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Monday, August 9, 2010 - 05:53 pm  I have an idea that i think would make the game a more balanced environment between war players and econ players. here goes... This idea could change the destructiveness of war moderately active peaceful player(s) suffer, when set upon by an aggressor(s). It doesn't involve changing the war engine. Essentially, it revolves around the concept of an aggressor needing to apply "political pressure," to an intended target, before they are able to declare war. If you dont apply political pressure, you simply can not "win" a country. Without political pressure you can declare and war but not attack any pop targets, nor paint, nor nuke. You can Only attack military or economic targets, conventionally. Once a player has the first pressure applied on him/her, a 48 hour window begins where other players may Apply political pressure to either side, aggressor or defender. Once this 48 hours is done, the country under threat can receive NO other political pressure from other presidents. And no further war decs from new presidents who may intend to come in late and attack the military targets, reducing the victims chance to wage a proper war. At this stage another time period begins. this gives the victim..ehem..defender...a chance to set his def and take some countering moves to better position for war. Once that period of time goes by, all presidents who took part in the apply political pressure phase, can be declared upon by the other players who applied pressure from the other side. _____________ These changes would give a player the chance(some amount of days before a true war dec is made)to talk before shooting. Assuming a real argument. Or, it gives them a chance to arrange a def and allies before its too late should the aggressor be intent on raiding an active. Simply, it gives a player a chance(more Time) to counter the moves made on him while he was not aware he was being targeted. People who are applying the pressure are immune from counter decs while they are waiting to declare. This gives all the players a chance to start fairly and at the same time. I believe it reduces the disadvantage a declared upon country suffers. basicaly----Political pressure(choosing sides)\negotiation\war decs. the vicim will know who there enemies are, what their intentions are and would be given more time to arrange support, better defenses and a better strategic position on the map. Thoughts? I wrote this quickly before work so sorry if it is difficult to understand.
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| Monday, August 9, 2010 - 06:11 pm i like the concept, but it seems a bit unwieldy shrug
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| Monday, August 9, 2010 - 06:17 pm So this is just basically prolonging the time after war decs to beginning of war? Seems a bit odd to dec and then fight 2 days later. I do like the political pressure idea - but perhaps instead of for each country, it could be between presidents?
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| Monday, August 9, 2010 - 09:01 pm orbiter-It is unwieldy now because I wrote it fast and its in its infancy. its a loose concept geared towards keeping players longer and happier while still letting other players war but with a larger handicap. but, don't worry, skill will always win;) EO-Yes it creates a period of time where the players can prepare for the on coming threat before that threat can actively declare. Its basicaly a handicap to let the defender "catch up." Also, I believe this will result in much larger, and more equalized wars then we see now. All players on the world will have the luxury of the initial 48hours to decide if they want to get involved. If they want they can jump in with political pressure before that 48hour window closes, even one minute before the 48hours closes, they can declare the next minute, on what ever side they choose. Then the 32 hour wait begins until the shooting starts. As long as you are in before that 48 hours closes you can declare when everyone else is able to declare. The timing between war decs and shooting has been around since the old war engine. If fit that system because war was slower with more limits in place. For those who have been around, think attack rounds. Was 4 per 10min(?) on all world except FB. was 10 there. And, yes it should be president based. so you can take other countries before or during the war and not have the handicap of waiting another political pressure phase. Also, You wouldn't have to apply pressure from every country you own on every country the other guys owns. Just one of yours on one of his. this will make all yours and all his open to decs when the 48hours closes. WP should be unavailable after the political pressure is applied. the aggressor can still go into WP before he applies pressure but the defender cant. This still gives a shot at raiding while giving the other guy a shot to defend what he built, sometimes over years. It's essentially two phases. 48hours to choose up sides and put up an adequate counter to the aggressor then a time window where you can decide to declare if you like. Once declared you wait the 36hours. And dont get stuck on the terminology. Political pressure is just a word. It could be called "Oh shit now what...someone HELP ME!" Phase think of it this way. Political pressure (Phase One, all can get in and the defender gets a small amount of time to prepare) War dec(Phase 2 only those who stepped forward and said count me in, can declare and shoot.) both have some finite time limit. Once the decs go down you have your 32hour wait till shooting. Many dont see this but the game has swung so far in favor of aggressive players, with time and some knowledge that its become unstable.
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| Monday, August 9, 2010 - 10:10 pm This is f**ing complicated but I like it. Attractive ideas: 1) A level of war where you can only attack military (and economic) targets, vs another level of "all-out war" where you can attack civilian targets and capture territory. 2) A longer wait from initial dec to when the fighting starts. The surprise offense does have a huge advantage currently, thus causing great instability in the game--temptation to attack first, or else to hide in permaWP. Coupled with lower cost of offensive weapons and ammo compared to defensive, at least on FB. A few RL days will definitely tilt the pendulum toward a healthier balance between offense and defense. I think you have more in mind here but I can't quite figure it out. These ideas would help things on the war world(s). Anything that helps you fit time-intensive wars into your real life will make the war game better. This would take away the constant 24-hour notice we're always under. I'd much rather live under 48-hour notice (humor intended, sarcasm not). I don't see that it helps the true econ-only players very much. If they haven't been interested enough in exploring the war engine, 24 hrs or 48 hrs or 72 hrs or whatever is not enough time to help. Let them have their own world, with no war, which is I think what they want. For the balanced, well-rounded players, and also for the active newb, this could be some help. That extra time could mean a lot, and even if outcomes of wars with stronger more experienced players don't change, it could be a less frustrating and more educational experience if they had the extra time to get their head into it, talk to others, set up defenses, and whatnot.
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| Monday, August 9, 2010 - 10:58 pm Not sure what I think of the whole concept, as you've said Barney, it's in it's infancy so it's a little hard to wrap my head around it, however I completely agree with allowing people more time after declaration, I proposed something regarding that previously which seemed to be liked but the conversation got off topic...as usual...lol. Anyway, I like the longer time period, although I'd like to see it as optional, decided by the defending player, if they're available now and want to go, let them start fighting. Give the defender even more options and a chance to set their own schedule somewhat. Also, how about allowing the defender once declared upon reactivate at a 20% rate instead of 10%...or even double the mil spending space or both. Give them a chance to 'catch up' as you put it.
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| Monday, August 9, 2010 - 11:13 pm I definitely like the more time for defenders to prep. Also the 20% reactivation is a good idea.
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| Monday, August 9, 2010 - 11:25 pm Good points. let me try to simplify. Barney and vicious decide we want to kill laguna. we set up our forces then we hit the phase one war dec. This puts laguna on 48hour notice he is about to be declared on. During that 48 hours he can try to talk us out of war, build def, take some c3's to position him self offensively against our more distant war slaves and try to recruit help for his side. During that 48 hours yankee decides he will help laguna and declares phase one war dec. he does this 24 hours into the 48hours which began counting down when v and i phase one war dec'd laguna. No one else shows up for either side. The 48hours ends. Then another 24hours begins. barney and V can now declare phase 2 war(real war) on laguna and yankee. Or they can declare on us if they decide to do so. If no decs in that 24 hours the phase one expires. and back to norm. If decs then we wait the 32 hours under the current system. See how that works?
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| Monday, August 9, 2010 - 11:26 pm I should shoot you with my banana-gun, I should shoot you right now!
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| Monday, August 9, 2010 - 11:57 pm haha, well I was thinking I should say no one in the example above was aware of this idea. I had an epiphany and just wrote it out.
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| Tuesday, August 10, 2010 - 12:01 am This a good idea, but still not enough time for the defender to build up, if he was playing econ. He would only supposedly have defensive weapons, and it would take way to long to purchase enough weapons/ammo to fight back with.( do you see how long it takes to build a navy? which they would probably need to attack the opponent with). This idea would work if a player was playing econ/military becauses chances are he has offensive weapons. This would only give enough time to re-activate weapons. If a player chooses to play econ, he will buy no weapons. More spending space and greater re-activation percents are still not enough for an econ country to prepare for war. Each world is a war world and people need to be prepared to at least defend themselves(like the docs mentioned). Or use WP. I think the only way around this would be for countries to have the option of econ or military. If they choose econ, they are not allowed to have any weapons, and they can not be decd on, providing they have no weapons. Or maybe 10% or less military and they cant be decd on. War is part of life in the real world and it is part of the game for anyone who wants it. Many of the participants in the game may not be interested in fighting wars and they are welcome to play a peaceful game. Their country can remain in secured mode and will never be attacked. Anyone who wants to play the full game, will find out that as in the real world, if a small number of countries are conducting themselves aggressively and plan to conquer others, they will find themselves building up defense forces to prevent being attacked. In Simcountry, all new players are protected against war and can choose to remain in secured mode indefinitely. Attacking another country does not come easy. It is costly in casualties and it costs large amounts of money. The stronger your enemy, the more damage you will incur and the best countries can do is to build a strong army that will deter others from attacking. A war can end with defeat; with one country being conquered by another. This means the end of the presidency. The country may fall into the hands of your enemy. You can of course start another country, develop fast and get on with a different life or, if you wish, attack your previous enemy and get even. There is a difference between worlds on the issue of war and defense. The Fearless blue world is a war world and secured mode does not exist. If you play on the Fearless Blue world, you must prepare yourself for war.
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| Tuesday, August 10, 2010 - 12:01 am barny, i apologize for my hasty criticism, i wont comment until i re-read the thread, and i'm a bit busy atm. although, one thing that would be a cool change, is instead of the 4 game month wait, it be an even 24 or 48 hours.
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| Tuesday, August 10, 2010 - 12:28 am no apology necessary. the increase in booster's is a good idea. Also, the 20% def reactivation. how about those and some of what is mentioned above? Granted an econ player would be in trouble, but the time allows players to bring old alliances into play, which would change the dynamics of a war greatly. It may give the aggressor pause for a number of reasons. Just the fact we are discussing the idea of tilting back towards peaceful players is a good thing, i believe. Every player who posted here can see clear the disadvantage in the current system. these changes would directly make every poster here work harder in war. face it war is fast and easy at this point for the 5% of us who understand priorities and are given the great advantage of setting up and executing war dec's on other players with different styles. When WE declare on them you should understand they aren't thinking, I need to get "this" up to kill "that", i need to hunt for "this" by looking here and here, i need to force him into a style of attack im best prepared to defend. They are thinking, "OH jesus, Oh jesus, all this time and now these AAA players are setting on me. Why?" Some players NEED more help, either in time to prep, or to recruit help, whether that help be active or passive. Can you say hired gun? This idea opens a new approach to war, or at least one not seen in many years. you have 48hours to negotiate a price for me to war on your behalf, for example. Just an idea. the navies are noted but with the right leverage the navy will go away long before they can get to the heli's.
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| Tuesday, August 10, 2010 - 12:50 am I like the option for econ or military, but I think this would give the war lords an econ sanctuary without any cost association. Im not sure how that would work. Im trying to find a balance where most players can be happy most of the time, while growing the player base. I think the above statement is viable While still keeping aggressive style large scale war an option. We need to find a handicap for the econ and marginally active players. the highly active and highly aggressive players have too large an advantage at this point. If the 10-15 of us who truly know how to fight were to get together and decide to kill a world who could stop that? No one, and that is wrong and its why this game is becoming unstable. Like play style draws like players. When the war players get together they war, typically on the econ or "middle of the road" players. LOL, look I know Ive grown soft in my old age, but the underdogs need some degree of a tangible handicap to improve their odds of survival. We don't want players leaving the game. there has got to be a middle ground.
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| Tuesday, August 10, 2010 - 02:07 am If we had more players, then the econ players could do what Rome did & hire mercs - countries that don't get a Jones for stealing from other players or destroying their hard work for profit, but like to fight for the hell of it. nothing stalls an attacker better than suddenly coming under attack by a third party. Looked into buying out Keyman's countries on WG & just fighting - & then found out you cant attack for 21 months lol. Still maintain that it takes too long to build an army. MOB's advantage is 3 years of stockpiling military, it takes a good year to become an avarage military power. Someone said that a war world that runs 10 times faster than LU would occupy the war fiends. Build a strong military in 3 real months - one month in WP & fight fight fight. Recovery wouldn't be so impossible. Just rambling thoughts 
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| Tuesday, August 10, 2010 - 02:15 am Hordo, you can build a very potent army in 3 real game months. If I spent a whole year, I would have the strongest military.
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| Tuesday, August 10, 2010 - 04:13 am Of course there should be a middle ground, there are a few fairly simple tweaks that I think would go a long way. Extended declaration time - your idea is good, my original idea was to give the player being declared upon the option: Start war immediately, start war in 4 game months or start war in 8 game months...but more time is still reasonable, I guess I just wouldn't want it forced on myself if someone declares on me. Classification, Econ or Military - The president is classified, not the country. That in addition to limiting the mil assets to say, 10T, in any given country would eliminate the warlords from using it to hide and build...plus make it costly to switch from one to the other, either with a GC cost or a very long waiting period before one can declare war...like 1-3 real months. Econ players are continuously protected but pay an additional cost, less than or equal to the current WP costs, probably equal though...as has been said, it really isn't hard to build a econ slave that makes 115B per month. On the war side, limited war protection, whatever you can build up plus say 2 boosters per real month for extended times away. Federations - Perhaps allowing federation members (must be in federation at time of war declaration) who counter-declare to have their war start at the same time as their mates who have been declared upon, I think you kind of cover this in your method, just another possible way to do it. I have more but my mind is going blank for some reason :S. Ultimately, I think the biggest problem is that the few of us who do know the war engine and know how to create both effective offensive and defensive strategies haven't done our part. When only 10-15 or 5% or whatever small number of players really know the war engine it becomes impossible to have fair competition and we haven't been exactly...ummm...forthcoming?...with the information or done our part to train others. That is something that we as a group have already started discussing and I hope the rest of you out there who have the knowledge will do the same (that means you too Barney ). I know it's hard to see through the BS sometimes or the hurt feelings which are sometimes justified and sometimes not, but the real truth is it isn't fun to 'raid', it's quite boring...that is literally just a bunch of clicking...maybe for the really greedy that is amusing, but it isn't for me...nor my fed mates. If that is what we wanted, frankly, LU would be a wasteland and WGC wouldn't exist. We want real competition, whatever rule changes or training or anything else that needs to be done to get it, we're going to work on it and support it. I think your idea is a great first step though and will certainly help the situation. Hordo - Nice to see you around still Just FYI, the stuff we had that would have brought down a federation double the size of The Mob on LU, was built in less than three months. You can build a lot faster than you think, msg me at my main and I'll share...I know you guys dislike us, but I like you guys...war with you was actually fun...I wouldn't mind making it more challenging.
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| Tuesday, August 10, 2010 - 05:18 am well, i don't like how war would become a popularity contest, though. but i do like the concept of giving new players more time to react, and possibly find (hire?) some friends although, as far as giving econ players some protection, you may really want to revisit the war engine. today, i took down 99 I wings, with 3k fighters. If presidents where allow to set up their own targeting for weapons, units, or wings. It would make certain aspects to war much different.. also, limiting the total number of units that could be created per Game month, in the above example, my 3k fighters flew 33 missions in about 1 game day. I don't think my country has enough war hospitals to rehabilitated my drug addicted pilots!!! as far as limiting number of units created per GM. it could be limited based on the number of bases. for instance, each offence base would allow you to create 5 units per month (for example.) Bases use a huge amount of manpower, so for a player to have the ability to create many f/b wings, would drain allot of their manpower into bases, not weapons. also, these bases would need to be defended... or be destroyed, reducing the unit capacity of the aggressor same would apply to I or H wings in relation to d air bases... you see where i'm going with this. perhaps the total number of bases would also create a total number of units at one time... like, for example, if you want to have 100 I wings, and 30 H wings, a D aribase could support say 15 at a time, so you'd need 9 airbases. And as an extra precaution to protect newbs, units would not be automatically disbanded if their base is destroyed. meaning an aggressive player, would have to devote manpower to non-weapons, increasing the burden of their military, with out increasing its power, (at least in relation to what we have now,) so defensive players with large groups of I and H wings, have the possibility of pushing war long enough for them to actually figure out whats going on... i also think this would encourage weapons such as OAAMB and such, as players try to find new ways into a country, and find ways to conserve their use of air power... Creating a viable ground game. (with a unit max for both sides on the ground,) i think these things would slow down how quickly we can blow through weapons and ammo, if we had to be more carefull, knowing we can only dismantle/recreate units so many times.
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| Tuesday, August 10, 2010 - 05:22 am WB your mind is going blank because your head is full of shite. Nice thread Barney.
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Tuesday, August 10, 2010 - 06:13 am  HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAAHHAHAHAHAAHAHHA thats what i have to say
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| Tuesday, August 10, 2010 - 06:43 am i guess a possible issue with barny's pressure idea... you may have a personal enemy, who can now involve themselves, in everything you do. they can declare war in your favor, to steal your kills, they could declare war against you... the person could follow you around, and would have 24-48 hours, what ever it is, to involve themselves, and their would be nothing you could do about it. in fact, i think we can all think of some one, that would find herself a reason to be involved in every war on a planet...and she would have plenty of time to.
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| Tuesday, August 10, 2010 - 07:59 am She stole one today.
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| Tuesday, August 10, 2010 - 11:25 am although i guess their'd be a couple of ways around the issue i mentioned above. the initial presidents involved in the "pressure," would be able to remove another president from the conflict, who enters their side, that they didn't want involved... but some one would still be able to join the side against you, every time you do something... or at least try and/or the initial president of either side would get the country, if they won, reguardless of who got the last shot. although because so many countries might be involved, that may not work. just a thought that could be worked.
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| Tuesday, August 10, 2010 - 04:34 pm funny you make mention of people getting involved in things that don't concern them. That is exactly what the mob has done repeatedly. EO delares war on UC on behalf of GREF. Because they 'harbored' me too long. I see the first GREF war as a continuation of revenge attacks from AF members against John L. And the second war as a continuation of the first war directly trgeting me for supporting John L. None of which had anything to do with EO or the UC harboring me. You guys have constantly declared on countries I have decd on took the last shot and laughed away. Now I give you a taste of your own mmedicine, and I 'stole' one today, lmao. Again we are faced people doing things then ,yet being opposed to others following suit. Hypocritical conversation at best is what this is. No different than the c3s issue, WP issue, or any other issue you bring up. Seems to me you guys want to have a monopoly on whatever strengthens you, and weakens anyone else' position so long as it benefits you. "We loved to use c3s, but not be attacked by c3s, we loved using WP, but now everyone knows how to use wp, we love declaring behind Wendy, but don't want her returning the favor." Typical hypocrisy understated. I have to say me and LoLo did a number on Jee, poor guy isn't even home. That ganging up on a country really works ;) I love the fed motto too LoLo, "I am not a new president", you fight like Iki. I miss Iki so much.
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| Tuesday, August 10, 2010 - 05:20 pm Good points orbiter. I remember when JoJo stole one from me;P Remember that JoJo? LOL. Was one of the funniest lines, something like..."dont bitch Rubble. You just got out played." The option to remove unwanted help, before war, sounds better then the initial president getting the countries. this is likely too cumbersom an idea. The GM dont seem to have the ability to code the game full time. Likely need some simple solutions. Would be nice if the defender had 2.5 times the spending space during the initial 1.5 days waiting for the war to go active. Would be nice to have what ever def you have inactive, as long as you had 50% active when you were dec'd, become active by war start.
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| Tuesday, August 10, 2010 - 09:10 pm If people spent as much time enjoying war as they did bitching about it then this game would be fun regardless.
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| Tuesday, August 10, 2010 - 09:24 pm Yes I did steal one from you Wendy, and I did get quite a laugh out of it. However, you were attacking Wild Eyes, my inactive fedmate and friend. This may as well have been an attack on me. If the game becomes all about stealing countries at the last second, those who steal likely will be continual targets - as you have experienced from us, and us from you. Discretion on this front will need to be exercised - I agree with you. Back to the topic though. I'm not sure I agree with faster reactivations. If you're careless enough to deactivate all your stuff, you probably should deserve what you get. I do however like the idea of increased spending space, and maybe a bit of an increase in time between when you get declared on and when wars go active. However, I think one thing that could improve this further is to have the wars go active a DAY later. Something on a real time schedule instead of 4 game months. On White Giant, a player can declare war at noon one day, and will be fighting in the evening the next day. It is very complicated. Blackout periods are definitely effective in terms of this, but are difficult to use and many players do not use this feature. I think they need to be emphasized further. When you acquire a country, you should be FORCED to see a screen with blackout periods, and know when you set them. I think this also can be of huge benefit. I will say though from my experience in the recent WG war, WGC had far more weaponry than we had. For example, I attacked Dale. He had far more air wings up in his empire than I did in the countries that attacked him. His main issue was that he did not even try to attack my wings or my countries. More or less, I was free to just sit back and shoot at him. Obviously I'm a little biased in saying that is his own fault but really, he had a war slave in the top 20 war ranks, he just didn't use it. I know he was online during the wars, as I received messages from him. In conclusion - I think we should look at finding ways to increase fighting between players when both sides have a chance to be around to fight. IF some way can be found to do this, it would decrease the advantage of the attacker greatly, and should allow the defender the time and ability send in attacks of their own. Just some thoughts.
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| Tuesday, August 10, 2010 - 11:17 pm Thanks for the input rita !
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| Wednesday, August 11, 2010 - 01:25 am Make FB a war world, remove all wp except for a main.(wp only,not secured). Make one world,econ, the other 2 balance, one towards econ with war, the other towards war with econ. That to me, would please all. Each would know where they stood. The only addition i would add, is defensive weapons arent as affective as they should be. Everything is geared towards the attacking player.Why not make Ints defend harder than they do? Heli do as it is. Barney and others have stated some great ideas, i just doubt most could be coded into the game, this, even in its infancy, has a chance. I think this would give e1 a shot at what they want from sc. Maybe alterations needed, but a good starting point. Rob As an addition, A totally econ world could have weapon products removed and maybe others put in their place? Im thinkin along the lines of whats codable, not the pipe dreams we all have,lmao
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| Wednesday, August 11, 2010 - 01:52 am Good post Blue. I agree that int's and heli's are too easy to take out but I would add that if they defend better, then they should be priced accordingly.
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| Wednesday, August 11, 2010 - 02:10 am New products aren't really needed for an econ world. Just increase consumption of goods by countries/population.
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| Wednesday, August 11, 2010 - 02:33 am I really like the idea of the worlds that are at both ends of the war/econ spectrum. Many of the suggestions that have been put forth are very good ones, and they would/could work. But they may be to complicated to implement. The issue I see with players is the fact that many may have defense set up with garrisons and wings, but they lack the offensive weapons to fight back. As many of you know, a great defense is only a speed bump, just buys you some time. No doubt the reason is because offensive weapons cost alot more in money and staff to keep active. So what if during the initial four months of the war dec spending limits and reactivation limits are doubled? That way more time could be focused on offensive firepower. Of course this would not 'fix' everything, but it sure would be a big step in the right direction. Also it should be a simple thing to implement. Just my $.02
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| Wednesday, August 11, 2010 - 02:52 am I 100% agree with your thinking on the offensive weapons Serp. Defense buys time...offense wins a war...even if they cost more to maintain. I'm just glad to see all the discussion on war. If nothing else...people are talking about it....which may lead to more participating in it. Maybe there is hope after all. EC
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| Wednesday, August 11, 2010 - 03:53 am I remember it like yesterday. I was trying to take Barney's country, which wasn't even his, and he and Sam tried to steal it out from under me, and while they were ripping apart my lousy defense I stole it out from under them. "Outplayed" was probably a poor choice of words for someone whose scale of play at the time involved relying on a single LRD to take out half that country. I remember asking Barney to toast my victory with a simbeer, and he said he was going to pour it on my head, a foreshadow of what lay ahead. Ah, good times
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| Wednesday, August 11, 2010 - 04:48 am i had an idea of spending 5GC and it would instantly reactivate all weapons
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| Thursday, August 12, 2010 - 01:03 am Barney's proposal reminds me a bit of the game called Diplomacy. A war game is more fun when it has that kind of interaction and collaborative strategy. My problem with Simcountry war is that it's stuck in internet 1.0. Back then people discovered that a mouse could be fun, and online games became about clicking. But internet 2.0 is more about creativity and interaction. Now there are games with elections, auctions, player blogs, blog rankings, player jobs, and other applications for interaction. And they don't require clicking marathons.
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| Thursday, August 12, 2010 - 01:40 am True indeed Vicious.
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| Thursday, August 12, 2010 - 02:16 am I vote for Vicious' answer. It makes me happier with fewer words.
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| Thursday, August 12, 2010 - 02:51 am Vicious is always more eloquent then myself.
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| Thursday, August 12, 2010 - 11:23 am @vicious, agreed, the war engine is stuck a couple of time zones in the past. There should be more automation to it, so that a player could plan actions to occur without actually having to sit there and continually click the mouse. It should be possible to be able to tell a unit (or units) to move to a location and attack without having to sit around and wait for the unit to get there. Also, when attacking a c3 with a navy, it should be possible to automate the actions to occur, i.e. take out air force first, then the capital, etc.
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| Monday, August 16, 2010 - 03:55 am I saw the chat record. I missed the event unfortunately. Ill try to shorten this idea significantly so jozi can quickly look it over and make a decision about its merit. Please no one post here until I concisely describe the idea. Give me 48hours from this time. Barney
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| Monday, August 16, 2010 - 04:48 am This idea is intended to reduce the lopsidedness that has evolved in this game which currently gives highly aggressive well coordinated players a tremendous advantage over other players. Basically its goal is to allow more time between when the war dec happens to when shooting starts. PREWAR COMMITMENT TO A CONFLICT Prior to declaring war on an active player, the aggressor must push some button(call it what you will)which puts the defender on notice he is about to be declared on. Once this happens a count down begins(24 hours 48 what ever). During this count down the players can recruit help, negotiate etc…. During this time period other players may jump in. If a player doesn’t make himself available for the impending war by committing himself during this phase, whichever side the president may like, he/she can not declare when the time period ends, and the actual war decs can begin. This is a static time window for every player to plan around. It doesn’t begin at different times for every player when they commit. It begins the first time the first player commits. Again, a count down. THIS WINDOW OF TIME WILL ALLOW ALL INTERESTED PARTIES TO DECLARE WAR AT EXACTLY THE SAME TIME GREATLY REDUCING THE INEQUITIES WHICH HAVE EVOLVED WITH THE INCEPTION OF RAPID WAR UNDER THE NEW ENGINE. WAR DECLARATION PHASE(same as we have now) This is under the same time constraints which exist today. INTENT 1. Give players more time to plan and counter a threat. 2. Allow consultation from other players who may wish to passively help. 3. Allow active recruitment. CONCERNS 1. Must be sure that players can not join in with the intent to just take a kill shot on a country winning the country after another president does all the work. THIS CAN HAPPEN RIGHT NOW BTW.
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| Monday, August 16, 2010 - 04:49 am Please, no one post until jozi can pick this apart.
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| Friday, August 20, 2010 - 05:30 pm We have read all of this and we think that this is a good idea. It has evolved a little in time and the last description is simply formulated and probably easy to understand. To make it happen, we should clarify some details and try to avoid major changes because a long development time will put this on a waiting line and nothing will happen for a long time. If we find a solution, we may start implementation on one of the worlds and then move on. I would like to try and get to a definition of exactly what we need to do and the time line in the war process. We will have two different possibilities of declaring a conflict: a. Declaring war as we did in the past A player can declare war. It will be a limited war and will start after 32 hours. Wars declared in this way will allow a limited use of offensive weapons. - Military units will not be used. - No nuclear weapons - The only weapons to be used will be offensive weapons that will attack targets at a distance (air force). - The war will also be limited to attacking military targets and corporations. b. Declaring a conflict situation with a potential war following This is the new process that starts with a 48 hours period, allowing the parties to try and avoid a war. During that period, others can join both sides and parties can negotiate or just prepare for a full war. - During the 48 hours period, each joining party will be considered joining at the time of the initial declaration of conflict. - There should be some rules as to how many parties can join. - We might consider balancing powers or at least avoid absurd differences in power on one side or another. - 48 hours after the initial declaration, the setup of both sides will be fixed and closed. No entry of new countries. - Both parties will have 24 hours to decide if they want to declare full war. If none is declared the conflict will end. If they declare, what happens next? - If anyone declares war, all countries on both sides will be considered as having declared war on everyone? - Only countries declaring war will participate in the war. This could end up unbalanced. - If anyone declares war, it will be a war against the original target of the conflict and everyone will go to war with that country? We would like to discuss with you and end up with a text, in this format but updated, that will then be used as a guideline for the developers. We have been thinking about the temporary war protection and possible solutions. We will defer that issue and wait for this one to be decided first.
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| Friday, August 20, 2010 - 06:18 pm First, I'd like to say: Please don't delay modification of the current war protection system, it's an entirely different issue and has created numerous issues in addition to, just as Jozi said, has killed the war game, case in point, look at FB (the War World) right now. Second, I'm interested to hear what Barney has to say about this as it seems a bit more complex/cumbersome than his latest reiteration, part B sounds about right, not sure what the purpose is in part A. I think part of this should be some kind of system to avoid endless wars, if you combine part A and part B you are either preparing for or fighting a war of some type for a week straight minimum. Giving defenders more time is the ultimate goal in my opinion and that can be achieved without making the war game even more cumbersome than it is already.
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| Friday, August 20, 2010 - 06:54 pm Part a and b wouldn't occur consecutively. Either the attacker would choose one or the other or it would depend on the conditions during the first 24 hours.
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| Friday, August 20, 2010 - 09:48 pm This complicated system, and it's proposed changes actually speed up the undesired effect. I know that may sound strange, but change it, and track the results. It will be the exact opposite of what you think you are creating. The proposed changes as are will still favor the attacker(s) and will force more people to stay in WP. Changing WP boosters will be a failure again and seems like you are placing too much faith in players' discretionary thinking. This whole idea is biased as the organized groups of raiders/or aggressors have presented almost 90% of the general idea. It could have been taken differently if the ideas came directly from the game developers and not from participants. Give it 90 days after implementation and you'll see what I mean. Either way, I hope whatever changes come quick so I can move back to planning. Can't calculate what you can't see.
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| Saturday, August 21, 2010 - 07:13 am Part A: Sneak attacks mostly fulfill the function of Part A. As proposed by Tom, in Part A war is limited to attacking military targets and corps. But many countries have no state corps. It would be strange and boring if the only targets are military. Part A doesn't add value to the game. Part B: Option 1. If each alliance attacks only the aggressor or defender, that's very unbalanced. Then it would seem suicidal for anyone to declare war. Option 2: It would be more balanced and realistic if every country in one alliance can attack every country in the other alliance. But that can become a huge, time-consuming war. Option 2 can be enjoyable if the number of allies and targets are very limited. Six allies each for the aggressor and defender seems reasonable, chosen by the aggressor or defender among countries offering them help. In Option 2, the aggressor and defender would assign targets to each ally. Ally 1 attacks cities, Ally 2 attacks towns, Ally 3 attacks counties, Ally 4 attacks bases, Ally 5 attacks forts, Ally 6 attacks corps, plus the aggressor and defender can attack any target. Most importantly, this division of war labor would reduce the number of targets per person to a sane amount. (But forts would be a problem, with potentially 700 forts per alliance. That's a good reason to limit forts to 50 per country.) This division of war labor also would create interesting diplomacy for the game. War players would need to get sufficient and capable allies. I believe the purpose of Barney's proposal is to promote diplomacy.
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| Saturday, August 21, 2010 - 07:43 am I personaly like the first proposed idea of having half the countries come out of WP if dec'ing. This is what the argument started with.. c3 wars. If the attacking party wants to start a fight and only use a c3, then they should at least have countries either that they worked hard at vulnerable to counter decs, or they have to work hard taking a bunch of usless c3's in order to declare war. As far as Econ Vs war player, well SC is both. If you want to be an econ player and not join a fed, at least learn to defend yourself, its no secret that there is a posibility of war, look at the cover page every time you log in with the big tank staring at you. You have an Econ that supports your military, as in real life. Also you have feds that protect the econ player (which should at least have some sort of interest to defend ones interest) that could stick up for them in case they are attacked. Which brings up somthing, heres a thought, we have the ability to auto dec a country in case one of our empire coutries is attacked, why not have the same option for a fed mate? is he/she not considered part of your greater empire? In a fed you normaly have both econ and war players or at least someone that has a clue to fight. This is the most realistic idea i can think of. Example, if war was deced on Canada, would the States not know about it immediately and counter dec? Or would they just sit there watching there nieghbor get slaughtered saying, well, i didnt dec in time cause i was sleeping, or i was at work. This would also help define the word federation here on SC, as the only thing linking to a fed is outside forums and air support. This is not complicated and should not be as hard to implement. Thanks Mr. Willard, I appreciate your effort on this topic.
