Poll Started (War Level Choice)

Check it out guys, pls do vote.

I voted yes. We should be able to fight a C3 war at level 3. We would not get any award. They could strip the country of everything as far as I would be concerned. Sometimes you want the C3 for workers, like Gaz said, or to move to a new part of the world or to stage wars.

I agree that the war level system has room for improvement. The fact that you're forced up IMMEDIATELY after each level leaves little room for practice, for mistakes (mistakes causing you not to take the enemy country make it extremely difficult to finance another try when you're new and don't have many resources), or for what Zen outlined. It also puts a soft cap on the amount of war activity players will attempt.

Additionally, the starting weapons aren't enough IMO for new players to be able to take a c3. Quantity is fine, but the quality of the gear is pretty poor. I consider myself fairly experienced as a war player, and when I came back and tried to take a c3, I immediately failed. I had to sell off my starting weapons and get weapons with decent quality in order to succeed. There was zero change in my tactics - just change in the weapon quality.

This game is a war game. There are tons of elements of eco, commodity trading, diplomacy, etc which are great, and entertaining. However, about 1/2 the products in the game are military products or support military products. As such, I think the game could benefit from more use of those products (IE more fighting, even against c3s), as this is what it appears to have been designed for.

Finally, the fact that levels can't be decreased over time or in any way is a little off in my opinion as well. Just because you're good at war shouldn't mean you need to fight a level 20 c3 each time you fight. I get that there was an attempt made to capture player skill level with war levels, but I think there are a few side effects.

Perhaps instead, you could have more of a "cooldown" period. You can take 1 c3 every 2 weeks at level 3, and then any subsequent ones you attack before your cooldown period ends have to be fought at your war level.

This is all my opinion - and subjective, but overall, I agree with Gaz and Zen that there is room to continue to improve the war level system.

I agree at least increase the number of wars waged perhaps (20) before being required to move up to level 4. At level 4 perhaps (15). But allow players to move up after (3) at each level if they choose.

Rob

The vote passed, 5/0. I'd hoped for a few more votes but at least nobody disagreed which hopefully the GM's consider

I also agree with and I have voted.

I think war levels should just be completely removed. They are the number 1 reason this game is dead in my opinion.

I'm a new player and if war levels are removed I'll miss out on the chance to earn hundreds of gold coins (and points?). War levels are an incentive for new players not a burden.

You're the first person I've heard who enjoys them, Zakalwe. Almost no one goes up in war level.

There are currently a TOTAL of 7 players on WG, for example, who have made it to war level 3 (where it's even possible to fight other players), and TWO who have ever taken a country from another player.

Why don't players want to move up the war levels and get their coins? Is it not worth it?

War levels are built into the game now, getting rid of them completely is a big leap. I agree with you though John. I'd like to see them gone but realistically that's not gonna happen. My proposal I think is a good compromise.

E_O highlights a good point. Even for the countries that want to move to WL3 and actually fight, there are scarce options for combat. And it takes time and money to get there. For WG specifically, I think your slaves should be fair game after the first month, regardless of war level.

On WG it would make sense to offer the option of secured mode to the Empire Leader, but have the slaves vulnerable after month one. (Real time month) It would allow Empires to wage war, while still having the high asset security that an optional world offers. It would incentivize war more often because, hey, you can’t get wiped. It also adds a level of risk to having a large Empire and may promote people into diplomacy/contact with their neighbors.

I think the war levels should stay, but have the level requirement lowered or eliminated. Secured mode can still exist without a war level and at war level 2 you should have a rough idea of the mechanics and not have to spend a few Trillion to move up to WL3.

Right now, there isn’t much incentive to move up in war level and it’s a hassle. As someone who is in WL2, I would like to be able to wage war without fighting another C3. Especially considering the difficulty I had at WL2, the lack of a guide makes it a very expensive game of trial and error. But even if I reached WL3 and removed secured mode, you’re basically limited to fighting 7 people. And in my case, three of them are in my Federation. If secured mode was only limited to slaves, taking my country out of secured mode at least gives me the option of attacking another Empire’s slave countries. It also gives new players an ability to experience, and initiate, pvp without risking everything in a single war.

For the war world obviously this just isn’t required as everyone is fair game barring a purchase of secured mode. But the optional world should actually be “optional� and not “nearly nonexistent�.

Not sure what is the best way to change it up, but I agree it needs to be changed.

Also I think there's less war due to the fact it costs so much to maintain a standing army. My measly defence is burning through huge amounts of assets/cash. It's discouraging me from even playing the war game.

