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W3C - Game News Sept. 7, 2017

Topics: General: W3C - Game News Sept. 7, 2017

Andy

Thursday, September 7, 2017 - 04:40 pm Click here to edit this post
1. Auto reactivation

An auto reactivation function for weapons is added to Simcountry. The feature can be set on or off. Once on, it will reactivate 10% of all weapons of each type once in a game month.
If not turned off, everything will be reactivated within 10 game months.

The feature is done but NOT included today. It will be added tomorrow.

2. Declining Costs

The cost of healthcare, education, transportation and government have declined today. The cost of government started declining in the past days and will continue at a slow pace in the coming days.

3. Using Weapons from a Military Base

More weapons can now be used from military bases.

4. Maximum number of military bases

The maximum number of military bases and fortifications is now set as follows:
Max 150 Fortifications.
Max 80 military bases and airports of each type.

Countries with larger numbers of any type of these bases, will see a decline in the coming weeks at a slow pace. If a fortification or a military base is removed, the country will be financially compensated. Max numbers may decline further in the future.

5. Corporations Contracts for military bases and fortifications

Corporations cannot sell military fixed assets to countries. The possibility to do so, allowed countries in the past, to have an arbitrary number of such items, surpassing any game max numbers. The possibility to do so is no more and numbers will not be able to increase beyond game settings.

6. Corporations buying their own shares

This function (error correction) was completed and announced before but did not make it into the previous upgrade. It is now added to Simcountry.

7. Countries Trading with their own Corporations

When countries trade weapons with their own corporations, they were able to only purchase active weapons from the country.
From now on, they can purchase weapons from the reserves and when the reserves are insufficient, they can purchase from the activated weapons.

The function is used as before but the way it works is improved.

8. Date Problem Fixed

There was a problem with the date, sometimes reaching the last day of the month and getting stuck for an hour or more. The problem is now resolved.

9. Declining Cost of Weapons

The base price of some weapons and ammunition keep declining. This happened several times before and will continue.

Andy

Friday, September 8, 2017 - 12:48 pm Click here to edit this post
Auto Reactivation installed.

Aries

Friday, September 8, 2017 - 06:09 pm Click here to edit this post
I like the auto-reactivation of weapons feature, separate from the space transfer debate. Very nice addition in its own right. Any chance we can have a similar system for setting a war hospital target? The war hospitals currently are very unwieldy and are am underused feature as a result, being inconvenient to log in every game month to get as many as you might need for a conflict and then having to repeat the process to draw down the number of war hospitals.


To be fair, I have been hedging my account for some time for the trend of declining costs of weapons and ammo by stocking more cash in my account, as you recently encountered when you dropped the cash cap in countries. I will be just fine. That said, I am concerned about this trend because a decrease of costs leads to wars involving more and more numbers of weapons. This runs counter to the goal of cutting down the excessive clicking in wars. Unit sizes have stayed stable or have been lowered in the same span. I tried to address this problem with a suggestion, "unit simplicity". found here"

https://www.simcountry.com/discus/messages/8/25577.html?1471807084

In any case, with more an more weapons and the possibility of more pvp wars, a solution to the sheer numbers of weapons involved in conflicts adding to the clicking in wars needs to be found. My war with Whiteboy went on for 10 hours of constant clicking, and mostly was units destroying other units. That war could have went even longer, as neither one of us were seriously challenged with a shortage of weapons or ammo after that time. What can be done to prevent a declining cost of weapons and ammo leading to an increase in war clicking?

Andy

Saturday, September 9, 2017 - 10:58 am Click here to edit this post
I think that war hospitals and the rehabilitation clinics were two steps too far.
We might wind the feature down. It is too complex.

The number of targets is declining and will decline more.

Military unit sizes are inching up for some time already and will keep doing so.

all in all, lots of clicking in wars, but a smaller number than we have now, and with a smaller number of targets on the map, faster processing of the attacks.

Also, too many parameters changing at the same time.
we will be careful and make small steps.

No changes in the coming week.
We are upgrading the software on all our servers.
will try to minimize trouble but worlds are moving back and forth between servers to allow a clean reinstall of the software.

SuperSoldierRCP

Saturday, September 9, 2017 - 05:54 pm Click here to edit this post
Please dont wind down war hospitals or rehabilitation clinics.

I think it adds a great element to the game. War hospitals show there is an after effect to war and they really add a deeper dynamic of game play. Rehabilitation clinics have a similar effect. I think the real issue isn't that they are to complex, but they seem to really be hidden from players and the numbers are set to low. I have told many new players where to find it and they get lost. In addition, the fact of having to change them regularly causes long term problems and only being able to add 10 at a time really causes issues.

Andy,
If I may make a suggestion. What about just adding an auto feature that allows hospitals to be changed automatically for the player? Lets say that the game changes hospitals to war hospitals based on the number thats needed each month? Also,to make sure that it doesn't collapse a players healthcare system, it only converts hospitals that keep the index at a minimum of 100. In addition, Functions can even be put into place that tell a player, " You are short hospitals to become war hospitals, please change education standards to allow for more professionals and build more hospitals or seek disaster aid from other nations.".
If that idea isn't feasible how about just increasing the amount we can change per month? Converting 10 hospitals is just WAY to low. Why not changing it to allow us to convert a max of 10% of our hospitals monthly to war or rehabilitation clinics? You use a similar feature already when closing roads, schools, ect. If you allowed something like this, nations could change their hospitals much faster and this would even encourage higher index's long term.

I think in the future rehabilitation could have great uses in natural disasters and war hospitals could be expanded and I for one would love to see this feature expended.
I would happily offer thoughts if it meant seeing the game grow.

Super

Aries

Saturday, September 9, 2017 - 08:26 pm Click here to edit this post
I think just setting a target for war hospitals would make me happy right now. A larger amount per month would be nice too, and I am all for. A % of total hospitals would be nice, since this would scale better with the need of larger countries needing a larger number of converted hospitals/month. 10% may be high, but even 2% per month would be more hospitals than it is possible for such countries today. Perhaps to accommodate countries both large and small, the greater of either 10 hospitals or 2% per game month can be so converted and, again, you simply set a target number of war hospitals you wish to have.

My recollection is that unit sizes has decreased while weapon costs had decreased. Again, a recent war felt like I was trying to conclude a war the scale of WW2 one squad at a time. From memory:

Interceptor/helicopter units went from 130 weapons to 125
Air Force Units went from 450 to 400

Map and game performance also benefits from a trend towards larger unit sizes. Honestly, I could see a slow computer or connection simply disqualifying from, at least, half the PvP wars I have been involved in. Once, I have seen it happen. No idea how anyone would ever be effective on mobile devices. I would feel sorry for such folks and would not expect much from them.

Heisenberg

Saturday, September 9, 2017 - 10:16 pm Click here to edit this post
What are the chances that we will ever be able to destroy the last military bases/airports in our mains? Most people keep mains as an economic entity. It makes no sense to have to maintain military bases/airports when there won't ever be a time when they are used.

SuperSoldierRCP

Saturday, September 9, 2017 - 10:18 pm Click here to edit this post
I agree with Aries.

Unit sizes have decreased greatly which is a positive. However, even still in C3 wars that can leave 10's or 100's of thousands injured. Then it takes a massive time frame to convert hospitals, add on that if attacked your have less time to prepare making the end of the war even more stressful.

I really like what Aries said, I think the GM should keep a manual feature to allow us to convert as we see fit(also increase it from the 10 a month its currently at), but also I think that during war "Anytime the country is at war, C3 or PVP" the game the next month auto converts 5% of the total amount of hospitals into war hospitals. From there it should rest on the player to close them down.
5% might seem like a lot but when you figure that a country of 50M needs a minimum of 425 hospitals to gain a 100 health index that means only 21 hospitals are converted and that greatly helps the war effort. Also this doubles as an effect for war players to keep higher healthcare index's as a supporting factor in case of war.

A feature like this would help to protect new and older players alike well still offering the manual customization we all love!

Andy, what are your thoughts on this suggestion?

Aries

Sunday, September 10, 2017 - 10:42 am Click here to edit this post
Did you misspeak? How is decreased unit sizes a positive? That certainly is not my position.

Letsie

Sunday, September 10, 2017 - 12:19 pm Click here to edit this post
I would like to offer my 2 cent and say that I to like the concept of war hospitals. They ad a nice and simple touch of realism. It would be nice of we could convert some more at once.

Heisenberg

Friday, September 15, 2017 - 07:28 pm Click here to edit this post
ok, I figured out why I don't like this reactivation thing. Its not a huge deal, but its big enough to piss you off a little. Defensive weapons. OK, why is it that you can only reactivate based on what isn't deployed? For example, in one country I have about 1500 or so interceptors active total. I add 500 more, and they show up inactive. Yet, on my next activation, I can only activate 10% of what I have outside of constructed units. So instead of 10% 2000, I can only activate 10% of 500. Weapons are active regardless of unit placement or construction, so why are we limited?

Also, if you miss a month of activation and your supply units carry out their jobs, the 10% is even lower than it was at first. Nothing seems right with this line of thought.

Aries

Friday, September 15, 2017 - 09:51 pm Click here to edit this post
You make a really good point Heisenberg. Making reactivation a percentage of the total country weapons makes more sense. I have to admit, I have not actively played this game for months, and have not tested the speed of reactivation to see how it works in practice. The old system of manual reactivation was completely unworkable, and I avoided it. It would be nice to get more data on speed of reactivation to see if it is right and makes sense, but I think you are on to something here in making it related to TOTAL country weapons, not just the ones that are inactive.

I mean, we want players to keep defenses in their countries now and move from FAKE defenses. Let us call it what it is. The GM called highly lucrative wars against a hapless computer "fake" and I did not have a problem with it. Lets call game protections, other than players providing for their own military defense,what they are. Fake!

Heisenberg

Friday, September 15, 2017 - 10:56 pm Click here to edit this post
It should be ten percent of whatever weapons system you have. 2000 Int's, 200 reactivation. 5000 Heli's, 500 reactivation. I get why all the changes have been made, and I support most of them. This is just simple math, because weapons in units are active weapons and should be counted as such. Anything else is, as Aries stated, fake.

Khome

Saturday, September 16, 2017 - 08:31 am Click here to edit this post
Why limit the amount we can activate at all? So it costs us more money to keep them active, we'll deal with it. The forced deactivation makes no sense, no matter how it's explained.

