Trouble Starting

GoogleFrog · 2014-02-09 02:08:52

I am having trouble starting out a new life. I think it is a general problem with the incentives for robbing low value houses and the cost of defense.

It is easy to make a house which cannot be brute forced by $2000. There are lots of ways to force robbers to complete your 'puzzle' (large combination lock, commit branch maze, magic dance, clock) as long as your wooden walls are sufficiently thick and metal is placed on weak points. A basic version of these locks can be quite affordable, about $2000.

So now say you start a life and are thinking about what to do with your $2000. Either you could make a house right away or go and rob someone.

Say you decide to rob. I think there is very little reason to rob someone with less than $2000 cost in tools. So if you want to make a profit you will probably have to rob a house of value at least $4000. The yield of each house is unknown because the wife may be alive and some of the value may be in vault tools. But if someone has $4000 then they are able to afford a house which can easily stop $2000 in tools.

I think your prospects for house building are far worse. Any house you build will have less than $2000 value and half of that will be on your wife. Any robber is likely to receive $600 at best from your house and require at least that much in tools to get there. Nobody who is playing well and who has the aim of making money would try to rob such a low value house.

In short I think that starting off relies on someone else being quite bad at the game. Either you have to scour the midrange value house list with $2000 tool robberies until you hit a house which can be brute forced or make a house and hope that people die in it. Both strategies rely on other people being new. But if you want to play the 'real' game you have to get past this point. The problem here is that the value of house which is feasible to rob is lower than those that are profitable to rob.

I think that there needs to be a wider range of houses which are both feasible and profitable. This could be done by giving some extra incentive for robbing low value houses (maybe some flat monetary reward) or by somehow making higher value houses more feasible.

Amatiel · 2014-02-09 02:25:42

Ive thought on this too.

Im not advocating any changes though. As ive gotton better, i can rob the more expensive places with just the two grand only partially brute forcing them. You need to be smart about it, figure out how you can bypass their security with the least amount of tools by solving at least part of their code/security. It may even be a lucky guess that gets me through the first part of the house, which means i still have all my tools for the rest of the house. Just gotta keep gettig smarter, knowing the "traps that are in" at the time and how to recognize and bypass them. At first i was dependent on noobs as you say, but that is no longer the case.

I dont see any reason for change tbh

rullgrus · 2014-02-09 04:38:48

Starting can be tough. But I find that suicide robbing higher value houses with 2k worth of tools usually works. Most of the times there seems to be a house in the 5-15k range that is easy enough to "solve". The five minutes before your house gets listed will also give you some time to scout without spending the starting cash. A benefit of suicide robbing is that you learn a lot about traps and how to circumvent them.

Building a simple starting house is also viable. I find that building a cheap death trap with a non obvious "commit gate" can be very successful. The key is to keep your house value on a level high enough to be interesting to rob for new players without tools. I have had luck attracting robbers with houses in the 800-1000 value range. And while waiting for robbers to die, I scout and rob other low value houses.

DethBringa · 2014-02-09 10:09:05

I built a house up without robbing, get to about 10k so I can build what I made on castledraft, double checked the wiring and died to it not working.
Started over, built up to about 10k, rebuilt the house, double checked the draft, double checked the house matches, died to it not working.
Started over, built up to about 10k, rebuilt the house, double checked the the draft tile by tile, triple checked every tile in the house, died to it not working.
I SOOOOOOO WISH I could check my own death tape like watching a replay, turn off shroud and scroll round to see exactly what happened.

Mental note to self... FFS MAN CHECK WITH LIGHTS! XD

Starting over without robbing is hard but not impossible.

Blip · 2014-02-09 11:03:14

I often try a rob-less start. The trick is to use the most brutal deathtrap possible, and just grind bounties until you get a high one. Many times a good deathtrap can net you 20K+ within minutes, without having to rob a single person.

For example, I like to start with this design, or something like it: http://castledraft.com/editor/ocAYxy
It gets lots of kills at a really high ratio of entries to deaths (easily over 2/3 of robbers die).
From there, I wait till I get a bunch of cheaper bounties from robbers needing quick cash, usually tool-less and easy kills. Once I get some more cash, I wait till it lures in a high bounty player who sees an easy wooden house, but ends up dying. With a new bunch of cash, I upgrade the house with steel walls and electric-floor failsafes, like this: http://castledraft.com/editor/5Zwmlx
I'll then wait until I have 15K+ (or more) and build a second trap, usually one that's a guessing trap, either with commit gates or a cat combo lock. Then I'll kill some more, build a wife maze, and add some pits as a final vault trap.

With that, I ended up with a 250K, top of the list house, without robbing anybody. I myself was only robbed by a pure brute-forcer with upwards of 30K in tools. And I only died to my own self test. So it is possible to reach the top only building! It just takes some ingenuity, luck, and a whole different outlook on house design - instead of keeping your vault safe, you want, first and foremost, to lure people in and then kill them, even if luring brings them closer to your vault.

42dustman · 2014-02-09 12:31:31

I have a theory that Castle Doctrine is not a game about burglary, but rather a pyramid scheme simulator because in order for a few to succeed many others have to get themselves fucked bad.

GoogleFrog · 2014-02-09 21:42:27

Blip I have done that before but it seems to be getting harder. Who is robbing you for $160? It seems like that strategy depends on other people making mistakes and is not sustainable as people improve.

jere · 2014-02-09 21:55:26

I have a theory that Castle Doctrine is not a game about burglary, but rather a pyramid scheme simulator because in order for a few to succeed many others have to get themselves fucked bad.

Some of the realities of this game:

A) most robberies aren't successful. When I'm chain robbing, I consider myself pretty good and maybe 90% robberies are total failures. It has to be that way right? Otherwise, no one would be able to hold a house.

B) The other reality is that it's a zero sum game and the money has to come from some where. If someone owns $100k, that's the starting cash of 50 people (with chills possibly 50 separate people)!!

The only part that makes all this is OK is that suiciding, robbing, rinse, repeat is actually really fun. Pumping the economy with starting cash is painless. Well, there's also:

C) The skill divide in TCD is pretty huge....

Last edited by jere (2014-02-09 21:55:49)

Americans17 · 2014-02-09 22:01:02

What i do is suicide-robe all the houses above 6k, so when i succefulled roobed one i will have at least 2.5 or 3k to make a new house

Sybernetik · 2014-02-09 22:06:03

My last start on Thursday was chain robbing the list with 2k until i scored a 5k. My best was 50k previous to that, then i promptly went out and killed myself in a low value house. Doh! But you're right, when the new player base dies down and the regular players learn all the tricks it will be harder. It's lame, but you can still bootstrap with 2000-0-0.

The Castle Doctrine Forums

#1 2014-02-09 02:08:52

Trouble Starting

#2 2014-02-09 02:25:42

Re: Trouble Starting

#3 2014-02-09 04:38:48

Re: Trouble Starting

#4 2014-02-09 10:09:05

Re: Trouble Starting

#5 2014-02-09 11:03:14

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#6 2014-02-09 12:31:31

Re: Trouble Starting

#7 2014-02-09 21:42:27

Re: Trouble Starting

#8 2014-02-09 21:55:26

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#9 2014-02-09 22:01:02

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