W3C - Game News Sept. 7, 2017

1. Auto reactivation

An auto reactivation function for weapons is added to Simcountry. The feature can be set on or off. Once on, it will reactivate 10% of all weapons of each type once in a game month.
If not turned off, everything will be reactivated within 10 game months.

The feature is done but NOT included today. It will be added tomorrow.

2. Declining Costs

The cost of healthcare, education, transportation and government have declined today. The cost of government started declining in the past days and will continue at a slow pace in the coming days.

3. Using Weapons from a Military Base

More weapons can now be used from military bases.

4. Maximum number of military bases

The maximum number of military bases and fortifications is now set as follows:
Max 150 Fortifications.
Max 80 military bases and airports of each type.

Countries with larger numbers of any type of these bases, will see a decline in the coming weeks at a slow pace. If a fortification or a military base is removed, the country will be financially compensated. Max numbers may decline further in the future.

5. Corporations Contracts for military bases and fortifications

Corporations cannot sell military fixed assets to countries. The possibility to do so, allowed countries in the past, to have an arbitrary number of such items, surpassing any game max numbers. The possibility to do so is no more and numbers will not be able to increase beyond game settings.

6. Corporations buying their own shares

This function (error correction) was completed and announced before but did not make it into the previous upgrade. It is now added to Simcountry.

7. Countries Trading with their own Corporations

When countries trade weapons with their own corporations, they were able to only purchase active weapons from the country.
From now on, they can purchase weapons from the reserves and when the reserves are insufficient, they can purchase from the activated weapons.

The function is used as before but the way it works is improved.

8. Date Problem Fixed

There was a problem with the date, sometimes reaching the last day of the month and getting stuck for an hour or more. The problem is now resolved.

9. Declining Cost of Weapons

The base price of some weapons and ammunition keep declining. This happened several times before and will continue.

Auto Reactivation installed.

I like the auto-reactivation of weapons feature, separate from the space transfer debate. Very nice addition in its own right. Any chance we can have a similar system for setting a war hospital target? The war hospitals currently are very unwieldy and are am underused feature as a result, being inconvenient to log in every game month to get as many as you might need for a conflict and then having to repeat the process to draw down the number of war hospitals.


To be fair, I have been hedging my account for some time for the trend of declining costs of weapons and ammo by stocking more cash in my account, as you recently encountered when you dropped the cash cap in countries. I will be just fine. That said, I am concerned about this trend because a decrease of costs leads to wars involving more and more numbers of weapons. This runs counter to the goal of cutting down the excessive clicking in wars. Unit sizes have stayed stable or have been lowered in the same span. I tried to address this problem with a suggestion, "unit simplicity". found here"

https://www.simcountry.com/discus/messages/8/25577.html?1471807084

In any case, with more an more weapons and the possibility of more pvp wars, a solution to the sheer numbers of weapons involved in conflicts adding to the clicking in wars needs to be found. My war with Whiteboy went on for 10 hours of constant clicking, and mostly was units destroying other units. That war could have went even longer, as neither one of us were seriously challenged with a shortage of weapons or ammo after that time. What can be done to prevent a declining cost of weapons and ammo leading to an increase in war clicking?

I think that war hospitals and the rehabilitation clinics were two steps too far.
We might wind the feature down. It is too complex.

The number of targets is declining and will decline more.

Military unit sizes are inching up for some time already and will keep doing so.

all in all, lots of clicking in wars, but a smaller number than we have now, and with a smaller number of targets on the map, faster processing of the attacks.

Also, too many parameters changing at the same time.
we will be careful and make small steps.

No changes in the coming week.
We are upgrading the software on all our servers.
will try to minimize trouble but worlds are moving back and forth between servers to allow a clean reinstall of the software.

Please dont wind down war hospitals or rehabilitation clinics.

I think it adds a great element to the game. War hospitals show there is an after effect to war and they really add a deeper dynamic of game play. Rehabilitation clinics have a similar effect. I think the real issue isn't that they are to complex, but they seem to really be hidden from players and the numbers are set to low. I have told many new players where to find it and they get lost. In addition, the fact of having to change them regularly causes long term problems and only being able to add 10 at a time really causes issues.

