| Andy | Sunday, September 28, 2014 - 06:03 pm 
Countries will move up the war levels if they fight repeatedly against countries in the same war level.
Until now, the war level only increased if you fought a C3 country in a higher war level.
Exact details, and the number of wars it takes to move up the war levels will be published when the feature becomes available.
we expect it on Nov. 6 or a week later.
The reasoning is of course, that if you are able to win several wars at your own level, you are probably experienced enough to move up.
There were many requests to make war between players more likely.
We also would like to move on from fake wars into real wars.
The amounts that can be won with fake wars will be higher per war level but will be limited to a small number of wars at that same level, diminishing if you remain in the same war level.
Moving up, the amounts will be much higher and again diminish when you keep fighting at that same level.
We will also increase the number of gold coins you can win when moving up the war levels. |
| Khome y Peng | Monday, September 29, 2014 - 05:14 am
So how many war levels are there, and what happens when you reach the max war level? |
| NiAi | Monday, September 29, 2014 - 08:52 am
Changes sounds fair.
However, as it was proposed earlier by another player, maybe a there should be a way to take a computer controlled country at a lower level but without cash reward. Reason being that to fight "real" wars one sometimes need to take C3s for beachhead and similar purposes. |
| Andy | Friday, October 3, 2014 - 09:58 pm
I answered on a different discussion.
I see no problem doing so.
we will discuss Monday and may implement quickly without cash rewards. |
| Khome y Peng | Saturday, October 4, 2014 - 12:55 am
Were you going to answer my question? |
| craigwilliamson79 | Saturday, October 4, 2014 - 05:29 am
There are 12 war levels...what happens after that so far is that you just stay at war level 12. |
| Khome y Peng | Saturday, October 4, 2014 - 04:12 pm
Right, however the cash rewards diminish when you keep fighting at the same level. With that being said, what happens when at war lvl 12. How long does is it diminish to zero?
Andy, this is a question for you. |
| Andy | Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 11:51 am
The info about war levels is in the war levels document.
The rewards for winning wars against C3 countries will indeed be limited to a number of wars.
Not many have reached war level 12.
you have a lot to do for now.
We will add war levels. there are some small features we need to add to make that possible.
We will also pay higher gold coin awards for high war levels and add incentives for player vs. player wars. |
| Khome y Peng | Sunday, October 5, 2014 - 04:05 pm
So, whenever I do reach Lvl 12 (please answer this question) will it reach a point where I will not be able to earn more cash rewards? Are you saying there will be a lvl 12, 14 etc... |
| Andy | Monday, October 6, 2014 - 09:23 pm
Many more war levels will be added.
with awards and cash to win. |
| Jackwagen | Tuesday, October 7, 2014 - 05:13 pm
i don't want to move up the war levels and not be allowed to fight some players who are just as experienced as me but happen to raid less |
| Andy | Thursday, October 9, 2014 - 05:53 pm
Raiding will shortly cause everyone to go up the war levels.
we are really trying to reduce fake wars.
we keep relaxing the war rules and make it easier for player vs. player wars.
war 7 and up are now completely free in fighting any country in war level 7 and up. |
| The Freak | Thursday, October 9, 2014 - 07:11 pm
The reason player v. player wars don't happen is because there is no profit opportunity because you took away the ability to sell population down to 20 million and you took away the ability to trade game cash for GC. Until you restore those functions, player v. player wars aren't going to happen.
In addition, although I love the space functionality, the fact that a player has no ability to know what kind of defense they are up against because hundreds of mobile units or other weapons could show up after war has been declared is also a huge deterrent to war. For some reason you continue to limit the monthly spending/transferring on military products but allow an infinite amount of military products to be brought in via space centers.
Then, offensive mobile units lack flexibility (mobile attack wings are worthless as FP get eaten up by ints and there are no mobile bombing wings), there are no mobile navy units and mobile missile units are worthless. There should be the same flexibility in setting up mobile offensive units as there is in setting up regular offensive units so that players can tweak the units to maximize their effectiveness.
