| Andy | Wednesday, July 25, 2012 - 03:43 pm 
1. War Tutorial
A new war tutorial is added today and it shows after log in, for all players who never conducted any war. The tutorial is detailed and includes all the steps from war declaration to victory.
Anyone who follows this short tutorial will win the first war.
The tutorial was tested with players who had no idea about the war functions in Simcountry and they were able to win and have all claimed to understand the way it works.
2. War Map Improvements
The war maps and war process are now improved and make it easier to conduct the war process. Moving the mouse over targets during war provides you with more information and attacks are better prepared to save unnecessary clicking. (Excluding one click that will be cut out in a next update).
It is now easy to find out about unit types on the map and there is a much reduced need to use the target lists.
3. All objects are on the map during war [ top ]
The war maps now show all the objects on the map of your enemy and it is now easier to select a target from the map instead of using the target list. This is faster and reduces the number of clicks needed for each attack.
For those who are used to the list and want to continue using it, we have improved the list and now show Destroyed, next to each destroyed targets and finding the ones that are not destroyed yet is easier. The list too is easier to find with a blue button showing high on the left side of the war map.
4. War Maps - Zoom functions
The war maps include several zoom levels (this was part of the update last week). Zooming out allows you to view your country and all of its neighbors and it is easy to locate the units you want to move and send on their way. All the functions survive zooming and all movements will continue uninterrupted.
5. More war (map) Functions
More functions and improvements are being developed and tested and will be added to Simcountry ASAP.
These improvements include the possibility to show multiple maps of various locations and will allow you to follow multiple wars at the same time, independent of their locations and it will become much easier to switch between wars.
They will also include mobile units and intelligence units as was announced before.
6. Trading
An improvement to the trading process will improve differentiation between reasonable priced offers and very high priced offers. The result is better deals and probably higher income for most offers. The "Very high product offer" handling remains unchanged.
7. Weapons and Ammunition
After a long period with more weapons and ammunition being offered on the market than produced each game month, it seems that the market is stabilizing. Although some surpluses remain in many weapon and ammunition types, the numbers are now smaller and some show shortages.
Our expectation is that with more shortages, the price of weapons and ammunition may increase on the market.
On the other hand, the slow long term process of declining prices following the lower exchange rates is continuing, and will in the long run reduce the price of all products.
8. Public corporations - Cheat schemes
There are several cases of corporations issuing many billions of new shares and try to use a scheme that will end up with large profits. Such actions always appear on our radar screens and if needed, they are addressed. Old and new maximum and minimum cash limitation are making these schemes obsolete.
We advise everyone to make use of the share market but also make sure the transactions are reasonable and do not push the corporation or the country into a negative cash position. Corporations that are running into large debt will be bankrupted immediately and the owner will inherit the cash shortages and loans. This can cause large damage that cannot be recovered. We have already seen cases where several Ts were lost. The temporary high market value of these corporations is vanishing quickly and what is left is a large negative amount of cash. |
| Keto | Wednesday, July 25, 2012 - 04:12 pm
Unless you are still updating war map, internet explorer is having problems loading the war map and if it loads the war map, the "select target from a list" button doesn't work. Another window opens up and says "internet explorer has stopped working".
It does work with firefox.
Thank you for moving the "select target from a list" higher up on the war map! |
| Andy | Wednesday, July 25, 2012 - 04:49 pm
I just tried and it worked.
If you have more info, please let me know.
I will now try on a laptop with a small screen.
we have tested with all major internet browsers but we may have missed something. |
| Keto | Wednesday, July 25, 2012 - 10:43 pm
Yes Andy it works now, thank you |
| Natsu | Wednesday, July 25, 2012 - 11:12 pm
+1 Great job Andy the updates are nice. |
| Dix0n | Wednesday, July 25, 2012 - 11:36 pm
Two thumbs up!
Any idea when direct trading, or some version may be reinstated? I understand that the abuse issue may still be preventing it from coming back, but it would be great to hear if there was any progress in this matter. |
| Donator | Wednesday, July 25, 2012 - 11:39 pm
Andy,
The new war map wont show up on safari. |
| Phoenix King | Thursday, July 26, 2012 - 01:04 am
Looks good, all the updates are looking good, but andy do you think there will be any updates for CEO's. As a CEO player I would like to see a page where it shows all the Corps that can go thru an IPO. |
| Dix0n | Thursday, July 26, 2012 - 04:03 am
Phoenix, I think that may be on the wish list. Think I have heard that suggested before, pretty popular idea. Only thing I think may be holding it back is I am not sure there are a whole lot of players that IPO, or have many to IPO at an given time. It would be great for the players that have hundreds of corps. |
| Madoff | Thursday, July 26, 2012 - 04:56 am
"8. Public corporations - Cheat schemes
There are several cases of corporations issuing many billions of new shares and try to use a scheme that will end up with large profits. Such actions always appear on our radar screens and if needed, they are addressed. Old and new maximum and minimum cash limitation are making these schemes obsolete."
