W3C - War Levels

I edited my comment to tone it down a bit, I guess we missed each in the moment.

I disagree that the problem with the war game is the disparity in assets. I don't see it. I certainly faced the same disparity when I started this account in 12-2012. This game has been going for what, 14-15 years? The powerful have come and went. I don't believe there is a reason for this pattern not to continue. If I started over in the dawn of new war game rules, I promise you in a short time I would be similarly dangerous in any PvP war as I am now.

The core issues are the ones I said. That the war game does not make sense for new players, has an over-reliance on fake game protections, and little to no asset incentive to leave those protections for the associated risk.

The world you suggest opening with secured mode and no war levels should be very similar to what Fearless Blue should be and should rightly be changed to. FB should not offer war level protections, in addition to its lack of secured mode. It should have the 21 days war protection, that the world still offers, and that is it.


Edit addition: On the test for the value of asset disparity. What current player in the game would you place your bet on to defeat me in a PvP war in,say, 3 months if I simply deleted and remade my account today.

Historically this game IMHO was at it's "peak" when there were absolutely no war levels, secured mode or any other feature offering a player any protection other than:

1. Their ability to aggressively attack others.
2. Their ability to passively defend themselves (i.e. make it cost ineffective to go to war against them)
3. Their ability to interact with other players and form alliances.

It is also MHO that #3 is the largest problem this game faces today. For the most part, most days, I feel I'm playing this game with of 3-5 individuals who all live in different time zones.

I am surrounded by inactive player countries that for any number of reasons I might wish to remove however I can't touch them and, if for some reason they suddenly woke up and took offense at anything I'm doing they can't attack me.

I'm playing this game the way I want to, I have no intention of chasing war levels or game levels for that matter.

If they happen, they happen.

That doesn't mean I'm trying to hide from anyone or anything. Country wise, I've got one of the largest holdings on LU at this present time and quite frankly, I intend to acquire much more.

Even so I have stated all along ONE secured country is all anyone needs in this game. If someone wants to come along and spend the effort for little to no return hey, just gives me another goal along with an enemy to spark my interest.

Believe me when I say I'd love to see this game convert to one secured country on LU, WG, KB, WG and GR and have someone jump right down my throat.

It would be a lot more interesting than what we've got now.

I'm I worried about the bigger players? Why should I be?

Anyone with half a brain is not going to expend the effort to take what I've got unless I really piss someone off (see #3 above). But if there is anyone out there wanting to spend the money and effort to prove me wrong I see absolutely no reason this game shouldn't let them, I'm certainly up for it.

Otherwise, I'm just going to keep grabbing slaves and fixing them up just enough that I can suck money and whatever assets they produce every time I log on. I've never owned an entire region before, it's sad but that's about the only goal currently in my reach.

I need something or someone new to keep my attention relatively soon anyway or I doubt I'll be around much longer myself.

Aries, why don't you let the GM decide.

Opening a new world to to new registrations only, would not require very much effort on the GMs part. And would put all the fresh players looking to make a name of themselves together, on equal footing. Rather than spread out.

War protection would not be neccessary, as the dominate players would not be able to bring in masses of assets via space, or direct trading. They could still reset their accounts, and do well, based on their game knowledge. But most I'd suspect would hold onto their old accounts for quite some time.

With a return to trial accounts, and no war levels, i think that inactives would be cleaned up, leaving only active paying players. In a fresh environment, this would probably work.

Let the game that is dying, die. And start over. It would require little effort on the GMs part. But might take some hold outs a couple years to get the hint.

I didn't know I had the power to prevent the GM from making the decision. Do I? All I believe I have the power to do is give my opinion and ask you to clarify yours. Then, rather than you stomping your foot and demanding an end to discussion, we can hash out our ideas and let the GM decide. Fair?

I do not believe it is necessary to open a new world to fix a problem that, in my view, doesn't exist. Creating a new world would not result in those players being on equal footing at all. Players who are familiar with the war game would still crush players that aren't just as easily as it could occur now. What it would do is split the player base, which the game could currently not afford to do. It also chases an incredibly flawed outlook that balance has to be achieved in a one vs. one basis. Such an outlook sees no role for diplomacy and no role for federations, which is exactly the problem we have now.

2 more things

1. What are these hold-outs and what hint do they require?

2. You didn't answer my question. What player could use their mega-account, maybe this is what you mean by hold-out (you are making us all guess), and defeat me on the field of battle even if I started a brand new account. They get all their stuff and I get 3 months to build what I need against what you view as an insurmountable advantage. What player meets that description that you would bet on their victory. If you could even imagine one such player, could you think of 2? 3?

