W3C - Planned Updates to the War Game

The following is a result of recent discussions on the forum about possible changes to the war game.
We intend to implement these changes in the coming period.
The order of implementation depends on the availability of the relevant developers.

1. War protection on FB is 60 days. It can be prolonged with temporary war protection. We will however increase the cost of temporary war protection. The no war period is intended to allow the president to prepare for war.

2. Increase the initial defensive power of new players on FB.

3. Possible major change on FB: Prevent wars from going all the way to destruction. If the war index of a (new) player goes too low, we could end the war and the defeated country could give the winner a compensation. The defeated country will then be protected for 30 days to allow it to rebuild.

4. More sneak attacks and more targets.

5. Strategic weapons:
a. The cost will increase.
b. We will add a tag on a country that used nuclear weapons against cities.

6. Further reduction in the cost of war by a reduction in the cost of ammunition and with it, the maintenance cost.

7. Reduce the participation of federated air wings to one wing.

8. Limiting the numbers of military units per military base. It will depend on the type of the base and the type of military units. If military bases are destroyed or damaged, numbers will be smaller and military units might be disbanded. There will be no loss of quality.

9. Upgrade the repair function for military bases - currently using only construction.

10. Land units will be more powerful. The change is started, land weapons and land units too.

11. We will eliminate a small number of weapons and ammunitions to reduce complexity.

12. Local functions and encouraging a more regional game:
a. Shorter range for some defensive weapons.
b. We will look at replacing radar planes with radar stations. Radar stations will improve local defenses.
c. Defensive wings will be less effective if the target is outside the range of a radar station.

13. Navies
a. Transform the navies: start with balancing power, navies are too large.
b. Possible Navy limitation to countries with a coast. The navy is then limited to act against countries with a coast only.
c. Balancing between coastal countries and land locked countries. This issue is not resolved yet.

14. To encourage fighting / interaction locations should matter. We will add valuable strategic locations that are essential to the wellbeing of countries.

Hi Andy,

great to see this plan, only few comments


5. Strategic weapons are not so much strategic, probably with the increase of a cost damage should be increased as well.

6. Biggest drivers of war cost is not only usage of ammunition but also all military supplies, fuel etc. Big numbers are needed for military units to operate and has to be also reduced. I also suggest removing ammo cost from inactive weapons at all and only take it from active units.

Simplest way of reducing cost would be increasing unit size by few times and leaving the same amount of supplies needed.

7. very good

10. Very important - please add ranges into documentation at which land units support each other under attack. Also please test with offensive land units like tanks to see if they are able to penetrate defense at all.

11. yes, please also increase size of units and reduce number of types doing the same like small/large unit etc.

12. Radar planes should be able to see weapons stationed under the military base/airport. It was possible in the past.

13. Navy is too weak now. In my last combat I lost 100K navy fighters without doing any damage to country without federation support.
I want to have 1 navy unit/army and move it around instead having to move hundreds. Navy cost and maintenance is too big for their weak power.
Navy is supposed to be strategic and powerful but with the current configuration they are not worth the time.

14. sounds cool

We advise players to start converting jeep producing corporations, both defensive and offensive Jeeps, to produce different weapons or close these corporations and build others to replace them like raw materials producing corporations.

as part of the plan at the top of this discussion, we will gradually eliminate Jeeps.

Army units will be updated and will not include jeeps. This means that new army units will not have any jeeps.

We will convert jeeps, owned by players, into a different weapon at a ratio that will be disclosed later.

It will take some time before Jeeps, both defensive and offensive will be removed from Simcountry but we will start this process with the next game update this week.

Hi Andy,

Can you enlight us how the transition (period) will look like?


What will happen to deployed jeeps in supply units and garrisons?
What will happen with the stored jeeps in enterprises or countries?

Will the GM provide liquidity in order to accommodate the massive selling orders this might trigger with virtually no human buyers?
>> Also in regard to the intended measure to limit storing weapons in enterprises.

