W3C - The Defense of Countries & Military Units

Military units currently function as a way to block invasions.
They do not participate in active defense against air attack or any attacks at all, except for fighting invading forces when these forces attack them.

Mobile units do participate in the defense.

When a target is attacked, it is protected by a garrison stationed at the target (if available), and if a mobile unit is at a close distance from the target, the mobile unit will participate in the defense.
In all cases, one defense wing and possible up to 2 defense wings of federation members might participate too.

In most cases however, the defense ends up supported by an air defense wing if available and a garrison, mostly available as a defense for large cities.

We think the military units should do more.

we would like a military unit, stationed close to the target to participate.
A key issue is the required (short) distance to the attacked target.

Mobile units could be upgraded too, allowing more than one to participate and at an increased range.

Currently, when a very strong army is attacking a country, it is very difficult for such a country to survive a massive attack.
Even with many military units and a large air force, the attack army is more powerful and in many cases, even the casualties on the side of the attacker remain limited.

We think that military units, if they participate, will make more sense in the game and if spread around the country, could potentially give the defense a fighting chance.

This change could improve the balance between attacking and defending forces.
Such a balance will allow more players to participate in the PvP wars without facing immediate annihilation.

I like the idea. That way more units might become relevant.

It will however change nothing. The only thing that might change is that I need to build up an even larger offensive army before attacking.

As long as I can store weapons for free in my ceo I will always be able to keep on building my army larger and larger and larger without any downside. The moment a war breaks out I tune down the production on my corporations, free up millions of workers/soldiers and just send whatever weapons I need to my countries. There is 0 downside to keeping hundreds of trillions worth of weapons in my ceo's. If you really want to balance the war game then this is where you need to make the changes. Anything else you do will be completely irrelevant.

If players need to pay the upkeep for weapons in a ceo they are no longer able to store infinitely large armies. Rich players will still be able to afford larger armies but their advantage will be many times smaller then what it is now.

Thanks for your reaction.

I think that having units involved in the defense will make a change.
It may not be enough as you said, but it can significantly increase the casualties on the attacker side.

Andy,

If you add another ground unit that will not change the fact that I will kill air defences first by attacking most remote target - so it would not get supported by ground at all. Once Air is cleaned there will be no difference for my batteries to kill 1, 2 or even 3 units at the same time. Loses are minimal.

Good question is if that means that you want to have more units on map? I assume you need less but with higher ranges and bigger in size - (map is already too overcrowded). That would force attacker to read map and plan attacks more carefully. But still that will not change the fact that war is fast.

I think the best way to improve chances of resistance for defending party is to force to fight land wars. Defended country is supplied faster, can take back occupied locations and attacking country needs to move or fly in units to fight.

my 2 cents..

It would be much simpler for coding if you combined defense and offensive weapons into a single unit.

For example modern surface to air missile systems are neither defensive or offensive, they simply deny an enemy the ability to fly in a certain area of space. Fighters are fighters, helicopters are helicopters.

Modern armies have mechanized infantry, tanks, artillery and helicopters in regiments for offense or defense. Modern navies have the same ships for either task.

It would simplify not only coding but actually preparing a defense as well.

Just a thought.

I agree with you

Thanks for the response.

I do think you underestimate the potential impact of military units participating more in the defense.
It all depends on their defensive power and range compared with the attack power of the attacking forces.

unless these defending units get boost in resilience against batteries and air attacks there will be no huge difference. People will be doing "attack defences" and additional unit participating in defence will be destroyed together with garrison of the attacked target. If attack is on a small target like county garrison will not likely to be available so attack will be only on additional unit.

If you want to allow to defend all targets then something must change in weapons maintenance cost or durability/strength in weapons.

Deta. Storing weapons in CEO's then moving them into your countries is no longer an effective strategy. Weapons go inactive soon as you move them out of the space station.

Andy, what large wars are you guys basing this on? I haven't seen or heard of anyone fighting a large war recently. Are yous testing weapons on a diff server? I ask cause, to me, I think defence is already too strong.

I can't help but be frustrated with this game. Is this what you guys are focusing on? the GM's I mean. There's so many issue with the game that need attention. To me this is a waste of your time and effort.

