| Andy | Wednesday, October 7, 2020 - 02:37 pm 
All changes to weapons are documented in the weapons document.
Weapons are tuned on a small scale.
Slight changes to defensive armored vehicles. They are more powerful and defend against more land based weapons.
Slight changes to jeeps. They are effective in the defense against land based weapons attacks.
WE are planning to equip Jeeps with hand held missiles. This change may take some time to materialize and will announced again, ahead of time.
Changes to land to sea missiles. The missiles are now more effective against sea based weapons. Also against sea based weapons they were not effective before.
Some more army unit changes
Units can now have 68% of their weapons of one single type. Before, it was 70%.
Also slight changes to some units and mobile units.
The cost of maintaining the Army
The cost of maintaining the defensive army declined again. Also the maintenance cost of the offensive army declined by smaller numbers.
The changes are limited to prevent major changes for the defensive industries.
The profitability of defense related corporations is excellent and the changes will not change it.
The cost decline will take longer to materialize because countries already have stocks of ammunition and maintenance products that were purchased at the then existing price.
Storing Weapons in Enterprises
We see the storage of very large quantities of weapons in enterprises as an advantage for rich players who hold large armies. It is a problem for smaller players.
We urge players with such large stocks to sell some of the stock on the market and reduce such reserves.
At some point, if nothing happens, we might set thresh holds on numbers and introduce a cost to excessive stockpiles.
Selling weapons on the market now might be more profitable than later because the price of many weapons will decline.
Think about it ...
Nothing is imminent.
Planned Change within two weeks
As we have said several times in the past weeks, we will allow military units stationed at locations around the country, participate in the defense.
One unit, which is stationed within a striking range of the attacked target, will participate.
The unit must have weapons that are relevant to the defense against the attacker.
Mobile units already participate in this way.
Up to two mobile units, if available within range and poses relevant weapons, participate in the defense.
Game Documentation
Several documents have been updated.
Some of the changes relate to functions in Simcountry that were added, of changed.
Some of the changes are made to make the documentation easier to understand and in most cases shorter.
We know that reading documentation is not done a lot but some players do read and then, it is important that the information is short and clear.
Also this is quite a large project that will be gradually done and will also include many hints.
The upgrade is completed on Kebir Blue and will be done on the other worlds in the coming hours. |
| Lord Mndz | Wednesday, October 7, 2020 - 03:02 pm
Thanks, it is good to see changes in the right direction eventhough they very small. |
| Andy | Wednesday, October 7, 2020 - 03:20 pm
Small and cumulating.
we need small changes to let markets, armies and players adapt. |
| Gaz | Wednesday, October 7, 2020 - 05:03 pm
I give up. Jeeps and DAV'S update? What's the point of that? They're still useless. Only thing useful about jeeps is they don't use ammo and now yous are proposing to change that.
"The changes are limited to prevent major changes for the defensive industries"
There's hardly any players with defence corps. They're all in c3's and the GM's already intervening in the markets so why the need for a gradual shift? Because the markets are over inflated with false demand from all the maintenance corps and ammo usage per month? A more drastic approach is needed I think, not a gradual 1. GM's out the markets, get rid of the false demand and huge ammo usage and let the players control the weapons markets.
There's rules on top of rules, on top of more rules here that are screwing things up. We're going back years here. I could peel back all the layers but I don't think it's worth the effort. GM intervention in the markets is where it stems from though, imo.
What's happening about the war levels update that we've been discussing? Any news?
Limits and threshold in ceo is a bad idea, I dont see a problem for small players? Got any examples where a large player has abused this and taken advantage of a small player? It doesn't happen, the fact that it could isn't reason to change it.
If it's GC's yous are after I don't think this is the best way. limits and thresholds are already a big problem in the game. It removes competitiveness from the players when there some arbitrary limit that in the real world doesn't exist. You want a more competitive game to get people to spend more GC.
As is, the rules force everyone to play the same strategy. That said with these ceo changes I'm wondering where to go from here? What effective strategy is left? For a week I've been logging on and I still dont know where to go from here? Somewhere else most likely. |
| Andy | Wednesday, October 7, 2020 - 05:56 pm
Gaz,
Your position from where you are in terms of size and power is clear.