Andy,
If I may make a suggestion. What about just adding an auto feature that allows hospitals to be changed automatically for the player? Lets say that the game changes hospitals to war hospitals based on the number thats needed each month? Also,to make sure that it doesn't collapse a players healthcare system, it only converts hospitals that keep the index at a minimum of 100. In addition, Functions can even be put into place that tell a player, " You are short hospitals to become war hospitals, please change education standards to allow for more professionals and build more hospitals or seek disaster aid from other nations.".
If that idea isn't feasible how about just increasing the amount we can change per month? Converting 10 hospitals is just WAY to low. Why not changing it to allow us to convert a max of 10% of our hospitals monthly to war or rehabilitation clinics? You use a similar feature already when closing roads, schools, ect. If you allowed something like this, nations could change their hospitals much faster and this would even encourage higher index's long term.

I think in the future rehabilitation could have great uses in natural disasters and war hospitals could be expanded and I for one would love to see this feature expended.
I would happily offer thoughts if it meant seeing the game grow.

Super

I think just setting a target for war hospitals would make me happy right now. A larger amount per month would be nice too, and I am all for. A % of total hospitals would be nice, since this would scale better with the need of larger countries needing a larger number of converted hospitals/month. 10% may be high, but even 2% per month would be more hospitals than it is possible for such countries today. Perhaps to accommodate countries both large and small, the greater of either 10 hospitals or 2% per game month can be so converted and, again, you simply set a target number of war hospitals you wish to have.

My recollection is that unit sizes has decreased while weapon costs had decreased. Again, a recent war felt like I was trying to conclude a war the scale of WW2 one squad at a time. From memory:

Interceptor/helicopter units went from 130 weapons to 125
Air Force Units went from 450 to 400

Map and game performance also benefits from a trend towards larger unit sizes. Honestly, I could see a slow computer or connection simply disqualifying from, at least, half the PvP wars I have been involved in. Once, I have seen it happen. No idea how anyone would ever be effective on mobile devices. I would feel sorry for such folks and would not expect much from them.

What are the chances that we will ever be able to destroy the last military bases/airports in our mains? Most people keep mains as an economic entity. It makes no sense to have to maintain military bases/airports when there won't ever be a time when they are used.

I agree with Aries.

Unit sizes have decreased greatly which is a positive. However, even still in C3 wars that can leave 10's or 100's of thousands injured. Then it takes a massive time frame to convert hospitals, add on that if attacked your have less time to prepare making the end of the war even more stressful.

I really like what Aries said, I think the GM should keep a manual feature to allow us to convert as we see fit(also increase it from the 10 a month its currently at), but also I think that during war "Anytime the country is at war, C3 or PVP" the game the next month auto converts 5% of the total amount of hospitals into war hospitals. From there it should rest on the player to close them down.
5% might seem like a lot but when you figure that a country of 50M needs a minimum of 425 hospitals to gain a 100 health index that means only 21 hospitals are converted and that greatly helps the war effort. Also this doubles as an effect for war players to keep higher healthcare index's as a supporting factor in case of war.

A feature like this would help to protect new and older players alike well still offering the manual customization we all love!

Andy, what are your thoughts on this suggestion?

Did you misspeak? How is decreased unit sizes a positive? That certainly is not my position.

I would like to offer my 2 cent and say that I to like the concept of war hospitals. They ad a nice and simple touch of realism. It would be nice of we could convert some more at once.

ok, I figured out why I don't like this reactivation thing. Its not a huge deal, but its big enough to piss you off a little. Defensive weapons. OK, why is it that you can only reactivate based on what isn't deployed? For example, in one country I have about 1500 or so interceptors active total. I add 500 more, and they show up inactive. Yet, on my next activation, I can only activate 10% of what I have outside of constructed units. So instead of 10% 2000, I can only activate 10% of 500. Weapons are active regardless of unit placement or construction, so why are we limited?

Also, if you miss a month of activation and your supply units carry out their jobs, the 10% is even lower than it was at first. Nothing seems right with this line of thought.

You make a really good point Heisenberg. Making reactivation a percentage of the total country weapons makes more sense. I have to admit, I have not actively played this game for months, and have not tested the speed of reactivation to see how it works in practice. The old system of manual reactivation was completely unworkable, and I avoided it. It would be nice to get more data on speed of reactivation to see if it is right and makes sense, but I think you are on to something here in making it related to TOTAL country weapons, not just the ones that are inactive.

I mean, we want players to keep defenses in their countries now and move from FAKE defenses. Let us call it what it is. The GM called highly lucrative wars against a hapless computer "fake" and I did not have a problem with it. Lets call game protections, other than players providing for their own military defense,what they are. Fake!

It should be ten percent of whatever weapons system you have. 2000 Int's, 200 reactivation. 5000 Heli's, 500 reactivation. I get why all the changes have been made, and I support most of them. This is just simple math, because weapons in units are active weapons and should be counted as such. Anything else is, as Aries stated, fake.