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| Saturday, August 21, 2010 - 10:20 am This really seems like it is becoming VERY cumbersome requiring many changes to the system which will likely be quite time consuming and will just as likely not change too much. This idea was born in response to the Mob attack on WGC, another 24 or 48 hours or being able to recruit other players, etc wouldn't have changed the result, we didn't even use a quarter of what we had built. That being said, I do understand the need in general for more time to prepare/negotiate on the defender side. This can be accomplished much more simply by giving the defender more time, straight up, option for an additional 4 game months just by logging in and clicking the 'Additional 4 game months' button. I'd prefer to see it coupled with an option for the defender to start the war immediately, giving the defender the option for 'surprise' but even without that, I think the above option would suffice. Ultimately, the problem with this or without this remains the same, people don't understand the war engine as much as they should or as much as they used to. The more cumbersome you make the war engine/declaring process the more you enable the strong war players because they are the people who will take the time to figure out whatever changes are made. Econ players/big feds like WGC will continue on either naively assuming they are safe without war protection or assuming they are safe because they are the biggest fed in the game, however, ultimately no one is safe and the only way to increase safety is to learn how to defend yourself. War protection and large feds whose most powerful members can't protect themselves much less their newest members are only making the problem worse. There are multiple facets to this game and simply saying 'I want to play this way' is not a good enough reason to completely ignore one of the biggest facets, 50% of the econ in the game is based on war and weapons, ignorance isn't bliss, it's just ignorance. War protection has allowed the community as a whole to become completely ignorant to the war engine in general. The answer isn't to get rid of war protection but there should be limits on it and players should have to learn that side of the game or align themselves with players who can actually assist in their defense. Don't get me wrong, I like the general idea here, being on a 16 hour (LU) or 32 hour (WG) time schedule to start a big war is a bit ridiculous and I think correction is in order. However, the ultimate problem should be addressed immediately, the war game is dieing due to war protection and exclusive c3 warfare, the war game is either going to basically go away completely or be revived by changes to correct the imbalance, I'm hoping for the latter but expecting the former. If the former does occur, you can count out 10 of the most active players in the game.
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| Saturday, August 21, 2010 - 12:25 pm This should be an open discussion that hopefully will lead to a solution that can be implemented quickly. My comment on the WP does not mean a delay. What I mean is, that if we come to a solution that will try to prevent major imbalances between the attackers and the defenders (like 25 countries attacking one), this might have an influence on the solution for the WP issue. Part a and b will never occur at the same time. It is a choice between a and b. Part a is taken from the original text by TuCulo EsMio. "Without political pressure you can declare and war but not attack any pop targets, nor paint, nor nuke. You can Only attack military or economic targets, conventionally." I put it in different words but it is the same. We can discuss this and may find a better solution. This means that if someone is not interested in a political phase but just wants to fight, they can, but it will be a limited war that will not end with one country conquering the other. The suggestion by Vicious are going into the details of a possible solution. Limiting the number of fighting countries can make the process more balanced. I do have a problem in technically limiting each of the partners to some types of targets. This will be very complex to implement. Maybe he means that the group will decide between them who is doing what. That of course is up to the group. We can also think of the conditions for the war to end. We can limit the time or the number of countries conquered. Having one party completely demolish the other party may push people to use WP and prevent such wars. If they know that they have a fighting chance and if losing, the damage will not be devastating, more may decide to play the war game. If we want to encourage the war game, we need to think abut the consequences for both sides. Homerdome as I understand it, is trying to improve on the auto war declaration that is part of the federation setup. (if anyone declaring on you, others will automatically declare). we can improve this and allow countries in general to setup auto declaration treaties. This is in fact unrelated and can be added, or not added, once we have a solution to the base issue here. The WP limitation to 50% of the countries or 50% of the population in the unprotected countries, is also an issue I would like to decide on, once we have an understanding on the main issue we are discussing here. It is clear that we do want to have the war game an essential part of simcountry for anyone who wants to participate. many of you have not been here when we had no war protection at all and wild, huge wars took place with hundreds of thousands of weapons lost and many millions casualties. It was so violent, that nobody could count on any of her/his assets being secure in any way. This resulted in the secured mode and WP features. I agree with whiteboy, that we probably need to balance the war game. As I see it, we need to prevent all out 25 against one wars that always end in devastation. People see it and walk away from the war game. Giving the defender more time and also the surprise effect are good alternative ideas. All the ideas I see here do not require complex development work and can be done relatively quickly. there are no changes to the war engine, just the admin work around the declarations. As a side thought, 16 hours on LU seem a little short. should we bring it up to 32?
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| Saturday, August 21, 2010 - 01:45 pm I think a 48 hour window would be best. In that period I think the ratio of activation should also be higher. This would give the defender a higher chance of protecting their assets. I like the 48 hour window because it allows the defender the chance to actually "show-up" for the fight.
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| Saturday, August 21, 2010 - 03:18 pm So, the slower worlds should be 72 hours? 96 even? LU is a faster world, it only makes sense. I thought faster war on LU was the point of it being a faster world.
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| Saturday, August 21, 2010 - 04:02 pm The question is if we need to leave LU at 16 hours or increase to 32 hours. we can change the time per world. we can set them all to 32 hours. any opinions on this?
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| Saturday, August 21, 2010 - 04:14 pm Leave it at 16 hours. LU is faster, the time it takes to war should reflect the pace of LU. Most joined LU because it is faster paced. So if any times change, the speed of each world should still mirror actual server speed. Slower worlds slower war. Faster Worlds, faster war. Maybe 24 hours more time and a happy medium.
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| Saturday, August 21, 2010 - 04:38 pm I assume that we will have more reactions in the coming days and then try to find solutions. the period between war declaration and the start of a war could be one of the details. More ideas on balancing the wars: 1. After a war declaration, allow the defending party to purchase defensive weapons without any budget limitation. they could go to the markets or to the space stations and purchase quickly to setup a stronger defense. 2. we could allow more fed members to participate in the defense as we did in the past. 3. We could setup a market for complete military units. to start with, attacked countries could purchase defensive wings at a high quality and make the attacker pay a very high price. The limited war option as described under a.: There is, as already mentioned here, the possibility for sneak attacks. as an alternative for a limited war, we could make more and diversified sneak attacks and we can consider to reveal the name of the attacker. all this is part of an attempt to reduce the imbalance in many of the wars, that makes them one sided and push so many to use war protection.
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| Saturday, August 21, 2010 - 04:41 pm Many players use war protection because big wars require a huge amount of time clicking. I estimate that one has to click 10-15 times per enemy target for a big war. That includes weapons purchases, defense deployment, creating supply units, creating and moving military units, conquering neighbors c3s, studying enemy defenses, and attacking targets. Well-defended countries can have 300-500 targets. Clicking thousands of times turns that war into a part-time job for a week. Few players want war to be a part-time, unpaid, clicking job. That's why I suggested alliances with a limited number of targets per ally. Extending the amount of time before war does not reduce the tedious clicking, which is the real problem.
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| Saturday, August 21, 2010 - 04:47 pm If we are talking about the recent attack by the mob on WGC I agree that something needs to be done because, when it is possible for a small group of war-oriented players to ambush other players who wish to play a more balanced game, the only option the defending players have is to make a choice between two extremes: 1. Keep very few useful weapons, in order to make your countries profitable enough to maintain War Protection, and never engage with war. 2. Keep huge quantities of weapons - enough to fend off any attack - meaning you will never be able to afford WP or attain higher levels. This effectively prevents those playing for scores and levels from engaging with the wargame and at least four established veteran members of WGC have left the game completely because the recent war made it impossible for them to continue to enjoy playing it. Another problem that WGC encountered was the sudden automatic deactivation of weapons and the closing of entire garrisons because of shortages of workers the right age. Several of our members were unable to offer any defence in their countries because of this. Buying population often didn't help because, at present, if you purchase population it arrives in your country with exactly the same proportion of ages as is already present. Therefore, if you have a shortage of 18 - 24 workers, very few of the new population will be aged between 18 and 24. The same is true of worker types. Tom - would it be possible to set a standard demographic for bought population rather than linking it to those already present? That would really have helped. Extra preparation time (especially on WG because it is a slower world) would only have had a minimal effect because of spending space limitations. The mob had months to prepare but WGC had just over one day and most of us were not set up for a major war. With the current limitations, a couple of extra days would not have made much difference - there is no way we could have bought enough offensive weapons to have had a fighting chance. If the aim is to give all parties an equal chance, additional time would have to happen in tandem with either removing spending space limitations once a country has been declared on, or at the very least dramatically increasing the available spending space for a defending country. Extra negotiation time would not have helped. Attempts to negotiate were rebuffed. The notion to balance powers or at least avoid absurd differences in power would have helped considerably, as there was a massive imbalance which worked to WGCs disadvantage. However, the balance would have to be carefully thought through. On what basis would it happen? Defence index? Offensive index? Population size? It would have to be realistic and workable and I am concerned that any limitations on this will further prevent players from engaging in war. It might be better to look at the balance of the current wargame. Defense is not adequate to fend off a determined, well-prepared and well-funded attack. Rather than put more limitations in place, it might be preferable to create a better defence / offense balance. The notion of limited attacks which do not cause players to lose countries completely is interesting, but may remove any incentive for players to engage with the wargame at all. In addition, there have been occasional 'nuisance' players in the past who spoiled the game completely for others. I am aware that it has been abused but, when implemented fairly, players have been able to police the game themselves by using war to reduce the capability of other players to use the 'nuisance' effect. Tom, if new limitations are to be implemented which prevent this happening, would it also be possible to implement a system (possibly similar to the boycott system) whereby if enough players complain that a particular player is spoiling the game for others, their capacity to force other players to engage in war would be limited? I do like the notion that there would be a period in which players can opt in to a war, with war starting for all involved players at the same time. At the moment, if a group of players gang-up on one or two individuals, or a large player attacks a smaller one they can lose the war before any of their fedmates are able to join in and help. In the past, WGC has found it impossible to defend our newer or temporarily inactive players because of this and I support its implementation. If it is a case of either / or, I also prefer this option to that of limiting players to declaring on others their own size or similar in number. One last thought for Whiteboy - WGC never assumed we were safe because we were the largest fed in the game, and many of us had very good defence. However the wargame currently favours the attacker, and we were not set up with large offensive armies capable of destroying other players. You know very well that there was no way we could have won the war you waged against us for that reason and the other reasons I outlined above. If we were naive, it was in assuming that if we treated other players with respect, didn't engage in insults or flamewars on the forum and didn't force anyone to go to war with us if they didn't want to, no one would have any cause to attack us. This approach worked for four years and is a testament to the character of most of the other great players in this game, past and present. Hugs and respect Jo
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| Saturday, August 21, 2010 - 05:10 pm The amount of clicking is indeed a problem but a separate one. Example for some solutions: We might think of easier way of building an army, by setting up units and then all the details and orders of weapons and ammunition and other materials should be automated. This will save a lot of time and clicking. we should also make units very powerful, and expensive, forcing armies into smaller numbers of units. This too will reduce the clicking.
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| Saturday, August 21, 2010 - 05:11 pm Jo thanks for the suggestions. many good ideas. I will react on it, in all details, ASAP. I just have to go now.
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| Saturday, August 21, 2010 - 05:15 pm w00t! Reduced clicking makes me happy. Also, if there were some way to defend/attack WITHOUT being present would be super awesome. Yes, I'm talking a completely different war system, but lets face it, the reason most people DON'T want to war is because they don't have the time or desire to sit at their computer 24 hours, ready to defend. People that don't have jobs have a HUGE advantage that people with jobs will never be able to match. Should SimCountry be for the casual or hard-core gamer?
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| Saturday, August 21, 2010 - 05:28 pm Tom: The clicking problem is not separate from the reliance on war protection. Many, or most, players rely on war protection precisely to avoid massive clicking.
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| Saturday, August 21, 2010 - 05:29 pm As whiteboy says, the more complicated this is, the more it favors the dominant warlords. Better, in my opinion, to organize changes into a number of simple rules, each of which can largely stand on its own. Suggestion: 1) Institute a political pressure/elevated hostilities condition, one president vs another, as a prerequisite for declaring war. Elevated hostilities must be in effect for at least 24 hours before either side can declare war. The period lasts for 3 days. Any time during the 24 hours to 3 days time frame either president can declare war on the other, with any of their respective countries. 2) Increase the time between war declarations and when the war starts, to 48 hours. Leave the reactivation at 10%. 3) Give the defender the option to accelerate the start of the war to 24 hours hence. A big red button, "make war start in 24 hours from NOW". Obviously can only be used during the first 24 hours of the 48 hour wait for war to start. It's a modification of whiteboy's idea. This would be a powerful, and I think fair, tool for the defender...make the war start at a time of day that is at HIS convenience. 4) Set a time limit on wars. War between two countries ends in 48 hours, regardless of activity or lack thereof. This gives the defender an endgame...survive the 48 hours and it's over. The main gist of the set of suggestions above is to give defenders a longer time (24 hours political pressure + 48 hours from war dec to start of war = 72 hours) to wake up and prepare, and also to give them a reasonable defensive goal, survive for 48 hours. As Vicious says, the suggested limited war just isn't going to add value to the game--in fact, it will be another tool for some players to dominate the war process. That's what I'd do...declare limited war, decimate the military, then in a few days declare regular war and get the country. Fun for the few. Barney's 48 hours of "getting in" is intriguing but complicated, and we haven't even started questioning things like who are the parties involved (If A decs on B and I get in on it, can I still dec on C, and if so can A and/or B also, etc.) Also it could be gamed as a way of ongoing WP, and probably many other unintended consequences. Yes, however long it takes the defender to build allies or contract with a hired gun equals time he'll be exposed to war before his allies get in. Compare that to the current system, in which his empire is gone within 48 hours. We know that with real allies making real decs, the attacker may be pressured to cease fire. The numbers can change, though I strongly recommend they be in increments of 24 hours. As Tom suggests, the new system should be trialed on one world first. No WP except vacation and new country WP should still be implemented on Fearless Blue. 50% of empire value (using some proxy with care and forethought) being out of WP before declaring war should still be done. I still think worlds should be much more differentiated by having significantly different war rules. Vicious is entirely correct that warring takes a huge amount of nuisance clicking, more than most players realize. Anything that reduces the amount of clicking, by chunking together tasks, would orient the game more towards strategic thinking. I don't think the mob vs WGC war should be the poster-boy of the problem we are trying to solve. There's been motivation to change the war rules for a long time.
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| Saturday, August 21, 2010 - 06:37 pm I think Jojo has it covered best and the points about clicking are very true. I do think that there should be a standard time frame for wars to begin, 24 hours or 32 hours or 48 hours on all worlds...pick one, with the option for the defender to choose more time. It also should be based on *real* hours, not game months, give everyone a time that the war will start which will help clear up some of the anticipation/confusion.
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Saturday, August 21, 2010 - 06:39 pm
This is exactly how I feel! Great post, thanks Jo! I also completely agree with the clicking concerns. Fighting any non-C3 war is very time consuming. GS
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| Saturday, August 21, 2010 - 06:44 pm I think JoJo has covered it best too. Whatever Whiteboy wants is right. To Quote my minority husband : "If it ain't White it ain't right!" He's so cute.
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| Saturday, August 21, 2010 - 06:47 pm I HONESTLY don't see how any of this changes much. People are arguing because people don't want to play the war part of this game. How do these suggestions make people more willing to fight? I agree with Mr. Hun and Mssr. Vicious, there is no reason to make this more complicated. I'm for making things simpler. The war engine is not friendly, or tempting for casual gamers. Most of us are casual gamers. If you don't have time to fight, you can't win. So, you're forced to stay in WP and then the fighters have nobody to fight and this starts all over.
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| Saturday, August 21, 2010 - 11:23 pm I agree with Border C. This is a war game. No matter what is done, there will never be/and can't be a balance between econ/military. If a player is econ only, he has no military(except for leveling). There is no way he/she will have enough time to prepare for war, unless their country is setup with a certain percentage of def. and off. weapons. 24hrs,36hrs,48hrs is not enough time to prepare when we prepare for a real month(give or take), to build up to attack another country. As long as players have friends in game, there will always be alliances fed or no fed. Who's to say my friend wont dec on someone I decd on after the supposed time frame expires with no war? And, all my allies will dec when I dec, and I will dec when my allies dec,creating a bully effect against the defender. He will never stand a chance. The only chance they stand is to form an alliance and re-dec myself and my allies to try to conquer 1 or more of our countries, which wouldn't happen, because many players have countries which can withstand a drawn out war. Which brings us back to players who have played years to build their countries versus players who have played for less time and haven't build an empire like the attacking empire/s. I'm sorry, but I feel you can never have an equal war, no matter what changes are made. For an example: a newer player starts a slave, adds population to say 50 million people, in a few days, has $10T in cash, but poorly defended, he will be a target by everyone for the fact that he/she has 50 mil. pop. and cash on hand. Chances are they do not have a military to defend or attack an attacker. This game is about paying gold coins to play for empires every month. If a player chooses not to use their credit card, they will choose to raid someone to gain GCs to continue playing. This will never change and I dont really see a solution, unless the defender has the ability to overcome military spending per month, worker issues(LLW and MLM) re-activating all their military in one click. The only solution I see is to allow the defender to buy as much weapons/ammo and automatically have enough workers to support the army. And if this happens, the offender should also have the same rights, which would offset the whole issue of who attacks who and trying to make it fair. Basically, what I'm trying to say is, this is a war game. Players need to build a country with a suitable army and hopefully if they balance it properly, can sustain that army. Maybe an option for econ only can be implemented as long as that country has no more than a certain percentage of weapons/ammo, or a strictly econ country can level up with no military, or cannot be attacked if the WI or DI is 0. I agree with the 1 click nuiscance. We should be able to attack a country with say navy only and the outcome would be the player with the most amount of experience(upgrades) versus the other player. I still agree with the WI to conquer a country, because I know I can easily take out an opponents military and doing only that is pointless to conquer a country. I dont agree with c3 fighting. I've done it but it is a waste of time. Mostly because the playerr fighting with a c3 or more, has nothing to lose. If you want to fight, fight with something have value to make the risk higher if you dec another player. Maybe the war engine can implement re-fuellers to allow bombers/fighter planes to attack from any distance, while re-fuelling in air to reach their destination? Like in real life?. As mentioned before, landing forces, well this be implemented? I feel this could be a viable option for conquering a country. You can't take a country( or lower the WI) unless a percentage is conquered by land forces, which could also help the defender who probably already has defensive ground units setup already. Would make for some interesting battles. I would like to see wp dropped except for a secured main and maybe when players know they will be away on vacation. I would like to see black out periods increased more than the 4 hours they are set at now. Maybe 8 hours could be a minimum setting, or 16 hours. 8 for sleeping and 8 for work/school hours?
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| Sunday, August 22, 2010 - 12:13 am care full consideration needs to be made not to disable the war game in the opposite direction!!! To say that the war game is oriented toward aggressive attackers... their is some truth to that. However, not to the degree that is being played up here. Using the Mob v WGC war as an example. Frankly, if the WGC had spent as much time influencing their newbs to learn how to defend themselves, as they did encouraging their isolationist policies, they would have been able to defeat the smaller, better prepared group. By virtue of player numbers. More people shooting is as much of an advantage as Military assets. Which is one of the things that being thrown out here as something to avoid. With the recent increase in unit max fighting levels. Honestly, (with out having had the chance to experiment with it,) seems to be a huge advantage to defenders. As it is. What is considered the "standard," defense includes 100 I-wing, (40K interceptors,) and 800 aamb in each of the cities. Amoung other things. The cost in attacking a country like this, with fed support, and 120 fighting level, is about 22k bombers. 1M A2A missles. And thats just the primary Air D, and city Gars. The amount of losses with the new upgraded levels, will probably double that. Unless the attacker maintains 15 fulling upgraded B/F wings of 900 bombers, and 1000 fighters, long enough to reach the max level. 2 weeks on LU, and 4 weeks on WG. Keeping 15k fighters, and 20k bombers set up in air wings, for a month, is rather unpractical. Considering any one preparing for war, would also have allot of defense. Then you still need at least 1M A2A missiles. And now while you're waiting 2 days to declare war, and your opponent is getting military advise from an experienced fighter... first thing they are going to do when the shooting starts, is sacrifice to kill your F/B wings, and thus disable you're entire offense. So instead, you have to figure out a way to bring 40k bombers in to fight the "standard," defence. And yes, with the new fighting levels, you are looking at 40k ish bombers to take the country. Before when i was hitting 120 level, it was taking 170-180 per 800 ints. With 160 level, i estimate that will be 230-240 per wing. multiply by 100, means 23-24k bombers, just to break the 100 i wings. and then your looking at 70-80 per 400 ints from fed support. So in clusters, like Jo/Ian, during the Mob/WGC war, at 120L, should have cost the mob about 94K bombers, and 8M A2A. at 160, my low ball estimate would be 122K bombers... Then you get to the cities gars... at 120L thats 200-240 bombers each, so 4-5k per country, that'd be another 50-80k bombers, at 160L, not having attacked a 160L gar, my low ball estimate is 300 bombers against 800 AAMB. So that means, 6K bombers per country, or 80k+ ish bombers for the above cluster... Meaning with 120L your talking 150-170 k bombers, at 160L, 200k + bombers, to break the cluster. And thats just I wings, and cities. How much harder do you want to make the war game? Really. The problem really isn't aggressive players. Its that many players don't repair defense. Or if they do, they wait for ever with out having any one attack them, become frustrated that they spent all that money, and continue to spend money, for something that isn't needed. To state that a person that wants to play the war game, isn't a balanced player, is absurd. When documentation clearly states that any player beyond 1 country, should be prepared to defend them self. In fact, by ignoring the war side of the game, and just playing econ... it could be said that player is the one that isn't balanced. It takes an awe full lot of effort to build, and maintain the kind of army that you need to play war. So much so, that most "war players," are above average econ players. And yet, war players and econ players compete for the same levels, and awards!?! I'd really suggest that we don't cut off our nose to spite our face, as the saying goes. The answer to what seems a lop sided war engine, is player prep. Not rules fixes or changes. I mean, the direction this is going, is that if i want to war some one, i have to play "mother may I?" for 2 days first. honestly, that doesn't sound fun to me. I'm all for giving players a little more time to prepare. But what i'm trying to get at here, is not to push this so far the other way, that war becomes incredibly expensive, and cumbersome, to the point that their is no point to it!?!
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| Sunday, August 22, 2010 - 01:15 am i agree with the people who are saying this is a war game. and as in real life, war is rarely fair. being a game their should be certain limitations to keep it from being absurdly lop sided, but at the same time, trying to write in protection for players that, frankly, refuse to defend themselves, is the wrong direction for the game. as it will make any effort a player puts in to be successful, over written for a semblance of fairness to the player that puts out little, or no effort to defend themselves!!!
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| Sunday, August 22, 2010 - 01:32 am Where does it say this is a war game? I was under the impression it was a nation-building game.
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| Sunday, August 22, 2010 - 01:37 am Exactly Orbiter. This game clearly states its a war game. Any empire with more than 1 country(a secured main) should be prepared to defend it/them. If we level the playing field before we fight, we are hurting the players who spent time building their countries to fight or defend with, while the player who spent little time preparing a country for defense and offense will spend less time and money for the same results. In the wild, do you think a Lion will stop attacking a baby gazelle because the gazelle cried out its too young and hasn't had time to build its muscles up to defend itself? No it wont happen and shouldnt happen in simcountry either. I dont think there is a problem with noobs being attacked, normally because they dont have as much to lose as a player who has build up an empire, but like Orbiter stated, the problem is players dont prepare themselves for war properly or dont understand how to fight. Using WGC for an example, most of their countries were losing money every month(which tells me they were'nt playing econ), because they had an adequate amount of weapons/ammo which costs the country money every month. They all had adequate military in most of their countries to fend off or even retaliate against their attackers. There main problem was re-activating and short notice before war started to repair.
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| Sunday, August 22, 2010 - 01:45 am honestly, a change i'd like to throw out... why not lower the trade-able/sell-able pop to 15M. This will make smaller countries targets, sooner. but players may find themselves fending off attacks, before they invest allot of time or money into them. Also, making a 25M country a more attractive target. Means that smaller players wont have to build for months to be able to have the assets to take a 35M country, for the same stripping value. this would make the whole game more aggressive, yes, by lowering the risk, and increasing the reward. But that would make the war game playable for smaller, newer players. And by the time some one is able to build up a 50M slave, they have either learned how to defend it, or make it pay for its own WP. and btw, when i saw the increase of fighting levels to 160, my reaction was, "well, for those that wanted low cost WP, their you go..."
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| Sunday, August 22, 2010 - 01:57 am Thank you Tom. I look forward to hearing your ideas. Orbiter, I'd like to know how having all targets fully garrisoned and plenty of defensive airwings qualifies as 'refusing to defend yourself'. It took four countries attacking one of mine over four hours to take it down. Please don't insult the intelligence of the Gamemasters or the other players in this game by pretending that there was some way WGC could have won that war. Keto - I'd like to know how I achieved an average FI of over 125 and reached level 13, despite being fully garrisoned, if my countries were losing money. You guys really are talking a load of rubbish. Green Starfish - you are absolutely right. "Simcountry is a multiplayer Internet game in which you are the president, commander in chief, and industrial leader." Not just commander in chief. If people only want to play a wargame, go buy a copy of Call of Duty. Less clicking. Hugs and respect Jo
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| Sunday, August 22, 2010 - 03:12 am Jo, thats why some people play this game, to build an economy which makes money and can afford a potent military. I also stated most of wgc had no monthly income in most countries. For example: Keith With all the military WGC had, off. and def., you surely could have wiped out the smaller military of The Mob. This was just a clear example of when someone gets decd on, that player panics and concentrates on defense, rather than setting up a counter attack. I have a few copies of Call Of Duty games. If you want a economy based game only, then you should play SimCity on Nintendo.
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| Sunday, August 22, 2010 - 03:12 am Jo - You're missing the point, simply having defense is not defending your countries. If you had half the defense and double the offense the war would have looked a lot different and if as Orbiter suggested, your smaller players had been taught how to defend themselves with offense it also would have been a very different war. As far as how long it took to take one of your countries, that is due to the excessive clicking that everyone is talking about and the fact that you and Iain and others were all clustered together which is great for air defense but much more difficult on the attacking side, we brought down several hundred thousand ints and helis before we could even start shooting at a country. The GM's, knowing the programming of the game, know full well how long it takes to bring down a fully garrisoned country with huge amounts of air support, so I'm pretty sure they are buying the 'rubbish' as it is fact. Everyone needs to get past that war, as much as it has been played up like it was a crazy mismatch, it wasn't. Were you unprepared? Sure. Would another 24 hours have helped? Probably. Would the result have been ultimately the same? Yep. Except for if we had waited that additional 24 hours and you were then able to really go after our countries, we wouldn't have stopped until we had won out completely. We were out-manned, out-asseted, out-militaried and WE were the underdogs. We thought so ourselves and on paper that is certainly what anyone looking at it would have believed. It went the way it did because of lack of knowledge, poor and disorganized strategy, and a lack of training which all stems from the death of the war game to the point where everyone either is in WP or feels safe in their own little bubble. If you don't know how to attack then you'll never know how to defend because a HUGE part of defense is offense, defensive weapons are there so that you can hold your country(ies) long enough to knock out the attackers countries. You'll never learn how to attack when everyone is sitting in WP or it's an abhorrent act to declare war on someone because everyone is an 'econ' player. As far as your two options, I completely disagree with them. FIRST, why do you need to 'maintain' level 13? There is zero purpose in maintaining levels except for in the month that you're competing for first place/high score. I can run lvl 12 on LU with 7 war slaves running def indexes around 1100 and off indexes around 900 and 2 econ slaves. This idea that being prepared for war or being a war player means that you can't maintain a high level or have strong econ is complete BS. Some of the best econ players are war players because they have to pay for their weapons. SECOND, to prove it, in the past 13 days I've converted my entire WG operation to quickly level and possibly compete for 1st place on WG this month...13 days (on WG even) to turn a 100% war operation that was thrown together with that sole purpose in mind into an empire that will reach lvl 12 by the end of the month...but you're right, it's impossible to have enough weapons to defend yourself AND maintain high levels and compete for top scores, not that I've had 1st place on LU and FB multiple times already...us silly war players don't know a thing about levels or scores. There needs to be a balance that is certainly true, but whatever changes that are made are not going to all the sudden make WGC able to withstand another attack, in order for that to happen, WGC needs to change. Unless the war engine is eliminated completely those of us who use it will always have an advantage against those of you who do not and the more that a group of econ players or a fed of econ players only speaks to/recruits other players just like themselves, the more at risk they'll be. Try some diversification, it goes a long way.
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| Sunday, August 22, 2010 - 03:17 am Fuddlepuck! Fuddelpuck, I say! ...... to nobody in particular.
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| Sunday, August 22, 2010 - 03:19 am "It took four countries attacking one of mine over four hours to take it down. Please don't insult the intelligence of the Gamemasters or the other players in this game by pretending that there was some way WGC could have won that war." -jo thats my point actually JO, you just made it for me. A well defended country, takes allot of effort to take down, AS IT IS. Nothing more needs to be done, other than players taking the proper preparations. you in fact made my point very, very, well. thank you. I am not insulting any ones intellegence, actually, but rather asking people to think this thru, as you said, it took 4 countries to take your ONE. how much more protection does that ONE country need? what really needs to happen here, is LESS protection, so that people are forced to prepare... rather than cry foul when some one who does, comes along. and as far as levels, and de-activations. the health lvl requirements for higher levels, actually increases the average of workers, meaning you have more workers over 50!!! so if effect of leveling, actually weakens your country, why should i level? "I'd like to know how I achieved an average FI of over 125 and reached level 13, despite being fully garrisoned, if my countries were losing money. You guys really are talking a load of rubbish. " -jo man!! jo, you really are making allot of points FOR war players, now aren't you!!!
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| Sunday, August 22, 2010 - 04:37 am Wow gone for 3 days... This will take a while to read with my wife discussing her latest shopping trip in my R ear. Need time, need time.
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| Sunday, August 22, 2010 - 07:04 am "thats my point actually JO, you just made it for me. A well defended country, takes allot of effort to take down" 4 hours to take it down? A lot of effort? How much effort to build that country?
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| Sunday, August 22, 2010 - 07:41 am Its all about risk and reward. If you are willing to take the risk, then there should be reward. Much of the talk has been about changing the war engine to one degree or another. But if you look back a year or so ago this was not much of an issue because there were many players that did learn the war game and participated in it. If players would only play the full version of the game this would not be much of a discussion. The federations that are present now need to take better care of their members by teaching them how to play not only eco, but war as well. I remember when I first started and well before I joined a fed I always had a fear of becoming a target, so I didnt grow to big to fast. I tried to make it so that it would cost more to destroy me than I was worth. Then I joined a fed and learned alot more. New players do need to be aware that they are bigger better players out there. This game cant become one where a new player can attain the ability and power a long time seasoned vet has. It isnt that way in real life, neither should it be in SC. Of course there is no argument in the fact that a country with big garrisons and a decent offense capability will be able to make a tremendous amount of money. But luckily you have the option to either buy WP or defend yourself. The econ players have an advantage. For ie... the econ player can buy 'War protection' so they can make as much money as they can possibly squeeze outta their country and not worry at all about war. So shouldnt their be a 'EP' (Economic Protection) one where the war player can have all the military he can possibly squeeze out of his country but it not go into debt? Of course not! I agree that there needs to be a few changes to the war game, but not a drastic overhaul. So simply put, learn the war game and alot of things will get better on their own. If you want to war, then put up something to back it up. If you do not have the desire or the guts to put up, then .......................... dont dec nobody! Im all for giving defenders a bit more time to prep. But even then, they need to know how to prep. Letting countries within a fed dec and start the war at the same time is a good idea as well. The war engine with the Q upgrades is not a problem in my opinion, so no need for major changes there. Anyway, thats my $.01 Jason
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| Sunday, August 22, 2010 - 08:11 am "If people only want to play a wargame, go buy a copy of Call of Duty. Less clicking." -jo hey, better idea, if you want friendly interaction, while building, to gain resources, to build more... Go play farmville, on face book. It free, and you don't have to pay GC for WP!!! i'm not advertising another game, but making a point. if what you are interested in, is social networking, and building, then their are tons of games out their that offer that for free. what does simcountry offer that those don't? war!!! whats the point to SC politics? if no one ever fought? it'd really just be dogs in cages barking at each other. whats the risk? no matter what you do, aggressive players are going to find an advantage. thats just how it works. and if you do manage to take away any advantage preparation provides... then what kind of game will you have? my above points, the war engine, does give attackers an advantage. but not so much so that it can not be over come, by VIGILANCE. maintaining a state of readiness. "I'd like to know how I achieved an average FI of over 125 and reached level 13, despite being fully garrisoned, if my countries were losing money. You guys really are talking a load of rubbish. " -jo jo, herself, proved that a state of vigilance can be maintained. for a long time. "This approach worked for four years" -jo she wasn't talking about vigilance, but about WGC non-confrontational attitude. But this does indicate she kept a state of readiness for 4 years. "I'd like to know how having all targets fully garrisoned and plenty of defensive airwings qualifies as 'refusing to defend yourself'. It took four countries attacking one of mine over four hours to take it down." -jo had the other members of WGC done similarly, the results of the war would have been very different. "Please don't insult the intelligence of the Gamemasters or the other players in this game by pretending that there was some way WGC could have won that war. " -jo seriously, if more of the WGC countries been better prepared, the mob would have taken a beating. so yes, the problem was not "when it is possible for a small group of war-oriented players to ambush other players who wish to play a more balanced game, " -jo when jo also says that she was able to maintain large garrisons, many i-wings, with over a 125 FI, in a country that took 4 countries to bring down. And she maintained this VIGILANCE for 4 years... frankly, had other WGC members done likewise... well i already said we would have taken a beating. W3C does not need to put in more protection to players. in fact, the problem is that players are discouraged from playing the war game. so that when some one does take the time to learn how to fight, they are already at an advantage... meaning most players are directed into being sheep, and those that choose to be wolves, are of course just that. so had more members of WGC maintained a state of readiness, the war result would have been different. The Jo/Ian Cluster i mentioned above, consisted of about 16 countries, 18 if you include the one each of jaffle's and vann's. if it had taken 2-4 hours of heavy hitting for EACH country. then its likely that the mob would have still been fighting the main cluster, when the WGC counter decs came in. But their were almost 0 counter decs, as it was pointed out by a couple of their larger players, they didn't even know how to take a C3?!? Frankly WGC dropped the ball in teaching their players how to defend themselves. Sheep, really, sheep. So you have a huge heard of fat sheep walking around, and no shepards!!! its surprising that it took 4 years for the wolves to show up. So now we want to make the game "fair," We don't want players "gangbanging," we don't want players "ambushed," we want to make it fair? so a player, can have minimum defensive weapons. max out their profits, win high ranking, and monthly awards... and my monthly upkeep cost for my country is more than the cost of WP. so those that don't pay what i'm paying in upkeep, don't want to put their money into war protection, want to rake in the game cash, and win monthly awards, with half the effort, and resources i'm putting into a war slave. and then cry foul when i attack them? Econ players want to have their cake and eat it 2. Look i get it if a player doesn't want to fight, to spend the time doing it. Use WP, that is if you don't want to fight. I have no problem with it. For half the resources and effort of a war slave, you can maintain WP as long as you want. I'm cool with that, really. But if you don't, why should i feel bad? when i am effectively spending a GC worth game cash, a day to maintain my WSs, i don't see why an Econ player can't spend a GC a day to maintain WP. Pretty simple. Why should a player have for free what another player had to spend out the nose to get? When we are all competing for the same score, and awards? Following that, if you don't want to maintain WP, then you set up defenses. You learn, at least the basics of how to fight. I mean you learn the basics of country building, corp management, ect... why do people ignore the military aspect and get mad at some one that does learn it, when they use it? I mean i get why some one would be mad, but my point is... when the wolves come, the farmer gets his shotgun, if he goes to town and complains that the wolves are ambushing his poor defenseless sheep, well, he'll soon be with out a flock. the counter to aggressive war players, is not rules, we will always find a way to use them to our advantage. i mean i used black outs during the WGC to my advantage. Why not? What i did, when we opened decs, we all have several C3s that we used to just dec all the WGC countries, to block them from using WP. with my C3s i set the black outs to start the same hour the wars would become active. meaning, after the wars started, any one that wanted to close those decs and turn on wp, had to wait another 3 hours. Any rule that you put in, to make things "fair," will be able to be used against you. the harder you try, most likely, the worse it will get. If you want to make the war game "fair," then players should be encourage to learn how to fight, how to use the war engine, how to defend themselves from the wolves... i mean the weapons are just effective reguardless of who uses them, right? if i'm shooting at you, and you are shooting back, assuming we both put in prep time? who has the advantage? maybe the country that needed 4 countries to take it down? that one sounds like it had the advantage. if it had been shooting back. but the more rules you add to make things fair, will actually make things unfair. the solution to this problem, is not in W3Cs hands, but the players. Those that want to have a peaceful friendly game, just as in real life, have to maintain VIGILANCE, and be prepared with both resources and knowledge, in order to keep the peace. in sim country, the "era of peace," has lasted long enough, that no one knows how to fend of evil. players aren't encouraged to defend themselves, and the vets that are suppose to, don't know how, or are unwilling. This has lasted so long, that their are only a dozenish players that DO know how to defend themselves. In the classic good versus evil, good had won out so well that they had become complacent. and evil has arisen again, against an unprepared light. those who wish for the good to triumph, honestly, need to dust off their sword. rather than making a rule change, it really should be something that the players should be handling.
