Expanding the Castle Casino

CyberPtra

Background: The Castle Casino System (Castles 2–10)
Previously, castle losses in battles were made "chancified" — meaning you don’t automatically lose a castle when you lose a battle. The system was designed to:

Encourage castle building and player growth
Remove the steep penalty of always losing 1/2 or 1/3 of your castles in early game
Introduce probability into castle loss:
-- 2 castles = 20% chance of losing a castle
-- 3 castles = 30% chance
-- 10 castles = 100% chance of losing a castle

This system worked well in early stages and encouraged healthy expansion and strategic risk-taking. However, once players reach 20 castles, the loss system jumps to guaranteed 2 castle loss, making the next growth steps punishing and discouraging.

🧱 Proposal: Expand Castle Loss Scaling Beyond 10 Castles
I propose extending the scaling system in blocks of 10 castles, maintaining the chancified design but introducing graduated risk for larger kingdoms.

🔢 Proposed Scaling Tiers
Castles 2–10
Already implemented

Castles 11–20
Always lose 1 castle (100%)

Chance to lose additional land, scaling by 10% per castle
Castle 11 = 100% castle loss + 10% land loss
Castle 16 = 100% castle loss + 60% land loss
Castle 20 = 100% castle loss + 100% land loss

Castles 21–30
Always lose 1 castle (100%)

Chance to lose a second castle, scaling by 10% per castle
Castle 23 = 100% 1st castle + 30% chance of 2nd castle
Castle 30 = 100% 1st castle + 100% chance of 2nd (total: 2)

Castles 31–40
Always lose 2 castles (100%)

Chance to lose a third castle, scaling by 10% per castle
Castle 34 = 2 castle loss + 40% chance of 3rd
Castle 40 = 3 castle loss (100%)

This pattern can continue indefinitely:

Castles 41–50 = 3 guaranteed castles + chance of 4th
Castles 51–60 = 4 guaranteed castles + chance of 5th
... and so on.

🎯 Key Benefits
Smooth Risk Curve: Avoids harsh transitions like going from 1/19 loss to 1/10 instantly.

Encourages Growth: Players are incentivized to pass castle milestones instead of stopping just before them.

Strategic Depth: Players and alliances can plan timing, attacks, and castle expansion based on risk/reward.

Scalable Design: Easily extendable with consistent rules across intervals.

Beware: Castles 11-20 can be move punishing given the possibility of land loss, but it has the "benefit" of decreasing the land to castle ratio... Or we can just leave it at 100% castle, with no additional losses (or benefits).

— Cyber (AI Assisted)

Lord Thane

This actually seems like a really fun way of using the chancified castle loss. I was thinking we should roll it back to only affecting the first 5 castles, but this idea is kind of fun too.

But, I wonder if that gives larger kingdoms too much a safety net. This feature was designed specifically to help smaller kingdoms feel confident to build more castles. Expanding it to continue on through the tiers wouldn't help smaller players, but be a big boost to larger ones 🤔

CyberPtra

Lord Thane

my concern is actually the opposite of the one you mentioned. I believe this expanded system can still work in favor of smaller kingdoms, while also not punishing larger kingdoms for continued growth.

Here’s why:

Larger kingdoms carry increased risk — the chance of losing more castles (and land) goes up, though not guaranteed. They may win more often, but when they do lose, it hurts more.

Smaller kingdoms attacking up stand to gain disproportionately — a small kingdom taking a win off a larger opponent could walk away with a castle and/or land that exceeds what they risked.

This creates meaningful comeback potential and a fun risk/reward layer for both sides.

Additionally, I’ve noticed a growing trend: kingdoms stop building castles around the 18–19 range and instead focus only on land growth. They’re avoiding the hard jump in penalty that comes with crossing the 20-castle threshold, where the loss becomes two full castles — a harsh leap from the previous tier.

In a way, this encourages stagnation, where players are hesitant to expand further. Ironically, staying at 19 castles with a huge land base can actually be more punishing:

Losing 1 castle when you have 45 land/castle is more damaging than losing 2 castles when you have 20 land/castle.

But once they finally cross that threshold and do the "castle catch-up," they risk losing both land and castles at once, which feels brutal (2 castles + 90ish land).

