| John Galt | Sunday, December 9, 2018 - 11:12 pm 
I think we can all agree that the war game is pretty much dead here. I think there are two primary reasons for this. The first is the insane amount of micromanagement that war requires. People simply do not have the time to manage it. The second is that people don't want to risk the assets that they worked so hard over years to build up.
I have two suggestions that could alleviate some of these concerns and hopefully encourage some more war.
The first one is regarding micromanagement. One area that this could easily be reduced would be to unify offensive and defensive weapon systems. There is no reason to have duplicates of everything. Light tanks and heavy tanks should just become tanks for example. They would function in both an offensive and defensive capacity. This would reduce the amount of different weapon systems people need to stock and make the logistics of supplying ammo for all the different units significantly easier.
The second one is regarding risk. This may not be popular but I think that by default wars should not end in conquest. Rather, they should end with the defeated nation being forced to pay tribute over time to the victor. The tribute payments should be substantial and lengthy to make war worthwhile. Conquest should only be permitted by a vote in the security council. If there is enough votes for conquest, then the victorious country would have the option to conquer the defeated country. I think this would encourage more people to wage limited wars for cash and bragging rights rather than full on conquest. It would also alleviate people's fears about losing their assets that they worked to build up over years.
What are your thoughts gentlemen? |
| evader23 | Sunday, December 9, 2018 - 11:22 pm
Not bad.
Couple of thoughts. I don't think micromanagment is the problem. War levels are We could let any president (not in secured mode) fight any other. Also I have found out just not trying to take a C3 war is freaking expensive. Reduce the cost a little and there would be more.
I agree with combining offense and defense the GM as stated there is a reason for keeping seperate though I forget what that is off the top of my head. But he does have a reason if the GM would be so kind as to reinterate it for I would be greatful.
The second idea. With player v player combate. One small tweek to that have a surrender option and the first player becomes a slave to the second until there a a revolt. But then give the player the option to quit that and star freah if (s)he likes.
Just my two cents |
| Daniel Iceling | Monday, December 10, 2018 - 09:25 am
John Galt, evader23, Andy, GM's, Everyone,
Having defensive and offensive weapons as separate systems. Allows the GM to make defence cheaper than offence. Without this, it would be nearly impossible for a lower wealth player to protect themselves against a higher wealth player.
Micromanagement is a massive headache, and it really needs improvement. It's main causes are, the supply system, and the garrison system, the unit system.
The Supply System, the Problem:
Currently, every single unit has to get it's supplies delivered by supply units. These units can not be manually controlled. They can bug out, preventing supplies from being delivered, crippling your army, with no way to fix it. Also, it's nearly impossible to know in advance, how many supply units you need. Whats more, their constant activity can put a huge load on the server.
Supply System, the Proposed Solution:
Largely remove the current system. Enable units to resupply directly from their national stockpile. This prevents bugs in the supply system from crippling the war game. Massively reduces server load. And makes life much easier for the players.
The Garrison System, the Problem:
Currently, every single location in your nation requires it's own garrison. Between, cities, towns, military installations, fortifications, State Corporations, etc. This means that a country requires hundreds of garrisons to defend itself. All up, simply the garrison requirement alone, means a nation needs roughly 3 million troops, and many trillions of dollars, just to garrison itself properly.
The Garrison System, the Solution:
Create a Unit type called "Garrison" that functions in a similar way to regular defence Units. In that it can move around to whichever target is being attacked. So that you don't need hundreds of them, just to protect the nation.
The Unit System, The problem:
Large nations can often end up with hundreds of Units. Requiring tremendous micro management. Each one has to be created and ordered around individually. Then each one has to be attacked and destroyed individually. This creates a cluttered map. Increases server load. And makes the whole system painful for players to use.
The Unit System, Solution:
Make each unit bigger (allow it to contain more weapons, etc). That way Players could deploy the same number of weapons as they do now. Just without having to create hundreds of units in order to do it.
