| Andy | Saturday, January 25, 2020 - 08:50 pm 
Another discovery round of natural resources is completed and many new locations were added to countries in all worlds.
This is the second time natural resources are added, following the initial setup.
There are many countries in all worlds where there is no president and these resources are accumulating and were never used.
In some countries the list can now become very long.
Natural resources corporations are now the most attractive in Simcountry.
There are shortages in all worlds and the corporations are very profitable and have the highest market value.
In this round, reserves in the ground are larger than in previous rounds while the corporations are now slightly larger. They produce more and profits are up.
Check some C3 countries around you and use the search function on the natural resources page to find countries with many resources. |
| Lord Mndz | Saturday, January 25, 2020 - 09:32 pm
Andy,
All this is very good. I strongly recomend to add some hint or other notification to all new players who are not utilizing their mining potential probably they dont read forums a lot. I often see that new players are building crappy corporations and not getting the profit they can get. Maybe it could be an option not to allow to build other corporations until all mining ones are built for low game levels like 1-2.
Regarding profitability i think it needs to be improved even more. Currently these corporations are making about 2B when i would expect 3-5B per game month. These money could replace newbie boosters and are very much needed for new presidents. |
| johnV | Sunday, January 26, 2020 - 03:51 pm
Thanks for the update
I also noticed the reserves of existing resources have increased a small percentage.
It would be nice to view the resources from the map rather than have to search for each country. Could the Resources button or a Resources gadget be added to other countries home page?
Mndz, remember free players cannot build mining and probably have auto build on, this could be what you are seeing.
Also I think it would be a good idea to have C3's build some mining during a reset, allowing CEO's to buy corps that have a good reserve. |
| Lord Mndz | Sunday, January 26, 2020 - 06:16 pm
I think having market situation in mind and activity overall that could be changed for new players to give them the very best possible start. |
| Andy | Monday, January 27, 2020 - 02:40 pm
Thanks for the suggestions.
we will think about how to improve without
rewriting the game. (as we sometimes call some of the proposals).
The visibility of natural resources in other countries should be improved.
This means finding other countries easily and viewing their resources. |
| John Galt | Tuesday, January 28, 2020 - 06:16 pm
Thank you for the resources! The oil apocalypse on LU is coming in around 25 days so anything helps. |
| Lord Mndz | Tuesday, January 28, 2020 - 07:07 pm
only 25 days? |
| Daniel Iceling | Tuesday, January 28, 2020 - 11:15 pm
Andy,
Thank you for the latest resource spawn, and all the updates.
I plan to mine and utilize all my resources, however the increase in the number of workers per corporation, combined with declining population, make it difficult to get enough workers to open new Corporations, at this time. |
| John Galt | Wednesday, January 29, 2020 - 02:11 am
By my calculation Mndz yes. Most of my oil corporations have around 140 months of supply left. At 6 months per day that is ~23-24 days. |
| Lord Mndz | Wednesday, January 29, 2020 - 09:22 pm
Hmm, i thought it comes in 50 days as most initial oil mining corporations shows 300 game month worth of resources. Maybe ceo owned corporations had less resources |
| Dbl D | Thursday, January 30, 2020 - 02:56 am
I'm wondering if it's possible to move a mining corp to another country with that resource. Anyone try that? |
| Michael Wilson | Thursday, January 30, 2020 - 07:28 am
Andy, i am very disappointment on your feature for the level requirements needed to level up. Please remove the Average requirements from score card to avoid the problems from losing the slave countrys to war players, i rage quit if i have to level up the slave country. |
| Winderian | Friday, February 14, 2020 - 04:59 pm
If there are resources available in the same country as an existing corporation that is running out, why would it not pick up the existing resource field? Why would it close?
Doesn't make sense. My corporations are full upgraded and valued at 600million+ each and making good money. More importantly paying taxes.
Why go poof into the ether? That is like saying BP or Shell going "my well is dry guess we're done". They don't. They find more wells and stay in business.
