W3C - Game News July 11, 2012

1. Attack screen

The attack screen is improved and shows more clearly the types of units that can be used in the attack. It will make it easier to use.

2. Corporations on the War maps

During war, only state corporations can be attacked. On the war maps, all corporations looked the same and attacking them was by trial and error which required more clicking.
State corporations now show on the war maps with a green border meaning that they can be attacked. Other corporations show on the war maps with a red border and cannot be attacked.

3. Conquered areas

Conquered areas are painted differently now, with hopefully a better coverage of the entire areas and they are transparent, partially showing the landscape underneath.

4. The Quality of Consumption Products

The quality of products used by the population and by the country has an influence on the monthly cost of the country. The products that are consumed by the population are paid by the population and do not increase the monthly cost but there are many products that are used in health, education, government in general and in the army. The quality and cost of these products has a direct effect on the cost of health, education etc.

It is hard to measure what the cost increase will be if you increase the quality of the products that are purchased by the government, some experimenting could help but the cost increase depends on the size of the population and the change in the quality.

The quality of these products does have an influence on the welfare in the country. For example: if the quality of the products will increase by 100 points, the welfare index of the country will increase by an estimated 2.5 points. This in turn can increase production in the corporations by 1.1%.

It is not clear that the additional cost of products is fully compensated for by the increase in productivity. We will also do some measuring and may increase the advantage in even higher productivity.
It is important to realize that only a fraction of the increased cost for these products is paid for by the government and most of the cost is paid by the population spending most of its net salary buying these products and it has no impact on the government finances.

Summary: Increasing the quality of products purchased by the government is already increasing productivity and will become profitable for the country in the long run.

5. New War Maps

The war maps update is delayed by a week. It is now expected on July 18. The update includes more functionality and testing is not completed yet.

I just want to say you've done well when it comes to identifying which factories are state owned and other ones that are not, can you also do the same when it comes to identifying which defensive wings are interceptor wings and the others that are helicopter wings? in the same way you've done the corporations? it would make a war a whole lot easier for those who new to the war game. thanks.

i'm thumbs up on all this.

the ceo corps on the battle map, thing, that has been neccessary for a very long time. right on. it was one of those things that you put up with, never expecting an update... i'm suprised and impressed

the other thing i want to mention. the supply index thing. i've been experiementing with that. and that was the exact explanation i needed.

one thing i'd suggest... well, you can see the supply index, and consumption index under "business and trade," the consumption index is easy to get. but the supply index only goes up and down in increments of 10. if the graph flowed more freely, it'd make more sence. as the consumption index goes up... right now nothing would happen with the supply index for a while... leaving you to wonder whats going on.

and as an aside. i understand you've guys got allot on your plate, but are their any future plans regarding espionage? i mean, like maybe maybe in a coupld years? (i get you guys got allot to do.)

Thanks. These changes are part of an upgrade of the war game. The maps will change a lot and there are many more improvements underway.

The units should indeed be painted differently to make it easier to identify.
The attack screen is already improved with the type of the unit showing so you can easily choose the type you want to use in the attack.

The supply index is very simple. It goes down by 10 points for every product your country has a shortage.
make sure you have no shortages and the supply index will stay firmly at 100.

Espionage was part of our description of mobile units published here in the past week or two.
Mobile units are a very high priority after the war maps are done.
Both intelligence units and espionage units are part of the plan. Intelligence units will probably be part of the first release of the mobile units.
Espionage units for economic intelligence, will be added a little later.

Andy

I stated in another tread that players are saying theirs little GC to go around. Is it possible to introduce maybe GC awards for warring on FB only? Instead of taking a nation with cash the player could say just end the war and receive GC = to the cash they would have otherwise gotten. At the most players only get 150GC. If only FB offered a chance to gain more GC you would see player growth and possibly more PvP warring. Is this something the GM could consider? This would GREATLY help across the game with the GC issue

im glad to hear of these changes...just a quick question about profitability in corps and welfare...from what i understand is that you pay more for things like health transport education and social security for an increase in the welfare index and an increase in profitability therefore you get more money to pay for the previously stated indexes...at what point does the cost outweigh the production bonuses is it a direct relationship in which you could boost production to levels like 150% constantly making your country more wealthy regardless of population or at some point do production bonuses fail to pay for such large infrastructure the highest ive gotten my corps was 125% and it was very profitable could i go another level up by increasing health education transport and SS and boost it up to 130% and still make it profitable

I used to run at 151% production.

You needed a 130welfare and pay 1100salary level but that is since oblosete. The GM needs to give much more insentives for higher production i personally dont see why a nation shouldnt be allowed to pay 1000salaries level, have 151% production and make money. Back in those days i made 1B a month profit per corp. I had(have)10 nuke corps that used to make profit at those levels and still do any everyone knows how hard it is to make money with them. Point in general the gm really needs to up production now that Q is on the decline

You need to find that point of diminishing returns for yourself Charles. Thats a big part of learning the econ game. It will be slightly different for each players setup.

lol crafty you would be the one to tell me that...got to learn it for myself i suppose thanks guys

LOL!