Then there's the offence capability. What I have at the moment is pitiful but its costing me a fortune to maintain. I'd need 10x what I have to even think about attacking someone. Even If I had max pop countries i'd struggle to maintain a country that has any offensive staying power. Is there anyone maintaining a large standing offensive army?

There's no incentive to have a standing army if it's burning up my cash, so what's the appeal to war when I need to set the whole country up to fight first.

@Gaz

Where have you set down roots? I assumed you were on FB.

I think that's where weapon deactivation would come in. You'd purchase a lot of equipment, deactivate them and then over the course of a few days reactivate whenever the drums of war start beating. A few of my Federation members have large standing Armies and deactivation is a major component to keeping them under budget. I also believe you can place units in space centers to lower their maintenance(?), but take that with a grain of salt because I've never tried it firsthand.

Wars against players take lots of money and preparation in general. I'd ask Amaile (Most benevolent ruler of Beijing on WG) for some tips. He has a MASSIVE standing army and he just recently fought a war against a player with said army. Union States King may also have some advice in that area, as they also maintain a large military and fought a war beyond their borders.

I certainly haven't mastered the econ game yet (or really even come close) but I know it's possible to maintain very large offensive forces.

I agree Gaz. I do not keep almost any offensive weapons active. I keep enough to take one or two c3-caliber countries, but transfer them in when needed. It's simply not worth it otherwise.

I think the increased military costs compared to when we played last create two new challenges:

1. As you noted, it's harder to keep much of a standing army. As such, it's MUCH EASIER for someone to temporarily inflate their army, win a war, and then reduce their army again. Players no longer have nearly the defense they once could afford, and are thus more vulnerable. Despite offensive weapons being less efficient, the fact that a competent defense is not really affordable just lowers the "I can be conquered" bar if you're fighting against anyone who knows what they're doing.

2. Learning war is too costly for all but the richest players. New players may fight a war or two, but it's extremely rare for anyone to fight more than that. How can you learn if you never actually play the war game? The "War > Attack > List Other Wars" tab used to normally have a scroll bar on all worlds. Players would regularly fight (if only c3s). Now on some worlds, there are zero active wars at times.

@Matthew - I actually think it's better to store weapons in your CEO. Space centers deactivate the weapons, and deactivated weapons still have costs. When it's war time, sell them from your CEO to your empire.

Maintaining an actual defense in the country and in garrisons is not feasible at any scale really. A minimum defense would guard all 150 forts, the capital, all the cities, and the bases with at least tiny garrisons. This is not a strong defense at all and would not hold for long. I haven't tested the cost, but I would guess this would be 500B a game month pretty easily. A true defense of a country with 50M population would easily quadruple that. The last time I mounted a full defense of a country (4 or 5 years ago), I ran a deficit of almost 2T a game month. The defense was not strong but was above average. This is why there are no large player v player wars. Neither side can afford it. This does not even get into the cost and time it takes to move weapons into place in a country and get them reactivated for war...

There are two more elements on the defense you do not mention:

Air defense wings will counter attacks anywhere in the country.
Many such wings will enhance your defense.

Auto response settings will cause immediate attacks following each attack on your country and will inflict high damage.

Being able to cause very high damage is an effective way to prevent an attack.

Addition risk when attacked:

navies are currently too powerful and can create immense damage.

as to war levels, they are largely irrelevant on Fearless Blue and this is where the wars are.
we have also made war levels 4,5 and 6 only slightly more difficult than war level 3.

I would like to have the view of players on:

1. What sense does it make to fight many wars at war level 3. why would you want to do so?
Workers? no, the population is very small. There was a previous discussion and players said that the argument is not financial benefit. so what is it?

2.what is currently the problem with war levels on FB.

Apologies for the long response here - but you asked for feedback, so here's some of mine:

For those wanting a summary: in short, my biggest problems with war levels are that they make it virtually impossible to move around/maneuver to different parts of any world more than once or twice ever and they remove much of the incentive of having a military at all, promoting instead isolated, single-player play on worlds besides FB.

You can only really take c3s once in a cost-effective way (up to as you said, to maybe war level 6), and then you're kinda done FOREVER with your account from being able to move around easily. Example: The core of my empire is over 10,000km from Gaz. Optimal fighting range is under 3500km (which is fighter range) if not closer. Heck, even land based cruise range is 5,000km. Being that Gaz is now War Level 11, he has to fight a war level 12 c3 first to even really get range on me. Shooting from that distance with conventional missiles doesn't make sense against any sort of federated air defense, and I'll touch on why navies aren't a good option in a second. Conversely, I'm war level 3. I can hop across taking a couple of c3s to move next to him MUCH more easily and cheaply than he can on me.