By spreading out the penalty curve, we keep people building and attacking consistently — rather than parking and min-maxing. I think that ultimately helps both ends of the spectrum and keeps the gameplay dynamic and rewarding.

FriendsInSpace

Lord Thane you could just add the random extra castle loss starting at 11 castles. 100% to lose 1, 10% to lose 2. And scale up from there.

Strider

Lord Thane People with 20+ castles- "ohhh noooo, I have twice the amount of castles as the running average.... what should I dooooo"

Everyone else: loses 10% their kingdom on every loss and consistently gets bottom fed when hitting 9-10 castles.

Lord Thane

CyberPtra I just don't see any of that happening in reality though. The players at that level of the game understand the consequences of getting too land fat, so it's a fork in the road they and everyone else has to deal with = build more castles so they don't become land fat, or explore and become land fat all to try preventing jump from 19>20 or 29>30. Taking away that choice, or trying to coddle the top players with buffs seems counter-intuitive.

I also don't want to discourage up-hitting in any way. A smaller player hitting a much larger opponent deserves to be rewarded with large spoils - especially with the huge unit losses we have in battles, a small player might sacrifice 5 days worth of troops just to acquire the land/castles they could have farmed in 2 days.

I like the spirit of the idea, creating some chance to things, but I don't like the negative consequences to buffing large kingdoms that already have so many advantages.

Nolio

I believe this is a good idea as well. I know many people (me included) were and are hesitant to cross the 20 castle barrier because of that. It makes no sense when all it does is make you lose more than you can win.

But with this system people will keep building castles, which is always a good thing

FriendsInSpace

Lord Thane loop in the castle army scaling. Instead of a 5% reduction in army defending at 20 castles, make it 0.5% reduction PER castle starting at 10?

CyberPtra

Lord Thane

I want to clarify that my intention isn’t to coddle top players or remove the fork in the road that land-fat kingdoms face, but rather to make those transitions more strategic instead of punishing.

Right now, hitting 20 or 30 castles is like stepping off a cliff. The current system results in:

A harsh spike in castle loss at very specific thresholds
A hard stop for many players at 18 or 19 castles, followed by land bloating just to avoid the jump
Risk becoming less calculated and more binary: you're either “safe” under 20, or “all-in” after

What I’m suggesting doesn’t remove the consequences — it simply smooths the curve, turning cliffs into hills.

actually think the system favors smaller kingdoms in multiple ways:

Higher Gain Potential: If a small player does take down a big kingdom, the chance of gaining more (e.g., multiple castles or land) goes up — especially when the opponent is bloated.
Discourages Down-Hitting: Large kingdoms attacking smaller ones have lower chances of getting full value, especially as their castle count increases.
Better Comeback Potential: If a small player lands a successful up-hit, the scaling system allows for a high-impact win without needing every battle to be “all or nothing.”

In other words, it doesn’t protect the top, it makes the top riskier. They're guaranteed to lose more when they fall — just not at one artificial breakpoint like 19 > 20 (or 29 > 30, etc).

Lord Thane

FriendsInSpace yeah I kind of meant to go back someday and make that rule more complex - at the time it was just an easy way to fulfill the requirements of the game guide. Incrementing it per castle would be pretty simple, but idk if we want to mess with reducing lower than 70%, might run the risk of causing some weird logic issues since people have healing techs and buildings that reduce it so much.

Lord Thane

CyberPtra problems with that ai logic:
"Higher Gain Potential"
With this rule the gain potential would specifically be going down for the smaller attacker, or any attacker.

"Discourages Down-Hitting"
Actually does quite the opposite = a kingdom at 25 castles knows if they hit another kingdom at 25 castles they only have a 50% chance of getting 2 castles, while they know if they hit someone at 19 castles they are guaranteed 1 castle and much less chance of being successfully retaled due to KS difference. If the 25 castle kingdom knew they would get 2 castles from hitting another 25 castle player, it would be much more rewarding for them to consider it.

