How to play Ashes of Creation as an MMORTS, AKA Node system build paths advantages and disadvantages

Hello Everyone!

So as the title suggests I was taking a look at the node system and the respective nodes available and was trying to discover the most optimal build paths for your respective nation and how to grow given your nations goals. Currently as their are 4 different types of nodes, there are 24 potential build paths however to start I wanted to go over the basic advantages and disadvantages of each start. If you are familiar with RTS jargon (particularly Age of Empires 2) , A TDLR will be placed next to the title of each section.

Scientific Node (Imperial Rush and Boom)
Advantages:
Scientific nodes have very unique tech advantages. Nations who choose the Scientific node will have the quickest access to late game Master crafting recipes. Additionally, once a scientific node reaches stage 6 (metropolis) they have fast travel to all nearby nodes, which allows quick allocation of players from a central location, and by essence of teleporting to other nodes, creates a patrol barrier that allows the node, and nodes under its influence, increased protection from raids on caravans and resource farmers. Also, once a server reaches "late game" a nation can set up a secondary scientific node on the other continent to protect its land holdings and create a beach head against potential opposing factions.
Potential strategy:
Once a scientific node reaches stage 6, it can vastly boost nearby nodes advancement capabilities, as stated above, through the allocation of player manpower and resources. However, you can also go for the "triple boom". once the surrounding nodes under its influence reach stage 5 and the scientific node has lived out its usefulness, the controlling nation can get an "enemy" to raid the tier 6 node, destroy it, and then the controlling nation can immediately upgrade all nearby nodes to tier 6 for an instant boom.
Disadvantages:
In terms of player power, the scientific node start provides no bonuses to player skills, nor access to potential bonus XP via the bounty hunter, or religion bonus quest missions. It is also weak to early raids, and will be seen as a juicy target as it will take an extreme amount of resource storage to grind the node to stage 6.
Weak vs: Military , Divine
Strong vs: Economy, everything (come late game)
type of player best suited for this build: Analytical, Dedicated min maxer, a politician.
PVP skill requirement: High, due to lack of access to advance combat abilities
Diplomacy requirement: High, due to vast resource storages that will be built up over time and as previously stated, weaker player power due to lack of access to advance combat abilities
Difficulty Ranking: S+

Military node (Feudal age Rush, Castle age all in) (fast expansion with aggression)
Advantages:
Military nodes are safe starts that provide players with good combat advantages however, have a comparatively weak late game compared to other node slots. due to the access to the Barracks building, Military nodes will likely be harder to raid and therefore will provide relative safety to player supplies and housing. A Military node 6 start will want to expand as quickly as possible to gain access to more land, and thus access to other tier 6 nodes as quickly as possible. Military nodes should be raiding constantly and taking new territory for their faction. Resource gathering will likely be inefficient compared to the teleporting and mapping capabilities of the scientific nodes and the auctioning and gathering boosts of economic nodes.
Potential strategy:
Utilizing their military might, a cunning player in control of a military node would do well to abuse their early game power and offer themselves as bodyguards, for a price of course. abuse weaker nodes as often as possible, absorb neighboring nations often and grow quickly.
Disadvantages:
As stated before, military nodes will likely have weaker resource generation capabilities, thus players devoted to a military node need to use cunning to get what they want. Additionally players devoted to this start will not have access to high end crafting recipes, and so come end game (50+) will likely be at a gear disadvantage. Hopefully by the time most players have reached this point, a scientific node will have been built up to tier 6 and so the disadvantage will not be as extreme. However, if this is not the case, prepare for your nation to be steam rolled by more advanced players.
Weak vs Everything (late game)
Strong vs Everything (early game EXCEPT Divine)
Type of player best suited: PVP God, aggressive players
PVP skill requirement: low, due to access to all advance combat skills
Diplomacy requirement: Medium, Making friends can have its advantages, constant threatening or bartering is a must,
Difficulty: B