The only profitable war would be against a newbie that goes to war level 3 and doesn't understand how to really defend themselves and to me, those are the last people that I want to see being attacked by stronger players...those are players that should be helped, not attacked.
Actually, one more profitable war, using cruise ships and just bypassing the air defense...don't know how that one hasn't been corrected yet. |
| Aries | Thursday, October 9, 2014 - 09:35 pm
I disagree that the raiding changes will result in making pvp less likely. I think it will actually make it more possible. The problem has been that the incentive to raid was higher than the incentive to fight players. Change this and there will be more pvp wars.
What is the problem with space? How would you suggest to fix it?
I agree with more flexibility with offensive mobile units. I have not found much use for most types. Navies are fine and, I agree, maybe too good right now. They don't need mobiles right now. Anyone who has fought a quality opponent recently knows the value of mobile missile defense units, however. They are quite valuable.
You are looking for a profitable war against players. The GM has said he is working on incentives for pvp wars. In the meantime, you should see my suggestion post on Total/All-Out war.
The GM has made clear his position for some time about changes to how raiding will be rewarded. I appreciate the way these changes are being implemented with providing the community plenty of notice and an idea of what to expect. |
| Andy | Thursday, October 9, 2014 - 10:44 pm
Thanks Aries.
Raiding will remain possible.
In fact, all C3 wars at your level or higher, will be rewarded as before.
With increasing war levels, the fighting will be more severe and rewards will be higher. There are gold coins when you move up the war levels.
Any constructive ideas as how to make the player vs. player wars more attractive are welcome.
If anyone has specific comments on any military unit that is bad return on investment, that is welcome too.
we are continuously testing units in various conditions but by far we are unable to test all combinations. |
| Khome y Peng | Thursday, October 9, 2014 - 10:50 pm
What's the Sim cash reward for (example) lvl 20/war? |
| VikingX | Friday, October 10, 2014 - 04:12 pm
"Any constructive ideas as how to make the player vs. player wars more attractive are welcome"
Resources. Pretty much why all wars have been fought in the real world. Make SC the same.
The possibilities are endless when you think about adding resources but I imagine it would take a lot of work to implement.
How to go about adding them with the current corp structure is a puzzle but no doubt you's or the community could come up with something.
I'm not a fan of the raiding restrictions to say the least. It adds nothing to the game. I'd much rather the GM be working on things that enhance the game. Not putting restrictions on us.
The idea that it'll somehow make pvp's more likely is nonsense.
"If anyone has specific comments on any military unit that is bad return on investment, that is welcome too"
Missile units are a bad return andy. Land base cruise and con batts don't have a quality effect.
Also mobile con batts auto response is a useless weapon. It does no damage whatsoever against the defence and just gets wiped out.
Also the restrictions on the amount of bases allowed hampers my ability to use the above weapons. Not that I would with the issues described above. But with only 1 base an enemy could take it out and destroy my ability to use these weapons far to easy.
I used to be able to get around that by contracting the bases to myself but that's been changed recently. |
| Andy | Friday, October 10, 2014 - 05:20 pm
Thanks VikingX
Countries with presidents have more resources, sometimes lots of resources.
Adding more is not a major issue, it should be profitable to take the risk.
Ideas are welcome.
Raiding will remain beneficial. Each war you win against a C3 as before will earn you awards. nothing is changing.
we added the possibility to take a C3 at WL 3, if there is a strategic reason/location you need. This is very easy and without rewards. It was suggested here and was a good idea.
all other wars against C3 will win you rewards but at higher war levels, harder wars, more rewards.
PvP wars will be more attractive. It is not instead of C3 wars. They were much more attractive in the past.
I will check the units you mentioned one for one and we will make changes if needed. This will take at least two weeks.
