W3C - War Levels

Andy: To highlight the current imbalance between defending with weapons and Gold Coin defense, check the following countries on LU, which may be the only examples of their kind to keep a somewhat sufficient defense active:

CC2 , CC3, Rubie, CC5, CC6, CC9, Camp Victory, AA8, Garrotte

If you check simply on the Profit and Loss ledger, these countries run defense costs of $70B per game month and up. This totals $420B per day and does not even account for ammunition use for such active weapons. Even ignoring such, substantial, ammunition costs imagine a player who is given two choices.

Choice A: Spend $840 Billion for defense over the course of two days. Risk attack at any time and the loss of your country. Expend a great deal of ammunition.

Choice B: Spend 2 Gold Coins. No risk of country loss whatsoever.

The player market has long set the value of gold coins to be around $200 Billion per coin. 2 Gold Coins is much cheaper than $840 Billion and there is no risk of losing your country.

The only reason I don't choose this option now, is in the spirit of reviving the war game. I don't consider what the countries have sufficient to defend from all threats, as an attacker can choose any one of my countries to be an isolated target. Should my risk increase from a weakening of space transfers, I will choose to switch to Gold Coin protection, which will be the obvious choice. A substantial decrease in the cost of protection will be needed to compete with the Gold Coin choice.


I think in regards to the 20 vs. 3 issue, the risk is overblown. I am much more concerned about a weakening of space transfers and a defender left with sparse options after the declaration of war. The delay that occurs to allow the defender to prepare will be substantially weakened and swing the advantage, even moreso, to the attacker. The state of the game used to be that the defender had little chance at defense. A change in transfers will be a step back to that era.

I like some of the other ideas:

-Forts should be limited to 150
-Upgrading weapons/ammo is fine but not a pressing issue
-See above for defense cost issues
-Auto response will hinge on details
-Reducing cities is important and overdue
-Sneak attacks is another issue that, if too powerful, will see more with GC protection.

thanks for the response.
I will repeat this:

War Protection, bought with gold coins, will be reduced gradually and will end up available for one country so this is no solution any more.

The 20 vs. 3 may not be a huge risk but it is a risk for small players.
I do not see the problem in making it a little less risky. It is not significant anyway.

A major reason for putting weapons on space stations and enterprises is to eliminate the cost of maintenance.
This is the same as putting them in the reserves but the cost is even lower.
We need to treat them as such. These are reserves.

Upgrading ammo is more important because we intend to allow more weapons to be used from base.
we would also like to add this to the mobile APP.

Reducing the cost of defense will help those who want to deter attacks or just defend themselves more forcefully..

Okay, I missed that part about Gold Coin protection being simply unavailable in the future. When you say for one country, will there be no more secured mode for main countries at no GC cost? Will these changes be for all worlds?

A clarification of reserve changes could alleviate some concern with preparing a defense on the eve of war. Currently, the reactivation process is too slow and cumbersome to be useful, as it requires the player to log in each game month to activate a small number of weapons. This process most be simpler and useful to have access to a reasonable number of weapons if war is declared. Perhaps even an option that triggers on a war declaration, similar to a war treaty, that automatically activates some manner of weapons. In this way, they could be accessed sooner for a defensive purpose.

For now, we are talking FB only.
We want to upgrade the war game on FB, then decide what to implement on the other worlds.

On FB, no free war protection.
Soon to be limited to 10 countries where you can purchase WP.
then, step by step, reduce, and in time, there will be only one country in your empire that can purchase war protection on FB.

As to reactivation
The automation option seems OK.
you will have to start it, then it will run automatically until everything is reactivated.

You must have enough workers and ML managers. There are situations where weapons are deactivated automatically if manpower is not available.
emigrated? died in war?

This kind of functions should be usable from your phone.

And then:
- Notifications expansion including a booster for intelligence report that will show, for countries you apply it for, who is importing weapons, transporting from space, and activating weapons.

also notifications for war declaration (repair), some intelligence about the attacker, intelligence about the country you intend to attack, Attacks launched, nukes used, and maybe more.

