War

This game doesn't need war. In fact, removing it completely will give the team the necessary time to develop and fix everything else; it would create a void that players would necessarily fill with something else - either in or out of the game. Need I say more?

What is needed is a reduction in the frequency of wars, until war can actually be a part of this game instead of a perpetual annoyance. Nothing that has been said here comes close to resolving that true and central issue.

16a) disagree. Why should a player who invested time and money to biuld an offense be penalized for it? Not fair that defenders have wp and would be attackers no wp because of their offensive index. I think the 50% of assets out of wp would suffice.
b) same a a) above.

18- all this would do is provide a small income for would be attackers. Anyone who has been decd will always/mostly opt out of fighting to prevent their country/s from being taken. I see this deterring people from attacking, causing people to leave the game. Who wants to fight for a little bit of gcs, cash or pop when they can have the whole country?

19- Limiting war decs will prevent veterans from fighting. Most veterans have fought many wars. This would limit who the vets can target and take away the willingness to play the war game, resulting in the loss of more players.

25-FI should be below 100. Not alot of players can have a FI over 120 while supporting a military. It is possible but takes a long time to achieve.

28- not a bad idea
- awards only if you win or take the country?
-gold coins?
-certain amount of off./def. weapons?
-cash increase to the winning country?

29- the issue with c3's is players fighting from a c3 while not risking any of their assets.

Like I mentioned before, maybe a way to eliminate fighting from c3s is to allow, fps/bombers/transport planes, etc. to travel greater distances? The only reason MOST players fight from a c3 is to have fps/bombers/transport planes to be in range of the other country.

Allowing greater distances would eliminate the need for c3s.

I agree with Whiteboy's idea to have different level C3s, and awards for taken them for he first time at a level.


A have a few more ideas:

1. Increase the number of forts a player can build from 100 to 120 (this will immediatly improve defense)

2. reduce the number of soldiers and officers needed for defense forces. This will reduce the problem of autodeactivation, and will increase the size of the defense force that can be fielded.

3. In times of war, completely remove limits to changes in government salaries. This way countries can pay whatever is needed to hire soldiers and officers needed.

4. Allow for Stop-Loss orders like the US military has. With Stop-Loss no member of the military is allowed to leave. While new soldiers and officers would join, old ones will not leave based on age or new offers.

5. Allow the option of using Operational Contract Support (OCS). In real life, during war governments hire a surge of contractors who perform several functions, effectively cutting in 1/2 the number of troops needed for each unit. So, rather than having military folks do helicoptor repair, food preperation, etc, contractors would take over that function in war.

During times of war, a country should be able to cut by as much as 1/2 the troops needed to man a unit, at the cost of paying contractors to do this. For forts, bases, airports, and similar the manpower needed would be reduce the most. For Special Forces units, the reduction would be less.

6. attrition. I don't support an artifical time table that ends the war at a set time. however, offensive units should experience attrition over time.

7. Supply route. In order to fight a war for more than 3 days, you need a supply route to move water, food, gas, etc. That needs to either be through air space or sea space. Sea space is much slower and requires a very slow builup. That said, air support can provide only limited assistance to heavy units. There needs to be a feature of air space, that would ally the country or its allies to attack with its interceptors, fighters, NFP, etc any supply convoys attempting to go within their range.

8. additional cost of war. The costs of war are substancially higher than the cost of peace. Normal military spending only covers the cost to have the military,not to use it. When fighting, not only should the cost of gas be higher, but payments to soldiers and officers needs to increase 25% for hazerdius duty pay. In addition, each casulty lost costs additional money in survivor benefits, healthcare costs. maintanance costs, etc. The further away, the more it should cost to fight a war. Plus, supply units need a set range. To go beyond that range, one would need to refuel in the air, and to refuel in the air, an air base would be needed at the refueling point (or near it).

9. Country type should be meaningful. Some country types, such as democracy, should be MUCH more difficult to declare a war with....HOWEVER, they should have an added bonus on their production ability.

10. Escort planes for supply aircraft and ships. Airtransport and ship transport for supplies should be vunerable, and need escorts in waters/airspace that is in range of hostile players. To go through someone's airspace should require an agreement by that player, or defenses will fight transports passing through.

11. location should matter. no more navies being located on land. Sea access should be required for having a Navy. Navies should not be able to travel on land or through land.

12. location should matter for air. If an air unit is attacking over other countries, it should need to fight through their defenses. In real life, you can't just magically transport past someone's air defense. If someone has NFP in the area, they should fight back, as should interceptors of close by areas. An attacker should have to either take insane losses, or attack through the countries between him and this victim (or have permission to enter through their air space).

bottom line is adding realism may be a good idea, and may be part of the solution to adding balance.

re 25 - It is simply not realistic that a country can support a large army that it cannot pay for.

- a certain game level should be required to buy certain military items. I'd suggest that the most effective offensive weapons should require game level 10. This way, like in real life, only superpowers should be allowed to build the most effective offensive weapons.