As such, moving up in war levels makes you less able to fight effectively against players (I will never do so unless necessary). In large, past wars, I'd take 10+ c3s (outside of fighting my actual enemy) just to be able to move into position to fight, to support allies, etc. Ally on the other side of the world under attack? Good luck to them now, because you're not coming to help. There are so few people to fight anyways, and now you're limited greatly by location. This is why I think having time-limited ability to fight at war level 3 could be helpful. IE, even if you're above WL3, you can fight one war level 3 c3 per week or something similar to Gaz's proposal about opting to stay WL3. ANY improvements to being able to maneuver would be helpful. Otherwise, you're stuck with whatever limited range your countries have forever unless you want to spend 30 gold coins (a month's registration worth of gcs) to buy a new c3. That's too steep of a cost to be worth it.

Yes wings do help - and probably are the best defense, but they're expensive (like all weapons groups). Most players don't have wings up - largely because they can't or don't want to afford them + ammo upkeep costs, and also because there is no incentive (why not just stay in war level protection for free?). If you're new and have a 25-30 million pop country, you likely can't afford to keep more than 5 or 10 wings up. That'd take up all of your profits in maintenance, and acquiring that much ammo and weapons is challenging as it is when you make so little profit (relatively speaking compared to those costs). It COULD be worthwhile if you could cost-effectively expand into and keep a number of war level 1-3 countries to increase your total income but instead, you're forced to fight increasingly more difficult AI defenses and to lose FREE, PERMANENT protection.

I honestly don't think you're given enough high quality weapons to have success against a c3 when you start anyways - especially if you're a new player. Don't believe me? Try it yourself. The weapons quality you have is too low and you get mauled by c3 air defenses. Matthew of Batavia recently made a forum post about this, which I completely agree with. He's not a new or an uncommitted player, and he had difficulty. As such, it's fair to say pretty much every newer war player will have difficulty fighting starting level c3s at all. The number of brand new players I see on FB who create a country, declare war, fail, and then quit the game is very high. If they'd have won their first fight, things might be very different for them. Better weapons and basic instructions for how to fight would be helpful here.

If, instead there's an option to be entirely safe forever and stay in war level protection, it's the OBVIOUS choice for most players. There's no benefit to being at war level 3 and being vulnerable to attack when you could just stay at war level 2 or lower. A few gold coins aren't worth it when instead you could have a billion population empire printing money forever with zero military costs. As of a couple days ago, there were a total of SEVEN players on White Giant (the most player-populated world) who'd made it to war level 3. Everything I'm saying could be totally wrong, but you can't say that players are progressing through war levels regularly. They either can't or are choosing not to. I have ideas here, but this is already too long of a post

Regarding your comment about how strong navies are: Only the very richest of players can afford substantial navies, and navies can be neutralized too easily. Honestly asking - how many players have substantial navies active right now? Is the number more than 2 or 3 per world? I doubt it. Additionally, I disagree that they are strong enough to be able to take on air defenses in a cost-effective manner - especially if there is a federation air defense. As you yourself said, air defenses can cause substantial damage - and doing so to an attacking navy is EXTREMELY costly for the attacker. If you have allied air wings responding from your federation (1500 interceptor response), it's virtually impossible to push through with a navy. This said, it just means your effective attacking range is limited. You can either buy an extremely costly navy and take terrible weapon trades against interceptors... or just stick to your little section of the world, and not interact with anyone outside of that.

Finally, I think one secured main per world is enough to keep plenty of assets safe, like it used to be. If not, why don't you try a "peace" world. We have a war world, why not have the inverse where players NEVER risk war and can play the single-player game. There are currently zero active wars on LU, so we're already almost there anyways. 8 TOTAL player countries have been taken on LU by current players since war levels started. 8. Ever. And I believe most were against inactive players by members of the same federation. This seemingly amounts to virtual extinction of the war game, - or explain to me how I'm wrong.

See how many players choose a peace only world, and if they do, great - there's a place they can play in peace. I think most players join the game thinking there is a chance of being involved in a war at some point, and then slowly learn that it's not worth it to go to war level 3. As it stands right now, I fear that most players aren't willing to risk complete elimination on the war world, and there's not enough incentive to come out of war level protection elsewhere. This generates far fewer player interactions, and has moved the game largely to single player mode (though it's advertised as a "Massive Multiplayer Online Game"). What's the actual benefit to you of joining a federation if you are war level 2? There isn't one.