I would like also these notifications, to be available on your mobile device if you want it.

Back to the delay in activating transferred weapons, it's a good step. But is it the only step to address the extreme multi-world stockpiles of predators? This step by itself is too small.

No self-respecting predator will wait until after a war declaration to start transferring weapons. He will start the transfer 1-2 days before the war declaration. If necessary, he'll lower production of corps temporarily to provide workers for the army. He'll declare war after the activation is ready or well underway.

This step won't stop predators from using their extreme multi-world stockpiles against weak players. Sad.

Madoff, this is of course true and not the only thing to do.
The notifications will give advanced notice on these preparations but that too, is not sufficient.

We have incentives in mined for PvP wars.
The incentives can be positive or negative.

They will reduce the appetite of large countries with huge armies to attack small ones.

The incentive will depend on the difference in capabilities. the smaller the difference the better will the incentive be.

very large difference, and the incentive will turn negative.

Accumulating incentives, you can end up earning cash US$, every month.

we can also support small countries with auto response attack units that will attack units, bases and destroy corporations, damage cities and kill many.

I think that smaller countries should be able to hurt an attacker and potential attacker will have to weigh the advantage against the cost. Currently the cost is negligent.

Madoff: The predator/attacking country has as much time as they wish to setup the attack, because the defender does not know it is coming. I setup an attack for over 3 weeks on one of the most powerful players in the game. Until the war declaration occurs, there is little indication to know where or when a conflict might occur in your empire. The defender is the one who needs prompt transfers to respond. When was your last experience in PvP again?


Andy: The threat in the game has never been "large" countries picking on "small" ones. When describing a large country, of course, you are thinking of one with a large population, one that is wealthy. Players don't risk such countries in wars.

The vehicle of war for aggressive players has always been small countries. Ones that have little worth, and result in little for the attacking player to lose, even in a worse case scenario. Ideally, you catch a player you are attacking off guard, and they don't have time to mount a sufficient defense. If the attacker wishes to invest a little more effort, they will marshal a number of small, throwaway, countries in the conflict. This puts the burden on the defending player to attack and defeat a number of worthless countries to remove the threat to his country.

In such an environment, what is the worth of having a "large" country? To be prey for other countries and be penalized should you attempt to PvP? Is the whole reason to build a prosperous country to be devalued in the new order?

Andy, I am worried. Suggestions are being made by players with no recent PvP experience to speak of and, often, no countries of PvP war level. Changes are being considered to account for situations that no longer exist in this game. The "predators" being described are extinct. Comb through the forums and attempt to find one mention of terrible attacks by such players. You won't find mention of them. I can no longer name any. Their food used to be the endless supply of raiding cash that came from "fake wars". When this food supply left, and assets had to be accumulated in more conventional ways, like actually building a country, the "predators" died off.

Instead of trying to account for each situation, real or imagined, the goals for players need to be simple. The players need to know what they should be doing and why they should be doing it.

When I say Large countries in war, I mean a large army.

We had time when small players were destroyed for fun.
we have evidence of this in the forum in the past three days.

If this is no danger in your opinion, and nobody does it. why object to measures that will make it harder?

In this discussion, there are some very experienced war players and I listen.
but we all know you do have your interests which is OK.

But I also listen and bring arguments for those you keep asking about their experience. If you are right, they are not experienced.
This is the largest group, and we need to protect the inexperienced.
Now you may be one who does not attack them but there are those who do.

Such wars will continue, they may win, but they will receive a negative incentive and the attacked country will cause considerable damage.

so now they will need a good reason for a war.
Examples: winners incentives to get Cash in $ US, weapons, assets, population, and this cannot be achieved by destroying small players, it will reduce their chance to win cash.

If we can achieve this, it will be an improvement.

No, there is danger. Great danger. The danger is following these complicated intentions into implentation. Let us look at incentives based on army size applied to a common scenario in the game.