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| Sunday, August 22, 2010 - 08:34 am now that thats off my chest, i'm for giving defenders a little extra time to get ready. but every hour you give them, is an hour the attacker also gets... and i would be blowing through long range radar planes to see what your doing. plus i think some one briefly mentioned that this proposal, as it is written can offer free WP. It implies that any one involved in the war make their intent known during the first 24-48 period, after that no one else can join. So, player A could start the process on his friend, player B. after the initial period, no one else can join. so then theirs the extra 24? hours prep time, if that is included, then war decs, and with out a minimum time, one player each day can fire a single missile at the other, maintaining the war... and no one else can be involved, becoming a type of war protection... even with a max time for the war of 48 hours, when the decs expire, well, you just set up with another friend. creating an indefinite amount of time that a player can be protected from other wars. allowing another president to start a new conflict before the first is resolved, kinda defeats the purpose... so this will actually provide free WP... and by not allowing the primary player of each side to remove players from conflict, provides another problem. we all know of some one, that if she could, given a 24-48 window, would involve herself in every war on a planet, and try to take the last shot, and steal every kill. we all know she would. and she'd have a 24 hour period to get involved. so the primary players on each side should have the ability to remove a player from the conflict. meaning the above example of limitless WP, for free, would become a reality
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| Sunday, August 22, 2010 - 08:56 am really, here's the best solution to the broken war game lower the sell-able/trade-able pop to 15M. as it is, 25 being the limit. 35 being more attractive, means for a C3, buying 25M pop, is 100-125 GC. Then the military assets, of 20-80T is another 40-160GC so as it is right now, for a player to "ante up," to the war game, they are looking at 140-285 GC. for a new player, thats quite the investment. and by the time some one puts that into a slave, it would hurt to loose. especially, if their main source of GC is from leveling... a one time award. by lowering the pop limit to 15M, you are making the cost of having something to defend, between 35-50 GC, (25 for pop, 10-25 for cash,) with the 15M limit, having a 25M country with the same stripping value of a 35M country... your talking what, a 60-100 GC value? still hurts to loose, but a player can now buy into the war game, at a lower cost... and making it cheaper, should mean allot more targets at the lower range. so their would be reward for the risk in theory, this would create a "little league," where players can get the experience, at a fraction of the cost, and still have something to gain. by the time a player can build, maintain, and hold a 50M + country, they would have the skills, and resources to defend, and manage it. Meaning they have joined the "big leagues," their will always be bottom feeders, but it would be up to the players to police themselves. not W3C.
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| Sunday, August 22, 2010 - 04:41 pm The whole problem is that anyone who loses something it takes so much time to develop would have negative feelings about losing. Especially when you have no real chance of conquering those who are established and in coalition with another group of established players. The result is that no one is going to waste a whole month real time losing something to 4 players in 4 hours. That doesn't even begin to make any kind of sense. So in essence Orbiter, your suggestion, like that of many other suggestions will further diminish the will of people to participate in the war game. Federation membership will decline although it looks like it has already bottomed out, due to the reasons you guys had for attacking WGC. They were the largest non militant federation and for lack of a better target. Congratulations, you guys are on your way to saving simcountry. BS.
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Sunday, August 22, 2010 - 05:07 pm
Although I do play CoD from time to time, I much prefer Battlefield 1943. Go in, shoot, go out. Nothing is lost or gained. With Simcountry it is more like a sculpture. A unique object of admiration by itself everytime. Take the hint.
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| Sunday, August 22, 2010 - 05:11 pm I really admire the infinite Wisdom displayed on this thread. From top to bottom, nothing productive has come of the discussion. But of course, yeah so many "good suggestions" have been made, and many more will follow. But to what end? What part of anything ANY of you have suggested makes the war game more attractive to the player entering simcountry? NOTHING What is the point of this thread? A subtly masked attempt at solidifying the result of what has already occurred. The consolidation of too much power. The imbalance of power is so gr8, that no one cares to waste a real month participating in a no win proposition. Too many of you "Self described" warlords, or war gamers, positioning yourself in a way that there will not be an organized competition of any sort for the foreseeable future. You claim to attack those who have invested time and energy in this game in hopes of a "good fight", yet none of you ever put yourself to the task of a good fair and balanced fight. You attack the largest newbie fed on LU while having some of the top war driven players in the game on your side. Hardly a challenge. Same for WGC, yeah they had a lot of assets and if you look at history, you will see, that ASSETS are the real criteria for their selective targeting masked by the piss poor 'good war' excuse. You guys would have much more fun, if you divided your groups in to half or more and began having 'good wars among each other. The game in its' entirety should not have to bend to your lust for wars and assets in the same way you don't want to participate in long drawn out c3 wars. People don't have the time or organization to plan for a real month to war as you guys have. You take advantage of that in the same manner that I take advantage of c3s, correct? No your never guilty its always just Wendy abusing features and c3s and war protection. Lets overlook the fact that ALL of you are in WP on LU, not ONE but ALL of You. Hey I want to attack you, but hey lookie who is in WP now. All roads lead both ways. Crusher himself has resorted to c3 wars himself in recent and past history, it was cool then, but now... need I say more. Its a crime for Wendy to have placed her valuable countries in WP, yet you all are doing the same thing, and there is barely anyone with the will or logistical capability to really cause a threat to the military you have amassed, so what is the worry? Oh, the c3 thing, right? Your arguments can be traced right back to your own actions yet all you guys are doing is pointing the finger at everyone but yourselves. Everyone else is at fault because YOUR warmongering has made people avoid the war game altogether. Now we want to FORCE people OUT of WP. Now we want to make it harder to wage wars when you guys hostile bid 200 corps again? Of course that was what that feature was introduced to achieve. Should anyone care that since you did that I won't suicide my countries against 4 or 5 opponents and fight you with c3s? NO. You get what you get because you deserve it, not because I get bored. Everything is everyone else fault, you had nothing to do with any of it. WGC needs to fed up with WB to defend against the likes of Wendy while he and his fed are systematically paving the way for Josias to make excuses to continue raiding their fed inactives. Yeah I had everything to do with that too. It wasn't their fed btw that was raiding, it was Josias "acting alone". LMAO You all have within your ranks the ability to provide yourselves with entertainment of your choosing but you won't becuase it has never been about that. We go from accusing others of using c3s while your fearless leader has done the same. You are all sitting in WP on LU while griping about how it should be taken away for others. You are crying about Wendy forcing you to fight a battle you don't want to fight, while attempting to sham the gamemasters into adjusting the war game and WP to force people to play yours. What part of any of this isn't hypocrisy at its finest? This whole Idea has been a waste of time and effort. I do admire the fact that the gms actually have listened to half your BS, but that time and effort could have been used on improving the game not taking everyone back to square one and pleasing an small group of asshats that have in a very few short months caused plenty to really want to never participate in the war game or quit altogether, while throwing stones at Wendy for making people quit. They as a group have been a very destructive force and more so than any in the recent history of the game. So yeah let's make it possible for them to make more people quit or lose interest in the game becuase the gamemasters are helping them accomplish that very end result. Game Over. Let's play.
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| Sunday, August 22, 2010 - 05:28 pm "The whole problem is that anyone who loses something it takes so much time to develop would have negative feelings about losing." -wendy thats true, so maybe we should just turn off the war game altogether? i mean, if no one wants to loose their stuff? why not just turn it off? that would be fair, wouldn't it? no one has the chance of loosing anything, every one can be econ players. no need for the forums any more except for occasional corp requests, or worker exchanges... any war game, is going to have negative feelings by the losers. thats just the way it is. if you don't want that, like i said, go play farmville, its free, and you don't have to pay for WP. again, not advertising another game, making a point. losing war is going to hurt, and winning feels good, thats how it goes. if you don't want to play the war game, buy protection, that is if you don't want to war. not buy protection if you want to fight but not lose... thats something else. i mean, if their is no risk to the war game, their is no reward, and with out the reward, their is no point to fighting. to putting out the effort to be good at it, and have the resources to fight... for no gain, because it hurts to much for your opponent to lose. i get it, i really do. i've played internet games like SC for a very long time. I've been beat up by players, and alliances that i had no chance of standing up against, months of work erased in hours. I've been on the receiving end, and the giving end. war is not going to be "fair," the more you try to make it fair for the less prepared players, the less fair it will be for the prepared players. The players that put out the effort, should NOT be handicapped to make if fair for those that don't.. Let me say that again. The players that put out the effort, should NOT be handicapped to make if fair for those that don't. In this game, we have WP, and secured mode. If a player does not want to fight, they should use those features. If they want to have more than one country, and don't want to pay for WP, then they should be prepared to fight, with assets, knowledge, and friends. In fact the game documentation says that. "War is part of life in the real world and it is part of the game for anyone who wants it. Many of the participants in the game may not be interested in fighting wars and they are welcome to play a PEACEFUL GAME. Their country can remain in SECURED MODE and will never be attacked. Anyone who wants to play the full game, will find out that as in the real world, IF A SMALL NUMBER OF COUNTRIES ARE CONDUCTING THEMSELVES AGGRESSIVELY AND PLAN TO CONQUER OTHERS, THEY WILL FIND THEMSELVES BUILDING UP DEFENSE FORCES TO PREVENT BEING ATTACKED. In Simcountry, all new players are PROTECTED against war and can choose to remain in SECURED MODE INDEFINITELY."
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| Sunday, August 22, 2010 - 06:05 pm As far as the lop sided power base. it is true. it is lop sided. but really, you can't "blame,' any one. I know you will, just because. like minded players are going to seek each other out, and group up. and even with out that, players are going to make friends. some how its ok for econ players to be friends and fed up, but its not ok for war players to become friends and fed up. that is flawed thinking. the counter to whats happening now, is to make friends, and form alliances that can stand up to aggressors. endless C3 wars behind WP, are only a nuisance, and offer no real substance to victory. yes, EVERY one has fought C3 *only* wars. That true, what *NO ONE ELSE," has done, is to do it for 2 YEARS. And wendy, you've had 2 years to make friends, and form alliances, to create a counter power to the current power... but you've choosen to a nuisance, rather than have any real substance. The last major fed you were in, you watched from WP as it was dismantled, because you caused problems. You may say that you were justified. I'm sure you feel that way. But it remains that your friends pay for your lack of patience. and thats the problem really, isn't it? you can't wait to be a power, and effect the way the game is played, so much so, that you will fight in such a way you can't lose. you of course can't really win, but the constant nuisance is what your going for. keep harassing people until they give in. you've been playing longer then EO, him and his friends have built the strongest power base in the game, currently. In this time, you could have done that, but you choose a different path. and you are going to continue to fight an ineffective method, that relies on harassing some one until they give up. not be actually outsmarting some one, or out maneuvering, but simply harassing some one until they slip up, or give in. so basically, you want the same reward as EO, or WB, with out the work. thats really what it is. because if you wanted it, you've had 2 years to try for it. but you haven't again, players that put out effort, should not be handicapped to make it fair for those that don't.
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| Sunday, August 22, 2010 - 06:19 pm Yes, encourage everybody to stay with a single SM or WP. Then you and yours will whine that there is nobody to fight, and if they do fight and are smart enough to keep assets in WP, you'll whine that they aren't fighting the way you want them to fight. The only way to fix this is to make war something that everybody can do, not just those who have the time. We all know that you can prep for war for months, you can buy all of the offensive and defensive weapons you need, and you can have plenty of friends, but if you don't have the time to fight back, you lose. WP solves nothing. It just makes the defender pay more and gives the offender nothing to offend.
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| Sunday, August 22, 2010 - 06:50 pm It's not a war game, it's a nation-building game, of which war is an integral part. Successfully defending your empire, especially when under direct attack, can be fun. Any mature player of this game should realize that success is not guaranteed; if it were, the game would not be as fun. On the other hand the infrequency of wars if one is not seeking them out can give one illusions about the effectiveness of one's efforts, and discouragement when shown your weaknesses. It's happened to me, to whiteboy, to WGC, to many. This may be "fair," but it's not always so much fun. Those of us pushing for these rules changes have had some success on the offensive side, and see the built-in weaknesses in the defensive side of the game quite clearly. Currently, aside from the ability of the individual player, it's just difficult to adequately defend. Currently, the best defense is an aggressive offense. That's NOT conducive to bringing in new players to the game, nor to keeping the NORMAL player who wants to build and defend their empires non-aggressively. Barney started this thread to propose an interesting way to strengthen the defense relative to the offense. Laguna, at the request of myself and others, directed the GMs to this thread to review Barney's proposal and some of the analysis of it. There are lots of potentially good ideas to improve the game. If unrelated to the thrust of this thread they should be articulated and discussed elsewhere. Crafty has already started a great thread for the back and forth arguments between Wendy and the mob, here.
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| Sunday, August 22, 2010 - 07:58 pm "Any mature player of this game should realize that success is not guaranteed; if it were, the game would not be as fun." -jojo i like that, well said. "Currently, the best defense is an aggressive offense." -jojo yes, true. so think this through. you want to make passive defense able to hold against any aggressor? really? you could argue that they could be strengthened. ok. but as Jo pointed out, it took 4 countries 4 hours to take her country... how much effort should it take? 8 countries? 12? higher up in this thread, it was stated that gangbanging and multipul wars against a country should be something to avoid? but you want to strengthen defense so thats the only way to over come a country? no one is arguing against giving players more time to prepare, no one has said that. how ever, every rule that you create to make things fair, will have the opposite effect. the problem that every one is dancing around... is that the way the game is played, is out of whack. the more protection you provide for players, the less players are going to be encouraged to prepare for war. meaning the ones that do, will have more and more of a lop sided advantage. honestly, it needs to go the other way. less protection, so that players are forced to learn the war game, and defend themselves. so that they aren't overwhelmed by some one that attacks them. if a player has no will to fight, or lacks times. but they still want a large empire, then buy WP. sense i've returned to SC, in 4 and a half months, i've built up quite the empire, it is not difficult to mass wealth. and the amount of money i've spent on my military, i could buy war protection for several real life years, yes, if i was to sell off all my military assets, i'd be able to build several large econ slaves, and keep them in wp for at least a rl year, with the resources i have now. after 4 rl months if a player doesn't want to fight, i have no problem with them being in WP. and teaching them how to support continual WP... if a player doesn't want to do that, then they should be prepared to defend themselves. this is simple. the problem is, the more we protect players, the more lop sided the power base will become. with only a handful of people knowing how to fight, meaning we are actually creating sheep, to be harvested at our will creating new, and bigger protections, will only offer a false sense of security, until some one chooses to harvest the sheep. then we'll be back here, figuring out a way to protect the sheep, to create the same cycle... seriously, we will be back here, figuring out a way to protect players, as aggressive players will always find a way to use a rule to their advantage. thats just the way it is. the "fix" to the war game, is to actually play it, rather than trying to avoid it
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| Sunday, August 22, 2010 - 08:21 pm "Everyone else is at fault because YOUR warmongering has made people avoid the war game altogether. Now we want to FORCE people OUT of WP."-- Windy NOBODY wants to FORCE anybody outta WP. How many times does it need to be said that if you wanna play peaceful...... then get WP. How many times and different ways can that be said? However, if you do decide to play peaceful, then dont go dec on others, otherwise you clearly are not peaceful. Learn to play the game, implement your learning and alot of this will fix itself!
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| Sunday, August 22, 2010 - 08:28 pm exactly serpent, the WP issue, is not with peaceful players that want to be left alone, its better for a peaceful player to buy WP The WP problem, is with aggressive players that want to use it a means of an "undefeatable," tactic. And it is the classic example of what i meant with the more protection you provide players, the aggressive players will use to their advantage.
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| Sunday, August 22, 2010 - 08:30 pm exactly sleerpy Implement your learning and you wouldn't have to worry about people fighting you with c3s. Can we quit whining and start playing now?
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| Sunday, August 22, 2010 - 08:31 pm As much as you tell everyone else, if you don't want to fight c3 wars stay in WP like everyone else who doesn't want to deal with your BS. Seems fair to me.
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| Sunday, August 22, 2010 - 08:56 pm Many times when some epic event takes place, you realize you are at some crossing point. This recent war made everyone aware of the way the war game is played or largely not played. The problem however, is lingering for a long time and most people think there should be some changes. This recent event is not the cause for change but obviously accelerated the discussion. Big and fast changes are dangerous as the probability of success, when you change such a complex system is low. If we want to allow players to make other choices than the two extremes of war or no war, we need to give them some more chance to survive a war. If they have a hope of surviving a war, they may start to think of the possibility to start one. The following is a long list with many ideas that can help to improve the war game. The list is incomplete, I am sure, and it is at the same time over complete. We will not implement every idea here. It is a compilation of what was said before and some of our ideas. We would like to continue from here and add more ideas before we start to make choices. At the end, we do want to make some choices and do some tuning. It can be done in stages, smaller steps to prevent a major error but we definitely want to move on and make some changes. 1. Deactivation of weapons because of shortages of soldiers and officers can disrupt logical steps during the war and should be delayed, reduced or eliminated by a possibility to get the people you need immediately and by expanding the use of other groups of the population. It could be solved by an addition to the purchase of population, allowing the purchase of specific groups or as Jo suggested, have a standard population distribution, independent of the situation in the country. 2. More time when war starts and/or the option for the defender to choose for one or two extra days or the option to start the war right now. 3. Allowing fed mates to join and have the war start for everybody at the same time. 4. Increase the time between war declaration and the start of the war to 48 hours on all the worlds. 5. Increase the blackout time to 8 hours from 4. 6. Removing or expanding the spending limits for defensive weapons for the defender once war is declared. 7. Imbalance between the warring parties cannot be eliminated or severe limitations will have to be imposed, limiting the war game to an un-enjoyable level. Comparing war indexes of both parties and limiting the difference to a factor of 3 or 5 or 10 can help a little. 8. Reducing the number of countries that can declare on one country. 9. Set a time limit on all wars. It has to stop within a set period. 10. Introducing automatic defense building features at a chosen level will make it easier for the defenders. 11. Starting a market for military units and making it possible to purchase complete units, ready to go, at a certain fighting level. This can be limited to the defender, after war or a conflict is declared. 12. Increasing the defensive power of individual weapons to reduce the advantage of the offensive weapons. 13. A limited war option that can cause damage to the other party but without the risk of losing the country. This option may no be interesting for the large aggressive feds but might encourage smaller players to declare on larger ones and reduce their power. 14. Allowing more fed allies to participate in the defense. This will allow three or four air wings to defend against an air attack with much higher losses to the attacker. 15. The possibility for players to complain about a specific player and prevent him from going to war for a set period may help. It is more time consuming to build. 16. Unclear yet what we need to do with WP: a. No WP at all for fed members with large armies and a high war index? (plus measures to prevent countries from quickly going in and out of feds to dock this rule). b. Limited WP for all, but before declaring war, 50% of the assets must reside in countries that are not protected. 17. Change the rules for sneak attacks: a. The name of the attacker should be known. b. Sneak attacks could be made more powerful and include more weapons. c. Forbid sneak attacks by very large powers-feds with a high defense index total! d. Upgrade sneak attacks to the level of a limited war. 18. Set conditions for anyone who wants to stop the war NOW. Assets transfer? Other conditions?
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| Sunday, August 22, 2010 - 08:58 pm thank you tom, were as i don't agree with everything, i do agree with the basic concept your going for. "If we want to allow players to make other choices than the two extremes of war or no war, we need to give them some more chance to survive a war. If they have a hope of surviving a war, they may start to think of the possibility to start one. " that said, knowing i'm not always 100% correct,
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| Sunday, August 22, 2010 - 09:18 pm i'm sorry, but i do have to point out a couple of flaws 6. Removing or expanding the spending limits for defensive weapons for the defender once war is declared. expanding or removing spending limits for the defender... to a degree i can support expanding spending limits. but removing them? i've got over 200T in my direct account? whats to stop me from buying 200T worth of weapons and ammo. Or before i want to war some one, talk a friend into dec'ing on me, so i can max out my spending limit? then when that war expires, i'm already a leg up. Or just trading back and forth decs with friends so that we all get expanded or removed spending limits... this idea is really open to abuse. The idea is kind hearted tho... 14. Allowing more fed allies to participate in the defense. This will allow three or four air wings to defend against an air attack with much higher losses to the attacker. this works both ways, as aggressors can still set up their own clusters... but on the positive side 18. Set conditions for anyone who wants to stop the war NOW. Assets transfer? Other conditions? allow a player to pay some sort of bride, or reparation, what ever, to get out of a loosing battle while having their country intact, thats a really cool idea. Who's idea was that?!? their would be some tweaking to that. like have an offer show up on the war page of the "winner," forcing them to except or deign the offer before any more attacks can go through. so that a player that expends allot of ammo isn't forced to go away with a fraction of what they spent... so an offer could be made, deigned, a better offer could be made... and the fact that the receiver of the offer has to except of deign it before continuing attacks, and the defender can't make attacks while the offer is out... will make it so no one can say they didn't see it, and it can't be used away to get free attacks. 4. Increase the time between war declaration and the start of the war to 48 hours on all the worlds. thats a good idea to, its really hurky-jerky to figure out where you are going to be in 16 or 32 hours. and an even 24 or 48 hours, i like that.
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| Sunday, August 22, 2010 - 09:36 pm I'm going to throw in a suggestion here, just an idea is all, feel free to shoot it down in flames. Take the number of wars that an account has been involved in. If it is twice (say) or more the number that a potential target has been involved in then that war cant go ahead. This could be on a per world basis or for the whole account. Taking C3s would count as wars involved in, but deccing on C3s would not be limited by the rule. (So if you take a C3 for pop transfer or strategy in warring or whatever reason, you have gained experience and gotten the benefit but made youself that little bit more vunerable). This would offer new players protection from big capable players, also it should offer the economy players some protection, though it might be noted that as they grow large multi country empires their 'attackability' would become greater, and so it should. Now new players can fight and enjoy the war game without fear of being completely shafted by very experienced, asset heavy players. As they grow they get to fight in the bigger leagues, in fact, publishing the number of wars a player has fought/won/lost would surely encourage many players to achieve higher standings and so use the war feature more. It seems to me this would be easily implementable, there already is a view of wars fought/won and lost for countries though how accurate it is I am not sure, so its a comparison of numbers and a yes or no. Also, I am not sure how you go about decs from multiple entities, maybe 1.5X average war number or maybe less, open to debate. Pick the bones out of that. Crafty
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Sunday, August 22, 2010 - 09:36 pm
I think this is a good idea. What purpose is there in 3 or more countries declaring war on a single country (or a like proportion)? If the attacker needs that much support, he shouldn't be attacking in the first place.
This is a good idea. A player that sets up a solid, well-rounded defense should be able to have a basic feeling of security. @ Crafty - I'm not sure what I think about that, but it's interesting...thanks for sharing it!
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| Sunday, August 22, 2010 - 09:47 pm crafty, i like your idea, only flaw i see in that is that less experienced players wouldn't be provided protection from experienced fed mates, unless you wrote that in. and maybe c3 fighting shouldn't count as heavily as against players, like maybe decing a c3 would be half the value as decing a player. the only other flaw, is if some one gets beat down, and they don't have the strength to fight people of their war range...? otherwise, i really like it green starfish. jo said it took 4 countries to take her 1 down. building up defenses to an unbeatable level disables the war game, completely, limiting number of wars against a country, fine, but 3 is a rather low number, against some of the more powerful countries. I mean i could build a country that takes 4+ countries to take out, now when i dec on you, you will not be able to bring to bear enough weapons to stop me... i mean it sounds good, doesn't it? to make an undefeatable country? but you make that possible, you can guarantee it will be used aggressively. i'm not saying i would, or will dec you, it was an example
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| Sunday, August 22, 2010 - 11:13 pm Orbiter - I understand what you are saying. But in that scenario, there would be damage sustained by both sides, but (assuming we both had a proper defense) no country would be taken. In my opinion, that is important. Personally, I would be much more willing to participate in war if there was some degree of loss, not just total loss. Or frankly, if I had any belief that it was POSSIBLE to have a strong defense that could actually hold up. I know the argument of the best defense is a good offense, I do get it. But, waging a strong counter-offensive is just amazing time consuming. A long time ago, a remember being in a war that spanned many hours over real days. Even with winning, I find it hard to classify the amount of clicking and time as "fun". My favorite part was coordinating with my fedmates... Lastly, I do not mean to suggest that a country cannot be conquered. But if its a well-defended country, I do think the attacker should be well-prepared and highly skilled. One more kind of random idea: What about allowing fedmates to "donate" military weapons/units/ammo to fedmates who have a declaration issued against them?
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| Sunday, August 22, 2010 - 11:21 pm 1- good idea but right now we cant buy pop when in war. Will that change? 2-7- I agree with 8- disagree 9- disagree, the war will end with no winner, defeating the purpose of fighting, killing the war game again. 10-11- I agree 12- disagree, this will eliminate any fighting 13- disagree, if you dec you should fight till you win or lose 14- agree 15- disagree 16a)- disagree, if a player can dec with a c3 b) agree 17- remove sneak attacks altogether 18- not sure what to do yet eliminate c3 style fighting by maybe introducing re-fuelers which would allow FP/bombers/transport planes to travel to far away countries?
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| Monday, August 23, 2010 - 12:39 am I agree some changes need to be made, but how far are we actually gonna go with this....once someone kicks my butt or I kick theirs, maybe I should have to pay for their medical expenses...send their family members an apology letter....how about making it so that we need to send their parents a permission slip that must be returned before the dec can go through?? It costs a militarized country a whole bunch each month to sustain...much more than the cost of war protection.I should be able to put it to use. Defend it one way or the other...wp, or a REAL defense. Also....if I can drop in special forces to paint with, shouldnt my navy seals be able to do the same? This would eliminate the need for "painting" c3's. EC
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| Monday, August 23, 2010 - 03:18 am As one of the closest things to an outsider looking in I would give my own thoughts on those 18 items. 1) From what I've gathered from others, there's a distinct problem with deactivation priorities. Changing this to prioritize strategic then offensive then defensive would eliminate a fair bit of this. 2) This would be a double-edged sword. But sometimes, every month counts, so go for it. 3) Seems reasonable and would eliminate some of the chaos of coordination. Particularly if combined with the delaying options of #2. Only caveat I can see is if either side wanted to bring someone in through negotiation and have them enter at the same time, without them having to change feds. Maybe some sort of option to allow that choice. 4) Doesn't seem like a problem. Would be a bit longer game month wise on LU, but that would make reactivations easier here. 5) A full 8 hours of sleep, if you so desired? Would be a novelty, however, there'd be the return slice, getting war declared would be a bit of a challenge in some situations, sure there's 16 hours open, but if two parties are sufficiently different on time scales they could never meet each other on the field of war. 6) Go for it. 7) I'd need clarification on this one. 8) Does this mean there's currently no limit? Or is there a limit of say 10? 20? 40? What should that limit be? Any of those numbers I referenced? 9) Sounds good in theory, but it's all in how the war is defined. If it's between Country A and Country B. Not a problem per se...but what if Country B is losing and brings Country C in? The period expires for A and B, but A and C would continue since they'd have a different period. Unless it's just a flat period that a country can be declared on. This would eliminate some flexibility and turn the whole thing into short term punching matches, or tedious grinds for one person with an eventual loss. 10) Please god, no. The best first step is to shut off automation when trying to build a successful country. 11) Interesting idea. However, this could mean whoever has the deepest pockets would be the winning defender. 12) There's been a lot of discussion about there's an imbalance. How and where these imbalances are determined. I haven't looked into, and will admit my knowledge is spotty. If there is an imbalance, make an adjustment certainly. 13) War with minimal risk? Could be an idea that would allow a weak coalition to chip away at a juggernaut, but would essentially be a formal version of the c3 issue, might defeat the whole point. 14) Defensive improvement. Go for it. 15) Might be an idea, but if done, it'd have to be done by a large group of people. I'd think this would be stepping into the security council and a vote there followed by a general vote. 16) Why not try to use a simpler method? War protection is for either A. You don't want to go to war or... B. You're on vacation or busy. Close the loophole of being able to take a c3. If country A is a secured main obviously you can still take a c3, but let's say you have a 2 country empire of country A and Country B. You put country B into war protection. Country B cannot be attacked and cannot in turn attack. Additionally, country A which is secured loses it's ability to attack a c3 while Country B is in war protection. Obviously, you'd be on vacation in this scenario, but what about the individual who expands their empire only by conquest of c3s and is essentially economically focused with little to no military present in their empire except for a short-term build-up to add on another country? Limit the number of c3s that an empire could declare on per real month from an empire in that war protection scenario I outlined. Let's say 5 for someone expanding rapidly on a new world with a solid base of funding who is just interested in economics. Once a slave is taken, this limiter would switch on, or conceivably, just set a limiter by default. If you can only attempt 5 c3s per month from a secured main, or from an empire in war protection, this would significantly curtail a lot of things. 17) They were introduced ages back due to demand, and they are a way to harrass someone. However, they don't take a country. The options are limited on what you can use, maybe review and rebalance the options available. Adding or removing weapons and their effects as deemed appropriate. 18) Negotiation is always a good thing. Why war is declared is most likely for a multitude of reasons.
