| Andy | Tuesday, July 17, 2012 - 03:23 pm 
1. War Maps
The war process is now managed on the large game maps. There are three zoom levels allowing more details view of the war and a much better view of the country and its neighbors.
The movement of units is improved and it is easy to see where they are heading.
This change will help in upgrading the war level in Simcountry and allow us to introduce more war features and many more improvements in the coming weeks and months.
This is a major change and we do expect some problems that escaped our testing but the war process itself and the power of weapons or units is not changed at all
All weapons function in the same way they did before and their destruction or defensive powers are unchanged.
2. The Score
The score of countries depends on a large collection of indexes and it is recomputed each game month. The game level of the country is an important factor in the score. The war level also depends on many indexes and it is a good gauge of the quality of the country.
We have slightly increased the dependency of the score on the game level. We expect to see a higher correlation between the game level of players and their score in the game.
3. Game Awards
Monthly game awards are given to players who are making the highest positions on the best 100 presidents list. Award levels and the number of awards increased in the past months on all five worlds.
In addition, we will now increase the award levels on the Fearless Blue world even further. The number of gold coins awarded will increase and also the number of awards given to the best players on FB each month.
4. War Level Awards
War level awards on the Fearless Blue world will increase next week, July 24. The war change is mainly in the higher war levels. War level awards on the other 4 worlds will remain largely unchanged. |
| Madoff | Tuesday, July 17, 2012 - 05:12 pm
Regarding scores, I'm baffled about the score of CEOs.
On Little Upsilon, Gamemaster Corporations loses about 200b/month and has a score of 2567. My CEO, Black Box, has a profit of about 100b/month but has a score of only 839.
There are many unprofitable CEOs with higher scores than my profitable CEO. Is that realistic? |
| Laguna | Tuesday, July 17, 2012 - 05:31 pm
The question isn't if it is realistic, but is it reasonable?
Either way, the answer to both is yes. |
| Orbiter | Wednesday, July 18, 2012 - 12:40 am
ok, just started my first war
this ROCKS!!! right on
only problem, where is the list? allot of targets don't paint on the map, and with out the list, it makes things difficult.
i usually use the maps for most targets, but their are some that you need the list for. am i just over looking it? |
| Andy | Wednesday, July 18, 2012 - 12:48 am
The list is on the left side of the page, lower part. |
| Andy | Wednesday, July 18, 2012 - 12:50 am
We will improve the painting of objects, prevent them from sitting on top of each other and show their identity when you put the mouse on these objects. |
| Orbiter | Wednesday, July 18, 2012 - 12:59 am
yea, i just found it, i have my task at bottom of the screen, and it covered it up, their might be a better location for the list? shrug, but i got it now, so i guess it'll be ok |
| Orbiter | Wednesday, July 18, 2012 - 01:22 am
also, after each attack, it is taking me to an attack again screen, which means at least one extra click for each target, if the target isn't destroyed, should that be bypassed just like before? |
| Andy | Wednesday, July 18, 2012 - 09:33 am
True, an extra click but no waiting time, it does not go to the server.
let's see more reactions to the new screens. We will continue the improvements before we jump to conclusions. |
| Andy | Wednesday, July 18, 2012 - 09:47 am
We have also seen that fortifications, after being destroyed keep showing as a fortification. They should show up as a destroyed target. This will be fixed. |
| Keto | Wednesday, July 18, 2012 - 03:42 pm
Andy, the new look isn't too bad.
May I suggest you fit the entire page on the screen so everything is visible? I have to change my computers zoom level to view the full page, which makes it even harder to read the writing.
I do like the target list and my units list which states what each unit.
So far so good! |
| Crafty | Wednesday, July 18, 2012 - 03:58 pm
I'ld like a big red button that completely obliterates the country with accompanying blindingly awesome, eye popping, 3D graphics.
Sound effects to be included.
Seriously though, in a PvP war, hows about a conversation bar where you 'talk' to the enemy. All sorts of psychology could be used, as it is real time. Even peace agreements. I think the communication would get you much more involved and make the experience more interesting. |
| Andy | Wednesday, July 18, 2012 - 04:16 pm
Communication is a good idea.
There are many improvements underway, we will need some time. |
| Orbiter | Wednesday, July 18, 2012 - 09:05 pm
how's this for communication?
one of the original complaints about the war game at the beginning of this whole run of wg changes, was the time and endless clicking. now we have a game feature that adds a useless click. but we are waiting for more feed back? is that another feature to give the people that don't war an advantage?
over all, (i said it already,) this rocks, but that extra click is useless, and when your talking 20 cities, 20 towns, 50 forts, 100-200 interceptors wings, 50-100 heli wings, how many ground units... your talking and extra couple hundred click in a PvP, that really isn't necessary. i thought the point of all this was to make the war game more attractive? |
| Andy | Wednesday, July 18, 2012 - 10:03 pm
It is not an extra click.
only if the target is destroyed in one attack.
if multiple attacks are needed, it is not.
(correct me If I am wrong please).
I will also check tomorrow.
If this is an extra click, we will remove it. It is not our intention to add a click. |
| Orbiter | Wednesday, July 18, 2012 - 10:10 pm
you are right, it is only an extra click, per extra attack, ie, if the target is not destroyed in the first attack, and/or you shoot the defenses first.
so i'm curious what the point of it is? are you encouraging players to ignore defenses and go strait for the kill? if you are, great, if not, then its lame. |
| DuGalle | Thursday, July 19, 2012 - 12:25 am
There seems to be a problem with moving units on already painted territory. Whenever I try to move units onto territory that I painted, nothing happens. It only moves if I click directly on an object or unpainted territory. |
| Orbiter | Thursday, July 19, 2012 - 01:51 am
i've had the same problem as DuGalle |
| Andy | Thursday, July 19, 2012 - 09:12 am
We have discussed this here:
Extra click:
The reason was that the result of the attack + the details of the attack are too much for the small window and if both are there at the same time, scroll bars would appear which is even worse.