Economic node (Fast Castle, Switzerland)
Advantages:
Economic nodes allow access to quick and effective gold generation and resource allocation, Capitalism at its best! effectively managed economic nodes will likely note be targeted by other players as their resource stores should be low. Additionally, give how economic nodes operate, they should reach stage 6 rather quickly, and once there will have access to very strong caravans capable of delivering a lot of resources. Linked economies also effect vassal nodes however, and thus it is possible, for a price, to bypass the vulnerable caravan system and purchase resources on the auction house(at least that's my understanding of how it works). if your resources are managed well, their should be no incentive by rival nations to attack you.
Potential Strategy
Use a very effective diplomacy game and get neighboring nations to instead use your node as a middle man, a safe area for players to store their coin as a neutral party (aka Switzerland). by forming interlocking treaties, and by having multiple nations storing resources in your region you effectively create the ultimate shield.
Disadvantages:
Economic nodes are weak to raids pre-6 and players who do not play an effective diplo game will likely see their node raided and put under siege again and again. Economic nodes require constant activity, otherwise a storage of resources will build and will draw in nations to raid (likely military or divine).
Type of Player best suited: excel spread sheet guru, economics major. business orientated.
Weak vs everything
Strong vs everything
PVP Skill requirement: If you suck at diplomacy and resource management: EXTREME otherwise: low
Diplomacy Requirement: EXTREME
Difficulty
A+
Divine Node (Imperial rush, Conversion)
Divine nodes specialize in religions, Religions, to my understanding, have separate quests unrelated to the node questing system. Therefore, Divine nodes, will likely have the fastest player leveling speeds. Similarly to military nodes, Divine nodes need to take advantage of the level gap and side grades they have access to, to expand their nation. Additionally, divine nodes give players who have the associated temples religion, bonuses during sieges, therefore, Sieging Divine nodes will be incredibly difficult.
Potential Strategy:
Much like monks in Age of Empires, nations who choose the divine path need to work on converting other nations as quickly as possible. It would be best to use their level gap to either get a Military or Science node based nation to submit, absorb them into the empire and build out from there.
Disadvantages:
Much like military nodes, Divine nodes will likely suffer from a weak late game, however, they do reach it faster and thus must take advantage of that. Additionally, their resource gain will likely suffer similarly to military nodes, and unlike military nodes, they will not have maxed out combat skills that they can use to raid other nodes for resources.
Weak Vs everything late
Strong Vs everything early
type of Player best Suited: the smooth talker, people who like to turtle.
PVP Skill requirement: Medium, LVL gap will likely boost player stats, however, may lose to military based starts
Diplomacy: Low, Level gap can be used to get other nations to submit easily, provided the leader knows what to say.
Difficulty:
C

So this is the summary of what I see as potential build paths for given nations. Personally I think, if I manage to be in charge, the Science build path has the best potential. As more information regarding the node system and the leveling systems comes out, I'll be sure to update this further.

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Comments

Warth

Demidreamer

Really like the correlation you created. However, your part about the "triple boom" I think is incorrect. A node can not advance if a node is a vassal of another node, and would advance to the same stage of the parent node.

I think there will only be 5 metros in the game. A chance for each one of the node types to exist with a possable synergy effect given by either an extra economic node, or extra scientific node.

I would have to agree that the science build path is optimum but as it stands there is alot of low hanging fruit, looks at the economic node. Although the node system isn't fully fleshed out yet, so there is alot to be seen yet there.

Anyone who has played RTS would know that being able to mobilize your troops quickly is a win. Defending caravans, tax caravans(mineral line) I think will be crucial and science path gives the mobility to do so.

ThePhilosophile

Demidreamer wrote: »

Really like the correlation you created. However, your part about the "triple boom" I think is incorrect. A node can not advance if a node is a vassal of another node, and would advance to the same stage of the parent node.

I think there will only be 5 metros in the game. A chance for each one of the node types to exist with a possible synergy effect given by either an extra economic node, or extra scientific node.

I would have to agree that the science build path is optimum but as it stands there is a lot of low hanging fruit, looks at the economic node. Although the node system isn't fully fleshed out yet, so there is a lot to be seen yet there.

Anyone who has played RTS would know that being able to mobilize your troops quickly is a win. Defending caravans, tax caravans(mineral line) I think will be crucial and science path gives the mobility to do so.

What I mean by a Triple boom is based on what I saw as a concept on the wiki https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Nodes#/media/File:NodeLockouts.png
theoretically if all the nearby nodes under the tier 6 nodes zone of influence, are in themselves not in each others' zones of influence, then resources can be stockpiled in the tier 5 zones, meet the requirements for tier 6 in those zones, and upgrade them upon the completion of the raid of the parent node thus a triple boom within the territory of a single nation. Of course this will be hard to accomplish as it implies that those nodes are in themselves not under the influence of a rivals tier 6 node, but if the stars align this could be possible.