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| Monday, August 23, 2010 - 03:35 am 1. Maybe you should be able to set up Reserve units that only get activated during war time, if necessary. You would be able to set up a percentage of your pop before war starts and you would have to pay some upkeep as a trade-off. If you're buying pop, you're just sinking more GC into something your already coming close to losing. 2. I don't care for the defender having an "attack now" option. I prefer simplifying the war game so people will be more willing to fight than giving one side such an advantage and discouraging most from attacking. Some wars ARE for good reasons. 3. Wholeheartedly agree. 4. meh... 5. Should be 8 for those who have jobs. Hell, counting lunch break and commute time, could be 9 or 10, but certainly no more than that. 6. I think somebody did a good jb of pointing out how this can be abused. Again, it's pretty much just investing in something you are very likely to lose. 7. The war game *is* unenjoyable. The only fun is in the planning and the winning. This is why nobody wants to play it. 8. This is already implemented poorly. As it is, you can only have 15 or 20 wars on most planets and 30 on FB. This has led to abuse that favors the aggressor, who can make decs on inactives or allies to keep counter-decs to few if any. 9. I don't see a fair way of implementing this. 10. Like? Autobuying is already a feature. The only active defense is an active offense. How would you automate this with the current engine? 11. Why not just be able them fully trained on the market, both ways. Just let defensive units max training be higher than offensive units. And none of that deterioration stuff. 12. Yeah, like I said above. 13. That's what we have C3s for. Sounds just as abusable. 14. Will definitely help smart defenders. 15. Don't like it. 16. Unclear yet what we need to do with WP: a. You don't have to be fedded to fight wars together. b. I only keep a single country, so it's simple to double my assets with C3s. 17. I agree with Keto. Sneak attacks are lame. If I can immediately sneak attack, why can't I use those same weapons to immediately war? I say get rid of them. 18. I'm iffy about this one. The problem is, people don't want to invest time and resources into a wargame that is in no way fun or balanced. My opinion is that W3C needs to invest its time and resources into making a wargame that is complex in planning but simple in execution and doesn't require that you be available to attack/defend 24 hours a day. As for quick fixes using WP,just make WP an all or nothing deal. Either your entire empire is in WP (and you pay for it all) or it isn't. No more econ slaves and war slaves. No more C3 wars. No more Secured Mains. Maybe even make WP cheaper so that it is sustainable. That, or be more generous with GC rewards.
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| Monday, August 23, 2010 - 04:28 am 1. Completely agree, no country will decide to deactivate it's current weapons during a war, makes no sense, that's what a draft is for. At the least, prioritize as has been suggested, strategic deacts first, offense second, defense third, makes the most sense. Also, eliminate the three month waiting period, that really makes no sense, once the workers are there you should be able to transfer/reactivate weapons/ammo. 2. Perfect 3. Perfect 4. Perfect 5. Have to be careful with blackout periods, Jojo and I had discussed this as it is ridiculous to only get 4 hours. However, if I have 8 hours and he has 8 hours that are completely different than mine, that leaves only 8 hours of total potential fighting time per day. I believe most people set there blackouts for when they are sleeping, so 8 hours there, then 8 hours at work, then the 8 hours that your opponent has blackout...adds up to no war. The best solution we came up with, in my opinion, is a guarantee of 6 hours for every player and then the possibility of negotiating an additional 4 if both sides can agree. So, I dec Jojo, he has blackout from 0-6, I have blackout from 18-24, we can negotiate a block of 4 hours in the middle, if we can't agree then we get only our original time. This would work well with 48 hour declaration window, more time to negotiate such things. 6. I would say expanding, not removing, double would probably be good. 7. Could get really tricky, especially with painting c3's etc, if a known enemy has taken a c3 in my area it's indexes will likely be horrible, but I should be able to dec it to remove the threat. It's not a bad idea but I'd like to know more about how it would be implemented and how to avoid issues like the one above. 8. How about reducing the number of players instead of reducing the number of countries? There is a big difference between 1 player deccing with 10 countries and 5 players deccing with 5 countries. 9. Time limit on wars, not a bad idea but again it should apply to players and not countries, otherwise the wars can still last forever. Or, it could be something like 48 hours for an individual country at which point the defender has the option to immediately place in war protection avoiding any further declarations. 10. Instead of automatic defense building, perhaps better tips would help. As a newb seeing the 'Every country should maintain 2 AF def wings...etc' is REALLY misleading. Something needs to lead people to understand what attacks what, what defends against what, etc. I've watched so many people ram drones into ints without any fp to actually be effective, the info is out there but it should be put more directly in front of players. 11. Not sure what this would change, I don't think the problem is building units, so wouldn't it be easier just to allow military unit boosters? Just like corp boosters? And the deterioration either has to go or we need to be allowed to automatically order the upgrades. ALSO, where are the upgrades for navy and lbcb, etc? 12. I really don't find that offensive weapons are so much stronger than defensive, people have this idea in their head but I don't know where it comes from, perhaps from no one every actually attacking a real country? It's VERY expensive from both a cash perspective and maintenance perspective to purchase and keep the offensive weapons necessary to bring down a country with strong air d and max garrisons. 13. I don't get the point, seems just like c3 warfare to me and would be used the same way, weaken a country with that method of warfare and then take it with real war right after... 14. Sounds crazy, you're already limited in bringing down air d to only 400 nfp or 1000 fp against 800 ints and as it stands now it's about equal cost lost on both sides with the most effective option of pbs/fps. Could literally make some countries untakeable if combined with some of the other changes mentioned. 15. No issue with that, except for that you said him instead of 'him or her' ;) 16. I think there is a majority or at least a plurality behind the following ideas on WP, no WP on FB except for earned WP and new player war protection (make the new player war protection longer than it is currently with the player having the option to accept the additional time or not to protect new players for longer). I like BC's idea, WP is all or nothing deal, if you need/want war protection it is either because you are a peaceful player and want no war or because you are a full game player who needs a break/is on vacation. That's pretty simple. 17. Why? I really have no issue with sneak attacks. I can see how corp sneak attacks are annoying but they're quite expensive for the offender if you've got fed air d up but I guess I'd be fine with getting rid of that part, but they should remain for bases, etc. 18. Seems like it could be severely abused, it's not a bad idea, but I can certainly see certain players deccing on a bunch of players they know can't defend themselves just to get the assets. Couple of other suggestions, give the Security Council some real power. Make no nuke votes apply to a PLAYER and not an individual country and place a temporary nuke ban on the country immediately following the council vote pending the full vote. Allow them to stop wars (make it a very high vote threshold so that it isn't abused) and allow them to pass strong injunctions/resolutions against players. I know that these types of things can be abused, but the people earned their spot on the council and if the resolutions then pass the general public it's about as democratic as we can get. We need to have some options to police ourselves to an extent, instead of needing the system to be changed when people begin to take advantage or act inappropriately. I know I'll hear a bunch of, you only say that because you're in power, on the council, etc, but I'm fine with it on the worlds I am not as well, against WGC they could have really thrown some wrenches in our plans with tools like that and I think that is fair, they earned their spots, they built their fed into dominance, they deserve it. This could add a lot of stability to worlds and give players even more incentive to reach the HOF and join the council which means they need higher scores, thus higher levels, thus less offensive weapons to maintain the high FI's necessary.
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| Monday, August 23, 2010 - 05:31 am Okie doakie here goes....... 1. Deactivation is ok so long as their is a priority that can be set. Make sure that the nuke def batts dont deactivate when at the same time you are able to staff a strat bomber. Plus, when you get the soldiers/officers, be able to use them immediately. 2. Simply having 48hrs is a good choice. 3. Awesome 4. Awesome 5. 4-6 hrs is enough time. 6. No need to expand the spending limit because as has been suggested this could be abused greatly. But possibly expand the reactivation limit a lil bit. 7. Its difficult to make a determination as to who can and when attack another player. Just make sure that if you dec a country that you have something to lose. Of course 1 secured main with 7-8 10M pop C3's would not fit this criteria. 8. Number of players rather than the number of countries. Many players have their military split between countries, ie... navy country, off air, ground, etc... 9. No time limit on wars, somebody needs to win/lose. Although the negotiation/bribe might be a idea. 10. Automation seems to be a bad idea. Again, tips on building a good def/off is what a federation is for. Of course the docs could be updated and be easier for new players to understand. 11. Good idea, but make available for both parties. 12. No need to change. Off weapons have no advantage. It already costs more for the off. It takes more off T's to kill the right proportion of def T's. Of course if a player does not fight back and allows his def to do it all, then he/she should lose. War is more than just def. 13. Bad idea. If your going to dec, then put something at risk. 14. Allies being brought in the equation is an idea, however only limit their sharing of def, ie... max25%? 15. Good idea. Of course when they cant fight, then no ability to attack them. 16a. Disagree 16b. Just make sure that if you dec a country that you have something to lose. Of course 1 secured main with 7-8 10M pop C3's would not fit this criteria. 17. Sneaks are fine. Just as a defender make it expensive for the attacker to use. 18. Possible, so long as there does not become a 'Pay me Tribute or you die kinda thing.' No doubt many will complain with #7 and say that weaker/less asset players have no way to fight bigger/more asset players, which is fine, it SHOULD be that way. Thats how a real SIM is. At the same time there needs to be a system so that stronger players should not be able to roll over those weaker players. Oh, right there is.... its called a Federation!!! Use it properly!!! Whiteboy's suggestion of giving the Security Council some short teeth is a good idea as well.
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| Monday, August 23, 2010 - 05:47 am Frankly, it would be cool for the GMs to randomly change the rules each month. Part of the charm of the game is trying to figure out how to adapt to rule changes. For example, the c3-only fighting has to go, but it was a brilliant idea, for a while, by those who thought of it. Barring that, I like 2,3,4,5,7,8 (but presidents, not countries), 9, 16b, & 17b (sneaks are FUN and strategic, especially if expanded).
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| Monday, August 23, 2010 - 08:04 am Hey Jojo
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| Tuesday, August 24, 2010 - 12:21 am Lots of reactions. Thanks. I was not able to look into it and discuss here today. I will start looking at it in the morning and hope to have a next version, including reactions and opinions later tomorrow.
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| Tuesday, August 24, 2010 - 01:58 am Thank you so much Tom, for consulting with the players on this. There are a lot of good ideas in there. Further to my email (which was sent before I read your proposal), this is my response to your consultation: 1. I totally agree. Perhaps in times of war workers can be conscripted from corporations - the game automatically places them in the army as needed and if the corporations suffer temporarily, so be it. After all, that's what happens in the real world. Maybe, for added realism, housewives could be drafted to work in corps in place of the workers joining the army? A standard demographic for bought population would also help, but would be best working in tandem with the first part. 2. Another day won't make a huge difference, but will help. 3. Absolutely! This is a great idea - one of the best on the table. 4. Same response as for #2 5. Yes to extended blackout periods. Maybe more than 8 hours? Players who don't have to work or sleep have a distinct advantage at the moment. 6. Removing spending space limitations altogether (if a country has been declared upon) would be my preferred option, but would only work if implemented together with #1.1. This would reduce the advantage gained from a long-term build-up by the offender prior to a surprise attack. 7. Agreed. The war game would disappear if the types of players who could fight each other were limited. 8. The number of allowed war declarations would have to be limited to one or two to make a real difference. If it is to be 3 or 4, I'm not sure how much it would help. 9. Broadly, I'm not in favour of a time limit. This might kill the wargame altogether, especially if the other changes mean it takes longer to get through someone's defence, which I strongly advocate. 10. Automatic defence building feature will only be useful for those who don't know what they are doing, although if their implementation is under the control of the player I don't see too much of a problem. But it's better to encourage players to learn themselves, than to do it for them. 11. Neither for or against. 12. Absolutely crucial. The defence / offense balance is way out and needs a serious rework. One which makes it very difficult for offense to get through a strong defence (full garrisons and a reasonable number of airwings) and which gives the defender time to buy-in and replace defensive units over a longer period of war. 13. This would be good to implement if one of the worlds was geared towards economic play, but would spoil the wargame on most worlds, removing the incentive to make war. 14. More fed air defence is a good idea. This would also strengthen defence and balance it better against offense. 15. 16. a. I suggest this is not based on large armies and a high war index, but rather a high offensive index. Peaceful players often have large defensive armies and need a high defense index to gain levels but do not pose a threat to other players I'm not sure gearing it around feds is the way to go. People can gang up without being part of the same fed and that would be a way around it. Better to apply the rule country by country. b. I don't have a problem with this but don't really think it's part of the same debate. 17. a. I don't agree. Doesn't that ruin the whole idea of sneak attacks? b. See my answer to #a c. Maybe a high offensive index, but generally I am not in favour. d. Why? 18. I fear that this would be too open to abuse. Hugs and respect Jo
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| Tuesday, August 24, 2010 - 04:12 am Thanks to W3C for listening to players. 1. No. Deactivation of weapons due to worker shortages works fine and is realistic. 2. Six months to start any war against a player-owned country. 3. Yes. 4. Ahem. Six months to start any war against a player-owned country. 5. Yes. 6. No. This will lead to phony war declarations just to expand defensive spending limits. 7. Yes, but it would be more relevant and transparent if the formula is based on the money value of the military assets of the two prospective enemies. For one party to be able to declare war against another party, the difference between the money value of the military assets of the two empires should not be more than 50%. 8. Yes, not more than three countries should declare war on the same country. 9. There is already a 6-month time limit if there is no shooting. Wasn't there a 60-month total time limit? 10. Yes. 11. Yes. The market for pre-fabricated military units should be for everyone. 12. No. Stronger defensive weapons shouldn't make countries unconquerable or extremely hard to conquer. Offensive weapons don't have an advantage. 13. Limited war already exists: sneak attacks. Increase the limit on sneak attacks from 2 per month to 6 per month, per country. Sneak attacks should allow use of any weapons, except for strategic. That's how it used to be. This would be a huge improvement to war since most players don't have time for the massive clicking of regular war. 14. No. Shared fed defenses already have the potential for being very strong. 15. No. Definitely no. Players should not prohibit other players from playing, or even from declaring war. That would be very unrealistic anyway. It would be better if the Security Council has more power to impose strong boycotts. Boycotts are currently trivial. Another interesting option is for the Security Council to be able to elect a general for a fixed period of time, and grant him money to fund the Security Council's Peace-Keeping Force or Army. This would encourage more players to try harder to qualify for the Security Council, and would encourage more diplomacy. 16. a. No war protection for any empire that has military assets with a money value of over 200 trillion. The game has no balance when players with huge military assets suddenly can take a country out of of war protection and attack much weaker countries. b. A war protection option for everyone, except as described in 16(a) above. 17. a. No. It's more realistic and interesting if the name of the attacker is not known. Real world military strikes are often covert operations. b. Yes, definitely. As I explained in (13) above, sneak attacks should be expanded. c. Yes, great idea. Empires that have military assets with a money value of over 200 trillion should not be allowed sneak attacks. That provides more balance to the war game. d. Yes, definitely. Again, I refer to my answer to (13) above. 18. Yes, there should be an option for ending a war with a financial settlement. The "loser" can pay the "winner" a certain amount of gold coins or game cash. Two final points: First, there are only about a dozen hardcore war players in the entire game. 99% of players don't have the time for massive clicking war. Sneak attacks, or other forms of limited war, provide an option for those of us who don't have 10 to 30 hours per week for regular war against players. Sometimes I use sneak attacks to kill all the state corps of enemies. But regular war needs to be less time-consuming anyway. Why does W3C make a big effort programming a war engine so time-consuming that 99% of players cannot use it, except to conquer c3s? Second, if you want the war game to be competitive and to include more players, then reduce the war monopoly. 1% of players shouldn't be allowed to monopolize the war game. Each player should be limited to declaring war against only one player-controlled country per world, per real month. This limit would create more balance in several ways: a) It reduces the domination of warlords. b) It reduces the stalking wars fought repeatedly against some players. c) It gives more players an opportunity to conquer inactive countries, which incidentally provides great military training.
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| Tuesday, August 24, 2010 - 07:43 am 1. Deactivation is realistic. Even in a war, it takes time to train conscripts. Housewives cannot realistically just become soldiers or officers. Even a soldier takes substancial time to train. Perhaps, allow for training of soldiers (taking 3 months), at the COST of some of your active soldiers during that time while those soldiers are taken away from regular duty to train, and at a substancial loss of quality for the military units they are in. Perhaps 10% fighting quality after 3 months of training, 30% after 6 months, 50% after 9, and 75% after a year. It is simply not realistic to get 100% quality soldiers after a few months, nor to have any soldiers of any value right away. The deactivated weapons are the reserves, that is realistic. There is simply no way for a country to train quality soldiers from scratch in a month. Perhaps, allow an option to require military service for the whole population for 2 years, the deal is if you check yes, you unit quality drops, but you can draft soldiers in less time? 2. I agree. 3. I agree, only for the federation that was attacked first. 4. agree. 5. Agree, provided that the "black out time" does not apply to the attacker. If we apply the blackout time to the attacker, I don't support this. 6. agree mostly. I am slightly concerned about this being abused. 7. do not think this would help, and do not agree. 8. This would not make much of a difference. 9. Don't fully agree. However, starting a war, should cause some level of unrest resulting in riots, etc over time...these could make it impractical to continue. Exception, of course, is that if a country attacks another country, other countries should be allowed to declare on the original attacker, without harm. So, 1- if you attack, you'll overtime face increasing hardsihp, and 2- you can be attacked by anyone without them facing hardship. 10. Good for me. However, advanced players will figure out this system and build weapons to target new players who follow that automatic system. That said, still a good idea. 11. Great idea! This should take 2 forms; 1st allow a country to buy mercenary soldiers from another countrie's army (units, soldiers, etc), and 2- allow new corporations to build ready-made units and sell them to others. The new corporations would produce the units and sell them to the player. When the player buys them, he'll pay a price to the corporation in sim $$ and will also pay GCs to the GM for population at the same time. The unit quality would be fighting level. It is very importaint that these units be large, expensive units and that they be units that can be held by Enterprises. So, an enterprise may invest 5 trillion for a single unit, which it would old in its stock without requiring anyone to man it and without costing a storage cost. When war comes to someone, the enterprise can sell the unit, and the player would give GC to the enterprise for the unit and a gc to the gm for the population for it. The units would need to be highly expensive and highly profitable. It would be put up for sale in the direct trade market for gold coins. 12. Agree, and add a firing bonus for units defending the capital, cities, bases, airports, and forts, and to a lesser degree, towns and counties. 13. Only for 1 world. I think this is a good option, but only to 1 world. That can be a safer world. All worlds should not have the same for this, as some people would object. 14. Agree; and I would suggest not allowing players to drain helicoptors so easily from the defense. 15. The Security Council should be allowed to provide defensive assistance in time of war by its vote. However, preventing war completely is not idea. I suggest the better idea is to provide the Security Council with the ability to use some of its money to buy defensive units (the new type build by corporations), and to place those to assist the defense of people attacked unjustly as determined by the security council. 16. a. Like people in WGC?.... b. I don't agree, as this would only be avoided by players transfering assests off-wold. However, I think that before declaring a new war, the requirement SHOULD be that the countries you attack from must all have a FI over 120. The real issue is people who attack with unsustanably large armies. 17. a. Good, but sneak attacks should also be a cause for war, so the person sneak attacked should be allowed to attack back 100% without penalty. b. Not several new weapons, but I support adding conventional missils (long range) c. Like WGC? WGC had twice the on-paper resources as The Mob, but lost handly. On-paper limitations may only assist the stronger side as on-paper stats are not always realistic. d. same thoughts as above, good but must be just cause for other side to attack full war. 18. Should allow for a negotiated peace tready where one side offers the other something and they can agree on a payment in GC from one side to the other in exchange for peace for a period of time. Likewise, allow gifts in exchange for one side providing protection to the other. If the paying side is attacked, the other player will automatically declair war on the attacker, and cannot attack the payer.
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| Tuesday, August 24, 2010 - 07:46 am 6. You can't defend your way to victory. It should apply to offensive weapoms also.
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| Tuesday, August 24, 2010 - 07:52 am I wanted to add that I agree with Jo that the war engine is HEAVILY in favor of the attacking player. The attacking player can build up for the attack, can set the time of the war to when the attacker is free and the defender is not, and can destory or limit the ability of the defender to continue to fight. All the defender can do is counter attack or sit and wait while he is destroyed. The defender needs to have a substancial advantage in order to even the odds. In reality, the defender usually has a huge advantage knowing the terain, digging in, etc. In addition, much less supply problems, and can react more quickly. IN addition, the defender can place stationary defenses such as SAMS, bunkers, etc. Sim Country should seek to make it more realistic by providing defensive bonuses, allowing more units to assist in defense, strengthening defensive weapons, more quickly re-build, etc. Additionally, their needs to be a 5th type of unit (offense, defense, nuclear, Navy, and counter-attack. Counter-attack units cannot attack by themselves, but if a country is attacked, they will activation and be able to attack back the country that initated the attack. These can be purchased and will automatically fight back against the attacker based on pre-set targets (such as target bases, or target airports, or supply units), and will opperate by themselves on a pre-set objective. The advantage of this is that it will allow for less expensive units for counter-attack only. These units would be limited to only fighting whatever countries declare on a country. They would be purchsed during the war by the defender, and the computer would manage them and use them to fight the attacker. They would only last during the war, and only attack the country that attacks their country. They would cost CG and be bought on the direct trade market.
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| Tuesday, August 24, 2010 - 09:21 am This whole argument about the offensive player having the advantage is really silly. Defensive weapons are a big deal and given that typically one must attack from a c3 or built up c3 (unless you just *happen* to have a war slave right next to your enemy) the defense has even more of an advantage. Winning a war against a built opponent is *EXTREMELY* difficult, how many players in this game can say they've brought down a country with more than a 800 def index? Compare that with how many players have a country with a def index that high...having taken down many countries with high def indexes I can tell you that it takes far more time, effort, planning, weapons and ammo than you think. It isn't cheap and it is VERY time consuming, especially against an active defense. Also, I've lost a country or two with that high of a def index and can tell you from that perspective that it requires ALOT of work. If you increase the strength of the defense you are decreasing the likelihood of war (which is already quite slim) and furthering the overall issue that wars take way too much time. The reason that there is a *perceived* advantage for the offense is that people don't know how to fight wars, not because there is an inherent advantage in offensive weapons. It is far more difficult than those of you who are making that claim know, Jo already made all the point that was necessary, it took 4 people 4 hours to bring down *ONE* of her heavily defended slaves. If you want to make wars even worse make the defense even stronger than it already is, it will push the war game to be even more minimal and will mean that people who wage wars will have zero sympathy at all, if you're going to make it next to impossible to take a country just because people feel it should be then it will require volume to profit in the least from war, it's a recipe to have people wiped out instead of just injured by war. The problem is not that offense is stronger than defense, the problem is that people don't know how to fight, that is what needs to be overcome and it isn't going to happen by making more wars go away. It will go away by having people actually participate in the war game. The more exclusive the war game becomes the more power you put into the hands of those that actually know how to play it. Ultimately, the goal should be to make the war game accessible, not impossible, unless the overall goal is the elimination of the war game which I don't think is the case.
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| Tuesday, August 24, 2010 - 12:04 pm jeese i've watched the suggestions, every one has say right? "If we want to allow players to make other choices than the two extremes of war or no war, we need to give them some more chance to survive a war. If they have a hope of surviving a war, they may start to think of the possibility to start one. " Tom thankfully W3C has the right goal. They don't want to disable the war game, THANK GOD jeese, being able to set up undefeatbled defenses, creating unlimited air support, with unlimited fed support, with a limit of attacking countries, against an unlimited of fed'd counter decs, and a limited time frame for wars, with a maxed out black period... is not going to happen, atleast right away. w3c is going to add thing, (the way i understand it) until defenders can defend themselves ok, read wb post above, then read it again the problem is not the way the war game work, atm, it is the player base that is out of whack i agree their are players that don't want war, allow them to opt out of war at a price. a player that opts out of war, can not join the security council, (i mean, if you don't want to put anything at risk, why should you influence my country?) AND they should not be eligible for the same monthly award...
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| Tuesday, August 24, 2010 - 12:14 pm "Jo already made all the point that was necessary, it took 4 people 4 hours to bring down *ONE* of her heavily defended slaves. If you want to make wars even worse make the defense even stronger than it already is, it will push the war game to be even more minimal and will mean that people who wage wars will have zero sympathy at all," -wb does any one get this?
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| Tuesday, August 24, 2010 - 02:34 pm "You're all arguing to improve and expand a war engine that 90% of the people playing the game do not enjoy or do not have time for." - BC (off the cuff) Does anybody get this? Nothing above is going to fix this. I'm assuming W3C's motivation is to keep people from quitting by securing their assets. Aggressive players aren't going to have much of an argument. For everything you say, "add WP", "reduce attackers", etc... why not just "stop attacking people in the first place"? It doesn't matter what they do here, the war game doesn't change. The reason people lose wars is because of inexperience and time. The reason people are inexperienced is because the wargame has very little attraction to casual gamers. As the aggressor, you will ALWAYS have the advantage when you are fighting non-aggressive people. So who cares if it took 4 hours? What if it had taken 10 hours? or 20 hours? She still would have lost, because she didn't have a chance to win.
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| Tuesday, August 24, 2010 - 06:22 pm That is fundamentally untrue BC, as someone who has fought multiple wars you are aware how easy it is to defend your own country in contrast with trying to bring down someone else's. I mean seriously, Jojo once had me chasing his c3 with barely any defense at all for like 3 hours. People need to learn *how* to defend their country and it isn't just by throwing in big garrisons and air defense. I will grant you that it does take some time, but nowhere near the amount of time it takes to bring down a country. Looking at people's countries, empires and CEO's, especially someone like Jo who sits at level 13 or 14, you can't tell me they aren't already spending quite a bit of time on the game. So perhaps the issue is that the attacker gets to choose *when* they spend the time as opposed to *if* they spend the time. Why don't we work on that and also work on getting the war engine simplified somewhat as well as getting more information out there about *how* to defend a country. Perhaps the defending country should be allowed to choose the time for war to begin in the 48 hour window? Like, BC decs me at 4 am my time, so under the current 48 hour proposal, the war starts at 4 am, I don't want to wake up to fight and then I have school/work at 8 am-5 pm, so BC has been shooting at me for 13 hrs by the time I can do anything. So, why not make it so that if BC decs me at 4 am, I can choose to start the war at 6 pm the following day which would be 38 hrs after the dec, within the 48 hour window and at a time when I know I can fight back. Or, allow a federation member to log in to my account (or even just to a single country?) to defend my countries while I am unavailable without retribution or 'multi' complaining, this would encourage people to build large federations and train people so that they could have someone around the clock to defend their countries when they weren't available.
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| Tuesday, August 24, 2010 - 07:58 pm i agree that not every one has the time or will to fight battles... but swinging the war game so much in the opposite direction, that it is impossible to gain victory, isn't fair either... i'm cool with the idea of allowing some one to opt out of war entirely, at a price. They lose monthly awards, and can no longer be on the security council!!! why not? a player doesn't want to be at risk? fine! they should not influence any ones else's game!!! why should a player offer no accountability, but be able to have power over other players, and reap all the rewards??? their has to be a trade off. its not fair to allow a player to create an "undefeatable empire," but still allow them the ability to make policy and resolutions that effect other players. as it is, no one is untouchable. being able to build a strong fed, and group of friends to defend you again aggressors, is part of the game. and given enough time, the political power can swing against you. But to write rules into the game that does not allow any way for your power base to be challenged... you shouldn't be able to have a power base that effects other players...
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| Tuesday, August 24, 2010 - 10:30 pm This is an updated list of suggestions with some added items. I also included the reactions so far. Just to repeat the main issues here: If we want to allow players to make other choices than the two extremes of war or no war, we need to give them some more chance to survive a war. If they have a hope of surviving a war, they may start to think of the possibility to start one. If a small player could inflict serious pain on a large attacker, the system might shift to a more balanced status. This list is incomplete and more will be added. On the other hand, we will not implement every idea here. 1. Deactivation of weapons because of shortages of soldiers and officers can disrupt logical steps during the war and should be delayed, reduced or eliminated by a possibility to get the people you need immediately and by expanding the use of other groups of the population. It could be solved by an addition to the purchase of population, allowing the purchase of specific groups or as Jo suggested, have a standard population distribution, independent of the situation in the country. It seems that everybody would like to have a solution for the deactivation issue. 2. More time when war starts and/or the option for the defender to choose for one or two extra days or the option to start the war right now. This too is seen as very positive. 3. Allowing fed mates to join and have the war start for everybody at the same time. Same. Everyone is for it. 4. Increase the time between war declaration and the start of the war to 48 hours on all the worlds. Same. 5. Increase the blackout time to 8 hours from 4. Also positive. Some want 8 hours, some more, 6 is also mentioned. 8 seems to be most popular. 6. Removing or expanding the spending limits for defensive weapons for the defender once war is declared. Unlimited spending goes too far. Increasing the limit is OK but what to do about abuse? (declaring a fake war to have your spending limits increased). 7. Imbalance between the warring parties cannot be eliminated or severe limitations will have to be imposed, limiting the war game to an un-enjoyable level. Comparing war indexes of both parties and limiting the difference to a factor of 3 or 5 or 10 can help a little. Some form of limitation will be OK. It was suggested to base it on the value of (offensive) military assets. 8. Reducing the number of countries that can declare on one country. Mostly positive but based on players, not countries. 9. Set a time limit on all wars. It has to stop within a set period. Again, based on players but reactions are mixed. 10. Introducing automatic defense building features at a chosen level will make it easier for the defenders. Largely positive. Maybe not entirely understood. We meant the automatic building of military units, based on players choice and taking care of all the orders of al weapons and ammo, materials etc. One click and some game months later, 10 units end up created and ready to go. 11. Starting a market for military units and making it possible to purchase complete units, ready to go, at a certain fighting level. This can be limited to the defender, after war or a conflict is declared. Largely positive. Some want it for both parties. Defender needs it more as the attacker is ready for war. 12. Increasing the defensive power of individual weapons to reduce the advantage of the offensive weapons. 50/50. We add our vote for it as we look at the war sheet numbers . 13. A limited war option that can cause damage to the other party but without the risk of losing the country. This option may no be interesting for the large aggressive feds but might encourage smaller players to declare on larger ones and reduce their power. Also 50/50 and a suggestion to divert it to more powerful sneak attacks. 14. Allowing more fed allies to participate in the defense. This will allow three or four air wings to defend against an air attack with much higher losses to the attacker. Close to 100% for. No wonder, it was part of the game before and it helps in the defense of everyone. 15. The possibility for players to complain about a specific player and prevent him from going to war for a set period may help. It is more time consuming to build. 16. Unclear yet what we need to do with WP: a. No WP at all for fed members with large armies and a high war index? (plus measures to prevent countries from quickly going in and out of feds to dock this rule). 50/50. Suggested to apply it to feds with a 200T+ in assets or on the offensive power of these feds. b. Limited WP for all, but before declaring war, 50% of the assets must reside in countries that are not protected. Mostly supported. Suggested to allow attacks if the FI>120. (not really related to WP). 17. Change the rules for sneak attacks: a. The name of the attacker should be known. One vote to keep it secret. b. Sneak attacks could be made more powerful and include more weapons. Some support, some want sneak attacks to go away. c. Forbid sneak attacks by very large powers-feds with a high defense index total! No specific response. d. Upgrade sneak attacks to the level of a limited war. Some support. Not a popular item. 18. Set conditions for anyone who wants to stop the war NOW. Assets transfer? Other conditions? Supported by everyone but details are crucial. This is the secondtime we brought up this idea and we need some specific examples how this will be done before we can expect more response. 19 Limit war declarations based on the ratio of number of wars per player. You can declare war if the number of wars you participated in is not more than double the number of wars for your opponent. Small numbers can be excluded and wars against C3s will always remain possible. 20 Make it possible to transfer military units. This is similar to the market idea which is easier to implement. 21 Limit the numbers of c3s that can be attacked per real month. (This is a different issue) 22 More power to the SC, to stop nuke PLAYERS instead of countries. Also allow the SC to, stop wars. This too is not directly related although the SC could help in trying to level the field. 23 Limit the max number of wars per player per world per month on a real player. (1 war is suggested). 24 Add counter attack units that will attack selected targets if the country is attacked. We could add what a player called response units. The units could be of a special type, or stealth units. They could be secret, never showing how many units are available and what the attack plans are. Attack plans will be set by the player. These attacks could be high quality and effective in destroying essential targets. The attacks will be triggered if the country is attacked and could be launched automatically in addition to the current automatic defense. An attacker will not be able to assume that the war is just a matter of some clicking. The units could be traded on the market, and as a player suggested here, they could be produced by a corporation (or created in the same way other units are created). The idea here is that although we have automatic defense, it is insufficient and experienced war lords cut easily through these defenses. Many have stated that a good defense include also offensive forces. So if we support the defense with these units, it will be able to bite and the attack will not be a picnic. We fully agree that the automatic defense as we have implemented was incomplete and insufficient and such an addition could improve it.
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| Tuesday, August 24, 2010 - 11:20 pm Some of this stuff is good Tom but some that are highlighted at almost 100% are not at all by my count. My read shows about 50/50 at allowing more def wings to respond, it's already a 900 drone/100 fp loss against 800 ints and 165 bomber loss against 800 ints, with upgraded def wings those numbers become even more staggering, with upgraded AND 3 or 4 wings responding...It'll wipe out an entire attack wing bombers or drones and all fp. Most people don't understand this and as it is already people can STACK air def by clustering up, if you want to make clusters completely impenetrable then go that direction, but that is just further death to the war game in my opinion. I again would like to add my vote to BC's option for WP, it makes the MOST sense. No more secured, either entire empire is in WP or it's out, you pay for each country in WP. War protection was designed to protect people's assets when they were away or unable to fight or to protect econ only players, this option does that and takes care of all the issues.
