For inspiration: WAR LEVELS

Hi All,

There have been many discussions about war levels recently. Some say remove them, some believe this is good.

I wanted to share my view on war levels in Simcountry.

First of all, we need to understand what would the war levels mean to players. For me the most important thing is scalability - with each higher war level player needs to become more stronger, wiser, has less costs and is more responsible toward weaker players:



WAR experience

Player get more war experience by achieving higher war levels. At some point it means starting PVP.

Military power

Player becomes stronger with every new war level he achieves. This encourages to compete for them all the time. Being stronger means having more free of support units, being able to upgrade them to higher quality, have higher military spending budgets and have decreased military costs to be able to compete for even higher war levels without sacrificing economy.

Military costs

I think this is the main road block right now which prevents people from keeping active military. Without keeping active military people are barely using military upgrades and keeping weapons in CEO. Current situation prevents people from using so great game functionality of keeping active military units, upgrading them, tuning them with special flags etc

Reputation:

Players need to be responsible how they are using their military strength. It should be punished if stronger people would be raiding weaker players all the time without allowing them to become stronger.

If player wins war against any other player with a lower war level and decides to take the country over he loses 1 level of his own war level. This would mean players with very high war levels would be strongly discouraged to take countries from weaker presidents as a decrease by 1 war level would be really serious punishment. You can easily imagine that if 25 lvl player takes over some country from a weaker player he needs to fight against lvl 24 C3 to get his war lvl 25 back, which is a little nightmare and very costly. Taking over an empire e.g. 10 countries would make player weak himself as lose in 10 war levels would be major decrease in power and increase in costs.


This is my opinion how war levels could contribute to the military strength:

War levels would give the following bonuses:



If this is implemented the bonuses would be:

• More experienced players would not take countries of new players as that would mean reduction of their war level with all following consequences
• Everyone would want to achieve high war levels to be much stronger
• Taking over countries would be very rare thing, as this would mean reduction of your war level
• More players would dare to fight against each other and use boosters to rebuild countries
• Players would not store weapons at CEO but instead would try to increase war levels to get more free of support active units
• Storing weapons at CEO would be inefficient as you can only buy them at 330Q on the market while active upgraded units could be maxed to 900Q. So transferring weapons weapons from CEO wouldn't easily replace your upgraded 900Q units.

I think W3C have been looking for some balance which allows players to fight but on the other side to defend new players and prevent federations being destroyed by each other(happened pretty often, caused players to leave the game..). My proposal would balance this situation. Players would wage wage wars without high risk of losing everything they had, - if destroyed they can simply use boosters to rebuild economy fast and come back to fight. Experienced players would have an advantage but this would not mean they could use that for taking over and dropping countries from weaker players. I think war is very ok until you are not making other players to lose everything and give them chance to easily rebuild. Empires could only be rebuilt in years, while economies using booster can be rebuild in weeks.

I understand that this is not an easy fix, but it solves the main problem our loved game has - the balance between allowing to be strong but limiting fights to prevent people from leaving. With this update people would fight a lot, lose a lot, but would not lose their countries. This would raise SC to the best multiplayer game in the world, thousands people would come to try most massive strategical game in the world.

we should still be able to take c3 country's at war lvl 3 evan if just for a short term for strategic purposes that we cannot is bull shit

Rob - taking C3 at war lvl 3 is a bit different topic. Of course you should be allowed to do that.

My idea is to change the below situation

Mndz I really like this idea. One suggestion, I think any conquest of a player country should drop your war level by 1 point, regardless of who is higher in war level. Annexation is a big deal in the real world and anyone who annexes should be punished somehow by the international community. Dropping a war level seems like a good way to do it especially if there are big advantages to higher war levels as you have suggested. I want to see more limited wars that end in destruction but not conquest.

This would be great on FB in combination with everyone bumping to WL3. I think on other worlds not many people will choose to come above WL3 despite this suggestion.

I want war to be some casual thing which is most fun element in the game and also most destructive as it causes players to leave(AS IS). Without war you will not get experience, best experience is gained during PVP wars, but that should not lead to the annexation of the countries.

Currently there are no benefits that players could lose and would be in this way discouraged from annexation. I have proposed a population booster some time ago which would do that and also with this war level proposal I think would create much different game. W3C now are afraid to release war limitations too much and this is logical as they are protecting players, they need to do that, they also protecting experienced players from losing eveything, which is also good. In the future if my proposal is implemented, the game would promote war as super great game experience but would strongly discourage from occupation, so war limitations could be used with completely different purpose(more for balancing but not protecting). Annexations would be very rare thing at a high cost.

Also annexed countries should be plagued by rebellions for around 20-30 game years and player must maintain a high defense index in the country to reduce the effect.

Sure, many things can be added. The most important is to add bonuses as well, not limitations alone.

I actually agree with this idea.

In the real world, especially the modern one, there is a real price to pay for annexing a country. Look at Russia with Crimea (personal feelings aside). Annexation is disruption to national heritage, culture of the populace, and sends a dangerous message around the globe.

Russia is forced to deal with the ramifications of their actions, war/skirmishes that continue, rebellion, financial sanctions on government and individuals, and geopolitical losses for such a small territory.

