The problem and solution to C3 Warriors (Golden Rainbow)

I suggest you collect all your speeches and email them to the gamemaster. They're the ones you need to persuade to recode the game, not me.

Just tell them:
a) you don't want your enemies to be able to use war protection,
b) you don't want to be attacked when you don't use war protection, and
c) you don't want to be nuked when you don't deploy nuclear defense batteries.

That's a synthesis of your arguments in this thread.

When someone keeps telling me that the earth is flat, I don't debate him. Nor am I going to debate that the game provides war protection so that players can use it to their advantage.

Vicious, you are ignoring the main point of this thread. Whatever specific reason the Gamemasters have for introducing or not introducing this rule or that rule, they want people to keep playing the game.

If people are leaving the game, because something is spoiling their enjoyment of it, that is something they need to address. The majority of people posting to this thread are trying to help them find the best way to address it.

Hugs and respect

Jo

Yes, the gamemasters introduced secure mode to keep players from being persecuted by warlords. War protection can be used for the same purpose.

I'm not persuaded that players are leaving the game because they don't want to use war protection.

Like I said before, no amount of protective features is ever enough for some people. Where does the coddling end?

So Vicious, you see this as an attempt by us at more protection--that we want protection from the C3 warriors. And you're right that there already is protection against the C3 warriors, as one can just buy war protection boosters.

I see this movement's goal as the opposite, as a partial rollback of war protection. We want to take away an aspect of wp, not add to it. We actually like the war game and like having our empires at risk, as long as others are in the same boat. It's a fun game, and most of us don't mind losing stuff once in a while, though we prefer winning. A number of us would prefer that FB goes back to no WP boosters at all.

One of the main things that keeps people from deccing on you is the likelihood of retaliation against their valuable countries. Obviously. So a fun part of the game is building up your potential to retaliate, along with the means to defend yourself. In fact, you get to the level (maybe you reached this point yourself once) where you realize the threat of retaliation is really the best, and against some players the only, effective means of defense.

It's a complex game, fun as you learn and become aware of more of the aspects of it. Feds, allies, neutrals, shifting alliances. It's fun. Even if you're not interested in conquering others, just the defense of your own stuff is fun, and the potential for retaliation is a key part of that.

The c3 war loophole takes away the possibility of retaliation in any meaningful way. If you take away the threat of retaliation, it cuts away a large part of the wargame. It's more fun to stay OUT of WP and maintain defense and the threat of retaliation, than to go into war protection. It irks us that the logical solution to having to fight wars you don't want to fight...put all of our stuff in WP...takes OTHERS out of the arena too, if we all do it. Less fun.

So we see closing the c3 loophole as taking away some WP from our fellow fighters, to make the fighting fairer and the arena more inviting, not as adding to our own protection. More fun, not less fun.

Right now we have equality: everyone has the freedom to choose if and how to use secure mode or WP. If we reduce secure mode or WP for any aggressor, then that equality ends.

Then small aggressors will be conquered quickly by warlords who spend months or years stockpiling weapons.

This game went down that road before. Bullying from warlords with massive military stockpiles drove away many players. That's precisely why W3C introduced secure mode.

Reducing secure mode or WP for small aggressors would take the game backwards to the days of the bullying military dictatorships.

I think this discussion has gotten derailed by the WP issue, which most of you agree needs some tweaking including the GM (they told me this in a e-mail).

Viscous mentioned something about wanting less clicking...well that is one of my biggest problems with C3 warriors. C3s need to be limited in strength. Take a look at my first post and lets change the subject off of WP.

Realistically speaking a tiny undeveloped country would not declare war on a larger country and nor would it last long in said war. Countries need to be developed and worked on before they can be strong...there should be no overnight 100 WI countries...its just not realistic.

If your argument is that you want gorrila warfare or suicide warfare...fine...have it, but lets be realistic here...a 8-15 mil country is still a small weak undeveloped country that shouldn't take long to defeat...and should not be made 6 times harder to take just by ordering 100 forts with 1 click!!! An active defender will make it harder / longer to take, but that's not the strategy for some c3 warriors...lets introduce or encourage more skill in this game rather than repetitive clicking.

The other suggestion of making all countries have a certain amount of military assets is also a realistic approach and what country would declare war without a large stock pile of weapons and ammo?!?

