W3C - War Levels

We will welcome a constructive discussion on war levels.
we agree that the current situation is far from ideal but previous discussion on the forum did not lead to any "great idea" on how to improve.

If you want to participate please forward ideas.

It does not make sense at all to write a full page with many ideas.

Please try to make one point at a time. tell us what the problem is, and how it should be improved. Make another point later.

We will not "rewrite" the war game. we can change the rules, add new ways of evaluating situations etc.

We think that a gradual approach, easy to understand for all participants has an excellent chance to pass here.

if it becomes complex with tens of ideas/conditions, nothing will happen.

We also think that such a gradual approach, even if we have to redo some of it at a later stage, can be done quickly.

In the past, players where promoting features that will fit their own specific aims. This always shows. We need you to think for all types of players.

The main keyword however is constructive. We will dedicate more time to it but a shouting match is not what we are looking for.

My observations:

- the rules for warring are so strict that it hampers the war game
- there is no reason to go to war with players other then that you don't like somebody's name/person/nick etc There are plenty of c3's around to farm. So why bother with players?

Possible solutions:
- lower the barriers a bit for declaring war. Sure up to war lvl 2 you should receive protection but after lvl 2 things should become a bit more nasty.

- Other games have penalties for declaring on weaker players. You can still declare the war but you would for example receive a growth or money penalty if that person is weaker. This prevents stronger players from continuously farming weaker players. An example how that could work here would be if somebody was 2 war lvls lower you could receive a money 'penalty' or a welfare penalty or something along those lines. You can increase that for bigger differences in war lvl. It doesn't even have to be high. Just cumulative.
That way 'big players' can still target people but they can't do it to often.

- It would be nice if there would be some form of special reward for winning pvp fights. This is still a game and games need to be fun. There is a reason it works like that in 99.99% of the games in the world.

- reduce the number of available countries. That would force players to interact more and stop people from living on their own island.

1. Make mobile land cruise units, convetional missile units exist and would be more useful for cruise to. Would be useful in essence like navy but without all the filler units, but utilizes special mobile soldiers to utilize, as well as air base construction units.

Dear Game Master,

I know in the past I've been very blunt about the war levels, but over time I've warmed up and can see they do have value. I would like to ask players to not think about CREATING new incentives to the war game but rather then tweaking whats in place. We don't need new incentives and reasons to war. I was here pre-war levels and there was always a REASON to war, we dont need new reasons we need bring back the ORIGINAL reasons.

I have 3 suggestions I think might help to simulate the war game.

First, Anyone should be able to be attacked. I think keeping the current spread of +/- 2 war levels is fine, But the lower war levels should be able to be attacked. War level 1 and 2 should be able to be attacked. The only people who shouldn't be allowed to be attacked is war level 0, other then that your fair game. I think this should remove the "Hiding" we currently see and would force players into federations.

Second, Federations should have no limits on who can declare war. I believe that ANYONE in a federation should be able to protect an ally. As it stands I'm in WL 11 and if a teammate of mine is attacked and hes war level 3, Even if i signed a war dec, I wont dec war. If my federation declares war anyone not in that war level is excluded. I know the first thing I thought of was how would we prevent this from allowing the strong to gang up on the weak, This is where the Security Council comes in with their power. I believe this addition will benefits the powers of the security council AND the powers of federations.

Third, I think to prevent C3 warring which was a huge problem in the past. I think the GM should expand on the nuclear limitation in place. I think that in order for ANY nation to declear war the country must have a population of over 25M. This would force players to invest time and energy into a nation and would prevent C3 wars from happening, unless of course someone wanted to spend huge amounts of real money in order to "Troll" other players.

These are my suggestions I hope they help.
Super

I only have one real suggestion.

Coming from a war background, to eco, i think there's a fundamental disadvantage to beginners or less experienced people.

I think war should be set out as described by SS, but, with limitations on those who are far superior in the game. Maybe having a set number of weapons that the specific empire can use in an assault against a less skilled player?

