W3C - Game News Oct. 9, 2014

1. Wars against Computer Controlled Countries (C3)

It is now possible for any country in any war level to fight a war against a C3 country at a lower war level. When winning such a war, there is no cash reward and the war does not count as a regular war that was won by the country.

The feature was added to make it easier for presidents to take over a country that is close to a country they want to fight against.

2. Mobile Units

It is now possible to lend a mobile unit to one of your countries in the empire or to a member of your federation. The unit will be placed in the army of the borrowing country and will be under its control. It will be supplied as part of the army.

The origin of the unit will be kept and the unit can always be given back to the owner at any time. However, there is no guarantee that such a unit will be in the same condition as it was at the time it was transferred. It can be damaged or even destroyed in war.

3. Ammunition Shortages

Ammunition shortages are a problem in Simcountry for a long period and have caused problems in countries where the president assumed that the army is operational, only to discover that part of the army cannot be used in war because it lacks ammunition.

Ammunition is ordered automatically in most cases, but when such supply is stopped by the player, or in cases of severe market shortages, or non availability of certain types of ammunition on some of the worlds, supplies could even go negative.

The problem is now solved and the following is added:

1. When ammunition supplies are lower than what is needed for one (game) year, an automatic notification can be issued and the player will receive a message warning of the approaching shortage. There is then enough time to solve the problem. You need to set this notification on.

2. If a player does not resolve the problem and the ammunition goes negative, a new game procedure will, in stages, solve the problem automatically. The procedure will not change any cash conditions in the country. It will take the following steps:

a. Several weapons that are using the ammunition type that shows a severe shortage, will be exchanged for ammunition. The procedure is limited in size and will be repeated each game month until the shortage is resolved.

b. If there are no weapons in the country that can be exchanged, the procedure will try the reserves or a space center in the country to find weapons that can be exchanged.

c. If none are found, the procedure will dismantle an army unit to recover weapons that can be exchanged for ammunition, to resolve the shortage. Such event appears in the country newspaper.

In time all the shortages of ammunition will be resolved.
We advise every player to set the notifications on, to get messages when shortages occur.
The entire procedure will never kick in if the army is supplied with the ammunition it needs.

4. Investment Funds

The investment funds have been restructured and now do more of what they are expected to do.
Until now, funds accumulated cash, invested part of the cash in the stock market and paid very little back to their investors.

The funds are now restructured to pay more to their investors. They will also, gradually start to invest more in the stock market and reduce the pile of cash they have.

Funds that are short of cash will sell some of their holdings in the stock market to replenish their cash. Funds that are short on assets will stop paying their investors until they are able to increase their holdings.

5. Support Functions for Failing Countries

Countries that are in bad financial conditions and are in danger of bankruptcy have always been supported to prevent their demise. The supporting procedures are set on automatically when countries are accumulating debt and are making large losses.

The procedure have been improved and is helping such countries in more ways and a bit faster. The procedure does not give the country any cash. It helps in managing the education, making more people available for the economic process and builds new corporations to fix the financial situation of the country.

6. Corporations

Corporations continue to increase in size at a low pace. Each game upgrade increases the size of some corporations and improves their profitability. The process will continue at a low pace and will help us to keep the total number of corporations in each world from increasing very quickly.

7. Lower Price for Products

Some products have become cheaper again. We keep reducing the price of some types of ammunition and of some weapons. The cost of nuclear weapons is continuing to slide, but also the price of some space products, cargo shuttles, military bases etc. The production numbers of these products are slightly higher and the corporations producing them are much more profitable.

We intend to continue this process for some time to come.

8. War Levels rules will change in the coming weeks

Countries that fight wars against C3 countries at their own war level, will in the near future, automatically move to a higher war level after winning 4 wars at that level. Countries can move to a higher war level if they fight a C3 country at a war level which is higher than their own.

We will now add an automatic move to a higher war level even if they keep fighting C3 wars at their own level.

9. President vs. President Wars

It is our intention to make such war more attractive by adding new incentives for the players who are fighting such wars. This is part of an effort to move away from fake wars that are fought by one player against an automatic war engine.

Andy, the automatic search for free weapons not in a unit seems like a common sense move and sounds far better than how I previously understood it. Thanks.

Does this cover actual existing ammo in the Space port? Seems like that should be something to kick off first and foremost. Reason is, why would you convert a unit for an ammo type that already exists in a spaceport?

The procedure always looked first in the country stocks, then in deactivated weapons, then in the space centers.
Last resort is military units where the weapon can be found.

no change from the initial setup/.

More game news:

The market value needed for an IPO is reduced to 550B. It was 600B before.

Hey Andy,
do I understand Point 1 correct: Those C3s one fights against at a lower Level, does one take them over at the end of the war like before but it does not increase the own war Level because it is not counted as a 'normal war'?

