"Win a War in 10 Minutes" Guide is poor and will not work

Hey Andy,

The guide you have appears at minimum outdated.

If not, it is extremely poor and 100% ineffective for starter countries trying to take their first c3s. It is guaranteed not to work if you follow the steps listed.

The c3s now have GIANT defenses compared to before (even level 0) and the guide has no information about destroying garrisons, which even for COUNTIES, the lightest defended locations, are comprised of the following:

Anti aircraft missile batteries 180
Missile interceptor batteries 180
Defensive missile batteries 180
Armored vehicles 180
Artillery 180
Tanks 320

Defenses are higher at more important targets.

Anyone following the instructions step by step will lose without coming close to defeating the c3s. Additionally, I know there have been war engine changes since I last played, but I haven't faced defenses that big in *counties* against any player I've played against ever. They're enormous, and this is for players starting at war level 0, not experienced war players with vast empires.

Hopefully I'm missing something - I certainly haven't been here for some updates - but that said, I am sure the guide does not work.

Eeeee OOOooo,

Like most information on Simcountry, the guide was not updated when changes were made.

I remember a 'rebalance' in C3 Country defences was mentioned a long time ago, but to my knowledge, they never went into the specifics of what garrisons were placed where, and at what level.

Since experienced players can't return to lower war levels to test out strategies, I suspect none of them truly know what the current state of War Level 0 C3 defence is. So, they can't make or update guides about it.

I will be testing soon - and you do return to low war levels - just on new accounts if your old one expires. This is probably the 6thish time I've started from scratch, lol! I definitely wish I had any of my old empires and asset caches, but such is life.

I'll post notes here when I get to it. That said, it is clear that without attacking and destroying the weapons at garrisons (which the guide completely omits), you will not have enough gear to make it through against the c3.

*NOTE*

Andy - the request I should've made in my initial post is:

While you work on updating information etc - can you remove the little ad or popup that shows up every time I log into my country with the link to this guide?

Country Automation------Receive advice at login. Uncheck that box to get rid of popups.

Welcome back, mate.

This is my current settings screen.



And regardless, the popup is shown.



Either way, new players shouldn't be shown the guide until it's touched up, IMO.
Thanks for the welcome back!

We will look into it and fix it ASAP.

I just tested, and lo and behold, the guide will work, but I'm not certain I'm a fan of why. Lots of summaries and review to follow, but the short of it is war level 1 is nerfed, and it creates a very different gameplay experience in terms of mechanics than anything you'll ever see again. I don't think this is actually a good thing.

I'm very surprised by how flimsy the weaponry and war index were at war level 1. The war index in particular seems to be coded to be extra poor.

I sold off all of my starter weaponry and ammo and replaced it with 330 quality, so my gear (and unit composition in some cases) is probably better than the starter units players begin with.

That said - here are some observations I made:

1. I won the war by destroying only 3 targets after I removed the air defense. It could've been 1 or 2 (not sure), but I tested hitting a fort and corporation. I only hit those two and the capitol and the war ended. I don't really understand how the war index is so flimsy here, when it's not at any other war levels or against player countries. Any other experience would require a country to be on the receiving end of much more damage. This must be coded in to make the country significantly easier to take, and I have mixed feelings about that. You lose so little weaponry fighting here that messing with the war index as well doesn't seem great. It doesn't provide a consistent experience or prepare a player for the next level, as I'll touch on momentarily.

2. The quality of gear the war level 1 c3 has is ~150. Their weaponry is almost entirely useless. I'm not sure what the point of having so many weapons that do nothing is, but I guess it is war level 1. There are MASSIVE garrisons everywhere that are almost entirely ineffectual and you don't need to hit. I only shot at three targets, so the other... I don't know ~70 garrisons just sat there with 1000s of weapons that don't contribute. It's strange.

3. I took the country losing just 84 precision bombers in total.

Because of how I prepared, I went on and completed war level 2 immediately after war level 1. Observations about war level 2:

1. You need to destroy SIGNIFICANTLY more targets. I hit the capitol, probably 6 or 7 cities, and maybe 6 or 7 corps. Not sure, but probably 15ish targets in total. If you attack forts, you'd need to hit 2 less cities and destroy all 10 forts. I also occupied a significant amount of land, which reduces the war index further without destroying targets. If I hadn't I probably would've had to destroy several more cities /corps. I'm not sure why you need to destroy 5x or more targets at war level 2 than at war level 1. War indices used to just simply be war indices. They're not anymore though when comparing these two, and I believe it's more confusing than beneficial to alter c3s this way.

