General War Engine Feedback after recent, large PVP war

I should have posted this when it was much more fresh a month or so ago, but I figured I'd relay feedback about the war engine, since so few people use/test much of it anymore. I recently was involved in a PVP war on White Giant that involved three of the largest militaries on the planet (and basically ALL of the top 10 war countries at the time), and think that size of conflict helps illustrate areas for improvement in the war engine. No clue if this will be useful but here it is.

Before I continue, THIS IS MEANT just as feedback on the current system and meant to go to gamemaster. This is super long and dry. I posted it publicly to encourage others to chime in should they chose. This is a very OPINION-driven post, but I have tested the things within and seen a lot. If you have not fought in big PVP wars, I would ask that you are careful about contributing to this thread. The intent is to get people who have seen how the war engine works at its highest level discussing possible improvements.

1. The first thing I will say is that the current war engine is extremely broken. Federated air defenses are the only important thing in the game. You can use your best, FULL units and shoot at it and do zero damage. Ever. You lose your entire unit, every time. Until this gets addressed, I probably won't be using it much anymore. I don't mind having some weapons and units being stronger than others, but there isn't a point in shooting at federated air defense. It will not die, and you CANNOT DAMAGE IT, so yeah, game is currently broken. Edits to weaken the effect of federated wings would help here. Offense should get smashed when attacking federated defense, but not ENTIRELY WIPED EACH TIME - you should be able to make headway, even if it's costly. I'm not going to touch on alternatives like nuking players to avoid air defense because frankly, if that's what you're doing, it ONCE AGAIN suggests the war engine needs work. Players with coordinated defenses are untouchable. Don't believe me? Try to take something from me on WG and find out :P I probably won't log in to worry and will retain everything. Possible downsides include me deciding to take your stuff, but hey, it's a game, right?

For anyone that wants to see what it looks like to shoot against federated air defense, this is basically what it will look like over and over (keep in mind offensive weapons are SIGNIFICANTLY costlier than defense weapons):

"The country lost 1 interceptor.
The defence was assisted by Defense Interceptor Wing Interceptor 004, Defense Interceptor Wing Interceptor 002 and Defense Interceptor Wing Interceptor 005.
The War Index remains 99.20
Noobatron2020 (the attacker) reports:
Air Force Attack and Bombing Wing 'Twin' lost 224 precision bombers and 476 fighter planes.
Air Force Attack and Bombing Wing 'Twin' lost trucks, gasoline and military supplies.
The attack may have been reduced or eliminated by Anti Missile Missiles.
The weapons chosen were not effective in this attack.
3130 soldiers were killed and 7291 were wounded.
The War Index remains 48.64"

I killed one interceptor on that shot and lost 224 bombers and 476 fighters (EVERY WEAPON IN MY UNIT). This was a GOOD shot. You usually don't kill even one interceptor. Why would anyone play against this defense? It's extremely easy for almost any player to set up regardless of finances too. There's a player who's been inactive for over a year on FB, but no one has taken his main country. He has basic federated air defense with over 100t cash sitting there for whoever can just beat his defenses. No one can take it (or has so far, and it's been... a year). I personally didn't even consider attacking it, and I have plenty of weapons. No point.

2. Units are too small
I've said this before, but offensive *units* are one shot units. If that's how this game was designed, then we have achieved great success. However, why there is a limit at all to the size of reserves in a unit is beyond me. Limiting it just means you need to click A HELL OF A LOT more, but with no benefits or perks. To be clear, I'm not suggesting more weapons per shot in this paragraph, I'm asking for more weapons in reserves. Make it 10x more. Seriously. Right now it's pretty silly.

I had to disband all of my offensive units after each shot in this recent war. Not exaggerating, I dismantled / reassembled probably 300-400 units after ONE SHOT EACH when feasibly, there could have just been ONE unit with big reserves. The composition of each of my 400 units was exactly the same. Yes, seriously. Had to shoot down several hundred wings, and each shot I fired required completely dismantling each unit I'd shot with previously and making a new one. What an enormous waste of time and clicks. Someone explain at all why there is a limit to me. Why can't I have 25,000 tanks waiting to fill in for the next shot if I want? You're limited by weapons per shot anyways - INCREASE THE RESERVES IN THE UNIT PLEASE. Wars take too long anyways without having to spend 1/2 your time just taking down and remaking units.

