Tried the new war game yet? (Kebir Blue)

I'm an econ player. Why am I starting at war level 3 on four worlds?

WG - Level 1
FB - Level 3
GR - Level 3
KB - Level 3
LU - Level 3

Is there an option to be at level 0?

Some good points Psycho honey. The conclusion is wrong.
2 months ago, the war game was given up as dead and we know about all the problems it caused to new players and on top of that, everybody was hiding in WP and complaining about the cost. The idea was that W3C does not want a war game.

We have now an entirely different situation that solved some of the most severe problems we had, reduced the need for WP and it is clear that war is part of the game. WP is not eliminated but its use will probably be reduced to a fraction of what it used to be.
So now we still may have some issues. We have already looked into many of your points and we have solutions.
you may see the incentive as an issue but it is trivial. not all the problems we see are trivial.

in the previous discussion, we produced some ideas and we have taken some from many players and changed some.
If you have some ideas on the president versus president wars and fed wars, let me know.

these wars will be a very important part of the war game and fed wars will remain here too.
As to players remaining in the same (low) level, we have solved it for levels 1,2. if needed, we can extend the solution for higher levels.
peaceful players will not get to these war levels.

any constructive ideas are welcome. we still have some from the previous discussion. some remain relevant and some are not relevant any more after the recent change.

4 players played a war against a C3 country. I am sure they have some ideas on tweeking it but did not hear such comments yet.
Most players who participated in the previous discussion supported this change or loved it. There were some short comments against it but they never brought any argument.

It seems that writing is much easier than reading.
Everyone repeats the argument of no incentives for wars and the attacks on in-actives while we have said several times, that there will be strong war incentives and that we think GCs may be a better way to award winners than having them click another 500 times to recover the loot from the country they conquered.

We have automatically awarded initial war levels, depending on how many wars you have won in the past.
war level 3, if I remember correctly, means you have won more than 6 wars.

is this an error?
did you fight in the past and want to play peaceful now?

explain and we might just patch you down.
we will not do this as a rule but if people are unhappy about the initial status, we might just patch them down.

I have not been in a single war with a human player in 13 months. (The day I joined Simcountry)

I've only been in three c3 wars in 13 months.


Perhaps purchasing a country with a previous war record is effecting the war game settings.

I'd like all my countries to be reset to level "0" for war.

Regards,

Maestro

I am forwarding your messages to an engineer who will look into it tomorrow morning and mail you.

...

There are differences in opinion about what was wrong with the war game.

Some think that new players not understanding it is the primary problem.

I disagree. The primary problem is that the war engine is tedious and uninteresting. It appeals only to a small minority of people.

I do not believe that adding war levels has made the business of fighting more interesting. C3s are more irritating to capture, but that's about it. If nothing else you should start all players at level 1 and let them stay there if they don't want to be bothered with this stuff.

Kitsune - That's not a very good argument, what is SC in general if not tedious? Econ is even more tedious than war and if that is something people aren't interested in, then the game wouldn't even exist.

That wasn't the problem, otherwise people would have never learned how to level up or take c3's effectively or how to get #1 FI ranks or using ASQ's in corps or debt bombing or cornering the soy bean market or naming every one of their 1500 CEO corps or...you get the point. All of those things are tedious and require a lot of clicking, but they are all things that you and many other players do. The biggest problem with war is that it involved a lot of risk to learn, I had my first two empires on FB wiped out completely for example. As people became more attached to their countries due to no longer being able to completely strip out c3's, then subsequent changes that made stripping even more difficult/less effective ultimately led us to the situation where there is no war, with most people in WP and war being treated as an abhorrent action when it used to be commonplace and fun. Of course the war levels haven't made fighting more interesting for you yet, nor probably anyone posting in this thread, as we all know how to take out a country with 6k ints and 50 forts with standard c3 garrisons, but when it becomes 80k ints and max forts everywhere with no nukes allowed and 15K km away from your country and it's to score 50 or 100 GC? That's interesting...add on to that the country fighting back, once again, interesting. Lots of strategy involved, lots of challenge and a way to compete with others, all without having to risk your country if you choose not to.

