W3C - Nuclear attacks and damage to neighbors

Don't take that for real, i was just teasing
Johanas with my paint skills.

I am not a big nuke guy. I think my nuke arsenal is modest. I just totalled it up and it is only at 5938 missiles. I have focused heavily on conventional weapons because nukes are currently useless from the testing I have done with them. They are essentially just big bombs that can be easily intercepted by NDB.

heck yea !!!!!!!! nukes give little players the ability to keep the bigger player at bay but i agree nukes should be used with great caution, more of just a determinant weapon if anything. butt yes realistic fall out is good

Yaaay no fall out to neighboring countries! I would love to see them level whole cities as long as they do not cause damage to their neighboring countries.

@john
You forgot a couple of 0s there.

Strategic weapons and the strategic missiles are all subjected to maintenance cost.
This is the case for ages.
At some point in the past, I had all the nuclear weapons produced, contracted to the country.
Later, the country made hopeless losses.
It was the cost of the strategic army.

The cost of purchasing these weapons and the bombs and missiles, and the maintenance cost should all be reconsidered if we want to make nuclear weapons more important in Simcountry and of course the consequences of using them.

Keeping "too many" should be expensive in any way it is done.

fission materials age...
weapon quality could decline, mainly when stored where they are not maintained. Once we decide to move in that direction, all options should be open.

We are looking here at many relevant parameters.

@ Andy

Are even aware that weapons in CEOs do not use maintenance? And that with a few shuttles you can transport them to wherever you want.

Andy,

Letsie is right.

Unless CEOs also have to pay for maintenance, the maintenance costs of these weapons are meaningless.
Currently, players can amass unlimited arsenals in CEOs, while paying no maintenance for them.
That is why maintenance doesn't prevent stockpiles from growing to insane levels.

The large arsenals are CEO owned, and only transferred over to countries, when they are needed for wars.
That is why maintenance, and training ammo usage, for things like Naval/Offensive/Strategic weapons, are so low.

You don't need fancy quality degrading mechanics.
Just close the glaring CEO maintenance exploit.

Signed President of DanNation on LU

You hide behind WL protection and smugly demand changes.

What difference does it make to you if people have nuclear weapons or not? You aren't impacted in the slightest.

Johanas Bilderberg,

I'm not smugly demanding changes.
I'm explaining why the maintenance mechanic doesn't work.
Since Andy seems to be relying on a broken mechanic to control nuke spam, it's extremely relevant.

If the world gets burnt in another nuclear fallout mess.
Or if product quality degrading, messes up the balance of the economy.
Then everyone is effected.
Not just the people dropping the bombs.

The broken maintenance system lurches markets from surplus to shortage.
As weapons move back and forth between entities that use maintenance, and entities that don't.
This destabilizes the economic model, that effects every player.
Nothing in Simcountry happens in a bubble.
We are all effected by each others decisions.

This game has a lot of exploits riddled in it.
Players often use them to get 'rich', so they are inclined to look the other way, but really, they undermine the integrity of the whole simulation...

Buy Nuke Power, sell it as Electricity to print money for doing nothing.
Have a military bigger than the entire population of the country could staff, and pay no maintenance, by calling it 'CEO'.
Buy country supplies at 120Q, sell products at 270Q. Print the difference out of thin air as 'profit'.

In any normal game, these exploits would be considered game-breaking, and developers would be urgently fixing them.
Somehow though, we just think its all fine.

Combined, they make success in Simcountry more about, who can exploit the holes in system to print the most money and resources, without paying the cost for them.
Rather than actually building a quality country.

Signed President of DanNation on LU

I normally disagree with Daniel on many points, but here I have to agree with him.

We all take advantage of these exploits. As I read his response I just laughed.

It's true.

However, we must ask the question "why"?

Why is it we strive to exploit the game in order to get ahead? Profits in the game are at the bottom. Players that have less than 50M population are completely unable to afford anything that looks like a standing army, without continually attacking and raiding others (even though there's barely anyone to raid). Resources in the game are scarce.

It is so expensive to build corps in a CEO that without the nuclear power => electicity exploit, it's almost pointless, unless you're already sitting on wads of cash in your countries. The CEO goes into debt immediately, and continues piling the debt on, until you're finally locked out of your account , 7T in debt and -6T in cash.