Next, I think there needs to be testing on unit sizes. It greatly impacts their effectiveness. Here, I AM talking about weapons per shot. Because air wings are smaller than ground forces (air units can max at 750 weapons per shot, ground maxes at 1300 weapons), they totally suck compared to ground in every way and should NEVER be used when ground is an option. Navies are even smaller, so they're even less useful than air wings. This feels broken, and was never the case until recently. Same is true for mobile units. They suck. They're tiny, they get massively outnumbered, and crushed. There is zero need to ever invest in them. Having to pay for them in the form of officers and professional soldiers further disbalances war anyways to promote "visa warriors" anyways, so I don't mind that they're broken. Get rid them of them and I wouldn't notice since no one uses them anyways. I have never once encountered anyone effectively using mobile units. Ever. Not saying it hasn't happened, but yeah.

3. Military supplies + things like gasoline and aircraft fuel.
These are REQUIREMENTS for all units - yet the only time you ever really get prompted to think about them is when you're assembling units. I bet half of your "my units aren't moving" topics on the help portion on the forum are because players have no indication that they're out of supplies or gas. This needs improvement. Low priority, but building a requirement of building up military reserves for fuel etc ahead of time to even use weapons seems like a good idea. There was more than a 3 real life week in backlog in military services during the war, so it was just lots of me having to remember to go into EACH COUNTRY AND MANUALLY PLACE IMMEDIATE ORDERS all the time. There are too many small things in the war engine that can ruin your war experience (like no gasoline) that have no real prompts to help prepare you for this. New players might buy 10,000 bombers and think they're ready to fight against a c3, but fail because they don't know they need fuel to actually use their bombers. I am not suggesting removing gasoline etc, but the system is not good right now.

There truly are an incredibly large number of things like this players need to remember - so much so that fighting feels like "checklist warring." Who has done more of the 750 things from the checklist than the other? In one of the 11 countries of mine involved in the war, I ran out of military supplies. This meant my remote depots dissolved, units were stranded, etc. I noticed quickly and fixed this, but my point should be made here. There are far too many little things to worry about. Things need massive overhauls with the intent of streamlining. Assets aside, players who haven't fought PVP before won't have a chance against someone like me. I know the millions of tiny things I need to worry about and they don't. Having to supply yourself is an argument, but it's not fun or profitable. We need to focus on fun, playability, and simple resolutions I think.

I have more thoughts but I've posted enough for now. Feel free (anyone) to ask questions about this. Would love more dialogue on how to improve the war engine since I feel it's pretty bad right now in terms of playability.

I ruined the economy of my last empire trying to take a country from the inactive player on FB that you're referring to. I tried using divisions of OAAMBs to reduce his air defences and killed 1 interceptor for each division I had destroyed. I tried throwing nukes at him, every type, literally hundreds and not one got through his defences. Conventional missiles, cruise and fighter/precision bomber wings had zero effect, killed nothing. I was left with over a million dead and wounded and deep in debt. In the end I cancelled those countries and started again from scratch.

And yes, I used weapons and ammo upgraded to 330Q and I forward staged units of anti missile batts within range of targets in an attempt to reduce losses but still had entire units wiped out with every click. It was pointless and very frustrating.

The fault isn't yours, Weyland. The game did not used to be that way. The main issue is how strong federated air defense has become. Changes to that would improve gameplay significantly. It's not that it's "too strong." It's that it's "unbeatable," which makes the war game largely pointless in many instances.

I'm just glad you're back after that experience.

That FB player actually is semi-trolling us. He quit because he hated how strong fed air defense was ("this is pointless") and before he left said he thought some of his countries would "last a while" against attacks LOL. How prophetic he was.

Bump.

very interesting experience there had been many strategies used in federation wars from draining resources, ammo, killing ignoring air def etc. my most interesting time in sc was when air was like now and people were attempting to find some new ways of fighting.

just curious how the war ended? in the forum?))

Always happy to elaborate when it comes to player interactions!

The war was originally "The Syndicate" vs. David Clonan. The Syndicate is Matthew II and me. Nuclear warfare was avoided and communication between the sides occurred starting only a couple hours in. Tensions between the sides had been high going back to the time when all three players were in WGA together (about 9 months prior) and had some disagreements. As hostilities increased, both sides placed new "advance bases" within range of the other sides' main empires. As the advance bases grew, it became clear that conflict was coming.

There was significant fighting in several locations, but Angolan Nation, one of David's countries that had been placed as an advance base, fell to Syndicate forces. It's shown in the stats below, you can tell it was a newer nation by looking at it's population. Such a rapid buildup (Blue Forces 01 was David's other new advance base) next to part of my core empire was a large reason behind why we decided to declare the war.

After several unsuccessful counter attacks, David successfully sued for peace and a truce was achieved. While David was our enemy at the time, The Syndicate values *any* player willing to risk significant assets in war, and our views and opinion of David were greatly improved as a result. We have a much more open and regular dialogue these days with David.