You might see something I don't, but I don't see wars won solely based on assets and I like my chances right now because most players sitting on any assets haven't dusted them off and used them against any opponent that breathes in years because of the lack of incentives in the war game. If the problem was simply mega-accounts, wouldn't these folks be rampaging through the game right now or at least coming to the forum and complain that they can't. Who left does that?


I am concerned Josias still won't answer so this is now an open question. List the players that can defeat me with their mega-accounts if I have just 3 months to build. Convince me and then maybe we have something here.

blah, blah, blah

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I do not believe it is necessary to open a new world to fix a problem that, in my view, doesn't exist. -Aries<!-/Quote-!>

but it does already exist, on both accounts, you even admitted it.

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The worlds are just too sparse now to consider another world with another rule-set. In addition, I am concerned about the mindset that leads to this idea. -Aries<!-/Quote-!>

So All new registrations, go to a new planet, free of 10+ years of asset accumulation, and extreme protection from such.

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Creating a new world would not result in those players being on equal footing at all. Players who are familiar with the war game would still crush players that aren't just as easily as it could occur now. -Aries<!-/Quote-!>

would you rush to LO, and start crushing?

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What player could use their mega-account, maybe this is what you mean by hold-out (you are making us all guess), and defeat me on the field of battle even if I started a brand new account. -Aries<!-/Quote-!>

can stop fapping in the sim-mirror long enough for oxygen to reach your brain?

how many old timers do you think will just delete their old account and start over. how many of them will just start crushing newbs? would you? most will probably continue to run their empires, as they are.

while some will take advantage of this, others will place themselves in a protectorate position. but most would be loath to delete years of assets, until its obvious the old is dead, and the new is thriving.

and theirs a key underlining thing here. a kinda between the lines on what both You and Yankee said, their isn't enough active players to justify 5 worlds. (not trying to speak for you Yankee, just an interpretation on what you said,)

--->put all the new accounts on a world segregated from the rest. and see what happens.

it'd take zero effort.

What is the problem with asset accumulation?

Other than revolving awards on monthly rankings, what is there to do?

Why are you putting down the players who have stuck with the game with terms like "old timers"?

..and there is no reason to think a new world solves a darn thing, other than splitting the player base and sticking it to the players who have stuck with the game and accumulated assets through their skill or contributions. You said it best earlier. Chances are this idea will be dismissed by the GM out of hand, and it should be. Please stop attacking other players that play the game under the illusion of attempting to fix the war game. Why don't we appreciate that they are still around? This crosses a line.

The problem is not asset accumulation.

The problem is and to some extent the reasons for the current state of affairs, players coming into a game and expecting a balance between themselves and someone who has played for years.

Aries or anyone else for that matter, has done absolutely nothing I can't do, and I can build what assets I currently have a LOT faster with the proper motivation.

Personally, I wouldn't care if all restrictions were removed completely. I was better at, highly motivated and much happier when there was the possibility someone might come and take what I had.

I enjoy the building more than maintenance anyway.

The only reason I've ever suggested one secured country is I understand not everyone wants everything they've built to be at risk.

The funny thing about that is, nobody can ever really wipe you out in this game anyway.

The idea of having natural resources within different regions on each world has been floated for a while now. (5 planets are plenty imo) It may be difficult to design, but it would add more realism to the worlds. The GC investment for natural resources could basically translate as a nation's effort to cultivate materials that would be otherwise produced in corps. We have Oil corporations available for example; it would probably be more accurate to refer to them as refineries since oil is cultivated, not manufactured in the real world. Other resources, such as natural gas, sand, gold, etc. I think federations would start forming pretty damn quick. "Think OPEC". Realistic price wars, injecting more economics into the international conflict, as opposed to just the usual product dumps we sometimes see. Maybe the natural resources should be identified by chance, research or expedition efforts by a nation's economy. A little nation is all of a sudden garnishing more importance and attention, like Saudi Arabia. Might be a cross hairs on a newbie, something to consider.
Geography is destiny. A lot to cover there; just some ideas.

I can only offer insight in this regard, the ideas Aries described come from a lot of his experiences. If anything, a lot of long time players wish to see more player retention, less of the revolving door. I think the only self-interest here is to see more players stay, make connections and bring more energy into the SC community. Nothing wrong with that.

Aries, I was not looking into your account nor did I think you are trying to help yourself.

I read this as an effort by everybody to improve the war game.
We already have some very good ideas here.

We would like to drop war levels but you cannot just do it and see what happens. There must be a change process, with feedback and then more changes.