This is why.

Nations using the most optimal settings and maxing out the amount of corps in their states, are struggling to get pass $50B a month. In contrast, in the real world, an urban/developed nation would generate far more in cash.

Take the Japanese for example.
Population: 124M
GDP: $4.8 Trillion
Government Budget for the fiscal year: $101.5 Trillion Yen ($934+ Billion)

Outside of the US, Japan has the largest navy in the pacific, even if it is "defense only". It has one of the largest navies in the world.

The United States.
Population: 329M
GDP: $19 Trillion.
Government Budget for the fiscal year: $3.3+ Trillion

America has 13,000 military aircraft. Russia and China have 2k-3k respectively.

A simcountry nation:
Population: 100M
Government Budget for the year dedicated to the military, after government expenses (profits): $600 Billion (at $50B a month)
Number of military aircraft: from 15,000 to millions

Simcountry is grossly out of balance, so everyone is trying to continue accumulating weapons in vast numbers, which are beyond unrealistic, because the weapons are far too numerous in the game.

No money. Hard to get resources. Simcountry is broken.

And on top of that, war levels, so no way to use your weapons, unless you eternally attack c3s.

So, summarizing: No resources. No player interaction. Grossly out of whack military system that DRIVES players to accumulate massive amounts of weapons, with no realistic standards in the game.

I don't find the economic game broken to the point where it is unplayable. Unrealistic yes. But it's very easy to make crazy amounts of cash in this game. Every one of my countries makes 250B profit per month, and that is with very limited use of natural resources in the countries. Empire wide I am making around 36 trillion per day. Letsie also makes more profit than me, check out his countries and emulate it. If you're making less than 50B per month with 100 million population you are doing something seriously wrong.

The area where I believe the game is truly broken is war levels. Andy you promised us a change on FB to eliminate war level restrictions. Any idea when this is coming? War levels are literally killing your game. Right now I have a player constantly sniping at my CEO corps with hostile bids, and my only recourse is to hostile bid back. I want to fire missiles at this guy but I can't because he is hiding behind war levels. This system allows people to engage in acts of war without having any risk of retribution. It is not right. I would completely support eliminating CEO arsenals if war levels were removed. I want to go back to the old days where standing armies were required because there was no instant space travel of weapons and no war levels to hide behind.

Requiring maintenance products for CEO is not the solution. Plus, it would be impossible for players with big arsenals to unload all that stock in a reasonable time frame to not be bankrupted by maintenance fees. The better solution is to just eliminate space travel of weapons. That makes the CEO arsenals essentially useless, and the CEOs can start selling off the weapons to the world markets over time.

I am at the point now where I am truly bored with this game. I am just in maintenance mode now until major changes happen. I am just doing my daily login and tune ups, and that is really about it. There is no point in interacting with other players in game or in the chat because we have these artificial walls between everyone called war levels.

You still didn't answer my question Daniel. How does this impact you in the slightest? I mean besides an excuse to complain.

Barring a complete overhaul of the war engine and removal of war levels I'd rather keep the current system. As it stands weapons are for all intents and purposes useless. Keep them as they are.

TL,DR version.

I don't want to get screwed on this.

Johnanas Bilderberg,

Printing money out of thin air, enables people to buy more than they produce, creating unsolvable shortages, which then make everything artificially expensive, for everyone else.

The Large scale nuclear wars of the past, damaged corporations, killed massive population, disrupted both output, and demand. Even players not involved in the wars, felt the effect.

The economic impacts, and game balance impacts, of bugs/exploits/possible future changes. Effect me, and every other player. We all have a right to contribute to the discussion.

Maybe the answer is then mutually assured destruction? Super powered nukes that are incredibly hard to stop? Two nuclear armed foes that know if one or the other engaged in warfare, both may not lose their states, but would lose everything in them, as they're both obliterated?

Maybe this calls for an automated launch system? If another player launches weapons at you, your nation launches immediately and automatically as well.

Thus it becomes a true deterrent.

With the player able to set priority of targets (population centers, corps, forts, etc).

And the automated system rapidly fires nukes on each target as the nuclear stockpile allows.

This would immediately force people to think before dropping nukes.

The only problem is the ability of anyone to take a c3 and fire nukes from there.