You jump to conclusions and you bring up fake interventions that were discussed 50 time before.
If you are angry, wait a day or two and please read it again.
The changes in Jeeps and other land forces will end up differentiating between weapons and creating more specialized tasks.
These weapons were worthless and remain worthless in the opinion of several players.
They are not going to disappear.
So the only option is to make them useful.
Maybe very useful.
we now have mainly air war.
I think that many will be happy if land forces become more important.
As to enterprises, if it is not significant nor important, why do players keep so many weapons hidden in enterprises?
I urge players to reduce their holdings of large numbers of weapons in enterprises and bring them back to the countries.
Not everything at the same time. There are no imminent changes but it makes more sense for the army of the empire to resides in the empire.
keeping them in an enterprise is an exploit of something that was an error in the first place.
we are reducing the cost of maintenance of the army.
Changes to C3 wars require some development work. |
| Lord Mndz | Wednesday, October 7, 2020 - 06:19 pm
ceo weapons storage is an exploit - period. i am happy with any plan to get rid of this nonsence - the faster the better. ceos should not be allowed to store weapons, only their corporations as they use them as materials. |
| Andy | Wednesday, October 7, 2020 - 06:29 pm
Thanks.
although I do not think that we should make abrupt changes but rather allow players to adapt their empires to new conditions. |
| Gaz | Wednesday, October 7, 2020 - 06:52 pm
What have I said that's false?
I'm not angry, just putting my point across. I'm a little frustrated that mine and others, don't seem to be getting listened to though.
Example in point "As to enterprises, if it is not significant nor important, why do players keep so many weapons hidden in enterprises?
This has been said 50 times before but you keep asking.
The reason is, it's to expensive to have weapons in a country. It's that simple and we all been saying it this past week.
"keeping them in an enterprise is an exploit of something that was an error in the first place"
Keeping weapons in ceo's is now an exploit all of a sudden? Free stroarge in a ceo has been a feature of the game since I can remember. |
| John Galt | Wednesday, October 7, 2020 - 07:14 pm
Changing CEO storage rules in isolation is a bad idea. If it is done in conjunction with other changes, like the ones I suggested for example, it would be okay.
Can we get an idea on the planned limits for CEOs? I have an insane amount of weapons and i don’t know if I can sell them all in time lol. Can we have a game master buyback program? |
| SirSmokes | Wednesday, October 7, 2020 - 07:49 pm
I came back because I thought the war game was fixed. But all I see is further destruction of the war game. This is why people left the game. I've actually came back to a heavily restricted war game. And it seams your taking away more things from players. So I'll give it a month and if things aren't getting better I'm out once again. |
| SirSmokes | Wednesday, October 7, 2020 - 07:50 pm
And I still can't get pro officers. Its not fixed yet. |
| E O | Wednesday, October 7, 2020 - 08:50 pm
Thanks for the update, and thank you for the 2 week plan as well. The heads up is very much appreciated.
I am 100% for limiting the amount of weapons you can store in a CEO. I've had large stockpiles in the past, and agree that having a "rainy day" weapons stash is largely unfair compared to players who have not yet acquired those resources. This is a way to reduce the advantage of large players in a meaningful way, though perhaps players with very large stashes could be supported in reducing their holdings (IE John lol).
Looking forward to land-based war becoming more prominent as it sounds like that's a goal. I'm interested in what changes will be made to allow players to get within striking range to use the land forces. A major factor in using air right now is that you have range (at all), and don't have to take a neighboring country to your enemy. |
| Andy | Thursday, October 8, 2020 - 12:08 am
sirsmokes,
Nice you are back.
Please read what is said here about the war game recently.
we are determined to get more people to join the war game. I also saw the you found out how to get prof. officers. We will clean up the false offers ASAP.
I know that some players are convinced that the defense will never be able to prevent destruction of the country.
Maybe.
I do not want to overshoot in any way but the defense too became a bit stronger today.
Having military units participate in the defense will be an improvement too.
Further strengthening of land forces, in offensive and defensive roles might help in increasing the role of the land forces vs air forces that are currently dominant in the war game.
