W3C - War Issues and possible solutions

NO blackout's! I say only track ip's in wars.If you have no time to fight then use WP. Tom maybe make it cheaper?

<!-Quote-!>Quote:

January 18 2411, a Major Nuclear War Disaster occurred in Keeper 5.

The Major Nuclear War Disaster was felt in your country as well.

8212 people died immediately and 13515 people were wounded.

More details will be reported later.<!-/Quote-!>

<!-Quote-!>Quote:

January 19 2411, a Major Nuclear War Disaster occurred in Keeper 4.

The Major Nuclear War Disaster was felt in your country as well.

14632 people died immediately and 19425 people were wounded.

More details will be reported later.


There are 19,425 wounded civilians and 271,864 persons are still evacuated.<!-/Quote-!>

(trying to attack his strat base from 3 different countries)

<!-Quote-!>Quote:

Attack aborted!

Your War Index is 84.77. The War Index of Charon is 87.82.

The number of conventional weapons you can use in this attack is limited to 400 of each kind,
the number of nuclear weapons is limited to 1.<!-/Quote-!>

There are 13,515 wounded civilians and 133,026 persons are still evacuated.

same thing happened to me dub.

About time.

It will end the practice of UC inactives rising from the dead to sneak attack when a war starts.

/me stares at Dizzy.

However you need to work it out Tom. Good job.

Thank You all.


And LG . . . I still wub U

and simcountry too.

Shyzmatica addressed a serious problem. The war engine gets modified when Laguna is in a war. Not long ago all my countries on LU were destroyed in war while the login page was inaccessible. Waging war did not become impossible. You could keep on fighting so long as you did not log out. The war declarations were not suspended.

I believe it is fact that last winter Shyzmatica/Wendy was facing the same people and tactics that Laguna/John R is facing this week. There is a consistent pattern. No one needs to prove or accuse anyone at W3C of trying to make John R win. There are two problematic conflicts of interest. The first is that John R will not observe a problem if the war engine happens to meet his expectations. In that case the "bug" or "problem" is sound strategy, good gaming, and not worth reporting. Victory came from sound understanding of the game not manipulation of a bug. The second conflict of interest is W3C making the changes with the timing of the report. That assures the "bugs" or "problems" will get fixed when they are effecting Laguna or his federation.

If I had assaulted Wendy I could have realistically counted on her deactivated nuclear defense staying deactivated overnight. Wendy could count on her friend watching her account and attacking my strategic airports. [Actually, anytime I do anything in this game I expect that the rules may have changed without warning.] There is also a risk that I miss understood some aspect of the game. Going to war is dangerous. The decision to not buy war protection is a gamble. Most people playing this game have to deal with the risks. Laguna should have been facing the risks when he decided to go to war.

It seams to me that "good strategy" is not attacking people who are obviously friends with the game master. Avoiding attacks on people who are friends with friends of the game master is also the only prudent choice. Attacking people whose outlook on gaming differs from friends of the game master is good strategy. Since their outlook is different I can be confident that his/her concern will be dismissed. If I attack people whose style somehow looks different It will be much more likely that the war engine will not suddenly get "fixed" mid-war. It is also better to attack weird people, noobs, and inactives when friends of the gamemaster and/or his/her federation is not in a major war.

Good post, thx for your support "Psychotic Chicken", but let's not go down this road. LG is Legit, I was merely staring at the coincidences.It was meant to be funny. PLUS have you seen LG really out to get someone. I haven't yet, but I have read some posts that were like WoW don't mess with LG, to describe his anger as fierce would be an understatement.

LG is a very very Kewl person. Very Patient, Kind considerate and helpful. Had it not been for Him and Dizzy helping me when I first started I don't think I would have ever took the time to figure out what to do, CORRECTLY.


My real issue is that PROBLEMS (real or imagined) are taken to the GMs too often. And most likely when a player who has clear advantages doesn't get the best of the issue. We ashould have all come together to secure our own simfutures.


This is BS. One day we can all be pissy with each other and getting personal or mean over what is meant to be fun. Then next we are allies against another group. How the freak does that happen. I AM BORED. I wanna fight, but to have fun. There should be no alternative.

