Domination Game

The problem with inactive players, is that they just sit there. There should be an option when creating a game to allow for plagues or desertion when

A plague work like this, it will effect a random territory(if there are no battalions on the territory, then no effect) and will kill off 0.5-2% of the battalions rounded up.

Sorry about the delay in replying Ryacko,

It does sound like a really good idea, and unless anyone else can think of any problems with it, then it might get added.

Although I would suggest one minor tweak, and that is to call it a death rate and not a plague... as this will allow it to be applied at regular intervals to everyone in the game (a little bit more fair than a random territory).

Any objections to that, or improvements?

I imagine that for active players, this could grow to be annoying, as much as I may agree how annoying derelict empires may be. As you respond with the option, that intends one more item to check before entering a game and inconsistencies between games.

But assuming this effect is enacted in some form, 0.5 to 2.0 per cent are hardly any impactful numbers to weaken an idle force. If the starting battalions were set at 100, and the territory reaches its deathrate/plague time, it would at most be reduced to 98 battalions. Two battalions aren't significant in any way during battle, and having this small damage done to a realm of 100 standing battalions won't help idling empires collapse as they rightfully should.

Unfortunately, my arguments struggle against themselves; if the desertions are annoying, making them stronger would yield a worse result in that sense. If reduced to the point of not being annoying, the effect upon derelicts would be nullified.

The option as I see it, then, is to discriminate somehow. Perhaps, provided the possibilities, this feature could depend upon the empire's most recent activity.

A general and not thought-out example:

The impact of a plague/desertion is inversely proportional to the empire's maintinence/activity. More dedicated and hands-on rulers, after all, experience fewer troubles with their populace. This rides on a process similar to the following:

If a player does not show activity within an actiondelay, a desertion is processed. This feature must be disabled in deathmatch mode, or be given a minimum working action delay level to process desertions.

The desertion is handled by establishing a (random?) territory of effect which is under the player's control, and then selects a (random) impact per centage of the territory's occupancy.

The range per centage would exist between .5% and 2%, or different numbers to allow for balancing. This number of battalions is then multiplied by the number of full actiondelays the player has not been active for. The battalion count will then be rounded normally after multiplication.

This would render an inactive user losing after an actiondelay between .5%-2% of the territory's occupants. After two actiondelays, the territory will now lose between 1%-4% of its men. After three actiondelays, 1.5%-6% will be lost.

If an action takes a day, then on the tenth inactive day, 5%-20% of a randomly selected territory's remaining occupants will be taken.

After an absence of 25 actiondelays, you shall start flipping coins, losing between 12.5%-50% of your battalions in whatever territory is selected.

If your selected territory may have one battalion, you shall from then on hope that it shall round down. If it rounds up, taking 50% or more of your one battalion, you will lose with your remaining battalion either surrendering or overthrowing your empire. That's why you shouldn't leave your lands to rot.


This could have a few side-effects, though. The processing could increase load on the server considerably, slowing Domination loads slightly at times. The server would have to track idle-time of a player, being reset at every action, and making sure of when every actiondelay occurs in order to be informed to take away battalions.

Now the question remains: Is it worth the effort of coding and being processed?

Not track each action. Only each time the guy logs in and/or collects battalions. Afterall, less sane people like defensive stances.

I wouldn't call it a death rate since I believe replacement soldiers would be recruited from the area, no matter how radioactive.

PS. It was meant to weaken inactives, not destroy them altogether. Besides, someone should show effort at attacking the inactives, why if someone attacks an inactive player's territory, all territories should suffer desertion(except the home) and a random one will suffer plague.

Ah, I was meaning to use actions, movements, logs in, collects battalions, etc. to prove that the player is active at that time, nullifying the chain of plague growth. Though I believe the process I explained could have plenty of flaws.

And I wouldn't fear much of destroying the inactives, as it would take about 26 days for that to possibly occur during a 1-day action delay.

Just logins. Simpler.

Logins would be simpler, yes.

However that would be proved insufficient for faster games in which actions are begun and taken without leaving the website.

Well, presumbalby in faster games you would get faster reinforcments. Thus destroying any need for a slow decline.

Perhaps in territories with insufficient amounts of battalions would rebel, afterall, I found the aspect of inner territories barely with any soldiers in risk annoying. That and there should be Roman Empires... think about it, you have to retake rebelling territories AND fight off the other guy while he does the same.


There should be a difficulty level, the higher the difficulty, the slower inactives decline, and the more territories will have a chance to rebel.

I view not to have slow declines in faster games, but fast declines which aren't encountered if you show full activity.

If it tracked logins only, it would be required to log out then in to stop the declines. And logging in/out of something isn't very fun... :P

I only said inactive territories decline. Though there should be occaisonal rebellions.