Another big problem is/was the time it takes to fight wars, this has been mitigated somewhat by the introduction of 8 hour blackout periods although not eliminated completely, but really, there is no way to eliminate that issue completely unless you go the LG option and just eliminate war completely...

As far as how this will bring back federations, the following:
Brings in/keeps more players
More players interested in war
Players want to learn effective techniques to war level up just like they have always for regular leveling
Players seek out federations to share such information

Also:
More players interested in war
Players interested in defense and strategy
More players interested in federations

Pretty simple.

EDIT: Also, saying that the problem is that it is too tedious ignores the fact that it used to be wildly popular...lots of people played the war game, quite often and quite actively. The system itself hasn't changed so that can't possibly be the reason.

No, Laguna said eliminate the "takeover" button. Not Eliminate War.

War can be fun with this suggestion, war will not be so detrimental in this situation.

If I had to choose between Laguna's and yours, no doubt I would go with Laguna's.

And Laguna I hope you are steering clear of those European Austerity Cut demonstrations. I hear your little country is revolting. Don't get hurt we'll miss you if something happens. Maybe, I'll just nuke the IMF building. It is all their fault. Really, it is.

The problem with knowledge is that no one is prepared to part with it,econ or war.

What few ppl there are that play both war and econ and the information they have...i find difficult to believe will be shared. So how feds and info shared are gonna help, i dont know

Wild tried to give a great understanding of econ...how many took a blind bit of notice?

Eliminating the takeover button will eliminate the war game, that's obvious and excuse me if I don't take your opinion as particularly important...you'd disagree with the sky being blue if I was the one that said it.

Blue - It's not that people won't part with it, it's that they won't part with it to just anyone. Also, information without experience is not particularly helpful. I've shared everything I know about the war engine with many people as has EO, has that information made those players as effective in war? Not really, they don't have the experience to know what decisions to make and when. That's the key part of having functional war game and a war system that allows players to progress instead of be treated as equal after 21 days. Working with fedmates under this system it will be much easier to test out new ideas, attack methods, etc. I could type out everything I know about the war engine right now (assuming I had the time) and it would make a difference for the few people who are actually participating in the forums and who actually understand it, but the problem isn't with those people, it's with the game as a whole...it's dieing...there are like 20 of us who talk to each other in the forums. We need more.

Anyway, as you pointed out, Wild had a lot of information and put it into a great guide, where did she get that information? Federations. We all develop ideas and share them with our friends/fedmates in game, those ideas then get disseminated out to the rest of the game over time and as new relationships are formed. The problem now is that the war game doesn't exist, so federations are basically a shell and everyone is basically playing the game on their own little island which leads to no information being shared, little interaction and ultimately a pretty boring game.

LOL this kid is a real fn joke. WTF. I need to go back to University to get a dose of 'know all'.

So lets get this Str8 WB - your argument is retarded at best.

"liminating the takeover button will eliminate the war game,"

So you think that eliminating the takeover button is what will eliminate the war game? Really.

Wasn't your motivation the fact that the war game is already dead? Even while the takeover button exists already?

So how will this change what you have already concluded?

Your peanut brain has somehow mangled reality with your delusions.

"As far as how this will bring back federations, the following:
NO - Brings in/keeps more players
(where are all the players joining in feds?)
NO - More players interested in war
(again, where are they?)
YES! - Players want to learn effective techniques to war level up just like they have always for regular leveling
(Yet another way to avoid actually learning economy and leveling up in order to get coins to build and grow, then quit when the leveling is done for lack of know how in the real game.)

No - Players seek out federations to share such information "
(silly assumption. This is what the boards and chat are for. Yet with all these tools and people willing to give the advice, less than 1 out of 100 will actually listen and learn.Federations offer no new stellar ability to build up players apart from what is already available. Fed has forums just like sim. Wildeye's guide was copy and pasted to every major fed forum of the time from WGC to GREF Not the other way around.)

It amazes me how the kid makes assumptions and has no relevant data to show these mystical results he is already claiming. Where is everyone who thinks what you have caused is a great improvement to the game?