-a certain game level should also be required before being allowed to start a war. Say level 3.

-At higher game levels, a few new weapons should be possible. Such as a satalites. These could be used to gather information in place of long range radar plans, and would provide the information without risk of beind destroyed. They would also make MIB more effective.

12. "Arguments against: This will require increased clicking to destroy the defense. We do not think that we should have a weak defense to reduce the amount of clicking. This is an argument for no defense at all."

That response is insulting. I challenge you to show that anyone in this thread has argued for "for no defense at all."

Where does W3C get the idea that defensive weapons are weak? What proof is there of that?

If you increase the power of defensve weapons, then of course you are increasing the amount of clicking for attackers to bypass that defense. More clicking = less players interested in war.

It's absolutely illogical for you to claim that an argument against increased defense is an argument for less clicking. If defense stays the same, then the amount of clicking stays the same.

I'm saying: leave defensive weapons the same as they are. Nobody here has said: make defensive weapons weaker.

Besides, defensive weapons can benefit from ammunition upgrades and weapons upgrades. Why is that stronger defense not enough?

26. "Introduce a system of fortifying cities, bases, airports and fortifications to make them harder to destroy or damage."

In other words, this will introduce a system to increase clicking to kill targets, and to drive away players from war.

Why do you want players to sacrifice hours of our lives at more and more mindless war clicking? How will more clicking make war more enjoyable or appealing?

By increasing clicking, you're going in the direction of making war more boring and the game more outdated.

28. I suggest gold coin awards to players when they conquer their first three player-controlled countries:

50 gold coins the first time a player conquers a player-controlled country of less than 20 million population.

100 gold coins the first time a player conquers a player-controlled country of 20-50 million population.

150 gold coins the first time a player conquers a player-controlled country of more than 50 million population.

What they are saying is that the argument that "stronger defense is bad because it will require more clicking" is a weak argument, because by the same logic "weaker defense is good because it will require less clicking", and it leads to an optimum solution of no defense at all, reductio ad absurdum. You could argue that we currently have the optimum balance of defense and the clicking needed to destroy it. Is that what you're saying? I dislike clicking as much as the next guy, but I think the def needs to be beefed up relative to offense.

Target clicking is fundamentally different that other kinds of clicking. A war is taking place in real time, and the defense has a right to respond in real time. Reducing the amount of clicking to take out targets sounds attractive, but it weakens the defense in that it gives them less time to respond. I'm not saying a solution can't be found (rounds again?) I'm just saying that's how it is.

"Where does W3C get the idea that defensive weapons are weak?" People keep making this point. Don't you guys run the math once in a while? At the risk of giving away trade secrets: Calculate the cost of 2 full int wings, including ammo, fuel, manpower, military supplies. Now calculate the cost to take them out, counting everything. The significant amounts are planes and ammo. On LU, I figure it costs 1.7 times more for the defense than for the offense. On FB, 2.5 times more. It varies as prices change, but it's always at least 1.5x when I've calculated it.

When you get through ints, now you have defenseless helis. I figure on LU the heli defense costs 3.4 times the cost of offense to destroy it.

Garrisons are tougher to calculate. Depends on the mix, how full, how full a stock of missiles is kept, what the attacker uses--is he trying to be cost effective, or just quick? I'd say the offense and defense costs are roughly at parity. Though if you can get nukes through it's ridiculously cheaper for offense...5x, 10x, even 20x.

And a lot of the defense that is purchased and set up goes unused in a war. Sure, offensive stuff goes unused also. But assuming the offense wins the war, as it usually does, the offense player can reuse his unused stuff in the next war...the defensive loser can't, so add that to his total cost.

Combine that with the fact that the defense has to maintain some kind of readiness 24/7. The offense can build up ammo then buy and activate weapons within a few days.

Anyone who disagrees with the overall idea that, dollar for dollar, the defensive weapons are currently weaker than the offensive weapons...maybe I'm wrong, but I'd love to see some of your numbers.

I don't understand why the c3 level idea was dismissed almost as if it was ridiculous. Of course the intention is for players to fight eachother, however that can't just happen out of no where when no one knows how to fight. If you only learn by attacking a current c3 then you are screwed when you actually go to war with a real player assuming the real player knows ANYTHING about the game at all. The leveling c3's would serve EXACTLY the same purpose that the current levels do, the current levels teach players how to play the game, mostly the econ game and how to buy weapons (which is all that is necessary to achieve higher levels). The c3 leveling system would teach people how to fight, a necessary condition to increase use of the war engine.

I really don't understand why all of this increased defense talk is being treated as if it will change anything. I've said it before and I'll say it again, if you increase the strength of defensive weapons, you increase the strength of them for both the attacker and the defender, in the case that the attacker is a war player, he or she WILL have a better defensive strategy on top of their better offensive strategy. Nothing changes except for the cost of conducting war, if you make that cost too high, you get no wars, as it is now you have barely any.