The End Result:
Players wouldn't have to worry about a broken supply system crippling their military and destroying them, with no way to fix it.
Players could defend their countries with variable Army sizes, rather than "3 million men on garrison, or leave yourself open to being destroyed".
Players could manage their military, and conduct war, without having to click hundreds of times just to set up units, and carry out simple actions.
Signed President of DanNation on LU |
| Johanas Bilderberg | Monday, December 10, 2018 - 01:18 pm
"Players wouldn't have to worry about a broken supply system crippling their military and destroying them, with no way to fix it."
Looks at Napoleon and Hitler's invasion of Russia. Supply is how an army moves.
I like the idea of instead of conquest the defeated country pays war reparations to the victor. That is a brilliant idea Mr Galt.
Also combining the military is a great idea for simplification. A modern SAM site isn't defensive or offensive in nature. It just shoots down enemy planes inside a zone of control.
Each garrison could have a ring that shrinks or grows depending on how many weapons/ammo/soldiers are assigned to it. That is your defense.
I can see room for strategy in that. |
| John Galt | Monday, December 10, 2018 - 02:37 pm
Daniel I agree with pretty much everything you said there except your rationale against combining offensive and defensive units. It is still possible to make defense cheaper than offence in a combined system by just making the units more effective when defending than when attacking. It could just be a blanket percentage advantage that is applied to defenders. This way we could say maybe it takes 1.5 tanks to destroy 1 tank on defense for example. This would have the dual effect of simplifying logistics whilst still retaining the defender advantage.
I love your idea for creating a garrison unit that can auto-respond to any land target that is attacked. I would imagine this working in a way that is similar to how air defence units work currently.
I agree with Johanas about supply. Perhaps a good compromise would be to only require supply when your units are stationed outside of your country, otherwise they would just draw from some national stockpile. |
| Lord Mndz | Monday, December 10, 2018 - 06:14 pm
Hi all,
I like what Daniel said about the problems and the solutions, however there are few more things:
War levels. I think they should allow players to use better weapons in wars or/and allow bigger number of units, maybe units themselves could become bigger with each new war level. If you limit number of units per war level and increase numbers of weapons per unit that makes sense. War level should be like a reward that allows you to do more than before until you are not limited at all.
War purpose. What is the purpose of war? If you can protect assets by simply moving them to cash management account then you don't need an army to defend it. Limit movement of cash from countries to the account.
Restore after the defeat people learn much more from the defeat than from just observing the game. The problem is not the defeat but the time players needs to be in a good shape again. If you give players some free boosters to get part of ex population and money back they would love to reestablish their empires again.
Profitability level Current profitability level stops players from fast development as countries profits are tiny to compare of what you need to buy to wage and support wars
Units problem As Daniel said in early post, there are too many of units/ garrisons and supply units that just make your war process multi tasking nightmare. I think that number of units should be limited and instead of them currently being assigned to targets they should be assigned to area locations(the ones you occupy). Also unit should contain both defensive and offensive type of weapons and in case of attack they should respond accordingly. You would not need additional only defense units. If attacker has limited amount of attacking units and defender also have limited units to defend, the wars should be mostly one army fighting another. War index would mostly depend on your units.
Weapons at bases Currently you cannot destroy weapons stationed at bases. this must change as it was before when these weapons could be destroyed and prevent player from forming into units.
Space stationsCurrently players can keep entire armies without any cost at space stations and in case of war move them to the desired location. this cheating must stop and player should only buy/sell weapons via market. |
| SuperSoldierRCP | Monday, December 10, 2018 - 07:10 pm
A lot of great points are being made here.
However, as a long term player I do want to offer a secondary insight for everyone to consider. As someone who has been here before the war levels, a high war level player myself, and someone who educates new players I would like to offer these points for discussion.
