W3C - Game News Sept. 23

1. War Level 7 and Up

All countries in war level 7 and up can fight any countries in war level 7 and up.
The change is not as big as it sounds. War was already possible with countries at higher war levels and now, wars at even higher war levels are also possible. There are currently not so many countries at war level 10 and higher.

2. War Level Protection

It is now possible to turn off the war level protection. Once you turn the level protection off, you can be attacked by countries at any war level that have turned their own war level protection off.

Countries that turn their level protection off, will be rewarded economically. They will see their welfare index increasing, starting immediately after the protection is turned off, and increasing slowly to end up 5 points higher than it was before. Other factors may also be involved in the change of your welfare index but the elimination of the war level protection will end up adding 5 points to your welfare.

The difference of 5 points in the welfare index, is very significant and will increase the profitability of your entire industry and can have a major effect on the profitability of the country. The extra income can be used to boost your defense against any war that may result from the turning off of the war level protection.

3. Preventing Negative numbers of ammunition

Further action is taken to prevent negative numbers of ammunition. The procedure now checks if there are weapons in either the reserves or in military units than can be exchanged for ammunition to reduce or eliminate the negative numbers.
We assume that the problem will be eliminated in the coming days.

4. Explaining the Income of unemployed, Disables and the Retired

The pages where the income of the retired, or unemployed and disabled is showing, now include more details. The pages show what the salary is and which part comes from other income that originates in the pension and investment funds.

We home that any possible misunderstanding of these numbers will be resolved.

5. Corporations Continue to Evolve

Many types of corporations, mostly those producing very large items, continue to grow and their production is increasing. Also the number of employees in these corporations keeps growing.
The change is part of the general increase in the size of corporations and especially, in corporations that produce less than one product each month.
Many nuclear weapons, bases, and large navy items became cheaper again, and are produced in slightly larger numbers.

Many other corporations have been changed slightly, employing some more workers and their profitability is improving.

6. Loaning Mobile Units.

A new feature will be installed next week. It will allow players to loan mobile units to other countries in your empire and to members of your federation. It will allow you to support your own countries and your friends in times of war. The units will become part of the army of the receiving country but will also show on a separate list as loaned units and can be given back to their owner.

Loaned units can be lost in war, or damaged and may not be returned or may be returned incomplete and damaged.

Andy - Can you explain how loaned Mobile units will be resupplied?

Also, if I have a country with no Pb's but it says I have -500 lgb's, will that number go away?

Thanks-

Loaned mobile units will in fact become part of the army of the receiving country.
It will be resupplied as part of the army, by the receiving army.

If you have no weapons at all, not in the country, or in the reserves and also not in a space center, and you have a negative number of ammo, it will disappear.

as of now, most are already gone. the problem is disappearing.

Best update I've seen i do declare

My heart is not in this (please fix my investment funds per Problems forum) but I will try.

The War Level Protection change is a nice step but still has a few issues.

1. It adds to predatory wars without risk.

Since this is a country setting, aggressive players again have the advantage to manage their risk while making their opponent risk the house. While some players attempt to take advantage of the change and drop war level protection for the economic benefit , others will maintain it in their key countries and use newly taken countries to fight their wars while the rest of their empire hides behind magical protection.

Solution: This needs to be an empire-wide setting. I also argue that this should be a permanent choice. The game should move towards realism, alliances, diplomacy, and such and not magical war protection play. Make it permanent or offer an additional benefit to do so.

2. War positioning is still unequal

I believe I have taken two countries from the computer this (real) year. Both were part of positioning for an actual combat with players. It is quite different doing this at war level 3-5 as opposed to 7+. This should not be different for player combatants when they take C3's in terms opposition and reward.

Solution: We need to be able to declare war on C3s at a war level that is less than our current war level down to level 3 or 4.

Declaring on a C3 under your own war level might be a good idea but there will be no rewards to take.

If there is a strategic reason for doing this, you will do it anyway.

A note on Production plants. We could probably get away with none for several game centuries and not miss them a bit. They used to be decently profitable. They waxed and waned acceptably like most do now. Not anymore. Now they are predictable crap.
There simply is not enough corporations being built as a result of all the production increases and supply tweaks. I changed the production of my last 10 to something else since apparently I can't make them reserve their production. Why not? They were mine? I came back to find all my reserved production was sold. Not cool.
So why did I keep that last 10 so long, though I new it was futile? Stubborn I suppose and I had hoped that since you broke them catering to folks to lazy to address their own shortages, that you might fix them somehow.
You might want to take a look at them. Maybe there is no hope for them, I dunno, seems a shame to break a perfectly good Corporation and ignore it though.

you need to switch sometimes.

There are however many new corporations, probably too many production plants around, but I can assure you, at some point, there will be a large shortage.

Andy

I think what Aries is trying to say is this.

If an enemy(s) on FB declare war on me, Them being war level 3 and i being war level 11. We must both take C3 nations nearby in order to move troops in.
If he fights at level 3 and i fight at level 11, I'm at a major disadvantage.(exp if i have to fight mult opponents).

Im sure as the GM you can test and see the considerable difference in C3 fighting strength between these 2 levels. For my enemies to take war level 3 nations requires little skill, time, and losses.
As for me it requires a already significant investment as i have to fight a well prepared C3 army well trying to defend myself from other players.

I think we should be allowed to war a C3 at any war level, just add a handy cap where if its a War level below our level you drop the cash to 100B so no profit is made.

We will look into it.
I perfectly understood and answered it before.

you want to be able to fight a C3 country at war level 3 or 4 for strategic reasons, while you are at war level 9 or 10.

I don't think it will be a problem but there will be no money to win.
As I said to Aries before, in this discussion:

If there is a strategic reason for doing this, you will do it anyway.