MBaku

I think the fundamental problem is using nukes/missiles as the primary improvement destroyers. There is no way to balance the impact is has against small nations vs. big nations. 15 improvements (3 nukes) a day a ton for a c20 on 2k infra, it's nothing to a c50 with 3k infra. That goes back to @Buorhann's idea -and an idea that we've brought up many times in the past - but as @Keegoz says, have never come to a consensus on - which is improv degradation when you infra does not support that number of improvs or drastically increasing the ability for military attacks to destroy improvs. Generals will have some impact with some traits on their dev tree i think but that's still sporadic and unreliable to become the meta i would think. Here's another idea - Aircraft can target improvs - (3) for IT, (2) for MS, (1) for PV. After the general improv drops - we should reassess the new meta and we should absolutely revisit war balancing. Beige rework didn't work but that's only because there was a pointless beige cap of 5 days. But rapid military rebuilding in beige should be looked at because of the major buffs to nuke/missiles that discourage military fighting at all in a one-sided war. There should be a way to use military to gain some net with flash attacks in a way that can equal or surpass the damage that nuke/missile turrets do. This just isn't possible with the opportunity cost of a 6 day rebuild (extra day for rebuy).

Normally I’d be first in line for new military projects but the cost is kind of silly and these projects don’t really promote military game play, just the opposite. They promote no-military gameplay which I find boring. let me know when you get a project to build on Propaganda Bureau to build more MILITARY as a military project Here’s an idea - a project that allows you to build twice the military while in beige. Speed up rebuild time so you can actually FIGHT wars

They already doubled the number of improvs destroyed by missile/nukes and now they’re adding another improv destroyed. If you don’t have VDS\ID then a missile can destroy 3 improvs and a nuke will take out 5 am I reading that right? That means a single player can destroy almost 20 improvs a day? Not in a single nation of course, but a single nation could lose 15 improvs from nukes a day if I understand these changes correctly, and nukes don’t kill mil improvs so it’s all passive income killed. The downside is the improv destruction comes from nukes/missiles and not from military so if you want to punish turrets you have to nuke/missile them back and eat the net loss. Thats seems backwards. I agree that the turret meta is not a great playstyle and this could lead to longer guerilla wars, but it’s kind of a Pyrrhic victory because both parties are at war while the bystanders grow. I’ve been saying that we need ways for the losing side to fight back and deal solid net militarily but this meta is headed the opposite direction. There’s no point to sit in beige and spend 5 days doing no damage while you rebuild mil and eat spy attacks, just break immediately and continue to turret. It’s braindead and doesn’t reward advanced play styles. This COULD benefit micros by making the threat of nuke turrets much worse BUT what micros are gonna prioritize these projects over growth projects? None. So it makes no sense and won’t really help micros with smaller nations and limited project slots. Why not just remove the projects and just give us all the extra nuke/missile buffs?

aren't you in vm? who let you post on the forums

I don't think the solution is to give it 4% passive, that's a massive change and would make it required. I think the solution is to change the crime calculation so you need two police stations above 2k infra. Along with that, you could make the population hit for crime % less severe so it's not as punishing when crime is present. That would make SPT a viable benefit much earlier and not make it a required project which would hurt smaller nations.

but rn you only need 1 subway, 3 stadiums, 4 malls, and 4 banks for 12 slots to go 100. so it's harder for smaller nations to do commerce. and bigger nations are more likely to be able to spend the $120m on specialized police or ITC/Telesat. Not sure how this commerce change helps little nations. I agree with SRD, having 3% supermarkets punishes nations trying to max commerce at 125, nerfing stadiums hurts smaller nations. Passive commerce in projects hurts smaller nations.

I don’t know if “thrill” is the right word

Was finding a high infra nation and clicking the nuke button too hard? Smh, it’s just a poor philosophy imo, we should have ways to fight back conventionally.

I think the idea of buffing nukes and missiles is going in the wrong development direction. What we need is a way for losers to fight back with conventional military and be somewhat effective with enough coordination and game knowledge. The only positive effect of nukes and missiles is helping losers farm more beige, but without tweaks to conventional warfare, nobody has an incentive to stay in beige and build up its better to just exit immediately and launch more nukes/missiles. 2nukes/3missiles a day has to compete with the net value of building military that can be spied in order to exit 5 days later to deal damage. If it’s easier to get positive net launching nukes and missiles and never rebuilding infra or building a single military unit, then we’re just making war much more dull. And you’re asking for wars to get dragged out, because the losing side that sees their net climbing will have no incentive to peace. The “winners” will just have to sit there and get nuked until the “losers” are bored because the downdec is capped. What about a tiered beige exit? When you leave beige, only one defensive slot can be filled per turn. So it takes three turns until you’re fully out of beige. This would allow for some serious counter play from militarized nations. (Just a random idea I literally just thought of, but I like it.) We should also look at the beige rework again. I know the idea flopped, but it was mostly because you guys put a cap on beige time, which completely defeated the lint of encouraging nations to go max mil in beige to fight back conventionally.