Why limit the amount we can activate at all? So it costs us more money to keep them active, we'll deal with it. The forced deactivation makes no sense, no matter how it's explained.

Khome, you have a good point too. As I mentioned in the other thread, the GM has misidentified what a difficult war is, as I suspect inexperienced war players might also. It is not when 20 countries declare war on your 1 country. It is when 5,10, or more of your countries are forced into a PvP war at once.

As I have also mentioned a few times, I think experienced players will be just fine. Andy, there is nothing that you have changed or suggested changing that will keep experienced war players up at night. I WILL BE FINE. Why? I understand how the changes will affect wars, because I have fought them. I already understand what the workarounds will be. Hey Andy, will these imagined "new" war players? I don't think so.

I will be ready, but, Andy, new war players who want to experience building an empire and participating in the possibility of politics and PvP wars, like the main draws of this game, are in for quite a shock when we add another obstacle that they can't deal with, but the vets can. Is this a change that is working as intended?

As I said before, the ease of speedy space transfers is not an offensive tool, it is a defensive one. That's right. Not only do you not know what a difficult war looks like (Maybe you should try fighting one one time. I will hook you up), you don't know how your new game changes will affect wars. Attackers have all the time in the world to choose where they want to fight, and when. Veterans understand this.

Hey Andy, the last time I relocated to another world to attack someone, someone no one will identify as a slouch, you know how long I prepared an attack before I pulled the trigger? It was over 3 weeks, because, even if I wanted to attack earlier, I had to wait for the 21 days fearless blue war protection to wear off again (bet you guys were not aware of that one). You know when the defender was aware he was in danger and needed to put up a defense? It was after I declared war.

That's right. I setup for him over 3 weeks in the same region, he didn't know there was a problem before he was declared war on. He didn't know there was a problem a minute before then, and why would he? Think the new reactivation time would mean anything to an attacker to prepare an attack?. NO, IT WONT. Think it will be just another obstacle for a defender to have an opportunity to protect a country that they might have put a lot of time into? YEP!

Even the best of veterans can get beaten eventually, like a boxer they can get this air of arrogance that they are unbeatable because of how many wars they have fought and not lost, like a boxer - eventually they can fight that one fight that they will lose because they make assumptions that their opponent doesn't have the skills/knowledge or ability to match theirs, Mike Tyson did this and look what happened to him, he got beat.....

This is my point exactly, about the space transfers. This is a "punitive" measure against those looking to defend themselves. The changes of auto deactivation only harm those looking to defend, and is a gift to those looking to start something; further enabling those who have nothing to loose I might add. Those who just want to cause mass disruption without considering the ramifications of their actions. It's an imbalance, in my view... I really hope this is reconsidered..

'The changes of auto deactivation only harm those looking to defend, and is a gift to those looking to start something; further enabling those who have nothing to loose I might add.'

Maybe this is what is needed to spark life back into this game. Wonder if anyone every thought about that?
What if 10 - 100 players just wanted to wreak havoc, with consequence (nothing goes unpunished) but to truly cause it, they have to become a premium member (certain perks / armaments).
Remember, a game is a business. If W3C can increase their premium members, but also wreak a bit of havoc in the game which causes players, both small and large to think twice about every action, what's the big deal? Isn't that how the real world works?

Look at the Korea situation. Not abiding by any international laws, but progressing with it's nuclear program while being behind the world powers of China and Russia. Just think if that was a new player building nukes, but covered behind Aries, and would aim at Khome (this wouldn't happen as they're in the same fed), lets say SuperSoldier. This would bring an unprecedented scale of war, both federation base, but maybe also planet based. It would also bring about a lot of diplomatic treaties / conversations / meetings (which is what people keep on hampering on about). Wooo, let's talk about what you'll give me, in exchange for me not attacking you. Way to make yourself feel great :/

Anyway, Isn't this exactly what we want in the game?

I personally say, keep on bringing changes that will wreak havoc among all (military wise). It's about time this game had a affect on large players.

My main point about lack of consequences for a reckless attacker, is that some are not all in with this game. Basically, anyone who has some idea on how this works, can step in with an account, build up rather quickly and just cause unnecessary havoc. And what I mean by unnecessary, is that after ruining someones hard work, they can just cut out of the game laughing all the way because it was so easy to just take advantage of the reduced defensive capabilities. This change gives a huge lead for an aggressive player because they don't have to worry about long term costs to maintain an offensive army like a defending army.