I think for this conversation to remain productive I believe there are three points we need to address. These being the cost of a defensive military, the limitations of the war levels, and the lack of communication.
Everything else even some of the points above are minor details. Let us not get hung up on the minor issues, but let us explore the deeper issues and fix these minor issues later(Minor fixes is what caused the war level issue in the first place).
-------------------------------------------------------------------
First, The cost of weapons is still VERY high. Running a defensive military costs 10's of billions or 100's of billions without factoring an offensive military. The cost of a defensive military should be extremely minimal in comparison to the cost of offensive military. We as a collective when talking about micro-management need to address these costs first. The reason war is so costly is because we need 100's of units. Let us discuss how to make garrisons or units more effective. If we can find ways for the GM to increase weapons sharing or weapon effectiveness this will lead to decreased army sizes and decrease costs, which is the key point of micro-management we are attempting to address.
Second, We need to discuss the limitations of the war levels. In the past I was one of the most vocal critics against the war levels and to some point still am. Rather then fighting the levels let us embrace them and look at ways to refine them. As someone said a wealthy player beating up a poor player only happens in a broken system. Once someone fights their first war they should be fair game to everyone in the near by war level. Let us spend time offering solutions to the GM on how to improve the system.
I for one think that once you hit war-level 1 you should be vulnerable to attack. Instead of only moving up the war levels via C3 wars ANY time a player wins a war against a player of equal or higher level they should be forced up the levels. This is lead to a constantly changing system and ensure lower level players stay low and strong move up. Wars should also be based as an empire war not a country VS country system. In order to address the war inequality issue this is where I believe the discussion needs to start.
Third, The lack of communication is killing the war game. Players in the past (myself included) bitched and moaned that war levels killed the war game. I want to say ---THAT IS NOT THE CASE---. The GM created a great system that has amazing potential, what the war levels did that killed the war game was removed the communication that was need. This issue compounded over the years and as more communication was lost, more players left. When I joined you had 21 days of free war protection. You where expected to make friends and allies to survive. Some of my best memories where talking to fed-mates on MSN messager and skype. By allowing player to "HIDE" in war level 0, war level 1, and war level 2 there is no sense of urgency. As a player base we need to speak on ways to fix the war levels in a way that not only make players vulnerable, but also create a new system that allows them to easily or more effectively seek out friends or allies in such a large and vast game.
These are jut some points, but as a long term player there are the 3 issues I think we need to direct and devote our discussion to. These are the issues the GM has been asking input on and is willing to address. As a player base let us offer suggestions on these issues so that we can make a more fair, equatable, and dynamic game for everyone. |
| Lord Mndz | Monday, December 10, 2018 - 08:23 pm
I do agree with Super, communication is a key. I remember tel- conferences with Jozi talking about improvements and problems of the game, and forum where hundreds of people were discussing different matters. I think that today game needs to improve chat to allow all players to communicate more and be more actively involved in the game. The current communication system is not working, it is very hard to chat or have group conversations inside the game. It should not be so hard to implement that technically in the 21th century  |
| Lord Mndz | Tuesday, December 18, 2018 - 08:00 pm
Andy,
can you share if we can expect any of the above things to be fixed/tuned in the next year or so. What are your insights on the above? thanks! |
| EnverHoxha | Sunday, December 30, 2018 - 03:59 am
good luck getting any type of response from the GM on this |
| Lord Mndz | Sunday, December 30, 2018 - 02:32 pm
Andy,
can you shed some light on whats going to be done on the above? |
| Natural Adder | Sunday, December 30, 2018 - 09:33 pm
My guess is; Andy is going to crash the party and tell us this is too much work; we must think smaller suggestions. Things that can happen now with small implementation that can have affect. These all seem like some major stretchs for Andy and the bois. I like some ideas personally.. but just seem some are far out for Andy. |
| Natural Adder | Sunday, December 30, 2018 - 09:43 pm
could give people like 5 gold coins a week for logging into the chat few times a week  |
| Lord Mndz | Monday, December 31, 2018 - 07:53 am
I have another solution, - we can do this the other way around. We list the best ideas needed to be implemented, W3C tell the price in GCs needed to get that done, we collect the money, GMs implement the idea.