I don’t know what’s so impossible about balancing war decs. They reduced city score, inflated infra score, and then are surprised that downdecs are easier. The three score variables aren’t that tough to balance. Generals are supposedly coming out to provide some disparity in military power for active fighters and trait boosts. The limitless updeclare range is stupid. It just shifted the meta further towards nuke turreting. If it was supposed to make it easier to consolidate the low tier and climb up in conventional warfare, there are other things that would have to be added to make that a viable meta.

For your consideration on my nominations: It's hard to really know who has really done what in this game, usually it just goes by reputation or personal experience so I figured I'd share a bit of my 2023 CV for those that are undecided. For best fighter - My plane kills (about 155k) for 2023 alone would put me in the top 60 all-time leaderboard and tank kills (about 2.12m) for 2023 alone would put me in the top 50 all-time leaderboard. My $34b net on the year is surpassed only by players that had large bank loots like Sam Cooper and TheDoom. I'm near the top of the leaderboards for every war I participated in. For best war criminal - I think a qualification should be actual warfighting. I'm the only person to roll Pika this year - the most protected player in the game. https://politicsandwar.com/nation/id=274541&display=war I've stolen treasures, taken over $500m in bounties, and single-handedly rolled micros all year long.

Nominations are closed 🤣

For trait development - How many simulated battles happen in a simulated war? I assume it's something like 8-12 like in a normal war. Which would mean you get 16-24 simulated battles a day at and it will take you no more than 4-6 days to develop a trait (at 1% rolls, we'll assume 10 battles and call it 5 days). If you equip 3 generals to army, air, navy, do they all get experience during war simulation? Also, Enhanced Engineering allows you to train for specific trait types? How does this work? Once I pick a type are all my future battles sims of that type? Do I pick ground/air/navy each battle and it changes the odds of recruitment a bit? is that the case for actual war too? will ground attacks help earn towards ground traits? Assuming max academies, worst case scenario a trait general every 15.5 days. you'll have 6 generals with traits at 93 days, or 31 days if you can equip 3 generals a time. Then people will just start force retiring generals with unfavorable traits until they get the preferred trait. They'll always have 5 trait generals and one in training. That will be the new meta. Raiding/warring nations will just be able to hit this cycle faster but since it's random, there's no incentive to really farm it because there's no guarantee of getting what you want. So I take back my previous statement, this will not encourage more warfare among nations because training is sufficient to get enough traited generals and the cost/benefit of actual warring won't make sense to get a general with preferred traits. Random traits will also not shift behavior in the game, it just creates more consequential RNG. So I stand by my opposition to random traits assignment.

I'm trying to envision how this will all play out. There will be a period where everybody levels up their academies, but once that's done it's done. So we should approach this like everybody has a max academy and then see what the meta looks like. From the get go - the 4 general recruitment seems level seems redundant because it'll be passed and obsolete really quickly. 6 Generals - 1150xp to trait for each (there's no reason to max a general with an unfavorable trait) 135/xp a day from two training battles (60xp each) and 15xp from exercises makes a Trait general every 8.5 days from doing nothing but logging on once a day and clicking like 5 buttons. Is that right? That seems way too fast for farmers. The advantage for active fighters exists but it's almost pointless when the fighters are risking their generals dying and the farmers can get a trait general this quick. I imagine I can decommission a general and just recruit one if I don't like their trait right? Could I be stuck with a general until it dies? That seems silly. at 8.5 days/trait. We're gonna def be scrapping these guys to get the optimal traits if we can.

Question: How many generals can be assigned to actively fight at one time? Can you have 3 generals active simultaneously?