People should stop trying to focus on how to make impenetrable defenses and start worrying about how to actually give people incentive to play the war game. Please tell me how any of the following does that:

Increasing defensive strength
Increasing the declaration time
Increasing responding ints/helis
Decreasing the number of countries that can attack
Decreasing the number of wars people can be in
Requiring financial indexes above a certain amount to start a war
Increasing defensive spending when war is declared
Limiting the options by requiring a certain difference or less in the offensive index
Automatic defense building
Further fortifying of cities/bases

None of those suggestions will increase the activity of the war engine, they will have the complete opposite effect. They will lead to less wars, more clicking, players that can act with impunity because of impenetrable defenses and all of the war power resting in the hands of an even smaller amount of players who will learn the system and how to use it effectively.

I'm not saying that some of the ideas aren't good, some of them are mine even, however none of them address the main point, no one wants to participate in wars because they do not understand the war engine due to not being able to use it without putting their own countries at risk. There needs to be an incentive for players to actually play in the war game, otherwise all the defensive features will lead to an ability to operate without war protection while still knowing your assets are completely protected. The new players can be dominated into following the line or getting beaten down.

As far as 'stealth' units, I hate it. I've got no issue with units that would respond to offensive weapons, but why do they have to be secret? To ensure even further that wars won't happen? Why would people go into a war in which they literally had no idea about their opponents military capabilities? Put a bunch of their assets at risk and spend time building countries just to find out that their opponent has 100 of x units which blow up theirs when they attack? No one would do that unless it's just personal vendetta. It's another idea that will have the absolute opposite effect of what is intended.

Figure out how to get people motivated to learn the war engine, that is the best and really only way that players will be able to effectively defend themselves and have the confidence to go to war with other players. You would think with all of this 'defensive' talk that the issue was that there were SOOOOO many wars and people were just getting beaten down everywhere. Pretty sure that isn't the case, war is the exception, not the rule. Why all this adjustment to the defensive side when war is already so rare?

yea, i was doing ruff calculation, today actually...

the thing that you are missing, jojo. is that its not JUST offense versus defense. in the case that a player is only spending money on offense, compared to a player spending on offense and defense... the balanced player wins...

the player playing offense, still has to purchase defense... so just comparing the cost of offense to defense, isn't entirely fair.

starting with a C3, you could add up the cost of building a "standard," defence, for 50M country. and put it in gold coin terms... add into that the cost, in gc, of the bare offense needed for it to be able to defeat its twin... then compare it to the cost of building a 50M econ slave, with extra cash, and WP cost until it is developed enough to pay its own protection... when i did my figures, i figured the cost of the Econ at (highest,) half the cost of the WS. and probably half the effort.

so their is already a staggering cost FOR war.

the buy in is higher, and their is risk, but the rewards are much greater, isn't that the way its suppose to be? we should be careful not to increase the risk to much, and decrease the reward so much, to make it pointless...

although adding a little stronger defense, so that those that want to test the water have a little more confidence. really, i have to cave into that point... the problem is the knowledge base, and it can be difficult to risk allot, knowing that you are outmatched, to begin with. giving defense a little boost to counter that intimidation, just might work... i'm not really hot on that concept, but i can see the wisdom in it.

It was dismissed WB because it *was* ridiculous.

However for everyone that is disgruntled by changes you begged the gms to introduce, feel free to rant here http://madrantz.net/BlogRantz/. Don't hesitate to mention that it is all Wendy's fault when posting Enjoy.

I can see the *thought* behind the idea that players might venture into war more because they feel their defense is stronger, but it ultimately makes no sense. If their defense is stronger, so is the defense of whoever it is they might declare upon, there is nothing different, just more clicking, which we already know is a main reason people avoid the war game. There will continue to be no incentive for players to test out the war game any more than they have already, in reality, there will be even less of an incentive as many players have only tested it out to get at least a small grasp, knowing their defense is stronger than it was before will only lead players in the same direction they have already been going. There will be less war if the defenses become stronger, not more, thus less knowledge about the war engine which leads to...a very small number of players holding all of the cards...sounds familiar...

C3 Levels

The idea is not ridiculed. We just argued why it cannot be done.

C3s must be at about the same level because new players always get an existing C3.
The war game should not be based on wars between players and unmanned defense but rather on wars between real players.

Clicking and the power of the defense.

These two issues are unrelated.

YES, we want to balance the war game and
YES, we want to reduce clicking

these are two different issues and you cannot argue against balancing the war game because of clicking.

Let's first balance it and then look into the clicking on both sides.

The numbers of destroyed weapons during attacks are in favor of the attacker. The numbers should be more balanced and the cost for the attacker should of course be higher.
When you decide to attack, you damage the defender but your cost is higher. This was always so in the game and in real wars.

The changes we introduce are small.

In the previous war engine, all the fed members participated in the defense and attacks ended with 20.000 lost fighters and bombers.

