War

This should be an open discussion that hopefully will lead to a solution that can be implemented quickly.

My comment on the WP does not mean a delay.
What I mean is, that if we come to a solution that will try to prevent major imbalances between the attackers and the defenders (like 25 countries attacking one), this might have an influence on the solution for the WP issue.

Part a and b will never occur at the same time. It is a choice between a and b.

Part a is taken from the original text by TuCulo EsMio.

"Without political pressure you can declare and war but not attack any pop targets, nor paint, nor nuke. You can Only attack military or economic targets, conventionally."

I put it in different words but it is the same. We can discuss this and may find a better solution.

This means that if someone is not interested in a political phase but just wants to fight, they can, but it will be a limited war that will not end with one country conquering the other.

The suggestion by Vicious are going into the details of a possible solution.

Limiting the number of fighting countries can make the process more balanced.
I do have a problem in technically limiting each of the partners to some types of targets.
This will be very complex to implement.
Maybe he means that the group will decide between them who is doing what. That of course is up to the group.

We can also think of the conditions for the war to end. We can limit the time or the number of countries conquered.

Having one party completely demolish the other party may push people to use WP and prevent such wars.
If they know that they have a fighting chance and if losing, the damage will not be devastating, more may decide to play the war game. If we want to encourage the war game, we need to think abut the consequences for both sides.

Homerdome as I understand it, is trying to improve on the auto war declaration that is part of the federation setup. (if anyone declaring on you, others will automatically declare).
we can improve this and allow countries in general to setup auto declaration treaties.

This is in fact unrelated and can be added, or not added, once we have a solution to the base issue here.

The WP limitation to 50% of the countries or 50% of the population in the unprotected countries, is also an issue I would like to decide on, once we have an understanding on the main issue we are discussing here.

It is clear that we do want to have the war game an essential part of simcountry for anyone who wants to participate.

many of you have not been here when we had no war protection at all and wild, huge wars took place with hundreds of thousands of weapons lost and many millions casualties. It was so violent, that nobody could count on any of her/his assets being secure in any way. This resulted in the secured mode and WP features.
I agree with whiteboy, that we probably need to balance the war game.
As I see it, we need to prevent all out 25 against one wars that always end in devastation. People see it and walk away from the war game.

Giving the defender more time and also the surprise effect are good alternative ideas.

All the ideas I see here do not require complex development work and can be done relatively quickly. there are no changes to the war engine, just the admin work around the declarations.

As a side thought, 16 hours on LU seem a little short. should we bring it up to 32?

I think a 48 hour window would be best. In that period I think the ratio of activation should also be higher. This would give the defender a higher chance of protecting their assets. I like the 48 hour window because it allows the defender the chance to actually "show-up" for the fight.

So, the slower worlds should be 72 hours?

96 even?

LU is a faster world, it only makes sense. I thought faster war on LU was the point of it being a faster world.

The question is if we need to leave LU at 16 hours or increase to 32 hours.

we can change the time per world.
we can set them all to 32 hours.

any opinions on this?

Leave it at 16 hours. LU is faster, the time it takes to war should reflect the pace of LU. Most joined LU because it is faster paced. So if any times change, the speed of each world should still mirror actual server speed. Slower worlds slower war. Faster Worlds, faster war.

Maybe 24 hours more time and a happy medium.

I assume that we will have more reactions in the coming days and then try to find solutions.
the period between war declaration and the start of a war could be one of the details.

More ideas on balancing the wars:
1. After a war declaration, allow the defending party to purchase defensive weapons without any budget limitation.
they could go to the markets or to the space stations and purchase quickly to setup a stronger defense.

2. we could allow more fed members to participate in the defense as we did in the past.

3. We could setup a market for complete military units. to start with, attacked countries could purchase defensive wings at a high quality and make the attacker pay a very high price.

The limited war option as described under a.:
There is, as already mentioned here, the possibility for sneak attacks.

as an alternative for a limited war, we could make more and diversified sneak attacks and we can consider to reveal the name of the attacker.

all this is part of an attempt to reduce the imbalance in many of the wars, that makes them one sided and push so many to use war protection.