To be clear, I endorse changes like this to make the game better, I just have no clue yet how to act on the changes currently and how others will act. And Im taking jeeps as an example now of course. My questions are more in general.

Jeeps that are used in units and garrisons will remain there and will remain functional.
we will start with preventing many more Jeeps to be produced, purchased etc.

then at some point, we will convert them all, at once, and everywhere where they were used, there will be another weapon instead.

By then, new ones will not be used.
some could pop up in countries, and we might need to do another conversion of remaining Jeeps in countries.

Removing maybe 5 weapons from the game, including some ammunition types, may take many steps to realize.

we will not buy the jeeps.
we will replace them everywhere with other weapons.

there is no reason to sell them. we may even remove them from the market and there will be no trading.

We did not decide yet but want to prevent damage and will make a conversion that allows you to keep the replacement weapons or sell them later.

Some people use just jeeps for supply units, this keeps costs down because jeeps don't use ammo. If jeeps are to be converted into a weapon that uses ammo, we'll need to know well in advance what weapon it will be so we have a chance to ensure we have enough stockpiles of the correct ammo.

For what it's worth, I'm against reducing the cost of war materials. Cheaper war materials means players can afford larger defences and a larger defence is a strong deterrent to war. These changes will result in less pvp war.

The cheap cost of interceptors and helicopters and their missiles means players can have tens of thousands of them, the amount of clicks required to defeat such a defence makes the war game tedious.

@Ethelred
I doubt that this will reduce pvp wars. The stronger players already have tons of reserves which can be deployed fast, while the weaker players struggle to keep a defensive army afloat, or just dont know how to set up decently. If you mean less pvp wars in that sense that stronger players will be less able to eat up the underdefended ones, I believe that this is the intention of the change being made.

Much better would it be to just attack in batches with 1 click required. Like Attack 10 wings with 10 LRD units (1 click required). Or attack corporations A to Z, with units X1-X26. In combination with the change that federated air support will be reduced to 1+1 wing, instead of 1+2 wings, this change could really stimulate pvp wars.

I didn't see the announcement of this change.

We want to reduce the cost of maintaining the army.
cheaper ammo will help but there is no need to reduce it to much lower cost. we have already done must of the reductions.

weapon prices are not being reduced. any changes will be to moderately higher prices, including nukes too.

we want players to be able to setup a good defense and not be eaten in 5 minutes.

Jeeps will be replaced by other land forces. Maybe armored vehicles.
They use ammo. The ammo less jeeps were chosen to go first because of that. we had a plan to add ammo. now it is obsolete.

4 x 2 land weapons is too much.

new units will have no defensive jeeps. they will have more of the other types of land units. Same with supply units.

The plan at the top of this discussion explains what we intend to do.
You can keep commenting on it.

It is not written in stone.

We want to reduce the cost of maintaining the army.
cheaper ammo will help but there is no need to reduce it to much lower cost. we have already done must of the reductions.

weapon prices are not being reduced. any changes will be to moderately higher prices, including nukes too.

we want players to be able to setup a good defense and not be eaten in 5 minutes.

Jeeps will be replaced by other land forces. Maybe armored vehicles.
They use ammo. The ammo less jeeps were chosen to go first because of that. we had a plan to add ammo. now it is obsolete.

4 x 2 land weapons is too much.

new units will have no defensive jeeps. they will have more of the other types of land units. Same with supply units.

The plan at the top of this discussion explains what we intend to do.
You can keep commenting on it.

It is not written in stone.

In all comments on this plan.
Please tell us which point you comment on or say "New issue" if it is unrelated to the list above.

we will also show which issue we are referring too when announcing updates.