I think that we did talk about a general reduction in the numbers of weapons.
It will be beneficial for the war game if it happens.
We have reduced the cost of maintaining the defensive force today by about 10% more.
it will materialize in the coming days. I already explained why.
the cost of the offensive force is also reduced but by a smaller percentage.
Next upgrade, will include another decline.
On top of this, we are looking at the initial setup of new players.
We will allow the population to grow several millions higher and give them bigger population bonuses.
also some more substantial defensive force. |
| Matthew I | Thursday, October 8, 2020 - 02:35 am
Looking forward to future changes and I'm glad to see steps are being taken in the right direction. That being said...
Defensive weapons being cheaper and easier to access is great, but on most worlds players don't have reliable access to war anyway. Other barriers exist. I have my own opinions on how to solve this, but I think the two primary barriers are war level and war access.
Give us an option to fight that doesn't run the consequence of losing everything and allow us more verity in those that we can fight. Make large Empires defend the slaves they have and give them the ability to fight over said slaves. I also say this as someone who has more to lose than gain, as I expanded past the point that my military budget can reliably defend. I think if you want to be called an Empire you should have to defend it.
Make it easier for war and players will fight. Mechanisms can exist to prevent large players from wiping out smaller ones, especially if you only allow "unrestricted" wars on slave countries.
I understand War level was put in place for a reason, but the requirement for WL3 on White Giant has rendered the planet de-facto peaceful. You have some aberrations, but for 99% of the player base PvP is virtually non existent and I believe the planet pretty well reflects that.
I know I keep trumpeting for the non-war world, but if you want more people better access to war, then just give a bulk of the established countries the actual option to.
I do appreciate you guys listening to our concerns though! I look forward to future war updates. |
| Zentrino | Thursday, October 8, 2020 - 08:38 am
You want us to sell off weapons in our CEOs without any guidance for what is too large. I probably have more weapons in my CEO than many (or even most) players, but I know my stockpile is nowhere near the largest. I don't "hide" my weapons there. I am perfectly willing to post every weapon I have in my CEO. My CEO currently has about slightly more than 200T in weapons (not ammo) in it.
I have been very clear. My weapons are in my CEO because it is ridiculously expensive to keep them in the country. It would cost trillions every month on the total defense cost line to have a modest defense. I have 13 countries. Of course I store those weapons in my CEO and don't spend 20T a game month keeping them in my country.
I am going to move the weapons that I would deploy as a standard defense into my main and I will post the resulting cost to my military budget. My main currently makes about 140B per game month with a total defense budget line of 21B. I will post the results after the weapons have moved and been transferred into the country. I will let them remain inactive so their cost is less than if they were mobilized. I already have more than enough ammo in the country for these weapons so the cost is not the purchase of weapons. |
| Andy | Thursday, October 8, 2020 - 01:51 pm
Matthew
We think that war should be easier also on all worlds.
Reducing the security of players who do not want to have war at all is a bad solution for them.
they do not want any war.
so we will have to find a way for those who do want war.
Zentrino,
No numbers yet and no changes yet.
but
why do you need these numbers of weapons.
did you ever use even 5% of them.
Even if we continue to reduce the maintenance cost, there will be players who use the opportunity to purchase even more weapons.
The only way to dissuade people from holding huge armies is high cost.
We are improving the defense and hope that before we even start making changes to storage cost, numbers will decline. |
| Zentrino | Thursday, October 8, 2020 - 05:58 pm
I have that number of weapons because, first, I have a large empire. More importantly, the only way a defense can win is by making the offensive player tired of clicking. My defense is planned that I can defend the country long enough to beat their defenses and take them out before they take me out.
No I have never had to fully deploy my defensive weapons. As the saying goes, the best defense is a strong offense. Most of my weapons have arrived in the space center. I went from about 140B in profit to a 102B loss that continues to grow. After another game month, I will move the weapons into the country to see the losses then. |
| Daniel Iceling | Thursday, October 8, 2020 - 07:46 pm
Andy,
Good balance changes in general. Smart, measured, and reasonable. Well done. Good Player communication, thank you for letting people know what you are thinking/planning.