So there are limitless war levels? I think a four war limit for each level is going to drive away longtime players. And fake wars is a silly phrase. These are all fake wars, its a game. The only real wars happening are in the real world. The use of the phrase fake wars is an attempt to make raiding sound illigimit so that it would justify making raiding near impossible.

mvn, i found my answer on the problems forum

Yes true.
It is added because sometimes you want to take a country closer to your enemy or you want an asset at a different place.

This will be possible at all war levels but there are no rewards if you fight at a much lower level and it will not increase your war level.

There are many war levels now and many more will be added.

You can win rewards 4 times per war level and gold coins when you increase your war level.

I also discovered that our wars in the game are not real.
but some of our unreal wars, are more unreal than others.
The fake wars are ones that are fought not to conquer a country from another player but to make money.

this possibility will continue.

Each war against a C3 country at your level or a higher level will earn you rewards as it did before.

You war level will however increase.
At higher levels, these wars will be more serious.

So when I'm struggling at lvl 28 I'm sure I will be reaping huge rewards.. That's what I'm hearing? After all I'm getting good at it so it stands to reason I should be rewarded for all of the time and energy put into this game. I'm sure am not going to expect all that I worked hard on to collapse because of one change. Am i correct? I'm only being straight forward w this because of the years of effort i spent on this, so customer loyalty counts for something. Right?

Get rid of the damm war levels. Look at all the shit they've caused. Instead the GM is entrenching them more into the game. If we and the GM's truly want more pvp's then get rid of them? Notice how almost everyone has accepted the war levels nowadays.

Before the war levels were introduced, new players where killed by the dozens and chased away.

They are now protected and this protection is not going away.

when you reach higher war levels however, war should be an opportunity and a risk and you can then assume players know what to do.

There is a risk of easily losing countries while you are away and the auto defense must be stronger.

This is exactly what we will do.

Winners of serious wars will be rewarded, both directly and in their score. They will win high monthly awards and more.

Question:

Provide an example of the rewards of winning a lvl 28 C3 war.

Andy,

Thanks for the IPO value-required drop.

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Before the war levels were introduced, new players where killed by the dozens and chased away. <!-/Quote-!>

And yet there were more people playing the game then, than now. I don't think it was the wars that was chasing them away. I think it was and is W3C attitude.

The war levels have zero to do with the fact that there aren't more wars, it's the following:

#1 Can't trade cash for GC
#2 Can't sell pop down to 20 mil
#3 With quality/mobile units defense is WAY stronger than offense
#4 Because of space there's no way to tell what your enemies actual defense is
#5 Because of space there's no way to know that the enemy will not just strip out their country during the war if they're losing

You'll notice that there are many players at war levels that are high enough to actually engage in PvP war, but none of them do it and it used to be that all of these people would be sitting with WP on. Now, they don't need WP because they know all of the above is true.

Think it may be possible to make the special forces icon JUST a little easier to find? almost impossible to see at times.

'
1. Wars against Computer Controlled Countries (C3)

It is now possible for any country in any war level to fight a war against a C3 country at a lower war level....
'

Hey Andy, I just checked my war page and can't find the Option where I could choose to fight a lower Level C3. Can only declare on same Level or above.

Andy, Khomey makes a very serious point. There are many, many players with large armies that can only be sustained by constant raiding. This has been going on for ever in SC. These players will either go bankrupt or be driven away.

(I'm not one of them btw. I only raid once every month or so to have a handy slave for worker exchanges. I can sustain my economy and my armies without this. But I would hate to see good players leave because they have to climb to unrealistic war levels to sustain their armies.)

Suggestion: Put a cap on the increase. Eg: When you reach WL 10 you can fight as many wars as you like in this level WITH raiding cash as always without having to climb more levels.

Christos has made a reasonable suggestion.

having been one of those players that christos mentioned, i'd have to disagree,

i do really hate to step on toes on this one, but part of the problem, is players that large. 8 hours of constant clicking in a PvP war, makes war unfun, that high level of assets, really hurts the game

one of the concepts that was introduced in the past, was fighting quality, a unit at 400Q, has 4 times the fire power of a unit at 100...

back in the day, 100 I-wings was standard, meaning today, 25 wings should have the same effect, but for some reason, 25 isn't enough.

what if 25 wings where a significant deterrent? 75% less clicking, for the same protection? it'd make the war game less tedious, while remaining just as challenging

honestly, these old school style war slaves, really need to go the way of the dinosaur

...

Agreed Orbiter, I'd put that at #6 though, the clicking existed before and there were still plenty of wars.

The reason that 25 of the current wings at 4x the quality doesn't equal 100 of the old wings is that everything has also decreased in size...int wings used to be 400 vs. 130 currently (1/3rd the size) and bombing wings used to be 800 vs. 400 currently (1/2 the size).

your right, but it was a deterrent back then, to some, and in the other things...