Rebuilding the War World

The state of Fearless Blue came up on chat. I'm a somewhat new player, and don't have a FB country yet, but I've seen lots of chatter on the topic, and the ideas I'm throwing around here seemed to meet with general approval on chat.

Basically, it looks like Fearless Blue is a "war world" where war never happens, because of overwhelming protection rules. You can't be attacked in your first 21 days, or if your war level is less than 3, or if your war level differs too much from the attacker's. In other words, unless you're completely careless and clueless, you can remain immune there forever, while reaping the benefits of a world with unique production options. I assume that this is the case because a lot of newbs see that it's the war world, which sounds fun, and decide to start there. A bunch of them promptly got stomped flat in the bad old days, I'm sure, and protection was added to save them from them

War levels are only one of the obstacles for PvP war. If I understand correctly, your suggestion includes the removal of war levels from Fearless Blue. Sure, that would be a step in the right direction.

But that leaves big obstacles throughout the worlds. Other worlds lack production of all weapons. That would continue to limit PvP war and development of war skills. The biggest obstacle to PvP is that it is too convoluted and time-consuming for 99% of players.

I've addressed a range of problems in my military reform bill.

IMO, they should keep war levels on FB as a source of GC and a way of scaling C3 war difficulty, because an incentive to have a big FB country with a powerful military is a good thing for the game. But they should have no effect on PVP whatsoever. PVE is a source of money and familiarity with the game engine, PVP is a test of skill - they're not the same, and one shouldn't directly control the other.

As for your linked thread, it generally seems reasonable enough. That said, I actually do like that some weapons are FB-only, because one thing this game seriously lacks is differences between places. I think that's part of the reason for the lack of war - why bother fighting over a featureless plain where there's no benefit to owning this patch of ground over that patch? If you want to increase access to those weapons, have them trade on other world markets - let the interested players do the space logistics to move them, but let any

Yes, the game tries to force players into the space program by limiting weapons production. Space has become yet another obstacle to PvP. But 99% of players avoid space as well.

Space and world restrictions on a few weapons are no obstacle to PvP. I have a standing challenge to you on this forum somewhere to find me a single player that is being held up by one of these two things.

I like space alot, i dont see a problem with it. I can transport a good amount of stuff at only around 100 shuttles so far. Plus with more shuttles theres more hauling rate if needed. it might cost more with things such as Space maintenance units, but its worth it and is a privilege to those who spent the time developing it and will actually use it. Space is one reason why i actually enjoy this game, its pretty awesome to have your own cargo fleet. Space is something i would say is an awesome feature.


As for FB, this stuffs pretty pointless ideas as most people dont want to waste the Time and Assets for war which is the reality of it. Only to gain for some but if not whats really the point? blood and assets down the drain, fun i guess to some. Lowering war levels means more easy targets and more people having to defend themselves. not bad and would make more sense but, m

You hit the real reason PvP is not more common. It comes down to incentive. In PvP, either one player losses assets and one gains or both players can lose assets. That is about it. My suggestion for "Total War" in this forum tried to address this by adding gold coin incentives to PvP. You can get coins by doing a lot of different things but not by risking your assets in PvP.

Yeah, but I didn't have anything interesting to add to the discussion on PVP incentives. (Or at least, nothing within the realm of possibility, given the lack of dev resources).

That said, I'm totally down for a change on the incentives side as well. Or, how about this - inflicting casualties in PVP converts your workers staffing your military into professional soldiers and officers. Make the conversion rate low enough that you won't just get fake wars to spam them, but make it something players can create themselves, instead of the current occasional GM supply.

Actually, I'll expand on that. To throw some numbers out there, currently the GM prices population at 6 GC per million, and SC$ at 30 billion per GC, while a stack of 10,000 soldiers or 3,000 officers is worth 6-8 GC. So say that for every 5 million casualties or trillion SC$ worth of damage you do to a player country, you get a stack of each. There's no arbitrage possibilities, at least not unless their price gets up over 15 GC per stack(god forbid).