I have several in this situation across multiple countries. Frankly it makes them undesirable inspite of the profits. I foresee an even bigger shortage of resources. |
| Lord Mndz | Friday, February 14, 2020 - 05:22 pm
This is how it works and it makes sense for me, it ensures market control and stability of your resources so you would not waste them too fast. extracting natural resources new players will benefit for a very long time.
what you need to do to have max profit is to hold production of the new corporation until its production quality is updated to max and release/start selling only then. this way your corporation will get profit of all lifetime held production at max quality. |
| Daniel Iceling | Saturday, February 15, 2020 - 12:08 am
Andy,
The number of Mining Corporations is still dropping quite rapidly, perhaps it is time to do another Discovery Round for Natural Resources? So that players have enough resource deposits, to replace the depleting corporations. |
| John Galt | Saturday, February 15, 2020 - 01:07 pm
Oil is about to tank 50-60% in a week or so on FB and LU. I have around 1000 oil corps closing on each world. |
| John Galt | Saturday, February 15, 2020 - 03:05 pm
The problem is obvious. C3s are not using their natural resources, yet they consume them from others. Only active players are building them and we simply do not have enough deposits to keep up with demand. Asking players to wage C3 wars to get more resources is completely unreasonable due to the escalating difficulty from each war. If it were possible to wage C3 wars at WL3 I would be invading C3 countries all the time, tapping their resources, and then selling the corps to my CEOs before dumping the countries. This would be a lot of fun. |
| Daniel Iceling | Saturday, February 15, 2020 - 09:40 pm
The way I see it, each time there is a resource discovery round, the number of resources in non-premium countries increases, because they don't get used. Eventually, they will have loads of resources, enough to potentially encourage players to buy/invade/premium-membership to access those resources.
Currently though, the C3's have too few resource deposits to make it worthwhile buying/invading/going-premium for them. Meanwhile premium player countries have no where near enough resources, to even partly meet demand. We need a lot more resources discoveries, before this structure becomes sustainable. |
| John Galt | Saturday, February 15, 2020 - 11:29 pm
Once you hit max war level of 25 you cant wage war on C3s anymore. Then no more resource raiding unless you spend gold coins for countries. The only world where this may work is FB as we can raid inactive players after 60 days without boosting our war level. |
| Zentrino | Sunday, February 16, 2020 - 08:34 am
I agree with John that I would not take a C3 just to get resources because it just isn't worth it. The country isn't sustainable on the resource deposits alone and I have to invest in hospitals and education and roads and social security and everything just to make it work to extract the resources. And then what do I do when the resources run dry? Leave the country and start over? No way.
Maybe there needs to be a new feature where we can raid C3s to take control of their resources only. We "control" the country and can mine the resources and extract profits but we don't have to control the country and be responsible for everything else. It's very "real world" in that way. There is a long history of countries invading just to strip out resources and not giving a damn about the people or the country. |
| John Galt | Sunday, February 16, 2020 - 02:49 pm
Zentrino you can take the country. Build the corps. Then hostile bid them to your CEO. Then move them anywhere. The entire process takes a few days to build the corps and get them old enough for bids (24 game months) then you can dump the country. The main problem for me is that you can only do this 25 times and then your at max war level. On FB you can at least raid inactives that get bumped to WL3 so it is possible there. |
| Zentrino | Monday, February 17, 2020 - 10:16 am
I'm inclined to ignore natural resources and let the mechanic be straightened out by the game. I'm certainly not inclined to take a c3 (or even an inactive player), build the resource corps, wait, hostile bid them, then close out the country, all for something that will get depleted anyway? No thanks. |
| John Galt | Monday, February 17, 2020 - 02:03 pm
It is a bit of a process Zentrino I agree. In most situations I wouldn't bother with it either. I think if a country accumulated a ridiculous number of resources I would consider doing it. Maybe if I could get around 50 corps out of it I would do it. Each resource deposit has around 2 trillion worth of product, so there is potential for profitability in raiding if you put in the time. The war level situation needs to be fixed though to make this viable for the peaceful worlds. |
| Winderian | Monday, February 17, 2020 - 04:08 pm
I have corps closing soon all over my empire. It is going to be yet another mess to try and clean up. I expect several countries will go billions a month into the red if all the corps now tagged as closing are going to just vanish. |
| John Galt | Monday, February 17, 2020 - 04:15 pm
I would start building the replacements right now. Most of the corps are still around 20-30 game months away. It is not too expensive to keep corporations open with no staff and it will save you a lot of trouble down the line. |
| Winderian | Monday, February 17, 2020 - 05:37 pm
I can't replace most of them as there are no resources in country apparently. For the wood ones, they chopped all trees down already and forgot to replace them I guess.
I have 17 corps in one country alone closing, with more to follow as they draw down their resources. Even if I could replace the corporations, there isn't enough people to work the corps I already have due to the population changes that keep happening. (yes I've been closing corps anyway and moving people around) The country is already operating at a loss and it will implode when the 17 corps vanish as they are basically paying in $1 billion a month each give or take.
