You may have noticed that this week we didn’t have our regular fortnightly public beta update. Fear not because after our quarterly ‘office week’ ends, we’re ready to drop some big changes to fort battles! Unlike past updates focused on team balancing, these changes primarily focus on the user interface and battle tactics.
Sector Labels
The first change we made is adding sector labels to the battle map. These labels will adapt based on the size of the fort and the level of its buildings, translated by your local community manager with the different names used by our various communities. The labels will start hidden by default but you can toggle them by clicking the ‘1234’ button above the battle map.
Leader Mode
The second change we made is allowing generals to draw their own arrows on the battle map, supplementing the battle chat to guide their troops. By clicking middle mouse button, you can draw a silver ⛨ arrow between any two cells, and right click will draw a gold ⚔ arrow. Generals playing on trackpads and touchscreens can also cycle between the three modes for the left mouse button by clicking the ‘mouse pointer’ button above the battle map. These arrows are automatically erased after the next round is processed or can be manually removed the same way as movement arrows, drawing one that starts and ends in the same cell. Other fighters can also toggle their visibility by clicking the ‘hand pointing’ button above the battle map. One caveat is for now we don’t store generals’ visual arrows on the server, so you won’t see arrows drawn earlier if you connect to the battle mid-fight (but remember they only last for a single round anyway).
Experimental: Retarget Offliners
The third change we made is the most impactful: once per battle, generals can change the target cell of all offline teammates. As we collect your feedback, this change will be limited to the public beta only. By clicking the old ‘toggle fog of war’ or ‘eye’ button (new graphic pending), you will see thin black arrows pointing from all offline teammates to the cell under your cursor. Once you click to confirm a cell, the target of all currently offline teammates will be immediately changed to that cell, and the button is disabled for all generals. The order only affects teammates offline at the moment the order is given, online teammates who later close the battle screen are unaffected. Similarly, offline teammates who open the battle screen afterwards may still freely change their target. Use this option wisely because once this order is confirmed, no further orders for offline players can be given by your team’s generals.
We believe this change represents a fair balance between the experience for online and offline players. We want to continue providing a tactical advantage for online players, while punishing them less for the activity status of their teammates. Likewise, we want to avoid stripping the player agency of offline players, while giving them more utility in the fight. We are not considering any possibility of moving online players, moving individual players or moving players each round. We will continue to monitor the change on the public beta and read your respectful feedback.
Wishlist: An Eighth Rank?
Two of the changes discussed in this post can only be used by generals. We are actively considering whether the game would benefit from an eighth rank, for example a lieutenant general between captain and general that can also use these features, as well as whether any changes are necessary for the default ranks assigned to town founders and councillors. We are also seeking your feedback on this topic.
Enjoy 🙂
It would be great if there was a “specialist” rank — shoots before generals, moves after generals.
This would avoid the trend of giving a black hat to every damager in town, consolidating damagers into the towns that dig, and the complaints about digging towns with non-damagers with black hats.
To be honest “eighth rank” doesn’t make sense, it would be better if the “generals” rank could be edited/demoted like other ranks, it will limit the number of generals for instance to 1-3 ( will not be “mess”).
Diggo the GOAT, finally
i personally think moving the offies, while certainly a good idea, could be counterproductive in more than one way.
a good example would be people complaining about being controlled cuz not everyone is willing to sacrifice for the cause and they strategically start somewhere to not die. you’ll have those on your heads. that’s why a ranking system exists
and also, i am 100% sure that you need a very very good leader for that mechanic to work as intended otherwise you might end up doing even worse than them offliners sitting where they intended. the right way to use this mechanic is with micromanaging one SINGLE offliner at a time.
general ranks for hats is to be eliminated…give general rank only to the attacker who digs and in defenses for a black hat that claims it. i think that’s the best way. also, it would be nice for the claimer/digger l to be able to choose his own order of movement/shooting. for example if he’s an advent, it would be nice to let a dueler shooting and moving before him, and it’s not possible in the current ranking system. 🙂
i’d say the ranking system needs a rehaul not an 8th rank.
please, add all features from the scripts to the game. it’s necessary right now, especially the fort related ones
Can you add a button to toggle the LOS shadow on and off? I have been reloading my battle screen nearly every round due to the difficulty in seeing the battle when the LOS shadow covers most of the map.
The new rank should be COLONEL.
Thanks for everyone’s feedback so far. With our follow-up changes we will look to reduce the number of players given the rank of [four star] general as well as remove game incentives to have excessive generals. Only the founders of the attacking and owner town will receive the rank of general, and councillors of the attacking and owner town will receive a lesser major general rank that they can be demoted from by generals. (It is undecided whether we also assign this rank to the founders and councillors of member towns.) We are also considering changes such as giving all commissioned officer ranks the same turn precedence and removing the ability of captains to rank enlisted fighters. This means anyone given the rank of captain would have the same shooting and movement precedence as all generals but may no longer lead the team, since they could not assign ranks or access leader mode.