Regarding draining ammo - that's a strategy and I've actually had that used against me before (Orbiter, a veteran from long ago, used jeeps drain my heli ammo in a cluster on LU once), but there were as many as several hundred wings per nation in this war - so it wasn't a particularly efficient idea in this instance. I also tested the ammo drain strat with John since I've returned and it doesn't seem quite as good as it used to be. Not sure if it has to do with the changed strength of helicopter wings, ammo strength etc since I saw it in action before. It seemed like heli wings used very little ammo compared to what I expected, but that's just my opinion on it.

If you find this interesting, I had actually pulled data from the day the war started. ALL of David's, Matthew's and my countries in the list below were at war with each other. There were several other countries involved in the fighting, but here are the largest armies on WG at time of war starting:

Country Name	Nukes	President Name	Member of Federation	War Rank	vCmainTotalPopulation	Employed Army
SOUTH AFRICAN NATION	Yes	David	African Union Security Outfit	1	112,942,246	7,063,654
NIGERIAN NATION	Yes	David	African Union Security Outfit	2	75,071,132	3,099,455
Angolan Nation	Yes	David	African Union Security Outfit	8	23,293,099	3,070,048
Nordalbingia	Yes	E O	The Syndicate	13	94,917,113	3,028,970
Dominion of Sussex	No	Matthew II	The Syndicate	10	97,630,946	2,972,078
BLUE FORCES 01	No	David	African Union Security Outfit	5	32,133,275	2,693,516
Dominion of Normande	Yes	Matthew II	The Syndicate	3	95,596,385	2,622,003
Huna	No	E O	The Syndicate	4	103,251,024	2,430,909
Akkadia	Yes	E O	The Syndicate	6	97,157,009	2,384,425
Tarhun	Yes	E O	The Syndicate	12	108,048,276	2,193,765
Andronovo	No	E O	The Syndicate	19	99,470,970	2,102,036
Indus	Yes	E O	The Syndicate	9	99,252,423	2,084,261
ETHIOPIAN NATION	No	David	African Union Security Outfit	11	35,743,368	1,980,108
EGYPTIAN NATION	Yes	David	African Union Security Outfit	7	68,831,902	1,795,700
USA STATE OF KOREA	Yes	UNION STATES KING	The Syndicate	21	106,157,405	1,572,948
Moakurarua	Yes	Anihana	WGA Lynx CD	35	102,944,429	1,306,907
USA STATE OF ERIE	Yes	UNION STATES KING	WGA Lynx CD	37	97,853,586	1,255,598
Fujian	No	Amalie	WGA Lacerta branch 2	40	92,181,379	1,197,175
Natufia	Yes	E O	The Syndicate	15	93,992,552	1,197,122
USA STATE OF CIMERO	No	UNION STATES KING	WGA SOUTHEAST BRANCH	41	108,318,747	1,182,457

some fun for sure you had

If I have time to plan and be available, I do thoroughly enjoy large wars. I'd also like to comment briefly about our enemy during the war, David, and why what he did mattered and allowed the war to be fun in the first place:

This war was fun, but could have been more balanced with small changes to the war engine. David should have been rewarded with more success in combat than he was considering the incredible army he assembled and put on the field. There are probably at most 10 or so active players across all planets who have the capacity, resources, and know-how to present the military challenge (including reserves, ammo, etc) that he did in my opinion. On top of that, he assembled his forces in something like nine months from starting with nothing - which is what was unique about David's achievements. Despite his army size and resources, our defenses were extraordinarily difficult to breach in a conventional war, and I wish there was more balance to that. We salute David in that he did not attempt nuclear strikes - as neither side made any comments about such things prior to the war. All is fair game at that point, but the war remained entirely conventional.

David was and is a formidable foe. In discussions with him since the war, it's also clear that he was paying close attention to what occurred, and has improved several of his tactics and ideas about war as a result of his experience.

Simcountry wars at this scale can be as complicated, frantic, skill-based, random, and fun as just about any other real time map strategy game. This particular war was quite short, which isn't always the case - you never know what you're getting yourself in to. They aren't always fun, interesting, etc - but they can be. That's just another reason we tip our cap to David - it takes a competent foe who is willing to step into the ring and fight to make the game fun, interesting, and challenging. I know many players who have fought in wars like this feel the same way - it can just be hard to convince new players that it's worth the risk.

I salute you my boss @EO it was an honour battling with you and learning from you.. I also do Appreciate your help so far and your teachings we'll keep improving till we get there finally. thank you Sir

Aluta Viva..