I agree, that the potential gold gain from economic nodes will probably steer more entrepreneurial and peace orientated players towards that, but that will likely be taken advantage by power pvpers on the server. One people get a reputation, many economic node based nations will probably be paying protection money to more PVP based nodes. the Scientific node will likely have to do the same, however, once they reach tier 6 they will turn this around on those they are paying protection money to.

Either way, I think guild leaders/ nation leaders, need to take an RTS or 4X mindset if they have intentions to dominate a server.

Thanks for the input @Demidreamer !

ThePhilosophile

So I went through the world map and marked landmasses that have the potential to contain a node and came up with the number 381 squares. Given that each server will contain 103 nodes, this means that each node will be roughly 3.69 squares apart. assuming that a tier 6 node will have an influence of 3 times that of stage 3 (vassal age doesn't start till stage 3) that means that stage 6 nodes will have a ZoC of 12. looking at the map, this means there can be a total of roughly 8-9 metropolis. per server. of course I'm doing this based on spherical ZoC, and that the metropolises will start at the far corners of the map, and with no assumptions of what those starting metros node types are. the map i made is linked below.

Note: I did not take into account the underworld as its not pictured, and I do not know how nodes in the underworld ZoC will work or where in the world are the underworld locations, or if the ZoC has a Z axis, or if their ZoC only effects other underworld nodes.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DDLRgWvBXX_f2vxH9n5FpWvySl92kBKh/view?usp=sharing

daveywavey

ThePhilosophile wrote: »

So I went through the world map and marked landmasses that have the potential to contain a node and came up with the number 381 squares.

That's how it's going to be done, is it? Or is this all just guesswork? Might be best to wait until the actual node locations are released.

ThePhilosophile wrote: »

looking at the map, this means there can be a total of roughly 8-9 metropolis. per server. of course I'm doing this based on spherical ZoC, and that the metropolises will start at the far corners of the map,

IS themselves are expecting no more than 5 per server. The zones surrounding a node may not only be circles. And, the metropolises aren't likely to all be at the very edges of the map.

Again, it might be best to hold off on this until you have more info about the node locations.

ThePhilosophile

@daveywavey ya its all conjecture at this point. But I still enjoy the idea of theory crafting. Additionally, this may give the devs ideas as to where nodes should be placed and distances for zone control for different stages. I hope that they provide information for this soon!

daveywavey

Hehe, yep. Just don't get too set into all the numbers, as they may turn out totally differently!

FuryBladeborne

ThePhilosophile wrote: »

Scientific Node (Imperial Rush and Boom)
Once a scientific node reaches stage 6, it can vastly boost nearby nodes advancement capabilities, as stated above, through the allocation of player manpower and resources. However, you can also go for the "triple boom". once the surrounding nodes under its influence reach stage 5 and the scientific node has lived out its usefulness, the controlling nation can get an "enemy" to raid the tier 6 node, destroy it, and then the controlling nation can immediately upgrade all nearby nodes to tier 6 for an instant boom.

Nodes advance tiers by experience earned. The gathering that will advance a node reflects the experience the player earns from gathering. The vassal nodes (the nodes under a parent nodes influence) currently use excess experience to first prevent node atrophy and then donate remaining experience to the parent node. i.e. it is not clear whether experience can be stored up for a sudden stage advancement.

However, there is a maximum of 5 stage 6 nodes in the world at any given time; and each of those nodes influences 20% of the world. As soon as a stage 6 is reached, it blocks out development to stage 6 for its area of influence.

Placing buildings into a node requires some amount of resources and/or taxes. I don't know if we have been told whether such buildings will speed up node advancement.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Node_advancement
https://ashesofcreation.com/news/2019-03-16-know-your-nodes-the-basics

ThePhilosophile wrote: »

Military node (Feudal age Rush, Castle age all in) (fast expansion with aggression)
As stated before, military nodes will likely have weaker resource generation capabilities, thus players devoted to a military node need to use cunning to get what they want. Additionally players devoted to this start will not have access to high end crafting recipes, and so come end game (50+) will likely be at a gear disadvantage. Hopefully by the time most players have reached this point, a scientific node will have been built up to tier 6 and so the disadvantage will not be as extreme. However, if this is not the case, prepare for your nation to be steam rolled by more advanced players.

