This issue isn't a priority, but it is an issue.
It makes no sense sense to offer a peaceful game mode, and expect and suggest the player to become an highly appealing target vulnerable to war.
My usual recommendation in face of failed mechanisms, which offer trouble or nothing downstream, is to have them removed. So, one possible solution here is to have one single Game level scheme - like we had before.
However, given there are players who wish to play a peaceful game mode, and the addition of game levels as a requirement to build corporations compels them to rise through the Game levels, among other factors, an effort has to be made to resolve this situation. Also, it comes as a necessity to the Game to find a balance between a peaceful and war mode, if long-term success wants to be attained.
I see one main problem with the current mode: it asks for a Peaceful player to have one or more country susceptible to war. If a player chooses to play a Peaceful mode, he is obviously choosing not to participate in war, either as an attacker or as a defender or as an ally. There are other possible problems, but of smaller dimension, such as the accumulation of cash when confronted with Financial Services, and the feasibility of the requirement of high indexes.
To resolve the main problem, we can follow a number of solutions, but I'll only present two:
1. The "number of countries" requirement is changed to 1 on all levels.
This is very easy to do and doesn't imply many changes. To compensate for the facility, a number of new requirements specific to this scheme will be add, such as N number of X, Y and Z type of corps in the enterprises, N corps over K market value, some relation with the coming Natural Resources and others some such. Also, the country wouldn't be able to get out of secured mode, declare war and join a federation.
A player can only choose this scheme when it has only one country and doesn't belong to a federation. To avoid unnecessary discrepancies, the requirements for this scheme should be equal to the War scheme, when it is only necessary one country to advance to the next level. If one gets tired, one can change to the War scheme at any time.
This will greatly overlap Peaceful mode and Enterprise Mode, which comes with the extra expense of 30GC per month. But, given this already happens with the other schemes, it matters little.
2. Extend the number of countries in secured mode to three, to those who choose peaceful mode.
This provides security, doesn't make it too easy, and allows them to experience a bit the war engine, helping them to decide how to play the game.
A player can only choose this scheme if he has less than three countries and doesn't belong to a federation. One's able to change to the War scheme, if all countries have less than 400 defense force index and 100 Off index each.
I'm seeing one problem at the moment. A "peaceful" player can surround a Warmonger to give him coverage from land units. To null this tactic, all countries will have military access to the countries in this mode. This is arguable, and might not be done.
I thought of including - and even of indexing - the cost of war protection of this mode with the monthly membership cost, but it simply doesn't work fairly in a dynamic environment.
On the smaller problems, I feel little or nothing has to be done. Financial Services won't stop you, as the monthly profit will have to make more than compensate the fee - and you can always loan the money out to avoid it -, so they don't come as a definitive block on advancing through the Game levels. As for the indexes, I initially thought they were too high, but given there isn't the weight of the army to drain manpower, it is probably doable, but only time will can tell.
The question I have for everyone is this:
Which alternate scheme would you prefer for the peaceful Game levels and why? And which Game level scheme are you using now?