The issue of bases will be checked coming Monday. I think you should be able to have a minimum of 5 or 10 bases of each type.
the contracting to yourself was never changed, we need to find out what happened. |
| The Freak | Friday, October 10, 2014 - 06:20 pm
I didn't say that this change would make pvp wars less likely, just that it will have no impact on it. If you want to increase pvp wars then you need to add back the incentive that created them in the first place, gaining resources which can then be exchanged for GC. Not being able to exchange cash for GC and only being able to exchange pop down to 80 mil kills the profit incentive.
The issue with space is quite simple and I'm not sure why no one seems to care. I can literally take a C3 and make it the #1 defense rank in 1 day on any world whenever I'd like. I know I may have a larger stockpile of mobile units than most, but that is a completely ridiculous ability. On the contrary, I can also take a country with massive resources and strip it dry in a day and leave it with nothing but pop.
So, if I start a war with another player, I have no idea if they've got 100's of mobile units sitting somewhere or if everything they have is in their country. I also don't know if they'll just dump the country and strip it out. I have to risk considerable resources and considerable amounts of time setting up for a war that I'll ultimately have to spend more than I can earn or for a country that is essentially worthless to me unless it has population over 80M.
Also, the mobile defense units are entirely too strong compared to the offensive counterparts and there still seems to be no viable/cost effective way to bring down federated mobile air defense.
So, again, you're left with the only wars where there is possibly a profit incentive is against those that don't have a properly set up defense. But, those are the players that should be helped, not wiped out.
I'm of course not including the cruise ship strategy in this, that really does need to get cleared up. It's ridiculous. |
| VikingX | Friday, October 10, 2014 - 06:59 pm
Perhaps I should have made my idea more clear.
I'm not talking about resources in there current form. What I'm suggesting is resources in the ground. Spread all over the worlds in different locations. Some resources more valuable than others.
Oil for example. Have oil fields spread throughout the world. To take control of these fields players must have countries nearby. Say 500k as a sphere of influence to take control. Once you have control that oil will make the controlling players or fed fabulously wealthy. This will create competition for these resources making conflict inevitable.
You could even move these resources around after a period of time. It makes sense as these resources are finite. It could open up other possibilities aswell. Possibly a science and exploration feature to explore and find these resources, and exploit then to there fullest. We could even have space resources.
I could go on and on. Like I said the possibilities are many when you add resources like I've suggested. This isn't just my idea it's been floating around on SC for years.
But like I said with the current corps structure this idea would be hard to implement I think? |
| VikingX | Friday, October 10, 2014 - 07:09 pm
You make some good points Freak. I agree with all you said.
Just to reiterate what freak said about mobile units. I also think there to strong. 600 quality vs 450 max quality of normal units is far to big. They already have many advantages. A 150 quality gap is extreme. |
| Andy | Friday, October 10, 2014 - 07:22 pm
natural resources are a major item on our list for too long.
placing them in countries around the world and making the amount limited is our plan and mines should have a declared capacity when they are "found" and get depleted after so many years.
Countries with "proven" resources could trade the "concessions" to mine them as assets.
The search for such resources that are not found yet can also be a fun thing.
we think that it will add a lot.
we hope to have the resources to develop this feature.
The design of these features, including space resources, is sitting here for a long time. you could find very old discussions on the forum about it. |
| VikingX | Friday, October 10, 2014 - 07:30 pm
Yes I know andy I've seen many of those discussions in the past. I'm excited about the idea, as are many. I know it's not something that could be implemented easily or cheaply but I think it would be worth it. It's things like this I wanna see you guys putting your time and energy into. Not these restrictive measures. |
| Andy | Friday, October 10, 2014 - 07:33 pm
fighting C3s is restrictive?
as I said, rewards will continue and higher ones too as they increase with the war levels. |
| VikingX | Friday, October 10, 2014 - 07:42 pm
We'll yeah in a way. Raiding as a strategy for growth is being curtailed forcing players to play the game in an ever shrinking 1 model fits all kinda way. I find it restricting yes. |
| Andy | Friday, October 10, 2014 - 07:48 pm
Raiding is enhanced.
allowing you to make more money if you make the effort and there are many gold coins to win in addition.