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| Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 12:12 am "Just to repeat the main issues here: If we want to allow players to make other choices than the two extremes of war or no war, we need to give them some more chance to survive a war. If they have a hope of surviving a war, they may start to think of the possibility to start one. " -tom ok, so here is extreme idea that go in the opposite direction... toward no-war. 23 Limit the max number of wars per player per world per month on a real player. (1 war is suggested). thats rather extreme, i not only say no, but hell no!! at least with a 1 number. i mean allowing 1 war, per player, basically is a paltry number to allow you to say their is still a war game, i mean if you said 0, then you couldn't say you had a war game... and i'm sure that the person(s) that suggested it, would actually prefer 0... that is just ridiculous. and the dumbest idea on the block. am i being clear? if you want to limit the total PvP wars per RL, month, a 10ish number would be more appropriate. but even then, i'll dislike it. 21 Limit the numbers of c3s that can be attacked per real month. (This is a different issue) i realize that this is off the topic of balancing the war game, but it was put up here for discussion, right? yes, i attack allot of C3s, why is this a problem? is it an unfair advantage? seriously? i'm stunned that it would even be an issue. The fact that it was suggested a balancing point to make things "fair," highlights the root of the problem. if you don't know how to quickly, and efficiently take a c3... then you lack the basic knowledge to play the war game, at all. the c3 raiding process teaches, and demonstrates the basic concept of attacking. with out that knowledge and ability, you are at an automatic disadvantage in war... that honestly, requires extreme rule changes to counter... like limiting the total number of players a person can dec on at 1? i mean, if you can't take a c3, it requires a huge handicap in your favor in war... it is a basic skill, that should be learned by everyone, just like managing corps, education priorities, country indexes... c3 raiding is a basic skill, such as reading in school... to even out the playing field for players that wont take the time to learn it??? what? are you serious? again, give players the ability to opt out of war entirely, and remove themselves from eligibility for monthly awards, and become ineligible to join the SC. back to c3 raiding. when W3C disabled c3 raiding from what it had been, an endless gold mine... they stated that c3 raiding is and would remain profitable, just not as dramatic... currently the player base over all thinks it isn't profitable, which simply is not true. raiding c3s is the best way a NEW player can build up enough assets to stand up to larger players. its one of the few, non-visa avenues left for quick wealth, and rapid growth. taking that out, or limiting it in anyway, only entrenches larger, older players, so that they can maintain dominance based on over whelming size, with out allowing new players the ability to increase to their size in less than a rl year, or using their credit card. further, as it is, often times the only way an ally can get into range to assist an ally, is via c3s by limiting that number, you are limiting players ability to assist each other, both offensively AND defensively. and even more, when a player is attacked, the ability to gain c3s is an invaluable tool to both passive and active defense. it is a very bad idea. Tom, care needs to be made here, not to remove every advantage a player can gain, for the sake of making things fair for those that don't put out effort. I can agree, that bumping the defense a little to give players a little more confidence to explore the war side of the game, is a worthy idea. But in your statement, we want to avoid extremes. some of this stuff, really is extreme... in the opposite direction. don't cut off your nose to spite your face... to much war can be bitter, yes, but to little, can be stale...
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| Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 12:15 am I agree with wb on both accounts. As I said, adding more fed defenses would definitely help the smart defender, but that's not an endorsement. That would almost ruin the war game. If anything, make bombers less effective as FP shields. And the WP option is by far the most fair. WP was meant for vacation mode. If you're on vacation you should put your entire empire in WP. If you want to expand that to protect econ players, it should be the same. All or none. This would require getting rid of Secured Mains, because of the potential abuse. Still, even if you leave SM, it would be a better option than others. At least the C3 warrior would have to sacrifice having an empire. Then again, that's not a big sacrifice for some of us. Removing SM would free up some of those inactive assets out there that could give people more targets to practice on, or raid for their assets. Just saying... W3C could help by making WP more affordable, especially for newer players. Maybe make automatic renewal options so people don't forget about it.
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| Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 12:17 am I agree with Whiteboy that war protection should be by empire, not country. A person with 10 countries should have to decide to put all in war protection or none (except for secure main). I also want to again share that I think we should have different limitation for different worlds. Some worlds should be very much designed to help defender and econ players, other worlds should have fewer protections.
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| Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 12:25 am Also tom, try adding my idea to the list... a person can opt out of war entirely, but they give up eligibility to join the SC, and get no, or reduced monthly awards. it would give people an incentive to play war, and allow those that have no interest in it, to avoid it completely... by taking them off the SC, would be fair, if a person doesn't want to risk anything, then they should not be able to influence other peoples countries with sc resolutions. the risk factor is the reasoning behind the WP changes, so if a person doesn't want to risk something, they should have less to gain.
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| Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 12:51 am Most of that is sounding really good Tom Thankyou! A couple of minor points: 1. Another player made the point that some people won't want to pay to add population to a country they might lose. Could there be a setting or automatic feature that favours moving workers into the army from corporations in times of war if weapons are in danger of being deactivated? 16a. Do you mean defence index rather than 'war index' (given that all peaceful countries have a high war index)? If so, could this be offensive index, rather than defence index? Thus limiting offensive players rather than those who have high defensive indexes for the sake of achieving higher levels. 17c. The same - a high defensive / defence index does not mean you have the capability to sneak attack. It's offense that counts here, although the index should be much lower than for #7 - say, over 5 or 10. 19. Would this be based on wars fought on that particular planet, or wars fought across all planets? If it is the first, there is nothing to stop a vastly experienced war player moving to a new planet, setting up quickly and then attacking players who have little experience of war, as the attacking player will have fought no wars on that particular planet. 22. The SC vote to limit nuke attacks does not have any effect at the moment, in my experience. Great if it will in future and great if it applies to players rather than individual countries! Thanks again Tom. We appreciate how much work this will be for W3C and it's awesome that you are willing to consult with us to this extent. Hugs and respect Jo
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| Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 12:53 am As far as the air wing issue, yea, you already lose allot of bombers going against air wings. i suspect with the new 160 fighting levels, the enhancements to defensive weapons being over all stronger, are already on the board. before any one start calling for defensive weapons to be strengthened, lets see what the 160 effect will do. so as far as multipul fed wings responding, and improved stats for defensive weapons, so numbers 12 and 14? we should wait call that one after we've seen the effect of recent changes... 8. Reducing the number of countries that can declare on one country. Mostly positive but based on players, not countries. ok, i can support it limiting it on number of players attacking. but the question this would leave, would it be fair to limit say 2 players can attack another player, but 7 fed mates can counter dec? and if you think thats fair, can those 2 players fed mates counter the counter decs? or is this a limit only to the aggressive side? thats doesn't seem fair. and will infact create a very hostile enviroment, while players try to provoke other players into attacking...
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| Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 12:56 am Yes very good ideas here and some not so. It will be great when the dust settles and things get done. But I am sure we will end up back at the reason we are here now. Everyone cannot be pleased. Anything you change can still be exploited. Be careful what you wish for.
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| Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 12:56 am Orbiter ... as opposed to players forcing other players into war, losing their empires and leaving the game? That's what I call a hostile environment. No one is FORCED to attack. Maybe if there is a bit more risk to the attacker, people will think twice ... Unfair? I seem to recall the mob don't accept that as an 'excuse'.
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| Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 01:19 am You aren't forced into war Jo, you chose to play the full game which you were fully aware involved risks, you underestimated those risks because you felt your federation was big enough to guarantee security but it was not because ALL of you felt that way and you chose to recruit no players who really knew or were willing to participate in the war game. In addition, no one lost their empires that didn't choose to do so, we handed back $1000's of dollars worth of countries. Every person in this thread is saying that people who do not wish to participate in the war game should not have to (except for on FB, it is the WAR world). The result of all of this should be pretty straightforward for those who do not wish to play the war game, put your empires into WP. Everyone is acting like those who choose to play the full game should have to pay some sort of consequence for doing so, it is the opposite, the overall design of the game includes war (in a big way when you factor in the % of corporations that SPECIFICALLY produce weapons and ammo), everyone who chooses to play only one part of the game (while at the same time taking advantage of the war side of the game by building corps that build weapons/ammo/supplies for weapons and ammo corps) should have a consequence to pay, war protection. What you are asking for is war protection without having to pay for it by excessively stacking defensive weapons to ensure that no attack could ever bring down one of your countries, that's BS, buy war protection if that's the kind of protection you want. Asking for that would be like me asking that no war protection exists so that I can take whatever I want, it's unreasonable. I'm joining Orbiter on this limiting war declarations stuff, talk about making it impossible to adjust the balance of power while killing off the war game completely. Assume a fed like WGC was more aggressive or chose to be controlling (some would argue they already are), they get 37 decs per month, Jo Blow new guy gets 1, good luck with that...especially to be so crazy as to suggest a limit of 1 per month, that's insane. And limiting c3's one can take? What for? Take all the c3's you want, if you want to use them to fight then all of your empire should be out of wp, done. No reason to limit that. This conversation is starting to move WAY over on the side of econ *ONLY* players (I'm not a war player, I play both sides, the full game). There needs to be some amount of responsibility taken by those who choose to play the full game to learn how to defend their countries and for those who choose to play econ only, there should be a consequence for not participating in the full game. Let's not forget here, W3C needs to make some money too, if players can lobby to have the defenses become impenetrable then they get WP without paying for it and the people who play the war game (who I'd bed $100 spend the most money on the game as many do not take the time to work on their econ) will leave. Bad decision for the game, bad decision for the business. EDIT: Also, I agree with Chrysostom, why not create some differences in the worlds other than the speed and on 1 you get no secured main. Design some worlds to be more aggressive, some to be less aggressive...we have all these worlds with no real difference. Perhaps with some variations in the worlds *nearly* everyone can get something they want or find a world that fits them best.
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| Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 01:21 am aww Jo. thank you. influence is more than just shooting isn't it? shooting is a form of influence. but not the only one. if you want to have power, you should be prepared to defend it, regardless of how you are challenged. you can't seriously want to force people to oppose you only were you are strong? its more subtle, and veiled, but you do the very thing that you are speaking out against, you just don't use sim guns to do it. and frankly i applaud you skill, and ability. and i understand your need to limit your weakness. however, if you could avoid war altogether, would you give up any eligibility to be on the WG SC?
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| Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 01:27 am darn wb all that hot air... and you have the nerve to call me Windy.... WELL *Fartz*
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| Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 01:29 am Spin Whiteboy, spin. I'm not going to get drawn into separating out the lies, half-truths and truths in what you say. Almost all the players, except the mob, favour most of Tom's proposals. Just because your federation posts more, and your posts are longer, doesn't mean you are in the majority. Please, let's restrict ourselves to objectively discussing the subject in hand. That is what this thread is for.
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| Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 01:40 am "If we want to allow players to make other choices than the two extremes of war or no war, we need to give them some more chance to survive a war. If they have a hope of surviving a war, they may start to think of the possibility to start one. " -tom "Please, let's restrict ourselves to objectively discussing the subject in hand. That is what this thread is for." -jo "7. Agreed. The war game would DISAPPEAR if the types of players who could fight each other were limited. " -jo "9. Broadly, I'm not in favour of a time limit. This might KILL the wargame altogether, especially if the other changes mean it takes longer to get through someone's defence, which I strongly advocate. " -jo you are openly endorsing dismantling the war game, which is not the purpose of this thread... personally, i don't think the solution to the broken war game is not in W3C hands, but i except what they say, even though i disagree with it. I arguing specific points, that i think, if applied, would disable the war game. although on many of those, i'm willing to except limitations, just not to a degree that it makes war unpractical.
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| Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 01:56 am Give me a break Jo, there isn't a single thing that can be considered a lie, I stated my OPINIONS. Quit with your victim stuff in the thread and I'll quit responding to it. Tell me to spin and call me a liar THEN say we should restrict ourselves to objectivity, you're a joke.
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| Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 01:57 am Jokes on You WB, did you want to buy your fedmates country back?
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| Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 02:18 am Not one single thing, Whiteboy? "you chose to recruit no players who really knew or were willing to participate in the war game" Beo, Jaffle, Aaron Doolavey, Iain, Man of Peace, IndustMech. Back to the debate ...
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| Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 02:18 am Yeah, now you start idiot, did you want to give a completely non-combative player who has nothing to do with our fed his country back that you stole?
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| Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 02:22 am Yes Jo, I meant what I said, if those players were capable at war they either didn't show it or chose not to participate. Beo did, he was dispatched in a 1 v 1 vs. EO in short order, Jaffle chose not to for the most part, the tactics he did use didn't have much effect, Aaron, didn't see much from him, Iain fired some shots and rolled over, MOP is inactive and Industmech didn't do anything. Either way, once again, my OPINION, not a lie. If you're going to continue to respond then I will as well, if not we can get back to the debate.
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| Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 02:27 am Whiteboy, one of the things the GMs are proposing to address is that some of us have lives. Work, families ... you know the sort of stuff. Or maybe you don't. Not all of us can spend 24/7 clicking. All the WGC members I named "know and are willing to participate in the war game". They just aren't necessarily able to fit in with the mob's agenda. "You chose ..." is a statement of fact. But let's not get into semantics. Now PLEASE can we get back to the debate.
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| Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 02:32 am "For the record, you attacked an Econ player. I sent messages to the countries that attacked that I was an econ player" -IM but now he's a military recruit? Which is it? "lies, half-truths and truths in what you say. " -jo hey jo, what happened to the WGC non-forum-flaming policy? or does that apply to every one BUT you? tell every one to stay on the subject, i'm cool with that. you should to. and the subject is how to make the war game more playable, for every one. given the premise that offense is stronger than defence... not how to make war unpractical. thats not what we are trying to do here.
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| Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 02:36 am and for the ability to not fight at all, would you give up your seat on the SC? if so, then we can push that... so players that don't want to war at all, don't have to, and can't effect other players games via SC resolutions... if you don't want to allow others to effect your game via war, why should you effect others via SC? so we could create an opt out feature, and not have to create extreme handicaps. that make the war game unplayable for those that want to.
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| Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 02:43 am No we can't get back to the debate, not if you're going to continue with your BS pot shots. We ALL have lives, I work, go to school and have a family thank you very much. No one can spend 24/7 clicking nor does the game require you to, it requires you to strategize. You had 32 hrs to prepare for that war, you chose the strategy of first thinking it was a joke, second thinking you were going to guilt me and then third panicking. You then made the mistake of spending way too much time trying to disable our offensive capabilities instead of going on OFFENSE, you guys were actively defending for all of the hours that the war was lost, don't BS about not having time. That war was decided in the first 4 hours of the war, you were shooting, Iain was shooting, Jaffle was shooting, Keithvann was shooting, Aaron was then or slightly later. You had plenty of time to shoot, you just did it ineffectively. If we had drug the war out for a week I could completely agree with you, but it was 4 hours of shooting 1 night and a few shots fired the next morning. You talk about things like we are the only fed that has set up on another which is definitely not the case, I've been set up on many times myself, it does suck to lose. I lost so I chose to learn how not to, you lost so you're choosing to lobby to make it so the war game dies by creating impenetrable defenses. Guess what though, if the war game doesn't actually die from changes like that (pretty sure it will), you know who will continue to be the best players at war and the players that will continue to be able to bring your countries down? Those who learn how to play the war game, since you've chosen to lobby instead of learn, you'll still be at risk. As far as semantics, my opinion is that 'you chose' to recruit players that were either incapable or unwilling to participate in the war game.
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| Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 02:54 am "since you've chosen to lobby instead of learn, you'll still be at risk. " -wb so true, so sadly true. not meant as a threat, but the soft targets that haven't learned HOW to fight, and rely on game changes for better defense, will remain soft targets... unless you put in such extreme handi-caps, the war game becomes unpractical. and according to toms statement, thats not what they are going for
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| Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 03:06 am LOL, Orbiter is in the MOB but not a member of the MOB, now ricky harris isn't a member of the mob, while having a country in a mob fed.... LMAO you can't believe anything this kid says.
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| Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 03:25 am A few thoughts: 1. I think that while many of the ideas are good, it needs to be considered what the effect would be of implementing them ALL at the same time. For example, individually, I support adding additional fed air defense, and individually tweaking defense to make it stronger. However, I'm not sure it is a great idea to do BOTH at the same time. 2. I think it would be totally stupid to take away the advantages of strong players and strong feds against weak ones. What is the point of being strong? In fact, the problem is the opposit. The problem is that it is way to easy for someone to take a few C3s and start a war with no risk of their own. Frankly, the main problem is that someone can own 5 main countries that are wealthy, put them in war protection, take 5 worthless C3s, spend a few trillion to build up their armies, and then attack someone with no risk. The most importaint solutions are: 1- take away the surprise advantage by giving more time before war starts by default, but allow the defending PLAYER to start the attack early at any time of his choosing. 2- Require the attacking player have a finance index over 120. It is importaint to not allow attackers to have an unsustainably large military. This is critical to stoping players from building up a military they cannot support for a short time just to attack. This feature will also limit military size to what a country can actually support. 3. Tweak SOME of the defensive weapons, not all. I think the BEST way to tweak the defensive weapons is to allow a player to make some capital intensive investments in fortifying cities, capitals, etc. For example, add a 3 levels of fortification to be allowed for cities, capital, bases, airports, and forts. Each level would provide a bonus to troops at that location. These would have a large one-time cost, population requirements, and a small ongoing cost. For example, each level could cost 1 trillion per location one-time cost, and 1 million per location monthly cost. This would allow large countries to invest in defense, but would make it more difficult for a player to use a C3 to fight. This fortification would make the existing units harder to kill, fight better, and would make these locations harder to attack or destory. 4. Adjust federations so that they are realistic. While it is reasonable for a player to have countries in different local federations, there needs to be an identification for global federations. A player should not be allowed to have his countries in multiple global federations. 5. Now that I understand automatic defense building, I agree with it. Defense should not take as much time and effort. It would be ideal if we could set some macros/rules/battle plans up that would function automatically in war. For example, set-up a rule that if attacked the country will automatically use offensive reasourses in the area to attack fleets near the country with x number of land to sea missiles until x, or to have unit x target any special forces units in the country, or whatever. This way their is less effort needed for active defense while a player is less active. As an overall note, there NEEDS to be a BALANCE. We don't want to make attacking impossible, as what would the point of having the feature be? We also do WANT the strong to have an advantage over the weak...if not, why build up any military? Why join an alliance if there is no military value of one? We need to not go overboard in any one direction. A key aspect is also that different worlds need different rules. Set-up one world as a completely safe world, another world as mostly safe, another that is average, another that is slightly dangrious, and then fearless blue that is the most dangerious. As the price to being in the safe world, remove all military weapons, only allow leveling based on peace mode, do not allow space travel with that world, and as the price of safety, impose a tax of $1,000 per citizen on each country. So if a country has a population of 50 million, the country would pay 50 billion in tax...the peace tax. Of course, in the safe world, you can't raid inactives, nor can you attack and take C3s...you have to buy them for 30 gc....these issues would balance the advantage of no war, as many players actually go to war often, but don't consider it war. Jo, for example, has attacked and taken C3s, has raided inactive players, and has engaged in war when diplomacy didn't work. These actions should not be allowed in the Safe World, we should not allow war against C3, but not players. That is essentially like saying that you would want a world where you can attack other countries, but you can't be attacked yourself.
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| Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 04:15 am The bottom line is this: This is a war game which states if you have more than one country, be prepared to defend it. The biggest problem is most players have not learned how to play the war game. How much more defense can a country put up than what is in place now? If the attacking player has a very strong offense, it's only a matter of time before that player takes that country, especially if the defender is fighting defensively rather than offensively. Thats the problem now, most players dont know how to fight. They panic when they are decd, and they think how are they going to protect their country from falling in the hands of the attacking player, rather than preparing an offensive attack. Your defense will do just fine while you are attacking the aggressor, providing your garrisons and air d is set up properly. Making defensive weapons stronger won't alleviate the problem. Providing the attacker has ample weapons, it will only take that a player a little longer to take that country. If WGC tries to make the war game balanced, it will deter anyone from fighting, causing alot of players to quit. I still disagree with c3 warfare. The attacker needs to put something on the line. I can fight all day long with nothing at risk,by fighting from c3s, but part of the fun of fighting is to try take a country while not losing any of yours. A way to eliminate c3 warfare is for wgc to increasethe distance fp/bombers/ military transport can travel. Maybe add re-fuellers to allow this. This would eliminate c3 tactics. Also, there was talk of landing forces? Is this in the works? This could be a factor for taking a country. Part of the WI needs to be destroyed by way of ground forces that were part of a landing force and this can be a target for the defender, which would delay the ground assault, by the attacker needing re-inforcements to replaced the destroyed landing forces? Doing away with feds won't fix the problem either. Players will still have allies that will participate in wars. 1 war a month per player is absurd. I would like to see something in place where 2 players can choose a time where they can both fight at the same time. Also I'd like to see blackouts increased to at least 8 hours. Thats it for now, more to follow. P.S.- wendy if you have nothing to add to this topic, please refrain from spamming.
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| Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 04:44 am "A way to eliminate c3 warfare is for wgc to increasethe distance fp/bombers/ military transport can travel. Maybe add re-fuellers to allow this. This would eliminate c3 tactics." Not sure if I get this. It would allow people to fight from greater distances, but it wouldn't stop a player from C3 fighting to reduce risk. And I don't see a reason to reduce numbers of wars per world. What good does that do? And why limit the number of attackers? One of the many parts of the game is making allies for attacking and defending. Personally, I think a lot if not most of suggestions are being made that won't affect an aggressive fighter at all. They will adapt and find other ways to do the same thing. I'm saying the same thing over and over, because I believe its true. As a bandaid, use my WP suggestion. Let this give W3C time to make a more interesting and (severly) less time intensive wargame. Right now you have, basically, half a game because most people play SimCountry for the econ only, "nation building" part. You've done a good job with it. It (economies) are something you can learn, plan, micromanage if you want, compete over, and then walk away from after 15 minutes of login each day. The wargame is not like that and will never draw casual gamers. I realize that you, Tom, and W3C are looking for a quick fix. I'm telling you, if you want a successful fix, we should REALLY be talking about what changes we can make to the system. And hopefully that's my last sermon on this subject.
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| Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 04:53 am "24 Add counter attack units that will attack selected targets if the country is attacked. We could add what a player called response units. The units could be of a special type, or stealth units. They could be secret, never showing how many units are available and what the attack plans are. Attack plans will be set by the player. These attacks could be high quality and effective in destroying essential targets. The attacks will be triggered if the country is attacked and could be launched automatically in addition to the current automatic defense. An attacker will not be able to assume that the war is just a matter of some clicking. The units could be traded on the market, and as a player suggested here, they could be produced by a corporation (or created in the same way other units are created)." _____________________________ automatic response units programmed by the gamer to attack specific targets in the attacking country would be absolutely outstanding. Does anyone see the inherent strength of this? The strategic minded could really enjoy this. adds new depth to war, without the need to click many, many, many, times. This would open up a whole new element of war planning and execution. this could help the defender as well as the attacker, again, all with less clicking currently needed to wade trough and find those pesky little high value targets. ummmmmmmm.... This is a home run in my book.
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| Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 05:47 am borderc , I would like to implement re-fuellers to give fp/bombers/military transport a greater to distance, after c3 warfare is eliminated. we can still take c3s for workers and such, but we shouldn't be able to attack another country using a c3, that has a off. index or def. index below a certain percentage.
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| Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 05:53 am Keto, stop spamming about c3 wars... please refrain from drowning out better ideas for use of w3c resources. That subject was already addressed.
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| Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 05:58 am Keto, I would like too see the already promised features including the battle royal world. That special world made of 'fair fights' and 'good wars'. The one and only place I can see this feud between you ladies and myself ending, or at least producing a means to an end, before any of these changes are implemented. And Keto, if you don't have anything new to add to the conversation other than c3 wars, pleasse refrain from spamming and drowning out those who are participating in the thread.
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| Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 06:02 am Who is spamming? You, so...shut up. He's adding ideas to the conversation. You, however, none at all.
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| Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 06:55 am Geez, windbag, can't you come up with your own lines without having to use mine?
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| Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 08:20 am Stop Spamming.
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| Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 08:41 am YO Everyone. Say hi back if you see this, It will give you good luck for being nice to someone
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| Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 09:23 am I will look in all details later today and come with a next version and possible new suggestions made in the last hours. We also want to start moving and take some decisions so that the discussion can focus on issues that are controversial, adding more details and trying to concluded at some point. we are not in a hurry to close the discussion. In the mean time: We will implement #4 (The time before war starts to 48 hours). and #5 - blackout periods, from 4 to 8 hours. We will implement #8 but details on exactly how many can declare at the same time will follow. Point 12, the defensive power of weapons: we will look into the individual weapons and will make some small changes to start with. The weapons document will be updated to show all correct values. It has many incorrect values and must be updated independently of current tuning. #21 is not relevant to this discussion and will be removed. (Attacks on C3 countries). #18 - conditions to opt out of a war and #24 - Automatic defense, enhanced by automatic attack units these two issues will be rewritten with some examples.
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| Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 02:17 pm Awesome And hi Barren...
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| Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 04:14 pm It is clear that we will not satisfy everyone and it is also clear that whatever we do, will not really solve all these problems. The players are very different and have very different objectives, time they want to spend etc. We will not make huge changes quickly, but rather tune step by step. We are focused on the objectives as stated before. We are determined to make the war game a popular option for many more players than before but at the same time, allow others to have a great time without it. Making the war game a more popular option is only possible as mentioned many times, if they have a fighting chance and can make even very large attackers think twice. Make defense, supported by offensive power much easier to use so everybody understands. Some argue that this is the problem, so we should solve it by giving them easy tools to defend. I cannot see why anyone can have any objections to a situation where an attacker is suffering some serious damage when attacking. There is no need for a war process where you build a huge force and then hit a butterfly with a nuke. No risk, no damage, no pain, and move to the next one. Why not have C3s capable of hitting back hard? We hear people diverting the discussion to the WP issue, arguing that it should be largely removed. The fact that most players look for shelter under WP shows that they do not think war is fair and do not believe they can survive a war. Some are just uninterested in wars. Removing the WP is not going to help them and is not a solution. Removing WP for the feds that are capable of defending themselves is a good idea. They play the war game then why hide behind WP? Changes we make should be such that removing your WP will become a smaller risk. This can be achieved by some balancing of the war game. We cannot force small player to remove their WP. We should make it attractive to do so. However, large military force should prevail against a smaller one. We cannot diminish the difference just make sure that even small players can hit hard. There is talk about war incentive and we agree, but not to the extent of denying peaceful players awards. Simcountry has the option to play peaceful or to play the war game. Both are viable options. Having more diversification between the worlds is indeed necessary but we can hardly make major changes to the current worlds where players are relying on current parameters. Back to the updated list: We will NOT implement all the items and we will NOT implement many of them at the same time. We will also NOT wait very long before starting the implementation of some. 1. It seems that everybody would like to have a solution for the deactivation issue. We have many options to try to reduce deactivation and reduce the man power problem for the army. We will come up with possible solutions. 2. More time when war starts and/or the option for the defender to choose for one or two extra days or the option to start the war right now. It will be implemented quickly. Similar to item 4. 3. Allowing fed mates to join and have the war start for everybody at the same time. Same. Everyone is for it. This will be the two phased start of war with a wait period for anyone to talk or join. 4. Increase the time between war declaration and the start of the war to 48 hours on all the worlds. Allow the defender to start whenever he wants to and have the surprise effect. Same. 5. Increase the blackout time to 8 hours from 4. Also positive. Will be implemented quickly. 6. Expanding the spending limits for defensive weapons for the defender once war is declared. Example: set the spending limit to 5 times the standard value. There is support for an increase. 7. Imbalance between the warring parties cannot be eliminated or severe limitations will have to be imposed. Comparing the offensive war indexes of both parties and limiting the difference to a factor of 3 or 5 or 10 can help a little. This version seems to be supported. 8. Reducing the number of countries and players that can declare on one country. Mostly positive reactions but based on players, not countries. We think of 3 players with max three countries. (Example: 1 player with 3 countries or 3 players with 1 country each). Response declarations should be limited too. 9. Set a time limit on all wars. It has to stop within a set period. Again, based on players but reactions are mixed. 10. Introducing automatic defense building features at a chosen level will make it easier for the defenders. Example: Automatic building of military units, based on players choice and taking care of all the orders of al weapons and ammo, materials etc. One click and some game months later, 10 units end up created and ready to go. Largely positive. 11. Starting a market for military units and making it possible to purchase complete units, ready to go, at a certain fighting level. This can be limited to the defender, after war or a conflict is declared. Some want it for both parties. Defender needs it more as the attacker is ready for war. Largely positive. 12. Increasing the defensive power of individual weapons to reduce the advantage of the offensive weapons. 50/50. We add our vote for it. 13. A limited war option that can cause damage to the other party but without the risk of losing the country. This option may not be interesting for the large aggressive feds but might encourage smaller players to declare on larger ones and reduce their power. Also 50/50 and a suggestion to divert it to more powerful sneak attacks. 14. Allowing more fed allies to participate in the defense. This will allow three or four air wings to defend against an air attack with much higher losses to the attacker. We don't see how anybody could object. This will increase the defensive power of countries and make the war more risky to the attacker. An one who objects to it really wants a free ride and trivial wars. 15. The possibility for players to complain about a specific player and prevent him from going to war for a set period may help. It is more time consuming to build. 16. WP: a. No WP at all for fed members with large armies and a high offensive war index. (plus measures to prevent countries from going in and out of feds to dock this rule). Also said: Fed WP should be on or off for all the members at once. 50/50. Seems fair to force large feds to face the music. b. Limited WP for all, but before declaring war, 50% of the assets must reside in countries that are not protected. Mostly supported. 17. Change the rules for sneak attacks: a. The name of the attacker should be known. We drop this option. b. Sneak attacks could be made more powerful and include more weapons. Some support, some want sneak attacks to go away. We will keep sneak attacks. More types of weapons higher frequency are an option. c. Forbid sneak attacks by very large powers-feds with a high offensive index total! No interest and too many limitations. We drop this one. d. Upgrade sneak attacks to the level of a limited war. Some support. Not a popular item. 18. Set conditions for anyone who wants to stop the war NOW. Assets transfer? Other conditions? Supported by everyone but details are crucial. Options: a. The payout when you request to stop the war should be preset and will depend on the finances of the country or population. b. Warring parties should agree but the defender must have the option to decide to stop. c. After it happened, the country will be immune for war for a set period. 19 Limit war declarations based on the ratio of number of wars per player. You can declare war if the number of wars you participated in is not more than double the number of wars for your opponent. Small numbers can be excluded and wars against C3s will always remain possible. This should be based on the user profile and all his wars across all the worlds. 20 Make it possible to transfer military units. This is similar to the market idea which is easier to implement. - we not be implemented. A market will be implemented. 21 Limit the numbers of c3s that can be attacked per real month. (This is a different issue) - remove. 22 More power to the SC, to stop nuke PLAYERS instead of countries. Also allow the SC to, stop wars. This too is not directly related although the SC could help in trying to level the field. Remove. 23 Limit the max number of wars per player per world per month on a real player. Extreme. Not the idea but 1 is of course too limiting. How many? 10? Not popular. 24 Add counter attack units that will attack selected targets if the country is attacked. We could add what a player called response units. The units could be of a special type, or stealth units. They could be secret, never showing how many units are available and what the attack plans are. Attack plans will be set by the player. These attacks could be high quality and effective in destroying essential targets. The attacks will be triggered if the country is attacked and could be launched automatically in addition to the current automatic defense. It could be started manually during a war. Strategy to be set by the player, for all the automatic response units or for each group separately. An attacker will not be able to assume that the war is just a matter of some clicking. The units could be traded on the market, and as a player suggested here, they could be produced by a corporation (or created in the same way other units are created). The idea here is that although we have automatic defense, it is insufficient and experienced war lords cut easily through these defenses. Many have stated that a good defense include offensive forces. If we add this, the automatic defenses will include offensive forces. So if we support the defense with these units, it will be able to bite and the attack will not be a picnic. We fully agree that the automatic defense as we have implemented it, was incomplete and insufficient and such an addition could improve it. So far, I see some support for this. 25 Require attackers to have a minimum FI level. Suggested FI >120. Could be set lower. 26 Introduce a system of fortifying cities, bases, airports and fortifications to make them harder to destroy or damage. 27 Diversify the worlds and created different levels of risk. Put a price on safety.
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| Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 05:09 pm I'm in favor of increasing the strength of defense relative to offense, compared to the current situation. The current wisdom is that you can't win a war playing defense alone; a necessary part of real defense is to go on the offensive. That's not a rule of the game, it's just what we've figured out as good tactics, based on the rules as they currently stand. There's a good percentage of players who would like to participate in the war game to the extent that they set up defenses which they expect can in theory withstand attack from any offense, if only they are strong enough. I don't know if there should be such thing as an impregnable country, but a fully garrisoned country should be able to last well more than a few hours, even against four players. When a strong fighting fed is running on all cylinders no country or cluster is safe. That's why people keep #1 war-ranked countries in WP. In just a few hours they can be torn apart. I've rarely seen a country withstand determined attack by a competent foe in the past three years, and those that have were anything but passively defended. When we say the offensive weapons are currently stronger than the defensive weapons we mean this: give me a lowly c3, and you take a fully garrisoned, 80M pop country with 100s of int and heli wings. We both have large amounts of game cash and coins so we can both utilize the maximum military space each month. If I can use offensive weapons, and you can only use defensive weapons, I'll defeat you with my lowly c3...it's just a matter of time, because of the relative costs and relative damage. You can argue details but the idea is true. More realistically I will have a few countries and some larger ones, and the time is not long. Those of us who enjoy the offensive part of the game have to realize that we are the freaks, not the norm. We're needed as part of the ecosystem, but must remain a small part numerically or everything goes out of balance. Warlords should be encouraging a greater challenge! Make it easier to passively defend a country, and fewer people will stay in WP. They'll be playing "the full game" which for most people does not include waging unprovoked war for fun and profit. Again, those who do are necessary to the game, else there's little need for the defensive end at all, but there needs to be a better balance. Edit: I posted this before reading Tom's preceding message. I'm arguing specifically in favor of #12, and in general in favor of ways that will increase the relative strength of passive defense.