2. The quality of the gear is about 200 here, and you feel it. I'm not sure what other things impacted the losses. It cost me about 2200 bombers to beat war level 2 using the same strategies. Shots where I'd lose 25-30 bombers at war level one cost 100-200 bombers at times at war level 2 against the same weapon loadouts. Over 22 to 1 losses difference between the levels. It's like playing an entirely different game. I am in favor of war level 1 being easy, but I think it'd help to have it be more consistent with general gameplay outside of war level 1.

Summary: The war guide will work against war level 1, but I'll reiterate that I believe it features poor strategy. Additionally, war level 1 is a complete outlier in terms of gameplay to any other experience. The mechanics are altered, which I don't believe is a good thing. Easier is fine, but changing mechanics is not so good.

If a player tries the same thing against war level 2, they will be in for a surprise. The guide doesn't touch on destroying garrisons and targeting enemy wings to begin with is also not optimal strategy, as opposed to shooting somewhere else to draw a reaction from the wings. Additionally, it does not guide the player to efficient use of their weapons or occupying land. Destroying forts that have the same defenses as cities is not a good idea in my opinion, when cities may drop the war index 6 times more than a fort.

Apologies about the title of this thread - your guide works I guess. That said, it's sort of shocking what does work at war level 1.

Changes I'd recommend would be to make the war index more resilient at war level 1. I'd also remove tons of the weapons but make garrisons a little stronger in composition. It's silly to have garrisons of a maximum size. They're so big that you'll never see things like that against top players, but they're almost completely useless in the computer country. War level 1 doesn't prepare a player for what they'll see at war level 2. As I mentioned, I only lost 84 bombers at WL1, and 2200 at war level 2, and I had to destroy 5x more targets at war level 2. Nerfing the war index seems like a worse idea than simply having more units at higher war levels.

Adjusting quality of gear in the c3s as well makes sense from a bird's eye view, but most players don't even know to check quality, how to check quality, or how it works. Adjusting the quality of weapons - especially at levels below, say war level 5, is confusing as is. Maybe better messaging can help with this. There's no information anywhere about how much (or little) quality will impact an engagement. Obviously higher quality wins, but by how much? Again, a new player will not understand quality at all, let alone understand why the weapons they used at war level 1 get totally shredded at war level 2 when they do the same strategy.

I made a similar thread about this here: https://www.simcountry.com/discus/messages/1/28714.html?

The first war was trivial, and my second resulted in a massive face-plant into a brick wall.

It was improved, but it looks like there's still more room for improvement.

Thanks for confirming what I was seeing here Banedon.

Level 1 and Level 2 and like playing checkers and chess. Totally different, and it doesn't seem like the best setup in my opinion.

Agreed.

I think the 1st war should be easier, but not so easy that the 2nd war plays so entirely differently.

Perhaps make the 2nd war ends at War Index 0, but the AI has the same number of troops as the 1st war?

Have the computer scale up it's military numbers and quality in slightly smaller jumps?

But then it has to be balanced against the fact that once you know what you're doing, taking over a C3 is just spending 2-3T and spending 5-15 minutes clicking.
The value of the resources you can extract afterwards make the initial cost nearly irrelevant.

The first was became trivial for several reasons.
The main reason is in a reduced force of the defense in that first war.

The first war should become more difficult and require more attacks before the country capitulates.

the second will be more difficult but in the current situation, the second war is something completely different.

I am looking into the best way of doing so and will fix it ASAP.

Thanks for the comments.

For war index for war lv one.. I won the war with the war index not reduced to zero.. It was really easy..

Apparently you only need to reduce the war index below 50 for war level 1. War level 1 being easier than war level 2 makes sense, but there's no messaging explaining how this occurs.

When I tried level 2, it was so dramatically different that it was a bit confusing. Improved messaging can greatly help here, I feel.

The first war was until now won when the war index wend under 40.
this was in many cases quite trivial.

as a first step, the next upgrade will require the war index to go under 20.
this will probably make it non trivial but not very difficult. (as intended).

we will then test more and may make more changes to improve the first war experience for new players.

Most excellent.

I think that's a good compromise from the current system. My complaint between the first and second wars was that it was like playing two different games, and I believe this will shrink that gap.

Thanks for the update, Andy.

I hope to be able to upgrade next week.

Not sure this update will be sifficient but we will follow up with more.