioned side affects, we could create a new card and create it only under certain circumstances. Ie, after X number of hours under FoJ or HNs while running 200 ships or more. This card could be anything of protective nature. For example, it could have 100% piercing, protection from Purify and Protection from Serenity and last 100 hours. As long as it is active, it could have the effect of target player cannot cast voodoo on you. We could even make it Magpie resistant and ban it from the market to ensure that only the victim can use it for the exact purpose.

3)
We could add backfire to FoJ and HNs. Once backfire happens, the spell will not only fail but the effect casted back to the caster does not have to be the same as the card. It could be a Time Spiral for example (ie Backfire 10%: Time Spiral). Before we weaken these two cards though, we will need to add more ways to stir fleet battles.

If the issue is the use of cards cast on a single player repeatedly, the true "witch doctor", I do not think adding more cards would help to solve this. Many offensive cards can be used for defensive purposes as well as the opposite. Defensive cards for offense.

I would propose a different approach similar to the limit place on some cards to stacking. ie limit of 10 ambush per 24 hour period.

1. Place a maximum of some sort on the amount of voddoo a player can receive in a given period. Every card has a turn value built in which is based on its perceived value. Maybe base the limit on the total number of turns required by the attacker to cast such cards.

Example.

A typical ship raid requires maybe a few serenity to remove defense, 10-20 Levis 5-10 ambush. Add in some booty masters and fire ships if needed.
That amounts to 150 to 300 turns depending on several factors.

It would seem to me that maybe if you limit the number of casts on a single player say to 400-500per day or maybe 1500-2000 per week based on the turn value of the cards cast, this would help the situation a bit. Values are for examples only and could be adjusted. I prefer it based on a weekly total though as this would prevent a stacking affect of day after day raids, which seems to be the issue here.

[DezNutz]

My statements on seafaring are directly related to the need of voodoo to conduct battle. Voodoo has nothing to do with seafaring, so its use and need to conduct sea operations against other players is what I see as the problem. IMHO, there are alternative ways to conduct battle that need to looked into that do not require voodoo at all. The constant need of voodoo to do this or that, takes the game away from seafaring.

You have skirmish. If you have other interesting ideas, we will be happy to hear them.

Skirmish was a great start in moving away from voodoo. However, skirmish is limited as you can't plunder ships.

I'm just throwing this out there. I would have to work out the details, but what if we set it up this way.

Sea fights would be based on 2 parts.

Danger Rating - Uses existing danger system and list, any ships that obtains danger 2+ would visible to all players, if they have a fleet in port. Fleets would be plundered based on the existing rules (turn costs). Only fleets that have a danger rating would show on the screen.

Skirmish & Plunder - A singular list of ships based on existing skirmish list. List has 2 options skirmish and plunder. Skirmish would work as it does currently. Plunder option would work just like regular plunder except cost twice the turns (maybe more). No voodoo required. This list does not show gold coin on hand nor the fleet make up. GC on hand would only be listed on the danger rating list.

I would eliminate the gossip page. So players would need to have a fleet in the port to see who comes and goes.

For fleets that are stationary (in the port but not in an active route), there would be an option at the top of the skirmish/plunder list page that players can pay something like 10 turns to see who is currently in port. The docked list would only last x time and would need to pay again to see it. List doesn't update, just shows who is docked at the time. Anyone on the dock list would also have the option to be skirmished/plundered.

This would make all sea battles voodoo less, or at least not require them to be initiated. It would also require pirates and others who are looking for particular targets to be strategic. It would also make merchants be more strategic in their routes and fleet setups.

This could be elaborated on considerably to include implementations that tie into Diplomacy and things such as Letters of Marquess.

Thoughts?

[Shadowood]

1)
Create cards like Hostile Natives and FoJ that will target voodoo, turns and gold instead. They should be enchantments, and they should expose such assets based on time pass or action made. Once these assets are exposed, they should be obtainable with anything else than voodoo. Fleets should act as a measure to defend these, so any player with a decent fleet should not be able to be affected by this. Although it should not be about ship or fleet numbers.

Can you make this more clear CJ? Not sure I am getting the entire meaning.

The way I read this Dman is like this. You have a "damage over time" card like Swarm of Worms. However this card will target, Voodoo, Gold or Turns.

If it targets Voodoo, it will pull say 1 voodoo card per hour from your victim
If it targets Gold, same but at a certain rate. (this card has already been approved in the past. Band of Thieves i believe)
If it targets Turns, same but at certain rate, perhaps the tick is every 10 mins like we gain turns, but this would be -10 every 10 mins. So if you had Double turn rate on, it would steal 8 total. +2-10=8

Action Based Card would be perhaps a "Buff" to ships

Buff your Fleet like Bless or Drums:
When you attack you have X% of stealing Turns, Voodoo or More gold