Side 1: The aggressor

Country A 15 million pop. Handful of offensive weapons/ammo
Country B 15 million pop. Handful of offensive weapons/ammo
Country C 15 million pop. Handful of offensive weapons/ammo
Country D 15 million pop. Handful of offensive weapons/ammo
Country E 15 million pop. Handful of offensive weapons/ammo

The aggressor sets up 5 recently conquered countries. They are all small with about 15 million population. He doesn't bother to do much with them other than get them to maximum forts and put a handful of offensive weapons in them.

Side 2: The victim

Country F 180 million pop. moderate number of defensive and offensive weapons/ammo

The victim no longer purchases GC protection because it has changed to be too expensive or is not available. He has no idea he is about to be attacked by five countries this weekend. He has plans tonight but later might be able to evaluate the situation and throw something together.

Consider that you say the goal is to incentivize fighting larger opponents, I have some questions related to this scenario, a common one that occurs in the game. Obviously, country F has the largest army but considerable effort is needed to fight and defeat five other countries. Likewise, country F needs sufficient defense to repel attacks until this can be accomplished. The victim, larger army or not, has a considerable task brought upon him in order to save his country.

Questions:

1. What does the aggressor risk?
2. What does the aggressor stand to gain?
3. What does the defender risk?
4. What does the defender stand to gain?
5. How does the math of incentive/negative incentive apply?

It seems you do not want any war risk at all.

This large country, 180M can purchase WP.
(one will be able to do so).
If you have 6 countries on FB, with more than 200M, then purchase lots of weapons, ammo, and prepare to defend.

You assume here that a 180M+ country will sit there with no defense.

Also, if you do not want war, never start one, lay low, and you will never be attacked.
War free game will remain an option on all worlds.

and then, these 5 countries will not be able to attack one country.
5 to 1 seems unfair. read the federation idea I placed here before.

Andy, what about war levels? It's not clear whether you want to keep them or not, in the long term. When you're ready, I want to suggest the Madoff War Level System™. It would solve the problem of predators and federations.

There is always risk to war, nobody disputes that. But it should have some reflection of what war truly is in the real world, not a trifle matter. There needs to remain an opportunity for balance. As Aries said, an attacker, (who in many cases would recklessly set up an attack, pawn country) set up silently then throw everything they had against an unsuspecting player; experienced or not. Correct me if I'm wrong. There is no way to respond to that if all of our weapons are locked down in deactivation. The offending player did not have to worry about reactivating; why should just the defender? That defies the premise of defenses. Storing weapons is not an outlandish idea. And if it becomes a matter of reactivating, it needs to be 100% faster, much more than the little fraction allowable each month. Logging on every few RL hours on our phones to activate weapons, while at work or whatever, is not a good solution to that. Sounds like an unreliable solution offered only to those with smart phones with enough data in their plans.

If this is the FB set up, I still don't think it's the best. It surly would not make sense for the other four worlds.

Remember, nobody really plays this game with the intent that everything else should revolve around just "what if war happens today?" And if some predatory country starts recklessly stomping around, it should be a hell lot harder than what is available now. We can't nerf the defender while giving more advantage to someone only vested in not playing with other concerns to attend to.

Andy: Me? Personally? Check my countries before you make such a statement that I don't want war risk. No player in the game risks war as I do.

I also stated in the example that the 180 million pop country has the largest army of the six countries. Now, if this scenario surprises you, it shouldn't, because it surprises no one who plays your game who has experiences PvP. What I want to know is how a common scenario we actually experience out here fits into these new rules. Are you saying these five countries, that are not in a federation, cannot simultaneously declare war? Also, how does the new incentive system apply to it?

"Also, if you do not want war, never start one, lay low, and you will never be attacked."

Sorry Andy, this is absolutely an untrue statement.

Historically in this game, I have NEVER declared war on an active player that didn't come after me first. Yes it's been awhile but I've fought a LOT of wars against a LOT of players that at some point declared on me first. I've always left people pretty much alone until they showed a willingness to come after me at least once.

Most of those players took a page out of the playbook Aries was describing. Multiple junk countries going for the big prize.

If I buy the weapons, if I have the population to man those weapons, along with the ammunition to use those weapons, there should be no restrictions on when they are available to me.

