Sabotage Feature

DeletedUser2159

Guest
Hi there guys,

I would like to discuss the Sabotage feature (hall of orders thieves' guild).

My friend has been relentlessly sabotaged by other players who are much larger than him. They previously tried to attack him but he killed their attacks easily since he has a solid defensive army. He is trying to re-build his spies, but they have a lot more villages than him (he only has one village at the moment). So they can build spies at a much faster rate than him. They have taken down his buildings so much that he has lost about 1200 points (including destroying some very important buildings, making it even harder for him to re-build).

Is "sabotage spamming" really a fun mechanic to have in the game? I mean how is he supposed to defend against them alone? The tribe also can't send spies to "spy support him". (I know this part should be in suggestions thread, but now that i think about it, maybe this "spy supporting" is a feature that can be implemented. Then tribes mates can send their spies to support him in defending against sabotage attacks. Or perhaps thieves' guild should allow your spies to steal resources instead and not sabotage buildings... or maybe just nerf the sabotaging ability somehow...)

Currently however, the result is that by sabotage spamming you can completely kill another player's village without ever attacking him with troops. Thus even if you have a great defensive force, you can't defend against multiple sabotage attacks from multiple players if they out number you. I feel that tribe support is supposed to be able to help smaller players in a tribe until they can get stronger and conquer more villages, but the tribe cant directly help him against sabotage attacks.

TL;DR ==> Sabotage spamming is not a fun or balanced feature imho. Prove me wrong with good reasons if you can ;)

What do you guys think?

Would love to hear innogames' opinion about how the sabotage feature is balanced when it is being spammed against smaller players? I mean the morale feature helps smaller players against larger players armies, but nothing protects them from sabotage spamming.
 

DeletedUser2159

Guest
From the wiki:
Tip: Sabotage is an efficient way to demolish well-defended villages, as you can bring down the Farm, Church or Wall without using your armies. Of course you need a lot of villages with the "Thieves Guild".
Note that sabotage can also destroy : -warehouse, barracks, hospital, academy, etc etc. So if you do it enough the whole village will be destroyed.

If they can use multiple villages to attack with sabotaging spies then you must surely be able to defend against it better (i.e. by allowing tribes' mates to send supporting spies to defeat the sabotaging spies more effectively).

They can send multiple waves of 4 or 5 spies (thus possibly 15 spies or more if they have 3 large villages with thieves' guilds, even more if it is a tribe effort)
Whilst you can only defend with a maximum of 5 spies.

This feature definitely needs a bit of "polishing or reworking" since it will be abused and is not balanced correctly at the moment imho
 

DeletedUser2139

Guest
Allow me to say that a tribe is more than a group that support each other , it is a family that fights together.

The best defense is to attack ,so get your troops out of the barracks and show them that you are a strong tribe who will not stand quiet when one member is attacked.

Catapults on their Hall of Orders ,if you can not conquer the villages yet, or sabotage their Taverns.
 

DeletedUser2165

Guest
maat;n22201 said:
Allow me to say that a tribe is more than a group that support each other , it is a family that fights together.

The best defense is to attack ,so get your troops out of the barracks and show them that you are a strong tribe who will not stand quiet when one member is attacked.

Catapults on their Hall of Orders ,if you can not conquer the villages yet, or sabotage their Taverns.


I believe one of the major concerns is larger players/tribes attacking a smaller player (or even possibly a smaller tribe).

That means the "best defense is to attack" method would only be an effective way to lose your army faster. Terrible post, and very ill-informed.

-Kain
 

DeletedUser2159

Guest
Thank you kaincallavis. Finally someone who understands my point. The thing is this spy sabotage feature will get abused and there is not an effective defense against multiple larger players with multiple sabotage attacks. I mean now you are forced to try and catapult them... yeah right. And wht if you dont have a hall of orders yet? So you cant sabotage them in return.

I mean how can it even vaguely be conceivable that in medieval times a complete city would be wiped out only by spies and no siege weapons or army needed??

Spies are a cool feature, don't get me wrong, but they are supposed to be harassement tools and information/intelligence gatherers. The result is that two or three players with thieves guilds can completely level a players city without ever needing to send any army or catapults. I think the sabotage feature is in dire need of reworking.

@ maat: I know the best defense is a good offense, but seriously, if you are a smaller player with one village about to take your second, and you are being sabotage spammed by two or 3 players with 6 or more villages each, you are not going to attack them, that would be dumb. And your tribe will probably not really want to attack them either, especially if they are far away and have their own problems. Normally the tribe can help smaller players when each tribesmate sends 50 of each def unit, or send their paladins to help support smaller players in the tribe until they can get back on their feet. There is no such option for sabotage spamming. The only option is to full out attack the other tribe/players which may not make tactical sense at all.

Its all about risk vs reward. If you are forced to attack the other player you risk losing everything. When they send sabotage attacks they only risk losing a max of a few spies which can be re-built and you dont put your army at risk at all. For this small investment you can kill his entire base gradually.

