W3C - More coming

Next upgrade will include a new boosters page that will function in the same way in the APP and on the desktop.

we will also continue to reduce the cost of weapons and ammunition to
help reduce the cost of war and the cost of maintenance fore the army.

The production of maintenance of weapons is lagging behind what is needed.
The number of corporations producing these products is increasing slowly and with it, the use of weapons of all types.

we expect shortages of maintenance products to continue and as a result we expect shortages of many types of weapons and ammunition to increase.

On the economic side

We see countries that are collapsing under a heavy debt.
Debt is not bad if needed to build the economy and then paid back.

In some cases however, debt is used to finance the army while there is no effort to build a money producing economy.

we think that debt limits should decrease to prevent worse.
we are looking at the current limits and may reduce them a bit.

Andy,

Thank you very much for the update on the GM progress. It is greatly appreciated and seems like we should we have some new features coming soon which is exciting.
Also I noticed that you were able to remove the minimum distances needed to engage War which I think will be very helpful so thank you very much.

The GM has been making considerable strides in the war game and I'd like to offer suggestion if I may. One thing I know that cost a lot of money for veterans and even new players just starting out is fortification costs. Fortifications monthly use large amounts of troops and resources.
If I may, I think the GM should look at possibly slightly reducing the troop numbers needed to fortifications in addition fortification seem to use a large amount of military base maintenance. I ran the numbers at varying qualities and I encourage you to do the same in the GM testing countries.
To have a successful test I would encourage you to have nothing but one of each base type and 150 fortifications. Buy military base maintenance units at 120 quality for several months and analyze the cost monthly and then do the same with 300 quality.

The difference in quality has no effect on one's military, however the difference in quality can result in billions of additional dollar spent monthly.
I've run tests and I've had countries with bases and forts costing over 10 billion a month.

Just something to think about, I know you guys are making great strides and trying to promote the war game and this could possibly be a small fix on your end that could results inconsiderable War cost reduction for the players.

Again thanks for your hard work!!!
Super

Thanks for your response.
I will look into it.
we are interested in reducing the cost of maintenance.

As to quality.
I know it is a problem.
The solution is to have the maintenance quality influence the quality of the fortification. Not short term.

For now, I would purchase the maintenance products at a low quality.
I will look into increasing the profitability of the corporations producing it and make sure they remain profitable at lower product quality.

Andy,

I ran some numbers and did some tests. I think a have an honest starting point for the GM to explore. It would help to lower costs for military's and wouldn't not hurt the economic markets.

Right now a single fortification needs 160 officers and 800 soldiers. Based on my math a single fort uses 20 base maintenance units a month(If this is an incorrect number please let me know so I can change the formula to give a proper answer).

My suggestion is cutting down troop count by 15% in bases and forts. In addition, look at reducing the consumption of military base maintenance units by 10% on fortifications only.

Based on the numbers I ran this wouldn't hurt the overall market because most planets still have a huge demand for military base maintenance, it would decrease in troops in forts wouldn't hurt the military, and in nations with 150 forts players could save a few billion a month which I think would be a huge help when players start to build their military.

I think these are reasonable places to start as forts will need huge amounts of troops to station weapons for defense and a small reduction in base maintenance would go a long way to reduce the long term costs of bases and forts.

Suggestions from the GM are appreciated, I'm just looking to help by offering what info I can.

For a Fort I would go with 1 officer and 10 men. They really have no defensive capability from what I can see so its just 1000 men waiting to die. So to get to game level 3 its just shy of 20000 men, salaries and supplies. I think they just need to keep the lights on for the garrison and maybe an undefended Fort shouldn't stop a division from trucking through and even capturing the fort. But the fort should give some defensive bonuses to the garrison at a billion dollars a pop.

Or maybe the fort itself should have some defensive capabilities, like built in artillery and missile launchers. Then the quality of the fort would mean something.

