| Tom Willard | Wednesday, August 31, 2011 - 11:38 am 
As explained in the game news, all units and garrisons will decrease in size by 10-12%.
This is the third time we are decreasing the size of the units.
The weapons that are moved out of these units are moved to the country stocks and their quality is taken into account (increased by a factor of 2).
Why is this done? (also explained in the game news and earlier when the previous change was announced).
Current wars in SC cause the destruction of a very large number of weapons. One attack could destroy hundreds of tanks, or airplanes.
This is unrealistic and the cost is very high.
Decreasing the size of the units will immediately decrease the number of weapons destroyed on both sides without changing the relative power of the units during the fighting.
It will reduce the price of war and it will reduce the cost of upgrading the units.
It will also decrease the size of the army with all the follow up advantages to the economy.
You could of course create more units using the weapons that were moved to the country stock but experience shows that although this was always argued, the numbers of weapons world wide did decrease dramatically as a result of these changes. (and previous ones we have done before).
We have failed to see any damaging effect of these steps.
The only reason these changes are small is to prevent very large numbers of weapons sitting idle, giving time to players to decide what they want to do with these weapons, sell them or deactivate and prevent large offerings of weapons on the markets.
Smaller units with the capability to upgrade to high quality will allow for smaller armies with the same or increased fighting power.
It is our intention to continue such changes and decrease the number of weapons destroyed in wars by at least 50%.
The smallest units might be left alone at some time as their size might become more realistic earlier than the size of the large divisions. |
| James the fair (Little Upsilon) | Wednesday, August 31, 2011 - 01:48 pm
So what size will the defensive garrisons be now when attacking a C3 country? such as forts or cities? |
| Tabula Rasa (White Giant) | Wednesday, August 31, 2011 - 01:52 pm
Tom, I'm not going to argue with the logic of your decisions, but I will quarrel with your use of the word "unrealistic". Air/mechanized war on Earth is in fact very expensive, and does often result in the destruction of hundreds of weapons in single battles. This was true of the Second World War, the three Israel-Egypt wars, and the two US-Iraq wars. (4 of the last 5 in fact looked very much like C3 raids in this game.)
If you want to increase "realism", simplify war and reduce costs, the place to look is the artificial distinction between offensive and defensive armies. Real weapons and units are used interchangeably for both. |
| Gothamloki (Little Upsilon) | Wednesday, August 31, 2011 - 03:26 pm
Would it possible to see some of the realworld statitics being used to assess what is "realistic" or not? I'm confused why the GMs are seeking to make this aspect of war more "realistic" with the current unrealistic move to have land and sea based weaponary traded exclusively in space. |
| Tom Willard | Wednesday, August 31, 2011 - 06:33 pm
Our war game was never realistic.
The numbers however are far too high and there were many requests to reduce the cost of the war game.
if you vote to increase the cost of war, we will go with it. It will spare us a lot of work, and some fruitless discussion on the forum.
Currently, in a single attack, 400 airplanes may be destroyed.
In all their wars in the past 50 year, Israel, the US and the entire NATO together, did not have 500 airplanes lost, let alone in a single attack.
Israel, with one of the largest air forces world wide, has probably less than 500 airplanes.
Brittan, France, Italy and Spain, were out of ammunition in Libya after a week or so of sporadic bombing and had to ask the US for some.
many countries in the game have millions of missiles. |
| Green Paws (Little Upsilon) | Wednesday, August 31, 2011 - 08:36 pm
Well backed up there by Tom.
The costs of war were excessive and should be reduced. |
| Maestro2000 (Golden Rainbow) | Wednesday, August 31, 2011 - 09:32 pm
"It is our intention to continue such changes and decrease the number of weapons destroyed in wars by at least 50%"
Less military unit production means less profits(more losses) from the various military corporations we players own.