Aries

Saturday, September 16, 2017 - 09:56 am Click here to edit this post
Khome, you have a good point too. As I mentioned in the other thread, the GM has misidentified what a difficult war is, as I suspect inexperienced war players might also. It is not when 20 countries declare war on your 1 country. It is when 5,10, or more of your countries are forced into a PvP war at once.

As I have also mentioned a few times, I think experienced players will be just fine. Andy, there is nothing that you have changed or suggested changing that will keep experienced war players up at night. I WILL BE FINE. Why? I understand how the changes will affect wars, because I have fought them. I already understand what the workarounds will be. Hey Andy, will these imagined "new" war players? I don't think so.

I will be ready, but, Andy, new war players who want to experience building an empire and participating in the possibility of politics and PvP wars, like the main draws of this game, are in for quite a shock when we add another obstacle that they can't deal with, but the vets can. Is this a change that is working as intended?

As I said before, the ease of speedy space transfers is not an offensive tool, it is a defensive one. That's right. Not only do you not know what a difficult war looks like (Maybe you should try fighting one one time. I will hook you up), you don't know how your new game changes will affect wars. Attackers have all the time in the world to choose where they want to fight, and when. Veterans understand this.

Hey Andy, the last time I relocated to another world to attack someone, someone no one will identify as a slouch, you know how long I prepared an attack before I pulled the trigger? It was over 3 weeks, because, even if I wanted to attack earlier, I had to wait for the 21 days fearless blue war protection to wear off again (bet you guys were not aware of that one). You know when the defender was aware he was in danger and needed to put up a defense? It was after I declared war.

That's right. I setup for him over 3 weeks in the same region, he didn't know there was a problem before he was declared war on. He didn't know there was a problem a minute before then, and why would he? Think the new reactivation time would mean anything to an attacker to prepare an attack?. NO, IT WONT. Think it will be just another obstacle for a defender to have an opportunity to protect a country that they might have put a lot of time into? YEP!

WildStallion

Saturday, September 16, 2017 - 11:35 am Click here to edit this post
Even the best of veterans can get beaten eventually, like a boxer they can get this air of arrogance that they are unbeatable because of how many wars they have fought and not lost, like a boxer - eventually they can fight that one fight that they will lose because they make assumptions that their opponent doesn't have the skills/knowledge or ability to match theirs, Mike Tyson did this and look what happened to him, he got beat.....

Khome

Saturday, September 16, 2017 - 07:18 pm Click here to edit this post
This is my point exactly, about the space transfers. This is a "punitive" measure against those looking to defend themselves. The changes of auto deactivation only harm those looking to defend, and is a gift to those looking to start something; further enabling those who have nothing to loose I might add. Those who just want to cause mass disruption without considering the ramifications of their actions. It's an imbalance, in my view... I really hope this is reconsidered..

Putin

Saturday, September 16, 2017 - 09:33 pm Click here to edit this post
'The changes of auto deactivation only harm those looking to defend, and is a gift to those looking to start something; further enabling those who have nothing to loose I might add.'

Maybe this is what is needed to spark life back into this game. Wonder if anyone every thought about that?
What if 10 - 100 players just wanted to wreak havoc, with consequence (nothing goes unpunished) but to truly cause it, they have to become a premium member (certain perks / armaments).
Remember, a game is a business. If W3C can increase their premium members, but also wreak a bit of havoc in the game which causes players, both small and large to think twice about every action, what's the big deal? Isn't that how the real world works?

Look at the Korea situation. Not abiding by any international laws, but progressing with it's nuclear program while being behind the world powers of China and Russia. Just think if that was a new player building nukes, but covered behind Aries, and would aim at Khome (this wouldn't happen as they're in the same fed), lets say SuperSoldier. This would bring an unprecedented scale of war, both federation base, but maybe also planet based. It would also bring about a lot of diplomatic treaties / conversations / meetings (which is what people keep on hampering on about). Wooo, let's talk about what you'll give me, in exchange for me not attacking you. Way to make yourself feel great :/

Anyway, Isn't this exactly what we want in the game?

I personally say, keep on bringing changes that will wreak havoc among all (military wise). It's about time this game had a affect on large players.

Khome

Sunday, September 17, 2017 - 06:10 pm Click here to edit this post
My main point about lack of consequences for a reckless attacker, is that some are not all in with this game. Basically, anyone who has some idea on how this works, can step in with an account, build up rather quickly and just cause unnecessary havoc. And what I mean by unnecessary, is that after ruining someones hard work, they can just cut out of the game laughing all the way because it was so easy to just take advantage of the reduced defensive capabilities. This change gives a huge lead for an aggressive player because they don't have to worry about long term costs to maintain an offensive army like a defending army.

Some of us are not at all interested in the war aspect of the game; some just set up defensive measures just in case. I know some like the war part, FB was supposed to be the planet for those who want to basically create a "proving ground" to have fun warring. The other four planets are, in my view, intended to be reflective of real life events.

We cited North Korea; yes they are building up a nuclear arsenal. But they also want to live to see tomorrow. Add too that, North Korea's military build up is decimating their already underdeveloped and isolated economy. So there is dialog and drama in place because the nukes are just bargaining chips. They know better than to use them. But in the meantime, their economy is tipping further into collapse and will eventually cripple their already antiquated military. In Simcountry terms, their weapons are barely 120Q whereas the US, South Korea and Japan have 600Q mobile units all ready to go, and that only happened after years of development, research and economic growth.

This new change in SC with deactivating weapons, however, gave "North Korea" an unfair and unrealistic advantage. Waging war should cost a whole lot more than setting up a good defense and strategy. The US is one of the most populated nations, it has territories all over the western hemisphere and bases in just about every allied nation. If any location were attacked, the US would be able to respond in a matter of days, if not, minutes.

Invading Iraq? Well, we are still paying for that bill. And we went in with "good intentions". It was a huge expense, took a very long time to prepare and quite frankly, Iraq was the preferred target because we already had bases and military assets in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and pretty much the entire region around Iraq. It takes that long to establish an offensive military presence.

The US defense budget is expensive; but waging a war on one country (Iraq) which is barely the size of one US state with no military to speak of.. 14 years later we are still feeling the pain.

Andy

Monday, September 18, 2017 - 03:18 pm Click here to edit this post
Reactivation takes all weapons into account.
Activated and not activated.
If you have 1500 active and 500 deactivated, the next reactivation should max at 200.

The reserve army is intended to reduce cost. The disadvantage is the 10% activation each game month. If you don't like the 10%, keep all your weapons active. Also make sure you have the soldiers and officers or your army will be partially deactivated.

There is a lot here about auto deactivation.
We have added auto activation and there is no need to login 6 times a day to reactivate.

The war hospitals and special schools are adding to the game but are complex. We want to make life easier for those who do not know all the corners of the game.
I would like to see these features fade but I will leave them as is for now.

We are now focusing on the war game.

In the far past, we had wars with sometimes hundreds of thousands of weapons lost.
Then we tried to reduce the numbers and the cost, and made military units, then decreased their size. (This was also very long time ago).

We are now reducing the number of items on the maps. Cities, bases, fortifications etc. But defenses should not and will not diminish. We need very strong defenses.

This is why units did increase recently by small numbers (to prevent large shortages of weapons and ammo). They will grow a little more and some weapons that were hardly usable, are becoming stronger.

Maybe even smaller numbers of fortifications but ones that are harder to destroy and ones that have larger defenses.

We will continue with the plan. We are now getting into more complex territory and we have been disturbed by the need to upgrade our systems (DONE!).

Heisenberg

Monday, September 18, 2017 - 06:19 pm Click here to edit this post
That isn't even remotely the point. Right now, in one country, I have 3000 active interceptors. 2700 of them are in units, leaving 300 in the box. I cannot activate 300 interceptors, because you don't count the 2700 active, already in units. As a result, I can only activate 30 instead of three hundred.

So. Reactivation does NOT take all weapons into account, and it is pretty clear that is a fact.

Khome

Monday, September 18, 2017 - 06:32 pm Click here to edit this post
..does not answer the question why weapons are deactivated when transporting from shuttle bays or transferred by other means.. I'll say it, it seems like the question is being"dodged".

Andy

Monday, September 18, 2017 - 07:56 pm Click here to edit this post
Heisenberg,

This is true. We do not take the weapons in units into account.

I will look into it when we do the units counting. It is quite complex.

The deactivation question after transports was discussed in many details here several weeks ago with many arguments for and against.
as a result, we have also implemented the auto reactivation that allows you to start the process and wait for everything to be reactivated.

You can achieve 100% reactivation in 10 game months while after a war declaration, it takes 12 months for the war to start.

In the mean time, your country has to have the soldiers and officers, 10% by 10% needed for the larger army with the danger that there are not enough of them and reactivation fails.

Previously, you got everything activated and could run a war while the number of soldiers and officers that were needed was never counted.

Heisenberg

Monday, September 18, 2017 - 08:09 pm Click here to edit this post
I don't have a care in the world about transported weapons being deactivated. I mean, I think it is pointless, but others in the game disagreed so we have it. I'm cool with it. I also understand it is very complex.

However, ten percent means ten percent. Weapons in a unit are active weapons. They should be included in the count. Not for nothing, we are also paying for it in our budgets. We activate and place weapons, it costs us. I hope we can come to a general agreement about this, I think that would be helpful.

Michael

Tuesday, September 19, 2017 - 01:01 am Click here to edit this post
Some suggestions -I will also add to Suggestions section of Forum

War protection on other worlds apart from the War World (FB) reduce the cost for war protection to say 1 gold coin for every six game months or perhaps a year.

Allow Enterprises to buy more than 6 corporations in any given country -max it to say 20 -should spur economic growth

Roving EYE

Tuesday, September 19, 2017 - 01:49 am Click here to edit this post
here are our thoughts.........

reduce forts to 40 max country empire wide every world but increase their power like they was 1000(or whatever amount).
reduce each base to max 20 country wide other than offensive bases max allowed 100 empire wide.

reactivation of weapons

defensive weapons increased to 18% every game month
offensive weapons decreased to 4% every month

imma only thinking out loud..........?

Andy

Tuesday, September 19, 2017 - 12:42 pm Click here to edit this post
Thanks for the suggestions.
I am sure everyone has different numbers in her mind.

The numbers of fortifications and bases could be reduced further.
we first have to deal with the ones already having far too many right now.