Natural resources will help but it is a separate idea.
as we see it, all mining corporations will function for a limited period and new corporations will be formed where resources have been found by a discovery process.

we can talk about it later and yes, it will add incentives for war.

I will do more reading here and come back with comments. I would like to end up with a short list for some first changes.

I appreciate that Andy. My motive for the last 3 years has been to help new players, particularly war players, understand and enjoy the game. Towards that end, I have assisted players in chat, written guides (that are now published here for everyone instead of some other site), wrote up accounts of actual battles (like the "Battle of Camp Foxtrot" found on the FB forum), and made suggestions with the experience of seeing the challenges new players face.

For my part, the only wars I have initiated in the last three years were against powerful players who exploited a game system to create unnatural wealth. Only through a combination of skill and vigilance was I able to eliminate them from the game, though I believed you might have cleaned up the assets of the last player, after my climatic battle with him.

Should certain war rules be changed, consider that I plan to use my resources and skill to help new players in the new environment. I tend not to get involved in wars between newer war players, but I have acted a number of times to help a new war player fend off a powerful attack from a veteran. My ability to get less experienced players up to speed and make them effective in their own defense is currently matched by no player in the game. Should federations become viable and necessary again in a new environment, I will be around more to help any federation that would appreciate my assistance.

Thanks for your help Aries.
I really appreciate it.
Also the knowledge of Yankee and others helps a lot.

New world, lets close the subject
FB is closest to what we want and I see no reason to setup a new world right now.
We can and will evolve the war game and do it on FB.

Here are some suggestions, just a little start.
not connected to "the big picture"

War protection on FB:

I would like to limit war protection, step by step.
we cannot just force players into a very different situation from one day to another.

War protection on FB costs more, it should cost even more.
We can consider making WP free for the main country as on other worlds.
Reduce the number of protected countries, step by step from max of 10 to start with, back to 1.

Make transfers of weapons into the country from space or enterprises, go into the reserves, and slow the activation process in the first day or two.

The question is simple:
Are these suggestions in the right direction?

This is a very small first step.

The system for inactive weapons can be called broken. You must log in every month to activate a very small number of weapons, making it very unfriendly for the user. The war hospital system is the same. Unless that system is made much better, such as more weapons being active each month and some type of "target" system, rather than expecting players to be active each game month, that system should not be tied to space transfer, or any other change.

Andy: One thing to keep in mind. Making it harder to transfer things from space hurts your mission of making defense easier. Consider that you can be assured that an attacker is prepared for battle. They choose where and when the battle takes place, very powerful tools that should not be understated. If you expect players to protect an empire of multiple countries, you should not mess with systems that allows a defender to react to a declaration of war. Again, a change here assists the ATTACKER not the DEFENDER.

I agree that the transfers must continue, however, popping up a huge amount of active weapons is any country in any world, is putting players who do not have it is a position where they try to assess how strong the opposition is, just to find out is has changed within an hour to something very different.

Some delay makes sense. You can also keep some more active weapons in each country to counter the disadvantage.

as to activation, we do have an automatic procedure. I will check the details and see if we have to tweak it.

You can call some functions broken.
we can discard them or we can repair them.
warrs with C3s too if these need to make sense in the new setup.

What about the other points?

Jacking up the cost of war protection and reducing the number of protected countries is a good step.

Weakening the transfer and activation of weapons from space and enterprises is a good step. That will make it slightly harder for the predators with extreme stockpiles of weapons to chase away new players.

Delaying transfers of weapons would become a confusing mess and difficult to track. Its just another punitive action to those who spent time building I would not support this either.

Also, reactivating weapons need to either happen quicker or not disable at all.

My two cents

MHO as far as FB goes.

1. I would agree that any war protection should come at a high cost. (It is after all called the "war world")

2. Activation of all inactive weapons should be immediate. (As long as you have the ammunition and population to support them in which case the game already deactivates them anyway and not just on FB)

3. I would be against making WP free for a main country on FB.

People go to FB for one of two reasons.

A. Weapons not available elsewhere (in which case build a ceo)
B. They are wanting to engage in the war aspect of the game. Providing free WP to a main would allow someone to "plop down" right next to an intended target with no recourse for the targeted country.)

