Castes of ants and battle
Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2020 7:51 pm
Rather than there being heaps of different castes of ants, maybe we could keep things simpler by having only a couple.
Things like:
Worker ants (gather food, dig new chambers, tend to larvae to allow ant numbers growth, etc)
Honeypot ants (food supplies for the nest... food storage capacity)
Soldier ants (basic battle unit, used both to defend workers in the nest and on the hunting field, as well as to raid other players' nests)
All of these ants (including workers) have an attack/defense capacity.
However the strength comes not from classes but from XP for these ants.
Let's face it, people quickly discover in a game like this the best value for money ant, and that's the only one(s) they build.
In Antzzz for example, it is basically young dwarf, young soldier, and tanks. That's it. Experienced players ignore most other ants because they don't represent the best bang for your buck, so to speak.
So do away with all those castes and just have basic castes that do basic jobs, but the real attack/defense strength comes from numbers and from experience (like in a real ant nest).
So a player that has built up and never had a fight might start off with:
1,000,000 level 0 workers (attack = 1 - total attack 1,000,000)
50,000 honey pot ants (attack = 0 - total attack 0)
250,000 level 0 soldiers (attack = 10 - total attack = 2,500,000)
Thus giving this virgin army at attack total of 3,500,000 (with a total of 1,300,000 ants) (for the sake of the below formula, this is now called "number of ants")
They get attacked by some midget army let's say 1,000 soldiers (also of zero experience).
So, as per the attack formula proposed in the Attack System thread... the attack might go as follows:
Attacker = [number of ants] x [modifiers for attacker]
Defender = [number of ants] x [modifiers for defender]
Attacker = 1000 x 0
Defender = 3,500,000 x 0
So round1 attack = 3,500,000 - 1000 = 3,499,000
Round1 counter-attack = 1000 - 3,499,000
Defender kills all of the attacker's ants, attacker kills 1000 of the defender's nest.
Defending ants (to a total number of say 1% of the total army, for example) go up a level in XP.
So the defender's new army now looks like this:
999,500 workers (half the deaths were workers)
50,000 honey pot ants (attack = 0 - total attack 0) - these guys don't XP since you can't multiply zero... also they're one of the last to die since they're deep down in the belly of the nest somewhere
249,500 soldiers (half the deaths were soldiers)
so 1% of the survivors are now at level 1, ranked up from level 0.
9,995 workers are level 1 (worth an extra 10% attack next time they are in battle)
2,495 solders are level 1 (worth an extra 10% attack next time they are in battle)
So if this player is attacked AGAIN by 1,000 ants of level zero, it would look something like this (assuming no more were laid in the meantime):
989,505 level 0 workers (attack = 1 - total attack = 989,505)
9,995 level 1 workers (attack = 1.1 - total attack = 10,995)
50,000 honey pot ants (attack = 0 - total attack 0)
247,005 level 0 soldiers (attack = 10 - total attack = 2,470,050)
2,495 level 1 soldiers (attack = 11 - total attack = 27,445)
Thus giving the now attack-seasoned army a total attack value of 3,497,995 (with a total of 1,299,000 ants)
So the defender is weakened by the attack, but due to having a huge surviving army, the XP effect is greater so the impact on their overall army is very small.
Conversely, if they had only 10% of the total ants in the original army then the number of ants gaining a level (1% of the survivors) would result in a much, much larger impact in the overall army because far fewer ants would XP up.
This sytem would be simple for the game to calculate, and would allow for ants to XP up forever, potentially, since in the next attack 1% of the level 0 ants go to level 1, 1% of the level 1 ants go to level 2, and so on. Very old players with very huge armies could end up with ants that are level 10,000 or more (although probably very few of them in total).
What do you think?
Things like:
Worker ants (gather food, dig new chambers, tend to larvae to allow ant numbers growth, etc)
Honeypot ants (food supplies for the nest... food storage capacity)
Soldier ants (basic battle unit, used both to defend workers in the nest and on the hunting field, as well as to raid other players' nests)
All of these ants (including workers) have an attack/defense capacity.
However the strength comes not from classes but from XP for these ants.
Let's face it, people quickly discover in a game like this the best value for money ant, and that's the only one(s) they build.
In Antzzz for example, it is basically young dwarf, young soldier, and tanks. That's it. Experienced players ignore most other ants because they don't represent the best bang for your buck, so to speak.
So do away with all those castes and just have basic castes that do basic jobs, but the real attack/defense strength comes from numbers and from experience (like in a real ant nest).
So a player that has built up and never had a fight might start off with:
1,000,000 level 0 workers (attack = 1 - total attack 1,000,000)
50,000 honey pot ants (attack = 0 - total attack 0)
250,000 level 0 soldiers (attack = 10 - total attack = 2,500,000)
Thus giving this virgin army at attack total of 3,500,000 (with a total of 1,300,000 ants) (for the sake of the below formula, this is now called "number of ants")
They get attacked by some midget army let's say 1,000 soldiers (also of zero experience).
So, as per the attack formula proposed in the Attack System thread... the attack might go as follows:
Attacker = [number of ants] x [modifiers for attacker]
Defender = [number of ants] x [modifiers for defender]
Attacker = 1000 x 0
Defender = 3,500,000 x 0
So round1 attack = 3,500,000 - 1000 = 3,499,000
Round1 counter-attack = 1000 - 3,499,000
Defender kills all of the attacker's ants, attacker kills 1000 of the defender's nest.
Defending ants (to a total number of say 1% of the total army, for example) go up a level in XP.
So the defender's new army now looks like this:
999,500 workers (half the deaths were workers)
50,000 honey pot ants (attack = 0 - total attack 0) - these guys don't XP since you can't multiply zero... also they're one of the last to die since they're deep down in the belly of the nest somewhere
249,500 soldiers (half the deaths were soldiers)
so 1% of the survivors are now at level 1, ranked up from level 0.
9,995 workers are level 1 (worth an extra 10% attack next time they are in battle)
2,495 solders are level 1 (worth an extra 10% attack next time they are in battle)
So if this player is attacked AGAIN by 1,000 ants of level zero, it would look something like this (assuming no more were laid in the meantime):
989,505 level 0 workers (attack = 1 - total attack = 989,505)
9,995 level 1 workers (attack = 1.1 - total attack = 10,995)
50,000 honey pot ants (attack = 0 - total attack 0)
247,005 level 0 soldiers (attack = 10 - total attack = 2,470,050)
2,495 level 1 soldiers (attack = 11 - total attack = 27,445)
Thus giving the now attack-seasoned army a total attack value of 3,497,995 (with a total of 1,299,000 ants)
So the defender is weakened by the attack, but due to having a huge surviving army, the XP effect is greater so the impact on their overall army is very small.
Conversely, if they had only 10% of the total ants in the original army then the number of ants gaining a level (1% of the survivors) would result in a much, much larger impact in the overall army because far fewer ants would XP up.
This sytem would be simple for the game to calculate, and would allow for ants to XP up forever, potentially, since in the next attack 1% of the level 0 ants go to level 1, 1% of the level 1 ants go to level 2, and so on. Very old players with very huge armies could end up with ants that are level 10,000 or more (although probably very few of them in total).
What do you think?