Perhaps the game could add some new corporations for building the soon to be added professional armies and allow player ownership. (I saw the post stating no player ownership but disagree with it. We players should be allowed to buy/sell and build everything in the game.) |
| Tom Willard (Little Upsilon) | Wednesday, August 31, 2011 - 10:41 pm
Most times there are shortages of weapons and ammunition and the shortages might be reduced.
vote for stopping the reductions.
there is a vote going about it. |
| Dave (Fearless Blue) | Wednesday, August 31, 2011 - 11:53 pm
I think instead of prefined limite top and bottom we should make them anysize we want. If I want to send 1 bombar or 10000 I should be able to do so |
| Crafty (Kebir Blue) | Thursday, September 1, 2011 - 12:30 am
Learn to change and adapt people. An economy heavy on weapons and ammo corps was never a good idea anyway. |
| Tom Willard | Thursday, September 1, 2011 - 12:38 am
Dave, we had this in the past and it pushed players to purchase millions of weapons and bankrupt.
I remember an attack with 1.000.000 jeeps.
you could never build a reliable defense.
If someone is building a strong defense, does not neglect the country, then some security should be in place even without purchasing war protection.
if we allow any numbers, someone with a lot of money could smash through anything and with large numbers, the first round killed nearly anything and the attacker had only small losses. (each attack has about 10 small rounds with alternating attacks by the attacker and the defender. If the first mini round kills the defense, there is nothing to fight back with and the attacker suffers little or no losses).
with the units, you have a fighting chance. The attacking units can be damaged.
but this discussion was about units becoming smaller, or how many losses each side will have.
each side losing 500 helicopters or just 200. both are too high but I would prefer 200. |
| Accordion_This (Little Upsilon) | Thursday, September 1, 2011 - 01:40 am
It's also more realistic to have limited unit sizes. There are only so many planes that can be commanded by a single squadron commander before they become ineffective and disorganised. |
| Dave | Thursday, September 1, 2011 - 01:56 am
Thanks tom that sort of makes sense |
| Josias Jorvick the 3rd (Fearless Blue) | Thursday, September 1, 2011 - 06:54 am
well, i for one, want to see units smaller. i think the direction w3c is going, is good. i mean, few weapons, makes war more accessable to new players.
one of the turn offs to war, (and their are many,) is that its takes so much game cash, and effort to have enough... making units smaller, partially corrects that problem. so new players will be able to have a decent military, with out a huge amount of effort. sure some of the big guys are loosing what they worked so hard for. but if we don't give up something, this stuff we've horded, wount be good for anything.
really, from how i understand it. this is the right direction for the game. and i'm excited.
and if you really think about, this leaves room for soooooo many other possibilities. lets move out of the sim dark ages... |
| Tom Willard | Thursday, September 1, 2011 - 08:25 am
Making the army smaller will not hurt players with large armies.
They can keep weapons in the reserves or build more units if they insist on having a very large army and they can sell some of their weapons and get some money back.
we are careful with the computation of the quality to avoid damage to these players by lowering their quality that was paid for in the upgrading process. |
| Josias Jorvick the 3rd (Fearless Blue) | Thursday, September 1, 2011 - 09:01 am
"we are careful with the computation of the quality to avoid damage to these players by lowering their quality that was paid for in the upgrading process." Tom
well, as long as you mentioned it Tom. as it is, when weapons and ammo are put into a garrison, the garrison automatically starts at 80q, no matter what.
it does not matter the quality of the weapons or ammo themselves, or the quality of supply units. thats means, if you buy 250q stuff, you loose 2/3s of the value, if you actually do anything with them. would you please address this? |
| Tom Willard | Thursday, September 1, 2011 - 11:59 am
When you have weapons with quality x and you put them in a unit, they end up with quality x/2 and a minimum of 80.
if x is 100 they will end up at 80 and when taken out if the garrison becomes smaller, will go back to the country at quality 80 x 2 = 160.
if they were purchased at Q 250, they go to the garrison at 125 and if placed back, the quality will be back to 250.
We know that in some cases it is not precise but you do not suffer any declines.
the reductions will take place several times and stop. It is not a long term thing that will keep coming. |
| Laguna | Thursday, September 1, 2011 - 12:17 pm
Wait... what? Why is their quality reduce by half?
So... if I increase the quality of these weapons to 200 and I dismantle them afterwards, I get 400 quality weapons. One weapon quality upgrades one weapon by one point in quality? Same for ammunition? |
| Tom Willard | Thursday, September 1, 2011 - 12:22 pm
Please read the original explanation of the quality upgrading products and about the quality of weapons and ammunition.