"War protection on FB costs more, it should cost even more.
We can consider making WP free for the main country as on other worlds.
Reduce the number of protected countries, step by step from max of 10 to start with, back to 1. "
WP is already plenty expensive, especially on FB. It use to cost 1 GC per 4 months and was doubled to 2 per 4 game months per country. As for creating a secured mode country, that would basically eliminate FB as a war world. As usual, another backward idea by the GM. I already eliminated my entire empire on FB because of the uselessness of it. I just restarted with 1 country just for some excitement and now you are thinking of making FB the same as the other worlds? If secured mode is created on FB I'm gone for good. The current cost of WP on FB is a reasonable alternative and there is no need to increase it. I have been playing this game for 9 years with only a few time gaps. The solutions ofor reinvigorating the game are simple and nor so complex as this and other threads have suggested.

1. get rid of the ability to store massive amounts of military weapons in space stations.(even better, get rid of the space game altogether)
2. get rid of war levels.
3. get rid of unlimited forts.
4. Disable the so called "fortress countries" that are so small they can't be painted and defeated.

Everybody with any long time playing experience knows that these items, especially 1 and 2 are the reason the game has died.

Obviously, I agree with Yankee and Khome.

Madoff: You have it wrong. Making it more difficult to move things from space simply makes it much more difficult to defend. Multiple times players have come to me for help against an attacker, and, with the help of space transfer, it was possible to put weapons and ammo in place to manage a defense. Make this harder and a defender has no hope against an attacker that would already have their weapons in place. "Predators" would have a field day with this change. When was your last PvP war?

Napoleon: No one stores a massive number of weapons in space stations. Do you even know what you are talking about?

^ Aries does have the right idea here guys.

FB will have no WP for the main country.
You are right, this is our war world, but we are just beginning, there will be much more we want to change there.

WP will disappear, step by step.

Unlimited fortifications is a problem. We will limit the number you can purchase but producing them yourself...

Activation of weapons
Deactivation is a way to reduce your cost and it has a disadvantage, it takes time to activate.
If you do not want the disadvantage, activate them all.

Transfer of weapons from outside
They should go to the reserve and you can activate them.
It takes more planing, and probably some more active weapons in your country at all time to reduce the risk.

You can easily calculate how long it will take to get more weapons of some type, depending on the number you have in enterprises or space and the reactivation pace once they are in the country.

This is a small limitation on the use of weapons stored outside.
It is a big advantage for smaller countries that do not have such reserves and they get a little more time.

It is a small step. It will not change their mind about the risk of war.
more incentives coming.

Updated copy from another discussion

Here is a suggestion to prevent all against one federation wars.

If two large federations fight, that is OK.
If a small federation attacks a large one, that is their problem. fine with us.

If a federation with 10 countries starts a war against a federation with 3 countries, only three will declare.

Instead, they can decide which 3 and declare.

If the small federation has war treaties with another 4 countries, we could count it as 7 (or not) and decided how many will be able to declare.

In general, the number of countries on both sides will remain in balance.

Andy: If you force space transfer to go to reserves, you will make Gold Coin purchased protections even more attractive than it is now. I predict all countries will utilize such protections if war level protection is not available. My countries will switch to such protections themselves in such an environment.

If you make such a change, monitor this situation. See how many countries remain out of game-provided protections. The space transfer change will cause the war level change to fail in its goal.

On Federation war limitations, I answered on the other thread:

Limiting the number of wars is counter-intuitive, so I don't like it. It doesn't make it easy for a new player to understand, which tends to give the advantage to an established player. Also, it is difficult to account for scenarios that present themselves when implementing such a limitation. Just like war levels, where predatory players simply kept their war level low.

Offhand, one issue that I see is that it follows a narrative that has never been true. Countries don't fight countries. Players fight players. Also, war treaties cause a mess in my experience. I never sign them, as responding to a certain player and situation requires more thought that automatic war declarations will allow me.

Gold coin war protection will be reduced as I said before, on FB first so purchasing WP is no long term solution.
Keeping more weapons active is a simpler solution, also cheaper than gold coin purchased WP.

The federations issue is indeed not so simple, but we will have to have a solution that will eliminate the 20 vs. 3 wars.

We will also
- limit the number of fortifications and bases of all types.
- Check and if needed fix the upgrading of weapons and ammo at bases.
- Reduce the price of defense
- Improve the auto response capabilities in general and implement them in C3 wars but also in PvP wars.
- Nuke auto response if attacked with nukes.
- Reduce the number of cities etc. to simplify the defense a bit and reduce the numbers of targets.
- Possibly improve and increase the usability of sneak attacks.


All this does not include (yet) the issue of war levels, how to increase your war level or prevent it and associated incentives.
The relevance of war levels associated with the possibility to start a war and incentives for players who fight real PvP wars.

Also the learning process of fighting wars is not discussed yet. (Aries)