How does it work?
Every next battle costs more if there are battles declared prior to it. The price raises by the power of 2.
With numbers:
If there is no dig in the fort overview and you dig a large fort, it'll cost you 10.000$. After a few hours someone else goes to dig another large fort, it'll cost him 10.000*2=20.000$. After a few hours, the third dig on the large fort will cost 10.000*4, because 2^2=4. Fourth addition to the fort overview, let's say it's now on the mid fort, will cost a digger 5.000*8, 8 because 2^3=8.
If you think
that does anything to improve fort battles you are dead wrong.
Imagine a new world with some 80.000 - 100.000 profiles, it would simply kill fort battles.
If anyone who wants to call a battle, especially early on in the game has to pay double or 3 times the price then it will automattically limit the number of battles
(as intended) but also cultivate and accomodate a lot fewer fort fighters. Why should town x in the west pay 20.000 because some unrelated town in the east has already declared a battle - makes NO sense?
20.000 is a lot of cash early on in the game, even for the rich towns - the effect will not be to limit multi battles but to limit ALL battles and thus have fewer players be able to do battles every day - although I am sure that the hardcore west elite wont really care about that as long as you get yours!
(of course the most important thing in such a set-up is missing from your post, at what rate and speed of time does the cost of battles go down again)
As to multi battles, under a new set-up outlined by you, the tactics is clear instead of the nugget-noobs being the power-trippers it will now be the pure traders. All you need to do is get a lot of cash in town declare the first few battles and your opponent is now royally screwed 'cause the more attacks you get in first the more expensive it is for him to counter on your forts. And if your town ain't filled with relatives of Scrooge McDuck then you are also up the creek without a paddle... I will bet my right hand that the people who came up with these ideas are the most hardcore players cause any such changes to fort battles would ONLY serve to help the battle addicts, fewer battles populated by the same players will be the result, effectively making battles a privat party with invites only - how is there going to be room for the noobs and newbies when the battles addicts run from battle to battle, you can't afford to take on the noobs when the enemy is filled with experienced nugget-tanks, especially not when it will cost you an arm and a leg just declaring a battle to re-claim what you lost... unless you of couse have a week and a lot of sparetime to wait for an open spot in the battles where it
wont cost you $20.000-40.000 to declare an attack.
And how would the mecahnics work in that set-up - differented price-ranges on different sizes of forts? or can I run around attacking smallforts at the cost of 1.500 then 3.000 and then 4.500 making it so anyone wanting a big battle would have to pay 40.000-50.000.... the possibility for sabotage is endless.
In theory the solution could work on the old dying worlds if it was not for the fact that cash is not short on any world by now, plenty of towns has 100.000+ in the bank and so it makes little difference in practice. And on dead worlds like W12 you can just counter on smaller forts for a smaller cost, the effect will be the same. A small drive to run up donations in town, from the 40 players who have not donate in the longest time and wupti you have 250.000 in the bank... if players are willing to re-skill and burn nuggets all day long to get their battle fix there will also be players willing to become Fort Knox-TradingTanks and just generate the extra cash needed to continue whatever strategy they like.
But this rule should have been implemented on a town basis long agao, if your town has declared a battle then you need to wait a certain lenght of time
or pay more, it would not solve the problem but could stop the most prolific towns.
Short of Inno going all out and implementing a time limit or cap on the number of battles there will be NO real way to solve the issue of multi battles.
But there is some very easy steps that could be taken to limit them:
1. "Remove the nugget-warp option", it should not be possible to cut more than 50-70 % of the travel time no matter how many nuggets you use
(Oats should still do the job, just not nuggets) . This will remove the battle-crazy days as they are always started by nugget-noobs warping across the map.
2. "Town limits on battles". A town should only be allowed to use a certain amount of cash for battles in 24 hours or there could be a cap on how many battles 1 town can call in 24 hours.
Yes, players could just split up in more town, but that again would need more cash and greater coordination. The limit could also be put on the alliances but that would be counter productive.
3. "Player battle caps" - a player can only take part in 1 fort battle every 5-6 hours.
If players are limited from doing several battles in a row the tactics of multi battles are less usefull (at least on bigger forts) as most fighting forces needs to move their most active players between forts, if they can't do that they can't be effective. It does not remove the battle it self but forces the attacks to plan it for later if they wish to re-use the same fighters.
I have used multi battles more than most on the .Net servers and it would not take me long to work around the proposal you have outlined Joxer, you will have to come to the conclusion that there is no real way to get rid of multi battles without fundamentally altering the fort game/rules.
The idea you talk of sounds to me like just another ill-conceived Inno quick-fix that will end up having unintended effects and consequences that will have just as negative an effect on battles as multies has today... perhaps with the small difference that it will benefit the most hardcore fort-fighters at the expense of others.
AND WHY SHOULD IT BE SO? divide and conquer has always been a implemented strategy in all kinds of warfare.... it should continue to be so, and any changes done to fort battles without taking into account the reason for multibattles is really only serving one kind of player, the "me me me" pure fort fighter with his golden gun and nugget inflated HP!
(excuse the spelling, don't have time to check it)