W3C - Game News - March 15

Army Units

We have introduced yet another round of increases in the size of some army units.
This is part of an effort, requested by players, to increase the size of army units so that the number of units can decline,

reducing the complexity of managing very large numbers of military units.
This is the third round of size increases. This time, many land units, all the air force units and the garrisons, all increased in size. The size increase is between 10 and 15%.

Defensive Weapons

The price of many defensive weapons is reduced (again). Also this is done on request of players who would like to see the cost of defending their countries reduced.
We agree on this issue and have reduced the cost of defensive materials several times in the past weeks.

Reductions must be small and corporations producing these weapons and ammunitions must be updated too to make sure they remain as profitable as before.

By now, the total of cumulating reductions may have reach 30% and more.

Thanks for the update.

I don't mean to be offensive, but these changes affect a few dozen players while you have hundreds of players trying to cope with the volatile market conditions that exist.

Any comment about that?

Jonni,

Thank you for the update. We really appreciate the effort you put into the game.

Everyone,

Also, in the same update, there has been a further reduction to the Birth Rates. This will slow population growth, and help players struggling with high unemployment.

johnV,

No word from the GM's about product dumping as of yet. At this point we're still just riding it out. We'll see if they have any comments in future.

Signed President of DanNation on LU

I also agree with Dan's statement here. It is my hope populations will stop growing, or at least slow down, and some input from the GM regarding the product dump would be much appreciated.

The product dump is getting to be large.

Jonnie,

Can the GM please look at raising the limits on which we can convert workers. Currently we are allowed to convert 100,000 a month and that is nothing when compared to the new standards of the game because the GM is increasing population. I would like to make the recommendation to the GM that you should increase that limit 200,000 or maybe even 250,000 because 100,000 is completely inadequate

Maybe even come up with standards for countries with over a hundred million population because a hundred thousand workers a month for a country of 20 million might be a lot but when you have countries that are 60, 100, 200 million now a hundred thousand is nothing and I really feel the GM needs to revamped this. Because I know myself and other players are suffering severe economic problem because we're unable to convert high-level workers it's a low or high level workers when needed

Jonni, Andy, SuperSoildierRCP,

SuperSoilder is right. The old limits are simply inadequate for large nations. 100,000 promotions/demotions per game month, can't keep up with demand and retirement rates, in countries with large populations.

Signed President of DanNation on LU

I concur with Super and Dan on this.

Andy or Jonni,

I would like to bring another issue to your attention. I know some players with larger empires see this issue so I ask you to please consider this. I for example turn off almost all auto features expect for monthly purchasing of products. However, when a country by "game" standards falls below a certain level the games auto features in previous additions seem to take over regardless of the players activity. For example I have large empires with high education levels. In some of them I have large unemployment either in the case of some nations having huge tech/manager unemployment or others with millions of LLW's. The games auto save feature compensates (Please check my LU account for more info) by building corps. In one case I have 10 million unemployed, but the nation has an 80% total employment rate. In several of my LU nations I have 50-70% of my unemployed(7-12 million people) are low level workers, but I have only a few hundred thousand medium or high level workers. This means out of the 15 or 16 million unemployed, 12 million are Low level workers. That doesn't mean my country is doing poorly I just have an over unemployment of Low level workers. However, the game only see's "unemployment" so as of today of today it created 20 plus corporations thought out my empire. I had only 150,000 high level workers, but the corporations created require far more then that. This only increases the medium or high level issue I have.

In addition, even though the settings are turned off I noticed that the game constantly changes my educational settings. I've noticed that when the game hits this "employment" level where it creates new corps it also changes the educational settings. I understand this was put into place to help players like Aries or an AFK player's, but an override should be put into place for places for players who actively log in. These issues I think are one big factor contributing to large empires showing messed up corporation and worker numbers. If the game is trying to "save" a nation that doesn't need saving, it causes huge problems for the player as they are trying to stop the game from fixing an issue that doesn't really exist.

SuperSoldierRCP, Jonni, Andy, GM's,

SuperSoldier raises a very important point. With only 100,000 promotions/demotions per month, that leaves large nations unable to meet their need for High and Medium level workers. This then causes high levels of unemployment, which triggers automation. However, the automation can not solve the problem, and just drives the country into deeper crisis. By building corporations that cannot be staffed.