Mobile Units do a good enough job at defending my targets.

If anyone wants to use land units to block invaders, use Special Forces. It's the most effective strategy, even with what the GM propose.

I hate to complain but you wanted feedback and that's my honest feeling. Fix what's broken first before adding new features

Nobody plays the war game. I think you's need to work on that issue, not this.

Hilarious. Keep making defense stronger. I am going to share a piece of war knowledge with you all that I learned from testing and experience. Air defenses cannot be defeated. Any country that is in a federation with even a moderate air defense will never be conquered. The defense responds with 1500 helicopters or 1500 interceptors. Air attack units are way too small to face off against 1500 interceptors and missile weapons are to fragile to resist 1500 helicopters. The only way to beat the air defense is to ignore it and to brute force through it. The only weapon that is capable of achieving this is cruise missile ships, due to their resilience. The war game is absolutely broken. War levels are also killing your game. If you want this game to come back to life you need to address these serious issues.

The best solution is to completely remove war levels and to merge offensive and defensive weapons into single unified weapons as Johanas has mentioned.

I have serious doubts that any of the developers play this game at all or test the impact of changes. Defense is completely overpowered and broken.

Perhaps work on a world with no war levels as a trial? GC rewards could be gained in a different fashion. Instead of levels, let the players choose how high a c3 they want to fight to achieve their GC prize, but have no effect on the player v player side.

Just a thought. All your old time players have been saying it for years GM's. War Levels have killed this game, for several reasons that I wont go into.

A trial world like this could be a better investment of your time.

It's never been the case that people went around stealing countries all the time, it happened a few times. The Last time the losers kicked up enough fuss and WL's have been the result. Which has been a disaster for this game over the years, I'd say.

Why not try it?

These changes are based on what need? To make c3's more difficult to attack at the higher war levels? i dont get it. Nobody's asking for this.

If I had to impart words of wisdom to my Son, Andrew, is always listen to your contituents...within reason.

In defense of the GMs, there were so many game abuses in the past, it was hard to "survive" in the game when going against the many "powers" that existed. So, I can understand why the GMs did what they did with war levels. While this is a great game to us and one we wish to drive, it is a business to the game owner, designed to be fair to its constituents and make them money in the bargain.

BUT, I have to say this. The game seemed so much more active and alive back in those days. I would love to see this game come back to its heyday! I love seeing this new crop of players carrying this game forward. My kudos to Matthew I, Union States King, et al. I love your spirit and your enthusiasm on WG!!

I thank Andy and his colleagues for enabling the war game to be played without the war level restrictions on FB. I hope that many more players will join this world and bring the war game back to life. BUT to enjoy war, you have to be willing to take risks. THAT is part of the game.

Perhaps, if we could spark this more on FB, war level restrictions might come off other worlds if the GMs see that it is working to the game's benefit!

As I've said many many times....talk it up, players!!! We have to bring our community back alive...fire up the forums, the chat. The GMs can provide us the playing board, but we, the players have to play the game!!!

I completely agree with our dear lady and I appreciate the shoutout.

The WGA has come a long way in the two months it has reformed and it's all because of our active players.

I don't think the GMs are sleeping on us. There are a great many factors in going to war, or even deciding to. Times also change as the player base does and fixes now may not be the fixes we need in 2020. I can't pretend like I knew how it was before, I was never very involved in the war Game previously but have heard numerous people talk about the great wars.

If stirring up activity is the end goal, I think we can also focus on small updates that would really help, because I don't think the War Levels are the only roadblock. A system to connect active players, more incentive to join the in game chat/forum, even a list of "Active players last 30 minutes" would be really helpful. Communication (more specifically the ability to see and get in contact with active players) is a little difficult unless you're willing to do lots of leg work. It's hard to tell who is active and who isn't. On White Giant, I really believe we are one of the only other active Federations. I know of one more, but even that one has few members and even fewer active.