Some want to play chicken and only fight war level 3 C3 countries and never expose themselves to a PvP war.
that is not a good strategy in this game. |
| Lucky | Friday, October 10, 2014 - 08:02 pm
Andy you said you where going to test some weapons can I just ask how you test them? If your not testing v a fed air response plus mobile units then you's wont get proper feedback that applies ingame? Just checking  |
| The Freak | Friday, October 10, 2014 - 08:57 pm
OK, maybe it was addressed in the past. But the issue still remains, you're not going to get pvp wars if there isn't an incentive. The fact that because of space transfers I could line up an enemy that I think I can take, but then their defense can go from practically nothing to invincible in the day before the war starts is a massive disincentive. Same on the other side, if I line up a nice target with lots of resources and then by the time I can win the war the resources are all gone that's also a massive disincentive.
I just don't understand why you would think that the reason players aren't doing pvp wars has anything to do with the fact that they can raid for cash. The cash you can earn from raiding allows a player to build a strong empire that could enable them to actually fight pvp wars. Forcing them to higher war levels where they have to risk things like mobile units and have to use maximum quality offense just to beat a C3 that actually has cash in it isn't going to help. |
| Aries | Friday, October 10, 2014 - 10:03 pm
I have a suggestions that I have been brainstorming this week that I will add to the forum soon, probably tonight. I think it will help with your concern about unexpected resistance when evaluating a pvp war. It will help address the fact the obviously your opponent is the player, not just the country your looking it. It expands an idea I had on another thread previously.
On mobile unit balance, the defensive units are fine. Keep in mind the increased costs of upgrading units of already high quality. I have seen more mobile units deployed at 500 quality, likely for this reason. The concern is that their offensive counterparts lack an effective configuration and the flexibility of non-mobile units allow them to be more useful by including a larger number of engaged weapons. Mobile offensive units such as, for example, a 400 fighter plane unit and a 600 off aa / 250 medium range missile battery unit would bring more balance between offensive and defensive mobile units.
As to navies, I started a thread on those. I am opposed to the idea of defensive air forces responding but believe some weapon should be available in garrisons that fire back. If naval missile batteries are not added to garrisons then defensive missile batteries make the most sense. I think one issue with wars is that most offensive weapons are most effectively countered by just a few types of defensive weapons. If you were to ask "what counters this?" again and again through the different offensive weapons you would hear helicopters or interceptors repeatedly given as the answer. Weapons should be more varied in effectiveness and wars should not always follow the same script.
Viking mentioned the ineffectiveness of conventional missiles. I think there is something to that. Perhaps missile attacks from land-based conventional and cruise batteries should not be countered by helicopters, as effective defense is already available in garrisons provided by defensive missile batteries and missile interceptor batteries. This would put these land-based weapons on par with the navy equivalents. |
| The Freak | Saturday, October 11, 2014 - 01:50 am
I'm not disagreeing with anything you've said Aries, but I don't think the way to increase the likelihood of wars is to make them more complex by adding even more variability to it, the game is tedious enough.
As for DMB hitting cruisers, I don't understand the justification for there being just this one type (at least that is effective) of weapon that doesn't get a response from air D and AAB/DMB. I think there should be air support from navy ints possibly or instead of air, have defensive navy units with destroyers/etc. that respond to navy's in the same way that air D responds to air/land attacks. Or, as I suggested, keep it simple and just have heli's attack them like they used to.
As for garrisons, they're too small as it is much less with another added battery.
I agree on offensive missile batts (LBCB/Conv), they have a longer range than the heli's and def batts that attack them in defense which makes zero sense. They should only be defensed by MIB as it would be in the real world.