That was my favorite share market scheme.
One could regard this scheme either positively or negatively:
a) the positive way: as a leveraged buyout of a corp by itself, resulting in debt for the corp (the share repurchaser) and extra cash for the CEO (the share seller), or
b) the negative way: as a stock market "cheat." Either way, the scheme added realism to the share market. Unfortunately, the gamemaster regards this scheme in the negative way, as a "cheat."
Presidents can go rogue by fighting wars or launching sneak attacks. Assuming this share scheme is a "cheat," why not let CEOs play rogue too?
We want CEOs to have fun, right?
Since this game is a simulation, it's more fun to have share market schemes. Instead, we get yet another restriction on profits for CEOs. |
| Yankee | Thursday, July 26, 2012 - 05:59 am
Pft ... they need to fix several things before they worry about that.
How about doing something about all the multi's buying up shares in countries they reg then simply ignore.
Look at all the game master public corps nobody can touch now. |
| Andy | Thursday, July 26, 2012 - 09:00 am
Stock market manipulation will continue.
what we fixed was a scheme that used the minimum cash in corporations to cut the loans while reaping the profits.
It means that under some conditions, you did not have to pay the loans back. The scheme was dangerous because it could also cut your positive cash.
It is now much harder yo use but a definitive fix will follow.
Enterprise features and economic game features are high on our wish list and the page showing all the corporations that can perform an IPO is one of the first.
The war game needed an upgrade for a long time and we have to focus on it and get it done.
also read the plan I placed yesterday on the forum with some more priorities. |
| Yankee | Thursday, July 26, 2012 - 04:45 pm
I read it Andy, stock market "manipulation" was the only item I felt deserved a comment at this time.
I have to reserve my opinion on the other matters as I've not been back long enough to get use to the changes you've already made in the game.
I'll have to take your word for it that something was happening as I don't care enough about figuring it out how to exploit something like that for profit.
Personally when I take over a failing public company I will issue new stock to strengthen my "hold" on the corp by buying it myself. Most of the time my ultimate goal is to take it private again at least for a while.
If the corp goes bankrupt whether I get the bill or not, the reason I took control in the first place was to get the corp and improve it. So I've lost what effort I may have invested.
What other people are doing I have no idea. If you see a problem do what you have to.
What I see as a problem is public corps with no owners other than investment funds. Just scroll down the list of four seasons (gamemaster).
You can't buy stock, you can't even bid on them to take control. If nothing else IMHO when a corp. is owned by nothing other than investment funds you should find a way to force all those funds to sell at least a fraction of a percent in the stock they hold giving someone a chance to take control. |
| Christopher Michael | Thursday, July 26, 2012 - 05:05 pm
@Madoff; if nothing, you are consistent. |
| Laguna | Thursday, July 26, 2012 - 09:11 pm
Hahahaha!
/highfives Christopher |
| Madoff | Thursday, July 26, 2012 - 10:37 pm
Well, it seems Andy endorsed stock market manipulation. Now we're making progress! 
But it's not share schemes that stop loans from being paid. It's the automatic closing of high debt corps that stop loans from being paid.
I've seen corps with up to 1.5 trillion in negative cash. They automatically close in a few hours. There is no need to close them.
On Little Upsilon, a loan of 1.5 trillion costs only about 84 million/month in interest. A corp can easily afford that.
In the real world, it's normal for profitable companies to have substantial debt.
Therefore, the "fix" is to stop closing corps automatically because of high debt. Then with good management, they gradually can pay their loans.
The "fix" shouldn't be to make the share market boring with more restrictions. |
| Andy | Thursday, July 26, 2012 - 10:45 pm
I don't think there is a point here at all.
you can do whatever you did before, there are less restrictions than before.
The restriction made the manipulation possible.
We keep looking at it.
we do not think that a corporation should buy its own stock back if it has no money to do so.
The legal "Manipulations" are part of the game for a very long time and as one of the players said some time ago:
"Inside trading is a legal part of share trading". |
