I'd like to apologize for not being on time with the announcement, but here we go:
New Ranks and changes to the ranks
1) Marq* and Mota are removed. As you might know, the Marq* function was giving us headaches as it was never a real rank, but manufactured in code by having constant checks for >120k exp. That was horrible to work with, so that had to go. MotA was only created to make marq* join marqs, that is no longer required, so MotA is gone aswell. The rank could come back as some kind of reward, as it's used for by HC's at the end of the age, but that is for later, the function is now removed, if it comes back it will be only for the cosmetics.
2) Knight has been added as a new rank, the females will be called Dame. The rank comes after Marshal and has the spot of the Baron in the previous set up. Baron and up, all moved up one rank, cumulating in Marq at 80k exp. Since there are now 4 noble ranks, we also had to add a LD-rank. And thats Viceroy. A Viceroy was given command over a region by royal consent, and I think it suits our lineup. Females are called Vicereine. Again, they take the spot of Prince, and Prince and up all moved up one spot, cumulating in Emperor on 80k.
3) The Leader ranks have been changed in a way where they have the same Authority, same promotion_xp, same trainingdifficulty, as their non-LD counterparts. No longer will their be imbalance in ranking for LD's. And this makes it possible for LD's to participate more, and also PvP more. More on that later in this post, as that has more to do with how we reworked the Guards, than the actual ranking system.
4) The Roman Ranks, which were only used for the Rome Map, have been disabled. Yes, that is a pity, but now that we are reworking the ranks, making new ranks, adjusting the flow, it doesn't make it easier if we have to do that for two sets. Now we have 2 new ranks, but there are more coming. We have decided (after a short playerpoll which was mostly confirmative) that for clarity and overview its better to have the same ranks on every map, and work with/expand that one.
Changes to Leaders of the nations [LD]:
5) The Royal Guards no longer fight in training battles and/or offensive pvp battles. They DO fight in Strikeforces and defensive pvp battles.
6) Because of the above, Guards will get barely any exp. Therefor, on election, LD gets 3x Std T3 guards, instead of getting 3x App T1. We are fine with giving T3 units there, as the impact of guards in Sfs is not that high, and in pvp they only fight in defensive battles, and not when a LD pvps himself. So yes, big buff to guards for the moment you just got them, but that fades out because of the fact they grow a lot slower into a new rank due to very limited battles they fight, and thus getting less exp.
7) When a guard dies, a LD can get one back in the barracks. Only for LD's the guards will show there, and a LD can only buy them if he has less than 3 in his army, in order to fill them back up to 3 max.
8) Because a Prince works exactly the same as a Baron now (with exception of the guards for defensive purposes only), we decided it would be fun to let LD's pvp like any other rank. Therefor: A Viceroy can pvp Knights. A Prince can pvp Barons. A King can pvp Counts. A Emperor can pvp Marqs. Note, your guards won't fight, and your nation might not like it if you risk yourself to get injured, BUT: It is possible now.
Other fixes and Misc.
9) HT timer bug fixed. There were occassions in which you could get extra HTs if your idle timer was too high, and you used a HT. We set this to a stricter rule. You only get HTs if you have a nobility account, and have been idle for 12 ticks (first ht) or 18 ticks (second ht). After getting those, you would have to reset your idle-timer by doing a pvp or a training battle, in order to start the timer from start.
10) SF flags were showing on the map for 4 hours, we reduced that to 2 hours.
11) Age end timer refreshed automatically and should no longer show faulty times.
12) Page loading getting stuck in certain situations should no longer occur. Think of castle page in a village, or spying someone who just left the border. Those actions just give an error once and get you out of that page.
13) There have been improvements to the Forum Authentication. The login to forum is linked to the login to our game. If anything goes wrong there, there is the option on the rightside bottom of the forum to delete the cookies of the forum with two clicks. After that everything should be setup right for you to use the forum with your account. Its always tricky with a second system like this, but we have improved that.
14) Accepting Alliance, Breaking Alliance, Declaring War and Electing a LD will all send your nation a telegram message in the country channel to notify you of these matters.
Any questions, suggestions, complains or positive comments about all of the above, let us know in this topic
Have a fun age!