Instead, Vicious, we have single bullying players, picking on the smaller members of a fed in order to destroy the fed.

They do this because the C3 warrior can't really hurt the big, well defended empires but they can hurt the medium-sized guys. The ones who are on the way to building an empire but can't yet afford full WP without pulling out their VISA card. The ones who don't yet have their growing empires fully defended.

I'm not saying that any of the solutions discussed here are perfect, nor that we want to return to the days where big feds bullied small players, but you don't seem to see that there is a problem. Is that because you have never faced a C3 warrior? Or that your empire is too big and well-defended for one to bother you? Or is it because you haven't been in the position of trying to defend smaller fedmates against these tactics?

Believe me, there ARE players leaving the game because of it. I can think of a couple of fairly major players, but there must be many more smaller ones that just give up and go away without saying anything, because they never got the chance to build friendships. They just joined a fed in the hope of making some and got taken back to one country for it.

You have a wealth of experience in this game, Vicious. Instead of being negative, accept there is a problem and try to help us find a solution that gives newer players a chance ...

Hugs and respect

Jo

We don't believe you Jo, you already lied and misrepresented the truth a few posts up, I don't think anyone should be taking you or many others' "Word" for anything. I don't trust ya as far as I can throw ya.

It is more likely that more of the multi's who enjoy making stories up about member accounts not being able to defend is likely the reason for anyone leaving. It must be fun to run multiple accounts but not easy to defend, especially if you are trying to be tricksy about it. And frankly, I'm all for that because multi play is against the rules anyway. And that is where I come from when I go after certain places and faces.

The multi player issue is way out of control everyone sees it, it isn't even discreet anymore it is blatant and transparent.

W3c should enforce a '1 account per IP rule to curb if not crush that.

If not just make it so that anyone can have multi accounts. That would proly fill in KB nicely, and some $$$$ for the game.


I can't wait until my husband plays, and my sister, cousins, and my great uncle too. All from my computer. YAY. <----- That is what multi accounts looks like today and frankly it is disgusting. If you wanna itch and whine and complain about sumthing there it is.

I think this discussion has gotten derailed by the WP issue, which most of you agree needs some tweaking including the GM (they told me this in a e-mail).

Viscous mentioned something about wanting less clicking...well that is one of my biggest problems with C3 warriors. C3s need to be limited in strength. Take a look at my first post and lets change the subject off of WP.

Realistically speaking a tiny undeveloped country would not declare war on a larger country and nor would it last long in said war. Countries need to be developed and worked on before they can be strong...there should be no overnight 100 WI countries...its just not realistic.

If your argument is that you want gorrila warfare or suicide warfare...fine...have it, but lets be realistic here...a 8-15 mil country is still a small weak undeveloped country that shouldn't take long to defeat...and should not be made 6 times harder to take just by ordering 100 forts with 1 click!!! An active defender will make it harder / longer to take, but that's not the strategy for some c3 warriors...lets introduce or encourage more skill in this game rather than repetitive clicking.

The other suggestion of making all countries have a certain amount of military assets is also a realistic approach and what country would declare war without a large stock pile of weapons and ammo?!?

vicious

after 2 years of fighting behind secured and wp, creates an environment that unless u use it, you are at a disadvantage. wouldn't most reasonable people say enough is enough after a year of it?

i really do agree with your basic thought vicious. but their is a reasonable limit, don't you think?

i remember when scottie would keep all but one of his big war slaves in protection. so that he'd only have to fight with one country against the 8+(?) players that wanted to take him down. that seems like a reasonable use of wp. but that war ended. and does not continue.

the concept of wp, even using it as a method for the weak to stand against the strong... but after a year... don't you think that the feature has been abused? how long must it go on? 3 years? 10 years? before it is recognized as a problem?

in your last statement, your stating that the intent is to give weaker players a method of standing against larger players, but what about when larger players use it to bully the weak? and thats whats happening now. thats the intent of this thread. to stop the strong from using that tactic to bully the weak...

the longer this goes, the closer we come to EVERY ONE, all the time being in secured, and wp. making the war game effectively obsolete. so that a feature meant to protect new players, and busy players, now turns off one or the main features of the game, except for c3, and inactive raiding. meaning the only way players would ever fight, is over in-actives. and probably from c3's. with out creating some sort of limit to the use of wp, and secured, while in a war of aggression .

