I think there still is a need to explain WHY the DS benefit so much more from high prices than FP.
There has been wide agreement to the thesis that if the FP don’t manage to eliminate/cripple enough DS nations until the beginning of midgame (t 15-20) to make up for character inferiority, they will eventually lose.
Crippling a DS nation is relatively easy. A crippled nation has very few pop centers to draw taxes and resources from and can’t afford armies and a full character board. Money problems will often lead to bankruptcy, as with normal prices, the DS team has only a very limited ability of supporting crippled nations.
Exploding market prices make the crippling tactic completely useless. the abundance of money will make up for most problems, nations can exist with just one major town.
So the FP will have to effectively eliminate DS nations to maintain their chances. This hard enough in a normal game and with enough money around, the DS (who have, I dare to remind, two emmy artefacts) can increase their pool of backup capitals very quickly.
What options do the FP have to counter the banker nation exploit (I will continue calling it an exploit, because in my eyes it is making use of a game mechanic that wasn’t intended to be used that way)?
Stealing from the banker nation, of course. We all know that at game start, the FP have only a handful of characters that won’t get slapped in the face when just trying to steal from an enemy camp. That is problem one.
Problem two is that any DS team that intends to prevent a counter, will transfer his money to the Long Rider. 3329 is given to another nation and soon the only places the FP can steal from are some camps and a hidden major town. woohoo!
Limited options I would call that, unless Elrond starts with reveal pop. So the FP will usually need some time to launch an attack on the banker nation. But time is on the side of the DS. Every turn of max sales increases their wealth, and very soon, they will be able to create not one, but two, three or more banker nations. woohoo, part two.
so countering the banker nation exploit is very hard and ties up many orders, unless there is an option I have not seen yet. I am happy to be enlightened.
there have been some people saying the exploit doesn’t need to be countered, the FP can profit from it, too.
so that means we are back to the question if the FP can manage to compete in the character race. stairs VS elevator again - I thought we had that answered long, long ago? :rolleyes:
With a lot of money you would expect to see the following effect:
Everyone has a full set of characters
Armies get larger as people can afford to recruit more.
Better loyalies due to lower taxes
Army recruitment becomes limited not by money but by available popcentres and the number of commanders. (It is already limited by these factors for most nations)
Popcentres will be upgraded more as loyalties are higher and money is more abundant.
Dragons become relatively less important (although still rather effective)
I could envision the game changing focus. Mostly due to how nations are eliminated from the game. You can die by 3 things:
Lack of money
Lack of characters
Lack of Major Towns
With unlimited money ALL of these conditions are harder to impose on the opponent. Lack of Money and MT’s seem obvious, but why is lack of characters also harder to acomplish?
Well, there is a kidnap limit of 50 people, so you can only hold so many hostages. The tactic of robbing a nation blind so he is unable to recruit new characters is not possible if he can have lots of money transferred from his allies. Only the denial of the capital could potentially destroy a nation. But moving the capital is now also cheaper
When it becomes harder to destroy nations it follows that games become longer. Longer games favor nations with characters, but also information gathering becomes much more important.
My personal strategy in these games would be to focus on destroying a single nation at a time. Destroying that nation would have to be done by taking ALL of his MT’s at once, preferably without warning (or he would just have a new MT transferred). Such an attack would be made with curse-teams (to remove armies from the popcentres) and emmisaries.
Enemy double-scout nations and Noldo/CL seem like obvious first targets, but BS is also juicy to hinder DS curse-attacks
As games progresses armies become less effective. Against a skilled opposition being an army commander it is just a sign around your neck saying kidnap-me. Also Armies are ineffective in destroying nations, since they cannot conduct surprise attacks. Their only strength is that that they can act BEFORE natsell thus potentially denying a full turn of natsell income to a nation.
Thus to compete in the endgame you need:
Lots of high level emmisaries
Agents for a highmobility strike force and for scouting
Curse/Mage artifacts and mages to use them.
Palantirs to find enemy MT’s
I see no great imballance in these demands in terms of Free vs DS.
The DS has a greater number of mages at start and thus a greater ability to find artifacts.