Many players use war protection because big wars require a huge amount of time clicking.

I estimate that one has to click 10-15 times per enemy target for a big war. That includes weapons purchases, defense deployment, creating supply units, creating and moving military units, conquering neighbors c3s, studying enemy defenses, and attacking targets. Well-defended countries can have 300-500 targets.

Clicking thousands of times turns that war into a part-time job for a week.

Few players want war to be a part-time, unpaid, clicking job. That's why I suggested alliances with a limited number of targets per ally.

Extending the amount of time before war does not reduce the tedious clicking, which is the real problem.

If we are talking about the recent attack by the mob on WGC I agree that something needs to be done because, when it is possible for a small group of war-oriented players to ambush other players who wish to play a more balanced game, the only option the defending players have is to make a choice between two extremes:

1. Keep very few useful weapons, in order to make your countries profitable enough to maintain War Protection, and never engage with war.

2. Keep huge quantities of weapons - enough to fend off any attack - meaning you will never be able to afford WP or attain higher levels.

This effectively prevents those playing for scores and levels from engaging with the wargame and at least four established veteran members of WGC have left the game completely because the recent war made it impossible for them to continue to enjoy playing it.

Another problem that WGC encountered was the sudden automatic deactivation of weapons and the closing of entire garrisons because of shortages of workers the right age. Several of our members were unable to offer any defence in their countries because of this. Buying population often didn't help because, at present, if you purchase population it arrives in your country with exactly the same proportion of ages as is already present. Therefore, if you have a shortage of 18 - 24 workers, very few of the new population will be aged between 18 and 24. The same is true of worker types.

Tom - would it be possible to set a standard demographic for bought population rather than linking it to those already present? That would really have helped.

Extra preparation time (especially on WG because it is a slower world) would only have had a minimal effect because of spending space limitations. The mob had months to prepare but WGC had just over one day and most of us were not set up for a major war. With the current limitations, a couple of extra days would not have made much difference - there is no way we could have bought enough offensive weapons to have had a fighting chance.

If the aim is to give all parties an equal chance, additional time would have to happen in tandem with either removing spending space limitations once a country has been declared on, or at the very least dramatically increasing the available spending space for a defending country.

Extra negotiation time would not have helped. Attempts to negotiate were rebuffed.

The notion to balance powers or at least avoid absurd differences in power would have helped considerably, as there was a massive imbalance which worked to WGCs disadvantage. However, the balance would have to be carefully thought through. On what basis would it happen? Defence index? Offensive index? Population size? It would have to be realistic and workable and I am concerned that any limitations on this will further prevent players from engaging in war.

It might be better to look at the balance of the current wargame. Defense is not adequate to fend off a determined, well-prepared and well-funded attack. Rather than put more limitations in place, it might be preferable to create a better defence / offense balance.

The notion of limited attacks which do not cause players to lose countries completely is interesting, but may remove any incentive for players to engage with the wargame at all. In addition, there have been occasional 'nuisance' players in the past who spoiled the game completely for others. I am aware that it has been abused but, when implemented fairly, players have been able to police the game themselves by using war to reduce the capability of other players to use the 'nuisance' effect.

Tom, if new limitations are to be implemented which prevent this happening, would it also be possible to implement a system (possibly similar to the boycott system) whereby if enough players complain that a particular player is spoiling the game for others, their capacity to force other players to engage in war would be limited?

I do like the notion that there would be a period in which players can opt in to a war, with war starting for all involved players at the same time. At the moment, if a group of players gang-up on one or two individuals, or a large player attacks a smaller one they can lose the war before any of their fedmates are able to join in and help. In the past, WGC has found it impossible to defend our newer or temporarily inactive players because of this and I support its implementation. If it is a case of either / or, I also prefer this option to that of limiting players to declaring on others their own size or similar in number.