I dont think Fed air defense is over-powered, defense in general is over powered, 1 unit vs lord knows how many. Ground units are very very powerful although tanks should take less losses to defensive helios because theirs no way to really combat the enemy ground forces without using missiles or air units currently. Adding a function to add multiple units to form a single attack is more ideal and will solve most of the problems (how many defensive units join the defense is up to w3c). Bigger battles means more damage to each side so that 1 side doesn't get obliterated. This alone will shorten the amount of clicks, balancing attacking/defending damage to the enemy and wont require price deductions that will hurt the corps profits.

I do not think we should combine many units into a single attack.
Units will be stronger, defensive units too but combining them will make such an attack 100% devastating.

Hi Andy,

very good update, thanks.

would it be possible to get information which land units are stronger and how much is the change.

thanks

Most of them are now, after two rounds of changes, about 30% larger.

there will be another round within a week. another 15% or so.

ok, thanks

Planned and executed updates to the war game

This is a copy of the plan as was published at the top of this page, with some reporting of recent changes:

1a. War protection on FB is 60 days. This remains unchanged.
1b. Possible increase of the temporary war protection cost.
The cost of temporary war protection will increase in one of the next upgrades.

2. Increase the initial defensive power of new players on FB.
We have already increased the defensive force of new players. There are more garrisons and the available military units are larger.
More will be done.

3. Possible major change on FB: Prevent wars from going all the way to destruction. If the war index of a (new) player goes too low, we could end the war and the defeated country could give the winner a compensation. The defeated country will then be protected for 30 days to allow it to rebuild.

This feature is not done yet. It will involve a more significant development effort.

4. More sneak attacks and more targets.
We have added sneak attacks by sea based cruise missiles. 300 sea based cruise missile can be used in a sneak attack.

5a. Strategic weapons: Cost Increase
The cost of nuclear weapons is increased significantly. The cost will increase further in several more steps.

5b. We will add a tag on a country that used nuclear weapons against cities.
This feature is not implemented yet.

6. Further reduction in the cost of war by a reduction in the cost of ammunition and with it, the maintenance cost.
This feature is largely implemented. The maintenance cost is reduced and the cost of ammunition, mainly defensive ammunition.
We think that the process can continue and deliver more reductions.

7. Reduce the participation of federated air wings to one wing.
The feature is ready but not implemented yet. We think that several other issues must be implemented ahead of this one.

8. Limiting the numbers of military units per military base. It will depend on the type of the base and the type of military units. If military bases are destroyed or damaged, numbers will be smaller and military units might be disbanded. There will be no loss of quality.
This feature is under development. The counting of military units is done. Units are larger. The feature is not completed yet.

9. Upgrade the repair function for military bases - currently using only construction.
Not implemented yet.

10. Land units will be more powerful. The change is started, land weapons and land units too.
Units are now larger, and many weapons have been upgraded. More needs to be done.

11. We will eliminate a small number of weapons and ammunitions to reduce complexity.
This is a complex process that needs time because all weapon types are in use. The use of jeeps is reduced and will be reduced further.

12. Local functions and encouraging a more regional game:
a. Shorter range for some defensive weapons.
Many weapons now already have a shorter range. The next stage will take place with the next upgrade.
b. We will look at replacing radar planes with radar stations. Radar stations will improve local defenses.
Not implemented yet.
c. Defensive wings will be less effective if the target is outside the range of a radar station.
Not implemented yet.
13. Navies
a. Transform the navies: start with balancing power, navies are too large.
The size of navies is already smaller.
b. Possible Navy limitation to countries with a coast. The navy is then limited to act against countries with a coast only.
Not implemented yet.
c. Balancing between coastal countries and land locked countries. This issue is not resolved yet.

14. To encourage fighting / interaction locations should matter. We will add valuable strategic locations that are essential to the well being of countries.
Not implemented yet.

thanks for the update.

maybe you can allow more land units to be airdropped or cross c3 lands without restrictions? now if i want to attack a country which does not have a border with me i use batteries as placing land units requires base set up which is more complex to establish and consumes more time. maybe small land units could be airdropped and large ones could cross c3 lands without restrictions.