The DS also have a larger number of mage artifacts needed to make a curse team effective
The Free have ALL the palantirs however, the key information gathering device in the late game.
So to sum up What would I do as the Freepeople:
Name more emmisaries than usual, both for doubling and for 525.
Get curse artifacts ASAP
Recruit the dunland player to even out the scouting advantage of the DS
Get those palantirs safely tugged away in a moving company
What would I do as the DS:
Locate and claim the Freep curse artifacts ASAP.
Steal at least 1 palantir ASAP
Name more multiclass characters with command ability to equal the free in recruitment power.
Upgrade popcentres like mad with the emmy-artifacts
phew… enough for now. I am sure there are many more implications of having infinite money. That will have to wait for later.
The strategem, assuming it’s effective, seems high risk to me.
Anyone reading rumours immediately knows that the strategem is in play, and who the banker is.
A steal from a nation’s capital steals a proportion of that nation’s reserves. With tens of thousands of gold per steal, the Free may be quite happy to sacrifice an early kill or two. At the very least the DS would have to provide a high class agent on constant guard duty.
If it’s the LR capital, it’s true - you need to reveal it. But the LR 's just set himself up as public enemy number one. Characters on a hidden town are invisible. The logical action for the Free in this case is to use a Sinda mage supported by a ScoChar and the best available agents. If the reveal fails, the Free can vent their frustration in the challenge ring. So the LR will be doing a lot of “refuse” orders.
Thus there’s a risk: the Free know their target and can steal a fortune if they get lucky, crippling the DS.
The banker strategy is also fairly costly - all those early transfers cost scarce orders, and 10-20% of the gold is lost to merchants.
In short - “Banker” can join the list of useful strategems (assuming it’s real), but doesn’t change the game balance much.
As addressed above, transfer Olbamarl and LR has 3 camps from which to steal and a hidden capital which, considering the FP character set, well, I wouldn’t pour a good mage and my, frankly, only agent into combatting the LRider handing over the arty race, etc for a hoped for move against this strategem.
Scarce orders? 1 per team. Compare that with an even 1/2 sophisticated DS market manipulation scheme (Bid, Buy, Transfer product, Sells, etc) and it’s a breeze.
In the event the FP are attempting a steal campaign, switch bankers. Easy enough, everyone sends to a different hex including last turns banker sending 500,000 gold to the new hex. Watch the FP dedicate their characters, their emotions and precious team morale whilst the DS, money in the bank, do as they will.
just thought I would throw my quick 2c into a problem I have been trying to ignore and was hoping might go away (I love the freep afterall!).
Is it broke - I think it is
As Clint mentioned before, this problem has come up before and the programmers tried to fix it. Because this is basically what it is, a progamming error IMO. And taking advantage of this error is a clear manipulation of the rules as far as I am concerned. It’s not skill on anyone’s part to put into play. (though the bloke who thought this up certainly was a clever and courageous beanie!).
Already we are seeing lots of ideas come through to counter. As Brad says, none of these are easy and take quite alot of freep effort and are a little risky (and of course, not much extra DS effort is required). Running big deficits always helps kill the market but if this is a programming problem, it’s hard to see how that will fix the problem at all (you still have one nation with tonnes of gold who the program won’t allow to buy out 2 products so the prices remain high).
Simple fix then might be to change the program, maybe the nation now can’t buy out 3+ products? But of course, this will require testing and time.
I wasn’t in game 16 but one of my grudge allies (Gixxx’s team I am talking, we aussies never clued in on this btw) was. Our next game was ironically game 15 and this tactic was suggested and we voted. It was not an easy vote and there were plenty on both sides for many reasons, we did vote yes in the end - mainly due to all that end justifying the means bs :mad:
I really seeing it come down to a moral decision between the teams. Thankfully this will be a lot easier to implement in grudge games, especially where the turn around game is guaranteed. Then it really becomes what is the point as I will just do it back to you. So hopefully it becomes another standard grudge rule, a house rule if you like. Normal games? Not sure but then again, I don’t play those anymore. Gunboat games? Surely impossible to organise if everyone is keeping quiet.
Finally, greedy DS! What was wrong with the old tried and true market manipulation? Sure there were risks but it was alot more fun and challenging!
