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Siege War FAQ

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Goosius1 edited this page May 8, 2022 · 155 revisions

Q. Why doesn't a captured town simply get transferred into the invading nation, rather than this occupation thing ?
A. Multiple Reasons:

  1. Allows "Shopkeeper players" to have a good experience:
    • In servers with public nation spawns, but without public town spawns, a nation capital town often serves as a shop.
    • A simple-transfer system would cause an invasion of such a town to remove the public spawn, effectively destroying the shop.
  2. Allows "Nation-Community players" to have a good experience:
    • For many players, a key benefit of nations is the ability to play with your friends, with a nation becoming a community of players
    • Such players enjoy being officially part of the same exclusive group in the gameworld, and sharing a nation chat channel.
    • A simple-transfer system would regularly tear up such communities, much to the upset of these types of players.
  3. Provides more diplomatic options:
    • Town in its home nation and unoccupied = Unoccupied. Residents are generally satisfied to be in the nation
    • Town in its home nation and occupied = Military occupation. Residents are reluctant to associated with the nation which invaded, but they have no choice.
    • Town in its occupiers nation and occupied = Annexed. Town has agreed to join the nation of its occupier, usually by threats/bribery etc. The town is moving towards being a trusted member of the occupier nation, but some residents still resist. Send the secret police.
    • All towns in a nation unoccupied, but same colours as a nearby powerful nation = Vassal/Protectorate
      • The towns are not under occupation, so this is not a military occupation or annexation.
      • But neither is it an alliance.
      • Rather, the nation has done a deal with a nearby powerful nation.
      • This deal involved changing colour and some other diplomatic arrangements also.
      • In return the nation is now vassal, or protectorate if the more powerful nation.

Q. Why do players not get automatic tax income from occupied towns?
A.:

  • Technical Reasons:
    • At present, the Towny tax system only provides options of flat-tax, or wealth-percentage
    • For an occupied town
      • A flat tax might either be too low to make any different to larger towns/nations, or too high to allow invaded/subverted towns to enjoy themselves.
      • A wealth percentage tax would be easily avoidable by an unwilling taxpayer (e.g. by storing the money with a 3rd party)
  • Gameplay Reasons
    • If a nonpeaceful town is occupied, it means it has been defeated in a siege and probably plundered.
    • The occupiers, sometimes being young and foolish, may demand to raze the town to the ground, extract even more money, and so forth.
    • Server owners, however, need to understand that the defeated players are important for server sustainability. Taking even more money from them via occupation taxes is not going to help create a vibrant geopolitics. Rather, required grinding will suck up more time for these defeated players, giving them less ability to rebuild their strength. Some may give up on war altogether and switch to Neutral.
  • Alternatives:
    • The top alternative is the Global Domination Rewards feature, where the server generates money and magical artefacts, and grants them to the top nations.
    • The TownyResources plugin (see install guide) gives occupier a tax of material goods, but be aware that sometimes these goods are not so valuable, which won't be fixed until TR adds demand.

Q. How do I allow players on my server to have a complete opt-out from the war system ?
A.

  • Edit your config.yml file, and change towny_influence_radius to 0
  • Now when towns go neutral, they can no longer be subverted
  • WARNING
    • This configuration may "split" your server community into two (fighters vs non-fighers) by limiting their interactions.
    • Also it will make full regional and world domination impossible, denying that opportunity for would be conquerors.

Q. Non-official siege participants are trolling in the siege zone. What do I do ?
A.

  • Set punish_non_siege_participants_in_siege_zone to true.
    • WARNING: Be aware that restrictions on non-official participants will punish certain legitimate types of siege participants, such as nomads who want to help one side, non-nation town members, mercenaries, secret allies, battlefield reporters, and explorers/traders/builders who just happen to be passing through the area

Q. A handful of large nations are starting to dominate my server. What can I do ?
A. Options (combine for best effect):

  • Ensure keep-inventory is enabled in TownyCombat (otherwise large nations usually snowball).
  • Configure the Global Domination Awards, maybe to give less stuff to those at the top, and/or more to those in lower positions. Also consider increasing the number of nations which get awards (e.g 1-10).
  • Reduce the siege_balance_cap. This will benefit smaller nations.
  • Ensure the banner_control_reversal_bonus is enabled
  • Increase the modifier for that feature
  • Consider enabling the counterrattack booster feature.
  • Enable map_hiding in TownyCombat and set to AUTOMATIC (enables stealth for all, which benefits smaller nations more).
  • Educate small nations on basic military tactics
    • If an opponent is stronger in overall numbers and skill, then it is not smart to take them on in a 1:1 direct battle.
    • Instead, a smaller nation should:
      • Bring in reinforcements
      • Use tactics and stealth to outmaneuvre and ambush the enemy.
      • Pursue a diplomatic solution (including possibly surrender)
      • Take the town/nation peaceful in order to regroup