Wars were huge and much more frequent.

We have now reduced both numbers and cost but probably went to far and now players are afraid to fight.

Arguing for a continuation of the situation where it is easy to destroy an enemy, is too simple.

If you know how to fight, you should not walk away if your enemy fights back hard.

There will be a new update later today and also game news.

As far as c3 levels, if it can't be done because of a system issue, no problem, I understand completely. However, saying new players get a c3 is not enough to convince me that it can't be done, the c3's would be set up in levels, would it be difficult to make sure that all new players get a level 1 c3? If the system could be set up to produce the c3 levels, I wouldn't think that would be the limiting factor.

I understand that in the past there was more warfare, war was different then and it wasn't just because of all fed members participating. Also, the example of 20k lost bombers and fighters is not meaningful, I lost more than that just taking out air d in WGC's big cluster, which I expected to lose. That isn't a huge number. W3C has made players VERY committed to their countries by not allowing players to strip c3's, by not allowing players to reduce pop below 25 mil, by putting negative effects on empires that sell population. I understand the reasoning for all of that, *however* what it has created is a game where everyone is completely attached to their country and therefore unwilling to take risks, so they have no clue how to play the war game.

Saying it's easy to destroy the enemy is completely unfair, you call it easy, I call it 3 months of hard work, building a coalition, building an empire, setting up as stealthly as possible, spending hours upon hours scouting out, creating spreadsheets and measuring as precisely as possible the best strategy and organizing a coalition of players to accomplish a goal, if you think that's easy try getting 6 different players to agree on the best rules for war protection. If you want to see how easy it is to destroy an enemy, I'll put a country up that makes money every month, let as many people as they want dec on it and shoot at it and we'll see how long and how many shots it takes to bring it down. It's not even insane indexes for a war slave, 1100 def, 1000 off, I could hold it for a day with 15 or 20 people shooting at it, even if some of them were people from my own fed. Defense is not that difficult and the player on defense ABSOLUTELY 100% x 10 has the advantage, it's just not understood.

What is misunderstood by everyone, is that we want the enemy to fight back hard, war players are interested in the fight, in combat, in the struggle, which is why WGC continues to exist today. If what we wanted was to just roll over enemies, the entire fed would have been wiped out. However, they should fight back hard under the same rules that the attackers have, not some special 'playing defense' rules. Defense should not get you through any war, offense should be involved, otherwise you can just win wars passively with your impenetrable defense.

Again, I'll say that if the intention is to make war more common, the changes proposed as a whole will do the opposite, since it will become less common it will lead to the very same players or maybe even less holding all the cards in regards to war. The past is not comparable, you also used to be able to have 1000's of forts and attack with 1000 nfp's at a time, that's MUCH different. I wish W3C would see that the issue is not that offense is too strong in regard to defense, if that was the case you'd see players going on offense everywhere, you don't see that because it isn't the issue. The issue is no one wants to risk their own assets on a side of the game they have no idea how to play.

Suggest new Idea on this thread

Alternatively


List your rantz here ----> http://madrantz.net/BlogRantz/

I have refrained from reading and posting anything truly serious in this thread, because I knew that making any one point would be pointless and whatever "solution" comes out of this would be tangent to the problem. But you are taking way too long with nothing, which will change nothing.

I will speed things up by showing you what this thread should look like in one post:


What is the problem?
- Players complain something is out of whack.
Is this superficial or profound?
- Superficial.
What motives them then?
- Possibilities include the conditions of war, the damage war inflicts, the loss of the country or the time spent warring.
These are profound causes. Which one is the most serious?
- From my knowledge and historical evidence, the loss of the object of their admiration and/or result of their labour. Losing something that is dear is always hard.
Are the others relevant?
-Only in the matter in which they damage the object.
Should we discuss them?
-Later on they will be inevitably discussed.
As so, how can we resolve that one profound reason? (Note this is the goal.)
- Well, Willy, this is where the infinitely variable and exponentiated function of life gains infinite solutions... (in practice a lie, for future reference)

We have to cut our solutions to those that are in line with the rest of the system and the playerbase. More so, the solutions have to address what is needed and not what is wanted.

1. Remove war completely.
This is on the end of the spectrum.
To two other dimensions of the game, economics and politics, this will cause a bit of a hiccup. To economics, it is ignorable. Six thousand weapon corps among 500 000 mean nothing. To politics, it would be a federation killer and disable the unused Council resolutions. For the rest of the game, the number of GCs would no longer be drained towards WP as well. For players, they would have to look elsewhere for recognition and brag rights. This option doesn't respect what is already built, but it goes in line with the majority of the players' habits and for games where there is some serious, personal building.