Im not saying it will always be like this, but i just think the defense options are not effective at all against multiple sabotage attacks.
 

DeletedUser2139

Guest
Of course big tribes defeats smaller tribes, in TW1,TW2 and in reality.

It is a war game and sabotage feature or not ,they will attack you with 10 nukes per village because they grow faster and they will win.

Unless the small tribe it is very offensive and makes good alliances, it is logic that it will loose.

Sabotage it is not unfair because they worked to have big villages and an active tribe.

If they remove the sabotage feature you will still loose, just it buys you more time to grow the villages for them.

Look for your enemy-enemy, trade with them your support troops for their attack.

And if you attack with what you have and a lot of fake attacks it might convince them to look for an easier target.
 

DeletedUser2159

Guest
@Maat, the reason why its frustrating is that they tried to attack him in the conventional manner and failed horribly cos he has a good defense. Now they are reverting to abusing a silly mechanic whereby you can level a complete city without even needing to use an actual army. He doesnt have much offense to attack with at the moment but he has a good defense. They will now just level his city which is stupid since he wont even be a good noble target after they destroyed all his buildings.


I know that bigger tribe beats smaller tribe etc etc, but then why is there someting like morale in the game? They might as well make it a free for all so bigger players can just own everyone. The morale is there for a reason. It is there to help smaller players defend with tribe support, until they get bigger.

With the sabotage mechanic there is no such morale, nothing. They have taken down his village from 3000 points to 1400 points without ever attacking with an army, only using sabotage. It is easy for you to say "just attack them" or "they worked hard to be stronger" but I am willing to bet you would not feel that way if you were on the receiving end.

In normal warfare in TW, when a smaller player in a tribe(even a big tribe) is attacked, the tribe sends units to him to help defend. With the sabotage feature this option is not available.
 

gencyde1

New Member
They should add a feature where one can detect spy attacks at level 15 Tavern (I still dont know on what purpose a lvl 13+ Tavern have) - and add another where you can support with Spies (via your own or through others). This basically adds another layer or warfare - and can mitigate this imbalance.

Honestly, I've seen this results myself - quite horrifying and awesome at the same time - although it almost condones bullying in my opinion XD (leveling a 9k villa into a 1k in 24 hours is a GREAT thing when youre the one at the attacking end. Otherwise it is just really depressing)
 

DeletedUser905

Guest
I completely agree that sabotage is a way to powerful and it's killing game fun. It takes you weeks to build your village and it can be destroyed in one day. One of my villages was actively sabotaged by other player, so I've turned about 10 of my HoOs to sabotage villages and start sending waves of saboteurs. In half day I've reduced 2 of his villages from 7k+ and 8k+ to 5k+ both. If I would continue and will ask my tribes mates to participate we could reduce all his villages to 56 points in couple of days. This is not fun, not at all.

I would suggest that game designers will remove this feature and came with some other alternative for thieves guild.
 

DeletedUser940

Guest
Honestly as a "larger player" i hate turtles. i hate them so much. when i see a guy that is less than half my points and has only defensive villages it annoys me. not only does my moral suffer when i attack this player but i have to go through all his defense. now a larger player might have as many defensive villages but he also has alot of offensive villages which allows me to implement more strategy in my attack. when attacking a smaller player that just turtles up i have to sacrifice nuke and nuke to get rid of him... and what happens if i leave him there... well i good turtle will noble every barbarian village and make it defensive. they grow slow and they are pesky. but wait i have a thing called sabotage. i can take out this player who has had no interest in fighting and make all his villages useless. boom problem solved. i know it is a tuff love kinda thing but honestly this is tribal wars not tribal let me build all these defensive troops and have a tea party. this game is designed to give the defender an advantage in all case except sabotage. this allows us to be able to bypass the moral barrier and get rid of small players that have no chance of being the "winner" in this world.

now i do believe there should be a bit stronger spy defense mechanism in the game as it is a bit to weak. but say my players in my tribe that are smaller get hit... my reaction is going to hit them right back. i support my tribe members and dont think for one second im going to let you beat down my smaller tribe members. tribes work together no matter how small you bite back when bitten. so if your friend is being targeted then do something about it. if you arent a big enough player to do it yourself or your tribe is much to small i am certain that those large players have enemies. i know i sure do
 

gencyde1

New Member
I agree about the whole "Pure-turtle-types" players that just nobles Barbs around. Worse are those that captures barb villas and grow those captured villa slower than the actual Barbs around overtime - quitting eventually because they find this warfare game dull and leave all their pesky troops lying around.

Sabotage is a great and unique tool - it is just prone to "abuse" or overuse - sort of imbalanced in many ways. I don't think removing it completely will be great, just figure out a better defensive mechanism against it.
 

DeletedUser2159

Guest
I understand that absolute turtles can be frustrating, I just don't think that the way sabotage works currently will address that problem in a fair and balanced way. Someone can now raze a village using only spies. Not a fun way to play the game imho.