how about that |
| Natural Adder | Monday, December 31, 2018 - 02:42 pm
Not bad, if we can find something that will work out well that Andy will agree to work on, it would be nice. It would be a nice start to fix the war game by at least cutting the restrictions on navy units, as it really puts a damper on the navy in this game. Making them more like land or air units in terms of free structure would be a very good fix to get this old war engine going again. Maybe even adding a little more to the navy part of the war engine. The restrictions and tense requirements for navy make it VERY difficult to handle.
I do think finding a way to convert types of weapons between defense and offense would be good, ammo as well. Though some things like Missile interceptor batteries would have to remain. It would be a step in the right direction.
Though ideas like these i believe are important. Though we have to see what Andy is thinking |
| Lord Mndz | Monday, December 31, 2018 - 08:50 pm
Yeah, navy now is like a joke due to weapons limitations, still GMS should see the bigger picture of how everything should balance together vs how complex is to code it.
The first priority I think is reducing complexity in war game, that includes changes in support units system, weapons types and limits per uni/per type as well as map painting fixes, rework on strategic weapons attack/defense and war levels removal or making them useful..
Also I think that professional solders and officers should be created or trained somehow, not only bought. |
| Johanas Bilderberg | Wednesday, January 2, 2019 - 12:38 pm
Go fund me.
Make it happen Andy. |
| Lord Mndz | Thursday, January 3, 2019 - 07:15 am
let's wait and see what Andy thinks about it.
I know that for some games like Dota2, there are special events, where you buy some items/features from the game and GMs creating some things if you reach set levels of the funds collected. |
| Lord Mndz | Friday, January 4, 2019 - 05:44 pm
Andy? |
| Lord Mndz | Thursday, January 10, 2019 - 08:10 am
+1 |
| Andy | Sunday, January 13, 2019 - 05:03 pm
A lot of messages so I will answer some and see where we get.
Cost of war and separating weapons into defensive and offensive ones
The high cost was discussed many times. we have reduced but I am willing to reduce the cost more.
We will reduce the cost of defensive weapons in the coming period,
starting coming Monday January 14 or the next day.
As was said here, the separation of the forces allows us to selectively reduce cost.
In the past we had huge wars with weapons separated to defensive and offensive ones and players taking very high risks.
Military Units
We have recently added old features back to the game that allow you to wage war from your military bases not using military units.
Easy to use.
We have also reduced the need to paint your enemy's country in war.
We also agree to make units larger.
We have it on our wish list and will start to do so.
We cannot make large changes or we can create chaos for players so we will do it in small steps.
First step of enlarging military units coming Monday or Tuesday.
lets see if players reduce numbers or not.
Taking risks.
Players took more risk in the past and find it now difficult.
We have created a war competition world with high cash rewards. There were no takers. |
| Lord Mndz | Sunday, January 13, 2019 - 05:29 pm
Andy,
what is your opinion regarding players paying W3C for implementing of some game upgrades?
Is it hard to improve live-chat function to make ppl auto-join it? |
| Trout | Monday, January 14, 2019 - 04:09 pm
"We have created a war competition world with high cash rewards. There were no takers."
Um, me and Mndz were there and another player. Wars didn't happen because the GMs stopped the world ticking. I had conquest planned and preparations underway .. in fact my country there is still "in war" with a C3 right now, you can see it as the world isn't reset yet.
I'm not sure what the logic of "cash rewards" is for a war world, I don't see it being any particular sort of motivation.