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| Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 05:32 pm Tom I have had the luxury of testing some variables that I assume have already changed. While the numbers and results seem a bit steep, a good air defense seems to really become a much more viable option than WP. I personally like the results this will make it very difficult to attack a player for the thrill of attacking and curb hyper aggression that is a problem in the game. I tested some fighter wings vs a single air defense Wing. My combos were as follow 1000 bombers 900 fp. Avg Unit Q 130 100 - 160 ish bomber loss to 180 - 240ish interceptor loss 1000 attack drones 900 fighter planes 900+ attack drone loss to 250ish Interceptor loss smaller combos of fp were used but same shield ratio. The results were slightly less favorable as one would imagine. The above top two examples were an avg 130 attack wing, vs a single 100 Q defensive air wing. While I think the numbers are staggeringly high, they are very reasonable. This will benefit many different aspects of the game. I am surprised to say the least. Hyper Aggression. This will be diminished significantly. The amount of firepower and losses to an attacker going after a decent defense will certainly make an attacker justify his motives for attacking with greater care. It will no longer be a walk in the park even for large numbers of attackers to attack smaller less capable opponents. This adds realism, and gives meaning to having an adequate defense that costs money to maintain, but it will actually be formidable. WP. War protection should be dramatically reduced as a result. A decent defense will make an attacker seriously contemplate attacking for silly reasons, or just to prove a point. Defense now is more attractive than WP in my eyes. If this current setup holds through the discussion. Federation and political Structure. If these single unit and defender ratios hold, having a federated air defense to rely on will make attacking a very serious undertaking. Attackers will do so knowing they will be throwing a lot of assets to the wind. This will promote and encourage a shift back to federations for mutual defense and falling away from mutual aggression. Wars and conflicts will now more than ever favor conflict resolution through means of diplomacy to avoid catastrophic waste of precious military assets and resources. I could not have hoped for a better result coming from any change. Most have been frowned upon in the past for different reasons. This by far has to be one of the most mutually beneficial changes that support the growth of the game not solitary dominance by any single group of organized or determined players. I can only hope that the remaining changes are equally attractive and beneficial. Thank You Tom, and W#C for a fair and objective look at this and all the complaints/concerns posted here. I'm out!
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| Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 05:52 pm "8. Reducing the number of countries and players that can declare on one country. Mostly positive reactions but based on players, not countries. We think of 3 players with max three countries. (Example: 1 player with 3 countries or 3 players with 1 country each). Response declarations should be limited too. " -tom ok, i strongly disagree with the number of players/countries being 3. its already been proven, that with out ANY changes, stronger defense can take 4 or more... by allowing more decs against a country, 10, it allows aggressor to bring enough guns to defeat beefed up defense. meaning, that defenders would need fed support. This would encourage the fed system. however, manually setting a limit on attackers, in such a way that makes it possible for unbreakable defense, is not the goal... Tom, if unbreakable defense is the goal... then the 3 number is an excellent choice.
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| Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 05:55 pm ....
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| Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 05:59 pm Now, no one will have WP YAAAY!
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| Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 06:01 pm I can agree with most except: 14. Allowing more fed allies to participate in the defense. This will allow three or four air wings to defend against an air attack with much higher losses to the attacker. We don't see how anybody could object. This will increase the defensive power of countries and make the war more risky to the attacker. An one who objects to it really wants a free ride and trivial wars. I've been largely on the econ players/defensive players side in this argument and I'm completely against this. I have to go back to work, but I'll hopefully have time to state my argument later.
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| Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 06:18 pm 14. Allowing more fed allies to participate in the defense. This will allow three or four air wings to defend against an air attack with much higher losses to the attacker. We don't see how anybody could object. This will increase the defensive power of countries and make the war more risky to the attacker. An one who objects to it really wants a free ride and trivial wars. "I've been largely on the econ players/defensive players side in this argument and I'm completely against this. I have to go back to work, but I'll hopefully have time to state my argument later." bc bc, i'm with you on that. and am looking forward to your comment.
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| Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 07:36 pm We're making a lot of progress! 6. If defensive spending is increased for the defender in a war, that creates an incentive for fake war. I don't see a way to prevent fake wars. Some players will bribe someone into declaring a fake war, or will use a multi account. It's more fair not to increase defensive spending for the defender. 10. Automatic building of military units is excellent! Please do the same with supply units. Alternatively, military units and supply units could be sold as products of corps. 12. This is not a good idea. Offensive weapons don't have an advantage. If increasing the power of defensive weapons results in more clicking to destroy targets, that will discourage war. I thought the goal was to encourage more war. 18. The "nominal value" page of each country calculates the nominal value in terms of gold coins. That could serve as the basis for calculating a payment to end the war. I suggest that the "loser" pay 25% of its nominal value to the "winner." The automation could use its official exchange rate for gold coins to calculate that 25% as game cash. Then the automation can transfer that amount of game cash from the "loser" to the "winner," when the "loser" decides to pay for an end to the war. If the "loser" doesn't have enough game cash in the country, then that country ends up in debt. 19. The ratio of number of wars per player should be based only on wars against player-controlled countries. Some players conquer a lot of c3s but that doesn't provide much military experience. If a ratio is used, then the number of applicable wars of each player should be public. That way we can plot who we can attack. 20. This is an excellent idea. Transferring military units as military aid could be similar to transferring disaster relief. This would provide more international participation in wars, and hopefully would promote more player interaction. 23. The warlords want more players to have war. A big incentive would be to let more players conquer inactive countries, which provides crucial military training. But right now, the warlords mostly monopolize the conquest of asset-rich inactives. Limiting the max number of player versus player wars per player, per world, per real month allows a lot more players to conquer inactives. Do we want more players to have real military training and war experience, or not? It takes 10 to 30 hours to fight a typical war against a substantially defended country. Since there are 5 worlds, this proposed limit would give each player a potential maximum of 50 to 150 hours per real month of player versus player war. How can that not be enough war? If the warlords continue monopolizing the conquest of asset-rich inactives, how exactly are more players going to learn war? And what incentive do they have to learn war? 24. This is an excellent idea. The counter attack units would provide a lot more automation, and less clicking. 25. An FI of 120 is nothing. C3s typically have an FI of 150. An FI of least 150 makes more sense. But I don't know why this change is an improvement. 26. This implies even more clicking to destroy targets. Plus clicking to fortify those targets. This is a not a good idea. 27. Yes, the worlds should be differentiated. There are warlords trying to turn all the worlds into a Fearless Blue on steroids. That's not good. It would be good to have a world with no war, and a world with no war protection or secure mode. Some suggestions to reduce war clicking: 1. Counter-attack units, military units, and supply units should all be products of corps. There would be less clicking to buy those units than to manually create them. 2. In the old war engine, we could navigate navies by entering specific coordinates. It would reduce clicking if we have the option of navigating military units by entering the coordinates of their specific target. Each target already has coordinates. But now we often have to navigate military units multiple times to reach their targets. 3. It would reduce clicking if the range of offensive, land-based military units is increased. That way we wouldn't need to navigate military units so much to shoot targets. Right now the range is 35 km, which is 2 or 3 hexagons on the country map. I suggest that military units have a range 3 times that much. I know it sounds unrealistic for heavy artillery to hit a target 100 kilometers away. But these are sophisticated, futuristic weapons, right? 4. Years ago I was brutually ridiculed when I suggested reducing the number of targets. Back then, countries could have 1,200+ targets. Thanks for the reductions! Here I go again. Please reduce the number of targets again, so a big war doesn't require thousands of clicks. Right now a big, defended country typically has 300-500 targets. I suggest a maximum limit of 50 forts, and that bases not be included in the War Index. As far I Know, countries can have up to 25 cities, 35 towns, and 35 counties. I suggest reducing that to a maximum of 20 of each by increasing the population of each.
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| Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 08:13 pm "There is talk about war incentive and we agree, but not to the extent of denying peaceful players awards. Simcountry has the option to play peaceful or to play the war game. Both are viable options. " -Tom You made a valid point, please hear out my counter point. theirs allot of ground i'm willing to give. but the more that you try to make players safe, with out creating any incentive to be a war player, or disadvantage to being peace only... the less desirable the war game will become. as it is, many players don't play the war game, based on the fact that they are intimidated by it. but by going to extremes of equalizing it, will remove any incentive to start a war... where as i feel that any rule can be used both ways... their is an obvious extreme, that makes the game unplayable. for example, if a player's interest in sc is the war game, why limit them to 1 dec against a player a month? that is absurd. which leads me to my point about limiting peaceful players. I had to directly ask for my idea, of limiting peaceful players to be addressed. otherwise it was just totally ignored. and the reaction to it, is that it was unrealistic. and you had a valid point, the game should be rewarding regardless of your stance on war. however, the absurd suggestion of limiting the number times a player can dec on other players, was included. its obvious that their is a strong influence toward your opinion. Where absurd, ridiculous, suggestions are thrown in for consideration. Others are dismissed out of hand. although, Tom, i do beleive that you have been over all fair. and i'd like to be clear in saying, i'm grateful for your efforts to create a fair discussion, i did not mean that as an attack, but to make a point... and my point is, influence. in real life, right and wrong, often depends more on who is popular, or powerful, than actual right and wrong. this is not a complaint, but rather a statement of fact, and certainly creates many fun situations... it adds conflict to the game, beyond the simple quest for assets. with conflict... their of course should be risks and rewards. and their are more ways to fight for what you want, than simply shooting in fact, their are many popular players that have more influence, and power, than the strongest warlords. it is an interesting, and fun aspect of the game. i do not wish to change that. the point that i'm making. is that by removing the risk of the war game, these powerful diplomats, maintain their power base, at a much reduced risk. over all moving the power base more peaceful. thats wrong with that? one might ask honestly, the player base is already extremely on the peace side. any player that chooses to fight wars, is considered a "thief and thug," so their is a general attitude that war is morally WRONG. discouraging players from warring... by swinging the power base in favor of peaceful players, you are only putting the power of peer pressure, into the hands of people who shun war, and warlike players. meaning, the military power base, will continue to be lop sided, until all the war players leave. so the thought of making defense stronger, in a way to remove the intimidation factor... ok. but by making "unbreakable" countries possible, and by adding extreme changes (1 war per month.) you are creating an environment, where peaceful players are able to wield their influence, with out being able to be challenged. meaning, the incentive of war disappears... as you could never have the same influence as a peaceful player, and can never hope to overcome them in war. so an incentive FOR war needs to be added, with all the increases in defense... or a limit to peaceful players... making being are risk, have value. Rules should not be added in a way, that makes countries unbreakable. if a player truly doesn't want war, they should be able to opt out. giving up the risk of war, they should give up the ability to be on SC. If they don't want to risk anything, they should not be able to have an in game way to influence any one. and thats my point, if a player doesn't want to put their in game assets at risk, they should not be able to effect my in game assets, via boycotts, or sc resolutions.
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| Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 01:34 am oohhh ohhhh ohhh, Thats real nice, 1 person said hi, Everone cares more about war then to say hi to me 
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| Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 02:59 am war war war Hi, BR! war war
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| Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 03:24 am THANK YOU There is now a toall on this fourm. U have to say hi to me before makeing your long lecture.
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| Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 03:55 am tom, i'd like to apologize for my above message, i believe that in parts of it i went to far, and would like to offer you an apology. i had mis-read your statement, were you said you were NOT going to implement all the features. as i that read you would. even still, that is no justification to state that you allow one player to influence you more than another. and i went to far to suggest that you do. after reflecting on many of the things you've said in this, you truly are giving all players an equal say. i do believe that much the rest of what i said was valid. and felt the need to state it based on the fact, that many of the changes, are to an extreme, and combined with other changes, makes things extremely difficult in the opposite way. and allot was leaning toward making the war game so difficult, that it would be unpractical. if players really don't want to fight, i mean if they just don't have the will for it. no amount of game changes will change that. and if you keep trying to add things to make the war game fair for them... it will eventually make it extremely difficult for those that want to play it. allowing a away out of the war game entirely for players, would resolve the mismatch in will to fight, so that extreme measures are not necessary. i'd like to state before it actually happens, that 3 decs per country is to small. the 25 that we have now is out outrageous. but considering how large fed wars can get... i'd say 5 should be the minimum, but rather going from 25 to 3 or 5, why not try 10 for a while. see how that goes, and if it needs more, to then reduce it.
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| Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 03:59 am The reason I'm opposed to the increased fed defenses is that it very much unbalances the defense over the offense. I think it's a simple change that has big consequences. Perhaps if were implemented in a way such that you can share as many extra player's air defenses as the number of attackers, to even things out, would be balanced, but otherwise I think the other ideas that have been presented (automated defenses, changes in weapon powers, etc.) are going to get you closer to balancing the game. Enhancing air defenses is just an asset protection move and highly discourages the offensive game. Maybe I'm wrong. You guys have better ways of testing these things. But maybe we should roll out smaller measures initially so that we don't find out we went to far. Otherwise, if you could think of a way to make it unabusable, the # of fed defenses equalling the numbers of attackers may solve a few problems at once. Also wanted to add that I think it's important to see that W3C is interested in what we have to say. We've all been critical in the past, and sometimes we've had good reason and other times we just didn't have patience. I hope that once we resolve the war issue we can have a continued discussion with you Tom, and Jozi and whoever else about what can be next. I think you'll find a lot of great ideas here. We all want the same thing. We want a fun AND successful SimCountry.
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| Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 04:18 am Some thoughts: 1. ok 2. strongly agree 3. strongly agree 4. strongly agree 5. ok 6. I agree, but I am concerned about fake wars to increase spending limit. 7. I don't agree that we should compare war indexes and set some limit. If we do, countries will just maintain a low war index to prevent being attacked. This really hurts new players as experienced players can easily defeat a new player without a weapons advantage. 8. I'm not a fan of this either. It really incentivises players to own 3 war slaves, as opposed to 9 countries with each 1/3 the offensive force. I think it may be reasonable for an initial attack; however, for a counter-attack, there shouldn't be a limitation. if someone attacks one of your countries, you should be able to use all your countries to fight back if you want. 9. I do not support a direct time frame, but would like for the game to start with riots, etc after a period of time for the attacker. So after a couple weeks, it would be risking revolution to continue the war. 10. Agree 11. Agree. Additionally, it would be nice if it was highly profitable usually, but that countries could also sell the units at a low cost, or even gift the units. This way, an friend could help out without direct military action. 12. Mostly agree. At the same time, we can't make C3s so hard to take that new players can't expand. 13. On some worlds, I agree. I don't agree about putting it everywhere. 14. Agree, provided that the culmulative effect does not make war impossible. 15. I don't support preventing him from going to war; rather, the SC providing defense units to support someone attacked by the agressor. peacekeeping units. 16. WP: a. Secure mains should be allowed to remain secure on most worlds. b. I don't think it should be based on assets; many players have more than 50% of assets in secure main. I think all countries should be in WP or not at the same time, except for secure main on some worlds. 17. Change the rules for sneak attacks: a. I don't care b. I support additional weapons to increase the range, if we do keep the feature. c. agree with not forbidding them for some players and allowing them for others. d. Hard to see difference between a limited war and a war. 18. a. Agree to basing it on population. Perhaps 1 gold coin per million people. b. I'm also fine with the parties agreeing on the amount. c. I am not sure about total immunity. A federation could abuse this and just have members constantly attack eachother and surrender. Then everyone is always immune. If it is done right, it would be free. I think any imunity should cost GCs paid to the GM, to ensure this will not be abused. 19 Will wars against c3s count? I'm fine either way, provided that this statistics are only from this time forward, and don't go back and penalize people for wars before the feature was implemented. 20 ok 21 ok with removal 22 I don't support SC stopping wars, rather I support them being able to use SC funds to buy peacekeeping troups. 23 I'm not sure this would help. I don't support. 24 Strongly agree with idea 25 Strongly agree. 26 Strongly agree 27 Strongly agree I actually think that if we have some worlds where war is easier, that it would make the other worlds safer. Many players, I think, would be very happy to play a war-game on a couple worlds, and use a couple safe worlds to build up econ to fun their war empires elsewhere. If we make some worlds closer to constant war, others can be closer to constant peace.
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| Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 04:26 am 24, is really cool 25, no 26, yes 27, i like the concept of a "peaceful world," but i have reservations. WG is currently suppose to be the "peaceful world," and the forum is usually dead as a doorknob. although i think the reason for that would not exist in a truly peaceful world. so i like the idea, with reservations.
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| Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 04:36 am You know what I think would go a VERY long way to creating balance in the war game? Not changing defensive weapons to be stronger than they already are, but instead, creating levels of c3's. As follows: Lvl 1 would be as they are now Lvl 2 c3's would have say 15-20 mil pop, 20k ints, 10k helis, and 100 mib/100 aab/100 dmb garrisons plus some tanks/arti/av's Lvl 3 would have say 20-25 mil pop and have 30k ints, 15k helis, and 200 mib/200 aab/200 dmb garrisons plus some tanks/arti/av's Lvl 4 would have 25-30 mil pop, 40k ints, 20k helis and 400/400/400 garrisons Lvl 5 would have 30-40 mil pop, 60k ints, 30k helis and max garrisons Make it so that there is enough in cash/assets in some of these such that someone can make a slight profit if taken efficiently and federate some of them so that full int/heli response is there. Also, provide rewards for the first one taken, just like the current leveling system, so that the first time someone takes a level 1 they get say, 25 gc's, then for level 2 and above they get 50 gc's for each level. This will serve many purposes: 1. It will get players interested in the war game 2. It will give players experience attacking 3. That experience will be gained without players risking loss of their own country 4. It will allow people to see directly what weapons destroy what, which defensive weapons respond to what 5. It will show people just how difficult it is to take large and well defended countries even if they aren't being actively defended, thus dismissing the idea of how much stronger offensive weapons are than defensive 6. It will allow a place for weapons testing for those who enjoy the war game and who are interested in coming up with new strategies. 7. It will give war players something to shoot at instead of another player (not nearly as entertaining but testing weapons would keep war players far more busy than they are now) If this got done I highly doubt people would still be saying that def weapons aren't strong enough, if so, change them then. The truth is that very few people understand just how strong def weapons are and what it takes to bring down a large well defended country. If that was still the thought, then change it. However, making def weapons stronger now and having more wings respond will have the effect of killing the war game or at least killing it amongst the players that should be playing it and instead it will focus all of the attention of war players and asset raiders on those who are new who do not understand how to build the new stronger defense, newer players will be consistently wiped out as war players seek out assets because attacking players with experience will be a complete loss. In addition you will allow the war players to basically make their countries impenetrable (more than the non-war players because they'll understand best how to do so), so that they can operate aggressively with basically no risk, it will be like war protection for war players in which they can still fight all they want. Then, if you add even further protection for new players, war will just die altogether. When wars become completely unprofitable, that is when the war game dies. If econ became completely unprofitable, the same thing would happen, just like you don't see a whole bunch of players building cattle corps, they aren't profitable so no one will use them. As far as war protection, saying that large feds get none so that they can be pot-shotted is ridiculous, that will also have the opposite effect that you are intending. Instead of feds being built which leads to more people being trained (after all, the fed system is pretty much the main training line in the game), players will isolate themselves even further in war protection. It will also take away the ability for feds to be balanced with both econ and war/econ players, like all of the econ players in a fed like WGC would have to leave their assets completely at risk, that seems ridiculous. War protection should be player based, anyone should be able to have it if they want, it should just be fixed so it can't be abused. ONCE AGAIN, BC's idea is best, all in or all out, no secured mains, no half wp, half not. If you are going to choose to play the war game, you should assume the risk of doing so. This option is the most straightforward way of avoiding manipulation by players and the way that makes the most sense for what war protection was originally designed for and what it has become for, protection when unable to fight/away and protection for econ players. I don't see what the argument could be against this except for those who do wish to manipulate the current system. EDIT: Also, I'd like to add my thanks for listening, it is great whether I agree with what is coming out of it or not, it is much better than the alternative.
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| Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 04:36 am "7. I don't agree that we should compare war indexes and set some limit. If we do, countries will just maintain a low war index to prevent being attacked. This really hurts new players as experienced players can easily defeat a new player without a weapons advantage. " -chrys i agree with you. it will allow bottom feeders to just build huge defenses, then dec, then transfer in weapons... but if you must put a limit based on the defensive index. flip the offense to be double the value of defense. then put the relative index limit... that way, players with huge offenses, the ones with the aggressive strength, have the higher war ranks...
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| Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 04:50 am 24...... I think the automatic response units or counter attack units would create enough balance to perhaps not have to tweak the strength of the responding passive/fed defense. Depending, of course, on what the GM's have in mind. If I have stealth fighters hidden that will automatically hit your FP and ignore your drones or bombers, then who needs a stronger passive int responsive? All FP should not be lost when that attacking unit is hit by an auto response stealth unit, but he should lose some FP. Quality should be a factor here as well. The stealth units idea could be rich with depth. stealth fighters, bombers etc... All with different attack priorities. responding only when a certain attack occurs which happens to be programed into the stealth unit to stimulate a very specific response. you GM's have a real gem here if you flesh this idea out. players could customize weapon platforms and units and produce them for corporations. This could be a rather large customizable market. They could tailor them to respond to certain scenarios, and sell them at a premium. I could even envision ground units with auto attack capabilities. MRMB, land based sea batts, the beat goes on... If these units respond and auto attack in the way I think they should, then perhaps we could keep the war lords happy with putting to bed the strengthened passive defense issues? I could envision a new enterprise... "Barney Rubbles Automated Defensive Response Solutions... My units are expensive but your attacker just lost most of his missile shoot capability!" "Results may vary. Past performace does not guarantee future success" You get the idea;P
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| Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 05:40 am Well, I thought this was going to be change we could believe in. I personally like the result of the tuning as it is. Unfortunate that I will now have to buy a lot more weapons and ammo just to shoot through defenses, but even still. More people can now take the option of NOT staying in WP. Also they can spend more money on weapons and ammo, instead of WP. Opening the possibilities of new war players and less players in WP. This IS what you wanted right, WhiteBoy?
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| Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 05:46 am i agree with you barney, this idea should be more fully detailed... as i have quite a few ideas myself for instance, why click 100 times to take down interceptor wings? when i can automate it... and your also right, lets explore this option, to it fullest before we explore other options. the more i think of it i agree. 24 Add counter attack units that will attack selected targets if the country is attacked. We could add what a player called response units. The units could be of a special type, or stealth units. They could be secret, never showing how many units are available and what the attack plans are. Attack plans will be set by the player. These attacks could be high quality and effective in destroying essential targets. The attacks will be triggered if the country is attacked and could be launched automatically in addition to the current automatic defense. It could be started manually during a war. Strategy to be set by the player, for all the automatic response units or for each group separately. An attacker will not be able to assume that the war is just a matter of some clicking. -so i can automate stripping air d... or blowing up forts...??? The units could be traded on the market, and as a player suggested here, they could be produced by a corporation (or created in the same way other units are created). The idea here is that although we have automatic defense, it is insufficient and experienced war lords cut easily through these defenses. Many have stated that a good defense include offensive forces. If we add this, the automatic defenses will include offensive forces. So if we support the defense with these units, it will be able to bite and the attack will not be a picnic. We fully agree that the automatic defense as we have implemented it, was incomplete and insufficient and such an addition could improve it. So far, I see some support for this. --- and to further what you said barney, "Depending, of course, on what the GM's have in mind. If I have stealth fighters hidden that will automatically hit your FP and ignore your drones or bombers, then who needs a stronger passive int responsive?" -barney but thinking about that, i might want to send in a single fighter plan, just to test the water...see what kind of response i get... can you set up an automated response to an automated response? i mean pressing one button just to see what might happen... could create a serious of automated responses from both countries, and that is how war works? each side reacts to what the other is doing, usually with a preset battle plan, and often having to wing it? it will make fighting easier, and more interesting at the same time... as it is, to be able to respond to what the other guy (or gal,) is doing, is a bit herky jerky, its hard to actively attack, and watch your country paper to respond to attacks... flipping back and forth in windows, continuously... this will level the playing field a little in reguards to experience, but not actually take away the advantages of experience, and prep... the only disadvantage is that it might speed up wars, which isn't really a disadvantage, but allot of people want to be able to set up defenses that survive based off the time it takes to take their country...
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| Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 06:04 am I can set my auto response to only respond if attacked by say 1000 weps. otherwise, i ignore your probes. again, this is rich no?
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| Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 06:26 am Offered Countries and Enterprises By Requested image #Bids Best Bid Result bid Republic of Mindressa on LU Elechristian_EC 5,000.00 GC 1 50.00 GC Aug 26 06:07 I was unaware that country at war could be sold, wassup with this guise?
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| Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 06:36 am There has been no adjustment yet, don't know where you're getting that idea. Unless you're referring to the upgrading of units which has now been increased. Impenetrable defense is not what I wanted, what I want is more players to get involved, impenetrable defense will keep everything exactly as it is now except for even less war. No one will have any incentive to use the war engine because wars will have no effect except to piss weapons into the trash/possibly annoy people and leave all new people as the only targets because they will be the only players without impenetrable defense. I think my suggestion above is the best option to create a more balanced game, it will give people incentive to learn and teach players how to play the war game. That coupled with some changes to give people more time, fix wp and reduce the amount of clicking will make things better.
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| Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 06:47 am allot will depend on how it works, how specific we get... and yea, its really cool like setting up a c3 with 100 lrd, with just hj and hav, to auto-attack everything they encounter... and when i see the HM are gone. start auto attacks with missles set up 50 wings of drones only, and auto order them to attack...and set up another 50... lol it actually opens up allot of avenues of attack that were unpractical before, based on the tedium.
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| Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 07:06 am Comments on some of the more creative ideas: Keto sounds like he's talking about doing away entirely with using c3s in battle, not just doing away with using c3s while hiding in wp. I'd like that. How to do it? maybe a week-long wait before you can dec with a c3 you've just taken? Fighting big country vs big country is fun, and seems to be intuitively how many of us see the game. Allow a naval rdu and each individual country could have a world-wide presence, and players would have less tactical need of taking and using c3s . Whiteboy's suggestion of higher level c3s is too great to expect to happen. I agree with all his reasons for it. Though it would devalue a lot of hard-won warlord experience, lol. Barney's idea is interesting. Smart, crudely programmable weapons? Custom made. How do you price those? It could be done. That would toss things up a bit! Orbiter and others are leading toward having macro commands for doing tedious stuff like attacking forts, attacking air d. Yes, much less clicking! But that opens a can of worms. If you take air def down in 2 minutes, and all the targets in 2 minutes, and program your units to paint the ground in 15 minutes...where's the game? There has to be some sort of brake to slow it down. Someone suggested re-organizing feds into global and local. You can only be in one global fed--a fed of players, not a fed of countries. With many regional branches. I think that's neater than what we have. An idea I haven't seen elsewhere: add a new type of award, a fed award, for the global feds to compete with one another. Base it on a broad range of metrics, econ and war, the kinds of things Laguna puts in statistics. But other things too--bonus points for dominating regions, extra points for having newer players in your fed.
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| Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 07:19 am I'd like to hear from Tom on my idea, is it really hard to implement? If so, then I totally understand, otherwise, I don't see any reason not to implement it. As you mention Jojo, it'll allow players to easily attain all the basic knowledge that you and I have attained as warlords without the losses and stress we went through. Should make it more balanced. I really hope it would be possible.
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| Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 07:38 am "maybe a week-long wait before you can dec with a c3 you've just taken? Fighting big country vs big country is fun," -jojo sorry to hack and slash your comment jojo. waiting a week seems a bit much... but waiting for the normal auto protection to fall off... can't tell you how many times i've used navy to take a c3, dropped a coin, used c3 to take 5 more c3s, then boom, 6 c3 decs... never really seemed fair. but then again, how many people actually daily check the region their in? if they did, their would be less multi-world empires.
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| Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 09:45 am Thats right, Ignore the toall. I said hi to someone today and i found $20!
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| Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 10:43 am jeese hi br, is it really that important? can we start a new thread, this one is taking long to load...
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| Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 11:47 am "8. I'm not a fan of this either. It really incentivises players to own 3 war slaves, as opposed to 9 countries with each 1/3 the offensive force. I think it may be reasonable for an initial attack; however, for a counter-attack, there shouldn't be a limitation. if someone attacks one of your countries, you should be able to use all your countries to fight back if you want. " -chryso i'm not a fan of this either.. but i'm seeing allot of this swing way in the favor, of defense. as you make defense stronger, you remove the incentive for aggressive war... and those that do, have less and less mercy... if we want to turn off the war game, W3C could just do that...both attackers and defenders should be at risk. allot of whats been said here is about putting attackers at risk. fine, agreed, but defenders should still be at risk. its been said that, before changes, it took 4 countries to take out on heavily defended country... by limiting the number to 3, you are automatically removing the defenders risk... silly. the theme is to give defenders a chance, not take away any chance of success from attackers....
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| Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 11:49 am again, before any other changes lets explore 24
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| Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 02:24 pm It's hard to argue that defense is as powerful as offense when a can kill 800 ints and only lose 160 bombers. The only balancer is the cost of OA2A missiles which make it as expensive to attack as it is to lose all of the interceptors in defense. The problem with that is that I can store as many missiles as I want without cost and transfer them where needed. Defenders don;t have that option. They are limited in the number of ints they can maintain, and even moreso if they are trying to make a profit. Having said that, if W3C wants to increase the strength of the defense through bumping Interceptor efficiency or increasing fed air defenses, they should consider decreasing the cost of OA2A so that the war game can be balanced.