When you finish rubbing Madam Babushka's crystal ball and snap back to reality you will see that the opinion you don't really take as particularly important is not my own.

Its great to be the center of the Puniverse and make yourself the only thing that matters.

Idiot - There are like 5 people who have posted with issues with the new engine and the most pressing issue came about because implementation didn't go as intended (war units/garrisons disappearing instead of remaining after takeover) and your public vote is a MASSIVE 6 to 2 and none of my friends have voted on it who are excited about the changes, nor has my brother who is also quite excited. So where is this massive public outcry that is so huge that you actually have to lobby to get people to vote for it?

When was the last time a change anywhere NEAR this size was made and there was this little opposition to it and it worked so smoothly?

Stop with your BS spin Windy, of course there has been no actual game impact...IT WAS IMPLEMENTED 48 hrs ago...and it's like 1/5th implemented...give me a break idiot.

Relevant data...hmmm...was the game more or less popular when the war engine was at it's peak...or even a year ago? or even 6 months ago? As the war game has died so has activity in the game, if W3C didn't recognize this then they would never have made the change...get a clue idiot.

THIS IS ALL B.S.!!! These game changes are needless. If there was a c3 war issue, then it seems all we had to do was force the attacker to take all empire countries out of WP so he/she would be vulnerble. I just tried a level 4 war and ran into nothing but quirks in the war engine. Almost entire attack wings and attack and bomber wings lost with no damage to the air defense wings and I had long range division ground support on the attacks. I had navies that wouldn't move and fully equipped land divisions wiped out with no real dent on defenses. AND I AM NOT A NOOB ANYMORE! I KNOW WHAT I AM DOING! I will quit this game unless this reverts to the old way or find a better solution. Sorry WB, but I agree with Psycho.

That has nothing to do with the changes Neidy, that has to do with the distance issues that have existed for some time now, where when you attack close by c3's the ratios are horrible, if you are noticing a difference now it is just because what you are attacking is no longer af def wings (200 int/200 heli) but instead full int/heli wings (400 int or 400 heli) and the fact that the units are high quality instead of 100Q. Spotting units don't make a difference when attacking close by c3's...at least not as much of a difference as you would expect/hope for and his issue has been laying low for some time because the c3 defenses were so weak.

Find a c3 outside of 1500 km and dec it at lvl 4, you'll see that the ratios are in line with what you would expect.

Nothing wrong with bringing the issue to light but blaming it on the changes made are inaccurate.

I was well aware of that I was attacking full air defense wings and not divided wings. I USE MY RADAR PLANES! As for "spotting units" it makes a huge difference. I have been at war with active players and not just c3's in my past. The forum posts by the gm seem to indicate that attacking countries further from you would require more effort thatn those closer to you. Which only makes sense. You are sayng that it is easier to attack further away than to attack by land with air support? If the GM set up the war engine in that fashion, than that makes the game less realistic and is even more of a reason to scrap this whole new set up. Example, IN THE REAL WORLD, THE NAZIS INVADED BORDERING COUNTRIES WITH GOUND AND AIR FORCES AND EASILY OVERWHELMED THEM. WHEN THEY ATTEMPTED AIR OFFENSE ONLY AGAINST TARGETS FURTHER AWAY (BATTLE OF BRITAIN, ) THEY FAILED MISERABLY UNLESS THEY COULD SUPPORT THE ATTACK WITH LAND FORCES AND SUPPLY THOSE LAND FORCES (NORTH AFRICA, STALINGRAD). THE FURTHER AWAY A TARGET IS, THE HARDER IT IS TO TAKE IT DOWN. THAT IS JUST COMMON SENSE DICTATED BY GEOGRAPHY. I don't buy it. You are saying that if I attack a country out of drone range it is easier? Naw, this has to change.

One more thing. Regardless, of the GM war set up. If I attack an air wing with a full attack and bomber wing from a bordering country, I should at least expect SOME DAMAGE to the air wing. I had none. I also used 1000 precision bombers from one country 5000 miles away and saw NO DAMAGE to the air wing while loing 400+ precision bombers. That is ridiculous. This went on and on.