I wholeheartedly agree with merging defense and offense. I do like the idea that units on the ground would participate in the defense too. I often just use jeeps if a country I am invading is connected to mine. They won't get destroyed because nothing attacks them. Special forces also work if you need to air drop them but you never have to worry about losing any.
I think the war game is just too expensive and so it takes forever to have anything close to a decent military. It is basically impossible to catch up to a wealthy player. I have been back playing for about 10 months I think. I estimate I have about 300-500T in weapons. While it sounds like a lot, many wealthy long time players have multiple quads in military assets. How many new players want to play a game for almost a year just to be a decent place in the game? Beyond the cost of purchasing weapons, the maintenance costs, if they are actually in your country, are outrageous. I have said on other posts, a modest defense of a medium size country that was prepared for an invasion would cost 2T a game month to maintain. Can your country support that?
Matthew: You can see who is currently online by clicking statistics in your country and selecting the who is online tab.

Andy.

My field of expertise is military affairs, I can speak with some authority on the matter.

The Red Army had 4 complete armies in East Germany/ Poland tasked with invading through West Germany, driving through the Fulda gap, force a crossing of the Rhine, and rolling through to the Bay of Biscay in a week.

At it's peak the Red Army had 55,000 tanks of which 12,000 were considered class A, the remainder were Class B, C for reserve troops. 41,000 artillery of which 10,000 were field mobile artillery the remainder were towed tubes. 8,000 free flight rocket artillery including Scud and short range surface to surface missile launchers.

It also contained 4,300 helicopters and 12,000 air defense mobile units including mobile SAM and ZSU anti aircraft guns.

The Bilderberg Empire on LU has classified military information but I can share that we possess over 1 million helicopters and in excess of 40 million ammunition for those birds.


The problem could be looked at this way. Simplify the number of weapons systems, decrease the total number of weapons, and allow more flexibilty in defense which will increase the amount of fun in playing the game.

It's your game after all, I just enjoy playing it. Any changes you want to test I volunteer to try out before it goes server wide and I am sure John Galt could be counted on as well.

Thanks again for these contributions.
Please keep going and please check what we do to improve.

We have just made some changes.
We will create more balance in the war game, in the defense capabilities and we will listen to what you are saying.

We are interested in improving the war game, we think we have all the building blocks we need.

I am surprised by the comments on war levels.
please explain the problem with war levels on the Fearless Blue world.

War on FB should be possible, all countries 60 days and older, participate in the war game.

war protection remains an option but costs gold coins and we think we should raise the cost on FB.

For us, the issue of being able to defend a country is crucial.
players who are able to build a great defense will be less scared of war and will probably be willing to participate more in the war game.

all the issues mentioned here can be fixed. we need a lot of input from many players.
new players comments are welcome too.

War levels are still a problem on FB, just not as bad as the other worlds. On FB you still run into the same issue of C3s becoming impossible to conquer after winning enough wars. On the other worlds, war levels have completely shut down player to player interactions. Empires should never be secure without war protection boosters. Every player gets one secure mode country. That should be all they get. It is ridiculous to see massive empires hiding below war level 3.

The distinction between offensive and defensive weapons 100% needs to be eliminated. It is a relic of the old war engine and has no place in the new one. Everything should be able to attack and defend. It makes no sense that someone can attack my cruise missile ships with no return fire from the ships because they are considered offensive. That is bad gameplay. That should be the first step in any war overhaul. Once that is complete, then you should look at adjusting the numbers. Unit sizes should also be larger and attack sizes should be larger to reduce the micromanagement. Weapons should be more expensive, and ammo should be very cheap. This will reduce the number of units significantly. I would be willing to give up a large percentage of my Arsenal if I were compensated fairly with game money if it is required to maintain balance.

Like John said, WL's on FB's problem is still the game forcing us up a level every c3 we attack. We should be able to choose a level. It must be a simple fix for the GM's to implement

Many players are saying it.

Yes to choosing what War Level we fight at for a c3. If the concern is "raiding" make it so the c3s don't have the loot in them after the first war at that level. Just because I have beaten a c3 at war level 5 doesn't mean that I have mastered that level. It may have taken me multiple days and 6 times the cost that it should have while I figured it out. Maybe I just want to test other tactics to see what works. Why should I have to do that at the maximum level? Maybe I just want to expand my empire to a new continent. it just doesn't make sense to force us up a level every time we fight a war.