It must be possible to block the borders of the country with fortifications so 40 seems too low.

We will concentrate on the war features as described before and some require preparations and a lot of work.

The way to prevent an attack is not by setting up war protection but by not owning an army and by never attacking anyone.
This will keep you out of the war game.

We think that if someone does participate, on any of the worlds, then war should be a risk.

we see FB as an example and will start with it but at a later stage, may implement on all worlds.
as long as you have a way to stay peaceful.

Aries

Tuesday, September 19, 2017 - 04:46 pm Click here to edit this post
"It must be possible to block the borders of the country with fortifications so 40 seems too low. "

I believe you have a misunderstanding. If not, you will contribute to one. Forts do not block units. Try it.

Some other things. If you make fewer Forts,I am okay with it. Make each stronger? sure. However, don't neglect to increase the maximum garrison size for forts. Currently, very few weapons can be places in each one. The numbers of forts to be destroyed for victory is their current strength. With fewer forts, the math changes. Each one is more important and will require a larger garrison presence.

Another thing. As items are removed, cities and forts, do existing deployed garrisons, weapons and ammo, get returned to the country stock? I assume as much, but I have many deployed weapons and this is an important concern, as I don't want my weapons and ammo disappearing as well..

-------------------------------------------------------

Again Andy. Did you understand what I was saying about what a difficult war looks like? I really think one of you guys in the office should try some pvp wars. I will set the criteria, and, heck, I am willing to be your opponent. Come to chat during the whole thing and I will share you the "tricks" of the current meta. In the meantime, take my advice. Players don't sweat when one of their countries comes under attack from 20 countries. They sweat when 20 of their countries get places in a war declaration at the same time.

You appear to be putting effort into relieving the first scenario, but no one who has played for awhile and has an empire fears that one more than the second scenario. Meanwhile, the new space transfer deactivation mechanic made the second scenario more terrifying.

If I have to mention it again. I will be okay. I have the resources to defend from any player in the game. Better yet for me. If it is more difficult to gather resources because it is more difficult to defend an empire, I already have my stuff. Again, Andy, from players in the game there are two things I think you should consider and haven't adequately acknowledged.

1. Defending 1 country from 20 countries is easy. Mostly because countries don't fight wars. Players do!

Defending 20 countries from a few countries is hard. You still have that same player actively shooting you but, now, you don't know which of your things he is shooting at. Better yet, you have to reload the paper (god help you if this occurs on more than one world) or load country after country to see if he has shot yet and where he is shooting.

2. You talked about incentives for the war game. You mentioned basing this off of wars. However, you mentioned it yourself. How do you prevent "fake" ones. Who should be rewarded in wars for survival and who planned a war with their buddy to claim some reward?

Further, causing troubles with wars is easy. What the game needs is a return to diplomacy that is not dictated by FAKE protections. This is where incentives should be. Not the player who shows up, fires a spray of bullets and has nothing on the line. This is Khome's point, and I am sure many other players who have spent time building empires and investing in this game.

Where the incentives should be is based on who dares building countries and empires outside of fake protections. Look around Andy, this is less common than you think. If this is where the incentives are, of course, wars will follow. However, this will also bring back purpose to federations and diplomacy.

This might be another point you don't understand. Federations are a woefully almost useless exercise right now. The players who seek to join them now are new and haven't realized their current futility. I haven't actively participated in a federation since 2015. When fake protections are a better deal and there is no incentive to leave them, what is the point?


So, Andy to sum:

-You understand the point about a difficult war?
-Are we looking to incentivize troublemakers or builders, and why?

Macro

Tuesday, September 19, 2017 - 11:25 pm Click here to edit this post
Forts don't block units, Aries is right.

I haven't destroyed a fort in a while but I remember they where pretty tough to kill. So I don't agree with making them harder to destroy. Plus, In a PvP war if I'm at the point of attacking forts the air defence is down and I'm going to win anyway.

Restricting fort numbers makes sense. If they block also that would make them much more useful. and it might buck the trend of everyone putting all there targets in a single spot on the map. Which is horrible to look at and to an old vet like me is just wrong lol

It used to be 100 max forts and you couldn't contract to yourself after you reached 100. Why cant we go back to those rules Andy? I don't remember any players having complaints with that rule set.

Or if you's don't want to restrict them Andy you's could add extra cost to maintaining so many forts. After 100 forts the cost goes up?

Aries the game has always been like this. I understand you got so big and you want to protect what is yours but the fact you have 20 countries been declared at the same time is the price you have to pay for having so many. That's what you risk by taking them on. You have to deal with it I don't know what your expecting from the GM on that front.

The little guy and the big guy in wars both have there advantages and I'd rather be the big guy everytime.

I'm not attacking you here Aries. Im just coming at things from a fresh point of view having been away for a year or so.

Gaz

Macro

Wednesday, September 20, 2017 - 12:13 am Click here to edit this post
This games so complicated for anyone starting out I'd probably give up if I was new. So many rule changes and restrictions these days.

Aries

Wednesday, September 20, 2017 - 02:54 am Click here to edit this post
"I haven't destroyed a fort in a while but I remember they where pretty tough to kill. So I don't agree with making them harder to destroy."

Um, do you mind spending a few minutes testing and graduating to an informed opinion. You do know that a few dozen cruise missiles destroys a fort right? In PvP, forts are one shot kills, unless weapons defend them. The weapons and ammunition document has all this info as well.


"If they block also that would make them much more useful. and it might buck the trend of everyone putting all there targets in a single spot on the map. Which is horrible to look at and to an old vet like me is just wrong lol "

You misunderstand why this is done. The GM might not (I would guess no) even know right now. A change in fort blocking would not change this trend.


Macro/Gaz: I don't know how many times I need to tell the GM, and now I will tell you. I am in no danger from the current, suggested, or any imagined rule set. I will be fine because I know how things work now and I am aware how things will work if the GM messes with things.

Heck, if it were true, and we are not quite there yet, that it were so difficult to defend an empire that I could not pull it off, heaven help everyone else. Plus, I have $10,000 Trillion in cash that the GM made me pull out of my countries, and weapons get cheaper and cheaper. I could simply give up empire running/building and not only join but be crowned king of the bomb throwers. Sure would be cheaper on my gold coin budget and the space transfer things makes my attacker's advantage just unfair.

Here is how it would go!

Sorry Player 1, Aries has been building near you for a few weeks now. Didn't you see him? No, of course he didn't setup in your region, that would just be silly. He setup in a region next to you. What? You don't check all new arrivals in not only your region but, as many as, 8 regions that border yours? Bummer. Well, Aries has been preparing for weeks and just declared war on the countries in your empire and also your federation members nearby (haha, like people have federation allies of war level 3+) so they will be busy planning their own defense too, and can't help you. You also must choose which of the 4,5,6+ countries that Aries declared war on that he actually plans to launch attacks on. Good luck using space transfers to reinforce the country that Aries focused once the shooting starts!


How about it Andy? You want me to teach empire builders or train, and fund, the next generation of bomb throwers? Maybe we can make this a community vote kind of thing.

Start here!

1. Aries helps Empire builders

2. Aries joins and helps the bomb-throwers! Oh, and who is with me?


Maro/Gaz, I haven't actually played in about 9 months either. It is apparent in my countries, which is a mess but at least my average age is going down! It might interest me to come back post-change in some form after war "changes/enhancements". Unfortunately, Andy seems to think that each post of mine is pushing an agenda. Right now, my posts don't because I am distant from the game, other than posting on the forum.

I mentioned on another thread that after someone mentioned Supremacy 1914, I have been giving it a shot. I joined an "alliance" there and have had some fun in "alliance matches" and solo. If Simcountry gets interesting again, I might come back and play more actively and if bomb-throwing looks fun.... Well, look out. I might just have to throw bombs until the point is made.

Gaz

Wednesday, September 20, 2017 - 04:04 pm Click here to edit this post
Lol I haven't been away that long.

I don't think I need to waste a few minutes to gain that information. I know forts are easily killed with cruise missiles if they're undefended, I just presumed someone in a PvP would have their forts defended. Be daft not to. They're not so easy to destroy with a few hundred missile batts defending.

I know exactly why someone places all their map targets on top of each other. To defend every target with Mobile units making there defences that much stronger. It's a smart thing to do but aesthetically it's ugly to look at and I miss the pretty maps of old. I'd be very surprised if the GM'S wasn't aware of that also.

I did say MAYBE it would stop people doing it anyway, but me myself would still have targets on top of each other. Use land units to block. But I'd still like the maps back the way they used to be. Even if it makes defence weaker overall.

No Aries the first thing you do is spend 2 weeks looking for someone out of protection haha. Then you move in and start setting up.

Ah the average age coming down. That's always a good thing even when your in a mess. 1 less constant problem.

I lost my old account I hadn't signed in on so long. Thousands of gc's lost. Quads in cash and army assets. Millions of professionals all gone.

Thought I'd pop in to see if there's been any changes to the war levels. Maybe next year eh. Until they're gone I wont be putting effort into building back up.

Until then!

Andy

Wednesday, September 20, 2017 - 04:20 pm Click here to edit this post
We are checking the situation with fortifications.

Fortifications and military bases should block the movement of units.
We will also look at the possibility to prevent objects to sit on top of each other.

I will be back here with results and conclusions when we have them.

As I said before, we would like to have a smaller number of objects on the map but the ones we have, should be functional, and the ones that are war related, should have a significant function during war.

Aries

Wednesday, September 20, 2017 - 05:40 pm Click here to edit this post
The problem isn't that objects can be on top of each other Andy. The problem is that offensive units are large, and defensive units are small. To protect yourself in PvP, you must meet every attack with 3 air wings, a mobile units, and, ideally, a garrison. If you don't, you get rolled. Try it Andy. Last player I fought had such a defense, and I still shot down 400,000 600 quality mobile helicopters (that he duped, another story).

The fix is to extend the defensive range of mobile units, the mobile missile defense, the nuclear defense, and the air defense so that the range as such that they defend the entire country. Or just don't do it Andy. I am looking at being a bomb thrower anyway. Check the other thread.

Andy, how about addressing where I point out your concern about a difficult war is wrong and whether incentives lie with bomb throwers or builders? Your vote to which one I will be will be codified in game changes.

Edit: It also doesn't matter that forts don't block. War players adjusted to this a long time ago. Just don't give players the wrong info

Andy

Thursday, September 21, 2017 - 09:56 am Click here to edit this post
Thanks for your insight.
we will look into it.