War levels are less relevant on FB. I would like to get rid of them but to start with, and on FB, this is not urgent.

we will need a way to evaluate the war fighting capability of a country. Obviously, war levels don't and the old defense indexes do not do this correctly.

On the reactivation of weapons:
I already said before that we will make it possible to automate it so you start it once. we have the procedure in the game already, we can apply it here.

We intend to add a notifications/intel report that will inform you if specific countries are reactivating or moving weapons in from a space station.

I also included a feature that will auto respond to attacks. This could be significant.
There is a time gap between war declared (and possibly advance messages when your enemy is preparing for war), and start of the war. the automatic reactivation will go a long way.
The alternative is of course to continue with WP on all countries in FB and we will have no wars.

aries:
you said moderate number of defensive and offensive weapons. with 180M it should have very very large numbers and auto attack units that will eat the hell out of the attacker. Why not?

If we do it right, the one country with 180M will be under WP. the other countries in the empire, will have much smaller population, a very strong army and would love to participate in war.

I don't think that 5 countries should be able to declare on one unless the one has a HUGE army.
all the winners will receive the incentive points.

Yankee,
If a country keeps itself outside the war game, it will not be attacked.
this will be part of this setup. you cannot be forced into it.

If you purchase weapons, you pay for the maintenance of these weapons and keep your army standing, that is fine.
Nothing will change. I never suggested any change to this. don't play tricks with it, just keep it there, and pay what it costs to keep it there.

<!-Quote-!>Quote:

Andy: Thursday, August 10, 2017 - 11:49 pm

we will need a way to evaluate the war fighting capability of a country. Obviously, war levels don't and the old defense indexes do not do this correctly.<!-/Quote-!>

Military assets are a direct measure of "war fighting capability." I propose war levels based on military assets. The war levels will measure the monetary value of the military assets of each country of each player.

Level 0: up to 2.99T
Level 1: 3T to 4.9T
Level 2: 5T to 9.9T
Level 3: 10T to 24.9T
Level 4: 25T to 49.9T
Level 5: 50T to 74.9T
Level 6: 75T to 99.9T
Level 7: 100T to 124.9T
Level 8: 125T to 149.9T
Level 9: 150T to 174.9T
Level 10: 175T to 199.9T
Level 11: 200T to 249.9T
Level 12: 250T to 274.9T
Level 13: 275T to 299.9T
Level 14: 300T to 324.9T
Level 15: 325T or more

Countries could declare war against countries of the same or higher level. That means weapon hoarders cannot prey on the weak. Players choose their levels by buying or selling military assets. But after a war declaration they cannot buy, or transfer, so many weapons that their level would increase.

Federations also would have war levels, using the same scale above. Their levels would measure the monetary value of the military assets of the countries in the federation. Federations could declare war against countries of the same or higher level as the federation.

That means strong federations cannot prey on the weak. The attackers could attack any defending country but could conquer only countries of the attacking federation's war level or higher. The defender(s), including fedmates, could attack and conquer any country of the attacking federation.

I suggest that the current war levels of players be retired. The current war levels, based on wars against c3s, doesn't help PvP. C3s should continue to have their current war levels and awards.

The Madoff War Level System™: balanced PvP

Madoff,
I have seen this before and I understand your idea.
However,
Military assets alone are insufficient.
If you have a lot of weapons and no ammo, nothing works.
We have seen players, trying to increase their defense index, buying the one weapons that provided the most points for the smallest amount of money and no ammo as it did not contribute to the defense index.

If you have 200 bomber units, of high quality, with a lot of ammo to go with them, you can cause a lot of damage.

If you will have auto response units that can destroy cities and corporations as a counter measure, how much you paid for these, is not a measure for your capabilities.
Having 1000 radar planes does not help.

Your assumption is that the money will be spent smartly, and the more they spend, the more capable they are.
I would love to see it working in this way.
we can take the assets into account, but it cannot be the only measure.

There are proposals on the forum to teach and measure knowledge that are very good but complex. I am not sure noobs will go through the required actions they have to take.