If anything else raiding c3's is fun and I'd say its great experience for empire building. Let players make their mistakes with them without some lock on their future empire prospects.

I've made mistakes building my FB empire and I'd love to correct it by taking some C3'S and starting again, but I cant be bothered with the effort to fight such high level c3's every time.

That's 1 example when these rules are a hinderance to building my empire.

The reason for changes is that many current players do not dare starting a PvP war as they know they can be wiped out very quickly.
They should be able to create a better defense and extract a high price from the attacker.

this was the situation in the past and we had many (large) wars.

Merging defense and offensive weapons:

The units are mixed.
A missile interceptor intercepts missiles. It does not destroy ships.

An anti ship missile is not capable to destroy land forces. Not in Simcountry and not in the real world.

Some of the weapons can be merged. The reason we kept them separated is price.
We want the defensive to cost less than the offensive forces.

Having units participate in the defense will improve the defense of all land targets, including small cities and towns.

The aim is to extract a higher price from the attacker. If the cost is high, the balance will change.

So the problem with war levels on FB is that you need to fight at higher levels.
what is in fact the reason to fight C3 wars?
why not fight PvP wars on FB? wasn't that the idea?

Raiding for resources?
We had a previous discussion here and the claim was that C3 wars are not for resources.

We can make the increase in difficulty between C3 wars smaller.
It is already much smaller up to C3 at war level 5 or 6.
If it is for fun, we can flatten the curve but why not clean up the assets when the war is over?

It seems like we are back to easy resources fighting trivial wars against C3 countries of level 3.

If it is to increase the size of your empire, we support it and made it quite easy to get an empire of 5 to 6 countries.
Larger empires require more power, larger wars.

I will look into making the difficulty increase of C3 wars more gradual.

We are concentrating on FB for now because it is the war world.
we will get to the other worlds later although current changes are in all worlds.

We can look at cases where a weapon can have both defensive and offensive functions.

Mainly, military units and the navy, should have both functions.
A missile cruiser should be able to defend itself.
I will check that this is the case.
I will check all military units to see they include defensive weapons.
The choice of weapons depends on the way you set up the unit.
If you set up the navy with attack weapons only, that will remain your choice.
Navies can include missiles and interceptors for their defense.

We intend to continue with (small) frequent changes

We will also improve the speed of cargo shuttles and reduce the cost of weapon storage on space stations.

There's been several reasons the players have asked for lower war level c3's.

Number 1 reason for me, is to manoeuvre around the planets easily. I'd like to be flexible with my countries. But these rules are counter productive. You want players to be less attached to their countries if you want them to risk pvp. So making c3's easy come easy go should help.

As an example I've got 3 slave countries I took 4 weeks ago, They're absolutely terrible countries and I'd like to just throw them away, but, because they where so hard to obtain I'm hanging onto them.

This isn't about raiding GM's. I'm not looking to exploit the game in anyway when I'm asking for these changes. I get the impression you's seem to think that that's why the players are asking for this.

But on that note I think you's should encourage raiding anyway, especially on FB. There's been so many prolific raiders over the years, love those guys. Fact is, people enjoy that sort of playstyle.

I ask for these changes cause I think it will help the game not out of selfish reasons.

Only exploit (if you can call it that) with allowing easy c3 war is the transfer of pop. That's the only "exploit" left I can think of that's holding this rule back from being changed.

Transferring 400K workers every month to gain free pop takes such effort and patience from the player. It's not a fast process. Why care.

Nobody's asking for c3 wars to be more difficult GM's. It's the opposite. It's clicks on a mouse at the end of the day, It's not fun to keep clicking over and over when it's just a routine c3

If you want defense to be cheaper than offense just give a bonus to defenders in combat. That way you can merge offensive and defensive weapons and still have defense cheaper. Having separate weapons for them is terrible. Putting defensive weapons in units is currently a waste due to small unit sizes, so no one uses it. Every defensive weapon placed in a unit weakens its attack ability.