I'd like to ask for some help from the Byond members on a problem I'm having with my game (Ultimate Strife). This was in part previously posted on < a href="http://members.byond.com/ MechaDestroyerJD?command=view_post&post=35966">my members page.
One main problem I continue to notice is "faction relations"(for lack of better words). Despite the game being about war, there is ALWAYS someone angry that they had been attacked by someone (whether stronger or weaker)for no reason. Ie. Someone who's just been happily building their structures gets attacked, and starts cursing at the other player, logs out, and etc. Currently, I allow people about 30 minutes (if they choose) to be protected from harm and have time to build up their armies, but apparently that doesn't help much. The fact that battles are a bit quick in US and it has almost only offensive units(I'm working on that) is most definitely a major factor too but when I think about it, you'd have to deal with this type of thing in basically any pvp type game. easy fix would obviously be to disallow peopel to be attacked if they're within a certain range, but that would kind of take away from the "realism" in my opinion; there is supposed to be someone more powerful than the other but at the same time I can't necessarily let the person who played the game the longest obliterate everyone else.
Since you can make alliances though, what I've came up with so far is to actually encourage keeping alliances by maybe providing something such as a boost % in money gained from mining resources or a boost in army strength of something. Any other tips/suggestions in cutting down on player?