1. I really dislike the random trait rolls. It doesn't give me a defined goal to work toward. I may never get tier 2 trait that I want. I think if you have balanced traits, then nations and alliances can develop generals in accordance with their military strategies. Solid, balanced traits can shift the meta away from planes towards something more matchup based. 2. On balancing traits - If generals were in play right now, I would be instructing my alliance to get systems engineering then leadership dev and enhanced battle engineering, and then develop a war strategy to farm plane attacks and straight up reroll your generals until you get Ace Pilot or ground attacks until you get anti-tank mines because those are by far the best traits for war, with mounted machine guns 3rd, all the other traits are useless in gaining a competitive advantage in a global. They are cool traits - but opportunity cost will make large, competent alliances order their nations to go the meta route. I think there should be other viable options that can balance war strategies at the sphere level instead of just making planes even more OP. Give ground and navy a trait that has the ability to kill planes and we could shift away from a plane meta. Navy anti-air specialist is a good start but if it doesn't work on dogfights then it doesn't matter. Ground traits don't get a plane kill boost, that should change. Shell-shocked is also a great idea but if it's just the war you're in it's really niche and has to compete with the far better Air superiority for MAP expenditures. I think it could be cool as a temporary space control effect across all wars. Pairing it with AS for counters could flip the outcome of wars and that's what I think the meta should be do. Reward coordination and smart tactics/strategies. 3. Pillaging is particularly bad - one city doesn't make that much and a minor, temporary increase in crime in 1/40 of cities or whatever seems to have not much effect. it's a meme trait at best. 4. I like how the experience is formatted. It allows for active war nations and active war alliances to begin to gain war advantages. It also encourages farming alliances to get out and find ways to train their generals through war and that could create a lot opportunity for conflict to emerge. I think that's really exciting for the game, so major props for that. 5. I worry that people will find ways to farm attacks by using really small military. For instance, it's common to run a small amount of ships. I could farm PVs with 8 v 10 ship naval battles. Maybe there's a way to scale general experience in relation to nation size and make the experience correspond to what the resource consumption would be on those max mil attacks or just make experience correspond to military size of the attack in general. it's a tough tightrope to walk because it could lead towards large nations feeding general development in small nations, if it's cheaper for smaller nations to develop max generals but that may not be a bad thing for the meta either. I think that's better than massive nations farming 8 v 10 plane dogfights and the moderation nightmares that loom by allowing max experience for minimal military fights.

From what I understand, generals only modify the low end of casualties/success, they don't actually add more military power to your nation like a troop does. That's not the kind of benefit that should add score to your nation.

Generals - Glad this is happening, it'll be a major update to the war mechanics. I don't know if I like everything about generals, but it's something different and new and that's good. Tariffs - Same thing. Colors - New players get booted because the colors are worth money when they right people are on them, but it's a "rich get richer" kind of set up. May you could look at having the colors giving benefits. Small population boost, reduced disease, boost stadium commerce, reduce food consumption, etc. tiny things that are relatively the same power. Separately, you could give the current income boost to alliances (as opposed to nations) based on the percentage of their members that are on the color. This way, the boost is more about alliance unity than kicking off new players and random people on the color don't punish alliance members. Achievements - I'm a big supporter of having achievements for large milestones on units destroyed/lost. I think it encourages game activity and could be the big milestones that whales can work towards. 100m soldier kills could provide an extra project slot or something. Projects - I take the opposite view as @KeegozThe REALLY beneficial thing about projects is that they can add new mechanics to the game for very little work. Because of this, I think they could be a massive asset to game development. I think we should have double or triple the number of projects available. This would force nations to choose between a vast array of benefits for their nation because they are slot limited. We could split project slots and provide a different number of war or economic project slots. Large achievement milestone could unlock additional slots. We could also have upgradable projects that operate as resource/cash sinks. This allows the war meta to change by providing a way to increase military power in a way other than just buying another city and reduce the impact of tiering on the meta. Project ideas - Econ - 1.) upgrades to specific improvements this could be like 10 project options- EX: Bauxite mining technology - increase bauxite per mine, Supermarket superstores - increase supermarket commerce 2.) Resilient economics - lower population has less of an effect on commerce 3.) Modernized NPP - each NPP covers an additional 250 infra/ Clean coal - coal plants- double infra - mega turbines - covers more infra 4.) Skyscrapers - more population for the same amount of infra Military - 1.) Surface to Air missiles - boost casualties to airstrikes by 1% per level (max 3 for all level-type projects) 2.) Stealth fighters - nullify SAMs by 1% per level 3.) Advanced radar - nulllify stealth fighters by 1% per level (requires SAMs) 4.) anti-tank mines - boost casualties to tanks on ground attacks by 1% per level 5.) Mine-Resistant Armor Protection - nullify ATMs by 1% per level 6.) Armor piercing mines - nullify MRAPs by 1% per level (requires ATMs) 7.) Advanced aircraft Aerodynamics - increase dogfight casualties inflicted by 1% per level 8.) Advanced flare technology - decrease casualties received by 1% per level 9.) Airforce/Army/Special forces/expanded ports Academy - allows another hanger/factory/barracks/drydocks to be built in each city 10.) lightweight tanks - reduce gas consumption on tanks 11.) Sharpshooter training - reduce muni consumption on soldiers There's so much potential in the project space to create more specialized nations and make nations an alliances choose how best to optimize their growth/military ability with limited slots that make it so they can't have everything. You could also make the military projects exclusive to each other. If you start developing Air Tech, you can't develop Tank tech and vice versa. If there's enough support for implementing this route of development, I'd be willing to help the design team ensure that the military projects add balanced benefits.