IMO, a tournament war world needs to be more like fornite/PubG where the weapons and ammo come thick and fast from the c3 countries you take over, allowing you to use them on the other players. Corp management, profit making etc should still be part of the action, but a minor part not the stuff that stops you building military and waging war. |
| Andy | Tuesday, January 15, 2019 - 12:01 am
I will check the chat function.
It should be auto-join for every new player. |
| Andy | Saturday, January 19, 2019 - 10:28 am
Units are now a bit larger, mainly the land divisions and air force units.
The cost of defensive weapons is reduced by 10% +
Total defense cost each moth is reduced a bit too because ammunition costs less. |
| Lord Mndz | Saturday, January 19, 2019 - 12:48 pm
Thank you! |
| Lord Mndz | Saturday, January 19, 2019 - 05:36 pm
Regarding the chat - Maybe when a player joins the game the Chat window could be additionally opened and player automatically connects it unless in settings he switch this option off. The default would always be to auto-connect.
I think this little thing would really improve communication among players. ofc this is my personal opinion |
| Andy | Sunday, January 20, 2019 - 03:27 pm
I checked the chat
when you register, you are not immediately connected.
it takes a day or so.
Then you are automatically connected.
we should probably inform players about it.
we can connect them immediately.
we did in the past.
we had many fake accounts where people created an account,
shouted abuse and nobody knew who they are.
now, they have to come the next day for the shouting.
by then, it is not relevant any more. |
| Andy | Sunday, January 20, 2019 - 03:33 pm
The changes in unit sizes and in the price of defensive weapons is significant.
we will reduce the price more in the next update, probably in the coming week.
same with units size.
we will look at other units we skipped in the first update. |
| Andy | Sunday, January 20, 2019 - 03:42 pm
There is a lot there about communications.
Did the GM kill the communications? How did he do that?
also, chats with Jozi
Jozi is willing to chat.
how do want to organize it and who is doing it? |
| Andy | Sunday, January 20, 2019 - 03:44 pm
We had lots of talk about the war game but when the possibility was there to fight, nearly nobody wanted to take the risk.
Making players in game level one vulnerable to attacks means they can be destroyed by an experienced player after a single war they win.
in FB war levels limitations are very light.
you are vulnerable very quickly.
I do not see many more wars there.
even giving winners $ 200 in cash did not create much interest. |
| SuperSoldierRCP | Sunday, January 20, 2019 - 07:08 pm
Andy,
I've been here many years and I would love to take over Laguna's place as the host of the Jozi Chat. If the GM is receptive to the the idea of doing an old school Jozi Chat I'd be happy to dedicate my time into making and creating a program for such event. I know we have old records of the Jozi chat on the forums and I would love to continue building on that platform as it was a very successful back in the day. |
| Lord Mndz | Sunday, January 20, 2019 - 08:08 pm
Yeah, these Jozi chats used to be fun and meant a lot to all the players, I would really take some time of my calendar to participate. If Super can organize this and make anyone free to join I am in. Maybe it is possible to make not a chat but an audio conference via skype or some other tool as voice conversation is usually more effective than just bunch of txt messages.
Maybe the agenda could be organized in two parts - few topics from players perspective and few from W3C.
Andy and W3C, if you guys are in this, we can agree on the date of the first one and start organizing place/agenda. |
| Mark C | Monday, January 21, 2019 - 05:39 am
A lot of great ideas. I would support these ideas becauseI feel they would improve player interest and communication, just to name a couple. I look forward to seeing them progress into reality here @ SC. |
| SuperSoldierRCP | Monday, January 21, 2019 - 07:24 pm
Andy,
Here's my idea for a Jozi Chat
I think the GM's best course of action is to create a Twitch TV gamming channel. We then use the Twitch channel to host regular Jozi chats, Developer updates, and Possible game changes. One issue many players have is the antiquated GM to player sharing of information on the game. Doing your updates on Twitch once a month in a 10min or less update allows people to have more involvement. You can still post on the game update section, but due to the nature of twitch it would also allow people to join in and listen at random to your updates and comments increasing exposure to the site and mobile app. If your open to this I would be willing to create a channel and do the leg work in an effort to help the GM expand.