Any nation with between 150-200million population, is at risk of entering this downward spiral. Large nations have a big effect on the game, and when they fail, the whole world can suffer economic fallout. This is an extreme risk, that needs an urgent solution, before large player empires enter bankruptcy because of it.

I've provided the maths on how I reached this numbers below:

The system promotes a maximum of 100,000 workers per month. Since the Medium level workers are between the ages of 21 and 65, assuming that the promoted/demoted workers were spread across all age groups, the average worker would have an average remaining working life of 22 years. 100,000 worker per month x12 months is 1,200,000 per year, x22 years for maximum of 26,400,000 combined medium and high level Workers. If a nation needs more than that, the workers will retire faster than they can be promoted, meaning the shortage would be permanent. Depending on demographics and corp types, this would mean that the maximum population size the promotion system can handle, is roughly 150-200million. Any more than that, and a nation's economy will begin to meltdown.

Signed President of DanNation on LU

already happening to large empires... mine all but collapsed, with some of the before mentioned issues as contributing factors...

For example in one country I have a need for 4 million low-level workers, four million medium level workers, and 3 million high-level workers, I have 5 million low-level workers unemployed but I only have 200,000 medium or high level workers unemployed meaning there's a huge deficit. But yet I have 2 million low-level managers, two million high-level managers, 7 million high-tech workers. The hundred thousand limit of how many people I can trade the professions of each month does not match what higher countries need especially since I have a country of 270 million. If I were to have any hope at balancing my Workforce this number has to be increased honestly anyting over a hundred million population today we need to see 250,000 people that can change their profession per game month and I really hope the GM takes that into consideration

Andy, Jonni, GMs, SuperSoldierRCP, Khome,

I fear that every day the promotion/demotion cap issue goes unresolved, we risk more nations falling into such disrepair that they can not be saved.

I agree with SuperSoldierRCP. Raising the cap on automatic promotions, and manual demotions, to 250,000 workers per month, would largely solve this issue. Enabling large population countries to get the Medium and High Level Workers that they require.

I ask the GM's to please consider putting this in an urgent update, so that players can begin to rebuild their nations, and the world economy can stabilise.

Signed President of DanNation on LU

Why is everyone upset about large populations? Just build more corporations. I have maintained 94%+ employment this entire time and am making record profits now with the larger pops.

John Galt,

The crisis isn't for people that have 100-150 million population, it's the 150-300 million population countries that are melting down. Although the limit of 100,000 worker promotions/demotions can cause some issues for countries with +100 million population. I currently have 130 million population, and while I can still maintain low unemployment, the 100,000 promotion/demotion limit does limit my economic flexibility, and make it harder to adapt to changes than when I had a smaller population.

Signed President of DanNation on LU

John,

Check Melichor on LU, Look at my numbers for unemployed compared to the needed for 100% hiring.

I have almost 4 million LLW, 3 million LLM, 2 million MLM, and 6M high tech engs.

I only have 200,000 mid level workers and 200,000 high level workers and I need 3.7 million and 3.4 million. I'm short millions of workers at the lower levels and the 100,000 limit doesn't allow me to change they're professions fast enough. To top it all off once I hit 80% even if I don't have the workers the game auto-builds corps creating a snowballing effect.

That's the issues that is happening. The 100,000 limit for smaller nations or mid-ish nations is fine, but once you hit 100-150 million nations it really makes it hard to make worker changes. Anything over 150 million is almost impossible. Right now I need to convert 7,141,238 workers to fill the open positions in both my mid and high level workers ALONE. On current restrictions only changing 100,000 a month it would take me 72 game months or 12 REAL days if I converted the max each month and didn't miss a single month over the next 2 weeks. Lets not forget any other changes that might need to be made.

This is the issue we are facing and why we are desperately asking the GM to make this necessarily and immediate change.

This was discussed in another post where the GM responded by saying that they were adjusting the need for HLW's in corps so that a player would not have to convert. I'm amazed that the engineers seem to find the most difficult solutions. Wouldn't it be better to make the conversion number a percentage of workers.
Super, something you may want to try in one of your countries, lower the total ed priority below a 100. I did this a while ago, it generates more workers but I don't remember how they were distributed.

In case you haven't noticed Birth Rates decreased again the other day.
The number of school children has decreased and I actually have too many schools. Let's see what ripple effect this change has.