One last thought for Whiteboy - WGC never assumed we were safe because we were the largest fed in the game, and many of us had very good defence. However the wargame currently favours the attacker, and we were not set up with large offensive armies capable of destroying other players. You know very well that there was no way we could have won the war you waged against us for that reason and the other reasons I outlined above.

If we were naive, it was in assuming that if we treated other players with respect, didn't engage in insults or flamewars on the forum and didn't force anyone to go to war with us if they didn't want to, no one would have any cause to attack us. This approach worked for four years and is a testament to the character of most of the other great players in this game, past and present.

Hugs and respect

Jo

The amount of clicking is indeed a problem but a separate one.
Example for some solutions:
We might think of easier way of building an army, by setting up units and then all the details and orders of weapons and ammunition and other materials should be automated. This will save a lot of time and clicking.

we should also make units very powerful, and expensive, forcing armies into smaller numbers of units. This too will reduce the clicking.

Jo
thanks for the suggestions.
many good ideas.
I will react on it, in all details, ASAP. I just have to go now.

w00t! Reduced clicking makes me happy.

Also, if there were some way to defend/attack WITHOUT being present would be super awesome. Yes, I'm talking a completely different war system, but lets face it, the reason most people DON'T want to war is because they don't have the time or desire to sit at their computer 24 hours, ready to defend. People that don't have jobs have a HUGE advantage that people with jobs will never be able to match.

Should SimCountry be for the casual or hard-core gamer?

Tom:
The clicking problem is not separate from the reliance on war protection. Many, or most, players rely on war protection precisely to avoid massive clicking.

As whiteboy says, the more complicated this is, the more it favors the dominant warlords.

Better, in my opinion, to organize changes into a number of simple rules, each of which can largely stand on its own.

Suggestion:

1) Institute a political pressure/elevated hostilities condition, one president vs another, as a prerequisite for declaring war. Elevated hostilities must be in effect for at least 24 hours before either side can declare war. The period lasts for 3 days.

Any time during the 24 hours to 3 days time frame either president can declare war on the other, with any of their respective countries.

2) Increase the time between war declarations and when the war starts, to 48 hours.

Leave the reactivation at 10%.

3) Give the defender the option to accelerate the start of the war to 24 hours hence. A big red button, "make war start in 24 hours from NOW". Obviously can only be used during the first 24 hours of the 48 hour wait for war to start. It's a modification of whiteboy's idea. This would be a powerful, and I think fair, tool for the defender...make the war start at a time of day that is at HIS convenience.

4) Set a time limit on wars. War between two countries ends in 48 hours, regardless of activity or lack thereof. This gives the defender an endgame...survive the 48 hours and it's over.


The main gist of the set of suggestions above is to give defenders a longer time (24 hours political pressure + 48 hours from war dec to start of war = 72 hours) to wake up and prepare, and also to give them a reasonable defensive goal, survive for 48 hours.


As Vicious says, the suggested limited war just isn't going to add value to the game--in fact, it will be another tool for some players to dominate the war process. That's what I'd do...declare limited war, decimate the military, then in a few days declare regular war and get the country. Fun for the few.

Barney's 48 hours of "getting in" is intriguing but complicated, and we haven't even started questioning things like who are the parties involved (If A decs on B and I get in on it, can I still dec on C, and if so can A and/or B also, etc.) Also it could be gamed as a way of ongoing WP, and probably many other unintended consequences.

Yes, however long it takes the defender to build allies or contract with a hired gun equals time he'll be exposed to war before his allies get in. Compare that to the current system, in which his empire is gone within 48 hours. We know that with real allies making real decs, the attacker may be pressured to cease fire.

The numbers can change, though I strongly recommend they be in increments of 24 hours.

As Tom suggests, the new system should be trialed on one world first.

No WP except vacation and new country WP should still be implemented on Fearless Blue.

50% of empire value (using some proxy with care and forethought) being out of WP before declaring war should still be done.

I still think worlds should be much more differentiated by having significantly different war rules.

