There is a dispute over the recent war between Shogun and China empires after China lost to Heroes empire. In short, it seems that China players argue that empires are protected for 24 hours after a war. Thus, they say the war was a bug and the lv13 palace and 5% loss should be restored. Shogun players say there is no bug and no 24 hr protection.
Best Shogun Argument:
According to the existing rules written by Alyvia, Shogun is technically correct. According to Lakoo's Empire Rules written by Alyvia, only the initiating side is subject to the rules of the War Declaring Conditions. Rule 5 states that only the attacker must wait 24 hours to declare war again (against the same target or a different target). Thus, Rule 6 explains that the attacker would have to wait 48 hours to attack the same defender (24 hours after declaring war, then the war, and finally the 24 hour "attacker cool-down" before declaring). However, the attacker must wait 48 hours before attacking anyone, not just the same defender. The argument that Shogun could not declare war 5 hours after Heroes's war with China ended is logically flawed. According to the existing rules, the war was completely legal. The defender is not subject to the War Declaring Conditions and thus has no 24 hour protection. The only protection for defending against being attacked if an empire is not in a war is the War Card.
Best China Argument:
The existing written rules do not support the China claim. Also, China knows from its smaller empires that different empires can war the same empire within 24 hours. Everyone in the server has seen it. Thus, China's best argument is to claim that Lakoo intended to make the game fun for everyone. Without getting into the game history, suffice it to say the Arcadia server has come down to China (and allies) versus Shogun (and allies). Currently, the Shogun Alliance has more military power which is why China has used War Cards for the last two years before forgetting one day. China can argue that Lakoo always intended things to be one empire against one empire, not multiple empires against one empire. Using this logic, China has a strong argument that Lakoo should change the rules.
Analysis:
No one will be happy with the end result. If Lakoo restores China war losses, the rest of Arcadia server will be unhappy and many players will quit. If Lakoo, does not restore the war losses, China will be unhappy and China players may quit. According to the rules, the war loss should not be restored. However, pragmatically Lakoo will decide to do whichever causes the fewest unhappy players and lost $.
Suggestion:
I recommend keeping the war loss because:
- The existing rules say the war was legal
- Players should not expect that they can complain and get rules changed retroactively
- Players will lose confidence in the game if they feel that Lakoo will break rules to convenience player who spend $ (although it is unknown whether China or Shogun spends more $ as a whole)
The rules should change for the future. I suggest the following:
- A War Card cannot be renewed until after it expires - an emperor would need to log in and put a new card in place. This forces empires to have active emperors and allows empires to be warred if empires are inactive.
- Reduce War Card Functionality - make war cards last 24 hours, not 72 hours. This would encourage emperor activity which encourages player activity.
- Only Soldiers or higher rank can enter war - this was done for World War with great results. The 72 hour transition time between becoming a new citizen and citizen would keep people from empire jumping just to help in wars.
- Add Empire Hitpoints - similar to World War, allow 5 characters to enter war for every level of barracks. Thus, an empire with a level 10 barrack could have 50 entries into the war. An empire with five level 6 barracks would have 150 entries into war. Although the NPCs of the 50 entry empire would be harder to beat, the 150 entry empire could focus on killing the enemy teams and then try to kill the NPCs before the war time expired.
- Reduce Residence Population Capacity - currently, empires hold too many people. Limit 3 people per residence level. Thus, a level 10 residence holds 30 people. Empires will need more residences and fewer skill buildings. Thus, empires will need to be strategic about what buildings to build and force them to make alliances. It will also stop empires from dropping in power and being chased by enemies joining lower power empires just to keep killing the empire. The lower population cap will keep wars more fair because an empire with equal residence numbers will have an equal number of players in the war even if no one cares for that empire. As an added benefit, more people will want to make empires because there will not be as many empires offering skills.
- Increase NPCs to be Killed in War - currently, most wars are over in minutes even high level ones. Wars are all about killing NPCs fast and using low level players to stall for 1 minute before dying. No one likes to wait 1 minutes to kill a level 20 character who is afk while its controller is killing NPCs on his other device.
- Add War Rewards - each player gets 1 War Chest for entering the war (once per war). Higher ranks get more rewards. Citizens get 1, Soldiers 2, Generals 3, and Emperors 5. The War Chest would give an incentive to war and participate in war. Each chest would be similar to a lv55 chest except it may give rare pets, mounts, fashion, or test items. You could allow an empire to have only so many Soldiers like 2 for each barrack level to encourage building and participating so emperors would reward players.
- Add Sportsmanship Reward - If the attacking empire declares and puts a war fee of 25 gc and 1000 silver or less, the defender NPCs will randomly drop War Chests.
Thus, people would war more. China can fight any one existing empire so they would not need to use war cards. If they did, they could be warred more often because the emperor could not stack cards for more than a day at a time. Also, other empires may need a war card because China could war empires and it may not be able to get allies ahead of time. The Hitpoints would keep empires from using multiple devices to log low level characters to stall enemies because as these die, they lose Hitpoints and their attackers could not enter after all the Hitpoints are gone. The rewards would encourage players to war and not charge huge fees.
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