Currently, if you get bullied by a small aggressor or large aggressor, you can use war protection. End of problem.

But some of you want the game recoded so that it reduces war protection specifically for small aggressors. That weakens the small aggressors, as if they're not weak already.

By weakening war protection for small aggressors, large aggressors increase their big advantage. That's a formula for a game that favors bullying by large aggressors. That bullying by large aggressors is the biggest problem in a war game.

At least now, everyone has war protection against bullies as an option. But some people want to reduce war protection. Less protection from bullies encourages more bullying.

Vicious
Tuesday, July 27, 2010 - 03:32 am Click here to edit this post I don't see any documentation that requires a "valid reason" for war.

Valid for whom? The aggressor? The defendant? Is the next suggestion to write a list of valid reasons for war, and code it into the war engine?

Once again, secure mode and war protection can prevent anyone from losing "everything they have spent time and energy building." The flewises of the game can't attack those who use secure mode or war protection.

Confu(Vi)cious

If you disagree with the WP suggestions, come up with another solution, Vicious ...

Please accept, though, that younger empires can't always afford to buy WP all the time so, for some, WP isn't viable protection against sustained aggressive action from larger players. Especially C3 warriors who know how to make WP work in their favour.

Hugs and respect

Jo

Is this the argument: that this proposal would take away the ability for weaker players to retaliate against bullies in the only way they can, by harassing them?

Honestly, I applaud WB for quoting the Golden Rule.

It has been said repeatedly that I ought to stay in WP 'OR ELSE"

So, I stay in WP. When does that threat end? Never because I never kissed an arse in my life and I won't start now. I stay in WP becuase I will be attacked regardless of yesterday or 6 months forward. I will be attacked. So it is only right that I should use whatever means possible to make the statement 'You ought to stay in WP 'or else' apply to my enemies. There is no abuse of any feature. It is what we call karma.

The most obvious truth not being repeated or acknowledged by many of the instigators is the 'Golden Rule' Had THE 'gOLDEN rULE fEATURE' been abused by the bullies of the game, we would still be in the era of "Cuddly Wars" and "War Games" where war is fun and undertaken as 'sport'.

Another area of confusion and ignorance is that there is a bit too much consolidation in the game. Where players and large empires and experienced players in particular get together not for the means of mutual defense, but for mutual aggression.

In the past year or so, we have seen many competing rival factions often abandon the challenges of facing off with one another where the 'sport' would be a competition or 'challenge' and instead chose to band together, and opting out for the 'taking' of medium or large single entity feds or empires. There are some variants of this case but the principle reality remains true in each instance save a few minor factors and details. The result makes the conventional use of the 'War Engine' obsolete. And innovative, and or daring players must come up with new strategies and techniques to counter this recent phenomenon of "pack rat" mutual aggression.

For if an avg size player wished to challenge an established for whatever reason, the challenger would be squash-buckled at the hands of several large empires or players in the event that player showed potential to defeat said opponent. This has happened several times in recent history where large empires have gone to what they thought would be an honorable challenge, and were sideswiped. This scenario has repeated itself time and time again, countless times even in my 2+ years of game play.

We have an era of too many followers and not enough leaders. We have senior leaders acting like junior leaders and hopping on the first band wagon they can catch a rid on. The game is too lopsided in favor of one group or another.

On LU there was the time of LDI and Valde. One 'dark, one 'light' This is an example of how the game 'used' to be. A system of checks and balances. You had LDI a very able bodied small group of experienced players, and Valde a large group of consisting of a few 'good' players mentoring a bunch of new or avg size players. There was a very balnced yin and yang in that era.

Adding to this example take, The United Confederation of Golden Rainbow. A dominant power on GR, the other large force being Allied Forces. A classic example of Yin and Yang. UC dominated towards the end before its' collapse but AF remained.

Now we have the mob on LU, a large group of visible players backed even by those who are not formally in the mob. The result is an hyper aggressive federation that has temporarily 'hidden' its' nature to present this 'BS Abuse of WP' argument.

On GR we have we have GREF, supposedly an economic federation. Yet when the UC was reduced to members counted on one hand, they attacked the only sizable threat they could see and this was John L.