E.g. IE AN EXAMPLE... 100 TOTAL units (1 batt, 1 squadron 1 etc etc etc) at any quality.
This would mean that beginners would have to at least armour up against players or face losing a capped amount of cash or resources.

If you allow players who go for Wl1 to be attacked by anyone, one player so to speak, e.g. Josias, SS, Blue etc would wipe them out alone, maybe an entire federation alone. I think bringing back the ability to attack anyone and everyone is superb, but there has to be limitations.

It'd be similar to the USA going to war with, say.... the Maldives. It'd be over in an hour.

Open the war game, but limit it to some extent.

y dis

Not bad bois, but im pushing forward my idea, Mobile Land based cruise units, they serve a good purpose! (And super in my defense its not creating; it ADDING) and could be tweaking to) as theres no way to upgrade (atleast i know) land based cruise batteries/ammo current, plus if they are out of range they can atleast now have a fair counterpart for usefulness. They have
mobile conventional missiles, which imo are more useless since they already have massive ranges, vs cruise shorter range.

Thats my idea, it would be useful for all players and makes more use of mobile units for the special unit type.

I would like to discuss these suggestions one for one:
I will get to the other suggestions later.

I think that the main problem has always been:

Free warring against anybody versus protection of the weaker players.

Dropping all limitations is not good enough.
Let See and SuperSoldierCP have both made suggestions related to this problem.

we need to find a way to extend the war game but not wipe out beginners.

25M population? or 20M?
Wars with C3 countries when you have 12M or 15M population?
advantage: you get there at some time. no hiding, but you have time to build up and learn.
Penaltyies?
more suggestions?
If we resolve this one, the rest will be easier.

I would argue against using population to determine if somebody should be able to declare. It can be really depressing if you are a new player, spend a month or 2 only to get whiped out once you hit that 25 million people mark.
Make no mistake, most new players really like it when their population has grown to number x/y and are really proud of it. If you use population as an indicator growing their country suddenly becomes something dangerous.

I actually like the war lvls. Or at least what they try to do. It might be a good idea to start with lowering the restrictions first. That would make declaring war easier for people.

The more I think about it the more sense it makes to have some sort of penalty for declairing on players that are a lot weaker. It seems like a very easy solution to a lot of problems. Yes SS, Aires and co can still whipe out smaller players but they would have to pay a price for it which would limit their ability to farm newer players.

I'm not sure on the numbers but a welfare penalty seems the easiest. This can be explained by people protesting against the goverment for abusing it's power and becoming unhappy.

IMO, I don't think anyone below WL4, just fighting C-3's, it's virtually impossible for a player to understand what it would possibly take to fight a war with a stacked player. I'd even go as far as to say it's completely unfair. I've been here for a few months now. I still don't have a full grasp on the entire war section yet.

I don't know, I don't see an issue with the current model.

In regards to Andy's comment and the comment of Strong VS Weak.

I want to emphasizes the importance of keeping the war level requirements "AS IS". I do not believe that any player of high assets and experience should attack a lower skilled player. This is why I said we should keep the -/+ 2 war level rule( WL 3 can only declare on WL 1-5 and so on). My thought it is that it would put only players of similar war level. Allowing war levels 1 and 2 to enter the war game would dramatically increase the need for cooperation and communication.

Also I do --NOT-- believe we need to add new artificial rules to make the game better.
I would like to ask the GM and players to think about expanding CURRENT features rather then making new artificial ones. We have a security council, federation, and boycott system that all need updates.
This is our chance to FIX the issues with federations, give the Security councils more power, and a chance to add economic features and expand on things like boycotts to improve the diplomatic side of the game.

Regarding war levels, at least 90% of countries are unattackable because they have low war levels. The solution is to keep war levels as military training only. Remove war levels as preconditions for war declarations.

Regarding amount of population, that should not be any precondition for declaring war. Players already earn lots of war level awards. Weak players can use those gold coins to buy war protection boosters. That's enough protection.