WB...I never thought about the war index being at 60 when it should have been higher...that makes sense...thanks.

Just wanted to point out that my only complaint is that the units disappeared once the war was won. It actually wasn't too tough to take the level 4 C3, just a little pricey...especially with virtually no return in loot.

Also, for those wanting to learn the war engine, these C3's are a great way to do so. Most aspects of the war game are needed to defeat them...breaking the air defenses (interceptor and helicopter wings)...painting...and clearing defenses in the targets before destroying them.

These are all typical parts of the war game. I agree with WB that if you really want to learn the war engine...join a federation with members who know how to fight. Then, have them walk you through taking one of the C3's. No risk of losing your country as compared to a P vs P war, and you still gain priceless experience.

Neidy..the range issue has existed for a long time. Loss ratios are very bad typically when taking countries very close to your own borders, this isn't a bug from the new changes, it has been that way for quite some time. I agree that maybe it needs addressed, but it isn't a byproduct of the new system.

One last note...there are many players experienced with the war engine that would be more than willing to teach players how to fight using these new C3's as a template. I'd be willing to bet that just by simply posting your desire to learn the war engine on the forum somewhere will lead you to the experienced fighters. The ENTIRE reason that the biggest fed on LU broke up is for this. To teach others the basics of using the war engine and help you develop your skills...showing you the proper way to break air defenses...clear garrisons, etc.

Hopefully this brings a revival to the war game. Sure there will be bugs to work out, but there always will be when changes this big are implemented. With feedback, which has been happily received and discussed on this forum,(thanks Tom) the new war system can be made to work. Its no different than all the eco issues that have been going on lately...give it time.

EC

Nothing was changed in the war process itself.
the changes are only in the defense level of the C3 countries in each level.

In the 4 wars I looked at, one was won in 79 attacks.

The quality of the air wings in C3 countries at level 4 is 150.

I saw 400 interceptors destroyed with 50 to 70 destroyed bombers.
I also saw, in a different war, 230 bombers destroyed.

Nothing shocking in any of these wars although we may tweak some of the numbers when we create the next levels.

If anyone has a war we need to look at, just let us know.
we have a detailed, blow by blow, missile by missile log of all recent wars and can see what happened. As I said, we did not touch that process for a long time.

lvl 4 c3,3 countries away, using a navy and special forces to paint.

I found nothing i didnt expect and was satisfied with how it played out.

I agree, that with the added costs,more removeable assets need to be added to a c3,varying up thro the lvls.

My issues and that of many others are still present and have been for as long as i have played....

The amount of clicking involved in taking a country is ridiculous.
Halve the number of forts in all countries but still allow the current rates of damage to the war index.
more ppl will find war less tedious and may actually start to use it.


Taking up to an hour for special forces to be dropped and ready to move is too long. This needs to be lowered.130 mil trans units shouldnt be taking this long to drop 15 sf's.

level awards, are a one time thing. in regards to taking upgraded c3's, a one time gc award, for a permanent increase of difficulty, isn't very enticing.

i agree, coin rewards should be worth the effort.

and instead of assets, just put cash in them to reduce clicking.

In fact, to remedy the loss of inactive raiding, I think W3C should introduce some random C3s with pops that range from 30 - 50M and have a substantial amount in cash. They can be more rare, and only available for those players at a higher war level to incentivize players to 1.) Work the levels 2.)Log in each day to find the rare C3s.

Maybe something similar but smaller in scale could work for lower levels to encourage people to log in daily.

Blueserpent
I agree.
I just fought a war against a C3 of level 2.
Took me more than an hour. no navy.

It is too long and difficult. Too many forts.

I will try to have it adjusted tomorrow. Also, we have some ideas on reducing the clicking and making the war process simpler.

To cut numbers, we already planned on a reduction in the size of all the units and a reduction in the numbers of ammunition needed by shooting a smaller number but making the ammunition more effective per piece.
most time you will fight once per level but the rewards will be a mix of what is in the country and gold coins.
This will not be an effort to compensate but sometimes it should be very rewarding.