Vicious is entirely correct that warring takes a huge amount of nuisance clicking, more than most players realize. Anything that reduces the amount of clicking, by chunking together tasks, would orient the game more towards strategic thinking.

I don't think the mob vs WGC war should be the poster-boy of the problem we are trying to solve. There's been motivation to change the war rules for a long time.

I think Jojo has it covered best and the points about clicking are very true.

I do think that there should be a standard time frame for wars to begin, 24 hours or 32 hours or 48 hours on all worlds...pick one, with the option for the defender to choose more time. It also should be based on *real* hours, not game months, give everyone a time that the war will start which will help clear up some of the anticipation/confusion.

<!-Quote-!>Quote:

the only option the defending players have is to make a choice between two extremes:

1. Keep very few useful weapons, in order to make your countries profitable enough to maintain War Protection, and never engage with war.

2. Keep huge quantities of weapons - enough to fend off any attack - meaning you will never be able to afford WP or attain higher levels.<!-/Quote-!>

This is exactly how I feel! Great post, thanks Jo!

I also completely agree with the clicking concerns. Fighting any non-C3 war is very time consuming.

GS

I think JoJo has covered it best too. Whatever Whiteboy wants is right.

To Quote my minority husband : "If it ain't White it ain't right!"

He's so cute.

I HONESTLY don't see how any of this changes much.

People are arguing because people don't want to play the war part of this game. How do these suggestions make people more willing to fight?

I agree with Mr. Hun and Mssr. Vicious, there is no reason to make this more complicated. I'm for making things simpler. The war engine is not friendly, or tempting for casual gamers. Most of us are casual gamers. If you don't have time to fight, you can't win. So, you're forced to stay in WP and then the fighters have nobody to fight and this starts all over.

I agree with Border C. This is a war game. No matter what is done, there will never be/and can't be a balance between econ/military.

If a player is econ only, he has no military(except for leveling). There is no way he/she will have enough time to prepare for war, unless their country is setup with a certain percentage of def. and off. weapons. 24hrs,36hrs,48hrs is not enough time to prepare when we prepare for a real month(give or take), to build up to attack another country.

As long as players have friends in game, there will always be alliances fed or no fed. Who's to say my friend wont dec on someone I decd on after the supposed time frame expires with no war? And, all my allies will dec when I dec, and I will dec when my allies dec,creating a bully effect against the defender. He will never stand a chance. The only chance they stand is to form an alliance and re-dec myself and my allies to try to conquer 1 or more of our countries, which wouldn't happen, because many players have countries which can withstand a drawn out war. Which brings us back to players who have played years to build their countries versus players who have played for less time and haven't build an empire like the attacking empire/s.
I'm sorry, but I feel you can never have an equal war, no matter what changes are made. For an example: a newer player starts a slave, adds population to say 50 million people, in a few days, has $10T in cash, but poorly defended, he will be a target by everyone for the fact that he/she has 50 mil. pop. and cash on hand. Chances are they do not have a military to defend or attack an attacker.

This game is about paying gold coins to play for empires every month. If a player chooses not to use their credit card, they will choose to raid someone to gain GCs to continue playing. This will never change and I dont really see a solution, unless the defender has the ability to overcome military spending per month, worker issues(LLW and MLM) re-activating all their military in one click.

The only solution I see is to allow the defender to buy as much weapons/ammo and automatically have enough workers to support the army. And if this happens, the offender should also have the same rights, which would offset the whole issue of who attacks who and trying to make it fair.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is, this is a war game. Players need to build a country with a suitable army and hopefully if they balance it properly, can sustain that army. Maybe an option for econ only can be implemented as long as that country has no more than a certain percentage of weapons/ammo, or a strictly econ country can level up with no military, or cannot be attacked if the WI or DI is 0.

I agree with the 1 click nuiscance. We should be able to attack a country with say navy only and the outcome would be the player with the most amount of experience(upgrades) versus the other player. I still agree with the WI to conquer a country, because I know I can easily take out an opponents military and doing only that is pointless to conquer a country.

