Jan 17th 2012, 0:27:02
qzjul's, your idea is also a decent suggestion, however, that has 2 major side effects that you might have not forseen:
A) Tech allies becomes required for everyone in the game, much like D allies, thus techers will actually generate 30% less overall tech server-wide. This will cause tech prices to increase, but this will be offset by the amount of "tech shared by allies", which is tweakable. It's a bit mathy to balance it out. We don't actually want to do this because:
B) Your suggested change directly nerfs the techers, and buffs every other strategy. Since techers produce 30% less tech, unless the price of tech increases by 30%, it is a nerf to them. Likewise, every other strategy type will gain tech allies and need to buy even less tech (adjusted by price increase) to achieve the same % levels for their production type, non-techer strats become stronger relatively.
The side effects of the meta game would cause less players to be techers, and play other strats. This directly causes potential problems on small population servers such as Express and Tournament. (I could be wrong here, and more people play techers instead because of the perceived increase in tech price - but that weakens the techer strat even more if more people play it.)
Already last reset in Express (Reset ending 15 Jan 2012), there was a total of 5 techers or so (not counting people who tech started). It's the same syndrome with oilers - there isn't enough demand for oil to the point 1 or 2 countries can produce enough for the entire server, leading to periods of time there is none on the market.
To solve the above (A) and (B), the TPT formula would then have to be tweaked, along with the tech % formula, that's too many knobs to change at one go.
Using my suggestion would not cause all these potential problems, since the relative strength of the techer strategy would remain the same.
A) Tech allies becomes required for everyone in the game, much like D allies, thus techers will actually generate 30% less overall tech server-wide. This will cause tech prices to increase, but this will be offset by the amount of "tech shared by allies", which is tweakable. It's a bit mathy to balance it out. We don't actually want to do this because:
B) Your suggested change directly nerfs the techers, and buffs every other strategy. Since techers produce 30% less tech, unless the price of tech increases by 30%, it is a nerf to them. Likewise, every other strategy type will gain tech allies and need to buy even less tech (adjusted by price increase) to achieve the same % levels for their production type, non-techer strats become stronger relatively.
The side effects of the meta game would cause less players to be techers, and play other strats. This directly causes potential problems on small population servers such as Express and Tournament. (I could be wrong here, and more people play techers instead because of the perceived increase in tech price - but that weakens the techer strat even more if more people play it.)
Already last reset in Express (Reset ending 15 Jan 2012), there was a total of 5 techers or so (not counting people who tech started). It's the same syndrome with oilers - there isn't enough demand for oil to the point 1 or 2 countries can produce enough for the entire server, leading to periods of time there is none on the market.
To solve the above (A) and (B), the TPT formula would then have to be tweaked, along with the tech % formula, that's too many knobs to change at one go.
Using my suggestion would not cause all these potential problems, since the relative strength of the techer strategy would remain the same.