Unintended Consequences

ajqtrz wrote: how do you know that no P2W isn't occurring right now?  There are a lot of players and there are a lot of players generating very large armies.  Even the fastest p2w strategy takes some time.  So how is it you know this "fact?"

If you are actually versed in formal argument techniques, then surely you know that Malek cannot be asked to prove a negative. You just demanded hard evidence of others. As the person asserting that P2W happens here, the responsibility is yours to furnish proof positive that it has happened in at least one case. You cannot credibly make a theoretical argument based on a very flawed understanding of the underlying math, and then demand that other people prove you wrong with actual facts. This is your assertion, so put in the groundwork, or concede the point.

Many people here, including myself, have already demonstrated that true structural P2W cannot happen in Illyriad. You proposed a scale of 1000-2000% faster troop production or more. That is practically impossible given the constraints on basic resource production and the inability to instantly create basic resources. While prestige sales can produce immediate gold, that gold is only part of the equation of troop production. Either you can describe a city layout that can deliver the troop production speeds you suggest, or you must concede the point.

Now you are trying to morph this into an upkeep problem. While prestige sales can indeed help with upkeep, I do not find that any more disruptive than the alternate arrangement of using permasat farms. Military accounts in this game often run at 0% taxes and are supplied externally. Effectively their gold is nearly infinite, and so the bottleneck during tournaments and wars is the troop production rate, not the acquisition of more gold.

As long as the mathematical bottleneck in this game is troop production speed, nobody can sell prestige to attain a real P2W scenario. Production is limited by sovereignty, and sovereignty is limited by basic resource production, and basic resource production cannot be strongly influenced by either prestige (beyond the standard 20% boost) or augmented with gold derived from prestige sales (or any other gold source).

The worst that can happen with prestige items is that some players who are willing to pay some real money can come up the curve faster than normal. Rapid growth has always been the case in Ilyriad, vis a vis prestige building of captured cities. As Malek pointed out, people have also sometimes sold prestige for gold via the more awkward sitter mechanism. The main distinguishing point of true pay-to-win is the ability to far exceed the free-to-play accounts by huge factors. That cannot happen in Illyriad because the way troop production is currently structured, the best a wealthy player could do would be to rapidly achieve parity with a standard tournament or military account. They could not exceed the powers of those accounts regardless of additional spending, and so the time investment of slowly built accounts is preserved. As long as that parity isn't broken, this game cannot be accurately described as pay-to-win.

When I was in college my best friend once said of me that I was always busy "re-supposing what others had pre-supposed."  It's a pretty good description.  I do tend to think outside the box and thus, sometimes make glaring mistakes.  If I were afraid of making mistakes, even glaring ones, I'd probably have missed some of the most important (and painful) lessons of my life.

So when I "re-supposed" the whole sov issue I first analyzed why there was this idea that you could only have 20 sov squares.  I knew from my own discussions and training that the cost was prohibitive once you had a sov square, lvl 3 more than a couple squares from you city, so it was obvious to me that the bases of the objection wasn't in the number of squares but in the cost of those squares, a point several people have made. 

However their assumption that you need to raise the sov to level 2 or 3 to be effective seems to me to be to be in error.  That you can have up to 150 squares is allowed led me to ask why the smart developers would have that level if it were either impossible or outside of the abilities of a person to sustain.  And that led me to do some calculations of my own.  Here they are.

I may have made a mistake somewhere in the following calculations and be wrong entirely.  I suspect somebody will rapidly re-do the math and will, no doubt, reveal to me my errors either in calculations or assumptions. I can accept that.

With a Chancery of Estates and Serjeanty research you can claim up to 150 sov squares.   We start with that assumption being true.  We also assume that if the developers allowed the claiming of 150 squares it could be done effectively, even if not efficiently.   The cost of the Chancery of Estates in basic resources upkeep is 800 wood, 3200 Clay and 1600 stone. An alternative would be to raise the Chancery of Estates to level 10 and do the Burbage research and limit yourself to 100 squares.  That greatly reduces the basic resources needed  to 550 wood, 1350 clay and only 88 stone.  But for now we are assume the full Chancery at lvl 20.  You might note that once you have the  Chancery you get a 40% discount so keeping it at lvl 20 will reduce your level 1 costs significantly.  My  guess is that once the developers realized the high cost of having sov of over 20 squares they put this in as a way to increase the sov squares available and usable.  And since the supporting troop type building only reduces the gold costs, there will be no need for that building since we have unlimited gold.

