W3C - Game Update - December 5

Another incremental game update is installed today.

Defensive airforce wings

Both interceptors and helicopter wings became about 5% smaller.
A third small change, aiming at more balance between offensive and defensive airforce units.

Weapon Ranges

The range of many weapons declined again.
By now, the ranges are significantly smaller than before.
More such changes, to a smaller number of weapons may take place in the coming weeks.

Cost of Weapons and Ammunition

More declines in the cost of ammunition, both defensive and offensive, have come into effect.
the cost of weapons is increasing.

These changes will, short and long term, decrease the maintenance cost of the army.

Smaller units means more units.
Cheaper maintenance cost means larger armies.

I thought you were against larger armies.

We are.
higher cost for weapons will limit the growth of armies.
smaller defensive air units will hopefully create more balance in the results of air attacks on defensive units.

Larger armies will increase the cost.

Currently it is possible to have a standing army of 6,000,000 roughly evenly balanced between offensive and defensive forces in a country with 100m population. It will require an initial outlay of about $20T, set to increase with weapons cost increasing but this is not a lot of money. That's a 30,000,000 strong force in countries with 600m pop.

30,000,000.

Increase that number by 1% for every 1% you reduce the cost of maintenance.

It is not easy to decide on the right price for ammunition.
lower price is good for smaller countries that are trying to build a defence that will deter attacks on them.

I do not think that it will automatically cause presidents to increase the size of their armies.

there remain some factors that make very large armies more complex.
units are not very large so you need (many) hundreds. This is not easy to manage.
there are requests to increase the size of units and they are aimed at keeping a huge army with a smaller number of units.
I do not think this is a good idea.

Keeping the entire army active is far too expensive and there are requests, also from the players with the largest armies, to eliminate the maintenance cost for deactivated weapons.
That could create an explosion in the size of armies.

But we will watch how this evolves.

we think that ammunition is very close to a good

Andy,

It takes 10 seconds to realize if war cost is high and how much. Just take any default w3c or country of beginner player and look how much defence cost is of the total budget. In majority of cases it is the biggest amount and it used to be minor.

If you manage to balance it to the level it looks ok on regular countries the rest will also be fine.