Even after peace was achieved, for a second time they suddenly and without warning, attacked me or (The UC) without provocation despite having a treaty in place. After I used a proven deterrent against them, a 'c3 war' they quickly called in reinforcements despite being the largest fed on LU and having the largest resouces and military available to them. Even, members of the mob. Currently, after EO recently lost his country, EC has turned up on GR too. I'm sure if things follow suit and continue with EO losing countries, no doubt more members of the mob, or the 'unseen alliance' will show up as well.

But a very good case given the accusation of abuse here is necessary. EO comes and Takes John L's and Jack Jone's most valuable Countries, then strips them. Sells his better countries to Steven Ryan, and has nothing except the country he lost and some token c3s. But, he had an 8 country Empire when he took John L's and Jack Jones' countries. When it was over he moved them to other accounts, and has nothing at risk. Is this no different than a person taking then 'abusing' WP? No it isn't. It is in fact much worse becuase it is you guys using making the argument and throwing accusations of abuse. So rather than get caught putting WP up while crying like this on the forums, EO decides to sell his countries to people who have them in WP for him. Great argument.

So in these example we can see that WB is full of shite.

I keep explaining that war protection is the solution to bullying. Yes, WP is affordable.

W3C shoves lots of gold coins down our throats for levelling up. We can get hundreds of gold coins in a matter of days in any world. A small empire easily can pay for war protection for several months just by levelling up a few times.

On Little Upsilon war protection costs 115 billion per game month. Folks, that is not much. Focus on the economy and you can get to that monthly income in a few weeks. Meanwhile, you can have several real months of war protection using the gold coins from level awards.

You can get help too. Aid from the Security Council. CEO corps with high country resource payments. All kinds of economic tips from people like me.

None of this requires recoding the war engine.

what we want is to limit the use of WP, given 2 specific criteria.

The use of WP, with aggressive wars, over an extended period of time.

i guess "extended period of time," could be up to interpretation. but what we are going for is to avoid an aggressor, forcing a defendor to protect hours labor, while only anting up what amounts to minutes of work... with this key point, doing this over and over again... over months, infact over years, rl years.

meaning thousands of player hours being wiped out with only a few hours work... if it was an isolated event, every once and a while thing, people wouldn't like it, but let it be. as it stands, one person uses a game feature to effectively take what others have worked for, with no chance of reprisal.

its like playing a chess game, that only one side is allowed to take peaces. where as a skilled chess player can win with out capturing a peace, they are at an overwhelming disadvantage. unless they use the same tactic.

and if every one used the same tactic? it'd be like turning on the superbowl, to find out that they decided to play flag football that day!!! how disappointing that would be

the way that WP is being abused, is like that. if this continues, we'll be playing the powder-puff version of the war game.

Glad I'm not W3C. It's pretty obvious that regardless of what they do, people from one side or another are going to be pissed. Honestly, there is a lot that I agree with from all sides.

Personaly, I wish they'd start from scratch. I think the war engine is ridiculous. I agree with whoever said that there is a minimal amount of skill involved. It's about clicking a mouse repeatedly, being in a situation where you have access to play more than others.

Somebody just make a new game or something.

The game is mostly a clicking marathon. Maybe clicking will qualify as an Olympic sport.

Orbiter you have the real issue twisted, the reason they want WP limited is because they feel extremely confident in the idea that they will quickly be able to roll over whomever they want without having to be stopped by WP.


Meaning they will be able to take what is on the board, and instead of an immediate response or retaliation, a person will have to spend weeks to build something that is permissible to declare according the the proposed changes. That thoery of change is inherently flawed and only works to their advantage and suits their style of play.

I point this out every time WB proposes something be changed because it is not 90% of the time a proposed change from an objective point of view, but a change that will only cater to his own selfish desires. The nuke thing for instance. He proposes that things be changed to work differently, becuase he manually chooses to order/activate more weapons than his populace can support. But all of a sudden, "The War Engine doesn't work the way it was intended' and no matter who tells him different, he is right, and everyone else is wrong.

There is however, a "Moral"(LoooLMAO!) solution to the problem and it is "The Golden Rule". Enuff said.

And to all of you who are arguing his side don't ignore this please answer this, "But a very good case given the accusation of abuse here is necessary. EO comes and Takes John L's and Jack Jone's most valuable Countries, then strips them. Sells his better countries to Steven Ryan, and has nothing except the country he lost and some token c3s. But, he had an 8 country Empire when he took John L's and Jack Jones' countries. When it was over he moved them to other accounts, and has nothing at risk. Is this no different than a person taking then 'abusing' WP? No it isn't. It is in fact much worse becuase it is you guys using making the argument and throwing accusations of abuse. So rather than get caught putting WP up while crying like this on the forums, EO decides to sell his countries to people who have them in WP for him. Great argument."

