W3C - Cost of War

The next upgrade of simcountry (next week) will introduce several changes in the war setup:

1. Some units are becoming smaller (about 10%). the change is in the land units, reducing the numbers of weapons from 2000 to 1800 or from 1000 to 900.
The change will reduce the cost of units and the cost of war.

Similar changes in the past had this exact result and the current change will further decrease the cost of war and the numbers of weapons that are destroyed in each attack.

2. The number of soldiers and officers in military units is decreasing.

The number of soldiers and officers needed for some weapons is decreasing to reduce the numbers in the army. This will result in a lower cost of the army.

The change is on 4 worlds. FB already has much lower numbers of soldiers and officers. These numbers remain unchanged.

The new mobile units are smaller and these changes will reduce the differences in sizes.

Is this going to affect existing units or just future ones? If it affects the existing units, what happens to the surplus weapons and ammo etc.?

Ah but, will the smaller units have the same effect as the existing ones?

Or will more of the smaller units be needed to achieve the same result? In which case, is it really cheaper?

Existing units are unchanged.
weapons never get lost. if a unit will become smaller for any reason, the surplus will go back to the country.

With both attack and defensive units becoming slightly smaller, the balance remains, losses and destruction are slightly reduced and the cost too.

the reduction in the number of soldiers and officers does not reduce the power of the weapons.

Patrick warcry!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aca9CCEHwf0

Andy

Can something be done about the cost of ammo?

a tank shell corps only makes 54K shells and has 250K workers

Your telling me it takes 5people 1year to make 1shell? and it costs 200K per shell

1tank = 35shells per attack
35 shells = 7.7M per ttack
500tanks * 35shells * 220K per shell = 3.8B per attack @ 100Q.

you can do the math. That follows.

Land warfare should be the CHEAPEST form of warfare. if it costs me 200B to just BLOW UP ALL THE TARGETS(based i use 100Q ammo) is NONSENCE. Please fight a lvl 7-11 and give me the totals and id love to see how unit reductions will help when the ammo count is THOUGHT THE ROOF!

Andy, run one of your countries with just a little bit of defense(garrisons,airwings), and let me know how profitable your country is!
After the recent changes for the past year or more, it is way harder to maintain a minimal defense.
Add to that the cost of upgrading weapons and a country has no help in @#$% to be able to support itself. Its bad enough to have a country support itself, with no army, with all the recent restrictions imposed against all aspects of this game.

I agree with keto

Look @ your own country "Andy" on LU your making 14B and spending 4B a month on a DE-ACTIVATED ARMY!!!

You have 16K weapons total almost all deactived and your spending 4B

A garrison is 1200weapons (rounded down)
100Forts+ 10Bases+ 20cities = 130Targets
130Targets * 1200weapons per garrison = 156,000 weapons

Thats 10 TIMES what you have right now.
So your costs would jump from 4B to 40B a month in JUST DEFENSIVE SPENDING ON GARRISONS
Also keep in mind that based on your deactivated army you'd spend 60B if not MORE a month.
Now remember you need to have an offensive military since its IMPOSSIBLE to win without it.

That EASILY another 40B
Plus nukes + you don't even have Helis/Interceptors up and those cost almost just as much as GARRISONS.

You can spend EASILY 100B a month in military costs.

Not to mention the weapons that are WAY TO expensive or the ammo that cost more then your first born CHILD!!!

Lets not forget the cost of weapons and ammo
How much it costs to keep upgrading them or buying
them at high Q or the little amount of cash you get for C3 warring.

Not that anyone wouldnt love fighting 500Q weapons/ammo and having 2stealth bomber wings attack them @ once... Weapons that spawn from NO WHERE...

Looks like mind has rambled on long enough...

But im sure the GM knows all about these issues so i guess its no bigge...

The cost of the army is now reduced somewhat and another round will follow with the next upgrade.
and two or three more will follow.

we also expect profitability of countries to increase.

Mobile units are smaller and their mobility will reduce the need for a large army in each country. they are usable in all your countries.

we hope that these measures will reduce the problem but we agree that a large army cannot be sustain with the profits of a single country.

should it?

as to weapons and ammunition:

currently there is an oversupply of many weapons and types of ammunition.
it is much less than used to be and might disappear.
once we have a normal market, we will have to re examine the production numbers and prices of these products.

Surely the oversupply is going to increase if people start building these mobile units and reducing individual country armies, no?

You have created a limited war scene and destroyed that side of the market. I cant see how you can recover it without making war more attractive again.

When I see how the gold coins market recovered contrary to predictions, I can assure you that the weapons and ammunition market will recover too.
not too fast I hope because then, initially, the price of these products will explode.

Oversupply is already a fraction of what it was despite reductions in many countries.
some weapons and ammo are already in short supply.

Even god FORBID... Hear me out andy

war level 1 can only fight war level 1
war level 2 can only fight war level 2
after that it goes to the normal war levels in the manner you have it.

Even go as far as if a player wins a PvP they move up a war level.

What will happen is it will prevent someone from deccing someone then staying at the same war level because a player is harder to fight then a computer. Winning a PvP SHOULD move them up a single war level. It will elemiate the issue we have now where people hide under war level 3. They take there several nations then stop. With no need to war people hide under war level 3 more then half the game is there now. Whats the worst that can happen if 2 new players attack each other? If only war level 1 can fight war level 1, war level 2 can only fight 2 you have alot of new players making threats and building armies, which would increase federation sizes and demand of all this. I dont care how many wars you say are fought each day i want the numbers of how many player vs player wars where fought pre-war levels, and player vs player post war levels... You will see a decline. You spend the same amount of cash in a good PvP as you spend going from war level 1-11 COMBINED!!!