Actually it was Brad who said that in message 18 and he didn’t quote a source. This can be easily resolved. Clint picks up the telephone and calls Feild. “Bill, we have such and so situation. Was that part of your creative intent”. If he says “NO” then we have a problem. If he says “YES” then we had better become unconventional.
Hi Everyone,
I am in a 1 vs 1 game playing the evils (against Scott) and I know about this trick but refuse to use it as I do not think it was ment as part of the game. Buyouts and the like are. Going into t-5 the market is about as low as it can get. No question in my mind a better market favors greatly the evils. It will be tough for me to keep max recruiting and max char hiring but that is part of the game. I have to decide where my priorities are and focus on that and trying to get the market up with buyouts ect… I love my game so far and hope that most teams/games will not use the banker nation. Going forward I will most likely ask to make that a gentlemens’ agreement not to go that direction in games but if it is used than so be it. Play the game. Keep in mind this will hurt the evils the first 1-3 turns (char hiring) so goods needs to use that advantage. Anyway, my point is a very high market takes away from some of the evils fun in managing their Kingdoms IMO. The key is enjoy the game. If you do that, than you win.
John
Is it broken… I would say yes… Having market prices climb upwards simply due to 1 nation having a huge balance vs the average balance of every nation in the game. Then add in most actions in the trade caravan prices are sells rather than buys does not reflect on how the traders would respond… They simply would not sell if nobody was buying… That buy very nature of a merchants market is an error… They would have to make a profit to have the gold… Buys and sells of the market are and should be a part of the game… Banker Nations having this effect should not…
Should it be fixed most definitely… Manupulation of unrealistic progam errors should never be able to be utilized even if both sides benefit from it… At least in my opinion why is gold reserves even a factor , prices should be determined by the buys and sells only… This is the determining factor of markets in every period of the world … Markets simply had no clue how much gold the nations of the world had anyways…
If my understanding of this mechanic is correct - that the “banker” nation does not have to send money to non-banker nations? That sells will sustain the others? If this is the case, what is feasibility of gunboat DS team implementing this? How many team members must be complicit to make the strategy work? Given the limited knowledge from rumors and one’s own actions, what does it take to gain “convergence” on a single banker? How many complicit actors (other DS players who know of the one banker strategy but don’t have any knowledge of specific strategies/algorithms to get convergence) are needed? Is convergence on a single banker necessary?
Anyone have access to the ability, software, and initiative to work this out with me? The holy grail (or doomsday scenario) being a scheme to implement it with only a single gunboat actor, but that is probably not possible.
I’ve seen Harad slowly increase market prices all by his little ignored lonesome in another game. 60% taxes and Sell every product he could for max gold every turn. Instead of slowly building 7500 HCav in purchases st/st, he just sat, built his characters, and slowly increased his reserves to 250,000, 300,000 and beyond and beyond… And the market responded.
It was actually quite funny, as both FP and DS were in a tizzy over what was happening, every 4 turns or so Harad would say “I’m causing this” and nobody would believe him… Quite amusing.
Gunboat? I highly doubt it. Who’s a High Tax Potential nation that isn’t paired with a weaker cousing AND capable of avoiding the fight? SG is all I can think of, but to do so for him have military long term strategic implications I do NOT want to have to be a part of myself…!
2950? I suppose it would be more difficult to do so in this scenario.
while we have big issues in GB right now (how to deal with drops), thankfully the banker nation exploit is not a GB issue. Nor do I worry that it will become one.
You got it summed up on your first post Clint. Blanker Nation strongly favors the DS. Although I think it’s more of a mid game killer for the FP, when gold for the DS becomes a large issue. It is not unstoppable, however it does take the edge that the DS already start with and widen the gap if the level of play between the teams is the same. When DS no longer have to work hard for their econs it opens a whole new level of play for them.
I’ve known about the Banker Nation issue for years. It took a bit of talking on my part, to get the DS folks in the Power game it do it, most thought it would not work. As most thought it was about the total gold held by all nations. I feel that without the huge Econ the Power game it could have went the other way, with it in place the FP in that game had little chance of winning as we started doing silly things that the DS normally just don’t get to do. Is it broke? I don’t think it was known well enough in the past to say. Now that the cats out of the bag so to speak, I’d think would be broke if it happens in near to every game and the DS starting wining an unreal amount. It needs watching.