Players,
"We urge players with such large stocks to sell some of the stock on the market and reduce such reserves.
At some point, if nothing happens, we might set thresh holds on numbers and introduce a cost to excessive stockpiles."
What I believe Andy is saying here, is that the imbalance created by having unlimited amounts of weapons in Enterprises is breaking the game.
However, rather than just hot-droping a heavy handed change on players, he is giving players warning, that if nothing changes, they are going to need to impose limits and/or costs on storing weapons in Enterprises.
This is your opportunity to reduce stockpiles, so that either
A). They don't have to make those changes, because players reduce stockpiles on their own, or
B). You are prepared if they do have to make those changes. |
| John Galt | Thursday, October 8, 2020 - 08:08 pm
I hear many people saying defence needs to be stronger. Am I playing a different game than everyone else? At current state of the war game defence is close to unbreakable. I encourage all of you to run some tests and see for yourselves. Nothing can survive 1500 interceptors or 1500 helicopters responding except cruise missile ships, which are crazy expensive to deploy. I just want that point to be made to ensure the war game does not keep moving in the wrong direction. |
| Zentrino | Thursday, October 8, 2020 - 09:06 pm
I completely willing to reduce weapons to the "acceptable" level. What level is that? |
| Zentrino | Thursday, October 8, 2020 - 11:08 pm
Prior to moving weapons from the space center into the country, I was at a 135B loss. It has been one game month. I actually am in the positive again with a 24B net. I am at 84B in total defense cost on the budget. Before moving from the space center, I was at 245B in total defense cost. It seems strange that the defense cost is higher in the space center than in the country. I will wait another game month or two for the costs to settle. This is with all weapons inactive. |
| John Galt | Thursday, October 8, 2020 - 11:22 pm
Zent, weapons in the space Center are counted as active. When you take them out they go inactive. |
| Andy | Friday, October 9, 2020 - 10:02 am
I am not sure how easy it is, or probable to have a situation with 1500 interceptors or 1500 helicopters responding to an attack.
with max 68% of one type of weapon in a unit.
I think the percentage should decline. At 50% there will be not more than 250 in a unit.
But maybe, if air attacks cannot do the job alone, as they do now, or it becomes more difficult, ground forces will kick in.
Air attacks are more powerful if you have ground forces within range of the target.
If players could build a defense that will make them feel more secure, they might engage in more wars.
Currently, many of the wars are such that you know you will win and you know the damage will not be too large. |
| Johanas Bilderberg | Friday, October 9, 2020 - 12:42 pm
I don't see how having weapons in a CEO is a problem when no one is fighting any wars?
Unless you plan on ending war levels it's a moot point. |
| DETA | Friday, October 9, 2020 - 01:04 pm
Andy.
I am all in favor of reducing the number of weapons a ceo can store for all the reasons previously mentioned.
What I am wondering is when you have fought your last war. Judging from some of your posts i think it might have been a while. The power of defenisve air forces is more then good enough (if not a little bit to much). Even if you reduce them by 50% it will still be 750 defensive units and it will just result in even more clicking.
To have 1500 interceptors and helicopters respond to an attack all you need to do is put 3 countries in the same fed, have some air defence in each country and voila.
Andy do you need a practicle example of the war game? I and several others are more then willing to fight a war just to show you how some things work right now. I am 100% certain that if I ask zentrino, john galt or even EO or the wicked lady to fight an 'example' war we could arange that.
We could show you how bad/worthless certain units are. Why other units are far to strong, how players actually fight, what does and does not work. We could show you how important it is for units to have lots of range, we could show you the real costs of fighting a war and the problems that arise in preparing for such a war.
I've briefly mentioned it before but I stil believe that the main problem isn't the cost but the need for people to build ridiculous amounts of units. Money is an infinite resources in this game. Your population is not. The cap on army size is not the money. With enough time everybody can generate enough cash. The limiting factor is population.
If my population can operate 100.000.000 units during a war I will do everything I can to get 100.000.000 units. If my populations can only operate 1000 units it would mean i need a whole lot fewer units. Making it 'cheaper' and easier to start a war.