Sabotage is a cool idea, but it needs balancing or it will be abused.
 

DeletedUser926

Guest
I agree that the sabotage feature is way too "extreme". And to my eyes, the rela problem is that there is no defense possible, which I find a total inbalance in the game.

Basically, I believe that the defending spies should have an advantage on attacking ones.
Because, of course, the attacking ones will always come from an attacker that is much bigger than the attacked player.

The main problem in TW1 was that you could not defend yourself (trrops vs. troops). TW2 seems to solve that problem. But it seems now that this is reproduced with the spies... not good for the game in my opinion.
 

DeletedUser24

Guest
Hi folks,
a really interesting discussion. We know that sabotage is a strong feature and big player can really damage small player. The problem with the examples like: one player, who is on the way to get his second village, against 3 player with each 6 villages. He will never have a chance against them, they will outgrow him to the point, where they can sacrifice a few offs to clean him. Also it is a team game, if you are alone, then it is really hard for you.
What you can do as a tribe, if one member gets a lot sabotage attacks, find the villages from where the attacks are comeing and reattack with spys. Try to kill their spys in the village or sabotage their villages, when their spys are on the mission. If you count spy vs spy the defender will win, because the attacker loses more spys at sabotage missions.

But still we are thinking about possibilitys for improvments. We have tavern lvl 15, so there is space for another tech. If you have ideas, tell us, maybe it is the fitting thing ;)

greetings
Kmork
 

DeletedUser2139

Guest
Divas;n22987 said:
The main problem in TW1 was that you could not defend yourself (trrops vs. troops). TW2 seems to solve that problem.
The defender has -the wall bonus, the church influence,the hospital and the morale.

The attacker has- no real espionage, no stable, no workshop.

Yup, i will say that they solved that problem .
 

DeletedUser431

Guest
Kmork, the real issue is with massive sabotage spamming. When you have something like 20 members of a tribe that decide to gang up on one village. Each of those 20 members could easily send 10 saboteurs each. That would be 200 individual sabotage attempts. You can take a 9K villa to 56 points in a few hours with almost no loss. How are you gonna counter attack this? Are you supposed to get 20 of your mates to go after one of the 20 that attacked you?

The part that makes this the most unfair is the 100% success rate when there are no spies in the village. Say I have 5 villas with Guild of Thieves - each villa with 3 spies. If I first send 10-12 regular spies 1 at a time at my target, I will kill all of his spies. If I follow those spies with 15 individual sabotage attempts (5 villages by 3 spies), I will knock down 15 building levels. Now, if you have 20 tribe mates all doing that to the same target...
 

DeletedUser1587

Guest
OK I have a situation, so please give me an idea what I should do, if not use the Sabotage:
23 Morale, 13K Swordsman, 5K Spearman, lvl 20 Wall, inactive for months... I only build cavalry as it takes the shortest possible amount of time to build a nuke, so I can not use any rams or catapults efficiently.. Suggstions?
I perfectly understand it that the Feature is not perfect, like every other one.. but I don't see any other way to deal with the situations like the one above. :)
 

DeletedUser1587

Guest
I just got one thing on my mind that could work better than the current system, sabotage the troops instead of buildings... :)
It would not be OP at all, it would be really easy for smaller active players to defend (either build spies or just send the troops out of the villa), while it would give us (the bigger active players) a solid way to take out those inactive turtles where we have 20-40 Morale. It would still take a lot of time, effort and resources, but not so much like when you have to build 10 nukes just to take out 2-3 villages :v And in my case that takes around 20 days per nuke (lvl 25 Barracks, solo cavs nuke, the fastest possible nuke)... which is ridiculous.. Please consider my suggestion ;)
 

DeletedUser2159

Guest
Hi Kmork, thanks a lot for the response! I think the suggestions you made makes sense, attacking the sabotagers' villages with spies could be a solution. This is still a very offensive mindset and I think maybe it would be nice to put in a level 15 tavern tech to counter sabotages defensively. Like perhaps you could include a feature where allies (or other villages owned by yourself) are able to send an amount of spies to your village to help defend (exclusively against sabotages because against normal spy attacks this feature will perhaps be OP.)

You could give it a cool name such as a hotel / inn upgrade, or a bar or the order of the white lotus (spy gathering place) or whatever haha. Just something like that which implies more spies can be housed. Then allies can send a max number of x spies to support you, giving increased chances of defending against saboteurs.
 

DeletedUser2139

Guest
The defender it is over protected in tw2.

Another passive protection in the case of the sabotage feature , that encourages the defender to keep on sleeping in his village it is not good for the game.

How about an active defensive tactic ?

If in 5 minutes after a successful sabotage ,the defender activates from the Tavern a Counter-Sabotage measure, then the sabotage is cancelled.

In this way ,the dedication of the attacker to grow and organize it is balanced with the dedication of the smaller player to defend himself.
 
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