I was thinking of something a long time ago. I didn't want to say anything because I was hangin out in the cut, and had a very not so cordial relationship with my LU neighbors.

What I propose is this: LU is where we play. We can play economically on LU and fund wars and empire's for fun wars on other planets.

Only the true keepers of the planet can enforce such a measure. You want to fight on LU then you should be protecting LU from President's like me who get bored and want to see red screens and paper clippings ya know.

This is all hogwash to most who will read, but you all know that the power is where it is. The powerful must decide to be powerful. With great power comes great responsibility. I am all for no active president wars, I understand the logic behind it on both sides, but regardless of who is right or wrong, when it has to be taken to GM, maybe the desired result is not what you will expect it to be.

WAR is apart of this game. BUT SO IS POLITICS.

SO Stuart Get off your arse and get some peacekeeping done. You are slacking big guy.

The deal should be made by the top feds. And those who reside on LU should be made to agree or eliminated. Case close. No GM spam, no bitchin(sorry) about leaving, or whining you aren't having fun. Protect your asset base on LU for everyone and hunt elswhere.

And DO NOT TELL me it won't can't work. Becasue it can and it will. I will give two examples

1. UC/AF despite conflicts on GR I haven't even given a second thought to someone declaring on me on GR or thoughts of wp. And NO I am currently NOT IN THE UC(don't let that fewl you though)or AF. Thanks to both of these powerful feds, you really aren't going to war unless you get expressed written consent from the authorities or get creamed; YOUR CHOICE.


These two feds have done a great job at containing wars and conflicts from hitting uninvolved or unwilling parties.

2. If for example it just happened to be sanctioned by what his name, . . . OH Pink or sumthin like that; I would bet that if such a decree came down, Lacerta would be war free. And /me pities the fewl hahaha.

You see where I am going with it. And that is just one continent.

I would like to hear more about this, and willing to participate.

Blackouts/Cease Fires from the perspective of one economic-only player:

The proper implementation of the blackouts would enable more players who play only the economic side of the game to participate in wars. I've been playing for about 5 months now, and while I've got a good handle on the economic side of the game, I'm extremely hesitant to even consider expanding to beyond one country by acquiring slave countries. I'm sure there are quite a few players who feel the same way.

Many of us have work or school commitments that prevent us from accessing the computer for a third of a day, perhaps even more than that. Myself, I'm at work 9 hours a day, sleep for 7 hours, and have commitments on occasion that prevent me from logging on all day. If I had a bunch of war slaves, I'd be happy to duke it out with someone with a day's notice. I'd clear my engagements the best I can, log on and at a predetermined time, match wits and armies. But as it stands, someone could declare on me, fighting conveniently begins during my work hours and I'd lose the country while I'm in a meeting. In that case, having a huge army wouldn't matter too much anyway, because an experienced attacker would be able to bypass most of the automated defenses. The prospect of that happening is not attractive.

But if blackouts were implemented properly, things would be different. I'd be able to set my blackout times for work hours, and manage my schedule to fight those wars if enough notice was given.

Ideally, this is how things would go:

Situation A: Aggressor has blackout hours 4-12 SC server time. He/She declares on Defender. Defender has blackout hours 10-18 SC server time. War begins 2 days later, from 18 SC server time to 4 the next day. Both players organize their schedules to play the game at their least inconvenient times. The defender will be able to actually organize and defend, and perhaps get some sleep. From 4-18 server time, troops from all sides in the defending country will neither move nor attack, and allied defense in the defending country is paused.

Situation B: Aggressor has not elected any blackout hours. He/She declares on Defender. Defender has blackout hours 10-18 SC server time. War begins 2 days later, from 18 SC server time to 10 the next day. Defender will be able to actually organize and defend, not so much sleep. From 10-18 server time, troops from all sides in the defending country will neither move nor attack, and allied defense in the defending country is paused.

Situation C: Aggressor has not elected any blackout hours. He/She declares on Defender. Defender has not elected any blackout hours. War begins 2 days later, and both countries war with only the same limitations as we have today in the game because there are no blackout hours.