Some of us are not at all interested in the war aspect of the game; some just set up defensive measures just in case. I know some like the war part, FB was supposed to be the planet for those who want to basically create a "proving ground" to have fun warring. The other four planets are, in my view, intended to be reflective of real life events.

We cited North Korea; yes they are building up a nuclear arsenal. But they also want to live to see tomorrow. Add too that, North Korea's military build up is decimating their already underdeveloped and isolated economy. So there is dialog and drama in place because the nukes are just bargaining chips. They know better than to use them. But in the meantime, their economy is tipping further into collapse and will eventually cripple their already antiquated military. In Simcountry terms, their weapons are barely 120Q whereas the US, South Korea and Japan have 600Q mobile units all ready to go, and that only happened after years of development, research and economic growth.

This new change in SC with deactivating weapons, however, gave "North Korea" an unfair and unrealistic advantage. Waging war should cost a whole lot more than setting up a good defense and strategy. The US is one of the most populated nations, it has territories all over the western hemisphere and bases in just about every allied nation. If any location were attacked, the US would be able to respond in a matter of days, if not, minutes.

Invading Iraq? Well, we are still paying for that bill. And we went in with "good intentions". It was a huge expense, took a very long time to prepare and quite frankly, Iraq was the preferred target because we already had bases and military assets in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and pretty much the entire region around Iraq. It takes that long to establish an offensive military presence.

The US defense budget is expensive; but waging a war on one country (Iraq) which is barely the size of one US state with no military to speak of.. 14 years later we are still feeling the pain.

Reactivation takes all weapons into account.
Activated and not activated.
If you have 1500 active and 500 deactivated, the next reactivation should max at 200.

The reserve army is intended to reduce cost. The disadvantage is the 10% activation each game month. If you don't like the 10%, keep all your weapons active. Also make sure you have the soldiers and officers or your army will be partially deactivated.

There is a lot here about auto deactivation.
We have added auto activation and there is no need to login 6 times a day to reactivate.

The war hospitals and special schools are adding to the game but are complex. We want to make life easier for those who do not know all the corners of the game.
I would like to see these features fade but I will leave them as is for now.

We are now focusing on the war game.

In the far past, we had wars with sometimes hundreds of thousands of weapons lost.
Then we tried to reduce the numbers and the cost, and made military units, then decreased their size. (This was also very long time ago).

We are now reducing the number of items on the maps. Cities, bases, fortifications etc. But defenses should not and will not diminish. We need very strong defenses.

This is why units did increase recently by small numbers (to prevent large shortages of weapons and ammo). They will grow a little more and some weapons that were hardly usable, are becoming stronger.

Maybe even smaller numbers of fortifications but ones that are harder to destroy and ones that have larger defenses.

We will continue with the plan. We are now getting into more complex territory and we have been disturbed by the need to upgrade our systems (DONE!).

That isn't even remotely the point. Right now, in one country, I have 3000 active interceptors. 2700 of them are in units, leaving 300 in the box. I cannot activate 300 interceptors, because you don't count the 2700 active, already in units. As a result, I can only activate 30 instead of three hundred.

So. Reactivation does NOT take all weapons into account, and it is pretty clear that is a fact.

..does not answer the question why weapons are deactivated when transporting from shuttle bays or transferred by other means.. I'll say it, it seems like the question is being"dodged".

Heisenberg,

This is true. We do not take the weapons in units into account.

I will look into it when we do the units counting. It is quite complex.

The deactivation question after transports was discussed in many details here several weeks ago with many arguments for and against.
as a result, we have also implemented the auto reactivation that allows you to start the process and wait for everything to be reactivated.

You can achieve 100% reactivation in 10 game months while after a war declaration, it takes 12 months for the war to start.

In the mean time, your country has to have the soldiers and officers, 10% by 10% needed for the larger army with the danger that there are not enough of them and reactivation fails.

Previously, you got everything activated and could run a war while the number of soldiers and officers that were needed was never counted.

I don't have a care in the world about transported weapons being deactivated. I mean, I think it is pointless, but others in the game disagreed so we have it. I'm cool with it. I also understand it is very complex.

However, ten percent means ten percent. Weapons in a unit are active weapons. They should be included in the count. Not for nothing, we are also paying for it in our budgets. We activate and place weapons, it costs us. I hope we can come to a general agreement about this, I think that would be helpful.

Some suggestions -I will also add to Suggestions section of Forum

War protection on other worlds apart from the War World (FB) reduce the cost for war protection to say 1 gold coin for every six game months or perhaps a year.

Allow Enterprises to buy more than 6 corporations in any given country -max it to say 20 -should spur economic growth