Solution:
The result of the attack will show over the left info frame. It will become better structured and clearer. Once this is done, we will remove the extra click. To reduce clicks even further, we want to have the default setting of the attack screen at max numbers for all weapons. Most attacks use the max.
Moving units into painted areas:
True, we have seen it too and will fix it.
There will be a next update next week, hopefully fixing all errors we find up to Sunday.
The left frame will become a little smaller for people with smaller screens. you can close it but it will show a lot of info you probably want to see. |
| Andy | Thursday, July 19, 2012 - 03:35 pm
A new war maps update is installed today:
1. Moving units into painted areas is fixed.
2. Processing of all screens is optimized and the painting and processing of war screens is now much faster. This will make a small difference if the load is light but the servers will be able to process many more wars simultaneously.
3. The number of dead during attacks is slightly increased and the damage from war actions is higher too. This will result in more war damage points.
More improvements next week. |
| Crafty | Thursday, July 19, 2012 - 03:37 pm
Pssst, dont forget the navy please Andy. |
| Andy | Thursday, July 19, 2012 - 06:46 pm
The navy is part of this effort we will get to it. |
| SuperSoldierRCP | Thursday, July 19, 2012 - 09:39 pm
new maps, new weapons, and yet navies STILL sit @ 100Q cap.... no Q effects at all |
| Phoenix King | Thursday, July 19, 2012 - 11:33 pm
Andy I love all the new updates, thanks, you have made a happy customer today. Its becuase of all the hard work that you put into these updates that i continue to be a paying member. I can not wait to start up a new country on FB and start playing on this new war map. As of right now i have only a enterprise after losing my country in a war, but i plan to get right back up in the fray. +1000 to all these updates, also please do not forget the navies which are really important as the other members have stated. Also lol the CEO aspect is fun as well, any updates there would be nice as well, there has not been any major updates to the CEO since the IPO stuff a while back. Any way thats my ramble good job GM's on the updates. |
| Orbiter | Wednesday, July 25, 2012 - 09:58 am
personally i'm glad they are slow on the navy thing. it got outrageous, mass all your weapons in one fleet... they wont be able to stop it for long... kinda a brain dead o-strat |
| Andy | Wednesday, July 25, 2012 - 05:49 pm
The navies will be done. The delay has to do with some complexity in the navigation and there are so many aspects of war we need to improve.
We want a navy unit to be sent to another location by a click, like land units and find its way to the target location.
It cannot go in a straight line and will have to decide which way to go. There are difficulties with areas that are not 100% water and we do not want it to cut short into countries (close to the sea) assuming the are is water while it is partially water.
We are getting there. it will be done and we will start to reorganize the entire navy in units.
This will indeed end the current situation with thousands of weapons on a single carrier and a lot of testing will be needed to make sure navy units can protect themselves and be effective in fighting while the number of weapons is much smaller.
Also navy supply units will be added.
The first to be added will be a navy transport unit that will be able to carry one mobile unit and land it anywhere.
I am happy if the latest war updates are helping.
More was installed today and more major improvements are underway.
It will completely transform the war game. |
| Crafty | Thursday, July 26, 2012 - 02:22 pm
All I can say is that Orbiter cant have got the hang of fighting navies. The same could be said of bases with thousands of LBC.
I for one am pleased the navies are getting attention too. Thank you GM. |
| Orbiter | Thursday, July 26, 2012 - 03:12 pm
you can't put 20k plus each of ndb, and nmib into an an offensive base...
it is/was, the nature of fleets that they were goofy. a single shoot could disable any fleet. so the navy user would be forced to put an incredible amount of defence into them. whittling away large chunks of the enemies offense, (usually bombers,) and just wait until they run out of bombers, or until they fail to long in and shoot the navies. and not every one knows how this process works, or the 3/4 different ways to disable a navy.
then with tons of NFP, and Cruisers, automatically resuppling every 50 shots... you could annihilate entire countries, before the dude even knew what you where doing. much harder to do with an air force, and next to impossible with a ground assault...
i'm looking forward to navies be more to scale with the rest of the weapons, ie, in units like air and ground. but they way they were, was hokie, and i'm glad many people that over relied on navys have to either wait, or find new tactics. |
| Crafty | Thursday, July 26, 2012 - 03:44 pm
I know what you're saying Orbiter. A full wing of PB would knock out the last carrier of that type to 99% when it would rebuild and be useable again. But then the same is true of off. bases. This gives both sides time to fight other ways.
But yeah, in retrospect, maybe NFP had become a bit too uber, they could mash anything if you had enough. Keeping the numbers we had before would be prohibitive nowadays though.
I find Andys post that navies would have supply units introduced a bit strange. Weren't there always supply ships? Were they useless then? I remember no one could be sure what was the optimal number to keep active. But they navy always seemed to resupply pretty quick for me when I ran about 20 supply ships. |
| Orbiter | Friday, July 27, 2012 - 01:49 am
except you can't stack up 20k defensive weapons in an O-base, and you can't sneak attack fleets, and you can't nuke fleets. |
| Crafty | Friday, July 27, 2012 - 05:28 pm
Meh, both sides can have a fleet so that sort of equals it out, huh?
But I dont know what we are discussing here. Wait and see what changes W3C make. |