I have been wondering about the economic problem as well. I had decided not to mention it until they release the full description of military nodes including the t6 superpower.

"Military nodes are focused on combat and class training.[1]"
That may mean military nodes provide stat increases independent of gear; and, could mean the combat advantage is expected to go to military node citizens. We haven't had the synopsis of military nodes to see what they can do.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Military_nodes

ThePhilosophile wrote: »

Economic node (Fast Castle, Switzerland)
Advantages:
Additionally, give how economic nodes operate, they should reach stage 6 rather quickly, and once there will have access to very strong caravans capable of delivering a lot of resources. Linked economies also effect vassal nodes however, and thus it is possible, for a price, to bypass the vulnerable caravan system and purchase resources on the auction house(at least that's my understanding of how it works).

Reaching stage 6 requires experience as mentioned above. Different node types should level at the same speed provided equal player base.

Bypassing caravans is sort of an option. Each stage 6 economic node controls 20% of the world and the auction house of all stage 6 economic nodes are linked. However, once a purchase is made the buyer still needs to travel to the location of the sold item and presumably travel back while being vulnerable as the purchase is carried. Also, the value of various items (materials, certificates, etc.) increases by the distance traveled from the area of the world that spawns the item. So, traveling the 20% of the world area of influence will not yield the return of sending to the other side of the map as might be accomplished through caravans.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Economic_nodes

ThePhilosophile wrote: »

...if your resources are managed well, their should be no incentive by rival nations to attack you.

I am pretty sure that your thinking some amount of resources from the node government will be well managed in order to prevent loss. That may be correct.

"A portion of all Materials (crafting components) and Gatherables that were stored in the destroyed node will become lootable to the victors of the siege as spoils of war.[62][22][63]"

However, player resources are vulnerable in sieges. i.e. Successful node sieges loot the raw and processed materials of the citizen population. There won't be any way to force how such resources are managed. Also, systems will be in place to prevent players from withdrawing resources once a siege is declared.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Node_sieges

ThePhilosophile wrote: »

Economic nodes are weak to raids pre-6 and players who do not play an effective diplo game will likely see their node raided and put under siege again and again.

I haven't seen anywhere that says citizenship is required to purchase from an economic node. Assuming that anyone can take advantage of the global auction house provided, then allies should be abundant for economic nodes.

Additionally, allies are not even required to obtain defenders from other nodes. Once a node siege is declared there is some kind of mass notification and a long waiting period (5 days for a stage 6 node). At the time of the siege (which will only occur during local primetime), random players walking into the area can join the fight on either side. It seems likely that both attackers and defenders will be maxed at such sieges. At least until the server ages significantly.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Node_sieges#Declaring_a_node_siege

ThePhilosophile wrote: »

Divine Node (Imperial rush, Conversion)
Divine nodes specialize in religions, Religions, to my understanding, have separate quests unrelated to the node questing system. Therefore, Divine nodes, will likely have the fastest player leveling speeds.

It appears that your talking about:
"Divine node governments are chosen from citizens via service oriented quests that prove faith and dedication to the node.[2][3]"
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Divine_nodes#Government
These are additional quests that are performed to determine the node leadership. Specifically, the person that has earned the most experience doing these specific quests will become mayor and retain the status by continuing the quests. I don't think we have been told whether there is some kind of increased experience from these quests, but I wouldn't assume that such quests are more rewarding to the individual player than other quests in the world.

However, I would think that the person running for mayor will be a max level character; and, that means that additional experience is not leveling the character any faster.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Divine_nodes#Government

ThePhilosophile wrote: »

Much like military nodes, Divine nodes will likely suffer from a weak late game...

We don't even know what the Divine node superpower is (or the military superpower for that matter); or, how that superpower carries down to the nodes under the influence of the stage 6 node.

I do like where you are going with this. You are pointing out that different nodes may be stronger at different stages of server development and how nodes are played along the way may give a substantial advantage in node conflicts. Hopefully, IS is giving enough consideration to these problems while balancing the nodes.

Noaani

There are too many assumptions being made here for this to be anything other than a thought experiment.

Nagash

If you want a good MMRPGRTS then kingdom under fire is a good one to play

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