Fortifications used to block passage.
As a result of the comments yesterday, we checked and we now know where is was changed and why.

It will be fixed.
Fortifications will block units and will have to be destroyed for the units to pass.

Khome

Thursday, September 21, 2017 - 11:48 am Click here to edit this post
...any thoughts about the defensive units..? That's the unanswered part of the question

Andy

Thursday, September 21, 2017 - 05:07 pm Click here to edit this post
defense units were upgraded in the past weeks and we will continue the process.
There was a discussion about it before with comments on the units becoming smaller.

I said then that this was a long time ago and that we are increasing their size as part of the change to reduce the number of targets but at the same time, making them more robust.
This includes units and garrisons.

The range is the range of the weapons.
many of the defense weapons have a very long range.

Aries

Thursday, September 21, 2017 - 06:47 pm Click here to edit this post
Can we get the details on this change? A quick look shows that mobile interceptor wings are now smaller than regular ones. On range, we are talking about the range in which units such as mobile missile defense will participate in the defense of a nearby target. This is currently vary small, leading to the need for redrawing a map to get value from these units. Extending the range so that they cover the map of, at least, most countries would not overpower the unit.

Gaz

Friday, September 22, 2017 - 02:57 am Click here to edit this post
Keep mobile units range as they are. It just means spreading them out on the map and not every single target on a map can be covered so easily by a single mobile unit. This is the way it should be in my opinion. It's unrealistic, way to easy and it's disgusting to look at.

It used to be impossible to move targets on top of each other.

Aries

Friday, September 22, 2017 - 04:16 am Click here to edit this post
It used to be impossible to defend a country without taking out each attacking country. Defenses were considered nothing more than a "speed bump". I do not believe it is intended to stack every advantage to the attacker.

But again. I'll be flexible. If it is my opinion that an incentive system as well as war mechanics favor the attacker, I will burn empires to the ground, sending players screaming to the forum one by one, just to make my point. It is Andy's choice whether correct choices are made the first time.

On whether forts block, it really matters little in PvP Andy. I wouldn't waste any time on it.

Andy

Friday, September 22, 2017 - 03:43 pm Click here to edit this post
The problem with units not being stopped by fortifications is in fact a problem with Garrisons.

Garrisons were not blocking invading units and they should have.

This is now fixed and will be part of the upgrade next week.
It means that defended objects, (all defended objects) will block the movement of invading units.

We are also looking at the placement of map objects on top of each other.
Many times there are more objects on the map than map areas in the country but there is no reason to allow an unlimited number of fortifications or bases on top of each other.

we will get back to this next week.

Aries

Friday, September 22, 2017 - 06:04 pm Click here to edit this post
Andy, are you intentionally avoiding to address the real problem with the limited response range found with mobile missile defense, mobile air defense, and mobile nuclear defense units? It would be nice if you also acknowledged that it is more difficult to defend 20 countries from 2-3 countries than it is to defend one country from 20 countries. Have anything in the cupboard to help players with that one?

Andy

Friday, September 22, 2017 - 06:35 pm Click here to edit this post
I don't think we need to think of many countries attacking one.
we just need to reduce the number.
In general, we should rethink the number of countries on each side and the fighting capabilities of countries where the president is not active.

We will start these changes in a week or two.

I do not think that the mobile units should cover a very large area.
I can see it will reduce the cost for some but we are now concentrating on the PvP wars and new players/beginners/not very experienced or rich countries.

I said before, that units (also garrisons) should be larger, mainly defensive units. The defense should become more balanced. We are making small increments to prevent shortages and major changes in the balance of power.

Cities continue to grow and their numbers will be reduced some more.

We will also start to reduce the number of fortifications in countries that currently have more than 150 and compensate them for the reduction. Same with bases.
When done, we could think of further reductions.

These are many changes already. We do not want to drastically change the situation.

Gaz

Friday, September 22, 2017 - 07:01 pm Click here to edit this post
I think there has to be a balance between attack and defence. Right now with mobile units and map targets stacked on top of each other the defence has to much of an advantage. It's to easy to defend. A player can keep dropping fresh mobile units out of space and BOOM they have every target defended instantly.

Aries your war with Whiteboy is the prime example. As you know it was massive. Constant attacking hour after hour and you made no breakthrough. Days gone by with that amount of pressure over many many hours countries would have fallen. Yet you didn't even get close to taking the country because of mobile units defending and the ability to keep ressuplying those units through space.

There has to be a point in war where countries reach a breaking point. This ability to send never ending supplies through space is over powered.
An empire should have a good defence in place in case someone decides to attack them and a plan for defending there empire when that time comes. Not have to relay on constant supply from space. Yes some supply is good otherwise why have space but not never ending

If they loose there country then that's tough luck. You learn and move on. Maybe next time they'll be better prepared. And the attacker gets their reward for spending hour after hour of planning and executing. And then we move on and the community has it's say.

People get to attached to their countries. I've lost a few nice countries in the past and it's really no big deal. I've even taken them back through war or I've paid gc's to buy them back. This was all part of the fun and it gets people talking and keeps their interest.

I'd argue that impregnable countries are bad for the game. We need countries changing hands and players warring. If the GM'S are trying to facilitate that then I'm all for it. It's a step in the right direction.

Who wants to fight a war they know they can't win. Even you couldn't get through a defence Aries with all your gear and knowhow. Be careful what you wish for. Stronger defence deters wars.

Andy, forts blocking will only be useful in PvP wars if stacking map locations is impossible. Otherwise I've no need to spread them out to block. I'll just keep them stacked and nicely defended by my mobile units.

On the other hand if I have to spread map locations around then fort blocking becomes very useful. Im sure this has always been the intention behind forts. They're abilty to block and become a barrier to invading armies. I'm 100% sure Forts used to block when there was a garrison in place.

So yeah forts blocking is a waste of time unless you's fix the error that allows every map location to be piled ontop of each other. Kills several birds with 1 stone that fix. The OP nature of mobile units, the abilty to have forts block like intended and fixes the ugly looking maps.

Aries your very hostile right now lol. Don't attack other players to try prove some point. It's counter productive and will probably end up being harmful.

The_Wicked_Lady

Friday, September 22, 2017 - 07:04 pm Click here to edit this post
Hi Gaz! Hugs! Long time no see! :-D

Khome

Friday, September 22, 2017 - 07:12 pm Click here to edit this post
Why are we so obsessed with emphasizing on the war aspect of this game? It's not just a war game; it was supposed to be much more than that.

Andy; are we suggesting that an attacker would have a limit on how many countries they could "send" into war against a certain number of countries? Just looking to clarify that.

Secondly; does this also mean that there would be a limit as to how many countries one attacker can wage war on? Like, instead of being able to attack 20 at a time, reduce it to just 3? This is a big question that is not being answered, if not, clearly...

Aries

Friday, September 22, 2017 - 07:33 pm Click here to edit this post
"Aries your war with Whiteboy is the prime example. "

There are a few lessons from that war, but there are some aspects of that war that are unlikely to be seen again. Gaz you were aware of that duping bug. The only difference between you and Whiteboy is that you got caught. Whiteboy somehow got away with it and built even more resources than you did with it. No other player in the game could have lasted as long as he did against my attack, compliments of his duping. However, even he would have fell eventually if the casualty damage of my country didn't add up and force me to stop.

"Even you couldn't get through a defence Aries with all your gear and knowhow. "

I could, if it were not for three things.

1. Whiteboy got away with utilizing the most duped weapons in Simcountry history. Whiteboy lost 400,000 600 quality helicopters, in addition to other things.

2. Whiteboys blackout period kicked in. I would have had him in hours, if the war didn't go for 3 hours or so, then give him a break to determine the threat I was.

3. He attacked back and threatened to take my country. Remember, I was using a 40m pop country or so and fighting 2 300m pop countries. I was taking a lot of war damage in casualties, just launching attacks. If he had not launched his own attacks though, his defense would have been beaten anyway. Even with all his dupes.

So, I am sure everyone could follow this model to withstand my attack. No? Oh, and Whiteboy was never seen outside of FAKE protections after the war. He certainly didn't want to go again.

"If they loose there country then that's tough luck. You learn and move on. Maybe next time they'll be better prepared.'

Gaz, the problem if what I call, "attacker's advantage". They choose when the war happens and where. A smart attacker will put many countries of the defender's at risk to conceal their actual attack. If you have two players with comparable resources, a smart attacker will defeat a smart defender. The defender does not have to "drop the ball" to lose. The deck is already stacked against them. Again, I have proved things in game before to make a point. I can make this one OH SO EASILY.

So, if Andy wants me to start a hit list and start sending victims to the forum to make my point, it's his call, but it certainly is not a case now that "defense is too easy" and these changes are making it even more difficult. Players will lose their empires because of these mistakes. I am sure Gaz doesn't care. He hasn't ever built a true econ empire that I am aware of. He knew how to follow a guide to raid and. when that was no longer possible, he used a duping bug. Gaz, you ever develop any actual Simcountry skills?

Gaz

Friday, September 22, 2017 - 07:50 pm Click here to edit this post
Andy you said you guys are "focusing on the PvP side of the game"

Now's a good time to have the war level debate if that's the case?

I' would argue that there cannot be a PvP side of the game with war levels in place as they are now. They're to restrictive for encouraging war. A re think on war levels is needed with the community's help maybe?

Me and many others know what it was like before war levels. Anyone who doesn't has nothing to fear. Even then wars where rare. On occasion a massive war would break out and people would loose. But it was mostly peaceful. Nobody was going around stealing countries for the fun of it.

But the fact that someone could, out of nowhere declare war on you and take your shit adds a certain something to this game that war levels has taken away.

There's no need for diplomacy because I don't have to worry about anyone attacking me. Any new players only really get to experience the building side of the game and they never bother with war or even talk to anyone. Get bored and leave.

If you guys are focusing on getting new players and having them stick around longer you have to force them to get involved in the community. That way they get to experience this game in it's whole.

This worked before war levels and it will work again.

Food for thought

Gaz

Friday, September 22, 2017 - 07:53 pm Click here to edit this post
Hi Jan. Nice to see you

Gaz

Friday, September 22, 2017 - 08:11 pm Click here to edit this post
Khome the war aspect of this game is the most important that's why I'm so focused on it so much. Without it the whole game suffers. We're all here to build but there comes a point when building just for the sake of building becomes boring to be honest.