One way around the C3 exploit, for mutually assured destruction,bus to allow the automated system to fire on a number of states owned by the attacker, without the need to officially declare war.

So let's say Country A declares war on Country B, using a recently conquered C3, to shield Country A from losses/risk.

Country A has 6 (5 states plus the new c3) states.
Country B has 5 states.

Let's say Country A decides to use the C3 to nuke a state in Country B. Only Country A's c3 is officially at war with Country B's states.

If Country A launches a nuke from the C3, Country B's automated system kicks in and targets any target in any state owned by Country A, without the need to declare war, based on priority of targets (population centers, corporations, bases, forts, etc).

Now, to launch a nuke is a very delicate situation.

dubletar,

It still wouldn't stop people from creating a mini empire on a world, just to use as a launch base, to troll other players by completely destroying them.

Mutually Assured Destruction, works in the real world, because everyone cares about their own survival. Not everyone cares enough, about every one of their empires, to prevent it being exploited in Simcountry.

For example, if you were downsizing, and weren't going to play on a world anymore. What better send off for your empire, than just nuking all the big players on that planet? There would be nothing anyone could do to stop it. It would just be a 'lol I wiped your empire, I was deleting mine anyway, so your counter attack is meaningless' situation.

Inside a game world, consensuses can never be high enough, to deter someone that gets more fun out of wrecking other players, than building their own empire. We need safeguards to prevent players that don't care about the consequences, from abusing the system.

Signed President of DanNation on LU

Just like in real life it could easily be stopped Daniel.

Destroy their strategic bases, build a proper defense, join a Federation.

You whine way too much.

Hahahahahaha @Johanas

Johanas Bilderberg,

You're the one whining that the game should be upended, so that you can have fun destroying other people's countries.

All I'm doing, is explaining, in well thought out detail, why the existing safeguards are necessary.

If you weren't demanding the 'right' to destroy things that don't belong to you, we wouldn't even need to have this conversation.

But no matter how many times the GM's say "NO" you still keep nagging, trying to force other players to live under constant threat of war, for your own enjoyment.

If I didn't care so much about the future of Simcountry, I'd have done what the majority of Simcountry players have done, and just stopped posting on the forum. So I didn't have to deal with this over and over again. Explaining why, for the billionth time, the GM's are still going to have to say no, to the handful of players that want to be allowed to wreck everyone else's countries.

Peaceful players don't want to have to put up with this relentless onslaught of war drum beats. So they just don't post here anymore. That risks giving people the misconception that more than a handful of people actually want Simcountry to become just another war game.

I'm here to give voice to the players, that don't want to have to deal with the constant blow back. That comes from protecting people from these calls for war.

Simcountry isn't a war game, it's a world simulation with 'optional' military gameplay for those that want it. Which given the fact that most players keep war protection enabled, and play at war level 0, war is clearly not a feature most players wish to engage with.

I think looking from development perspective sc has done the most to improve and advance war mechanics, so this is not optional, it is one of main functionalities that is continuesly improved.

Level of people protection has always been hot topic, but it has never been so safe as now and it killed intrigue.

Currently you can save your cash before country is taken so you can rebuild fast, also you can form federations to defend easily, that gives you 99% protection. Defensive weapons and their upkeep costs are 2 times cheaper, so defending party has really big advantage especially in big war.

Lord Mndz,

You are right, a lot of development time has been wasted on a feature most players don't use. It would be better used elsewhere. Crimson One sent months of development time down the drain chasing the idea of PvP. It's time to move on.

Crimson One is an example of GMS not listening what was actually needed for players who like war, it was made as gold coins spending machine with a little effort to make things very easy as they should be on any PVP server. Crimson can be extremely successful at any day if launched with the right configuration players want, I would be able to invite 30-40 players in one day who would be joining just for fun to fight and test war mechanics.

BTW i am the only player that is still physically there and I do expect it to run again.