2. No war can be won.
For people who just love to war this is perfect.
They can shoot day and night... so you better put a limit on how long the wars last and follow them by a grace period. The point of these wars will be to damage the country: population, state corps, show disrespect, keep him from developing further, political maneuvers, et cetera. It may also be to gain prestige, so a nice list to show my conquests would be nice. A top 10 on the world pages would be nice too. You might want to reduce the damage nuclear weapons inflict as well. Players who are nuked sky-high may still complain loudly, if the (relative) cost of the population is high.

3. War and peaceful mode.
A crowd pleasure. You want to war. I want to war. He doesn't want to war? Let us war just the two of us then.
Players shouldn't be able to pick their wars to avoid retribution, but they should be not dragged into something they have no interest in. If a faction of the playerbase wishes not to war, by God! give them what they want! What you have been doing for years is encouraging and paving the way for players to accumulate assets. Now, logically, players fear for them and they demand a primary need: security, assurance about the future - that is needed in any business.
How this would work: players would have to choose between a peaceful and a war game mode. They would be exactly the same. The only difference is that with peaceful mode you can't declare war on other players and vice-versa. To change between one and the other, you can put up some criteria and a one month transition period. I order to change to war mode on the 1st of September and I'm only able to war another player on the 1st of October. If you want to charge one more than the other, I don't care, but I don't like it.

4. Why work to war?
Let us take a look at war games throughout the game... In Civ, Popoluos, Command and Conquer, Rise of Nation, Age of Empire, Age of Mythology after thirty minutes, one hour you are ready to war. You can even edit maps to war as soon you start. There are even episodes/chapters when you can't build anything and just command your army. Now, let us look at online confrontation: in Battlefield 1943, I have always three soldiers to choose from. They are always the same whether I win 1000 times or lose 1000 times. In practice, I lose nothing (therefore I have nothing to weep over) if I die, so I really don't mind losing/dying a bunch of times. The key of these games is the extremely reduced or inexistent cost in preparing for war.
In Simcountry, you can replicate a similar scenario as so: all main countries are forced into secured mode, the leader cannot be changed and all slave countries cannot buy population over 15mil. The rest would naturally follow.
Despite not being in line with several of the current existing features in the game, this would have served perfectly five, four years ago. The arguments against this option are all the changes that have occurred since October of 2006.


As far as I can see, these are the only true four solutions you have, with possible variations, Willard, - besides the option of doing nothing. Each one of them represents a serious and meaningful step towards the resolution of this problem. You just have to choose which one of them will be the basis of the war engine.

Take notice that we are changing the war game, because the problem lies there. However, altering the other dimensions of the game can help and will be necessary. You can, for instance, increase the price of offensive weapons. It is not that it makes war more expensive that matters alone, but that it will take longer for the offender to restock as well, increasing the transaction costs of war. However, help can only come in the form of "reduce frequency of wars"; it doesn't really address the problem.

As things are, they are intolerable. All of the suggestions presented either delay or reduce the problem. If, for some godforsaken reason you prefer to insist on the current model, here is what you should do with War Protection:
Empires with war protection on at least one country - secure mode isn't war protection -, cannot declare war on another player. Once he declares war on a player country, no one country in his empire can turn on war protection. The defensive player, on the other hand, can put all the countries that aren't at war into protection.

As for all other suggestions, if it in practice reduces the frequency of war, I say yes. If otherwise, I say no.

This is the next iteration.
I am removing some items and consolidating others to create a clear work list for our developers. Items that have been executed are in the game news and will be removed from the lst.

The numbers attached to items before are now changed.

We will not make any extreme changes and will not implement all these features. The ones we will implement will not be extreme but rather tuning of the current system.

1. Reduce or solve the problem of automatic deactivation.
There are several measures we can take:
a. Change the conditions for deactivations and make them kick in later.
b. Include more age groups in the army.
c. Reducing the numbers in the army. Salaries could be higher and the cost could remain unchanged.
We could implement more than one of these options. Whatever we choose, will be done in small steps to have time to check the effects and prevent earth-quake like effects.

2. Add an option for the defender to allow the defender to influence the way the war starts.
a. Add up to two preparation days.
b. Split into two periods. One to allow others to join (48 hours) 2 to continue with the war declaration. (48 hours more).
c. Allow the defender to start the war NOW.


3. Increase the standard time before war stats to 48 hour.

Will be implemented in the next days.

4. Expanding the spending limits for defensive weapons for the defender once war is declared.
Example: set the spending limit to 5 times the standard value. The plan is to do this despite the possibility for fake wars. Countries will have to remove their WP to start fake wars.

5. Reducing warring imbalance

a. Reduce the max number of players that can start a war (Now 25) to 10.
b. Possibly reduce further to 5 later if needed.
c. Try to avoid imbalance by comparing offensive indexes and limit factors to 3 or 5. Will not be implemented at this stage.
d. Allowing more fed allies to participate in the defense. The number could depend on the number of attackers.
e. Limit war declarations, based on the history of wars against real players. Compare numbers and limit to a certain ratio.
f. Always allow wars against C3s.
g. Requite a certain level of FI to attack a country with a high level FI. Not or not now.