To promote balance, prevent players from using ridiculously huge arsenals. Specifically, stop countries from direct purchases of weapons from enterprises and space stations.

In my humble opinion, on all worlds except FB you have ONE secured mode country nobody can attack.

If you want to play the economic side, you have one country and the ability to get two ceo's as a premium member.

If you need "Lebensraum" and wish to expand your borders, well, that's building an empire take the same chance everyone else in history took.

The entire idea of player protection was originally presented as a way to keep someone from being wiped out.

Between your account, one country on each world nobody can attack, CEO's and the ability to move assets between them. How can you wipe anyone out unless they are simply not paying attention?

If you are worried about someone taking your additional countries it's easy to design your empire to make money to transfer, generate military assets to transfer and yet not be worth someone's effort to take.

And if someone does come along and grab one of your annexed areas, well then you've found someone to play with.

<!-Quote-!>Quote:

If you allow players who go for Wl1 to be attacked by anyone, one player so to speak, e.g. Josias, SS, Blue etc would wipe them out alone, maybe an entire federation alone.<!-/Quote-!>

for the record, i have done this, and it is why we have WLs now. but I am sitting with a tiny little 30m country, on WG, at WL0, with no intention to change that

This is a game. Games are ment to be fun. What fun is, is different to everybody. But most players don't find it a lot of fun if mega power x comes along and you are completly helpless against him/her and lose. Now this is something that is going to happen a lot in this game because of the way this game works. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to limit those situations a bit.

Yankee is right when he says that it's easy to design a country in such a way that it is simply not worth the effort of taking, he is right that when you have 4 countries on 4 worlds you can do a lot of weapon transfering and build up decent reserves. Here is my 1 question though...

How long does it take for somebody who is not a hard core player to learn all those things?

For most people this game has a very long learning curve of many months. And when somebody has botherd to learn all of those things, and that somebody does build up this little 200million pop empire. Along comes a Letsie to take it all away in a heartbeat. Why? Because he can and because he doesn't care about you.

This has happend several times to me in the past when I was still learning things.

I'm not sure that removing all the restrictions from the war game is good for the 'fun factor' I'm definitly more in the restriction/penalty camp.

That way everybody gets something they like. New players won't be farmed as much but older players still get a change to fight everybody they want.

Great. Thank you all.

Indeed, you can play a peaceful game, on one or more worlds and you will not be attacked.
No reason to change that.

There is even a possibility to purchase a country and remain outside the war game.

As Yankee said, when you build an empire, be prepared to fight for it.

Some players want to "harvest" C3s for economic reasons. Then they become war players.

I think that this harvesting is not a good idea. If you win a war against a C3 country, maybe we need to move you to a higher war level. Next war will be more serious.

Fighting high levels C3 wars will teach you something about the war game. If it does not, we need to improve the way C3s fight.

Making money is possible, and maybe should be easier, by working on your economy rather than this trivial strange war game against C3s.

There are armies that are too big. having an over sized offensive army can be made more difficult.

I also think that if you have an empire, with all the flexibility of moving assets around, you should accept losing a country in war.

We used to have that, only at the time, it went too far, too quickly and players lost everything.

Population is a measure of time played, experience, and time to prepare a great defense.

How about expanding your empire to max, say 3 countries, and if you decide to go to war, or get attacked, only the two slaves will be at risk, as opposed to the whole empire.

At least that way, the player who's going to war, or defending, knows that worst comes to worst, they haven't lost everything and anything?

Don't get me wrong, i don't mind the whole war game, but this game has died because lower level players hate being farmed or taken advantage of.

I have long put forth suggestions with the basic idea of adding incentives to play the war game and tie it in with a player choice to voluntarily leave war level protection (permanently).