In my opinion if you want to truly raise the cost of war I think that each weapon simply needs more soldiers to operate instead of cost reductions. |
| Andy | Friday, October 9, 2020 - 02:10 pm
We are very interested in your experience and comments.
If you have specific knowledge on units that are useful, or not, weapons that you think are obsolete etc. please let us know.
If you put it here, others will be able to participate and learn.
We have detailed logs of wars.
blow by blow, missile by missile.
all wars are logged. These logs are sometime many many megabytes long.
we know how to find the relevant info.
I hope others will participate.
most current participants in the discussion are players with large armies.
we fight wars all the time.
we can setup wars against C3s in all levels and see what happens if we make a change. we see the exact numbers, misses, hits etc. in that log.
We have no intention of making the defense impossible to break but it should be possible for players to create a defense that is nearly unbreakable.
not easy or cheap, but very strong.
Currently, some weapons are very similar. we will diversify.
One of the next upgrades will change jeeps.
They will not respond to any attack by land forces but will have hand held missiles that can damage helicopters. not extremely powerful but might shoot down some.
Artillery might become more powerful against missile batteries, less against land forces.
Tanks will be the main weapon fighting ground forces.
This is an example.
Four land force weapons will become very different.
Raising the cost of war?
we want to reduce the cost.
more balance is maybe the issue.
We would like to see more different forces participate.
more ground forces.
No wars where the air force and long distance missiles can win easily with no ground forces involved.
I am sure you and others know better what should be done. |
| John Galt | Friday, October 9, 2020 - 02:27 pm
Andy I just want to say that C3 wars are not a good example of how defense operates because they are not in a federation. They do not benefit from the federation air response.
Also, I just sold 360 trillion worth of weapons from my CEO. Doing my part. I noticed they were all bought up almost immediately. GM buyback? |
| Lord Mndz | Friday, October 9, 2020 - 02:29 pm
very much agreed on land forces diversification. they could be more expensive to buy and more resiliant against long range attacks. artillery must be strong against batteries.
great news! |
| John Galt | Friday, October 9, 2020 - 02:48 pm
It would also be a good idea to simplify the amount of unit types that are available for creation. I think there should just be one type of land unit that can accommodate any combination of offensive/defensive land weapons, and one type of air unit that can hold any of the offensive air units. There is really no use for some of the current unit templates, especially the small sized ones, and it will only serve to confuse players. |
| Lord Mndz | Friday, October 9, 2020 - 03:05 pm
yes, unless this would be based on weapons diversity/purpose/resiliance. currently it has no logic how different units are supposed to be used. |
| Zentrino | Friday, October 9, 2020 - 09:42 pm
I wish I had seen the fire sale on weapons. I didn't get to buy any! I am not selling weapons until I have a better understanding of what constitutes "too large" for an army. I have a set defense that I build for my countries and I purchase the weapons needed to fill that defense. I don't think it is unreasonable to have this number of weapons for each country that I might defend. Again, these are numbers that I have selected. I f I put 500 int wings, 500 heli wings, and 300 stealth wings in each country, is that too much? Not enough? If I maintain enough weapons to have a small garrison in every my capital and every city/county (50ish) plus enough for a tiny garrison in all my forts (150), is that too much? Not enough?
What about offense? I buy enough weapons that I could defeat a country defended like I defend. Then I consider how many countries I might need to attack in a full scale war and I build to that. So yea I have a lot of offensive weapons because if someone attacks me, the best way to win is to take their country before they take mine.
Tell me how many weapons I am supposed to keep, and I will sell the rest. But don't make me guess about it because I don't think I have too much.
I would be happy to do practice wars. |
| Zentrino | Saturday, October 10, 2020 - 03:23 am
In my main, I am at negative 104B for the country and total defense costs of 211B. I noticed I had auto activate on for the country's defense weapons so I do have some weapons active now. I will deploy the garrisons and air wings now to see the final cost. |
| E O | Saturday, October 10, 2020 - 03:43 am
500/500/300 is a lot. If you can support that, more power to you. I don't see anyone currently with 100 of each wing type active on FB (at least in the last couple days, not sure if it changed today). Not saying they can't, just no one currently is.