While we’re complaining about this, I know I asked for an ape themed achievement for 10 wars but come on man, a cropped picture of two gorillas chillin in a jungle was not the idea. This achievement is garbage compared to the 8 and 9 war ones. Id rather rock the 9 war than the 10 war achievement. gotta step the game up on the images

Does this mean I should raid you 🤔

I’ve been waiting for this for a long time. I think there should be some significant rewards for some more difficult achievements. From a technical perspective award money should probably be held in escrow u til all wars finished. But it would be cool for someone to win a war from cash they gained from an achievement. also, I will add this - I was in 10 wars and there’s no ape achievement smh. I demand the 10 wars achievement be ape-themed, preferably a gorilla.

The problem folks are trying to address now is max mil nations with no infra doing 20 city downdecs. Basically, they wanna nerf @Dryad. An increased city score relative to military is one way. But as you said, it decreases the ability for ppl to make a comeback. I agree that the big unaddressed variable is infra. But we need a way to punish people for building outrageous amounts of infra without giving an incredible advantage to people that have no infra. there’s a few options to address infra disparity and downdecs: 1.) decrease infra score. But this will change the meta of the economy and cause inflation imo as there is less danger of building high. 2.) increase population requirements for military. It’s hard to go max ships on low infra. If it gets harder to get max mil across the board on low infra, we’ll see it less. 3.) find an floor for infra score. What if infra below 1500 in a city just doesn’t go toward score at all? Then there is no military advantage to shaving infra past a certain amount. This could also change the Econ meta but you could increase the value of infra that does get counted to compensate for the score drop that would occur by no longer counting infra below 1500. if we address infra, then we can keep military score high relative to city score because the nations can no longer amplify that disparity by running low infra.

@Village Now that we’ve seen large scale wars on the test server, I think we can all agree that a beige cap hinders strategic gameplay. @Roberts I agree that fortify should be reworked. It’s horribly useless and the description doesn’t even accurately describe what it does because from what I understand, it only works on ground attacks anyway. if the goal is to prolong the initial phase of the war, then an effective fortify would go a long way to achieve that. It would also add another tactical level to war mechanics game play. IMO Fortify should be most effective before the war is decided. I think the big problem with it is that 3 MAPs is a hell of a lot to use on crappy defense when the opportunity cost is losing the ability to use those maps offensively. You want hunker down and wait for counters, but you also want maps to use when those counters arrive.

I don’t like 1 for a couple reason First, this magnifies the importance of superiorities that are RNG based. People already hate plane casualties. Imagine what they will think when a c40 gets updec’d by some c33s and they all get ITs with a 700 plane disadvantage. Second, I don’t understand all the implications of the math but greater uncertainty in attack outcome doesn’t lead to greater competition. It just leads to a smaller reliance on strategy because a larger portion is chance. 2- I’ve been a fan of nerfing superiorities because they are too powerful in war. I like the plane nerf. Scaling air superiority based on plane differential is smart because it won’t be so powerful at the beginning of the war. This helps achieve the goal of prolonging the deciding part of the war without removing the strategy. If anything it could increase the strategy as the optimal plane buys and ground attacks become very situational. the certainty and incredible effectiveness has given us a meta where Air superiority is everything, especially with how many planes are killed with one attack vs the rebuy rate. This change ensures that ground is still an option early in a war. I also recommend nerfing plane v plane casualties a small amount. Once planes are dead the war is over. If they last longer, the war lasts longer. 3. Punishing larger nations just isn’t a good approach to anything. It’s also not that black and white. Larger nations could be declared on by smaller nations because they’re not milled up. Two phase superiority vs one phase would make recovering very difficult. Additionally, it will be very confusing when you’re in a big conflict where some wars are one phase and others are two phase, some are defensive others offensive etc. can a one phase break two phases of AS that are held in other wars? The possible permeations don’t make sense to me with the current explanation. Proposal: if the goal is to make the opening stage of the war last longer, then reduce starting maps to 4 for each side. Offense attacks are more powerful, particularly with planes. Giving defenders more time to respond would help.