As for the Jozi chat, I'm thinking that I can create a survey monkey poll with the following questions (I would also provide the GM private access to the poll).
-What is your highest game level?
-What is your highest war level?
-How many wars have you won?
-How long have you been on Simcountry?
-What would you like to see changed?
-What Questions would you like to ask the GM?
This would allow me to compile a list of all questions and answers before the GM or Jozi chat. I would provide you a list of the most common questions for you to address to the player base, give you time to address any updates you have or maybe explain an update or change your making, and give a small amount of time for anyone live viewing the channel to ask a question. |
| Lord Mndz | Monday, January 21, 2019 - 08:47 pm
I really like Super's idea of posting game news live on Twitch/Youtube - I think this is the best way of communication today. Listen is more easy for ppl than to read and is more engaging.
as for my personal wishes, I only want to have opportunity to share ideas of improving the game and hear back from W3C or other players of what they think. |
| John Galt | Thursday, January 24, 2019 - 05:30 pm
Andy I disagree with you rationale for not combining defensive and offensive weapons. You can still make defence cheaper than offence in a combined weapon situation by just applying a blanket percentage advantage to defenders in any battle. So for example, when a unit is being attacked, it could have say a 20% advantage compared to the attacking unit. That advantage would make defence cheaper by 20%. There is no need to have separate units. It just doubles the logistics for the military.
Similarly, there is no need to have 4 different land units (tank, arty, jeep, armoured vehicle). They are all pretty much the same. Make them one unit and just call it Combined Arms Ground Force or something along those lines. |
| Lord Mndz | Saturday, January 26, 2019 - 09:56 am
Andy,
just please let us know when You or Jozi can talk to us.
From my side I would really love to present some ideas and discuss changes regarding war levels system and units. Also it would be great to talk what we can do better for new players. |
| Lord Mndz | Sunday, February 3, 2019 - 12:33 pm
Hi Andy,
time flies, how about the first call/chat? |
| Andy | Sunday, February 10, 2019 - 06:53 pm
Jozi would love to participate in a chat.
I don't think a "tv" or skype channel will do
but a chat as was done some years ago is just fine.
You ask and Jozi will answer.
If you have a suggestion, let us know.
Date and time:
Saturday or Sunday afternoon 5 or 6 PM MET (morning 11 am or 12 PM EST) will do.
we just need to plan ahead of time. |
| Lord Mndz | Monday, February 11, 2019 - 05:32 pm
I think Saturday 5-6 MET is a good idea as it works for US players and is not too late for EU. Let's wait and see what others think. |
| Daniel Iceling | Tuesday, February 12, 2019 - 05:51 am
Andy, Lord Mndz,
Is MET Middle European Time? Just making sure I have the timezone right?
Signed President of DanNation on LU |
| Lord Mndz | Tuesday, February 12, 2019 - 05:00 pm
Middle European Time (MET) or UTC+01 |
| Lord Mndz | Saturday, February 16, 2019 - 11:26 am
So I feel we are not having the chat today. Let's do that the next week? |
| johnV | Saturday, February 16, 2019 - 03:04 pm
I'm surprised that more people didn't respond to this. Either day is good for me.
Maybe this should be in it's own thread.
Perhaps the newer players don't know who Jozi is. |
| Lord Mndz | Saturday, February 16, 2019 - 07:11 pm
Yea... Maybe this event needs some more promotion. I feel that a separate forum section started by w3c is good to start from. Also it is posible to organize that as a live forum discussion in a separate board. |
| Natural Adder | Saturday, February 16, 2019 - 10:11 pm
I would like a Jozi chat, i would go to them when i was much younger, just for fun. It would be nice to have one now, and see how many players will join in. But Andy needs to have a date set up to make sure we know when to join. |