I dont agree with c3 fighting. I've done it but it is a waste of time. Mostly because the playerr fighting with a c3 or more, has nothing to lose. If you want to fight, fight with something have value to make the risk higher if you dec another player.

Maybe the war engine can implement re-fuellers to allow bombers/fighter planes to attack from any distance, while re-fuelling in air to reach their destination? Like in real life?.
As mentioned before, landing forces, well this be implemented? I feel this could be a viable option for conquering a country. You can't take a country( or lower the WI) unless a percentage is conquered by land forces, which could also help the defender who probably already has defensive ground units setup already. Would make for some interesting battles.


I would like to see wp dropped except for a secured main and maybe when players know they will be away on vacation. I would like to see black out periods increased more than the 4 hours they are set at now. Maybe 8 hours could be a minimum setting, or 16 hours. 8 for sleeping and 8 for work/school hours?

care full consideration needs to be made not to disable the war game in the opposite direction!!!

To say that the war game is oriented toward aggressive attackers... their is some truth to that. However, not to the degree that is being played up here. Using the Mob v WGC war as an example. Frankly, if the WGC had spent as much time influencing their newbs to learn how to defend themselves, as they did encouraging their isolationist policies, they would have been able to defeat the smaller, better prepared group. By virtue of player numbers.

More people shooting is as much of an advantage as Military assets. Which is one of the things that being thrown out here as something to avoid.

With the recent increase in unit max fighting levels. Honestly, (with out having had the chance to experiment with it,) seems to be a huge advantage to defenders.

As it is. What is considered the "standard," defense includes 100 I-wing, (40K interceptors,) and 800 aamb in each of the cities. Amoung other things. The cost in attacking a country like this, with fed support, and 120 fighting level, is about 22k bombers. 1M A2A missles. And thats just the primary Air D, and city Gars. The amount of losses with the new upgraded levels, will probably double that. Unless the attacker maintains 15 fulling upgraded B/F wings of 900 bombers, and 1000 fighters, long enough to reach the max level. 2 weeks on LU, and 4 weeks on WG.

Keeping 15k fighters, and 20k bombers set up in air wings, for a month, is rather unpractical. Considering any one preparing for war, would also have allot of defense. Then you still need at least 1M A2A missiles. And now while you're waiting 2 days to declare war, and your opponent is getting military advise from an experienced fighter... first thing they are going to do when the shooting starts, is sacrifice to kill your F/B wings, and thus disable you're entire offense. So instead, you have to figure out a way to bring 40k bombers in to fight the "standard," defence.

And yes, with the new fighting levels, you are looking at 40k ish bombers to take the country. Before when i was hitting 120 level, it was taking 170-180 per 800 ints. With 160 level, i estimate that will be 230-240 per wing. multiply by 100, means 23-24k bombers, just to break the 100 i wings. and then your looking at 70-80 per 400 ints from fed support. So in clusters, like Jo/Ian, during the Mob/WGC war, at 120L, should have cost the mob about 94K bombers, and 8M A2A. at 160, my low ball estimate would be 122K bombers... Then you get to the cities gars... at 120L thats 200-240 bombers each, so 4-5k per country, that'd be another 50-80k bombers, at 160L, not having attacked a 160L gar, my low ball estimate is 300 bombers against 800 AAMB. So that means, 6K bombers per country, or 80k+ ish bombers for the above cluster...

Meaning with 120L your talking 150-170 k bombers, at 160L, 200k + bombers, to break the cluster. And thats just I wings, and cities. How much harder do you want to make the war game? Really.

The problem really isn't aggressive players. Its that many players don't repair defense. Or if they do, they wait for ever with out having any one attack them, become frustrated that they spent all that money, and continue to spend money, for something that isn't needed.

To state that a person that wants to play the war game, isn't a balanced player, is absurd. When documentation clearly states that any player beyond 1 country, should be prepared to defend them self. In fact, by ignoring the war side of the game, and just playing econ... it could be said that player is the one that isn't balanced.