Also, this solution mimics situations around the world, though not entirely. Look at the European continent and all the wars fought over lands and boundaries. At times the British reigned, at times the french, the spanish, the german, but they still have their lands, even during the many times of their respective rise to power and following demise.

I believe Mndz's suggestion can turn SC into a game that does in fact allow frequent war.

However, there is a gap.

In the real world, there are geopolitical gains for the victors. For example, Rome conquered many lands, and though they didn't outright annex those lands, they fell under Roman political and military control, even while maintaining their borders within the Roman empire. They were states that served Rome.

Furthermore, the proposal by Mndz is trying to take into account the issue of larger players targeting/raiding newer players, but it does not cover other important scenarios.

Lets say two player, both across the ocean from one another, both have been playing about the same time. Lets say Country A is quite active in war but has 4 states. Country B is not as active but has grown to 8 states. Country A has a higher war level, 6. Country B has a war level of 3. There is no significant difference between them. In this case, the higher level has less assets. The lower level has more, but is less aggressive.

Country B declares war on Country A. (This should be possible, war levels should not restrict war totally. It's destroyed the game.) Country B loses the war. What benefit is there to country A? What if country A wanted to gain some land? Why should country A be penalized if they wanted to take over 2 states from Country B, while country B possesses the remaining 6 states in its empire?

Sure, we could say, limit the penalties to countries that initiated the war, but it still highly discourages the geopolitical nature and benefits of war. Political tension fuels the military aspect of the game.

Gaining levels all the time gets boring. Allies and enemies fuel game play. Enemies of my enemy become my friend. The exchange or changing of hands of lands.

Also, consider this, using the above scenario with Country A and country B, this could lead to unlimited wars between the two empires. How so? Well, Country A will always have to maintain a high level of military that will tax its income, because Country B, who was once across the ocean, is now a neighbor. Country B may always seek to regain "stolen lands" from Country A. The next war will be greater than the next. In the next war, Country B may gain control of one of Country A's states. They may bring in friends, allies, or allies of allies. The war situation may never end.

Here's the thing... Country A has no way to create peace with Country B. There needs to be a way to negotiate assets between nations in this game. There should be a way to have any combination of these in a treaty:

Land (Similar to Hong Kong) - "Country A will maintain control of states 1 and 2 of Country B for 10 years, the ownership can be returned to Country B."

Financial (like Rome) - "Borders of both nations remains unchanged, however 50% of all Country B's profits goes to Country A for 30 years."

Military (like WW2's Japan) - "Borders remain unchanged, but for 50 years, Country B cannot declare war against another country without Country A's permission. All military purchases must be approved by country A. No nuclear weapons."

Annexation - "For declaring war, Country B must give up state 1 to Country A, and $-------- SC. Both countries agree to 100 years peace."

Any combination of these should be allowed.

If you look at the best geopolitical war games (Hearts of Iron, Superpower 2, Civilization, Supreme Ruler, the Total War franchise), conquest is not penalized. Many times players DO NOT want additional land, but in Simcountry there is no other option.

Instead of penalizing players for conquest, introduce more dynamic geopolitical avenues to resolving wars and allow players to negotiate as many assets as possible.

In this way, you increase the geopolitical tension in the game. If an empire decides to rise and conquer, without having to conquer land, why shouldnt they be able to? Others will rise to fight them. If two or three federations fight back and forth and borders are constantly moving, why should that be penalized? In negotiating, players will refuse what is most prized to them (mostly their main states), and will concede other things. Why shouldn't they be able to?

By introducing geopolitical alternatives, the game becomes A LOT more fun to play, there is no need to penalize warring parties, and players don't lose everything!

Just my ramblings.

@mndz
I really like the idea. People want positive reinforcement for their actions and your system would provide it. I think that the numbers would require some tuning because the higher lvl players will become almost unbeatable with those bonuses, but the idea is good.


@Dubbletar,
I think that you raise a lot of good and interesting points. I don't agree with all of them but they are interesting. Do you think the basics of the idea that mndz has suggested has some merit?

Adam,

It will still be possible to take over some countries, but this process will be balanced. The worst is when countries are taken and then dropped. If some player really wants to take country from some other player he will sacrifice his war levels and will take the country, but he will not drop it - and he will not take them all. When player will max out his empire, he will no longer need more countries, so he will fight against other strong and weaker players to get additional bonuses, like population boost and higher war level. That will be a clean war, which will eventually become casual war.

Also I think process of abandoning the country should be changed. Instead canceling it the first mandatory step would be to place country on the market so other people could buy it for GCs. Only if no one is interested then country could be reset.

Hey, like I said, I think it's a good suggestion.

I just think all of this is Band-Aids covering up a bad feature in the game.

The game isn't fun and is dead, not because of people being attacked and raided. In the past, the game thrived without many of the limits on population and resources, that made it easy for a player to grow an empire.

Now, there's limits on population, limited war, limited economy. The vast majority of player interaction is declining, because what's the need when there's no fear of war, you just sit and focus on the economy.

This game is much more boring than it used to be.

Wow you put effort into this post. I think these are great ideas.

I appreciate the effort and I agree with your suggestions. PVP should be fun.

Andy, what is your opinion on this?

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I am VERY impressed with Mndz' presentation skills! Beautiful work!

Thanks @Wicked_Lady
I believe the only way to present complex ideas is put them in to some visuals.

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