If this works for the DS wouldn’t it also work for the Free? John and those of you that have done it as the DS have you tried it as the Free? John L, since you mentioned it as possible to favor the Free in the Mid Game why not in the early game or end game or for that matter all the way through the game? What if both sides use the strategy simultaneously; wouldn’t the result then just be hyper inflation of the market. If so doesn’t this just make the higher prices relative? The Free still have stronger more productive economies (or at least should have) couldn’t they still simply outspend the DS?
I saw an example cited where Harad did it all by themselves. What happens though if you do all the NatSells and deplete the inventory then your opponents start making future buyouts more expensive by selling their inventory into the market to maintain the high prices while you’re now trying to spend your gold to buy and inflate the sale price. If the purchase price you elevated along with the sell price by your original purchase from the market stays high isn’t this going to hurt you trying to make a profit in future transactions by the mechanism of inflation?
If a rising tide lifts all boats then surely there is a countermeasure to this strategy. For example the turn rumors often report gold transfers. If you start picking up a lot of gold transfers to a single nation wouldn’t that be cause for suspicion and thus investigation? Doesn’t that then subject that nation to becoming a training ground for thieves? I guess I just don’t understand that the tone here seems to be that a good DS team can use this Banker strategy and win and there is nothing that the Free can do about it. Perhaps this is more a case of not enough thought has been given by dedicated Free player as to what to do to counter an enemy’s attempt to use the strategy. There used to be talk that the agent rules were so advantageous to the DS that it wrecked the game if the DS were competent. I think that has been proven to be an error but it does take good planning and play by the Free. I think it was either in Facade’s page or in the old GSI hints articles that it was said the game is set up to favor the DS in terms of coordinated action. This would make sense as they all worked for one master and his will was the will of all nine. The Free nations were all disparite and each had their own agenda and objectives in the writing of Tolkien. Only when presented with the spectre of certain defeat did they put those aside and truly work together as a united force. I think the game reflects this pretty well. Even with Ed longing for the good old days, and lamenting the transition of this game from a single player to a team concept game; I still feel that the rules work: this topic to me simply illustrates that the Free must work united and that to beat a good DS team the Free are going to have to play just as well in all aspects of the game.
Our team usually plays the Free and I am sure this will be a topic of discussion in future plannning discussions. I am not convinced however that this is an unbeatable advantage for the DS. For that matter now that everyone is aware of the mechanism I am not certain I feel it is really that big a difference maker at all unless the Free do nothing. Edmund Burke already stated that pretty effectively.
Sorry Brad I was saying that it favors the DS in mid game. Midgame (once the starting gold and armies are gone) many DS teams struggle with bankrupt nations, many have to maintain no armies. This gives the FP a chance to even things up and do some damage, gain some momentum. I think that a high market dose not really favor the FP at all. It’s not a matter of out spending; it’s a matter of making gold not an issue for your actions. The FP already enjoy 3x (or more) the Econ more then the DS, a well run FP’s team should not worry too much over gold anyway. With struggling or normal Market prices the DS can have hard time deciding what do to with what they have: Build Chars, hold Armies, where do they put their resources? This can give the FP’s a part of the game they can hold the advantage. When that part of the game is removed then the DS’s edge grows. They can do everything; play all parts of the game. In the two last games I’ve played Banker DS nations just a few mages per DS nation with Conj. Mounts could make each DS player 35-40k gold a turn. DS players can run sizable armies; always max builds, even if things go poorly they have close to nil PC’s. The FP could not hurt them that way and it become very hard to slow them down. However the DS could attack the FP all over the map. It’s a lot easer to defend Mordor then the many FP fronts. Also a lot of game becomes a Character war…DS SNA and already hold a major edge and usually keep it through out the game. Many games a won by the FP team taking a huge pounding Character wise but doing enough damage to the DS econs knocking them out of the game. That no longer works. The DS character gap in those games grows larger and eventually the FP nations are just husks, the game becomes to painfull for them…DS victory.