First what can a 5 square resource balanced city produce?

A plot can produce 2,538 in an hour.  Times 5 plots is 12,690.  (2,538*5 = 12,690).  Add the prestige boost we are at, 15,228. And if we use the proper buildings we get another 40% boost to 20,304.

Further improvements of up to 22% are possible.  For this exploration I assume the 8% geomancy spell is applied to the clay as it's the most used for Chancery building and while not totally eliminating the deficit does make it mostly modest.  (8% of 203045 is 1,624.32 and thus cuts the clay shortage incurred by the Chancery from 3200 to about 1600).

So our basic resource budget tops out at 20,304.  There are costs to this and with those costs the actual number is something around 15,000.  Other costs include the cost of building maintenance as discussed above, which vary from res to resource but which add up to about 8% for the three resources used by the Chancery. 

Now what combination of sov and unit production can be accomplished with that?  If we have 20 squares of level 3 sov the cost in resources is 600 per square per hour: 12,000 total (20 x 600).  For that we get a 15% x 20  production increase of 300%.  Not too impressive but not to bad either.   And if we continue adding level 3 sov squares, each square adds 15% to our production rate.  Since, at maximum resource production is 15,000 we have about 5 more squares we can add at lvl 3 before we outstrip our ability to feed the sov.  A total of 25 sov squares times 15% for a total improvement of about 375%.    Not great,  but acceptable.  And that’s sustainable without importing anything but gold and and books to cover the research points (we'll look at the gold and research points farther down).

Of course, if we lower those 25 sov square levels to level II we get a 250% (25 x 10%)  boost at a cost of only 7,500/hr (300 x 25).  Even adding another 10 squares we get a 300% boost at 10,500 per hour. (35 x 300).  And so on.  In the end we arrive at the equation which shows us that with 15,000 basic resources we can sustain 50 level 3 sov squares.  At this point it's just basic math.  The cost of each square does not change with the distance so we just divide the amount of available hourly basic resource by the cost: 15,000/300 = 50. And 50 squares is 500% improvement... quite nice!

But of course, the real costs are not in the basic resources but in the distance from the city and it's growing cost of gold and research points.  So lets take a hypothetical example and see where it leads.

Let's take 120 level 1 sov squares and lay them out around a hypothetical city in the dessert.  A nice balanced 5 food city.  If you have 120 squares of lvl 1 sov it costs 49,436 gold and 4943.6 research per hour.  The farthest you would have your sov square would be 6 squares away, and highest multiplier based upon distance would be 6.08 or 608/hr.  (6.08 x 100).  But of course, distance has no bearing on the amount of the resources needed so you have almost all the resources since the actual maximum production is about 15,000 and the cost of the 120 sov lvl 1 squares appears to be 18,000/hr (150 x 120).  This is, of course, 12,000 / hr above what you can sustain (3,000 x 4 resources) but since you have a level 20 Chancery of Estates you get a 40%  discount anyway and that adds up to far 6,000/hr.  It is unclear to me if the benefits of the Chancery apply to basic resources, but even if they don't a negative 3,000/hr adds up to only 288,000 resources per day (4x 72k), an amount you can easily bring in or have delivered. 

So 120 squares is doable from the point of resource production.  You will have to import at most 96 carts of resources per day to cover the 72k shortfall in each resource ( 3,000/pr hr * 24 hours * 4 resources) but that's pretty minor if you have the prestige to move your carts.  And even if you subtract some resources used to support your city you can still import enough with about two trips to your local hub/market a day.

But of course, it's the gold and research points that have limited sov for the most part.

Since the distance is the crucial factor in calculating the cost of each of our squares we can use the following grid to compute the cost of each square.