I don't want loads of wars myself I just want that threat of war to be real. Then I'm building with purpose and I'm interacting by being forced to. The game was vibrant under these rules and I don't see why it cant be again. Nobody wants war but this games needs the threat of war. Lol I like that. Maybe I'll use that as a mission statement. Nobody wants war but this games needs the threat of war lol.

Khome

Friday, September 22, 2017 - 08:27 pm Click here to edit this post
I think there is, but only within the realm of those who understand it. That's a whole other discussion though...

Gaz

Friday, September 22, 2017 - 08:39 pm Click here to edit this post
Yes well aware of that bug *coughs. I didn't get caught you grassed me up.

Lol I had skills enough to relief you of an empire and I've the skill to do the same again but luckily for you I cant be arsed jumping through all the hoops to get to that stage. I'll just sit back content with that fact.

Aries

Saturday, September 23, 2017 - 02:03 am Click here to edit this post
You had the skills to utilize a weapon that was made broken by the navy update. Up and down the original thread, I warned of making navy weapons too powerful too. After Altered Carbon's fed used them on me and then I used them back, I posted again. I said "See GM? I told you! These weapons are broken". They still were not changed. It wasn't until I lost the empire you talk about that changes were made. Oh, and I was in the hospital with CANCER! So, yeah. You got skills to take an empire using a broken weapon against a player who was stuck in the hospital for a few months. Good job man. Keep patting yourself on the back.

The one thing I agree with you on is that war levels remain too powerful. It contributes to what I call the "single-player experience". I believe you are saying the same thing, just differently. As I have said before, this isn't a good single-player game. Hearts of Iron 4, for example, is much better. When I want to play single player, I load that up. Simcountry needs to be a massive multi-player experience, and right now it just isn't. That is the core problem of this game.

Aries

Saturday, September 23, 2017 - 03:19 am Click here to edit this post
You are right about who caught you too. It is sad that I even had to point out that you had so many duped mobile units, it wasn't even possible to load your map. You might have got away with it had the GM had a quick map fix instead. So sad. I reported the other dupers and the GM didn't act.

Andy

Monday, September 25, 2017 - 08:35 am Click here to edit this post
The war part of Simcountry is not the main function and the option to play a peaceful play is here to stay.

We do think that the war game should be improved and become an option for more players. This is why we are now concentrating on some improvements.

War levels are not the problem.
The problem is the current limitations in the war game that depend on war levels.

We intend to improve the war levels and make them more challenging and change the way war can be declared and make PvP wars more likely.

War levels are now used to win gold coins and for some, a way to hide from real war.
Winning gold coins will remain possible but we intend to add incentives for players to fight a PvP war instead of hiding behind war level differences.

Aries

Monday, September 25, 2017 - 08:50 am Click here to edit this post
I still believe adding incentives to fight war is the wrong way to go, and it won't take long for me to demonstrate why, shortly after such a change. Instead, incentives should be aimed at players who choose to build and exist outside of FAKE protections.

Sheepman RGB

Monday, September 25, 2017 - 02:31 pm Click here to edit this post
*cough* Runescape *cough*

PvP was the main style of gameplay overall in the game, few bad updates/an combat change over the years made things change and PvP died. They made incentives recently/over the years but more so to attempt to gain players again, but rumered to be a farmed item (wouldent doubt it! people have used multis to take before and i have watched it happen!)

Long story short, good job on getting players 1/2 actually be 2 legit sources of players with game play of there own to win the rewards offered by the third party source.

Just to say Andy its no good for third party incentive, its just a total bust and mess. Just to say hide from a real war, not bad unless its the war world! There was a time before were things slowed down before the war levels were around as i said i remembered! But really that is only part of the problem as the incentive still should be something for players to enable gain/building for the risk, because its still simple to just utilize gold coin gains with war levels and just drop right out with the rewards no harm.

Andy

Monday, September 25, 2017 - 08:03 pm Click here to edit this post
We will try to make PvP war attractive.
Also, as we said before, try to convince new players to join federations.

One thing we must do, is to make it harder to wipe someone out.
Not so easy to do but we will add more steps to the process.
we are far from done.

next upgrade tomorrow will include:

- Garrisons will block invading units, like other units do.
- Garrisons are becoming more powerful.
- Limits on stacking of fortifications and other targets on top of each other.
- The defense is becoming stronger.

More details and other issues in the game news tomorrow.

We also think that war rules should change a bit:

- When you declare war, the attacked country used to respond to attacks. Mainly, defense air force unit responded. (unless the player was awake/available and waiting for the war to start).

We think that the attacked country should immediately start attacking when war starts independent of any attacks from the declaring party.
It could use its offensive units and auto response units to attack the declaring party as if the player is manually doing so.

These attacks should be unpredictable, unlike the fixed order of priorities in current auto response attacks.

That same procedure could be used in wars against C3 countries.
In this case, as war starts immediately, these attacks will follow the war declaration.

This will be part of a later update.

Sheepman RGB

Monday, September 25, 2017 - 08:33 pm Click here to edit this post
"One thing we must do, is to make it harder to wipe someone out.
Not so easy to do but we will add more steps to the process.
we are far from done. "

See? Andy andy, When players say war needs less clicking, and with no real inventive/fun based wars going on its not like this is going to help. This is the process that stops pvp

-Are we trying to make war/pvp battles for people to risk gains for rewards are we trying to make the person who has to defend the winner, like most battles here in the last few years (not all! but some its the case) as the attackers wanted what the defenders had just not the strength.

-Start attack immediately? Lol whos going to war, the attack or the defender? the problem isent making units gouge themselfs its making people prepared/necessary to do so. An auto attack feature doesent save the game and time of people need to have units combat, unless the game automatically gives up free ammo every few days.

-C3 wars arent even worth fighting anymore, why make them something thats more of a pain/even less of hassle to fight, pretty soon the best idea will be just remove the whole war engine.


Not bad with the garrisons though. Theres a step in the right direction. I just for the life of me do not know were the agenda "make everything more difficult" comes in. Like the deactivation thing was also real popular with the game, like i knew it would be ;/

Aries

Monday, September 25, 2017 - 09:50 pm Click here to edit this post
The "harder to wipe someone out" needs clarification on how this would be done. I read it and first thought, "isn't secured mode enough". Sheepman read it and saw it as more clicking to take a country. The statement is generic enough not to understand what this means would be changed.

Garrisons block? okay, no big deal either way.

Garrisons more powerful? need clarification. this simply mean that the cap for their weapons increased or something else?

Stacking limits? what about existing maps?

Defense stronger? again, super vague.

I really like the idea of attacked countries responding in more ways. in theory. If that is done right, this could help address the issue of many defending countries under threat for the same player at once. Say, once the war goes active, offensive units from all countries that are defending launch attacks on the attacking country.

This also would help offset the "attacker advantage", that being that they, the aggressor, choose the where and when. They probably set the when for a time convenient for them to be online. The defender most likely didn't plan to be at their keyboard for hours at that time. Obviously, creative and smart implementation of this would be key.

Aries

Monday, September 25, 2017 - 09:59 pm Click here to edit this post
Oh, and Andy, when are we going to have email notifications working again that inform us when we have a country at war or if an entity is about to expire? This is an item that should have top priority and it appears to have been forgotten.

Andy

Monday, September 25, 2017 - 10:06 pm Click here to edit this post
Sheepman,

When I said more steps, I meant more steps to change the war game, not more clicking.

If you want players to drop war protection, they should be able to have a chance for a serious fight.

Without some confidence of being able to fight back, no one will give up war protection.

We are reducing the number of targets and so reduce the amount of clicking. We do not want the ability to win a war against a new player with several attacks. It will not going to bring back any type of PvP wars.

As Gaz said before, we need the threat of war.
Even if we make those changes, we do have more protection than before. One country in secured mode, or other war protection, limited hours each day and with better defense, we might get closer to a more challenging war game.

Andy

Monday, September 25, 2017 - 10:17 pm Click here to edit this post
To clarify:

Garrisons are becoming larger, more weapons, better defense of fortifications, bases and corporations.
Stacking targets will be limited but we will not (for now), change existing maps.
Stronger defense means that some targets will suffer less damage from attacks and some weapons will shoot more ammo that will be a little more effective.

We plan to add more notifications very soon.

We also intend to add notifications to the mobile APP and make it possible to receive notifications on your phone if you wish to have them.

Aries

Monday, September 25, 2017 - 11:25 pm Click here to edit this post
How about this suggestion:

As it is now, most military expenses are based on the consumption of products, such as military maintenance products. On the finance page, profit and loss reflects the cost of these items as a part of "Total Defense Costs". Since the actual cost is "paid" when the items are purchased by the country, the finance page balances this by including all of the following in the Cash YTD tab.

-"Profit and Loss" which reflects the cost of the item as part of monthly consumption

-"Materials Purchased" which reflects the purchase price of the item when the country actually purchased the products.

-"Materials sold or used by the government" which reflects a credit for the exact same amount as the amount paid in "Profit and Loss" for "Total Defense Costs"

Essentially, "Materials Purchased" is when the actual money is spent. Your country orders the product based on your ordering policy and typically are set to purchase a number of months worth when your stock hits its "low-water mark". The other two entries in "Profit and Loss" and "Materials sold or used by the government" are used for recording purposes and simply estimates the cost of the items that are consumed each month to upkeep your military, in this case (similar processes are followed for other tracking of daily product use)

Now, I understand what I just explained probably just went over the head of 80+% of the player base. Especially, players who have never had to contend with defending country with weapons, rather than FAKE protections.

So, now to my suggestions. The monthly reporting, that is the "Profit and Loss" and the "Materials sold or used by the Government" does not include the ammo expended as a cost for having weapons in your country. Essentially, the function that describes itself as "Total Defense Cost" is bogus because it leaves out ammunition, which is a very significant cost of defending a country.

Andy, soon we are moving, at least on one world, towards some system that encourages or coaxes players into replacing FAKE game protections with actual force of arms. To prepare for more players to deal with the inevitable expense of doing this, does it not make sense to include the costs of monthly expended ammunition as a part of "Total Defense Cost"?

Jauterson001

Tuesday, September 26, 2017 - 02:44 am Click here to edit this post
Make FB no war levels, no war protection.

Andy

Tuesday, September 26, 2017 - 10:01 am Click here to edit this post
Aries,

Don't underestimate anyone here.
People who are interested in the details, and look at these numbers will figure it out as you did.