Honestly i believe the fort numbers should be reduced with numbers being reduced by atleast 50% on soldiers, with officers being 75%; only so many needed to manage areas and soldiers. Note that garrisons are different from forts, but again i come to a point:

Forts are specifically designed for holding weapons to utilize against opponents to prevent entry/further occupation. While cities, towns and corporations plus airports and space centers which are noted "civilian" (whatever i might be forgetting) might hold them, they were never spefically made for the wear and tear of warfare, simple to put. Razormcgoo has a point, but again more pertains to the quality issue of the fort as garrisons solve what the fort will hold, the key is how the quality of the fort will affect the weapons put into it, as high quality forts will have a number affect on the weapons and ammo inside of them, possibly like so being that upgrading could be higher then said regular units and have a basic multiplier that suggests a percentage such as:


while weapons may be basically determined by such equation:

(average ammo +average weapons quality)*.5 = fighting level

suggestion to forts:

note the variable here F = .0003(recommended)

fighting level*(average fort quality*F + 1) = garrison fighting level.


Simply a quality factor that affects forts whether they can be upgraded or not; as it would be a very good option for forts to have quality as serving a real purpose and strong point is war. Simply in action a garrsion fully upgraded on all towns and cities; the case would be just fighting level. In that of forts;

long story short, forts will have a percent increase of anywere from 3.6%(120 fort quality) to 9.9%(330 fort quality) simple to note that the number F can be reduced or increased for effectiveness; just note its range (ten thousansdth being highest). So to conclude; higher quality forts can result in a possibly of effectiveness increase. such as 9.9% increase on 120 fighting level, being 132; just about a tenth in fighting level increase.

Recommend overall this should be around .0003

Another suggestion is a more basic approach of simple adding the forts quality to the fighting level, such as

Fighting level + (average fort quality*.1) = garrison fighting level.

Though i note on this idea it less regards quality in the aspect of units and how better quality units may be affect by a better quality fort. As better units plus a better fort should be better calculated, opposed to slapping a good number of a fort on to any kind of weapon material IE: 330 quality fort means 33 points plus 120 fighting level would be 153 flat.

though while i will regard this is more for the maintenance units quality:

<!-Quote-!>Quote:

The solution is to have the maintenance quality influence the quality of the fortification. Not short term.<!-/Quote-!>

- Andy

While i suggest a different approach for fort quality and use, such as reducing the number of soldier/officers and also giving an equation to satisfy a quality needed since forts quality dont matter right now. Though the arguement is more about maintence in some aspect to regard that i figured it would be similar to missiles the army uses (or i atleast thought i did; need to run some test :S) that better quality product will result in less being used by army/population.

To note to Andy /Jonni, can this be confirmed or proved at all? high quality would mean (in terms of maintence usage) less monthly, which depending may balance out a cost more of buying cheap maintence? you end using and buying more cheap, buy pay more for supple you use less of and have to stock less often. There is other benefits ofcourse but this is just a basic.

What I was suggesting is that the fort itself have weapon capabilities appropriate for the staff levels. The fort could be equipped with defensive missiles, AA, light artillery and missile intercepters. The weapon quality would be the fort quality.

Or just have a skeleton staff where there is no garrison. A fort is either defended or it isn't. An undefended fort can be captured which is key. The biggest value of forts, as it now stands, is that it takes billions of dollars in ammo to destroy one and you have to destroy most of them to reduce your opponent's war situation index which is necessary to win a war. So a strategy could be to build a lot of forts and leave them with no garrison so the 1000 men is a necessary to make that more expensive to maintain. If an undefended fort could just be captured by a occupation unit that would lead to a more strategic PVP war and make that expense unnecessary.

The real problem with war in this game is the expense of weapons and ammo, particularly ammo. I'm paying 62K for a single round of light tank ammo. That is twice the average annual salary in my country. In a single action a small garrison will fire 223 million dollars of tank ammo alone. I'm paying over 60 million for a light tank when my soldiers are making 14500 a year. I think weapons corps should produce 5 times the weapons and ammo corps 20 to 50 times the ammo with corresponding price reductions. Let us actually build an army.

a fortification has 800 soldiers, 160 officers and uses 18 maintenance units a month and also other products.

we will reduce the numbers of soldiers and officers a bit and we will change the production process of these maintenance units to make more for a lower price each.