We have explained what happens when units are dismantled.
If YOU dismantle them, you are losing quality.
when we are taking out weapons from your units, during these reductions and we place them back into your country stock, while you did not ask for it, we double their quality. |
| Crafty | Thursday, September 1, 2011 - 05:03 pm
That still doesn't really answer why do weapons and ammo lose half their quality when placed in garrisons?
Even with high Q supply units, not that that should matter in peace time. I can see no reason or logic for this, all it means is the need to buy uprades even though you paid top money for the weapons in the first place.
What is the official reasoning behind this please Tommi? |
| Tom Willard | Thursday, September 1, 2011 - 05:42 pm
They don't lose anything.
the quality starts at 100. it should start at 0 so the real quality is actually between 50 and 160.
average maybe 80.
we did not want to change the base from 100 to zero because of other reasons so
so instead of cutting 100, it is divided by 2.
seem to work just fine for a year now. |
| FattyMcButterPants (Little Upsilon) | Thursday, September 1, 2011 - 06:22 pm
All this really confuses me. I won't be bothered with it. I'll just use 100q as always. The most I can lose is %20 if the quality degrades to 80.
Am I right in this assumption? |
| SirSmokesAlot (Fearless Blue) | Thursday, September 1, 2011 - 08:40 pm
weapons and ammo @250Q. Supply units @236Q. Result is a garrison that is @80Q. I am getting this result everytime I try to put up garrisons. Best garrison put up so far is 100Q. That means I lost all that cash buying @250Q. What a waste of assets. |
| Kitsuné | Thursday, September 1, 2011 - 09:25 pm
So I can buy weapons at 100Q, put them into the garrison, then take them out and they're magically 160Q?
That's....interesting. |
| Keto (Little Upsilon) | Thursday, September 1, 2011 - 09:41 pm
I agree with sirsmokesalot, why waste money buying at Q250 when its all lost when setting up |
| President John Henry Eden (Little Upsilon) | Thursday, September 1, 2011 - 10:29 pm
I normally buy defense weapons at crap quality and just buy quality upgrades for weapons and ammo....Quality upgrades is king when messing with defensive weapons and ammo. |
| Crafty (Golden Rainbow) | Thursday, September 1, 2011 - 11:36 pm
Tommi, I dont think you understand whats going on. They DO lose half their quality. weapons purchased at 2.5 market price (Q250) when put in garrisons become Q125 at best. They are half as effective in fighting level terms as they were when purchased.
No product is available at quality 0, why would the base be 0. Is not Q100 100% of the base quality? hence Q250 is 2.5 x base quality and the price reflects that. I apologise but your explanation still doesnt make sense, and as far asit has worked fine for a year...for who? All of us have been saying about this issue since the fighting levels of units were introduced. |
| FattyMcButterPants (Fearless Blue) | Friday, September 2, 2011 - 12:38 am
No Kitsune, you have to intentionally disappear the mlms and make the game take them out. If you take them out, you lose quality, if the game dismantles them, they double in quality.
This epiphany could lead to a most interesting exploit. I'll have to test this in my Psycho-Labs |
| Homerdome (Fearless Blue) | Friday, September 2, 2011 - 03:53 am
Actualy, that was not the case with me. I had 240 Q weapons and Ammo And 250Q supply units. When I moved weapons and ammo to garrisons, everything went to 80Q including the supply units. Also I wanted to change my garrison plan of one of my countries( before I realized that moving weapons and ammo to garrison droped the Q) And when I moved the weapons ouy that where already upgraded to 250Q, they droped to 100 when they went to country stock. |
| Josias Jorvick the 3rd (Fearless Blue) | Friday, September 2, 2011 - 04:28 am
tom, with the changes to bombers being contract and space only... can you do something about contracts
if you contract to your country, and accidently over spend a game month. if you country doesn't ahve the spending space for the contract, the contracts will be reduced. and as a result, you have to spend hours resetting up all the contracts, again. |
| Tom Willard | Friday, September 2, 2011 - 03:46 pm
Automatic contract reductions will end coming Tuesday.