For comparison, the recent Aries/Zen/Zentrino vs Blackeyes war, if we assume all involved averaged Q500 with their forces and ignore ammo destruction, would have given A/Z/Z 20 stacks of each and BE 18 stacks of each. Not enough to compensate for the damage done, of course(it never would be in so evenly matched a war), but the winners would have at least been able to get 260+ GC worth of professionals to help make the war seem a bit less tragic.

After some discussion in chat, it seems my damage-based idea wouldn't work properly without a lot of work on the dev's part. I assumed the damage numbers in warfare were for destroyed weapons, but apparently I was wrong. Shame, I liked the principle there.

for the record the jv team is on fb without war protection awaiting its cheerleader to arrive

Regarding the lack of economic incentives for war, PvP wars were once common, without any special economic incentives. During the first half of the history of this game, PvP was frequent. There are numerous forum posts about that frequent PvP.

Then what happened to PvP? Obstacles!

The game introduced more and more obstacles to PvP. War levels, military units, supply units, restrictions on weapons production, limited forts became unlimited again. As a result, PvP plummeted and is now rare.

For most of a decade we've heard promises that the game will introduce mining of natural resources for select regions. That's supposed to provide economic incentives for war. That seems years from being ready. It will take longer if programmers divert time to other incentive schemes.

But what about the obstacles to PvP? Jonni already recognized a need to simplify logistics and maybe make some reductions. That's the w

Madoff, I assume you are simply so wrong on this because you are not a war player. You are a free player who only runs an enterprise. I agree with some of your obstacles, like war levels. War levels again need to be loosened, for sure. I suggested this on another thread:

"1. War levels offer no protection on FB. New empires are offered 21 days war protection. War levels still exist to offer the gold coin awards.

2. War level 3 is reverted to be like 1 and 2 and is unable to declare or be declared on by other players.

3. All players war level 4+ are free to declare or be declared on by other players."

However, the reason players were able to have assets they were simply able to throw at other players and not worry about it was due to the system of unlimited C3 raiding. I believe the change to this system was warranted, as it made raising money by econ look silly, but it needed to be replaced by something in th

I think new players should be allowed to start on any world they choose. It's already clearly obvious when you select a world, that if you choose FB it's the WAR WORLD. It couldn't be more clear than it already is. Have we seen there is an issue of anybody complaining they didn't notice they were on the war world ??

The only change I'd make on the war world is to remove WL protections. I don't think WL should allow for protection on ANY worlds, because if I understand this correctly, other worlds already allow your leader nation to be in indefinite secured mode? Is it not enough that a leader nation has an invincibility forcefield? As it is now an entire small collection of nations can also hide behind such an invisible impenetrable barrier up to a certain point (that is, up to WL3 or 4 and above)?? I don't think war level zero and above should be granted protection based on WL alone. I think WL should merely be

Newbies don't know the game very well. Letting them dive into the pool and break their neck is not a good way of increasing the population of this game, which frankly should be the first goal of the devs - a game can handle dated graphics, but not the feeling that it's a multiplayer game with no people. The idea of war is appealing, but the reality of being a war player in SC who isn't just going to ragequit once they attack someone with three tank battalions and get nuked to dust is that you need to have a big economy and solid backing before you can play seriously. If you can't beat the computer, you have no business fighting humans.

I'm not saying we should restrict it just because - I'm certainly not anti-war. I'm trying to work this into a system that will both make it *easier* to get properly established on the war world(because seriously, getting your WL up is trivial if you can read a guide, and if

This game is virtual, nobody actually gets hurt.

And yeah I find it ironic that your leader country has permanent secured mode and you say "I'm hardly ducking war"

But on the same note I certainly don't blame you in the least bit for taking advantage of the game mechanics, I would do the same (In fact I am DOING the same with temporary secured mode with my leader country)

But again this is a geopolitical simulation. War happens, and that means people lose wars too, and sometimes those are new people. At the end of the day they can turn off the computer if they get their feelings ohh so hurt for experiencing results from [virtual] WAR that didn't go in their favor on the WAR WORLD. I suspect that will encourage at first a emotion of disappointment soon followed by an emotion of revenge that will actually lead to fuel more participation and learning of the war system.

If you want to have