The maintenance cost of the weapons in the country includes some materials, maintenance products cost AND the ammunition that is used in maintenance/training.

The function is 100% CORRECT. (Please be careful .....)
I designed this myself, it was tested and calculated many times.

The separation of cash expenditure from the actual cost may be complex to some but it shows the real cost.

Doing it on cash bases will cause very large fluctuations that will be even much harder to understand.

As far as I can see, the entire cost of the army is represented by the cost of defense as reported.

Jauterson

I agree on limitations of war protection on FB but war levels, if serious and a measure for capabilities, offer free gold coins.
Maybe you mean that there should be not connection between your war level and any war protection it provides.

Jauterson001

Tuesday, September 26, 2017 - 12:16 pm Click here to edit this post
Yes that's pretty much what I was getting at.

Aries

Tuesday, September 26, 2017 - 05:08 pm Click here to edit this post
Check it again. Ammunition is certainly not included as part of "Total Defense Cost". Check any one of my countries on LU that are out of war protection. You have 9 to choose from. It is obvious.

I have brought math to the forum a number of times. I am not up to it right now, so I will give you two options. Please, check it again, because adding ammunition costs to "Total Defense Cost" is very important for proper reporting, if we plan to get more players involved in the war game. The other option is if I spend the time to bring the data and indeed prove you wrong on this, how about I get compensated? I could always use the coins.

Andy

Tuesday, September 26, 2017 - 05:22 pm Click here to edit this post
Excuse me Aries but you are spreading false information!

Ammunition is calculated in the maintenance cost of each and every weapons and the cost is part of what is shown as the cost of defense.

I appreciate your knowledge but believe me, I know the code, I designed the function. and it is 100% included.

There is a fraction of a piece of ammunition, that is used per year, for every weapon you have.

You should stop this discussion as it is baseless.
You knowledge is great but you statement on this is false.

The cost is far too high to ignore.

We did it when ammunition corporations were closing because of low interest.

we have replaced the cost of some materials by inserting the cost of ammunition.
we caused the use of ammunition to increase and created a market for ammunition, leaving the total cost of maintenance unchanged.

This was done at least 5 years ago, before that, ammunition was not used in the maintenance cost and also then, the total cost of defense included everything used.

Aries

Tuesday, September 26, 2017 - 05:43 pm Click here to edit this post
Gosh darnit. I will open a notepad and get started. I will admit if I am wrong, but I expect some gold coin payment if I can clearly show you are wrong!

Andy

Tuesday, September 26, 2017 - 05:55 pm Click here to edit this post
Example:

One offensive anti aircraft missile battery maintenance per year takes the following:

Gasoline 11.4 units
Electric power 4.5 units
Offensive Maintenance units 30
Off anti aircraft missile 0.78
Military services 900
Military supplies 204
Soldiers 12
Officers 5

Each and every product has its own schema.

All the products are subtracted 1/12 of this quantity, from the country stock each game month.

Aries

Tuesday, September 26, 2017 - 06:01 pm Click here to edit this post
That doesn't show this. I am asking whether all these costs are reported on the financial page for Profit and Loss next to "Total Defense Costs". No one is questioning whether we lose the actual products from our country stock.

Aries

Tuesday, September 26, 2017 - 06:08 pm Click here to edit this post
Start here. Where am I wrong? It appears that gasoline and electricity are shared by military and other use, so it is difficult to determine the price amount on our financial page going to military. Does this not make up the amount I cannot account account for in "Total Defense Cost"? That country uses a heck of a lot of monthly ammo. You still think there is accounting room for that ammo in "Total Defense Cost"?

Your turn!


CC2 on LU

Aug 3949

Total Defense Cost 75,164.75M SC$

Total Salaries 2,008.82M SC$
Total Products 69,036.89M SC$
Total Accounted for 71,045.71 SC$
Unaccounted for 4,119.04 SC$

Salaries Yearly Monthly

Soldier 16,000 SC$ 1,333
Officer 32,640 SC$ 2,720

Drafted Soldiers 778,652 1,037.94M SC$
Drafted Officers 343,218 933.55M SC$
Professional Soldiers 14,540 19.38M SC$
Professional Officers 6,600 17.95M SC$


Total Salaries 2,008.82M SC$


Airforce Maintenance 9,005.81M SC$

Def Weapons Maintenance 33,463.19M SC$

Military Bases Maintenance 7,973.22M SC$)

Navy Vessels Maintenance 0

Off Weapons Maintenance 1.20M SC$

Aircraft Fuel 4,256.23M SC$

Military Supplies 1,871.80M SC SC$

Military Services 12,465.44M SC$ SC$


Total Products 69,036.89M SC$

Aries

Tuesday, September 26, 2017 - 09:24 pm Click here to edit this post
Where did Andy go? Alright, perhaps his shift is over.

Tomorrow, if you need to bring an excuse, a crow, and a bag of gold coins, but only have two hands, just bring the crow and the bag of gold coins and leave the excuse at home!

It sure is looking like the score is Aries 2, Andy 0, on this thread though..

Aries

Wednesday, September 27, 2017 - 02:28 pm Click here to edit this post
Was I right? Just took me 25 minutes to gather that data from the country, though I admit that I had looked into it before. There is a little-known thread where I threw my knowledge and analysis of the financial page on the LU forum. This raw data that shows my thoughts at the time is under "Pissing Contest". I didn't name it, Josias did.

I suspect if I am right, this means that your perception of the true cost of setting up defenses might be off. My 9 slave countries on LU are good accounts of real PvP defenses. It is my experience that I need to have much more cash available to meet the expense than what "Total Defense Cost" says, in order to maintain the number of weapons I need and purchase ammo to replenish what is used.

Is it perhaps the case that not just the reporting needs an update but a revisit to the monthly burden of maintaining a military as well? It appears that ammunition, maintenance products, and military services are the top three costs, but, again, I seem to be able to account for about all expenses in reporting except the ammo, which I most prepare for with my off the books calculations.

Josias

Wednesday, September 27, 2017 - 04:25 pm Click here to edit this post
I did name that thread, its a good read.

Still leaves me smirking.

Romeo Vicardi

Wednesday, September 27, 2017 - 09:32 pm Click here to edit this post
waste of time.

The cost of ammunition is of course included.

Luckily the subject is trivial and does not make any difference to anyone.

Weapons and ammo are bought in large quantities once in a while.
The cost is treated as capital expense not as defense cost.

The monthly use of ammunition is computed, multiplied by the market price and added to the defense cost. The reduction in value of ammo in the country is compensating the capital expense of the real purchase.

Could be in billions, depending on the number of weapons but we never compute it separately.

we compute the maintenance cost per weapon, including everything used, then multiply by the numbers of weapons and add them all up.

The use of ammo in the maintenance of special forces will increase in the next upgrade from 7.8 to 12 pieces of ammo each game year.
Countries with many such units, can expect a slight increase in the total cost of defense.
It will be 4.2 x The current market price of the ammo x the number of units in the country and divided by 12.

Aries

Wednesday, September 27, 2017 - 10:59 pm Click here to edit this post
"waste of time."

I am glad you are here to tackle this subject with great interest (sarcasm intended).


"The cost of ammunition is of course included. "

oh, okay. Because you say so? I feel better already. Wait. Included in what? Heeeyyy..


"Luckily the subject is trivial and does not make any difference to anyone."

Try the war game sometime, or, at least, try to consider other players. thanks..


"Weapons and ammo are bought in large quantities once in a while. "

Welcome to the 80+% I was talking about, and the GM said I wasn't giving enough players credit.


"The cost is treated as capital expense not as defense cost. "

Definition= A capital expenditure is an amount spent to acquire or improve a long-term asset such as equipment or buildings. Usually the cost is recorded in an account classified as Property, Plant and Equipment. The cost (except for the cost of land) will then be charged to depreciation expense over the useful life of the asset.

Nope, you found some fancy words. They sounded good when you typed them, but they did nothing other than demonstrate you don't know what you are talking about.


"The monthly use of ammunition is computed, multiplied by the market price and added to the defense cost. "

Oh, goodie. You bring any data to back this up? My finances in CC2, and the rest of my LU empire is open if you don't happen to use weapons to defend your own country. Ah.. found you. You are on LU. Your war levels is (drum roll) 0!


"The reduction in value of ammo in the country is compensating the capital expense of the real purchase."

Again, I am sure you can show me where this is on my finance page. I would say your own but you protect your countries with FAKE protections, not weapons.


"we compute the maintenance cost per weapon, including everything used, then multiply by the numbers of weapons and add them all up. "

You get lost in your own thought? We were talking about ammo, not weapons. That could be considered a capital expense.


"The use of ammo in the maintenance of special forces will increase in the next upgrade from 7.8 to 12 pieces of ammo each game year.
Countries with many such units, can expect a slight increase in the total cost of defense.
It will be 4.2 x The current market price of the ammo x the number of units in the country and divided by 12. "

Oh look, you can copy/paste game notes. Very good


You don't appear to have a vested interest in this Romeo. If you don't want to participate in the diplomacy on your world, that is fine, leave it to the adults in the room, but don't tell me something is so after spending less time on the subject than I have and then come here with no data to tell me I am wrong. I have been proven right enough that I deserve the benefit of the doubt. In fact, I am a frequent poster of game facts and I don't believe when I state something about how the game works I have even been shown wrong, even on the multiple occasions I have said something that differs from what the GM said. I could give multiple examples, but it would be embarrassing, and not to me.

Andy

Thursday, September 28, 2017 - 12:37 am Click here to edit this post
I have seen a lot of false information here in the past years and in most cases, we decided not to intervene as it did not damage anyone.

The designers and developers of this game really know how it works while many players are guessing.

What is said here about ammunition is nonsense. There is no way to compute it. The numbers you can find do not need to add up as you miss essential data.
We have never tried to provide all the details. Simcountry is complex as it is and if anything, we will simplify, not add details.

I made the mistake to comment.

In fact, whether ammo cost is included or not, does not matter.
The total defense cost will not change because there is nothing to change. I should have let it go.

The "Truth" is not important. The perception is.
I am sure that players have their own view of the game and how things are computed.
It does not need to be the same for everyone and it is not important if what anyone sees as correct, or false, is really correct or false.

If you think that things are this or that way and you have a "way" to compute, fine with us.

