W3C - Game News Nov. 14, 2023

Documentation

Several game documents were upgraded.
Some of the documents were not updated for some time and did not reflect the current status of Simcountry.

We have also added more information about Tiny Atlas.

We are adding more information about products in the game, including details on the number of workers and the products that are used in the production process.

Some of the most detailed documents however, are always up to date.
These document are regenerated with every game update and include details that are based on the game code.
These include the weapons docuemtn and increasingly, the products document.

There is more to come.

We are interested in information from players about errors and missing documents.
Also, if anyone want to write a short document on a function which is not explained, please let us know.

There is a problem with the "Top" links in the documentation.
the error will be solved ASAP.

Sounds like some great updates and I look forward to continued improvements in the information.

I'd be happy to offer up some explanations about game mechanics if you have any in particular in mind.

For example - a 'war guide' or explanation of war mechanics
that has more details and is a bit longer than information that's in the tutorial.

I'd like to see more information about profitability, country management etc as well. I have ideas here but would be curious to see if there is demand or if other players would offer up their ideas.
Thanks Andy.

This is a much needed update. Keeping the documentation updated is as if not more critical than actual game play updates.

Getting the focus more onto documentation than forums to understand mechanics changes should solve many of the issues newer players have. Not everyone religiously keeps up with the forum, nor is it as easy to search through as documentation.

Thank you for your response.
I think all this is much needed and we will welcome help.

The problem is that many players do not read.

I think we need some examples of what you want to add.
I don't want you to spend a lot of time writing and then nobody will read.

please mail the gamemaster an example of an explanation of a function.

a war tutorial for beginners will be great but start with a section, for example:
How to build a defense for a small country.
what are the priorities
how to expand in time when there are more resources.

We will be happy to add a "War tutorials" section.

same with corporations:

How to make your corporations more profitable.

We will continue to update documents.

Our aim is to make sure they are up to date.
some are too long.
There are sometimes numbers that are not accurate any more.

.

Andy, I agree that there's a pretty good chance that parts of the documentation will never get read after you type it up. Unfortunately, that is just part of the job. Writing documentation is one of the most boring parts of software development, but you have to do it. You can't pick and choose to only write the parts you think are important. There's bound to be some person that can't figure out space travel or changing professions or something. They'll need the documentation to figure out what all the buttons do and why they want to use them.

Besides, you're presumably getting paid to write this stuff. It's not like you're some volunteer that can ignore the stuff they are not interested in helping with.

It's been a long time since I first started but I remember the beginners advice not being very inclusive of critical issues, especially about education balance and labor force requirements. It seems many players come in with no understanding of the education priority system and its relationship to corporate profits and unemployment.

Perhaps fixing the "important things" tab to be simpler, but direct to more critical things, then make that the default country landing page unless the player chooses otherwise or a certain game level would help guide new players.

Make "Education" not a list of all indexes as it is now but the general index and a red or green link if acceptable or not, then priorities red link if shortage in any position / green if not.

Defense should probably be removed for new players as many will bankrupt themselves trying to hit targets. Maybe have added at WL3.

"Corporations" should be removed, as while the target is more reasonable now it is not a hard rule, if resource focused it'll be less, if weapons focused it'll be more.

Also on all of these topics the minimum target index should be listed on this page.

Related to Jiggle's comment about education.

Instead of forcing players to type in numbers of schools to build, it'd make sense to have "boost index by 5 points." Forcing players to decide that they need 863 schools isn't really fun or interesting. I understand the concept, but I think it's something that could be simplified without losing flavor.

I will consider writing up some ideas to send to gamemaster@simcountry.com about education priorities.