Here you go, some ideas to discourage bottom feeding, discuss!

💥 Attack Penalty Based on Strength Gap
For each 1% the attacker’s Kingdom Strength exceeds the defender’s, apply:
-1% penalty to total attack power
+1% increase in attacker casualties
Example: If a 10,000 KS player attacks a 5,100 KS player (49% gap), they’d suffer -49% damage and +49% casualties.

⚖️ Reduced Rewards Against Weaker Kingdoms
Scale down spoils/land gains if the defender’s KS is below 50-80% of the attacker’s.
Use a soft scaling system so rewards taper rather than vanish completely.
Example: Spoils reduced to 60% if the target is at 60% KS, instead of losing 10 lands you might only lose 6 lands.

🏰 Castle Shielding for Low KS Targets
If a defender is significantly weaker (e.g., <60% KS of attacker), apply a castle shield effect:
Temporary +X% defense bonus.
No castle loss possible in the attack.
Helps smaller players keep their footing and not lose key infrastructure.

🧠 Morale Blowback on Overpowering
If you attack a kingdom more than 40% weaker than you, you suffer morale loss due to dishonorable conduct.
Could even trigger negative events like troop desertion if spammed.
Crime increase +10 for X hours.

🏅 Honor System / Fame Penalty
Introduce an honor/fame system:
Gain fame for fighting equals or stronger.
Lose fame for attacking much smaller kingdoms.
Fame affects troop training rates, troop att/def, or ally interactions (disable aid/trade, etc).

🛡️ Retaliation Buffs / Revenge Mode
When a weaker kingdom is attacked by a stronger one, grant a temporary buff:
+X% defense for next battle.
+X% attack for next battle.

🧲 Anti-Bottomfeed Cooldown
Track recent attacks:
If a player attacks a kingdom that is much weaker than them, they enter a “Dishonorable Cooldown” with:
Slower general returning.
Slower troop training.
Reduced wizard regen.
Increased building costs.

🏥 Improved Medical Center Efficiency
Change: Reduce the land-to-building ratio required for max healing from 2:1 to 1:1.

How Should We Discourage Bottom Feeding?

Attack Penalty Based on Strength Gap
Reduced Rewards Against Weaker Kingdoms
Castle Shielding for Low KS Targets
Morale Blowback on Overpowering
Honor System / Fame Penalty
Retaliation Buffs / Revenge Mode
Anti-Bottomfeed Cooldown
Improved Medical Center Efficiency
    • Edited

    Lord Thane Wow, this is well put together. Are either of them extremely easy or difficult to implement?

    I am going to change my viewpoint from, "stop the bottom feeding", to "what would detract the attractiveness of hitting significantly smaller kingdom".

      Jets it will be pretty simple to bang out any one of these, but I also left the poll open to vote on multiple items to see if people thought 1, 2, 3, or more made sense to implement at the same time. Maybe an interesting combo of tweaks will do the trick 🙂

      Also, the more we implement, the more difficult it will be to pull off (well), so I'm thinking if we push out the top-3 or 4 items, we'd be in a good spot for stability.

      In my vision we use both one and 2.

      • Jets replied to this.

        Xliest I like 1-3, in combination when you are hitting 25% below it would really take effect. Add in rentals get rentals. Then we have a real shitshow.

        Lord Thane I'm so old that I thought you did all of that yourself. I still have safe search on my phone.

          Jets nah, much easier to feed my ideas in and let it puke out something half legible. And the emojis make me happy 😂