For those who want the ChatGPT TL;DR, look at the first comment.

Sweet baby jeebus I did not intend for this to turn into my version of Jerry Maguire's memo.

I gave myself a self imposed 24 hour cooling off period on the forum. I spent an hour and a half reading and catching up... there's just too much to respond to and too much muck throwing in other threads. I invite everyone to chill out, we're playing a game that we're all very passionate. Even with all of its "problems" in the old days, we're all back here playing the game in whatever broken state it is in and arguing with other people on the internet about what the best solution is.

Be nice to others, I'm inherently efficient, aka lazy, and ChatGPT makes it really easy to throw something together that will make it so I don't have to read your toxic comments. Which would suck because eventually you might say something positive and worthwhile.

My intention at the start of the round was to abuse CLI in a different slower way that would have taken longer to notice, but the forum activity in the first 10 hours out of initial protection had me on the verge of walking away. I'm still teetering. Alas, I'm still here, rebuilding with the purpose of helping friends make sure they have MP to cast on themselves at a discounted rate. I worry now this could have me labeled as a functional multi because of how I choose to play the game for the time being.

I've played this game long enough completely solo for years and part of the massive network to understand both sides. Solo I remember painstakingly tracking the KHoF, identifying and tracking good targets, checking their province to see if they had threats within it that if I hit them they would probably hit me back. Sometimes that worked and I could attack without much fear of getting hit 2 times in return. Sometimes it backfired and I'd learn the hard way that person was connected. Playing in a large network increases communication which is the #1 resource in war. I didn't have to monitor the KHoF, others would simply say when they got it and I'd know who my targets could be, and I knew I'd have help. If a player aspires to rise to the top in a war game, they need to have friends and communicate with others.

I'm not part of L19, had nothing to do with it. What L19 did feeding Isengard was possible but no where near as viable before. Being able to send 100% and receive full protection, retals not giving retals, and CLI made it feasible. Without those, Isengard would have had to send out 7 small armies and leave at least 20% home to defend. The kingdom hitting him would have to be strong enough to break that 20% and then fend for themself, this kingdom is most at risk and likely to be targeted by the opposition. The continuation of this is to pass castles to the rest of the group and grow this way until everyone is in the top and then you farm, waiting for the smaller kingdoms to band together to break the weakest, then others send aid to the broken kingdom and new members are brought in for pre's when that broken kingdom takes retals. But when taking those retals, they're also giving out retals and very much so in danger. Give out too many retals and when the little kingdoms come back again this time they're taking a bigger chunk out. This strategy is not easy to pull off in the open warfare of the old days, very hard, very complicated, very Thardferr. Doing this took a very long time and the actions of others would interfere often.

Now if we look at the current state with all of the changes made. The playbook looks like this, after the intial pass, you still get to slowly 1 by 1 get the your province into the top 8. Using CLI to make sure that people are in protection while growing, then once everyone is up at the top and stable, just grow. Wait for the little kingdoms to take multiple hits to break you. This is where retals not giving retals creates the opportunity. Being attacked by multiple kingdoms before you're broken actually lets you grow. The members of the team feed resources to the broken kingdom so that they can rebuild quickly. Ideally someone from your group is small enough to bottom feed for the pre and due to being bigger and in CLI, they're relatively safe. If no one is small enough, shop around to find someone small enough that is willing to side with you for the chance to grow. Then take your easy retals and profit castles because retals don't give retals. You also have 24 hours of risk free growth. If this is executed well, what can other players really do to stop it?

We're playing a social war game. Any attempt to codify fixing perceived issues is going to introduce opportunities for exploitation. Pick your poison. If you don't like getting hit, make yourself a bad target.

CLI and retals not giving retals does not give the smaller kingdom a fighting chance. It only helps the rich get richer.

This new age of Thardferr has done good things. The bottom feed penalty is great progress, and I think it needs refinement. Magic Potions, something I was initially very wary of, I really enjoy now. I wish I could send them as aid instead of having to sell on the Market, but that's easy enough. Quality of life changes galore that just make it a little better to play. I made a new friend, lookin at you Jets I'll leave $20 on the nightstand. I was blocked by Lear, who then unblocked me after I sent him a KM to clear up the misunderstanding. Hell 2 weeks ago I absolutely hated Assassinator, yet now I find myself standing alongside him in trying to keep the game alive.

This player base is not large enough to have the amount of toxicity we do on the forums. What new random person would step into this cesspool of a forum and stay around? It's borderline radioactive. We have name calling fights happening. It seems as if some don't even care about listening and trying to understand the other person to see what they see. People are being put down because they have a different opinion. The different opinion isn't necessarily wrong or invalid by default, it's just different. Good evidence is being completely dismissed because it doesn't fit the narrative.

I would love to drop Thardferr in other gaming communities I'm in to try to get more people involved. But doing that right now would just invite people to a place that I barely want to be in myself right now. They'd call me crazy for putting up with this and even making this post in a last ditch effort to save the thing I care way too much about.

Alright if you've made it this far, congratulations. I did not intend for this to be so long. Let me know if you want some cheap MP.

Now, for the ideas. I had a really good Tuesday and the ideas are freeflowing. Some of you have seen bits and pieces of this as we've talked in other places. Some of these I'm borrowing because I liked them.

If people want to castle pass, let them.
If people want to gang bang, let them.
If people want to take retals, let them.
If people want to bottom feed, let them but they need to be handicapped.

With the CLI tech, if someone is researching CLI, they’re going to want to target only other CLI kingdoms. Reducing the pool of potential targets to benefit from the time invested in the research. If this just has to stay, I would say make it 25% of the protection time the defending kingdom received, rounded down. CLI just creates a different set of issues.

Protection time is just too short. It used to vary between 3 and 20 hours. I know many of you are scarred for life because of weaponized 3 ticking in other iterations of Thardferr, but it was valid and necessary. It forced people to at least try to defend their kingdom.

Have varying degrees of victory. Close victories only grab land, which a quick tip for new folks you pretty much never want to make land hits. Solid victory takes the standard 1 castle + land with that castle. Overkill victory takes land only.

Increase the starting land castles, resources, military, everything by 10x. Initial protection sucks. Having done it 3 times recently, it's a drag. New players are going to walk away because it is boring. Cut down initial protection time by half.

To promote more attacking, double all output. Troop training, blacksmithing, resource production.

Castle production time, reduce by 50%.

Technology time, reduce by 50%.

Province limited to 5 people.

Set an either/or win condition. Length of round, 3 months. Highest Kingdom KS wins. Province hits a stretch goal of 1,000,000 KS. Both of these would need to be looked at, if Leo is still around you probably have spreadsheets that could help with the Province KS winner based on round length.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk. I look forward to positive constructive dialogue.