We are very happy with as many players as possible who have a good understanding of what happens in the game and even make a lot of effort to help others.
If someone is successful and happy playing, it does not matter if the "model" or "Simulation process" he or she see, is "correct".

We should only intervene if the wrong information is really hurtful and in such cases in the past we have even removed it.

This case does not at all fall into this group and everybody is welcome to follow the numbers as presented here and believe what they want.
If a new generation of Simcountry players will think that ammo cost is not added to the Total defense cost, then this is OK too.

In cases we do intervene, you should however realize, that we here, on the software side of it, looking at the facts, and the code we have programmed, really know what we are talking about.
When we intervene and say how something works, than this is how it works. period.

Again, this intervention was obsolete.
You should have the freedom to decide if ammunition is added to the total or not.

A player who suggests that he know better, based on some numbers, against our word, is going too far. Pigs can fly but these numbers are incomplete, and if they were complete, and fully correct, would show exactly how much was spent on ammo and added to the total cost of defense.

I promise not to intervene in any discussion in the future, if it is not damaging the game.

Aries

Thursday, September 28, 2017 - 01:39 am Click here to edit this post
Very well Andy. For the record, I again made a suggestion not for my own benefit. I figured this out years ago. I see it difficult to fault my methods by anyone, given my success in building the largest collection of assets in the game. I can continue and have done so where so many other players identify the current state of the game as being a hard environment to do so.

The problem, at a minimum, as I see it, is that no player, that I know of, who provides for their own defense has found the tools available to them on the finance page as comprehensive in determining the true monthly costs for defense. I provided you my own accounting. That includes the monthly cost values for all products used by the military, save ammo, and monthly military salaries, and I can account for 95% of the costs displayed as "Total Defense Costs". I assume the remainder is the portion of gasoline and electric power devoted to their use that I cannot discern from other use on the finance page. Again, this is without counting any of the costs associated with monthly ammunition use.

In the end, would it not be useful to ask war players if they find the finance tools adequate? You know where my vote is. Perhaps, if and when war changes come and more war players are available to poll, more opinions will be forthcoming. I would be interested to see if any other player in the game exists in this arena or enters the arena of PvP defense with weapons and has a comparable or superior accounting method to my own. I do not believe it currently exists.

Josias

Thursday, September 28, 2017 - 05:16 am Click here to edit this post

Quote:

We are very happy with as many players as possible who have a good understanding of what happens in the game and even make a lot of effort to help others.
If someone is successful and happy playing, it does not matter if the "model" or "Simulation process" he or she see, is "correct". -Andy




Andy. this is not indented for your response.

https://www.simcountry.com/discus/messages/4969/25099.html?1442676781

AKA Orbiter, Josias of Jorvick

At the time of "Pissing Contest," I had gone through a series of arguments with Aries. Where I was trying to display my game knowledge. Honestly, I was just trying to brag, with the hope that some one would gain from what what I said. And Aries tried, (mostly successfully,) to steal my thunder.

The problem was. I really knew what I was talking about. I just didn't want to take the time to explain it in detail. Further. Aries was consistently able to win based on the bottom line. For most of a rl year, I was doing a flush of my country, grinding my teeth, knowing I could best his econ in 2 weeks.

Then My flush was done. And after nearly a year of forum retreating, I posted the "Pissing Contest." Knowing that Aries can not concede a single point, I was able to make many points of econ.

To you players that seem to think that Aries is the Omega of SimCountry, He is excellent, no doubt. But their is a level of quality, he will never reach.

Aries

Thursday, September 28, 2017 - 05:38 am Click here to edit this post
Is it I who is "indented" to respond?

I will admit. My finance understanding was high going into the thread, but higher still after. I started my strategy of differentiating the quality of products that influence the welfare index and are compensated by your population and products that also influence the welfare index but are, instead, a straight government consumed product. As I typically do, I shared this information with everyone shortly after and listed a number of products I recommend to purchase at low quality, such as road/train maintenance.

As far as comparing your econ, fundamentally, you wanted to poor your effort into one country and then compare it to one of mine. I was willing to concede this, as I was putting equal effort into my 10 country LU empire. I was also much more successful in generating actual assets through econ, fancy indexes aside.

Don't know what you mean about achieving some level of "quality". If it is based on your bragging on that thread, I would assume it would mean some measure of a perfect country. As that is not my goal, you would be right on that point. I look for the most effective means to generate assets, when I am active, and the most effective means of retaining them, when I am not. In those measurements, I have yet to meet an equal.

Josias

Thursday, September 28, 2017 - 06:19 am Click here to edit this post

Quote:

I will admit. My finance understanding was high going into the thread, but higher still after. -Aries




Thank you. Your message should have ended their.


Quote:

As far as comparing your econ, fundamentally, you wanted to poor your effort into one country and then compare it to one of mine. I was willing to concede this, as I was putting equal effort into my 10 country LU empire. -Aries




My poor effort, was better that you. How does that make you feel?

Considering that I have a life. I have a disabled wife, and 2 autistic sons. I work 12 hour shifts in a foundry. Which is what you don't seem to get...

Aries, You are a sim-bully. I pause as I say that. Because, given the opportunity, so was I.

You are like the cyclops, back handing people out of your way. Each hero's in their own right. You will continue until Ulysses finds the need to defend his crew. And (knowing you,) you will complain that the rules need to be changed.

Aries

Thursday, September 28, 2017 - 06:34 am Click here to edit this post
Sorry, I was going for "pour", and you were going for "intended".

Yes, you have me beat in life excitement. I am the disabled one in my family. My wife is not used to either being the provider nor managing money. I effectively have a part-time job of seeking benefits that we qualify for and stringing along my creditors, until my disability comes through. Hopefully, I can trade in that job for one taking care of my health a bit better. I have had to put so much off.

Oh, and lately, I have not played a wink of this game. Have you seen my countries? I don't think I have done any in-game actions, at all, going on 9 months, maybe longer. Just check my countries and you will see. You don't have time for the game, I don't either. Oh, and these last few months, I have had to do more than usual since a foreclosure complaint was filed on my mortgage. My only move is to get more time for my disability and pray it comes through before..

I certainly won't agree with sim-bully. I have done everything I can think of to elevate the level of competition, short of advocating a policy of simplifying or cheapening the game (like a return to button-mashing for dollars). I share everything I do to generate assets and post my guides right here on the forum. Every suggestion I make is for the benefit of other players. Nothing needs to change to perpetuate the position I now hold.

Josias

Thursday, September 28, 2017 - 07:05 am Click here to edit this post
Aww yes, you tone down. After going up one side of LG and the other. And Sam, and any one else. Don't get me wrong, I've done it myself. But these are guys you'd be better off reasoning with. I don't reason with them, because I've done the very thing you have done. Even a little worse.

Look. You are known to be on for 20 hours straight. You want to play the sympathy game. You win. But no one, healthy, will ever compete with your activity.

Listen, NO ONE HEALTHY will play the game at your level.

Aries

Thursday, September 28, 2017 - 07:27 am Click here to edit this post
Now confused, but I will now nod my head and agree.

Heisenberg

Tuesday, October 3, 2017 - 09:21 am Click here to edit this post
OK, earlier in this thread I mentioned my issues with the reactivation limits on transported weapons. Still no progress with that, but I have come across something else that really grinds my gears.

Why in the hell am I buying weapons just to find out they are being delivered deactivated? This rule was supposed to be on transported weapons only. I find it completely unacceptable that you would have to reactivate weapons that you purchase. As Sheepman would say, complete and utter bullshit. Fix this please.

Heisenberg

Tuesday, October 3, 2017 - 09:44 am Click here to edit this post
Double post.

Khome

Tuesday, October 3, 2017 - 10:38 pm Click here to edit this post
+1

Andy

Wednesday, October 4, 2017 - 05:31 pm Click here to edit this post
Weapons you purchase on the market should not go into the reserves.
I will have it checked tomorrow and fix if it is wrong.

Andy

Wednesday, October 4, 2017 - 05:35 pm Click here to edit this post
Just purchased 50 nuclear defense batteries and got them immediately.
they are active.

Please let me know what you bought and where so we can look into it.

As I see it now, weapons you purchase on the market are active.

Heisenberg

Wednesday, October 4, 2017 - 06:26 pm Click here to edit this post
So let me see if I have this right. The only weapons that come in active are ones purchased off the market, but not purchases from a ceo? Same money, same spending space booster, different result. This rule was implemented to cease large stockpiles from being injected into countries by shuttle transfers, not to limit cash transactions that are ALREADY limited by spending spaces.

Nope. Still total BS. Using this logic is why I have to wait ten game months to activate 4 air wings worth of weapons to take a C3 that will take me no more than five minutes to conquer. So a thirty minute max time frame it should have been has turned into a two day reactivation fest FOR ABSOLUTELY NO LEGITIMATE REASON WHATSOEVER. Please inject real logic into your rules, it is seriously lacking.

Andy

Thursday, October 5, 2017 - 07:27 am Click here to edit this post
In all cases we have seen, the CEO happens to be owned by the same player.

The whole issue is to reduce the possibility of sudden increase in military power by moving in weapons that were stored in other entities or space stations.

The problem was discussed before and is quite trivial.

There are 12 game months between war declaration and the start of the war and it takes only 10 game months to reactivate everything you have in the reserves and it can be done by a single activation that continues until everything is done.

We will do everything possible to give new players, and players who did not build their armies during several years, a chance to have a more balanced fight.
This will of course include a much larger fighting capacity in such countries.
Such wars used to be trivial and the attacker did not suffer much losses. This will change. Fighting will not be trivial and losses will be large on both sides.

We are building this up, step by step before some limitations on the war game are being lifted.

If and when we achieve a more balanced war game, we might reconsider some of the measures.

Heisenberg

Thursday, October 5, 2017 - 08:09 pm Click here to edit this post
Wrong. If you have units drawn up already it can take MUCH longer than ten game months to activate weapons. I just went through this and it took me four days to reactivate everything. Whatever.

Andy

Friday, October 6, 2017 - 11:29 am Click here to edit this post
Gamemaster shortened the message.
we are not interested in destructive messages that are baseless.

Some players do not like the reduced capability for sudden increase in military power.

we want it.

It will reduce the imbalance between very large war capable players and new layers who, in the current system, have no chance of ever reaching the same capabilities.

As some players said here, they can destroy whatever they like.
This is true, and will not change.
However, the price they will pay for it will increase and their taste for it might change too.