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
1	1.41
2	2.24	2.83
3	3.16	3.61	4.24
4	4.12	4.47	5.00	5.66
5	5.10	5.39	5.83	6.40	7.07
6	6.08	6.32	6.71	7.21	7.81	8.49
7	7.07	7.28	7.62	8.06	8.60	9.22	9.90

 

When we do that we get the following grid:

					608	600	608
			583	538	510	500	510	538	583
		565	500	447	412	400	412	447	500	565
	583	500	424	361	316	300	316	361	424	500	583
	538	447	361	283	224	200	224	283	361	447	538
608	510	412	316	224	141	100	141	224	316	412	510	608
600	500	400	300	200	100	x	100	200	300	400	500	600
608	510	412	316	224	141	100	141	224	316	412	510
	538	447	361	283	224	200	224	283	361	447	538
	583	500	424	361	316	300	316	361	424	500	583
		565	500	447	412	400	412	447	500	565
			583	538	510	500	510	538	583
					608	600	608

The number in the square represents the multiplier times 100, the cost of gold for level one sov square.  Since research points are 10% of the gold costs, we can use both charts to compute the gold and research costs.

Calculating our 120 sovereign square we find at level 1 they cost us 1,186,464 (add up the total of the squares in the second chart) in gold each day and 118,646 in research points.  The gold is no problem as we have that in unlimited quantities.  And as for the research pts, if you use books you can convert them to research points.  Thus, since you get 20 research pts per book it would take just over 5932 of books a day (118,646 / 20).  Of course you can have a building for making some books, but you can also purchase 6k of them at, current value, 410 gold.  But for sake of fluctuation we can bump the price to 500 per book.

But all this is sort of academic and exaggerated because you get that 40% discount so, actually your needs are only 60% of these numbers. The gold output would be 711,878 and the books needed, about 3560 a day, or 1,780,000 (500 x 3560) in gold.  Since you have unlimited gold you can spend about 2.5 million a day and have your 120 squares of sov and your 600% speed increase.  And with 30 more squares you could use to produce even more you can reach a maximum of 750% unit production speed.  I suspect, though I have not done the math, that the 1,000% level is reachable, but doubt that you could do the 2,000% I suggested, though I suppose with unlimited funds even that could be reachable as everything needed can be bought.

In summary, to sustain 120 level 1 sov squares you would need to import at most 288k of basic resources, 3.5k of books (minus what you produce of course), and 711,878 in gold.  And it may be that with a careful placing of other level 2 squares you may actually do even better.  Now here's the fun part.  Once you have that sov with a 600% production bonus, you can produce troops.  How many and how fast you ask?

If you have kobolds at 3 minutes 5 seconds and speed them up by a factor of 6 you get 2802 per day.  At that rate it would take you right at 35.68 days.  In just over a month you could have your 100k army and some fun.

100,000 troops from one city with only modest importing needed.    Yes, the troops will cost you some too, but again, you just buy that.

So it appears to me my first intuitions were correct.  36 days, 100k,  and no limits.

"The point of sovereignty is not necessarily to be able to do something efficiently; rather the point is that you can do more of it, more quickly, at high cost."  Albatross, May 11, 2011, Illyriad forums.

I repeat.  I may be mistaken in some way and have calculated sov costs incorrectly.  You are certainly right that I don't know as much about sov as I would like.  But still it's nice that you all took the time to read my post.

 AJ

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AJ.

ajqtrz wrote: Hyrdmoth wrote: AJ. Please go to, Research Tree --> Sovereignty --> Subjects (2nd row, 2nd from right end). Please go to Research Tree--> Socage, --> Sejeanty  (3rd row, last item in the row) Thanks AJ

AJ.

ajqtrz wrote: Brandmeister wrote: ajqtrz wrote: how do you know that no P2W isn't occurring right now?  There are a lot of players and there are a lot of players generating very large armies.  Even the fastest p2w strategy takes some time.  So how is it you know this "fact?" If you are actually versed in formal argument techniques, then surely you know that Malek cannot be asked to prove a negative. You just demanded hard evidence of others. As the person asserting that P2W happens here, the responsibility is yours to furnish proof positive that it has happened in at least one case. You cannot credibly make a theoretical argument based on a very flawed understanding of the underlying math, and then demand that other people prove you wrong with actual facts. This is your assertion, so put in the groundwork, or concede the point. Actually you could prove it as the set if finite and thus you could make a survey of 100% and have absolute certainty it's not happening.  But of course that's probably impossible.  My point is that your statement that it isn't happening isn't any more provable than saying it isn't.  And, more to the point, I've never said that p2w IS happening, but that it COULD happen.  As for the ground work.  Done.  Take a look and correct what glaring errors you find because according to everybody there must be some real big ones.