6. Set a time limit on all wars. It has to stop within a set period.

Reactions are mixed. We will not execute this feature now and it may not be needed at all.

7. Easy or automatic building of military units

Introduce automating the setting up of units, including auto purchasing of all the items that are needed in the procedure.

8. Create an open market for military units.

We could create corporations that produce military units of various types and trade them on the direct market. This will make the process faster and will reduce clicking.

9. WP:

a. No WP at all for fed members in feds with a high total offensive war index.
b. Limited WP for all, but before declaring war, 50% of the assets must reside in countries that are not protected.

10. Sneak attacks could be made more powerful and include more weapons. Limited war.

a. New type of sneak attacks with more types of weapons.
b. New type of sneak attacks will be public (the name of the attacker will be known).
c. Keep the current sneak attack as it is, no name.
d. Allow sneak attacks by defenders under all conditions.

11. Set conditions for anyone who wants to stop the war NOW.

a. The payout when you request to stop the war should be preset and will depend on the finances of the country or population or we can base it on the nominal value of the country.
b. Warring parties should agree but the defender must have the option to decide to stop.
c. After it happened, the country will be immune for war for a set period.


12. Add counter attack units that will attack selected targets if the country is attacked.
This can be executed in the following steps:
a. Add a new stealth bomber and missiles as products and add new corporations.
b. Create a market for these products.
c. The units can be bought and then will appear as regular units and can be updated, and supplied like all other units.
d. Set up of attack plans, with a set of pre-programmed attack scenarios that will be executed when the country is attacked.
e. Setup free style attack plans that can be customized for a specific country, counter attack conditions, timing etc.
f. Some of the units could be secret, when more are available they will become visible.
g. Possibly add more types of weapons to add to these units or create other types.
h. Possible customizable corporations to produce custom-design units.

13. Introduce a system of fortifying cities, bases, airports and fortifications to make them harder to destroy or damage.

No or not now.

14. Diversify the worlds and created different levels of risk. Put a price on safety.
Obviously, this is supported.

15. Rewarding war players with special awards.

Pay awards to players who fought real players, non fake. (Difficult to judge).

16. Levels of C3's

We see more text on this and we have discussed this internally.
There is a possibility to have part of the C3 countries with a larger army and better defense and judge war players by their performance against such countries. We will get into more details once we have looked into the consequences of such a feature.
We need C3s for new players but we have many, and can make sure we always have many. We have changed our mind about this feature.

I would have thought that after nine years, the failure of this model had become evident. One does have to wonder what exactly any of you are thinking.

1.
c. Ok.

2.
b. If you can make it happen, Boss.

4. No.

5. You need to clarify if and when you mean countries or players.

6. I would call it a day after six hours.

7. More automatic stuff? What is wrong with you! I've been here since the automaton craze, and I hardly know what is going on with my country.
Just let me save some unit blueprints that I create on the game, so I can build them faster according to my specification, instead of the game's default.

8. Yes, no, maybe... If the soldiers are coming from my country's LLWs forget it.

9. Empires with war protection on at least one country - secure mode isn't war protection -, cannot declare war on another player. Once he declares war on a player country, no one country in his empire can turn on war protection. The defensive player, on the other hand, can put all the countries that aren't at war into protection.

10. You are giving an advantage to the attacker, the guys who plan things ahead. You would want to do do that because?

11. No. Pirates belong in space.

12. More no.

13. As in the previous engine, yes.

14. FB suffices, with some pretty changes in population, weapon prices, unit speed, etc.

15. Another no.

16. You cannot (or couldn't) buy weapons when 90% of your MLMs were in the army. Reduce that to 50% and things begin to compose. Use an absolute number if you wish to target C3s in particular. Limit the number of forts according to population too.


This reminds me of pop-quizzes. If I were to guess what you were trying to achieve from the suggestions posted here, I would say nothing in particular.

Actually, Laguna and Tom. Maybe, just maybe what can happen here, is that another Version of SimCountry can be created, from scratch.

Reason Being, while the changes and suggestions Laguna just made a few posts ago make complete sense, I think people realize what they have paid for. Altering that too much would probably cause many people and players who love the game as is to want to quit or feel like they paid for something that game will become while wanting what it is currently.

I feel I have an ultimate solution that will allow what Tom is doing now to proceed, while providing an alternative.

Conquest World Servers.
At First, I thought that a completely new game would suffice as a valid alternative. But in afterthought, I realized this would constitute too much of a demand on the GMs, developers, and split the player base leading to further abandonment of other worlds.

The general Idea or Concept is to give Aggressive players an alternative playground to play how they play SimCountry while still being a part of the same game.

A world where any set of country or empires could be given at the rate of 30 coins per month. Same as any other world. But this world would address Laguna's observations and solutions that plague the war game and the tolerance of the war game in the existing Simcountry worlds.