1. The War College

https://www.simcountry.com/discus/messages/8/25043.html?1453899584

2. Battlegrounds (revised)

https://www.simcountry.com/discus/messages/8/25045.html?1439461174

3. Natural Resources

-Allow players to choose a bonus for an existing country they own. They must pay for it in gold coins. The bonus only applies if the player is war level 4+ and has removed war level protection. The bonus for that country, once paid for, applies permanently for that country for any owner as long as the current owner is war level 4+ and has removed war level protection.

https://www.simcountry.com/discus/messages/8/25184.html?1447874172



Oh, and in fairness, I have long said gold coin purchased protections should not work for players that are the aggressors in a player war. You should not have less at risk as a result of that feature than the victim of your declaration of war.

@ Putin
You are correct the main reason the war game doesn't atract new players is because they stand absolutly no change at all. The knowledge and resource disadvantage for a new player vs a more experienced player is just absurd in this game.


@ Andy
If you take away or make c3 raiding a lot harder. How do you expect newer players to close the gap between them and the more experienced players? Raiding is the most cost effective at the lower lvls. It's a huge boost for new players and they learn a lot about fighting. If you are going to tweak raiding please keep that in mind.

You also state that population is an indicator for time spent on the game and for 'skill lvl'. That is probably true but once again please keep in mind that it's really not a lot of fun for newer players if they know that once they hit populaiton X they have to join some sort of walking buffet where they are the food...

I got a suggestion. Why dont when someone is caught cheating instead of not doing a thing about probably because they got the "bribe" but actually stop players who cheat. You overlook something as simple as spelling a players name, i wouldent be surprised what else has been overlooked in this game like its simply just another player. I guess though that could have been a bad joke, like this game.

To the universe that domains SC: keep running in circles, lol! Aries best player here by far(to pat an ass). Really though Aries been putting work on ideas for this game and this game for long time now, hes pretty much the cream of the crop for the update to the war game. And yet, all those ideas all that time, overlooked. Not a thing i can do about it, LOL!

Best players (good)ideas just tossed under the bus, names overlooked, rules overlooked, Land based cruise cant even be updated. No work to the current war game, just like the dredge on gold rush, keeps breaking down.

Ill be here, hatin, upset enjoying it, since a fuckin multi scum sits like mold, and plenty of ideas to fix the war game, and even so, really? wait till theres barly 10 players to comment on this to say "erm; war game changes anyone?" I mean you win some, lose some, what else can i type? Im simply just saying spell someones fuckin name right, maybe the game will get better. Seriously, dont ban anyone one else for a rule that you have to decide based on your judgement on there punishment, should be a generic rule. You multi, you done. But nope, play a little game, and only if you cheat to 2 billion empire you risk a ban.

Seriously, are we gonna suggest things about war levels until the game is shutdown? its about there now. Not saying "i hate this game shut it down" I enjoy like iv typed many times before i love this game, but the war game was dead before war levels. Not to mention in so many years as i typed, this is the only real thing about war levels change? Doesent matter, W3C as the posts to not allowing multing, is to this fourm about changing war levels, physically useless in the end.

"Stop being mean, hes trying" Yeah im sure he is, and im sure there trying to change war levels as much as there trying to stop multi account use.

Two days into it and it is sidetracked, not very constructive.

I thought we were talking about:

Free warring against anybody versus protection of the weaker players.

Only this, and one suggestion at a time. Short contributions as we are unable to read lots of text that is generally, not about what we are discussing.

We will make some changes. It is clear that we have to keep protecting beginners. The question is how.

I hope that some very good suggestions will help us
here or mail to gamemaster@simcountry.com
Please keep it short and to the point.

we will take them into account.

There were several good contributions at the start of this discussion.
I will use them.

EVERYONE!

Andy and the GM are receptive to changing the war levels and they are asking us to please give them constructive ideas. I understand that everyone wants to be heard and to put in their two cents but as Andy said we are getting FAR off topic.

As a veteran player I have been here many years and seen some fabulous and (not) so fabulous changes. I have been one of the most outspoken and critical players over the years, and I'm here today telling you I stand with the GM and welcome the open dialog.

