Joint Attacks

The food argument is an unvalid one, imo. While it has already been pointed out that players who are indeed online during the attack can send their army later to catch up and hence need to spend less upfront food to send, the game offers multiple options to deal with potential food lack (e.g. market, batches, plunder, support from union/alliance members + a variety of options to increase own regular food production).

Of course does the snail time need to be longer if a target is being hit by let's say 40 instead of 10 attackers. Defending isn't necessarily 1 or 2 commanders doing a quick click, click, click. Besides considering potential defenders' travel times, not only might they want to thoroughly think through which troops should/should not be sent, but finding/organizing support across union alliances (and them going through the same decision processes) isn't exactly a 5 minute thing with the current system.

The issue is that the increased snail times increase awareness abilities beyond the research allowed by the target's technological development.  Whether defenders need more time to reinforce or not, the original snails were designed to be in sync with the awareness abilities permitted by the tech tree, thus providing the time needed to reinforce using just a single commander if necessary.  Classical awareness is greater than stone age; medieval greater than classical; renaissance greater than medieval, etc.  As you progress through the tech tree you gain more and more advance knowledge of incoming attacks and that is how it should be.  My renaissance awareness, for example, gave me two hours notice of an incoming attack last stage.  That is more than enough time to gather reinforcements, imho.  I managed to do so and I was pretty much the only one in my alliance around at the time.  Defender travel times are what you have taverns for.  :-) 

What we are asking is if the increased snail times imposed by the joint attack button make the tech tree research unnecessary or at least increase the extent of the awareness abilities therein beyond the described levels.  In my opinion, they should not.

IMO there are lots of downfalls here, including our prolonged travel time and longer snail time. IMO Bers is not concerned about prolonged snails giving the added advantage to the person attacked, he probably welcomes it.

That's your speculation, I never said I am welcoming it. In fact I haven't objected this issue even once, I was only objecting resources issue.

Well maybe in this thread Bers, but in general your concerns do not stem toward shortening snail time. The snail time during our attack today for those who used button was > 1 hr 20 min. Not so for those who did not use it.

I strongly agree with all these players that have voiced their concerns about the downfalls and disadvantages of using the coordination button. They do not bear repeating as their concerns and suggestions have been convincingly and eloquently put forward. It puts the attacker at a massive disadvantage, and we know that one of your primary concerns about the game is BALANCE. Well, this is an imbalance of epic proportion particularly in terms of snail time.

Your acknowledgement is greatly appreciated. Can't speak for anyone else, but personally, the snail fix will be enough for me :)

Thank you, Bers.  I think Ubique brought up a good point about return trips taking the same amount of time as the trip to the target given that there are no snails operating when going home.  It doesn't really make sense.  Any thoughts?   I know we can't carpet the armies home, for obvious reasons, but shouldn't the trip home take somewhat less time than the trip out because there are no snails?  Even a fraction shorter would be more logical.

I think not only snails are important here but return times in general - if an army that was to travel 30 min took 1.5hr because it was synched to another I don't think it should return for as much time... Please consider that too.

While there is a lot of complaining about the new attack icon, the thing the complainers are forgetting is that it is an option.  No one is forcing attackers to use the attack icon to synchronize attacks.  They can attack the old way and manually synchronize attacks, especially experienced attackers.  On the opposite side defenders are at risk of being attacked by larger groups since one can just join the attack and leave instead of staying around to synchronize the sending of their troops.  So using the attack icon has plusses and minuses for each side.  And that is as it should be, I think.

No one forgot that it was an option. We just point out the flaws in things, they do ask for feedback. The extremely long snail times are a huge disadvantage, defender or not the game should still be balanced to what you learn in the tech tree. 

No one forgot that it was an option. We just point out the flaws in things, they do ask for feedback. The extremely long snail times are a huge disadvantage, defender or not the game should still be balanced to what you learn in the tech tree. 

Agreed. Feedback from real-time users is what they are asking for, not acceptance of a thing as it was introduced to the game if we feel there are flaws.

Bers, i know you probably don't think fixing the snails issue is a priority.  But seriously, we are now experiencing times of 1.5 hours of snails.  I could be wrong on this, but i think that there have been some times even when the attack button has not been used and we are still getting snail times between 1-1.5 hours.  I know, i know, it's an old complaint and it's old news, whatever.....but seriously, it is NOT fun having to watch your army on the screen for 1.5 hours in case it gets clocked.  You literally can not do anything else in the game but watch your army crawl along at a very slow pace for this entire time.  I have brought this up before, asking if we can maybe have an 'auto' scent applied to our armies in case we get clocked......where we can 'preload' the scent on our army, and it gets used only if we get clocked?  Please please please consider doing something for despots in this game. 

I totally agree with Riley. I know it has been brought up many times, but those snails are pretty annoying in more ways than one! I know is our choice to attack or not, but is like we are getting a double wammy. First we get the slower time (aka snail) then we have to watch our armies for the extended time. Sorry, actually 3 wammies, since the join button has you returning at the same time as the farthest player regardless of your location. There has been plenty improvements done to assist collective players ( many not even utilized), but not much for despots.

Despots are very dedicated and loyal players and should be concidered every once in a while too :)

Agreed.  Increased snails mean increased awareness beyond tech level permissions.  I'd like to see that addressed as well as the travel times home, which are not snailed but take as long as the trips out.

I love Riley's idea of pre-loaded scents.  :-)  I'd love to see that implemented.

Formatting was bad.   So I deleted it as unreadable.

I have brought this up before, asking if we can maybe have an 'auto' scent applied to our armies in case we get clocked......where we can 'preload' the scent on our army, and it gets used only if we get clocked?  Please please please consider doing something for despots in this game. 

I second and third and fourth etc this!! :)