ajqtrz wrote: Brandmeister wrote: ajqtrz wrote: Many people here, including myself, have already demonstrated that true structural P2W cannot happen in Illyriad. You proposed a scale of 1000-2000% faster troop production or more. That is practically impossible given the constraints on basic resource production and the inability to instantly create basic resources. While prestige sales can produce immediate gold, that gold is only part of the equation of troop production. Either you can describe a city layout that can deliver the troop production speeds you suggest, or you must concede the point. The city layout of which you speak is already posted.  Do take a look. You see, I do hold myself to standards and if I ask others to provide the calculations they use, I do the same. I've actually conceded the point in the last post.  I implied that 750% is probably the top percentage and stated that 2,000% while probably theoretically doable, is not likely. ajqtrz wrote: Brandmeister wrote: ajqtrz wrote: Now you are trying to morph this into an upkeep problem. While prestige sales can indeed help with upkeep, I do not find that any more disruptive than the alternate arrangement of using permasat farms. Military accounts in this game often run at 0% taxes and are supplied externally. Effectively their gold is nearly infinite, and so the bottleneck during tournaments and wars is the troop production rate, not the acquisition of more gold. Actually those who claim that 20 squares is the max have been the ones who "morphed" this into a upkeep problem.  Do read the immediate responses to my initial post.  In the midst of the rhetoric of "aj's an idiot" are the explanations by which they claim the 20 sov square limit, the real one being that you can't pay for more squares...i.e. pay the upkeep. I agree with you that the production rate is the problem, but if I maintain a production rate of 1,000% for very long I pretty much outstrip those who don't have the billions I can raise to do so.  Do look at my analysis of an actual city layout that could, as I understand it now, work to produce 600% production increase. ajqtrz wrote: Brandmeister wrote: [QUOTE=ajqtrz] As long as the mathematical bottleneck in this game is troop production speed, nobody can sell prestige to attain a real P2W scenario. Production is limited by sovereignty, and sovereignty is limited by basic resource production, and basic resource production cannot be strongly influenced by either prestige (beyond the standard 20% boost) or augmented with gold derived from prestige sales (or any other gold source). This is true if you must rely upon your own res production.  But basic resources are cheap and readily available. I've actually done contract supply of basic resources so there are players willing to deliver if you have the gold.  In the end, if you have no limit on gold you have no limit on contract deliveries of basic resources.  Thus, the amount of gold you posses determines the amount of resources you can deliver to your warehouses.  For some reason sov doesn't care if YOU produced the basic resources or the city down the street. Thus, your basic assumption that YOU have to produce the basic resources needed is incorrect. [Quote=ajqtrz][QUOTE=Brandmeister] [QUOTE=ajqtrz] The worst that can happen with prestige items is that some players who are willing to pay some real money can come up the curve faster than normal. Rapid growth has always been the case in Ilyriad, vis a vis prestige building of captured cities. As Malek pointed out, people have also sometimes sold prestige for gold via the more awkward sitter mechanism. The main distinguishing point of true pay-to-win is the ability to far exceed the free-to-play accounts by huge factors. That cannot happen in Illyriad because the way troop production is currently structured, the best a wealthy player could do would be to rapidly achieve parity with a standard tournament or military account. They could not exceed the powers of those accounts regardless of additional spending, and so the time investment of slowly built accounts is preserved. As long as that parity isn't broken, this game cannot be accurately described as pay-to-win. I agree it would be harder to p2w here.  But you argument rests on an assumption that you cannot sustain more than 20 sov squares.  I think with unlimited gold you can.  As for the ratio of p2w vs f2p  I would suggest that the ratio is a lot larger than you envision.  Even a modest player like myself who invests about five dollars a month or so can achieve a lot, but not an army of 100k every 36 days.  Look at my analysis and see where the flaws might be.  If I'm right then you may need to re-think your assumptions. What you are saying, I think, in essence, is that troop production throttles even the richest player and makes it impossible to actually do p2w.  But if troop production could be enhanced to 1,000% would that be significant enough to make a p2w person able to enact p2w?  I think it could. Do analyze my post and see what you think. AJ