Should prove interesting I guess. |
| John Galt | Monday, February 17, 2020 - 07:43 pm
I meant to replace them with other good corporations. Things like software or computers for example. |
| Andy | Tuesday, February 18, 2020 - 01:44 pm
We have recently run a discovery and there are now countries with 25-30 raw materials.
you can check the new feature on the natural resources page and see for yourself.
With more rounds of discovery, this could increase to 50 or 60.
Moving such corporations or changing their output products is unrealistic. It should not work at all.
also, starting a new corporation if the resource is depleted is unrealistic as it is a different location.
if you produce coal, I don't see how you want to switch to gold.
CEO corporations started with full capacity, not less as we did not want to put any current owner in a disadvantage.
CEOs cannot build these corporations but they can purchase them anywhere. In C3 countries is is very easy. It is immediate.
Just checked the reserves of some Oil resources.
the capacity is 400 to 1200 months at full capacity.
this is 65 to 200 days.
most are much larger than 65 days.
The same applies to all other materials.
there is no gold in the ground.
These corporations are very profitable and make you a fortune. |
| johnV | Tuesday, February 18, 2020 - 02:39 pm
Andy,
The recourses are there but for the most part they are unusable. I looked at the top 30 countries with resources on WG. About half of them had presidents but only one was premium.
CEO's cannot buy mining corps if they are not being built. Personally I am not going to bid on an active players corps unless I'm invited.
I have no need or desire to increase my empire. As far as taking over a C3 for it's resources and then dropping it, that seems like a lot of work just to acquire 20 corps for my CEO.
Since C3's are not building mining a new player has a financial disadvantage. The corps that are being built are not as profitable and some of them will even loose money.
I like the natural resources idea but I do think it needs a little work. |
| John Galt | Tuesday, February 18, 2020 - 03:11 pm
Andy asking players to conquer C3s for mining resources is completely unsustainable. I don't understand how you do not see this. Every C3 war increases your war level by 1. Every increase in war level makes the next C3 war more expensive. Eventually, players will reach war level 25 and will no longer be able to fight C3 wars as they have hit the maximum level. How are they supposed to get more resources at that point? Please don't say buy countries with gold coins. No one will do that just for resources. Having the ability to wage C3 wars at war level 3 at any time would solve this problem. Or just remove war levels entirely, you know my view on that. It really is killing your game. Look how much activity there is on FB now from removing war level restrictions there. Secure mode is more than enough for peaceful players. War levels are redundant on the peaceful worlds. |
| Lord Mndz | Tuesday, February 18, 2020 - 06:04 pm
War levels should give people permanent military advantages but they only give limitations which is weird set up. |
| johnV | Thursday, February 20, 2020 - 02:10 pm
Right now I have 10+ mining closing in each of my countries and the number increases every day. They only have 10 to 15 available resources each. The way it's going within a week I'll be loosing more corps than I can replace in mining.
The allocation of resources is being distributed to all countries, including C3's and FTP players where they will never be used.
Country land mass should be viewed as being scalable. As a country increases in pop it occupies land from neighboring C3's and FTP's. A country with 100M pop needs a lot more land than a country with 15M pop.
Resources should be dispersed to where they are needed. My countries should have at least 5 times more resources than a C3. |
| John Galt | Thursday, February 20, 2020 - 03:30 pm
John I've been saying this months ago. I think it's going to take the complete breakdown of the entire mining sector for them to see it. Don't worry though, it's only about a week away now. Once all those original CEO mining corps close down, the entire mining sector will be in massive shortage, forcing them to create resources to keep the world economy from crashing. To give you an example. FB only has 1200 oil corporations left. I own 800 of them, and they will be gone in around 7 days. The situation on LU is similar. I own over 50% there and will be losing them all soon. I imagine the other worlds have the same issues.
Waging C3 wars that escalate in difficulty and eventually reach a maximum point where you can't wage C3 wars anymore is not a sustainable solution for players to acquire resources. What happens when I reach WL25? I can't get resources anymore. That's stupid. Also when I took WL20 down, it cost I think around 20 trillion dollars in arms. I would need an insane amount of natural resources to even make it worth it. There are 2 solutions to this problem in my opinion. The first is to allow C3s and free players to tap into their natural resources. The second is to allow players to wage wars at WL3 at any time, regardless of their war level. I don't understand how this is not technically possible. Just create a third button on the declare war screen, Current WL | WL3 | Cancel.