Simcountry clearly cannot keep everyone playing and supporting the game and be happy.
Any single change make people angry beyond any proportion and they threaten all kinds of things. This has always been the case. Welcome to the internet.
People easily type all kinds of things from behind their keyboard and play heroes.

We will change the war game to make it more balanced and some will probably hate these changes.

Until now, a small number of great players with unlimited resources, destroyed many new ones.
from our point of view, this is not a good way to run this game.

We are determined to stop it one way or another.
If the changes we plan now will not be good enough, we will need to find other solutions.

We could divide the war game into two groups. One for those in the very high war levels and very high assets and another, for players in the lower end.
War could be absolutely free within each of these groups with all limitations removed, and no wars possible between these two groups.

Khome

Friday, October 6, 2017 - 04:27 pm Click here to edit this post
How often do "large" players destroy "smaller, new" players? Anyone see this? It's just a question...

The changes also seem to disfavor those who had spent years, real life years, building up what they have. That is dedication to a single game, something that should not be rewarded, yet should not be punished, rather left alone. The long time players earned it all by their own merits and dedication, by adjusting to every single change thrown at them; if anything, this is a testament to resilience and impressive ingenuity of those who have remained dedicated to SC.

Heisenberg

Friday, October 6, 2017 - 07:44 pm Click here to edit this post
Edited my message like an experienced censor. You may want to watch out, your communist is showing. Nothing about that message was destructive, you just didn't like what it said because it was a fact.

What don't you understand by double penalty? It shouldn't matter where you purchase it from, you are still using spending space, which is by your explanation, A LIMIT.

You're trying to fix a problem that doesn't occur with war levels. Maybe you should spend less time censoring your players and more time concentrating on ways to improve the game instead of hinder it.

Andy

Friday, October 6, 2017 - 07:47 pm Click here to edit this post
We have no plans to punish anyone. We are very happy about people who are here for years and we would like to maintain the qualities of the game to attract people for years.

Nothing will be done to destroy any of it.
When we are done with this war update, we would like to move back to the much larger, peaceful part of the game and improve it.

But I do not see how anyone will be in any disadvantage.
If you do, please show me please.

If you have no plans to destroy new players, or ones that stand no chance to survive a war with a large and rich country, than nothing changes at all.

There have been messages right here, very recently about the ability, intention and will to destroy whatever they want if we make changes they do not like.

Also, in the past, and we all know, many new players were destroyed because it could be done.

The answer to your question is "very often".

Andy

Friday, October 6, 2017 - 07:58 pm Click here to edit this post
I didn't speak to my communist for some time.
did you speak to yours?

There are good ways to express your criticism.
This game was frequently formed and developed following criticism from players.

I think we all know what the objective of these changes is.
It was stated repeatedly.

We want just a little more balanced wars and we do not want sudden surges in military power.

If you have better ways to achieve this, please let us know. I would love to do it in a better way.

The focus is on more balanced wars and we will achieve this whatever it takes.

I do not mean that a beginner will be suddenly too powerful and will be able to bring any experienced player into any danger. I am sure they will stay away from deadly risks.
But if attacked, they should be able to draw serious blood.

Heisenberg

Friday, October 6, 2017 - 08:23 pm Click here to edit this post
Wow, how very condescending of you. Censoring people is a communistic act whether you decide to accept that or not. Think before you censor.

1000 bombers and 600 fighters isn't going to defeat anyone. That's what I bought. It seems as though you cannot math very well. Let me know when you find the instance where a player acquires 1000 bombers and 600 fighters and 'totally dominated' another player. Your words sound nice, but they do not ring true. You had the fix to this issue by limiting space transactions. If anything, with these weapons being deactivated, you put a newer player in MORE danger because they aren't even remotely familiar with what is needed for a war. However, you don't think that is good enough, so you limit purchasing as well. You act as if the spending space (even with booster) can buy a vast wasteland of weapons. Simply untrue.

You have no answer for this other than censorship. Very telling.

Andy

Friday, October 6, 2017 - 09:59 pm Click here to edit this post
Thank you for formulating your criticism in a more reasonable way.

There is however no trace of a better solution to sudden surge in power.

You may have bought only 1600 weapons but you can do this 6 times a day if you wish and 9600 is a lot. You could have bought 5000 and then 6 times a day.
with no spending limits, you could purchase 200.000 6 times a day.

I wish this need for reactivation would solve the problem, but it does not.
It requires an extra one click on your side, and weapons will become available, 10% per game month without any further intervention.

We think that your neighbors should get a message if your military power surges quickly. (quickly and surge, need to be defined).

As I said before, you know what we are trying to achieve.
If you think our objective is wrong and we should keep everything as it is now, then we will not find a solution to agree on as we intend on changing the current unbalanced situation.

If you agree on the objective, you might have a better solution for us.

why not find one and convince us that the objective can be reached in a different way.

If you think that the current situation should remain unchanged and a rogue player, or just someone who is happy to eliminate players, can continue to do so without much damage, then there is nothing to agree on.

Aries

Saturday, October 7, 2017 - 12:03 am Click here to edit this post
It is my belief that the changes you made makes it easier for a rogue player to eliminate players. I tried to make that clear, by demonstrating that defending an empire is more difficult than attacking one. That space transfers are a tool for the defender. The attacker has much more time to prepare than a defender that is on the clock. Though you have said the reactivation process should give time to put up a defense in the time delay allotted for a war declaration, you have offered no solution to a defender that finds multiple countries of theirs at risk, now that the flexibility of moving defenses is made more difficult.

The players with experience in wars who can read these changes and adjust will maintain and even enhance their advantage on the less experienced. I advised of a change that would help the less experienced. That would be changing the war air wings respond. Make it so the three most powerful wings will always respond from all available country and federation wings in range. Not making it so only 1 from the country may respond. This will be a change that will meet your goal of damaging PvP attackers.

The reactivation change only makes defending countries more difficult, and makes your "rogue" players more powerful. If I must show you this in the game, as you relax protections, I may do just that. I have demonstrated such issues before.

Heisenberg

Saturday, October 7, 2017 - 01:10 am Click here to edit this post
Way to be condescending...again. Do you know any other way to address people, or is this some form of brain damage?

I no longer care what you are trying to achieve, because it has become clear you will never achieve it. You generalizations around this subject are confusing...I do not know whether you are just bad at this, or you just enjoy using flawed logic to fix a perceived problem. Either way, it is extremely disturbing and I don't think you should be allowed to do the job you currently do without getting some assistance with your issues.

Heisenberg

Saturday, October 7, 2017 - 02:19 am Click here to edit this post
Hmmm...have a disagreement with a moderator, come back to find my debt free empire and ceo's prohibited from purchasing companies and products.


Interesting.

Andy

Saturday, October 7, 2017 - 03:12 pm Click here to edit this post
Aries,

I don't agree with the assumption that these "attacked" players have reserves on space stations.
they might not even know how it works.

Also, there is an assumption that many countries could declare on one and that there will be wars with many against very few.

we think that the number of countries on both sides should be comparable.

As to response to air attacks:
Having more wings respond will help. (At least some help here with good solutions).
Having more wings of all types in the country, with auto response capabilities will help too.
we will test many options.

More steps will follow in the coming upgrades and then, at some point, we will start lifting the war level related restrictions and more wars will become possible.

War levels will become much less of a factor in war declarations.

The war levels and the possibility to earn many gold coins moving up the levels will remain but the wars with C3 countries at higher levels will become less predictable and harder.
we may add more gold coins.

Andy

Saturday, October 7, 2017 - 03:14 pm Click here to edit this post
In general, we are responding to comments when these are constructive.
We certainly do not, when such comments are not and when it is clear that the comments come from someone interested in his or her own interest with no regard to the interests of players in general.

Some people are mailing us and have done so in the past, arguing that the group that is very vocal on the forum is very worried about themselves and control very large entities while many beginners are poorly represented. They are unable to see the pitfalls in the path ahead and don't know what to ask for.

we will try to act with the interest of these players too constantly on our minds.
Not ONLY but "too".

Also, last for now,
I assume we have software that reads the forum and if anyone is in disagreement with the moderator, it finds out if they have a CEO which is debt free, and starts prohibiting all kind of things.

And pigs can fly.

Andy

Saturday, October 7, 2017 - 03:15 pm Click here to edit this post
Heisenberg,

finished with the jokes.

If you are interested, let me know where it is and I will find out why.

Andy

Saturday, October 7, 2017 - 03:35 pm Click here to edit this post
I found the problem and solved it.
It was my own mistake. I am sorry about it.

Khome

Saturday, October 7, 2017 - 04:21 pm Click here to edit this post
The big problem I have with these changes still relates to the inability to respond to a rouge attacker. In this scenario, one attacker, just one, can load up one weapons, declare on any number of countries in one empire or fed, leaving everyone at a serious disadvantage. That pretty much sums it up for me. Disabling weapons every time they move is an issue... ok, I've already went over this numerous times. Just, whatever; we'll deal with it as always.


If we want to attract more players, I'm sure those playing the game have many great ideas from our vantage point. This would certainly validate our input and experiences thus far.

Heisenberg

Saturday, October 7, 2017 - 07:26 pm Click here to edit this post
I have already given you the basis. Your actions regarding this problem aren't doing anything to solve any problem, it only makes inexperienced players MORE vulnerable. You have already stated you do not wish to change your stance or your plan, so why should I bother? Just like with reactivation, when you basically lied to my face that it is ten percent of the total weapons owned, when it is clearly not. You don't want input, you want validation.

I don't come with jokes, Andy. I cannot very well do that when there is such a HUGE joke sitting right in front of me. You could probably stop your boorish, condescending behavior, I guess that is when pigs will fly for me, no?

Andy

Saturday, October 7, 2017 - 08:05 pm Click here to edit this post
Khome,

We have said several times here that we will limit the number of countries you can declare on and the number of wars that can be declared on any country.

I think that the moment war starts, the attacked country could be in auto attack mode.
The player may not be around but the army might attack anyway.

Most wars up to now, had one side attacking, the other side not logged in and the attacked country always waited to be attacked.

It should be more balanced and less predictable.
You will not know what is going to happen when war starts on your request.

JWUrton

Sunday, October 8, 2017 - 05:10 pm Click here to edit this post
One must be careful of trying to shout down thoughts and opinions out of anger. That is the true tactic of communisim.


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