Phillip The Great

For what it's worth, Zephyr's reply captures the essence of what I'm after with this feature suggestion: The suggestion is simply to extend some of the existing automation already available into a new feature that further reduces the tediousness of managing builds and war policy to make preparation for war (or peace) easier. I like the DEFCON approach because 1) I think it's kind of fun to be able to see how individuals and alliances are posturing themselves, and 2) having played CN for a while, it seemed like one of the more logical ways to implement a feature like this.

Initial thought and sure there are plenty of holes to poke in this... Introduce configurable DECON levels: 1 though 5 Why? 1. Streamline switching between peace build and war build 2. Would make the game more mobile friendly. Plain and simple, it's a pain in the butt to adjust wartime configuration on a mobile phone. For example, war is declared on a user. Having pre-configured their DEFCON levels, user goes into Edit Nation to adjust DEFCON rather than going in and either manually making adjustments to each improvement in each city, or doing import/export functions via their phone. 3. Adds a fun element to the game and able to see posturing of nations/alliances. For example, you could average the DEFCONs of all the nations in an alliance to see that alliance's DEFCON level. How it could work... Adjusting DEFCON level contingent on ample resources/cash/infrastructure to add/remove improvements. Allows user to select which improvements to demolish in favor of military buildout, and War Policy for each level. Allow user to go in and set their default military buildout and select which improvements can be adjusted up or down based on the selected DEFCON level. War Policies can also be selected for each DEFCON level. DEFCON 1 - Full military readiness. Removes non-essential Raw Resources, Manufacturing, Civil, and Commerce improvements in favor of full military buildout. Adjusts War policy for war. DEFCON 2 - Increased military readiness, but not maximal. Increase in military readiness to 80% of DEFCON 5. DEFCON 3 - Increased military readiness, above normal readiness. Increase in military readiness to 60% of DEFCON 5. DEFCON 4 - Normal military readiness, increased readiness. Military buildouts are at their default levels with updated war policy. DEFCON 5 - Normal military readiness. Military buildouts are at their default levels with peace-time war policy. Example: User Defaults: 1 Barracks / 1 Factory / 1 Hanger / 1 Drydock ; Variable Improvements (in priority order): Farm, Uranium Mine, Supermarket ; War Policy: DEFCON 5: Arcane; DEFCON 4: Covert; DEFCON 3: Covert; DEFCON 2: Moneybags; DEFCON 1: Attrition Logic Examples: DEFCON 5: User Default Result: 1 Barracks / 1 Factory / 1 Hanger / 1 Drydock DEFCON 4: User Default, DEFCON 4 War Policy Result: 1 Barracks / 1 Factory / 1 Hanger / 1 Drydock - DEFCON 4: Covert DEFCON 3: For each improvement, if improvement count < 3 then set at 3. Drydock maxes out here. DEFCON 3 War Policy. Difference from total improvements vs. allowed improvements is subtracted from Farm until = 0, then Uranium Mine until = 0, etc. Result: 3 Barracks / 3 Factory / 3 Hanger / 3 Drydock DEFCON 2: For each improvement, if improvement count < 4 then set at 4. Difference from total improvements vs. allowed improvements is subtracted from Farm until = 0, then Uranium Mine until = 0, etc. Result: 4 Barracks / 4 Factory / 4 Hanger / 3 Drydock - DEFCON 2 War Policy DEFCON 1: For each improvement, if improvement count < 5 then set equal to 5. All military improvements maxed out. Difference from total improvements vs. allowed improvements is subtracted from Farm until = 0, then Uranium Mine until = 0, etc. Result: 5 Barracks / 5 Factory / 5 Hanger / 3 Drydock Example Error Scenarios: If a user selects a DEFCON level where certain elements are out of bounds to support the change (not enough cash, resources, changed policy recently), the action should not fail but user will be notified that the specific update to improvements/war policy/domestic policy was unable to be processed, similar to handling a bulk improvement update if one city fails. Again, sure there are plenty of holes in this and maybe it's a terrible idea altogether but open to feedback and thoughts from game admins and players.