we will now leave it to the player to decide what to do if a contract delivers partially. |
| Josias Jorvick the 3rd (Little Upsilon) | Friday, September 2, 2011 - 05:50 pm
yay! thanks
and i would guess, that the extra product... the corp itself will deal with normally. i mean if its a restrict product like bombers, it will just sit in the corp... or if you have a large amount manually reserved it would fill that, but if its a normal product, and it goes over the manually reserved amount... then it will auto place it on the market? |
| FattyMcButterPants (Little Upsilon) | Friday, September 2, 2011 - 08:38 pm
I have to admit w3c is putting a lot of man hours into programming. This is a good thing. I guess publishing the priority list wouldn't be a bad thing either.
This will take the shock value away from he surprise of these changes as to when they will be implemented.
Currently, it is near impossible to plan for anything game related on the economic or war side at the present rate of change.
For example, I was planning to stomp a major hole in the IDC complex on LU, and having to buy shuttles and purchase them from space has thrown a major wrench in the works as far as planning and logistics is concerned.
I now have to calculate how many missions it will take to import 75,000 bombers and 5 million bombs.
My top financiers have informed me this will increase the cost of preparation of this skirmish significantly.
It would have been nice to have seen that coming more than a week in advance. The numbers and pace of this game demand it. I hope you guys will at least consider it. I think you have done something similar in the past. Maybe a monthly priority update with the game news would be neat and useful. |
| Jo Salkilld (Golden Rainbow) | Friday, September 2, 2011 - 08:59 pm
Wendy is right. This game is slow moving and long-term. I understand that it is constantly evolving, but that makes planning even more crucial to effective play. Notification of upcoming changes, with as much detail and as far in advance as possible, would really help the players to stay on top of the game.
It would also go a long way towards preventing some players from leaving, which mainly happens because they get frustrated because all their hard work becomes nullified when things change dramatically.
Thanks so much for informing us in advance of these ones Tom. It definitely helps!
Hugs and respect
Jo |
| Josias Jorvick the 3rd | Friday, September 2, 2011 - 10:29 pm
i'll sign on with the last 2 posts
some of the things i plan, take quite some time for them to blossom. then just as i'm actually starting to see a return for my investment, it changes.
i'm not for all changes, but overall, i'm for change. how ever, it seems that every time i get something set up, somethings changes, and i have to start over. having a better idea of whats coming would certainly take the edge off.
additionally, W3C has made a couple of statements that the future of sim country will be very different, even going as far as saying we may not recognize the game. perhaps, explaining where W3C is trying to go, might take away allot of the edge of dramatic changes, and reduce the violent reactions, if we could understand the changes from a "helicopter view," as the term josi used in a chat. of course a the level of detail doesn't need a microscope, but a general understanding. |
| Tom Willard | Saturday, September 3, 2011 - 03:09 pm
Most changes and additions do not require a change in strategy. Some do.
Changes we expect to influence your strategy:
- The quality shifts. In consumption products, weapons, mil. units etc.
What you need to do: wait for the update and check your welfare index. it is slow to react and you will have all the time to set product quality defaults.
Military units quality: wait to see changes and decide how far you want to upgrade your units (or not).
- Military units size
what you need to do:
wait for the change, it will have no effect on you military power or costs. It will increase the number of weapons sitting in your country bases.
you can now decide to reduce your cost. sell some or create more units. If you sell some, workers and managers will become free and you can probably create more corporations.
- Space game
What you need to do: nothing is you are not interested in the space game. If you are, watch fro new products being added and new features that will become available.
- Corporations size and production numbers
what you need to do: most times nothing as shifts are very small. you should anyway check the numbers of employed and unemployed (always the first thing to check when you log in). In some cases there could be some shifts. you can fix them or leave it alone and it will fix itself.
Some changes have been or are being announced ahead of time.
Many other additions and fixes are not announced and have no strategic consequences.
if you have anything being changed and you think it has influence on your strategy, please add here. |
| Noproblem (Fearless Blue) | Friday, September 16, 2011 - 01:21 am
For corporations, if you have contracts, they may over supply or under supply. |
| David Walker (Little Upsilon) | Friday, September 16, 2011 - 02:43 am
Contracts will now stay at the levels we set them at. |