All of that being said, the original point was what about what would increase PvP war and I've posted this elsewhere but I'll add it hear as well:
The war levels have zero to do with the fact that there aren't more wars, it's the following:
#1 Can't trade cash for GC
#2 Can't sell pop down to 20 mil
#3 With quality/mobile units defense is WAY stronger than offense
#4 Because of space there's no way to tell what your enemies actual defense is
#5 Because of space there's no way to know that the enemy will not just strip out their country during the war if they're losing
You'll notice that there are many players at war levels that are high enough to actually engage in PvP war, but none of them do it and it used to be that all of these people would be sitting with WP on. Now, they don't need WP because they know all of the above is true. |
| Jennifer McLaughlin | Saturday, October 11, 2014 - 03:41 am
War level 12 on all 5 worlds. Lets go Boys. I'll go head to head. Bring it. Evil B---th. Jennifer Mas Mota Empire. LOL. It's only a game... Right? |
| David The Great | Saturday, October 11, 2014 - 09:06 am
You're funny Jennifer |
| Jennifer McLaughlin | Saturday, October 11, 2014 - 06:18 pm
Thank You David. I try! LOL |
| Jackwagen | Saturday, October 11, 2014 - 09:25 pm
i agree that there needs to be a bigger danger factor this includes doing away with war levels it would force people to actually cultivate alliances and join federations... also the limit of countries in a federation should be lifted or increased greatly so small players and newbs can stand up to the bigger players |
| Khome y Peng | Saturday, October 11, 2014 - 10:06 pm
I strongly agree with the larger federation numbers. |
| David The Great | Saturday, October 11, 2014 - 11:06 pm
Federation # limits definitely need to be removed. |
| Aries | Saturday, October 11, 2014 - 11:22 pm
You will have to explain why the purchase of gold coins with game money leads to pvp. More cash seems to be available in raiding, for far less risk, than in pvp.
I have already suggested direct gold coin awards for pvp that are a part of my Total/All-Out War suggestion on the appropriate forum. The goal with that setup is to reward victory in real wars with real risk with gold coins and avoid potentially staged wars for profit. That victory over higher population countries confers greater gold coins awards makes moot the need to sell pop later.
At similar costs, defense is stronger than offense, as intended. This is to give some comfort that it is possible to establish effective defense. It is beatable though, and not just with navies.
As to evaluating player defense, I have made my suggestion, as promised, to the forum for Player Power Rankings. This will make it possible to have some idea of the resources an opposing player has available in a conflict.
About Space Centers, I think it was proposed, but does not appear to be implemented, the ability to destroy them and their contents in war. This seemed to be a good idea and makes them have strategic importance to allow reinforcements or a retreat of resources or to prevent the ability of your opponent to do so. |
| Andy | Saturday, October 18, 2014 - 02:24 am
I am in the US in the past week.
when back, next week, I will look in more details into any suggestions made here.
Feel free to mail the gamemaster,
It will be looked into next week. |
| Andy | Saturday, October 18, 2014 - 02:33 am
Part of what we have said is that there will be additional incentive to fight PvP wars.
We will see in time if they happen or not.
In addition, I must comment that changes in the war game, and changes in general, have always met rejections.
we had that when we stopped the killing of new players.
we had it when we stopped the ridiculous exchanging of game money into gold coins.
(raid and exchange was the name of the game).
we have it now when we try to get players stop hiding behind their war protection, making easy money, raiding easy to conquer countries and never taking a risk.
We started this game with HUGE very frequent PvP wars.
The negative was that you could come back in the morning and your entire empire was gone. you had nothing.
Many came back and took revenge but many also left.
We want the wars back, obviously it is possible as we had them before, but we also want to have the basic protection, both for your main assets and for new players. |
| Andy | Saturday, October 18, 2014 - 02:35 am
You should realize that new players will join and walk into a different reality, not used to sitting on their hands earning money, they might just do the obvious, and either fight wars, or go for the economic, very profitable game, or both. |