My issue with Crimson One is that it has an end date. I think that is not what most war players want. I believe most players who come to this game are interested in war and want to play a realistic geopolitical simulation game that has no artificial end date. I would not use the failure of Crimson One as support for your views. Daniel, I truly believe you are in the minority on this issue. Maybe out of the current active players there is support for your view point, but that is not who the game should be focusing on or listening to right now. The game is still attracting lots of new players every day, but none are being retained. This is a massive lost opportunity. The question we have to ask is why are these players signing up and then quitting one day later. What is the first thing most new players do when they join the game. The answers to these questions should determine the path forward. My suspicion is that new players are quitting because the game is boring. The first thing most new players do is war. Look at how many inactive players there are with 2 country empires. How do you think they got that second country? (hint: the answer is war). War levels are 100% responsible for the general boredom of this game and the lack of true player interaction. Daniel, you mentioned economic cooperation as a form of player interaction. I disagree with you hugely on this one. Economic cooperation requires the absolute bare minimum of interaction, and it is mostly a passive process once started. You build a corporation in someone's country. They accept it. You setup your settings for the corporation, and then you just leave it forever until it gets destroyed by an earthquake. Real interaction comes from the prospect of war. Federations form up for mutual defense. Federations rival each other for power and control, but also for recruitment of new players. Look back at the history of this game. All of the game's memorable history was forged through war. And again, Daniel on every world (except FB), every player's main country is in secure mode. Secure mode means that no one can attack you ever, regardless of your war level. Peaceful players should look to their secure mode country for the peace they want. Empires should not be protected at all, unless someone is willing to buy gold coins for war protection, which is also good for game revenues too.

New player bashing will not become a problem in the short or medium term. New players may bash each other, but I guarantee you will not see big players attacking new players without provocation. How do I know this? Well the 3 biggest military powers in the game right now in my estimation is Johanas, Lord Mndz, and myself. The three of us have all pretty much agreed not to stand for that kind of behaviour. We want the game to grow and prosper and will not do things to prevent that. In the long term, anything is up for grabs. There may be new military powers that rise up and become dominant, and they may have different views. We can cross that bridge when we get to it though. For now, I think the immediate priority should be getting this game off of life support. Is anyone here actually disputing the fact that the game was more active before war levels were implemented? Can we at least agree on that point?

I very much agree with John, well said. I want to train new people to learn this great game, i want to see continents full of active presidents and i have no intention to attack them.

John Galt,

We both have the same goal. To Simcountry grow and thrive, with more players, more connection and cooperation.

I just wish the proposed method wasn't so toxic. Being attacked makes people angry. Yes, the desire for revenge makes them work together. In the same way that living in prison, encourages people to join gangs to keep them safe, and hurt their enemies.

It drives interaction, but in the worst possible way. A structure built around mutual distrust and warfare, isn't going to lead to a healthy community. Yes, it may lead to an 'active' player base. But if that activity is just finding more aggressive ways to destroy each other. I'm not sure that actually makes the game better.

I've played such games before, and yes, I admit they were usually more 'active'. However, that activity was... toxic.

Just like in Simcountry, effective defense required offense, so, being online was necessary to protect yourself. Naturally, people can't be online 24/7. So the art of discovering when people 'couldn't' be online, and attacking them then, became widespread.

People would track when other players had gone to bed. Attacking them each night, till they got so sleep deprived, that they didn't get back up to login to protect themselves. Only to find what they had built destroyed the next day.

I used to lead groups in such games. There was constant horrendous suspicion towards everyone. "Is that player leaking information to our enemies", "Are they the spy", "how did they know when we would be offline, someone must have betrayed us". Friendships were ruined by the constant second guessing and suspicion it created.

Perhaps the most insidious thing that happened, was how I had to constantly teach my group not to share information, not to talk to people, not to talk about their lives... why?

Well, as I mentioned earlier, attacking when people can't be online is key. If they know your time zone, they know when you might need to sleep. If they know your job, they know when you'll be at work. Perhaps most disgustingly. People would sometimes hear about family tragedies or events, and exploit that to their advantage. People were attacked, when rival groups found out they were going to the funerals of family members, or looking after their wives that had just miscarried and nearly died in childbirth.

They were regular people when they started, but the constant onslaught, and need to get on top in the fight, brought out the worst in everyone. In the end, I just had to get away. I uninstalled the game, and have never talked to anyone I played it with since.

It would be truly horrible, to have to watch Simcountry dragged into the same fate. I love this game. I enjoy discovering it's deep mechanics with other players. I don't want to have that ruined by the toxicity of hostile competitive warfare.