It takes an awe full lot of effort to build, and maintain the kind of army that you need to play war. So much so, that most "war players," are above average econ players. And yet, war players and econ players compete for the same levels, and awards!?!

I'd really suggest that we don't cut off our nose to spite our face, as the saying goes. The answer to what seems a lop sided war engine, is player prep. Not rules fixes or changes. I mean, the direction this is going, is that if i want to war some one, i have to play "mother may I?" for 2 days first. honestly, that doesn't sound fun to me. I'm all for giving players a little more time to prepare. But what i'm trying to get at here, is not to push this so far the other way, that war becomes incredibly expensive, and cumbersome, to the point that their is no point to it!?!

i agree with the people who are saying this is a war game. and as in real life, war is rarely fair. being a game their should be certain limitations to keep it from being absurdly lop sided, but at the same time, trying to write in protection for players that, frankly, refuse to defend themselves, is the wrong direction for the game. as it will make any effort a player puts in to be successful, over written for a semblance of fairness to the player that puts out little, or no effort to defend themselves!!!

Where does it say this is a war game?

I was under the impression it was a nation-building game.

Exactly Orbiter. This game clearly states its a war game. Any empire with more than 1 country(a secured main) should be prepared to defend it/them.
If we level the playing field before we fight, we are hurting the players who spent time building their countries to fight or defend with, while the player who spent little time preparing a country for defense and offense will spend less time and money for the same results.

In the wild, do you think a Lion will stop attacking a baby gazelle because the gazelle cried out its too young and hasn't had time to build its muscles up to defend itself? No it wont happen and shouldnt happen in simcountry either. I dont think there is a problem with noobs being attacked, normally because they dont have as much to lose as a player who has build up an empire, but like Orbiter stated, the problem is players dont prepare themselves for war properly or dont understand how to fight. Using WGC for an example, most of their countries were losing money every month(which tells me they were'nt playing econ), because they had an adequate amount of weapons/ammo which costs the country money every month. They all had adequate military in most of their countries to fend off or even retaliate against their attackers. There main problem was re-activating and short notice before war started to repair.

honestly, a change i'd like to throw out...

why not lower the trade-able/sell-able pop to 15M. This will make smaller countries targets, sooner. but players may find themselves fending off attacks, before they invest allot of time or money into them. Also, making a 25M country a more attractive target. Means that smaller players wont have to build for months to be able to have the assets to take a 35M country, for the same stripping value.

this would make the whole game more aggressive, yes, by lowering the risk, and increasing the reward. But that would make the war game playable for smaller, newer players. And by the time some one is able to build up a 50M slave, they have either learned how to defend it, or make it pay for its own WP.

and btw, when i saw the increase of fighting levels to 160, my reaction was, "well, for those that wanted low cost WP, their you go..."

Thank you Tom. I look forward to hearing your ideas.

Orbiter, I'd like to know how having all targets fully garrisoned and plenty of defensive airwings qualifies as 'refusing to defend yourself'. It took four countries attacking one of mine over four hours to take it down. Please don't insult the intelligence of the Gamemasters or the other players in this game by pretending that there was some way WGC could have won that war.

Keto - I'd like to know how I achieved an average FI of over 125 and reached level 13, despite being fully garrisoned, if my countries were losing money. You guys really are talking a load of rubbish.

Green Starfish - you are absolutely right. "Simcountry is a multiplayer Internet game in which you are the president, commander in chief, and industrial leader." Not just commander in chief.

If people only want to play a wargame, go buy a copy of Call of Duty. Less clicking.

Hugs and respect

Jo

Jo, thats why some people play this game, to build an economy which makes money and can afford a potent military.

I also stated most of wgc had no monthly income in most countries. For example: Keith

With all the military WGC had, off. and def., you surely could have wiped out the smaller military of The Mob. This was just a clear example of when someone gets decd on, that player panics and concentrates on defense, rather than setting up a counter attack.

I have a few copies of Call Of Duty games. If you want a economy based game only, then you should play SimCity on Nintendo.