Actually, in my opinion you are pretty much spot on with about 125 welfare for corps. It might well be worth trying 130 though.

with country welfare at 125-126 it still takes quite high salaries. 130 is worth it 135 is definately not. (well in most cases)

Andy, I read with interest your explanation of consumption products and your assertion that it doesn't have an effect on government spending.

The game only publishes the figures for the year, not month by month, so I waited until the end of a game year to look at them. Specifically, I looked at 5 countries that have no weapons, and DIs of less than one, to rule out the spending on weapons that would affect the figures.

What I found was that, of the materials purchased by the government in one year, between 57% and 67% were sold on to the population. The rest (33% - 43%) were either used by the government or remained in stock.

While I accept that this is not the majority of the spending by any means, it is still a sizeable sum - 300B to 400B per year at 120 quality for a 50M population country. I therefore don't entirely agree with your assertion that this "has no impact on the government finances". If my maths is correct, that's almost 5B per month extra government spending to buy 120 quality, as opposed to the previous minimum of 100 quality.

I'd be very interested to hear your response to this. There may be something I'm missing ...

Hugs and respect

Jo

But wont the population spending also go up by a proportional amount Jo? After all, they are buying 120 too now, not 100. Stuff that remains in stock will eventually be used. That only leaves the grey area of stuff used by the Govt. What are these things used by the Govt? First I thought road, water maint. and hospital supplies (you've already ruled out military) but these get ordered and paid for seperately dont they, or are these products listed under Govt. costs? Enlighten me?

Rugs and Hispanics, Crafty.

I dont understand since governments buy 100 quality for roads hospitals schools and other stuff how there are corporations out there that produce over 100 quality of these products...does buying higher quality schools mean you need less of them? and what about the corporations that produce above 100 quality of hewe products how do they sell anything oO

@ Crafty - yes, pop spending goes up proportionally, that's why I included the pop figure and expressed most of it as a percentage. The goods left in stock account for less than 10% of the overall figure, leaving government spending at 25% - 35% of the total.

I'm not sure exactly what these goods are that the govt. uses ... I'm hoping Andy will join in this discussion and enlighten us.

@ Gunther - the minimum quality anyone can buy anything at is 120, not 100. The only difference it makes, according to Andy, is to the country's welfare index. You still need the same amount of everything, whatever quality you purchase at.

If corps manufacture goods that only a country can use, at above 120 quality, they inevitably sell for less than the quality adjustment should be, if people were buying at the full quality-enhanced price.

Hugs and respect

Jo

I agree with Jo

I bought 180Q goods to for my pop to see what would happen.(As its on a decline from having 200M pop) WHICH "STILL" isn't fixed

the answer NOTHING!

the only thing that increased was my government costs by around 40B.

So i think the GM needs to look into these issues again

thinking about it, for some products the "quality" does not make sense.

say what's the difference between a 300Q strategic bomb and a 100Q strategic bomb?

isn't the reality that both are hydrogen bombs? will the 300Q bomb do more damages in sc than the 100Q bomb?

question i'd ask, is what are your gov sals? maybe approach your question from another angle.

@ xlong - actually, yes. A 300Q bomb will do much more damage than a 100Q bomb. Weapons and ammo are the two things where quality really does count.

But I've deliberately left weapons out of this, because they aren't the issue. Nor, really, are those goods that corps use in the manufacture of their products.

Crafty - I may have a partial answer to your previous question. When hunting around for an example item used by countries and not by corps, I came across boats. Apparently one of my countries 'uses' 1,035 boats per month. I can't believe the boats I buy are that badly made. I have therefore come to the conclusion that my government has created a pseudo-religion in an effort to keep the population docile, which involves an elaborate boat-burning ceremony every month. A bit like 'The Wicker Man', but on water.

That may also account for SuperSoldier's population decline ...

Am I right, Andy? Go on ... tell me I'm right! That would be awesome

Hugs and respect

Jo

LOL

@jo,
thanks,
in sc, that must be one hydrogen bomb is by fusion while the other one must be by fission?

on earth, a hydrogen bomb seems to be a hydrogen bomb. no difference that i'm aware of

but it's good to know the differences in sc

@xiong

there is Q in nuclear weapons. What the difference between 10Kiloton and a 1megaton?

some thing I don't understand is why my stocks of product goes into the negative oO how is that possible and if is somehow my population consuming stuff on credit then why are they still bitching about shortages in my newspaper

I like the idea Jo, but surely most boats are sold on to the population? Let them pay for their ceremonies! Likewise with wine, which is a country only product. Actually, you should be allowed to ban wine if you want an alcohol free state, this is a real life situation for some Arabic/Muslim countries.

I really dont think the thinking behind the Govt. costs goes item specific deep. It probably is just a chosen thought out percentage or algorithm.

Nuclear weapons now have Q100.
Although this may be changed when quality will apply to everything, there is currently not much sense in having a higher quality for these weapons.

These weapons destroy their targets for 100% with Q100.
So what percentage of damage would we have if their quality goes to 200?