I absolutely love this game, but sometimes I just can't understand some of the decisions that are made. Some of the "features" this game has are actively sabotaging the success of this game in my opinion. These features are strangling all forms of player interaction and suppressing the number of active players. I wish the developers were more open to what the players are suggesting. We also want what is best for this game. And to give you an example. Look at how many people used navies before my suggestion to allow fleet customization was incorporated. Here is a hint, the answer is literally 0. Now, almost every major player has some form of navy, or is planning on having one. It took over a year of posting on the forum to get this feature included, and it has revived the navy side of this game, which was essentially dead. Also, look at what is happening on FB. Just the prospect of removing war level restrictions is creating a flurry of activity on that world and it hasn't even taken effect yet. Imagine if this happened on the other worlds. How many more players would be interested in this game and becoming paying members?
Almost all of the major players in this game are on the same page about the damage war levels are doing to this game. Also, all of the major players have expressed concerns about what would happen to the mining sector after the CEO corps close down because we know there is no realistic way to acquire more resources outside of the periodic rounds of new deposit discoveries. I think it is worth listening to what your big players are saying. |
| John Galt | Thursday, February 20, 2020 - 03:54 pm
I just want to add, you guys always bring up the massive gold coin rewards that war levels provide to players. I would be willing to give that up if it meant having war levels removed from this game. You guys shouldn't be giving away so many gold coins anyways. It is a source of revenue for you. Players that want to have massive empires on every world should probably have to pay more than someone that plays on a single world. It is fair in my opinion. Anything that generates some revenue for you guys is good for the game in my opinion. I've been playing for 3 years and I have so many gold coins from getting to WL20 on one world that I won't need to buy any gold coins for 3 more years probably. That is all from a single world too! I can do the war level grind on 4 more worlds and pretty much never have to buy a gold coin ever.
Also sorry if this seems off topic, but in my opinion war levels are tied into the problem with natural resource shortages, which is why I brought it up. |
| Zentrino | Thursday, February 20, 2020 - 04:07 pm
Everything John just said. Ditto here. People leave the game when it gets boring. I understand there was a time when several strong econ only players had large influence here, but those players are gone. The war players they chased away want to come back. Let us. |
| John Galt | Thursday, February 20, 2020 - 04:30 pm
Also, just because war levels are removed it does not mean this game is going to degenerate into massive world war. That is an unreasonable assumption. I have one of the largest arsenals in the game, but I consider myself to be an Econ player. I have no intention of waging aggressive war on active players. I just want to get rich. Removing war levels is not about wars anyways. It's about the prospect of war. It is the possibility that war could happen at some point. That is what keeps people engaged. That is what keeps people checking out other countries to see what they are up to. It encourages players to message their neighbours and to form alliances for protection. At the end of the day, humans are tribal and territorial. Designing a game that fits our nature is a better path to success than creating some kumbaya fantasy land where nothing bad ever happens. That is boring.
And for the kumbaya peace loving players, there is secure mode for their main country, war protection boosters for their slave countries, and CEOs. The sad thing is that even the peace loving players would have more fun in a game that has war drama. They don't even know what they want. They would get to watch the action safely from a distance, and profit from the economic activity war creates.
Andy take a risk. What is the worst that happens? This game is already on life support. Roll the dice and see what happens. Trust your players! The change you guys are making on FB is great. It hasn't gone far enough but it is a good first step. 60 days before war is allowed is too long to capture the interest of new players. They will most likely quit before the 60 day period is up. It should be 0 days on all worlds. It won't be an issue on the peaceful worlds because the main country has secure mode (meaning no one can be wiped out on day 1). On FB, what better way to hook players than to give them access to the best and most developed part of your game right away. Let new players slug it out on day 1. They'll both have a good time and probably run out of ammo before winning anyways. |
| Lord Mndz | Thursday, February 20, 2020 - 05:53 pm
I think we already proposed all posible and logical options to fix this. I am now just waiting for a crash too see what options are gonna be used. |
| Zentrino | Friday, February 21, 2020 - 01:14 am
On FB, if a large veteran war player went and wiped out a newbie, I am pretty sure NSA and LDI would intervene. Of course, I think all the large war players are in one of those feds... But let the game work it out. Players want the game to grow so we aren't going to let someone go crazy on new players. What would they even gain from that? |
| dubletar | Saturday, February 22, 2020 - 02:50 pm
Agreed, Zentrino. Let the game work it out. Well said! |
| Lord Mndz | Saturday, March 14, 2020 - 06:22 am
Any news on the next steps to restore the mining market? I see that if nothing happens soon we will be counting the remaining corporations on our fingers. |
