W3C - Game News Feb 21, 2017

1. The War Game - Attacking targets from Military bases
As announced before, we have now made it possible to launch attacks by Medium range missiles from bases in your country. This is of course in addition to the use of the same missiles as part of military units.
There are more weapons that were always used in this way; these include strategic conventional missiles, and nuclear weapons.

2. Easier Messaging another player
When you look at a page of a country, and you want to contact the president, you can now use the button on that country page and sent a message.

This feature comes in response to a voted request very recently.

3. Medium level & High level workers
Many countries continue to have relative shortages of Medium level workers & High level workers. The number of available Low level workers is frequently much higher.
As a result, players need to repeatedly convert large numbers of professionals into workers or otherwise they will not be able to add new corporations, or even achieve full employment in existing corporations.
The game automatically contributes to the balancing of the workers groups but that process is many times insufficient. We have also increased the number of �auto converted� by the system, each game month.

To improve the situation, we have again, slightly reduced the numbers of Medium level workers & the number of High level workers that are needed in corporations. The change will free workers from many corporations and increase the numbers of unemployed workers in these two groups.

4. Air Supply Units
The capacity of air supply units is increased for the second time. A recent case with many stranded air force units showed that the resupply of such stranded units can take a very long time, much longer than intended.
In addition, we have improved the computation of the amounts of gasoline and aircraft fuel used each month. The procedure miscalculated the used amounts when many units had shortages of fuel. This resulted in smaller orders made by the automatic ordering system that depends on the amount of product used.

As a result, larger quantities of aircraft fuel and gasoline will be ordered and shortages will subside. The change may cause large immediate orders from many countries but the situation will quickly normalise.

5. Garrisons
When creating a new garrison template, it is now possible to choose very low numbers of weapons, as in a tiny garrison and up to very large numbers, as in a large garrison. The minimum number of weapons in all cases is now 36.

6. Air lifting of units
Currently when moving units to locations outside the country, these units must be fully supplied, including ammunition. Even worse, when they are flown back, they also must be fully supplied with ammo.

We will remove this condition both ways. No ammo will be needed when moving.

The change will take place next week.

7. Fortifications
A country cannot order more than 150 fortifications but if the country has corporations producing fortifications, they can contract their product to the country and increase the number above 150.
This remains unchanged for now and makes it possible to get many fortifications.

We have now slightly increased the cost of maintenance of fortifications and may do so again. Keeping very large numbers of fortifications is expensive.

8. New product Maintenance of Strategic products
A new product will be introduced next week. It will be used for the maintenance of strategic weapons and nuclear missiles and bombs. The production process will, as is the case with other maintenance products, use the nuclear products themselves and by doing so, will increase the use of such weapons and ammunition.

The change will make it easier to build profitable strategic weapons corporations.

9. New Product Maintenance of State assets
A new product will be introduced next week. It will be used for the maintenance of a number of state owned assets in the country, including space centres, universities, schools hospitals, water facilities etc.. The production process will, as is the case with other maintenance products, use these assets themselves and by doing so, will increase the use of such products.

We hope to enhance the use of some of these products and increase their production numbers in all the worlds.

10. Space Centres in war
It is currently impossible to attack and destroy space centres in war. We will shortly make it possible to attack space centres, using strategic long range conventional missiles.
Space centres will not be easy to destroy and can be defended by a garrison with missile interceptors that can, in sufficient numbers destroy attacking missiles or at least, make such an attack a very expensive expedition.

The change will take place next week. (Feb. 28th).

Amazing, thank you for being active and listening to the community. It means a lot. The future of simcountry looks bright.

Thank you.