John,

I've tried that but the issue that I have with that is that because I can't get the workers quickly enough unemployment hits 20%. Which makes the game think that my country is in danger of failing and auto parameters take over and it starts building additional corporations as it's done in several of my slaves and it even changes the educational priorities that I have.

So I'm in this constant loop where I can't demote enough workers every month in order to make a difference, the game is auto building corporation for me even though I don't need them, and while I know the game is trying to help with the best of intentions it's changing educational settings to parameters I don't need.

also I have done that where I dropped the educational numbers below a hundred however it seems to prefer low-level workers more than medium and high and if I have no medium or high level workers adding millions of low-level worker seems counterproductive to balancing the economy

JohnV, SupersoldierRCP,

Lowering education index causes fewer professionals to be created each month, instead causing them to become Low Level Workers. It's helpful if your shortage is of Low Level Workers. However, the countries in question, have a surplus of Low level Workers, but a shortage of Medium and High Level Workers, so it doesn't help at all.

Yes the birth rates have been reduced, and long term it will help a bit. However, it will take real life months for those lower births to filter all the way through the 15-65 working age demographic, so if that is the only solution, the player base is in for a long hard ride.

On the idea of reducing the number of Medium and High Level Workers needed by Corporations. That could work, however, for the shortages to be truly resolved, we would likely need to see reductions of 33%-50%, for both Medium and High Level worker demand. I don't think the the GM intends to reduce worker requirements that drastically.

I maintain that increasing the rate at which Low Level Workers are promoted to Medium Level Workers, and Medium Level Workers are promoted to High Level Workers. Is the most effective permanent fix. That would give economies the workforce flexibility they desperately need.

Signed President of DanNation on LU

The GM is not doing anything on the market.

Players play with the market, it is part of the game and they always did.
Manipulating the market, if you can, is not a loophole nor an error.

In the past, players tried to find out who was doing it and retaliated economically and sometimes militarily.
The gamemaster was not involved then and not now.

You can also very easily counter this by purchasing the products, alone or as a group and balance the market. then you can sell gradually when the market stabilizes and the price is higher and also make a profit in the process.

This is easy to do and will resolve the problem.

A guarantee for profitability, in every product, always cannot be given.

There are frequent imbalances on the employment market and they all can be resolved if you do the right thing.

High population numbers used to be the greatest asset because you could then build more corporations and become more profitable.

we now see players who complain about it.

Players buy population for 6 gold coins per million because they want to grow their economies. now a population of 120 M is considered a problem?

300 M is better than 120 M believe me.

If you have too many professionals, just reduce the education priorities for these groups and the situation will immediately start to change. numbers will decline.

Each game month, up to 270.000 LLWs are automatically converted into MLWs (170.000) and HLWs (100.000).
It happens if there are shortages in these groups and if there are enough LLWs. This is up to 1.5 millions in 24 hours.

This is automatic. you do not need to do anything.

If you have shortages of all workers, and too many professionals, change education priorities but you can also manually convert up to 600.000 professionals into workers in a single day.

no need in fact, as a reduction in education priorities will do it too, only slower. Try setting them to zero for some time.

The structural imbalance, and shortages of MLWs and HLWs is already corrected in several steps and more can be done but, it is already much improved.

There will be another update in the coming week, increasing the employment of LLWs and reducing the employment of MLWs and HLWS.

It will be in the tens of thousands but depending on the number and types of your corporations, it could be more.

"we now see players who complain about it"

If you listened, you would understand why. For our already overpopulated countries, we are not allowed to build more corps because of "soft caps". We cannot count on enterprise corps to be available.

Also, for those of us with more than 15 countries in an empire, any state corp we build is destroyed by "rebellions" by default. Clearly, a move to discourage larger empires.

The rate of the population growth was hard financially, trying to build schools and hospitals fast enough to keep up, but now that its stabilized my countries are far more profitable than before. It took some work to build up the education system and build enough corps to maintain employment but once I figured out what was needed its worked great.

I for one would welcome more growth just at a pace like it is now. My countries are 130,000,000 population and growing around 40-60,000 a game month.

Still was bad news for those with larger empires. Add to it, we have a cap on how many of our own enterprise controlled corps we can have in our own countries, max of 20. With the population explosion, it would be reasonable to raise that limit.