Situation D: Aggressor has elected blackout hours 4-12 SC server time. He/She declares on Defender. Defender has not elected any blackout hours. War begins 2 days later, from 12 server time to 4 the next day. Both players will be able to actually organize and defend. From 4-12 server time, troops from all sides WILL BE ABLE to move and attack in the defending country, which has no blackout times.

IF, these scenarios are what is being proposed, I think many people who wouldn't normally build an empire, for fear of it being conquered while sleeping or working, would play a little more and actually expand. It's not about the lack of skill or inability to build a large defending army, but more about the ever looming threat of not being able to defend your country to the best of your ability when your country needs to be defended. From an economic-only or defending player's viewpoint, this feature brings a bit of fairness, peace of mind, and reduces paranoia, if nothing else. And, if a player doesn't agree with the blackout system, he/she can always attack others without blackouts without any of the blackout restrictions.

NO Blackouts! make wp cheaper!

yea, black outs are a bad idea

I'm currently sitting in WP on LU due to being really busy at Uni, do I worry about my countries being taken had I left them out? Not at all, I have faith in the majority of you that respect me enough to leave me be. but it is costing me 12 coins every 2 days to keep my countries in WP. and to Tom and everyone else at W3C my IP is not usually the same as I have remote access to computers in South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio, as well as Michigan, Florida and Colorado. I do work from these computers and access them remotely from my laptop. If memory serves I still have access to a few Euro computers as well.

With Regards,
Dragoon

just make a progam to track IP's only during active player v. player wars.

If multiple IP shows as "piloting" a single account during a war(or one IP in multiple accounts), then chances are you have active account sharing.

Run those IP's against all other IP's of all players and see if you find something like the same IP of '
"barney rubble" in the barney account and also in the "sam houston" account, during war.

make the player versus player war the trigger that sets off this quality assurance feature.

is this possible?

Yes Barney it is possible, I helped to get it running for another game that I play but there it runs full time as wars break out 24/7 and there are hub players that are called to call other players and wake them up... I was a hub player for the US so when war broke out if i was on good terms with a nation my ass was waking everyone up

Let me make 2 assumptions. 1) Laguna is acting solely for the good of the game. He is reporting things that he believes are flaws as soon as they become apparent to him. 2) W3C is making decisions solely in the interests of making a better game. Neither the source of a suggestion nor current events on any server bias their judgment.

Now let me repeat myself. There is a conflict of interest. The war engine has been and will be modified when Laguna or his allies become the victims of a "bug". Other people feel victimized and the war engine does not get modified and damage is not prevented. Declaring war on Laguna or VS poses a risk that declarations on any other federation will not. Laguna and his allies have reason to feel more secure than any other group of players. No amount of time, cash, knowledge of game mechanics, or capacity for strategic thought will give another player the same security. The only exception would occur if time, cash, or other factors led W3C to listen and trust in the same way.

The assumptions may or may not be correct. It doesn't matter. The existence of a conflict of interest is obvious from the posts by Tom Willard and Laguna in this thread. Good people have conflicts of interest. Pointing out a conflict of interest should not be considered an insult.

I'm in such bad mood that I have cravings to say what I know about multi-playing in this game, but I will settle for patting Psychotic Chicken on her/his back.

What s/he says its true, or at least very close to reality and every veteran player knows this. W3C always favored certain players and their opinions and it has little to do with .. reason.. and who is not able to see it is delusional.

The GM has no business in players affairs, and in every game I played where the GM stepped in and sided with someone it only done more harm than good causing players to quit.

Don't question my intentions or my motivations, Sheep. I have no problem in saying what I think openly and without any sort of subverted ill-intent. This can't be said about others.

<!-Quote-!>Quote:

The war engine gets modified when Laguna is in a war.<!-/Quote-!>

You say the war engine has changed 526 times? Possible.
Because of me? Some things were, that's for certain.
At my specific request? Can't remember any, but there's bound to be some. I say many things and I've participated in many chats.

Regarding this thread... How has the war engine changed? In no way. Just the wars stopped.