1. OK I guess. Won't really make any impact on the war game.
2. Good idea.
3. I know there are players having an issue with MLW and HLW, but I always seem to have an abundance of LLM and HLM. My problem always get solved by demoting them to LLW. It's also easy to solve by taking an occasional C3.
4. It's about time this problem was fixed. People have been complaining for a long time. I don't know why it takes the GM months if not years to fix things.
5. Does anyone garrison anymore? Just build lots of forts. The GM loves forts.
6. Excellent change.
7. So nothing is being done about the fort issue and we will continue to see players abuse this. I don't know why the GM allows this. It makes no sense. Why can't we return to a 150 fort limit? I don't recall any players clamoring for unlimited forts prior to implementing this very bad GM idea.
8. Nukes don't have the punch they use to deliver. I recommend players have a bare minimum and not produce thousands of these weapons. It's not worth it.
9. A clever GM scam to increase the cost of country maintenance. Who asked for this product? What is wrong with the current model?
10. If it were up to me, I would do away with the entire space game which is too unrealistic. That said, the ability to destroy space centers is a great idea.

Fortifications are limited to 150 as before. You need your own corporations, at high cost to increase the number and they are now more expensive to maintain.
In view of requests to relax war limitations, fortifications are one of the ways to improve your defenses.
It should be possible to use them in this way.

There are very few corporations producing nukes and it is close to impossible to keep them up. When nukes are needed, nobody produces them.
The maintenance products will support these industries, like they helped with other types of products.

The cost for the country will however NOT increase.

Currently, the maintenance uses services, hightech services and military supplies. All of them is severe short supplies on the markets.
The new products will gradually replace the use of these materials. The total cost will not change at all.
If the GM wants to increase the cost of maintenance he does not need to create new products. Changing the amount of services used, is easier.

We think the level of cost is just fine.

I agree with Emperor on the Space game needing to go, and nukes don't have the punch they use to deliver. They're a joke now. I haven't tested navies, yet. But I hope they're not a joke either. A single US navy carrier strike group could take out a whole country realistically in the real world. I'd be fine if they were more effective and more expensive.

What would be the effect if we were able to upgrade units to a fighting level of 500? And then perhaps increase mobile units a bit more. And it should be exponentially more expensive to maintain more units. There should a higher level of disparity in technology and training. Either go with a bunch of military assets at shitty quality, or fewer military assets at higher quality or a mixture in between. Let the players choose.

Space trading shouldn't go, but more opportunities/incentive to increase trade would be needed somehow. It's something that has been discussed before; finding ways to expand on it so that the space stations see more traffic in addition to interplanetary trade.
(I imagine the stations look like ghost ships, like from Event Horizon, haha)

Navies were once raider favorites; there was an imbalance that made them almost unstoppable. ZeizeForce makes an interesting point about how navies in the modern world could effectively ruin a less advanced country overnight. (Forecast of clear skies, followed by a hail of Tomahawks.) On the same token, the US is the dominant naval power in the real world; so it's hard to see how a clash of navies would look today.
The correction in SC kind of swung the pendulum in the other direction too far. Navies now seem more like luxury items; too costly and the maintenance requires almost daily check-ups or they get put into storage. This is my experience anyway..

Why should space trading go? I don't see an argument there other than "not realistic". This is a game. If everything had to meet the realism bar, space would not be the only thing to go and many other things would need to be reworked at the expense of fun.

I believe the fix to more space trade is simple. Lower the cost of space docks to 100 gold and refund current dock owners the other 100 gold. Docks are simply too expensive to introduce new buyers. At 100 gold, I can conceivably see space sellers purchase docks and lease them to their customers, offering deals on their wares to their dock leasers.

Nukes are fine. They have a role and are balanced with other weapons available to players. Navies are fine too. As a player that has many strategic weapons and likely the largest navy in the game, I see no glaring problem with either weapon type. No weapon should excel to the point to making other choices redundant. As far as military upkeep, higher quality weapons already cost more than lower quality to obtain and to maintain. Presidents have plenty of choice here to where it is mostly overwhelming to most.

Oh, more specific to navy maintenance. I have 48 strategic carrier fleets (96 aircraft carriers, their air wings, nuclear subs, and escorts) and 12 helicopter carrier groups (24 helicopter carriers, their air wing, and escorts) deployed on LU. I have not checked in on them in months and they are still deployed, fully upgraded, supplied, and ready to use.

Andy said, "Fortifications are limited to 150 as before. You need your own corporations, at high cost to increase the number and they are now more expensive to maintain.
In view of requests to relax war limitations, fortifications are one of the ways to improve your defenses.
It should be possible to use them in this way."