Q. Players are griefing the siegezone. What can I do ?
A. Options:

  1. Enable the anti-trap-warfare mitigation
  2. Ensure that the following configs are enabled. These configs will automatically prevent obsidian and cobble monsters: war.siege.zone_block_placement_restrictions.enabled war.siege.zone_bucket_usage_restrictions.enabled
  3. Apply moderation, and create a rule(s) for siegezone changes e.g. "No major terraforming is allowed at the siegezone." "Only small forts, ramps and barriers are allowed."

Q. Some large towns believe that war costs (like plunder) are meaningless for them because they are so rich. What can I do ?
A1. Ensure the Global Domination Rewards are enabled
A2. Enable the following setting: 'extra_money_percentage_per_town_level' This setting increases all siege moneys by a configured percentage for each town level. Thus large towns will pay proportionally more, restoring the relevance of war costs to them.

Q. The server is getting very toxic, with too much aggression and smack-talk. What can I do ?
A. Options:

  1. Ensure the Global Domination Rewards are enabled
  2. Reduce the costs of war. Games with low failure costs (such as chess), tend to be a lot less toxic, compared games where weeks of work can be lost due to a single death or battle loss.
    • Enable the keep_inventory_on_siege_death config. (so that a death does not mean a god kit gone)
    • Ensure the equipment degrade-on-death is around 20%. (too low and battles drag on too long, too high and each death is too costly)
    • Keep plunder to 15% or less of the town bank.
  3. Reduce the amount of fighting people are doing by
    • Scheduling fewer battle sessions
    • Scheduling longer battle sessions
    • Scheduling longer break times
    • Reducing the daily-player-battle-sessions limits (e.g. set to 1 per weekday, and 3 per weekend)
  4. Reduce the number of sieges allowed per nation,
  5. Increase the siege-immunity-time-modifier.

Q. I am concerned the plunder money steal will create toxicity. Will it create a more relaxed server experience if I disable it?.
A. No. If you disable it, it will more likely create a LESS relaxed server experience. Reasons:

  • The true value of plunder is not just an adjustment of bank balances.
  • Rather, the feature works as a 'glue' which allows empires to grow and hold together.
  • A well known example of this in R.L. was the Mongols. Many towns in their path would quickly throw their doors open and surrender without a fight, simply to avoid the threat of plunder. The Mongols would then (generally) peacefully occupy such towns.
  • Without plunder, aggression levels could actually get higher. Because with less material cost to losing a siege, there would be less need for negotiation. Thus towns would more often fight to the bitter end (rather than negotiate or surrender early), and revolts would happen more frequently for the same reasons, stifling nation growth and stability.

Q. My players are starting to use traps a lot in sieges and it's getting weird. What can I do?
A. Options:

  1. Enable the trap-mitigation feature
  2. disable obsidian in siege zones (for easier trap destruction/escape)
  3. disable string in siege zones (for easier trap escape)
  4. disable fence gates in siege zones (for easier trap escape)
  5. Use TownyCombat to reduce the effect of knockback.
  6. Allow enderpearl usage (for easier trap escape) ... consider a cooldown on each usage though
  7. Allow spawning out from enemy claims (so that escape from unattended traps is not impossible)

Q. Can I add special protections for nation capitals ?
A. Yes.

  • Yes there is a feature available (configured off by default), which adds a percentage war chest increase for attacking capitals.
  • Note that capitals also get an IMPLICIT defence bonus, as follows:
    • If a capital is attacked, the king himself/herself will be strongly motivated to organize a heavy defence, perhaps rallying the whole nation to the cause, and allies.
    • If the king is liked and respected, the attack might have the exact opposite effect as the attacker intended, bringing the entire nation and its allies together to defend (or later retake) the capital, and giving them a thirst for revenge.
    • If the king is disliked, then few may answer the call to arms, the battle may be lost, and this dynamic drives a pattern of King's generally working to maintain the loyalty of their subjects and allies.

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