“and removing the ability of captains to rank enlisted fighters. ”
please no.
The instances of captains abusing their ranking power is quite small and FAR outweighed by the instances of generals or what would be “lesser major generals” failing to do the last-minute ranking and having a previously ranked captain step up to finish the job
I will try the changes first and give feedback after a few battles
What do you mean by “Other fighters can also toggle their visibility by clicking the ‘hand pointing’ button above the battle map” – which visibility, that of the arrows (if yes, why?) or their own or …? I’m the German translation guy, that’s why I’m askinig.
And which of the currently three (?) buttons is “the old ‘toggle fog of war’ button”, the third one (to remove the background colors)?
The new icons left to right are: toggle sector numbers visibility (default off), toggle leader arrows visibility (default on), cycle left click action and finally retarget offliners.
Thanks, Diggo, for your quick answer. So one button will be replaced by new function and graphic and three will be added. The replaced one is the one where until now the background colors/graphics of the forts could be toggled?
Btw shouldn’t the labels of the buildings on the right be the other way around: above are the barracks and below is the resort stock?
(Love your comments to the pictures!)
I second Goober’s comment! If anything, not only should Captains still be able to rank they should also be allowed to also offer Captain rank and below like a General. As Goob stated, it’s rather common for Generals to not appear for ranking or the battle itself. Typically, gray hats are there to act as leaders or as such are active town/alliance members there to help lead. Many times gray (or black hats) are awarded for that person’s fort activity especially in towns that value fort fighting. So I think this is something to consider.
It would be even better if this “8th rank” was a Colonel or Specialist, as was suggested, could also rank up to Captain, etc.
Thank you!
How might one counter the abuse of this feature? Say for example, a pessimistic, narcissistic battle leader that in-turn, drives players into a less than advantageous outcome/scenario, thus lowering the outcome/results of those offliners?
Would it make sense to have an opt-out feature or would that detract too much from the intended outcome of implementing it?
All said though, I think these feature(s) are quite nice in updating or at least freshening a somewhat stale game aspect that could possibly allow for more enhanced and strategically advanced gameplay. Cheers
Thank you for the insights. I think it would be better if the general could define the battle-leader (if none defined it will be the general itself), before the fortbattle, and this leader can use the features. Its not good that only a general can use these features or even a second rank between general or captain. I dont want to have Healthpoint-players ranked that high, they need to draw after damagers. If you dont find a solution for that, it would mean HP-Players could not use the features, even if they are leading the battle, because they should not be general or above captains…
Thank you for considering 🙂
I agree with Mrs Sam Colt that the new rank should be a Colonel.
(for those of you not familiar with the US Military rank of Colonel it is pronounced KER-NAL)
I agree with Goober that the Captain (and new Colonel) ranks should be able to rank up to a captain level (in the absence of the original fort digger).
The expected improvement is very interesting, I hope it will bring more fun.
I would like to urge you to propose what could be the MOTHER OF ALL REVISIONS:
– completely format class bonuses.
They are old, unbalanced and unfair, especially for some classes.
Propose a reset and that users can choose the bonuses for their characters.
Thank you
Bring in features from the scripts bc the .net CMs are banning everyone. You can do as many updates as you want, but with no players left, you’ll be developing for yourself.
Moving offliners should be a bit more reduced, especially currently it seems like one player ordering the move in early rounds would ruin it for everyone .
Also good point about the sign-up; in Awesomia it would be good to actually have generals on defense (or if npc digs offense).
Sector labels – amazing
Leader mode – amazing
Will have to wait and see how the offline retarget will work in practice, but that’s what beta is for.
Overall, looking good and amazing that fort battles are getting an update!
I’ll be happy if you just fix the blasted chat window so it doesn’t stop scrolling and need to constantly be reloaded, tyvm.
The problem was not thought of. There is Fort Battle where the city founders are missing to give a rank and there is no city council. Where a rank can give
Retarget Offliners – very good thing. But i agree with Sancho, generals should define the battle-leader.
I’ll add an additional suggestion that is a modification of the some of above:
allow generals to “hand the battle flag” to a single player who will appear in the chat-list with a “flag” in place of their rank, and automatically chat in a special color like GM characters do (so they don’t have to set their chat color, especially useful if leading from a phone/tablet)
That is, add a chat command, active only in fort chats, “/hand-flag” that any general (or anyone currently holding the flag) can use with a username. Once executed that player is given a special ~”hidden” rank that is equivalent to General but
1) has a special icon (a flag)
2) has a special treatment (equivalent if not identical to) that causes their chats to automatically be colored; preferably /990 but the GM blue is OK too