Roll over whoever we want without having to be stopped by WP? Hmmm...are we arguing that WP shouldn't exist on any world except possibly FB? Who started our war with you? You...so obviously it was us trying to roll over you. I build countries too big so my weapons daect? Hmmm...how many nukes have you landed on me? 1. How many countries have I taken from you? Can't even count.

Don't turn this into...WB wants this because it's in his best interest...remember, I didn't start the thread and I am certainly not the only one commenting from this perspective. Also, don't pretend as if you don't have a vested interest in making sure that no change occurs because you want to continue to raid small and inactive members of large federations without any repercussions for your actions. That's your vested interest which is about YOU...our interest at least has the benefit of helping the game as a whole from becoming a wasteland of WP and c3's.

Get your facts straight about GR, EO had stripped down to his main and 1 slave and then some c3's for painting, etc. He had 8 countries after he took John L's and Jack's countries...by himself, no Mob support there and he was planning on leaving GR completely until you provoked him and since he couldn't retaliate against you, he went after your fed, UC and the biggest and best members of it...not the smallest as you do. Also...commenting on your own argument "Great argument"...classic Wendy.

Anyway, this has turned back into personal attacks back and forth and somewhat of a stalemate which is to be expected. So I'm going to leave this with the following:

Those of you who support change, it's time to take the messages to the GM's if you haven't already done so, I know many of you have. I don't think we are going to convince the few detractors in this thread which is to be expected, no way we are all going to agree on something.

Ummm, I'm on GR I dont need to get anything str8.

EO had 6 good countries in his empire and 2 ground c3s.

Dizzy has 1 of the countries, Corporate Partner has one or more of Wilds counties he took. And The rest Steve has. The only worthy country he kept, was the one that got took.

So, back to the issue at hand.

Is this no different than a person taking then 'abusing' WP?

NO it isn't.

"Personaly, I wish they'd start from scratch."

Me2.

I'm holding out some hope for the new server in October.

Some.

I don't see that "stay in wp fight with c3" warfare is the provenance of weak players. The players who have used it against me are whiteboy, EO (beast), Bobo, and KissofDeath. None of them weak players. In last summer's fed fight we (3M) pushed them to the point where they all went into WP. Then they came back with c3 warfare. It was all pain no gain for us, and they took some assets. We didn't think it was really fair, but that's the way the rules were (are) set up--C3 fighting is the next step when you're defeated, even if you started the war.

nix uses c3 wars, and those who have fought him have said it's very annoying and not fun. I wouldn't call nix a weak player.

I guess there have been or could be weak players who have used this tactic. But then would this rule change their situation much? It's really tailored toward stronger players, not weaker ones.

I'm interested in the concern about bullying by large warlords. Since we're talking game rule changes, how about some real suggestions for rule changes to protect players who want to be involved in the war game without being trampled by the more experienced players? Yes, we've heard stay in WP forever, and everyone should obey the Golden Rule. Anything in the way of suggestions for game rule changes?

Is this a play style issue, C3 issue or a WP issue?

If its a c3 issue then its easy to get around that.

Say I wanted to be bad, and I had no viable c3 strats because the GM changed the rules. Pick any rule, money in country, pop, no nukes in a 5-10mil country....etc...

Simple, I have my secured main, then look around for the inevitable 20-40mil pop countries that are inactive, or managed by a new player without a clue what to do to stop an established player.

I take them, then use them against a player who I don't like, for whatever reason.

I could use for whatever purpose I would want. Economic attack on your corps with CMB, nuke attacks on the ill prepared, etc, etc...

The point I'm trying to make is you can never, and will never get rid of hyper aggressive players who wish to make your life miserable.

People will always adapt.

If perceived risk of assets, by both sides, is what the GM wants, then player A can kill mediocre player B then risk player B's assets on those he/she doesn't like.

When a capable "bad guy" leverages a new (innocent) players decent empire against his enemies, I'm sure more people would be angry and leave.

I think this could be argued both ways for ever and ever. Each side making valid points.

Best no to really care about assets?