And of course Oversupply is a fraction of what it used to be. Everyone has closed down their military corps as they lose vast sums of money. There are a few exceptions agreed where some ammo types are doing quite well.

Still, you did seem to be right about the GC so hopefully you will prove to be so about the war market.

Was there really that much waring before? Or is somebody just being oversensitive about it?

There was plenty of it. Lots of players played just for that side of the game. Very few had the nous to avoid it altogether. It took great diplomacy and good relations with other simolians. It became the sole source of income for some, particularly raiding inactives. (something I still think should be available, if they dont play any more why not let others pirate them). It really did create much more communication and skullduggery, a very enjoyable part of the game.

But some got carried away and it hurt the new players who didn't have a chance, and a couple of the older vets didn't like getting attacked by mobs of people so they whined to the GM. The result is what you see now.

Never thought i'd say this, but...

Perfectly put Crafty Cockney.

Plus war not only was for fighting but it was very helpful to econ players, back when i played econ only the large amount of wars made it easy to find people to give aid to. Nuclear wars or even large wars made it easy and fun for me to give out relief aid but now there's no need.

People work harder then they know shit can be taken like i said the lower the war level the more restrictions on war but they should still be able to be attacked.

Whats the worst 2 new players can do to each other with there starting weapons they'd waste it before either took each others nations, but it would give them experiance and only help the learning and fed curve in the end

we hope that these measures will reduce the problem but we agree that a large army cannot be sustain with the profits of a single country.

should it?

I thought war was an important part of the game

That's kinda a stupid statement
(watch ill get banned for saying stupid again)

So it takes several countries to pay for 1 large military, so i need 3 nations to make enough money to make sure 1 nation is properly defended....

OMG THAT MAKES TOTAL SCENE!!!
Thanks for clearing that up i feel so much better.

I don't mean to send this off topic at all, but it does pertain. How would countries make their sole profit from war. I could be mistaken but doesn't your military spending limit depend on your monthly income level? This is why my war slave makes no sense as I'm not restricted by accessible cash but instead the spending limit I can use on troops.

I guess the question that pertains is if the cost of military decreases are we going to be subjected to a proportainate decline in military spending limits as well?

I do remember from back then how wars made ppl go mad, but I also remember how big a hazzle it was to get an army up and going. The game has improve on that point IMO, but it's still far too micro management intensive.

The suggestion that someone made about how armies should be handled on an empire basis rather than per nation, makes perfect sense to me.

I.e. defensive forces should be per nation ofc, while all other should be possible to handle from one and the same section.

Other than that, if the fear is that noobs rush to war too early, why not let new nations start with war protection, but no army at all?

Reduce the maintenance cost of army, but increase the production cost.

These two suggestions would slow the rush to arms and probably cut down on the number of newbs that lose courage because they sack their economy by building up a too big army that they cannot afford to maintain.

I agree with you there most news dump a ton into military costs and watch there econs crumble. Maybe a pop-up saying your countries losing money and suggest ways to cut it like asking CEO to move in or reducing the armed forces sizes.

At the same time no one knows how the miliatary spends it money I have 50K troops in 2bases that hold my nukes and they cost almost as much as my defensive military of 150,000(100forts and 4bases)...what the hell are they doing with all that money? The GM needs to disclose what the cost per weapon is if I have to spend 10units of military services per bomber fine but let me know so I'm nothing building in the blind.

Also again land based weapons should cost almost nothing they are quite expensive if the GM wants to encourage warfare cheap weapons are the way to go... If a anti air missile battery is 50M the missile shouldn't cost 15M when it fires 6 per round....your telling me the 6 missiles it fires per round cost more then the battery?.... name me a nation on this planet that would buy a gun for there soldier but give them only 3mags of ammo because the ammo would cost more.

9MM handgun = 400USD
9MM ammo = 20USD per 100bullets

I "HOPE" they can do the math

Your looking at it as cost per weapon...you miss the fact that man power is used..each soldier/officer adds to the cost of your military expenses, hence the GM's reducing the size of unit etc

I was going to say 'Russia'. At the beginning of WW1 they had one rifle per three soldiers.

A similar thing happened in WW2, but this time not because of shortages, but of the socialist logistical hell.

Drew, people used to take countries, particularily inactives, and strip them, sell the population, liquidate all assets etc etc. Thats how you survived. you didn't need an economy.

Some of the more benevolent players rebuilt the countries to fairly good levels and sold them to new players as their first slaves, for the minimum 50GC, with about 20M pop and good indexes. A very good deal for the newb. In fact, that's how I got my first slave, Albert Square on KB, from LG.

As for military spending limits, well, you generally always had what you needed in stock somewhere. If you use the transfer function you can receive far more weapons/ammo for your spending limit than buying them direct. Also, you can boost your military spending space, should it be necessary, for the cost of 1GC.

The only affordable way to have military power now is to keep most of it in your enterprise and sell to the country when needs be. Unfortunately the transfer thing doesnt work between enterprises and countries, but you can still boost your spending space. And just keep shed loads of ammo in your main where it stays safe and costs nothing in maintenance. Heh, there's nothing worse than losing trillions of dollars worth of ammo when/if you lose a country. You just dont have the time to move it all out.

Oh yes, the war game was as complex as the econ game. Many tricks and dodges to learn, and it had the human interaction element with it. As many of the old boys and girls who seem to be lurking around nowadays will tell you, it was a different game then. But...nostalgia is no good...must relearn the game...milk and cookies...the dark side...Noooo!...market values...the voices...the voices...the voices...the voices...