There are many fortifications and such updates can change the markets with many more free workers etc. we will be careful but want to reduce the cost of the military.

I understand the math presented here but you should realize that it is impossible to make very large changes at once.

we will however make more reductions in the cost of war and there are many parameters in that equation.

The defense of fortifications is dependent on the garrison. Fortifications block military units (the garrisons do).

Changing the way it is done will be a major development effort and will make a tiny difference.

better do other, more important things.

I see that biggest armies are being stored at CEO accounts to prevent huge maintenance and ammunition usage costs, which tells that these costs are too high to keep armies at countries and involve them into fighting. This could be changed easily to invite players to build large armies and engage in fights.

Fortifications are only targets to be destroyed, when wars are being fought by armies. I would encourage promoting army vs army fight rather than this fort thing.

Andy,

Thank you very much, I truly appreciate your open communication with us on these matters.
I think a reduction in soldiers regarding forts with the addition of tweaking the costs of goods will go a LONG way to helping to reduce costs. Also I have an Idea how to introduce Quality effects in the military which help would to promote huge armies and reduce military costs. Granted my idea is simplistic so bare with me.

How hard would it for the GM to create an code that averages the Quality of active military units in the country and average materials consumed then create an average factor that is in turn used to reduce player costs?

What I'm saying is lets say you have 10 fighter wings at 450Q and your Consumption Quality Index is 250. Adding them together then dividing by 10 would give you a number that can be turned into a percentage(450 + 250 = 700 --- 700 / 10 = 70).

You said the GM has base numbers needed for military units. I'm making up a number but lets say those 10 fighter wings use 1000 aircraft fuel a month. With that formula you can take 1000 base fuel and reduce the needed amount by 75%.

Essentially what your doing is promoting huge armies and high quality by transferring the saving in a monthly military costs. If players could purchase and house huge military and see there military costs reduced by anything from 0-70% a month it would dramatically reduce the cost of military forces and would easily allow players to store massive armies without crushing military debt.

Thanks for responding Andy

I do appreciate that making changes of this nature would destabilize the markets in all sectors for game decades. With that in mind I'd like to throw a little more math at you. It takes 6 tons of supplies to produce a single round of light tank ammo and 1250 tons of supplies to produce a light tank. You should easily be able to produce 3000 tanks a month and 10 million tank rounds. I expect those types of numbers are similar throughout the defence industry.

It's unreasonable that countries can have more forts than cities, towns, and counties combined. The maximum limit of 150 forts per country is too high. That many forts is fake defense.

...well, there was Albania during the cold war..

Hello it is me the Emir of Katara, we are proclaiming an Islamic state in Little Upsilon

Enver Hoxha famously built 750,000 bunkers across Albania, to protect its meager 3 million inhabitants from a hypothetic Soviet invasion.

Exactly. It was one of the odd exceptions where an Eastern Bloc nation sided with Mao over Khrushchev (who departed from Stalinism).

They are monumental curiosities.

Supersoldier,

It is too complex.
Many players might understand the complexity but do they want it?

Also, we should not create features that give several large empires and very smart presidents a huge advantage. It will put them miles in front of the others.

I do want to reduce the cost of war and I would like to get these armies back from the enterprise into the country.

We have reduced the cost several times recently and will do so again.

These are serious reductions and they both cut the cost of the army and increase profitability of countries.

razormcgoo

You are probably right.
they are quite lazy in these corporations.
but this is now 4 times better than in the past.
25% of the workers, more production and a lower cost per piece.

If we make these corporations produce 3.000.000 pieces a month, they will all bankrupt.
they will have to eat the ammo and the tanks and die.

Simcountry must make some compromises. If corporations would be more realistic, there would be 1000 workers on average and your countries will have 100.000 corporations. That is 400.000.000 per world.
Players cannot handle these numbers nor can any existing servers.