Some players have great ideas but these are not what we need. We do not need NEW IDEAS OR ADDITIONS to the game, we need to fix the existing features before you add new one.

The Question here is how can we open the war levels to allow players of all war levels be active in the game without having to worry about veteran players sniping or harassing new players thus destroying the player base.

Andy

To keep the conversation going I would like to make this comment in the hope it keeps us on track.

You said "Free warring against anybody versus protection of the weaker players. "

I truly believe that war levels 1 and 2 should be allowed into the war game. I vote that we keep the current system you have in place on all worlds expect FB, where you can only attack 2 levels above or below yours. That way new players cannot be targeted by higher level players. In addition maybe we should look at implementing a a war level increase if you win against a player of similar or higher war level. That way people with experience are automatically moved up the war levels and it prevents strong players from continuously "hiding" in the lower levels.

Lol

Keep chasing your tails! super, anyone else, and-E if he is even serious,

Litterally, you think that ignoring every other problem in this game, like the fact i can 100% prove there is a multi player where in the fourms JONNI, stated that: multing has never been allowed. So why the fuck isent a thing done about multing? So they will drive away every player whos against multi-cheating to keep a few little boogers happy. They cant handle other tasks in this game and take shit seriously, im sorry but super(however the fuck i spell your name though its right in my face but ill spell it like this) your opinions are void and invalid, sure they are useful to a reasonable maybe running game, but give it up, everyone goes blind when theres a multi exposed and no one can even look back a few weeks to see a "newbies" goodbye:

https://www.simcountry.com/discus/messages/1/26323.html?1499587828

Thats the noobs own opinion, what? he cant play the game what else can he be told? people are getting stupider and stupider. Nothing to do with war why he quit. Like now we can just multi blatantly and everyone will just let it go. Theres alot more problems to this game then just the "War game" and free warring. The fact is really no one unless there a multi will even play this game let alone have the abilite to fight a free war and beat an exeprienced player. You guys fill scapegoats like a thanksgiving turkey!!! But no thanks! i dont want to have any of that!

Really, i dont know when you guys are going to get it, fixing something thats been fixed one too many times, like what the fuck iv said it and keep saying, keep fixing the game, making little rules, the players will just keep shrinking. You could revamp, but cant since they dont havet the power to, and they just continueally allow cheaters to play the game, what a warm welcome for any player in this game! why i have seen noobs in the past, they had multi accounts to. Litterally, this is hopeless like me getting a response for a legit cheater.


I can see it now, the players flocking in over the adjusted feature of free players vs weak empires. As if that wasent how it had to be from the beginning. What about mobiles to? Why the fuck, in fucks fuck; did they waste there time making mobiles, if they had something to fix? mobiles were out before the war levels, how did that go? make a bunch of useless units that no one even wants because there a crap waste of gold coins

I mean to be real, this is a problem that has been in this game like a cancer since iv started this game years before war levels, keeping players playing. I wonder why.

I guess all I am trying to say was that my previous suggestions were examples but the basic premise is that leave it up to players to choose if they are ready for the war game. The feature already exists in the game to drop war level protection (temporarily). Instead of picking some arbitrary level of population, or how many times they followed a guide to defeat an AI opponent, give players a reason to want to play the war game and a choice to permanently leave the war level system.

I think the fear that powerful players will prey on newer players are overblown and outdated in the current environment. Just look at the players that have experience and resources and ask what they have to gain. In my case, absolutely nothing really. What is that player going to have that I want? Honestly, once the decision is made about war levels the game will confront the real problem. What can actually be gained for a player to participate in a PvP war?

A revitalized war game can help beginners learn and perhaps allow some up and coming players to benefit. However, if war levels were completely removed, there is nothing I would do to play the game differently unless new war players brought some activity and fun to the game. Frankly, do you think I need more gold coins? game cash? countries? weapons? ammo? No, not really. My breaks from active play become more frequent and longer because I have found other games with a more active and fun warring environment.