The Cease Fire idea didn't come from me. Willard messaged me and I gave my opinion. He also posted it on the forum so all could opinate.
It is an old variant of a suggested solution to an old issue. I give it proper merit: works well on single players, not so much against multiple.
Players who like to war should support it, because the only thrill in war is when your opponent in active. Players who don't like to war should support it, because all they wish in the end is a chance to fight back.

<!-Quote-!>Quote:

If I had assaulted Wendy I could have realistically counted on her deactivated nuclear defense staying deactivated overnight. Wendy could count on her friend watching her account and attacking my strategic airports.<!-/Quote-!>

Yes, and I could have ordered my cabana boys to block you with units from countries that you weren't at war with and nuke your last damaged base until you were reduced out to 3mil of pop. Oh, and then I would block all war decs on my country by deccing on as many C3s as possible. To top it off, I would then screw your browser to keep you from playing.

A good strategy is one that takes advantages of the player's oversights and not of the game's.


Next time, Pathetic Sheep, instead of posting a text full of nothing, try to argue the ideas with arguments.


Wendy, when you try to push a proposal in that direction, you need to know how it affects other existing estructures, how it can be tweaked (variables) and enhancement. You also need to know what is important and how it will affect the greater pictures, how it will effect the community.
For instance, in one of my notes I question the purpose and the existence of federations. I then tried to see what X, Y, Z did in A, B, C kind of player and how relations developed, when I had in mind for players to have the most "natural" gameplay and fun (you cannot have fun in a game without fairness, for the record), in order to allow the game to have as many players as possible.

Also, it doesn't kill you to speak nicely.

<!-Quote-!>Quote:

PLUS have you seen LG really out to get someone. I haven't yet, but I have read some posts that were like WoW don't mess with LG, to describe his anger as fierce would be an understatement.<!-/Quote-!>

Those days are over. Doctor's orders.


There is no reason to be annoyed, tuco. Nothing was butchered here.

I am not sure what do you mean by "nothing butchered" Laguna, but I have a reason to be annoyed.

I am convinced, not through irrational belief but through evidence I have seen over the years, that what was said is pretty much how it is, and since I have irrational belief that my obligation is to the truth in the first place, I have no choice but to be annoyed.

Would the game stop if someone was to nuke Wendy or perhaps nix or King Hezekiah to the ground? I think not.

Willard messaged me and I gave my opinion. - Laguna

So WTF is he messaging you? Because you are the voice of reason right? Gimme a break, I don't buy that. If this is not conflict of interest I do not know what is.

Didn't you read the intro on my first post?
Do you think what happened on FB is advisable? Good? Enjoyable? Sane? Fun? Prideful? Rewarding? Do you?

Is Wendy 20 players? Is Hezekiah another 20? Do they comprise a trend? A large opportunity for little misdeeds which grow to larger ones? Has Wendy left and Hezekiah as well? How can you compare one and the other?

To type regularly now, conflict interests, from what you have showed shows up when a human being meets another human being. Can't avoid conflicts of interest then.

Try to think of your paramount freedom of speech: I can say what I want that one has to care or even listen.
I can say what I want, that Willard and the other engineers, who I and one else speak with, will be the ones deciding. They might decide to punish, ignore or listen to me.

I'm going to use your term as I think you meant it:
How can there a conflict of interests between me and a group of people who I have never spoke with?

As it stands, your conflict of interests is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

Well, we are getting off-topic now.

What happened on FB could be viewed as unfortunate, but - without arguing actual numbers or impact - it was only possible because of the mechanics W3C is responsible for. Adam had this "special" relationship with W3C too, and was exchanging emails with them also. No wonder, he spent 100s of dollars on the game when Cash Market was in diapers.

If the game was good enough, loss of couple of players would mean nothing. The game fails to achieve the so-called self-sustainable mass, which then would be able to regenerate and/or even grow. That is why there are notions to hold on few in the name of delusional "greater good" of the game, and that is why we have this thread.

Voice of reason voice of reason, but to take responsibility for the direction the game took over the years, for the fact its not able to grow and prosper like 100s or 1000s other on-line games, I do not see anywhere. What kind of voice of reason is that is beyond me.