Forts can't be limited and not limited at the same time. The player "Roving Eye" has 5 of 7 countries with thousands of forts in each and has had them for years now and none of his countries have gone bankrupt. If you are serious about making it expensive to maintain all these forts, start bankrupting some of these countries.

Andy said: "There are very few corporations producing nukes and it is close to impossible to keep them up. When nukes are needed, nobody produces them.
The maintenance products will support these industries, like they helped with other types of products."

I'm not talking about the production of nukes. I am talking about their need. They don't have the offensive punch they once had. I wouldn't mind producing nukes at a loss if they offered a better military result. DON"T BUY NUKES BEYOND WHAT YOU NEED. Ignore the GM on this one until they improve the effectiveness of these weapons.

Andy said: "The cost for the country will however NOT increase.

"Currently, the maintenance uses services, hightech services and military supplies. All of them is severe short supplies on the markets.
The new products will gradually replace the use of these materials. The total cost will not change at all.
If the GM wants to increase the cost of maintenance he does not need to create new products. Changing the amount of services used, is easier.

We think the level of cost is just fine."

Whatever you say.We will wait and see. Based on the past useless products you guys have introduced (mobile phones, silenium etc.) and their required usage, my guess is this is just another scam. But hey, I could wrong.

Another update on aircraft fuel, I hope it is the last one.

The use numbers where corrected but not used in all ordering, now they are used.

so now we had a peak in purchasing of aircraft fuel, and all automatic ordering is on.

The problem occurred with all products the country needs but "people" in the country did not use.

The number of products used is difficult to compute. Aircraft fuel was used by the country itself in the maintenance of some military, and also by military units.

This was a very old bug and it seems to be OK now.

Thank you on the aircraft fuel correction.

Aries- I think one of my issues was the amount of supply ships (or lack of); perhaps I didn't have enough per fleet. What is a good ratio?

On the navy weapon balance, I think we are referring to the Navy Cruise missile "exploit". It did make an unfair advantage; I just didn't like the adjustment, Imo.

Yes, please lower the dock lease amounts; that alone scares off potential traders.

Having thousands of fortifications just seems outlandish... unless your Enver Hoxha :p

It indeed looks like proper orders are being placed for aircraft fuel and military supplies. thank you!

I think dock lease amounts are okay. Just lower the buy amounts, and refund current owners. That would encourage sellers, I could see doing this, purchasing additional docks and leasing them to buyers. This would keep those leasing fees in the hands of players and encourage those same sellers to offer deals to offset the sellers expense to lease.

The next game update will be later this week.

It will include a relaxation of the purchasing of nuclear weapons on FB.

The new maintenance product for nuclear weapons requires access to these nuclear weapons.

February 9 4065, a Major Earth Quake occurred in your country.

551539 people died immediately and 1377778 people were wounded.
More details will be reported later.

Andy, can you perhaps make earthquakes a little less devastating. Half a million dead and 1.5 million wounded. I don't think I've ever seen earthquakes this devastating in even the real world.

The Haiti earthquake in 2010 killed nearly 200,000; so couldn't it be possible for 500 thousand?

Not all earthquakes are that large.
Most are smaller.
Everybody wanted natural disasters to be implemented.
we implemented many but after the introduction of the earthquakes, we kept the others inactive.

LMAO .. just who was the "everybody" that wanted natural disasters implemented?

FYI, I don't want trains, prisons or private security corporations

You? among others?

I am joking.
There were many such requests. It was long ago.
We would not have done more than just earthquakes now.

I suggest you really bring down the wrath of our Dark Lord on them all Andy.

Smite these heretics with plagues, pestilence, asteroid strikes, famines, hurricanes, tsunamis, and tourists.

basically be Moses?

OK
I'll thing about it.

A note from the Gamemaster's Mother:

The only LARGE earthquakes in Simcountry are the ones that I personally send to various lands of those people who do not ummmmm see things ummmm my way (if you get my drift). I have complete and total control of the earthquake button. I have taken it from Andy, my darling son. I took it from his room whilst he slept. :-D

I have been known to send out a tremor or two, I possess this talent of knowing how to shake things up!!! he he he