Great post!

I cannot express how much I agree with the above by E_O regarding War levels on "optional" worlds. I did join WG with the notion that i'd have a level of asset security, but still have the ability to engage in conflict.

I really think this could be solved by eliminating the WL3 requirement and allowing one country in your Empire to maintain a secured mode. Still makes wars possible without the chance of being wiped and it might just wake up some of the better established Empires that just seem to sit around now and amass wealth.

A peace world would also be ideal, since I have run into a few players that don't want any interaction whatsoever. Actually had someone leave our Federation because we were trying to wake people up and interact.It would be nice if we had peace worlds, war worlds and optional worlds for like minded players.

If the WL3 requirement was dropped right now on White Giant (and you could only have one state in protected mode) gears would definitely be turning.

Well said EO.

Moving around the planets easily, is the number 1 reason for me to fight at wl 3. As EO described, the effort involved to get close to him to is a major pain in the neck. I'd need 3 countries close by for fed air response if we did fight. That means I'd have to fight wl 12,13,and 14 before the war even started.

Workers is a genuine reason for taking c3's easily. It's the best way for a quick fix to the employment index. I've probably taken 1000's of c3's over the years to steal workers.

That's only issue I have with WL's on FB atm. Pushing everyone to wl3 eventually is a good thing.

I'd like to illustrate my point about the costs of a standing army with some numbers.

This is what I'm burning through every month according to my fiance index. To defend my cities and bases I'm using up

Anti Aircraft Missiles 6,822.80M SC
Defensive Missiles 7,768.92M SC
Missile Interceptors 5,160.24M SC
Nuclear Defense Missiles 5,250.52M SC$

$24B roughly, for garrison defence of my cities and bases

50 int and 50 heli wings are using up

Helicopter Missiles 22,233.57M S
Interceptor Missiles 29,686.22M SC$

$52B roughly for an ok air defence


Now offensively, this is where my eye water.

Land Based Cruise 22,611.21M SC$
Conventional Missiles 11,769.61M SC$

I have 2000 active Land Based Cruise batteries and it's costing me 22.6B every month. 2000 batts wouldnt last long in a fight. If i was firing them at the garrissons I have in place at the moment. I'd imagine i'd get 5 to 10 shots before all 2000 wiped out. 5 might even be to generous.

Then there's all the maintenance

Airforce Maintenance 20,945.74M SC$
Def Weapons Maintenance 17,211.25M SC$

37B roughly, There's more but these 2 are the biggest costs

When I add all that monthly cost up I think whats the point. It's like forever fighting a loosing battle. Massive countries could cover the cost of this defence but that excludes everyone else.

I'd love to build and maintain a standing army but it's so wasteful. I think we should go back to the days when weapons didn't use any ammo per month. On FB anyway, would be a good start.

The rules to me are counter productive. Sending weapons inactive coming in from space and costing a fortune to maintain a standing army. Having them inactive isn't the answer either.

I think that our suggestions for making wars against C3s on FB depend on the size of the empire will make it easier to build an empire and as we said, you could let countries go and replace them by others without escalation.
those who are interested can go for higher WL's and win gold coins in the process.

We are also looking for a way to let players on the other 4 worlds play a peaceful game while others can fight wars more easily.

we will get to that.

all worlds can become war worlds as long as there is a possibility for those who want it, to play a peaceful game with no wars ever.

This is possible of course but there are some complications.

Out of curiosity, why would you limit it? What is the downside to letting players fight against the c3 with no financial or population benefit? The war game against c3s is already a bit tedious without being forced up high game levels.

Players who wish to go for higher war levels certainly can.

So why are so many wars against C3s needed?

The ideas of war levels and the awards coming with them was a way to train players and a way to prove capabilities in winning increasingly difficult wars. players earned many many hundreds of gold coins in the process.

Then there is the "need" for a flexible empire, so you can conquer a country far away, release it later and do it again.
This enables you to fight a real war at a large distance with a C3 country you conquered as a base.
This is fine too.

All this does not require many trivial wars between experienced players and C3s in WL3.
Is there a challenge? if you win nothing, no gold coins, no cash, no population, no assets, what is the point?

I think that if the cost of defense will decline, as it does now, it will increase the chance more players will look into the war game.

It will take more.
Military units participating in the defense will help too.

There was a problem with the navy.
It was possible to build a navy with 1100 navy fighter and zero other weapons.

we have reduced the max percentage of a single weapon in the navy and improved the defensive power of the navy.

This can be used or not.
Navies with 1100 navy fighters obviously did not have any defense.