Indeed, its my belief conflict of interests - group advantage - racism cannot be avoided among humans, because it would defy the human nature. That is why neutrality or non-interference of those with powers is needed, because they are not capable of acting fair.

"If anything should change in the war protection features, it should probably be directed at some limited fighting features that could involve all countries, even in secured mode" -Willard

It clearly states in the documentation that players have a choice of building a military and getting down to business, or concentrate on an economical platform, or both. Considering there are upteen wargames I have played and continue to play, this game's financial side of things really gave me something to be proud of. Take away my war protection and you might as well consider another player gone. All this wasted time should be directed towards my real finances anyway.

Yes to Blackouts, and make war protection more expensive!

Do we really want the wise strategy to be to keep one's entire empire in WP until a favorable war opportunity comes up? Do we really want good game strategy to be to figure out what hours of the day an opponent sleeps and works, and declare appropriately? To the argument that you can just put your stuff in WP--wouldn't it just be a great war game if everyone did that.

Offense has many advantages. I realize it's not true to life but the game would be better balanced if the aggressor had to work around the defender's real life schedule, not vice versa.

Real-time player vs player wars are a great aspect of the game, and the blackouts feature would work toward encouraging them, and discouraging the blunt and game-deadening instrument of WP.

I have a hypothetical question relating to psychotic chix post that no amount of cash can buy their type of security. How much cash can us into the ballpark range? Just a question, not a personal attack on you Mr. Laguna. I just a noob anyway but one with disposable income for a possible sponsorship.

Oh my LG, I will reminds you that I Luuv ya and am glad the days of your wrath are finished(For my sake at least).

Now do you see what I mean Sheep? He's not even upset! But the way he just mangles you with the Cabana Boys, and the browser thingy, nukes and whatnot, urrgh well you get me. Best be careful there. Imagine an "angry Lg" aha!


"Wendy, when you try to push a proposal in that direction, you need to know how it affects other existing estructures, how it can be tweaked (variables) and enhancement. You also need to know what is important and how it will affect the greater pictures, how it will effect the community."

Whoa, whoa, so lets get this st8. LG you think I didn't take into account the consequences for myself and others? WoW. I have been dying of boredom. Sim has stagnated in my opinion personally. Too much of this type of convo has been going on. Yeah its messed up but I figured in my head, this is a game. Why cry or anything like that when rules change, if I get my arse kicked warring (yes it has happened, ALOT) In the recent week or two I have been following this stuff closely. So as I scroll through the names of opponents on both sides I happen to see names I don't recognize, some I do, but the kicker was seeing friendly faces on both sides. Needless to say I almost prematurely got involved, not out of spite or ill will, but for fun and to back friends. But rather than declare when Valde did. I asked what happened. And yes I know I am like a fly on the windshield to you Quadrillionaire warlords (LooL), but I will put it out there. Out of respect for the parties on both sides I didn't get involved simply because of the names as I usually would. I know the people fighting are all more than likely Light years better than me, but that is what allies are for. Support and such.
As far as the consequences of such a proposal. I have weighed them for about almost three real months now. We can go on fighting back and forth, whining about winning or losing, etc etc. Or we can agree that wars fought on LU should be in defense of economic nations. All of them. Than we can play and the community can dictate what does and does not happen on LU. That is what I was spammed continually about when I was acting like an arse for fun. Community community community, but a community works together to protect itself or at least should. This is a way for the powerful to remain powerful, and the economic nature individuals to remain economic. OR LG you and Valde could find yourself fighting wars that you "CLAIM" are for defense of active presidents.(yes righteous sarcasm)

Reality check. Valde's motive in this conflict are transparently suspect in this issue. Valde does not have the Moral ground here. You guys pick and choose who or what you will defend. It is of course your own free will to do as you please. I stated a long time ago that in order to be taken seriously, you cannot say do as I say not as I do. If you can say that, then you are obviously one of my parents or another type of authority figure. But for the record, Valde has a track record of appearing to be a very fair and diplomatic fed. But I question that atm. Why now, why miles? I don't get it.