A reset every 30 days will level the playing field and give participants the opportunity to truly test their might and have good battles over and over, never allowing lopsided battles so 1 vs. 1 and 2 would be manageable and still challenging.

So lets say for example not so many will play this world at first. We have a world where there are set geographical limits, but not enough people to fill the world.

Start of the month, an automation would divide the world equally amongst the participants, provide weapons and garrisons a standing army, a set spending limit(but no cash on hand stuff, just pure ordering of military and ammo, possible units themselves as well) based on actual land allocation(example like set number of cities, weapons,land and naval units per X amount of square kilometers). At the end of month/Update a player will receive a land/conquering bonus spending limit and to purchase more weapons and supplies. Almost like a Risk setup with the simcountry War engine.

And it is free for all for everyone, no alliances. Players with top rankings of land mass at the end of the Real month would be allocated some type of awards of gc and so on.

There will not be a country setup it would be entire empire setup. A player can setup Blackout periods, and wars may be started against only one player against another at a single time, the automation should place players near players where the Blackouts best coincide with times each player can play and the wars would end daily and Start again Daily. A player cannot war against the same player continually but has to choose another opponent at the next war. So battles are even and everyone has a chance to face off against a new opponent. A free for all winner takes all type of setup where a warlord can have a good war at will, and Earn Bragging rights, true bragging rights. All while still being able to participate on normal simcoutry servers.

Of course, the idea needs to be refined and edited, but overall creates a new dynamic, and game setup within the game instead of changing the game too much or not enough. A balance.

I also suggest a reduced rate of 10 to 15 coins for at least 3 to 6 months after introduction to weed things out, potential problem resolution and overall refinement before moving to full 30 coins per month. This could be something temporary or permanent, but I think it provides a gr8 alternative to leaving for those who feel there is too much war, or leaving because there is not enough war. This is also a way to have people stand or fall on their own, participate or not participate.

I also feel this is a very doable idea because it already adopts a huge part of the game as it is already working. And saves the gms a crap load of headaches. On the other side a flat rate no profit/no coin econ world could be made with top player awards and ECON bragging rights.

So two extremes on two different servers, while leaving the game as it is largely intact for those who play simcountry now and don't want to move too much in either direction.

1. reducing deactivations... mixed feelings, see my comment to lg on #10...
but the concept is interesting. wasn't their talk of a market, where you could buy the right age mlm, it'd be something like mercenaries? right? that would also follow, that people could SELL them, i kinda like that. a person who is poorly prepared, and is trying to compensate for lack of skill with money... well why not make it cost them?

2. i oppose the start now button. when a player decs, both players know in advance when the shooting starts. rather, give the defender expanded sneak attack options. meaning they still get the first shot, with out going into full war mode.

5. thanks for giving some ground on this. i still don't like c e and g... they will make things 2 herky jerky.

6. i favor a time limit, if some one is defending, they shouldn't have to fight of the same guy for a week? the suggestion of 48 hours sounded cool, but i'm happy with this one being lower on the list.

10. sneak attacks, they are cool, and should not be reduced. defenders should be able to use sneaks while waiting for war to start, i think both sides should be able to. but i'm loose on this one...

" You are giving an advantage to the attacker, the guys who plan things ahead. You would want to do do that because? " -lg

if their is no point to gaining an advantage, their is no point to putting out any effort!!! i do not feel that currently an aggressor can gain an unfair advantage, when many players have had real life YEARS to prepare a defense... seriously think about that LG, if you've had a country for a RL year... should it be prepared? if it isn't who's fault is that? not mine for being prepared when i attack it...

were as creating some equality, is good, removing the advantage of prep, and knowledge, is counter to making a competitive environment.

but i agree, if a person has no will to fight, give them a peace full option... infact i was tracking the same, with a player wanted to switch, they could apply to the SC...

and, considering that allot of the players go to school, they can apply to the SC to go into peaceful mode, so they can focus on studies, and then apply to come out for the summer... sometimes players life circumstances change. and should be able to switch back and forth, with limitations... otherwise their would be obvious abuse... but really, the idea of creating a peaceful mode to protect players who don't have time or will to fight... is the single best idea toward balancing the war game. that way, only people who want to, will be available to war, and as such, would put out the necessary effort, that extreme handicaps aren't put on the war game. personally, i favor the peaceful mode having some draw backs, as their are obviously less risk involved, the rewards should be less.

11. yes
12. yes, although, their needs to be a way to counter stealth, it should be a perma invisible unit...
14. yes
15. yes

wow, i was really getting discouraged, and then looking at this today, yes, we are going in the right direction!!!

although, i support lg with creating a peaceful mode.

and semi off/on subject, how about espionage? i think their was a brief passing comment by W3C once about this... i understand their are allot of things going on right now. so its all good, but it would be a cool feature.

wendy's idea is really good, it really is.

especially the black out part. you set your black outs, and end up near people that you don't have to wait 16 hours to fight!!! thats excellent!!!

giving every one the same basic start, and giving a gc award at the end of the month to the most successful players... i really can't find a real problem with it

it wont end wars in other worlds. as the build up process in permanent worlds would be much higher, so big country battles would happen more on other worlds... but offering a monthly, month long tournament for bragging rights and coins...with a relatively cheap buy in...excellent!!