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| Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 10:28 pm This is the next iteration. I am trying to consolidate and move features up the list or out of the list. Repeating again: We will not make any extreme changes and will not implement all these features. The ones we will implement will not be extreme but rather tuning of the current system. I am busy in and out of the office for a large part of my time. The texts from the forum were collected here by a lady who removed all the names, and formatted the text in a compact word file so I can edit quickly and take the relevant points. In addition, I do not know the names of the countries or players involved in one side or another. I do know some serious players who contributed in the past and were very constructive in their communication to us but I have no idea on which side they were in the past war and have no idea if they are on one side or another of the discussion. Even when I know the name, it is not on the file I received. As a company we do have an opinion and I stated it several times. I read every comment and I try to see the logic behind it and find out if it contributes to the issue we discuss. Do they understand that we need to make changes or just want us to keep the current situation? Are they interested in a fair solution and to have simcountry evolve the war game into something more interesting and have many more players join? All this is complex and time consuming enough. I am only interested in the content. This is relevant. Who the person is, is not relevant. We are very happy for the many positive reactions. I think the process is constructive and love doing this. The company is supporting it and there is full commitment to implement whatever comes out of it ASAP. It is here all under my name but Jozi participated in the last days and knows all the details. Here is the latest update on all the issues: 1. It seems that everybody would like to have a solution for the deactivation issue. We have many options to try to reduce deactivation and reduce the man power problem for the army. We will come up with possible solutions. 2. More time when war starts and/or the option for the defender to choose for one or two extra days or the option to start the war right now. It will be implemented as one of the first items. Similar to 4. 3. Allowing fed mates to join and have the war start for everybody at the same time. Same. Everyone is for it. This will be the two phased start of war with a wait period for anyone to talk or join. 4. Increase the time between war declaration and the start of the war to 48 hours on all the worlds. Allow the defender to start whenever he wants to and have the surprise effect. Will be done 5. Increase the blackout time to 8 hours from 4. Will be implemented with the coming update, probably tomorrow, Friday. 6. Expanding the spending limits for defensive weapons for the defender once war is declared. Example: set the spending limit to 5 times the standard value. There is a problem with fake wars that will allow others to increase their defensive spending. When starting a war, they will have to stay out of WP :-). Maybe we should allow that. It will be for defensive weapons only. There is support for an increase. 7. Imbalance between the warring parties cannot be eliminated. Comparing the offensive war indexes of both parties and limiting the difference to a factor of 3 or 5 or 10 can help a little. Lowering the defense index to prevent attacks will not work if we set a minimum value. This version seems to be supported. 8. Reducing the number of countries and players that can declare on one country. Mostly positive reactions but based on players, not countries. We think of 3-5 players with max 3-5 countries. Response declarations should be limited too. Fed members of the attackers will participate in the defense in case of a counter attack. There are positive and also negative reactions. 3 is too low. Now imagine that the one defender and the three attackers have similar military power. Why is 3 or 5 against one unfair and 10 against one fair? Unbreakable defense, or extremely strong defense is not the goal but should be possible if you really go for it. Winning a war should be possible but it is not a MUST. Unsuccessful war should become a more frequent event. We had unbreakable defense or nearly unbreakable in the past and we had many more wars. By limiting the number of attackers, we will limit the general fire power during wars. It will be possible but very hard to build an unbreakable defense but the cost of an average war will go down. 9. Set a time limit on all wars. It has to stop within a set period. Again, based on players but reactions are mixed. We will not execute this feature in the first round and it may not be needed at all. 10. Introducing automatic defense building features and a market for military units. Example: Automatic building of military units, based on players choice and taking care of all the orders of al weapons and ammo, materials etc. One click and some game months later, 10 units end up created and ready to go. Largely positive. We will make it easier to build the defense. It will be done either by automation of the ordering of all the components that are needed or by adding corporations that make them and trade them on space stations/direct market. This can include multiple types of units, including supply units. The feature can reduce the amount of clicking and the time spent in setting up the defense. 11. Merged with 10. 12. Increasing the defensive power of individual weapons to reduce the advantage of the offensive weapons.Arguments against: This will require increased clicking to destroy the defense. We do not think that we should have a weak defense to reduce the amount of clicking. This is an argument for no defense at all. We will make SLIGHT CHANGES, possible several times and measure. We have now implemented a 5% change to the defensive power of interceptors and defensive helicopters. We will implement another similar step in the coming days, possibly tomorrow, Friday. It will also include other defensive weapons. The change is minimal. We will then stop and wait for other features. 13. A limited war option that can cause damage to the other party but without the risk of losing the country. This option may not be interesting for the large aggressive feds but might encourage smaller players to declare on larger ones and reduce their power. 50/50 and a suggestion to divert it to more powerful sneak attacks.(Item 17). We may find a solution in larger sneak attacks. Maybe keep the current sneak attacks "Unnamed" and add larger ones, where the attacker name is published. 14. Allowing more fed allies to participate in the defense. This will allow three or four air wings to defend against an air attack with much higher losses to the attacker. A new idea here is to have the max number of defense partners, depend on the number of attackers! 15. The possibility for players to complain about a specific player and prevent him from going to war for a set period may help. It is more time consuming to build. It is in unrelated. It will not solve the problems in individual wars. We will not execute short term. 16. WP: a. No WP at all for fed members with large armies and a high offensive war index. (Plus measures to prevent countries from going in and out of feds to dock this rule). Also said: Fed WP should be on or off for all the members at once. 50/50. Seems fair to force large feds to face the music. We need more specific response to this. It is a big change. Do we really want it? b. Limited WP for all, but before declaring war, 50% of the assets must reside in countries that are not protected. Mostly supported. 17. Sneak attacks could be made more powerful and include more weapons. More types of weapons higher frequency are an option. This new type of sneak attacks will be public (the name of the attacker will be known). It is a limited war. 18. Set conditions for anyone who wants to stop the war NOW. Assets transfer? Lots of supported by everyone. Options: a. The payout when you request to stop the war should be preset and will depend on the finances of the country or population or we can base it on the nominal value of the country. b. Warring parties should agree but the defender must have the option to decide to stop. c. After it happened, the country will be immune for war for a set period. 19 Limit war declarations based on the ratio of number of wars per player. You can declare war if the number of wars you participated in is not more than double the number of wars for your opponent. Possibly we could count only wars against real players. Small numbers can be excluded and wars against C3s will always remain possible. This should be based on the war history of the player, across all the worlds. 20 Make it possible to transfer military units. This is similar to the market idea which is easier to implement. Transfer between users requires availability of users when the transfer is urgently needed and you cannot always be sure that such transfers will be possible on time. This will not be implemented. We will implement a market for military units. (Item 10) 21 Limit the numbers of c3s that can be attacked per real month. (This is a different issue) - remove. 22 More power to the SC, to stop nuke PLAYERS instead of countries. Also allow the SC to, stop wars. This too is not directly related although the SC could help in trying to level the field. Remove. 23 Limit the max number of wars per player per world per month on a real player. Acceptance will depend on the number of wars. For now, we would like to refrain from this limitation but rather create a more balanced war game that will on one hand allow more players to participate in the war game and on the other hand, will force war players to fight harder to win and will probably reduce their appetite if winning is not guaranteed. Will not be implemented. Other features will be implemented first and this may not be needed at all. 24 Add counter attack units that will attack selected targets if the country is attacked. We could add what a player called response units. The units could be of a special type, or stealth units. They could be secret, never showing how many units are available and what the attack plans are. Attack plans will be set by the player. These attacks could be high quality and effective in destroying essential targets. The attacks will be triggered if the country is attacked and could be launched automatically in addition to the current automatic defense. It could be started manually during a war. Strategy to be set by the player, for all the automatic response units or for each group separately. An attacker will not be able to assume that the war is just a matter of some clicking. The units could be traded on the market, and as a player suggested here, they could be produced by a corporation (or created in the same way other units are created). The idea here is that although we have automatic defense, it is insufficient and experienced war lords cut easily through these defenses. Many have stated that a good defense include offensive forces. If we add this, the automatic defenses will include offensive forces. So if we support the defense with these units, it will be able to bite and the attack will not be a picnic. We fully agree that the automatic defense as we have implemented it, was incomplete and insufficient and such an addition could improve it. There is wide support for this feature! Here is a quote: I think the automatic response units or counter attack units would create enough balance to perhaps not have to tweak the strength of the responding passive/fed defense. If I have stealth fighters hidden that will automatically hit your FP and ignore your drones or bombers, then who needs a stronger passive interceptors response? All FP should not be lost when that attacking unit is hit by an auto response stealth unit, but he should lose some FP. Quality should be a factor here as well. The stealth units idea could be rich with depth. stealth fighters, bombers etc... All with different attack priorities. responding only when a certain attack occurs which happens to be programmed into the stealth unit to stimulate a very specific response. Players could customize weapon platforms and units and produce them for corporations. This could be a rather large customizable market. They could tailor them to respond to certain scenarios, and sell them at a premium. I could even envision ground units with auto attack capabilities. MRMB, land based sea batts, the beat goes on... (This is more difficult. GM) I could envision a new enterprise... "Barney Rubbles Automated Defensive Response Solutions... My units are expensive but your attacker just lost most of his missile shoot capability!" "Results may vary. Past performance does not guarantee future success" 25 Require attackers to have a minimum FI level. Suggested FI >120. Could be set lower or higher. The idea is to force everyone to build some economic power. I am not sure about this. Some just want to play a war game. Why not allow them? There is however some support, some oppose. Let's keep it open for now. 26 Introduce a system of fortifying cities, bases, airports and fortifications to make them harder to destroy or damage. This may add to complexity and introduce another layer of options. It will enrich the game at the price of complexity. We suggest to wait with this and see what the effect is of other features. It is supported but we would like to implement other features first. 27 Diversify the worlds and created different levels of risk. Put a price on safety. Obviously, this is supported. 28 Add a feature that will make war more attractive, rewarding war players. Specific suggestions are welcome. 29 Levels of C3's We decided to include this not because we agree but to acknowledge the effort and make a point. C3s can be attacked because the countries are free. We cannot create levels as new players joining in every day can take these countries. In addition, the purpose of the war game in Simcountry is not attacking C3s but playing a full war game against real players. 30 Expand wars to the entire universe - not relevant Not relevant but may expand the war game into a new dimension. If we allow the transport of military units on cargo shuttles, and allow war declarations across the universe, it could add to the war game. Just an idea. We get additional suggestions, for example to reduce clicking and others. These are good, we read and keep them in mind but we are now trying to solve a different problem.
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| Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 10:30 pm Is the desire of many players to have their def withstand any offensive onslaught? If so, that is unreasonable. I dont mind giving a bit more help to the def, but lets not go overboard here. As somebody said somewhere on the forums(cant remember who), YOU CANT DEFEND YOUR WAY TO VICTORY. I think that says it perfectly. Therefore thats why it is important for players who chose the full game to learn the war engine. For a very long time many of those in my fed didnt use wp because we tried to stay vigilant with our defenses. Not only the def though, but offensive weapons as well. Other feds/players can do the same. As has been mentioned before, it was not lack of def that cost WGC, but it was lack of 'shooting back'. No passive def can/should stand up to an active offense. If players do not wish to spend the time involved in doing that, then simply buy WP and play peaceful, not try to do both. There are many good suggestions on the table. But remember the larger issues surround c3 war dec'g larger countries ie... players attempting to gain everything while risking nothing. The rest of the suggestion seem to be pivoting around this central idea of c3 dec'g. And many of these ideas are good ones.
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| Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 11:08 pm "the purpose of the war game in Simcountry is not attacking C3s but playing a full war game against real players. " -tom just wanted to highlight this one. 14. Allowing more fed allies to participate in the defense. This will allow three or four air wings to defend against an air attack with much higher losses to the attacker. A new idea here is to have the max number of defense partners, depend on the number of attackers! --- i like that, if you want a buddies help, their will be higher risk, but 2 people clicking is more of an advantage, than the increased damage would do. so how does this work? normally one on one, the country being attacked would get one fed air wing support? but with 2 players on one side, the country being shot at gets 2 i wing support? following this, it would create an incentive not to have 5 countries against one, as the air responce could be decimating... how ever, 5 players clicking, is still an advantage that would counter the extra damage... but if their were 11 i wings responding to an attack... it seems that would out way the advantage... i like that idea. and would if their is fed counter decs, would it work the other way? --- 17. Sneak attacks could be made more powerful and include more weapons. 14, with the start now button. even though the aggressor has the advantage of prep, both players still get to know when the shooting starts, i'm against allowing a player to start shooting with out the other player having ANY knowledge war has started. how ever, to allow something similar... give the defender the ability to use sneak attacks in war... currently once war is declared, with the waiting period, neither country can sneak the other, allow the defender to make some enhanced sneak attacks, and follow the plan to enhance sneaks... that will give them the counter attack option, with out going into full war mode. so combine part of 14 into 17...
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| Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 11:17 pm Im like a dog with a bone on #24 The ground units are indicated to be complex for the GM..... granted. How about simple steath Bombers and stealth fighters to begin? To avoid encouraging C3 warriors from adding another feather to their hats, these could be allowed only in larger countries. The amount would depend on country size. For instance, for every 20 mil pop you may have 3 stealth auto response units, up to 9 per country of at least 60 mil. This way a player can not leverage these units to such a degree that they would become another co opted weapon of the war lords who know how to leverage the most out of weapons. if we limit the amount of these auto response units the pendulum will not swing to far in the favor of defensive war. offensive players will have to account for these. not impossible. the uncertainty around whether these units exist in a target country will make the pre war planning more interesting.
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| Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 11:21 pm This game doesn't need war. In fact, removing it completely will give the team the necessary time to develop and fix everything else; it would create a void that players would necessarily fill with something else - either in or out of the game. Need I say more? What is needed is a reduction in the frequency of wars, until war can actually be a part of this game instead of a perpetual annoyance. Nothing that has been said here comes close to resolving that true and central issue.
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| Thursday, August 26, 2010 - 11:50 pm 16a) disagree. Why should a player who invested time and money to biuld an offense be penalized for it? Not fair that defenders have wp and would be attackers no wp because of their offensive index. I think the 50% of assets out of wp would suffice. b) same a a) above. 18- all this would do is provide a small income for would be attackers. Anyone who has been decd will always/mostly opt out of fighting to prevent their country/s from being taken. I see this deterring people from attacking, causing people to leave the game. Who wants to fight for a little bit of gcs, cash or pop when they can have the whole country? 19- Limiting war decs will prevent veterans from fighting. Most veterans have fought many wars. This would limit who the vets can target and take away the willingness to play the war game, resulting in the loss of more players. 25-FI should be below 100. Not alot of players can have a FI over 120 while supporting a military. It is possible but takes a long time to achieve. 28- not a bad idea - awards only if you win or take the country? -gold coins? -certain amount of off./def. weapons? -cash increase to the winning country? 29- the issue with c3's is players fighting from a c3 while not risking any of their assets. Like I mentioned before, maybe a way to eliminate fighting from c3s is to allow, fps/bombers/transport planes, etc. to travel greater distances? The only reason MOST players fight from a c3 is to have fps/bombers/transport planes to be in range of the other country. Allowing greater distances would eliminate the need for c3s.
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| Friday, August 27, 2010 - 02:32 am I agree with Whiteboy's idea to have different level C3s, and awards for taken them for he first time at a level. A have a few more ideas: 1. Increase the number of forts a player can build from 100 to 120 (this will immediatly improve defense) 2. reduce the number of soldiers and officers needed for defense forces. This will reduce the problem of autodeactivation, and will increase the size of the defense force that can be fielded. 3. In times of war, completely remove limits to changes in government salaries. This way countries can pay whatever is needed to hire soldiers and officers needed. 4. Allow for Stop-Loss orders like the US military has. With Stop-Loss no member of the military is allowed to leave. While new soldiers and officers would join, old ones will not leave based on age or new offers. 5. Allow the option of using Operational Contract Support (OCS). In real life, during war governments hire a surge of contractors who perform several functions, effectively cutting in 1/2 the number of troops needed for each unit. So, rather than having military folks do helicoptor repair, food preperation, etc, contractors would take over that function in war. During times of war, a country should be able to cut by as much as 1/2 the troops needed to man a unit, at the cost of paying contractors to do this. For forts, bases, airports, and similar the manpower needed would be reduce the most. For Special Forces units, the reduction would be less. 6. attrition. I don't support an artifical time table that ends the war at a set time. however, offensive units should experience attrition over time. 7. Supply route. In order to fight a war for more than 3 days, you need a supply route to move water, food, gas, etc. That needs to either be through air space or sea space. Sea space is much slower and requires a very slow builup. That said, air support can provide only limited assistance to heavy units. There needs to be a feature of air space, that would ally the country or its allies to attack with its interceptors, fighters, NFP, etc any supply convoys attempting to go within their range. 8. additional cost of war. The costs of war are substancially higher than the cost of peace. Normal military spending only covers the cost to have the military,not to use it. When fighting, not only should the cost of gas be higher, but payments to soldiers and officers needs to increase 25% for hazerdius duty pay. In addition, each casulty lost costs additional money in survivor benefits, healthcare costs. maintanance costs, etc. The further away, the more it should cost to fight a war. Plus, supply units need a set range. To go beyond that range, one would need to refuel in the air, and to refuel in the air, an air base would be needed at the refueling point (or near it). 9. Country type should be meaningful. Some country types, such as democracy, should be MUCH more difficult to declare a war with....HOWEVER, they should have an added bonus on their production ability. 10. Escort planes for supply aircraft and ships. Airtransport and ship transport for supplies should be vunerable, and need escorts in waters/airspace that is in range of hostile players. To go through someone's airspace should require an agreement by that player, or defenses will fight transports passing through. 11. location should matter. no more navies being located on land. Sea access should be required for having a Navy. Navies should not be able to travel on land or through land. 12. location should matter for air. If an air unit is attacking over other countries, it should need to fight through their defenses. In real life, you can't just magically transport past someone's air defense. If someone has NFP in the area, they should fight back, as should interceptors of close by areas. An attacker should have to either take insane losses, or attack through the countries between him and this victim (or have permission to enter through their air space). bottom line is adding realism may be a good idea, and may be part of the solution to adding balance.
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| Friday, August 27, 2010 - 03:21 am re 25 - It is simply not realistic that a country can support a large army that it cannot pay for. - a certain game level should be required to buy certain military items. I'd suggest that the most effective offensive weapons should require game level 10. This way, like in real life, only superpowers should be allowed to build the most effective offensive weapons. -a certain game level should also be required before being allowed to start a war. Say level 3. -At higher game levels, a few new weapons should be possible. Such as a satalites. These could be used to gather information in place of long range radar plans, and would provide the information without risk of beind destroyed. They would also make MIB more effective.
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| Friday, August 27, 2010 - 04:21 am 12. "Arguments against: This will require increased clicking to destroy the defense. We do not think that we should have a weak defense to reduce the amount of clicking. This is an argument for no defense at all." That response is insulting. I challenge you to show that anyone in this thread has argued for "for no defense at all." Where does W3C get the idea that defensive weapons are weak? What proof is there of that? If you increase the power of defensve weapons, then of course you are increasing the amount of clicking for attackers to bypass that defense. More clicking = less players interested in war. It's absolutely illogical for you to claim that an argument against increased defense is an argument for less clicking. If defense stays the same, then the amount of clicking stays the same. I'm saying: leave defensive weapons the same as they are. Nobody here has said: make defensive weapons weaker. Besides, defensive weapons can benefit from ammunition upgrades and weapons upgrades. Why is that stronger defense not enough? 26. "Introduce a system of fortifying cities, bases, airports and fortifications to make them harder to destroy or damage." In other words, this will introduce a system to increase clicking to kill targets, and to drive away players from war. Why do you want players to sacrifice hours of our lives at more and more mindless war clicking? How will more clicking make war more enjoyable or appealing? By increasing clicking, you're going in the direction of making war more boring and the game more outdated. 28. I suggest gold coin awards to players when they conquer their first three player-controlled countries: 50 gold coins the first time a player conquers a player-controlled country of less than 20 million population. 100 gold coins the first time a player conquers a player-controlled country of 20-50 million population. 150 gold coins the first time a player conquers a player-controlled country of more than 50 million population.
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| Friday, August 27, 2010 - 06:12 am What they are saying is that the argument that "stronger defense is bad because it will require more clicking" is a weak argument, because by the same logic "weaker defense is good because it will require less clicking", and it leads to an optimum solution of no defense at all, reductio ad absurdum. You could argue that we currently have the optimum balance of defense and the clicking needed to destroy it. Is that what you're saying? I dislike clicking as much as the next guy, but I think the def needs to be beefed up relative to offense. Target clicking is fundamentally different that other kinds of clicking. A war is taking place in real time, and the defense has a right to respond in real time. Reducing the amount of clicking to take out targets sounds attractive, but it weakens the defense in that it gives them less time to respond. I'm not saying a solution can't be found (rounds again?) I'm just saying that's how it is. "Where does W3C get the idea that defensive weapons are weak?" People keep making this point. Don't you guys run the math once in a while? At the risk of giving away trade secrets: Calculate the cost of 2 full int wings, including ammo, fuel, manpower, military supplies. Now calculate the cost to take them out, counting everything. The significant amounts are planes and ammo. On LU, I figure it costs 1.7 times more for the defense than for the offense. On FB, 2.5 times more. It varies as prices change, but it's always at least 1.5x when I've calculated it. When you get through ints, now you have defenseless helis. I figure on LU the heli defense costs 3.4 times the cost of offense to destroy it. Garrisons are tougher to calculate. Depends on the mix, how full, how full a stock of missiles is kept, what the attacker uses--is he trying to be cost effective, or just quick? I'd say the offense and defense costs are roughly at parity. Though if you can get nukes through it's ridiculously cheaper for offense...5x, 10x, even 20x. And a lot of the defense that is purchased and set up goes unused in a war. Sure, offensive stuff goes unused also. But assuming the offense wins the war, as it usually does, the offense player can reuse his unused stuff in the next war...the defensive loser can't, so add that to his total cost. Combine that with the fact that the defense has to maintain some kind of readiness 24/7. The offense can build up ammo then buy and activate weapons within a few days. Anyone who disagrees with the overall idea that, dollar for dollar, the defensive weapons are currently weaker than the offensive weapons...maybe I'm wrong, but I'd love to see some of your numbers.
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| Friday, August 27, 2010 - 06:33 am I don't understand why the c3 level idea was dismissed almost as if it was ridiculous. Of course the intention is for players to fight eachother, however that can't just happen out of no where when no one knows how to fight. If you only learn by attacking a current c3 then you are screwed when you actually go to war with a real player assuming the real player knows ANYTHING about the game at all. The leveling c3's would serve EXACTLY the same purpose that the current levels do, the current levels teach players how to play the game, mostly the econ game and how to buy weapons (which is all that is necessary to achieve higher levels). The c3 leveling system would teach people how to fight, a necessary condition to increase use of the war engine. I really don't understand why all of this increased defense talk is being treated as if it will change anything. I've said it before and I'll say it again, if you increase the strength of defensive weapons, you increase the strength of them for both the attacker and the defender, in the case that the attacker is a war player, he or she WILL have a better defensive strategy on top of their better offensive strategy. Nothing changes except for the cost of conducting war, if you make that cost too high, you get no wars, as it is now you have barely any. People should stop trying to focus on how to make impenetrable defenses and start worrying about how to actually give people incentive to play the war game. Please tell me how any of the following does that: Increasing defensive strength Increasing the declaration time Increasing responding ints/helis Decreasing the number of countries that can attack Decreasing the number of wars people can be in Requiring financial indexes above a certain amount to start a war Increasing defensive spending when war is declared Limiting the options by requiring a certain difference or less in the offensive index Automatic defense building Further fortifying of cities/bases None of those suggestions will increase the activity of the war engine, they will have the complete opposite effect. They will lead to less wars, more clicking, players that can act with impunity because of impenetrable defenses and all of the war power resting in the hands of an even smaller amount of players who will learn the system and how to use it effectively. I'm not saying that some of the ideas aren't good, some of them are mine even, however none of them address the main point, no one wants to participate in wars because they do not understand the war engine due to not being able to use it without putting their own countries at risk. There needs to be an incentive for players to actually play in the war game, otherwise all the defensive features will lead to an ability to operate without war protection while still knowing your assets are completely protected. The new players can be dominated into following the line or getting beaten down. As far as 'stealth' units, I hate it. I've got no issue with units that would respond to offensive weapons, but why do they have to be secret? To ensure even further that wars won't happen? Why would people go into a war in which they literally had no idea about their opponents military capabilities? Put a bunch of their assets at risk and spend time building countries just to find out that their opponent has 100 of x units which blow up theirs when they attack? No one would do that unless it's just personal vendetta. It's another idea that will have the absolute opposite effect of what is intended. Figure out how to get people motivated to learn the war engine, that is the best and really only way that players will be able to effectively defend themselves and have the confidence to go to war with other players. You would think with all of this 'defensive' talk that the issue was that there were SOOOOO many wars and people were just getting beaten down everywhere. Pretty sure that isn't the case, war is the exception, not the rule. Why all this adjustment to the defensive side when war is already so rare?
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| Friday, August 27, 2010 - 06:53 am yea, i was doing ruff calculation, today actually... the thing that you are missing, jojo. is that its not JUST offense versus defense. in the case that a player is only spending money on offense, compared to a player spending on offense and defense... the balanced player wins... the player playing offense, still has to purchase defense... so just comparing the cost of offense to defense, isn't entirely fair. starting with a C3, you could add up the cost of building a "standard," defence, for 50M country. and put it in gold coin terms... add into that the cost, in gc, of the bare offense needed for it to be able to defeat its twin... then compare it to the cost of building a 50M econ slave, with extra cash, and WP cost until it is developed enough to pay its own protection... when i did my figures, i figured the cost of the Econ at (highest,) half the cost of the WS. and probably half the effort. so their is already a staggering cost FOR war. the buy in is higher, and their is risk, but the rewards are much greater, isn't that the way its suppose to be? we should be careful not to increase the risk to much, and decrease the reward so much, to make it pointless... although adding a little stronger defense, so that those that want to test the water have a little more confidence. really, i have to cave into that point... the problem is the knowledge base, and it can be difficult to risk allot, knowing that you are outmatched, to begin with. giving defense a little boost to counter that intimidation, just might work... i'm not really hot on that concept, but i can see the wisdom in it.
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| Friday, August 27, 2010 - 07:04 am It was dismissed WB because it *was* ridiculous. However for everyone that is disgruntled by changes you begged the gms to introduce, feel free to rant here http://madrantz.net/BlogRantz/. Don't hesitate to mention that it is all Wendy's fault when posting Enjoy.
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| Friday, August 27, 2010 - 08:55 am I can see the *thought* behind the idea that players might venture into war more because they feel their defense is stronger, but it ultimately makes no sense. If their defense is stronger, so is the defense of whoever it is they might declare upon, there is nothing different, just more clicking, which we already know is a main reason people avoid the war game. There will continue to be no incentive for players to test out the war game any more than they have already, in reality, there will be even less of an incentive as many players have only tested it out to get at least a small grasp, knowing their defense is stronger than it was before will only lead players in the same direction they have already been going. There will be less war if the defenses become stronger, not more, thus less knowledge about the war engine which leads to...a very small number of players holding all of the cards...sounds familiar...
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| Friday, August 27, 2010 - 09:31 am C3 Levels The idea is not ridiculed. We just argued why it cannot be done. C3s must be at about the same level because new players always get an existing C3. The war game should not be based on wars between players and unmanned defense but rather on wars between real players. Clicking and the power of the defense. These two issues are unrelated. YES, we want to balance the war game and YES, we want to reduce clicking these are two different issues and you cannot argue against balancing the war game because of clicking. Let's first balance it and then look into the clicking on both sides. The numbers of destroyed weapons during attacks are in favor of the attacker. The numbers should be more balanced and the cost for the attacker should of course be higher. When you decide to attack, you damage the defender but your cost is higher. This was always so in the game and in real wars. The changes we introduce are small. In the previous war engine, all the fed members participated in the defense and attacks ended with 20.000 lost fighters and bombers. Wars were huge and much more frequent. We have now reduced both numbers and cost but probably went to far and now players are afraid to fight. Arguing for a continuation of the situation where it is easy to destroy an enemy, is too simple. If you know how to fight, you should not walk away if your enemy fights back hard. There will be a new update later today and also game news.
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| Friday, August 27, 2010 - 09:57 am As far as c3 levels, if it can't be done because of a system issue, no problem, I understand completely. However, saying new players get a c3 is not enough to convince me that it can't be done, the c3's would be set up in levels, would it be difficult to make sure that all new players get a level 1 c3? If the system could be set up to produce the c3 levels, I wouldn't think that would be the limiting factor. I understand that in the past there was more warfare, war was different then and it wasn't just because of all fed members participating. Also, the example of 20k lost bombers and fighters is not meaningful, I lost more than that just taking out air d in WGC's big cluster, which I expected to lose. That isn't a huge number. W3C has made players VERY committed to their countries by not allowing players to strip c3's, by not allowing players to reduce pop below 25 mil, by putting negative effects on empires that sell population. I understand the reasoning for all of that, *however* what it has created is a game where everyone is completely attached to their country and therefore unwilling to take risks, so they have no clue how to play the war game. Saying it's easy to destroy the enemy is completely unfair, you call it easy, I call it 3 months of hard work, building a coalition, building an empire, setting up as stealthly as possible, spending hours upon hours scouting out, creating spreadsheets and measuring as precisely as possible the best strategy and organizing a coalition of players to accomplish a goal, if you think that's easy try getting 6 different players to agree on the best rules for war protection. If you want to see how easy it is to destroy an enemy, I'll put a country up that makes money every month, let as many people as they want dec on it and shoot at it and we'll see how long and how many shots it takes to bring it down. It's not even insane indexes for a war slave, 1100 def, 1000 off, I could hold it for a day with 15 or 20 people shooting at it, even if some of them were people from my own fed. Defense is not that difficult and the player on defense ABSOLUTELY 100% x 10 has the advantage, it's just not understood. What is misunderstood by everyone, is that we want the enemy to fight back hard, war players are interested in the fight, in combat, in the struggle, which is why WGC continues to exist today. If what we wanted was to just roll over enemies, the entire fed would have been wiped out. However, they should fight back hard under the same rules that the attackers have, not some special 'playing defense' rules. Defense should not get you through any war, offense should be involved, otherwise you can just win wars passively with your impenetrable defense. Again, I'll say that if the intention is to make war more common, the changes proposed as a whole will do the opposite, since it will become less common it will lead to the very same players or maybe even less holding all the cards in regards to war. The past is not comparable, you also used to be able to have 1000's of forts and attack with 1000 nfp's at a time, that's MUCH different. I wish W3C would see that the issue is not that offense is too strong in regard to defense, if that was the case you'd see players going on offense everywhere, you don't see that because it isn't the issue. The issue is no one wants to risk their own assets on a side of the game they have no idea how to play.
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| Friday, August 27, 2010 - 10:09 am Suggest new Idea on this thread Alternatively List your rantz here ----> http://madrantz.net/BlogRantz/
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| Friday, August 27, 2010 - 03:27 pm I have refrained from reading and posting anything truly serious in this thread, because I knew that making any one point would be pointless and whatever "solution" comes out of this would be tangent to the problem. But you are taking way too long with nothing, which will change nothing. I will speed things up by showing you what this thread should look like in one post: What is the problem? - Players complain something is out of whack. Is this superficial or profound? - Superficial. What motives them then? - Possibilities include the conditions of war, the damage war inflicts, the loss of the country or the time spent warring. These are profound causes. Which one is the most serious? - From my knowledge and historical evidence, the loss of the object of their admiration and/or result of their labour. Losing something that is dear is always hard. Are the others relevant? -Only in the matter in which they damage the object. Should we discuss them? -Later on they will be inevitably discussed. As so, how can we resolve that one profound reason? (Note this is the goal.) - Well, Willy, this is where the infinitely variable and exponentiated function of life gains infinite solutions... (in practice a lie, for future reference) We have to cut our solutions to those that are in line with the rest of the system and the playerbase. More so, the solutions have to address what is needed and not what is wanted. 1. Remove war completely. This is on the end of the spectrum. To two other dimensions of the game, economics and politics, this will cause a bit of a hiccup. To economics, it is ignorable. Six thousand weapon corps among 500 000 mean nothing. To politics, it would be a federation killer and disable the unused Council resolutions. For the rest of the game, the number of GCs would no longer be drained towards WP as well. For players, they would have to look elsewhere for recognition and brag rights. This option doesn't respect what is already built, but it goes in line with the majority of the players' habits and for games where there is some serious, personal building. 2. No war can be won. For people who just love to war this is perfect. They can shoot day and night... so you better put a limit on how long the wars last and follow them by a grace period. The point of these wars will be to damage the country: population, state corps, show disrespect, keep him from developing further, political maneuvers, et cetera. It may also be to gain prestige, so a nice list to show my conquests would be nice. A top 10 on the world pages would be nice too. You might want to reduce the damage nuclear weapons inflict as well. Players who are nuked sky-high may still complain loudly, if the (relative) cost of the population is high. 3. War and peaceful mode. A crowd pleasure. You want to war. I want to war. He doesn't want to war? Let us war just the two of us then. Players shouldn't be able to pick their wars to avoid retribution, but they should be not dragged into something they have no interest in. If a faction of the playerbase wishes not to war, by God! give them what they want! What you have been doing for years is encouraging and paving the way for players to accumulate assets. Now, logically, players fear for them and they demand a primary need: security, assurance about the future - that is needed in any business. How this would work: players would have to choose between a peaceful and a war game mode. They would be exactly the same. The only difference is that with peaceful mode you can't declare war on other players and vice-versa. To change between one and the other, you can put up some criteria and a one month transition period. I order to change to war mode on the 1st of September and I'm only able to war another player on the 1st of October. If you want to charge one more than the other, I don't care, but I don't like it. 4. Why work to war? Let us take a look at war games throughout the game... In Civ, Popoluos, Command and Conquer, Rise of Nation, Age of Empire, Age of Mythology after thirty minutes, one hour you are ready to war. You can even edit maps to war as soon you start. There are even episodes/chapters when you can't build anything and just command your army. Now, let us look at online confrontation: in Battlefield 1943, I have always three soldiers to choose from. They are always the same whether I win 1000 times or lose 1000 times. In practice, I lose nothing (therefore I have nothing to weep over) if I die, so I really don't mind losing/dying a bunch of times. The key of these games is the extremely reduced or inexistent cost in preparing for war. In Simcountry, you can replicate a similar scenario as so: all main countries are forced into secured mode, the leader cannot be changed and all slave countries cannot buy population over 15mil. The rest would naturally follow. Despite not being in line with several of the current existing features in the game, this would have served perfectly five, four years ago. The arguments against this option are all the changes that have occurred since October of 2006. As far as I can see, these are the only true four solutions you have, with possible variations, Willard, - besides the option of doing nothing. Each one of them represents a serious and meaningful step towards the resolution of this problem. You just have to choose which one of them will be the basis of the war engine. Take notice that we are changing the war game, because the problem lies there. However, altering the other dimensions of the game can help and will be necessary. You can, for instance, increase the price of offensive weapons. It is not that it makes war more expensive that matters alone, but that it will take longer for the offender to restock as well, increasing the transaction costs of war. However, help can only come in the form of "reduce frequency of wars"; it doesn't really address the problem. As things are, they are intolerable. All of the suggestions presented either delay or reduce the problem. If, for some godforsaken reason you prefer to insist on the current model, here is what you should do with War Protection: Empires with war protection on at least one country - secure mode isn't war protection -, cannot declare war on another player. Once he declares war on a player country, no one country in his empire can turn on war protection. The defensive player, on the other hand, can put all the countries that aren't at war into protection. As for all other suggestions, if it in practice reduces the frequency of war, I say yes. If otherwise, I say no.