Did Valde intervene on my behalf? No Why becasue I didn't deserve it. I caused it. I was an asshat. Comon I know you have something else. With all that said and no one contesting it including myself, did Valde intervene on anyone's who didn't have any fault? Did you guys intervene on Dizzy's behalf. How about General Dirt, or better yet how about Nute. Nah Nope Nada.

Now not to get off topic, but this type of BS is exactly why I propose such a measure. Ahh I see now. I think its getting clear. Whomever Valde decides can raid active players is OKAY and no one else can eat. Right? Well hey big guys me my dogs are hungry. Can we eat with you? No. Well If I can't eat with you then bump yall. And thats what it is. Consequences. How the fack is L3 and WIld fighting yall? WTH? Oh those consequences again. Aha!

Did anyone give thought to the consequences of ending wars YOU Declared, after shot were fired, time and preparation were lost, ammo was wasted weapons destroyed comon! Will the parties be com[pensated? Had that idea been weighed? Doubtful. Sad too. Ended on the whims of your opinion. Your opinion was to fight, you knew what was going to happen, I know you know how people fight too. Comon LG YOU even said that the game has to be fair. I think that is very fair. If you guys would have had the jump on them would this thread exist now? Doubtful, and even more sad.

We as a community can decide something, and stick to it and enforce it. It protects players from aggressive wars, and it also gives others a chance to fight for a good reason. There will be those who come knocking on LU's door asking or looking for trouble and surely will find it. So nothing is lost except troublemakers and asshats. What bad could become of that? Valde wouldn't be convincing anyone that they are or were justified. Everybody would be on the same side there. This kind of cooperation can help stimulate stagnated worlds like FB, the empty WG. Lu empires protected under a common cause would encourage players to seek out new worlds and grow there as well. If this kind of community enforcement or cooperation were implemented, on all four non war worlds, then FB would be what it was meant to be, an actual war world. Other worlds will become more active, players on LU in particular, will not be subject to bullying or raiding, expand from just secured, and even stimulate LU's economy. Thats for starters. The idea should be visited and taken seriously. If constructive criticism was given, then the final draft should take into account the pro's and con's. Not just Wendy's idea. That is exactly why I kept this notion to myself. To argue if it can will or should work is a waste of time. You want to do something, get 'er done!


Done


"Also, it doesn't kill you to speak nicely."

LG I always speak nicely to you, even when you are testing me. I count more than three times in this thread that I have reminded you that I still Wub ya. Jeez How many does it take? I may get served with papers if my hubby sees this thread. I think He'd be jealous.

And LG, the I Wub you thing, thats kinda heavy right there too.

I don't Luuv the air YOU breathe.

But I still Wub U.

Loolz nite all. Decs in the morning.

You may ban me now...

Lets see who else has the balls to fess up..

I have indeed faught in other players accounts. I have stepped in on other worlds in others accounts when it became clear that that same strat was being used against a large fed that for whatever reason, was caught of gaurd. My goal was to quickly stablize these friends assets that took years to build. I defended their cotries against offensive threats from many accuonts likely guided by many players at the same time, removed those threats, then removed the C3's they were using to attack them with.

How I became aware they were doing it was through multiple ways but mainly through a dear old friend of mine who happened to be involved(not fighting in accounts is my belief, but guiding and coaching). They admited as much on the forums as well.

Im sure some other players whom are long term vets have stepped in to help defend friends. The trick is in the use. Its "wrong" in any form but I did it any way to at least halt a threat in one area.

Those players on that world were surprised to see an opposing player suddenly become more effective. That player whom I helped is long gone now sadly as are a few players from that war. Large wars without any end game strats aside from complete execution of opposing players are bad wars. We should never be out to remove players from the game. This didnt appear to be the case in this war but it was in the war which I refer to above.

Also, in the LDI VS war we used a nuke bug to fry many 100's of millions of VS pop, including LG's. He knew we were hitting hm with a bug but didnt get those wars stopped.

You may shut my account down now if you wish, Ive admitted to multiplaying, just get "mountain home ozarka LU" back to simon.