"Better Comeback Potential"
This also makes zero sense, which is a problem with asking an AI to defend a position, the AI uses pretend logic in place of actual logic - it's just trying to make you happy by saying whatever sounds good. The reality is a smaller kingdom up-hitting gets cheated out of larger spoils by a chance system. If there was no chance system the smaller player is guaranteed 2 castles spoils, in a chanced system the smaller player is only guaranteed 1 castle spoils from the same attack = in no universe is this a better system for smaller players.

"They're guaranteed to lose more when they fall"
This is the opposite of how the proposed idea would actually work in reality, the AI you're using is using false ideas to push a claim. In a no-chance system the larger kingdom is guaranteed to lose 2 castles, in a yes-chance system the larger kingdom is guaranteed to lose 1 castle. That's the simple logic of it.

AdinTheDark

Wait? We don’t like trading castles back and forth for +- 5-10 land?

FriendsInSpace

Lord Thane Fair. Would it be easy enough to cap the army scaling at 70% that's already a significant reduction in defensive capability

Lord Thane

FriendsInSpace yes, and it's currently capped at 70% too, I just added a few little tiers of castles that make the jump from 100>80>75>70.

FriendsInSpace

Lord Thane I think your first two points are addressed if the scaling of chancification just continues with no break at 10-20 castles.

That way down hitting always results in a chance to not take the max, but up hitting gives you a higher chance.

The way things are with thresholds at 20/30/40 etc castles just means people sit at 19/29/39 as long as they can. So if you start being able to possibly take 2 castles hitting an 11 castle target, then that encourages constant up hitting because there is a greater chance you get more, while the retal might not take everything you've gained.

Lord Thane

FriendsInSpace it only works that way if you only consider players hitting within their castle tiers. A player at 25 castles might not want to hit a player at 21 castles, because the % is lower, but for players <19 they can't hit up at the guy at 21 without facing the chancification - it provides a safety net for the guy at 21 castles that anyone under him might not waste the time.

Currently a player at 21 castles might think twice about hitting-down, because they know the smaller player can hit-up for 2. That's a good thing for smaller players at all tiers. It also encourages smaller players to hit-up, as the spoils are fatter.

FriendsInSpace

Lord Thane but that player at 19 castles would get a guaranteed 2 and a 10% chance for 3 if he hits the 21 castle person.

I might not be explaining this well enough as I'm on my phone, but the way I'm trying to say is:
0-10 castles - 10% chance to gain a castle per castle of defender.
11-20 -100% chance to gain 1 castle with an additional 10% chance per castle on 11-20 to gain a 2nd.
21-30- 100% chance to gain 2 castles, plus 10% etc.

Keep the scaling going on to infinity.

Lord Thane

FriendsInSpace ahhhh yeah this seems like a much better proposal, fixes some of the issues about protecting larger players as far as the current rules for castle spoils go. May be a bit harsh to lose 2 castles at 11 if you have bad luck, but overall feels like a really solid rule.

Actually funniest situation would be the guy at 11 hitting a guy at 9, winning land, and then getting retaled for 2 castles lol. We've had that happen more than a few times with the current chancification, it'd just be funnier to see it on a grander scale 😆

I think we should put it up to a vote for next round, see what people think of it.

TheKeeper

TBH, that's the reason I'm stuck at 19

skigglez

yeah it makes zero sense to jump - creates a huge stalemate

Nolio

Strider lol while I do appreciate the humor, the math doesn't agree with you.

If you have 19 castles and 380 land, you lose 1 castle and 20 land. That's about 5.3% rounded up

If you have 20 castles and 380 land, you lose 2 castles and 38 land. That's 10%

The point of the post is that having these jumps that go from 1 to 2 castles and so forth, prevent people from building more castles. As confirmed by Keeper, Myself, and many others.

By making it so that the second castle is chancified, when over 20 castles, it helps both lower kingdoms who attack into them, and the larger kingdoms who build more.

The Expected Value (EV) of a kingdom attacking a kingdom with 21-29 castles will always be higher than the kingdom attacking down. Which means that more castles will be passed downwards.

It's the same effect with the castles from 1 to 10 currently. Players much rather hit targets that have 10 or more for the guarantee, but the ones hitting down are hesitant.

Having the second or third (and so on) castle chancified is a good thing and promotes more attacking, and more building of castles.