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| Friday, August 27, 2010 - 05:15 pm This is the next iteration. I am removing some items and consolidating others to create a clear work list for our developers. Items that have been executed are in the game news and will be removed from the lst. The numbers attached to items before are now changed. We will not make any extreme changes and will not implement all these features. The ones we will implement will not be extreme but rather tuning of the current system. 1. Reduce or solve the problem of automatic deactivation. There are several measures we can take: a. Change the conditions for deactivations and make them kick in later. b. Include more age groups in the army. c. Reducing the numbers in the army. Salaries could be higher and the cost could remain unchanged. We could implement more than one of these options. Whatever we choose, will be done in small steps to have time to check the effects and prevent earth-quake like effects. 2. Add an option for the defender to allow the defender to influence the way the war starts. a. Add up to two preparation days. b. Split into two periods. One to allow others to join (48 hours) 2 to continue with the war declaration. (48 hours more). c. Allow the defender to start the war NOW. 3. Increase the standard time before war stats to 48 hour. Will be implemented in the next days. 4. Expanding the spending limits for defensive weapons for the defender once war is declared. Example: set the spending limit to 5 times the standard value. The plan is to do this despite the possibility for fake wars. Countries will have to remove their WP to start fake wars. 5. Reducing warring imbalance a. Reduce the max number of players that can start a war (Now 25) to 10. b. Possibly reduce further to 5 later if needed. c. Try to avoid imbalance by comparing offensive indexes and limit factors to 3 or 5. Will not be implemented at this stage. d. Allowing more fed allies to participate in the defense. The number could depend on the number of attackers. e. Limit war declarations, based on the history of wars against real players. Compare numbers and limit to a certain ratio. f. Always allow wars against C3s. g. Requite a certain level of FI to attack a country with a high level FI. Not or not now. 6. Set a time limit on all wars. It has to stop within a set period. Reactions are mixed. We will not execute this feature now and it may not be needed at all. 7. Easy or automatic building of military units Introduce automating the setting up of units, including auto purchasing of all the items that are needed in the procedure. 8. Create an open market for military units. We could create corporations that produce military units of various types and trade them on the direct market. This will make the process faster and will reduce clicking. 9. WP: a. No WP at all for fed members in feds with a high total offensive war index. b. Limited WP for all, but before declaring war, 50% of the assets must reside in countries that are not protected. 10. Sneak attacks could be made more powerful and include more weapons. Limited war. a. New type of sneak attacks with more types of weapons. b. New type of sneak attacks will be public (the name of the attacker will be known). c. Keep the current sneak attack as it is, no name. d. Allow sneak attacks by defenders under all conditions. 11. Set conditions for anyone who wants to stop the war NOW. a. The payout when you request to stop the war should be preset and will depend on the finances of the country or population or we can base it on the nominal value of the country. b. Warring parties should agree but the defender must have the option to decide to stop. c. After it happened, the country will be immune for war for a set period. 12. Add counter attack units that will attack selected targets if the country is attacked. This can be executed in the following steps: a. Add a new stealth bomber and missiles as products and add new corporations. b. Create a market for these products. c. The units can be bought and then will appear as regular units and can be updated, and supplied like all other units. d. Set up of attack plans, with a set of pre-programmed attack scenarios that will be executed when the country is attacked. e. Setup free style attack plans that can be customized for a specific country, counter attack conditions, timing etc. f. Some of the units could be secret, when more are available they will become visible. g. Possibly add more types of weapons to add to these units or create other types. h. Possible customizable corporations to produce custom-design units. 13. Introduce a system of fortifying cities, bases, airports and fortifications to make them harder to destroy or damage. No or not now. 14. Diversify the worlds and created different levels of risk. Put a price on safety. Obviously, this is supported. 15. Rewarding war players with special awards. Pay awards to players who fought real players, non fake. (Difficult to judge). 16. Levels of C3's We see more text on this and we have discussed this internally. There is a possibility to have part of the C3 countries with a larger army and better defense and judge war players by their performance against such countries. We will get into more details once we have looked into the consequences of such a feature. We need C3s for new players but we have many, and can make sure we always have many. We have changed our mind about this feature.
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| Friday, August 27, 2010 - 06:02 pm I would have thought that after nine years, the failure of this model had become evident. One does have to wonder what exactly any of you are thinking. 1. c. Ok. 2. b. If you can make it happen, Boss. 4. No. 5. You need to clarify if and when you mean countries or players. 6. I would call it a day after six hours. 7. More automatic stuff? What is wrong with you! I've been here since the automaton craze, and I hardly know what is going on with my country. Just let me save some unit blueprints that I create on the game, so I can build them faster according to my specification, instead of the game's default. 8. Yes, no, maybe... If the soldiers are coming from my country's LLWs forget it. 9. Empires with war protection on at least one country - secure mode isn't war protection -, cannot declare war on another player. Once he declares war on a player country, no one country in his empire can turn on war protection. The defensive player, on the other hand, can put all the countries that aren't at war into protection. 10. You are giving an advantage to the attacker, the guys who plan things ahead. You would want to do do that because? 11. No. Pirates belong in space. 12. More no. 13. As in the previous engine, yes. 14. FB suffices, with some pretty changes in population, weapon prices, unit speed, etc. 15. Another no. 16. You cannot (or couldn't) buy weapons when 90% of your MLMs were in the army. Reduce that to 50% and things begin to compose. Use an absolute number if you wish to target C3s in particular. Limit the number of forts according to population too. This reminds me of pop-quizzes. If I were to guess what you were trying to achieve from the suggestions posted here, I would say nothing in particular.
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| Friday, August 27, 2010 - 07:11 pm Actually, Laguna and Tom. Maybe, just maybe what can happen here, is that another Version of SimCountry can be created, from scratch. Reason Being, while the changes and suggestions Laguna just made a few posts ago make complete sense, I think people realize what they have paid for. Altering that too much would probably cause many people and players who love the game as is to want to quit or feel like they paid for something that game will become while wanting what it is currently. I feel I have an ultimate solution that will allow what Tom is doing now to proceed, while providing an alternative. Conquest World Servers. At First, I thought that a completely new game would suffice as a valid alternative. But in afterthought, I realized this would constitute too much of a demand on the GMs, developers, and split the player base leading to further abandonment of other worlds. The general Idea or Concept is to give Aggressive players an alternative playground to play how they play SimCountry while still being a part of the same game. A world where any set of country or empires could be given at the rate of 30 coins per month. Same as any other world. But this world would address Laguna's observations and solutions that plague the war game and the tolerance of the war game in the existing Simcountry worlds. A reset every 30 days will level the playing field and give participants the opportunity to truly test their might and have good battles over and over, never allowing lopsided battles so 1 vs. 1 and 2 would be manageable and still challenging. So lets say for example not so many will play this world at first. We have a world where there are set geographical limits, but not enough people to fill the world. Start of the month, an automation would divide the world equally amongst the participants, provide weapons and garrisons a standing army, a set spending limit(but no cash on hand stuff, just pure ordering of military and ammo, possible units themselves as well) based on actual land allocation(example like set number of cities, weapons,land and naval units per X amount of square kilometers). At the end of month/Update a player will receive a land/conquering bonus spending limit and to purchase more weapons and supplies. Almost like a Risk setup with the simcountry War engine. And it is free for all for everyone, no alliances. Players with top rankings of land mass at the end of the Real month would be allocated some type of awards of gc and so on. There will not be a country setup it would be entire empire setup. A player can setup Blackout periods, and wars may be started against only one player against another at a single time, the automation should place players near players where the Blackouts best coincide with times each player can play and the wars would end daily and Start again Daily. A player cannot war against the same player continually but has to choose another opponent at the next war. So battles are even and everyone has a chance to face off against a new opponent. A free for all winner takes all type of setup where a warlord can have a good war at will, and Earn Bragging rights, true bragging rights. All while still being able to participate on normal simcoutry servers. Of course, the idea needs to be refined and edited, but overall creates a new dynamic, and game setup within the game instead of changing the game too much or not enough. A balance. I also suggest a reduced rate of 10 to 15 coins for at least 3 to 6 months after introduction to weed things out, potential problem resolution and overall refinement before moving to full 30 coins per month. This could be something temporary or permanent, but I think it provides a gr8 alternative to leaving for those who feel there is too much war, or leaving because there is not enough war. This is also a way to have people stand or fall on their own, participate or not participate. I also feel this is a very doable idea because it already adopts a huge part of the game as it is already working. And saves the gms a crap load of headaches. On the other side a flat rate no profit/no coin econ world could be made with top player awards and ECON bragging rights. So two extremes on two different servers, while leaving the game as it is largely intact for those who play simcountry now and don't want to move too much in either direction.
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| Friday, August 27, 2010 - 08:19 pm 1. reducing deactivations... mixed feelings, see my comment to lg on #10... but the concept is interesting. wasn't their talk of a market, where you could buy the right age mlm, it'd be something like mercenaries? right? that would also follow, that people could SELL them, i kinda like that. a person who is poorly prepared, and is trying to compensate for lack of skill with money... well why not make it cost them? 2. i oppose the start now button. when a player decs, both players know in advance when the shooting starts. rather, give the defender expanded sneak attack options. meaning they still get the first shot, with out going into full war mode. 5. thanks for giving some ground on this. i still don't like c e and g... they will make things 2 herky jerky. 6. i favor a time limit, if some one is defending, they shouldn't have to fight of the same guy for a week? the suggestion of 48 hours sounded cool, but i'm happy with this one being lower on the list. 10. sneak attacks, they are cool, and should not be reduced. defenders should be able to use sneaks while waiting for war to start, i think both sides should be able to. but i'm loose on this one... " You are giving an advantage to the attacker, the guys who plan things ahead. You would want to do do that because? " -lg if their is no point to gaining an advantage, their is no point to putting out any effort!!! i do not feel that currently an aggressor can gain an unfair advantage, when many players have had real life YEARS to prepare a defense... seriously think about that LG, if you've had a country for a RL year... should it be prepared? if it isn't who's fault is that? not mine for being prepared when i attack it... were as creating some equality, is good, removing the advantage of prep, and knowledge, is counter to making a competitive environment. but i agree, if a person has no will to fight, give them a peace full option... infact i was tracking the same, with a player wanted to switch, they could apply to the SC... and, considering that allot of the players go to school, they can apply to the SC to go into peaceful mode, so they can focus on studies, and then apply to come out for the summer... sometimes players life circumstances change. and should be able to switch back and forth, with limitations... otherwise their would be obvious abuse... but really, the idea of creating a peaceful mode to protect players who don't have time or will to fight... is the single best idea toward balancing the war game. that way, only people who want to, will be available to war, and as such, would put out the necessary effort, that extreme handicaps aren't put on the war game. personally, i favor the peaceful mode having some draw backs, as their are obviously less risk involved, the rewards should be less. 11. yes 12. yes, although, their needs to be a way to counter stealth, it should be a perma invisible unit... 14. yes 15. yes wow, i was really getting discouraged, and then looking at this today, yes, we are going in the right direction!!! although, i support lg with creating a peaceful mode. and semi off/on subject, how about espionage? i think their was a brief passing comment by W3C once about this... i understand their are allot of things going on right now. so its all good, but it would be a cool feature.
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| Friday, August 27, 2010 - 09:09 pm wendy's idea is really good, it really is. especially the black out part. you set your black outs, and end up near people that you don't have to wait 16 hours to fight!!! thats excellent!!! giving every one the same basic start, and giving a gc award at the end of the month to the most successful players... i really can't find a real problem with it it wont end wars in other worlds. as the build up process in permanent worlds would be much higher, so big country battles would happen more on other worlds... but offering a monthly, month long tournament for bragging rights and coins...with a relatively cheap buy in...excellent!!
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| Friday, August 27, 2010 - 11:05 pm My 2 cents, The game needs whats missing or broken to be fixed, not the addition of more things. More units etc are just going to add to the list of "not working correctly" There is a back catologue of things waiting to be implemented that have already been accepted/promised. Going back just 2 yrs ago, this game was far more enjoyable with less. Fix what needs fixing first.
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Friday, August 27, 2010 - 11:47 pm
And the United States had 225 years to get prepared to have two of their towers blow by a couple of planes, along with the Pentagon. Obviously, it is entirely their fault. Players have years to prepare for an attack... May the players who have been buying weapons and ammo for every game month with all their countries for the past couple of years please raise their hands? Are these the same players whose first thought when logging in their countries is "OMG! OMG! I need to buy defensive weapons NOW!" or "those goddamn HLWs never seem to be enough..."? Why in God's name should players be ready to war anyway? If they don't want to war, then they should not be bothered. Just because the possibility exists, it doesn't come it should be used. Who does even want to play using this shoddy engine? It's like skipping rope with only one friend. Wendy, That is only a world. You cannot leave the situation as it is on the other 5/6, unless war is eliminated on them. Willard, Option #2, No Victory, can be implemented tomorrow. All that needs to be done is to remove the "Take over" option at the end of a war and only leave "Just end war." I ask for a trial period of two months. You lads and lacies on this?
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| Saturday, August 28, 2010 - 12:22 am Interesting no win. I'd rather be left with not fighting at all.
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| Saturday, August 28, 2010 - 12:24 am "And the United States had 225 years to get prepared to have two of their towers blow by a couple of planes, along with the Pentagon. Obviously, it is entirely their fault. " -lg that one is out of line wow, seriously? you can't compare an act of terrorism, done more in the realm of espionage (which is a feature we don't have in SC,) to an act of war. further, this act of terrorism lead to 2 wars, lasting a decade, the level of retribution has been long and far reaching but this is a game. as is stands, right now, a country can avoid any war damage, with WP... in real life, that just isn't possible. but if you want to use a real life example of lack or preparation, and an ACT OF WAR, look at pearl harbor. the lack of expecting an attack, meant many people died, and full scale war ensued... and through AGGRESSIVE means, the attacker was eventually destroyed, and it included the only offensive use of nuclear war... the united states was outraged... and as a result FOUGHT BACK, they did say it wasn't fair. yes, but they fought back. the problem we are facing now is that players DONT WANT TO FIGHT BACK... the just want to change the rules. turning off the "take over button," will only ensure peoples assets that want to effect the world politics, and not risk loosing 1Q of loans. But if you do that... then when it comes to fighting, the result will be rather... harsh i agree, if some one doesn't have the will to fight, then give them an option to turn it off entirely. solves the whole mess.
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| Saturday, August 28, 2010 - 12:40 am That is the SC equivalent of coming out of the blue and smack a player with a war dec and what follows. If I had said the Chinese had 4 000 years to avoid the genocide during the Second World War, would you call it out of line? You would probably leave it at odd. I work with what I have. The point is time matters not when others are entertained with something else. And they mostly are. If players don't want to fight back, who are you to force? If they don't, they don't. They were minding their own business, jogging along, paying their membership. It is in the interest of the game to keep it as such. They are the proof that war is not necessary. Most wars players fight are a great deal of smoke and mirrors. Many things are called a game by some. Simcountry is... well, the moment you pay for membership, it's a hobby. For those that have gardening as a hobby, if I showed and trampled your favorite rose bush, would you mind as much if I just show up and kick a chessboard? What if I delete the memory that contains all your improvements for Team Fortress and COD, or just the expansions? Yeah, it wouldn't be nice at all.
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| Saturday, August 28, 2010 - 12:52 am "no win. I'd rather be left with not fighting at all." -wendy thats what him and others are going for, no win, no fighting... customizes the game to fit their playing style. they can effect politics, and not risk loosing. if a player wants to play a no risk game. the documentation clear states they can, with their secured mode country, and wp... the documentation also clearly states, that if you want to expand past one country, you must defend it. why is this a problem? don't remove every advantage a player can gain... just to make if fair for those that don't put out as much effort. add some equalization, sure. but not so much that you remove the value of effort, and preparation. other wise, if you want to play a no effort game... face book has tons of no effort games, with no risk, and you can socialize all you want. for free personally, i enjoy challenging games. i like winning... i play to win. their is nothing wrong with that. and i can guarantee, i'm not alone.
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| Saturday, August 28, 2010 - 12:53 am I'm just happy my c3 suggestion is being looked at more heavily. I do like Laguna's original post, very straight forward and I have to completely agree that it does indeed represent the general state of affairs now. As I've said before, if the idea is for no war, then fine, the game isn't for me but I understand. Econ players certainly far outnumber war players. That being said, I *hope* that is not what is going to happen and I don't quite understand the issue coming from someone who just doesn't want to participate in war at all...there is already an option for that...war protection isn't good enough? Or is it that it is too expensive/can expire? I personally don't think it's too expensive but don't like the fact that it can expire. I've proposed two separate classifications before to avoid that happening just as you spelled LG spelled out in one of his suggestions, don't see why that couldn't be put together, seems simple enough. When you join the game (or perhaps after you've played for a month or when you become a full member) you make a choice, econ or full, if you choose econ all of your countries are *secured* and you pay the standard 30 GC per empire/CEO + some extra amount for the added protection per country and there is no expiration, your empire will dereg if you stop playing. The other option is the game as it is now. Require a GC fee + a real month wait before a player can switch modes and no offensive weaponry or ammo is allowed in secured mode to make sure players can not use it to build up a large aggressive empire. Simple enough? Yes many of us would like a war world, a real one, everything goes, no wp, etc. However that seems to be on the back burner and all the other worlds do need to have some adjustments made regardless of whether that happens or not. Why don't we start by making at least one world where there is no war? KB would work...no war there anyway and then see what happens? Allow anyone with an empire there who doesn't want to stay to pick whatever world they want their countries moved to and move them, not sure how complicated that is...or offer them some GC compensation for having to strip and move themselves. If there really is that much interest in no war, KB will turn from a ghost town into an economic powerhouse world Of course no war means no war against c3's either...have to buy them :S
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| Saturday, August 28, 2010 - 12:57 am Lets not get into an argument about comparisons, LG has a point, there is a large base of the community who wants no war at all, probably a plurality. I say modify an existing world to where that is the case and see what happens. Fix FB to be a real war world (no war protection except for earned) and we'll have both extremes...add time...see what happens.
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| Saturday, August 28, 2010 - 01:01 am Where is the challenge removed with No Victory? It's the exact same conditions, but instead of having the option to show the kindness of "Just end the war", it will become compulsory. Or you fight for assets, or you fight for a challenge. If for the first, sure, I get it; if for the latter, your objection comes from?
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| Saturday, August 28, 2010 - 01:31 am i fight for both, having the assets rewards, and winning. as far as war goes. winners aren't always kind. you can not blame the atrocities of genocide on the losers, but you can blame losing on them, if it was lack preparation. and you can not always say that any time a person loses, on lack of prep. as far as assets. it takes quite a bit of effort, to both set up offense AND defense in my country. to have a battle plan, gain allies. these things take effort, and i think if i WIN, i should enjoy the spoils of war. whats wrong with that? "That is the SC equivalent of coming out of the blue and smack a player with a war dec and what follows. " -LG the rules as they are, means that any one that expands past one country, should defend it. i'm not going to enter football game and not expect to be pushed around... further, if you are referring to the recent war. in comparison to the pearl harbor analogy... the initial strike was devastating, and the United States could have sued for peace, could have folded, but they didn't and fought back. Had WGC made an attempt at fending off the mob, it likely that the war would be coming to end, right about now. and its likely, the mob would have lost. as they had enough players, and resources to launch several counter waves. i do agree that many players just don't want to war. as it stands, they have secured mode, and wp. it is already cheaper to buy wp, than it is to build even basic defense. so for players that have large countries... they could spend some of the money they didn't on military, on protection... but i do agree, that players should have the option to make their whole empire safe... with some sort of draw back or limitation, in comparision to those that leave their empires at risk.
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| Saturday, August 28, 2010 - 03:25 am The challenge removed with 'no victory'/'no takeover' is pretty significant, if a player can't lose the country, they aren't likely to fight back, no real reason to. Many players barely fight back now (and do so pretty ineffectively) when they are SOOOO worried about losing their country, you expect them to fight back as strong as they possibly could to keep their country from being 'damaged'? Similarly, what if no matter how much econ work you did on a country, it *always* lost money, the game wouldn't be any fun and it would be far too expensive. Under the scenario of 'no takeover', war players are basically forced to piss away all of their assets while econ players get to make infinite amounts of assets while risking nothing, makes no sense. War doesn't have to be about asset raiding, but it does need to bring some economic benefit when done effectively. I understand that some people do not want to fight at all and thus should not be forced to, however I think we should draw the distinction between those who do wish to fight only when they know they can win and then act victimized when they lose. When was the last time you were in a war LG? It's been a LONG time, you've had plenty of instigating factors that could have led you to war and you are certainly a more than capable war player, but you have chosen to avoid that side of the game altogether, so I'd say you're the kind of player that would be just happy to live in a 'secured' mode/world or on a world where war was not even a possibility. I say the world or mode gets created and we see how many choose it and go from there, at least it will be clear at that point who is and is not choosing to play the full game and there will be no excuses. Seems like that scenario would make most people happy, as long as there was *some* cost (unless it's a world with no war, then costs could be the same for all players) that was paid to create equity in the system for non-secured players and that cost was not exceedingly expensive so that econ players weren't being kicked for making that choice.
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| Saturday, August 28, 2010 - 04:47 am i would like every one to read and consider, please, and sorry for the length. at this point i'm a 3 year player. it took about a year off... and returned at the beginning of April. i signed up, thinking i'd give SC another chance, it might be fun... it took 5 days for me to decide to pay. i waited the days it requires before you can get into the forum... eagerly. before i had quit, one of the most fun and entertaining parts of the game was the forums... countless rants, requests, arguments. it was a buz of activity. and finally i got back into the forums. i was stunned... it was practically dead. It was night and day, really!!! The WG forum, which used to be a hub of activity, has fallen to the point, if their is 2 posts in a day... it is a busy day. Even LU, seems to be more in death throws than any real activity. Its just plain sad. Participating in the forum, is of course optional, but the slow disintegration of players being involved in more than just their own country... is more than sad. A side point of the mob/wgc war, allot of life has come back to the forum... which frankly, was one of my goals. honestly. In the past, we had villains, mercenaries, hero's, champions, and of course jesters... Where are they now? The villains we had... people enjoyed hating them. Many of them i detested at the time. They were often abrasive, to say the least. They would use any excuse to war, and often would even forgo that, and just go for the old, "you had swag, i wanted it," i remember seeing quite a few posts like that. It forced players to join feds and make friends, to protect their assets. many strong friendships were formed from the need for mutual protection. many players, (my self being one,) were so disgusted with the behavior of some, that they were willing to do something about it. That led me on a long and crazy path, to were i am now. And i've had allot of fun on that journey. And yes i get the irony... kinda like being seduced by the dark side, i'll admit it, why not. but i'm the orbiter, i'll probably spin back around, eventually. Which is actually why i'm so strongly trying to keep the war game viable, now. The war game creates conflict. Creates need for friendships. Players rise as champions of just causes, as hero's of right. Other become villains, seeking gain. Whats wrong with this? Their is no epic struggle with out conflict. And conflict requires at least 2 opposing parties. No one can be a hero, with out having villain. No one can champion a just cause, if their is nothing to fight against!!! Villains, are as necessary to this game, as hero's. With out them, their is no struggle. And no politics. I mean, if every one just wanted to sit around and collect sim cash, whats the point of feds? whats the point of the security council? why do we needs boycotts. why even have weapons at all? When a villain arises, honestly, the response should be for a hero, to pick up his, or her, sword, and take the fight to them. However, it seems the will to fight, has disappeared. Although, i do agree that W3C has the right answer, for many, if they believe they can survive a war, just might be more interested in starting one... and from what i've seen, their is actually allot of support FOR war... The powers that be in Sim Country, have enjoyed a type of peace, being able to state, "this is the way it should be," and no one challenges them, because its them... and they don't speak out, for fear of being labeled a thief, or a thug. to be equated to a terrorist, or a mass murder... who wants to be called these things? by a player that every one respects? so players are unwilling to step out and do what they want, because their is an awful lot of peer pressure AGAINST war players. And thats why many war players band together, every one already hates us... In sim country, the single strongest skill a player can have... is the ability to make and keep friends. which, no rule will ever effect. Its possible for a player, to gain so many powerful friends, that with out being a military power themselves, they are able command (for lack of a better term,) large armies, and can enforce their will, while never firing a shot. I do not seek rule changes to eliminate influence. However, i do want to maintain my ability to counter their political posturing, with my guns. So i understand that while not every one wants to fight, those that want to wield sim power, should not be immune to conflict. And should not be able to build defense beyond reach. so, i believe that those that truly have no wish to fight, as it is, can buy WP, its cheaper than fighting war. but a secured empire option should be provided, with less features, ie, no Security Council. So those that just want to rake in the sim cash, can do so, and not effect any one, that can't effect them. Further, by creating this feature, the need for extreme changes would disappear. Some changes to help players have more confidence in fighting... yes, but not extreme to the point fighting becomes pointless. And players that want to do political posturing, should learn how to defend themselves. So i'm making 2 points, 1. The war game should not be disabled, and should not be nerfed to the point, its pointless. I'm gaining more and more confidence in W3C in this. 2. Peaceful mode in regards to empires. If a player has no interest in fighting, and should be provided a way out. As it stands now, its cheaper to pay WP, than it is to build and maintain a WS. So if a person wants to be out of WP, they should be defended. Why should a player be safe, with half the cost, half the effort, and making twice as much money? If you think that they should, then pick up your sword and defend them. Beyond that. creating the peaceful world, like chryso suggested, and every one agrees that their would be limitations written in... OR create a secured mode empire option...
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| Saturday, August 28, 2010 - 10:02 am mmmm u still need wp when ur away
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| Saturday, August 28, 2010 - 10:06 am It's about time you all resigned yourselves to the fact that the GMs are incapable of fixing the problems in this game.
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| Saturday, August 28, 2010 - 10:24 am It is becoming hard to find the issue we were discussing. maybe we need to have another track on the issue of war or no war, or maybe we are done with our discussion here. This discussion was about features that will improve the war game. Our intention is to: 1. Not force everyone to build an army and fight but let anyone who wants to do so, play a peaceful game. 2. Allow anyone who wants to fight to do just that. 3. Create incentives for war players to fight much more and much harder than they do now, and have fierce fighting all the time. The incentives will be added. We would like to get back to where more players dare to do so while other are not pulled into it against their will and can play the peaceful game. In the current war game situation, it seems that we have a lot of collateral damage caused by a group of war players. we clearly need to move away from that. There were many very good ideas here in the past week and when we look into some of these ideas, and push them further, there is already enough to help us go in that direction. Thanks for all your help.
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Saturday, August 28, 2010 - 02:53 pm
Then the obvious solution is to go back to the old system of picking peace mode or war mode, and do away with secured mode entirely. Limit war protection to prevent people living in it full-time.
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| Saturday, August 28, 2010 - 03:57 pm I agree with the overall premise Tom, those three goals are the correct ones. EDIT: I also agree with Orbiter, this game used to be a lot busier and I assume made more money when people felt the need to meet and converse with others for knowledge and security. I don't think forcing people to fight is the answer, so I think there needs to be a clear distinction and system to separate those who choose a completely peaceful game and those who choose the full game. As I said before, at least it will clear up the confusion and prevent any excuses from those who made the choice.
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| Saturday, August 28, 2010 - 04:47 pm Here's going to be a possibly unpopular suggestion: stop the population trade. Increase population growth so that people will hit (at least) 60M in about 6 - 8 months in mains, maybe smaller growth the further from your main that you get. Institute rebellions in distant (from your main) or newly conquered countries (real rebellions, not destroyed state corps). Make it very difficult to maintain countries that are far from your borders. Make it so that you can only transfer pop from your main, like sending colonies. Change the reason people go to war. Remove the asset raiding. As we well know, wars end up costing money. Maybe leave FB as it is (and without WP) so people can go to settle grudges or fight for fighting's sake. Personally, I'd like to see a more regionalized game where certain players/federations are strong, maybe control, certain areas. As it is, people are spread out with countries all over. Very unrealistic and it results in a loss of political boundaries which add a sense of ownership and control in the game, give people a motivation to fight. This would take a new world since everybody already has their places, and likely won't be giving them up, but I think we need to be changing some dynamics here. There isn't much motivation to fight. The motivation that IS there is basically to take from others, which runs players off. We need to find better, more creative solutions to the problem and where we can take SC into the (hopefully) not to distant future. The game is fun but way behind the times. It needs to evolve. ~ Ramblings, BorderC (LU 2656)
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| Saturday, August 28, 2010 - 05:09 pm Willard, The engine is broke. It isn't built for this game. You can persist how much you want it, but things will remain unchanged. The next time you gather the strength to "solve" it again, undoubtedly sparked by more complaints, read my "4 Options" post, take your pick and message me. It isn't natural that you get the same complaints over and over again, for years and years, despite multiple changes. That is a sign of failure. Whiteboy, Of course I don't war anymore, I'm the moderator. The less I have to do with everyone the better. Orbiter, Before your war, there were 15 threads active per day. There are now 10. If I don't post, 8. Chatter in this game is mostly about this game. In other games, most chatter concerns things that happen out of it. BorderC, Keep on rockin'.
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| Saturday, August 28, 2010 - 07:20 pm Is there a way to access a test server so I can kick Whiteboy's roody poo candy Arse!
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| Saturday, August 28, 2010 - 11:19 pm My thoughts: 1. a. ok b. agree c. Strongly agree 2. a. agree b. agree c. strongly agree 3. agree 4. agree 5. a. agree b. suggest to wait on this and see if needed c. suggest to wait on this and see if needed d. agree e. agree f. mostly agree g. strongly agree 6. agree 7. agree 8. agree 9. a. agree, provided average is also considered b. do not think 50% should consider secure main. 10. a. support long range missiles only to be added. b. public and a cause for war; country attacked could declare war immediatly without waiting. c. agree d. strongly agree. Unlimited defender sneak attack for all countries of that player and his fed allies, and even for all other players, without starting war, without attackers being known, and without loss of war protection. 11. a. ok b. ok c. ok OR d- allow countries to be vassales of other countries. Vassals pay 10% of their INCOME each year to another country in exchange for protection. 12. a. agree b. agree c. ok d. agree e. agree f. agree g. agree h. agree 13. agree 14. agree 15. Rather, allow war winners to create vassales. Include C3s as possible vassales. Vassales will pay 10% of income to player who is guardian of them. This will provide a reward for war-players, increase wars, and allow peacefull players to pay for peace. If you take over a country, you can free his vassals or take over the vassle agreements. Thus, there is a heavy incentive for vassle owners to to attack eachother. 16. I support this feature. Having a small number of set C3s. Make this part of leveling requirement for war mode. This would
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| Sunday, August 29, 2010 - 02:15 am a few more thoughts: 1. Time. It takes a LONG time to build up for an attack and an even longer time to build a defense. I've upgraded my defenses several times. Each time, it takes a couple weeks (2 real life weeks) to complete the upgrade. To upgrade an empire of 10 countries takes a long time. You first need to buy the amunition and weapons (which takes a very long time due to the spending limits). Then, set-up units and garrison blueprints, and deploy them. Then add some supply units. Add to that the need to adjust your workforce to have the right number of MLM and LLW. And ofcourse, make sure not to build any corporations, or close them down to free the workforce. As it is, I have a long list of things by military-wise and econ-wise that I could do if I had more time. Econ-wise, alone, I could be making about 300-500 BILLION more a game month, with 1 enterprise if I had time to make the adjustments I'd like to. This game requires alot of clicks for things. 2. Balance - almost anything that makes it harder to attack will make it harder to counter-attack.
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| Sunday, August 29, 2010 - 02:36 am thank chryso, well said. about the econ versus war slave... thanks and chryso hit on the problem with trying to make things "fair," for trying to make the game fair for non-regressive players... everything you do to help them, will also hurt them... for instance, increasing the defensive power of weapons, i've already figured out how to beat through the new numbers, and what it will take... has a non-aggressive player? i dare say not!!! so the change has already given me an advantage! as i know what to bring to the fight, and my victim still doesn't have a clue. The extra expense and effort, certainly is there. but now scale is more tipped toward the experienced, larger, and determined player, than the newer, smaller player, casual player. congrats, all the big guys, just got bigger!!! lg, as far as i can tell, with tom's "Thanks for all your help." would tell me their part in this discussion is over... i have more points and counter points i could make, but i don't see no point in waiting for this huge thread to load. if you want to continue the discussion, i'll be around
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| Sunday, August 29, 2010 - 04:05 am Tom, we currently have a choice between 'peaceful mode' and 'include defence' mode in levels. The level requirements are different for each, as they should be. But if one selects 'peaceful mode', it's just the level requirements that change. You can still be attacked. If you truly want to create a game where "more players dare to [make war] while others are not pulled into it against their will and can play the peaceful game", why not make it so that those choosing 'peaceful mode' cannot be attacked? It would seem the obvious solution. Hugs and respect Jo
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| Sunday, August 29, 2010 - 05:14 am Orbiter do you have a 56K modem connection? Seriously I have a dsl Broadband and the page loads fine. Not sure why you are complaining that this thread takes too long to load.
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| Sunday, August 29, 2010 - 07:28 am Has anybody considered setting up a "Warlord University" where players can attend to learn the fine arts of war? Perhaps they can get SC "degrees" like in real life....associates, bachelor, masters, phd? Or maybe "certificates of completion" or stars or something for certain smaller skills. Wonder if the GM would be interested in setting up a university to train all interested players.
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| Sunday, August 29, 2010 - 07:55 am i might be wrong (prob am lol)but its a war game...most players get 2 a certain thing and get lazy dont wanna learn war side and dont want 2 lose countrys either......gm's shouldnt change things all the time, they buckle under pressure instead of forcing(2 strong of word?) players to learn....
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| Sunday, August 29, 2010 - 06:20 pm you know the point of how difficult it is to level peaceful, probably is enough drawback to peaceful to justify no other changes other than the choice to level peacefully, as it is, and add immunity to attacks. thats sounds fair to me. you can still be involved in things, and hard work will get you to the top. that way doves can expand, and gain the size they need with out any threat... i wish jo had made that statement earlier... allowed me to put 2 and 2 together. i've been playing peaceful mode for leveling, just to see how it works, and at lower levels, its actually easier, but at higher levels... i can see why people are complaining, although, i don't agree that it is as hard as people want to make it out... but harder yes. so the extra difficulty in leveling... doesn't make up for the extra difficulty in playing war. but by playing war, you get the chance to pillage... so i think the 2 would equal out.
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| Monday, August 30, 2010 - 06:22 am Nukepana - That's a great idea and a large part of the thought behind my idea of 'Leveling c3's', players would learn (at first on their own) how to take these larger and more well defended c3's and earn GC's for doing so the first time, just like leveling. Ultimately, players will write guides on the best way to take these c3's which other players will then learn from (such as Scarlet's Church of Simcountry or the Simcountry Wiki page). Also, that was a large part of the fed structure at one time, people teaching others how to fight. It doesn't seem to happen so much anymore, probably because there isn't so much fighting. Anyway, I like your idea, but I would think it's more likely that the players take up that cause as it used to be than for the GM's to do so, at least actively, it *may* happen passively with leveling c3's. Also, nice to see you on the forums, don't think I've ever seen a post from you before.
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| Monday, August 30, 2010 - 04:03 pm She's been busy... lol... busy l;ttle bee's nice to see you nukepana.
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