There is a decent amount of pvp war on FB at the moment. It's a good time to look at what other players have up.
Also, I'd like to echo again what John said about federation air defense. I shot at air d today, and I actually think the losses are good/appropriate if there is just one wing responding (which is what I was dealing with).
If there is a federated response though it becomes a very different story. |
| Zentrino | Saturday, October 10, 2020 - 08:42 pm
I ended up going with 250 int, 200 heli, and 50 stealth. We will see what the final costs are after it all deploys. I wouldn't expect to see anyone maintaining an active defense like this because of cost, which is my point. If someone were to dec on me and I deployed this defense, even for a few RL days, the cost to me would be huge. I expect to lose close to a T a month. It may be less though because it does seem the efforts to reduce costs have made a noticeable difference. I would be shocked if it was less than 500B per month and still think it may climb to a T. |
| Johanas Bilderberg | Sunday, October 11, 2020 - 12:56 pm
I wasn't going to beat on a dead horse but here we go.
I see this move as a blatently obvious attack on Jon Galt and myself. I find it objectionable, petty, and poorly conceived.
I am not getting rid of my weapons Andy. I have nothing else to spend cash on, I can no longer exchange my trillions of sim dollars into gold.
There is zero legitimate reason to stop CEO storage.
I am at WL 11, who am I going to bother?
The game is for all intents and purposes dead to me. I weathered the destruction of the economy, the endless worker shortages, economic roller coasters, war levels, the impossibility of selling countries, and I am not sure yet if this is the final straw or not. |
| Andy | Sunday, October 11, 2020 - 04:06 pm
Selling weapons was visible on the market.
You see some utilization percentages shooting up.
there were shortages of many weapon types and some disappeared.
these will probably come back again.
we were not buying or selling any weapons, or any other products.
we never do unless there is a danger for the market.
Players always kept saying it but it was always baseless.
Some product shortages can crash the entire market because they are used in the production of many other products.
The system has some intervention rules that are never changing price directions.
The system never buys anything. Oversupply can not topple the market.
the lower pricing for many types of war materials is probably starting to kick in.
more will follow.
Reducing the types of units is not really important.
Nobody is forcing anyone to purchase all these types and indeed, when we diversify some weapons, the various unit types could do different things.
We will continue with gradual changes.
the most important one coming in a few days, is having a unit support the defense if within range.
there are some open issues:
Does it include support to attacked units? I think so.
Will they support land targets like cities etc.? Yes.
Is a garrison a unit or in other words: will a garrison support an attacked unit?
Don't know. Garrisons can be very large.
Currently you can prevent their intervention if you do not attack land targets that are protected by a garrison.
Maybe, to start with, we will keep them out of the equation.
The principle of a supporting unit is:
when a target is attacked, check all units within range.
Check which one if most relevant in face of the attacker and us it.
Next attack, after casualties, the choice may me different. |
| Zentrino | Sunday, October 11, 2020 - 08:46 pm
I thought I would have an update on the cost but the garrisons are not deploying. They are partially deployed (about half maybe). I have 150 small supply units and 100 large supply units. About half are idle. I have tons of military supplies, military services, gasoline, and trucks. My total defense cost is holding steady at 222B. It does seem there have been reductions in active defense costs because I would expect this to be higher already. It jumped to 265B for a couple of months but lowered back down for some reason. When it is all done, I will check my logs to see how much ammo was used up in this process too. |
| Andy | Monday, October 12, 2020 - 08:58 am
The cost of the defense was reduced in two ways:
1. The cost of ammunition is reduced. This will have effect when you purchase new ammo. The cost of using ammo in maintenance is based on what you paid for it on average. As you purchase new ammo, the average cost price will decline.
Numbers used remain the same.
2. The price of defensive weapon maintenance units is reduced.
you use the same number.
also here, the decline depends on the average price paid for these products.
We are reducing the cost for a very long time.
There were several large reductions in the past weeks.
in total more than 30%.
The older declines probably kicked in. The recent ones will do so in the coming days or weeks, depending on the numbers you had available. |