My 2 cents,

The game needs whats missing or broken to be fixed, not the addition of more things.

More units etc are just going to add to the list of "not working correctly"

There is a back catologue of things waiting to be implemented that have already been accepted/promised.

Going back just 2 yrs ago, this game was far more enjoyable with less.

Fix what needs fixing first.

<!-Quote-!>Quote:

if their is no point to gaining an advantage, their is no point to putting out any effort!!! i do not feel that currently an aggressor can gain an unfair advantage, when many players have had real life YEARS to prepare a defense... seriously think about that LG, if you've had a country for a RL year... should it be prepared? if it isn't who's fault is that? not mine for being prepared when i attack it...<!-/Quote-!>

And the United States had 225 years to get prepared to have two of their towers blow by a couple of planes, along with the Pentagon. Obviously, it is entirely their fault.

Players have years to prepare for an attack... May the players who have been buying weapons and ammo for every game month with all their countries for the past couple of years please raise their hands? Are these the same players whose first thought when logging in their countries is "OMG! OMG! I need to buy defensive weapons NOW!" or "those goddamn HLWs never seem to be enough..."?

Why in God's name should players be ready to war anyway? If they don't want to war, then they should not be bothered. Just because the possibility exists, it doesn't come it should be used. Who does even want to play using this shoddy engine? It's like skipping rope with only one friend.


Wendy,
That is only a world. You cannot leave the situation as it is on the other 5/6, unless war is eliminated on them.


Willard,
Option #2, No Victory, can be implemented tomorrow. All that needs to be done is to remove the "Take over" option at the end of a war and only leave "Just end war." I ask for a trial period of two months. You lads and lacies on this?

Interesting


no win. I'd rather be left with not fighting at all.

"And the United States had 225 years to get prepared to have two of their towers blow by a couple of planes, along with the Pentagon. Obviously, it is entirely their fault. " -lg

that one is out of line

wow, seriously? you can't compare an act of terrorism, done more in the realm of espionage (which is a feature we don't have in SC,) to an act of war. further, this act of terrorism lead to 2 wars, lasting a decade, the level of retribution has been long and far reaching

but this is a game.

as is stands, right now, a country can avoid any war damage, with WP... in real life, that just isn't possible.

but if you want to use a real life example of lack or preparation, and an ACT OF WAR, look at pearl harbor. the lack of expecting an attack, meant many people died, and full scale war ensued... and through AGGRESSIVE means, the attacker was eventually destroyed, and it included the only offensive use of nuclear war... the united states was outraged... and as a result FOUGHT BACK, they did say it wasn't fair. yes, but they fought back. the problem we are facing now is that players DONT WANT TO FIGHT BACK... the just want to change the rules.

turning off the "take over button," will only ensure peoples assets that want to effect the world politics, and not risk loosing 1Q of loans. But if you do that... then when it comes to fighting, the result will be rather... harsh

i agree, if some one doesn't have the will to fight, then give them an option to turn it off entirely. solves the whole mess.

That is the SC equivalent of coming out of the blue and smack a player with a war dec and what follows.

If I had said the Chinese had 4 000 years to avoid the genocide during the Second World War, would you call it out of line? You would probably leave it at odd. I work with what I have.
The point is time matters not when others are entertained with something else. And they mostly are.

If players don't want to fight back, who are you to force? If they don't, they don't. They were minding their own business, jogging along, paying their membership. It is in the interest of the game to keep it as such. They are the proof that war is not necessary. Most wars players fight are a great deal of smoke and mirrors.

Many things are called a game by some. Simcountry is... well, the moment you pay for membership, it's a hobby. For those that have gardening as a hobby, if I showed and trampled your favorite rose bush, would you mind as much if I just show up and kick a chessboard? What if I delete the memory that contains all your improvements for Team Fortress and COD, or just the expansions? Yeah, it wouldn't be nice at all.

"no win. I'd rather be left with not fighting at all." -wendy

thats what him and others are going for, no win, no fighting... customizes the game to fit their playing style. they can effect politics, and not risk loosing.

if a player wants to play a no risk game. the documentation clear states they can, with their secured mode country, and wp...

the documentation also clearly states, that if you want to expand past one country, you must defend it. why is this a problem?

don't remove every advantage a player can gain... just to make if fair for those that don't put out as much effort. add some equalization, sure. but not so much that you remove the value of effort, and preparation. other wise, if you want to play a no effort game... face book has tons of no effort games, with no risk, and you can socialize all you want. for free

personally, i enjoy challenging games. i like winning... i play to win. their is nothing wrong with that. and i can guarantee, i'm not alone.